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The Dark Truth Behind the SU-152 | Unbelievable true stories | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The Dark Truth Behind the SU-152
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The SU-152 was a hastily developed Soviet heavy self-propelled gun that, despite not being designed as a tank destroyer, became a highly effective "beast slayer" against German heavy armor during World War II due to its powerful 152mm howitzer.
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The SU152 went from drawing board to
first prototype in just 25 days. Despite
never being designed to fight tanks, it
became the best tank killer the Soviets
had. But the way it earned its
reputation was nothing like anyone
expected. This is the dark story of the
infamous Soviet heavy self-propelled gun
and what it did in the horrific combat
of World War II. Let's
begin. So, what made the Soviets
scrambled to create this weapon exactly
this way and in such a short time?
Soviets launched operation Uranus and
encircled the German Sixth Army in
Stalingrad. After horrific fights in the
city and encounters with a new zoo of
German tanks, tigers, panthers, and
later elephants, Soviets very quickly
realized they needed a new heavy weapon,
and they needed it fast. The new German
heavy tanks were a concerning issue. But
the assault gun actually came for
something else entirely. Frontline units
were severely underpowered and
illequipped for the new way of combat.
They had artillery and combat engineers
of course, but almost all of the Soviet
guns and howitzers at the time were
towed either by artillery tractors or
horses. Early 76 mm guns on tanks didn't
have enough power to blast
fortifications. And with combat now in
cities, they needed such firepower
beside them. When you add to this deep
snow, no roads, shattered city streets,
and counterattacks, vulnerable towed
guns were becoming increasingly less
effective. They were often abandoned
after their crew either died or had to
retreat in the face of ambush or
counterattack and leave their weapon
behind. Soviets already had this issue
in the winter war when they struggled
with heavily fortified Finnish bunkers
and the KV2 with the 152 mm howitzer was
already built for that purpose. But the
huge turret with an enormous gun worked
catastrophically in practice. It made
the tank too heavy, especially too
topheavy and too complicated to produce.
So to solve this issue, the Soviet army
began to develop a heavy self-propelled
gun that would carry the powerful 152mm
ML20 howitzer offer protection for its
crew and still be quick and simple to
build. And when we say began developing,
the first prototype designated as object
236 or KV14 was built in just 25 days.
The most simple and cost-effective
design was chosen using the KV1S
chassis, slamming the already existing
gun on an already existing hole. Frantic
testing began and as the need was so
critical after just mere weeks the
design was accepted into service.
Production began immediately. It's
really interesting how Soviets went from
problem to solution and its production
in such rapid time. Just 4 months from
brainstorming a new concept to its mass
production. Maybe we should try some of
that vodka. Jokes aside, in the next 10
months they would spit out some 700
SU152s. Essentially this was a 45ton
vehicle built around the huge howitzer.
It fired two-piece ammunition weighing a
little under 50 kilos, 110 lb. The
standard high explosive shell had around
6 kg of TNT, quite enough to obliterate
a bunker or level a smaller house
completely with one shot. Because of the
weight, the two-piece arrangement, and
the quite cramped loader's position, the
rate of fire was only about two rounds
per minute. Also, they could carry only
20 rounds, but it compensated with
single hit complete destruction of most
targets. It wouldn't wait long to see
combat as the Battle of Kursk
approached. Today known as history's
largest tank battle, SU152s were formed
into independent self-propelled
artillery regiments with crews hastily
trained and the first 12 of them were
sent to Kursk. It was July 6th, 1943
when a battery of Sus lay an ambush and
new German heavy tank destroyers
Ferdinands, later renamed elephants,
approached. It was among the most
heavily armored vehicles of the war with
200 mm of frontal armor and weighing 25
tons more than the SU. At 800 m, the
first Ferdinand was hit and set ablaze.
There was no protection against heavy
high explosive shells. A 152 mm shell
would literally blow the tank apart,
collapsing whole armor plates and taking
out the crew with the explosive blast
and spalling without even needing to
penetrate the tank. There was even a
recorded instance where it hit and
flipped over a Panza 4. Later came even
heavier armor-piercing shells, but not
for fighting tanks. It's pretty much no
difference if it gets hit with H or AP.
It's going to disintegrate anyway. AP
shells were more like concrete piercing
for destroying fortifications more
effectively to go in deep and then
explode with devastating effect. The
problem with Ferdinand's, however, was
that although they were extremely
heavily armored, a hit with such a
powerful high explosive shell would most
often kill the crew with blast and
spoiling of the armor, but usually not
completely destroy the vehicle by
igniting its ammunition and fuel. During
the night, Germans would recover most of
their knocked out Ferdinands and put
them back into action the next day with
a new crew. Later, Soviets were ordered
to fire at German tanks until complete
destruction. A few days later, three
more Ferdinands were knocked out among
the new panthers, tigers, and panzer
fours. Here, after effectively
destroying German animal name tanks, the
SU152 got its nickname, Zera Boy,
meaning beast slayer. However, fighting
was heavy and chaotic with enormous
losses on both sides. Su152 was never
designed as a tank destroyer like the
Germans did with their self-propelled
guns, but who would have said that an
extremely heavy high explosive shell
would have such a nice side effect.
After Kusk, they would see much more
action against German heavy armor as
their effectiveness was shown. Their
armor was quite substantial, but soon
became inadequate as the war progressed.
The whole front and casemate had between
65 and 75 mm, sloped at 30°, similar to
the KV1s protection. Sides were flat at
60 mm and the rear 30. This meant it was
protected to some degree from frontal
hits, but German 88s were still very
deadly to them, even head-on at long
ranges. Germans were now fielding
improved and almost twice as powerful
L7188s on heavy tank destroyers. They
were quite a challenge for longrange
duels because they were much more
accurate with better optics, quicker to
reload, and with devastating
armor-piercing ammunition with explosive
filler. Su, on the other hand, was much
slower to engage, slower to aim, not
very accurate, firing in a high arc, and
extremely slow to reload and fire again
with corrections. Although they were
initially designed to lead the attack
and support the infantry directly,
tactics sometimes changed. It turned out
they were often more valuable staying
behind, ambushing the enemy or
supporting the first wave of infantry
and tanks from about 200 m back. When
they got held up by fortifications, Sus
would come and make them not exist
anymore. In urban combat, they were also
appreciated. Instead of infantry
clearing the buildings, SUS would simply
collapse them together with their
defenders. At first, it didn't have
secondary armorament for close
anti-infantry protection. This was
expected to be handled by its crew with
PPSH submachine guns and grenades.
Later, most of them got a 12.7 mm DSHK
heavy machine gun on the roof for
anti-air protection, which they could
also turn on enemy infantry and lightly
armored vehicles. It had a 12cylinder
diesel engine, giving it around 600
horsepower with wide tracks and quite
good mobility for a 45ton vehicle. But
components worked at their limits with
this weight. The fighting compartment
was quite cramped with the gun's breach,
ammo, and internal fuel tanks taking
most of the space. And yeah, ammo and
fuel tanks were inside the fighting
compartment, one beside another. One of
the fuel tanks was right beside the
driver, who couldn't quite leave his
position if the gun was not traversed to
the left, and the breach cleared his
way. So, heavens forbid that something
like a hot piece of metal with explosive
comes through your armor. Inside were
five crew members. The driver, gunner,
and loader sat in line, one behind
another on the left side of the gun's
breach. On the other side were the
breach operator and the commander.
Firing the gun was a unique but not
quite pleasant experience. A large
muzzle brake was added to help with the
immense recoil. Range was up to 6,000 m,
but accuracy degraded already after 800.
However, the SU152 was from the
beginning intended as a stop gap
solution. The problem was it was mounted
on the aging KV1S chassis that was
already unreliable and underarmed for
the later stage of the war, but its
weapon and concept were very effective.
So, the Soviets now took the new IS
platform and essentially made the same
but improved weapon, the
ISU152. The armor was the biggest
upgrade with now between 90 and 100 mm
at the front. It could now approach
targets directly, well protected, and
destroy them with the same powerful gun.
With lessons learned in urban combat,
they fought alongside infantry squads
with submachine guns and usually
followed by one sniper or sometimes a
flamethrower. This way they provided
close protection to assault guns against
German panzerasts and effectively
cleared heavily defended cities. The
DSHK anti-aircraft gun also proved handy
in urban combat for protection from top
attacks coming from buildings. Although
high explosive shells were effective
against tanks, higher velocity guns were
still better for accuracy at long
ranges. So by the end of the war,
Soviets decided to try some of these
guns on the ISU52 and made variants
known as BM, standing for high power.
They used a number of different guns
with the most impressive probably being
the Object 246. Armed with the BL8 and
able to pierce over 200 mm of armor at
2,000 m. Soviets actually developed an
entire family of assault guns and tank
destroyers during the war. Each built
with a specific purpose in mind. The
Su76 was the first and most produced
small and lightly armored self-propelled
gun, mainly for infantry support, but
vulnerable to almost everything on the
battlefield. Crews had a lovely nickname
for it, Suka. meaning [ __ ] thanks to
its thin armor, constant breakdowns, and
tendency to get them killed. Then there
was the SU85 and later the SU00, both
designed specifically to deal with
German tanks. But heavy platforms like
the SU and ISU 152 were the all-in-one
vehicle when you wanted something on the
battlefield to cease to exist. The ISUs
would gradually replace old SUS by the
war's end and continued to be produced
up to 1947 with around 4,000 units made.
The concept of assault guns ended
quickly after the war and was replaced
by the main battle tank. However,
self-propelled heavy artillery remains
in use today, but now focused on
longrange fire support rather than
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