Phòng không T-34
Contents
| This page is about the Chinese SPAA Phòng không T-34. For gift vehicle in the Russian tree, see Type 65 (USSR). For vehicles using the T-34 chassis, see T-34 (Family). |
Description
Type 65 is a Chinese and North Vietnamese SPAAG created during the mid 60's used in the Vietnam war. Based on a T-34-85 hull from the Soviet Union, With a open top box turret that is mounting a dual 37mm Type 65 from the Chinese.
It's likely that the NVA improvised this build during the Vietnam war, Since North Vietnam invested heavily in Anti-Air weaponary to combat the US air support.
In game it's easily recognized because of the box shaped and open turret on a T-34-85 hull and lacking of a single 85mm main armarment, it also have a higher profile than a regular T-34-85.
The Xe tăng phòng không 37 mm is a rank IV Chinese SPAA with a battle rating of 5.7 (AB) and 5.0 (RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.91 "Night Vision".
General info
Survivability and armour
The armor of Type 65 turret is a easy target to penetrate with it consisting of only 15mm all-around armor it makes it easy to disable with most type of shells that it might face and machine guns are a danger for it too with the 12.7mm caliber able to penetrate that thin armor even smaller machine guns can disable the turret. Mainly because the front of the turret got gaps for the gunner and commander where the bullets can easily find it’s way in and damage the crew. With is being a open top SPAA makes it as many other open SPAA making it a tasty snack for aircraft machineguns and cannons. One of the drawbacks with the Type 65 is that 80% of it’s crew sits in the turret, 2 of them looking up from the turret making them extremly vulnerable to machinegun fire.
The hull is more well armored like a T-34-85 and it's strongest armor is the front hull armor, It's missing the hull mounted machine gun that there is on the T-34-85 making it have a exposed hole on the front left hull when facing it, it’s a trap shot location so it would be best to try angle the tank to remove the open machinegun port for easy access for enemy Shells.
Mobility
| Game Mode | Max Speed (km/h) | Weight (tons) | Engine power (horsepower) | Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forward | Reverse | Stock | Upgraded | Stock | Upgraded | ||
| Arcade | 60 | 10 | 24.9 | 710 | 954 | 28.51 | 38.31 |
| Realistic | 55 | 9 | 442 | 500 | 17.75 | 20.08 | |
Mobility of the Phòng không T-34 is good at its battle rating, easy to maneuver at off-road and on road. It got similar mobility characteristic as the Russian T-34-85 with a engine that creates 500 hp at 1800 RPM giving it a top speed of 55 km/h (34 mph).
Armaments
Main armament
| 37 mm Type 65 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | Vertical guidance |
Horizontal guidance |
Stabilizer | ||
| 390 | -5°/+85° | ±180° | N/A | ||
| Turret rotation speed (°/s) | |||||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded | Prior + Full crew |
Prior + Expert qualif. |
Prior + Ace qualif. |
| Arcade | 52.8 | ??.?? | ??.?? | ??.?? | ??.?? |
| Realistic | 35.7 | ??.?? | ??.?? | ??.?? | ??.?? |
| Reloading rate (seconds) | |||||
| Stock | Prior + Full crew |
Prior + Expert qualif. |
Prior + Ace qualif. | ||
| 1.3 | ??.?? | ??.?? | ??.?? | ||
Ammunition
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration @ 90° (mm) | |||||
| 10 m | 100 m | 500 m | 1,000 m | 1,500 m | 2,000 m | ||
| BR-167 | AP-T | 71 | 68 | 57 | 46 | 37 | 30 |
| BR-167P | HVAP-T | 102 | 95 | 80 | 59 | 35 | 28 |
| UO-167 | HEFI-T | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Shell details | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity (m/s) |
Projectile Mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (m) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Explosive Mass (TNT equivalent) (g) |
Normalisation at 30° from horizontal |
Ricochet | ||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||
| BR-167 | AP-T | 880 | 0.76 | N/A | N/A | N/A | -1.0° | 47° | 60° | 65° |
| BR-167P | HVAP-T | 960 | 0.62 | N/A | N/A | N/A | +1.5° | 66° | 70° | 72° |
| UO-167 | HEFI-T | 866 | 0.735 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 34 | +0.0° | 79° | 80° | 81° |
Ammo racks
| Full ammo |
1st rack empty |
2nd rack empty |
3rd rack empty |
Visual discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 390 | ?? (+??) | ?? (+??) | ?? (+??) | ?? |
Optics
| Phòng không T-34 Optics | ||
|---|---|---|
| Default magnification | Maximum magnification | |
| Main Gun optics | X3.8 | X4.0 |
| Comparable optics | ??? | |
Usage in battles
Type 65 is an excellent Self-propelled Anti-Air tank, But also a great tank for ambushes on enemy side and rear armor. Be aware that all the tanks and aircrafts it will oppose are deadly opponents to it, with an exposed crew like it have makes it a easy target from both air and ground.
Type 65 is an excellent Self-propelled Anti-Air tank, It’s slow dual 37mm guns make it hard to hit fast low flying targets if you are not a good shot with a SPAA that will be removed. It’s mobility and speed combined with the fast turret rotation makes it a deadly opponent for the enemy if ambushed or flanked.
One way to tactically use the Type 65 is stay behind the main force and cover them from possible air threats or light flanking tanks. Its dual 37mm will make quick work of the air and lighter tanks that you will face. Another way is when enemy players are distracted by your teams player you can use your speed and manouverbility to flank around and hit them from the side or rear with AP-T or HVAP-T rounds.They will deal with most side armor. Flanking might not work as well in Arcade Battle as in Realistic or Simulator Battle.
Modules
| Tier | Mobility | Protection | Firepower | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | Tracks | Parts | UO-167 | Horizontal Drive | |
| II | Suspension | Brake System | FPE | BR-167 | Adjustment of Fire |
| III | Filters | Crew Replenishment | BR-167P | Elevation Mechanism | |
| IV | Transmission | Engine | Artillery Support | ||
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Destructive damage upon hitting an aircraft
- Fast turret rotation of more than 40°/sec allows it to deal with agile targets easily
- Powerful engine / weight ratio
- Has a crew of 6, can replace unconscious ones multiple times which increases survivability.
- Good gun elevation of 85°, crucial for a SPAA
- Multiple belt types allows flexible gameplay: full HE for anti-air, full AP for tanks, and HVAP (mixed with HE) for heavy targets
Cons:
- Open turret exposes 4 crew directly to enemy fire. Very vulnerable to top attacks.
- High profile makes it easier to be seen & hit
- Below-average gun depression of -5° combined with the high mount makes it useless in hilly terrains
- Guns are super unstable in a continuous fire. Can only fire short bursts to maintain accuracy.
- Thin turret armor of 15mm is prone to be penetrated by heavy MG / shrapnel, endangering the crew
History
The Type 65 Self Propelled Anti Aircraft Gun is a bit of an enigma, as no official documentation exists concerning its design or construction. Even today, almost half a century after the type first became known, little is known about it - so perhaps it is best to first focus on what little is known about this unique T-34-based SPAAG.
During the 1972 Spring-Summer Offensive of the Vietnam War, a single example of a SPAAG was captured by the 4th Infantry Regiment of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam on August 13th 1972. This vehicle was subsequently transferred to the United States military, who eventually shipped it to the Aberdeen Proving Ground for technical evaluation. After testing was concluded, the vehicle was put on display at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, where it stood until the early 2010s when it was transferred along with the rest of the collection to the Air Defence Artillery Museum in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Evaluation of this single example showed that it consisted of a T-34-85 chassis which was made at UTZ 183 (Uralsky Tankovij Zavod) in the USSR sometime between 1944 and 1947, featuring a number of modifications. The most important one concerned the removal of the turret, with a solid reinforced steel slab being bolted onto the turret aperture on top of which a twin AA gun was mounted. Other modifications included the removal of the hull-mounted 7.62 mm machine gun, and the removal of part of the engine top deck to allow the gun turret to freely rotate.
The most common designations applied to this vehicle refer to the gun used: a Chinese-built copy of the Soviet M1939 (61-K). NORINCO of China copied this design, originally building it as the Type 55 (most likely after the year it was first constructed); later on a twin mount was designed around the same gun, which was put into production as the Type 65. As mounted on the tank, the Type 65 gun mount was surrounded by a box-like open-topped structure composed of 16-mm thick armor plates, large enough to house both the gun and a crew of five. Similar in concept to the US-built M42 Duster, the vehicle lacked any advanced aiming system or power-assisted gun traverse or elevation, making it less efficient in use against low-flying high-speed jets, but still deadly to slower attackers and helicopters.
The lack of any official documentation, combined with the use of a Chinese-built AA gun, soon led to speculation in the US Military that this vehicle was a Chinese-built dedicated SPAAG. As such, the vehicle commonly became known as the Type 63 SPAAG, this name first appearing in the 1987 publication A Compendium of Armaments and Military Hardware by Christopher Chant, after the assumption that the Type 63 was a variant of the Type 65 specifically built for use on this SPAAG. However, more recently the vehicle has become known as the Type 65 - or Type 63/65 - after the NORINCO-built gun.
With the lifting of the US embargo on North Vietnam in 1994, new information about the Vietnam War from (formerly North) Vietnamese sources finally became available, and visitors to the Vietnam People's Air Force Museum in Hanoi noticed a photograph on display which gives an entirely different turn to the Type 65's story. This singular photograph, three SPAAG's moving to the front, shows three tank-mounted anti aircraft guns, one mounted on a T-34-85, the two others on the chassis of an SU-76. The nature of their construction seems to indicate that they - and the captured Type 65 - were in fact locally-built improvised vehicles, combining the hulls of discarded or damaged tanks with AA guns to increase the number of available anti-aircraft guns for use against US forces, the Hanoi-displayed picture showing a T-34-85 hull with a 57mm S-60 AA gun rather than the Type 65 used on the captured vehicle.
As such, it can be concluded that the Type 65 was in fact an improvised locally-built SPAAG, possibly an attempt at creating a cheap alternative to the more advanced Soviet ZSU-57-2, using the hulls of T-34-85s that had been delivered to North Vietnam in 1965.
Media
Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.
See also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:
- reference to the series of the vehicles;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
External links
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- encyclopedia page on the tank;
- other literature.
| China anti-aircraft vehicles | |
|---|---|
| Radar SPAAG | PGZ09 |
| Gun and Missile SPAAG | PGZ04A |
| Missile SPAA | Antelope |
| Other | ZSD63/PG87 · ZSL92 · WZ305 |
| Germany | ␗Sd.Kfz.222 |
| North Vietnam | Phòng không T-34 |
| USA | CCKW 353 (M45) · ␗M42 |
| USSR | Tor-M1 |
