The 122mm A-19 cannon became one of the symbols of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Very often, photographic and film materials are used, on which these guns, lined up in a row, fire at the enemy. The memorable appearance of the cannon with a long barrel and characteristic front cylinders of the barrel suspension system make the A-19 one of the most spectacular types of weapons in the entire Second World War. However, this weapon is known not only for its exterior. Its history, design and combat use are of considerable interest.
122 mm long-range corps gun A-19 mod. 1931 g.
First of all, it's worth saying a little about the caliber. The caliber of 122 mm, more precisely 121, 92 mm (4.8 inches), is a purely Russian invention and until a certain time was not used anywhere except for our artillery. This caliber appeared more than a hundred years ago, when the artillerymen of the Russian Empire needed a new class of howitzers with better characteristics than the existing ones. On the basis of the combination of combat indicators, mobility and production complexity, the very same 4, 8 inches, which remained in the range of weapons over the next decades, were selected.
The history of the A-19 gun dates back to the mid-twenties of the last century. At this time, in the minds of the commanders responsible for the artillery, two ideas coexisted. Firstly, during the Civil War, the French-made 120-mm Canet cannons demonstrated their good potential. Secondly, a new gun was required for corps artillery - the existing 107-mm cannons of the 1910 model were already outdated, and the modernization could not give the expected effect. The result of analyzes and reflections was the task of the Artillery Committee to create a 122-mm gun for corps artillery. At the beginning of 1927, the development of the gun was entrusted to the Committee's Design Bureau. F. F. Lander, who led the project until his death in September of that year. By the middle of the 29th year, a draft of the 122-mm corps gun was prepared, after which its refinement was entrusted to the design bureau of the Arsenal and Arsenal Trust.
In accordance with the latest "trends" in gunnery of that time, the A-19 received a carriage with a sprung wheel travel and two sliding frames. The carriage wheels had their own leaf springs. Before firing, they were locked manually. The wheels were of metal construction and rubber cast tires. A shield was installed directly above the wheel travel axis to protect the crew from bullets and shrapnel. The gun barrel consisted of three main parts: a pipe, a barrel casing and a screw-on breech. The design of the piston bolt of the gun was borrowed from the 152-mm howitzer of the 1910/30 model and adjusted for the new caliber. The gun was mounted on a gun carriage through recoil devices. At the same time, the rollback brake was hydraulic, and the retractor was hydropneumatic. All units of the recoil device were installed in the cradle of the gun, under its barrel. The lifting and balancing mechanism (made on the basis of springs) allowed vertical guidance in the range from -2 ° to + 45 °. The rotary screw mechanism, in turn, provided guidance in the horizontal plane within a sector with a width of 56 °.
Simultaneously with the transfer of work on the gun to the management of the Design Bureau of the Gun-Arsenal Trust, Perm Plant No. 172 received an order to build a prototype gun. In October 1931, two new guns were brought to the test site at once, differing in the nuances of the barrel design. In addition, at this stage of development, the new body gun had a muzzle brake. A few months after the start of the tests, the documentation for their conduct, along with the drawings and calculations of the gun, were transferred to plant # 38, which was entrusted with the final development and preparation for mass production. It was at this enterprise that the gun received the A-19 index. A few months later, in the middle of the 33rd, the Stalingrad plant "Barricades" received an order for an experimental batch of three A-19 guns. Since November 35, this batch was tested at the Luga proving ground, after which the gun was recommended for adoption. On March 13, 1936, an official document was issued, according to which the "122-mm corps gun, model 1931" was adopted by the Red Army.
Since 1935, the A-19 cannons were in serial production at Barricades. The assembly of the guns continued until 1939, when the updated modification of the A-19 began to replace them. Because of this and some features of the production documentation, it is impossible to establish the exact number of tools produced. The most likely number is 450-500 copies.
The first months of operation of the new guns in the troops as a whole confirmed the conclusions of the test commission. At the same time, the military complained about some shortcomings. If the problems with the gun itself were mainly related to the nature of production, then the carriage had several design flaws. First of all, claims were made to the design of the wheel travel. Outdated wheels with metal spokes and rims and rubber tires did not provide the gun with proper mobility. In addition, the calculation of the gun when transferring from the traveling position to the combat position and vice versa had to spend time and effort on blocking the springs - this had to happen automatically. The carriage of the corps gun did not do without complaints from the production workers. The Barrikad factory workers complained about the complexity of its manufacture. Serious revision of the carriage was required. Fortunately, in 1936, tests began on the new 152-mm howitzer ML-20. Among other things, she had a new carriage of an original design that fully met the requirements of the military. The latter initiated the start of work on adapting the A-19 gun to be mounted on the ML-20 carriage. This proposal had a whole host of positive consequences. First of all, the gun carriage of the ML-20 howitzer greatly facilitated the work with the gun and maintenance. In addition, the creation of the so-called. duplex (two different guns with a single gun carriage) could significantly reduce the cost of manufacturing both guns due to the absence of the need to assemble various units.
The modernization of the A-19 gun for installation on a new carriage was entrusted to the engineers of the Perm plant No. 172, and F. F. Petrov. The adaptation of the gun carriage and the gun to each other did not take much time - we had to wait longer for the ML-20 and its gun carriage to be fine-tuned. As a result, in September 1938, the updated A-19 (the previous index used by the designers remained unchanged) was sent for testing. All the problems and defects identified during the tests were soon corrected and a new document was issued on April 29, 39th. This time the leadership of the Red Army adopted the "122-mm corps cannon of the 1931/37 model."
Unlike the original A-19, the updated gun was produced not only at the Barricades plant. At the end of the 39th, the first copies of the cannon arr. 1931/37 were collected in Stalingrad. It was these weapons that led to confusion in statistics and the inability to accurately establish the number of produced A-19s of the 31st model. "Barricades" made the cannon until 1941, after which the production was transferred to Perm. In addition, in the 41st, the A-19 cannons began to be made in Novocherkassk, at the plant No. 352. Production of the A-19 in the 37th version went on until 1946. For seven years, about two and a half thousand guns were made. The total number of A-19s of both versions is 2926 units. This figure does not include those gun variants that were intended to be mounted on self-propelled artillery mounts.
Due to the large caliber, the A-19 cannon had a separate-case loading. At the same time, to ensure effective destruction of targets in a large range of distances, the casings were made in four versions. In a metal glass 785 millimeters long, there could be a full charge or three (No. 1, No. 2, No. 3) charges of lower power. The maximum charge of gunpowder weighed 6, 82 kilograms. The A-19 armament range included 122-mm high-explosive fragmentation, caliber armor-piercing, concrete-piercing and chemical projectiles. There were 11 specific types in total. Separately, it should be noted that the calculations of the A-19 guns were forbidden to fire with howitzer shells of a suitable caliber, using a sleeve with a full charge. In addition, the use of some types of howitzer ammunition was completely banned. The fact is that due to different loads on the projectile in the howitzer barrel, the ammunition can be made less durable than required for use in the cannons. Therefore, the main ammunition issued to the crews was the HE-471 high-explosive fragmentation family. During the Great Patriotic War, artillerymen repeatedly had to fire high-explosive fragmentation shells at enemy tanks. At the same time, armor penetration was noticeably less than when using specialized armor-piercing shells, but in the absence of the latter, in the first months of the war, OF-471 or OF-471V ammunition was quite suitable for destroying most German tanks. An armor-piercing projectile BR-471B (caliber blunt-headed) at a distance of a kilometer at an angle of encounter of 90 ° pierced 145 millimeters of armor. The sharp-headed caliber projectile BR-471 under the same conditions pierced a 130-mm plate.
On the basis of the A-19 model of the 31st year, not only the cannon mod. 37 g. In the middle of the Great Patriotic War, this design served as the basis for new weapons:
- A-19C. At the end of 1943, the production of the ISU-152 self-propelled gun with the ML-20 gun began. At the same time, the idea came up to install the A-19 cannon on a similar chassis. In December of the same year, a prototype was assembled under the name "Object 242". To adapt the towed gun for use in the ACS, it was necessary to transfer all controls to one side, install a receiving tray in front of the chamber to increase the convenience of the loader and equip the gun with an electric trigger. On March 12, 1944, this self-propelled gun was put into service under the name ISU-122. Just two months after the adoption of the ACS, the A-19S cannon underwent modernization, the purpose of which was to improve the characteristics of the barrel. After these works, the barrels of the "old" and "new" guns ceased to be interchangeable. In official documents, the A-19C was designated as "122-mm self-propelled gun model 1931/44".
- D-2 and M-5. Also in 1943, an attempt was made to create a specialized anti-tank gun with ballistics A-19. According to reports, the D-2 was a lightweight A-19 mounted on an M-30 howitzer carriage. The M-5, in turn, was a significant modernization of the A-19 on the same gun carriage. The guns were tested in the middle of the 43rd and the beginning of the 44th, respectively. Both test firing cycles did not reveal any positive aspects of the new guns. Moreover, during the tests of the M-5, the muzzle brake broke twice. None of these guns were put into service.
- D-25. In 1943 J. Ya. Kotin proposed to develop a tank version of the A-19 for installation on heavy armored vehicles. The design bureau of plant No. 9 coped with this work in a few months. The barrel group of the lightweight A-19 (similar to this gun unit) was installed on the cradle of the 85-mm D-5 tank gun. In addition, in the design of the D-25, the solutions applied on the A-19S were introduced. Finally, the cannon was fitted with a muzzle brake. In December of the same year, the resulting "122-mm tank gun model 1943 (D-25T)" began to be installed on the IS-2 tanks. The D-25 family guns were installed on several Soviet heavy tanks, including the T-10.
Initially, the A-19 guns were attached to the corps artillery. As of 1940-41, corps artillery regiments were divided into three types. The first consisted of two divisions of ML-20 howitzers and one division of A-19 (12 cannons) or 107-mm cannons. In the second, there were two divisions ML-20 and A-19. The latter in this case, there were 24 units per regiment. In the regiments of the third type, all three divisions were armed with ML-20 howitzers. After the abolition of corps artillery and its subsequent restoration, each regiment was equipped with 16-20 guns of various types. In addition, 48 A-19s at the beginning of the war were part of the artillery of the Supreme High Command reserve.
For the first time, A-19 took part in real combat operations during the events on the Khalkhin-Gol River. The exact type of these weapons is unknown, as is the exact number. The gun had no losses. A-19 in the 37th version went to the front during the war with Finland. Three of the 127 guns were lost. The experience of using cannons fully confirmed the need for such weapons, although in some cases 122-mm guns were excessive force.
Of the 1,300 guns that were in the army at the time of the start of the Great Patriotic War, about nine hundred were lost in the 41st years. At the same time, most of the losses fell on the A-19 version of the 31st year. The remaining guns, with some losses, participated in the battles until the end of the war. German accumulations of equipment and manpower, columns on the march, important stationary objects, etc. were subjected to shelling from the A-19. If necessary, as was the case during the Battle of Kursk, A-19s could fire direct fire at enemy tanks. However, in this case, the good armor penetration was compensated by the large size of the gun and the low speeds of movement of the barrel.
A number of A-19 cannons fell into the hands of the Germans and Finns. The Wehrmacht received at least 420 guns as trophies, which were used under the name 12, 2 cm Kanone 390/1 (r). 25 guns went to Finland, where they were renamed 122 K / 31. Both opponents of the Soviet Union actively used cannons, although the Finns soon had to send them to serve in the coastal defense. The fact is that this country began to experience a shortage of heavy artillery tractors and 122 K / 31 was able to "attach" only to coastal artillery. It is noteworthy that in the warehouses of Finland there are still a number of captured A-19s. Since the war, they have undergone several upgrades, during which carriages and barrels were updated.
In general, the A-19 project can be considered successful. "Childhood diseases" in the form of shortcomings of the early design of the gun carriage were corrected over time, and by definition they could not go to the tank version and the version for self-propelled guns. The applied loading system deserves special attention. Four options for a powder charge, combined with a maximum elevation angle of 45 °, actually make the A-19 not just a cannon, but a howitzer cannon. As for the comparison of the gun with foreign counterparts, this is a difficult and thankless task. The fact is that other participants in the Second World War simply did not have 122 mm guns. So, in the German field artillery the closest in caliber to the A-19 were 10.5 cm Kanone 18 and 15 cm Kanone 18. The situation is similar with the artillery of other countries. As a result, a full-fledged comparison of the A-19 with foreign guns is impossible: foreign guns of a smaller caliber are significantly inferior to the Soviet ones in firing range and other parameters, and larger ones have a better range, but are heavier and less mobile. Nevertheless, the results of the use of A-19 guns on the fields of the Great Patriotic War fully confirm the pre-war opinion about the need for such a class of artillery.
