ZIS-30

From WarThunder-Wiki

Contents
1 General info
1.1 The main purpose, usage and tactics recommendations
1.2 Pros and cons
2 Specifications
2.1 Armament
2.1.1 Main armament
2.1.1.1 Ammunition
2.1.1.2 Ammo rack
2.1.2 Secondary armament
2.2 Crew
2.3 Armour
2.4 Modules and improvements
3 History of creation and combat usage
3.1 Ingame description
4 Screenshots and fan art
5 Additional information (links)

General info
The ZIS-30 is a Rank II Russian tank destroyer with a battle rating of 2.3. It was introduced
during the Closed Beta Test for Ground Forces before Update 1.41. It is a lightly armoured tank
destroyer mounting a gun that is very powerful for it's rank.

The main purpose, usage and tactics recommendations

The ZiS-30 is the first Soviet tank destroyer on the Soviet tech tree. The highlight of this tank
destroyer is its ridiculously powerful gun for its tier, which is capable of destroying most tanks of
a similar tier in one shot. The ZIS-30 serves mainly in a support role, firing from the rear of the
line at spotted targets. Despite this, the ZIS-30 can feasibly serve as a lone sniper or a hit-and-run
vehicle, due to its powerful gun and impressive speed. Although the ZIS-30 is a powerhouse in
terms of speed and firepower, it is quite fragile and can easily be taken out by enemy tanks. Due
to the near nonexistent armour of the ZIS-30, the crew is extremely prone to damage and it takes
very few shots to knock them out. A proven tactic is to fire at preoccupied enemies, so that they
cannot react fast enough to fire back. Often it helps to set up an ambush position on a ridge and
wait for the enemy to enter your line of fire. After taking several shots (2-4), it is advised that a
new position be found, as other enemies may have noticed you by that time.
The ZiS-30 possesses three main advantages small dimensions, great speed and
manoeuvrability, and a fantastic gun for its tier. With its good top speed and acceleration, it can
move very quickly across the map. It is also comparatively a very small vehicle, so it can be a
very hard target to hit especially at long range. Its gun has virtually no problems when penetrating
The ZIS-30 in the Garage.
anything on the given BR spread (eg. 2.3-3.3) and features a (relatively) fast rate of fire and flat
trajectory, making the vehicle a suitable long range sniper. As the gun is mounted onto the roof,
the vehicle has a reasonably tall profile. This is both an advantage and disadvantage it
compromises your cover which allows you to be spotted easier, but at the same time, you can shoot over lower obstacles while exposing only the gun shield.

Obviously, there are disadvantages as well. The guns recoil is rather strong for the small chassis and the sway is large enough to cause you to lose track of your target, hence requiring realignment every time
you take the shot. The vehicle also carries a very small ammunition supply. Most importantly however, the vehicles armour is practically nonexistent and even armour piercing rounds from rifle calibre
machine guns can pierce your frontal armour at close range. The crew of the gun are protected only by the gun shield. Otherwise, its exposed and thus very vulnerable. However, many armour piercing
rounds will just pass through the gun shield without detonating, significantly reducing the damage. That being said, it is advised to use HE rounds when facing the ZiS-30.
Given its advantages and disadvantages, the ZiS-30s performs best when used as a highly mobile, long range sniper. Race to a position using your speed and then conceal your fragile hull and then wait for
the enemy to stumble in your sights. Use your high rate of fire to take several well aimed shots, then quickly relocate. Further research of the ZiS-30 will lead to the famous SU-76M self-propelled gun.

Pros and cons

Pros
Excellent gun with good penetration, comparable to the tier 3 tank T-34-57;
Short bullet travel time;
Sufficient agility and top speed;
Low shell fly arc, easy to aim in RB or SB
Cons
Paper armour, HMGs are extremely dangerous
Low HP ratio makes hill climbing difficult
Wobbly handling, prone to accidental tipping
Crew extremely prone to being injured
Needs time to stabilise the cannon for accurate shooting
Low ammo capacity - carries 20 shells.

Specifications
Top speed of 39 km/h (24.2 mph), which it can reach in 20 seconds on flat surface. The amount of time needed for a full 360 hull traverse is 10 seconds, giving the vehicle a traverse rate of 36 per second.

Armament
1 x 57 mm ZiS-2 cannon (20 Rounds)
1 x 7.62 mm DT machine gun (756 Rounds)
Main armament
The chassis is way too light for this cannon. With every shot fired, one wonders if the ZiS-30 will finally succumb to physics and just tilt over backwards. As impressive as it is, tracking a shot for hit
confirmation is near impossible. In general, it is not advised to make hasty shots which may require re-calibration; the ZiS-30 simply lacks the ammo for guess shots. Ammo conservation is key! If you
should find yourself without ammo, remember you can load new shells from conquered capture zones.
1 x 57 mm ZiS-2 cannon

7/sec rotation
-4 gun depression
22 gun arc
6.5 sec base rate of fire
Ammunition

Penetration in mm @ 90
Ammunition
10m

100m

500m

1000m

1500m

2000m

Type of Velocity
warhead in m/s

Projectile
Mass in
kg

Fuse
delay
in
m:

Fuse
sensitivity
in mm:

Normalization
At 30
from
horizontal:

Ricochet:
0%

50%

100%

BR-271

121

119

106

91

78

68

APHEBC

990

3.1

1.2

15

+4

42

27

19

BR-271K

135

134

111

87

69

54

APHE

990

3.1

0.6

20

-1

43

30

15

O-271

HE

700

3.7

0.4

0.1

+0

11

10

Ammo rack

Full
ammo

1st
rack empty

2nd
rack empty

20

11 (+9)

1 (+19)

Visual
discrepancy

Recommendations
Keep full

no

Secondary armament
1 x 7.62 mm DT machine gun (hull-mounted)
50-round magazines
Gun arc is less than 10.

Crew

Ammo racks

Commander/Gunner
Loader
Driver
Assistant Driver
Total: 4 Crew members

Armour
Armour Front Sides Rear
Hull

Roof

10 mm 7 mm 7 mm 5 - 7 mm

"Turret" 5 mm N/A

N/A

N/A

Notes:
Aside from the front gun shield, there is no armoured encasement for the gunner and loader crew members.

Modules and improvements

Start as usual: Parts and FPE. The BR-271 is a good shell and the BR-271K upgrade can be ignored. Focus on all accuracy upgrades. Long range duels and shots are a favourite past time of all tank
destroyers. Additionally it helps to hit the weak spots on enemy vehicles. After these, all performance upgrades like Engine or Suspension will come in handy to further improve the ZiS-30's excellent
mobility.

History of creation and combat usage

During the first weeks of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Soviet armoured forces suffered crushing losses at the hands of the well organised German army. As the number of Soviet armoured vehicles
rapidly decreased, Soviet representatives searched for ways to compensate for the losses with easily produced vehicles. As a result, an order for the quick development of improvised self-propelled anti tank
guns was issued in July 1941 as a means of providing the Red Army cheap and easy-to-produce anti-tank weapons. The schedule was extremely tight, allowing only two weeks for development.
In response to this, the design bureau in No.92 Factory, led by P. F. Muravyev, developed a light anti-tank destroyer using the chassis of the Komsomolets tracked artillery tractor, propelled by a 4-cylinder
GAZ-M automobile engine which produced 50 horsepower and top speeds of up to 47.5 km/h (29.5 mph). The process of refitting the vehicle was simple: the chassis and the hull remained unchanged, while
the armament, the 57 mm ZiS-2 anti-tank gun, was simply mounted atop the vehicle. The crew consisted of four men, the commander/gunner, loader, driver and machine gunner manning the hull mounted
machine gun. The situation was so dire, that mass production was launched on September 21, 1941 and by October 15, 100 vehicles designated as the ZiS-30 were produced, a mere three months after the
order to develop the vehicle was given, making it perhaps one of the fastest designed vehicles in the world.
The vehicle featured a gun that was capable of destroying any German tank of the period at combat range. The ZiS-2 57 mm gun could penetrate about 103 mm of armor at 500 meters with normal APCBC
rounds and 147 mm with APCR. This was a very welcome trait and proved invaluable to the Soviet defences against the German Panzers. However, there were significant disadvantages of its makeshift
design. The weight of the gun reduced the mobility of the vehicle and the size of the vehicle allowed only a very small ammunition supply of 20 rounds to be carried. Protection of the crew was nonexistent,
as the vehicle had only a very thin amount of armour and the gun crew was protected only frontally by the gun shield. The vehicle was unstable due to its high profile, had a low operational range and the
communication between the driver and the gun crew was very problematic. Only 101 ZiS-30s were manufactured due to problems with availability of both the gun and the chassis, both being urgently
needed elsewhere. The ZiS-30 served until Summer 1942, being replaced by more specialised vehicles such as the SU-76M once the urgency for such vehicles disappeared.

Ingame description
During the first battles of the Great Patriotic War, it became clear that a new tank destroyer had to be developed, capable of quickly relocating and fighting German tank units, whose mobility significantly
exceeded that of the Red Army's tank units.
The vehicle was designed by factory No. 92's design bureau, and consisted of a turret-mounted 57 mm ZiS-2 anti-tank cannon with a 73 calibre barrel length placed on a T-20 Komsomolets armoured
artillery tractor.
The SPG's production began on 21 September 1941. By the 15th of October, the factory had produced 101 ZiS-30 vehicles in total, which took part in conflicts at the culmination of the Battle of Moscow.
In September-October 1941, all these vehicles went towards reinforcing anti-tank gun batteries (6 vehicles per battery) in tank brigade motorised infantry batallions.
The artillery system allowed it to fire at a rate of up to 25 shots per minute, while its targeted firing rate amounted to 15 shots per minute. It was fired only from a stationary position. The tank destroyer was
stabilised when firing using folding bipods located in the rear of the vehicle's hull. A 7.62 mm DT machine gun was mounted on the tank for self-defence, installed in a rotating joint on the right in the hull's
frontal plate. The SPG's crew consisted of 4 people.
Artillerymen liked these self-propelled guns because of their mobility, improved defences in comparison with the towed version, and the increased effectivity of the ZiS-2 cannon, which at times ripped
straight through German tanks of that period. The ZiS-30's disadvantages included its low movement range and on-board ammunition capacity, the gun mount's large dimensions, the lack of communication
between the driver and crew, the vehicle's instability, its overloaded chassis and its weak armour.
Practically all these SPGs were lost by the summer of 1942, either in battle or due to mechanical failures.