Tuesday 26 December 2017

SU-152 Production

"Deliveries for contract USA-936 signed on October 18th, 1943

Customer: GBTU USA
Producer: Kirov factory (Chelyabinsk)

1. SU-152 SPGs

SPGs must be built according to blueprints approved by the GAU Artillery Committee in journal entry #0254 on September 8th, 1943, the GBTU USA, and the NKTP

Delivery in the 3rd quarter of 1943
By month
Amount
Unit cost
Total
July
August
September
248
250,000
62,000,000
80/2,000,000
84/2,100,000
84/2,100,000
Delivery in the 4th quarter of 1943
October
November
December
126
250,000
31,500,000
84/2,100,000
42/1,050,000

Total
374
250,000
93,500,000


Kirov factory director, Zaltsmann
GBTU USA Chief, Major-General of the Tank Engineering Forces, Alymov"

5 comments:

  1. Imagine if the Soviets had placed the simpler SU-152 into production instead of wasting time with the KV-2 and it's expensive ponderous turret the Soviets would of had heavy support guns from the beginning of the 1940, instead of 43. Any competent engineer should of taken one look at the size and height of the KV-2 turret and right away of known it was too tall and too heavy.

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    Replies
    1. The requirement for the KV-2 put speed of development over everything else, which is why the outcome wasn't exactly amazing. The SU-152 built on earlier projects, such as the KV-7 and ZIK-20.

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    2. KV-2 was a rather hasty adaptation at a time when the production of baseline tank was only getting started, redesigning the thing into a casemate assault gun would hardly have yielded results in the time needed. Or necessarily been any less troubled given the number of issues plaguing the KV...

      ...also not really sure what good heavy assault guns would have done the Red Army in the early years anyway, as it happened they got rather preoccupied with business that generally didn't involve assaulting heavily fortified defenses for a while. There's kind of a reason they stopped making KV-2s even as a stopgap measure after all.

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    3. Kellomies Valid point about Russia not really needing a heavy assault tank for a few year. But the hull would of been perfect for the 85 and 100mm anti tank guns. then after Kursk they could of started putting in big howitzers.

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    4. Those fit just fine into the rather lighter and cheaper (and less mechanically troubled) T-34 hulls once the matter became relevant, though... also if memory serves 100 mm guns weren't introduced until the late war anyway. (They did have the 107 mm but for various reasons that never became mainstream.)

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