Talk:SU-152

SU-152 was specifically built as a tank destroyer

 * '' The SU-152 was produced during 1943 as an immediate response to the German Panther tank and Tiger tank

This was removed, to be consistent with the body of the article. But Zaloga directly implies that it's the other way around:

The appearance of the Tiger ... finally forced the NKTP out of its complacency and made it realize that the 76.2mm gun equipping all medium and heavy tanks and light mechanized guns was about to become inadequate. ... What was needed were new long-barrelled tank guns like the German 88mm gun. (Zaloga 1984:164).

This immediately follows with discussion of several different attempts at improving antitank capability of tanks, leading directly to a section headed "Tank destroyers":

The TsKB-2 team under Kotin ... also began a crash programme to develop a tank destroyer version of the KV. ... Prototypes of the KV-14 [to be renamed SU-152] on modified KV-1S chassis, were designed in a record 25 days, and on 7 February, barely a month after the capture of the Tiger, perfunctory trials were completed. ... the first regiment ... was rushed to the Kursk battlefield. ... The SU-152 proved to be one of the few Soviet armoured vehicles that could fight with the new German armour on even terms, and quickly earned the nickname Zvierboy—Animal Hunter for its reputed abilities to kil Tigers, Panthers and Elefants!" (Zaloga 1984:165).

—Michael Z. 2006-09-11 04:18 Z 


 * SU-152 was specifically built as a heavy assault gun. Zaloga & Company states the common western beliefs from Cold War era, but new Russian books about heavy SPGs, based on declassified information from ChKz and No 100 Factory archives state that fast completion of SU-152 was a result of long work before first capture of a Tiger. The first KV-based SPG vehicle named KV-7 was built in the spring of 1942 and it was already featured the general layout of future KV-14. Summer & autumn of 1942 was a constant research how to mount ML-20 into KV chassis. The order about construction of KV-based heavy SPG "pillbox killer" was issued at November 1942. All preparations were done earlier so the record 25 days were only the final phase of KV-14/SU-152 development. Rush was not in the phase of development, rush were in the phase of series production instead.


 * Here is a Russian bibliographic description of my sources. All the author names are the honoured Russian experts in Russian armour history. ISBN I'll add later, but it will be problematic to buy this book by Internet - the total printing quantity is 2000 pieces only. The scan of general view of this book on Russian is available here. Ask User:Bukvoed for possible help of translating the text, if my claims seem to you as non-believable.


 * Солянкин А. Г., Павлов М. В., Павлов И. В., Желтов И. Г. Советские тяжёлые самоходные артиллерийские установки 1941-1945 гг. М.: ООО Издательский центр "Экспринт", 2005. - 48 с.


 * LostArtilleryman 12:35, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't doubt you, but that still doesn't contradict that after the Tiger was encountered, the Soviets did a spate of antitank research and this vehicle was rushed into service. We need more information (sorry I don't have a more recent Zaloga reference for comparison).   —Michael Z. 2006-09-11 16:15 Z 


 * It seems that the voyage to the library is imminent now for the exact data about orders of State Defense Committee. But I remember the general sense of this order in spring 1943 : make a lot of A-19 heavy field guns (even by reducing the production output of ML-20 gun-howitzers, see the production table by years in featured ru:МЛ-20 article in ruWiki, where I was co-author of the text), adapt 52-K air defense gun for anti-tank usage and begin to develop 100 mm caliber gun on the base of naval B-3 ordnance (BS-3 was the result), also HEAT projectile to 122mm howitzers (such as M-30) was to be developed. There was no mention about any towed or self-propelled 6-inch guns in this order. Rush of SU-152 series production was side effect in relation with order "About strengthening anti-tank capabilities of Red Army artillery and tank troops". The another factor to rush SU-152 production was big plans of 1943 Soviet offensive operations through German fortified positions where "pillbox killers" were in great need. So the statement of rushing SU-152 production due to problems with Tiger has a significant part of incorrectness. This is only part of true. Moreover, some of KV-14 chassis were intented to be refitted with A-19 gun (such operation was done later with ISU chassis in April 1944), greatly reducing SU-152 output if this was implemented. But appearance of SU-85 allowed to keep SU-152 in production because with SU-122 withdrawal from production, SU-152 left the only assault gun available to Red Army in the second part of 1943. LostArtilleryman 04:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Elefant v Ferdinand
When comparing Soviet claims for SU-152 kills on the German Ferdinand/Elefant tank destroyer versus German recorded losses at Kursk you need to be consistent on the naming of the German vehicle, calling it an Elefant in one sentence and a Ferdinand in the next is just confusing to readers who do not know they are the same vehicle. At the time of Kursk the vehicle was called a Ferdinand, it was later renamed Elefant, so Ferdinand would be more accurate but the names should at least be consistent. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.106.67.47 (talk • contribs).

'''A Beast Killer was it really true that an SU-152 took out a Tiger I at 4000 m?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.60.243.66 (talk) 11:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It could take out anything it could hit, basically. The distance was not a factor, since it didn't use a high-velocity solid core projectile. The gun itself was not really accurate compared to the 88 or even the high velocity 7.5, but generally getting hit with a 152mm HE shell was more than enough to turn the crew to jelly. Penetration wasn't even necessary. Imagine a Tiger shrunk down to 1-foot in length, complete with little mini-rounds, mini-crew and gasoline inside; if you shot it with a tungsten-cored .223 round, it'd make a bitty hole in the armor and bounce around inside, possibly killing the crew, likely setting the fuel load on fire and probably eventually blowing the ammo load sky high. If you taped an M80 to the outside and set it off, it'd be like a 152mm HE round. It wouldn't crack the face-hardened steel open, but you can bet it'll probably flip it over, blow off the turret, and make life very unlivable for anyone on the other side of that armor. Typical Russian tactics, crude but effective. Why spend money on a purpose built TD when you can get the same result by just using a heavy howitzer? The SU-100 was, to be brutally honest, a much more accurate and well-armored tank killer, and was roundly considered to be the best heavy TD of the war, but the trade off was in HE power. The 152 worked fairly well at two roles rather than just one. The Jagdpanther was the best overall TD, btw. Bullzeye contribs 01:08, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Hard to see that any other heavy TD performed better than the SU-152...since it was, with the exception of the overengineered, mechanically unreliable, excessively heavy, gaz guzzling and slow `Ferdinand`/`Elefant` and Jagdtiger` the only heavy TD of the war...(the very superior `Jagdpanther` only was a medium TD) But everything else about the famous might of the `invincible` SU-152 is little more than a soviet style proganda myth. In fact, the `Tiger`-shock suffered by the red army somehow seemed to generate the need if of not of a TD which could really match with its task, so at least of a moral boost for the battered soviet tank regiments. Given the lack of time for an thoroughly designed all-out TD, Su-152 was a makeshift solution from the very beginnig on: An outdated KW-1 chassis (available in abundant numbers) was maried, in a bulky superstructure, to an impressively looking, 152mm artillery gun which in fact was laregly unfit for AT-purposes given its poor velocity of less than 800 meters/sec., its slow rate of fire (a maximum of 2 rounds p.m. with a fit crew) and lack of accuracy. A rather poor armour (front armour plating was hardly superior to the T-34/85 which meant totally inefficient protection against the 7,5 cm 42 or 8,8 cm 43 L/71 guns, not to speak of the newer 8,8 cm L/80 gun of `Tiger II` and `Jagdpanther`), limited manoeuvrability, a small stock of shells and - as it is said - a crumbled interior with very unconfortable conditions for the crew even away from the battlefield added to the above-mentioned defaults. Secret `Versuchskraft` (Test-Performance) evalúation sheets of the Wehrmacht based upon captured soviet armour rated the overall performance of SU-122 and SU-152 far less convincing than the famous credit which has been largely attributed to those two heavy soviet TDs after the war. In fact, according to the results of `Versuchskraft` and with the main technical features of SU-152 in mind, the question must be asked if those assault-guns were not outright failures in their role as TDs. Evaluation Sheet 13 (issued May 30th 1944) says a SU-122 needs to approach as close as a 100 meters (!) to a standard Panther tank to be able to penetrate the Panthers front armour - SU-152 main gun could not penetrate the Panthers front armour at ranges superior to 400 meters (however it is not said whether those numbers refer to HE or AT-shells). As those tests revealed, the often-quoted `blast` of a HE-shell with poor muzzle speed does little to a well armoured tank and certainly will not `blast it away` but in the propaganda fiction of soviet agitprop. And we are still talking of the Panther whose frontal armour which indeed was considerably inferior to the Tiger II or Jagdpanther albeit not weaker than the unsloped front armour plates of Tiger I. As it is shown by `Versuchskraft`, the other way round, the 7,5 cm 42 HV-gun of the `Panther` could penetrate the front armour of SU-152 at a range of 1000meters. These figures make it obvious that the heavy soviet TDs could usefully fight their german counterparts in point-blank range ambushes only, and given the poor accuracy and slow rate of fire of the SUs, those traps had to be filled with quite a huge number of those heavy TDs (what the soviet army actually did). In an one-to-one encounter with a Panther or Tiger, they were lost. Much fame was credited to the SU-122 and SU-152 beacuse of its allegedly impressive performance in fighting german `Panhter` and `Tiger`-tanks and the `Elefant` heavy tank destroyer in the battle of Kursk. Once again, the facts do hardly live up to the myths: Out of 98 `Ferdinands` deployed in `Opertaion Zitadelle`, some 48 were knocked out or abandoned in the course of the fighting. But only half of the `Ferdinands` lost were destroyed by enemy fire, the other half broke down because of the complicate design of the Porsche-designed, hybrid engine of this tank. Most of the roughly 25 `Ferdinands` lost in the battle by enemy fire succombed to infantry assaults, and only a small number was actually knocked out by enemy tanks - possibly a handful by SU-152, but this however remains doubtful since official soviet declarations ot this time can not be trusted and there was - as said in the beginning - a strong propaganda need for having an equivalent to the Tiger. Just like the SU-152, `Ferdinand` did not feature a MG for close range defense to defeat infantry armed with AT-charges, which on both sides proved fatal in the battle of Kursk. In fact the main difference of the `early` Ferdinands and the late `Elefants` (the tank was renamed after Kursk to make its flawful performance forgotten) mainly consists in the additionally mounted MG 34 in a hatch in the `Elefants` front armour plate in order to provide close-in defence. Altogether, the 653rd Heavy Tank Destroyer batallion alone knocked out 320 enemy tanks for the loss of only 13 (!) `Ferdinands`, which makes a ratio of roughly 1:25. Although the number per type of the destroyed soviet armour remains unspecified, among the 320 soviet tanks lost to 653rd HPB scores of anihilated SU-152 were certainly to be found, since SU-152 was the main adversary of `Ferdinand`. Altogether, all `Ferdinands` engaged in Kursk accounted for the loss of more than 500 soviet armour (v.Mudra 03/05/2012 19:15 CET).

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Serious doubts about the "ripping of tiger turrets" thing...
"It was renowned for its ability to rip the turret completely off a Tiger tank (at any range) by sheer blast effect alone"

First, to be renowned for something, this has to occurr a few times, I don't know even of a single incident. Second, I seriously doubt that HE, without any damming, is able to rip a nearly 10 ton turret off. Especially because it doesn't explode under it, but rather probably descending somewhat, given the ballistic curve of the projectile.

>It's definitely possible, the British did it when testing the 12,8cm from Jagdtiger against Churchill tanks in post-war tests. (caveat: it was a controlled situation on a firing range from 100 yards) Source from Mr. Churchill's Tanks - The British Infantry Tank Mark IV by David Fletcher of The Tank Museum in Bovington. Testing photograph of the turret being dislodged from the ring NOBLE AMERICAN (talk) 05:57, 8 December 2020 (UTC)


 * An itty bitty Churchill turret is not a Tiger turret. Is the 'renowned' claim sourced?