History
152 mm has been a Russian calibre since World War I when Britain supplied 6 inch Howitzers and Russia purchased 152 mm guns from Schneider (probably derived from the 155 mm Gun Mle 1877/16) for the Imperial Army. The new gun-howitzer, was a replacement of the pre-war gun-howitzer ML-20 (the 152 mm howitzer M1937) and various World War II era 152 mm field howitzers, Model 09/30, Model 1910/30, Model 1938 M10 and Model 1943 D-1. By Soviet definition 152 mm howitzer is a ‘medium’ calibre. It was designated a ‘gun-howitzer’ because its muzzle velocity exceeded 600 m/s, and barrel length greater than 30 calibres. It equipped battalions in the motor rifle division artillery regiment and battalions in artillery brigades at army level.
The design was probably initiated in the late 1940s and it was first seen in public in 1955. It was designed by the well established design bureau at Artillery Plant No 9 in Sverdlovsk (now Motovilikha Plants in Yekaterinburg) led by the eminent artillery designer Fëdor Fëdorovich Petrov (1902–1978), who was responsible for several World War II pieces. The "D-20" was gun's factory designation.
The carriage is same as that used with the 122 mm D-74. The barrel assembly was the basis D-22 (GRAU index: 2A33), used for the self-propelled 2S3 nickname Acacia.
Read more about this topic: 152 Mm Towed Gun-howitzer M1955 (D-20)
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