TACAM R-2

TACAM R-2
A TACAM R-2 on display at the National Military Museum, Bucharest
Type	Tank Destroyer
Place of origin	Romania
Service history
In service	1944—45
Used by	Romania
Wars	World War II
Production history
Designer	Leonida
Designed	1943
Manufacturer	Atelierele Leonida
Produced	1944
No. built	20 + 1 prototype
Specifications
Weight	12 tonnes (12 long tons; 13 short tons)
Length	5 metres (16 ft)
Width	2.064 metres (6.77 ft)
Height	2.32 metres (7.6 ft)
Crew	3
Armor	10–25 millimetres (0.39–0.98 in)
Main armament	1 x 76.2 mm ZIS-3
Secondary armament	1 x 7.92 mm ZB-53 machine gun
Engine	4-cylinder, water-cooled Škoda T11/0 gasoline 125 horsepower (93 kW)
Transmission	6 x 6
Suspension	leaf spring
Ground clearance	35 centimetres (14 in)
Fuel capacity	153 litres (40 US gal)
Operational range	130–160 kilometres (81–99 mi)
Speed	25–30 kilometres per hour (16–19 mph) (road)

The TACAM R-2 (Tun Anticar pe Afet Mobil - Self-propelled Anti-tank Gun) was a Romanian tank destroyer used during World War II. It was built by removing the turret of the R-2 light tank and building a pedestal to mount an ex-Soviet 76.2 mm (3.00 in) ZiS-3 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.

By December 1942 it was blatantly obvious that Romania's R-2 light tanks were no longer capable of standing up to Soviet medium tanks, 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 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 76.2 millimetres (3.00 in) 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 500–600 metres (550–660 yd). Forty were planned to be converted by Leonida in Bucharest, 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 ZiS-3 gun on the production models.

Proposals were made to rearm them to better counter the new heavily armored Soviet Iosif Stalin tanks. Proposals were made to up-gun the vehicle with either the Romanian-built 75 mm (3.0 in) Reşiţa Model 1943 anti-tank gun or the German 88 mm (3.5 in) gun, but nothing was done before Romania changed sides in August 1944.