China denies type 05 SPH copied from Russia

Chinese Type05 SPH

PLA Army's Type 05 Self-Propelled Howitzer, which is opened in PLA 80th anniversary exhibition in 2007, is usually considered as a copy of Russia's MSTA-S 2S19 152mm SPH. But weeks before China resource insisted that Type 05 SPH did not steal ideas from Russia 2S19 SPH.

Yi Qunzhi, One of Type 05 Developing Team from PLA General Armament Department, told that the project of Type 05 SPH was initiate in 1991 and was to absorb western countries' 155mm Howitzer technologies for replacing exist 152mm, 133mm and 122mm Howitzer.

Russia's MSTA-S 2S19 152mm SPH

As worldwide armies usually hesitated on 155mm 52 caliber SPH and PZH 2000 eventually won its first contract until 1996, so the development of Type 05 SPH had been under great pressure from PLA army, Yi said.

From Yi’s conclusion, however, at present PLA has been pleased with the performance of Type 05 and believes it reaching leading position on world. In PLA's testing, Type 05 SPH 52-calibre gun (8.06m length) shot a standard 155mm round near a distance of 40 KM.

China announces that Type 05 uses full digital fire-control and can automatically transfer battlefield information with other reconnaissance & commanding vehicles via data-link.

The autonomous fire control functions are controlled by on-board computer. In the automatic mode, the gun is automatically engaged targets and relayed by fire control data provided by the ballistics computer

Chinese expert explained the huge size of Type 05 turret is due to the more digital fire control devices inside for fast response and accurate striking. Another reason is the turret has automatic ammunition loading mechanism to ensure the demand of high rate of fire.

During the early argumentation, Type 05 once chose between combustible cartridge and modular propellant charge. But PLA finally abandoned the modular ammo charge because of technological difficulties.

Type 05 SPH certainly will become the main artillery batteries in PLA army-division level ground forces. Now China has great interests on XM982 Excalibur 155mm Precision Guided Extended Range Artillery Projectile and eyes it as the future of ground firepower. As for Russia’s Koalitsiya-SV (Coalition) 152mm SPH, Chinese developer does not believe its values and PLA has no plan to develop similar equipment.

Yi said that PLA’s next generation SPH or ground long-range firepower neutralization system will be in shortened development period and finished product will probably be out in 2012.