The QJZ-89, also known as the Type 89 heavy machine gun, is a heavy

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...

designed in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and fires the Soviet

12.7×108mm The 12.7×108mm cartridge is a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun and anti-materiel rifle cartridge used by the former Soviet Union, the former Warsaw Pact countries, modern Russia, China and other countries. It was invented in 1934 to create a cartrid ...

ammunition.

History

In the early 1980s, Chinese firearms designers received scattered information from Soviet publications regarding the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

's adoption of a new heavy machine gun called the NSV. Chinese weapons industry misconstrued gun weight data of as the whole system weight due to a translation error. Astonished by the misinterpreted capability of the NSV, Chinese designers began to develop a comparable weapon system. Only after the development ended did they realized the weight figure didn't include the tripod. The weapon features a hybrid gas and recoil operated action. The gas system cycles the bolt group with the receiver recoils inside the outer gun housing to decrease peak recoil. The gun uses a direct impingement gas system, similar to Type 85 machine gun. Type 89 was named "lightweight heavy machine gun" due to its lightweight gun and tripod. The gun and tripod together only weigh , which is even lighter than the Russian

Kord machine gun The Kord-12.7 mm heavy machine gun is a Russian design that entered service in 1998 replacing the older NSV machine gun. Externally the weapon resembles the NSV; however, the internal mechanism has been extensively reworked, changing from a ...

on a bipod mount.

Design

The QJZ-89 has low weight through a combination gas/recoil action usually seen on autocannons, where gas unlocks the breech while recoil operates the feed and decreases the peak recoil forces induced on the housing and mount. Its direct impingement gas system is likely based from the Type 77. China has reportedly developed 12.7 mm armor piercing discarding sabot (APDS) ammunition for the QJZ-89, similar to U.S.

saboted light armor penetrator The saboted light armor penetrator (SLAP) family of firearm ammunition is designed to penetrate armor more efficiently than standard armor-piercing ammunition. In the US it was developed by the Marine Corps during the mid/late 1980s and was appr ...

rounds, increasing performance against light armored vehicles.

Users

* *: Used on

Dongfeng EQ2050 The Dongfeng EQ2050 is a Chinese-made armored vehicle based on the Humvee, manufactured for government use by the Dongfeng Motor Group. It is known to be sold by the company for 700,000 Yuan ($93,000). The vehicle was created after People's Libe ...

during State Flag Day parade in 2022

Non-State Actors

* United Wa State Army

References

{{Modern Chinese Infantry Weapons Cold War weapons of China Machine guns of the People's Republic of China Heavy machine guns 12.7×108 mm machine guns

History

Design

Users

Non-State Actors

See also

References