By the end of the First World War, aviation was already a serious threat to warships. To defend against an air enemy, several samples of anti-aircraft guns of domestic and foreign production were adopted by the Russian Imperial Fleet.
Initially, for anti-aircraft fire, the existing in significant quantities "anti-mine guns" were altered: the 47-mm Hotchkiss, 57-mm Nordenfeld and 75-mm Kane cannons.
Later, specially designed Lender anti-aircraft guns arr. 1914/15
At the request of the Naval Department, the elevation angle of the guns produced by the Putilov plant was increased to + 75 °. The gun had good characteristics for its time: combat rate of fire 10-12 rds / min, range up to 7000 m, reach in height up to 4000 m.
Also, the 40-mm automatic Vickers anti-aircraft guns and 37-mm Maxim automatic anti-aircraft guns produced by the Obukhov plant, purchased in the UK, entered service. By the end of 1916, the Baltic and Black Sea fleets had forty 40-mm Vickers guns.
40-mm Vickers cannon
Both systems were similar in design. The installations could conduct a circular fire, with an elevation from -5 to + 80 °. Food - from a tape for 25 rounds. The cartridges were loaded with fragmentation shells with an 8- or 16-second remote tube. The rate of fire is 250-300 rds / min. Anti-aircraft guns of these types were difficult and expensive to manufacture, and had low reliability.
37-mm Maxim machine gun in the Artillery Museum
Soon after the end of the Civil War, our fleet was left without anti-aircraft guns. For almost 20 years, the basis of the ships' air defense was 76-mm cannons and 7, 62-mm machine guns.
In the 30s, within the framework of military-technical cooperation with Germany, documentation, semi-finished products and working samples of 20-mm and 37-mm anti-aircraft guns were received. After that, it was decided to launch them into serial production at plant No. 8 in Podlipki near Moscow. But our industry did not manage to master their mass production.
As a temporary measure, the 45-mm semi-automatic universal 21-K gun was put into service in 1934. In fact, it was a 45 mm anti-tank gun mounted on a naval gun.
In the absence of other anti-aircraft guns, 21-K guns were installed on all classes of ships of the Soviet fleet - from patrol boats and submarines to cruisers and battleships. This gun did not satisfy the sailors at all as an anti-aircraft gun. For this, it had a low rate of fire (25 rounds per minute) and the absence of a remote fuse on the shells, so that the target could only be hit by a direct hit (which was extremely unlikely). For firing at sea and coastal targets, the gun was weak. In terms of its characteristics, it practically corresponded to the 47-mm Hotchkiss gun, which was released in 1885.
Despite the fact that this gun did not meet the requirements of anti-aircraft defense at all, due to the cessation of work on a more advanced anti-aircraft gun, the production of 21-K was carried out during the Great Patriotic War, as well as after its completion. More than 4,000 of these guns were produced in total.
In 1936, the naval 76-mm anti-aircraft gun 34-K entered service. The prototype of this gun mount was the German field anti-aircraft semi-automatic 75-mm gun of the company "Rheinmetall", the production license of which was received by the Soviet Union in the early 30s, which established on its basis the production of an army anti-aircraft gun of the 3-K type. Until the end of production in 1942, about 250 guns were built at the Kalinin plant.
76, 2mm anti-aircraft guns 34-K
Shortly before the start of the war, a very successful 12, 7-mm DShK machine gun was adopted.
The DShK machine gun was mounted on a naval stationary pedestal installation, consisting of a base with a rotating pedestal, a swivel head for attaching a machine gun and a shoulder pad, an attached butt-stop to ensure the convenience of aiming a machine gun when firing at fast-moving targets. The machine gun was fed with cartridges, the sights and methods of firing were the same with the infantry-type DShK.
By June 22, 1941, our Navy had 830 single-barreled DShK machine guns on column mounts. The very first days of the war showed the absolute superiority of the DShK over 7.62 mm machine guns. The sailors did not hesitate to talk about the effectiveness of the DShK in high spheres: “I had to remove weapons from boats that came to the base from the sea and put them on boats that went to sea. The experience of the war has shown that the DShK machine guns in the fleet have won great prestige, without them the commanders do not want to go to sea."
The vast majority of DShKs were installed on pedestals, however, during the war, domestic designers developed many other types of DShK installations, single and twin turret and turret installations were used on boats.
During the Great Patriotic War, our fleet received 4018 DShK machine guns from the industry. During this time, the Allies delivered 92 - 12.7 mm Vickers quad machine guns and 1611 - 12.7 mm Colt Browning coaxial machine guns.
12, 7-mm coaxial installation of Colt-Browning machine guns
Also on the eve of the war in 1940, the 37-mm 70-K naval anti-aircraft gun was adopted, created on the basis of the automatic 37-mm 61-K anti-aircraft gun.
She became the main automatic weapon of boats and battleships, destroyers and cruisers; a total of 1,671 such artillery mounts were received by the fleet during the war years.
Cooling 70-K was air, which was a big drawback. After 100 shots, the air-cooled barrel either had to be changed (which took at least 15 minutes), or wait for it to cool for about 1 hour. Often, enemy bombers and torpedo bombers did not provide such an opportunity. Paired 37-mm water-cooled anti-aircraft guns V-11 entered service only after the war.
In addition, the 45-mm caliber would have gone more for the fleet (such a land installation was created and successfully tested), which would increase the effective range of anti-aircraft fire and the destructive effect of the projectile.
In addition to the 37-mm 70-K, the Allies supplied 5,500 American and Canadian 40-mm Bofors, a significant part of which ended up in the Navy.
In wartime, aviation was the main enemy of our fleet. Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, our naval commanders came to understand that in order to repel massive raids by enemy torpedo bombers and dive bombers, rapid-fire belt-fed anti-aircraft guns of 20-25 mm caliber are needed.
For this, attempts were made to create naval anti-aircraft installations on the basis of ShVAK and VYa air guns, but for a number of reasons, they did not advance beyond their arming of small watercraft and boats.
20-mm anti-aircraft gun ShVAK
In small quantities, 25-mm 84-KM installations, created on the basis of the 72-K army anti-aircraft machine gun, were produced, but it also had exchange power.
In the second half of the war, this problem was partially resolved through lend-lease supplies. In the USSR, the allies delivered 1993 20-mm assault rifle. "Oerlikons" were also part of the armament of military ships supplied to the Navy. Most of them were used in the North and the Baltic, there were only 46 of them in the Black Sea theater of military operations.
20-mm anti-aircraft gun "Oerlikon"
The anti-aircraft weapons of medium and large warships also included universal installations of 85-100 mm caliber. Theoretically, they could also conduct anti-aircraft fire, at least the elevation angles allowed them to do this. But they were not stabilized, and not all ships where they were installed had centralized anti-aircraft fire control systems, which greatly reduced their combat value.
The universal 85-mm gun mount 90-K replaced the 76-mm 34-K gun in production. But during wartime, not many of them were produced, only about 150 guns.
Universal 85-mm gun mount 90-K
In the mid-1930s, the USSR purchased from Italy 10 100-mm double-barreled installations designed by engineer-general Eugenio Minisini to arm the Svetlana-class cruisers: Krasny Kavkaz, Krasny Krym and Chervona Ukraina.
100-mm automatic rifle minisini of the cruiser "Krasny Kavkaz"
The installations were guided using a manual drive, at a speed of 13 deg / s horizontally and 7 deg / s vertically. The shooting was carried out according to the data of the PUAO. Reach in height was 8500 m. Rate of fire 10-12 rds / min.
After the death of "Chervona Ukrainy", the installations were removed and the remaining cruisers were re-equipped with them. By this time, the installations were already ineffective against modern aircraft due to low aiming speeds.
Cruiser "Chervona" Ukraine"
In 1940, the B-34 100-mm single-barreled universal mount was adopted, which was unified in terms of ammunition with the 100-mm Minisini. Before the start of the war, the industry managed to produce 42 guns of this type.
Universal 100-mm installation B-34
It had a barrel with a length of 56 calibers, an initial projectile speed of 900 m / s, a maximum elevation angle of 85 ° and a firing range at air targets of 15,000 m, a ceiling of 10,000 m. The vertical and horizontal guidance mechanisms provided a guidance speed of up to 12 deg / s. Rate of fire - 15 rounds / min.
The first B-34s were installed on Project 26 cruisers (Kirov) without an electric drive and were operated manually. In view of this, they could only conduct defensive anti-aircraft fire.
The firing of 100-mm guns was controlled by the "Gorizont" system of naval anti-aircraft artillery fire control devices (MPUAZO).
A major drawback of all our universal 85-100 mm guns was the absence of electric or electro-hydraulic drives during the war, which significantly limited the aiming speed and the possibility of centralized fire control. At the same time, universal installations of caliber 88-127 mm in other countries had such an opportunity.
The Soviet navy suffered very serious losses in the war, especially in the initial period. The greatest losses were suffered by the Red Banner Baltic Fleet - more than 130 warships and submarines, the Black Sea Fleet - about 70, the Northern Fleet - about 60.
Throughout the war, our battleships and cruisers had no clashes with enemy ships of a similar class. Most of the large surface ships were sunk by the Luftwaffe. The reasons for the losses were mainly miscalculations in planning and the weakness of anti-aircraft weapons.
