Mounting the twin 25mm AA gun

  The twin 25mm AA gun mounted on the light assault vehicle was took away and shipped to Guangdong, Zhuhai for the defense exhibition 2 months ago. It was originally painted in green and it came back in desert yellow, because of the exhibition. Today it is back and we students spent the whole morning on mounting the gun back to the vehicle with the help of some technicians.

  And there's the front view of the ordnance museum.

New book has arrived

  Walter.J.Spielberger's Panzer IV and its Variants has just arrived! Though I've already have this in PDF but it's always better to have the real BOOK.

This book was found on Taobao, a site similar to Amazon.
It's almost brand new and only cost me 75RMB (10 dollars).
What a bargain!

  Chinese tank books, well, are all rubbish. They're all written by amateur tank historians and full of crap and nonsense. At present the main author of tank books in China is a man named Deng Tao 邓涛, whose penname is Zi Chi子迟. Almost all the fake information about tanks came from his book, like the invincible German E series(This theory is very popular among Chinese tank fans, especially after World of Tank came out.) and the ridiculous article of "The 120mm tank gun Challenger MBT used was a bored-out version of the French 105mm tank gun, and the latter was a bored-out version of the American 90mm M3", he even wrote a book about that. So, if you truly wish to understand the real tank developing history in China you have to purchase books written by foreigners from all sorts of methods. I'm building up my collection since I entered the university and that's all I got now:

  From left to right are:Chars de France, Panzer tracts 5-2, J-Tank issue 22, Japanese tank, Tank and Tank Battles, Sapper Introduction. Inside the box are Japanese Anti-aircraft guns, Japanese mortar and rocket launchers, Artillery Introduction and Japanese Pistols and MGs. I learnt a little French from my father(He majored in French when he was in college) and during the high school I taught myself Japanese so it's a little bit convenient for me to read in these two foreign languages.

  It's really expensive to buy books from abroad because of the freight. I keep the balance by providing tank articles for the Chinese tank magazines. The royalties are not much, but enough for me to buy most of the book I want. I still depend on PDFs for the most of the time.

Type 31 rapid-fire gun

Type 31 rapid-fire gun

  As some of you guys might know, my university, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, is famous for the weapon designing major. Thus there is an ordnance museum in the school. This article was used for a competition held by the museum about the exhibits in it and now I'll put it here, in Chinese, of course.

  

  三十一年式速射炮

    甲午中日战争结束后，日本察觉到西方各国的形势开始恶化，已经可以料到在未来出现冲突的可能性。因此，日军认为趁着这个机会进行军备扩张，军械革新是非常必要的。另外，当时，欧美各国对于速射炮的兴趣达到了最高点，各个兵器研发生产厂商都纷纷拿出自己的设计并向各国进行推销。日本借此也展开了自己的速射炮装备计划，于是便分别购买了法国霍奇基斯、达曼夏尔、施耐德、英国阿姆斯特朗和德国克虏伯等公司的火炮进行对比试验。

  同时日本国内的一些火炮相关人员，如来自东京炮兵工厂的提理有坂成章大佐、炮兵会审查官秋元盛之中佐以及大阪炮兵工厂火炮制造所栗山胜三少佐也都给出了自己设计方案，并各试制了一门用来测试。

  最终，一共有10款型号不同的速射炮进入了日本，并在明治29年9月至明治30年10月期间进行了大量的比较试验，其中克虏伯公司提供了两款不同的火炮，而日本本国自己的速射炮方案并没有赶上这次大规模测试。在国产火炮完工并进行完测试后，人们发现由有坂成章大佐设计速射炮最为优秀，在经过讨论后绝大多数人都支持有坂的型号，但是其中也有人对此产生了质疑：再过三年，西伯利亚的铁路就要开通了，到那时兵器的革新计划就要终止了。因此采用连山炮版本都没有的有坂速射炮，那还不如直接进口外国优良速射炮。然而，有坂大佐并没有气馁，他后来仅用了一年不到的时间就研制出了山炮版，并通过了制式采用决定，命名为三十一年式速射野·山炮。

Type 31 75mm rapid-fire mountain gun in my university

  在三十一年式定型后，西方的形势已经十分严峻，将新式火炮装备部队是当务之急，然而当时日本产能又不足，所以他们只得求助于德国克虏伯和法国施耐德公司帮忙制造。最初的110门三十一年式是完全由外国公司制造的，随后日本开始进口外国半制品。最终，到明治33年5月为止克虏伯和施耐德公司分别帮忙制造了220个火炮炮身，400个炮身半制品和400件炮架，从明治34年开始日本实现了三十一年式的完全国产。三十一年式在明治33年11月初次装备部队，明治36年2月全军换装完成。

  由于三十一年式速射野·山炮首次使用了钢制炮身而不是青铜炮身和无烟火药，它不仅射速比原来的老式的青铜炮要高，精度也要更好，不过炮弹重量相对有所增大，突破了6公斤。说到无烟火药，就大致讲讲它在日本的历史吧。日本最初的无烟火药据传最早是在嘉永5年(1852)由鹿儿岛藩藩主津齐彬试制的。具有可靠记载的陆军的无烟火药则是在大山陆军卿于明治17年在欧美军事视察时得到法国火药技师皮尔尔赠送少量无烟火药后才开始研究的。明治21年日本首次试制成功了绵火药，随后便发明了无烟炸药制法。由于该药是由陆军技师山本周朝主研的，所以它也被称谓“山本火药”。然而，由于当时日本国内的火药制造设备非常简陋无法制造无烟火药，人们继续派遣了岛川文八郎大将去比利时进行无烟火药的进一步研究，并在回国之际带回了一台德国的火药制造机，安置在了岛川作为所长的板桥火药制造所，并且预定在明治26年走上无烟火药制造的轨道；而日本真正进入到无烟火药的工业生产阶段，则是明治27年，宇治火药制造所开设之后的事了。

  不过，在甲午战争期间，日本炮兵依然在使用有烟火药，无烟火药在明治31年才正式开始采用。1885年法国人切尔潘发现将苦味酸作为炸药使用效果拔群，于是，日本也开始苦味酸火药的研究，并且最早成功于明治21年，当时被海军称谓“下濑火药”。陆军在日俄战争后经过陆军技师松岗松一郎的改进后也使用了这种火药，命名为黄色火药。第一款使用黄色火药的火炮是三十一年式速射野·山炮。

Gun breech, the breech handle was removed for teaching purpose.

  回到正轨。三十一式速射炮在理想状态下射速为每分钟7发，由于它使用的是刚性炮架所以事实上并不能达到非常高的射速。野战炮版最大射速为6200m，在后来炮架改修仰角增大，安装远距离射击用底板后可以将射速提高到7750m。日俄战争后半期，三十一式还曾安装过临时防护木板，到了明治39年这个木板被制式钢制防盾取代了，火炮依靠3騈驮马牵引。

  三十一式速射炮在日俄战争后，逐渐被更为先进的四一式山炮取代了。剩余的三十一式炮全部进了仓库。不过，在太平洋战争爆发前夕，日军军队开始进行大量的扩编，供步兵连队使用的四一式山炮数量减少，无法满足需求。于是，老旧的三十一年式山炮被重新拿出仓库，作为连队炮配备给了步兵部队。不过，三十一式和四一式相比射程威力都不如，但是却非常轻便，分解搬运十分容易。在中国战场和太平洋战场上依然得到了比较广泛的使用。

  原始的三十一式速射炮是没有助退机的，火炮发射后炮架会发生后退，效率比较低下，于是日本人对其进行了改进，设置了梯度炮架，火炮后座时通过梯度炮架吸收后座，阻止火炮自然后退，将火炮固定在原来的位置

  我们学校博物馆保存的三十一式速射炮为山炮版。山炮版和野战炮版最大的区别就是火炮身管长度。野战炮版身管长2200mm(29.3倍径), 山炮版身管长1058mm(13.3倍径),

  

Rear view. On the far side of the photo is a Schneider M1909 105mm howitzer.

Source: 1. Sayama.J (2010) Artillery Introduction, Japan Koujinsha

                 佐山二郎　（２０１０）　大砲入門　日本光人社文庫

             2. Photos from my collection

What is this blog for

Why I created this blog?

  First of all I would like to do some introductions about myself. I'm a Chinese and now I live in Nanjing, the former capital of  the Republic of China. At present I'm a student of Nanjing University of Science and Technology, majoring in English. The blog is founded mainly to be an info station about tank histories, but also my daily life. Most of the articles will be written in Chinese. At first I decided to use a Chinese blog platform but it cost me an arm and a leg to maintain the private station, so I turned to the blogger. It's free and what's more, it is blocked by the Great Internet Firewall of China so normal Chinese are not able to get access to it without a VPN, which is perfect for me to put translated tank articles on it.

About myself

  Like I've said before I'm just a common university student. My surname is Zhang 张, I was born in ShaanXi, Xi'an, the captial city of the old Qin and Tang dynasty. A few years later my family moved to Guangdong, Shenzhen, where I spent rest of my childhood and finished my primary, junior and senior high school. I was interested in tank histories since I was a primary school student. But it was not until year 2014 when I finally dig deeper into them. From then on, I was very active on various forums of China, and was(is) the tank historical consultant of several mobile phone games like the Metal Waltz  and the Panzer girls. However the developers of those games were all suckers, because they would not willing to follow my advice, so something very awkward happened, such as a KV-2 with both a 76mm gun and a 152mm howitzer(I was given the reason "game balancing" when I asked them why they did this). So now I just want to translate some tank articles into Chinese for my own hobby, and my daily life.

  I studied  5 days a week and the time spending on the blog is not fixed. In the future I'll update the blog once I have the time.