Photos of tests in China of a new air defense system, which is a rotating cannon with 20 barrels, have appeared on the Internet.
In China experimenting with 20-barelled CIWS, as I understand... pic.twitter.com/A1imN9CllX
— Yuri Lyamin (@imp_navigator) May 20, 2021
The images were first published on the Chinese service Weibo, they show that the installation has already passed at least three stages of combat tests - in January, March and April of this year, notes The Drive.
- It remains unclear what forces are developing this weapon, whether the gun is a ready-made prototype, - the publication writes.
Also unknown are at least the minimum characteristics of the system-caliber, rate of fire. It is obvious that it is made according to the Gatling system, such weapons, as a rule, have a high rate of fire even in comparison with other multi-barrel designs.
The photos show that the installation corresponds to the general shape of other naval melee systems. China already uses two multi-barrel systems of its own design on warships - the Type 730 artillery system with seven 30-mm barrels and the Type 1130 with 11 barrels of a similar caliber. The rate of fire of the first is six thousand rounds per minute, the second-at least 10 thousand rounds per minute, at the moment it is the most powerful of the Chinese anti-aircraft artillery systems.
The new 20-barrel gun is likely to produce several thousand rounds per minute more than the "Type 1130".
- Additional barrels can be a good alternative to other methods of increasing the firepower of artillery pieces. This is the path taken by the Russian designers of the Pantsir-ME system, which combines the Pantsir-S1 air defense missile system with the Kortik anti-aircraft system. It has two six-barrel 30-mm rotary guns GSH-6-30 with a rate of fire of 9-10 thousand rounds per minute, - the author notes.
The need of the Chinese navy for such complexes will increase, as the fleet is constantly expanding. With modern anti-ship missiles, increasingly fast and stealthy, artillery installations act as the last line of defense. They can be effective, even in a very short, but accessible window for hitting missiles on approach.
By the way, an independent expert on missile weapons, George William Herbert, noticed that in the photo of the gun, when viewed from the side, two barrels are visible - one in the "12 o'clock" position, the second in the "six o'clock"position. Probably, the gun involves firing at two points at the same time, which increases its power.
Timur Alimov