[3] The Stalingrad counteroffensive, Operation Uranus, exposed the Red Army's urgent need for mobile heavy guns[4] to destroy German fortifications.

[5] This lack of mobility was exacerbated by the absence of roads, the presence of deep snow and a scarcity of artillery tractors.

[citation needed] In November 1942, the State Defense Committee therefore ordered the development of a heavy self-propelled gun with a 152.4mm ML-20 howitzer.

The Red Army had dedicated anti-fortification vehicles in the pre-war period, such as the KV-2 heavy tank armed with the 152.4 mm M-10 howitzer.

[6] The new anti-fortification vehicle was designed with the same purpose in mind, but with higher mobility, heavier armor, reduced production cost, and the more powerful and accurate ML-20 152mm gun.

In December 1942 three different designs of "pillbox killer" vehicles were introduced by engineer groups from the major Soviet artillery and tank factories.

On February 14, 1943 the State Defense Committee accepted it for Red Army service and immediately launched it into mass production at the Chelyabinskiy Kirovskiy Zavod (Chelyabinsk Kirov Plant, ChKZ).

[8] Purpose-built anti-tank guns of the period usually relied on small, high-velocity solid projectiles, optimised for punching through armour.

Since the SU-152, like all SU-series self-propelled guns was not designed with tank killing in mind, no AP projectiles were issued to crews and no initial tests against armor were conducted.

However, tests performed on captured Tiger tanks in early 1943 showed that the SU-152 was able to destroy them at any range with some reliability (in 1943, this is only vehicle in Russian service capable of doing so) by dislodging the turret through blast effect.

This discovery spurred massive SU-152 production and the formation of self-propelled artillery units, which then functioned as heavy tank destroyer battalions.

A 24-volt electrical power supply came from a 1 kW GT-4563A generator with a RRA-24 voltage relay regulator unit and four 6STE-128 accumulator batteries with a total capacity of 256 ampere-hours.

This made it most effective for use against entrenched enemies, where the German heavy tanks' advantages could be nullified and the SU-152s could utilize their one-shot kill potential.

[15] Since it was intended as a self-propelled artillery piece rather than a true tank destroyer, the SU-152 was generally issued with standard HE rounds rather than armor-piercing projectiles.

It was capable of dislodging the turret of a Tiger tank (at any range), and numerous German armored fighting vehicles were claimed destroyed or damaged by SU-152s during the Battle of Kursk.

[17] This has been attributed to the gun's blast killing the crew and destroying the vehicle's interior via concussion and spalling without harming the ammunition supply or chassis.

[citation needed] After Kursk, the SU-152 played an important role in destroying German fortifications during the Operation Bagration offensive, this being the vehicle's original design goal.

[citation needed] The SU-152 was used by the Independent Heavy Self-propelled Artillery Regiments (OTSAP, ОТСАП, in Russian, from Otdel'niy Tyazheliy Samokhodno-Artilleriyskiy Polk, Отдельный Тяжелый Самоходно-Артиллерийский Полк).