SU-76

The SU-76 was a Soviet light self-propelled gun of the Second World War, a 76 mm ZiS-3 divisional field gun mounted in a lightly armoured casemate on a lengthened T-70 light tank chassis. Design began in June 1942 under the chief designer S. A. Ginzburg and the type was put into service by a State Defense Committee decree of 2 December 1942. The first version, with an armoured roof and two paralleled GAZ-202 engines, suffered gearbox and shaft failures and was withdrawn in March 1943 after 560 had been built at Plant No. 38 in Kirov. The open-topped SU-76M that replaced it was developed at the Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ) under N. A. Astrov and A. A. Lipgart, and GAZ, which became its main plant from 1 January 1944, built more than 9,000 of the 13,732 made. Output of all versions reached about 14,292, making it the second most produced Soviet armoured fighting vehicle of the war after the T-34.