The Russian military received the first batch of Malva self-propelled guns on a wheeled chassis.
Russian media reported on this.
The Russian Rostec state corporation transferred the first batch of 2S43 Malva 152mm self-propelled artillery systems to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
The wheeled howitzer completed a two-year cycle of government testing in July this year. Already in August, the first Deputy CEO of the Rostec corporation claimed that by order of the government, an urgent deployment of the production of these self-propelled guns was launched.
Due to the wheeled chassis from the BAZ-6010-027 truck and the open installation of the artillery unit, the Malva production cycle should be significantly cheaper, faster, and simpler than the similar Msta-S tracked self-propelled vehicle.
Besides, wheeled self-propelled howitzers are only partially related to the supply chain and production facilities for tracked self-propelled howitzers, which will allow the Russians to produce them in parallel without slowing down production.
It is worth noting that the Malva’s chassis is made at the Bryansk automobile plant BAZ, which is located only 100 kilometers from the Russian-Ukrainian border.
2S43 Malva
It is reported that the development of self-propelled guns started at the Burevestnik Central Research Institute in the 2010s as part of the Nabroskok R&D project. Testing of the vehicle started in 2020.
2S43 is armed with a 2А64 152mm rifled gun with a 47-caliber barrel length. It is also used in the design of the Msta-S self-propelled guns and its towed Msta-B variant.
The ACS maximum fire range with conventional high-explosive explosive projectiles is 24.7 km and about 29 km with rocket-assisted shells.
Similar weapons, for example, the French Caesar self-propelled guns or the Ukrainian Bohdana ACS, are able to fire at a distance of up to 40 kilometers due to the longer barrel.
The gun’s open installation without additional armor protection or turret made the vehicle lighter. With a 30-round ammunition package, it weighs 32 tons. This is a quarter lighter than the tracked Msta-S.