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Manual displacement of 45 mm ATG


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Thought you might be interested in seeing how it was done via in-film demonstration. The "fun" begins around 20:46 in this 1963 Soviet war movie (translated title "The Third Flare") about one 45 mm gun crew in a Destroyer Regiment, to use the correct term. Drabkin's excellent and lamentably short book Panzer-Killers has a section on moving the guns, which, from veterans' accounts, were moved by horse, emplaced and camouflaged at night and not moved again until after the battle was done. The horse was well away from the front line and not brought back to the gun during a fight. But sometimes guns must be moved by men, and here's how it was done.
 

 Regards,

John Kettler
 

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At ~32:30, the gun has to urgently be shifted out of its pit and to a new threat axis. These guys are definitely NOT Panfilov's 28 when it comes to combat effectiveness in the first part but appear to have become far more effective later on--after suffering major casualties! As a bonus of sorts, there is a tail end of film appearance of the late GPW introduced, but never saw combat, T-44.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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On 3/14/2020 at 1:45 AM, John Kettler said:

At ~32:30, the gun has to urgently be shifted out of its pit and to a new threat axis. These guys are definitely NOT Panfilov's 28 when it comes to combat effectiveness in the first part but appear to have become far more effective later on--after suffering major casualties!

Three men enough to move and rotate the gun, here the "test-drive" of this gun from UKR re-enactment club (video for 2018). On 3:13

This guns used for direct support of infantry battalions in defense or in advance, so it can be easy moved and instantly deployed. 76 mm ZIS-3 guns also can be moved by hands, but it was heavier, so on dirty or sand terrain it was hard even for full crew.

 

 

Edited by Haiduk
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  • 3 weeks later...
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Haiduk,

A most interesting video. A few things stood out in particular. In Drabkin's excellent and all too short Panzer Killers, a veteran from a 45 mm ATG armed Destroyer Regiment talked about concealment measures. One of these was to partially fold down the gun shield. Since I'd never seen a pic of it folded down, that was hard to visualize. Happily, the video not only showed the shild folded down, but the process of doing so and putting it back up. But if the only concealment available was , say, grass, the extreme vertical profile reduction method was to remove the gun shield altogether. Seeing the full setup for drawing the gun by horse was helpful, too, and this was the principal way the infantry formations moved the guns any appreciable distance. They were brought into position at night, dug in, camouflaged, and the horse and limber weren't seen at the position again until the battery moved to a new location. Am posting this video to the CoC FB Group.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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