The very first weeks of the war revealed the great need of the Red Army for mobile anti-tank and anti-aircraft self-propelled guns. Therefore, on July 1, 1941, the People's Commissar for Armaments Vannikov signed an order with the following content:
“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 accordance with this order, a special group of designers was created at plant # 92 under the leadership of P. F. Muravyev. As a result of her intensive 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 a rotating part of the 57-mm ZiS-2 anti-tank gun mounted on the A-20 Komsomolets artillery tractor, and the second was 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 No. 92 was supposed to begin mass production of the ZiS-30 on September 1, 1941, but difficulties arose where no one expected them. It turned out that plant # 37 in Moscow - the only manufacturer of Komsomolets tractors - stopped their serial production in August and switched entirely to the production of tanks. Therefore, in order to manufacture the ZiS-30, plant # 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.
Further production of vehicles was constrained by the lack of Komsomolets tractors. To somehow get out of this situation, the Muravyov group, on their own initiative, in early October designed the ZiS-41 self-propelled gun. It was a rotating part of the ZiS-2 cannon mounted on a specially armored half-track ZiS-22 all-terrain vehicle (the latter was mass-produced by the ZiS automobile plant in Moscow). Tested in November 1941. ZiS-41 showed good results. However, by this time, the ZiS-2 cannon was removed from mass production due to the complexity of manufacturing the barrel tube and the high cost. In addition, the Moscow automobile plant ZiS was evacuated and 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 last attempt to "revive" the ZiS-30 was made in January 1942. Muravyov's group equipped the first prototype ZiS-30, which was at the plant, with the 76-mm ZiS-3 cannon (contrary to numerous publications, this gun was put into mass production only at the end of December 1941 instead of the 57-mm ZiS-2 cannon). However, the matter did not go beyond factory tests of this sample.
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). By the way, in the documents of that time it is rather difficult to distinguish the ZiS-30 from the 57-mm ZiS-2 cannon. The fact is that the factory index ZiS-30 was not known among the troops and therefore in military reports these vehicles were referred to as "57-mm anti-tank guns" - just like the 57-mm ZiS-2 cannons. Only in some documents are they referred to as "self-propelled 57-mm anti-tank guns". Nevertheless, in the very first 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 vehicles. However, with a longer operation, self-propelled guns revealed many disadvantages. So, by April 15, 1942, the artillery committee of the GAU received responses from military units for the 57-mm anti-tank guns ZiS-2 and ZiS-30. Regarding the latter, in particular, the following was said: “The machine is unstable, the chassis is overloaded, especially the rear bogies, the range and ammunition are small, the dimensions are large, the engine group is poorly protected, the communication of the calculation with 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. " Nevertheless, with all the shortcomings, the ZiS-30 fought and successfully fought against enemy tanks. However, 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.
