Thread by @CalamineW

(1/20) Today, I'd like to talk about the 122-mm D-30 howitzer.

(2/20) At the end of WW2, the primary Soviet divisional howitzer was the 122-mm gaubitsa obr. 1938 (better known by its factory name, M-30), supplemented by the modernised pre-WW1 122-mm obr. 1910/30.

(3/20) The M-30's chief designer, Prof. Fyodor Petrov at Motovilikha, began designing a successor in 1954. He's essentially the John Browning of Soviet artillery, and his work includes the 125-mm D-81 and 100-mm D-10 tank gun families.

(4/20) A major (for the Soviets) weakness of the M-30 was its bad anti-tank capabilities. Its poor accuracy, rate-of-fire, optics, and separately placed elevation and traverse controls made it very poorly suited for this.

(5/20) In this work, Petrov was inspired by Skoda's 10,5 cm leFH 43, particularly its unconventional unlimited traverse mounting when deployed in a firing position.

https://t.co/8MDLJVWClbarmedconflicts.com/10-5-cm-leFH-4…

(6/20) The result was the 122-mm D-30. Not a direct copy of the leFH 43, but there is clearly some influence. It entered service in 1960 after a relatively protracted development period, and has the GRAU index 2A18.

(7/20) The D-30's barrel (L/38) is basically ballistically between that of the M-30 howitzer (L/22) and the 122-mm A-19 corps-level field gun (L/45).

(8/20) It is capable of throwing the standard 21.76 kg 53-OF-462 HE-Frag shell at a muzzle velocity of 690 m/s out to 15.3 km with a full charge.

(9/20) The D-30 uses two-piece ammunition with variable charges. The standard projectile is the 53-OF-462 HE-Frag, inherited from the M-30, with 3.528 kg TNT filler. 462Zh has an iron-ceramic driving band, as opposed to copper for the normal 462.

https://t.co/PMyqGis4Mxsoviet-ammo.ucoz.ru/index/122_53_o…

(10/20) There is a long list of projectiles that the D-30 can use (and that doesn't include foreign made ones), but they include HEAT-FS (3BK6 shown), smoke, illumination, and propaganda leaflet shells.

https://t.co/gnw2yeoQmIsoviet--ammo-ucoz-ru.translate.goog/index/122_2a18…

(11/20) The D-30 was originally fitted with a multi-slot muzzle brake. However, in the 1970s, the D-30A was introduced with a simpler double baffle muzzle brake.

(12/20) The muzzle brake is quite effective, but according to Chris Bellamy in 'Red God of War', it results in roughly twice the overpressure that would be acceptable in NATO militaries. You can see it in action here.

(13/20) A tow hook is attached to the muzzle brake for vehicular towing. The procedure for switching to travel configuration is shown in the first picture. According to the manual, it takes 2 minutes to switch between configurations. More time may be needed to hammer the stakes.

(14/20) The D-30 can be fired at -5° to 18° at any traverse angle. However, for high elevations (18° to 70°), the trail legs may block it at certain angles due to the risk of the recoil damaging the breech if it collides with the legs.

(15/20) The 2S1 Gvozdika ('Carnation') is the self-propelled equivalent of the D-30, using effectively the same barrel. If you would like to learn more about it, please see the Tankograd article.

https://t.co/m5kLK0ZUHBthesovietarmourblog.blogspot.com/2019/09/2s1-gv…

(16/20) Over 60 years after it first appeared, the D-30 remains in action all over the world, and naturally is currently being used by both Ukraine and Russia in the ongoing war.

(17/20) Given its relatively light weight (3.2 t), the D-30 is quite commonly used by special units as well as regular army, such as Ukraine's Kraken special forces...

(18/20) ... or the Russian VDV, who (used to) deploy these by paradrop, although I doubt this ability is getting used much right now.

(19/20) Regardless, the D-30 is probably going to be around for a long time, and given how many nations and irregular forces still use it, we're probably going to see it continue to pop up in warzones around the world.

(20/20) The best book on the D-30 in unfortunately only available in Russian (what English publisher is going to dedicate itself to the history of one specific Soviet artillery gun?).

@ConflictHurts Historically the plan was to transition to 152 mm artillery and 120 mm mortars only.

@Monk_of_War Obviously, these are not used today, so I'd guess today would be MT-LB or whatever truck is on hand.