Tuesday 2 May 2017

100 mm Tank Gun, First Attempt

"To the director of the Kirov factory, Leningrad, in response to letter #838s sent on January 31st, 1941
CC: GAU UVNA Military Representative at the Kirov factory
NKTM Military Department Chief
March 13th, 1941

Having examined these projects developed at the Kirov factory under its own initiative:
  • 412-1V, 100 mm tank gun, and
  • 412-2V, 107 mm tank gun
the GAU UVNA has come to the conclusion that:
  1. Both guns are equivalent and modern, both in their ballistics and armour penetration.
  2. Out of the two presented variants, the 412-1V is not recommended for production, because:
    1. It is not reasonable to introduce a new caliber into the Red Army. Tank artillery should be based on ammunition available for field artillery.
    2. The 100 mm tank gun based on the B-24 100 mm naval gun only inherited the barrel, shell casing, and propellant. Everything else must be designed anew. Your factory is equipped to produce the B-24 naval gun, but might not be equipped to produce a 100 mm tank gun.
    3. The 100 mm B-24 naval gun lacks an armour piercing shell. It is too early to say that converting the 102 mm armour piercing shell for the 100 mm gun will not cause issues.
  3. The development of a 107 mm tank gun was assigned to the Kirov factory in 107, but the factory declined the contract. Currently, such a gun is being finished by factory #92. The GAU UVNA has no budget for Kirov factory's 107 mm gun and will not pay for it.
    If the Kirov factory wishes to develop this gun at its own expense, the armour piercing shell from the 107 mm M-60 gun must be preserved.
GAU UVNA Chief, Military Engineer 1st Class, Lipin."

1 comment:

  1. Are their "412" number relative to GAU index "412" for 100mm BS-3 years later?
    Or just a different naming method like 57mm "413"?

    ReplyDelete