KSP-76

The KSP-76, also known by its factory designation GAZ-68, was an experimental Soviet wheeled assault gun developed by the Gorky Automobile Plant from 1943. It mounted the 76 mm divisional gun M1942 (ZiS-3) on a light chassis taken from the all-wheel-drive GAZ-63 truck, with the aim of giving scout and airborne units mobile fire support and supplementing the tracked SU-76. The lead designer was V. A. Grachev, the project was approved in February 1944, and the single prototype was completed in the spring of that year. The vehicle had a crew of three, a commander who also served as gunner, a loader and a driver, with the gun at the front, the fighting compartment in the middle and the engine at the rear. In trials it proved fast on roads, but the light chassis could not withstand repeated firing of the gun and the project never got beyond the prototype stage. The surviving prototype is kept at the armoured vehicle museum at Kubinka.