“God fights on the side with the best artillery”
(c) Napoleon Bonaparte

Hi, friends!
Our today's diary is dedicated to the legendary ZIS-3 and its place in Soldiers: Arena. This is the cannon that was the most massively used in the RKKA, and one of the few that were used with equal success both in the division and anti-tank artillery.
Soviet soldiers, for the simplicity and reliability tenderly called her - "Zosia". For the rate of fire (up to 25 shots in a minute) the abbreviation was sometimes deciphered as “Zalp imeni Stalina” (Volley named after Stalin), while Wehrmacht soldiers called the cannon «Ratsch-Bumm» - «Ratchet", because the sound of the projectile, flying on supersonic speed, came some earlier than the sound of the shot (and it seems, they heard them often… when looking on the number of issued cannons). ZIS-3 was the world's first artillery cannon which has been put on the conveyor. 48 016 of it were produced in the version of divisional cannon and 18 601 - in the modification of the gun for SU-76 and SU-76M. This number makes the ZIS-3 a champion in the history of artillery, because no cannon in the world, either before or after "Zosia" had not been produced in such numbers.

Such figures were achieved, above all, due to the optimization of production. As Grabin (chief designer) would later write in his book "Design of the details should be so simple that they can be processed using simplest devices and simplest tool. And another condition: mechanisms and units should be collected individually and consist of nodes, which gather independently. The main factor in all the work became the economic demands with the unconditional preservation of service qualities of the cannon."

And the quality was maintained. Prior to 1943, ZIS-3 on the distance of fire of 500-700 meters was able to pierce in the front part almost any sample of German armored vehicles with rare exceptions (eg, StuG III Ausf F with a 80-mm frontal armor). Against the later medium and heavy tanks, this cannon was practically useless when shooting in the front. But since replacing it in the required quantity wasn’t possible, it continued to be used in anti-tank forces.
As we have mentioned
previously, we try to show in the game the basic principles of action and interaction of troops, to draw parallels with the roles that they played on a real battlefield. For example a significant advantage of the artillery over the tanks and AT SPG’s, is their "invisibility". In Soldiers: Arena cannons, machine guns, and artillery, as a whole, will be "light up" significantly less while shooting, so this gives them a chance against more mobile machinery.
ZIS-3 is accessible, inexpensive cannon, which is great for the early and mid game. The big advantage of it, is the relative ease, making it possible to move with the the help of artillery crew only. It is just like its real analogue has little to oppose to middle and nothing - to heavy tanks, but has enough features to stomp in the mud enemy light vehicles and infantry, rooted in the buildings. But it’s main function is to support the infantry, both in defense and offense. You know, Soldiers: Arena is a team game and you can do nothing without a proper support!
In the comments under the previous diary, you asked us, will it be possible to entrench or strengthen artillery? Yes, it will! We are ready, already with several variants of fortifications for cannons. And in addition, we want to bring into the game more shell types, but we will tell more about this later. In the diary about the artillery commander, and his role in Soldiers: Arena.
[ 2016-10-13 16:50:24 CET ] [ Original post ]