The 76-mm Model 1936 Divisional Gun (F-22) was a Soviet artillery piece developed in the first half of the 1930s at Plant No. 92 "Novoye Sormovo" in Gorky (now the Nizhny Novgorod Machine-Building Plant) under the direction of the designer Vasily Gavrilovich Grabin. The gun was the first weapon created by the plant's own design bureau and was adopted by the Red Army in 1936.[1]

History of development

In 1934, twelve designers from Main Design Bureau No. 38, which had been disbanded in the Moscow suburbs, transferred to Plant No. 92 "Novoye Sormovo," led by V. G. Grabin. They were tasked with creating a new 76-mm divisional gun to replace the famous Model 1900 "three-inch gun."[1] The result of this work was the F-22, a weapon that immediately won the approval of artillerymen; the activity of the plant and its chief designer attracted the attention of Stalin.[1]

The Nizhny Novgorod connection

The F-22 was designed and mass-produced at Plant No. 92 in Gorky, an enterprise founded in 1932 and later known as the Gorky and then the Nizhny Novgorod Machine-Building Plant (now the Nizhny Novgorod 70th Anniversary of Victory Plant). It was here that Grabin and his design bureau established a tradition of assembly-line artillery production, which during the Great Patriotic War made it possible to set up output of subsequent guns, the F-22 USV and the legendary ZIS-3.[1]

Subsequent fate

In 1939, the F-22 was replaced in production by the more advanced F-22 USV.[1] A number of F-22 guns were captured by German forces at the start of the Great Patriotic War and used by the Wehrmacht under the designation 7.62 cm FK 296(r), including in a converted anti-tank variant. German soldiers later gave a similar nickname to the whole family of Grabin guns — Ratsch-Bum, which Russian artillerymen translated as "crazy shooter."[1]

Sources

  1. please help identify a projectile | Naboje.org - cartridge collectors (naboje.org)
  2. 76-mm Divisional Gun Model 1936 (F-22), Museum of Engineering Troops and Signals Artillery, Saint Petersburg, Russia - ScaleModels.ru (new.scalemodels.ru)
  3. Nizhny Novgorod Plant of the 70th Anniversary of Victory — Cyclopedia (cyclowiki.org)
  4. Zelenin Sergey Nikolaevich. The Best Alternative to the Second World War. Part One: Weary of the Rivet (zhurnal.lib.ru)
  5. 76-mm Divisional Gun Model 1936 (F-22): Russian Engineering Portal (operation-barbarossa.narod.ru)
  6. Historian (xn--h1aagokeh.xn--p1ai)