The history of the appearance and combat use of guards rocket launchers, which became the prototype of all multiple launch rocket systems
Among the legendary weapons that have become symbols of the victory of our country in the Great Patriotic War, a special place is occupied by guards rocket launchers, popularly nicknamed "Katyusha". The characteristic silhouette of a truck from the 1940s with an inclined structure instead of a body is the same symbol of stamina, heroism and courage of Soviet soldiers, like, say, a T-34 tank, an Il-2 attack aircraft or a ZiS-3 cannon.
And here's what is especially remarkable: all these legendary, glorious models of weapons were designed quite shortly or literally on the eve of the war! The T-34 was put into service at the end of December 1939, the first serial Il-2 rolled off the assembly line in February 1941, and the ZiS-3 cannon was first presented to the leadership of the USSR and the army a month after the outbreak of hostilities, on July 22, 1941. But the most amazing coincidence happened in the fate of the Katyusha. Its demonstration to the party and military authorities took place half a day before the German attack - on June 21, 1941 …
From heaven to earth
In fact, work on the creation of the world's first multiple launch rocket system on a self-propelled chassis began in the USSR in the mid-1930s. Sergei Gurov, an employee of the Tula NPO Splav, which produces modern Russian MLRS, managed to find in the archives a contract No. 251618s dated January 26, 1935 between the Leningrad Jet Research Institute and the Red Army Armored Directorate, which includes a prototype rocket launcher on the BT-5 tank with ten rockets.
A volley of guards mortars. Photo: Anatoly Egorov / RIA Novosti
There is nothing to be surprised at, because Soviet rocket designers created the first combat missiles even earlier: official tests took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1937, the RS-82 missile of 82 mm caliber was adopted for service, and a year later - the RS-132 132 mm caliber, both in the version for an underwing installation on aircraft. A year later, at the end of the summer of 1939, the RS-82 were first used in a combat situation. During the battles on Khalkhin Gol, five I-16s used their "eres" in combat with Japanese fighters, surprising the enemy with new weapons. And a little later, already during the Soviet-Finnish war, six twin-engine SB bombers, already armed with RS-132, attacked the Finnish ground positions.
Naturally, the impressive - and they were really impressive, albeit to a large extent due to the unexpected use of the new weapon system, and not its ultra-high efficiency - the results of the use of "eres" in aviation forced the Soviet party and military leadership to rush the defense industry with the creation of a ground version … Actually, the future "Katyusha" had every chance to be in time for the Winter War: the main design work and tests were carried out back in 1938-1939, but the results of the military were not satisfied - they needed a more reliable, mobile and easy-to-use weapon.
In general terms, what a year and a half later would enter the soldiers' folklore on both sides of the front as "Katyusha" was ready by the beginning of 1940. In any case, copyright certificate No. 3338 for "a rocket launcher for a sudden, powerful artillery and chemical attack on the enemy with the help of rocket shells" was issued on February 19, 1940, and among the authors were employees of the RNII (since 1938, it had a "numbered" name NII-3) Andrey Kostikov, Ivan Gwai and Vasily Aborenkov.
This installation was already seriously different from the first samples that entered field tests at the end of 1938. The missile launcher was located along the longitudinal axis of the car, had 16 guides, each of which was fitted with two projectiles. And the shells themselves for this machine were different: the aircraft RS-132 turned into longer and more powerful ground-based M-13.
Actually, in this form, the combat vehicle with rockets and went to the review of new weapons of the Red Army, which took place on June 15-17, 1941 at the training ground in Sofrino near Moscow. Rocket artillery was left "for a snack": two combat vehicles demonstrated firing on the last day, June 17, using high-explosive fragmentation rockets. The shooting was watched by the People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, the Chief of the General Staff General of the Army Georgy Zhukov, the head of the Main Artillery Directorate Marshal Grigory Kulik and his deputy General Nikolai Voronov, as well as the People's Commissar for Arms Dmitry Ustinov, People's Commissar for ammunition Pyotr Goremykin and many other military personnel. One can only guess what emotions overwhelmed them when they looked at the wall of fire and the fountains of earth that rose on the target field. But it is clear that the demonstration made a strong impression. Four days later, on June 21, 1941, just a few hours before the start of the war, documents were signed on the acceptance into service and the urgent deployment of the serial production of M-13 rockets and a launcher, which received the official name BM-13 - "combat vehicle - 13 "(According to the missile index), although sometimes they appeared in the documents with the M-13 index. This day should be considered the birthday of "Katyusha", which, it turns out, was born only half a day before the start of the Great Patriotic War, which glorified her.
First hit
The production of new weapons was launched at two enterprises at once: the Voronezh plant named after the Comintern and the Moscow plant "Compressor", and the capital plant named after Vladimir Ilyich became the main enterprise for the production of M-13 shells. The first combat-ready unit - a special reactive battery under the command of Captain Ivan Flerov - went to the front on the night of 1 to 2 July 1941.
Commander of the first Katyusha rocket artillery battery, Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov. Photo: RIA Novosti
But here's what is remarkable. The first documents on the formation of battalions and batteries armed with rocket-propelled mortars appeared even before the famous shooting near Moscow! For example, the directive of the General Staff on the formation of five divisions armed with new equipment was issued a week before the start of the war - on June 15, 1941. But reality, as always, made its own adjustments: in reality, the formation of the first units of field rocket artillery began on June 28, 1941. It was from that moment, as determined by the directive of the commander of the Moscow Military District, and three days were given for the formation of the first special battery under the command of Captain Flerov.
According to the preliminary staffing table, which was determined even before the Sofrino firing, the rocket artillery battery was supposed to have nine rocket launchers. But the manufacturers did not cope with the plan, and Flerov did not manage to receive two of the nine vehicles - he went to the front on the night of July 2 with a battery of seven rocket launchers. But do not think that just seven ZIS-6s with guides for launching the M-13 went to the front. According to the list - the approved staffing table for a special, that is, in fact, there was no experimental battery and could not be - there were 198 people in the battery, 1 passenger car, 44 trucks and 7 special vehicles, 7 BM-13 (for some reason they appeared in the column "Cannons 210 mm") and one 152-mm howitzer, which served as a sighting gun.
It was in this composition that the Flerovskaya battery went down in history as the first in the Great Patriotic War and the world's first combat unit of rocket artillery that participated in hostilities. Flerov and his gunners fought their first battle, which later became legendary, on July 14, 1941. At 15:15, as follows from archival documents, seven BM-13s from the battery opened fire on the Orsha railway station: it was necessary to destroy the trains with Soviet military equipment and ammunition that had accumulated there, which did not manage to reach the front and got stuck, falling into the hands enemy. In addition, reinforcements for the advancing units of the Wehrmacht were also accumulating in Orsha, so that an extremely attractive opportunity for the command to solve several strategic tasks at once arose.
And so it happened. On the personal order of the deputy chief of artillery of the Western Front, General Georgy Kariofilli, the battery struck the first blow. In just a few seconds, a full battery load of 112 rockets, each carrying a warhead weighing almost 5 kg, was fired at the target, and hell began at the station. With the second blow, Flerov's battery destroyed the pontoon crossing of the Nazis across the Orshitsa River - with the same success.
A few days later, two more batteries arrived at the front - Lieutenant Alexander Kuhn and Lieutenant Nikolai Denisenko. Both batteries delivered their first attacks on the enemy in the last days of July of the difficult 1941 year. And from the beginning of August, the formation of not separate batteries, but entire regiments of rocket artillery began in the Red Army.
Guard of the first months of the war
The first document on the formation of such a regiment was issued on August 4: a decree of the USSR State Defense Committee ordered the formation of one Guards mortar regiment, armed with M-13 installations. This regiment was named after the People's Commissar of General Mechanical Engineering Pyotr Parshin - the man who, in fact, turned to the State Defense Committee with the idea of forming such a regiment. And from the very beginning he offered to give him the rank of Guards - a month and a half before the first Guards rifle units appeared in the Red Army, and then all the others.
Katyushas on the march. 2nd Baltic Front, January 1945. Photo: Vasily Savransky / RIA Novosti
Four days later, on August 8, the rocket launcher regiment's staffing table was approved: each regiment consisted of three or four divisions, and each division consisted of three batteries of four combat vehicles. The same directive provided for the formation of the first eight regiments of rocket artillery. The ninth was the regiment named after the People's Commissar Parshin. It is noteworthy that already on November 26, the People's Commissariat for General Machine Building was renamed the People's Commissariat for Mortar Weapons: the only one in the USSR that was engaged in a single type of weapon (it existed until February 17, 1946)! Is this not evidence of the great importance the country's leadership attached to rocket launchers?
Another evidence of this special attitude was the decree of the State Defense Committee, issued a month later - on September 8, 1941. This document actually turned rocket-propelled mortar artillery into a special, privileged branch of the armed forces. Guards mortar units were withdrawn from the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army and turned into guards mortar units and formations with their own command. It was directly subordinate to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, and it consisted of the headquarters, the armaments department of the M-8 and M-13 mortar units and operational groups in the main directions.
The first commander of the guards mortar units and formations was 1st rank military engineer Vasily Aborenkov, a man whose name appeared in the author's certificate for "a rocket launcher for a sudden, powerful artillery and chemical attack on the enemy with the help of rocket shells." It was Aborenkov who, at first as the head of the department, and then as the deputy head of the Main Artillery Directorate, did everything to ensure that the Red Army received a new, unprecedented weapon.
After that, the process of forming new artillery units went in full swing. The main tactical unit was the regiment of guards mortar units. It consisted of three battalions of M-8 or M-13 rocket launchers, an anti-aircraft battalion, and service units. In total, the regiment numbered 1,414 people, 36 combat vehicles BM-13 or BM-8, and from other weapons - 12 anti-aircraft guns of 37 mm caliber, 9 anti-aircraft machine guns DShK and 18 light machine guns, not counting the small arms of personnel. The salvo of one regiment of rocket launchers M-13 consisted of 576 rockets - 16 "eres" in a salvo of each vehicle, and the regiment of rocket launchers M-8 consisted of 1296 rockets, since one vehicle fired 36 shells at once.
"Katyusha", "Andryusha" and other members of the reactive family
By the end of World War II, the guards mortar units and formations of the Red Army had become a formidable striking force that had a significant impact on the course of hostilities. In total, by May 1945, the Soviet rocket artillery consisted of 40 separate divisions, 115 regiments, 40 separate brigades and 7 divisions - a total of 519 divisions.
These units were armed with three types of combat vehicles. First of all, these were, of course, the Katyushas themselves - BM-13 combat vehicles with 132-mm rockets. It was they who became the most massive in Soviet rocket artillery during the Great Patriotic War: from July 1941 to December 1944, 6844 such machines were produced. Until the lend-lease trucks "Studebaker" began to arrive in the USSR, the launchers were mounted on the ZIS-6 chassis, and then the American six-axle heavy trucks became the main carriers. In addition, there were modifications of launchers to accommodate the M-13 on other trucks supplied under Lend-Lease.
The 82mm Katyusha BM-8 had much more modifications. Firstly, only these installations, due to their small dimensions and weight, could be mounted on the chassis of light tanks T-40 and T-60. Such self-propelled rocket launchers were named BM-8-24. Secondly, installations of the same caliber were mounted on railway platforms, armored boats and torpedo boats, and even on railcars. And on the Caucasian front, they were converted for shooting from the ground, without a self-propelled chassis, which would not have been deployed in the mountains. But the main modification was a launcher for M-8 rockets on an automobile chassis: by the end of 1944, 2,086 of them were produced. These were mainly BM-8-48, launched into production in 1942: these machines had 24 beams, on which 48 M-8 rockets were installed, they were produced on the chassis of the Form Marmont-Herrington truck. Until a foreign chassis appeared, BM-8-36 units were produced on the basis of the GAZ-AAA truck.
Harbin. Red Army parade in honor of the victory over Japan. Photo: TASS photo chronicle
The last and most powerful modification of the Katyusha was the BM-31-12 guards mortars. Their story began in 1942, when they managed to design a new M-30 rocket, which was the familiar M-13 with a new warhead of 300 mm caliber. Since they did not change the rocket part of the projectile, it turned out to be a kind of "tadpole" - his resemblance to the boy, apparently, served as the basis for the nickname "Andryusha". Initially, the projectiles of the new type were launched exclusively from the ground position, directly from the frame-like machine, on which the projectiles stood in wooden packages. A year later, in 1943, the M-30 was replaced by the M-31 missile with a heavier warhead. It was for this new ammunition that the BM-31-12 launcher was designed by April 1944 on the chassis of the three-axle Studebaker.
These combat vehicles were distributed among the units of the guards mortar units and formations as follows. Of the 40 separate rocket artillery battalions, 38 were armed with BM-13 installations, and only two - BM-8. The same ratio was in 115 regiments of guards mortars: 96 of them were armed with Katyusha in the BM-13 version, and the remaining 19 - 82-mm BM-8. The Guards mortar brigades were not armed with rocket launchers of caliber less than 310 mm at all. 27 brigades were armed with M-30 frame launchers, and then M-31, and 13 - self-propelled M-31-12 launchers on an automobile chassis.
The one with whom rocket artillery began
During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet rocket artillery had no equal on the other side of the front. Despite the fact that the infamous German rocket launcher Nebelwerfer, nicknamed "Ishak" and "Vanyusha" among Soviet soldiers, had a performance comparable to the "Katyusha", it was much less mobile and had one and a half times less firing range. The achievements of the allies of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition in the field of rocket artillery were even more modest.
The American army only in 1943 adopted 114-mm M8 rockets, for which three types of launchers were developed. Installations of the T27 type most of all resembled the Soviet Katyushas: they were mounted on off-road trucks and consisted of two packages of eight guides each, installed across the longitudinal axis of the vehicle. It is noteworthy that the United States repeated the original Katyusha scheme, which Soviet engineers abandoned: the transverse arrangement of the launchers led to a strong swing of the vehicle at the time of the salvo, which dramatically reduced the accuracy of fire. There was also a variant of the T23: the same package of eight guides was installed on the Willys chassis. And the most powerful in terms of volley force was the option of installing T34: 60 (!) Guides, which were installed on the hull of the Sherman tank, right above the turret, which is why guidance in the horizontal plane was carried out by turning the entire tank.
In addition to them, the US Army during the Second World War also used an improved M16 rocket with a T66 launcher and a T40 launcher on the chassis of M4 medium tanks for 182 mm rockets. And in Great Britain, since 1941, a five-inch 5 "UP rocket has been in service, for salvo firing such projectiles were used 20-pipe ship launchers or 30-pipe towed wheeled launchers. But all these systems were, in fact, only a semblance of Soviet rocket artillery: they failed to catch up or surpass the Katyusha in terms of prevalence, combat effectiveness, scale of production, or popularity. It is no coincidence that the word "Katyusha" to this day is synonymous with the word "rocket artillery", and the BM-13 itself became the ancestor of all modern multiple launch rocket systems.
