PTZ89 (120 mm)

Description

The 120 mm PTZ89 gun found is a L/52 smoothbore cannon produced by Factory 447. With its quick firing rate and high velocity, this gun can proves deadly to the enemies it might encounter and packs a real punch.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• PTZ89

General info

Tell us about the tactical and technical characteristics of the cannon or machine gun.

Available ammunition

The gun's ammunition is either a DYW1 APFSDS round or a DYS120 HE shell.

Comparison with analogues

Comparing the 120 mm PTZ89 gun to its main analogues, NATO Rh120 L/44, Warsaw Pact's 2A46M and its domestic competitor Type 88C, it shines over the velocity (thanks to its larger chamber) at 1,740 m/s, it just lagged behind the newer Rh120 L/55 by a mere 10 m/s, making PTZ89 a surprising powerful gun at its tier.

Usage in battles

The main feature of 120 mm PTZ89 gun is its raw firepower: it was designed to handle masses of MBTs from range. So the ammunition found on this cannon is filled with lots of propellant, sending its projectile at a whopping 1,740 m/s, making it lethal even at longer ranges. A good way to play with the 120 mm PTZ89 gun is to stay at range and unleash your DYW1 APFSDS at the rate of 5 second between shots. In case of brawling, since it comes with an autoloader, it can also unleash hell to the enemies as well.

But do keep in mind that just like most Mainland Chinese vehicles, the depression angle is poor and the autoloader short reload time increases after all 10 rounds in the tray are fired away, so keep your ammo count in check and at best plan the shots beforehand: it will be embarrassing if you run out of autoloader shots in heat of battle.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Above average shell velocity at 1,740 m/s that gives it flat trajectory
• 5-second autoloader with 10 rounds on it.

Cons:

• Traverse rate, both vertical and horizontal, is rather slow
• Depression angle is mediocre
• If the player is trigger-happy, 10 rounds might not sufficient in the heat of battle

History

In the late 1960s, Mainland China started their development a new MBT for the possible war with USSR and even WWIII. A key compnent of this new tank (the WZ1224) was a 120 mm smoothbore gun. But due to technological limits, the cannon didn't start development until PLA had captured a Soviet T-62 and bridged the huge gap between Mainland China and mainstream tanks.

Later, when the new MBT had finally been developed, this PTP73 100 mm smoothbore AT gun based 120 mm gun was not chosen The WZ1224 didn't make it into the national budget and was abandoned, L7 was chosen for the new ZTZ79 and ZTZ80 instead and PLAGF acquired the 2A46M gun from Romania which they reverse-engineered successfully. The attempt to acquire a Rh120 L/44 cannon wasn't quite successful either. But in an attempt to keep this gun, Factory 447 at Batou, Inner Mongolia (the same city where the famous Factory 617 is) put this gun onto a WZ321 chassis. Luckily, this gun made it through state certification at 1986 and was backed by the funding from PRC's 7th 5-year plan. Eventually the cannon made its way into service on the PTZ89.

After around 3 decades in service, the PTZ89 and its 120 mm gun peacefully ended its service in 2015 with the last batches of them decommissioned from 39th Group Army (currently named 79th) in November.

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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• topic on the official game forum;
• other literature.

China tank cannons
30 mm	ZPL02 · ZPZ02
73 mm	Type 85
76 mm	M32K1
85 mm	Type-62-85-TC · Type 63
100 mm	PTP86 · Type 59 · Type 69 · Type 69-II · ZPL04
105 mm	Type 83 · WMA301 · ZPL94 · ZPL98A
120 mm	122TM · PTZ89
125 mm	Type 88C · Type 99A · ZPT98
152 mm	PL66 Gai
	Foreign:
20 mm	KwK30 (Germany)
37 mm	M6 (USA)
45 mm	20-K (USSR)
47 mm	Type 1 (Japan)
57 mm	Type 97 (Japan) · ZIS-2 (USSR)
75 mm	M2 Howitzer (USA) · M3 (USA) · M6 (USA)
76 mm	D-56T (USSR) · F-34 (USSR) · M1 (USA) · M7 (USA) · ZIS-3 (USSR)
85 mm	ZIS-S-53 (USSR)
90 mm	M3 (USA) · M41 (USA)
100 mm	D-10S (USSR)
105 mm	M68 (USA) · M68A1 (USA)
115 mm	U-5TS (USSR)
122 mm	A-19 (USSR) · D-25T (USSR)
152 mm	ML-20S (USSR)