Russian 25mm AA gun?

[Barticus]

Just stumbled across this item in a recent QB. It never got used, so I don't really know how good it is, but the calibre threw me off a bit. Is this a captured Japanese gun, or did the Russians develop it themselves?

B

[Bullethead]

The official name of the 25mm Russian AA gun was 72-K Model 1940. According to Zaloga's Red Army Handbook, this weapon was...

... based on Bofors technology (and) entered production in September 1941. However, this weapon was intended to arm dedicated PVO air defense force regiments, not regular Army formations. It was not commonly deployed in Army units, though on some occasions units were issued with this weapon instead of the larger 37mm gun--but it never appeared in the numbers of its 20mm German counterpart.

My own experience with this weapon is that it works very much like the German single 20mm. It's good vs. infantry and light vehicles and about useless vs. airplanes.

[gunnergoz]

Guns like this 25mm and the 20mm were best employed with large, flat empty places around them (read: "airfield") that gave them time to slew around and aquire the target, then lead it. This way the gun might have a decent chance to put adequate amounts of these small HE rounds into the target. One or two hits from such small HE rounds would not necessarily knock down an airplane unless they struck something very critical such as the pilot. Given such ideal conditions these guns could perform up to expectations.

Of course, employing these guns against ground targets without adequately digging them in, could be suicidal. At the same time, if they are dug in too much, they lose some of their field of fire against low-flying aircraft. It's always a tradeoff.