page_title: D-10 tank gun
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: D-10 tank gun / History
caption_attribution_description: English: East German T-55 displayed at Base Borden Military Museum. This example was a cut-away model for training purposes.
context_page_description: The D-10 is a Soviet 100 mm tank gun developed in late World War II. It originally equipped the SU-100 tank destroyers and was later selected for the T-55 tank, equipping these as late as 1979. On the T-55 the D-10 continues to be in active service in many countries.
context_section_description: At the beginning of 1944, the T-34 tank's F-34 76.2 mm tank gun was replaced by a more powerful 85 mm gun. This rendered the year-old SU-85 tank destroyer effectively obsolescent, since its D-5T 85 mm gun was now also fielded by a more flexible medium tank. F. F. Petrov's Design Bureau at Artillery Factory No. 9 was assigned the task of producing a 100 mm anti-tank gun that could be used on the SU-85 chassis, for the proposed SU-100. To achieve this goal, Petrov's team modified the S-34 naval gun for use in an armoured fighting vehicle.
  The D-10 is a high-velocity gun of 100 mm calibre (bore diameter), with a barrel length of 53.5 calibres. A muzzle velocity of 895 m/s gave it good anti-tank performance by late-war standards. With its original ammunition, it could penetrate about 164 mm of steel armor plate at 1,000 m, which made it superior to the German 75 mm KwK 42 mounted on the Panther tank as well as the Tiger I's 88 mm KwK 36 gun. Testing against Panther tanks at Kubinka showed the D-10T could penetrate the Panther's glacis up to 1500 m. Armor penetration performance increased further with the development of APDS (Armor-Piercing, Discarding Sabot) and other more modern ammunition types after WWII. A more effective high-explosive shell was also developed after the war, taking advantage of the larger 100 mm bore.
  It was originally designed to equip the SU-100 tank destroyer as the D-10S (for samokhodnaya, 'self-propelled'), and was later mounted on the post-war T-54 main battle tank as the D-10T (for tankovaya, 'tank' adj.). There was no significant difference in functionality or performance between the two versions. It was also tested on the T-34-100, T-44-100, KV-100, and IS-2 (obyekt 245).
  In 1955 a stabilizer (vertical-plane STP-1 Gorizont) and bore evacuator were added to the new D-10TG version of the gun.  In 1956, the subsequent D-10T2S version of the gun began production for T-54B and T-55 tanks, equipped with two-plane Tsyklon gun stabilization. Versions of the D-10 were installed on new tanks as late as 1979, and thousands still remain in service in various countries.
  Returning to its naval roots, a version of the D-10 was installed as a coastal artillery piece in Finland in the 1960s. This weapon is designated 100 56 TK in Finnish Navy service and consists of a complete T-55 tank turret without the stabilizer but furnished with a manually operated ammunition lift, a chute for used cases, and gun laying apparatus allowing indirect fire directed by remote fire control. The maximum elevation of the barrel was also increased and the turret was furnished with new aiming optics, in some cases including a thermographic camera for night use.
caption: D-10 tank gun in a T-55 tank
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-GF5", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2015:08:09 14:47:46", "Image ExifOffset": "174", "EXIF ExposureTime": "15", "EXIF FNumber": "22", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "160", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:08:09 14:47:46", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:08:09 14:47:46", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "929/256", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "14", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}