They also talk about a book, which mentions StuG’s Finnish made APDS round. It gives whopping 200mm at 1000m.
Here’s a rare picture I found of the modernized Finnish ZSU-57-2, which was known as the ZSU-57-2M. For a bit of history these vehicles were an attempt from the FDF to increase the lifespan of the aging ZSU-57-2’s in the 1990s. The original plan was to upgrade the whole fleet of ZSU’s, but after the upgrade costs proved too expensive the project was canned after only a few vehicles were upgraded. The upgrade included a radar (which can be seen in the photo) as well as configurable ammunition (HE-VT) among other smaller upgrades such as electronic calculators and better sighting systems.
As for the caption it reads: “A modernized ZSU-57-2M vehicle Ps 462-4 photographed at the Armored Brigade. The picture shows for example a new angular part that was added to the back of the turret in the modernization. This part housed a lot of the modern components which were responsible for hardware managment.”
The picture and some parts of the text were sourced from the Finnish armor guild’s magazine. Regretfully it didn’t really give any new info on the ZSU-57-2M, but at the very least we got a new clearer picture of the vehicle.
This is excellent! Do you own any of the source magazines or was this found on the internet?
Where did the HE-VT shell come from? Would they have bought it from Chinese? I can’t remember if they were also made in Eastern Europe for the towed guns.
I’ve own only a couple of the newest numbers physically. But on the armor guild’s website they have an archive of old issues. I actually managed to find the number that had the article about the T-54, unfortunately it wasn’t available to be read.
As you can see the same picture of the T-54 is used here, so this is unmistakenly the right issue. I’ll try to get my hands on this magazine, but no promises.
I’m not 100% sure as to the origin of the new shells, I at least don’t think they’re the same as the chinese ones. My guess is that they are likely either of domestic origin or just bought from the USSR. Since the soviets did make a HE-VT shell for the 57mm gun, they just never used it on the ZSU-57-2 but rather on the towed AA guns.
Added the T-54 with the caged armour and the Modernized ZSU-57-2 onto the list now
Now here’s a Terrangbil m/42 in Latvian service
I’m posting this since A: all 3 of the Baltic nations operated them (10 for each 3 Baltic nations) and B and the most important part is that the Baltic Terrangbil m/42’s had the 8mm removed and replaced with DShK-M’s. If anybody has images of Baltic m/42’s mounted with DShK’s please post them
Always wondered what that was, could never find a modern photo of it though, would love to see.
This is a picture of a truck convoy transporting coastal guns from Saimaa to lake Laatokka in August 1941. Below is a picture from the same event. These are in no way or shape combat vehicles, they’re literally just guns loaded onto flatbeds. They’re not ingegrated into the vehicles, they wouldn’t be able to fire, and it unlikely that they even carried ammunition in the same loads. Cool photo but nothing for WT I’m afraid
I genuinely thought they didnt even get to putting a radar on but there u go… any specs for the sights/radar as im guessing the proxy is like the WZ
Proxy should be the same as the WZ since iirc they were the same rounds bought for testing.
I could be wrong but i remember it being mentioned that they were the same ammo.
Has anyone tried figuring out which T-34-85 variations Finns had? I’m pretty sure all of them had S-53 gun and all were produced in 43 or early 44, but further than that I don’t know. For that a better source is needed.
There are at least two somewhat important changes which happened during war time T-34-85 (S-53) production. First is a slight armor increase and second was addition of electrical turret drive or rather it’s return. I don’t know why it was not installed in all vehicles and what the handcranked turn speed was.
I have tried looking into this thing but i honestly don’t think any other images of it exist, its fairly unique and mentioned in the topic list for this forum but i can’t find anything else on it. I assume it must’ve been a one off thing that was quickly pulled from work to focus on other projects.
ye, from what I can tell in a little looking a while back, it feels like a one off, but at least we already know all the gun stats :D
we can probably eyeball turret traverse speed
Sort of Looks like the Chinese Type 86 but with an extra commanders LMG (and slightly different turret).
There is apparently a Polish version as well:
Poland has the BWP-40 which is iirc a Borfors joint project but i may be wrong.
I think they did both during trials:
I also found this image just now:
No info on what/where/when yet though.
I think its more likely info on Finnish trials for the 25 will be difficult to find but given how mamy other countries went with the Canadian 25mm turret may be good enough to say they were generally all the same vehicle in performance.
What turret is that on the second one
Likely this one: