BRIEF PREFACE TO THE MEMO ON EXPLOSIVE OBJECTS IN THE FIELDS OF RUSSIA
There are many special instructions for sapper business. Each of them describes in detail all the necessary actions of the performers in the production of mining - demining, tools and equipment are presented. The purpose of these notes is only to warn search engines against incorrect actions in the production of search work. She does not pretend to comprehensive coverage of the features of sapper business.
Ammunition encountered in the search area poses a significant threat to the life of the searcher. A disrespectful attitude towards any type of ammunition often leads to a ridiculous death of a person. The tragedy of the situation is aggravated by the fact that for the most part children and ... experienced professional searchers are undermined. The last change, apparently, is the sense of danger, but the same bravado of a professional works negatively.
The main rule of the search engine should be caution, raised to a power and expressed in words: "IF YOU DO NOT KNOW - DO NOT TOUCH, AND YOU KNOW - DO NOT TOUCH THE MORE. DO NOT TAKE AMMUNITION IN YOUR HANDS AND DO NOT RISK YOUR LIFE AND THE LIFE OF YOUR COMRADES!" No matter how interesting and exciting the search is, but if you are not a specialist and there is no experienced specialist nearby who can expertly determine the type of ammunition and defuse it, then it is difficult to offer a better course of action than marking the object with a stick (sign) and calling a sapper. That is why the presence of several sappers is mandatory in the search expedition. Only in exceptional cases is it permissible to use a "cat" to check the ammunition for non-removability in order to still call a sapper and not forget the location of the ammunition. In no case should an inexperienced person neutralize ammunition on his own, as well as make ordinary, frequent such exceptional cases of using the "cat". Everyone should take care of their own life. Naturally, the found ammunition should be supervised until the sapper arrives.
In areas of former hostilities, the ground is stuffed with unexploded shells, mines, bombs, grenades, etc. Their safety is different, especially for ammunition that has passed through the bore and air bombs dropped from aircraft. They are in a combat position, risky for transportation and subsequent elimination due to deformation at the moment of impact on the ground. Such ammunition is blown up on the spot.
When a mine detector detects a metal object that gives a high-intensity signal in the headphones, it is necessary to determine the center of its occurrence and mark it with a pole. Then, with a probe, it is necessary to try to make several injections of the soil at an angle so that the tip of the probe slides obliquely along the contour of the object. After determining the depth of its occurrence, dimensions, contours, you can begin to remove the soil over the object with a thin layer, as well as around the circumference with a knife or shovel. After that, in fact, you can identify the find. If this is ammunition of any type, then you need to immediately call a sapper.
In practice, there are frequent cases of self-destruction by search engines of discovered explosive objects by fire, namely by lighting a large fire over ammunition.
It also happens like this: first a powerful fire is bred, and then the ammunition is thrown into it! There is nothing more dangerous than such, so to speak, "methods", although many search engines sometimes even boast of their composure, undermining the "goodies" of wartime. Above, we have already touched on a feature so common among search engines, which, alas, leads precisely to accidents, and God forbid that neither one nor the other be among us.
All the more completely reckless is the smelting of explosives from shells, mines and bombs. The "motivation" here is simple: one comes across well-preserved ammunition in funnel mud (by the way, the safety of ammunition in the silt and clay of funnels is almost perfect; after washing off the dirt, they can be used for their intended purpose) in factory color and with readable markings; therefore, harmless, since time had been kind to him. This is where the guys are wrong, but the mistake is often paid for at the highest price - life. Here, both the sapper and the search engine are united in their fate: BOTH ARE MISTAKEN ONLY ONE TIME - THE LAST!
The most dangerous are ammunition that has already been fired from the corresponding weapon or prepared for action. Here are their signs:
a) when fired from a gun, grooves of the barrel rifling remain on the protruding metal belt around the circumference of the projectile, therefore, the projectile is in the cocked combat position;
b) when fired from a mortar, the expelling charge capsule at the base of the mine is pierced, and if the mine did not burst, then random reasons influenced here;
c) any dropped bomb is deformed as a result of hitting the ground and is therefore extremely dangerous;
d) with a detonator inserted, any (cocked or not) wartime grenade can explode even with the visible presence of a safety ring;
e) do not try to pull a single anti-tank mine; in an exceptional case, use the "cat" and stay in cover no closer than 50 m;
e) anti-personnel mines are also dangerous if they contain an inserted fuse;
Small arms ammunition (cartridges)
Cartridges for small arms
Cartridges are probably the most common find. They come across in clips and in zinc, in pouches, and simply in bulk. Cartridges, in most cases, do not pose an immediate danger to life, although they contain a propellant - gunpowder. Why? The reason is simple, despite the fact that various experiments are being carried out in the troops and in laboratories on the long-term preservation of ammunition and their combat readiness, rules have been developed for storage and expiration date, but it must be remembered that almost 60 years have passed since the war, ammunition was stored in distant from ideal conditions, besides, nature tends to heal the wounds inflicted on it by people. Water, time, frost and the sun, together with an acidic or alkaline environment, did a lot with human labor: the shells rotted, the gunpowder decomposed, and most importantly, it got damp. Therefore, the usual safety rules apply to cartridges: do not disassemble and do not give to children, and do not heat.
Cartridge device
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Bullet (1) - striking element of the cartridge. For the sake of it, everything else is created. It consists of an iron shell covered with tombac, copper or cupronickel. Inside the lead core, this is if the bullet is ordinary. There are also special bullets - then there is a mechanism inside, we will consider them in more detail below. But unfortunately, most of the cartridges are spent not for killing, but at best, so that the enemy does not raise his head. And some of the cartridges are simply lost ... |
In the USSR, bimetallic sleeves, as well as brass ones, were mainly used.
In Germany: first of all it is brass. In places where there were heavy battles, there are machine-gun cells filled with shell casings. I saw it myself - 60 cm, and brass, by the way, is a valuable non-ferrous metal.
In the USSR, VT gunpowder was used in 7.62 mm rifle cartridges. It has the shape of a cylinder with one channel. Sometimes there is gunpowder of the first issues - in the form of squares.
In Germany, in a 7.92 mm cartridge - gunpowder with the designation
N.Z. Gew. Bl. P.I. (2.2.0.45) - squares with a side of 2mm.
Cartridge designation
Let's look at an example:
Russian rifle cartridge (for the "three-ruler") 7.62x54R, where 7.62 is the cartridge caliber mm. What is a caliber? This is the distance between the fields of rifling in the barrel - that is, the minimum diameter of the bore.
Well 54 is the length of the sleeve in mm. But the letter "R" is the first letter of the German word RAND, which means rim, the same hat behind the Russian cartridge case. But the German cartridge cases do not have such a hat, its function is performed by a special groove, therefore there is no letter in its designation. The German cartridge for the Mauser rifle is designated as 7.92x57
There is also another notation system, it is adopted in England and the USA.
For example, 38 and 45 calibers are nothing more than hundredths of an inch. (1inch - 25.4mm). That is, you should read .38 and .45 inches and translating into Russian 9 and 11.45 mm, respectively.
The cartridge is quite rare. Found cartridges are stored poorly due to poor tightness.
7.62 mm pistol cartridge mod. 1930 (7.62x25 TT).
Cartridge length 34.85 mm, case length 24.7 mm. Bottle-shaped sleeve, without rim, with a groove for the ejector. An ogive-shaped bullet, sheathed with a lead core. Sleeve brass or steel sleeves clad with tompac, brass, lacquered or even uncoated. The shell of the bullet is steel, clad with tompac or brass, there are bullets with an uncoated shell. The bullet in the sleeve is fastened by punching and crimping the muzzle. Very often there are cartridge cases and cartridges without stamps on the bottom, the rest indicate the manufacturer and year of issue.
In addition to the lead shell bullet "P", there were bullets "P-41" and "PT". Bullet "P-41" - armor-piercing incendiary, with a steel core and an incendiary composition in the head, the top of the bullet is painted black with a red belt. Bullet "PT" - tracer, the top is painted green.
Often found in searches. The found cartridges are stored poorly due to poor tightness, in addition, military-issue cartridges were delivered immediately to the front and were not intended for long-term storage.
9 mm pistol cartridge 08 (9х19 Para.)
Lead bullet core. During the war, cartridges were produced in which scarce materials (copper, lead) were replaced by surrogates. There are bullets with a steel core. At the end of the war, cartridges were produced in a steel sleeve (stamp St.). On the bottom of the cartridge cases there is a stamp S *, a marking indicating the factory batch and year of manufacture of the cartridges. The ammo is pretty rare. The found cartridges are poorly preserved - the thin steel shell of the bullet almost completely rots, the tightness of the cartridges is broken.
Cartridges of caliber 7.62 mm 7.62X54R (USSR)
Cartridges of this type are widely used, they are one of the most frequent finds. The cartridge was also used in the ground army, for all types of rifles and machine guns, as well as in aviation, for the ShKAS machine gun. It was produced both in the USSR and in other countries, in particular in Finland and the USA.
Bottle-shaped sleeve with rim. Until the mid-30s, cartridges were produced with a brass sleeve, and later with a bimetallic sleeve clad with tombac or copper. In the case, the bullet is fastened by rolling, sometimes by punching. On the bottom of the sleeve there is a designation: the year of manufacture and the factory code. For cartridges for ShKAS, there is also the letter "Sh", these cartridges still have a reinforced primer fastening - around it is an annular groove left over from the ring punching. The presence of this groove, as well as the letter "Sh", is a sign that the bullet in the cartridge is special.
The sleeve, as a rule, is poorly preserved, therefore its contents - gunpowder, as a rule, are wetted. But the capsule, oddly enough, is sometimes preserved. Of course, it will not work from a drummer, but from heating, it may very well be, therefore, even cartridge cases should not be thrown into the fire.
But the biggest "interest" is the bullets.
Ordinary bullets.
Bullet model 1891 (blunt). Well, she still needs to be found, because. very, very rare. Has cupronickel shell. The core is lead. It doesn't pose any danger.
Bullet sample 1908 (light). There is no marking. It consists of a steel shell covered with tombac, cupronickel or copper. Lead core. It has a conical recess in the bottom. Due to the pointed nose, ballistics were improved. At the sight of a rifle arr. 1891 there were even 2 scales for a light and heavy bullet, because. the 1908 model bullet flew further. Safe.
Bullet sample 1930. (heavy) Bullet nose yellow. Heavier and longer than the 1908 bullet, has a tapered tail. It should be noted that in this case, the yellow marking in no way refers this bullet to a chemical one. It doesn't pose any danger. Safe.
Special bullets
As you can see from the composition, this is an ordinary magnesium bomb, and the steel shell gives very good fragments. Conclusion - it’s better not to put it in the fire
poke, unless of course you don’t want to pull out of various parts body, with tweezers, small pieces of metal...
B-30 and B-32 outwardly virtually indistinguishable. nose color is usually not preserved. Their difference from ordinary bullets is their large length and one characteristic feature: if you take a knife and pick at the bottom of the bullet, then the armor-piercing incendiary will have a solid core, while other bullets will have lead. I note that the B-32 was produced throughout the war, and the B-30 was only 2 years old, so virtually all armor-piercing bullets are B-32.
Tracer bullet T-30 and T-46. Green nose. Produced since 1932 and 1938 respectively. Contains lead core and tracer. The composition of the tracer White fire: Barium nitrate 67% Magnesium 23% Shellac 10%
Difference from ordinary bullets: in appearance - this rear end cylindrical shape and the presence of a tracer - it can be seen.
As follows from the composition, the incendiary substance for B-32 and T-30 (46) is almost the same, but in B-32 the composition is closed by a shell and, as a rule, remains, and in T-30 (46) it usually rots. Because of this feature, they do not pose a great danger, and even in their normal state they simply burn out in a fire ... This applies only to Russian tracers.
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Armor-piercing incendiary tracer bullet (BZT) The nose is purple, with a red band. Contains a shortened armor-piercing core and a tracer. |
Well, now about the most dangerous representative of the 7.62X54R family
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Sighting and incendiary bullet. (Breaking). The nose is red. It contains in its composition an inertial fuse and an explosive charge. |
How to distinguish an explosive bullet from others? First of all, this is the longest bullet among the Russians, its length is 4 cm. And if it does not have 3 grooves, and there is lead from the bottom, do not hesitate, this is a sighting and incendiary bullet. In no case should this bullet be disassembled or shaken, listening to the drummer hanging inside - problems may arise. This applies to both fired bullets and bullets in a cartridge.
Well, of course, do not heat up, because. for example, an armor-piercing incendiary bullet in a fire will work or not work, because. she has a different principle of operation from compression when she hits the armor, and there is a normal fuse in the explosive one.
The bullets described here are not the only 7.62X54R bullets. There were several more modifications, but they did not have significant differences from those described, they were not in service for long, and the probability of finding them is close to zero.
Cartridges caliber 7.92 mm
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The most common German cartridge. The main application: the Mauser 98K rifle, hence the name Mauser, the MG34, MG42 machine gun and other machine guns, was also used in aviation. Cartridges similar to the "Mauser" were produced in Czechoslovakia and Poland. |
Increased armor penetration bullet (SmK H). Red primer (sometimes the paint fades, and the color can be almost orange), the bullet is all black. Contains a tungsten carbide core. In the sleeve there is a special (powerful) gunpowder, which is unusual for the Germans in a round shape. Doesn't pose a danger.
Now about the bullets representing a real danger.
The bullets listed below, except for the armor-piercing incendiary phosphorus bullet, are explosive and therefore officially shooting at people is prohibited. Therefore, the main type of occurrence: the wreckage of Luftwaffe aircraft. But sometimes they come across on the ground.
In response to the creation of a sighting bullet by Stalin's designers, or maybe for their own fascist reasons, Hitler's designers created a similar one, and then went into a rage and came up with an incendiary bullet on a different principle. White phosphorus! Here's what came to their mind. Whoever did not study chemistry at school, let me remind you once again: white phosphorus is a yellowish wax-like substance that instantly ignites upon contact with air.
Fortunately for the living, and therefore for the search engines, such cartridges with phosphorus are a rare find, and all this is said so that you are not too surprised when the cartridges stacked in a heap ignite with a beautiful, spraying droplet flame, and such cases happen. It is impossible to distinguish them from the rest, outwardly they look like an Ss bullet, maybe only a little more authentic.
Therefore, the general rule for handling German cartridges. Found: there is no green or red ring - throw it far away and better into the water. Well, now actually about them.
In general, the Czechs are an interesting nation. Throughout the war, they supplied the Germans with weapons, then they left the war in time and took part in the division of the German inheritance.
The Poles issued incendiary bullets based on phosphorus. The marking of these bullets is a yellow ring around the primer, sometimes also a yellow nose (not to be confused with our weighted bullets).
Cartridges caliber 12.7 mm
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It was used in the ground army, for the DShK machine gun, and in aviation - the UB machine gun. Cartridge sleeve - brass, bottle-shaped, undercut at the back for the ejector. Gunpowder, as a rule, is stored well. When heated, cartridges explode with great force, so putting them in a fire is unacceptable, they can do a lot of trouble. There are no ordinary bullets in 12.7 mm cartridges, only special ones, this must be remembered. Armor-piercing bullet B-30. Black nose. It consists of a steel shell covered with tombac, a lead jacket and a hardened steel core. In general, this is an enlarged B-30 bullet in 7.62 caliber. Just like this bullet does not pose a danger. |
Armor-piercing incendiary tracer BZT-44. The nose is purple under it is a red ring.
The bullet consists of a shell, a short, armor-piercing core, a lead jacket and a tracer. It looks like a BZT caliber 7.62, only it does not have 3 belts, and the tracer is inserted into a special steel cup. The tracer of an unfired bullet is better preserved than that of 7,62. has a large size, and a steel cup can give good fragments. That's all the differences.
The bullets listed above, if they can cause damage to a person, then only because of his own stupidity. But there are 2 more types of 12.7 mm bullets that can cause damage to a person simply by careless handling, hitting with a shovel, for example.
Phosphorus armor-piercing incendiary bullet BZF-46. Yellow nose, under it - a black ring. It consists of a shell and an armor-piercing core. There is no incendiary between the armor-piercing core and the shell; it is located in a special cup behind the core. And in a glass - white phosphorus. For those who had a triple in chemistry, let me remind you that phosphorus is a white, waxy substance that ignites spontaneously on contact with air. Unlike German phosphorus cartridges, where phosphorus is separated from the air only by a thin shell, which, as a rule, rots, the cup is preserved better. Therefore, that the cartridge itself will light up, the probability is small, but when strong blow or disassembly, the phosphorus will immediately ignite, causing many severe burns. it is very difficult to put out. Well, remember Vietnam, where the Americans used white phosphorus as a universal "fat burner" for the Vietnamese.
How to distinguish a phosphorus bullet from other 12.7mm bullets when the markings are not visible? First: when the shell rots, there is a copper cap under it on the nose of the bullet. If for some reason it is not there, then there is always an annular chamfer on the nose, which is usually clearly visible. Secondly, as I said, there were no ordinary bullets in the 12.7 mm caliber, so if you scratch the bottom of the bullet with a knife and there is lead, then the bullet is most likely phosphorus.
Instant bullet MDZ-3. It is essentially a small projectile containing a fuse and stuffed with a folk explosive - hexogen.
It is easy to distinguish it from others, all bullets have a sharp nose, and this one has a cut, closed membrane, if it is not there, there is just a hole.
Heating, and even more so disassembling it, is strictly prohibited. RDX explodes with great force, in addition, from time to time it can explode without a fuse, from mechanical impact.
It should be remembered that the fired bullets of 12.7 mm caliber, as a rule, did not collapse when they hit the ground, and the MDZ did not always work, so there is a possibility of finding bullets that passed through the bore.
Cartridge caliber 14.5 mm (14.5x114).
The cartridge was used for firing anti-tank rifles of the Degtyarev PTRD system (single-shot) and the Simonov PTRS system (five-shot with automatic reloading). The cartridge is in service to this day.
Cartridge length 156 mm, sleeve length 114 mm, gunpowder - cylinder with 7 channels. Wartime cartridge case made of brass. The shell of the bullet is steel, clad with tombac. The main bullets are B-32 and BS-41, similar in design to the B-32 bullet of 7.62 mm caliber (B-32 with a steel core, and BS-41 with a cermet core). In the case, the bullet is fastened by compressing the muzzle of the case into a groove or protrusion on the bullet. On the bottom of the cartridge cases there is a marking indicating the plant and the year of issue of the cartridges. The cartridge is quite rare. Sometimes found in armor-piercing positions.
Cartridges for signal pistols (flare guns)
Both the Red and the former German armies widely used signal pistols (flare guns) of 26 mm caliber. They were used for signaling, launching flares, and by the Germans for combat purposes. The main ammunition was signal cartridges of night or day action. When searching for work come across often. Night-action cartridges have an expelling charge of black powder and a signal star that lights up at a height of 60-70 m with a flame of red, green, yellow or white. Daytime cartridges instead of a star have a checker of colored smoke. The main difference between domestic and German cartridges for a rocket launcher is the material of the sleeve. Domestic cartridges have a cardboard (folder) sleeve with a metal cap, and German cartridges have a sleeve made entirely of thin aluminum, which is marked with multi-colored paint. In addition to the signal ones, there are German parachute lighting cartridges. They have a long sleeve, the marking on the sleeve "Fallschirmleuchtpatrone". Inside the main sleeve there is a second, inner sleeve, an illuminating star and a silk parachute. The cartridges for the rocket launcher do not pose a great danger. Expelling charges and stars are usually wet, but if they hit the fire, the star may shoot off or ignite. For the manufacture of colored smoke bombs in daytime cartridges, dyes were used that are difficult to wash off the skin of the hands.
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The real danger is posed by German pistol grenades, designed for self-defense of the signalman. They are very rare. They are a short aluminum sleeve into which a grenade is inserted with a cylindrical body, a glyptic head and a tail assembly hidden in the sleeve. The total length of the cartridge is about 130 mm. The grenade has a small charge of powerful explosive and explodes with great force. Fuse - instantaneous, with a fuse that separates when fired (or removing a grenade from a sleeve). A grenade can explode when it is removed from its shell, struck or heated. When finding such a grenade, attention should be paid to the presence of a cartridge case and the absence of axial movement of the grenade in it. Grenades with a firmly held cartridge case can be carefully moved to a safe place in case of emergency. If the sleeve is missing or the grenade is not firmly held in it, then you cannot touch such a grenade, but you must mark its location with a noticeable sign. |
Hand grenade arr. 1914/30
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Hand grenade arr. 1914/30. Modernized in 1930, the "bomb" grenade of the period of the First World War and the Civil War. During search work, it is occasionally found in the battlefields of the initial period of the Great Patriotic War. It is a cylindrical body of small diameter, turning into a handle. Could be used with a fragmentation shirt. The body and handle are made of tin. The handle has a lever fixed by a ring put on the handle. In the body of the grenade there is a percussion mechanism and a socket for the fuse. The "ear" of the striker protrudes from the body, for which he is cocked before the throw. Also on the body there is a safety valve. The fuse is L-shaped, inserted before the throw. Grenades with an inserted fuse can pose a danger. When trying to remove the fuse, the grenade may explode. If a grenade with an inserted fuse is found, in case of emergency, move it to a safe place, fixing the firing pin with wire and preventing strikes on the grenade. |
Hand grenade RGD-33
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Dyakonov systems, arr. 1933 Most often found during search operations. When using a defensive cover (shirt) - a grenade is defensive, without a shirt. - offensive. The grenade was made by stamping from sheet steel. Any workshop with low-power press equipment could produce these grenades, and therefore the RGD-33 was produced by a variety of factories, workshops, etc. These specimens may have deviations in shape and size. |
The performance characteristics of the RGD-33 grenade:
They were equipped with pressed TNT, during the war years they were often equipped with various surrogates (ammatol).
A grenade without a fuse poses no practical danger. With a fuse inserted into the grenade - it is dangerous when shaking, moving the grenade, heating. Attempts to knock out the fuse from a grenade are unacceptable - the fuse is equipped with explosive mercury, which is sensitive to shock and friction, besides, the fuse usually turns sour in the ignition tube tightly.
When a grenade is found, hold it only by the body, avoiding the load on the handle. You can determine the presence of a fuse by carefully sliding the cover of the ignition tube. Grenades with an inserted fuse are cocked (the fuse is not inserted into an uncocked grenade) and require careful handling. characteristic feature cocked grenade - some distance between the body of the grenade and the outer tube of the handle. For grenades with an inserted fuse, you must not try to unscrew or pull back the handle, move the fuse slider, you must not break off the handle, you must not hit the grenade and the handle, you must not drop or throw the grenade.
Quite often, fuses from RGD-33 come across, colloquially called "pencil" because of their external similarity. The fuse is equipped with a sensitive and powerful explosive and poses a serious danger when struck, heated, carried in pockets. When hit in a fire, it explodes violently with the formation of many small fragments.
Hand fan f-1
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Developed on the basis of the French F-1 grenade. It is widely known and is in service to this day. It is colloquially called "lemon". When conducting search work, it is somewhat less common than RGD-33. The grenade is defensive, with a large radius of scattering of lethal fragments. The body of the grenade is cast iron, of a characteristic shape - its surface is divided by transverse and longitudinal grooves into large "slices" to improve crushing. The body of the grenade was made by casting. They were produced by a large number of factories and workshops that had foundry equipment. There are many types of cases, slightly different from each other in shape. In addition to the Red Army, a similar grenade was in service with some foreign armies, for example, in France, Poland, the USA and some others. Foreign grenades are somewhat different in shape and device fuses. |
The performance characteristics of the F-1 grenade:
F-1 grenades were equipped with powdered, pressed, or flaked TNT, military-made grenades were used, equipped with various surrogates and even black powder. In the initial period of the war, F-1 grenades were used with fuses of the Koveshnikov system, and in 1942, UZRG fuses began to be used. The fuse of Koveshnikov was made of brass on lathes. It has a spring-loaded cap, fixed with a pin with a ring. A lever of a characteristic shape was soldered to the cap. The fuse is triggered when the cap is pushed up by a spring. In this case, the cap releases the ball holding the drummer in the cocked state. The drummer is released and pierces the retarder capsule. The UZRG fuse is much simpler, cheaper and more technologically advanced than the Koveshnikov fuse, it is made by stamping. In a somewhat modernized state, the UZRG fuse has survived to this day and is well known. The drummer in it, after removing the safety pin, is held by the safety lever. When the lever is released, the drummer pricks the retarder capsule.
F-1 grenades are often found both with a fuse and with a plastic stopper inserted instead of a fuse. Cork grenades are not a practical danger, but they can explode when heated. When an F-1 grenade with a fuse is found, attention should be paid to the presence and condition of the safety pin. You should not try to unscrew the fuse, as a yellow or greenish coating, sensitive to friction, appears on the dried grenades on the detonator cap. In addition, the fuses, especially the UZRG, firmly stick with rust in the threaded neck of the grenade. And in case of emergency, when extracting from the excavation, you should hold the grenade with the fuse of Koveshnikov by pressing the cap of the fuse from above with your finger, and with the fuse of the UZRG - by pressing the lever to the body. When transporting the found grenades to a safe place, it is necessary to fix the safety lever (if any) to the body of the grenade with wire, cord.
In addition to regular F-1 grenades, on the battlefields near Leningrad there are so-called "blockade grenades" with a body without a notch, made from 50-mm mines without a shank. Fuses - Koveshnikov and UZRG, are inserted through a transitional plastic ring. In terms of combat properties and handling, they are similar to the standard F-1.
RG-42 hand grenade
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Offensive, remote action. It was developed to replace the RGD-33 and put into service in 1942. It is very simple in design and technologically advanced. Any workshop with low-power stamping equipment could master its production. Used on all fronts of the Second World War. |
RPG-40 anti-tank hand grenade
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It was intended to fight tanks and armored personnel carriers with armor up to 20 mm. They were also used to fight other targets: cars, pillboxes, etc. It works instantly when it hits an obstacle. The grenade is simple in design. Manufactured from sheet steel. The body of the grenade resembles a large tin can with a central channel for the detonator. The detonator is inserted into the grenade channel in the same way as the RGD-33 and is fixed with the same cover. The RPG-40 detonator externally ignited the RGD-33, but has a slightly longer length and differs from the RGD-33 igniter in the absence of a slowdown when fired. The detonator in the stowed position is stored separately and is inserted into the grenade just before it is thrown. Impact and safety mechanisms are located in the handle. The percussion mechanism is always on the combat platoon. |
The safety mechanism is a folding bar with a wire needle, which fixes the percussion mechanism in the stowed position. The folding bar is fixed on the handle with a safety pin with a braid tongue. Before throwing a grenade, the safety pin is pulled out by the braid and the folding bar on the handle is held by hand. When throwing a grenade, the folding bar separates, removes the needle and releases the percussion mechanism. When a grenade hits an obstacle in the handle, an inertial load moves, which releases the drummer. The grenade explodes regardless of where it hits the obstacle. To trigger a grenade without a safety needle, simply drop the grenade to the ground. Failures in action occurred due to contamination, freezing and deformation of the percussion mechanism located in the handle. It is forbidden to touch a thrown, but not triggered grenade - the impact mechanism can even work from moving the grenade.
Weight RPG-40-1200 g.
Equipped with cast TNT.
When conducting search work, it is found much less frequently than RGD-33. They were used on all fronts, especially in the initial period of the war. Quite often, separate cases without handles come across. When you find an RPG-40 with a handle, you should first of all pay attention to the presence of a folding bar with a safety needle. After that, carefully open the cover of the ignition socket and make sure that there is no detonator. A grenade without a detonator poses no practical danger. If a grenade with an inserted detonator, and even more so an abandoned and unexploded grenade with a missing folding bar and safety needle, is dangerous when shaken, hit, and even when it is moved from the place of discovery. Such a grenade should not be removed from the place of discovery, and the location of the grenade should be marked with a noticeable sign.
RPG-41 anti-tank hand grenade
With the advent of tanks with armor thicker than 20 mm at the front in 1941, the RPG-40 grenade ceased to satisfy the troops and the RPG-41 grenade was developed. The grenade differed from the RPG-40 in an increased mass of explosive and a large body diameter. The remaining parts of the grenade are similar to the RPG-40. The handling of the RPG-41 grenade is similar to the handling of the RPG-40.
In addition to the officially adopted RPG-41, a grenade was developed on the Leningrad Front, also under the RPG-41 index, colloquially called the "Voroshilovsky kilogram" ("VK"). It was an enlarged RGD-33, from which a handle, a fuse valve, its tube extended by 50 mm, the lower part of the body (flange) and the fuse itself were used. The grenade was developed and used in the initial period of the war and was made only at that time. The mass of explosive in a grenade is 1 kg. The grenade is rare, was not officially adopted for service. These grenades are found in the area of \u200b\u200bNevsky Piglet, Pulkovo, Mga, Lyuban, Luga. With the "Voroshilovsky kilogram" one should do the same as with the RGD-33 with the fuse inserted.
RPG-43 anti-tank hand grenade
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It appeared on the fronts from the middle of 1943. It was intended to combat armored targets - it penetrates armor up to 75 mm, thanks to the cumulative high-explosive action. It explodes instantly when it hits an obstacle with the bottom. For the correct flight of a grenade (bottom forward), there is a flight stabilizer made of two cloth tapes and a cap. The grenade is simple in design. Manufactured from sheet steel. Externally, the grenade is a cylindrical body, turning into a cone, below its truncated part there is a wooden handle with a lever fixed with a safety pin. Grenades entered the troops assembled, with a screwed handle. The fuse was inserted into the grenade before the battle. When thrown, the lever was separated, freeing the conical cap, which pulled out two fabric stabilizer tapes from the body. On the flight, a pin fell out, fixing the drummer. When the bottom of the grenade hit an obstacle, the drummer with the fuse screwed onto its fitting moved forward and pricked on the sting. The grenade exploded and pierced an obstacle with a cumulative jet. RPG-43 failures could occur due to the loss of a sting and counterspring from the body, an underscrewed handle, an incorrect impact on an obstacle (sideways). Accidents were due to a fuse inserted into the body that was not screwed onto the fitting, a grenade falling with the safety pin pulled out. Grenade weight 1200 g. |
If an RPG-43 is found during search operations, pay attention to the presence of a safety pin in the form of a ring and a cotter pin,
locking lever. Trying to unscrew the handle to extract the fuse is unacceptable. By the appearance of the grenade, it is impossible to determine whether a fuse is inserted into it. Therefore, it should be treated like a grenade with a fuse. RPG-43 with a fuse is dangerous. Particular care should be taken with grenades in which the handle has rotted off and the stabilizer cap has fallen off. Such grenades should be left at the place of discovery, marked with a clearly visible sign. Avoid blows along the body.
Grenades of the former German army and its allies
German hand grenade M 24
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Stielhandgranate 24 (hand grenade mod. 24) - high-explosive fragmentation remote offensive grenade. It is colloquially called a "beater". Used by the Germans on all fronts. When conducting search work, it occurs quite often and everywhere. |
M-24s were equipped with cast, flaked, granular TNT, picric acid, ammatol and other surrogate explosives. Grenades equipped with picric acid usually have a wide gray stripe on the lower part of the body.
The M24s encountered during the search are, as a rule, thoroughly rusted, with rotten handles. It is impossible to determine visually without disassembly whether there is a detonator capsule in the grenade. Attempts to unscrew the grenade and remove the detonator may end in an explosion. The main danger of the M 24 grenade with an inserted detonator is when disassembled or when it enters a fire. Care should also be taken with grenades equipped with picric acid - in the presence of moisture, it can form friction-sensitive compounds with metals.
In addition to high-explosive fragmentation grenades, the German army was armed with smoke grenades (Stielhandgranate 24 Nb.), which outwardly differed from the M 24 by smoke outlets in the lower part of the hull located along the perimeter of the collar, a white stripe and the letters "Nb." on the hull.
German hand grenade M 39
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Die Eihandgranate (egg-shaped hand grenade) - high-explosive fragmentation remote offensive grenade. Used by the Germans on all fronts. Colloquially called "egg". During search operations, it is even more common than the M 24. The grenade is an ovoid body of two halves, stamped from sheet iron. Inside the case - a bursting charge. A grating igniter with a moderator is screwed into the body. The charge is detonated by a detonator cap No. 8. The grenade fuse consists of a safety cap with a lanyard attached to a grating igniter. The safety cap is usually colored blue. The igniter is pressed into an aluminum sleeve, on which a square wrench or lamb was pressed on one side for screwing by hand, and on the other side a tube with a pyrotechnic retarding composition is screwed in. A detonator cap No. 8 is put on the retarder tube. When a loaded grenade was thrown, the safety cap was screwed up, the lanyard was pulled out with a sharp movement and the grenade was thrown at the target. |
Tactical and technical characteristics:
M 39 grenades were equipped with powdered and flaked TNT, ammatol and various surrogate explosives.
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There were grenades with a ring for hanging on a belt, located on the side opposite to the fuse (at the top). For the M 39 grenade, there was a device for shooting them from a signal pistol (flare gun). The device is a tube made of pressed cardboard; an aluminum sleeve with a primer and expelling charge is screwed on one side, and an adapter for screwing a grenade on the other side. |
incendiary bottles
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In the initial period of the war, when there was a great shortage of funds to fight tanks, incendiary bottles were widely used - ordinary bottles filled with liquid fuel. In addition to the Red Army, incendiary bottles were used by the Finns. When hit on the armor of the tank, the bottles broke, the fuel spread and ignited. Incendiary bottles were very easy to manufacture and were produced by many factories, workshops and even in the army. Despite their widespread use, they are very rare during search work - because of their fragility, they tried not to carry them with them and use them as quickly as possible. They were filled with flammable liquids based on petroleum products, sulfur, phosphorus. Mixtures No. 1, No. 3 and KS were developed and widely used. The CS mixture ignited spontaneously in air. Bottles with mixtures #1 and #3 required a separate igniter in the form of ampoules of white powder or liquid, in the form of silver rods with a "match" head. There were special mechanical igniters with a blank cartridge. |
The bottle with the KS mixture was a regular bottle with a yellow-green or dark brown liquid, on top of which a small layer of water or kerosene was poured to protect from air. The bottle is sealed with a rubber stopper and the stopper is wrapped with wire and insulating tape. Mixtures No. 1 and No. 3 is a yellowish viscous liquid. It is poured into ordinary bottles with a capacity of 0.5-0.75 liters, sealed with a cork stopper. To ignite the mixture, an igniter ampoule (or a special igniter) is inserted or attached outside the bottle.
Of the incendiary bottles, bottles with a mixture of COP are the most dangerous. If such a bottle is damaged, the mixture will spontaneously ignite in air. A rupture may occur with a scattering of burning liquid droplets. It's pretty hard to put it out.
The CS liquid is extinguished with sand, earth, water. If the liquid is not sufficiently covered with earth, and also after the water has dried, it may spontaneously ignite again. Drops of KS that get on the skin cause severe, poorly healing burns. In addition, the mixture of KS is poisonous. If it is suspected that the found bottle contains a mixture of KS, in case of emergency, very carefully, so as not to break the bottle or break the tightness of the cork, remove the bottle from the excavation. Move the extracted bottle to a safe place and bury it in the ground. This is best done with rubber gloves. It is necessary to ensure that there are no flammable materials or ammunition near the place of burial of the bottle.
Bottles containing mixes #1 and #3 can be hazardous if bottles and igniters break at the same time. Mixtures #1 and #3 may cause skin irritation.
In addition to incendiary bottles, there were AJ ampoules - glass or tin balls for throwing from ampoules or for dropping from aircraft. They are very rare. They were filled with a mixture of KS. Tin ampoules usually have a rotten shell and the mixture has long since leaked out. Such ampoules do not pose a danger. Handling of glass ampoules is similar to handling bottles of KS mixture.
Rifle grenades
Grenades, thrown with the help of the main weapons of the fighters, were widespread during the First World War. Then these grenades were improved, the tactics of their use were worked out. By the beginning of World War II, the leadership of the Red Army considered rifle grenades to be ineffective and their production was greatly reduced. In the German army, rifle grenades were quite widespread, they were used throughout the Second World War, there was a large range of ammunition.
Domestic ammunition
Dyakonov rifle grenade launcher and ammunition
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It was developed in the early 30s. It was a rifled mortar of 40 mm caliber, worn on the barrel of a rifle, a bipod for mounting a rifle and a quadrant sight. Before the war, it was recognized as insufficiently effective and the production of Dyakonov grenade launchers was discontinued. Used fragmentation and anti-tank grenades. A fragmentation grenade was fired using a conventional live cartridge. In the center of the grenade there was a tube-channel for the free passage of a bullet, in the back of the grenade there was a remote tube, an explosive detonator cap and an additional charge. On the body of the grenade, a notch is usually applied with "squares". Equipped with powdered tol, ammatol or other surrogates. |
The radius of fragmentation is up to 300 m. During search operations, it is very rare in the battlefields of the initial period of the war. The grenade is dangerous when heated and when trying to turn the distance ring.
The HSV-40 anti-tank grenade is practically never found during search operations. It was fired from a grenade launcher with the help of a special blank cartridge. It has a shaped charge and bottom inertial fuse. If there is a suspicion that the grenade has been fired, then it is very dangerous to move it from its place. It should be left at the place of the find, marking it with a clearly visible sign.
VPGS-41
There are no additional devices for shooting (mortars). required. Used in the early days of the war. Rarely seen in search operations.
It is a cylindrical body with stiffeners. There is a ballistic cap in front of the body, a fuse and a ramrod are screwed in at the back. A stabilizer shank is put on the ramrod. It had a shaped charge and a simple inertial fuse. In the stowed position, the fuse is fixed with a pin (like a hand grenade), the stabilizer is in the forward position (near the fuse), and the detonator capsule is usually absent. By appearance it is impossible to determine whether a detonator cap is inserted. To fire a grenade, a detonator cap was inserted, the grenade was inserted into the rifle barrel with a ramrod, the rifle was loaded with a blank cartridge, the safety pin was removed and a shot was fired. When fired, the stabilizer shank moved down the ramrod and was fixed on it in the rear position. The grenade was discontinued due to insufficient accuracy and range and a high number of accidents. A fired grenade, a grenade without a safety pin, is dangerous. From the excavation it is impossible to extract it by the tail (ramrod).
30mm rifle grenade launcher and ammunition
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For throwing almost all German rifle grenades, a 30-mm mortar grenade launcher was used, worn on the muzzle of the 98K carbine. The mortar had 8 rifling to stabilize grenades in flight. Rifle grenades also have 8 protrusions (ready-made rifling). There were the following types of rifle grenades: universal high-explosive fragmentation, propaganda, small and large armor-piercing, armor-piercing arr. 1943 In common parlance, German 30 mm rifle grenades are called "cucumbers". Throwing grenades was carried out using a blank cartridge. Universal 30 mm high-explosive rifle grenade G. Sprgr. It is a cylindrical projectile, about 140 mm long, with ready-made rifling on the leading belt of the bottom fuse. The total weight of the grenade is 260-280 g, the weight of the explosive (phlegmatized heating element) is 32 g. |
The "cigarette" of the head fuse protrudes from the front of the grenade. The body of the grenade is made of steel, the head fuse of early releases is made of aluminum alloy, later releases are made of steel with a plastic "cigarette". The bottom fuse of the early releases is made of aluminum alloy, the later releases are made of plastic. The grenade can be used both as a rifle and as a hand grenade. Equipped with two fuses - head, instant action, and bottom, remote action. When using a grenade as a hand grenade, the bottom of the grenade is unscrewed and the lanyard is pulled out.
The remote retarder is ignited by a grating igniter and the grenade explodes after 4-4.5 seconds. When shooting a grenade from a rifle grenade launcher, the head fuse of the AZ 5075 type is the main one. The bottom fuse works as a self-liquidator. The fuse AZ 5075 - instant action, non-safety type, was used for 30-mm rifle-hand fragmentation grenades and over-caliber cumulative mines for 37-mm anti-tank guns. It has small dimensions and a strongly protruding drummer ("cigarette"). When fired, it is cocked - the inertial fuse is lowered, the elastic steel tape unwinds and releases the drummer, which is held in flight by a counter-safety spring. When hitting an obstacle, the striker pricks the "detonator cap" and the ammunition explodes.
The fuse, which is cocked, has a very high sensitivity even to pressure on the "cigarette" of the fuse.
It occurs quite often during search operations. The main danger of this ammunition is that by its appearance it is impossible to determine whether it has been fired (with a cocked fuse) or not. A grenade with a cocked fuse is very sensitive to the impact on the firing pin fuses. If a grenade is found, in case of emergency, you can carefully remove it from the excavation, making sure not to hit or press the head fuse striker and carefully transfer it to a safe place. The grenade should not be shaken or thrown to the ground.
Small and large armor-piercing rifle grenades G. Pzgr. and gr. G.Pzgr.
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Designed for firing from a rifle grenade launcher at armored targets. When conducting search work, they are less common than a universal 30-mm high-explosive fragmentation grenade. They have an instantaneous bottom fuse and a shaped charge. A small armor-piercing grenade is a cylindrical projectile, about 160 mm long. There is a ballistic fairing on the front. The case of the shaped charge in a steel shell, the case of the fuse of the early samples of aluminum alloy, later - of black or brown plastic. A large armor-piercing grenade differs from a small one in a large diameter and in a different form of a cumulative projectile. Has a length of 185 mm. Fuses - bottom instant action. They have high sensitivity. Outwardly, it is impossible to distinguish between a fired grenade with a fuse removed from the fuse and an unfired grenade with a fuse on the fuse. Therefore, when finding such a grenade, it should be treated as if it had a fuse removed from the fuse. In case of emergency, you can carefully, avoiding bumps and shocks, remove the grenade from the excavation and move it to a safe place, holding it with its head up. |
Armor-piercing rifle grenade mod. 1943 - in terms of purpose and principle of operation, it is of the same type as a large armor-piercing grenade, differing from it in the shape of the case and the design of the fuse. The length of the grenade is about 195 mm. The body is made of steel. Handling found grenades is similar to handling other armor-piercing grenades to a rifle grenade launcher.
Artillery (mortar) mines
Domestic ammunition
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The most common artillery ammunition found in the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War were artillery mines. Mortar ammunition is even more common than rifle ammunition. Mortar mines were equipped with high-sensitivity instantaneous fuses, which are cocked at the moment of firing. Mines with cocked fuses are dangerous. A characteristic sign of a mine that has passed through the bore and has a cocked fuse is the trace of the striker on the primer of the expelling cartridge located in the tail of the mine. Such mines should not be moved from the place of discovery, marking their location with a clearly visible sign. The most common are 50-mm fragmentation mines for the domestic company mortar (samples 38, 40 and 41). Four-blade mines with a solid body were used, later replaced by six-blade mines with a solid and split body (screw-on shank). Mines are painted in green (protective) color. For domestic 50-mm mines, fuses M-1, M-50, MP were used. |
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M-50 fuse - instantaneous, non-safety type, intended for 50-mm fragmentation mines, sometimes also used for 45-mm high-explosive fragmentation shells. It was inserted into the charging point of the mine through an adapter ring made of black plastic. The presence of a plastic ring is explained by the fact that the M-50 fuse was originally designed for 37-mm mortar mines, which have a smaller fuse point. The fuse has an extremely simple device and high manufacturability. When cocked, a red stripe appears on the drummer. For an uncocked fuse, the front part of the striker is flush with the body, for a cocked fuse, the striker protrudes somewhat forward. A cocked fuse is extremely sensitive. If there is a suspicion that the M-50 mine is fired, you cannot touch it - the fuse can work from the slightest push. Fuse MP - instantaneous non-safety type. It has a body made of black plastic. On the case there is a marking - MP, year of issue, batch and manufacturer's designation. The safety mechanism is located inside the case and it is impossible to detect by the appearance of the fuse whether it is cocked. A fuze that has a rusted safety spring can be cocked by a side impact, so do not hit or shake the mine. |
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Quite often there are fragmentation mines for the domestic 82-mm battalion mortar (models 36, 37, 41, 43g.). Six- and ten-point mines with a screw shank were used. Painted in green (protective) color. In addition to fragmentation, smoke mines were used, which are marked with a black stripe on the hull under the centering thickening. M-1, MP-82, M-2 fuses were used.
Fuse M-1 - instant action, non-safety type. In addition to 82 mm mines, it was also used for four-pronged 50 mm mines. It has a protective cap under which there is a protruding aluminum cylinder ("cigarette") - an instantaneous drummer. The safety cap was allowed to be screwed only before lowering the mine into the mortar barrel. When the fuse is cocked, a red stripe appears on the "cigarette". Mines found during the search without a safety cap (with a naked "cigarette") are dangerous - the drummer is very sensitive even to light pressure.
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Fuse MP-82 - instantaneous non-safety type. Mines with this fuse are the most common. The fuse has a body made of black plastic. Marking on the body - MP-82, year of manufacture, batch and manufacturer's designation. The device is similar to the MP fuse for 50-mm mines, differing in a more durable diaphragm. The handling of mines with the MP-82 fuse is similar to the handling of mines with the MP fuse. Outwardly, the M-2 and M-3 fuses are very similar to the MP fuse, but they had a different safety mechanism device. The M-3 fuse differed from the M-2 with a steel case instead of a plastic one and was intended for firing at rocky ground. Handling them is similar to handling the MP fuse. Occasionally mines come across for a 120-mm regimental mortar (model 38, 41 and 43g.). The ammunition of the domestic mortar included high-explosive fragmentation, smoke and thermite incendiary mines. Smoke mines were marked in black, and thermite mines were marked in the form of a red ring. The mines were equipped with fuses GVMZ, M-4, M-1. |
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Fuse GVMZ - with two settings for instantaneous and delayed action, non-safety type. The fuse is simple in design and production. It has a pneumatic percussion mechanism - ignition of the igniter capsule is carried out by air, which heats up when it is quickly compressed under the piston-striker. Installation on a delayed action was carried out using an installation crane, similar to RG-type fuses. The fuse is equipped with a safety cap, which is removed only before firing. Mines with a fuse without a cap are very dangerous to handle, since the fuse can work when the mine falls from the hands with the head part down on the trampled snow, ice or earth. When fired, the fuse does not cock. |
It is extremely rare to find domestic mines for a 37-mm mortar-blade, 107-mm mountain-pack mortar, 160-mm mortar. According to the principle of operation, these mines are similar to those described above and are equipped with the same fuses.
Ammunition of the former German Army
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Somewhat less frequently than domestic 50-mm mines, there are 50-mm fragmentation mines for the German mortar mod. 36g. They consist of a body to which a shank with 8 stabilizer feathers is screwed. The mine is painted red. Fuse Wgr Z38 (with aluminum body), Wgr ZT (plastic body). Fuze (tube) Wgr Z38 (Werfgranatzunder 38) - double percussion, non-safety type, intended for fragmentation mines of medium caliber. It has small dimensions and a complex device. When fired, it is cocked - the inertial fuse is lowered and when the mine moves to the descending part of the trajectory, the safety balls roll into the cavity of the striker, freeing the access of the striker's sting to the igniter primer. To eliminate the influence of air resistance, the drummer is covered with a thin brass membrane. When falling on the ground, the drummer pierces the igniter cap, the beam of fire from which is transmitted to the detonator. If the mine falls on rocky ground and the head drummer cannot prick the primer, then the inertial drummer fires. The fuse is made with high quality. Aluminum alloy body. In addition to Wgr. Z38 used fuses of a similar purpose Wgr. ZT with black plastic housing. Fired mines with a cocked fuse can be dangerous. The main reason for the failure of fuses Wgr. Z38 - Incorrect installation of the igniter primer. Unexploited mines, in case of emergency, can be moved from the excavation site to a safe place by carefully transferring them with their heads up. |
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Somewhat less common are fragmentation mines for the German 81.4 mm (8cm) mortar mod. 34g. They consist of a screw-on shank body with 10 stabilizer feathers. The mine is painted in red or dark green protective color (depending on the material of the hull). In addition, there are bouncing mines mod. 38 and 39 colloquially called "frog" When falling on the ground, an expelling charge was triggered from the tube, which tore off the mine body from the detachable head and threw the mine body with an explosive charge up. The explosion occurred at a height of 2 to 10 m, due to which the fragmentation effect of the mine increased. Distinctive feature These mines are marked 38 or 39 in black paint on the body, painted in dark green protective or red and a detachable head, fastened with three studs to the body. Simple fragmentation mines made from the bodies of bouncing mines have a similar look. Such mines are marked 38umg. or 39umg. black paint on the body. In addition to fragmentation and bouncing mines, smoke mines were used. Such mines are marked with white letters Nb on the hull. German 81.4 mm mines were equipped with Wgr Z38 tubes. The detonator is located in the ignition glass. The handling of spent mines is similar to the handling of spent 50mm mines. Very rarely come across mines for a 12 cm mortar mod. 42g., which was a copy of the Soviet 120-mm mortar. The ammunition included high-explosive fragmentation mines, which had a dark green protective color. Ten pin stabilizer. It is extremely rare to find mines for a 105-mm chemical mortar. |
Ground artillery ammunition
Domestic ammunition
37-mm shells (shots) for anti-aircraft guns. Rarely seen. They have a cylindrical brass sleeve with a rim and a groove for the ejector.
45-mm projectiles (shots) for anti-tank and tank guns. Very common. Cylindrical brass sleeve with rim.
Shells - high-explosive fragmentation and armor-piercing incendiary tracer. A high-explosive fragmentation projectile is a steel cylinder with a fuse screwed into the head. The copper leading belt is located approximately in the middle of the projectile. Equipped with cast TNT. Fuzes of the KTM type (team of pipe makers, membrane) - head impact fuses with two settings for instantaneous and inertial action, semi-safety type. When released from the factory, the fuse is set to inertial action (with a screwed mounting cap), to set the fuse to instantaneous action, the mounting cap was screwed before firing. A fired projectile (with traces of rifling on the leading belt) can be dangerous when moving the projectile from the place of discovery.
Armor-piercing incendiary tracer projectile is a heavy bullet-shaped projectile of small size. There is a ballistic cap on the head part, which usually rots and the projectile is usually found with a kind of “chopped off” head part. The leading belt is located at the rear of the projectile. Equipped with high explosive. A fuse is screwed into the bottom of the projectile with a tracer screwed on the back in a conical aluminum case. Fuzes MD-5 were used - bottom fuses of inertial action with slowdown, non-safety type. The fuse is simple in design and has a high sensitivity to impact. It is screwed into the bottom of the projectile, sealed with a lead gasket and non-drying mastic based on minium iron. It has a fixed striker (needle) and a movable striker with an igniter primer, which is held until fired by a fuse from a split brass tube. When fired, the fuse is lowered, the drummer is released and the igniter cap becomes available for the striker, while the drummer is not held by anything and just hangs inside, so the cocked fuse is especially dangerous and explodes even when shaken. The fuse is made of sufficient quality, the internal parts are made of non-ferrous metals, nickel-plated and do not corrode after half a century of being in the ground. Before the start of the war and in its initial period, a huge number of shells equipped with MD-5 were manufactured. During the war, due to the danger of handling, this fuse was discontinued, but not removed from service.
45-mm armor-piercing incendiary tracer projectiles pose the greatest danger, especially if there are traces of rifling on the leading belt. The fuse of an unexploded fired projectile is extremely sensitive to any movement and can explode even if the ammunition is tilted. The shells have thick walls and are made of alloyed hardened steel, so they explode with great force and fragments. When a shot projectile is found, it is not even worth getting it out of the excavation, but its location should be marked with a clearly visible sign.
57-mm shells (shots) for anti-tank guns. Rarely seen. In terms of design, fuse brands and handling, they are similar to 45-mm rounds. After the MD-5 fuse was discontinued, the MD-7 fuse was used instead for armor-piercing projectiles. It differs from the MD-5 in the presence of a counter-safety spring, a foil counter-safety circle on the primer-igniter and an inertial circle for adjusting the deceleration when hitting an obstacle. All armor-piercing shells should be treated with extreme caution.
Ammunition of the former German Army
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20-mm projectiles (shots) for tank and anti-aircraft guns. They are quite rare. In common parlance they are called "Oerlikon". The shells for tank and anti-aircraft guns were the same, only the shells differed. The sleeve of a tank gun is brass or steel, conical, has a groove for ejectors and a characteristic wide annular protrusion in front of the groove. There is no annular protrusion on the shells for anti-aircraft guns of the Oerlikon system. 37-mm shells (shots) for anti-tank, tank and anti-aircraft guns. The most common. They have a slightly conical brass or steel sleeve with a rim. Shells - armor-piercing tracer 3.7 cm Pzgr. They were used to fire the 3.7 cm Pak anti-tank gun and are colloquially referred to as "Pak" shells. They are even more common than domestic 45 mm armor-piercing shells. They have a pointed head, a leading belt in the back. Equipped with high explosives. The fuse Bd is screwed into the bottom. Z. (5103 *) d (Bodenzunder (5103) fiir 3,7 Panzergranaten) - inertial action with deceleration, non-safety type, used for 37 and 50 mm armor-piercing tracer shells for anti-aircraft, tank and anti-tank guns. The fuse is combined with a tracer. It has an extremely simple device - the percussion mechanism consists of a fixed sting and a striker with an igniter capsule. When fired, the fuse does not cock. The drummer is fixed with a thin pin, which is torn by the drummer when it hits a solid barrier. Gas-dynamic deceleration - carried out Occasionally there is a sub-caliber armor-piercing tracer of a characteristic coil shape with a sharp aluminum tip. Inside is a tungsten carbide core. Such a projectile does not contain an explosive and does not pose a danger. |
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In addition to armor-piercing, fragmentation tracer shells were used with an AZ39 fuse - a head, percussion, non-safety type. The fuse is designed for 37 and 50 mm fragmentation shells for tank and anti-tank guns. It has a centrifugal cocking - when the projectile rotates, the centrifugal stoppers release the fuse, and the fuse releases the striker under the action of centrifugal force. Cocking occurs a few meters from the muzzle. The projectiles are loaded with high explosives. The found shells are dangerous.
47 mm and 50 mm shells (shots). They are very rare. In terms of design and handling, they are similar to 37-mm shells.
Artillery shells and shots of medium and large calibers.
Domestic ammunition
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There were shells for the following purposes: high-explosive fragmentation, high-explosive, shrapnel, armor-piercing, concrete-piercing, special (agitation, smoke, incendiary, chemical, etc.). The most widespread are shells for domestic 76-mm guns. Meet quite often. Of the 76-mm shells, high-explosive fragmentation is the most common. Often there are 76-mm armor-piercing tracer and shrapnel. In the ammunition load of 76-mm guns there were also special shells - incendiary, lighting, smoke, agitation, but such shells are practically never found. The high-explosive fragmentation projectile has a thick-walled body made of steel cast iron. The anterior part is ogival, the posterior part is a truncated cone. Rarely come across old-style shells - a cylindrical body with a screwed hemispherical head. High-explosive fragmentation shells were usually loaded with cast or screwed TNT, various surrogate explosives. Fuse type KG and KTM of various modifications. These fuses have almost the same device. Cocked when fired. Impact mechanism of instantaneous and inertial action. An adjusting cap is screwed on the front - when the cap is on, the fuse is set to inertial action, when removed - to instantaneous. The main difference between the KG fuse and the KTM fuse is the device of the instantaneous striker - for the KG it is a protruding rod closed with an installation cap, and for the KTM it is a plastic or wooden striker of large diameter, covered with a foil membrane and an installation cap. A fired projectile with KTM and KT fuses is dangerous regardless of whether the mounting cap is on or off. |
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The armor-piercing tracer projectile is similar in design to the 45-mm armor-piercing tracer, differing from it mainly in its large size and the presence of a screw bottom. Equipped with pressed TNT or tetryl. The MD-6 or MD-8 fuse, which differs from the MD-5 and MD-7, only in the landing thread. The handling of found shells is similar to the handling of 45 mm armor-piercing tracer. A shrapnel projectile is a cylindrical glass, inside of which there is an expelling charge, a membrane, lead shrapnel bullets and |
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22-sec. double action tube - designed for 76 mm bullet shrapnel. It has two distance rings, and the lower ring has a scale with divisions from 10 to 130 (on some tubes up to 140 and 159) and two risks with the designations "K" (card action) and "Ud" (percussion Remote tube TZ(UG) - designed for 76-mm rod shrapnel for divisional and regimental ground artillery guns and anti-aircraft guns. It has three distance rings, two of which are fastened with a bracket, on the lower ring there is a scale with 165 conditional divisions, marked every 5 divisions, and two risks with the designations "K" (card action) and "Ud" (shock action). A rigid brass cap is screwed onto the tube to protect it from moisture. T-6 double-action tube - designed for shrapnel, lighting, incendiary and propaganda shells for howitzers and medium-caliber guns of ground artillery. It differs from the TZ(UG) tube by the presence of an impact mechanism similar in design to the impact mechanism of the KT-1 fuse (in its inertial part) and some other details. It has three distance rings, two of which are fastened with a bracket, a scale with 139 divisions is applied on the lower ring, corresponding to the divisions of the sight of the 76-mm regimental gun mod. 1927 and two risks with the designations "K" and "Ud". A rigid brass cap is screwed onto the tube to protect it from moisture. |
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Unexploded fired shrapnel shells are usually found with a destroyed spacer tube and damp expelling powder. Such shells, in case of emergency, can be removed from the excavation and moved to a safe place. They pose a danger when they hit the fire. In this case, drying and operation of an expelling charge and a shot of shrapnel bullets can occur. Also, high-explosive fragmentation shells for anti-aircraft artillery, equipped with a T-5 remote fuse, are very similar to simple shrapnel, and such shells are much more dangerous than ordinary shrapnel. 85-mm shells (shots) for anti-aircraft and divisional guns. Rarely seen. According to the device, high-explosive fragmentation and armor-piercing shells are similar to 76-mm shells. For anti-aircraft guns, there was a remote fragmentation grenade - a fragmentation projectile with a T-5 remote fuse, which is a combination of a TZ (UG) tube and a safety-type detonating device. Such an unexploded fired projectile looks like a shrapnel projectile, but it poses a much greater danger - it is equipped with an explosive, and the fuse has an inertial percussion mechanism. The shot projectile, in case of emergency, can be carefully removed from the excavation and carefully, without bumps and shaking, transferred to a safe place. Large caliber shells are rare. Usually these are fired unexploded high-explosive fragmentation and high-explosive projectiles that have already passed through the bore. Such shells were supplied with fuses of the RG type (RG-6, RGM and RGM-2), fragmentation shells and anti-aircraft artillery shrapnel - with remote tubes T-3 (UG) and T-5. Armor-piercing and concrete-piercing were equipped with bottom fuses of the KTD type. Fuzes of the RG type (Rdultovsky, head) - head fuses of double impact action with three settings for instantaneous, inertial and delayed action, safety type. RGM fuses are designed for 107-152 mm and larger caliber fragmentation, high-explosive and high-explosive fragmentation projectiles for cannons, howitzers and howitzer-guns, for naval and coastal guns. It represents an improved design of the RG-6 fuse and is distinguished by increased safety during firing and sensitivity to impact when set to instantaneous action. To install the fuse on a delayed action, an installation valve is designed that has two positions O (open) and 3 (closed). The crane is turned with a special key. The factory setting of the fuse is for inertial action (the cap is on, the valve is open). The fuse is set to instant action by removing the setting cap, and to slow action by turning the valve to position 3 - in this case, the action will be slow both when the setting cap is removed and when the setting cap is put on. RGM-2 fuses are designed for 107-280 mm fragmentation, high-explosive and high-explosive fragmentation projectiles, mainly for howitzers and mortars; can also be used in guns. It represents an improved design of the RGM fuse and differs from it in some details of the safety mechanism. Its advantages over the RGM are in increased safety and cocking ™ and in simplified production. RG-6 fuses are designed for 122 and 152 mm fragmentation, high-explosive and high-explosive fragmentation projectiles for howitzers. It differs from the RGM fuse in the device of the instantaneous striker, the absence of a membrane in the outer dimension and some details of the safety mechanism. The main disadvantages in comparison with the RGM fuse are the reduced sensitivity of the instantaneous striker and the possibility of premature bursts of projectiles behind the muzzle when firing. Projectiles with RG-type fuses that have not passed through the bore do not pose a particular danger and, in case of emergency, can be carefully transported to a safe place. Unexploded projectiles that have passed through the bore have a cocked fuse and can be dangerous due to the large mass of explosive and the formation of a large number of large fragments with a significant radius of damage. Such shells must be left at the place of discovery and marked with signs visible from afar. |
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Ammunition of the former German Army
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German shells are similar in design and purpose to domestic ones. They were supplied with tubes K1AZ23, AZ23, llgr 223 nA, AZ23 umgm 2V. The detonator is installed in the ignition cup. Tube K1AZ23 (Kleiner Aufschlagzunder 23) - double percussion with two settings for instantaneous and delayed action, non-safety type, designed for 75 mm high-explosive fragmentation projectiles. The setting device on the outside has a slot for a setting key or a screwdriver and risks: one with the designation "O" (Ohne Verzogetung - without slowing down) and two diametrically opposed with the designation "MV (Mil Verzogenmg - with slowing down). The fuse has a centrifugal cocking - when the projectile rotates safety rams overcome the resistance of the safety spring and |
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Tube AZ23 - double impact with two settings for instantaneous and delayed action, non-safety type, designed for 75-149 mm high-explosive fragmentation projectiles for guns and howitzers. The impact and setting mechanism is similar to the mechanisms of the K1AZ23 tube and differs only in the size of some parts and the presence of five centrifugal dies instead of four. Outwardly, it differs in large dimensions and a different shape. They were made of aluminum alloy or plastic with steel fittings. |
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Tube AZ23 umgm 2V (Aufschlagzunder 23 umgearbeitet mil 2 Verzogerung) - double percussion with three settings: for instant action and for two decelerations, non-safety type. Designed for 149 and 211 mm high-explosive fragmentation shells for howitzers and mortars. The impact mechanism differs from the standard AZ23 impact mechanism by the presence of an inertial sleeve to eliminate the rotation of the inertial rams in the bore. The setting device has a setting sleeve on the outside, fixed in the body with a head nut. The tube is installed by turning the mounting sleeve with a wrench until one of the marks on its surface ("+", "0/V", "0/2" and "0/8") aligns with the risk on the nut. These marks correspond to the settings for travel mount, instant action, and slowdowns of 0.2 and 0.8 seconds. Tube llgr Z23 nA (leichter Inranteriegranatzunder 23 neuer Art) - double percussion with two settings for instantaneous and delayed action, non-safety type, designed for 75-mm high-explosive fragmentation shells for infantry guns. The firing and setting mechanism is similar to the mechanisms of the AZ23 tube and is distinguished by the presence of an inertial ring that serves to actuate the projectile when it hits an obstacle sideways. |
The handling of unfired and unexploded German shells is similar to the handling of domestic ammunition.
Missiles (PC)
Rockets were actively used by both Wehrmacht units and the Soviet Army.
The fundamental difference between rocket projectiles and other types of weapons is in the method of movement - jet. Therefore, the composition of rockets includes a jet engine.
A whole PC is a very rare find, and the number of PC types in service is in the tens, so only the most basic ones will be considered in the article.
the USSR
The Red Army was armed with two main types of PC: RS-82 aka M-8 and PC-132 aka M-13.
M-8
It is a classic rocket: in front of the warhead. It contains 375-581 tons of explosives. For early release PCs, the warhead had notches to improve fragmentation, later these notches were abandoned. Behind the warhead is a jet engine, fuel: 7 cylindrical, single-channel checkers on the first modifications, and 5 checkers, but larger, on later ones. Cartridges with black powder are installed in front and behind the combustion chamber to improve ignition. Ignition occurs with the help of a special device, through a nozzle. M-8s were launched from the BM-8-48 installation. You can release 48 PCs at one time.
On the first modifications of the PC, there were 4 guide pins, but later they abandoned 2. By the way, it was this modification (with 4 pins) that the Germans copied in 1943 and used them against the Soviet troops.
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M-13. (Katyusha) Perhaps the effectiveness of "Katyusha" was overestimated. In the area of the village of Myasnoy Bor, there are sections of German defense literally plowed up by PCs, in theory there should not have been anything alive there, but ours could not break through the German defenses. |
Aviation RS-82/132 were completed with remote tubes AGDT-a, TM-49, TM-24a. When firing at ground targets - head contact fuses GVMZ and AM.
Germany.
In service with the Wehrmacht different time consisted of several types of PC. In 1941, a 158.5 mm chemical projectile was adopted, later a 280 mm high-explosive and a 320 mm incendiary mine were developed, although in 1942 they were withdrawn from service. In 1942, a 210 mm high-explosive mine was adopted. The latter was rarely used in the European part of the USSR and will not be considered.
Initially, the mine was created as a means of conducting chemical warfare. The use of the chemical part entailed the adoption of an unusual layout. Just in case, if there is no chemical warfare, a fragmentation mine was also created.
The main difference between NbWrf-41 and the domestic PC was a different stabilization method. If the M-8/13 was stabilized in flight with the help of a stabilizer, then the NbWrf -41 was stabilized by rotation like a projectile. This was achieved by the fact that the gases that set the PC in motion were released at an angle to the axis from a special turbine in the middle of the projectile. The fuel was 7 pieces of diglycoleum gunpowder.
Well, the unusual layout was that the warhead, containing 2 kg of explosives, was located behind the rocket part, this achieved a better dispersion of toxic substances. Because of this, the shells had a slight high-explosive effect. According to the recollections of veterans, it was possible to hide in any trench from the volley of these PCs, which cannot be said about our Katyusha: it already hit, it hit.
You need to remember this thing. The warhead is in the back, and the fuse is also in the back. Fuze - Bd.Z.Dov. Unfortunately, there is not much data on him, but it is known that he still had a fuse, but it is better not to check this.
These PCs were launched from an installation consisting of 6 tubular guides mounted on a carriage. Hence the name - 6-barreled mortar.
280\32O reactive mines.
The body of the warhead was stamped from thin steel. If the mine was high-explosive, then its caliber was 280 mm, the warhead contained 50 kg of explosives. If incendiary, then its caliber was 320mm and the mine carried 50 kg of oil.
The engine was installed the same as in the "NbWrf -41", only it was located in the classic place - at the back. Because the caliber of the warhead was larger than the caliber of the rocket part, then the mine looked like a huge amphora with a long neck.
A Wgr 50 or 427 fuse stood on a 320-mm incendiary mine. The drummer was held in it only by a pin, which was removed before launch.
A WgrZ 50 fuse was mounted on a 280-mm high-explosive mine; it contained the simplest centrifugal fuse.
Mines were launched from wooden caps, installed in a row on a special stand.
Despite the fact that the mines had a good high-explosive and incendiary effect, due to the fact that they had an engine unified with the NbWrf -41, the mines had a short (range (about 2 km). This made them vulnerable to ground fire , which was the reason for removing it in 1942 from service ...
And so for reference: bizarre roses remaining from rocket chambers during an explosion. PC, probably came across to everyone.
Our PCs had a thread inside the chamber, while the “Germans” had it outside, in addition, the “Germans” sometimes have a front bottom. These features can help in determining: "who and whom on this earth"
anti-personnel mines
domestic mines
Mine simplified fuse (MUV) - tension (with a P-shaped pin) or pressure (with a T-shaped pin) action. It was used in anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, improvised explosive devices, booby traps. Easy to set up and manufacture. It consists of a body (metal or plastic), a drummer, a mainspring and a P or T-shaped checks. In the combat position, the check is inserted into the lower hole of the drummer. The spring is in a compressed state. When pulling out the checks, the drummer is released and, under the action of a spring, pricks the primer-igniter fuse, which causes the explosion of the detonator cap. The body of the fuse was made of painted, galvanized or tombac-clad steel, from seamless tubes with a diameter of 12 mm and stamped from a sheet, from rifle cartridges, from black or brown bakelite. To detonate the explosive charge, an MD-2 fuse is screwed into the MUV - a detonator cap No. 8 combined with an igniter cap. The fuse is inserted into the mine socket, a tension wire is tied to the MUV pin. When touched by a wire, the check is pulled out of the fuse and a mine explodes. Actuation force 0.5-1 kg. The radius of the destructive action of POMZ-2 is 25 m, the radius of expansion of lethal fragments is up to 200 m. It could be installed with one or two branches of stretch marks.
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During search operations, the mine is easily detected by a metal detector. The setting pegs and tension wire usually rot, leaving the body of the mine with the drill block and fuse. These mines are dangerous. Often the striker rod is damaged by corrosion and is very weakly held in the cocked position. The mainspring in the MUV is tinned and is quite well preserved. With careless movement or a light blow, the drummer can break off and prick the igniter. When POMZ-2 is found with the I fuse inserted, do not try to remove the fuse or the drilling block. Such a mine, in case of emergency, can be carefully, holding the hull, moved to a safe place. Quite often there are POMZ-2 without a fuse, piled up in heaps. These mines remained after the demining of the area by sappers and do not pose a danger. |
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PMD-6 (PMD-7, PMD-7ts) |
OZM UVK
Universal blowout chamber. It was used in combination with some domestic or captured artillery ammunition. Occurs very rarely. It was used as part of controlled minefields. It is a steel cylindrical chamber with a diameter of 132 mm and a height of 75 mm inside which there is an expelling charge, an electric igniter, a moderator and a detonator. A conventional artillery mine or projectile is screwed to the chamber. In the ground, the mine is installed with the camera down. When an electric current is applied to the contacts of the electric igniter, an expelling charge is triggered, ejecting artillery ammunition upwards. After the moderator burns out, at a height of about 1-5 m, the ammunition explodes. The radius of fragmentation depends on the artillery ammunition used in the mine. It is very rare in search operations. It is dangerous when hitting UVC, heating. If found, in case of emergency, you can dig a mine and carefully move it to a safe place. You can't pull on the wire.
Mines of the former German army
Mina is a massive smooth cylinder with a diameter of 102 mm, a height of 128 mm, painted in gray-green color. On the top cover of the mine there is a central neck for attaching a fuse and four screws. Three small screws cover the sockets for blasting caps, the fourth screw (larger) closes the neck for filling the mine with explosive. The mine is made with high quality and sealed from moisture. The mine consists of an outer glass and the mine itself. Inside there is an explosive charge (500 g of TNT), along the walls of the mine there are ready-made fragments - 340 steel balls (shrapnel) with a diameter of 9 mm. Inside the explosive checker there are three channels for placing detonator caps No. 8. The mine itself is inserted into the outer glass, from which it is fired using an expelling charge. A tube runs through the center of the mine, which serves to fasten all parts of the mine and transfer fire from the fuse to the expelling charge. When the fuse is triggered, it, through the moderator, transmits a fire impulse to the expelling charge. The expelling charge shoots the mine up their outer cup and ignites the retarders. After the moderator burns out, the fire is transferred to detonator caps and at a height of about 2-5 m a mine explodes with scattering of balls. Due to the operation of the mine at a certain height, it has a large radius of destruction - 80 m. The mine could be set to a push and pull action, depending on the fuse used. There were modifications of the "spring-mines" with the ability to be set to be non-removable. Such mines, in addition to the upper one, also had a lower socket for an additional fuse.
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Fuze SMiZ-35 - push action, used for anti-personnel mines S-mine). The fuze body is usually made of aluminum alloy. The fuse has a high quality workmanship, sealed from moisture. It has three characteristic antennae on its head. Worked by pressing on these antennae. Actuation force 4-6 kg. Before the mine is installed, the rod is held by a safety pin in the form of a small screw of complex shape, which is fixed on the fuse with a nut. It was used as a single fuse, or could be installed on a "tee" in conjunction with two tension fuses. |
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Fuze ZuZZ-35 - double (tension and cutting) action. |
German mine fuses are made with high quality from non-ferrous metals. They are not very susceptible to corrosion and therefore the fuses work flawlessly even after half a century has passed since installation. Fortunately, the S-mine has propellant retarders, which by now are most likely damp and the probability of a regular mine operation is low, but there are exceptions to every rule and you should not tempt fate by trying to disassemble the mine. When detecting German mines with inserted fuses, special care must be taken. If the fuse is screwed into the mine and does not have a safety pin, insert a nail or piece of wire with a diameter of 2.5 mm into the hole for the safety pin and fix it. After that, you need to check if the mine has an additional lower fuse for non-removability. If there is no additional fuse, in case of emergency, you can remove the mine from the ground and carefully, without shocks and blows, move it to a safe place. If there is an additional fuse, do not remove the mine from the ground, but mark its location with a clearly visible sign.
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stockmine |
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SD-2 |
anti-tank mines
domestic mines
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TMD-B (TMD-44) Pressure strips are nailed to the top of the box and there is a door (or plug) for inserting a fuse into the mine. Mina is equipped with ammatol, ammonite or dynamon. Curb mine weight 7.5-8 kg, charge weight 4.7-5.5 kg. The briquettes are fixed in the mine with the help of wooden blocks. The briquettes are detonated with the help of an intermediate detonator of 200 g of explosive cartridges and an MV-5 fuse. |
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Fuse MV-5 - pressure action, explodes when you press the cap. Used in push mines. The drummer is held in a combat position by a ball. When you press the cap, the ball falls into the recess of the cap and releases the drummer, which pricks the fuse. The triggering force of the fuse is 10-20 kg. The fuse is inserted into the mine socket, the door closes. When a tank caterpillar hits a mine, the top cover breaks and the pressure bars press on the fuse cap. At the same time, the mine explodes. To trigger a mine, a force of 100 kg is required. |
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TM-41 |
When searching for a mine, it is very rare. Do not attempt to unscrew the plug and remove the fuse. The found mine must be carefully transferred to a safe place without hitting the top cover and without turning the mine upside down.
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TM-35 |
During search operations, the mine is more common than all other domestic anti-tank mines, but not because of the massive use, but due to the good preservation of the metal case. When a mine is found, do not open the shutter and see if a fuse is inserted into the mine. Such a mine should be handled as if it had a fuse. Do not attempt to remove the fuse or open the mine case. In case of emergency, the found mine should be carefully transferred to a safe place without hitting the hull.
Mines of the former German army
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Designed to break the tracks and damage the undercarriage of the tank. The mine has a round body with a diameter of 320 mm and a height of 90 mm. The body is made of aluminum alloy and sheet steel. There was a version of the mine made entirely of sheet steel with stamped stiffeners on the top cover. The upper part of the case is a pressure cover. In the center of the cover there is a threaded hole into which a brass fuse is screwed. On the side of the mine has a carrying handle. For installation on non-removability, the mine has threaded sockets for fuses of the ZZ-42, ZZ-35 type on the side and bottom. The mine is equipped with melted TNT. The curb weight of the mine is 10 kg, the weight of the charge is 5.2 kg. Undermining the main charge is carried out using the fuse TMiZ-35. When a tank caterpillar hits a mine, the pressure cover transfers pressure to the fuse, the drummer cuts off the shear pin and the mine explodes. To trigger a mine, a force of over 100 kg is required. The TMiZ-35 fuse has two fuses - a screw and a side pin. The safety screw is located on top of the fuse. It has a red dot on it. The screw can occupy two positions: safe (Sicher), marked with a white line and combat platoon (Sharf), marked with a red line. |
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During search operations, a mine is more common than other anti-tank mines. It is dangerous when it is armed: the red dot on the safety screw is in the Sharf position. You should not try to move the safety screw to a safe position - the mine may explode. When a mine is detected, it does not matter whether it is on the fuse or on the cocking, without moving the mine from |
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After 1942, the TMi-35 mine (steel-cased) could be used with a simplified fuse similar to the TMi-42 and TMi-43 mine fuses. In such mines, the central threaded hole for the fuse is closed with a screw plug. Do not attempt to unscrew the plug and remove the fuse. The fuse does not have a fuse, the actuation force is about 240 kg, but a mine can explode if a running or fast walking person steps on it. Handling of found mines - check for non-removable fuses and, in case of emergency, carefully, avoiding hitting the pressure cover, move the mine to a safe place. |
TMi-42 and TMi-35
The TMi-42 differs from the TMi-35 (in steel case) by the smaller size of the pressure cap. The main fuse is inserted into the central hole in the pressure cap and closed with a screw plug. The mine has a bottom and side socket for additional fuses when set to non-removable. Mine weight 10 kg, charge weight 5 kg. The TMi-43 differs from the TMi-42 in the design and shape of the pressure cap. The pressure cover is corrugated and is screwed onto the central neck of the mine after the fuse is installed.
Found in battlefields after 1942. The handling of mines is similar to the handling of TMi-35 - make sure that the mine is not set to non-removable and, in case of emergency, move it to a safe place, avoiding hitting the pressure cover. Do not attempt to unscrew the fuse plug or pressure cap.
When searching for a mine, it is very rare. In found mines, the wooden case usually rots. There are checkers of explosives and a checker with an inserted fuse or just with a protruding detonator. Do not try to remove the fuse or detonator from the checkers. In case of emergency, carefully, without touching the fuse, transfer such a checker to a safe place.
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Anti-vehicle mine. Used by the Germans after 1943 to damage the undercarriage of tanks or vehicles. Could be used as an anti-personnel mine. The mine is a rectangular box made of sheet steel measuring 80x10x8 cm. The upper part of the case is a pressure cover. From the end of the mine has a carrying handle. Combat shear pins are passed through the holes in the side walls - wires, the ends of which are twisted on the top cover of the mine. The top cover of the mine can be opened to place an explosive charge and two ZZ-42 fuses into it. The curb weight of the mine is 8.5 kg, the weight of the charge is 5 kg. When hitting a mine, the shear pins are cut off and the explosive charge, descending, pulls the combat pins out of fuses 22-42, causing the mine to explode. To trigger a mine, a force of 150 kg is required. |
When conducting search operations, a mine is very rare. In those found, special attention should be paid to the integrity of the shear pins (wires). If the shear wires are not twisted on the mine cover or are severely damaged by corrosion, the mine must not be touched, its location should be marked with a conspicuous sign. If the checks are in good condition, twisted on the cover of the mine, in case of emergency, you can carefully, avoiding shocks and blows, remove the mine from the ground and turn it upside down and transfer it to a safe place. Attempts to disassemble the mine are not allowed.
In addition to regular anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, improvised mines and field mines made by the troops were quite widely used. The simplest mine or land mine was a subversive bomb or a standard charge with a standard fuse attached. The handling of such mines is similar to the handling of standard mines with a similar fuse.
Domestic field mines were used with MUV or VPF fuses. The fuse of field mines (VPF) is used in the construction of improvised mines, booby traps, etc. It consists of a body with a clamp for attaching the fuse to various objects, a striker, a mainspring, a collet to hold the striker in the cocked position (using a swivel with the head of the striker ), a safety cotter pin (after installing a landmine, the cotter pin is pulled out of the shelter with a cord), a fuse with an igniter cap and a detonator. Triggered by pulling the collet up or tilting it in any direction. The force required to pull the collet up 4-6.5 kg, to tilt in any direction 1-1.5 kg.
Quite rarely, time-delayed mines with clock, chemical or electric fuses were used. They were usually used to undermine any buildings or structures, bridges, roads. Usually they have a significant explosive charge (from 3-5 kg to 500-1000 kg) and several different fuses for reliability. During search operations, such mines are practically never found, but if there is a suspicion of the presence of such a mine, then search operations should be stopped and sappers should be called.
By the end of the 30s, almost all participants in the coming world war had formed common directions in the development of small arms. The range and accuracy of the defeat was reduced, which was offset by a greater density of fire. As a consequence of this - the beginning of the mass rearmament of units with automatic small arms - submachine guns, machine guns, assault rifles.
The accuracy of fire began to fade into the background, while the soldiers advancing in a chain began to be taught shooting from the move. With the advent airborne troops there was a need to create special lightweight weapons.
Maneuvering war also affected machine guns: they became much lighter and more mobile. New types of small arms appeared (which was dictated primarily by the need to fight tanks) - rifle grenades, anti-tank rifles and RPGs with cumulative grenades.
Small arms of the USSR of the Second World War
The rifle division of the Red Army on the eve of the Great Patriotic War was a very formidable force - about 14.5 thousand people. The main type of small arms were rifles and carbines - 10420 pieces. The share of submachine guns was insignificant - 1204. There were 166, 392 and 33 units of easel, light and anti-aircraft machine guns, respectively.
The division had its own artillery of 144 guns and 66 mortars. The firepower was supplemented by 16 tanks, 13 armored vehicles and a solid fleet of auxiliary automotive and tractor equipment.
Rifles and carbines
The main small arms of the infantry units of the USSR in the first period of the war was certainly the famous three-ruler - 7.62 mm rifle S.I. qualities, in particular, with an aiming range of 2 km. 
The three-ruler is an ideal weapon for newly drafted soldiers, and the simplicity of the design created huge opportunities for its mass production. But like any weapon, the three-ruler had flaws. A permanently attached bayonet in combination with a long barrel (1670 mm) created inconvenience when moving, especially in wooded areas. Serious complaints were caused by the shutter handle when reloading.
On its basis was created sniper rifle and a series of carbines of the 1938 and 1944 model. Fate measured the three-ruler for a long century (the last three-ruler was released in 1965), participation in many wars and an astronomical "circulation" of 37 million copies.
Sniper with Mosin rifle (with optical sight PE model 1931)
Sighting range SVT-40 - up to 1 km. SVT-40 won back with honor on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. It was also appreciated by our opponents. A historical fact: having captured rich trophies at the beginning of the war, among which there were quite a few SVT-40s, the German army ... adopted it, and the Finns created their own rifle, the TaRaKo, based on the SVT-40.
The creative development of the ideas implemented in the SVT-40 was the AVT-40 automatic rifle. It differed from its predecessor in the ability to conduct automatic fire at a rate of up to 25 rounds per minute. The disadvantage of AVT-40 is low accuracy of fire, strong unmasking flame and a loud sound at the time of the shot. In the future, as the mass receipt of automatic weapons in the troops, it was removed from service.
Submachine guns
The Great Patriotic War was the time of the final transition from rifles to automatic weapons. The Red Army began to fight armed with a small amount of PPD-40 - a submachine gun designed by the outstanding Soviet designer Vasily Alekseevich Degtyarev. At that time, PPD-40 was in no way inferior to its domestic and foreign counterparts. 
Designed for a pistol cartridge cal. 7.62 x 25 mm, PPD-40 had an impressive ammunition load of 71 rounds, placed in a drum-type magazine. Weighing about 4 kg, it provided firing at a speed of 800 rounds per minute with an effective range of up to 200 meters. However, a few months after the start of the war, he was replaced by the legendary PPSh-40 cal. 7.62 x 25 mm.
The creator of the PPSh-40, designer Georgy Semenovich Shpagin, was faced with the task of developing an extremely easy-to-use, reliable, technologically advanced, cheap-to-manufacture mass weapon. 
From its predecessor - PPD-40, PPSh inherited a drum magazine for 71 rounds. A little later, a simpler and more reliable sector carob magazine for 35 rounds was developed for him. The mass of equipped machine guns (both options) was 5.3 and 4.15 kg, respectively. The rate of fire of the PPSh-40 reached 900 rounds per minute with an aiming range of up to 300 meters and with the ability to conduct single fire.
To master the PPSh-40, several lessons were enough. It was easily disassembled into 5 parts, made using the stamping-welded technology, thanks to which, during the war years, the Soviet defense industry produced about 5.5 million machine guns.
In the summer of 1942, the young designer Alexei Sudaev presented his brainchild - a 7.62 mm submachine gun. It was strikingly different from its "older brothers" PPD and PPSh-40 in its rational layout, higher manufacturability and ease of manufacturing parts by arc welding. 
PPS-42 was 3.5 kg lighter and required three times less time to manufacture. However, despite the quite obvious advantages, he never became a mass weapon, leaving the palm of the PPSh-40.
By the beginning of the war, the DP-27 light machine gun (Degtyarev infantry, cal 7.62mm) had been in service with the Red Army for almost 15 years, having the status of the main light machine gun of infantry units. Its automation was driven by the energy of powder gases. The gas regulator reliably protected the mechanism from pollution and high temperatures.
The DP-27 could only conduct automatic fire, but even a beginner needed a few days to master shooting in short bursts of 3-5 shots. The ammunition load of 47 rounds was placed in a disk magazine with a bullet to the center in one row. The store itself was attached to the top of the receiver. The weight of the unloaded machine gun was 8.5 kg. Equipped store increased it by almost 3 kg.
It was a powerful weapon with an effective range of 1.5 km and a combat rate of fire up to 150 rounds per minute. In the combat position, the machine gun relied on the bipod. A flame arrester was screwed onto the end of the barrel, significantly reducing its unmasking effect. DP-27 was serviced by a gunner and his assistant. In total, about 800 thousand machine guns were fired.
Small arms of the Wehrmacht of World War II
Basic strategy german army- offensive or blitzkrieg (blitzkrieg - lightning war). The decisive role in it was assigned to large tank formations, carrying out deep penetrations of the enemy defenses in cooperation with artillery and aviation.
Tank units bypassed powerful fortified areas, destroying control centers and rear communications, without which the enemy would quickly lose combat capability. The defeat was completed by the motorized units of the ground forces.
Small arms of the infantry division of the Wehrmacht
The staff of the German infantry division of the 1940 model assumed the presence of 12609 rifles and carbines, 312 submachine guns (automatic machines), light and heavy machine guns - respectively 425 and 110 pieces, 90 anti-tank rifles and 3600 pistols.Small arms of the Wehrmacht as a whole met the high requirements of wartime. It was reliable, trouble-free, simple, easy to manufacture and maintain, which contributed to its mass production.
Rifles, carbines, machine guns
Mauser 98K
The Mauser 98K is an improved version of the Mauser 98 rifle, developed at the end of the 19th century by the brothers Paul and Wilhelm Mauser, the founders of the world famous arms company. Equipping the German army with it began in 1935. 
Mauser 98K
The weapon was equipped with a clip with five 7.92 mm cartridges. A trained soldier could accurately fire 15 times within a minute at a distance of up to 1.5 km. Mauser 98K was very compact. Its main characteristics: weight, length, barrel length - 4.1 kg x 1250 x 740 mm. The indisputable merits of the rifle are evidenced by numerous conflicts with its participation, longevity and a truly sky-high "circulation" - more than 15 million units.
Automatic MP-40 "Schmeisser"
Perhaps the most famous small arms of the Wehrmacht during World War II was the famous MP-40 submachine gun, a modification of its predecessor, the MP-36, created by Heinrich Volmer. However, by the will of fate, he is better known under the name "Schmeisser", received thanks to the stamp on the store - "PATENT SCHMEISSER". The stigma simply meant that, in addition to G. Volmer, Hugo Schmeisser also participated in the creation of the MP-40, but only as the creator of the store. 
Automatic MP-40 "Schmeisser"
Initially, the MP-40 was intended to arm the commanders of infantry units, but later it was handed over to tankers, armored vehicle drivers, paratroopers and special forces soldiers.
However, the MP-40 was absolutely not suitable for infantry units, since it was an exclusively melee weapon. In a fierce battle in the open, having a weapon with a range of 70 to 150 meters meant for a German soldier to be practically unarmed in front of his opponent, armed with Mosin and Tokarev rifles with a range of 400 to 800 meters.
Assault rifle StG-44
Assault rifle StG-44 (sturmgewehr) cal. 7.92mm is another legend of the Third Reich. This is certainly an outstanding creation of Hugo Schmeisser - the prototype of many post-war assault rifles and machine guns, including the famous AK-47. 
StG-44 could conduct single and automatic fire. Her weight with a full magazine was 5.22 kg. AT effective range- 800 meters - "Sturmgever" was in no way inferior to its main competitors. Three versions of the store were provided - for 15, 20 and 30 shots with a rate of up to 500 rounds per minute. The option of using a rifle with an underbarrel grenade launcher and an infrared sight was considered.
It was not without its shortcomings. The assault rifle was heavier than the Mauser-98K by a whole kilogram. Her wooden butt could not withstand sometimes hand-to-hand combat and simply broke. The flames escaping from the barrel gave away the location of the shooter, and the long magazine and sighting devices forced him to raise his head high in the prone position.
The 7.92mm MG-42 is quite rightly called one of the best machine guns World War II. It was developed at Grossfuss by engineers Werner Gruner and Kurt Horn. Those who experienced its firepower were very frank. Our soldiers called it "lawn mower", and the allies - "Hitler's circular saw."
Depending on the type of shutter, the machine gun accurately fired at a speed of up to 1500 rpm at a distance of up to 1 km. Ammunition was carried out using a machine-gun belt for 50 - 250 rounds. The uniqueness of the MG-42 was complemented by a relatively small number of parts - 200 and the high manufacturability of their production by stamping and spot welding.
The barrel, red-hot from firing, was replaced by a spare one in a few seconds using a special clamp. In total, about 450 thousand machine guns were fired. The unique technical developments embodied in the MG-42 were borrowed by gunsmiths in many countries of the world when creating their machine guns.
I I - period up to 1941
In December 1917 the Council people's commissars announced the demobilization of military factories, but by this time the production of ammunition in the country had practically ceased. By 1918, all the main stocks of weapons and ammunition left over from the world war were already exhausted. However, by the beginning of 1919, only the Tula Cartridge Plant remained operational. Lugansk patron in 1918 was initially captured by the Germans, then was occupied by the White Guard army of Krasnov.
For the newly created plant in Taganrog, the White Guards took from the Lugansk plant 4 machine tools from each development, 500 pounds of gunpowder, non-ferrous metals, and also part of the finished cartridges.
So Ataman Krasnov resumed production on RUSSIAN - BALTIC plant Rus.-Balt. share about-va shipbuilding and mechanical plants. (Founded in 1913 in Revel, in 1915 evacuated to Taganrog, in Soviet times the Taganrog Combine Plant.) and by November 1918, the productivity of this plant had increased to 300,000 rifle cartridges per day (Kakurin N E. "How the revolution fought")
“On January 3 (1919), the allies saw the Russian-Baltic plant in Taganrog already revived and put into operation, where they made shells, cast bullets, inserted them into cupronickel shells, poured cartridges with gunpowder - in a word, the plant was already in full swing. (Peter Nikolaevich Krasnov "The Great Don Army") In the Krasnodar Territory and in the Urals, cartridge cases are found marked D.Z.
Most likely, this marking denotes the "Don Plant" of Taganrog
Simbirsk, which was under construction, was under threat of capture. In the spring of 1918 The evacuation of the Petersburg Cartridge Plant to Simbirsk began. About 1,500 workers from Petrograd arrived in Simbirsk in July 1919 to set up the production of cartridges.
In 1919, the plant begins to produce products, and since 1922 the Ulyanovsk plant has been renamed the Volodarsky Plant.
In addition, the Soviet government is building a new cartridge factory in Podolsk. A part of the shell factory, located in the premises of the former Singer factory, was taken under it. The remnants of equipment from Petrograd were sent there. Since the autumn of 1919, the Podolsk plant began to remake foreign cartridges, and in November 1920 the first batch of rifle cartridges was produced.
From 1924 engaged in the production of cartridges State association"Main Directorate of the Military Industry of the USSR", which includes Tula, Lugansk, Podolsk, Ulyanovsk factories.
Since 1928, cartridge factories, in addition to Tula, received numbers: Ulyanovsk - 3, Podolsk - 17, Lugansk - 60. (But Ulyanovsk retained its ZV marking until 1941)
Since 1934, new workshops have been built south of Podolsk. Soon they began to be called the Novopodolsky plant, and since 1940 the Klimovsky plant No. 188.
In 1939 cartridge factories were reassigned to the 3rd Main Directorate of the People's Commissariat of Armaments. It included the following plants: Ulyanovsk No. 3, Podolsky No. 17, Tula No. 38, Experienced Patr. plant (Maryina. Grove, Moscow) No. 44, Kuntsevsky (Red Equipment) No. 46, Lugansky No. 60 and Klimovsky No. 188.
The markings of Soviet-made cartridges remain mostly with a protruding imprint.
At the top - the number or name of the plant, at the bottom - the year of manufacture.
At the cartridges of the Tula plant in 1919-20. a quarter is indicated, possibly in 1923-24. only the last digit of the year of issue is indicated, and the Lugansk plant in 1920-1927. indicates the period (1,2,3) in which they were produced. The Ulyanovsk plant in 1919-30 puts the name of the plant (C, U, ZV) at the bottom.
In 1930, the spherical bottom part of the sleeve was replaced by a flat one with a chamfer. The replacement was caused by problems that arose when firing from the Maxim machine gun. The protruding marking is located along the edge of the bottom of the sleeve. And only in the 1970s, the sleeves began to be marked with an extruded impression on a flat surface closer to the center.
Marking |
Start marking |
End of marking |
||
Klimovsky plant |
||||
Kuntsevsky plant |
Produced cartridges for ShKAS and with special bullets T-46, ZB-46 |
*Note. The table is not complete, there may be other options
Cases of the Lugansk factory with additional designations + are very rare. Most likely, these are technological designations and the cartridges were intended only for test firing.
There is an opinion that in 1928-1936 the Penza plant produced cartridges marked No. 50, but it is more likely that this is an indistinct mark No. 60
Perhaps, at the end of the thirties, cartridges or shells were produced at the Moscow “Shot-Foundry Plant” No. 58, which then produced tail cartridges for mortar mines.
In 1940-41 in Novosibirsk, plant No. 179 NKB (People's Commissariat of Ammunition) produced rifle cartridges.
The cartridge case for the ShKAS machine gun, unlike an ordinary rifle cartridge case, has, in addition to the factory number and year of manufacture, an additional stamp - the letter "Sh".
Cartridges with a ShKAS sleeve, having a red primer, were used for firing only from synchronous air machine guns.
R. Chumak K. Solovyov Cartridges for a super-machine gun Magazine "Kalashnikov" No. 1 2001
Notes:
Finland, which used the Mosin rifle, produced, and also purchased in the USA and other countries, 7.62x54 cartridges, which are found on the battlefields of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939 and the Second World War. Probably, cartridges of pre-revolutionary Russian production were also used.
Suomen Ampuma Tarvetehdas OY (SAT) , Riihimaki, Finland(1922-26) |
|
In the 1920s and 30s, the United States used Mosin rifles left over from the Russian order for training purposes and sold them for private use, releasing cartridges for this. Deliveries were made to Finland in 1940
(UMC- Union Metallic Cartridge Co. affiliatedtoRemington Co.) |
|
WinchesterRepeating Arms Co., Bridgeport, CT |
|
During World War I, Germany used the captured Mosin rifle to arm auxiliary and rear units.
It is possible that, initially, German cartridges were produced without marking, but there will probably be no reliable information about this. |
|
Deutsche Waffen-u. Munitionsfabriken A.-G., Fruher Lorenz , Karlsruhe, Germany |
Spain during the civil war received a large number of various, mostly obsolete, weapons from the USSR. Including the Mosin rifle. The production of cartridges was established. It is possible that at first Soviet-made cartridge cases were used, which were reloaded and new markings were applied to them.
Fabrica Nacional de Toledo. Spain |
The English company Kynoch supplied cartridges to Finland and Estonia. According to the data providedGOST of "P.labbett &F.A.brown.foreignrifle-caliberammunition manufactured in Britain.London, 1994., "Kynoch signed contracts for the supply of 7.62x54 cartridges:
1929 Estonia (with tracer)
1932 Estonia (with a heavy bullet weighing 12.12 gr.)
1938 Estonia (with tracer)
1929 Finland (with tracer, armor-piercing bullet)
1939 Finland (with tracer)
The 7.62x54 cartridge was produced in the 20-40s and in other countries for commercial purposes:
ARS-it is unlikely that thisA. RSAtelierdeConstuctiondeRennes, Rennes, France, since the cartridges of this company areRS, most likely equipped in Estonia with the participation of Finland |
|
FNC- (Fabrica Nacional de Cartuchos, Santa Fe), Mexico |
|
FN-(Fabrique Nationale d "Armes de Guerre, Herstal) Belgium, |
|
Pumitra Voina Anonima, Romania |
It is possible that some of the foreign ammunition listed above could have ended up in Soviet warehouses in small quantities as a result of the annexation of the western territories and the Finnish War, and were most likely used by units of the "people's militia" in the initial period of the Second World War. Also, now often found in archaeological studies of the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War in Soviet positions, shells and cartridges made in the USA and England commissioned by Russia for World War 1. The order was not completed in full on time, and already during the years of the civil war it was supplied to the White Army. After the end of the civil war, the remnants of these ammunition settled in warehouses, they were probably used by security units and OSOAVIAKHIM, but they turned out to be in demand with the beginning of the Second World War.
Sometimes there are cases of 7.7mm English rifle cartridges (.303 British) on the battlefields, which are mistaken for 7.62x54R ammunition. These cartridges were used, in particular, by the armies of the Baltic states and in 1940 were used for the Red Army. Near Leningrad, such cartridges are found with the marking of the V-Riga plant "Vairogs" (VAIROGS, formerly Sellier & Bellot)
.
Later, such cartridges of English and Canadian production came under Lend-Lease.
I I I - period 1942-1945
In 1941, all factories, except for Ulyanovsk, were partially or completely evacuated, and the old factory numbers were kept in the new location. For example, the Barnaul plant, transported from Podolsk, produced its first products on November 24, 1941. Some plants were re-created. The numbering of all cartridge productions is given, since there is no exact data on the range of their products.
Marking with |
Factory location |
Marking with |
Factory location |
New Lyalya |
|||
Sverdlovsk |
Chelyabinsk |
||
Novosibirsk |
According to B. Davydov, during the war years, rifle cartridges were produced at factories 17 ,38 (1943), 44 (1941-42),46 ,60 ,179 (1940-41),188 ,304 (1942),529 ,539 (1942-43),540 ,541 (1942-43), 543 ,544 ,545 ,710 (1942-43),711 (1942).
During the restoration in 1942-1944, the plants received new designations.
This brand is probably the products manufactured by the Podolsk plant during the period of its resumption of work.
There may be other designations. For example, No. 10 in 1944 (found on TT cartridges), but the location of production is unknown, perhaps it is the Perm plant or the poorly readable stamp of the Podolsk plant.
Since 1944, the designation of the month of issue of the cartridge is possible.
For example, the training cartridge of 1946 has such a marking.
IV - Post-war period
In the postwar years in the USSR, factories in Klimovsk-No. 711, Tula-No. 539, Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk)-No. 270, Ulyanovsk-No. 3, Yuryuzan-No. 38, Novosibirsk-No. 188, Barnaul-No. 17 and Frunze remained in cartridge production -#60.
The markings on rifle cartridges from this production period remain mostly with a raised impression. At the top - the plant number, at the bottom - the year of manufacture.
In 1952-1956, the following designations are used to designate the year of issue:
D = 1952, D = 1953, E = 1954, I = 1955, K = 1956.
After the Second World War, the 7.62 caliber cartridge was also produced in the Warsaw Pact countries, China, Iraq and Egypt, and other countries .. Designation options are possible
Czechoslovakia |
aimbxnzv |
Bulgaria |
|
Hungary |
|
Poland |
|
Yugoslavia |
P P U |
31 51 61 71 321 671 |
|
|
|
This cartridge is still being produced at Russian factories in combat and hunting performance.
Modern names and some of the variants of commercial markings on Russian cartridges since 1990
The designs, characteristics of various bullets for cartridges of 7.62 caliber are quite well represented in modern weapons literature and therefore only the color designations of bullets are given according to the “Handbook of Cartridges ...” 1946.
Light bullet L arr. 1908 |
|
Heavy bullet D arr. 1930, the tip is painted yellow for a length of 5 mm |
|
Armor-piercing bullet B-30 arr. 1930 |
|
Armor-piercing incendiary bullet B-32 arr. 1932 tip painted 5 mm long black with a red border stripe |
|
Sighting and incendiary bullet PZ model 1935 the tip is painted red for a length of 5 mm |
|
Tracer bullet T-30 arr. 1930 and T-46 mod. 1938 the tip is painted 5 mm green. |
Most of the above information was provided by the director of the local history museum of the Lomonosovsky district of the Leningrad region
Vladimir Andreevich Golovatyuk
, who has been dealing with the history of small arms and ammunition for many years.
The museum has collected a lot of materials and exhibits on the history of the region, military operations on the territory of the region during the Second World War. Excursions are regularly held for schoolchildren and all comers.
T
museum telephone 8 812 423 05 66
In addition, I give the information I have on rifle cartridges from an earlier period:
Cartridge to Krnk rifle, Baranova
Produced at the St. Petersburg plant (and some workshops without designations)
Probably L is the name of the St. Petersburg Foundry Workshop.
Probably VGO - Vasileostrovsky cartridge case department of the St. Petersburg cartridge factory.
The designation of the third of the year of manufacture appears
Petersburg plant
Unfortunately, I do not have information on designations before 1880, most likely the letter V denotes the Vasileostrovsky cartridge case department of the St. Petersburg cartridge factory, and the upper mark is the name of the brass manufacturer.
Manufactured by Keller & Co., Hirtenberg Austria, probably commissioned by Bulgaria for the Serbian-Bulgarian war.
In the first weeks of the war, the fronts suffered significant losses and losses accumulated in the troops of the border military districts in the prewar years. Most of the artillery factories and munitions factories were evacuated from the threatened areas to the east.
The supply of arms and ammunition by military factories in the south of the country has ceased. All this significantly complicated the production of weapons and ammunition and the provision of them to the army and new military formations. Shortcomings in the work of the Main Artillery Directorate also had a negative effect on the supply of troops with weapons and ammunition. The GAU did not always know exactly the state of security of the troops of the fronts, since strict accountability for this service was not established before the war. The report card for urgent reports on ammunition was introduced at the end of ., and on weapons - in April
Soon changes were made to the organization of the Main Artillery Directorate. In July 1941, the Directorate for the Supply of Ground Artillery Weapons was formed, and on September 20 of the same year, the post of chief of artillery of the Soviet Army was restored with the GAU subordinate to him. The head of the GAU became the first deputy head of artillery of the Soviet Army. The adopted structure of the GAU did not change throughout the war and fully justified itself. With the introduction of the post of Chief of Logistics of the Soviet Army, close cooperation was established between the GAU, the headquarters of the Chief of Logistics of the Soviet Army and the Central Directorate of Military Communications.
The heroic labor of the working class, scientists, engineers and technicians at the military enterprises of the central and eastern regions of the country, the firm and skillful leadership of the Communist Party and its Central Committee, local party organizations in restructuring the entire national economy on a war footing allowed the Soviet military industry to produce in the second half of 1941 30.2 thousand guns, including 9.9 thousand 76 mm and larger calibers, 42.3 thousand mortars (of which 19.1 thousand 82 mm caliber and larger), 106.2 thousand machine guns , 89.7 thousand machine guns, 1.6 million rifles and carbines and 62.9 million shells, bombs and mines 215. But since these deliveries of weapons and ammunition only partially covered the losses of 1941, the situation with the provision of troops Army weapons and ammunition continued to be tense. It took a huge effort of the military industry, the work of the central organs of the rear, the artillery supply service of the GAU in order to satisfy the needs of the fronts in weapons, and especially in ammunition.
During the defensive battle near Moscow, due to the current production, which was continuously growing in the eastern regions of the country, first of all, it was provided with weapons for the reserve associations of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command - the 1st shock, 20th and 10th armies, formed in the depths of the country and transferred to the beginning of the counteroffensive near Moscow as part of the Western Front. Due to the current production of weapons, the needs of the troops and other fronts participating in the defensive battle and counteroffensive near Moscow were also met.
During this difficult period for our country, Moscow factories performed a great deal of work on the manufacture of various types of weapons. As a result, by December 1941, the number of armaments on the Western Front increased from 50-80 to 370-640 percent in terms of its individual types. A significant increase in armament was also in the troops of other fronts.
During the counter-offensive near Moscow, a mass repair of out-of-service weapons and military equipment was organized in military repair shops, at enterprises in Moscow and the Moscow region. Nevertheless, the situation with the provision of troops during this period was so difficult that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin personally distributed anti-tank rifles, machine guns, anti-tank 76-mm regimental and divisional guns between the fronts.
With the entry into operation of military factories, especially in the Urals, in Western and Eastern Siberia, in Kazakhstan, already in the second quarter of 1942, the supply of troops with weapons and ammunition began to noticeably improve. In 1942, the military industry supplied the front with tens of thousands of guns of 76 mm and larger caliber, over 100,000 mortars (82-120 mm), many millions of shells and mines.
In 1942, the main and most difficult task was to provide for the troops of the fronts operating in the Stalingrad region, in the large bend of the Don and in the Caucasus.
The consumption of ammunition in the defensive battle near Stalingrad was very high. So, for example, from July 12 to November 18, 1942, the troops of the Don, Stalingrad and South-Western fronts spent: 7,610 thousand shells and mines, including about 5 million shells and mines by the troops of the Stalingrad Front 216.
Due to the huge workload of the railways with operational transportation, the transports with ammunition moved slowly and were unloaded at the stations of the front-line railway section (Elton, Dzhanybek, Kaisatskaya, Krasny Kut). In order to deliver ammunition to the troops faster, the Stalingrad Front Artillery Supply Directorate was assigned two automobile battalions, which managed to transport over 500 wagons of ammunition in an extremely limited time frame.
The provision of weapons and ammunition to the troops of the Stalingrad Front was complicated by the enemy's continuous bombardment of crossings across the Volga. As a result of enemy air raids and shelling, the artillery depots of the front and armies were often forced to change their location. The trains were unloaded only at night. In order to disperse supply railway trains Ammunition was sent to army depots and their departments located near the railway, in flying cars, 5-10 wagons each, and then to the troops in small automobile columns (10-12 cars each), which usually followed different routes. This method of transportation ensured the safety of ammunition, but at the same time lengthened the time for their delivery to the troops.
The supply of weapons and ammunition to the troops of other fronts operating in the Volga and Don region during this period was less complicated and laborious. During the period of the defensive battle near Stalingrad, all three fronts received 5,388 wagons of ammunition, 123,000 rifles and machine guns, 53,000 machine guns, and 8,000 guns.
Along with the current supply of troops, the rear services of the center, fronts and armies during the defensive battle near Stalingrad carried out the accumulation of weapons and ammunition. As a result of the work done, by the beginning of the counteroffensive, the troops were mainly provided with ammunition (Table 19).
Table 19
Provision of troops of three fronts with ammunition (in ammunition) as of November 19, 1942 218
| Ammunition | Front | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Stalingrad | Donskoy | Southwestern | |
| Rifle cartridges | 3,0 | 1,8 | 3,2 |
| Cartridges for pistols | 2,4 | 2,5 | 1,3 |
| Cartridges for anti-tank rifles | 1,2 | 1,5 | 1,6 |
| Hand and anti-tank grenades | 1,0 | 1,5 | 2,9 |
| 50mm mines | 1,3 | 1,4 | 2,4 |
| 82 mm mines | 1,5 | 0,7 | 2,4 |
| 120 mm mines | 1,2 | 1,3 | 2,7 |
| Shots: | |||
| 45 mm cannon | 2,9 | 2,9 | 4,9 |
| 76 mm cannon regimental artillery | 2,1 | 1,4 | 3,3 |
| 76-mm cannon divisional artillery | 1,8 | 2,8 | 4,0 |
| 122 mm howitzer | 1,7 | 0,9 | 3,3 |
| 122 mm cannon | 0,4 | 2,2 | — |
| 152 mm howitzer | 1,2 | 7,2 | 5,7 |
| 152 mm howitzer-cannon | 1,1 | 3,5 | 3,6 |
| 203 mm howitzer | — | — | — |
| 37 mm anti-aircraft | 2,4 | 3,2 | 5,1 |
| 76 mm anti-aircraft | — | 5,1 | 4,5 |
| 85 mm anti-aircraft | — | 3,0 | 4,2 |
A great deal of work to provide the troops with ammunition during this period was done by the heads of the artillery supply services of the fronts: Stalingrad - Colonel A. I. Markov, Donskoy - Colonel N. M. Bocharov, South-West - Colonel S. G. Algasov, as well as a special group of GAU led by the deputy head of the GAU, Lieutenant General of Artillery K. R. Myshkov, who died on August 10, 1942 during an enemy air raid on Stalingrad.
Simultaneously with the fighting that unfolded on the banks of the Volga and in the steppes of the Don, the battle for the Caucasus began in a vast area from the Black Sea to the Caspian. Supplying the troops of the Transcaucasian Front (Northern and Black Sea groups) with weapons and ammunition was an even more difficult problem than at Stalingrad. The supply of weapons and ammunition was carried out in a roundabout way, that is, from the Urals and from Siberia through Tashkent, Krasnovodsk, Baku. Separate transports went through Astrakhan, Baku or Makhachkala. A long route for transports with ammunition (5170-5370 km) and the need for repeated transshipment of goods from rail to water transport and vice versa, or from rail to road and mountain pack, greatly increased the time for their delivery to front-line and army warehouses. For example, transport No. 83/0418, sent on September 1, 1942 from the Urals to the Transcaucasian Front, arrived at its destination only on December 1. Transport No. 83/0334 traveled from Eastern Siberia to Transcaucasia, equal to 7027 km. But, despite such huge distances, transports with ammunition regularly went to the Caucasus. During the six months of hostilities, the Transcaucasian (North Caucasian) Front received about 2,000 wagons of ammunition 219.
It was very difficult to deliver ammunition from the front and army warehouses to the troops defending the mountain passes and passes of the Caucasus Range. The main means of transportation here were army and military pack companies. In the 20th Guards Rifle Division, which was defending the Belorechensk direction, shells were delivered from Sukhumi to Sochi by sea, then to the divisional warehouse - by road, and to regimental combat nutrition points - by pack transport. For the 394th Rifle Division, ammunition was delivered by U-2 aircraft from the Sukhumi airfield. Ammunition was delivered in this way for almost all divisions of the 46th Army.
The working people of Transcaucasia rendered great help to the front. Up to 30 mechanical factories and workshops in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia were involved in the manufacture of cases of hand grenades, mines and shells of medium caliber. From October 1, 1942 to March 1, 1943, they manufactured 1.3 million cases of hand grenades, 1 million mines and 226 thousand cases of shells. The local industry of Transcaucasia manufactured in 1942 4294 50-mm mortars, 688 82-mm mortars, 46,492 machine guns 220.
The working class of besieged Leningrad worked heroically. Delivery of weapons and ammunition to the besieged city was extremely difficult, so the production of them on the spot was often of decisive importance. From September until the end of 1941 alone, the industry of the city gave the front 12,085 machine guns and signal pistols, 7,682 mortars, 2,298 artillery pieces and 41 rocket launchers. In addition, Leningraders produced 3.2 million shells and mines, over 5 million hand grenades.
Leningrad supplied weapons to other fronts as well. In the difficult days of November 1941, when the enemy was rushing towards Moscow, by decision of the Military Council of the Leningrad Front, 926 mortars and 431 76-mm regimental guns were sent to Moscow. Disassembled guns were loaded onto aircraft and sent to the Cherepovets station, where an artillery shop was equipped to assemble them. Then the assembled weapons were loaded onto platforms and delivered by rail to Moscow. In the same period, Leningrad sent 39,700 76-mm armor-piercing shells to Moscow by air.
Despite the difficulties of the first period of the war, our industry steadily increased output from month to month. In 1942, the GAU received from military factories 125.6 thousand mortars (82-120 mm), 33.1 thousand guns of 76 mm caliber and larger without tank guns, 127.4 million shells without aircraft and mines 221, 2,069 thousand rockets 222. This made it possible to fully compensate for the combat losses of weapons and the consumption of ammunition.
Providing the troops of the army with weapons and ammunition remained difficult even in the second period of the war, which was marked by the beginning of a powerful counteroffensive. Soviet troops near Stalingrad. By the beginning of the counteroffensive, the Southwestern, Don and Stalingrad fronts had 30.4 thousand guns and mortars, including 16,755 units of caliber 76 mm and above 223, about 6 million shells and mines, 380 million cartridges for small arms and 1.2 million hand grenades. The supply of ammunition from the central bases and warehouses of the GAU for the entire time of the counteroffensive and liquidation of the encircled enemy grouping was carried out continuously. From November 19, 1942 to January 1, 1943, the Stalingrad Front received 1,095 wagons of ammunition, the Don Front (from November 16, 1942 to February 2, 1943) - 1,460 wagons, the South-West (from November 19, 1942 to January 1, 1942) - 1090 cars and the Voronezh Front (from December 15, 1942 to January 1, 1943) - 278 cars. In total, four fronts for the period November 1942 - January 1943 received 3923 carloads of ammunition.
The total consumption of ammunition in the battle for Stalingrad, starting from July 12, 1942, reached 9539 wagons 224 and had no equal in the history of previous wars. It amounted to a third of the ammunition consumption of the entire Russian army during the four years of the First World War and twice the consumption of ammunition by both belligerents near Verdun.
A huge amount of weapons and ammunition had to be supplied during the second period of the war to the Transcaucasian and North Caucasian fronts, which liberated the North Caucasus from Nazi troops.
Thanks to the effective measures of the Communist Party, the Soviet government, the State Defense Committee, local party and Soviet bodies, and the heroic labor of the working class, the production of weapons and ammunition increased significantly in 1942. This made it possible to increase their supply to the troops. The increase in the number of weapons in the troops of the fronts at the beginning of 1943 compared with 1942 is shown in Table. 20 225.
Table 20
The hostilities that unfolded in 1943 posed new, even more complex tasks for the artillery supply service of the Soviet Army in the timely accumulation and current supply of front troops with weapons and ammunition.
The volume of deliveries of weapons and ammunition especially increased during the preparations for the Battle of Kursk. In the period March - July 1943, more than half a million rifles and machine guns, 31.6 thousand light and heavy machine guns, 520 heavy machine guns, 21.8 thousand anti-tank rifles, 12,326 guns and mortars were sent to the fronts from the central bases and warehouses of the GAU , or a total of 3100 weapons wagons 226.
In preparation for the Battle of Kursk, the artillery supply authorities of the center, fronts and armies already had some experience in planning to provide the troops of the army with weapons and ammunition. It was carried out in the following way. Every month, the General Staff issued a directive, which indicated which front, in which queue, how much ammunition (in ammunition) and by what date should be sent. On the basis of these instructions, the report cards of the fronts and their applications, the GAU planned to send ammunition to the troops of the active army, based on their availability at the NPO bases and warehouses, production capabilities within a month, security and needs of the fronts. When the GAU did not have the necessary resources, it, in agreement with the General Staff, made adjustments to the established volume of ammunition supply. The plan was considered and signed by Colonel-General, Commander of Artillery of the Soviet Army, then Chief Marshal of Artillery N.N.
On the basis of this plan, the organizational and planning department of the GAU (headed by General P.P. Volkotrubenko) reported data on the release and dispatch of ammunition to the fronts and gave orders to the Ammunition Supply Department. The latter, together with the TsUPVOSO, planned the dispatch of transports on terms in the range of five days and informed the fronts of the transport numbers, places and dates of their dispatch. As a rule, the dispatch of transports with ammunition to the fronts began on the 5th and ended on the 25th of each month. This method of planning and sending ammunition to the fronts from the central bases and warehouses of the NPO was preserved until the end of the war.
By the beginning of the Battle of Kursk (July 1, 1943), the Central and Voronezh Fronts had 21,686 guns and mortars (without 50-mm mortars), 518 rocket artillery installations, 3,489 tanks and 227 self-propelled guns.
A large number of weapons in the troops of the fronts operating on the Kursk Bulge, and the intensity of hostilities in the planned offensive operations, required an increase in the supply of ammunition to them. During April-June 1943, over 4.2 million shells and mines, about 300 million small arms ammunition and almost 2 million hand grenades (over 4 thousand wagons) were delivered to the Central, Voronezh and Bryansk fronts. By the beginning of the defensive battle, the fronts were provided with: 76-mm rounds - 2.7-4.3 ammunition; 122-mm howitzer shots - 2.4-3.4; 120 mm mines - 2.4-4; large-caliber ammunition - 3-5 rounds of ammunition 228. In addition, during the Battle of Kursk, 4781 wagons (over 119 full-weight trains) of various types of ammunition were supplied to these fronts from central bases and warehouses. Their average daily supply to the Central Front was 51 wagons, to Voronezh - 72 wagons and to Bryansk - 31 wagons 229.
The consumption of ammunition in the Battle of Kursk was especially high. Only during the period of July 5-12, 1943, the troops of the Central Front, repelling the fierce tank attacks of the enemy, used up 1083 wagons of ammunition (135 wagons per day). The main part falls on the 13th Army, which used up 817 wagons of ammunition in eight days, or 100 wagons per day. In just 50 days of the Battle of Kursk, the three fronts used up about 10,640 wagons of ammunition (excluding rockets), including 733 wagons of cartridges for small arms, 70 wagons of ammunition for anti-tank rifles, 234 wagons of hand grenades, 3369 wagons of mines, 276 wagons of anti-aircraft artillery rounds and 5950 wagons of ground artillery rounds 230.
Artillery supply in the Battle of Kursk was led by the chiefs of the artillery supply service of the fronts: Central - Colonel V. I. Shebanin, Voronezh - Colonel T. M. Moskalenko, Bryansk - Colonel M. V. Kuznetsov.
In the third period of the war, the supply of front troops with weapons and ammunition improved significantly. Already by the beginning of this period, the Soviet military industry could supply them to the troops of the army in the field and new military formations of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. At the bases and warehouses of the GAU, significant stocks of guns, mortars, and especially small arms were created. In this regard, in 1944, the production of small arms and ground artillery guns was somewhat reduced. If in 1943 the military industry supplied the Soviet Army with 130.3 thousand guns, then in 1944 - 122.5 thousand. The deliveries of rocket launchers also decreased (from 3330 in 1943 to 2564 in 1944). Due to this, the production of tanks and self-propelled guns continued to grow (29 thousand in 1944 against 24 thousand in 1943).
At the same time, the supply of ammunition to the troops of the active army continued to be tight, especially with shells of 122 mm and higher caliber, due to their high consumption. The total stocks of these munitions decreased: for 122-mm rounds - by 670 thousand, for 152-mm shells - by 1.2 million and for 203-mm shells - by 172 thousand 231
The Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the State Defense Committee, having considered the situation with the production of extremely scarce shells on the eve of decisive offensive operations, set the military industry the task of radically revising production programs for 1944 in the direction of a sharp increase in the production of all types of ammunition, and especially scarce ones.
By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the State Defense Committee, the production of ammunition in 1944 was significantly increased compared to 1943: especially 122-mm and 152-mm shells, 76-mm - by 3,064 thousand (9 percent), M-13 - by 385.5 thousand (19 percent) and M-31 shells - by 15.2 thousand (4 percent) 232. This made it possible to provide the troops of the fronts with all types of ammunition in offensive operations of the third period of the war.
On the eve of the Korsun-Shevchenko offensive operation, the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian fronts had about 50 thousand guns and mortars, 2 million rifles and machine guns, 10 thousand machine guns 233, 12.2 million shells and mines, 700 million ammunition to small arms and 5 million hand grenades, which amounted to 1-2 front-line ammunition. During the operation, these fronts were supplied with more than 1,300 wagons of all types of ammunition 234. There were no interruptions in their supply. However, due to the early spring thaw on military roads and military supply routes, the movement of road transport became impossible, and the fronts began to experience great difficulties in transporting ammunition to the troops and to artillery firing positions. Tractors had to be used, and in some cases soldiers and the local population had to be brought in on impassable sections of the road to bring shells, cartridges, and grenades. Transport aircraft were also used to deliver ammunition to the front line.
To provide ammunition for tank formations of the 1st Ukrainian Front, advancing in the operational depth of the enemy’s defense, Po-2 aircraft were used. On February 7 and 8, 1944, from the Fursy airfield, they delivered 4.5 million rounds of ammunition, 5.5 thousand hand grenades, 15 thousand 82- and 120-mm mines and 10 thousand 76- and 122 mm shells. Every day, 80-85 aircraft delivered ammunition to tank units, making three to four flights a day. In total, more than 400 tons of ammunition were delivered by planes to the advancing troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front.
Despite the great difficulties with the supply, the units, units and formations participating in the Korsun-Shevchenko operation were fully provided with ammunition. In addition, their consumption in this operation was relatively small. In total, the troops of the two fronts used up only about 5.6 million rounds, including 400 thousand anti-aircraft artillery shells, 2.6 million ground artillery shells and 2.56 million mines.
The provision of troops with ammunition and weapons was led by the chiefs of the artillery supply of the fronts: the 1st Ukrainian - Major General of Artillery N. E. Manzhurin, the 2nd Ukrainian - Major General of Artillery P. A. Rozhkov.
A huge amount of weapons and ammunition was required during the preparation and conduct of the Belarusian offensive operation, one of the largest strategic operations of the Great Patriotic War. For full armament of the troops of the 1st Baltic, 3rd, 2nd and 1st Belarusian fronts, who took part in it, in May - July 1944, it was filed: 6370 guns and mortars, over 10 thousand machine guns and 260 thousand rifles and machine guns 236. By the beginning of the operation, the fronts had 2-2.5 ammunition for small arms, 2.5-5 rounds of mines, 2.5-4 rounds of anti-aircraft rounds, 3-4 rounds of 76-mm rounds, 2.5-5.3 rounds of 122-mm howitzer rounds, 3.0-8.3 rounds of 152- mm shells.
Never before has there been such a high supply of ammunition for the troops of the fronts in any of the earlier offensive operations on a strategic scale. For the shipment of weapons and ammunition to the fronts, the bases, warehouses and arsenals of the NGOs worked with maximum load. The personnel of all units of the rear, the workers of the railway transport did everything in their power to deliver weapons and ammunition to the troops in a timely manner.
However, during the Belarusian operation, due to the rapid separation of troops from the bases, as well as due to the insufficiently high rates of restoration of railway communications badly destroyed by the enemy, the supply of fronts with ammunition was often complicated. Road transport worked with great tension, but alone could not cope with the huge volume of supplies in the operational and military rear.
Even the relatively frequent advance of the head sections of the front and army artillery depots did not solve the problem of the timely delivery of ammunition to the troops advancing in the wooded and swampy terrain, in off-road conditions. The dispersion of ammunition stocks along the front line and in depth also had a negative effect. For example, on August 1, 1944, two warehouses of the 5th Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front were located at six points at a distance of 60 to 650 km from the front line. A similar situation was in a number of armies of the 2nd and 1st Belorussian fronts. The advancing units and formations could not lift all the stocks of ammunition accumulated in them during the preparation of the operation. The military councils of the fronts and armies were forced to allocate a large number of vehicles to collect and deliver to the troops the ammunition remaining in the rear. For example, the Military Council of the 3rd Belorussian Front allocated 150 vehicles for this purpose, and the head of logistics of the 50th Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front - 60 vehicles and a working company of 120 people. On the 2nd Belorussian Front in the areas of Krichev and Mogilev, by the end of July 1944, ammunition stocks were at 85 points, and at the initial positions of the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front - at 100. The command was forced to transfer them by planes 237. Leaving ammunition at the initial frontiers, firing positions of artillery and in the way of advancement of units and formations led to the fact that the troops began to experience a shortage of them, although there was a sufficient amount of ammunition registered in the fronts and armies.
The total consumption of ammunition of all calibers during the Belarusian strategic offensive operation was significant. But if we proceed from the large availability of weapons, then it was generally relatively small. During the operation, 270 million (460 wagons) ammunition for small arms, 2,832,000 (1,700 wagons) mines, 478,000 (115 wagons) rounds of anti-aircraft artillery, about 3,434.6 thousand (3,656 wagons) shots of ground artillery 238.
The supply of troops with ammunition during the Belarusian offensive operation was led by the chiefs of the artillery supply of the fronts: 1st Baltic - Major General of Artillery A.P. Baikov, 3rd Belorussian - Major General of Engineering and Technical Service A.S. Volkov, 2nd Belorussian - Colonel-Engineer E. N. Ivanov and the 1st Belorussian - Major General of the Engineering and Technical Service V. I. Shebanin.
The consumption of ammunition in the Lvov-Sandomierz and Brest-Lublin offensive operations was also significant. During July and August, the 1st Ukrainian Front used up 4,706 wagons of ammunition, and the 1st Belorussian Front - 2,372 wagons of ammunition. As in the Belorussian operation, the supply of ammunition was fraught with serious difficulties due to the high pace of the advance of the troops and their large separation from the artillery depots of the fronts and armies, poor road conditions and the large volume of supply that fell on the shoulders of road transport.
A similar situation developed in the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts that participated in the Iasi-Kishinev operation. Before the start of the offensive, from two to three rounds of ammunition were concentrated directly in the troops. But in the course of breaking through the enemy defenses, they were not completely used up. The troops advanced quickly and took with them only the ammunition that their motor transport could lift. A significant amount of ammunition remained in divisional warehouses on the right and left banks of the Dniester. Due to the great length of the military routes, their supply stopped after two days, and five to six days after the start of the offensive, the troops began to experience a great need for ammunition, despite their small consumption. After the resolute intervention of the military councils and rear services of the fronts, all vehicles were mobilized, and the situation was soon rectified. This made it possible to successfully complete the Iasi-Kishinev operation.
During the offensive operations of 1945, there were no particular difficulties in providing the troops with weapons and ammunition. The total stocks of ammunition as of January 1, 1945, as compared to 1944, increased: by 54 percent for mines, by 35 percent for anti-aircraft artillery shots, and by 11 percent for ground artillery shots. Nazi Germany not only fully provided for the needs of the troops of the army in the field, but also managed to create additional stocks of ammunition at the front and army warehouses of the 1st and 2nd Far Eastern and Transbaikal fronts.
The beginning of 1945 was marked by two major offensive operations - East Prussian and Vistula-Oder. During the period of their training, the troops were fully provided with weapons and ammunition. There were no serious difficulties in transporting them during operations due to the presence of a well-developed network of railways and highways.
The East Prussian operation, which lasted about three months, was distinguished by the largest consumption of ammunition in the entire Great Patriotic War. During its course, the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Fronts used up 15,038 wagons of ammunition (5382 wagons in the Vistula-Oder operation).
After the successful completion of the Vistula-Oder offensive operation, our troops reached the line of the river. Oder (Odra) and began to prepare for the assault on the main citadel of Nazism - Berlin. In terms of the degree of equipment of the troops of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts with military equipment and weapons, the Berlin offensive operation surpasses all offensive operations Great Patriotic War. The Soviet rear and the Rear of the Armed Forces proper provided the troops well with everything necessary for inflicting the last crushing blow on Nazi Germany. In preparation for the operation, over 2,000 guns and mortars, almost 11 million shells and mines, over 292.3 million rounds of ammunition and about 1.5 million hand grenades were sent to the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts. By the beginning of the operation, they had over 2 million rifles and machine guns, over 76 thousand machine guns and 48 thousand guns and mortars. 240 During the Berlin operation (from April 16 to May 8), 1945, 7.2 million (5924 wagons) of shells and mines, which (taking into account stocks) fully provided for the consumption and made it possible to create the necessary reserve of them by the end of the operation.
In the final operation of the Great Patriotic War, more than 10 million shells and mines, 392 million cartridges and almost 3 million hand grenades were used up - a total of 9,715 wagons of ammunition. In addition, 241.7 thousand (1920 wagons) of 241 rockets were used up. During preparation and during the operation, ammunition was transported along the Allied and Western European gauge railways, and from here to the troops - by front-line and army vehicles. At the junctions of railways of the Allied and Western European gauges, the transshipment of ammunition was widely practiced in the areas of specially created transshipment bases. It was quite laborious and difficult work.
In general, the supply of ammunition to the troops of the fronts in 1945 significantly exceeded the level of previous years of the Great Patriotic War. If in the fourth quarter of 1944 31,736 wagons of ammunition (793 trains) arrived at the fronts, then in four months of 1945 - 44,041 wagons (1,101 trains). To this figure, we must add the supply of ammunition to the country's air defense forces, as well as parts of the marine corps. Taking into account its total number of ammunition sent from the central bases and warehouses to the troops of the army in the four months of 1945, amounted to 1327 trains 242.
The domestic military industry and the rear services of the Soviet Army successfully coped with the task of supplying the troops of the fronts and new formations with weapons and ammunition in the past war.
The active army used up more than 10 million tons of ammunition during the war. As you know, the military industry supplied individual elements of shots to artillery bases. In total, about 500 thousand wagons of these elements were delivered during the war, which were assembled into ready-made shells and sent to the fronts. This colossal and complex work was carried out at the GAU artillery bases mainly by women, old people and teenagers. They stood at the conveyors for 16-18 hours a day, did not leave the workshops for several days, ate and rested right there, at the machines. Their heroic, selfless work during the war years will never be forgotten by the grateful socialist Fatherland.
Summing up the work of the artillery supply service of the Soviet Army in the years last war, it should be emphasized once again that the basis of this type of material support for the Armed Forces was industry, which during the war years supplied the army with several million small arms, hundreds of thousands of guns and mortars, hundreds of millions of shells and mines, tens of billions of cartridges. Along with the steady growth in the mass production of weapons and ammunition, a number of qualitatively new types of ground and anti-aircraft artillery were created, new types of small arms were developed, as well as sub-caliber and cumulative shells. All these weapons were successfully used by the Soviet troops in the operations of the Great Patriotic War.
As for the import of weapons, it was very insignificant and, in fact, did not have a big impact on the equipment of the Soviet troops. In addition, imported weapons were inferior to Soviet weapons in terms of their tactical and technical data. Received by import in the third period of the war, several anti-aircraft artillery systems were only partially used in the air defense forces, and 40-mm anti-aircraft guns remained at the GAU bases until the end of the war.
The good quality of weapons and ammunition supplied by the domestic military industry to the Soviet Army during the war years was largely ensured by a wide network of military representatives (military acceptance) of the GAU. Equally important in the timely supply of armaments and ammunition to the troops of the army in the field was the fact that it was based on strictly planned production and provision. Establishing since 1942 a system of accounting and reporting of weapons and ammunition in the troops, armies and fronts, as well as planning their supply to the fronts, the artillery supply service continuously improved and improved organizational forms, methods and methods of work to provide the troops of the army in the field. Rigid centralization of leadership from top to bottom, close and continuous interaction of the artillery supply service of the center, fronts and armies, formations and units with other rear services, and especially with the rear headquarters and the military communications service, the hard work of all types of transport made it possible to provide the troops of the fronts and new formations of the Stavka Supreme High Command of Arms and Ammunition. In the Main Artillery Directorate, which worked under the direct supervision of the State Defense Committee and the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, a coherent system of systematic and targeted provision of troops with weapons and ammunition was developed, corresponding to the nature of the war, its scope and methods of warfare. This system fully justified itself throughout the war. The uninterrupted supply of the army with weapons and ammunition was achieved thanks to the huge organizational and creative activity The Communist Party and its Central Committee, the Soviet government, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the efficient work of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the employees of the defense people's commissariats and all links in the rear of the Soviet Army, the selfless and heroic work of the working class.
Universal shooting system of low ballistics for close combat of infantry units of the Red Army
The available information about the ampoule guns of the Red Army is extremely scarce and is mainly based on a couple of paragraphs from the memoirs of one of the defenders of Leningrad, a description of the design in the manual for the use of ampoule guns, as well as some conclusions and common conjectures of modern searchers-diggers. Meanwhile, in the museum of the capital's plant "Iskra" named after I.I. Kartukov for a long time lay like a dead weight in the amazing quality of the range of shooting front-line years. Text documents to it, obviously, are buried in the depths of the archive of the economy (or scientific and technical documentation) and are still waiting for their researchers. So when working on the publication, I had to generalize only known data and analyze references and images.
The existing concept of "ampulomet" in relation to the combat system developed in the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War does not reveal all the possibilities and tactical advantages of this weapon. Moreover, all available information refers only, so to speak, to the late period of serial ampoule guns. In fact, this "pipe on the machine" was capable of throwing not only ampoules from a tin or bottle glass, but also more serious ammunition. And the creators of this simple and unpretentious weapon, the production of which was possible almost “on the knee”, no doubt deserve much more respect.
The simplest mortar
In the flamethrower system of weapons of the ground forces of the Red Army, the ampoule occupied an intermediate position between knapsack or easel flamethrowers, firing at short distances with a jet of liquid fire mixture, and field artillery (cannon and rocket), which occasionally used incendiary projectiles with solid incendiary mixtures such as military thermite at full range. brand 6. As conceived by the developers (and not the requirements of the customer), the ampoule gun was mainly (as in the document) intended to deal with tanks, armored trains, armored vehicles and fortified enemy firing points by firing at them with any ammunition of a suitable caliber.
Experienced 125-mm ampoule during factory testing in 1940
The opinion that the ampoule gun is a purely Leningrad invention is obviously based on the fact that this type of weapon was also produced in besieged Leningrad, and one of its samples is on display at the State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad. However, ampoules were developed (as, indeed, infantry flamethrowers) in the prewar years in Moscow in the experimental design department of plant No. 145 named after SM. Kirov (chief designer of the plant - I.I. Kartukov), which is under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat of the Aviation Industry of the USSR. The names of the designers of ampoule guns, unfortunately, are unknown to me.
Transportation of an experienced 125-mm ampoule in the summer when changing the firing position.
It is documented that the 125-mm ampoule gun with ammunition from ampoules passed field and military tests in 1941 and was adopted by the Red Army. The description of the design of the ampoule gun, given on the Internet, is borrowed from the manual and only in general terms corresponds to pre-war prototypes: “The ampoule gun consists of a barrel with a chamber, a bolt, a firing device, sights and a carriage with a fork.” In the version supplemented by us, the barrel of a serial ampoule launcher was a seamless steel pipe made of Mannesmann rolled products with an inner diameter of 127 mm, or rolled from 2 mm sheet iron, muffled in the breech. The barrel of a regular ampoule gun was freely supported by trunnions on the lugs in the fork of a wheeled (summer) or ski (winter) machine. There were no horizontal or vertical aiming mechanisms.
In an experienced 125-mm ampoule gun, a blank cartridge from a 12-gauge hunting rifle with a folder sleeve and a 15-gram weight of black powder was locked with a rifle-type bolt in the chamber. The firing mechanism was released by pressing the thumb of the left hand on the trigger lever (forward or down, there were different options), located near the handles, similar to those used on easel machine guns and welded to the ampoule breech.
125 mm ampoule in combat position.
In a serial ampoule gun, the firing mechanism was simplified due to the manufacture of many parts by stamping, and the trigger lever was moved under the thumb right hand. Moreover, in mass production, the handles were replaced with steel pipes bent like ram's horns, structurally combining them with a piston valve. That is, now for loading the shutter was turned with both handles all the way to the left and, relying on the tray, they pulled it towards themselves. The entire breech with handles along the slots in the tray moved to the rearmost position, completely removing the spent cartridge case of the 12-gauge cartridge.
The sights of the ampoule gun consisted of a front sight and a folding sight stand. The latter was designed to fire at four fixed distances (obviously from 50 to 100 m), indicated by holes. And the vertical slot between them made it possible to shoot at intermediate ranges.
The photographs show that on the experimental version of the ampoule gun, a roughly made wheeled machine welded from steel pipes and an angle profile was used. It would be more correct to consider it a laboratory stand. At the ampoule machine proposed for service, all parts were more carefully finished and supplied with all the attributes necessary for operation in the troops: handles, coulters, slats, brackets, etc. However, the wheels (rollers) on both experimental and serial samples were provided with monolithic wooden , upholstered with a metal strip along the generatrix and with a metal sleeve as a plain bearing in the axial hole.
In the St. Petersburg, Volgograd and Arkhangelsk museums there are later versions of the factory-made ampoule gun on a simplified, lightweight, wheelless, non-folding machine with a support of two pipes, or without a machine at all. Tripods made of steel rods, wooden decks or oak crosses as carriages for ampoule guns were adapted already in war time.
The manual mentions that the ammunition carried by the calculation of the ampoule gun was 10 ampoules and 12 expelling cartridges. On the machine of the pre-production version of the ampoule gun, the developers proposed to install two easily removable tin boxes with a capacity of eight ampoules each in the transport position. One of the fighters apparently carried two dozen rounds of ammunition in a standard hunting bandolier. In a combat position, boxes of ammunition were quickly removed and placed in a shelter.
On the barrel of the pre-production version of the ampoule gun, two welded swivels were provided for carrying it on a belt over the shoulder. Serial samples were devoid of any "architectural excesses", and the barrel was carried on the shoulder. Many note the presence of a metal divider grille inside the barrel, in its breech. This was not the case for the prototype. Obviously, the grate was needed to prevent the cardboard and felt wad of a blank cartridge from hitting the glass ampoule. In addition, it limited the movement of the ampoule into the breech until it stops, since the serial 125-mm ampoule had a chamber in this place. The factory data and characteristics of the 125 mm ampoule gun are somewhat different from those given in the descriptions and instructions for use.
Drawing of a serial 125-mm ampoule gun, proposed for mass production in 1940.
Rupture of a 125-mm ampoule filled with a self-igniting liquid KS in the target area.
Warehouse of finished products of the workshop for the production of ampoules at the plant No. 455 of the NKAP in 1942
Incendiary ampoules
As indicated in the documents, the main ammunition for ampoule guns was aviation tin ampoules АЖ-2 of 125 mm caliber, equipped with a self-igniting variety of condensed kerosene of the KS grade. The first tin spherical ampoules entered mass production in 1936. In the late 1930s. they were also improved at the OKO of the 145th plant (in the evacuation, this is the OKB-NKAL of plant No. 455). In factory documents, they were called aviation liquid ampoules АЖ-2. But still right
it would be more correct to call the ampoules tin ampoules, since the Red Army Air Force planned to gradually replace the AK-1 glass ampoules, which had been in service since the early 1930s, with them. like chemical munitions.
There were constant complaints about glass ampoules that they were, de, fragile, and if broken ahead of time, they could poison both the aircraft crew and ground personnel with their contents. Meanwhile, mutually exclusive requirements were imposed on the glass of ampoules - strength in handling and fragility in use. The first, of course, prevailed, and some of them, with a wall thickness of 10 mm, even when bombed from a height of 1000 m (depending on the density of the soil) gave a very large percentage of not crashed. Theoretically, their thin-walled tin counterparts could solve the problem. As tests later showed, the aviators' hopes for this were also not fully justified.
This feature probably also manifested itself when firing from an ampoule, especially along flat trajectories for a short range. Note that the recommended type of targets for the 125mm ampoule launcher also consists entirely of objects with strong walls. In the 1930s. aviation tin ampoules were made by stamping two hemispheres from thin brass 0.35 mm thick. Apparently, since 1937 (with the beginning of the austerity of non-ferrous metals in the production of ammunition), their transfer to tinplate with a thickness of 0.2-0.3 mm began.
The configuration of parts for the production of tin ampoules varied greatly. In 1936, at the 145th plant, the design of Ofitserov-Kokoreva was proposed for the manufacture of AZh-2 from four spherical segments with two options for rolling the edges of parts. In 1937, even the AZH-2 consisted of a hemisphere with a filler neck and a second hemisphere of four spherical segments.
At the beginning of 1941, in connection with the expected transfer of the economy to a special period, technologies for the production of AZH-2 from black tin (thin rolled 0.5 mm pickled iron) were tested. From the middle of 1941, these technologies had to be used in full. Black tin during stamping was not as ductile as white or brass, and deep drawing of steel complicated production, therefore, with the outbreak of war, AZh-2 was allowed to be made from 3-4 parts (spherical segments or belts, as well as their various combinations with hemispheres).
Below: experimental ampoules АЖ-2 with additional fuses. Photo 1942
Soldering the seams of black tin products in the presence of special fluxes then also turned out to be quite an expensive pleasure, and academician E.O. Paton introduced into the production of ammunition only a year later. Therefore, in 1941, the parts of the AZh-2 hulls began to be connected by rolling the edges and sinking the seam flush with the contour of the sphere. By the way, before the birth of ampoules, the filling necks of metal ampoules were soldered on the outside (for use in aviation, this was not so important), but since 1940, the necks began to be fixed inside. This made it possible to avoid the diversity of ammunition for use in aviation and ground forces.
The filling of ampoules AZH-2KS, the so-called "Russian napalm" - condensed kerosene KS - was developed in 1938 by A.P. Ionov in one of the capital's research institutes with the assistance of chemists V.V. Zemskova, L.F. Shevelkin and A.V. Yasnitskaya. In 1939, he completed the development of a technology for the industrial production of powdered thickener OP-2. How the incendiary mixture acquired the properties of instantly self-igniting in air remains unknown. I'm not sure that the trivial addition of granules of white phosphorus to a thick incendiary mixture based on petroleum products here would guarantee their self-ignition. In general, be that as it may, already in the spring of 1941, at factory and field tests, the 125-mm ampoule gun AZH-2KS worked normally without fuses and intermediate igniters.
According to the original plan, the AZh-2s were designed to infect the terrain with persistent poisonous substances from aircraft, as well as to destroy manpower with persistent and unstable poisonous substances, later (when used with liquid fire mixtures) - to set fire to and smoke tanks, ships and firing points. Meanwhile, the use of military chemicals in ampoules against the enemy was not ruled out by using them from ampoules. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the incendiary purpose of the ammunition was supplemented by the smoking out of manpower from field fortifications.
In 1943, in order to guarantee the operation of the AZh-2SOV or AZh-2NOV during bombing from any height and at any carrier speed, the ampoule developers supplemented their designs with fuses made of thermosetting plastic (resistant to the acid base of toxic substances). As conceived by the developers, such modified ammunition already affected manpower as fragmentation-chemical ones.
Ampoule fuses UVUD (universal impact fuse) belonged to the category of all-round, i.e. worked even when the ampoules fell sideways. Structurally, they were similar to those used on ADS aviation smoke bombs, but it was no longer possible to shoot such ampoules from ampoule guns: from overloads, a non-safety type fuse could work right in the barrel. During the war period and for incendiary ampoules, the Air Force sometimes used cases with fuses or with plugs instead.
In 1943-1944. AZH-2SOV or NOV ampoules were tested, intended for long-term storage in running order. To do this, their bodies were coated inside with bakelite resin. Thus, the resistance of the metal case to mechanical stress increased even more, and fuses were mandatory installed on such ammunition.
Today, in the places of past battles, "diggers" can already come across in a conditioned form only ampoules AK-1 or AU-125 (AK-2 or AU-260 - an extremely rare exotic) made of glass. Thin-walled tin ampoules are almost all decayed. Do not try to defuse glass ampoules if you can see that there is liquid inside. White or yellowish cloudy - this is the CS, which by no means lost its properties for self-ignition in air, even after 60 years. Transparent or translucent with yellow large crystals of sediment - this is SOV or NOV. In glass containers, their combat properties can also be preserved for a very long time.
Ampoules in battle
On the eve of the war, units of knapsack flamethrowers (flamethrower teams) were organizationally part of rifle regiments. However, due to the difficulties of using it in defense (extremely short range of flamethrowing and unmasking signs of the ROKS-2 backpack flamethrower), they were disbanded. Instead, in November 1941, teams and companies were created, armed with ampoules and rifle mortars for throwing metal and glass ampoules and Molotov cocktails at tanks and other targets. But, according to the official version, the ampoule guns also had significant drawbacks, and at the end of 1942 they were removed from service.
At the same time, there was no mention of the abandonment of rifle-bottle mortars. Probably, for some reason they did not have the shortcomings of ampoules. Moreover, in other divisions of the rifle regiments of the Red Army, it was proposed to throw bottles with KS at tanks exclusively by hand. The bottle-throwers of the flame-throwing teams, obviously, were revealed a terrible military secret: how to use the aiming bar of the Mosin rifle for aimed shooting with a bottle at a given distance, determined by eye. As I understand it, there was simply no time to teach the rest of the illiterate infantrymen this “tricky business”. Therefore, they themselves adapted a sleeve from a three-inch rifle to the cut of a rifle barrel and themselves "out of school hours" were trained in aimed bottle throwing.
When meeting with a solid barrier, the body of the AZh-2KS ampoule was torn, as a rule, along the solder seams, the incendiary mixture splashed out and ignited in air with the formation of a thick white-
th smoke. The combustion temperature of the mixture reached 800 ° C, which, when it got on clothes and open areas of the body, caused the enemy a lot of trouble. No less unpleasant was the meeting of the sticky CS with armored vehicles - starting from a change in the physicochemical properties of the metal during local heating to such a temperature and ending with an indispensable fire in the engine-transmission compartment of carburetor (and diesel) tanks. It was impossible to clean off the burning COP from the armor - all that was required was to stop the access of air. However, the presence of a self-igniting additive in the CS did not rule out spontaneous combustion of the mixture again.
Here are a few excerpts from the combat reports of the Great Patriotic War, published on the Internet: “We also used ampoules. From an obliquely mounted tube mounted on a sled, a shot of a blank cartridge pushed out a glass ampoule with a combustible mixture. She flew along a steep trajectory at a distance of up to 300-350 m. Breaking when falling, the ampoule created a small but stable fire, hitting the enemy’s manpower and setting fire to his dugouts. The consolidated ampoule company under the command of Senior Lieutenant Starkov, which included 17 crews, fired 1620 ampoules in the first two hours. “The ampoule-throwers moved in here. Acting under the cover of infantry, they set fire to an enemy tank, two guns and several firing points.
By the way, intensive shooting with black powder cartridges inevitably created a thick layer of soot on the barrel walls. So after a quarter of an hour of such a cannonade, the ampoule-throwers would probably find that the ampoule rolls into the barrel with more and more difficulty. Theoretically, before this, carbon deposits, on the contrary, would somewhat improve the obturation of the ampoules in the barrel, increasing their firing range. However, the usual range marks on the sight bar, for sure, “floated”. About banniks and other tools and devices for cleaning ampoule gun barrels, probably, it was mentioned in the technical description ...
And here is a completely objective opinion of our contemporaries: “The calculation of the ampoule gun was three people. The loading was carried out by two people: the first number of the calculation inserted the expelling cartridge from the treasury, the second put the ampoule itself into the barrel from the muzzle. “The ampoules were very simple and cheap“ flamethrower mortars ”, they were armed with special ampouling platoons. The combat manual of the infantry of 1942 mentions the ampoule gun as a standard infantry weapon. In combat, the ampoule gun often served as the core of a group of tank destroyers. Its use in defense as a whole justified itself, while attempts to use it in the offensive led to large losses in crews due to the short firing range. True, they were not without success used by assault groups in urban battles - in particular, in Stalingrad.
There are also memories of veterans. The essence of one of them boils down to the fact that in early December 1941, Major General D.D. Lelyushenko was delivered 20 ampoules. The designer of this weapon also came here, as well as the commander himself, who decided to personally test the new equipment. In response to the designer's comments on loading the ampoule launcher, Lelyushenko grumbled that everything hurts cunningly and for a long time, and the German tank will not wait ... At the first shot, the ampoule broke in the barrel of the ampoule launcher, and the entire installation burned down. Lelyushenko, already with metal in his voice, demanded a second ampoule. Everything happened again. The general became "angry", switching to profanity, forbade the fighters to use weapons so unsafe for calculations and crushed the remaining ampoules with a tank.
The use of APC-203 for filling ampoules of AJ-2 with military chemical substances. The leaning fighter pumps out excess liquid, standing near the tripod installs plugs on the filling necks of the AZh-2. Photo 1938
Quite a likely story, although not very pleasant in the general context. As if the ampoule guns did not pass factory and field tests ... Why could this happen? As a version: the winter of 1941 (all eyewitnesses mentioned this) was very frosty, and the glass ampoule became more fragile. Here, unfortunately, the respected veteran did not specify what material those ampoules were made of. The difference in temperatures of thick-walled glass (local heating), which is fired when fired by the flame of the expelling charge, can also affect. Obviously, in severe frost it was necessary to shoot only with metal ampoules. But "in the hearts" the general could easily ride through the ampoules!
Filling station ARS-203. Photo 1938
Fire cocktail frontline spill
It is only at first glance that the scheme for using the ampoule gun in the troops seems to be primitively simple. For example, the crew of an ampoule gun at a combat position fired off the wearable ammunition and dragged the second ammunition load ... What is simpler - take it and shoot. Look, Senior Lieutenant Starkov's two-hour consumption of the unit exceeded one and a half thousand ampoules! But in fact, when organizing the supply of troops with incendiary ampoules, it was necessary to solve the problem of transporting far from safe incendiary ammunition from factories from the deep rear.
Ampoule tests in prewar period showed that these munitions, when fully equipped, can withstand transportation no further than 200 km along peacetime roads in compliance with all rules and with the complete exclusion of "road adventures". In wartime, things got much more complicated. But here, no doubt, the experience of Soviet aviators came in handy, where ampoules were equipped at airfields. Prior to the mechanization of the process, the filling of ampoules, taking into account the unscrewing and wrapping of the fitting plug, required 2 man-hours per 100 pieces.
In 1938, for the Red Army Air Force at the 145th NKAP plant, a towed aircraft filling station ARS-203, made on a single-axle semi-trailer, was developed and later put into service. A year later, the self-propelled ARS-204 also entered service, but it was focused on servicing aircraft pouring devices, and we will not consider it. ARSs were mainly intended for pouring military chemicals into ammunition and isolated tanks, but they turned out to be simply irreplaceable for working with a ready-made self-igniting incendiary mixture.
In theory, in the rear of each rifle regiment, a small unit was supposed to work to equip ampoules with a mixture of KS. Without a doubt, it had an ARS-203 station. But KS was also not transported in barrels from factories, but cooked on the spot. To do this, any products of oil distillation (gasoline, kerosene, solarium) were used in the frontline zone, and according to the tables compiled by A.P. Ionov, different amounts of a thickener were added to them. As a result, despite the difference in the initial components, a CS was obtained. Further, it was obviously pumped into the ARS-203 tank, where the self-ignition component of the fire mixture was added.
However, the option of adding the component directly into the ampoules, and then pouring the CS liquid into them is not excluded. In this case, ARS-203, in general, was not so necessary. And an ordinary soldier's aluminum mug could also serve as a dispenser. But such an algorithm required that the self-igniting component be inert for some time in the open air (for example, wet white phosphorus).
ARS-203 was specially designed to mechanize the process of filling ampoules АЖ-2 to the working volume in the field. On it, from a large reservoir, liquid was first poured simultaneously into eight measuring tanks, and then eight ampoules were filled at once. Thus, it was possible to fill 300-350 ampoules in an hour, and after two hours of such work, the 700-liter tank of the station was emptied, and it was again filled with CS liquid. It was impossible to speed up the process of filling the ampoules: all the overflows of liquids took place in a natural way, without pressurization of the container. The filling cycle of eight ampoules was 17-22 s, and 610 liters were pumped into the working capacity of the station using a Garda pump in 7.5-9 minutes.
The PRS station is ready to fill four ampoules АЖ-2. The pedal is pressed, and the process has begun! Refueling incendiary mixtures made it possible to do without a gas mask. Photo 1942
Obviously, the experience of operating the ARS-203 in the ground forces turned out to be unexpected: the performance of the station, focused on the needs of the Air Force, was considered excessive, as well as its dimensions, weight and the need to be towed by a separate vehicle. The infantry needed something smaller, and in 1942, in the OKB-NKAP of the 455th plant, the Kartukovites developed a field filling station for the PRS. In its design, dipsticks were abolished, and the filling level of opaque ampoules was controlled using a Glass SIG-Extremely simplified version of the ORS nasal tube. for use in the field. Capacity of working re-
the tank was 107 liters, and the mass of the entire station did not exceed 95 kg. The PRS was designed in a "civilized" version of the workplace on a folding table and in an extremely simplified one, with the installation of a working container "on stumps". The productivity of the station was limited to 240 ampoules of AZh-2 per hour. Unfortunately, when the field tests of the PRS were completed, the ampoule guns in the Red Army had already been removed from service.
Russian reusable "faustpatron"?
However, it would not be entirely correct to unconditionally classify a 125-mm ampoule gun as an incendiary weapon. After all, no one allows himself to consider the barreled artillery system or the Katyusha MLRS as flamethrowers, which fired, if necessary, incendiary ammunition. By analogy with the use of aviation ampoules, the designers of the 145th plant proposed to expand the arsenal of ammunition for the ampoule gun by using modified Soviet anti-tank bombs PTAB-2.5 of cumulative action, created at the very beginning of World War II.
In the book by E. Pyryev and S. Reznichenko "Bomber armament of Russian aviation in 1912-1945." in the PTAB section it is said that small cumulative bombs in the USSR were developed only in GSKB-47, TsKB-22 and SKB-35. From December 1942 to April 1943, they managed to design, test and work out the full program of 1.5-kg PTAB cumulative action. However, at the 145th plant I.I. Kartukov dealt with this problem much earlier, back in 1941. Their 2.5-kg ammunition was called the AFBM-125 high-explosive armor-piercing mine of 125 mm caliber.
Outwardly, such a PTAB strongly resembled the high-explosive bombs of Colonel Gronov of small calibers during the First World War. Since the wings of the cylindrical tail were welded to the body of the aviation ammunition by spot welding, it was not possible to manage to use the mine in the infantry by simply replacing its tail. The new mortar-type plumage was installed on aerial bombs with an additional propellant charge built into it in a capsule. The ammunition was fired as before, with a blank 12-gauge rifle cartridge. Thus, in relation to the ampoule-launcher, the system was obtained in some Step-Mina fBM. 125 without additional NO active-reactive. contact fuse fuse.
For quite a long time, the designers had to work on improving the reliability of cocking the mine's contact fuse on the trajectory.
BFM-125 mine without an additional contact fuse fuse.
Meanwhile, the problem in the episode of 1941 mentioned above with the commander of the 30th Army, D.D. Lelyushenko could also occur when firing early models of FBM-125 high-explosive armor-piercing mines from ampoules. This is also indirectly indicated by Lelyushenko’s grumbling: “Everything hurts cunningly and for a long time, the German tank will not wait,” since inserting an ampoule and loading a cartridge into a conventional ampoule gun did not require special tricks. In the case of the use of the FBM-125, before firing, the safety key had to be unscrewed from the ammunition, opening the fire to the powder press of the safety mechanism holding the inertial striker of the contact fuse in the rear position. To do this, all such ammunition was supplied with a cardboard cheat sheet with the inscription "Turn out before firing", tied to a key.
The cumulative recess in the front of the mine was hemispherical, and its thin-walled steel lining rather formed a given configuration when filling explosives, rather than playing the role of a shock core during the cumulation of a combat charge of ammunition. The documents indicated that the FBM-125, when fired from standard ampoules, was designed to disable tanks, armored trains, armored vehicles, vehicles, as well as to destroy fortified firing points (DOTov.DZOTovipr.).
Armored plate with a thickness of 80 mm, confidently pierced by the FBM-125 mine at field tests.
The nature of the outlet of the same punched armor plate.
Landfill tests of the ammunition took place in 1941. Their result was the launch of the mine into pilot production. Military tests of the FBM-125 were successfully completed in 1942. The developers proposed, if necessary, to equip such mines with irritant military chemicals (chloracetophenone or adamsite), but this did not come to that. In parallel with the FBM-125, the OKB-NKAP of the 455th plant also developed the armor-piercing high-explosive mine BFM-125. Unfortunately, its combat properties are not mentioned in the factory certificates.
Cover the infantry with smoke
In 1941, it passed field tests developed at the plant No. 145 named after. CM. Kirov aviation smoke bomb ADSH. It was designed to set up vertical camouflage (blinding the enemy) and poisonous smoke (fettering and exhausting the enemy’s combat forces) curtains when dropping bombs from an aircraft. On aircraft, the ADS were loaded into ampoule-bomb cartridges, after removing the safety forks of the fuses. Checkers spilled out in one gulp when the doors of one of the sections of the cassette were opened. Ampoule-bomb cartridges were also developed at the 145th plant for fighters, attack aircraft, long-range and short-range bombers.
The contact fuse has already been made with an all-round mechanism, which ensured its operation when the ammunition fell to the ground in any position. The fuse spring protected the fuse from triggering in the event of an accidental fall, which did not allow the drummer to prick the igniter primer with insufficient overloads (when falling from a height of up to 4 m onto concrete).
It is probably no coincidence that this ammunition also turned out to be made in 125 mm caliber, which, according to the assurances of the developers, made it possible to use ADSh from standard ampoule guns. By the way, when fired from an ampoule gun, the ammunition received an overload much greater than when it fell from 4 m, which means that the saber began to smoke already in flight.
Even in the pre-war years, it was scientifically proven that covering your troops is much more effective if you smoke it, and not your own infantry, in an attack on a firing point. Thus, the ampoule gun would turn out to be a very necessary thing when, before an attack, it was necessary to throw a few checkers a couple of hundred meters to the bunker or bunker. Unfortunately, it is not known whether ampoule guns were used on the fronts in this variant...
When firing heavy ADSh bombs from a 125-mm ampoule gun, its sights could only be used with amendments. However, great accuracy of shooting was not required: one ADS created an impenetrable creeping cloud up to 100 m long.
an additional expelling charge was impossible, for firing at the maximum distance it was required to use a steep trajectory at elevation angles close to 45 °.
Regimental agitation initiative
The plot for this section of the article about the ampoule was also borrowed by me from the Internet. Its essence was that one day the political officer, having come to the sappers in the battalion, asked who could make a propaganda mortar mine? Pavel Yakovlevich Ivanov volunteered. He found the tools at the site of the destroyed forge, he made the body of the ammunition from a chock, adapting a small powder charge to burst it in the air, the fuse from a fuse cord, and the stabilizer from cans. However, the wooden mortar mine turned out to be light and fell slowly into the barrel without breaking through the primer.
Ivanov reduced its diameter so that the air from the barrel came out more freely, and the primer stopped falling on the firing pin. In general, the craftsman did not sleep for days, but on the third day the mine flew and exploded. The leaflets swirled over the enemy trenches. Later, he adapted an ampoule gun for firing wooden mines. And in order not to cause return fire on his trenches, he carried it to the neutral zone or to the side. Result: German soldiers once crossed over to our side in a group, drunk, in broad daylight.
This story is also quite plausible. It is quite difficult to make an agitation in a metal case from improvised means in the field, but from wood it is quite possible. In addition, such ammunition, according to common sense, and must be non-lethal. Otherwise, what kind of propaganda is there! But factory propaganda mines and artillery shells were in metal cases. To a greater extent, so that they fly further and so as not to greatly disrupt ballistics. However, before that, it never occurred to the designers of the ampoule gun to enrich the arsenal of their offspring with such a kind of ammunition ...
noloader, with a piston valve. Shooting mechanisms - similar in systems of both calibers.
The Ampulomet easel mortars were not put into service. According to the classification of artillery systems, samples of both calibers can be attributed to hard-type mortars. Theoretically, the recoil forces when firing high-explosive armor-piercing mines should not have increased compared to throwing ampoules. The mass of the FBM was greater than that of the AZh-2KS, but less than that of the ADSH. And the expelling charge is the same. However, despite the fact that the Ampulomet mortars fired along more flat trajectories than the classic mortars and bombers, the former were still much more “mortar” than the Katyusha Guards mortars.
findings
So, the reason for the removal of ampoule guns from the armament of the ground forces of the Red Army at the end of 1942 was officially their insecurity in handling and use. But in vain: ahead of our army was not only an offensive, but also numerous battles in settlements. That's where it would come in handy.
100-mm mounted anti-tank mortar in the process of loading.
By the way, the safety of using a knapsack flamethrower in an offensive battle is also very doubtful. Nevertheless, they were returned "to service" and used until the end of the war. There are front-line memories of a sniper, where he claims that an enemy flamethrower is always visible from afar (a number of unmasking signs), therefore it is better to aim it at chest level. Then, from short distances, a bullet from a powerful rifle cartridge pierces right through both the body and the tank with the fire mixture. That is, the flamethrower and the flamethrower "cannot be restored."
The calculation of the ampoule gun could also be in exactly the same situation when bullets or fragments hit incendiary ampoules. Glass ampoules in general could be smashed against each other by a shock wave from a close gap. And in general, the whole war is a very risky business ... And thanks to the "hussars of the generals Lelyushenko" such hasty conclusions were born about the low quality and combat inefficiency of individual types of weapons. Remember, for example, the pre-war ordeals of the designers of the Katyusha MLRS, mortar weapons, submachine guns, the T-34 tank, etc. Our gunsmith designers in the overwhelming majority were not amateurs in their field of knowledge and no less than generals sought to bring victory closer. And they were "dipped" like kittens. The generals are also easy to understand - they needed reliable models of weapons and with "fool protection".
And then, the warm memories of infantrymen about the effectiveness of Molotov cocktails against tanks against tanks look somehow illogical against the backdrop of a very cool attitude towards ampoules. Both are weapons of the same order. Unless the ampoule was exactly twice as powerful, and it could be thrown 10 times further. It is not entirely clear here why there were more claims "in the infantry": to the ampoule gun itself or to its ampoules?
External hanging non-drop container ABK-P-500 for salvo use of small-caliber air bombs from high-speed and dive bombers. In the foreground are ampoules АЖ-2KS made of four spherical segments with edges sealed inside.
One of the options for a hand-held (non-branded) flamethrower developed by the designers of plant No. 145 of the NKAP during tests in 1942. At such a range, only hogs can be tarred from this “aerosol can”.
At the same time, the same “very dangerous” AZH-2KS ampoules in Soviet attack aviation remained in service at least until the end of 1944 - beginning of 1945 (in any case, M.P. Odintsov’s attack aviation regiment used them already on the German territory by tank columns hiding in the forests). And this is on attack aircraft! With unarmored bomb bays! When from the ground all the infantry of the enemy is hitting them from anything! The pilots were well aware of what would happen if only one stray bullet hit the ampoule cassette, but, nevertheless, they flew. By the way, the timid mention on the Internet that ampoules were used in aviation when firing from such aircraft ampoule guns is absolutely untrue.
