PGZ09
Contents
Description
The HuoPao GaoShe ZiXing 09, nicknamed "Hunter 猎手" is a rank VI Chinese SPAA with a battle rating of 8.3 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update "Red Skies".
PGZ09 was the Chinese attempt to make a counterpart to Flakpanzer Gepard and JGSDF's Type 87 to intercept incoming aerial targets such as helicopters, drones, and cruise missiles with its pair 35 mm cannons. With its high off-road speed, advanced electronic system with both search/targeting radar and even a Generation 2 thermal sight onboard, it can prove deadly to both careless aerial and ground targets at its tier and provide field air-defence to its allies wherever they are with its mobility.
General info
Survivability and armour
The chassis provides sufficient protection to the crew against smaller firearms and shrapnel from explosions, but due to its nature of being a SPAAG in this case, only the front is sufficient to stop HMGs and maybe even some autocannons; while the turret itself struggles. With overpressure damage, it is unlikely that PGZ09 can take direct hits from artillery or higher calibre HEFS/HEATFS shells and survive. Its tall search radar antenna is very visible therefore likely to attract fire, and when hit by anything with explosive filler it will be broken; the shrapnel and blast will also pass down to the thin turret roof and damage/destroy components like the targeting radar and/or crews. Thus you need to be aware of whether the search radar antenna is exposed when the tank is behind cover.
Armour type:
- Rolled homogeneous armour
| Armour | Front (Slope angle) | Sides | Rear | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 10 mm Upper front (74°) 12 mm Lower front(25°) |
8 mm Top 10 mm Bottom |
10 mm | 8 mm |
| Turret | 8 mm | 8 mm | 8 mm | 8 mm |
| Cupola | N/A | |||
Notes:
- Tracks are 20 mm thick
- Mudguard and side skirts are 5 mm of structural steel
- Tracking radar is 15 mm of structural steel
- Suspension is 20 mm of structural steel
Mobility
Thanks to its high horsepower 8V150 engine (at around 800 hp), this turbocharged diesel engine lets PGZ09 having a satisfying top speed of 65 km/h, a vast improvement over WZ305 and making it one of the fastest tracked SPAAGs along with Gepard/AMX-30 DCA and VEAK 40. It can follow teammates with ease and retreat to a safe position if anything comes at you with its -15 km/h reverse (currently the second fastest among all Chinese vehicles, only falls behind his successor PGZ04A by -2 km/h).
| Game Mode | Max Speed (km/h) | Weight (tons) | Engine power (horsepower) | Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forward | Reverse | Stock | Upgraded | Stock | Upgraded | ||
| Arcade | 71 | 17 | 38 | _,___ | 1,526 | __.__ | 40.16 |
| Realistic | 66 | 16 | _,___ | 800 | __.__ | 21.05 | |
Modifications and economy
| Mobility | Protection | Firepower | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Armaments
Main armament
PG99-35-2 AA gun is an unlicensed but upgraded version of the renowned Swiss Oerlikon GDF-002 (due to embargo), produced as PG90 at 1990s, therefore it shares the same traits from the original Oerlikon KDA series AA guns - high ROF, velocity, and sufficient penetration to tear down most vehicles from the sides with ease. But due to the internal design of PGZ09, it has lower ammo count than Western and Japanese counterparts and has only 40 APDS round as last ditch close-quarter combat ammunition to tear down those which might come showing their sides.
| 35 mm PG99-35-2 (x2) | Turret rotation speed (°/s) | Reloading rate (seconds) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mode | Capacity (Belt) | Fire rate | Vertical | Horizontal | Stabilizer | Stock | Upgraded | Full | Expert | Aced | Stock | Full | Expert | Aced |
| Arcade | 440 (200) | 550 | -2°/+85° | ±180° | Two-plane | 79.3 | 109.7 | 133.2 | 147.3 | 156.7 | 1.30 | 1.15 | 1.06 | 1.00 |
| Realistic | 53.5 | 63.0 | 76.5 | 84.6 | 90.0 | |||||||||
Ammunition
- Default: API-T · HEI-T*
- DKG01A: HEI-T* · HEI-T* · HEI-T* · API-T
- DKP01A: API-T · API-T · API-T · HEI-T*
- DM23: APDS · APDS · APDS · APDS
| Penetration statistics | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belt | Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm) | |||||
| 10 m | 100 m | 500 m | 1,000 m | 1,500 m | 2,000 m | |
| Default | 68 | 65 | 52 | 40 | 30 | 23 |
| DKG01A | 68 | 65 | 52 | 40 | 30 | 23 |
| DKP01A | 68 | 65 | 52 | 40 | 30 | 23 |
| DM23 | 127 | 125 | 119 | 111 | 104 | 97 |
Ammo racks
| Full ammo |
1st rack empty |
Visual discrepancy |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 2 (+2) | No |
- Ammo racks disappear after 40 rounds of either belt have been fired.
Usage in battles
Like his counterparts in NATO forces and in Japan, speed is your friend and PGZ09 is among the fastest ones, it was specifically designed for field air-defense so the first priority for PGZ09 is anything that flies: fixed-wing aircrafts and helicopters. At its BR range, very few aircraft come with an RWR, so no worries on keeping the radar on and searching for targets then tearing them down. If bringing it to higher BR is necessary, do not keep your radar on for extended periods of time, it will give yourself away to aircraft with RWR, so turn it off and utilize your tracking radar in gunner sight after enemies were spotted. Keep in mind your subpar ammunition count to counterparts so trigger-happy is not an option for PGZ09.
PGZ09 can also be used as anti-armour to a certain extent thanks to the high penetration of 35 mm shells, these rounds are lethal to lightly armoured vehicles and sides of Cold War MBTs albeit PGZ09 has the worst depression angle among SPAAGs (at mere -2°), making it struggle in very close-quarters combat, so keep some distance from land-based enemies if the only option is to fight back. Also, due to the design of PGZ09, it has only 40 rounds of DM23 APDS at disposal so think twice before unleashing them on enemies. Do remember that those 8-10 mm of steel all-around won't help you too much on stopping some higher calibre machine guns, autocannons and anything with explosive fillers.
Enemies worth noting:
- SA 313B, UH-1C, etc: these early helicopters, despite looking small and fragile, can give some nasty bites with their ATGM. Experienced helicopter pilots tend to hover ~2-4 km away from the frontline firing missiles from afar. The further they stay, the harder it is for the PGZ09 to effectively destroy them. If they are more than 3 km away and are slowly sliding sideways, hold your fire as the accuracy of your shells drop drastically and will be easily evaded, revealing your position. Instead go behind a cover so the helicopter cannot hurt you and look for closer targets, if any, but do keep an eye on the helicopter. Track its range with your radar, once it gets within 3 km consider shooting it (still, remember that the closer the better). Note that with your nice gunner thermal you can clearly see the helicopter's missile, allowing you to take action to evade before it's too late.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- First Chinese SPAA with search and fire control radars, significantly boosting anti-air capabilities
- Autocannons are deadly against common aircraft like G.91
- Fast gun targeting speed, can keep up with most targets
- Gunner thermal assists fighting in bad weathers
- Comfortable mobility, can relocate quickly
- DM23 APDS allows it to fight back against MBTs such as XM-1
- Adequate reverse speed of -15 km/h
- 2 salvos of smoke grenades provide useful concealment
Cons:
- Search radar antenna is tall and big, can expose the location of the PGZ09
- Gun placement makes close-range aiming quite awkward
- Limited DM23 capacity
- Extremely limiting gun depression of only -2°, poor in even urban environment let alone hills
- Like all SPAA, armour can only resist small calibre machine gun bullets
History
During the late 1980s, with many attempts of making their own AA guns, Mainland China decided to introduce Swiss' Oerlikon 35 mm GDF-002 version of the already renowned KDA cannon. Finally in 1987 the deal was made and in 1990, Chinese got the official license to produce their domestic version of this cannon under the name PG90; while the later military equipment embargo in early 1990s stopped further introduction and transfer of this gun to Chinese, this didn't stop them from upgrading the gun into PG99, said to be on-par with the upgraded GDF-003.
While this gun already saw extensive use on defending facilities and as a towed gun, as well as PGZ95 (and later PGZ04A) in service for mobile field air-defense, PLAGF found the need for a new SPAAG and decided to make good use of the 35 mm cannon with the latest electronics available.
In 2011, a new type of SPAAG with this very cannon was recorded in CCTV-7 channel's (dedicated for military news and agriculture) footages and was known as PGZ07 during that time, little was known about this SPAAG until the 70th Anniversary of Victory over Japan Day Parade where this SPAAG was officially revealed by PLA, the name was then corrected as PGZ09 (from the interview with the chief designer of the vehicle and leaked photos of PLAGF documents); with the latest doppler search radar and optic-electronic equipment onboard, as well as domestic AHEAD equivalent shells, with his (chronological) predecessor PGZ04A, they served as the cornerstone for PLAGF's field air-defense system as the close-range batteries.
Media
Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.
See also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:
- reference to the series of the vehicles;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
External links
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
| China anti-aircraft vehicles | |
|---|---|
| Radar SPAAG | PGZ09 |
| Gun and Missile SPAAG | PGZ04A |
| Missile SPAA | Antelope |
| Other | ZSD63/PG87 · ZSL92 · WZ305 |
| Germany | ␗Sd.Kfz.222 |
| North Vietnam | Phòng không T-34 |
| USA | CCKW 353 (M45) · ␗M42 |
| USSR | Tor-M1 |
