Self-propelled artillery units, or simply self-propelled guns, in most cases look more like a tank without a turret than a gun capable of independent movement. By the way, there are also self-propelled guns with a rotating turret, but this is generally a rare rarity. The experimental GAZ-68 self-propelled gun, which Soviet designers developed and built in the middle of the Great Patriotic War, can be considered a truly self-propelled gun.

Just look at it. The GAZ-68 (another name for the KSP-76 vehicle is a 76 mm caliber wheeled self-propelled gun) looks the least like a tank, but rather like a truck with a gun sticking out in front. Although the lack of a cabin makes the design look like a hearse…

Nevertheless, we really have a car with a gun in front of us. Under the low squat body is hidden the chassis of the all-wheel drive truck GAZ-63.

The civilian guts are covered by an armored hull (one is tempted to say a body). It is very light, only 1,300 kg, but thanks to the rational arrangement of the armor plates, it effectively protects the crew from shrapnel and large-caliber machine guns.

The conning tower houses a 76-mm ZiS-3 divisional gun, exactly the same one that was installed on the most mass-produced Soviet self-propelled gun, the SU-76 (by the way, read why the SU-76 was called a “mass grave” ).

As a result, a unique vehicle in its characteristics rolled out for testing in 1944. Possessing the same firepower as the SU-76, the GAZ-68 was, firstly, noticeably lower (only 1.5 meters in height) – excellent for camouflage.

Secondly, the KSP turned out to be twice as light (only 5.4 tons), thanks to which even a single, and not twin, as in the “dry”, engine with a power of 85 hp accelerated it to 77 km/h, racing by tank standards. Again, the low weight coupled with all-wheel drive and toothed tires (bulletproof, by the way) with lugs provided the vehicle with good cross-country ability.

The main advantage of the wheeled gun was its extremely low cost. In this extremely important parameter, the GAZ-68 was significantly superior to even the inexpensive and easy-to-produce SU-76. Of course, the KSP had its drawbacks. The vehicle did not cope well with storming trenches (not a problem for any tracked vehicle) and was not very stable when firing. But the mass production and price outweighed all the disadvantages.

However, the KSP-76 never went into production. Some sources claim that the reason was the insufficient cross-country ability of the wheeled gun. But most likely, at the end of 1944, when the Red Army had already reached the borders of the USSR and was preparing for a decisive breakthrough to the West, there was no time left for mass production of the promising self-propelled gun.

As a result, the KSP-76 remained in a single copy, which can be seen today in the tank museum in Kubinka. However, the ideas of the GAZ designers will be reflected in post-war self-propelled guns – from the Czech SPG “Dana” to the South African G6 “Rhino”.