In the 80s of the XIX century, many armies began to re-equip with rapid-fire guns. As a rule, these samples had a caliber of 75–77 mm and weighed about 1.5–2 tons. This combination provided, on the one hand, a sufficiently high mobility and ability to transport by means of a team of six horses. On the other hand, shells weighing 6-7 kg were capable of effectively hitting manpower and destroying light field fortifications.
The "trendsetter" at that time was the French 75-mm cannon of the "Schneider" company, model 1897. For the first time in the world, a hydropneumatic recoil brake was used in the design of the gun. Now the carriage did not move after each shot, and the gunners could start reloading immediately after returning the barrel to its original position.
Russia has also developed its own tactical and technical requirements for a field rapid-fire gun. It was assumed that this would be a gun with a caliber of three inches (76, 2 mm) and a mass in the stowed position of no more than 1900 kg.
According to the test results, the cannon of the Putilov plant system was recognized as the best. Despite the fact that it represented a big step forward in comparison with the field gun of the 1877 model in service, the carriage retained an outdated design, since the barrel did not roll back along the axis of the channel (like a French cannon), but parallel to the frames. She received her baptism of fire in 1900, when one battery armed with weapons of this type went to China to suppress a boxing uprising.
The operation of the artillery system in the troops revealed the need to change the design of the gun carriage. An improved version of the gun was developed under the guidance of the outstanding artillery scientist Nikolai Zabudsky. For the first time in the history of Russian land artillery, the rollback took place along the axis of the barrel. After military trials, the artillery system was put into service under the name "3-inch field gun, model 1902".
Serial production began in 1903. The experience of the Russo-Japanese War required the installation of a shield to protect the gun servants. Another consequence was the introduction of a high-explosive grenade into the ammunition load, while earlier the main ammunition of the artillery system was shrapnel stuffed with 260 bullets. Shooting with this type of ammunition, an 8-gun battery of "three-inch" could in a matter of minutes completely destroy an infantry battalion or cavalry regiment located in an open area "on an area of up to two kilometers along the front and no more than 1000 steps in depth." However, the shrapnel proved to be completely powerless against the enemy, who was protected by even the lightest cover.
During the First World War, the 3-inch cannon of the 1902 model was the main weapon of the Russian field artillery. Already in the first months of hostilities, the consumption of shells many times exceeded all pre-war calculations. In 1915, the "shell famine" broke out. Although by 1916, an increase in production at Russian factories, combined with active purchases from abroad, led to the fact that the stocks of shells began to significantly exceed the needs of the front. Therefore, part of the ammunition for the "three-inch" was stored for long-term storage and then used even during the Great Patriotic War.
The First World War quickly acquired a positional character, when the troops buried themselves in the ground "from sea to sea."In this situation, the importance of the "three-inch" guns intended mainly for flat fire decreased - howitzers took the first roles. But the Civil War that broke out later was of an extremely maneuverable nature, which again made the 76-mm cannon of the 1902 model the "queen of the battlefield." It was actively used by all the belligerents.
Nevertheless, to ser. In the 1920s, the gun no longer met the requirements of the time, especially in terms of firing range. The question of modernization arose sharply. The most logical way to increase the firing range was to increase the caliber and weight of the projectile. In particular, the outstanding designer of artillery weapons Rostislav Durlyakhov in 1923 proposed switching to 85-mm divisional guns. But the economic ones prevailed over the technical ones. Despite the recently thundered Civil War, huge stocks of 76-mm shells of pre-revolutionary production remained in the warehouses. Therefore, the designers were required to create a cannon capable of firing the available ammunition.
The modest capabilities of the then domestic industry forced at the first stage to limit themselves only to the modernization of the existing guns. We stopped at the option proposed by the design bureau of the Motovilikhinsky plant under the leadership of Vladimir Sidorenko. Its distinctive feature is the ability to use both the old model (30 caliber length) and the new 40-caliber ones. The new artillery system was named "76-mm divisional gun model 1902/30". Guns with a 30-caliber barrel were produced only in 1931, then they switched to 40-caliber guns. As a result, the firing range increased to 13 km.
Unfortunately, the modernized gun retained most of the shortcomings of the previous artillery system, the main of which should be considered the single-bar carriage limiting the horizontal guidance angles and the unresolved wheel travel. Although the production of the 76-mm cannon of the 1902/30 model was completed in 1937, the artillery system remained in service for a considerable time. At the beginning of World War II, there were 4475 guns of this type in the Soviet units.
Despite the improved characteristics, the 76-mm cannon of the 1930 model did not satisfy the military leadership. Its range continued to be considered insufficient, and the small elevation angle of the barrel did not allow firing at the infantry located behind the shelters. Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was appointed to the post of chief of armaments of the Red Army in 1931, wanted to get a universal (capable of shooting like a cannon and like a howitzer) gun with a caliber of 76-102 mm. It should be noted that this idea was inherently deeply flawed, since the design of the 76-mm unitary ammunition available in the warehouses simply did not allow the use of the variable charge necessary for firing "at howitzer". Although at that time in some countries they were fond of "howubization" of field guns, perhaps only the creation in Germany of the 75-mm FK 16 nA cannon can be attributed to relatively successful experiments. But the Germans, firstly, used not unitary, but separate-case loading, and secondly, they considered their cannon as an "ersatz" for reserve formations, while the units of the first line initially planned to equip with 105-mm howitzers. However, such arguments did not stop Mikhail Tukhachevsky, inclined to various adventurous decisions, and, as subsequent events showed, he could well claim to be the "evil genius" of the Soviet artillery of the interwar period.
Fulfilling the task, under the leadership of the previously mentioned Vladimir Sidorenko, a 76-mm barrel with a length of 50 calibers was imposed on the carriage of a 122-mm howitzer of the 1910/30 model. As a result, the firing range in comparison with the cannon of the 1902/30 model increased quite insignificantly - up to 13, 58 km, and these changes were achieved at the cost of an increase of 300 kg in the mass of the gun in the firing position. Nevertheless, the chief of armaments of the Red Army ordered to adopt the artillery system under the name "76-mm divisional gun of the 1933 model of the year" and to start mass production.
And Tukhachevsky's fantasy continued to bubble up. He demanded to develop tactical and technical requirements for a universal gun with circular fire and a semi-universal one without circular fire. In this case, "versatility" meant the ability to fire not only at ground targets, but also at air targets. A peculiar attempt to obtain a tool that combines the functions of a watch hammer and a sledgehammer!
The first sample of the 76-mm universal gun was developed at the Krasny Putilovets plant. The desire to fulfill frankly delusional requirements led to an increase in mass in a combat position to 3470 kg - a value simply unacceptable for a divisional gun. Further work was stopped. A similar fate befell other projects.
The fate of the GKB-38 developments was somewhat different. They designed two guns: the universal A-52 and the semi-universal A-51, while factories # 8 and # 92 produced one prototype each. In 1933, GKB-38 was liquidated, and the premises and equipment were transferred to the developers of recoilless guns. Indeed, by that time, Mikhail Tukhachevsky was running around with his new fantasy - to re-equip all artillery with dynamo-reactive (recoilless) guns. Moreover, he was not embarrassed by the fact that none of the numerous projects of "recoilless" was never brought "to mind", and the 76-mm dynamo-reactive cannons of Leonid Kurchevsky's design that entered the troops quickly demonstrated their extremely low combat qualities.
In January 1934, from the employees of the liquidated GKB-38, the design bureau of the plant No. 92 "New Sormovo" was formed. A young and novice designer Vasily Grabin was appointed the head of the team. At the first stage, they were engaged in the finalization of the semi-universal gun A-51, which received a new index F-20. But it soon became clear that it was unlikely that the F-20 would make a good artillery system, and in parallel they began to develop a new F-22 cannon. On June 14, a demonstration of experimental weapons took place to the top leadership of the USSR, headed by Joseph Stalin. And there was a sensation! Bypassing numerous developments of venerable designers, the best gun turned out to be the F-22, designed by the then little-known Vasily Grabin, and, moreover, on his own initiative. By April 22, 1936, military trials were completed, and the F-22 was put into service under the name "76-mm divisional gun of the 1936 model." Gross production was organized at three factories at once.
After the arrest of Tukhachevsky, the idea of the universalism of divisional artillery died by itself. And during the operation of the F-22 in the troops, such a design flaw came to the fore, as the weight in comparison with the cannon of the 1902/30 model. In reality, the military needed a modern weapon with ballistics of a 40-caliber cannon of the 1902/30 model with a mass in a combat position of no more than 1500 kg. As a matter of urgency, Grabin began designing a new artillery system, which he assigned the factory index of the F-22 USV, trying to emphasize that it was only improving the F-22. In fact, the SPM was a completely different model. And again, the talented designer bypassed all competitors. The gun was put into service under the name "76-mm divisional gun of the 1939 model" and launched mass production, but after the production of 1150 copies at the beginning. 1941 production was stopped, as it was planned to switch to divisional guns of a larger caliber - 107 mm.
However, Vasily Grabin understood that the 107-mm cannon would be too heavy for the divisional link. Therefore, at the end of 1940, he began to implement almost his most remarkable idea - the imposition of a 76-mm barrel with a length of 40 calibers on the carriage of a 57-mm ZIS-2 anti-tank gun. This decision immediately gave a lot of positive results: the reliability of the artillery system increased, the work of the calculation was facilitated, production was greatly simplified and cheaper, for the first time in the history of artillery production, conditions were created for the production of in-line guns.
The prototype was ready in June 1941, and a month later it passed field tests. On July 22, it was shown to Marshal Grigory Kulik. Despite the excellent results of the show, he said that a new weapon of the army was not needed. The marshal's logic in this case defies any reasonable explanation - after all, the catastrophic losses of the Red Army's artillery fleet were already known due to the unsuccessful start of the Great Patriotic War for the USSR.
In this situation, Vasily Grabin and the director of plant No. 92 Amo Yelyan took an unprecedentedly bold decision - they unauthorizedly launched mass production. It is not known how events could have developed further, but on August 10, Joseph Stalin personally called the plant. For such an unusual step, he had good reasons - the situation at the fronts continued to remain very difficult, guns for the army were even taken from museums. The Supreme Commander asked for a sharp increase in the number of guns produced, while agreeing to a decrease in quality. And here the new cannon turned out to be very useful. This allowed the plant by the end of 1941 to increase the number of guns produced by 5, 5 times. And in total, by the end of the war, the domestic industry produced about 48 thousand guns of this type, which received the name "76-mm divisional gun model 1942 (ZIS-3)".
But the decrease in quality, which Stalin was ready to make for the sake of mass production, did not happen. The gun has proven itself in battles not only as a divisional, but also as an anti-tank gun. The Germans nicknamed the ZIS-3 "ratsh-boom", since the shell hit the target before the sound of the shot reached, and the chief engineer of the artillery department of the Krupp corporation, Professor Wolf, was forced to recognize it as the best weapon of the Second World War.
Nowadays, the ZIS-3 can be seen not only on the pedestals in honor of the heroes-artillerymen. Some of the guns of this type continue to remain in service with a number of countries.
