The PLZ-70 (industry code: WZ-302) is a Chinese Self-Propelled Artillery that appears in Wargame: Red Dragon. Notice not to confuse with the PHZ-70 MLRS.
History[]
When the armored units of the PLA began to take shape in the 1960s, their commanders have noticed that tanks lacked accompanying artillery firepower. At that time, China still needed to rely on towed artillery and a small amount of antique WW2 Soviet SPHs like SU-100.
Due to the rupture of Sino-Soviet relations, China decided to independently develop a self-propelled artillery from 1969, without placing too high demands on its performance. The first proposed solution is to simply install a Type 54 122mm howitzer (copy of WW2-era M-30, has no direct relationship with 2A18/D-30 that mounted on 2S1 Gvozdika) on the chassis of the Type 63 APC (ZSD-63A), leading to a open-top design.
The prototype was completed in 1970. China was in a period of domestic political turmoil at the time, and the prototype claimed to have passed the driving and artillery accuracy tests perfectly, so it was delivered to the Army in small quantities (20 vehicles) that year.
The facts are just the opposite. Due to the limited tonnage of the Type 63 APC, the maneuverability of the PLZ-70 (then known as Type 70) was extremely poor, and the failure rate of the walking system was very high. Meanwhile, due to limited carrying capacity, the interior space of the PLZ-70 is quite narrow, and the combat efficiency of the howitzer is lower than when it was used as towed artillery, as crew is less. These SPHs were ultimately rejected and returned to the factory. Perhaps for convenience, these were also in-game model referenced.
In 1973, the enlarged Type 63-1 APC design was completed and applied to the improvement work of PLZ-70. Three prototypes were completed in 1979, and in 1981, this modified version was finally designated as Type 70-1. Its production began in 1984, reportedly only manufactured 126 vehicles. The maximum range of PLZ-70 is only 11.8 kilometers IRL.
Due to the fact that the initial Type 70 was not considered an "official model", the PLZ-70 commonly seen in most of Chinese sources now are Type 70-1, the latter has 5 pairs of road wheels. The vehicle is mainly equipped in Tank Division, Motorized Infantry Division, and Army (Group) Artillery Regiment.
Overview[]
The RoF and accuracy are both very poor. If players really want to use the artillery from Red Dragons, they should consider North Korea‘s.
Weapons[]
The "Accuracy" for Howtizer weapon stands for "Dispersion".
| Weapons | 
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|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Howtizer | No Weapon | No Weapon |
| Name | 2A18 | ||
| Caliber | 122mm [AoE] [CORR] [STAT] [SMK] |
||
| Ammo | x 40 | ||
| Range | Ground = 15050 m Helicopters = N/A m  Airplanes = N/A m
|
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| Accuracy | 9100 m | ||
| AP Power | N/A | ||
| HE Power | 6 | ||
| Suppression | 281 | ||
| Rate of fire | 5 r/min |
Gallery[]
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