In 1949, Astrov was instructed to continue with his project, but with reduced weight and with the Ch-51 gun as the main armament instead of the D-56T, since it offered better anti-tank performance.

The ASU-57 was designed to be a lightweight assault gun that could be air-dropped out of the An-12 transport plane which was the standard cargo aircraft of the Soviet military at the time and deployed by rocket-assisted parachute (PP-128-500 or P-7) along with the troops.

It was lightly armored and armed with a 57 mm gun Ch-51, a development of the World War II ZIS-2 but with some similarities to the Ch-26.

[1] Designed to be as light as possible, the ASU-57 featured very limited armour in the form of steel plates that were a maximum of 6 mm thick at the front of the vehicle that was either bolted or welded on.

The armour was only intended to resist rifle-calibre bullets fired by infantry and could be defeated easily by heavy machine guns such as the 12.7 mm M2 Browning.

The top of the vehicle was completely open and thus exposed the crew to both the elements and enemy fire, especially in the form of grenades.

It was realised that the armament of the main gun, a WWII-derived design, was vastly obsolete, especially when compared to NATO-equivalents such as the M40 recoilless rifle.

The ASU-57 was gradually supplanted and replaced by the heavier ASU-85, which featured a fully enclosed casemate design with a vastly superior 85 mm main gun.