**ЗиС-2+истребительная бригада=конец немецким танкам — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/zis2-fighter-brigade-end-german-tanks/

Explore the history, development, and impact of the Soviet ZIS-2 57mm anti-tank gun and its role in WWII tank warfare.

## Key Takeaways

- The ZIS-2 was developed in response to the perceived threat of heavily armored German tanks.
- Vasily Grabin played a crucial role in Soviet artillery design, focusing on effective tank and divisional guns.
- Soviet anti-tank tactics evolved significantly during WWII, incorporating more powerful guns and better deployment strategies.
- Despite initial production and deployment challenges, the ZIS-2 proved highly effective against German heavy tanks.
- The success of Soviet tank guns like the F-34 and ZIS-2 influenced tank warfare and artillery design for decades.

## What the video covers

- Introduction to Vasily Grabin and the Soviet ZIS-2 57mm anti-tank gun model 1941.
- Context of 1940-41 with German tank threats and Soviet intelligence overestimations.
- Challenges in anti-tank tactics and the need for more powerful artillery than the 45mm gun.
- Grabin's focus on divisional and tank artillery, including the 76mm F-34 tank gun.
- The ZIS-2 gun's initial development, technical innovations, and production struggles.
- The evolution of Soviet anti-tank defense tactics during the Great Patriotic War.
- The reintroduction and combat use of the ZIS-2 against heavy German tanks like Tigers and Panthers.
- Technical details on ammunition types such as BR-271 SP and BR-271P for penetrating heavy armor.
- The impact of the ZIS-2 and related artillery on the Red Army's ability to counter German armored vehicles.
- The importance of mobility, camouflage, and crew training in effective anti-tank gun deployment.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction and Context of German Tank Threats
2. 04:36 Soviet Intelligence and Overestimation of German Armor
3. 09:14 Grabin’s Role and Soviet Tank Gun Development
4. 14:05 Technical Innovations of the ZIS-2 Gun
5. 24:25 Challenges and Early Production of the ZIS-2
6. 34:54 Evolution of Soviet Anti-Tank Tactics
7. 50:20 Combat Use and Ammunition of the ZIS-2
8. 60:18 Legacy and Impact of the ZIS-2 on Tank Warfare

Answers

## Questions about this video

Why was the ZIS-2 57mm anti-tank gun developed?

The ZIS-2 was developed in response to intelligence reports and fears that German tanks had heavy armor that existing Soviet 45mm guns could not penetrate effectively.

What role did Vasily Grabin play in Soviet artillery design?

Vasily Grabin was a key Soviet artillery designer who focused on mass production and refinement of divisional and tank artillery, including the 76mm F-34 tank gun and later the ZIS-2.

How effective was the ZIS-2 against German tanks during WWII?

The ZIS-2 proved highly effective against heavy German tanks like the Tiger and Panther, especially with improved ammunition, despite initial production and deployment challenges.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:01

Speaker A

Welcome back, dear viewers. A special shout-out to our sponsors. This video was made possible only thanks to you.

00:08

Speaker A

It’s old Pozdamoch here, and today we’ll continue our talk about the god of the war gods, Vasily Grabin. We are about halfway through the journey, and it’s time to talk about the magnificent Soviet ZIS-2. The 57mm anti-tank gun model 1941, better known

00:24

Speaker A

as the ZIS-2. The gun is unusual and interesting due to its fate. And the philosophy of this weapon, its production and use, is impossible to understand without looking at the production reality and anti-tank tactics of that war. And here,

00:41

Speaker A

unfortunately, things are quite grim. It is hard, in my view, to understand what a hammer should be like without knowing how the nails were being driven. Therefore, I see the plan for this video as follows. First, the

00:53

Speaker A

prerequisites for the ZIS-2 appearing before the war. Second, its creation. And, let's say, its first debut. Third.

01:01

Speaker A

I will talk about the development of anti-tank defense tactics during the Great Patriotic War. And finally, the second iteration of the ZIS-2 and how it fought. So, the year is 1940. It is summer, and France has fallen in just a

01:15

Speaker A

month and a half. And in the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army, led by Marshal Kulik, a mild—or perhaps not so mild—panic sets in.

01:26

Speaker A

Extremely alarming signals begin to reach intelligence and the top leadership. The essence of the rumors boils down to one thing. The Germans have created and are about to mass-produce real land battleships with frontal armor of 80-90, or even 100 mm.

01:44

Speaker A

Where did these rumors come from? Well, a whole mixture of disinformation, military propaganda, and a simple game of telephone was at play. So, factor number one. The French and British monsters. During the fighting in France, the Germans encountered heavy French

02:03

Speaker A

B1 Bis tanks and British Matildas. Our intelligence, analyzing available data, saw that 37-47 mm caliber anti-tank artillery struggled to penetrate these machines or couldn't at all. And since the Germans flattened the democracies into a thin pancake almost instantly,

02:23

Speaker A

it is logical to assume that the Germans have, or are about to have, something at least as good, or likely even better. Factor number two. German parade bluffing. The Germans themselves actively fueled these rumors. They had multi-turreted heavy tanks. The

02:39

Speaker A

Neubaufahrzeug, whose specifications were poorly understood in the USSR. But they certainly looked A-plus. A symbol of grim Teutonic power and brutality.

02:52

Speaker A

And although they were produced in a batch of only five, and their armor was a bit like cardboard, they were actively featured in propaganda footage. To intelligence, this looked like a signal. The Wehrmacht has heavy breakthrough tanks, and they have

03:07

Speaker A

already gone into production. Factor number three. Overestimating the armor of Panzer III and IV tanks. The first modifications of the Panzer III and IV with their "oh-so-cemented" and "oh-so-shielded" armor seemed far better protected on paper than they turned out

03:23

Speaker A

to be in reality. And it is hard to blame the Red Army intelligence for anything here. Ah, armor cementation.

03:32

Speaker A

Even now, according to some experts, it makes tank armor a fearsome mix of mithril and a karambit. Factor number four. It was called the KV and T-34. At that time, the USSR had not only designed and tested these machines but

03:46

Speaker A

also put them into mass production. Yes, for the last 40 years, it has been fashionable to hate on them. Obviously, the haters themselves have long since created something much more innovative and groundbreaking. Although it’s strange; if they are so smart, then why

04:00

Speaker A

are T-72s and Abrams tanks—almost as old as I am—clashing on the battlefield right now? Alas, you can think of the USSR however you like, but in 1940, the KV and T-34 were tanks of a new era in terms of both armor and

04:18

Speaker A

armament. And then our inescapable awe of German technology kicked in. Naturally, since we had created and mass-produced such machines, the Germans must have something at least as good. And, most likely, even better.

04:36

Speaker A

After all, Germany is "ja natürlich, das ist fantastisch." Alas, accepting the thought that our tank building was an era ahead of the "glorious" West was difficult even for us. As a result, the GAU reached a conclusion that was

04:50

Speaker A

catastrophic for the USSR. Our dear, beloved 45mm gun against future German tanks is just a party popper. It won't penetrate 60-80 mm of armor even at point-blank range. We needed a tool of a completely different caliber and with

05:04

Speaker A

absolutely insane ballistics. And they began to move in this direction rapidly. Prototypes of the 95mm divisional gun and the 107mm tank gun appeared, and the 107mm M60 divisional gun was put into production. And so on down the

05:23

Speaker A

list. In parallel, the development of our own tank armor was underway. After all, if the Germans had made or were about to make a super-tank, then obviously they had armed it with a super-gun. The result of these thoughts

05:35

Speaker A

was the KV-3. Meanwhile, at Factory No. 92 in the city of Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod, the main hero of our series, Vasily Gavrilovich Grabin, was sitting and bothering no one. Within the scope of our conversation today, he was truly

05:49

Speaker A

sitting and bothering no one, because he never worked on specialized anti-tank guns. But before I tell you what Vasily Gavrilovich actually did, I must ask for a moment of your attention. I perfectly understand that I am annoying to everyone, and it is

06:06

Speaker A

unpleasant for me to repeat this, but the fact remains. The channel has not collapsed only thanks to your support.

06:12

Speaker A

I will say more: on the contrary, the project has ramped up like never before, and only your support determines when there will be new content, how much of it there will be, and whether there will be any at all. So, once again, a

06:25

Speaker A

huge thank you to my sponsors, both on Boosty and directly via card. Your donation is literally a few minutes of video in the next episode. And a huge request: if you have the opportunity to help, help the channel, not the author.

06:38

Speaker A

Thanks in advance. And let's get back to the topic of the video. So, what was Vasily Gavrilovich busy with in Gorky at Plant No. 92 while the top brass were going crazy over German land battleships? He was busy with exactly

06:52

Speaker A

what, at that time, he had no equal in the country. And arguably, in the world as well. The mass production and refinement of divisional and tank artillery. His design bureau and Plant No. 92 worked like clockwork, stamping out the 76mm F-22 USV divisional guns.

07:11

Speaker A

In parallel, Grabin was pushing and refining his newest 76mm tank gun, the F-34, the very one that would soon become the main caliber of the T-34.

07:24

Speaker A

And that was really cool. I think the tank guns from Plant No. 92 deserve a separate story. They certainly deserve it. Then again, some particularly gifted "specialists" sling so much mud at them that you can barely see the

07:37

Speaker A

guns themselves. But that doesn't change the fact that in 1940-41, this gun was ahead of global tank armament by an entire era and possessed absolute effectiveness. I'm not joking at all.

07:52

Speaker A

Regarding the "era" aspect, judge for yourselves. Back then, all over the world, tank guns were either small-caliber anti-tank guns of 37-47 mm or short-barreled howitzers. Or else they were unnatural monstrosities trying to combine both in one tank. A

08:12

Speaker A

long-barreled three-inch gun with excellent armor penetration and a full-fledged high-explosive shell was, in 1940, without exaggeration, a new era. Now, as for the effectiveness, judge for yourselves. The most heavily armored tank of the Wehrmacht at the start of World War II was the Panzer IV

08:29

Speaker A

. And the Stug that joined it. And the T-34 opened them up from any realistic combat distance. Yes, at some point the F-34 became obsolete, but 3 years later, an 85mm gun was mounted on the T-34, and 3 years after that, the Union

08:45

Speaker A

released a medium tank with a 100mm gun. I repeat, today's modern tanks date back to the seventies of the last century. An important r

09:00

Speaker A

tanks that meet the demands of the time . I am slightly surprised by the " specialists" who seriously talk about how "Soviet junk was stupid." Classic " look who's talking." As a result, at the time of its creation, the F-34 was

09:14

Speaker A

a masterpiece, ahead of its competitors by an era and possessing absolute effectiveness. But let's return to Grabin. His design bureau had not dealt with anti-tank guns before this at all.

09:25

Speaker A

That was the territory of other people and other factories, primarily Plant No. 8 in Podlipki, better known as the Kalinin Plant, which refined and riveted our dear "forty-five," the 45mm gun of 1937. However, the storm of terror over unknown but frightening

09:45

Speaker A

German super-tanks reached even the quiet city of Gorky. The technical requirements from the GAU were incredibly tough. They demanded an anti-tank gun capable of penetrating up to 100 mm of armor at a 500-meter range . For 1940, this requirement was beyond

10:02

Speaker A

reasonable. Grabin faced a fundamental question: exactly how could one achieve such insane penetration? And this is where two conceptual schools of that time and two fundamentally different approaches emerge. The classic cylindrical barrel and the tapered barrel. Wait. Look, in the late

10:21

Speaker A

thirties and early forties, the idea of a tapered bore barrel—where the diameter decreases from the breech to the muzzle—seemed absolutely viable.

10:31

Speaker A

The concept is simple. The projectile has soft driving bands that get compressed as they move through the barrel. The diameter decreases, and the powder gas pressure on the projectile's area becomes much more effective. At the exit, we get a fantastic muzzle

10:46

Speaker A

velocity, let's say, 1,200 meters per second. The obvious pros of this design . Number one: incredible flatness of fire and armor penetration with a relatively low weight of the gun. And number two. A light projectile with high muzzle velocity literally

11:03

Speaker A

vaporized armor at short and medium distances. But there is a price to pay for everything in this world. And here, the price proved to be exorbitant.

11:12

Speaker A

First, the barrel's service life dropped to near zero. Due to the intense pressure and friction, the barrel would burn out after just a hundred or so shots. Essentially, the weapon became disposable. One or two battles, and the gun could be thrown

11:23

Speaker A

away. Second, manufacturing complexity; the extremely precise machining of the cone inside the barrel required unique machines and skills, which drove the price up to an absurd level. Third, a shortage of raw materials. A projectile for a tapered barrel is a sub-caliber

11:42

Speaker A

core requiring tungsten and, again, complex, expensive machining, which is definitely not a plus during a major war. And number four. A complete lack of fragmentation effect. The projectile is small and deforms easily. Making a proper high-explosive fragmentation shell for a tapered barrel is

11:58

Speaker A

physically impossible. And tanks don't attack in every single battle. And lugging around a gun that's as useless as a certificate of merit is a pretty bad idea, which we covered in as much detail as possible in our previous

12:10

Speaker A

video, I suppose. The Germans, by the way, gave it an honest try. They really loved everything high-tech. And if the World War had been a regional young technicians 'contest, the Nazis would undoubtedly have won by a landslide.

12:24

Speaker A

But, as Comrade Mayakovsky said, the boat of desire crashed against the rocks of everyday life. As I already mentioned, the Germans tried—it’s enough to recall their heavy anti-tank rifle, caliber 2.8 cm, or the 4.2 cm PaK 41 gun, but they quickly hit the

12:40

Speaker A

wall of production complexity and material shortages. Grabin, with his instinct for weaponry for a major war, immediately understood that the tapered barrel was a dead end. He needed to make a classic cylindrical one but maximize its ballistics through a

12:58

Speaker A

longer barrel and a powerful powder charge. I almost hate to say it, but in the long-barrel race, as we can see, the "backward" Soviet Union also happened to be about an era ahead of the rest. So. So, the barrel type was

13:15

Speaker A

decided. Next came the question of caliber. Why exactly 57 mm? You might think, if you need to punch through 100 mm, why not take standard 76s, or maybe 85s? And quite right, I have to repeat this for the thousandth time this cycle

13:32

Speaker A

. An anti-tank gun must be manhandled by a crew of five or six directly on the battlefield. A seventy-six-millimeter divisional gun weighs nearly one and a half tons. You just can't drag that through the mud by hand. You can, of course, but it’s

13:49

Speaker A

what you’d call back-breaking work. Yes. People often write to me: "What's 200-300 kg? A trifle." Alas, that is far from the truth. For gun mobility, those miserable two or three hundred kilograms are the critical difference between high mobility and almost none.

14:05

Speaker A

Grabin. Grabin understood this 80 years before modern critics did. The ideal here is, of course, the 45mm, which weighs only about half a ton, but it wasn't powerful enough anymore. Or rather, not powerful enough for the unknown, yet terrifying, German

14:24

Speaker A

super-tanks. So, Grabin’s specialists at the GAU ran mathematical calculations, where the 57 mm caliber turned out to be the perfect golden ratio. It allowed keeping the gun's weight within 1.1 to 1.2 tons for light towing or manual maneuvering, while the

14:41

Speaker A

shell casing volume and barrel length allowed accelerating the armor-piercing projectile to an unprecedented 1,000 m/ s. For the new caliber, we had to create ammunition from scratch. They used a modified casing from the 76mm anti-aircraft gun model 1931 3K,

15:00

Speaker A

necking down the case mouth for the 57mm projectile. The result was an impressive bottlenecked shot with a massive powder charge. The main round became the BR-271 armor-piercing tracer shell weighing 3.14 kg. In short, here are the main advantages and

15:20

Speaker A

disadvantages of such an approach. So, the pros. First, fantastic armor penetration. During tests, the 57mm shell confidently pierced 90-100 mm of armor at a right angle from half a kilometer away. In 1940-41, there wasn't a single mass-produced tank in

15:40

Speaker A

the world capable of withstanding such a blow at any combat distance. Second, a flat trajectory. Thanks to the speed of 1,000 m/s, the flight path at distances up to a kilometer was practically straight. The gunner didn't really need to make complex range

15:58

Speaker A

adjustments. Wherever you aimed, that's where it flew. And of course, the ability to keep the gun within acceptable weight and size limits for combat is a bonus. But, alas, there is no perfection in this world. Though the "Germanophiles" with their Pak guns

16:13

Speaker A

would argue with me. So, the incredible armor penetration came at a rather high price. First, there was the problem of barrel manufacturability. You can, of course, make a long thin fishing rod, but it's difficult and expensive. The ZIS-2 barrel length at that time was an

16:33

Speaker A

incredible 73 calibers, over 4.1 meters . Drilling and rifling such a long, thin rod in 1940 using existing equipment was a complex task. The defect rate for barrel boring at Plant No. 92 was simply off the charts at the

16:51

Speaker A

beginning. Well, those were technological problems that could be solved. But the following issues were the birth defects of all "tank-breakers ." And in 1940-1941, these problems looked like this. First, the needle effect. Indeed, excessive armor penetration. The BR-271 projectile at

17:12

Speaker A

real combat ranges possessed so much kinetic energy that it would punch straight through the thin armor of contemporary German tanks—about 30 millimeters—without even giving the base fuse time to arm. The projectile would fly right out the other side of

17:28

Speaker A

the tank. The slug would leave a clean little hole, ruined pants on the enemy tankers, and a disgusting smell inside the tank. And that was probably it. Yes , there was a chance to hit the ammo rack, the crew members, or the engine,

17:43

Speaker A

but overall, against a tank, that's how it worked. A single penetration was far from enough to knock the vehicle out of action, despite the decent caliber and the enormous energy of the projectile.

17:55

Speaker A

And what could you do about that? Added to this was the weak fragmentation effect of the shell. The O-271 high-explosive fragmentation grenade contained only 220 grams of explosives.

18:06

Speaker A

As we recall, the minimum caliber capable of delivering an acceptable high-explosive effect is 3 inches. And without a high-explosive shell, the gun would be just a decorative ornament in most battles. Overall, the concept for the new gun based on the points above

18:20

Speaker A

took shape quite quickly. And that is when Grabin stepped in. Not as a man, but rather as a phenomenon. That is precisely why I consider him not just some banal genius, but truly a god of the gods of war. He wasn't some kind of

18:37

Speaker A

Faust working alone in a cramped attic, creating something incredible by himself. Grabin is an entire phenomenon . I repeat, by 1940, he already had a huge backlog of developed ideas and ready-made components. He had a design bureau running like clockwork, and

18:56

Speaker A

Plant No. 92 at that time was a production facility perfected under the leadership of his friend and colleague, the very talented Amaiak Yelyan. So, once the contours of the gun were defined, everything else happened almost by itself, in the shortest

19:14

Speaker A

possible time, and according to all the most demanding wishes of the military. Grabin took the already completed F-24 regimental gun, which had been created and successfully tested, but was not adopted for service. He fine-tuned it to meet the new requirements. And that

19:32

Speaker A

was, essentially, it. I'm not joking. The development history looked roughly like this. May 1940. The assignment is received. Grabin is invited to think about what the new gun might look like.

19:43

Speaker A

Specifically, to think. There are no specific military requirements yet. A classic situation. "Go there, I don't know where." September 1940. Finally, the GAU requirement arrives. The Main Artillery Directorate officially formulates strict requirements for the new tank destroyer. Penetration of 100

19:59

Speaker A

mm of armor at a distance of 500 meters while keeping the gun's weight within limits manageable by the crew's physical strength. The task is assigned the highest priority. In Grabin's design bureau, the project received the factory index F-31. Then came a couple

20:14

Speaker A

of months of work, specifically October-November 1940, for the sketch and assembly. Grabin made the brilliant decision to abandon designing a carriage from scratch and instead mount a new 57mm barrel with a 73-caliber length onto the already proven carriage

20:29

Speaker A

of the 76mm divisional gun, the F-24. Remember, I spoke about the importance of having a heap of ready-made groundwork in Vasily Gavrilovich's work . And that was that. Working drawings were delivered to the workshops in a matter of weeks. In November, assembly

20:44

Speaker A

of the first prototype began. December of 1940. The first prototype and factory firing tests. The factory testing range. The F-31 prototype was rolled out for its first factory trials . The gun fired its first shots. The ballistics were insane. The initial

21:00

Speaker A

muzzle velocity exceeded the 990 m/s mark. At the same time, the gun was renamed the ZiS-2 because the factory was named after Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. February-March of 1941. These were the field trials. The Gorokhovets artillery testing range. Rigorous state

21:20

Speaker A

acceptance trials began. The ZiS-2s literally shredded the targets. However , some teething problems emerged. At a high rate of fire, barrel wear proved to be higher than calculated. And problems appeared with drilling the long, four-meter-long "fishing rods" in

21:40

Speaker A

the factory workshops. Grabin's team worked in emergency mode to refine the rifling technology, strengthen the recoil mechanism, and debug the breech semi-automatics. Just think about it.

21:54

Speaker A

Those "stupid Soviets" created a weapon of a new era in six months. But if you go strictly by the books, from receiving the Red Army’s requirements to official adoption, it was about 10 months. And in fairness, we must note a

22:08

Speaker A

small blunder that occurred during development. Since Factory 92 had never made an anti-tank gun, and such long " fishing rods" didn't exist anywhere else in the world, the design bureau messed up the barrel rifling at first.

22:22

Speaker A

Well, even so, 10 months and sign for the delivery. Let's look at what Grabin designed there. The main part of the gun. Its barrel is 73 calibers long.

22:33

Speaker A

That is 4 meters and 16 centimeters. Inside the barrel are 24 grooves, and the chamber volume for the powerful bottleneck cartridge was an impressive 2 liters. So, as we can see, Grabin knew how to drill a hole. This was not

22:47

Speaker A

a German exclusive. Yes, dear viewers, if you are watching my video for the first time, this is a reference to previous clips. Back to the ZiS-2. On the 1941 model guns, the barrels were made both with a loose liner for easy

23:01

Speaker A

replacement at the factory and as monoblocks. By 1943, they kept only the monoblocks. It was simpler and cheaper for mass production. Everything was locked by a semi-automatic vertical sliding breechblock. What does that mean in human language? Well, upon

23:18

Speaker A

recoil, the breech opens and ejects the spent casing. The loader only had to shove the next shell in, after which the breech would automatically snap shut. The gunner didn't even need to pull a lanyard. The trigger was button-operated, and the button was

23:34

Speaker A

located right in the center of the handwheel for the traversing mechanism. Aim, press the button with your finger, and fire. The rate of fire in the hands of a trained crew reached a crazy 25 rounds per minute. This is, of course,

23:48

Speaker A

the technical rate of fire, not combat, but you must admit, it's impressive. And so that all this wouldn't fly away when firing, Grabin designed a powerful recoil system. The hydraulic brake, filled with a glycerin mixture or spindle oil, was located under the

24:05

Speaker A

barrel. And the hydropneumatic recuperator was above the barrel. When firing, this entire system would recoil along with the barrel about a meter back, successfully absorbing the massive impulse. Since the barrel turned out to be quite long and front-heavy, a spring-loaded

24:23

Speaker A

tension-type balancing mechanism was placed on the upper carriage so the gunner wouldn't have to work out his biceps turning the elevation wheel. It fully compensated for the weight of the barrel. Moving on. Grabin moved both the elevation and traverse handwheels

24:42

Speaker A

to the left side. Once again, hello to the experts. The split controls on the F-22 and F-22 USV were not Soviet stupidity, but a result of the technical requirements for a divisional gun, intended primarily for firing from closed positions. And there, the option

25:04

Speaker A

where one person turns the elevation and the second the traverse is logical and correct. In Grabin's anti-tank gun, one gunner operated both handwheels. He looked through the PP-2 optical sight himself and pressed the trigger button himself. The carriage was equipped with

25:21

Speaker A

split trails. On the first 1941 production series, they were box-section or tubular. And here is another clever feature. The suspension for the axle was spring-based. And when spreading the trails, the suspension disengages automatically. A nice touch, especially in the heat of battle. The

25:40

Speaker A

gun would then lock onto its spades with a death grip, and the wheels would no longer bounce when firing. Speaking of wheels. They took standard disc wheels from the GAZ-AA truck, the legendary "polutorka," but instead of an inflatable inner tube, they filled

25:55

Speaker A

them with solid rubber, known as GK. It was impossible to puncture such a wheel with shrapnel or bullets. The gun remained mobile under any conditions.

26:05

Speaker A

And the crew was protected from bullets and small shrapnel by a six-millimeter armored shield with a folding lower flap. You could tow this entire 1,200 kg structure however you liked: with a Komsomolets semi-armored tractor, a GAZ truck, or, from the middle of the war,

26:24

Speaker A

Lend-Lease Dodge 3/4s or Studebakers. The towing speed on a highway without a limber......could reach a very solid 60 km/h. Well, that was on an ideal highway, which didn't exist, but still.

26:39

Speaker A

A horse-drawn configuration with a team of six was also provided, which is quite decent for a 1.2-ton gun. And this, of course, reduced speed but made the mobility almost absolute, which, by the way, we also talked about in one of

26:57

Speaker A

our previous videos. So, how did it work in practice? Look, moving from travel to combat position took literally seconds. You arrived, pulled off the covers, removed the lock, and spread the trails. The suspension disengaged, you lowered the bottom

27:14

Speaker A

shield, opened the sight port, and that’s it—the gun is ready to punch holes in enemy armor. In terms of design, the cannon looked like a true masterpiece: compact, logical, extremely convenient for the crew, and very effective. Grabin did everything

27:31

Speaker A

possible to cram the impossible into it , creating a powerful weapon while maximizing both its mobility and compactness. In this form, the ZiS-2 was officially adopted for service on June 16, 1941. Six days later, the Great Patriotic War began. And this

27:48

Speaker A

marked the start of the first—and frankly speaking, quite controversial —period of the ZiS-2's service. I will tell you briefly, as there is no point in going into detail. Firstly, there were very few of them, only 371 guns in total. Secondly, we don't know

28:01

Speaker A

much about this either. And thirdly, most importantly, in 1941, this gun couldn't achieve glory for the simple reason that it had no chance to. In the realities of the first year of the war, the ZiS-2 is a rather controversial gun

28:16

Speaker A

, no joke. It is very mobile and small, but it is only mobile and small compared to divisional guns or something like a PaK 40. Lord forgive me. The ZiS-2 is more than twice as heavy as the 45mm anti-tank gun, yet

28:30

Speaker A

the armor penetration of the 45mm was enough for everything in 1941, albeit barely. Grabin's "hole-puncher" had advantages that simply had nowhere to be realized in the realities of the start of the war. But if you take a more serious weapon, the ZiS-2 lost out

28:47

Speaker A

to the three-inch guns. The ZiS-2 had a weak high-explosive shell and too flat a trajectory. At the same time, the F- 22 USV in 1941 was punching through armor just as well, and not just thin cardboard. There was nowhere to utilize

29:03

Speaker A

the excellent armor penetration of the new Grabin gun. Well, it's like an old, bearded joke. The nuclear potential of the US and Russia is incomparable. The US can destroy the Earth eight times, while Russia can only do it twice. Well

29:15

Speaker A

, here it's the same thing: what’s the difference, really? Plus the complexity of production and the shortage of shells in the chaos of 1941 ; overall, the decision to cease production of the ZiS-2 in the fall of 1941 must be deemed absolutely correct.

29:31

Speaker A

The outstanding gun, it would seem, died before it was even truly born. But pardon the cliché, this was only the beginning. And before moving on to the rest of the description of the ZiS-2, I would like to dwell on two points in

29:44

Speaker A

more detail. Firstly, on its armor penetration. For some reason, it is often called equal to the British six-pounder. Although Soviet " pseudoscience" physics screams that this is not the case. The caliber is the same, but the kick provided by the

30:01

Speaker A

Grabin gun was nearly half again as strong. 1.14 megajoules versus 1.54, to be precise. Although, hand on heart, I am lying. I know where this tall tale came from. These conclusions were based on the test report of firing at a

30:20

Speaker A

captured Tiger tank at the Kubinka proving ground in April 1943. They fired everything they could at the captured tank, but we are interested in the ZiS-2 and the six-pounder. The result was approximately the following.

30:34

Speaker A

ZiS-2 with a standard armor-piercing shell, BR-271. Tiger side armor, reliable through-and-through penetration from 800 m. Frontal armor.

30:45

Speaker A

Deep dents left, no penetration from 500 m. Six-pounder. Solid armor-piercing projectile Mk 1.8. Tiger side armor. Through-and-through penetration from 600-800 m. Tiger's frontal armor, dent left, no penetration from 500 m. The result is similar. Except, as Vasily Ivanovich

31:08

Speaker A

used to say, there's a nuance. The report states that the British projectile was of very high quality and got stuck in the thick armor, while the Soviet projectile shattered. In summary , they are more or less equal in terms

31:20

Speaker A

of armor penetration. That’s the established view, but I’d like to dig a little deeper. First, as we can see, this is the objective maximum the British gun could deliver. While the brainchild of Grabin clearly still had some potential left. Physics itself

31:37

Speaker A

points to this, by the way. But the shell couldn't withstand it. And this, it would seem, is no revelation. The mediocre quality of Soviet armor-piercing shells, especially in the early years of the war, is no secret to anyone. But for some reason,

31:50

Speaker A

no one notices that the British had a solid slug, while the BR-271 was a chambered round—that is, it had a cavity filled with explosives, which weakens the shell a priori. And most importantly, the quality of our armor-piercing shells was not a

32:04

Speaker A

constant. And it was right at that time that the two-inch shell was significantly improved. First, the quality of the metal itself was raised, and second, they worked on the geometry . The BR-271 projectile body was substantially reworked. Under the

32:20

Speaker A

ballistic cap, they began applying special circular grooves—destruction localizers. What's that? And what is all this for? The localizers would shear off the tip of the projectile at the moment of initial contact with the armor at a strictly defined angle. This

32:36

Speaker A

prevented the entire shell body from cracking and allowed it to transfer the full kick delivered by the gun to the armor. And that kick, as we remember, was half as strong again as that of the six-pounder. Plus, this created a

32:50

Speaker A

self-blunting effect, which helped the shell normalize better and not ricochet . So even what the ZIS-2 was firing during the spring of '43 at the testing range, and what our anti-tank crews were firing at the Kursk Bulge, already

33:07

Speaker A

differed significantly, and the process of improving shell quality did not stop . And since we're on the subject, here is the main ammunition for our heroine of today. Well, first of all, the workhorse, the BR-271. This is the main

33:24

Speaker A

full-caliber armor-piercing tracer shell with a mass of 3.14 kg. Initially , in 1941, it was a blunt-nosed shell with a ballistic cap and a chamber— that very same cavity for 14 grams of explosives. As we have already found

33:40

Speaker A

out, initially, due to the inflated speed of 990 m/s and nuances of Soviet metallurgy, it sometimes cracked against hard armor. But by the summer of 1943, the shell experienced a true second birth, which I mentioned above.

33:56

Speaker A

The result: the shell stopped shattering, began perfectly turning into the armor, and delivering to it all that very same energy of 1.54.

34:08

Speaker A

megajoules at 500 m distances. The BR- 271 reliably punched through 100 mm of armor at a right angle. And at a distance of a kilometer, 80-85 mm. By the way, there was also a solid slug, like a six-pounder. And it was called

34:27

Speaker A

the BR-271 SP. Next, the BR-271P. When Tigers, Panthers, and various Ferdinands started appearing en masse at the front in 1943, it became clear: the kinetic slug was enough to guarantee frontal armor penetration, but only just. And that is when Soviet

34:48

Speaker A

designers pushed out a sub-caliber spool-type shell. Spool shells worked as intended during that war, unlike sabot shells, sub-caliber projectiles with discarding petals, which pierced better but flew wherever they wanted.

35:04

Speaker A

Here is how it was set up for the ZiS-2 . A light spool weighing only 1.79 kg, with a heavy, ultra-hard tungsten carbide core clamped in the center. Due to its low weight, the shell exited the barrel at a speed of 1,270 m/s,

35:21

Speaker A

allowing it to punch through 140-145 mm of armor at point-blank range. Admittedly, spools had a significant downside. Because of their light weight , the shells lost velocity quickly in the air, and their penetration dropped sharply beyond 500 m. This was not a

35:41

Speaker A

quirk of Soviet shells. That is how all spool-type shells worked. And a little later, the BR-271K appeared. By 1944, German metallurgists had exhausted their reserves of alloying metals and switched from cemented armor to thick, but more ductile, high-hardness

36:01

Speaker A

homogeneous plates. To meet this new reality, the sharp-nosed BR-271K shell was created. It performed 10-15%better against homogeneous armor than the good old BR-271. And for the sake of completeness, let's mention the high-explosive fragmentation grenade O- 271, weighing 3.75 kg. It contained

36:25

Speaker A

only 220 g of explosive. As I said, suppressing an enemy battery or flushing infantry out of trenches with such a shell was difficult. The explosion was rather symbolic, or to put it more clearly, three times weaker than comparable three-inch division

36:44

Speaker A

field guns. The gun remained a narrowly specialized hole-puncher, and that is not always good in the realities of a major war. There were plenty of other types like the Sh-271 canister shot, but that is pure exotica, just wasting

37:01

Speaker A

time. So we will leave it at that. One more thing I would like to briefly discuss is, of course, the self-propelled versions of the ZiS-2.

37:13

Speaker A

There were quite a few of them, but let’s talk about the two main ones.

37:18

Speaker A

The ZiS-30 and the tank version of the gun, the ZiS-4. So, the summer of 1941, the catastrophe of the first period of the war. German Panzers are pushing east. Grabin receives a tough order.

37:32

Speaker A

Mount the ZiS-2 on a self-propelled chassis immediately; at the Design Bureau of Factory No. 92, they didn't think for long and churned out two variants in parallel. The ZiS-31 based on the three-axle ZiS-AAA truck and the ZiS-30 based on the semi-armored

37:49

Speaker A

Komsomolets artillery tractor. The Komsomolets won. It had tracked mobility, and the result was, in fact, a wild but cute monstrosity. Imagine a tiny armored tractor with a huge four-meter gun and an armor shield bolted on top. It looked like an

38:09

Speaker A

armor-piercing sniper birdhouse on tracks. From September to October 1941, they managed to rivet together 101 such self-propelled guns until the factories ran out of Komsomolets tractors themselves. And all these ZiS-30s were sent straight from the assembly line to

38:25

Speaker A

Moscow to serve in the anti-tank batteries of tank brigades. And you know, in the battles of autumn and winter 1941, these birdhouses really gave the Nazis hell. They destroyed any armored targets from distances of just about anything, and they also had

38:42

Speaker A

mobility equal to tanks. But the price for this ersatz was harsh. Firstly, the chassis was wildly overloaded and constantly breaking down. Secondly, when firing, the vehicle bucked so much that you’d feel sorry for it. And thirdly, the carried ammunition load

39:00

Speaker A

was laughable, and the crew was exposed to all winds, bullets, and shrapnel. By the summer of 1942, almost all ZiS-30s had either burned out in the battles near Moscow or finally died from chassis wear. There were attempts to

39:17

Speaker A

make a semi-tracked self-propelled gun, the ZiS-41 based on the ZiS-2M, but it was scrapped along with the halt of ZiS -2 production. So, what about the tanks ? Grabin had already worked on that a year before the war. At the end of 1940

39:33

Speaker A

, at the Design Bureau of Factory No. 92, they took the native 76mm F-34 cannon, removed its barrel, and inserted the 57mm "fishing rod" from the ZiS-2. Because of the long barrel, the gun was front-heavy, so heavy counterweights had to be bolted to the

39:54

Speaker A

bottom of the cradle. Well, that's essentially it. They called this design the ZiS-4. In the spring and summer of 1941, the gun was successfully installed on the T-34 and put into serial production. True, they only managed to assemble about 30 guns, of

40:11

Speaker A

which only 10 were mounted on production T-34s. These 10 ultra-rare T -34-57 tanks were sent to the 21st Tank Brigade near Kalinin in October 1941.

40:24

Speaker A

In combat, they performed phenomenally. They knocked out German equipment from extreme distances. But in the meat grinder of October 1941, by the end of the month, all 10 of the brigade's tanks were lost. Production of the ZiS- 4 naturally died out along with the

40:40

Speaker A

production of the ZiS-2. Then, in the spring of 1943, the Tiger appeared. The high command remembered the 57mm tank " can opener." At Factory No. 92, they revived the 1941 blueprints, upgraded the gun to the ZiS-4M level, and

40:58

Speaker A

stamped out a batch of 170 barrels. Three improved second-iteration T-34-57 s were even sent for front-line testing in August 1943, where they received excellent feedback. But in September, the project for a T-34 with a 57mm gun was finally closed, and the 170

41:19

Speaker A

finished kits were sent to the warehouse. And that’s when I remember the "experts" who never tire of repeating: "The Soviets were stupid and clumsy because they took the easy path of increasing caliber, while the Germans were smart and skillful, so

41:35

Speaker A

they started increasing the barrel length." So, to follow the smart German path, the "dumb Soviets" should have just taken a proven pre-war gun and shoved it into the good old T-34. As a result, by the autumn of 1943, the Red

41:53

Speaker A

Army would have had a tank in large numbers, successfully punching holes in Tigers from the front at decent distances. Alas, that is not how it works. A tank on the battlefield doesn't just need to hunt Tigers in ambushes; it needs to storm

42:08

Speaker A

fortifications, burn out pillboxes, chew up infantry, and take out enemy artillery. And the 57mm shell, as we recall, only has a 220g HE charge.

42:18

Speaker A

Shooting that at fortifications is basically like throwing firecrackers. Therefore, the GKO and tank builders made an absolutely pragmatic choice in favor of 85mm guns. D-5T and ZiS-S-53.

42:35

Speaker A

The 85mm gun had excellent armor penetration, but most importantly, a powerful, full-fledged high-explosive shell for offensive warfare. And yes, this delayed the T-34’s armament upgrade by about half a year, until the spring of 1944. But these weren't just

42:53

Speaker A

slapdash modifications; they were a full-scale modernization that upgraded the T-34 by an order of magnitude. Not just in shooting down Panzers, but in performing all other tasks. Ultimately, the 57mm caliber remained king in its original role as the light, towed ZiS-2

43:12

Speaker A

anti-tank gun, which saw the war through from the Kursk Bulge to Berlin. And now we come to the most difficult part, but there is no way around it. To assess how effective the ZiS-2 actually was, like it or not, one must dive into

43:31

Speaker A

the anti-tank tactics used by the Red Army. And that’s where things get complicated. On one hand, as I’ve said, if you don’t explain how nails are driven, it’s hard to understand why you need a hammer. Unfortunately, it’s only for "Germanophiles" that

43:48

Speaker A

everything is elementary. "There stands the 88 on a hill, the dumb Soviets come driving along, and it goes bang-bang, but the Soviets are too dumb, so they keep coming and coming, the barrels overheat, the machine gunners go crazy,

44:01

Speaker A

and the Soviets keep coming because they're just that dumb." Oh, wait, that’s about the divine MG. But the system is the same overall. In reality, the anti-aircraft 88 is a stationary target the size of a barn, whose muzzle

44:16

Speaker A

flash is visible from low Earth orbit. Add to that the zero protection for the gun itself, and it doesn't really suit the role of the ultimate "noob-stomper.

44:30

Speaker A

" In truth, the tactics of employing anti-tank artillery are much more complex. I won’t get into the German side—they have their own quirks—but I will have to cover the Red Army's approach. And here, I honestly don't know how necessary this is, but in

44:45

Speaker A

video format, it’s a bore. All these diagrams, numbers, and charts are simply dull. So, let's do this. I will try to present the main points here in the most digestible way possible. But if you are interested, dear viewers,

44:58

Speaker A

let me know in the comments. We will still think about how to release a full-fledged video on this. But for now , let's try at least in outline. So, 1941. What did the Red Army's anti-tank defense look like in the first months

45:13

Speaker A

of the war? Well, quite dismal. The 45mm guns were spread evenly like a thin pancake across the entire front line of the rifle regiments. They were most often standing right in the infantry battle formations, practically in plain sight of the enemy. And then

45:29

Speaker A

the Germans came climbing in with their Blitzkrieg. I was thinking recently about how to characterize Blitzkrieg as clearly and concisely as possible. So, Blitzkrieg is tank divisions that can fight at about 3x the speed relative to other troops. And the Red Army in

45:46

Speaker A

forty-one was actually quite good. This army was perfectly on par with all other armies in the world, including the French, the Polish, the British, and even the German one, if you exclude their two or three dozen Panzer divisions. But the Germans had them in

46:00

Speaker A

forty-one, and they didn't attack the entire front line in a solid wall. A Panzer division would probe for a weak junction, gather a hundred or two tanks into a fist, and fly into one narrow breakthrough. Just like what our lone

46:15

Speaker A

gun saw in its only battle. Out of the dust comes a horde of German Panzers, and it is covered by a horde of German guns and mortars. The artillery of the German tank divisions was unimaginably mobile thanks to semi-tracked prime

46:30

Speaker A

movers. The 45mm gun crew would manage to get off a couple of shots, at best knock out one Pz, after which it would be instantly covered by mortars and guns, or bypassed on the flanks. The defense is breached, tanks head to the

46:45

Speaker A

rear, the division or even the army suffers a catastrophe. And so an epidemic of a disease called "tank phobia" begins in the troops. The Germans simply pierced our linear defense like a needle through fabric.

47:00

Speaker A

They did the same with the Polish, the British, and the French. Like I say, the Red Army was a good army by the standards of forty-one. And it became clear that spreading guns like a thin pancake is certain death for both the

47:15

Speaker A

guns and the front. Moreover, they realized this quite early, even before the war, and people rightly wrote in the comments that the first anti-tank brigades were formed even before June 22. But here's the thing. The anti-tank brigades of forty-one were large,

47:31

Speaker A

clumsy formations, which were, of course, better than nothing, but could not decide the outcome at that moment, because the Red Army, like any other army in the world, did not really understand how this was supposed to work. Well, it's like the tank corps of

47:48

Speaker A

forty-one and forty-four. The name is the same, but the effectiveness is very different. Do you understand? An understanding of how it should work began to emerge with the start of the Great Patriotic War, when the situation at the front became close to a

48:05

Speaker A

catastrophe—so close that by August of forty-one, the High Command realized that industry could not keep up with stamping out guns at the necessary speed, and the German tank wedges needed to be cut right now. And Moscow takes an unprecedented, frightening,

48:22

Speaker A

but absolutely necessary step. They start—it starts—robbing its own infantry. Separate anti-tank battalions and battalion-level anti-tank platoons are ruthlessly cut from the tables of organization of regular rifle divisions . The number of anti-tank guns in a division is slashed from the regulation

48:43

Speaker A

54 units down to 18. The infantry, in essence, is left almost defenseless against tanks. Meanwhile, they begin urgently forming mobile anti-tank units for the Supreme Command Reserve using the removed barrels. Everything capable of piercing armor is put to use. 37mm,

49:02

Speaker A

76mm anti-aircraft guns, and the famous 85mm 52-K guns are massively thrown into the fight against tanks. In the second half of 1941 alone, 770 anti-aircraft guns were transferred to anti-tank units. So, using flak guns isn't just a German specialty. We did

49:25

Speaker A

it too, but unlike the Germanophiles, we admit it: yes, it happened, yes, it was a forced measure, no, we didn't like it. Gradually, in parallel with this, an understanding of how all this should work was developed. And so,

49:40

Speaker A

based on the initial results of encounters with Panzers, the 04133 table of organization appeared. Fully realizing that in the new, fast war, the old four-tier structure of clumsy brigades—and there really were four tiers: brigade, regiment, battalion, battery—the Stavka abandoned this

50:00

Speaker A

form. Instead of powerful but sluggish giants, they created compact, light, and maneuverable anti-tank artillery regiments. Such a regiment had only 16 to 20 guns. Four or five batteries, but this regiment was as simple as three kopeks, easy to control, and mobile.

50:20

Speaker A

The command could deploy it in a matter of minutes on a tank-threatened direction or shift it to an adjacent sector. There was another point here.

50:29

Speaker A

Our commanders were growing. Ivan Konev in 1941 and 1945 was a military leader of a different caliber. And an anti-tank regiment is easier and faster to control. Yes, it didn't provide absolute rigidity in anti-tank defense, but it worked. From July to December

50:47

Speaker A

1941, 72 such regiments were formed. And they took almost 70%of all guns allocated for the Supreme Command Reserve artillery. Were all problems solved? Alas, no. Until the end of 1941 , Soviet generals continued by inertia to distribute these regiments evenly

51:07

Speaker A

across armies, again dragging reserves apart and failing to consolidate them into a mobile anti-tank fist. But despite everything, near Moscow, it finally worked. It is customary to spit on the result of this battle, like on all the heritage of the USSR, but still

51:23

Speaker A

. This was the first time in two and a half years of the world war that the Blitzkrieg was not only stopped but torn to molecules. The IPTAPs, with all their teething troubles, performed quite effectively. The tactics of

51:40

Speaker A

employing anti-tank artillery on the battlefield also developed. Next will probably be the most boring excerpt, because assembling 20 guns into a regiment under the 04133 TO&E is only half the battle. It was necessary to teach the crews not to die in the first

51:57

Speaker A

3 minutes of combat. Before the war, anti-tank defenses were built by placing guns in a straight line along the front edge, with firing sectors directed strictly forward. The Germans would fly over, spot the muzzle flashes , cover the position with artillery and

52:10

Speaker A

mortar fire, and that was that. By the autumn of 1941, near Moscow, our anti-tank crews began to stumble upon a radically new tactic, which would later become a classic of artillery science.

52:24

Speaker A

What did it consist of? Firstly, abandoning head-on fire at long distances. Firing at tanks from a kilometer away with 45mm or even 76mm guns might not be senseless, but it was deadly—the position would be revealed . They began letting the Germans

52:41

Speaker A

approach to a "dagger" range of 150-200 meters. Secondly, flanking and crossfire, the so-called "fire sack." Guns were no longer placed facing the enemy head-on. They were dug in at an angle to the direction of the tanks' probable advance. A German tank would

52:59

Speaker A

move forward, relying on its more-or-less tough frontal armor, and suddenly receive a volley at a 90- degree angle to its side or even its rear. Thirdly, deep concealment and ambushes: guns were dug into the ground up to their trunnions, covered with

53:14

Speaker A

turf and branches, and crews were strictly forbidden from firing at infantry or reconnaissance. They were waiting specifically for the lead group of tanks. And fourthly, mutual support.

53:26

Speaker A

Batteries were set up in echelons so that the "dead zone" of one gun was covered by another. Any attempt by a German tank to bypass one gun led to it exposing its soft side to another. So, here is a rough diagram of a fire sack.

53:44

Speaker A

How does it work? The lead tank is drawn into a gully or road. A decoy position distracts the attention of the tank gunners. At that moment, batteries 1 and 2 open direct fire from the flanks into the sides at a distance of

53:57

Speaker A

200 meters. And here is how the anti-tank regiment was situated as a whole. This is relevant to the period of the Battle of Moscow. I apologize for the primitive image; I just want to roughly show how it worked. And add to

54:12

Speaker A

this the terrain features, positions of other troops, and various minefields. Which, of course, played into the hands of the anti-tankers. So, the regiment does not stand in a straight line. It is divided into three strongpoints along the front with a distance of

54:29

Speaker A

400-600 meters between them and keeps a mobile reserve of a fourth battery on trucks or tractors in the rear. If the Germans break through one anti-tank strongpoint, the reserve is redeployed in 15 minutes to build a new line of

54:42

Speaker A

defense. Was such a tactic perfect? Of course not. The main milestones are already clearly visible. The creation of individual anti-tank strongpoints.

54:53

Speaker A

The drive to subject Panzers to concentrated flanking fire, echeloned defense, and the creation of a mobile reserve. I would like to draw attention to two points. Firstly, as we can see, the "funny" 45mm and 76mm guns are not

55:08

Speaker A

so funny with this approach. Mobility and compact size make it easy to camouflage the gun, and the low weight makes it easy to maneuver both the fire and the gun itself. And as for the relatively low armor penetration, the

55:21

Speaker A

Germans had forgotten about it. to armor the sides, even on a Panther. And in this scenario, the Panzers would still expose their sides. And the second point is, so to speak, primitive tactics. Crushed the German Blitzkrieg for the first time in history. Yes, the

55:36

Speaker A

service of anti-tankers in that war was just horrific. Eternal memory and eternal glory to them. But there was no other way to work against the Panzers.

55:47

Speaker A

And so comes 1942, a time when, from the emergency stopgap measures of 1941, the Soviet Union begins to move toward a systematic, cold, and very calculated organization of anti-tank warfare. On January 1, 1942, the situation in the troops was as follows. There was one

56:06

Speaker A

artillery brigade in service. It was used near Leningrad, along with 57 separate anti-tank regiments. Five of these regiments had managed to become Guards for their battles near Moscow.

56:19

Speaker A

But most importantly, industry finally began to produce normal volumes of artillery. 76mm guns were sent to the front en masse, and this made it possible to do a crucial thing. To remove anti-aircraft guns from anti-tank regiments. The 85mm guns and

56:35

Speaker A

37mm automatics breathed a sigh of relief and, finally, returned to doing their primary job: clearing the skies in air defense units. And the anti-tankers breathed no less of a sigh of relief. The idea that an anti-aircraft gun is the perfect

56:53

Speaker A

anti-tank weapon exists only in the dreams of modern Germanophiles. And in the spring of 1942, the Stavka gets the opportunity to return its own anti-tank assets to the divisions. The infantry division structure again includes a separate anti-tank battalion with 12

57:10

Speaker A

forty-fives and 36 anti-tank rifles, and every infantry regiment gets its own anti-tank rifle company, 27 barrels . But the GKO decree of May 15, 1942, still keeps the separate anti-tank artillery regiment as the main hammer against German tanks. But a decree is

57:30

Speaker A

one thing, and life is another. They started making the guns, but where to get so many trained artillerymen for dozens of new regiments? And then, on March 3, 1942, Stalin signs Order No.

57:43

Speaker A

0167. The order was militarily precise. To comb through the personnel of all branches of service—infantry, rear, supply—within a week and take every single private and sergeant who had served in artillery before the war.

58:02

Speaker A

They were sent to reserve artillery brigades for retraining. It was these experienced, battle-hardened men who formed the backbone of the new units.

58:10

Speaker A

And the work is in full swing. Yes, it's working. But unfortunately, not quite everything yet. There are mistakes. For example. In April 1942, with GKO Decree 1607, the Soviet command decides to go even further and creates a unique hybrid. Tank destroyer

58:28

Speaker A

brigades and divisions. These were not just artillery units, but true combined-arms tank killers. And again, it looked perfect on paper. And again, just like before the war, they, so to speak, overdid it. An anti-tank brigade included an anti-tank regiment, four

58:45

Speaker A

batteries of 76mm guns and three batteries of 45mm, an anti-aircraft battery, two anti-tank rifle battalions , a mortar battalion, a submachine gun company, and, actually, an engineer-mine and even a tank battalion . Three such brigades were combined into an anti-tank division. Four of

59:02

Speaker A

these were formed and dispatched to the most dangerous fronts. The first to the Southwestern, second to the Bryansk, third to the Western, and fourth to the Kalinin. These were immensely powerful mobile reserves under front-level command. But in practice, these massive

59:18

Speaker A

monsters proved too cumbersome and, consequently, inefficient. The most flexible tool of war remained the good old anti-tank regiment. During 1942, the army received over 180 such regiments. And now we arrive at the climax. The summer of 1942. The Germans

59:38

Speaker A

are pushing toward the Volga and the Caucasus. The need for anti-tankers to stand firm is sky-high, simply reaching the stratosphere. And on July 1, 1942, People's Commissar of Defense Stalin signs that very historic Order 0528. By this order, all anti-tank artillery

59:59

Speaker A

units were officially renamed tank-destroyer artillery units. IPTAPs and IPTABRs. But it was not just the name that changed. To emphasize the special, elite, yet deadly status of these destroyers, the order introduced unprecedented army privileges. Soldiers and sergeants received double pay,

60:18

Speaker A

while officers received one and a half times their regular salary. Gun commanders were automatically promoted to senior sergeant, and gunners to sergeant. All senior staff of the IPTAP were placed under special oversight by the GAU. And, of course, that famous

60:33

Speaker A

sleeve patch appeared: a black rhombus with gilded crossed cannons. For every tank personally destroyed, a bonus was paid. 500 rubles each for the gun commander and the gunner. 200 rubles each for the rest of the crew, the loader, the breech operator, and the

60:50

Speaker A

ammo bearers. This was a significant moral and material incentive. The fighters with black rhombuses on their sleeves knew that yes, their job meant walking the edge of the abyss every day . But the army and the country valued

61:02

Speaker A

their efforts at the highest level. And to those around them, the black rhombus on the sleeve was—well, I don't even know. Probably something like a paratrooper’s vest today. Thus, by the summer of 1942, the legendary anti-tank special forces of the Red

61:15

Speaker A

Army were formed. The organization was ready. Personnel were trained and motivated, yet the organization and equipment still required refinement.

61:27

Speaker A

And now we approach 1943, the moment when quantity finally and irreversibly turned into quality. As of January 1, 1943, the statistics of the Red Army’s tank-destroyer artillery were already commanding respect. In the ranks were two tank-destroyer divisions , 15 brigades, two heavy IPTAPs, 168

61:50

Speaker A

standard tank-destroyer regiments, and one separate battalion. It would seem, one could sit back and enjoy. There were plenty of regiments, but military thought did not stand still. A single anti-tank regiment of 16-20 guns was good for local defense against attacks.

62:07

Speaker A

But when the Germans gathered their signature tank rams for a massive offensive on a narrow sector, a single regiment was not enough. And if you sent several into battle, they remained separate regiments, not a unified maze of fire for the enemy. A tool was

62:23

Speaker A

needed, capable of covering not just a single hill, but an entire operational area. And such a tool finally became the legendary Iptabrs, the antitank artillery brigades. What was an Iptabr, and how was it born? Well, remember, in 1941 the first antitank brigades failed

62:44

Speaker A

due to their cumbersome four-tier structure and monstrous size. The lessons were learned properly. The 1943 -model Iptabr was a flexible, mobile steel fist of the Supreme High Command reserve. Structurally, the brigade consisted of three antitank artillery regiments of a unified design, as well

63:07

Speaker A

as its own command, reconnaissance, communications, and transport units. In total, this provided from 48 to 72 antitank barrels, including 76mm ZiS-3 guns and our heroines, the 57mm ZiS-2s.

63:24

Speaker A

So, what was the main strength of these new Iptabrs? Well, first, operational-tactical flexibility. The brigade could perform a 50 km forced march in a single night and block the path of a breakthrough enemy group.

63:37

Speaker A

Second, a massive defensive line. A single Iptabr could create a monolithic antitank defense up to 6 km wide and 4 km deep on its own. Third. An echeloned fire trap. Tactics had been refined to perfection by this time. Within the

63:58

Speaker A

brigade's area, regiments built a deep network of antitank strongpoints that overlapped each other's sectors.

64:06

Speaker A

Remnants of the enemy, breaking through the first line, would not reach operational space, but instead fall into the second and third fire echelons , where they were finished off from the flank or rear. These brigades were first used en masse in the summer of

64:19

Speaker A

1943 near Kursk. And the result exceeded all expectations; when new and numerous German Tigers, Panthers, and Ferdinands went to breach the Soviet echeloned lines, it was the Iptabrs that became the anvil against which the German "Citadel" finally shattered.

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Speaker A

Front commanders received an ultimate argument. If things started getting hot in a certain sector, an Iptabr brigade was immediately thrown there. In a matter of hours, artillerymen dug into the ground, organized a fire system, and the German offensive choked on its

64:55

Speaker A

own scrap metal. Having assessed the colossal effectiveness of such a structure, the GAU and the Stavka began a massive consolidation process. Single regiments were systematically combined into brigades. Thus, by July 1, 1943, 36%of all regiments had been merged

65:15

Speaker A

into brigades. By January 1, 1944, it was already 52%. And by January 1, 1945 , it was 66%, meaning two-thirds of all antitank artillery. Well, they didn't forget about the army either. In parallel with the creation of Supreme

65:32

Speaker A

High Command reserve brigades, during the second period of the war, there was a powerful reinforcement of regular army structures with antitank assets.

65:40

Speaker A

Starting in April 1943, new organizational tables were established. Every combined-arms army officially received its own six-battery antitank artillery regiment. Every tank army received two five-battery antitank regiments at once to cover the flanks of tank wedges from German attempts to

65:59

Speaker A

cut them off. And every front received at least one antitank artillery brigade in direct subordination. The regiments themselves also grew and matured. While in 1941–1942, due to a shortage of guns, they consisted of four or five batteries—that’s 16 to 20 guns—as

66:17

Speaker A

Soviet factories ramped up to full capacity, regiments were universally converted to a six-battery composition, 24 guns per regiment. And for the sake of clarity, to show what an anti-tank destroyer brigade was actually like in combat, I have prepared this diagram.

66:37

Speaker A

How did it work in practice? First, the main rule: no frontal fire from long range. The task of the first echelon was not just to fire at tanks, but to break the formation of the advancing forces. Enemy infantry was cut off by

66:51

Speaker A

mortars and machine guns, and tanks were forced to slow down and maneuver through minefields. Second. The "fire sack" and flanking strikes. If the lead German Tigers or Panthers broke through the front, broke through the first echelon line, they did not reach open

67:09

Speaker A

operational space; they simply wedged themselves deep into the gaps between the anti-tank strongpoints and fell under the crossfire of the second echelon. At that moment, the guns opened fire from a distance of 300– 500 meters, aiming strictly at the side

67:28

Speaker A

armor. Third. The work of the mobile anti-tank reserve, the so-called " PT-rez". A battery on prime movers was always stationed at the brigade command post. If the Germans managed to find a weak junction or launched an auxiliary flank strike, the brigade commander

67:49

Speaker A

would redeploy the reserve in 10 minutes to a pre-prepared secondary line, where the guns could quickly set up an ambush. And fourth, mutual cover.

68:01

Speaker A

Every battery of anti-tank guns was necessarily covered by a platoon of anti-tank rifles against light vehicles and a platoon of submachine gunners, so that enemy infantry could not flank or get to the rear of the crews. And this

68:14

Speaker A

is where the Nazis started to cry out. But honestly, even if you’re a three- or four-time winner, what can you do here? Just as standard defense did not work against Blitzkrieg, Blitzkrieg worked very poorly against this.

68:30

Speaker A

Instead of concentrating their strike, the Nazis were forced to split it into several streams, which, again, were forced to crawl between the strongpoints and, most importantly, lost their momentum—yes, that very speed that had allowed them to sweep away everything from the Volga to the

68:48

Speaker A

Atlantic. Of course, brute force can overcome any obstacle, and the Germans could grind down the anti-tank brigade’s positions, but with huge losses, massive commitment of forces, great effort, and loss of time. And even then, they didn't always succeed.

69:06

Speaker A

As we can see, with this method, even the 45mm and 76mm guns remained relevant. But, of course, one wanted to give this labyrinth of death for German Panzers something more powerful. Well, due to the conditions of use, it had to

69:21

Speaker A

be small, not heavy, and as a result, lightweight, mobile, and easily camouflaged. And so, on May 4, 1943, the State Defense Committee issued resolution 3290 on the resumption of production of 50mm guns. Factory 92 in Gorky received a strict command: put

69:40

Speaker A

the ZiS-2 into mass production and ship it to the front in the highest quantities possible. Well, it's easier said than done to start mass production . By 1943, Plant No. 92 was already working at maximum capacity, churning out thousands upon thousands of 3-inch

69:54

Speaker A

ZiS-3 divisional guns and F-34 tank guns. The tooling for the 1941 ZiS-2 had been partially dismantled and partially mothballed. Restoring a complex, separate production line from scratch in the heat of preparations for the battles near Kursk. This was a

70:10

Speaker A

disaster for the factory. And this is where the technological genius of Vasily Gavrilovich Grabin and factory director Yelyan stepped in again.

70:19

Speaker A

Grabin realized that stamping the old 1941 carriage was not a good idea. And he made a brilliant move. Achieving full unification of the ZiS-2 with the mass-produced, well-refined ZiS-3 divisional gun. It turned out quite amusingly. Originally, the ZiS-3 was

70:35

Speaker A

created by placing the F-22 USV barrel onto the ZiS-2 carriage. It was refined during production in 1943, brought to perfection, and then simply returned the favor to the 57mm gun. Just kidding . Alas, it wasn't that simple, and they

70:52

Speaker A

had to work hard. So, what exactly did Grabin and Yelyan do? They took the already perfectly refined ZiS-3 carriage from the assembly line, with its tubular trails, lower mount, and suspension. They kept the streamlined armor shield, wheel assembly, and

71:08

Speaker A

controls from the ZiS-3. The loose-liner barrels, which were difficult to manufacture in 1941, were finally scrapped in favor of monoblock barrels. From the first ZiS-2, they kept only the long 57mm barrel with its breech and recalculated the recoil

71:29

Speaker A

mechanism for the new gun's intense impulse. In the documents, this weapon was officially named the 57mm anti-tank gun, model 1943. This technological trick allowed Factory 92 to launch production not in years, but in just a couple of months, using existing lines

71:52

Speaker A

and dies. But it wasn't without its share of problems. The main production bottleneck remained the barrel. The four-meter-long, thin 73-caliber tube required unique precision, deep-hole drilling, and rifling. In 1943, there was a shortage of qualified machine operators. Special deep-drilling

72:16

Speaker A

machines were in short supply. And the defect rate during barrel production began to creep up again at first. Also, the metal stress when firing a 3kg shell at 700 meters per second was colossal. It required high heat-treatment standards and

72:37

Speaker A

high-quality alloy steels, which were also in short supply in 1943. But the work moved forward. Yelyan and Grabin fired up the factory machine, and the first 150 guns went to the front as early as June-July 1943. And by autumn,

72:53

Speaker A

production had reached full capacity. And while in 1941 they only managed to assemble 371 guns, in the second iteration, Factory 92 and later Factory 235 in Votkinsk produced entirely different volumes. So, 1943: 1,855 guns , 1944: 2,525 guns, 1945: 6,001 guns.

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Speaker A

And there was a post-war output of nearly 3,000 barrels. In total, more than 13,500 ZiS-2 guns of the 1943 model were produced. And when the ZiS-2 began to reach anti-tank units in mass numbers by late 1943 and 1944, its

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Speaker A

finest hour arrived. Thanks to its weight of only 1,250 kg, a six-man crew could manually roll the gun across ploughed fields or turn it 180 degrees in mere seconds. Its low silhouette made it easy to hide in any hollow,

74:02

Speaker A

under a bush, or within ruined city blocks. And for anti-tank units, that is no less important than armor penetration. Although the ZiS-2's armor penetration was, well, you get the idea . In the memoirs of German tankers from the end of the war, the ZiS-2 is

74:19

Speaker A

mentioned with great respect, to put it mildly. They called it the "long cutter " or the "Russian fishing rod." If a tank fell under the fire of an ambush of 57mm guns, it had almost no chance of escaping. Its high rate of fire

74:36

Speaker A

combined with insane penetration turned the vaunted Panzers, Panthers, and the rest of their hardware into sieves in mere seconds. Refined anti-tank tactics combined with the performance of the pre-war Grabin gun created a synergy that left nothing but burning wrecks of

74:56

Speaker A

the unstoppable Panzer divisions. Now, that is likely everything I wanted to say about this outstanding piece of artillery. All that remains is to provide the now-traditional quotes from contemporaries about the hero of this video. Let us begin with a blessing.

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Speaker A

Vasily Grabin, chief designer of Factory No. 92. In his memoirs, Grabin described how artillerymen evaluated the ballistics and accuracy of the ZiS- 2 during tests and in service.

75:27

Speaker A

Following is a quote. The gun showed excellent results. The ballistics were so high that the gunner could fire at a moving tank almost without calculating complex adjustments. At a distance of up to 1,000 meters, the projectile's trajectory remained almost straight.

75:44

Speaker A

The soldiers joked that you could hit a window at a kilometer with this gun.

75:48

Speaker A

Source: V. G. Grabin. Weapon of Victory . Moscow, Politizdat. 1989. Next, Grigory Ivanovich Stepanov, an anti-tank gun commander and WWII veteran. Following is a quote: "The gun was light and maneuverable. One gunner operated both handwheels and fired with

76:05

Speaker A

a button. But the main thing was its muzzle velocity. If you had to accurately measure the distance with a 45mm or a divisional gun, you fired point-blank with the 57mm ZiS-2. If a shell hit the side of a Panther or a

76:18

Speaker A

Pz.IV, the hole was as clean as if drilled with a bit. The only thing we feared for were the barrels. They were long and thin. They would heat up a lot during rapid fire, but its armor penetration was insane." End of quote.

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Speaker A

Source. Memoirs of artillery veterans on a military-historical portal. I remember the following. Report from the commander of the 21st Tank Brigade.

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Speaker A

October 1941. Battles near Kalinin. Following is a quote: "T-34 tanks with 57mm guns demonstrated exceptional effectiveness in combat against enemy armored vehicles. Using volley fire from ambushes at distances of 800-1,000 meters, enemy vehicles were destroyed before they could open aimed return

77:01

Speaker A

fire. Noted is the high armor-piercing effect of the shells and excellent accuracy." End of quote: Source, Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense. And a few words from the other side. A Wehrmacht tank department report on Soviet anti-tank weapons from

77:19

Speaker A

late 1943. In Nazi analytical memos on countering Soviet artillery, the ZiS-2 was highlighted as one of the most dangerous threats to German medium and heavy tanks. The following is a quote.

77:33

Speaker A

Among the enemy's towed artillery, special attention should be paid to the long-barreled 57mm anti-tank guns, the ZiS-2. The gun possesses an extremely high muzzle velocity and a flat trajectory. At ranges up to 800 meters, its armor-piercing shell poses a lethal

77:52

Speaker A

threat to the side armor of Panther and Tiger tanks. Due to its low silhouette, detecting the gun's position before the first shot is extremely difficult. End of quote. Source. Documents from the Wehrmacht's War Experience Study Bureau . Captured trophy documents. Central

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Speaker A

Archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense. German tank veterans, particularly in the memoirs of soldiers from the 503rd and 505th heavy tank battalions, often described encounters with ambushes by these 57mm guns. The following is a quote: "We called the

78:26

Speaker A

Russian 57mm long-barreled guns 'long cutters'." The impact of this shell on the side was accompanied by a sharp, dry crack. The armor was often pierced right through. If a tank fell under the crossfire of a battery of these guns,

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Speaker A

maneuvering was useless. Due to their high rate of fire, they managed to get off three to four shots per minute per barrel, even before the turret could turn toward the muzzle flash. End of quote. Source: collections of memoirs

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Speaker A

from Wehrmacht tank troop veterans. Paul Carell, "Scorched Earth." And that is probably everything I wanted to say to you today, dear viewers. If all goes well, in the next video we will meet Her Majesty, Queen ZiS-3. And if you

79:16

Speaker A

liked the video, hit the like button. If, in your opinion, I did a poor job, give it a dislike. Be sure to join the author in thanking our sponsors.

79:24

Speaker A

Without them, this video would likely never have appeared. And see you next time.

Topics: ZIS-2 Vasily Grabin Soviet artillery anti-tank gun World War II T-34 KV tank German tanks tank warfare Great Patriotic War

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