Surprisingly, the Vietnamese Army is still using the veteran Type 67 tank.
Appearing in the early 1960s, the Type 67 is one of the best machine guns ever built by China, yet its history is quite surprising.
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| Accordingly, in the image of a combined tactical exercise at the 6th Regiment of the Thua Thien Hue Provincial Military Command, a Type 67 machine gun crew was unexpectedly present, providing fire support against enemy airborne landings, alongside fire support from PT-76 tanks. The image shows a Type 67 machine gun marked with a red circle. Source: Thua Thien Hue Newspaper. |
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| The appearance of the Type 67 (also known as K67) is particularly significant due to its history and origins, as our army is now equipped with much more modern machine guns than the Type 67. The image shows a fire support team of our army with a PKM machine gun. Image source: Military Region 2. |
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| The development history of the Type 67 machine gun began in the early 1960s, when the Chinese Army sought a replacement for the Type 53 (SG43) and Type 57 (SGM) machine guns. The Type 67 itself is considered a combination of the Degtyaryov DP and the earlier Soviet-developed SG-43 Goryunov machine guns. |
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| Going back to the past during the Vietnam War, both Type 57 and Type 67 rifles were supplied to us by China in significant quantities. Therefore, the Type 67 rifle of the 6th Regiment may be one of the few Type 67 rifles still in operational condition in our army. Image source: Defense Journal. |
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| This demonstrates that the maintenance and upkeep of our Army's weapons are very good, even for weapons with long service life such as the Type 67 and Type 57 machine guns. Image source: baobackan.org. |
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| Regarding the design of the Type 67, this model is considered one of China's first light machine guns to use belt-fed ammunition instead of less mobile models like the Type 53 and Type 57, which were mounted on wheeled platforms. Image source: zonwar.ru. |
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| According to many military experts, the design of the Type 67 was somewhat influenced by the TKB-521 light machine gun prototype, manufactured by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, which is considered the predecessor of the later PK machine gun. The image shows the Soviet TKB-521 machine gun prototype. Image source: Wikimedia |
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| Overall, the Type 67 is over 1,600mm long, with a base barrel length of 605mm. The rifle weighs up to 11kg without ammunition and uses the standard 7.62x54mmR caliber. Image source: Armament Research. |
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| The Type 67 boasts a significantly higher rate of fire than its predecessor, reaching approximately 650-700 rounds per minute, compared to the Type 57's 550 rounds per minute. Due to its compact and lightweight design, the Type 67 is also faster to deploy and use than the Type 57. (Image source: zgjunshi.com) |
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| The Type 67 has an effective range of 800-1000 meters and comes with a magazine capacity of 100-250 rounds. The Type 67 was mass-produced by the Chinese Army starting in 1967 and has at least two improved variants: the Type 67-1 and Type 67-2. (Image source: zgjunshi.com) |
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| It can be said that the appearance of the Type 67 paved the way for China to continue developing similar domestic machine guns in a short period of time afterward, with better optimized and more reliable designs. Image source: zonwar.ru. |
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| The image shows a Type 67 rifle in service with the Chinese Army. Image source: Encyclopedia. |
