According to Xinhuanet, on September 2, the eighth batch of remains of Chinese People's Volunteer Army martyrs in South Korea returned to China. Zhang Xuming, a retired elderly man in Shenyang, was very excited when he saw the news that the remains of Volunteer Army martyrs had returned to China. The memories of 70 years ago came back to him. reappeared before my eyes. He told the media the story of producing anti-tank rocket launchers for the Volunteer Army. In 1951, 18-year-old Zhang Xuming participated in the production of rocket launcher as an apprentice. "The 90mm rockets we produced were for use by the volunteer comrades, so everyone worked hard and worked hard."
The 90mm rockets mentioned here refer to the Type 51 anti-tank rockets. China's first generation anti-tank rocket. Many magazines say that the Type 51 anti-tank rocket is a Chinese imitation of the US military's M20 "Super Bazooka" rocket launcher. This is actually not accurate. The Type 51 anti-tank rocket actually has a lot of origins with Germany and Japan.
During the War of Liberation, a mysterious weapon called " rocket launcher " often appeared in the statistical materials of our People's Liberation Army's artillery unit, and the number was as high as hundreds. Many people have made conclusive claims based on this statement that the Soviet Union provided massive support to China during the War of Liberation, and even had hundreds of Soviet-made Katyusha rocket launchers .
Therefore, the word "rocket launcher" misled many military experts and military history researchers, so that many experts really believed that our army had already equipped a large number of Soviet-made Katyusha rocket launchers during the Liberation War. In fact, this is not the case at all. China equipped Katyusha rocket launchers during the period of resisting U.S. aggression and aiding Korea. The Soviet Union assisted China's two heavy artillery divisions with Katyusha rocket launchers.
Therefore, this "bazooka" is not the other "bazooka", but the meaning of rocket launcher. During the War of Liberation, our army called the captured American bazooka bazooka "bazooka". Our army's American-made bazooka anti-tank rocket launcher was mainly captured on the battlefield. The specific model is M9. Later, the Chinese People's Volunteers took these M9 bazooka "bazooka" into the battlefield to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea. Due to the good performance and power of the American-made bazooka rocket launchers, the Chinese People's Volunteers used them extensively in the early stages of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, and became one of the few anti-tank weapons in the hands of our army.
In 1950, the US military had a large-scale upgrade to the 88.9 mm M20 "Super Bazooka" rocket launcher. This improved bazooka was more powerful, with a maximum armor-piercing thickness of 280 mm, and was very popular with the US military. welcome. The first and only general in the history of the US military to be captured during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Major General William Dean, commander of the US 24th Infantry Division, personally operated an M20 Super Bazu during the Daejeon blockade before being captured. The card rocket launcher destroyed a T-34 tank .
In the early days of the war, the hundreds of bazooka "bazooka" in our volunteer army's inventory were quickly exhausted. Facing the mechanized troops of the US military, the Volunteer Army is in urgent need of a lightweight and powerful anti-tank weapon. In October 1950, the 40th Army of the Volunteer Army captured several M20 Super Bazooka "bazookas" for the first time during the Pingdong battle. They were immediately sent back to China and delivered to the Shenyang 52nd Arsenal of the Northeast Ordnance Industry Bureau for reverse mapping and imitation.
However, the technical level of our weapons industry in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China was not high. Due to a large number of technical problems and barriers during the imitation process, the imitation of the American super bazooka has never been able to pass the test. The main reason is that the technical requirements such as the high-sensitivity mechanical fuze, large-diameter shaped charge, hard aluminum shell, and fast-burning engine charge equipped with the Super Bazooka were too high. Our domestic technical strength was insufficient at that time.
Picture: M20 Super Bazooka.
However, these are not a problem for our country’s military technical personnel. The Northeast Ordnance Industry Bureau suddenly remembered that after the liberation of Northeast China, our army had received a batch of Japanese rockets. So, can we use the technical basis of these Japanese rockets to imitate the American Super Bazooka?
Speaking of the information on this batch of seized Japanese rockets, the source is quite tortuous.During the Second World War, Nazi Germany developed an RPzB43 88mm anti-tank rocket launcher. This rocket launcher had excellent performance and great power, and was very popular among German soldiers. At this time, on the other side of the earth, the Japanese army encountered the American Sherman tank . The anti-tank weapons developed by Japan had extremely low performance and could not pose a threat to the Sherman tank, so Japan asked Germany to support new rocket launcher technology.
(Picture: German RPzB43 anti-tank rocket launcher)
In the summer of 1943, Germany secretly transported live ammunition and technical data of the RPzB43 rocket launcher to Japan via U-boats, and Japan subsequently developed the "Type 4" 70mm rocket launcher based on this. The rocket launcher is planned to be mass-produced at the South Manchuria Army Arsenal in Shenyang, Northeast China. However, since the Japanese army surrendered soon in 1945, the Nanman Arsenal was unable to produce this type of rocket launcher. During the War of Liberation, this arsenal (called the 90th Engineering Arsenal at this time) was captured by our army from the Chinese army, and the data and drawings of Type 4 rocket launchers kept in the factory were also captured, becoming the technical source of the later Type 51 rocket launchers. .
Japan’s Type 4 rocket launcher has a caliber of 70 mm.
In February 1951, the Northeast Ordnance Industry Bureau issued an order to develop the Type 51 anti-tank rocket. A two-in-one product of the American super bazooka structure, the
rocket launcher and the anti-tank rocket were developed in May 1951. Successfully, it was named the Type 51 90mm anti-tank rocket launcher. The first generation of anti-tank rocket launcher in New China was born. Then the Type 51 rocket launcher began mass production. By the end of 1951, 4,800 rockets and rockets were produced, which were quickly sent to On the front line of the Volunteer Army, the equipment troops have greatly changed the situation in which the Volunteer Army can only rely on cluster grenades and explosive packs to carry out close-range blasts against US tanks. The technical foundation is weak. The performance of the domestically produced Type 51 anti-tank rocket launcher is significantly lower than the muzzle velocity of the American-made Super Bazooka, which is 160 meters/second, while the initial velocity of the Type 51 rocket launcher is only 106 meters/second. The range is 100 meters, while the M20 rocket launcher can reach 200 meters. The armor-breaking power of the Type 51 rocket is only 120 mm, while the M20 rocket launcher uses two hard aluminum alloy launch tubes. Due to insufficient alloy production capacity, the Type 51 was changed to an integral steel launch tube, which was relatively heavy. The Type 135 rocket issued for the early Type 51 used a multi-nozzle engine, which was stable in rotation, and its armor-breaking power was later developed. The Type 241 single-nozzle tail-stabilized rocket overcame the armor-piercing jet divergence caused by the high-speed rotation of the Type 135 rotating rocket, greatly increasing its armor-breaking power.
The first large-scale combat of the domestic Type 51 anti-tank rocket launcher was in October 1951. The tanks fighting against the U.S. Army's "Autumn Offensive" entered the battle. In this battle, the U.S. Army concentrated all the forces of the 72nd Tank Battalion and the 31st Korean Tank Battalion, a total of more than 40 tanks, in an attempt to capture Yuyin, a key point on our eastern front. Mountain. Our volunteer army organized an anti-tank brigade equipped with 40 Type 51 rocket launchers. In three days, they fought with the US tank troops more than ten times, destroying as many as 38 US and South Korean tanks and combat vehicles, while ours The anti-tank brigade's losses were very slight. Our army had the Type 51 rocket launcher, and the U.S. tank's entry into the battle became a laughing stock, and Yuyin Mountain also became the sad mountain of the U.S. military. It was during the Guzhimuli Defense Battle on June 13, 1952. In this battle, the US military dispatched dozens of tanks and armored fighting vehicles, including M-46 Patton medium tanks and M-36 Jackson self-propelled anti-tank guns, to attack our volunteer troops. A company-level position in the 31st Division of the 12th Army. The Type 51 rocket launcher squad attached to the company showed its prowess in the battle.
Under the correct tactical command of the Volunteer Army combat hero Wang Mingshan, who served as the deputy squad leader, "fight at intervals and change places with one rocket". After two hours of fierce fighting, the Volunteer Army managed to consume 9 rockets and slightly injure two people at a small cost. , achieved brilliant results of killing 6 enemies, capturing 4 enemies, destroying 6 enemy tanks and capturing an M-36 Jackson self-propelled anti-tank gun. Among them, Wang Mingshan alone destroyed 4 enemy tanks with 5 rocket launcher rounds. vehicles, and captured 1 self-propelled anti-tank gun .
The American-made M36 90mm self-propelled cannon has a total combat weight of 28 tons and an armor thickness of 9.5-76mm. It is equipped with a 90mm cannon. It is powerful and has fierce firepower. It can instantly kill the German Cheetah and Tiger on the European battlefield of World War II. kingtank. The M36 captured by the Volunteer Army is still parked at the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution, serving as a "silent commentator".
After the victory in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, our country also imitated the Soviet Union's RPG-2 rocket launcher , named it the Type 56 40mm anti-tank rocket launcher. It was finalized and equipped with troops in 1956, replacing the American bazooka rocket launcher and becoming the main offensive weapon of our infantry company. Nowadays, our army has become "broad", and there are more than a dozen types of light anti-tank weapons for grassroots troops.
In order to treat the phobia of lack of firepower, strong medicine was used. This firepower is too powerful, happy infantry cannon, happy machine, happy force, happy sniper, happy big sniper, happy sniper. Happy family bucket, make the enemy completely happy!
