Artillery of the Red Army

Part One: Field Artillery

By Ian Galley

The Red Army has a long tradition of favouring the artillery

arm. Soviet commanders called the artillery the "God of
War" and believed it to be a decisive, battle-winning arm.
The Soviet Union began a program of modernising its
artillery arm during the 1930s, and so entered World War
Two with a range of very modern and effective guns and
howitzers.

The surprise German invasion in 1941 threw the Red Army

into chaos and a huge amount of men and equipment was
lost. It took time to rebuild the artillery arm up to full strength
and potency, but by the late war period the Soviet army was
renowned for the strength and power of its artillery.

Indirect Fire
The artillery fired indirectly to prepare the way for an
assault, to bring down defensive walls of fire in front of
Soviet troops under attack, as well firing in counter-battery
roles to destroy enemy artillery.
Due to communications problems
Soviet artillery doctrine emphasised
making detailed plans covering hours
or even days of firing before and
during an attack. The level of pre-
planning was necessary because the
army was not as capable of doing the
sort of flexible, impromptu fire called
in by observers that the Americans
and British excelled at.

The enemy positions were to be

smashed by this intense preparatory
bombardment to allow the attacking
infantry to easily breakthrough, the
masses of armour would pour
through the gap created in the enemy
lines. As the war progressed the Red
Army fielded heavier and heavier
concentrations of artillery. Artillery
density often reached 320-480 pieces
per mile of front in late war battles.
German defenders reported that the
Soviet bombardments were
crushingly heavy but not always that
precise or accurate. Skilled German
commanders, such as Colonel
General Heinrici learnt to evacuate
their forward defensive line just
before the Soviet bombardment was
scheduled to begin.
The Red Army employed 122mm
howitzers as the backbone of its
indirect fire bombardments,
supplemented by 152mm howitzers.
Corps level 122mm guns and 152mm
gun howitzers would be used to
pulverise enemy strong points.

The Direct Fire

The Red Army placed much greater
emphasis on using the artillery in a
direct fire role (as opposed to shelling
an out of sight target indirectly) than
other armies of the time. Soviet
doctrine encouraged gunners to drag
their weapons forward and blast the
enemy over open sights. There were
a number of reasons for this:
Direct fire was less wasteful of
ammunition than indirect shelling which
was considered an inefficient way of
destroying the enemy. The Soviet
Union experienced severe ammunition
shortages for its artillery early in the
war. This was because the ammunition
factories were mostly positioned further
west than the gun factories. In 1941
the invading German army quickly
overran the ammunition production
facilities, while many of the artillery
factories were evacuated to safety. As
a consequence, there was a massive
imbalance between the number of
guns produced and the amount of
ammunition produced. By the end of
1942 the Soviets had increased gun
production three times faster than they
increased ammunition production.
Ammunition shortages encouraged the
use of direct fire.
 Also, the Red Army was always short
of radios and this made it difficulty to
arrange artillery fire at short notice.
The Red Army mainly relied on field
telephones to communicate, and
telephone lines were cumbersome to
lay and vulnerable to being severed
by enemy fire.

Finally, the educational standards of

the Red Army were, on average,
lower than most other armies of the
time. This, combined with the
difficulty of providing training to such
a large army, meant that it was
difficult to train enough observers for
the artillery army.
Therefore, the artillery crew often had no choice but to go forward and shell the enemy directly.

Because of the emphasis on direct fire, Red Army artillery pieces were designed to be as light as possible.
This made them easier for the crews to manoeuvre into new firing positions on the front line.
Being on the front-line so often meant that life was more dangerous for Red Army gunners that for
artillerymen of other nations. However, as the war progressed the crews became more skilled at using their
weapons at the front. Evgenii Monyushko recalls how he and his comrades dug their weapons in at the
Sandomierz bridgehead battle in 1944:

"Two holes were made to the left and right of a gun’s wheels - one for the gunner, the other for the
loader. Practically, ZIS-3 guns didn’t require simultaneous presence of the entire crew near the gun.
Moreover, it was usually enough for only one person to be present. The gunner, after firing, could hide
himself in his hole while the loader would drive the next shell into the barrel. Now the gunner could take his
place, aim, and fire, and the loader would be taking cover at that time. Even after a direct hit into the gun at
least one of the two had a chance to survive. The other crew members were spread out through the holes,
side "pockets" of the trench. Practical experience, which was being accumulated in this regiment, starting
as far back as the Battle of the Kursk Salient, allowed [the guns crews] to minimize casualties."

The Main Soviet Guns

Field Artillery

ZiS-3 76.2mm
Weight: 1120kg
Shell weight: 6.21kg
Max Range: 13,000m
Rate of Fire: up to 25 rpm
Divisional Level Support Corps Level Support

Obr 1938 122mm Howitzer Obr 1931/37 122mm Gun (A-19)

Weight: 2250kg Weight: 7907kg
Shell weight: 21.76kg Shell weight: 25kg
Max Range: 12,100m Max Range: 20,400m
Rate of Fire: 5-6 rpm Rate of Fire: 5-6 rpm

Obr 1939 152mm Gun-Howitzer (ML- Obr 1938 152mm Howitzer (M-
20) 10)
Weight: 7128kg Weight: 4100kg
Shell weight: 43.5kg Shell weight: 40kg
Max Range: 17,265.m Max Range: 12,400m
Rate of Fire: 1 rpm Rate of Fire: 2-4 rpm

Mortars and Rockets

The Red Army made extensive use of mortars,
some of them of a very large calibre. They were
often employed en masse like conventional
artillery. Mortars had the advantage of being simple
to produce, and relatively lightweight and so easy
to move (which was important in the Red Army as
there was always a shortage of gun tractors). The
Soviets used 50mm, 82mm, 107mm, 120mm and
160mm Mortars. The 120mm was one of the best
artillery pieces of the war, and could throw a 16kg
bomb out to 6000 metres. The Germans thought it
was so good they copied the design. The massive
160mm mortar fired a round containing more
explosive filler than the 152mm howitzer (the
160mm fired a bomb weighing 41.14kg) and was
the only brand new artillery piece the Soviets put
into production in the entire war.

The Russians employed large quantities of rocket

artillery and would mass them at critical points
before an assault. Rockets started development in
the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, at the Gas
Dynamics Laboratory in Leningrad. They were
considered top-secret weapons and very little was
known about the extent of Soviet rocketry outside
of the Soviet Union. The rocket launcher batteries
were called "Guards Mortar" batteries to hide their
true nature.
Their first use against the invading German, near Orszy in July 1941, came as a great surprise to the
enemy. German troops came to hate and fear the devastating bombardments that the rocket launchers
(called ’Katyusha’, meaning Katie, or little Kate) would unleash without warning.

The first Soviet rockets were 82mm in calibre. They were commonly fired from the M-8 launcher. The M-8
carried 36 82mm rockets in three rows. Soon after, the 132mm rocket was introduced. Fired from the M-13
launcher, which held 16 132mm rockets in two rows of eight. Both of these rocket types were mounted on a
wide variety of vehicles - not only trucks, but also T-60 and T-70 light tanks, artillery tractors and even
captured vehicles.
 Larger rockets of 300mm and 310mm
calibre were also used. Mostly these
were fired from ground mounted,
static frames (not unlike the German
schweres Wurfgerat 40 or 41 heavy
rocket launchers). These were used
for pre-planned, set-piece attacks.
They could also be mounted on the
M-31 mobile launcher.

Close up: The 76.2mm

ZIS-3 Field Gun
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.
An attempt was made
to improve and lighten
the M.1936 - resulting in
the M.1939 or F-22
USV gun, which had a
shortened barrel. But
the Germans captured
the factory that made
the carriage for the F-22
(but they didn’t capture
the factory that made
the guns).

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.
German tanks crews
could find them
selves being
engaged by some
very large calibre
weapons -- 122mm,
152mm or even
larger!

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).