The BA-64 was initially armed with a single 7.62mm Degtyaryov machine gun in an open-topped turret.[5] The machine gun was mounted on a fixed mount that allowed it to be elevated sufficiently to engage low-flying aircraft.[5] BA-64s started being issued in large numbers to Soviet units in early 1943.[3] Around the same time a specialist driving school was set up to train BA-64 drivers.[2] For reasons still unclear, only fifty armoured cars of this type were manufactured in 1942 and mass production was not undertaken until the first six months of 1943, when over a thousand were manufactured.[2] Even after 1943, production figures remained inconsistent and could fluctuate greatly from year to year. In June 1943, the GAZ workshops that produced the BA-64 were heavily damaged or destroyed by German air raids, and production ceased altogether until the plant could be restored. A few technical shortcomings of the GAZ-64 chassis had to resolved in that time,[5] resulting in creation of the BA-64B mod.