When you think of Soviet tank destroyers the first
thing to come to mind is most likely vehicles built on the chassis of the T-34 or the IS. These
certainly played an important role in the defense of the U.S.S.R as well as the advance back west
into the German homeland. However despite these achievements these more well known vehicles have
stolen the spotlight away from some of the true heroes of the early defense of the Motherland.
Today we will embark on the first of several videos documenting these early self propelled guns
which helped slow the rapid advance of the Nazi forces. Our journey begins with a vehicle you may
be familiar with, commonly known as the Zis-30. Often the subjects of my videos are vehicles
which are known only to a small portion of the tank enthusiast community. This can make
it difficult to find examples of how they may have performed when they saw combat as no one
has bothered to find footage of them or it has been lost to history. That would be the case for
today's topic as well if it weren't for games like War Thunder who is the sponsor of this video.
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now let's get into today’s main topic. The Soviet Union had experimented with the concept
of the tank destroyer and self propelled guns for well over a decade. It could even be argued
that there were several designs prior to the Communist revolution which may have been
considered tank destroyers. However most of these were little more than concepts or
prototypes which never saw combat. For this reason I have chosen the Zis-30 as the place to
start this series of Cursed by Design episodes on the evolution of the Soviet tank destroyers.
Before we look at the vehicle itself though let’s consider the situation in which it was created.
Following the conquest of most of Western Europe by the Third Reich, Hitler set his eyes eastward
on the communist controlled territories of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. War
would finally break on the 22nd of June, 1941 as Operation Barbarossa began and the Nazi
war machine began to move rapidly across the border. Among these forces were around 3,000
German Panzers with many crewed by veteran tankers from previous conquests. This was indeed a
tremendous force backed by both the Luftwaffe and around 3 million men without counting non-German
manpower. Regardless of this, if one were to look solely at the paper statistics of both armies
they likely would come to the conclusion that the Soviets would send the German’s packing in short
order. Looking at their numbers of tanks alone they had nearly double the vehicles ready
for battle on the day of the invasion with estimates putting their total armored vehicles in
stockpiles at nearly 30,000 with 24,000 of those being tanks. In reality though the majority
of those were inoperable with only around 7,000 being able to fight for even a
short time without significant work. This was still double the number of German
vehicles and contrary to what some may lead you to believe the Soviet armor in many cases
was superior to their German counterparts. This can be seen when the wehrmacht encountered
vehicles like the KVs with their thick armor being extremely resistant to the 50mm cannons of
the German panzers. This advantage did not result in the Soviets stopping the invaders, but it did
hinder their advance significantly. It would not be without heavy losses though and the Red Army
would hemorrhage thousands of tanks with around 5000 being destroyed or captured by August of
1941. Clearly the invasion was an utter disaster for the Red Army as the Third Reich crawled
further and further across their territory thanks in no small part to their armored forces.
What the Soviet Union needed was a cheap vehicle which could be produced quickly. This would
in the long term end up being the venerable T-34 but in the early days of the invasion
these were not yet available in large numbers. This is where the Zis-30 enters the story.
The program that would eventually lead to the Zis-30 actually began in the spring
of 1941 before Operation Barbarossa when the idea of tank destroyers built on artillery
tractors was proposed. Several of the vehicles put forward as potential candidates included
the STZ-5 and Voroshilovets heavy artillery tractor with the former mounting a 57mm and the
latter carrying an 85mm armament. Most of these ideas would be discarded in early June due to
a variety of issues with the vehicles which made them unsuitable for the job. We will see
in the next episode in this series that there was another design, known as the HTZ-16, which
saw production simultaneously with the ZiS-30, but it deserves a video of its own. All of
this planning went out the window just a few weeks later when the aforementioned German
forces made their unwelcome entry into Soviet land. With tank production now absolutely
critical to the war effort the production of artillery tractors was cut heavily to avoid
using up previous resources which could instead be made into tanks. One of these unassuming
vehicles to encounter the chopping block was that of the small tractor known as the T-20.
On July 1st, 1941 the previously shelved idea of using tractors and trucks for tank destroyers
was restarted in earnest. Now the two candidates for this were the T-20 and the GAZ-AAA truck. It
should be obvious by now which option they went with considering the Zis-30 was not built on a
truck. However this was not the end for truck based tank destroyers as we will consider in a
future video in this series. Back to the T-20 it was found that conversion of this vehicle
to a tank destroyer was not only simpler, but would result in better off road
performance than its wheeled counterpart. The first prototype of the ZIS-30 was available by
July 20th, 1941 only about a week longer than the two week timeframe given to the actual designing
of the tank destroyer. This speaks to how simple the conversion was with it requiring minimal
changes from the original tractor. Carrying the 57mm ZIS-2 anti-tank gun this vehicle certainly
had the firepower to deal with its German foes. When firing HVAP this cannon could defeat
140mms of armor at 500 meters compared to the 94mms of the F-34 76.2mm which the T-34
and many other vehicles were equipped with. This made it perfect for a tank killing gun
as the High Explosive shell performance was terrible compared to the armor defeating ability.
It was also noted that if necessary the new ZIS-3 76mm cannon could be fitted to the tractor.
The design was clearly looked upon favorably with an initial request for 3,000 of
the tank destroyers in only 5 months. Considering production of the tractors
they were being built on had been largely eliminated this was wishful thinking. Before
a decision was made though field trials would need to be conducted with the new prototype.
This would result in several improvements to the ZIS-30 so let's now take a peek at what
that final production vehicle looked like. The T-20 tractor or as its sometimes called the
Komsomolets was a tracked light artillery tractor consisting of a thinly armored hull with around
7-10mms of armor powered by a 4 cylinder GAZ engine, the same as found in several Soviet cars
and trucks and was essentially a copy of a Ford engine. From this base vehicle the seats in the
rear were removed, being replaced by the ZIS-2 gun mount. Along with the gun it received the attached
gun shield which, similar to the hull armor, was only around 7mms thick. This was not enough
to stop much but would still provide the crew a reasonable amount of protection. The remaining
space was used for ammunition storage and the crew who would man the gun. The driver and hull gunner
remained in their original location. Following the field trials folding legs were added to
the back which would help manage the recoil from the gun. Folding sides were also added to
allow the gun crew some additional foot space. Despite the early expectations for mass
conversion of the T-20 the actual numbers produced from September to October was only
around 100 vehicles. Part of this issue is similar to what happened with the 57mm armed
T-34 project where lack of cannon production added to the other issues reducing production.
These ZIS-30s were reportedly given a tricolor camo and immediately were sent into combat.
Combat performance of the ZIS-30 appears to have been good with the small size allowing it
to easily be concealed allowing for engagements with less chance of being spotted and receiving
return fire. One report claims a single ZIS-30 was able to knock out three German vehicles at a
range of 2 kilometers causing the rest to abandon their advance and retreat. As I have said in
the past it can be hard to trust first hand accounts without the matching reports from the
opposing side but against the German vehicles of that period this was well within the capabilities
of the tank destroyer. Exact reporting of where ZIS-30s were assigned and fought is difficult
to find as they were often referred to by other names including just being called anti-tank
guns. Despite their hasty construction some of these vehicles reportedly survived in combat
for several years with ZIS-30s possibly still around in 1944 and one even surviving the war
and now on display at the Museum of Military Equipment "Battle Glory of the Urals". There
are also a handful of original T-20 Tractors in collections in both Russia and Finland.
This reported success does not mean the vehicle was without flaws though with one major one being
the engine. The small 4 cylinder engine struggled in more adverse conditions, not a surprise
given it only had around 50 horsepower. One unit even submitted feedback on the vehicle to
the GAU Artillery committee reporting that in combat the gun was fired without folding down
the coulters due to quote “no time to deploy” which resulted in cases of them flipping over. I
find it hard to blame the vehicle itself for that as despite the short length causing instability
not deploying the thing specifically designed to prevent that is really just user error. All things
considered though the performance of the small tank destroyer is remarkable given how cludged
it was, to borrow a term from forgotten weapons. The ZIS-30 was far from the only vehicle of its
type as we will see in future videos but it did not really have a long impact on Soviet tank
destroyer designs. The design lives on today within a variety of model kits and video games
including War Thunder as I mentioned at the start of the video. I want to know what you think of
this little tractor which carried such a large gun so leave your thoughts in the comments.
While you’re down there don’t forget to try out War Thunder using my link to get that free
bonus and maybe you’ll run into me playing my ZIS-30. Thanks as always to all of you for
watching and especially to those of you who have joined as YouTube members. I want to give a
special shoutout to these members who have been supporting my channel for over a year which
is incredible and much appreciated. That's all I have for you today though so be sure to
like and subscribe so you don’t miss the next video on another early Soviet tank destroyer,
that being the HTZ-16. Hope to see you there.
Tank Killing Tractor, the ZIS-30, a Cursed by Design video by ConeOfArc on a Soviet vehicle that mounted the ZiS-2 57MM anti-tank gun on top of the Komsomolets armoured artillery tractor.