The Ukrainian milblogger Оперативний ЗСУ (Operational ZSU) posted a video on Thursday, July 4, of the moment when an AZP S-60 Soviet-era towed, medium-range, single-barrel anti-aircraft gun being operated in an unspecified location in Ukraine by Russian troops, spectacularly blew up.
The video, which was taken by an observer standing close by, shows the 57mm weapon, which appears to have been removed from its normal four wheeled carriage and is fixed to the top of an armored personnel carrier (APC).
The three-man crew is shown preparing to fire the gun when there is a large explosion close to or in the breech of the weapon. Censor.NET, which also published the video said the Russian crew “was fried as a result of the explosion.”
This is not the first time Russian equipment and personnel have been injured and killed using Soviet era weapons and ammunition in the war against Ukraine. The causes could be a failure to follow safety procedures through ignorance or negligence, or the age and condition of the ammunition being used or a combination of the two.
AZP S-60 was designed in the late 1940s and was intended to provide a more capable replacement for the Soviet 37 mm M1939 anti-aircraft gun. It was apparently based on the German 55mm Gerät 58 and 50mm FlaK 41 guns that had been captured following the Battle of Stalingrad.
The weapon came into service in the 1950s and was widely used. By the USSR, Warsaw Pact, Middle Eastern and South-East Asian countries.
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S-60 systems are also in use with the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) that came not only from Kyiv’s own stocks but were also provided by partner countries, many of which have been modernized to include automatic guidance systems.
While originally designed for the anti-aircraft role ammunition is available to allow it to act in an anti-armor or anti-personnel roles
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