Surprisingly, the Vietnamese Army still uses the "veteran" Type 67
Appearing in the early 1960s, the Type 67 is one of the best machine guns ever built by China, but its origin is quite surprising.
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| Accordingly, in the image of the combined tactical exercise at Regiment 6 under the Military Command of Thua Thien Hue province, there was a sudden presence of a Type 67 machine gun team performing the task of providing fire support against airborne enemies, along with fire support from PT-76 tanks. Image of Type 67 gun with red circle in the image. Photo source: Thua Thien Hue Newspaper. |
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| The reason why the appearance of Type 67 (also known as K67) is special is because of its history and origin, when our modern army has been equipped with much more modern machine guns than Type 67. In the photo is a firepower team of our army with PKM machine guns. Photo 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 was looking for 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 SG-43 Goryunov machine guns previously developed by the Soviet Union. |
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| Going back to the past during the Resistance War against America, both Type 57 and Type 67 were provided to us by China in large quantities. Therefore, the Type 67 of Regiment 6 could be one of the Type 67s still capable of operating in our army. Photo source: Defense Journal. |
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| This shows that the maintenance and synchronization of our Army's weapons is very good, even with weapons that have been in use for a long time such as the Type 67 and Type 57 machine guns. Photo source: baobackan.org. |
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| Regarding the design of the Type 67, this gun is considered one of the first Chinese light machine guns to use a belt magazine instead of the less mobile machine guns such as the Typr 53 and Type 57 which were mounted on a wheeled carriage. Photo source: zonwar.ru. |
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| According to many military experts, the design of the Type 67 was somewhat influenced by the prototype of the TKB-521 light machine gun made by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, which is considered the predecessor of the later PK machine gun. Pictured is the prototype of the Soviet TKB-521 machine gun. Photo source: Wikimedia |
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| Overall, the Type 67 is over 1,600mm long, with a barrel length of 605mm, the gun weighs up to 11kg excluding ammunition, it uses the standard 7.62x54mmR ammunition. Photo source: Armament Research. |
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| The Type 67 has a much faster firing rate than its counterpart, about 650-700 rounds/minute, only about 550 rounds/minute. Due to its compact design, the deployment and use of the Type 67 is also faster than the Type 57. Photo source: zgjunshi.com. |
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| The Type 67's effective range is 800-1000 meters, and it comes with a magazine of 100-250 rounds. The Type 67 has been mass produced by the Chinese Army since 1967 and has at least two improved variants, the Type 67-1 and Type 67-2. Photo source: zgjunshi.com. |
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| It can be said that the appearance of the Type 67 created the premise for China to continue developing similar domestic machine guns in a short time after that with a better optimized and more reliable design. Photo source: zonwar.ru. |
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| Pictured is a Type 67 in service with the Chinese Army. Photo source: Encyclopedia. |
