The obstacles to the development of sound intelligence were great. But they did not detract from the role of sound intelligence. Some people questioned the work of sound reconnaissance under the condition of firing with the use of flame arresters, as well as in conditions of battle, saturated with a large number of artillery sounds.
Let's see how things were in the first case.
The sources of sound when fired from a gun are the following reasons:
1) gases escaping under high pressure from the channel of the tool;
2) explosion of incomplete combustion products ejected from the gun;
3) a projectile flying out at high speed;
4) vibrations of the gun barrel.
We counted four reasons for the formation of sound. When firing without a flame (with silencers), only one of these reasons is eliminated - the explosion of products of incomplete combustion. The rest of the reasons will exist, since they cannot be destroyed. Consequently, when firing, sound, or rather sound vibrations, will arise and propagate in the atmosphere.
As for the second question (the possibility of conducting reconnaissance in a battle saturated with artillery), in this respect we can confine ourselves to the words of one German officer - a participant in the First World War, who claims that his sound command worked successfully during the Great Offensive in 1918.
The following amount of artillery was at the front:
2 regiment of light artillery (72 guns), one regiment of heavy artillery (17 guns), one battalion of heavy artillery (12 guns).
The adversary, says the author, was hardly weaker (that is, he had at least 101 guns).
Sound reconnaissance in these conditions worked successfully, despite the loud noise of the battle.
The same German officer cites data on work in other conditions.
The situation was recreated, bringing it closer to combat. In this situation, it was used up in 5 hours: 15,000 rounds, 12,600 blank charges, 21,000 explosive bombs, 1,700 explosives, 135,000 blank cartridges.
Under these conditions, sonic reconnaissance also worked successfully.
The Red Army began to deal with the issues of sound metering since 1922, when a group of sound meters was created under the Artillery Directorate. At the same time, the first sound-measuring units equipped with chronographic stations were created. Later, from about 1923, the problems of sound measurement began to be dealt with at the Artillery Academy, which is associated with the further development of sound measurement.
Initially, in the latter, a small introductory course of 10 training hours was created - it introduced the students of the Academy to the main possible methods of working to determine the coordinates of a gun using the sound phenomena accompanying a shot from a gun. In the summer there was usually a little practice.
The role of the Artillery Academy was reduced not only to familiarizing the artillerymen of the Red Army with the methods of sound artillery reconnaissance, but also, to a large extent, to the development of new, more rational methods of sound metering, to the development of more advanced instruments included in the set of the sound metering station. The sound metrics specialists were not limited to domestic experience in the use of sound phenomena - they translated the most serious books and articles from foreign languages and introduced them to a wide circle of Soviet artillerymen.
In 1926 g.the Laboratory of Meteorology and Auxiliary Artillery Services was created at the Academy, and Professor Obolensky became its ideological leader. With regard to sound measurement, the laboratory was equipped only with a chronographic station of the N. A. Benois system. At that time, students of the artillery faculty (then called the command faculty) underwent summer soundometric practice in Luga and at the AKKUKS artillery regiment. Later, in 1927, the millisecondometer of the Shirsky system arrived at the laboratory - which became a certain improvement in the technique of sound measurement.
In 1928, the first academic course in sound measurement, "Fundamentals of sound measurement", appeared.
The book played an important role in the systematization of the knowledge of sound measurement available at that time. The sound metrists received great help in their work after the publication of the translation of the book by the French academician Esclangon in 1929.
The main issues of sound metering of that time were the issues of introducing the simplest and, if possible, the fastest ways of working in parts - on the one hand, and issues of designing, even if not quite perfect, but still satisfactory material part of sound metering - on the other.
In 1931, the "Collection of soundometric tables" was published, which provided great assistance to the soundometric parts in their practical work. This book lasted in parts until 1938, when it was replaced by more perfect manuals and books.
But the staff were few and, due to the poor development of sound metering technology, insufficiently trained. On the other hand, by this time, some organizational irregularities were revealed in the process of training sound metrists. And in 1930, a TASIR laboratory (tactics of artillery, shooting and instrumental reconnaissance) was created with departments: shooting, artillery tactics, meteorological, sound detectors and sound metering. In 1930, a sound-measuring station with thermal sound receivers was developed, and in 1931 this station was already in service with the Red Army. As mentioned above, the Artillery Academy played an important role in this matter.
The second area in which acoustic artillery devices have become widely used since the First World War has become air defense.
Before the invention of special acoustic devices - sound detectors, the direction to the plane was determined with the help of a person's ears (a person's hearing aid). However, this determination of direction was extremely crude and only to a very small extent could be used for working with searchlights or anti-aircraft artillery. Therefore, the technology was faced with the question of developing a special sound detector.
Lieutenant of the French army Viel and later - Captain Labroust (Kolmachevsky. Fundamentals of air defense. Leningrad, 1924, p. 5.) designed the first devices to determine the direction of the aircraft. Then, almost simultaneously in France and England, acoustic direction finders began to be developed.
The German army, also during the First World War, received an ingenious and original device developed by Hertz as an acoustic direction finder. In France and Germany, prominent scientists were involved in the development of sound detectors, among which academicians Langevin and Perrin (France) and Dr. Raaber (Germany) should be mentioned. By the end of the First World War, these countries had their own acoustic direction finders, which played an extremely important role in ensuring the continuity of air defense during night flights and in conditions of poor visibility.
In most cases, they were used in the defense of large strategic targets: administrative centers, centers of the military industry, etc. An example is the organization of air defense in London - which was provided by about 250 sound detectors.
The Russian army did not have acoustic direction finders - in principle, this is understandable, given how little attention was paid to anti-aircraft artillery. Yes, and shooting at an airplane was considered invalid at that time (see Kirei. Defense artillery. 1917. Appendix 5. P. 51 - 54). There were no appropriate personnel either - since the special anti-aircraft school created at the end of 1917 in the city of Evpatoria did not have time to provide the necessary assistance to the Russian anti-aircraft artillery.
Thus, in the field of artillery reconnaissance for anti-aircraft artillery, the Red Army inherited nothing from the Russian army. Until 1930, the Red Army mainly fed on foreign developments in the field of sound detection - and essentially did not create anything of its own.
At the same time, the development of the air fleet, exceptional in its size and quality, required the creation of powerful anti-aircraft defense and attack weapons.
And in the Artillery Academy in 1931 a special department of military instrumentation was created. The laboratory of tactics of artillery, shooting and instrumental reconnaissance (TASIR), later reorganized into several separate laboratories, was supposed to serve as the base for training commanders - in one of them a group of military acoustics appeared. The first years, the team of military acoustics devoted to the development of a number of experimental domestic acoustic devices: direction finders, correctors for them, acoustic altimeters, sound measuring instruments, equipment for processing and decoding soundometric tapes, etc. At the same time, the team studied hard, translating into Russian and studying classical works on acoustics (Reilly, Helmholtz, Duhem, Kalene, etc.). On the basis of theoretical study and practical development of modern acoustic reconnaissance devices at the Artillery Academy in 1934, the course "Acoustic artillery devices" was created.
This course became an academic course and, therefore, insufficiently accessible for the junior and middle command personnel of the Red Army. On the other hand, a simplified course was needed. In this regard, the teaching staff of the Academy and AKKUKS prepared a manual on sound measurement for artillery schools. The Red Army received a good textbook on sound measurement.
Among the most important works carried out in the newly created laboratory, it should be noted: the creation of a prototype of an objective acoustic direction finder, which served as a prototype for many further developments on similar devices not only in the USSR, but also abroad; creation of a spatial construction corrector (patented by brigengineer N. Ya. Golovin already in 1929 and was further developed by foreign companies); creation of an acoustic altimeter project; development of decryption devices; development of a whole range of instruments for sound measurement and sound detection.
In the field of theory, an even greater number of works were created. Such developments as the question of the propagation of an acoustic beam in a real atmosphere, the question of the methods and principles of operation of acoustic reconnaissance devices, the question of interference systems, the foundations of the design of sound measuring instruments, sound detectors, correctors and acoustic devices, etc., have firmly formed the basis of course "Acoustic artillery devices". Professor, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Brigengineer N. Ya. Golovin wrote and published the academic course "Acoustic Artillery Devices" (in 4 volumes).
The field of military acoustics is not limited to the issues listed above. But we tried to briefly touch upon the main trends in this area in the 1st third of the 20th century.
