SU-100 at AusArmourFest 2024. Soviet SPG

The Australian Armour and Artillery Museum outside of Cairns, QLD, Australia hosted AusArmourFest once again, giving visitors an opportunity to see armour in operation on their track. The festival ran from 23-25 August 2024.
This is an example of the SU-100 Self Propelled Anti-Tank Gun. As the start of the Russo-German war in June-1941 contemporary Soviet tanks such as the T-34 and KV-1 had 76mm guns that could defeat most German armour such as the Panzer III and Panzer 38(t). The Soviet command had reports of heavier tanks that were in development. This new generation of German vehicles meant the Red Army would need a new, more powerful main gun for their armoured formations.
In May 1943, work commenced on a new anti-tank gun, taking the 85mm anti-aircraft gun and adapting it for anti-tank vehicle use. Though much too large for the original T-34 or KV-1 turret, it was thought the gun could be mounted upon the chassis of the T-34 based SU-122 self-propelled howitzer that had been in production since December 1942 as a stop-gap solution. The production factory Uralmash built this enclosed casemate, well armoured, and highly mobile tank-destroyer that entered service in August 1943, termed the SU-85.
As even heavier German tanks appeared, the demands for an even more potent weapon that could engage from further ranges was envisioned, and so plans were put in place to mount a 100mm anti-tank gun, based on the S-34 naval gun, into an armoured fighting vehicle on a mobile chassis. At the beginning of 1944 when the T-34 was improved to use the 85mm ZiS-S-53 gun in a new turret, forming the T34-85, work began to adapt the 100mm naval gun into the SU-85 casemate style platform to give armoured formations an even more capable weapon. In February and March 1944 prototypes were built that installed 100mm guns into the modified chassis, resulting in the "Object 138" test platform. Test were positive and the new gun was accepted into production as the 100mm D-10S.
Production commenced in mid 1944, at the Uralmash factory in Yekaterinburg. It entered service in October 1944. 2,335 were built until the end of WW2, however production continued after the war and a total of 4,976 were made. The D-10S gun could penetrate virtually any German tank in service, until the appearance of the Tiger II. It could penetrate the frontal armour of a Tiger I at 2,000m with APCBC (Armour-piercing, Capped, Ballistic capped) rounds while its APHE rounds could penetrate over 200mm of armour. Compared to the T-34 and SU-85 which had 45m of sloped frontal armour, the SU-100 had 75mm. The engine used was a 38.8L V12 diesel engine (the Kharkiv V-2 engine) developing 370 kW. Transmission was mounted behind the engine at the at the rear of the vehicle and the drive wheels were similarly at the rear. Chassis was the Christie style suspension with 5 double road wheels per side mounted on pivoting arms. Motion of the arms was controlled by coil springs and coaxial dampers. Tracks were 500mm wide waffle pattern links. The setup could move the 31.6t vehicle, which was 2t heavier than the SU-85, at a top speed of 48kph.
The SU-100 entered service in October 1944. It saw extensive use during the last year of the war. It was used en-masse in Hungary in March 1945, when Soviet forces defeated the German offensive at Lake Balaton. Although not intended to be used in the front lines, it was employed during Battle of Berlin because the 100mm gun could breakdown heavy fortifications. When used in this way it needed close support from infantry due to its lack of a machine gun for self-defence. This gun would go onto equip the T-54 and T-55 Russian MBTs after WW2.

[@aussievaliant4949]

Excellent presentation, thank you.

[@stoobroo3282]

Must see content, I wish I had seen them before attending AusArmourFest 2024, keep up the great work 🙂

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