2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16
The Wehrmacht entered World War II armed only with light tanks. They were quite enough to produce rapid breakthroughs and flanking maneuvers characteristic of the lightning wars of 1939, 1940 and 1941. The armies of countries that fell victim to Hitler's aggression were armed with vehicles of the same class, and often worse.
The Germans crossed the border of the USSR with the same arsenal, consisting of tankettes, tanks T-I, T-II and T-III. T-I was armed only with a machine gun, other types of armored vehicles had small-caliber guns.
The fact that the Wehrmacht soldiers happened to meet in the very first tank battles on Soviet territory puzzled them greatly. The captured samples of "thirty-fours" and KV significantly exceeded everything that the Panzerwaffe forces had at their disposal. Work began urgently on the accelerated development of self-propelled guns and heavy tanks that could withstand Soviet medium-weight vehicles armed with long-barreled 75-caliber guns.
The history of the SU-152 has become part of the general arms systems race that has been going on throughout the war years. This battle was invisible, it was foughtengineers of the warring countries, standing behind the drawing boards, making calculations on slide rules.
Within two years, the Germans created a whole "zoo" consisting of "tigers", "elephants", "panthers" and even "mice", however, very large ones. For all their design flaws, and sometimes vices, these heavyweights had a significant advantage: they could accurately hit armored targets from long distances.
The State Defense Committee set a specific task for Soviet designers: to create a self-propelled gun capable of destroying enemy vehicles that had powerful armor and did not let our tanks close to them. The case was entrusted to TsKB-2 (Central Design Bureau), led by Lieutenant Colonel Kotin. The engineering team already had a certain backlog; they worked on the project of a new tank throughout 1942, and the chassis as a whole was already ready. It remained to install the ML-20 howitzer of 152.4 mm caliber on it. In honor of this gun, the Soviet self-propelled gun SU-152 received its modest name. The task was completed in 25 days.
Soviet technology frightened the enemy not with a big name, but with its terrible work. An almost half-centner projectile left the muzzle of the barrel at a monstrous speed of 600 m / s, sending it to a distance of 2 km. The howitzer could fire not only armor-piercing, but also high-explosive fragmentation and concrete-piercing ammunition, which was very important for use in offensive military operations. It was necessary to liberate the territories occupied by the enemy, break into fortified lines, destroy pillboxes, suppressartillery batteries, and for this the SU-152 self-propelled gun was very useful.
The Battle of Kursk became the first major battle in which St. John's Wort took part. In addition to its official designation, the car still received a nickname, however, unofficial. It was well-deserved, the Nazi menagerie very quickly felt the presence of new Soviet technology, as they say, in their own skin.
As a tank destroyer, the SU-152 proved to be very good. Hitting the "Tiger" or "Panther" left no chance of survival for either equipment or crews - heavy armored towers simply flew off tens of meters. However, there were problems, mainly due to the insufficient quality of domestic optics. The sights did not provide the necessary accuracy for a guaranteed hit.
Support for offensive operations did not require high accuracy of fire, and the Soviet self-propelled gun SU-152 coped with this task perfectly. Its rate of fire may seem low (only two shots per minute), but one should take into account the peculiarity of a howitzer gun with a separate supply of cartridge case and projectile.
The heavy gun could not be installed in the turret, but the angle of rotation (12° in each direction) was sufficient for aiming from both closed and open positions.
SU-152 self-propelled guns took part in the storming of Berlin. Although they were not designed for street fighting, their caliber was a very strong argument in favor of surrender.
