From the late 1920s the Red Army sought to upgrade its First World War era artillery pieces.

It underwent trials starting in October 1931, with two barrels of different construction, both fitted with a muzzle brake.

After successfully completing the trials, it was adopted by the RKKA on 13 March 1936 as 122 mm corps gun M1931 (A-19).

In 1939, the gun was replaced in production by an improved variant, M1931/37, which combined the barrel of the M1931 with the carriage of the 152 mm howitzer-gun M1937 (ML-20).

In contrast with World War I-era guns, the M1931 had a split trail carriage, allowing for much wider traverse angle.

The carriage was fitted with a leaf spring suspension and ten-spoke metal wheels with solid rubber tires.

The Gun shield gave the crew some protection from small arms and shell fragments.

The breechblock was of interrupted screw type, similar in construction to that of the 152 mm howitzer M1910/37.

Both variants – M1931 and M1931/37 – had the same place in army organizations, were often used alongside each other and combat reports rarely differentiate between them; consequently, the data in this section is for M1931 and M1931/37 together, unless specified otherwise.

The A-19 was primarily used for indirect fire against enemy personnel, fortifications and key objects in the near rear.

In the early stage of the Great Patriotic War hundreds of A-19s fell into the hands of Wehrmacht.

Germans used a total of 424 of these guns in field and coastal artillery and manufactured ammunition for them.

Guns manufactured starting in 1936 had free liner barrel construction in contrast to the earlier built-up barrels; in 1937 changes in breech block construction were introduced, and some late production pieces received ML-20-type wheels with pneumatic tires.

The carriage in two variants – on tracks and on large, tractor-type wheels – reached trials in 1937 and was found to be not durable enough.

The experiments were stopped because of inherent deficients of those projectiles, namely more complicated loading process and lower accuracy.

The elevation mechanism was slow and unreliable; solid-tired wheels hindered mobility to some extent; there were technological problems in carriage production.

As calibers similar to 122 mm were not typical for western field artillery of World War II era, pieces directly comparable to the M1931 were rare.

The German 10.5 cm sK 18 was significantly lighter (5.64 t) while having about the same range (19 km), but fired much smaller 15 kg shell; on the other side, the 15 cm K 18 was heavy (combat weight 12.46 t), limited production (101 pieces) weapon, more comparable to the Soviet 152 mm Br-2.