An article written a few days ago quoted a data from the "Statistical Table of Strengths of the Northeast People's Liberation Army before the Last Battle of August 1948", and mentioned that the Northeast Field Army was equipped with 253 rocket launchers before the Liaoshen Campaign.
Some people think that this rocket launcher is a Katyusha rocket launcher assisted by the Soviet Union. In fact, this is just a misunderstanding caused by the name. The rocket launcher mentioned in this strength statistics table is just the American Bazuka rocket launcher.
During World War II, tanks were extremely important assault forces, and all countries attached great importance to the research and development of anti-tank weapons, so there were many kinds of anti-tank weapons.
In early 1942, the United States developed a shoulder-firing bazooka that can be carried by individual soldiers. After testing, it has been proven to be effective against tanks. After several improvements, this bazooka was named the M1 type 60mm bazooka and was put into use.
Bazuka bazooka
M1 bazooka is easy to carry and has an armor-breaking thickness of 127 mm, which can pose a threat to most German tanks and armored vehicles at that time, so it is very popular among infantrymen. Because the M1 type 60mm bazooka is shaped like a musical instrument Bazuka, it has also been awarded the common name of "Bazouka" in the army.
During World War II, the Bazuka Bazooka not only equipped the US military in large quantities, but the United States also provided it to anti-fascist allies such as Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, which played a significant role in the war.
Because of its excellent performance, many countries continued to have a large amount of equipment after World War II. For example, the Kuomintang army used the Bazuka bazooka heavily during the Liberation War. On the battlefield, there are many Bazuka rocket launchers seized by the People's Liberation Army.
For example, in the autumn offensive, Higashino seized 44 bazooka bazooka, and in the subsequent winter offensive, 66 bazooka bazooka were seized.
However, on the seizure list counted by Higashino himself, these are recorded as several rocket launchers seized. From this point, we can also know that the rocket launcher mentioned by Higashino cannot be the kind of rocket launcher we think now. After all, the Soviet Union did not provide Katyusha rocket launcher to the National Government, and the Kuomintang army had not equipped other types of rocket launchers, but only the American Bazuka rocket launcher.
Bazuka bazooka captured by our army
Actually, the first real rocket launcher equipped by the People's Liberation Army is authentic domestic products.
As early as 1948, my country's rocket technology expert Zhong Lin established a rocket technology room in Hebei, and started the development of rocket launchers with other staff. At the end of 1950, he developed the A3 6-barrel 102mm rocket launcher.
A3 type 6-barrel rocket launcher is pulled by a car and has two types of rockets, Type 427 and Type 488, with ranges of 5 kilometers and 6.4 kilometers respectively. The Northeast 52 Factory is responsible for producing the A3 6-pipe rocket launcher, and a total of 240 units were produced. Among them, the 210th Artillery Regiment and the 202nd Regiment, equipped with Type A3 6-bar rocket launcher, also participated in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, and played a considerable role in the battle.
A3 6-bar rocket launcher
Due to the large number of Soviet weapons later, in order to unify the standard equipment and the performance gap, this domestic rocket launcher was quickly replaced by Katyusha. Therefore, the production of the A3 6-bar rocket launcher was not large, and it did not have long been equipped with the troops and was soon withdrawn from active service.
From this point, it can also prove that the Katyusha rocket launcher that Dongye is equipped with cannot be the Katyusha rocket launcher, otherwise there is no need to design a product with relatively backward performance by yourself. It is not very pleasant to use Katyusha directly.
Of course, I still have to say a fair word here. Although the comprehensive performance of the A3 6-barrel rocket launcher is still a certain gap with the Soviet Katyusha rocket launcher, with China's industrial level at that time, it was already very difficult to design and produce such rocket launcher.
Katyusha rocket launcher equipped by the Volunteer Army
On the other hand, the Bazuka bazooka mission in China did not end immediately.
In the battle with the US military, in order to deal with the US tanks and armored vehicles, the volunteers not only continued to use the Bazuka bazooka seized during the Liberation War, but also sent the M20 Super Bazuka bazooka seized in the battle back to China for research and imitation.
Through the efforts of military workers, using the seized incomplete samples, after decomposition, surveying and improvement, the Type 51 90mm anti-tank rocket launcher was developed in just half a year. In that year, 5,000 Type 51 anti-tank rocket launchers and 200,000 rockets were manufactured, and they were sent to the front line.
During the entire war, military-industrial enterprises produced more than 7,000 rocket launchers. These bazooka played a great role in fighting the US armored forces. Of course, their fate is similar to the A3 6-tube 102mm rocket launcher, and was later replaced by the Soviet-style bazooka.
