Russian Army Receives First 2S43 Malva Self-Propelled Howitzers
Russian media reports indicated yesterday that the first batch of 2S43 Malva self-propelled howitzers have been delivered to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The 2S43 is a 152mm howitzer mounted on an adapted BAZ-6610-02 ‘Voshchina’ eight wheel chassis manufactured by the Bryansk Automobile Plant. Its gun is the venerable 47 caliber 2A64. Russian testing of the 2S43 was reported to have been completed in July 2023.
The Malva was developed at the Burevestnik research institute, with work beginning in the late 2010s. The self-propelled howitzer will be assembled by Uraltransmash. The crew cabin is armored to protect from small arms and light shrapnel. It’s operated by a five man crew and has a suggested operational range of more than 1,000km when travelling on roads. In terms of the 152mm gun’s range, the 2S43 has identical capabilities to the 2S19 Msta-S, with a standard shell reaching out to nearly 25km. This is in danger of being overmatched by some of the more specialized ammunition used Ukraine’s 155mm western artillery systems and Rostec have suggested that improved ammunition with greater range is under development.
The 2S43 is a significant departure for Russia which traditionally favored tracked self-propelled guns such as the 2S1 Gvozdika and 2S19 Msta-S. The Malva offers a more cost-effective approach to getting more self-propelled howitzers into the field quickly. In mid-August 2023 the Russian Ministry of Defense signed a contract with Rostec, the deal was announced at the Army-2023 arms exposition in Moscow.
“Thanks to the wheeled chassis, the Malva is able to quickly turn around in a position and leave it, avoiding return fire, which is very important in a counter-battery war,” said Bekhan Ozdoev, industrial director of the complex of conventional weapons, ammunition and special chemicals of the Rostec State Corporation. “This is a modern and powerful weapon, with which you can destroy almost any object with high-explosive fragmentation shells at a range of more than 24 km,” Ozdoev continued “the rate of fire of the howitzer is more than 7 rounds per minute, and the ammunition capacity is up to 30 rounds.”
Earlier in October, Rostec also announced that the tracked 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled howitzer had competed Russian state trials. Ozdoev noted that the 2S35 is a ‘significant milestone’ and that “the high level of automation – the crew is located in an isolated armored capsule and from there remotely controls the combat vehicle.”