Tankspot 13 - SU76I: The Russian Stug III

With the upcoming release of patch 8.11, we can begin to expect to see this little russian TD in an achievement event similar to the IS6 event. The SU76i will handle very much like the current Pz. 3, fast, agile, and nimble with a perfectly good gun. It will also have a low silhouette and good RoF. Faster than the SU85b but with lower damage, better ROF but lower PEN. It won’t have German accuracy like the StuG as it doesn’t have a German gun, crew or sights any more but does keep the front mounted gearbox. 

Tier: 4

Classification: Tank Destroyer

Tech Tree: Premium

Gun Type: ZiS 3H

Crew: 4

Historical Information:
The SU76i was built or re-built from late 1941 as the Soviets while speeding up there huge production of tanks still had shortages in certain areas, the original SU76 model had several flaws and was unreliable and not a pleasure to drive, so much so the Soviet tankers named it the Bitch, during the fall of Stalingrad the Soviets had several StuG’S and Panzer III chassis found in relatively good condition, with the though of rearming these with bigger soviet guns they were shipped back to factory 37 at Sverdlovsk.

By early 1943 the Soviets had some 300 StuG’S and Pz III’s and decided to mount the 76.2 mm Zis-3sh guns into the hulls to make the non turreted TD’s to fill in the gaps where SU76’s had been destroyed or sent back for repairs. The initial design was to mount the 76.2 on a semi traversable pedestal similar to early Italian TD’s, but this left the crew very exposed, more so than the SU76 and would have left the tank defenseless nearby artillery blasts and shrapnel. The gun was then to be mounted in a fixed casemate with limited traverse and a shorter but more powerful 76.2 S1 gun was chosen
The prototypes were ready by march 1943 and sent for testing in Sverdlovsk grounds, and even while the weather was extremely cold, with temperatures at -35 degrees the new tanks with their durable soviet components past the test, a few modifications were made, including oil heaters to stop engines freezing and other minor changes to batteries and sights the new tanks past the Soviet tests and were ready for battle, christened the SU76i with the I standing for Inostrannaya or foreigner, it seems the hatred for Germans was even placed upon their equipment and the new SU76I’s would have to prove themselves.

Some 181 of these tanks and 20 command vehicles were build and ready by November, when production was stopped, mainly because by now the SU76 original vehicle had all of its bugs rectified and was running well, and secondly due to cost; stripping down and rebuilding a knocked out or captured PzIII was harder than building a new SU76 which could now be easily repaired and updated.