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Model 1937 (ML-20)

1937 COLD WAR MODERN WORLD WAR 2

History

The Russian Empire had a cooperative relationship with the French military industry before the First World War. This led to the development of a French-designed 152mm siege gun for the Russian army, originally manufactured in France (by Schneider) and then localized by Russian industrial companies. The gun became the "152mm Siegekanone M1910" (from 1910) and was used throughout the First World War against the German Imperial Army in service with the Russian Imperial Army. The weapon continued its excellent service in the new Soviet Empire in the 1920s and was modernized in 1930 to suit the changing battlefield as the "152mm M1910/30".

In 1934, another modernization ushered in the genre. Before the Soviet Union was drawn into World War II in 1937, the weapon was modified again to produce the production designation "152mm Type 1937", and it was this version that was also known as the "ML-20" during the Cold War. The Model 1937/ML-20 later became one of the main Soviet artillery pieces during World War II, especially in response to the German invasion that began in June 1941.

This gun proved to often outperform German batteries and, along with the aforementioned M1910/34 models, formed the backbone of the Soviet heavy field artillery during the war. The first use of the weapon began in 1939 at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol with the Imperial Japanese Army.

German leader Adolf Hitler had been planning to invade his loose "ally" long before his vaunted "Operation Barbarossa" came into play. Despite several apparent warnings to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin himself, the Soviets were caught off guard. Russia's harsh winter and tight supply lines held back Germany's advance, while during the winter break, the Soviet Union called in recruits, mobilized industry, and prepared a historic response.

The key to the Soviet counterattack was artillery, because the Red Army was at stake, and the shells fell, fatally falling on the Germans' heads. The Model 1937 was in widespread use by this time (2,116 completed before 1942) and proved crucial in subsequent operations.

That's what it's worth, both the Finns and the Germans used captured stockpiles of 1937 guns and reassembled them for use against their previous owners.

The Soviet 152mm gun was a rather unremarkable conventional artillery piece, fully in line with the Soviet doctrine of land warfare at the time. The Soviets rarely shy away from large field guns of any kind, and the Model 1937 was no exception. The gun uses a two-wheeled frame, with early forms featuring spoked metal wheels, while more modern versions use rubber tire wheels wherever possible. The design is also notable for the use of a "horn", steel jacketed coil spring mounted on the side of the barrel to balance its weight on the carriage assembly. The weapon features a traditional configuration with a long barrel attached to an integrated hydraulic recoil mechanism mounted on a sliding mounting bracket.

The carriage is of the "split rail" type, which forms the towing arms for transport and the recoil legs when ready to fire. The weapon uses an interrupted helical breech mechanism, and the elevation angle is limited to between -2 and +65 degrees - this is operated by a handwheel. The lateral limit is 58 degrees.

A well-trained rifle crew can fire 3 to 4 152mm rounds at the enemy or target area. The maximum range is almost 11 miles, while aiming is via a combined telescope/panorama combination, which enables direct and indirect fire respectively. As such, the weapon could be used both to throw projectiles at the enemy, or as a traditional horizontal-firing field gun to hit the target directly - becoming one of the first "howitzers" to enter service. The entire system weighs 16,000 pounds and has a barrel length of nearly 27 feet. The barrel was locked with a slotted muzzle brake, and the gun was moved mainly by Soviet artillery tractors.

Also, the original barrel was an L/29 type, which was later lengthened to an L/32. 3 default values.

The Model 1937 has been approved to fire a wide variety of well-designed ammunition, with the exception of the high-explosive (HE) projectiles that are widely accepted for most such weapons. Ammunition types include anti-fortification, high-explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG), high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT), shrapnel, flare, and chemical bombs.

As a result, the Type 1937 gun was tactically flexible and capable of hitting a variety of targets as needed.

Design work on ML-20 was led by F. F. Petrov and was associated with Plant 172. Trials took place at the end of 1936, while the formal evaluation of the Red Army took place in 1937. The Model 1937 weapon was produced from 1937 to 1947, with 6,884 examples manufactured to date.

The Type 1937 series proved to be a solid and reliable gun, and perhaps most importantly, it was able to be rapidly built in Soviet factories. Peak production rates were reached in 1941, 1942 and 1943, with 1,342, 1,809 and 1,002 prototypes delivered, respectively.

Fewer than 325 guns were produced in 1944 and 1945, although this was mainly due to requests from the Soviet Army, which aimed to produce other weapons and bring them to the front. In German service, these guns were designated "15.2 cm KH. 433/1(r)" to indicate their Russian origin, and the Finns also adopted the captured Russian model "152 H 37".

The modified form of the Finnish Army subsequently appeared under the designation "152 H 37-31", some examples of which were used as stationary coastal artillery batteries. The Germans followed, using captured Model 1937 guns along their famous "Atlantic Wall".

It is reported that the Germans seized about 974 seized specimens, and even specially designed and manufactured ammunition for the Soviet Union.

The Model 1937 was in service with the Red Army until 1956, when the weapon was known as the "ML-20". It was officially replaced in service by the new 152mm D-20 gun of similar range and function, although large stocks were supplied to countries allied with the Soviet Union and satellite states such as Egypt and Poland.

Egypt used its stockpile against the Israelis in the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, while the Poles modernized their model in 1985 to "152 mm wz. 37/85".

Likewise, the Finnish Army has retained its weapons for a long time and has received extended service from its units through a modernization program that resulted in the new designation "152 H 88-37".

The ML-20 existed under the base name "ML-20", but was also redesigned as a vehicle weapon under the "ML-20S" branding. These versions lost the muzzle brake and were mounted on the turret structure of Soviet self-propelled tracked vehicles (SPGs), including the war-winning SU-152 and ISU-152 series.

Of course various other forms of weapons have been tried but not widely adopted or used.

The ML-20 weapon was not used in combat until 2001, when Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan used it against the Taliban before the US-led invasion after 9/11.