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Soviet artillerymen made a great contribution to the victory in the Great Patriotic War. No wonder they say that artillery is the "God of War". For many people the symbols of the Great Patriotic War the legendary guns remain - the "forty-five", a 45-mm gun of the 1937 model, with which the Red Army entered the war, and the most massive Soviet gun during the war - the 76-mm divisional gun of the 1942 model ZIS-3. During the war years, this weapon was produced in a huge series - more than 100 thousand units.
The legendary "forty-five"
The battlefield is shrouded in clouds of smoke, flashes of fire and the noise of explosions all around. An armada is slowly moving into our positions German tanks. They are opposed by only one surviving artilleryman, who personally charges and aims his forty-five at the tanks.
A similar plot can often be found in Soviet films and books, it was supposed to show the superiority of the spirit of a simple Soviet soldier who, with the help of practically "scrap metal", managed to stop the high-tech German horde. In fact, the 45 mm anti-tank gun was far from a useless weapon, especially at the initial stage of the war. With reasonable use, this tool has repeatedly demonstrated all its best qualities.
The history of this legendary cannon dates back to the 30s of the last century, when the first anti-tank gun was adopted by the Red Army - a 37-mm cannon of the 1930 model. This gun was a licensed version of the German 37-mm gun 3.7-cm PaK 35/36, created by Rheinmetall engineers. In the Soviet Union, this gun was produced at plant No. 8 in Podlipki, the gun received the designation 1-K.
At the same time, almost immediately in the USSR, they thought about improving the gun. Two ways were considered: either to increase the power of the 37-mm gun by introducing new ammunition, or to switch to a new caliber - 45 mm. The second way was recognized as promising. Already at the end of 1931, the designers of plant No. 8 installed a new 45-mm barrel in the casing of the 37-mm anti-tank gun of the 1930 model, while slightly strengthening the gun carriage. So the 45-mm anti-tank gun of the 1932 model was born, its factory index was 19K.
As the main ammunition for the new gun, it was decided to use a unitary shot from a 47-mm French cannon, the projectile of which, more precisely, not even the projectile itself, but its obturating belt, was simply turned from 47 mm to 46 mm in diameter. At the time of its creation, this anti-tank gun was the most powerful in the world. But even despite this, the GAU demanded a modernization - in order to reduce the weight of the gun and bring armor penetration to 45-55 mm at ranges of 1000-1300 meters. On November 7, 1936, it was also decided to transfer 45-mm anti-tank guns from wooden wheels to metal wheels filled with sponge rubber from the GAZ-A car.
By the beginning of 1937, the 45-mm cannon of the 1932 model was fitted with new wheels and the gun went into production. In addition, an improved sight, new semi-automatic, push-button trigger, more reliable shield attachment, suspension, better balancing of the oscillating part appeared on the gun - all these innovations made the 45-mm anti-tank gun of the 1937 model of the year (53K) meet all the requirements of the time.
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, it was this gun that formed the basis of the anti-tank artillery of the Red Army. As of June 22, 1941, 16,621 such guns were in service. In total, during the war years, 37,354 pieces of 45-mm anti-tank guns were produced in the USSR.
The gun was intended to fight enemy armored vehicles (tanks, self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers). For its time and at the beginning of the war, its armor penetration was quite adequate. At a distance of 500 meters, an armor-piercing projectile pierced 43-mm armor. This was enough to deal with the German tanks of those years, the armor of most of which was more bulletproof.
At the same time, already during the war in 1942, the gun was modernized and its anti-tank capabilities increased. The 45 mm anti-tank gun of the 1942 model, designated M-42, was created by upgrading its 1937 predecessor. The work was carried out at the plant number 172 in Motovilikha (Perm).
Basically, the modernization consisted in lengthening the gun barrel, as well as strengthening the propellant charge and a number of technical measures that were aimed at simplifying the serial production of the gun. At the same time, the thickness of the gun shield armor increased from 4.5 mm to 7 mm for better protection of the crew from armor-piercing bullets. As a result of modernization, the muzzle velocity of the projectile was raised from 760 m/s to 870 m/s. When using caliber armor-piercing shells, the armor penetration of the new gun at a distance of 500 meters increased to 61 mm.
The M-42 anti-tank gun was able to fight all medium German tanks of 1942. At the same time, during the entire first period of the Great Patriotic War, it was forty-fives that remained the basis of the anti-tank artillery of the Red Army. During the Battle of Stalingrad, these guns accounted for 43% of all guns that were in service with anti-tank regiments.
But the appearance in 1943 of new German tanks, primarily the Tiger and Panther, as well as a modernized version of the Pz Kpfw IV Ausf H, which had a frontal armor thickness of 80 mm, the Soviet anti-tank artillery was again faced with the need to build up firepower.
The problem was partially solved by re-starting production of the 57-mm ZIS-2 anti-tank gun. But despite this, and thanks to well-established production, the production of the M-42 continued. With tanks Pz Kpfw IV Ausf H and Panther, this gun could fight by firing on their side, and such fire could be counted on due to the high mobility of the gun. As a result, he was left in production and in service. A total of 10,843 such guns were manufactured from 1942 to 1945.
Divisional gun model 1942 ZIS-3
The second Soviet weapon, no less legendary than the forty-five, was the ZIS-3 divisional cannon of the 1942 model, which today can be found on many pedestals. It is worth noting that by the time the Great Patriotic War began, the Red Army was armed with both rather outdated field guns of the 1900/02, 1902/26 and 1902/30 models, as well as fairly modern guns: 76.2-mm divisional guns of the 1936 model ( F-22) and 76.2-mm divisional gun model 1939 (USV).
At the same time, work on the ZIS-3 was started even before the war. The well-known designer Vasily Gavrilovich Grabin was engaged in the design of the new gun. He began work on the gun at the end of 1940 after his 57 mm ZIS-2 anti-tank gun had successfully passed the tests. Like most anti-tank guns, it was quite compact, had a light and durable carriage, which was quite suitable for the development of a divisional gun.
At the same time, a high-tech barrel with good ballistic characteristics has already been created for the 76.2-mm F-22 and USV divisional guns. So the designers practically had only to put the existing barrel on the carriage of the ZIS-2 gun, equipping the barrel with a muzzle brake to reduce the load on the gun carriage. In parallel with the process of designing a divisional gun, issues related to the technology of its production were resolved, and the production of many parts was carried out by stamping, casting, and welding. Compared to the USV gun, labor costs were reduced by 3 times, and the cost of one gun fell by more than a third.
The ZIS-3 was a weapon of a modern design at that time. The barrel of the gun is a monoblock with a breech and a muzzle brake (they absorbed about 30% of the recoil energy). A semi-automatic wedge gate was used. The descent was lever or push-button (on guns of different production series). The barrel resource for the guns of the first series reached 5000 rounds, but for most guns it did not exceed 2000 rounds.
Already in the battles of 1941, the ZIS-3 gun showed all its advantages over the F-22 and USV guns, which were heavy and inconvenient for gunners. This allowed Grabin to personally present his gun to Stalin and obtain official permission from him to launch the gun into mass production, moreover, the gun was already being produced and actively used in the army.
At the beginning of February 1942, formal tests of the gun took place, which lasted only 5 days. According to the test results, the ZIS-3 gun was put into service on February 12, 1942 with official name"76-mm divisional gun model 1942". For the first time in the world, the production of the ZIS-3 gun was carried out in-line with a sharp increase in productivity. On May 9, 1945, the Volga Plant reported to the party and the government about the production of the 100,000th 76-mm ZIS-3 gun, increasing their production during the war years by almost 20 times. BUT in total, more than 103 thousand of these guns were manufactured during the war years.
The ZIS-3 gun could use the entire range of 76-mm cannon shells available, including a variety of old Russian and imported grenades. So the steel high-explosive fragmentation grenade 53-OF-350, when the fuse was set to fragmentation action, created approximately 870 lethal fragments, the effective radius of which was 15 meters. When the fuse was set to high-explosive action at a distance of 7.5 km, a grenade could penetrate a brick wall 75 cm thick or an earth embankment 2 m thick.
The use of the 53-BR-354P sub-caliber projectile ensured penetration of 105 mm of armor at a distance of 300 meters, and at a distance of 500 meters - 90 mm. First of all, sub-caliber shells were sent to provide anti-tank units. Since the end of 1944, the cumulative projectile 53-BP-350A also appeared in the troops, which could penetrate armor up to 75-90 mm thick at an encounter angle of 45 degrees.
At the time of adoption, the 76-mm divisional gun of the 1942 model fully met all the requirements facing it: in terms of firepower, mobility, unpretentiousness in everyday operation and manufacturability. The ZIS-3 gun was a typical weapon of the Russian school of design: technologically simple, cheap, powerful, reliable, absolutely unpretentious and easy to operate.
During the war years, these guns were produced in-line using any more or less trained workforce without losing the quality of the finished samples. The guns were easily mastered and could be kept in order by the personnel of the units. For the conditions in which the Soviet Union found itself in 1941-1942, the ZIS-3 gun was almost an ideal solution, not only from the point of view of combat use but also in terms of industrial output. All the years of the war, the ZIS-3 was successfully used both against tanks and against enemy infantry and fortifications, which made it so versatile and massive.
122-mm howitzer model 1938 M-30
The M-30 122-mm howitzer of the 1938 model became the most massive Soviet howitzer of the Great Patriotic War period. This gun was mass-produced from 1939 to 1955 and was, and still is, in service with some countries. This howitzer took part in almost all significant wars and local conflicts of the 20th century.
According to a number of artillery successes, the M-30 can be safely attributed to one of the best examples of the Soviet cannon artillery middle of the last century. The presence of such a howitzer in the composition of the artillery units of the Red Army made an invaluable contribution to the victory in the war. In total, during the release of the M-30, 19,266 howitzers of this type were assembled..
The howitzer was developed in 1938 by the Motovilikha Plants Design Bureau (Perm), the project was led by Fedor Fedorovich Petrov. Serial production of howitzers began in 1939 at three plants at once, including Motovilikhinskiye Zavody (Perm) and at the Uralmash artillery plant (Sverdlovsk, since 1942, artillery plant No. 9 with OKB-9). The howitzer was in mass production until 1955, which most clearly characterizes the success of the project.
In general, the M-30 howitzer had a classic design: a reliable, durable two-bed carriage, a rigidly fixed shield with a raised central sheet, and a 23-caliber barrel that did not have a muzzle brake. The M-30 howitzer was equipped with the same carriage as the 152 mm D-1 howitzer. Large-diameter wheels received solid slopes, they were filled with sponge rubber. At the same time, the M-30 modification, which was produced in Bulgaria after the war, had wheels of a different design. Each 122nd howitzer had two different types of coulters - for hard and soft soil.
The 122 mm M-30 howitzer was, of course, a very successful weapon. A group of its creators, led by F.F. Petrov, managed to very harmoniously combine simplicity and reliability in one model of artillery weapons. The howitzer was very easily mastered by personnel, which was largely characteristic of howitzers of the First World War era, but at the same time it had a large number of new design solutions that made it possible to increase firepower and howitzer mobility. As a result, the Soviet divisional artillery received a powerful and modern howitzer, which was able to operate as part of the highly mobile tank and mechanized units of the Red Army. The wide distribution of this 122-mm howitzer in various armies of the world and the excellent reviews of gunners only confirm this.
The gun was appreciated even by the Germans, who at the initial stage of the war managed to capture several hundred M-30 howitzers. They adopted the gun under the index heavy howitzer 12.2 cm s.F.H.396 (r), actively using them on the Eastern and Western fronts. Starting from 1943, for this howitzer, as well as some other samples of Soviet cannon artillery of the same caliber, the Germans even launched a full-fledged mass production of shells. So in 1943 they fired 424 thousand shots, in 1944 and 1945 - 696.7 thousand and 133 thousand shots, respectively.
The main type of ammunition for the 122-mm howitzer M-30 in the Red Army was a fairly effective fragmentation projectile, which weighed 21.76 kg. The howitzer could fire these projectiles at a range of up to 11,800 meters. Theoretically, an armor-piercing cumulative projectile 53-BP-460A could be used to combat armored targets, which, at an angle of impact with armor of 90 °, pierced armor up to 160 mm thick. Sighting range firing at a moving tank was up to 400 meters. But of course that would be an extreme case.
The M-30 was intended primarily for firing from closed positions against openly located and dug-in enemy manpower and equipment. The howitzer was also successfully used to destroy enemy field fortifications (dugouts, bunkers, trenches) and to make passages in barbed wire when it was impossible to use mortars for these purposes.
Moreover, the barrage fire of the M-30 howitzer battery with high-explosive fragmentation shells posed some threat to German armored vehicles. The fragments formed during the rupture of 122-mm shells were able to penetrate armor up to 20 mm thick, this was quite enough to destroy the sides of enemy light tanks and armored personnel carriers. For vehicles with thicker armor, fragments of howitzer shells could disable the gun, sights, and chassis elements.
HEAT shells for this howitzer appeared only in 1943. But in their absence, the gunners were instructed to fire at tanks and high-explosive fragmentation shells, having previously set the fuse to high-explosive action. Very often, with a direct hit on a tank (especially for light and medium tanks), it became fatal for an armored vehicle and its crew, up to the failure of the turret from the shoulder strap, which automatically made the tank incapacitated.
The 57-mm anti-tank gun of the 1943 model is a weapon with a very difficult fate. One of the two anti-tank guns of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War (the second was the famous "magpie"). This system appeared back in 1941, but then there were simply no worthy targets for this weapon. From the production of complex and expensive tools, it was decided to abandon. They remembered the ZiS-2 in 1943, when the enemy had heavy equipment.
57 mm anti-tank gun ZiS-2 model 1943. (northern-line.rf)
For the first time, the ZiS-2 of the 1943 model appeared at the front from the summer of 1943 on and subsequently proved to be quite good, coping with almost any German tanks. At distances of several hundred meters, the ZIS-2 pierced the 80-mm side armor of the "tigers". In total, more than 13 thousand ZiS-2s were produced during the war years.
ZiS-3
The most massive Soviet weapon of the Great Patriotic War was the ZiS-3 (76-mm divisional gun model 1942), which began to enter the army in the second half of 1942.
76 mm gun ZIS-3. (waralbum.ru)
The first mass combat use of this weapon is supposedly associated with the battles in the Stalingrad and Voronezh directions. The light and maneuverable gun was used to fight both manpower and equipment of the enemy. In total, more than 100 thousand ZiS-3s were produced - more than all other guns taken together during the war. The production of ZiS-3 was carried out at enterprises in Gorky (modern Nizhny Novgorod) and Molotov (modern Perm).
ML-20
The 152 mm howitzer-gun of the 1937 model is a unique weapon that combines the firing range of a cannon and the ability of a howitzer to fire along a hinged trajectory. During the Great Patriotic War, not a single army in the world, including the German one, had such systems. Not a single major artillery preparation could do without the ML-20, whether it was the Moscow, Stalingrad or Kursk battles.
152 mm howitzer-gun model 1937. (warbook.info)
It is noteworthy that the ML-20 became the first Soviet gun to open fire on German territory. On the evening of August 2, 1944 from ML-20 on German positions in East Prussia about 50 rounds were fired. And then a report was sent to Moscow that shells were now exploding on German territory. From the middle of the war, the ML-20 was installed on the Soviet self-propelled guns SU-152, and later on the ISU-152. In total, about 6900 ML-20 guns of various modifications were produced.
"Forty-five"
The 45 mm anti-tank gun of the 1937 model was the main anti-tank gun of the Red Army in initial period war and was able to hit almost any German equipment. The military debut of this gun took place a little earlier - in the summer of 1938, when the "magpies" were used to destroy enemy firing points during the battles on Khasan, and a year later they caused a shock among Japanese tankers at Khalkhin Gol.
Calculation of a 45-millimeter anti-tank gun of the 1937 model. (broneboy.ru)
Since 1942, its new modification (45-mm anti-tank gun of the 1942 model) with an elongated barrel was adopted. From the middle of the war, when the enemy began to use tanks with powerful armor protection, transporters, self-propelled guns and enemy firing points became the main targets of the "forty-five". On the basis of the "forty-five", a 45-mm semi-automatic naval anti-aircraft gun 21-K was also created, which turned out to be ineffective due to the low rate of fire and the lack of special sights. Therefore, whenever possible, the 21-K was replaced with automatic guns, transferring the removed artillery to reinforce the positions of ground troops as field and anti-tank guns.
52-K
This weapon during the Great Patriotic War was very widely used both at the front and for the protection of rear facilities and large transport hubs. During the fighting, it was often used as an anti-tank. And before the start of mass production of the BS-3, it was practically the only gun capable of fighting German heavy tanks at long distances.
85 mm anti-aircraft gun model 1939. Tula, 1941. (howlingpixel.com)
The feat of the calculation of senior sergeant G. A. Shadunts is known, who, in two days of fighting in the area modern city Lobnya, Moscow region, destroyed 8 German tanks. This episode of the Battle of Moscow is dedicated Feature Film"At your doorstep." K.K. Rokossovsky later recalled another example of the successful actions of Soviet anti-aircraft gunners, who defeated the German column with 85 mm guns on the Lutsk-Rovno road: “The gunners let the Nazis come closer and opened fire. A monstrous traffic jam formed on the highway from the wreckage of motorcycles and armored vehicles, the corpses of the Nazis. But the advancing enemy troops continued to move forward by inertia, and our guns received more and more new targets.
B-34
Universal 100 mm ship artillery mount on Soviet ships (for example, cruisers of the Kirov type) was used as anti-aircraft artillery ranged. The gun was equipped with an armor shield. Firing range 22 km; ceiling - 15 km. Each of the Kirov-class cruisers was to carry six 100 mm universal guns.
100mm B-34 naval gun. TsMVS, Moscow. (tury.ru)
Since it was impossible to track the movement of enemy aircraft with heavy guns, firing, as a rule, was carried out by curtains at a certain range. The weapon turned out to be useful for destroying ground targets. In total, 42 guns were fired before the start of World War II. Since production was concentrated in Leningrad, which was under blockade, the cruisers of the Pacific Fleet "Kalinin" and "Kaganovich" were forced to equip not 100-mm, but 85-mm guns as long-range anti-aircraft artillery.
One of the most productive stationary Soviet batteries was the 394th battery of four 100-mm guns, located on Cape Penai (the area of \u200b\u200bmodern Kabardinka) under the command of Lieutenant A. E. Zubkov. Initially, it was built to repel a possible attack from the sea, but since 1942 it has successfully operated on ground targets. In total, during the fighting, the battery conducted 691 firings, firing more than 12 thousand shells.
The battery was subjected to massive enemy artillery and air strikes. The crews suffered serious losses, and the guns were constantly damaged; gun barrels and armored shields were repeatedly replaced. A unique case was when a German shell hit directly into the gun barrel through the muzzle, but, fortunately, did not explode (this episode was independently confirmed after the war by the battery commander and mechanic). In 1975, a museum and memorial complex was opened on the site of the legendary battery.
After the end of the war, in the USSR, anti-tank artillery was armed with: 37-mm airborne guns of the 1944 model, 45-mm anti-tank guns mod. 1937 and arr. 1942, 57-mm anti-tank guns ZiS-2, divisional 76-mm ZiS-3, 100-mm field model 1944 BS-3. German captured 75-mm Pak 40 anti-tank guns were also used. They were purposefully assembled, stored and repaired if necessary.
In the middle of 1944, it was officially put into service. 37 mm ChK-M1 airborne gun.
It was specially designed to equip parachute battalions and motorcycle regiments. The gun weighing 209 kg in combat position allowed air transportation and parachuting. It had good armor penetration for its caliber, which made it possible to hit medium and heavy side armor with a sub-caliber projectile at a short distance. The shells were interchangeable with the 37 mm 61-K anti-aircraft gun. The guns were transported in Willis and GAZ-64 vehicles (one gun per vehicle), as well as in Dodge and GAZ-AA vehicles (two guns per vehicle).
In addition, it was possible to transport the gun on a single-horse cart or sleigh, as well as in a motorcycle sidecar. If necessary, the tool is disassembled into three parts.
The calculation of the gun consisted of four people - the commander, gunner, loader and carrier. When shooting, the calculation takes a prone position. The technical rate of fire reached 25-30 rounds per minute.
Thanks to the original design of the recoil devices, the 37-mm airborne gun model 1944 combined powerful anti-aircraft gun ballistics for its caliber with small dimensions and weight. With armor penetration values close to those of the 45 mm M-42, the ChK-M1 is three times lighter and significantly smaller in size (much lower line of fire), which greatly facilitated the movement of the gun by crew forces and its camouflage. At the same time, the M-42 also has a number of advantages - the presence of a full-fledged wheel drive, which allows the gun to be towed by a car, the absence of a muzzle brake that unmasks when firing, a more effective fragmentation projectile and a better armor-piercing effect of armor-piercing shells.
The 37 mm ChK-M1 gun was about 5 years late, was adopted and put into production when the war came to an end. Apparently she did not take part in the hostilities. A total of 472 guns were produced.
45-mm anti-tank guns were hopelessly outdated by the end of hostilities, even the presence in the ammunition 45 mm M-42 guns sub-caliber projectile with normal armor penetration at a distance of 500 meters - 81-mm homogeneous armor could not correct the situation. Modern heavy and medium tanks were struck only when firing into the side, from extremely short distances. The active use of these tools up to the very last days wars can be explained by high maneuverability, ease of transportation and camouflage, huge accumulated stocks of ammunition of this caliber, as well as the inability of Soviet industry to provide the troops in the required quantity with higher-performance anti-tank guns.
One way or another, in the active army, the "forty-five" were very popular, only they could move with the forces of calculation in the combat formations of the advancing infantry, supporting it with fire.
In the late 40s, "forty-five" began to be actively withdrawn from parts and transferred to storage. However, for quite a long period of time they continued to be in service with the Airborne Forces and used as training tools.
A significant number of 45-mm M-42s were transferred to the then allies.
American soldiers from the 5th Cavalry Regiment study the M-42 captured in Korea
"Forty-five" was actively used in the Korean War. In Albania, these guns were in service until the early 90s.
Mass production 57 mm anti-tank gunZiS-2 became possible in 1943, after the necessary metalworking machines were received from the USA. The restoration of mass production was difficult - again there were technological problems with the manufacture of barrels, in addition, the plant was heavily loaded with a program for the production of 76-mm divisional and tank guns, which had a number of common nodes with the ZIS-2; under these conditions, the increase in the production of ZIS-2 on the existing equipment could only be carried out by reducing the volume of production of these guns, which was unacceptable. As a result, the first batch of ZIS-2 for state and military tests was released in May 1943, and in the production of these guns, the backlog that had been mothballed at the plant since 1941 was widely used. The mass production of the ZIS-2 was organized by October - November 1943, after the commissioning of new production capacity provided with equipment supplied under Lend-Lease.
The capabilities of the ZIS-2 made it possible at typical combat distances to confidently hit the 80-mm frontal armor of the most common German medium tanks Pz.IV and StuG III assault self-propelled guns, as well as the side armor of the Pz.VI Tiger tank; at distances of less than 500 m, the Tiger's frontal armor was also hit.
In terms of the cost and manufacturability of production, combat and service performance, the ZIS-2 became the best Soviet anti-tank gun of the war.
Since the resumption of production, until the end of the war, more than 9,000 guns were received by the troops, but this was not enough to fully equip anti-tank units.
The production of the ZiS-2 continued until 1949 inclusive, in the post-war period, about 3,500 guns were produced. From 1950 to 1951, only ZIS-2 barrels were produced. Since 1957, the previously released ZIS-2 was upgraded to the ZIS-2N variant with the ability to conduct combat at night through the use of special night sights
In the 1950s, new sub-caliber shells with increased armor penetration were developed for the gun.
In the post-war period, the ZIS-2 was in service with the Soviet army until at least the 1970s, the last case of combat use was recorded in 1968, during a conflict with the PRC on Damansky Island.
ZIS-2 was supplied to a number of countries and took part in several armed conflicts, the first of which was Korean War.
There is information about the successful use of the ZIS-2 by Egypt in 1956 in battles with the Israelis. Guns of this type were in service with the Chinese army and were produced under license under the Type 55 index. As of 2007, the ZIS-2 was still in service with the armies of Algeria, Guinea, Cuba and Nicaragua.
In the second half of the war, the fighter-anti-tank units were armed with captured German 75 mm anti-tank guns Pak 40. During offensive operations 1943-1944 a large number of guns and ammunition were captured. Our military appreciated the high performance of these anti-tank guns. At a distance of 500 meters, normal sabot projectile pierced - 154-mm armor.
In 1944, firing tables and operating instructions were issued for the Pak 40 in the USSR.
After the war, the guns were transferred to storage, where they were at least until the mid-60s. Subsequently, some of them were "utilized", and some were transferred to the allies.
A photograph of the RaK-40 guns was taken at a parade in Hanoi in 1960.
In fear of an invasion from the South, several anti-tank artillery battalions were formed as part of the army of North Vietnam, armed with German 75 mm RaK-40 anti-tank guns from the Second World War. Such guns were captured in large numbers in 1945 by the Red Army, and now the Soviet Union has provided them to the Vietnamese people to protect them from possible aggression from the South.
Soviet divisional 76-mm guns were intended for solving a wide range of tasks, primarily fire support for infantry units, suppressing firing points, and destroying light field shelters. However, during the war, divisional artillery guns had to fire on enemy tanks, perhaps even more often than specialized anti-tank guns.
Since 1944, due to a slowdown in the production of 45-mm guns and a shortage of 57-mm ZIS-2 guns, despite insufficient armor penetration for that time divisional 76-mm ZiS-3 became the main anti-tank gun of the Red Army.
In many ways, this was a forced measure. The armor penetration of an armor-piercing projectile, which pierced 75-mm armor at a distance of 300 meters along the normal, was not enough to deal with medium German tanks Pz.IV.
As of 1943, the armor of the heavy tank PzKpfW VI "Tiger" was invulnerable to the ZIS-3 in the frontal projection and weakly vulnerable at distances closer than 300 m in the side projection. The new German tank PzKpfW V Panther, as well as the upgraded PzKpfW IV Ausf H and PzKpfW III Ausf M or N, were also weakly vulnerable in the frontal projection for the ZIS-3; however, all these vehicles were confidently hit from the ZIS-3 to the side.
The introduction of a sub-caliber projectile since 1943 improved the anti-tank capabilities of the ZIS-3, allowing it to confidently hit vertical 80-mm armor at distances closer than 500 m, but 100-mm vertical armor remained unbearable for it.
The relative weakness of the anti-tank capabilities of the ZIS-3 was recognized by the Soviet military leadership, but it was not possible to replace the ZIS-3 in anti-tank units until the end of the war. The situation could be corrected by introducing a cumulative projectile into the ammunition load. But such a projectile was adopted by the ZiS-3 only in the post-war period.
Shortly after the end of the war and the production of over 103,000 guns, the production of the ZiS-3 was discontinued. The gun remained in service for a long time, but by the end of the 40s, it was almost completely withdrawn from anti-tank artillery. This did not prevent the ZiS-3 from spreading very widely around the world and taking part in many local conflicts, including on the territory former USSR.
In modern Russian army the remaining serviceable ZIS-3s are often used as salute guns or in theatrical performances on the theme of the battles of the Great Patriotic War. In particular, these guns are in service with the Separate Fireworks Division under the commandant's office of Moscow, which conducts fireworks on the holidays of February 23 and May 9.
In 1946, the weapon created under the leadership of the chief designer F. F. Petrov was adopted. 85-mm anti-tank gun D-44. This weapon would have been in great demand during the war, but its development was greatly delayed for a number of reasons.
Outwardly, the D-44 strongly resembled the German 75-mm anti-tank Pak 40.
From 1946 to 1954, plant No. 9 (Uralmash) produced 10,918 guns.
D-44s were in service with a separate artillery anti-tank battalion of a motorized rifle or tank regiment (two anti-tank artillery batteries consisting of two fire platoons), 6 pieces per battery (in division 12).
As ammunition, unitary cartridges with high-explosive fragmentation grenades, coil-shaped sub-caliber shells, cumulative and smoke shells are used. The range of a direct shot of the BTS BR-367 at a target with a height of 2 m is 1100 m. At a range of 500 m, this projectile pierces an armor plate 135 mm thick at an angle of 90 °. The initial speed of the BPS BR-365P is 1050 m / s, armor penetration is 110 mm from a distance of 1000 m.
In 1957, night sights were installed on some of the guns, and a self-propelled modification was also developed. SD-44, which could move on the battlefield without a tractor.
The barrel and carriage of the SD-44 were taken from the D-44 with minor changes. So, on one of the frames of the gun, an M-72 engine of the Irbit motorcycle plant with a power of 14 hp was installed, covered with a casing. (4000 rpm) providing a self-propelled speed of up to 25 km / h. Power transmission from the engine was provided through the cardan shaft, differential and axle shafts to both wheels of the gun. The gearbox included in the transmission provided six forward gears and two reverse gears. A seat is also fixed on the bed for one of the numbers of the calculation, which acts as a driver. He has at his disposal a steering mechanism that controls an additional, third, wheel of the gun, mounted at the end of one of the beds. A headlight is installed to illuminate the road at night.
Subsequently, it was decided to use the 85-mm D-44 as a divisional one to replace the ZiS-3, and to assign the fight against tanks to more powerful artillery systems and ATGMs.
In this capacity, the weapon was used in many conflicts, including in the CIS. An extreme case of combat use was noted in the North Caucasus, during the "counter-terrorist operation."
D-44 is still formally in service in the Russian Federation, a number of these guns are in internal troops and in storage.
On the basis of the D-44, under the leadership of the chief designer F. F. Petrov, a anti-tank 85-mm gun D-48. The main feature of the D-48 anti-tank gun was its exceptionally long barrel. To ensure the maximum muzzle velocity of the projectile, the barrel length was increased to 74 calibers (6 m, 29 cm).
Especially for this gun, new unitary shots were created. An armor-piercing projectile at a distance of 1,000 m pierced armor 150-185 mm thick at an angle of 60 °. Sub-caliber projectile at a distance of 1000 m penetrates homogeneous armor thickness 180–220 mm at an angle of 60° Maximum range firing high-explosive fragmentation projectiles weighing 9.66 kg. - 19 km.
From 1955 to 1957, 819 copies of D-48 and D-48N were produced (with night sight APN2-77 or APN3-77).
The guns entered service with individual anti-tank artillery battalions of a tank or motorized rifle regiment. As an anti-tank gun, the D-48 gun quickly became obsolete. In the early 60s of the XX century, tanks with more powerful armor protection appeared in NATO countries. The negative feature of the D-48 was the "exclusive" ammunition, unsuitable for other 85-mm guns. For firing from the D-48, the use of shots from the D-44, KS-1, 85-mm tank and self-propelled guns is also prohibited, this significantly narrowed the scope of the gun.
In the spring of 1943, V.G. Grabin, in his memorandum addressed to Stalin, proposed, along with the resumption of production of the 57-mm ZIS-2, to begin designing a 100-mm cannon with a unitary shot, which was used in naval guns.
A year later, in the spring of 1944 100-mm field gun model 1944 BS-3 was put into production. Due to the presence of a wedge gate with a vertically moving wedge with semi-automatic, the location of the vertical and horizontal aiming mechanisms on one side of the gun, as well as the use of unitary shots, the gun's rate of fire is 8-10 rounds per minute. The cannon was fired with unitary cartridges with armor-piercing tracer rounds and high-explosive fragmentation grenades. An armor-piercing tracer with an initial velocity of 895 m/s at a range of 500 m at a meeting angle of 90° pierced armor 160 mm thick. The range of a direct shot was 1080 m.
However, the role of this gun in the fight against enemy tanks is greatly exaggerated. By the time it appeared, the Germans practically did not use tanks massively.
During the war, the BS-3 was produced in small quantities and could not play a big role. At the final stage of the war, 98 BS-3s were given as a means of reinforcing five tank armies. The gun was in service with the light artillery brigades of the 3rd regiment.
As of January 1, 1945, the RGK artillery had 87 BS-3 guns. At the beginning of 1945 in the 9th Guards Army as part of three rifle corps, one cannon artillery regiment of 20 BS-3 was formed.
Basically, due to the long firing range - 20650 m and a fairly effective high-explosive fragmentation grenade weighing 15.6 kg, the gun was used as a hull gun to fight enemy artillery and suppress long-range targets.
The BS-3 had a number of shortcomings that made it difficult to use it as an anti-tank weapon. When firing, the gun jumped heavily, which made the gunner’s work unsafe and knocked down aiming mounts, which, in turn, led to a decrease in the practical rate of aimed fire - a very important quality for a field anti-tank gun.
The presence of a powerful muzzle brake with a low line of fire and flat trajectories, typical for firing at armored targets, led to the formation of a significant smoke and dust cloud, which unmasked the position and blinded the calculation. The mobility of a gun with a mass of more than 3500 kg left much to be desired, transportation by crew forces on the battlefield was almost impossible.
After the war, the gun was in production until 1951 inclusive, a total of 3816 BS-3 field guns were produced. In the 60s, the guns underwent modernization, this concerned primarily sights and ammunition. Until the early 60s, the BS-3 could penetrate the armor of any Western tank. But with the advent of: M-48A2, Chieftain, M-60 - the situation has changed. New sub-caliber and cumulative projectiles were urgently developed. The next modernization took place in the mid-80s, when the 9M117 Bastion anti-tank guided projectile entered the BS-3 ammunition load.
This weapon was also supplied to other countries, took part in many local conflicts in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, in some of them it is still in service. In Russia, until recently, the BS-3 guns were used as coastal defense weapons in service with the 18th machine gun and artillery division stationed on Kuril Islands, as well as a fairly significant number of them are in storage.
Until the late 60s and early 70s of the last century, anti-tank guns were the main means of fighting tanks. However, with the advent of ATGMs with a semi-automatic guidance system, which only requires keeping the target in the field of view of the sight, the situation has changed in many ways. The military leadership of many countries considered metal-intensive, bulky and expensive anti-tank guns an anachronism. But not in the USSR. In our country, the development and production of anti-tank guns continued in significant numbers. And at a qualitatively new level.
Entered service in 1961 100 mm T-12 smoothbore anti-tank gun, developed in the design bureau of the Yurga Machine-Building Plant No. 75 under the direction of V.Ya. Afanasiev and L.V. Korneev.
The decision to make a smoothbore gun at first glance may seem rather strange; the time for such guns ended almost a hundred years ago. But the creators of the T-12 did not think so.
In a smooth channel, it is possible to make the gas pressure much higher than in a rifled one, and accordingly increase the initial velocity of the projectile.
In a rifled barrel, the rotation of the projectile reduces the armor-piercing effect of the jet of gases and metal during the explosion of a cumulative projectile.
A smooth-bore gun significantly increases the survivability of the barrel - you can not be afraid of the so-called "washing out" of the rifling fields.
The gun channel consists of a chamber and a cylindrical smooth-walled guide part. The chamber is formed by two long and one short (between them) cones. The transition from the chamber to the cylindrical section is a conical slope. The shutter is vertical wedge with spring semi-automatic. Charging is unitary. The carriage for the T-12 was taken from the 85 mm D-48 anti-tank rifled gun.
In the 60s, a more convenient carriage was designed for the T-12 gun. New system got an index MT-12 (2A29), and in some sources is called the "Rapier". The mass production of the MT-12 went into 1970. The composition of the anti-tank artillery battalions of the motorized rifle divisions of the USSR Armed Forces included two anti-tank artillery batteries, consisting of six 100-mm anti-tank guns T-12 (MT-12).
Guns T-12 and MT-12 have the same warhead - a long thin barrel 60 calibers long with a muzzle brake - "salt shaker". Sliding beds are equipped with an additional retractable wheel installed at the coulters. The main difference upgraded model MT-12 is that it is equipped with a torsion bar suspension, which is locked when fired to ensure stability.
When rolling the gun manually under the trunk part of the frame, a roller is substituted, which is fastened with a stopper on the left frame. Transportation of T-12 and MT-12 guns is carried out by a regular tractor MT-L or MT-LB. For driving on snow, the LO-7 ski mount was used, which made it possible to fire from skis at elevation angles up to +16 ° with a rotation angle of up to 54 °, and at an elevation angle of 20 ° with a rotation angle of up to 40 °.
A smooth barrel is much more convenient for firing guided projectiles, although in 1961 this was most likely not thought about yet. To combat armored targets, an armor-piercing sub-caliber projectile with a swept warhead with high kinetic energy is used, capable of penetrating armor 215 mm thick at a distance of 1000 meters. The ammunition load includes several types of sub-caliber, cumulative and high-explosive fragmentation shells.
Shot ZUBM-10 with armor-piercing projectile
Shot ZUBK8 with a cumulative projectile
When a special guidance device is installed on the gun, shots with the Kastet anti-tank missile can be used. The missile is controlled semi-automatically by a laser beam, the firing range is from 100 to 4000 m. The missile penetrates armor behind dynamic protection ("reactive armor") up to 660 mm thick.
Rocket 9M117 and shot ZUBK10-1
For direct fire, the T-12 gun is equipped with a day sight and night sights. With a panoramic sight, it can be used as a field gun from covered positions. There is a modification of the MT-12R gun with a mounted 1A31 "Ruta" guidance radar.
MT-12R with radar 1A31 "Ruta"
The gun was massively in service with the armies of the Warsaw Pact countries, was supplied to Algeria, Iraq and Yugoslavia. They took part in military operations in Afghanistan, in the Iran-Iraq war, in armed conflicts in the territories of the former USSR and Yugoslavia. During these armed conflicts, 100-mm anti-tank guns are mainly used not against tanks, but as conventional divisional or corps guns.
MT-12 anti-tank guns continue to be in service in Russia.
According to the press center of the Ministry of Defense, on August 26, 2013, with the help of an accurate shot with a UBK-8 cumulative projectile from the MT-12 "Rapira" cannon of the Yekaterinburg separate motorized rifle brigade of the Central Military District, a fire was extinguished at well No. P23 U1 near Novy Urengoy.
The fire started on August 19 and quickly turned into an uncontrollable fire breaking through the faulty rebar. natural gas. The artillery crew was transferred to Novy Urengoy by a military transport aircraft that took off from Orenburg. Equipment and ammunition were loaded at the Shagol airfield, after which the gunners under the command of the officer of the Missile Forces and Artillery Department of the Central Military District, Colonel Gennady Mandrichenko, were taken to the scene. The gun was set for direct fire from a minimum allowable distance of 70 m. The target diameter was 20 cm. The target was successfully hit.
In 1967, Soviet experts came to the conclusion that the T-12 gun “does not provide reliable destruction of the Chieftain tanks and the promising MVT-70. Therefore, in January 1968, OKB-9 (now part of JSC Spetstechnika) was instructed to develop a new, more powerful anti-tank gun with the ballistics of the 125 mm D-81 smoothbore tank gun. The task was difficult to accomplish, since the D-81, having excellent ballistics, gave the strongest return, which was still tolerable for a tank weighing 40 tons. But at field tests, the D-81 fired from a tracked carriage of a 203-mm B-4 howitzer. It is clear that such an anti-tank gun of 17 tons in weight and a maximum speed of 10 km / h was out of the question. Therefore, in the 125-mm gun, the recoil was increased from 340 mm (limited by the dimensions of the tank) to 970 mm and a powerful muzzle brake was introduced. This made it possible to install a 125-mm cannon on a three-bed carriage from a serial 122-mm D-30 howitzer, which allowed circular fire.
The new 125-mm cannon was designed by OKB-9 in two versions: the towed D-13 and the self-propelled SD-13 (“D” is the index of artillery systems designed by V.F. Petrov). The development of the SD-13 was 125-mm smooth-bore anti-tank gun "Sprut-B" (2A-45M). The ballistic data and ammunition of the D-81 tank gun and the 2A-45M anti-tank gun were the same.
The 2A-45M gun had a mechanized system for transferring it from a combat position to a marching one and vice versa, consisting of a hydraulic jack and hydraulic cylinders. With the help of a jack, the carriage was raised to a certain height, necessary for breeding or reducing the beds, and then lowered to the ground. Hydraulic cylinders lift the gun to its maximum clearance, as well as raise and lower the wheels.
Sprut-B is towed by a Ural-4320 vehicle or an MT-LB tractor. In addition, for self-movement on the battlefield, the gun has a special power unit, made on the basis of the MeMZ-967A engine with a hydraulic drive. The engine is located on the right side of the gun under the casing. On the left side of the frame, the driver's seats and the gun control system are installed on self-propelled. The maximum speed at the same time on dry dirt roads is 10 km / h, and the ammunition load is 6 rounds; cruising range for fuel - up to 50 km.
The ammunition load of the 125-mm Sprut-B gun includes separate-sleeve loading shots with cumulative, sub-caliber and high-explosive fragmentation shells, as well as anti-tank missiles. The 125-mm VBK10 round with the BK-14M HEAT projectile can hit tanks of the M60, M48, and Leopard-1A5 types. Shot VBM-17 with a sub-caliber projectile - tanks of the M1 type "Abrams", "Leopard-2", "Merkava MK2". The VOF-36 shot with the OF26 high-explosive fragmentation projectile is designed to destroy manpower, engineering structures and other targets.
In the presence of special guidance equipment 9S53 "Octopus" can fire ZUB K-14 rounds with 9M119 anti-tank missiles, which are semi-automatically controlled by a laser beam, the firing range is from 100 to 4000 m. The mass of the shot is about 24 kg, missiles - 17.2 kg, it pierces armor behind dynamic protection with a thickness of 700-770 mm.
At present, towed anti-tank guns (100- and 125-mm smoothbore) are in service with the countries - the former republics of the USSR, as well as a number of developing states. The armies of the leading Western countries have long abandoned special anti-tank guns, both towed and self-propelled. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that towed anti-tank guns have a future. The ballistics and ammunition of the 125-mm Sprut-B cannon, unified with the cannons of modern main tanks, are capable of hitting any serial tanks in the world. An important advantage of anti-tank guns over ATGMs is a wider choice of means of destroying tanks and the possibility of hitting them point-blank. In addition, the Sprut-B can also be used as a non-anti-tank weapon. Its OF-26 high-explosive fragmentation projectile is close in ballistic data and in terms of explosive mass to the OF-471 projectile of the 122-mm A-19 corps gun, which became famous in the Great Patriotic War.
According to materials:
http://gods-of-war.pp.ua
http://russian-power.rf/guide/army/ar/d44.shtml
Shirokorad A. B. Encyclopedia of domestic artillery. - Minsk: Harvest, 2000.
Shunkov V.N. Weapons of the Red Army. - Minsk: Harvest, 1999.
Aspect
So, we will talk about aces-gunners. How they became, we will find out a little later. In the meantime, please read the lines from a letter to the author of one veteran veteran of the Great Patriotic War: "Pilots, with superiority of the enemy, could withdraw from the battle, as well as tankers under certain conditions. Artillerymen did not have such an opportunity. They were destined in every battle - or stop enemy, or perish." Artillerymen often fought to the death, especially in the initial period of German aggression against the USSR, when the tank and motorized columns of the Nazi troops rushed into the depths of our country. It was then that the performance records of the Soviet "gods of war" were set, often in one or two battles.
FIRST - NIKOLAY SIROTININ
On that day, Lieutenant of the Wehrmacht Hensfald, who later died near Stalingrad, wrote in his diary: “July 17, 1941, Sokolnichi, near Krichev. In the evening they buried an unknown Russian soldier. He alone, standing at the cannon, shot a column of our tanks and infantry for a long time And so he died. Everyone marveled at his bravery."
Yes, this Soviet soldier was buried by the enemy. With honours. Much later it turned out that it was the gun commander of the 137th rifle division 13th Army Senior Sergeant Nikolai Sirotinin. He accomplished the feat at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
Having voluntarily volunteered to cover the withdrawal of his unit, Nikolai took up an advantageous firing position, from which the highway, a small river and a bridge across it were clearly visible, opening the way to the east for the enemy. At dawn on July 17, German tanks and armored personnel carriers appeared. When the lead tank reached the bridge, a gunshot rang out. Fighting machine flared up. The second shell hit another, closing the column. There was a traffic jam on the road. The Nazis tried to turn off the highway, but several tanks immediately got stuck in a swamp. And senior sergeant Sirotinin continued to send shells at the target. Black puffs of smoke enveloped the column. The enemy brought down powerful fire on the Soviet gun. A second group of tanks approached from the west and also opened fire. Only after 2.5 hours, the Nazis managed to destroy the cannon, which managed to fire almost 60 shells. At the battlefield, 10 German tanks and armored personnel carriers burned down, many enemy soldiers and officers died.
The soldiers of the 137th Rifle Division, who took up defensive positions on the eastern bank of the river, had the impression that a full-strength battery was firing at the tanks. And only later did they learn that a single gunner was holding back the column of tanks.
BROTHERS LUKANINS
It should be noted that artillerymen, including anti-tankers, fought not only with armored vehicles, they had to destroy pillboxes and other enemy fortifications, support infantry, and conduct street battles. However, today we are talking about those who have destroyed and set fire to tanks, assault guns and armored personnel carriers.
The first in the line of artillery aces are the natives Kaluga region Lukanin brothers - Dmitry and Yakov. The first was the commander, and the second was the gunner of the 197th Guards Artillery Regiment of the 92nd Guards Rifle Division. During the war they destroyed 37 tanks and assault guns, many other military equipment, about 600 enemy soldiers and officers. And therefore they are contenders for the palm in a row Soviet artillery aces. Their 152-mm howitzer-gun of the 1937 model, with which they traveled thousands of front-line kilometers, is installed in St. Petersburg in one of the halls of the Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineering and Signal Corps.
Having entered into single combat with enemy tanks for the first time in battles on Kursk Bulge, brothers July 9, 1943 hit four enemy vehicles.
The Lukanins glorified their name in the battles for the Right-Bank Ukraine on the Steppe Front. On October 15, 1943, 13 enemy tanks with machine gunners moved to the southwestern outskirts of the village of Kaluzhino, Dnepropetrovsk region. Having let the enemy into close range, the brothers knocked out two cars with their first shots. On the other hand, 8 more tanks advanced. From a distance of 100-200 m, the Lukanins burned four of them. An attempt by the enemy to break into the village was repulsed. For this feat, Dmitry and Yakov are awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
“October 15, at night, at 4 o’clock, we took up a firing position. At that time I was the commander of the gun, and brother Yakov was the gunner,” Dmitry Lukanin recalled that battle. “The enemy was at a distance of 700-800 meters from us, in forest. Our observation post was located on a small hill, 30 meters behind us. The division commander, Captain Smorzh, noticed a concentration of German tanks from the NP, warned us and ordered us to prepare armor-piercing shells. We quickly complied with the order. And literally in a matter of minutes, Captain Smorzh transmitted the order: "Lukanins, tanks. Get ready for battle!" Here, 200 meters remain to the front, and I command: "On the head - fire!" A shot - and the head car spun in place. However, others continue to move forward. fired within just a few minutes, and 6 fascist tanks remained motionless in front of our position, 200-100 meters away. We destroyed a good third of the attacking tanks. Composure helped us to defeat the enemy, as well as the fact that the enemy did not see us well, because only it was getting lighter. Moving targets were easier to detect. Besides, we were accurate shots..."
With their howitzer-cannon, the Lukanins went through the entire war, and therefore the score (they kept it themselves) grew.
And now briefly about the champions. The twin brothers Yakov and Dmitry Lukanin were born in 1901 in the village of Lyubilovo, Kaluga Region. They lived together, at school they sat at the same desk. In 1920, they were called together to serve in the border troops. After being transferred to the reserve, they worked at various construction sites in the country. In the Urals, in particular, they were known as excellent masons. The war found the brothers at one of the factories in Pervouralsk. From here, on the same day, September 3, 1942, they left for the active army. And at the front, the twins are inseparable. They fought in one regiment from Stalingrad to Vienna. One shell wounded them, they were treated in the same hospital. By one Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 24, 1944, they were awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union. After the war, the Lukanins lived in the Kaluga region. The village where they were born is renamed Lucanino.
GUARD CORPORAL BISEROV
The second result and record among anti-tank gunners belongs to the anti-tank gunner of the 207th Guards Rifle Regiment (70th Guards Rifle Division, Central Front), Guard Corporal Kuzma Biserov. Near the village of Olkhovatka (Ponyrovsky district Kursk region) On July 6, 7 and 8, 1943, he destroyed 22 Nazi tanks. That's how it was.
In the early morning of July 6, German tanks - T-III and T-IV - broke through to the defense sector of the 207th Guards Regiment, which were initially considered to be "Tigers", since they were equipped with hinged screens to protect against cumulative projectiles. Firing on the move, armored vehicles moved to the firing positions of a platoon of 45-mm anti-tank guns of the 2nd rifle battalion. The enemy is within reach. Even black and white crosses are visible at the lead tank. The command sounds, and corporal Kuzma Biserov sends a forty-five shell into the German car. A "Tiger" is not a "Tiger", and you can't immediately take a German tank. And yet the second shot is striking. Suddenly, an enemy truck with infantry appeared from behind a bend in the road. Corporal Biserov hit him with shrapnel. He caught fire. Tanks coming from behind began to bypass him. Kuzma Biserov took aim at one of them. Shot - and the Germans began to jump out of the padded armored monster. The shells began to burst in it.
But now the explosion is already at the position of the gunners. The T-IV on the right almost covered the gun. The calculation was covered with earth, blinded, and the tank confidently moved forward. A little more, and he will crush the calculation. 80 meters, 75. "Fire!" shouts the crew commander. Biserov again at the sight. A shot is fired. The German car stumbled, froze and burst into flames. Command: "Change position!" They picked up the gun and rolled it forward - closer to the enemy. And in the old place, enemy shells were already bursting. Tanks (these were T-IIIs and T-IVs) already in a new place stumbled upon the blows of Soviet anti-tank guns, we emphasize, forty-five. It should be noted that the improved ones - the 1942 model, the armor penetration of which, compared with the 45-mm PT of 1937, increased by almost one and a half times. From a distance of a kilometer, forty-five M-42s pierced armor 51 mm thick, and from a distance of 500 m - 61 mm. And the gunners skillfully used their weapons. Tangible losses in this direction came as a surprise to German tankers. The first attack failed. However, it was followed by the second, third ... But the crew of the anti-tank gun was at its best.
13 enemy tanks remained in place.
The night from 7 to 8 July passed quietly. Only scouts were active. But at dawn on the 8th it all started again. Again, the bombs of the Junkers that had broken through here flew from the sky, the shells tore at the already wounded ground. The rumble of tanks was approaching, turning into a continuous powerful rumble. The enemy brought new forces into battle - units of the 2nd and 4th tank divisions.
After a few hours of battle, the Nazis broke into our advanced trenches. Now only grenade explosions, rifle and pistol shots, short automatic bursts were heard. And artillery hit enemy vehicles - one tank caught fire after another. It was very difficult for the anti-tankers. The sun was scorching, but the red-hot gun breathed even hotter, the tunics had long since withered - the salt from the soldiers' backs came out onto the fabric.
Armor-piercing, charge! shouted Kuzma.
A shot followed, and the tank stopped, engulfed in flames.
However, in the gun crew for a long time no one heard the command: everyone acted as best he could and could. Again there were tanks, infantry.
A dozen armored vehicles burned in front of Biserov's cannon.
By the end of July 8, Corporal Biserov already had 22 wrecked Wehrmacht tanks on his account. The commander of the Guards Rifle Division thanked Kuzma Biserov.
The fighting did not end there, the Battle of Kursk continued. 25 July 207th Guards rifle regiment was on the defensive again. The tanks were moving again, followed by the infantry.
Biserov did not have time to deploy the gun. There was a deafening explosion. The weapon is out of order. There was a rifle and grenades. Kuzma grabbed his rifle and, clinging to the ground, opened fire on the advancing infantry. Here one infantryman fell, the second ... And then ...
And then a self-propelled gun came at him. Biserov took aim, wanted to get into the viewing slot. But the gunshot rang out earlier.
Here is such a simple feat. It would be possible to find other words for this, perhaps stronger, more capacious, more colorful. But would it be true? The truth here, I think, is one. There were tanks, and Biserov repulsed their attacks with the calculation. Reflected firmly. This guy, apparently, had innate resilience, then he defended his land, but otherwise, I repeat, he was lucky. There were tanks and there were a lot of them ...
How did he, Kuzma Biserov, become the anti-tank champion? An ordinary rural guy, the majority of whom were at the front, and suddenly... You get closer to his biography, his short life, and you come to the conclusion that he became a record holder because he was an ordinary guy. Because he was born in the village of Kvalyashur, in Udmurtia, in 1925. Because he graduated from the seven-year school in the village of Kuliga, the FZO school in Votkinsk. Because he worked at the Kez station of the Perm railway. And because, finally, in 1942 he studied at a tank school, and became a forty-five gunner. It happened.
What is his high achievement?
In the Olkhovatka area, the blow was delivered by selected units of the Nazi Panzerwaffe. And he stood.
The superiority of the enemy was enormous. But Biserov held on.
The enemy is stronger. And Biserov died. But 22 German armored vehicles made of Krupp steel remained on Kursk land. Since July 1943, the enemy had to retrain 22 tank crews.
This is a great achievement. The plot of a feat must be written in gold on marble. However, this has been partially done. Kuzma Biserov became a Hero - Hero of the Soviet Union. Such a high rank was awarded posthumously to the gunner of an anti-tank gun on September 8, 1943. For unparalleled courage and heroism shown in the battles on the Kursk Bulge, near the village of Olkhovatka.
ALEXANDER SEROV AND OTHERS
The third result among gunners was for the gunner of the 8th battery of the 636th anti-tank artillery regiment of the 9th anti-tank artillery brigade, Private Alexander Serov (he accounted for 18 destroyed tanks and 1 assault gun) and the gun commander of the 122nd Guards Artillery Regiment (51- I am a Guards Rifle Division, Voronezh Front) of the Guards foreman Alexei Vlasov (19 enemy tanks).
The fateful lot decreed that Alexander Serov had to engage in a fierce battle with the enemy in the first days of the war in the Baltic states, southwest of Siauliai. The anti-tankers of the regiment saddled the highway leading to the city on June 19, having left for the exercise. On June 22, at their positions, they received news of the beginning of the war, and on the 23rd, in the afternoon, the 636th regiment attacked 50 enemy armored vehicles with motorized infantry. The regiment commander Boris Prokudin, a participant in the fighting on the Khalkhin Gol River, competently organized the defense. That is why the first few shots stopped the attackers.
It was then that Alexander Serov opened his account. His 76mm cannon was attacked by a large group of fascist tanks. In order to hit for sure, the gunner let the cars up to a close distance and fired at the nearest one. She puffed. Alexander aimed the gun at another, at the third ... 11 tanks were hit when a fragment of an enemy shell wounded Serov. However, even then he did not leave his place at the gun, continued to fire and destroyed seven more tanks. The mastery of the combat specialty had an effect - Alexander sent each shell to the target, and the enemy did not expect this at all and could not recover from such a meeting for a long time. Only the second wound forced Serov to release the battle cord from his hands. Something like this looks like a picture of that fierce battle, in which the gunner set an absolute record - 18 wrecked enemy vehicles in one battle.
For a long time it was believed that Alexander Serov was mortally wounded. Decades later, this turned out not to be the case. After a long treatment in the hospital, he retired "cleanly", returned to his homeland in Siberia, to his native village of Baksheevo, where he received a funeral. In the seventies, when employees of one of the Lithuanian museums searched for him, he spoke about his participation in repulsing an enemy tank column.
On the first day of the battle, Alexander Serov destroyed up to ten vehicles and was then wounded, but remained in service. On the second day, the Nazi tanks broke through to the battery. “I fired,” recalled Alexander Serov, “the tank turned around and froze. I quickly aimed the cannon at another tank. The gun fired accurately, hitting tank after tank. Serov was dizzy from blood loss - the bandage slipped, the wound opened. However, he still stood at the sight, took the tanks in the crosshairs, and fired. Then - a blow, everything fell into darkness. The last thing he heard was the voice of the shell-carrier: "Serov was killed."
Alexander Serov himself does not name a specific number of destroyed vehicles. Where did she come from? Serov was presented for a state award, and in the presentation, as his colleagues recalled, she figured. But the document was lost, the anti-tanker received the award - the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree - only many, many years later and already according to a different idea, but in the memory of the soldiers of the 636th regiment it was imprinted - 18 tanks destroyed by one calculation in one battle.
Guards foreman Alexei Vlasov distinguished himself on July 6, 1943 near the village of Yakovlevo ( Belgorod region). Here, his crew, when repulsing an attack by enemy tanks, knocked out 4 heavy and 5 medium combat vehicles. The next day, the enemy threw 23 tanks into battle. In 30 minutes of battle, the calculation knocked out 10 of them, setting a kind of record.
Let's also name Senior Sergeant Sinyavsky and Corporal Mukozobov, commander and gunner of the 542nd Infantry Regiment of the 161st Infantry Division. They became aces in the early days of the war. From June 22 to June 26, in fierce battles on the outskirts of Minsk, their crew destroyed 17 enemy tanks and assault guns. For this feat, the soldiers were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
The record among self-propelled gunners is held by the commander of the self-propelled guns of the 383rd Guards Heavy Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment (3rd Guards Tank Army, 1st Ukrainian Front) Guards Junior Lieutenant Mikhail Klimov. His calculation in March 1945 in the area of Waldenburg and Naumburg (now Poland) disabled 16 enemy tanks.
Many other Soviet artillerymen also fought bravely. 35 commanders and gunners of effective artillery crews destroyed 432 enemy tanks, assault guns and armored personnel carriers.
SHELVES-RECORDS
The gunners have whole units in the champions. Let's return to the actions of the 636th anti-tank regiment, in which Alexander Serov fought on June 23, 1941. Then the enemy was driven back, the regiment destroyed 59 tanks and assault guns.
Up to 50 German tanks during the fighting from July 12 to August 16 "found their death" under the fire of the guns of the artillery unit under the command of Hero of the Soviet Union Sergei Nilovsky.
During the first months of the war (from June to August 1941), the 462nd Corps Artillery Regiment of the RGC destroyed about 100 enemy tanks, 24 armored vehicles, 33 guns, and destroyed a lot of enemy manpower. Subsequently, he was transformed into a guards.
Artillerymen also showed good results in other periods of the war. 89 tanks, including 35 heavy ones, were destroyed on July 6 and 7, 1943, when repulsing attacks in the Belgorod direction during the Battle of Kursk, by the personnel of the 1177th anti-tank artillery regiment (47th Army, Voronezh Front), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Alexey Shalimov, posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
For the first time in the days of the war, Soviet artillerymen entered into heated battles with Wehrmacht tank units, armed with a 45-mm anti-tank gun, a divisional 76-mm gun, and a 152-mm howitzer gun. Soviet soldiers they hit the enemy with anti-aircraft guns of 37-mm, 76-mm and especially 85-mm calibers, from other artillery systems. In the course of the war, new weapons appear, and their quality is continuously improved. The modernized 45-mm and 57-mm anti-tank guns M-42 model 1942 and ZIS-2 model 1943, the 76-mm regimental gun model 1943 and the new 76-mm divisional gun ZIS-3 model 1942 enter service g., 100-mm field gun BS-3 model 1944, the mass production of which began at the oldest plants in Leningrad in the fall of 1943 according to the prototype drawings immediately after the breakthrough of the blockade ring.
During the war years, a new type of artillery was created - self-propelled artillery. Soviet soldiers receive the strongest means of fighting with enemy tanks: powerful armored and mobile SU-85 with a D-5S gun (model 1943), SU-100 with a D-10S gun (model 1944), SU-152 with a howitzer- cannon ML-20 (model 1944), ISU-122 with gun D-25S (model 1944), ISU-152 with howitzer-gun ML-20 (model 1943).
Good experience in fighting enemy tanks began to come to them by the middle of 1943 (although the highest results were achieved by individual gunners at the beginning of the war). By that time, the headquarters of the artillery of the Red Army, the headquarters of the artillery of the fronts and armies put on a permanent basis the study of the enemy's armored vehicles, his tactics of action, and the issuance of recommendations to the troops. Special attention turned to ways to deal with new types of heavy tanks and assault guns, such as the T-VIH "Tiger", T-VG "Panther", "Elephant". Targeted combat training was organized in the anti-tank units. In the armies, special rear ranges were equipped, where anti-tankers trained to shoot at mock-up tanks, including propulsion ones. Teams of tank destroyers were created. The memos "Memo on the fight against tanks "Tiger", "Memo to the artilleryman - destroyer of enemy tanks" were published.
All this made it possible to pacify the Nazi tank menagerie. Of course, our valiant tank crews, crews also played an important role in this. anti-tank rifles. But the role of gunners is also great - their duels with "Tigers" and "Panthers", other Wehrmacht tanks gave dozens of aces, dozens of masters of well-aimed gunfire.
