Artillery units of the Russian invasion army are using D-74 122mm guns, which were adopted by the Soviet army in the 1950s.

This was revealed in a video released by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

It was reported that the guns were used by the Vostok group of troops in the Vuhledar direction. It can be seen that for the convenience of firing from closed positions, the Russians removed the armor plate of the gun.

The appearance of the D-74 at the front is far from a common occurrence. During the Soviet era, a small number of these guns were produced, mostly for the needs of allied countries, including locally under license.

Between the 1960s and 1970s, almost all D-74s were removed from Soviet arsenals and transferred to the Middle East and Asia.

In Europe, these guns were used to a limited extent by Warsaw Pact countries, including Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and the former German Democratic Republic, but were decommissioned.

In addition, D-74s were and still are actively used by the armies of the DPRK, Vietnam, China, and Algeria. According to open sources, they are in the arsenals of Zimbabwe, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Sudan, and were in service in Iraq, Egypt, and a number of other countries.

These guns were most actively produced by the Chinese industry under the Type-60 index, and the DPRK produces ammunition for them and even has two D-74-based self-propelled artillery systems—M1981 and M1991.

Given these facts, it can be assumed that the Russians had literally a handful of D-74s left and decided to put them into service, or they were transferred from the arsenals of their Russian partners.

It is not yet known whether the Russians are using these weapons in other areas.

D-74

The D-74 is a Soviet towed gun of the corps artillery, which was adopted by the USSR Armed Forces back in 1956.

The gun was developed by the OKB-9 (Plant #9—ed.) in 1947-1950 and was intended to replace the 122-mm guns of 1931/37 in the corps artillery. Serial production of the D-74 began in 1955, and the first production guns were adopted by the army in 1956.

The D-74 gun is mounted on the same carriage used by the D-20 howitzer, i.e. a conventional carriage with two frames, a pallet, and a plate designed to hang the wheels in the firing position.

The gun’s barrel is 6,450 millimeters (52.9 caliber) long, with a direct fire range of 850 to 1,040 meters, depending on the ammunition, and a maximum range of 24 kilometers.

The horizontal aiming angle is 58 degrees, and the vertical aiming angle is from -5 to +45 degrees. The maximum rate of fire is up to 7 rounds per minute, and the weapon is loaded separately.

The weight of the gun is 5.5 tons, the time to move from a stowed to a combat position is 2 to 2.5 minutes, and the crew is 10 people.