SBX71: Heavy Tank-Killer Company

This ZIS-2 57mm anti-tank gun was a very long-barrelled gun with excellent armour penetration. It was available in 1941, but was cancelled in December 41 because of the lack of heavy German tanks (it was felt that the weapon was over-powerful against the thinly-armoured German tanks of 1941), and also because of the expense involved in its manufacture.

The initial production batch was very inaccurate as the calculations for the rifling inside the barrel were botched. By the time this had been rectified and production restarted it was cancelled in favour of the 76mm field gun. The 76mm was felt to have adequate armour penetration and also fired a much better high-explosive round.

The power of the 57mm was needed when the new generation of German heavy tanks appeared in 1942, and the weapon re-entered service in 1943 on a modified gun carriage. 

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The mainstay of the Red Army artillery arm was the 76.2mm ZIS-3 gun. Officially accepted into service in early 1942, the ZIS-3 replaced the previous 76.2mm gun - the M.1936. The M.1936 was an excellent weapon, but too heavy, complex and expensive for Soviet needs. The ZIS-3 was created by mating the gun from the M.1939 with the carriage of the 57mm ZIS-2 anti-tank gun. The ZIS-2 carriage couldn’t stand the power of the recoil from the 76.2mm gun so a muzzle brake was fitted. The ZIS-3 became the first Soviet field gun to be equipped with a muzzle brake. 

The ZIS-3 was very well designed and simple to produce. It took 2034 hours to construct an M.1936 gun, 1300 hours to construct an M.1939 gun, but only 909 hours to make a ZIS-3. Over 48,000 ZIS-3 guns were produced during the war, and it was a mainstay of many countries artillery forces for a long time afterward. The ZIS-3 was a very lightweight gun for its size, and was used in a direct fire role about as often as it was used for indirect fire. The weapon served as a dual-purpose gun - capable of being used in an anti-infantry or anti-tank role. Soviet doctrine required all artillery pieces to be used as anti-tank weapons when the situation required; even if the guns had no armour-piercing ammunition they were expected to engage German panzers with high-explosive.

Despite being of a much smaller calibre than the standard German medium artillery piece (the 10.5cm leFH18 howitzer) of the war, the ZIS-3 outranged the German howitzer. The Russian gun weighed almost half as much as the German weapon, and had a much higher rate of fire. Of course, the 76.2mm shell didn’t possess the hitting power of the 10.5cm round, but by firing directly at the target Red Army gunners could put their shells a lot closer to the enemy -- compensating for the smaller size of the projectile.

The Germans called the ZIS-3 "Ratsch-Bum" because of it’s sound. When being shelled, first came the buzzing noise of the shell ("ratsch") and then the sound of explosion ("bum"). The German Army were greatly impressed by the ZIS-3 and employed many captured weapons against their former owners. In German service the ZIS-3 was called the 7,62cm FK 288(r). 

THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS:

• 4x 57mm or 76mm Gun Teams

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These miniatures are supplied unassembled and unpainted