PG87 (25 mm)

Description

The 25 mm PG87 (PG87式25毫米双管高射炮) is a Chinese anti-aircraft gun. It is the enlarged version of the previous 23 mm PG85 anti-aircraft gun, the reverse-engineered version of the Soviet ZU-23-2.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• PGZ04A
• ZSD63/PG87

General info

The overall design of the PG87 is very similar to its reverse-engineered Soviet counterpart, the ZU-23-2 while being larger and used 25x183 mmB cartridge as its selected ammunition; giving it a straight ballistic and higher velocity (1,050 m/s;970-980 m/s) than ZU-23-2, comparable to the 25 mm Oerlikon KBA autocannon.

Available ammunition

• Default: AP-T · FI-T*
• Type 87 HE: FI-T*
• Type 87 AP: AP-T

Penetration statistics
Belt	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
	10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
Default	63	60	47	35	26	19
Type 87 HE	2	2	2	2	2	2
Type 87 AP	63	60	47	35	26	19

Comparison with analogues

Thanks to the overall larger calibre of 25 mm, the PG87 has a straighter trajectory compare to the Soviet ZU-23-2 and its quad-mount AZP-23 found on the ZSU-23-4, although the lesser choice on ammunition might seem disappointing at first glance; the default penetration from Type 87 AP-T round can penetrates most NATO vehicles' sides, its rate of fire also helps it gunning down its targets.

While shared similar traits to Oerlikon KBA, PG87 doesn't come with any type of APDS round (however, ZPT90 based on PG87 does), which could be a drawback against vehicles with thicker sides.

Usage in battles

At first glance, the gun does looks like a ZU-23-2 from Soviet Union, but its 25 mm calibre become the major difference between these two guns; it was aimed to be comparable to NATO's Oerlikon KBA, thus having a higher velocity and higher penetration than ZU-23-2. The default belt itself has a balanced arrangement of shells of AP-T and FI-T, more than enough to gun down even the toughest aircraft at their tiers if they are careless enough to enter its kill-zone.

While overall being better than its Soviet counterpart, there is a major drawback for PG87: its reload rate. For the towed gun version found on ZSD63, it takes up to 35 seconds to reload, which is very fatal in heated fight, so do conserve ammo and wait until the target is within 800 m- the target will have lesser chance to escape the short burst of 25 mm shells; it also doesn't compatible with ZPT90's 25 mm APDS shell found on IFVs, thus leading to a lower penetration than Oerlikon KBA (M791 with 91 mm penetration at point-blank); while Type 87 AP is still enough to gun down tanks with thinner sides, but it struggles to penetrate Soviet tanks with thicker sides.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• High muzzle velocity and penetration
• High rate of fire
• Type 87 FI-T round has high explosive mass

Cons:

• Small ammo pool for the towed version
• Slow reload time (takes up to 35 seconds to reload for the towed version)
• Type 87 AP-T round still struggles to penetrate tanks with over 70 mm side armour

History

After the certification of the reverse-engineered PG85 23 mm anti-aircraft gun in 1985, an upgraded version of this gun with 25 mm calibre in view of NATO's Oerlikon KBA, dubbed PG87 was then passed certification in 1987 with new IR tracking gunsight, serving as an enhanced version of PG85 and was used as field tow AA gun or as the composition of the later PGZ95/04A SPAAG.

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 article about the variant of the cannon/machine gun;
• references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links

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China anti-aircraft guns
25 mm	PG87
35 mm	PG99-35-2
37 mm	Type 65
57 mm	WA318
	Foreign:
12.7 mm	M2HB (USA)
20 mm	KwK30 (Germany)
40 mm	Dual Automatic Gun M2 (USA)