The 45 mm anti-tank gun model 1932 (factory designation 19-K and GRAU index 52-P-243A) was a light quick-firing anti-tank gun used in the interwar period and in the first stage of the

German-Soviet War The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...

. It was created by factory No. 8 which was located in now Korolyov city, under leadership of engineer V. Bering.

History

The gun bearing factory designation 19-K (Cyrillic ''19-К'') was a combination of a modified carriage of the 37 mm anti-tank gun model 1930 (built according to a documentation bought from Rheinmetall) with a 45 mm barrel designed in March 1932. and adopted by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

on March 23, 1932. The 45 mm caliber was selected because the large reserves of the French 47 mm shells could be converted to 45 mm by milling out the driving bands. The resulting light quarter-automatic anti-tank gun was discovered to be unsatisfactory due to low mobility and reliability problems, and after a series of modifications (including the arrest of the project's chief designer on August 10, 1933, after several production defects were uncovered), was re-sent to army trials 26 December 1933. The resulting semi-automatic improved version was known as "45 mm anti-tank gun M1934" (russian: 45-мм противотанковая пушка образца 1934 года). These guns were deemed obsolete in 1937 and were replaced by the

45 mm anti-tank gun M1937 (53-K) The 45 mm anti-tank gun model 1937 (factory designation 53-K, GRAU index 52-P-243-PP-1), nicknamed the Sorokapyatka (from Russian сорокапятка, or "little forty-five"), was a light quick-firing anti-tank gun used in the first stage ...

. The tank gun modification russian: 45-мм танковая пушка образца 1932/38 годов (20-К) was still in use in the first stage of the

. M1932 guns captured by the Germans were given the designation 4.5 cm Pak 184(r). The gun carriage was upgraded from wooden wheels to automobile

GAZ-A The GAZ-A is a passenger car that was mass-produced by GAZ from 1932 until 1936. It was the first passenger car to be produced in the Soviet Union and is a near-exact copy of the Ford Model A from 1930. To the local population, the car was nicknam ...

pneumatic wheels in 1934, and in 1936 the wheels were upgraded with sponge tires, raising total

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

of the gun to 560 kg. The evolution from the 19-K to the 53-K gun was rather gradual, with improvements incorporated in production lines several times.

Tank gun 20-K

The gun was installed in tanks under the name 45 mm tank gun model 1932 (20-K). In 1934, the gun was improved with a semi-automatic breech instead of the original quarter-automatic version. Other changes were in the elevation mechanism and the recoil system. It was used on a wide variety of Soviet tanks and fired the same ammunition as the anti-tank version. The gun was later improved into the 45 mm tank gun model 1938, which had an electric firing system and a TOS stabilized (in vertical plane only) gun sight, allowing for accurate fire while the tank was in motion. The gyro stabilizer was removed from the design in 1941 due to inexperienced tank crews not activating the stabilizer. During 1941-42, some surplus M1938 barrels were fitted to trailer carriages to replace the losses of anti-tank guns suffered in the opening stages of

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

. Although the Russian designation for these guns is not known, the Germans gave captured guns the designation 4.5 cm Pak 184/6(r). Tanks and armoured cars which mounted this gun include: *

BA-3 The BA-3 (russian: Broneavtomobil 3) was a heavy armored car developed in the Soviet Union in 1933, followed by a slightly changed model BA-6 in 1936. Both were based mostly on BA-I, the most important development being the new turret, same as i ...

* BA-6 * BA-10 *

BA-11 The BA-11 or Broneavtomobil 11 () was an armored car developed in the Soviet Union. It was intended to replace the BA-10, but production was prevented by the Nazi German invasion of 1941. The BA-11 was a heavy armored car designed based on a ...

T-26 The T-26 tank was a Soviet light tank used during many conflicts of the Interwar period and in World War II. It was a development of the British Vickers 6-Ton tank and was one of the most successful tank designs of the 1930s until its light ...

T-50 tank T5 or T-5 may refer to: Biology and medicine * Fifth thoracic vertebrae * Fifth spinal nerve * Bacteriophage T5, a bacteriophage * T5: an EEG electrode site according to the 10-20 system Vehicles and transportation * AIDC T-5 Brave Eagle, a Tai ...

T-70 The T-70 was a light tank used by the Red Army during World War II, replacing both the T-60 scout tank for reconnaissance and the T-50 light infantry tank for infantry support. The T-80 light tank was a more advanced version of the T-70 with ...

T-80 The T-80 is a main battle tank (MBT) that was designed and manufactured in the former Soviet Union and manufactured in Russia. The T-80 is based on the T-64, while incorporating features from the later T-72. The chief designer of the T-80 was S ...

BT-5 The BT tanks (russian: Быстроходный танк/БТ, translit=Bystrokhodnyy tank, lit. "fast moving tank" or "high-speed tank") were a series of Soviet light tanks produced in large numbers between 1932 and 1941. They were lightly arm ...

BT-7 The BT-7 BT (russian: БТ) is the Russian abbreviation for "fast tank" (, ). was the last of the BT series of Soviet cavalry tanks that were produced in large numbers between 1935 and 1940. It was lightly armoured, but reasonably well-armed fo ...

T-35 The T-35 was a Soviet Union, Soviet multi-gun turret, turreted heavy tank of the interwar period and early Second World War that saw limited production and service with the Red Army. Often called a land battleship, it was the only five-turreted ...

* BT-20 (A-20) 45-mm 20K kub1

Anti-aircraft gun 21-K

Starting in 1934, the barrel of the 19-K was placed on a pedestal mount and used by the Soviet Navy as an anti-aircraft gun. It was not very effective in this role since it had to be loaded by hand, which kept its rate of fire down to about 25–30 rounds per minute, and its lack of a time fuze meant that it had to score a direct hit to damage its targets.

Ammunition

Ammunition types: * B-240/BR-240 -

armor-piercing Armour-piercing ammunition (AP) is a type of projectile designed to penetrate either body armour or vehicle armour. From the 1860s to 1950s, a major application of armour-piercing projectiles was to defeat the thick armour carried on many wars ...

* Armor-piercing chemical * UBR-240P - armor-piercing composite rigid * UBR-243P – sub-caliber

* UBR-243SP –

armor piercing Armour-piercing ammunition (AP) is a type of projectile designed to penetrate either body armour or vehicle armour. From the 1860s to 1950s, a major application of armour-piercing projectiles was to defeat the thick armour carried on many warsh ...

* UBZR-243 – armor piercing incendiary * UO-243 – fragmentation * UssH-243 –

shrapnel Shrapnel may refer to: Military * Shrapnel shell, explosive artillery munitions, generally for anti-personnel use * Shrapnel (fragment), a hard loose material Popular culture * ''Shrapnel'' (Radical Comics) * ''Shrapnel'', a game by Adam C ...

Smoke Smoke is a suspension of airborne particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwanted by-produc ...

Performance

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 World War II anti-tank guns World War II artillery of the Soviet Union Anti-tank guns of the Soviet Union 45 mm artillery Military equipment introduced in the 1930s