The TACAM R-2 (''Tun Anticar pe Afet Mobil R-2'' – "Anti-tank gun on R-2 mobile gun carriage") was a Romanian tank destroyer used during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. It was built by removing the turret of the R-2 light tank and building a pedestal to mount an ex-Soviet

ZiS-3 The 76-mm divisional gun M1942 (ZiS-3) (russian: 76-мм дивизионная пушка обр. 1942 г. (ЗиС-3)) (GRAU index: 52-P-354U) was a Soviet 76.2 mm divisional field gun used during World War II. ''ZiS'' was a factory design ...

field gun in its place. A three-sided fighting compartment was built to protect the gun and its crew. Twenty were built in 1944, but only one is known to exist today. It participated in the Budapest Offensive and the Prague Offensive.

Development

By December 1942 it was blatantly obvious that Romania's R-2 light tanks were no longer capable of standing up to

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

medium

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engi ...

s, but something had to be done to extend their service. It was decided to convert them to tank destroyers on the model of the German

Marder II The ''Marder'' II ("marten" in English) was a German tank destroyer of World War II based on the Panzer II chassis. There were two versions, the first mounted a modified Soviet 7.62 cm gun firing German ammunition, while the other mounted the ...

and Romania's own TACAM T-60, still in development. The turret was removed from one R-2 to serve as the prototype over the summer of 1943 to test the concept. A captured Soviet M-1936 F-22 field gun was removed from its carriage and a new mount was fabricated to fit the gun to the turretless R-2. A fighting compartment was built using armor salvaged from captured Soviet tanks. New Romanian and German gun sights were fitted to suit the new Romanian ammunition. Testing in late 1943 proved that the gun didn't overpower the chassis, but the gun was only effective against T-34s up to ranges of . Forty were planned to be converted by Leonida in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

, but the process couldn't begin immediately because Germany hadn't yet delivered the tanks that were to replace the R-2 which allowed the F-22 gun to be exchanged for the more powerful

gun on the production models. Proposals were made to rearm them to better counter the new heavily armored Soviet

Iosif Stalin tank The IS tanks (russian: ИС) were a series of heavy tanks developed as a successor to the KV-series by the Soviet Union during World War II. The IS acronym is the anglicized initialism of Joseph Stalin (, '). The heavy tanks were designed as a r ...

s. Proposals were made to up-gun the vehicle with either the Romanian-built Reşiţa Model 1943 anti-tank gun or the German gun, but nothing was done before Romania changed sides in August 1944.

Description

The TACAM R-2 had a

gun mounted on a R-2 light tank chassis from which the turret had been removed. The gun was protected by a three-sided, fixed, partially roofed gun shield with sides thick. The armor plate for the gun shield was salvaged from captured Soviet

BT-7 The BT-7 BT (russian: БТ) is the Russian abbreviation for "fast tank" (, ). was the last of the BT series of Soviet cavalry tanks that were produced in large numbers between 1935 and 1940. It was lightly armoured, but reasonably well-armed fo ...

and

T-26 The T-26 tank was a Soviet light tank used during many conflicts of the Interwar period and in World War II. It was a development of the British Vickers 6-Ton tank and was one of the most successful tank designs of the 1930s until its light ...

tanks. The gun could traverse 30°, elevate 15° and depress 5°. A total of thirty rounds were carried for the main gun, twenty-one HE and nine AP. The chassis was little changed from that of the R-2 and retained its hull-mounted

ZB-53 The ZB-53 was a Czechoslovak machine gun. A versatile weapon, it was used both as a squad support weapon, as a mounted machine gun for tanks and other armoured vehicles, and on fixed positions inside Czechoslovak border fortifications. Adopted b ...

machine gun. The armor of the hull ranged from thick. It could cross a ditch wide, climb an obstacle high and ford a stream deep.

Operational history

Leonida began work in late February 1944, and the first batch of twenty conversions was complete by the end of June. Production was halted then because the gun was thought inadequate to face the new heavily armored IS-2 tanks being fielded by the Soviets. Ten vehicles were organized into the 63rd TACAM Company in July 1944 and assigned to the ''1st Armored Training Division''. The rest of 10 vehicles were assigned to a Cavalry division. After 23 August coup, a company of twelve was assigned to the Niculescu Detachment when it was rushed north at the beginning of September to defend the

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

n frontier against the Axis counterattack from Hungary. Four more were added when the Niculescu Detachment was absorbed into the ''ad hoc'' Armored Group on 29 September in preparation for attacks intended to clear Northern Transylvania. This was successful and the Armored Group was disbanded when the last Axis units were forced from Romanian territory on 25 October 1944. Twelve were assigned to the 2nd Armored Regiment when it was sent to the front Czechoslovakia in February 1945. The Soviets immediately seized most of the TACAM R-2s in exchange for a few captured German tanks, but two were reported as operational on 31 March and two were still on hand on 24 April. One of these was destroyed before 30 April and the other was damaged mopping up German units near Brno in May. None were reported with the remnants of the regiment when it returned to Bucharest on 14 May 1945. One survives today in the Romanian National Military Museum in Bucharest.

Photo gallery

The gallery shows the TACAM R-2 at the Bucharest Military Museum. Red paintjob photos are from 2006, light teal ones from 2019. File:TACAM R-2 2019-1.jpg File:TACAM R-2 2019-2.jpg File:TACAM R-2 2019-4.jpg File:TACAM R-2 2019-5.jpg File:TACAM R-2 2019-6.jpg File:TACAM R-2 (6).JPG

Notes

References

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External links

TACAM R-2 on worldwar2.ro

{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Tank destroyers of Romania World War II tank destroyers Military history of Romania during World War II World War II armoured fighting vehicles of Romania Military vehicles introduced from 1940 to 1944