SU-76 [T-70] self-propelled gun

In the Soviet Union in the 1930s, attempts were made to create self-propelled artillery installations. But all the prototypes of self-propelled units remained prototypes and were not put into mass production. At the beginning of World War II, along with the retreating Soviet troops, tank-building plants were also evacuated. Since, first of all, it was necessary to massively produce the tanks needed for the front, the development and production of self-propelled units were postponed for an indefinite period.

SU-76 was jointly developed by the design bureaus of plant No. 38 in the city of Kirov in the summer of 1942 , a large role in creating self-propelled guns was played by Semyon Aleksandrovich Ginzburg , he controlled and directly supervised the work on its creation. The first combat vehicles of this type were released in the late autumn of 1942, and they were equipped with an unsuccessful power plant of two parallel mounted GAZ-202 gasoline engines with a capacity of 70 hp. This power plant was very difficult to control and caused strong torsional vibrations of the transmission elements, which led to their rapid breakdown. Initially, the self-propelled guns were fully armored, which led to the inconvenience of the crew in the fighting compartment. These shortcomings were revealed during the first combat use of Soviet serial self-propelled guns on the Volkhov front, so after the release of 608 vehicles, the mass production of the SU-76 was suspended and the design was sent for revision.

Nevertheless, the result as a whole was depressing. For Zaltsman, this story also did not pass without a trace - on June 28 he was removed from the post of Commissar of the Tank Industry. According to the results of the internal investigation, S. A. Ginzburg was named one of the main culprits, who was suspended from design work and sent to the front as part of the 32nd tank brigade, in which he took the post of deputy technologist. The combat career of Semyon Aleksandrovich was short-lived: he died on August 3, 1943 in the area of the village of Malaya Tomarovka, Kursk region.

SU-76M

Nevertheless, the need for light self-propelled guns was so acute that V. A. Malyshev , who returned to the post of People’s Commissar for Tank Industry , announced a competition for the best design of this type of vehicle. It was attended by the teams of plant No. 38 under the leadership of N. A. Popov and the Gorky Automobile Plant ( GAZ ) under the leadership of N. A. Astrov , the main developer of the entire domestic line of light and amphibious tanks . Their prototypes differed in a number of structural elements, but their main innovation was the use of a twin installation of GAZ-203 engines from the T-70 light tank, in which both motors were arranged in series and worked on a common shaft. Accordingly, the machine was rearranged to accommodate a large power plant. Since the end of 1943 (after the T-70 and T-80 light tanks were removed from serial production ), both of these plants, as well as the newly organized plant number 40 in Mytishchi, began large-scale production of light self-propelled guns with a GAZ-203 power plant, which received an army SU-76 index (the same as the original version, without the “M” index).

The completion of the evacuation of factories in 1942 made it possible to increase the production of armored vehicles and tanks. After that, it became possible, in addition to tanks, to produce also self-propelled units. The Soviet engineers were tasked to create an easy self-propelled gun armed with a 76-mm cannon. By December 1942, prototypes of the self-propelled unit were built, received the designation SU-76. After completing the tests, the new ACS was adopted. Mass production began in early 1943.

The new SAU was built on the basis of the light tank T-70. As the chassis of the SU-76 self-propelled guns, the reinforced chassis of the T-70 light tank was used. Due to the need to place a fairly large artillery system in the combat vehicle, the hull of the original tank had to be lengthened, and the chassis also lengthened after it — by one pair of road wheels (6 road wheels per side). In all other respects, the SU-76 case repeated the T-70 case.

This modernization (already without the armored roof of the fighting compartment) was called the SU-76M and went into production in the summer of 1943, a number of self-propelled guns of this option managed to get to the front by the beginning of the Battle of Kursk. Armament of the SU-76 consisted of a 76-mm gun ZIS-3. The maximum thickness of the armor was 35 mm. The power plant consisted of two GAZ-202 engines operating in parallel, each with a capacity of 70 liters. with. The maximum speed on the highway was 45 km / h. The crew consisted of four people. Combat weight was 11.5 tons. Due to the low specific pressure on the ground, the SU-76 had a good cross country mobility.

The total release of all modifications of the SU-76 by June 1945 amounted to 14,292 vehicles - approximately 60% of the output of all self-propelled guns during the war years. Production was conducted by factories No. 38 (Kirov), No. 40 (Mytishchi) and GAZ named after Molotov (Gorky).

The modernized machine entered the troops on time, but was met with ambiguous personnel - the attitude ranged from “bitch” to "the mass grave of the crew". The first negative impression was formed due to the fact that at first they tried to use self-propelled guns as tanks. So, the first SU-76s were sent to self-propelled artillery regiments (SAP) of mixed composition. In the summer of 1943, the staff list of lightweight SAP was adopted, according to which there were 21 cars in it. Only with time did it come to understand that the main objective of the SU-76 is to accompany the infantry and closely interact with it; tank control tasks moved on to more powerful artillery systems based on the T-34 and IS-2. Therefore, at the end of 1944, self-propelled artillery divisions of 16 vehicles began to form, which were part of the staff of the rifle divisions.

Of course, the SU-76 had 60 rounds of full-time ammunition and armor-piercing shells, but its main advantage was compactness, high maneuverability, and ability to operate on wooded and swampy terrain and on soft soils (specific ground pressure - 0.545 kg / cm 2 ) battle formations of infantry, direct fire firing pillboxes and fortified buildings.

By the way, the use of the SU-76 at the final stage of the war during the storming of cities revealed another drawback - a half-open combat compartment, which was convenient for work, when a conventional hand fragmentation grenade hit it, turned into a mass grave for the entire crew. On the other hand, the car had a huge advantage over any of our other tanks or self-propelled guns, because it was the open fighting compartment that prevented the death of the crew and the machine in the event of a cumulative projectile hit, including the German “Faustpatrons,” “Panzerfausts,” and “Partzertracks.”

The first batch of SU-76 (25 pieces) was manufactured by January 1, 1943 and sent to the training center for self-propelled artillery. At the end of January, the first two self-propelled artillery regiments of the mixed organization (the 1433th and 1434th glanders) were sent to the Volkhov Front to participate in breaking through the blockade of Leningrad. In March 1943, 2 more regiments were formed - the 1485th and 1487th, which fought somewhere on the western front.

According to the state of 1943, in the light self-propelled artillery regiment there were 21 self-propelled guns SU-76M. In late 1944 and early 1945, 70 self-propelled artillery divisions SU-76M were formed for rifle divisions (16 vehicles each). In the first half of 1944, the formation of light self-propelled artillery brigades of the RVGK (60 SU-76M and 5 T-70) began.

By the end of the war, the Red Army had 119 light self-propelled artillery. regiments and 7 self-propelled artillery brigades. 130 units of the SU-76M were handed over to the Polish army. Based on the SU-76M, the ZSU-37 was created, armed with a 37-mm automatic anti-aircraft gun. It was produced at the factory number 40 in Mytishchi. I didn’t manage to take part in the war. In the years 1945-1946, 75 were made. The low specific pressure on the ground allowed the self-propelled gun to move normally in a swampy area, where other types of tanks and self-propelled guns would inevitably become stuck. This circumstance played a large positive role in the battles of 1944 in Belarus, where the swamps played the role of natural barriers for the advancing Soviet troops. The SU-76M also performed well in urban battles - its open felling, despite the possibility of the crew being struck by small arms fire, provided better visibility and allowed it to interact very closely with the soldiers of the infantry assault detachments.

The SU-76 could destroy all the light and medium tanks of the enemy, and could only successfully fight against the heavy German tanks SU-76 from a short distance (up to 500 meters). SU-76 was mainly used for fire support of infantry and tanks. Also, lightweight ACS has been successfully used in defense. SU-76 is the most massive self-propelled installation of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War, from 1943 to the end of the war 14,290 combat vehicles were built.

With the end of World War II, the SU-76M service did not end. They were operated in the Soviet Army until the beginning of the 1950s, 130 vehicles transferred to the Polish Army during the war were also written off by the mid-1950s, several dozen of the DPRKs who took part were quite active in the Korean War, but for the most part it did not survive.

* - NP - rifled cannon

** - 4/6/R/K/Y: 4 - tact; 6 - number of cylinders; R - inline arrangement of cylinders; K - carb, D - diesel; - liquid cooling system

*** No data