TACAM R - 2 The TACAM R - 2 ( Tun Anticar pe Afet Mobil - Self - propelled Anti - tank Gun ) was a Romania n tank destroyer used during World War II . It was built by removing the turret of the " R - 2 " light tank and building a pedestal to mount an ex - Soviet " ZiS - 3 " field gun in its place . A three - sided fighting compartment was built to protect the gun and its crew . Twenty were built in 1944 , but only one is known to exist today . It participated in the Budapest Offensive and the Prague Offensive . Development . By December 1942 it was blatantly obvious that Romania ' s " R - 2 " light tanks were no longer capable of standing up to Soviet medium tanks , but something had to be done to extend their service . It was decided to convert them to tank destroyers on the model of the German Marder II and Romania ' s own " TACAM T - 60 " , still in development . The turret was removed from one " R - 2 " to serve as the prototype over the summer of 1943 to test the concept . A captured Soviet " M - 1936 F - 22 " field gun was removed from its carriage and a new mount was fabricated to fit the gun to the turretless " R - 2 " . A fighting compartment was built using armor salvaged from captured Soviet tanks . New Romanian and German gun sights were fitted to suit the new Romanian ammunition . Testing in late 1943 proved that the gun didn ' t overpower the chassis , but the gun was only effective against " T - 34 " s up to ranges of . Forty were planned to be converted by Leonida in Bucharest , but the process couldn ' t begin immediately because Germany hadn ' t yet delivered the tanks that were to replace the " R - 2 " which allowed the " F - 22 " gun to be exchanged for the more powerful ZiS - 3 gun on the production models . Proposals were made to rearm them to better counter the new heavily armored Soviet " Iosif Stalin " tank s . Proposals were made to up - gun the vehicle with either the Romanian - built " Reşiţa Model 1943 " anti - tank gun or the German gun , but nothing was done before Romania changed sides in August 1944 . Description . The " TACAM R - 2 " had a ZiS - 3 gun mounted on a " R - 2 " light tank chassis from which the turret had been removed . The gun was protected by a three - sided , fixed , partially roofed gun shield with sides thick . The armor plate for the gun shield was salvaged from captured Soviet BT - 7 and T - 26 tanks . The gun could traverse 30° , elevate 15° and depress 5° . A total of thirty rounds were carried for the main gun , twenty - one HE and nine AP . The chassis was little changed from that of the " R - 2 " and retained its hull - mounted " ZB - 53 " machine gun . The armor of the hull ranged from thick . It could cross a ditch wide , climb an obstacle high and ford a stream deep . Operational history . Leonida began work in late February 1944 , and the first batch of twenty conversions was complete by the end of June . Production was halted then because the gun was thought inadequate to face the new heavily armored " IS - 2 " tanks being fielded by the Soviets . Ten vehicles were organized into the " 63rd TACAM Company " in July 1944 and assigned to the " 1st Armored Training Division " . They didn ' t see combat until after Romania ' s defection to the Allies . A company of twelve was assigned to the " Niculescu Detachment " when it was rushed north at the beginning of September to defend the Transylvanian frontier against the Axis counterattack from Hungary . Four more were added when the Niculescu Detachment was absorbed into the " ad hoc " " Armored Group " on 29 September in preparation for attacks intended to clear Northern Transylvania . This was successful and the " Armored Group " was disbanded when the last Axis units were forced from Romanian territory on 25 October 1944 . Twelve were assigned to the " 2nd Armored Regiment " when it was sent to the front Czechoslovakia in February 1945 . The Soviets immediately seized most of the " TACAM R - 2 " s in exchange for a few captured German tanks , but two were reported as operational on 31 March and two were still on hand on 24 April . One of these was destroyed before 30 April and the other was damaged mopping up German units near Brno in May . None were reported with the remnants of the Regiment when it returned to Bucharest on 14 May 1945 . One survives today in the Romanian National Military Museum in Bucharest .