An interesting artillery system, created in the shortest possible time, but, unfortunately, not released in a large series, and therefore did not make a significant contribution to the victory over the European team.
The German mobility of mechanized and tank units at the beginning of the war immediately revealed the need of the Red Army for means of confrontation. And not just anti-tank, but in mobile anti-tank and anti-aircraft self-propelled guns.
The tank units of the Wehrmacht turned out to be too operative, the Soviet anti-tank batteries on horse and car traction looked too clumsy in terms of maneuver. And too vulnerable.
On July 1, 1941, the People's Commissar for Armaments Boris Lvovich Vannikov signed an order as follows:
“In view of the urgent need for anti-tank and anti-aircraft self-propelled artillery means and in the absence of a special base for them, I order:
1. Plant No. 4 to develop and manufacture a 37-mm anti-aircraft gun on a self-propelled chassis;
2. Plant No. 8 to develop and manufacture 85-mm anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns on a self-propelled chassis;
3. Plant # 92 to develop and manufacture a 57-mm anti-tank gun on a self-propelled chassis.
When designing installations, one should be guided by off-road trucks or caterpillar tractors widely mastered by industry and used in artillery. Anti-tank guns must also have an armored cockpit. SPG designs are to be submitted for review on July 15, 1941."
In fact, the problems of correcting the mistakes of comrade Kulik fell on the shoulders of Vannikov, who had little understanding of artillery in general and the command in particular, but the huge ambitions of Marshal Kulik allowed him to bury a lot.
Including the ZiS-2, Grabin's excellent 57mm anti-tank gun.
But here it is more appropriate to give the floor to Grabin himself.
“Our design bureau, for many years developing the issue of increasing the mobility of artillery systems, came to the conclusion that artillery needs not only high speeds on the march along the roads, but also good maneuverability on the battlefields.
We decided to install the guns on a tracked vehicle - to create a self-propelled gun. First of all, this concerned anti-tank and divisional artillery: then it could appear where it was not expected.
At the end of 1940, the design bureau came up with a proposal to create self-propelled guns. The head of GAU, Marshal Kulik, met this proposal with good will. The idea of creating highly mobile and passable artillery did not leave us. We were looking for a tracked vehicle on which it would be possible to mount a 57mm ZIS-2 anti-tank gun and a 76mm F-22 USV divisional cannon of the 1939 model.
In the end, the idea of using the F-22 USV had to be abandoned: this gun was too large in size. But the ZIS-2 installed on the Komsomolets tractor and on a wheeled-caterpillar all-terrain vehicle, when tested by firing and carriage, showed excellent results: high accuracy of combat, rate of fire, stability, mobility and cross-country ability on all roads and even off-road."
We are most interested in what was happening at the plant # 92. There, to implement Vannikov's order, a separate group of designers was created under the leadership of Pyotr Fedorovich Muravyov.
As a result of the work, at the end of July, two self-propelled guns came out of the gates of the plant: ZiS-30 and ZiS-31.
The first was the swinging part of the 57-mm ZiS-2 anti-tank gun, mounted on the T-20 Komsomolets artillery tractor.
The second is the same ZiS-2 cannon, but on a specially booked three-axle GAZ-AAA truck.
Comparative tests of the two vehicles, carried out in July-August, showed that the ZiS-31 is more stable when firing and has greater accuracy than the ZiS-30.
However, due to the fact that the passability of the ZiS-31 was significantly lower than the ZiS-30, the latter was preferred.
According to Vannikov's order, plant # 92 on September 1, 1941 was supposed to begin mass production of the ZiS-30.
But the trouble did not crept up at all from where it could have been expected at all. The only manufacturer of "Komsomoltsev", Moscow plant No. 37, due to an incorrect planning policy, completely curtailed the production of tractors and switched to the production of tanks.
To manufacture the ZiS-30, Plant No. 92 had to withdraw the Komsomolets from the military units and repair the vehicles that had come from the front. As a result of these delays, serial production of self-propelled guns began only on September 21. In total, until October 15, 1941, the plant manufactured 101 ZiS-30 vehicles with a 57-mm ZiS-2 cannon (including the first prototype) and one ZiS-30 with a 45-mm anti-tank gun.
This, in fact, is all. The lack of a base for creating self-propelled guns completely ruined the case. The production of the ZiS-30 was discontinued.
Pyotr Muravyov's group did not give up, realizing the importance of this self-propelled gun. And in early October, the ZiS-41 project appeared, in which the ZiS-2 cannon was installed on the chassis of the ZiS-22 half-track all-terrain vehicle, which was produced in Moscow.
The ZiS-41 tested in November 1941 showed good results. However, by this time, the Moscow automobile plant ZiS was evacuated and, in principle, could not provide a sufficient number of ZiS-22 all-terrain vehicles. Therefore, at the end of November 1941, all work on the ZiS-41 was stopped.
The ZiS-30 self-propelled guns began to enter the troops at the end of September 1941. All of them went to staffing anti-tank defense batteries in the tank brigades of the Western and South-Western pediments (in total, they were equipped with about 20 tank brigades).
There is one point here that makes any research in this area very difficult. It is practically impossible to distinguish the ZiS-30 from the 57-mm ZiS-2 cannon in documents. The fact is that the factory index ZiS-30 was not known among the troops and therefore in the military reports these vehicles were referred to as "57-mm anti-tank guns" - just like the 57-mm ZiS-2 cannons.
It is extremely rare that they pass according to documents as "self-propelled 57-mm anti-tank guns". Well, plus the statements on fuels and lubricants allow you to understand exactly where the ZiS-2 was used, and where the ZiS-30 was. The ZiS-2 did not require fuel.
In battles, the ZiS-30 showed themselves very well. So, already on October 1, at the plenum of the artillery committee of the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU), chaired by E. Satel, it was reported "on the successful combat use of the ZiS-30 machines."
However, with a longer operation, the self-propelled guns revealed many disadvantages, primarily due to the fact that the original base was not adapted to become a self-propelled gun.
The artillery committee of the GAU received feedback from military units on the 57-mm anti-tank guns ZiS-2 and ZiS-30. In relation to the latter, in particular, the following was said:
“The vehicle is unstable, the chassis is overloaded, especially the rear bogies, the power reserve and ammunition load are small, the dimensions are large, the engine group is poorly protected, communication between the calculation and the driver is not ensured. Shooting is often carried out with the openers raised, as there is no time for deployment, and there have been cases of overturning machines."
Let's put it this way: it could have been worse. But, with all the shortcomings voiced, the ZiS-30 fought and fought successfully. The 57-mm anti-tank gun ZiS-2 successfully hit all tanks of that time. But alas, by the summer of 1942, there were practically no such vehicles left in the troops. Some of them were lost in battles, and some were out of order due to breakdowns. And there was simply nowhere to repair them, since the plant was now producing tanks.
What was the ZIS-30 ACS?
As already mentioned, the ZIS-30 was a swinging part of the 57-mm ZIS-2 anti-tank gun with a barrel length of 73 caliber, mounted openly on a semi-armored T-20 "Komsomolets" tractor.
Artillery tractor T-20 "Komsomolets"
The combat crew of the installation consisted of five people.
The upper machine tool was mounted in the middle of the machine body. The vertical guidance angles ranged from -5 to + 25 °, horizontally in the 30 ° sector. For guidance, a worm-type lifting sector mechanism and a screw-type rotary mechanism were used, which provided a guidance speed of 4 deg / s.
When firing, a standard PSh-2 or OP2-55 sight was used. The PP1-2 sight was used both for direct fire and for firing from closed firing positions. It consisted of a panorama and an aiming part, connected by screws. At night, the Luch-1 device was used to illuminate the sight scales.
The vertical wedge breechblock with semiautomatic copying type made it possible to achieve a rate of fire of up to 25 rds / min., The aiming rate of fire was 15 rds / min.
The shooting was carried out only from the spot. The stability of the self-propelled unit during firing was ensured with the help of folding openers located in the rear of the vehicle body.
Mounting the gun in a marching position on the march was provided with the help of a bracket mounted on the roof of the vehicle cabin and a special stopper located in the rear of the hull.
For self-defense of the self-propelled unit, a standard 7, 62-mm DT machine gun was used, which was installed in a ball joint on the right in the frontal sheet of the cockpit. The machine gun was easily removed and used as a hand gun.
The ammunition transported on the ZIS-30 included 20 rounds for the cannon and 756 rounds for the DT machine gun (12 disks).
The installation's ammunition included shots with subcaliber (UBR-27SH, UBR-271N), fragmentation (UO-271U or UO-271UZh) and armor-piercing tracer blunt-headed and sharp-headed (UBR-271, UBR-271K, UBR-271SP) shells.
The range of a direct shot with an armor-piercing projectile with a target height of 2 m was 1100 m. The firing range of the UO-271U fragmentation grenade was 8400 m.
The power plant, transmission and chassis of the ZIS-30 self-propelled unit remained unchanged compared to the semi-armored T-20 tractor, which we have already discussed here:
Weapon stories. Artillery tractor T-20 "Komsomolets"
The performance characteristics of the light self-propelled gun ZIS-30:
Crew, people: 4
Weight, kg: 4000
Dimensions:
- length, m: 3, 45
- width, m: 1, 859
- height, m: 2, 23
- clearance, m: 0, 3
Reservation, mm
- body forehead: 10
- board: 7
- feed: 7
Armament:
- 57-mm cannon ZIS-2, 20 rounds of ammunition;
- 7, 62-mm machine gun DT, 756 rounds of ammunition.
Engine: GAZ-AA, 6-cylinder, 50 hp
Cruising on the highway, km: 152
Maximum speed, km / h: 50
Issued, pcs.: 101.
