ShVAK cannon
20 mm autocannon aircraft armament
The ShVAK (Russian: Шпитальный-Владимиров Авиационный Крупнокалиберный (ШВАК), romanized: Shpitalnyi-Vladimirov Aviatsionnyi Krupnokalibernyi, "Shpitalny-Vladimirov Aviation Large-calibre") was a 20 mm autocannon used by the Soviet Union during World War II. It was designed by Boris Shpitalniy and Semyon Vladimirov and entered production in 1936. ShVAK were installed in many models of Soviet aircraft. The TNSh was a version of the gun produced for light tanks (Russian: ТНШ: Tankovyi Nudel’man-Shpitalnyi). ShVAK shares the name with its 12.7 mm heavy machine gun predecessor.
Development and production
12.7x108mm ShVAK
The development of the 12.7 mm ShVAK was in response to a Soviet government decree passed on 9 February 1931, directing domestic manufacturers to produce an aircraft machine gun for the 12.7×108mm cartridge that had been introduced a couple of years prior for the DK machine gun. Tula designer S.V. Vladimirov answered the call by producing basically an enlarged version of the ShKAS, with a 1246 mm long barrel and a total length of 1726 mm. The first prototype was ready for trials on May 28, 1932. The testing process was fairly drawn out, but the 12.7 mm ShVAK was nominally adopted into service in 1934.
Series production officially started in 1935 at the INZ-2 factory in Kovrov, but production soon fell well behind schedule because the ShVAK receiver was fairly complex to manufacture. According to Soviet records, out of the 410 12.7 mm ShVAKs planned for aircraft in 1935, only 86 were completed; for the tank version, 40 had been planned but only 6 were delivered that same year.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “ShVAK cannon” is 20 mm autocannon aircraft armament. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through ShVAK, cannon and autocannon, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “20 mm autocannon aircraft armament” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2142092. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1936, 1931, 1246 and 1726.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “ShVAK cannon”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow ShVAK cannon primary sources, ShVAK cannon archive and ShVAK research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “ShVAK cannon”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “ShVAK cannon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.