this news has even reached the English translation now. Shows that it's pretty much guaranteed to be on the next set of destroyers.
Zhou Bingwu makes breakthrough in compatible fire of naval gun
english.chinamil.com.cn 2008-05-08
Zhou Bingwu (left) studying together with other technical personnel on compatible fire plans of naval gun.
The reporters learnt recently from a military representative office of the Armament Department of the PLA Navy that Zhou Bingwu, a senior engineer of this office, has tackled problems in key technologies, such as shell cases got jammed in gun barrel, and enabled one naval gun barrel to fire different types of artillery shells with different calibers, and realized automatic loading of separate-loading ammunition. At the end of April, this achievement passed the technical evaluation after it was put to test in a live ammunition range practice.
The naval gun experts at the range located at the northern foot of the Yin Mountain were amazed at this achievement, and they held that this achievement would turn naval gun into a multifunctional launching platform and make the gun be able to launch precise attack against long- and middle-distance targets automatically and from multi-directions, thus it is going to bring new life to naval guns. Cai Yuquan, leader of the naval gun expert team excitedly said, "This achievement has filled a technical blank in naval gun's firing field." At present, this achievement is in the process of applying for national scientific and technological innovation award.
Zhou Bingwu is over 50 years of age now and he started to carry out research on naval gun in 1993. Fiver years ago, he went to Beijing to report to the higher level on his research program of firing multi-types of shells with a single naval gun. In early 2005, the application for the development of a new type of large caliber ship-gun was approved, and a military-civilian joint research task force was established accordingly.
By Deng Xianwei and Jiang Ming
(May 8, PLA Daily) Editor: Fan Aifeng
