ZiS-2
Encyclopedia
The ZiS-2 was a Soviet
57-mm anti-tank gun used during World War II
. The ZiS-4 was a version of the gun meant to be installed in tanks. ZiS stands for Zavod imeni Stalina (Russian Завод имени Сталина, 'plant named after Stalin
'), the official title of Artillery Factory No. 92, which constructed this gun first.
divisional gun. The carriage has coil spring suspension, which allows towing with a speed of up to 50 km/h on highways, 30 km/h on unpaved roads and 10 km/h off-road. The gun can also be attached to a limber
and towed by six horses. ZiS-2s are equipped with PP1-2 panoramic sight.
In the beginning of 1940 the design office of V. G. Grabin received from the Artillery Department the task to develop a powerful anti-tank gun. The head of this department Marshal
Kulik
and its subordinates estimated that the use of heavily armored tanks by the USSR in the Winter War
didn't go unnoticed in Nazi Germany
and would lead to development of similar fighting machines there. There is also a chance that the department was influenced by the German propaganda about the experimental multiturreted "supertank" NbFz
. To this vehicle heavier armor was attributed than it actually had. Therefore Grabin and its office were guided by the characteristics of the domestic heavy tank KV-1 with 40-75 mm armor. In the opinion of developers, the optimal calibre in this case was 57 mm. The velocity and mass of the armor-piercing 57 mm projectile allowed it to attain sufficient kinetic energy to penetrate up to 90 mm of RHA
while keeping the gun sufficiently light, mobile and easy to conceal. However the decision also had a downside: this caliber was new to the Red Army
, so the manufacturing of the projectiles had to be started from scratch.
Development started in May 1940 and in the beginning of 1941 the gun was adopted as 57-mm anti-tank gun model 1941 (ZiS-2) (Russian: 57-мм противотанковая пушка образца 1941 года (ЗиС-2)). Production began on June 1, 1941 but on December 1st, 1941 it was stopped by marshals N. N. Voronov and G. L. Govorov, their explanation being that ZiS-2 shells go right through weakly armored German tanks without doing much harm inside. Other possible reasons for the decision were high cost of the gun and problems with shell production. By then, 371 pieces were built.
The production lines were switched to manufacturing of the ZiS-3
76.2 mm divisional gun, while Soviet anti-tank artillery received cheaper 45 mm guns. Some anti-tank regiments also received the ZiS-3, which was able to defeat any German vehicle until late 1942.
Appearance of the heavy Tiger I
and then the Panther
changed the balance in favor of the Germans. 45 mm guns model 1942 could only pierce the side armor of the Panther, while the ZiS-3 only managed to penetrate the sides and the gun mantlet. Against the Tiger, the ZiS-3 was effective only from the side at close range (up to 300 m), and 45 mm pieces were nearly helpless. A more powerful gun was needed and on June 15, 1943 the ZiS-2 once again entered service as 57-mm anti-tank gun model 1943. Until 1945 9,645 units were produced.
chassis to create the ZiS-30
tank destroyer.
The ZiS-2 gun was also mounted in at least three different prototypes based on the SU-76
assault gun (SU-74, SU-76D, and SU-57B). None were accepted for production.
There was also a tank gun
version of ZiS-2, called ZiS-4. In 1941, trying to improve the anti-tank performance of the T-34 tank, members of the Morozov Design Bureau experimentally equipped it with the ZiS-4. Only a small number of these T-34-57 tanks were built and used as tank hunters. The idea resurfaced in 1943, after Germany fielded heavily armoured Tiger
and Panther tank
s. Again only a limited number was produced, equipped with a slightly modified version of the gun, the ZiS-4M. Although the high-velocity gun had superior armour penetration to the F-34
, the small weight of its shell meant that it could not fire an adequate high explosive round for general use. The ultimate solution for the tank was to design a new turret allowing the use of an 85-mm gun; the new model was called the T-34-85.
A modernized version of the ZiS-2 was used in the ASU-57
, a post-war self-propelled airborne antitank gun.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
57-mm anti-tank gun used during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The ZiS-4 was a version of the gun meant to be installed in tanks. ZiS stands for Zavod imeni Stalina (Russian Завод имени Сталина, 'plant named after Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
'), the official title of Artillery Factory No. 92, which constructed this gun first.
Description
The 57-mm anti-tank gun model 1943 (ZiS-2) is a semi-automatic gun with vertical block breech. When firing the block opens and closes automatically, leaving to the loader only to put a round into the receiver. Due to this feature the rate of fire can reach 25 rounds per minute. The split-trail carriage with gunshield was shared with the ZiS-3ZiS-3
The 76-mm divisional gun M1942 was a Soviet 76.2 mm divisional field gun used during World War II. ZiS was a factory designation and stood for Zavod imeni Stalina , the honorific title of Artillery Factory No...
divisional gun. The carriage has coil spring suspension, which allows towing with a speed of up to 50 km/h on highways, 30 km/h on unpaved roads and 10 km/h off-road. The gun can also be attached to a limber
Limber
Limber may refer to:*Limbers and caissons, a 2-way cart used to support artillery* Limber , a song off the album Aneurythm by the American hard rock band Living Syndication.*Limber Pine, a species of pine tree found in the Western United States and Canada...
and towed by six horses. ZiS-2s are equipped with PP1-2 panoramic sight.
History
Marshal
Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...
Kulik
Grigory Kulik
Grigory Ivanovich Kulik was a Soviet military commander and was born into a peasant family near Poltava in Ukraine. A soldier in the army of the Russian Empire in World War I, he joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and the Red Army in 1918...
and its subordinates estimated that the use of heavily armored tanks by the USSR in the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
didn't go unnoticed in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and would lead to development of similar fighting machines there. There is also a chance that the department was influenced by the German propaganda about the experimental multiturreted "supertank" NbFz
Neubaufahrzeug
The German Neubaufahrzeug series of tank prototypes were a first attempt to create a heavy tank for the Wehrmacht after Adolf Hitler had come to power. Multi-turreted, heavy and slow, they did not fit in with the Blitzkrieg tactics and therefore only five were made...
. To this vehicle heavier armor was attributed than it actually had. Therefore Grabin and its office were guided by the characteristics of the domestic heavy tank KV-1 with 40-75 mm armor. In the opinion of developers, the optimal calibre in this case was 57 mm. The velocity and mass of the armor-piercing 57 mm projectile allowed it to attain sufficient kinetic energy to penetrate up to 90 mm of RHA
Rolled homogeneous armour
Rolled homogeneous armour is a type of steel which is used to armour vehicles.-Composition:Armoured steel must be hard yet impervious to shock in order to resist high velocity metal projectiles. Steel with these characteristics is produced by processing cast steel billets of appropriate size and...
while keeping the gun sufficiently light, mobile and easy to conceal. However the decision also had a downside: this caliber was new to the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, so the manufacturing of the projectiles had to be started from scratch.
Development started in May 1940 and in the beginning of 1941 the gun was adopted as 57-mm anti-tank gun model 1941 (ZiS-2) (Russian: 57-мм противотанковая пушка образца 1941 года (ЗиС-2)). Production began on June 1, 1941 but on December 1st, 1941 it was stopped by marshals N. N. Voronov and G. L. Govorov, their explanation being that ZiS-2 shells go right through weakly armored German tanks without doing much harm inside. Other possible reasons for the decision were high cost of the gun and problems with shell production. By then, 371 pieces were built.
The production lines were switched to manufacturing of the ZiS-3
ZiS-3
The 76-mm divisional gun M1942 was a Soviet 76.2 mm divisional field gun used during World War II. ZiS was a factory designation and stood for Zavod imeni Stalina , the honorific title of Artillery Factory No...
76.2 mm divisional gun, while Soviet anti-tank artillery received cheaper 45 mm guns. Some anti-tank regiments also received the ZiS-3, which was able to defeat any German vehicle until late 1942.
Appearance of the heavy Tiger I
Tiger I
Tiger I is the common name of a German heavy tank developed in 1942 and used in World War II. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. E, often shortened to Tiger. It was an answer to the unexpectedly formidable Soviet armour encountered in the initial months of...
and then the Panther
Panther tank
Panther is the common name of a medium tank fielded by Nazi Germany in World War II that served from mid-1943 to the end of the European war in 1945. It was intended as a counter to the T-34, and to replace the Panzer III and Panzer IV; while never replacing the latter, it served alongside it as...
changed the balance in favor of the Germans. 45 mm guns model 1942 could only pierce the side armor of the Panther, while the ZiS-3 only managed to penetrate the sides and the gun mantlet. Against the Tiger, the ZiS-3 was effective only from the side at close range (up to 300 m), and 45 mm pieces were nearly helpless. A more powerful gun was needed and on June 15, 1943 the ZiS-2 once again entered service as 57-mm anti-tank gun model 1943. Until 1945 9,645 units were produced.
Employment
ZiS-2s were employed by anti-tank artillery platoons of infantry units and by anti-tank artillery units of the Reserve of High Command, the most numerous of these being anti-tank artillery regiments (Russian Истребительный Противотанковый Артиллерийский Полк, abbreviated ИПТАП).Self-propelled mounts
The ZiS-2 was also mounted on a few vehicles. In 1941 about a hundred ZiS-2 guns were mounted on Komsomolets armored tractorKomsomolets armored tractor
T-20 armored tractor Komsomolets was a prime mover vehicle used by the Soviet Union during the Winter War and World War II.-Description:The T-20 was designed in 1936 at the Ordzhonikidze Moscow Plant no.37. They were manufactured during 1937-1941 at Factory no...
chassis to create the ZiS-30
ZiS-30
The ZiS-30 was a light self-propelled anti-tank gun built for the Soviet Red Army in 1941. It was based on the Komsomolets armored artillery tractor...
tank destroyer.
The ZiS-2 gun was also mounted in at least three different prototypes based on the SU-76
SU-76
The SU-76 was a Soviet self-propelled gun used during and after World War II.- History :The SU-76 was based on a lengthened and widened version of the T-70 tank chassis...
assault gun (SU-74, SU-76D, and SU-57B). None were accepted for production.
There was also a tank gun
Tank gun
A tank gun is the main armament of a tank. Modern tank guns are large-caliber high-velocity guns, capable of firing kinetic energy penetrators, high explosive anti-tank rounds, and in some cases guided missiles. Anti-aircraft guns can also be mounted to tanks.-Overview:Tank guns are a specific...
version of ZiS-2, called ZiS-4. In 1941, trying to improve the anti-tank performance of the T-34 tank, members of the Morozov Design Bureau experimentally equipped it with the ZiS-4. Only a small number of these T-34-57 tanks were built and used as tank hunters. The idea resurfaced in 1943, after Germany fielded heavily armoured Tiger
Tiger I
Tiger I is the common name of a German heavy tank developed in 1942 and used in World War II. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. E, often shortened to Tiger. It was an answer to the unexpectedly formidable Soviet armour encountered in the initial months of...
and Panther tank
Panther tank
Panther is the common name of a medium tank fielded by Nazi Germany in World War II that served from mid-1943 to the end of the European war in 1945. It was intended as a counter to the T-34, and to replace the Panzer III and Panzer IV; while never replacing the latter, it served alongside it as...
s. Again only a limited number was produced, equipped with a slightly modified version of the gun, the ZiS-4M. Although the high-velocity gun had superior armour penetration to the F-34
F-34 tank gun
The 76 mm tank gun M1940 F-34 was a 76.2 mm Soviet tank gun used on the T-34/76 tank. A modified version of the gun, the 76 mm tank gun M1941 ZiS-5 was used on KV-1 tanks during World War II...
, the small weight of its shell meant that it could not fire an adequate high explosive round for general use. The ultimate solution for the tank was to design a new turret allowing the use of an 85-mm gun; the new model was called the T-34-85.
A modernized version of the ZiS-2 was used in the ASU-57
ASU-57
The ASU-57 was a small, lightly constructed Soviet assault gun specifically designed for use by Soviet airborne divisions. From 1960 it was replaced by the ASU-85.-Development history:...
, a post-war self-propelled airborne antitank gun.
Post-war history
Due to fast improvement of tank armour protection ZiS-2 quickly lost its anti-tank value. In Soviet anti-tank artillery by mid-1950s ZiS-2 was replaced by more powerful 100 mm guns. However, its small size and weight kept it in active service with Soviet airborne troops for much longer. It was the fast improvement of rocket-based anti-tank weapons that eventually phased ZiS-2 out of use. All surviving ZiS-2s are memorial pieces or museum exhibits.Ammunition
| Available ammunition | |||
| Type | Model | Weight, kg | HE weight, g |
| Armour-piercing projectiles (muzzle velocity up to 990 m/s) | |||
| APHE | BR-271K | 3.16 | 18 |
| APCBC | BR-271 | 3.16 | 14 |
| APCBC (improved penetration) | BR-271M | 2.80 | 13 |
| AP (solid) | BR-271SP | 3.16 | N/A |
| Composite Armour-piercing projectiles (muzzle velocity up to 1250 m/s) | |||
| APCR "Reel" type | BR-271P | 1.79 | N/A |
| APCR "Smooth" type | BR-271N | 2.4 | N/A |
| Other projectiles (muzzle velocity up to 700 m/s) | |||
| Fragmentation | O-271U (O-271G) | 3.75 | 204 or 220 |
| Canister | Shch-271 | 3.66 | N/A |
| Armour penetration table | ||
| APHE projectile BR-271K | ||
| Distance, m | Meet angle 60°, mm | Meet angle 90°, mm |
| 100 | 91 | 112 |
| 300 | 84 | 103 |
| 500 | 76 | 94 |
| 1000 | 60 | 74 |
| 1500 | 46 | 57 |
| 2000 | 35 | 44 |
| APCBC projectile BR-271 | ||
| Distance, m | Meet angle 60°, mm | Meet angle 90°, mm |
| 100 | 93 | 114 |
| 300 | 89 | 109 |
| 500 | 84 | 103 |
| 1000 | 74 | 91 |
| 1500 | 64 | 79 |
| 2000 | 56 | 69 |
| APCR projectile BR-271P | ||
| Distance, m | Meet angle 60°, mm | Meet angle 90°, mm |
| 100 | 155 | 190 |
| 300 | 137 | 168 |
| 500 | 120 | 147 |
| 1000 | 83 | 101 |
| These data was obtained by Soviet methodics of armour penetration measurement (penetration probability equals 75%). They are not directly comparable with western data of similar type |
||