ZSU-57 Anti-Air

"Twice the fun of ordinary AA!"

- Merchant of Menace store caption

The ZSU-57 Anti-Air is a North Korean armored anti-air tank featured in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.

Overview
"Sure, it's a holdover from WW2, but the ZSU-57 is a proven design that gets the job done. Twin 57mm cannons serve double-duty as anti-air and anti-infantry."

- Merchant of Menace store description

The ZSU-57 consists of a T-54 tank chassis and a rotating, open-top turret, and is relatively effective against various targets. Being designed for use against lightly-armored air targets, the ZSU-57 performs best against unarmored or lightly-armored targets. Its twin 57mm cannons will do significant damage against infantry, helicopters, and unarmored or lightly-armored ground vehicles, but are not strong enough to be effective against heavier variants of armored personnel carriers, like the M3 APC, or against main battle tanks.

It can be found in various NK Bases on both Southern Province and Northern Province quite frequently.

The ZSU-57 can be unlocked in the Merchant of Menace by destroying ten Monuments.

Tactics
The turret has two visible seats, but strangely, it can only hold a single person. This is advantageous to the player, because he/she can kill the driver with a single headshot, and assume control of the vehicle. Despite this drawback, the anti-air cannon fires explosive flak shells at a steady speed, and the shells themselves have a decent power, which allows them to quickly deal with various light-armored enemy units. However, the anti-air shells are much weaker than the guided missiles fired by the SA-8 Anti-Air or M1027 Anti-Air. The open-turret also leaves the driver vulnerable to airborne attacks, as well as precise attacks by enemy infantry. The ZSU-57's aging design and insufficient firepower for heavy ground engagements means that an operator will find himself rapidly outclassed when attempting to fight enemy main battle tanks or heavy APCs in a ZSU-57.

The ZSU-57 armor, similarly to main battle tanks, offers to the vehicle immunity to small-arms fire, although it can still be destroyed in one hit by anti-tank weaponry and more powerful tanks. Even if it has an open-top turret, it appears that the ZSU-57 is NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) shielded just like other tanks in the game, allowing it to go through radioactive areas with no harm to the driver.

Real life
The ZSU-57 Anti-Air is based on the Soviet ZSU-57-2 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. Its name is derived from three things: Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka, Russian for "Anti-Aircraft Self-Propelled Mount", 57 refers to the bore of its main guns in millimeters, and 2 stands for its number of gun barrels. Its anti-aircraft turret is placed on top of a modified T-54 main battle tank chassis. The ZSU-57-2s remain in use in 16 nations as of 2016, including 250 in North Korea.

Trivia

 * Contrary to common logic, the ZSU-57 is NBC shielded. This is probably because it is programmed like a tank in the game's code.
 * Though the Merchant of Menace description calls it a holdover from WW2, the ZSU-57-2 wasn't designed until well after the war and only entered service in 1955.

Related pages

 * Vehicles of the Korean People's Army in Playground of Destruction


 * SA-8 Anti-Air
 * M1027 Anti-Air
 * Type 95 Anti-Air