Phòng không T-34
Contents
| This page is about the Chinese SPAA Phòng không T-34. For gift vehicle in the Russian tree, see Phòng không T-34 (USSR). For other vehicles using the T-34 chassis, see T-34 (Family). |
Description
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".
The Phòng không T-34 is a Chinese and North Vietnamese SPAAG created during the mid-'60s and used in the Vietnam war. It is based on a T-34-85 hull from the Soviet Union, with an open-top box turret that mounts dual 37 mm Type 65 cannons from the Chinese.
It's likely that the NVA improvised this build during the Vietnam War, since North Vietnam invested heavily in anti-air weaponry 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 the single 85 mm main armament, it also has a higher profile than a regular T-34-85.
General info
Survivability and armour
The armour of Phòng không T-34 turret is an easy target to penetrate with it consisting of only 15mm all-around armour 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 12.7 mm calibre able to penetrate that thin armour 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 its way in and damage the crew. With is being an 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 Phòng không T-34 is that 80% of its crew sits in the turret, 2 of them looking up from the turret making them extremely vulnerable to machinegun fire.
The hull is better armoured like a T-34-85 and its strongest armour is the front hull armour, It's missing the hull-mounted machine gun that there is on the T-34-85 making it have an 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 manoeuvre at off-road and on-road. It got similar mobility characteristic as the Russian T-34-85 with an 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 (x2) | Turret rotation speed (°/s) | Reloading rate (seconds) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mode | Capacity (Belt) | Fire rate | Vertical | Horizontal | Stabilizer | Stock | Upgraded | Full | Expert | Aced | Stock | Full | Expert | Aced |
| Arcade | 390 (5) | 160 | -5°/+85° | ±180° | N/A | 52.8 | __.__ | __.__ | __.__ | __.__ | 1.3 | _.__ | _.__ | _.__ |
| Realistic | 35.7 | __.__ | __.__ | __.__ | __.__ | |||||||||
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
The Phòng không T-34 is an excellent self-propelled anti-air tank, but its slow dual 37 mm guns make it hard to hit fast low flying targets if you are not a good shot with SPAA. Its mobility and speed combined with the fast turret rotation make it a deadly opponent for the enemy if ambushed or flanked.
The Phòng không T-34 is an excellent self-propelled anti-air tank, but also a great tank for ambushes on the enemy side and rear armour. Be aware that all the tanks and aircraft it will oppose are deadly opponents to it, the exposed crew makes it an easy target from both air and ground.
One way to tactically use the Phòng không T-34 is to stay behind the main force and cover them from possible air threats or light flanking tanks. Its dual 37 mm 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 manoeuvrability to flank around and hit them from the side or rear with AP-T or HVAP-T rounds.They will deal with most side armour. 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 an SPAA
- Multiple belt types allows flexible gameplay: full HE belt for anti-air. Full AP belt can penetrate common tanks' side, eg. M4, Panther A/D, Chi-Ri. HVAP belt (mixed with HE) for side of heavy targets up close, like Tiger H1/E, Ho-Ri, Ferdinand.
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 during continuous fire. Can only fire short bursts to maintain accuracy. The Wirbelwind and Ostwind II (also twin 37mm), in comparison, are way more stable.
- Thin turret armour of 15mm is prone to be penetrated by heavy MG/shrapnel. SPAA like Wirbelwind and M16 can easily disable all turret 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 armour 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 |
