By Franz-Stefan Gady
The Chinese military is replacing its tank destroyers with anti-tank missiles and attack helicopters.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will retire its armada of Type 89 (aka PTZ89) tank destroyers, Asia One reports based on information published in the PLA Daily, the official newspaper of the PLA.
The PLA Daily published a picture of 18 self-propelled guns that look like Type 89 tank destroyers departing a military base of the PLA Shenyang Military Command’s 39th Group Army.
The newspaper said that an official retirement ceremony for the obsolete armored vehicles was held on November 3.
The Type 89 tank destroyer entered the PLA’s service in 1989. From 1989 to 1995 around 100 vehicles were produced. The tank destroyer’s main armament is a 120-mm/L50 smoothbore gun, equipped with a semi-automatic gun loader. Since the gun is not stabilized, the armored vehicle cannot fire accurately on the move.
“With its good mobility and a high automation level, the Type 89 tank destroyer can easily pierce the armor of enemy tanks using a 120-mm smoothbore gun,” according to Senior Colonel Wang Kai, a land armaments expert at the PLA Academy of Armored Forces Engineering in Beijing. However, the gun has a relatively short range, one of the Type 89’s many shortcomings.
Read the full story at The Diplomat