Besides having standard mass-produced artillery systems and individual test articles, the russian invasion army operating in Ukraine sometimes also experiments with creating various impromptu frankensteins: one such attempt was noticed by the Vodohrai online magazine.
Based on the characteristic design of the breech, rammer, and muzzle, the reporters conclude it's an artillery unit from the 2A36 Giatsint-B 152mm Soviet towed howitzer mounted on a BAZ-6910-027 Voschina wheeled chassis. Separately, the vehicle got additional anti-drone protection.
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Another interesting detail is that russians use this howitzer to fire ZOF95 Krasnopol-M precision-guided ammunition (152mm) with an updated homing head.
The chassis is known to be used for producing its latest artillery project, the 2S43 Malva self-propelled howitzer. The system carries the 2A64 gun, with a barrel 47 calibers in length — similar to the ones that equip the 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled and its towed counterpart 2A65 Msta-B.
For a brief excursion into history, the development of the Malva self-propelled gun was first announced in 2019, tests finished by the spring of 2023 with a one-year delay.
In the fall of 2023, the russian Rostec state defense corporation announced the transfer of the first batch of Malvas to the russian army. According to 2024 reports, at least two more batches of these self-propelled artillery systems would be delivered.
Therefore, the question arises as to why the russians decided to allocate chassis for making another chimera instead of utilizing it in manufacturing a tested and allegedly mass-produced model, albeit with a different gun.
Most likely, the answer is the intent to give the towed Giatsint-B some mobility it critically lacks, provided there are some spare chassis available. Equally possible is that this is an isolated product created as part of a trial by fire experiment.
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