The gun was developed from the end of 1939 to the beginning of 1940 at 8th Kalinin Artillery Plant under the guidance of its Chief Designer Mikhail Loginov, supervised by Lev Loktev.

The cannon was given the factory code 72-K before being accepted into service by the Red Army as the 25 mm automatic air defense gun M1940.

The 72-K and its paired-up variant, the 94-KM, were highly successful at engaging low-flying and diving targets, and continued to serve in the Red Army long after the end of the World War II, before being replaced by the more modern ZU-23 in the first half of the 1960s.

Later guns developed by Vasily Degtyaryov operated by tapping gas as it propels a shell forward to achieve automatic firing.

At the same time, provisions of then-modern anti-air defense for the Red Army was deemed unsatisfactory; the USSR did not have any large-caliber machine-gun in service or in mass production in 1929, nor was there an anti-aircraft gun with a caliber of 20-25mm.

The only foreign ally capable of doing so at that time, in the late 1920s, was the Weimar Republic, with whom the USSR had already signed a number of diplomatic and trade agreements.

Rheinmetall (disguised as a shell company, Bütast) and the USSR signed a contract for supplying a number of artillery pieces (including automatic anti-aircraft guns) in 1930.

In accordance with the terms set, Rheinmetall delivered two samples of a 20mm-caliber anti-aircraft guns to the USSR, alongside full design documents for the model.

Designers of the Kovrov plant proposed to adapt the 20mm ShVAK cannon for anti-aircraft use, which was tested on two different carriages in 1936, both ending in failure.

The 72-K repeatedly received minor improvements in its design as it was mass-produced; these modifications were primarily aimed at smoothing mass production.

88 managed to pair up two 72-K cannons on a single carriage from the 94-K in late 1943, which passed field tests, was finalized, and was accepted into service as the 25 mm anti-aircraft gun model 1944 (94-KM).

After the outbreak of the war, additional problems associated with gun carriages were found, which were solved by outright mounting them on truck beds or armored trains.

88 followed in 1943, which successfully solved the aforementioned issues alongside producing the gun in quantity and improving the design to facilitate mass production.

The 72-K is a single-barrel small-caliber automatic anti-aircraft gun mounted on an integral four-leg carriage, with a number of elements borrowed from the older 37mm 61-K. Full automation is accomplished by means of a recoiling barrel.

The weapon would refuse to fire (with one last shell in the breech) should the loader fail to load another clip into the feed tray as the previous is expended.

To facilitate firing at high elevation angles, the trunnions of the carriage are positioned significantly backwards from the center of gravity of the traversing parts, which in turn disrupts the balance of the gun.

The front axle of the carriage allows for changing the direction in which the gun is going when towed, and is pivotally connected to the frame with help from a balancer.

Maximum speed for towing the gun is 60 km/h on asphalt roads, 45 km/h on cobblestone pavements, 30 km/h on formed dirt tracks and 15 km/h off-road.

A second incentive for its production was the fact that 72-K cannons mounted directly to the trucks do not need a gun carriage (which was plagued with problems then).

The 72-K had a small range of ammunition types to use, including: The OZR-132 is mounted with a 24.7-gram K-20 fuse and a detonator meant for self-destruction should the shell fail to hit anything after about 5 seconds from firing.

Guns serving at this level (and usually finding themselves at the frontline) required compact sizes and light weights for easy concealment and maneuverability.

Shirokorad argues that the 72-K was an erroneous development, which ought to be replaced by a lighter VYa cannon-based anti-aircraft gun with a detachable two-wheel carriage.

Mass production of the 72-K only managed to get up to speed in 1943, which resulted in the Red Army having virtually no light anti-aircraft cannons during the first half of the Second World War.

Such a design gave an undoubted advantage in terms of dimensions and weight, but the four-wheeled carriage of the 72-K could somewhat be a better solution when under sudden enemy air or ground attack, which enables it to return fire rather quickly—sometimes even without detaching itself from the tractor.

The UK utilized their own improved version of the Oerlikon, known as the Polsten, originally developed in Poland to simplify design and production costs.

The gun was not yet complete when Poland was occupied, but the development team managed to flee to the United Kingdom and finish their design, which was adopted by the British Army in 1943 and put into mass production.

As the Nazi Party came to power and the Weimar Republic turned into the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler (then still chancellor) denounced all the prohibitive articles of the Versailles Treaty, and Rheinmetall's gun was adopted by the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe as the 2 cm Flak 30.

Closely matched in muzzle velocity and with a heavier projectile, in addition to higher rates of fire and being belt-fed, and smaller dimensions and weight, the MK 103 was a more effective anti-aircraft weapon than the 72-K.

Both 20mm and 30mm German automatic anti-aircraft guns have a large range of ammunition types to choose from, which included sub-caliber armor piercing shells.

The French adopted the 25 mm Hotchkiss anti-aircraft gun for service in 1938, which had close muzzle velocity to that of the 72-K, used lighter projectiles, a lower rate of fire, and was fed from 15-round magazines, which took 3–4 seconds to change.