IT45

Work began in the spring of 1942, as the moving platform, the T-60 and T-70 production tanks were selected, which in rather large volumes were received for repairs, where they were planned to be converted to tank destroyers.
In theory, these self-propelled guns were supposed to penetrate 50 mm of armor from 500 meters, but by the time they were ready on paper, the Third Reich army had already used tanks like PzIV and Tiger , in which the frontal armor was from 80 mm, which doomed SAU-IT-45 to failure. The project was curtailed in the fall of 1943.
It should be noted that after a couple of years the German side developed, launched into production and successfully used the Hetzer tank destroyer with a very similar appearance and concept as a whole.

The hull and chassis were developed uniform for I.13.73-SU, I.13.75-SU (SU-IT-45), I.13.76-SU (SU-IT-76). The main difference was the armament. In the first case, it was one 45-mm M-42 gun , in the second two of the same guns in twin form, and in the third with a 76-mm F-22 .
The common ones were the chassis from the T-60 and T-70 with the 108 hp ZIS-5 car engine, 15-35 mm armor (for protection against infantry weapons and anti-tank guns), a low profile combined with large tilt angles that make it even more like Hetzer.
It was interesting that the roof of the car could be tilted to the sides, thereby improving ventilation and increasing side armor.

As already mentioned above, the installation was supposed to have a ZIS-80 engine (characteristics - four-stroke, carburetor, six-cylinder, volume 5555 cm3, power 73 hp at 2400 rpm), which they planned to boost to 108 hp .. But in war conditions, the release of this engine experienced some problems, so they decided to use the standard GAZ-203 twin engine from the T-70 , but it did not fit into the case. Then all hopes were assigned to the diesel V-3 (power of 150-250 hp at 1700-1800 rpm, which would increase the armor by 10 mm from all sides) of the Yaroslavsky and Engine of the Revolution factories, but they could not arrange for their release due to the destruction of their premises. Dreams of launching the production of American diesel engines 110-160 hp also did not justify themselves.
In parallel with the refinement of the engines, tests were carried out to install a 57-mm S-1-57 gun (analogous to the ZIS-2) on this tank destroyer, but the calculations showed that for this it was necessary to tackle the re-arrangement of the machine and the completion of some parts.
As a result, the SAU-IT-45 hull was transferred to Moscow to NII-48 and used as a target for testing shells.

• "one. Have a silhouette as low as possible (preferably at the level of average human height)
• 2. Use the cheapest units of mass-produced light tanks, trucks and tractors.
• 3. As a power plant, to be able to install mass-produced automobile engines from among those well developed by industry.
• 4. Have as few crew as possible, not more than 3 people.
• 5. Have weapons capable of penetrating armor 50 mm or more thick at a distance of 500 m.
• 6. Armored protection of self-propelled guns should provide reliable protection of the machine from 37-mm anti-tank guns from the frontal angles at all distances of real fire. The sides and the feed of the self-propelled guns must protect the crew from bullets of large-caliber machine guns, light PTR, as well as fragments of shells, bombs and mines. ”

In 2014-2015, the appearance of SAU-IT-45 with two guns in the MMO game World of Tanks is possible.

• IT-45 in the World of Tanks (inaccessible link)
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