The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 274 Type 82 Mortar Family
"Mortars, we need 100mm mortars!"

Liu Tao looked at the three neatly arranged mortars, with calibers ranging from small to large, and felt like something was missing.

If you think about it carefully, you will find that there is a 100mm mortar missing.

In terms of heavy mortars, China has the Type 55 120 mortar and Type 56 160 mm mortar, which are imitations of the Soviet Union.

In the late 60s, based on our army's need for highly mobile large-caliber mortars, mortar research began to develop a 100mm mortar.

This resulted in the Type 71 100mm mortar, which weighs 75.5 kg and has a range of 4750 meters. This scientific research achievement won the National Science Conference Award.

As for the 120mm mortar, it had never been developed before, and the Type 55 120mm mortar was used.

Since we are going to do it, we naturally have to do it neatly.

Liu Tao also developed a 100mm mortar, which is also made of titanium alloy and composite materials. It weighs only 20 kilograms and has a range of 7 kilometers.

"This 120mm mortar can be modeled after the Type 81 120mm self-propelled mortar-howitzer. We can make a vehicle-mounted 120mm mortar that can load and fire by itself!" Liu Tao said secretly.

He even developed a 120mm self-propelled howitzer, so there is no problem with this 120mm self-propelled mortar.

The benefits of having a 120mm self-propelled mortar are self-evident, that is, it has strong maneuverability and firing rate!
When loading shells manually, no matter how fast the gunner is, the speed of loading shells is always limited. But if self-loading is used, the speed will be much faster.

However, before that, Liu Tao downloaded the design data of the Type 82 60mm mortar, 82mm mortar, 100mm mortar, and 120mm mortar, printed out a complete set of design drawings, and then formed a mortar technical team, let the technical team master the technology, and then started trial production.

It was at this time that Liu Tao developed a 120mm self-propelled mortar, which used the frame of the Type 81 120mm mortar-howitzer and then made some modifications.

The barrel of a mortar is relatively long because it is designed to fire grenades, but this is not necessary for a mortar, so its barrel is much shorter.

After producing a Type 82 120mm self-propelled mortar and handing it over to the combined brigade, Liu Tao began to consider the Falklands War.

Firearms are easy to deal with, as they are readily available in the warehouse.

As for tanks and armored vehicles, Liu Tao did not consider them. Firstly, the delivery pressure is already very high. Secondly, the time is too tight and there is no time for training. Argentina has not purchased any of them.

In addition to firearms, Liu Tao was more concerned about anti-ship missiles.

In the Falklands War, what really determined victory or defeat were naval warships and air forces!
During the Falklands War, Argentina's navy and army were extremely cowardly. The naval warships were afraid of British submarines and even retreated to the port, just like the Beiyang Fleet in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.

As for the army, Argentina is not strong, and Britain is not strong either. After all, Britain was never famous for its strong army during the era of the "British Empire", and the British Army was often beaten badly.

The two sides can be described as rookies fighting each other.

Liu Tao wanted to take this opportunity to teach the British a lesson, so he had to start with anti-ship missiles.

After all, Argentina's Air Force performed the best, even tragically, in the Falklands War!
An anti-ship missile that performed brilliantly in the Falklands War popped into Liu Tao's mind - the Exocet anti-ship missile!
The "Exocet" anti-ship missile is an anti-ship missile developed and manufactured by France. It has many different modes such as ship-launched, submarine-launched, and air-launched.

The reason why it is called the "Exocet" anti-ship missile is that it can fly at a speed close to the speed of sound at an altitude of less than 5 meters above the water surface without touching the water surface.

The "Exocet" anti-ship missile officially entered service in 1980 and is now almost unknown.

It was not until the Falklands War that the Argentine Air Force used the Exocet anti-ship missile to sink the British destroyer HMS Sheffield, the cargo ship Atlantic Conveyor, and the destroyer HMS Glamorgan, which made the Exocet anti-ship missile famous. Panshan Machinery Factory did not have the Exocet anti-ship missile, and it would definitely be too late to go to the French to buy it now.

But China also has anti-ship missiles!

Liu Tao made a special call to Wang Baoguo, who then coordinated the process and the relevant information quickly arrived at Panshan Machinery Factory.

Liu Tao learned about the anti-ship missiles that China currently possesses.

Speaking of China's anti-ship missiles, we have to trace it back to 1957, when a Chinese delegation went to the Soviet Union and eventually signed an agreement on "the Soviet Union's provision of new defense technology assistance to China". One of the weapons in the agreement was aimed at Uncle Sam's fleet: the P-15 (Po-15) "Styx" cruise anti-ship missile.

The P-15 is the earliest "fire-and-forget" precision-guided weapon among the second-generation cruise tactical missiles that use a liquid rocket propulsion system. Its design concept, system principle and composition, missile body design, aerodynamic layout and manufacturing process were quite advanced at the time. It was not delivered to the Soviet Navy until 1960. Seven years later, in the Third Middle East War, the P-7 that the Soviet Union provided to Egypt sank the Israeli destroyer "Eilat" that was blockading the Port of Said. The breach diameter reached 15 meters, and only four missiles were consumed, which shocked the Western naval community.

Now China has not only the 15 anti-ship missile that imitates the Soviet P-544, but also the current "Upstream No. " ship-to-ship missile.

Based on the 'Shangyou No. 1', the Haiying- shore-to-ship missile was developed.

These two types of anti-ship missiles are exactly the two types of anti-ship missiles currently equipped by the troops.

Liu Tao frowned slightly, which meant that there were no anti-ship missiles available for aircraft launch.

"There is no problem with the Sea Eagle-1 anti-ship missile and the 'Shangyou No. ' anti-ship missile, but we also need an air-launched anti-ship missile!" Liu Tao muttered to himself.

The range of the 'Shangyou No. 40' anti-ship missile is about 1 kilometers, while the range of the 'Haiying-70' anti-ship missile is kilometers.

But these can only be used on land as coastal defense forces.

China can move it to ships, but the problem is that Argentina has no experience.

Liu Tao began to experiment with developing anti-ship missiles, which was a completely new field for him.

He had never worked with missiles before.

Missile technology is absolutely high-tech in this era. It is hard to say whether there are 20 countries in the world that can manufacture missiles.

Even fewer are able to build advanced missiles.

Fortunately, Liu Tao has a system that allows him to slowly upgrade it after it is manufactured.

Even if the anti-ship missile is very poor at the beginning, it can always be upgraded to an anti-ship missile with advanced performance through gradual upgrading.

Just have enough time.

Otherwise, even if a professional team worked for three to five years, they would not be able to develop an anti-ship missile that Liu Tao wanted.

This is also Liu Tao's advantage. He can greatly shorten the development time of an advanced weapon and reduce a large amount of investment in scientific research funds.

He overcame every technical difficulty one by one, as if they were not technical difficulties at all.

(End of this chapter)