Designations of Russian Artillery - Army Designation Versus Factory Designation

Army Designation Versus Factory Designation

After 1930, newly designed or constructed towed artillery received two official designations, the first of which was the traditional Army designation, e.g., 122-мм гаубица обр. 1938 г. (122 mm howitzer M1938), but another one was the index of a factory (or a developer: ordnance plants in the Soviet Union very often had their own design bureaus). This consisted of between one to three letters and the project number. For the 122 mm howitzer M1938 mentioned above, the developer index was M-30. Letters identified the developer or producer. For example, M stands for Motovilkha plant, A - for KhPZ, B – for ‘Bolshevik’ plant, S – for Central Artillery Design Bureau, D – for Factory No. 9, ZiS – for Factory No. 92 (Zavod imeni Stalina - factory named after Joseph Stalin) and so on. There was one exception: the artillery plant named after Mikhail Kalinin; their project number was placed first, followed by the 'K' letter; examples of these designations include 61-K or 20K (variants with and without a dash are both widely used in historical documents). For some pieces of artillery, both the Army and developer names were well known and interchangeable, such as the 76 mm divisional gun M1942 known also as ZiS-3. For some other guns, such as the 45 mm anti-tank gun M1937, the developer index (53-K) was very rarely used, even in literature of the time.