In the twentieth century, designers of only two countries - Germany and the Soviet Union - were fond of ultra-long-range guns.
On March 23, 1918, at 7.20 a.m. in the center of Paris, on Place de la République, there was a strong explosion. The Parisians in fright turned their eyes to the sky, but there were no zeppelins or airplanes. The assumption that Paris was fired by enemy artillery did not occur to anyone at first, because the front line was 90 km west of the city. But alas, the mysterious explosions continued. Until August 7, 1918, the Germans fired 367 shells, of which 2/3 hit the city center, and a third - into the suburbs.
For the first time in the world, an ultra-long-range 210-mm cannon, called the Colossal by the Germans, fired across Paris. Its range reached 120 km, slightly less than that of the famous Soviet ballistic missiles "Scud" (R-17) and more than that of the first serial missiles "Tochka". Alas, the weight of the gun was 142 tons, the weight of the entire installation was over 750 tons, and the survivability of the barrel was very low.
We'll take a different path
Russia. End of 1918. A civil war broke out in the country. Soviet republic in the ring of fronts. The population of Petrograd was reduced by five times, famine and typhus raged in the city. And in December 1918, the Bolshevik Military Legislative Council decided to begin work on "ultra-long-range weapons." I must honestly say that this revolutionary idea was put forward by the head of the artillery range, General of the tsarist army V. M. Trofimov. But the revolutionary politicians strongly supported the revolutionary artillerymen and established the Commission for Special Artillery Experiments (Kosartop).
At that time, it was possible to achieve ultra-long range shooting in only three ways:
to create special cannons with extra-long barrels of 100 or more calibers (by that time, the length of land artillery guns did not exceed 30 klb, and naval artillery - 50 klb);
to create electric, or, more precisely, electromagnetic weapons, in which the projectile could be accelerated using the energy of the magnetic field;
create fundamentally new types of shells.
It was impractical to follow the German route - the manufacture of an extra-long barrel is technologically difficult and expensive, and in the presence of conventional belt shells, the survivability of the barrel did not exceed 100 shots. (A belt projectile is a projectile equipped with thin copper belts, which, when fired, are pressed into the rifling of the barrel bore and ensure the rotation of the projectiles.) Since the 40s of the twentieth century, copper in the belts has been replaced by other materials, including ceramics.)
Our scientists were already able to create an ultra-long-range electromagnetic gun in 1918. But besides the huge costs for the design, manufacture, and development of such a weapon, it would be necessary to install an average power plant next to it. Since 1918 and until now, information about the creation of electromagnetic guns has been systematically published in the press, but, alas, not a single such installation has entered service. Soviet designers decided to take the third path and create unique ultra-long-range projectiles.
Worker-peasant super-shells
The idea delighted all the red military commanders, but Marshal Tukhachevsky became the main ideologist of the introduction of super-shells.
From 1920 to 1939, huge funds were invested in the USSR to test top-secret shells of a new type. New weapons were not created for them, only the channels of existing systems were altered. Nevertheless, tens of millions of rubles were spent on the alteration of such weapons, on the design and manufacture of thousands of experimental shells, as well as on their long-term testing. It is curious that for almost all 20 years, work has been going on in parallel on three types of projectiles: polygonal, rifled and sub-caliber.
Multifaceted talent
Let's start with the polygonal shells, which had the shape of a regular polygon in cross-section. In its middle part, the projectile corresponded to the shape of the channel. With such a device and precise finishing, the projectile adhered most of its surface to the walls of the channel, and a high rotational speed could be imparted to it, since it was possible to give a large steepness of the channel twisting without fear of breaking the leading parts of the projectile. Thanks to this, it was possible to dramatically increase the weight and length of the projectile, respectively, the range and accuracy of fire would be much improved.
In the early 1930s, several 76-mm guns of the 1902 model of the year were converted into polygonal ones. Their channel had 10 faces, the caliber (diameter of the inscribed circle) - 78 mm. On trials in 1932 … a miracle happened! The P-1 polygonal projectile weighing 9, 2 kg flew at a distance of 12, 85 km, and the P-3 projectile weighing 11, 43 kg - at 11, 7 km. For comparison, the standard shells weighing 6.5 kg had a range of 8.5 km. And this without changing the device of the weapon, the barrel was only bored accordingly.
It was immediately decided to transfer all divisional, corps, anti-aircraft artillery, as well as high-power artillery to polygonal shells. At the training grounds, 152-mm B-10 cannons and 76-mm anti-aircraft guns of the 1931 model with polygonal shells rumbled. They were urgently converted into polygonal ship and coastal guns of calibers 130, 180, 203 and 305 mm.
Screw and nut
In parallel with the polygonal tests, rifled shells were tested. Like polygonal shells, rifled shells did not have leading copper belts. Deep grooves or protrusions were made on their body, with which the projectile entered the grooves (protrusions) of the barrel bore, like a screw into a nut. From 1932 to 1938, several dozen types of rifled shells of 37 to 152 mm caliber were tested.
Active versus passive
Our engineers have achieved the greatest success with sub-caliber shells (the caliber of which is less than the barrel caliber). Subcaliber projectiles were then called "combined", since they consisted of a pallet and an "active" projectile. The pallet directed the movement of the projectile along the bore, and when the projectile flew out of the channel, it was destroyed.
For firing subcaliber shells, two 356/50-mm cannons, manufactured in 1915-1917 for the Izmail-class battlecruisers, were converted. The cruisers themselves were scrapped by the Bolsheviks.
At the beginning of 1935, the Bolshevik plant manufactured new 220/368-mm sabot projectiles of drawings 3217 and 3218 with belt pallets, which were fired in June-August 1935. (A belt pallet is a pallet with copper belts, like a conventional belt projectile.) The weight of the structure was 262 kg, and the weight of a 220-mm active projectile was 142 kg, and the powder charge was 255 kg. During the tests, a speed of 1254-1265 m / s was obtained. When firing on August 2, 1935, an average range of 88,720 m was obtained with an elevation angle of about 500. Lateral deviation during firing was 100–150 m.
To further increase the firing range, work began to reduce the weight of the pallet.
At the end of 1935, shells with belt pallets of drawing 6125 were fired. The weight of the active projectile was 142 kg, and the weight of the pallet was 120 kg, the firing range was 97 270 m at an elevation angle of 420. Further work was continued along the path of lightening the belt pallet to 112 kg (projectile drawing 6314).
By that time, the conversion of the second 356-mm cannon into the 368-mm was completed. Satisfactory results were obtained during tests of 368-mm cannon No. 2 in 1936 - early 1937 with a projectile of drawing 6314, and on their basis, in March 1937, tables of firing these projectiles from a 368-mm cannon were compiled. The design of such a projectile weighed 254 kg, of which 112, 1 kg fell on the belt pallet, and 140 kg on the active projectile. The length of the 220 mm active projectile is 5 clb. When firing with a full charge of 223 kg, the initial speed was 1390 m / s, and the range was 120.5 km. Thus, the same range was obtained as that of the "Parisian Cannon", but with a heavier projectile. The main thing was that an ordinary naval gun was used, and the survivability of the barrel was much greater than that of the Germans. 368-mm barrels were supposed to be placed on TM-1-14 railway transporters.
With greetings from the Baltic
The tasks for ultra-long-range railway guns have already been set - "disruption of mobilization" in the Baltic countries, that is, simply put, the TM-1-14 railway installations were supposed to fire sub-caliber shells at the Baltic cities.
In 1931, work began on the so-called "star" pallet for combined projectiles. Tools with star-shaped pallets had a small number of deep grooves (usually 3-4). The sections of the shell trays were the same as the section of the channel. These guns can formally be classified as guns with rifled shells.
To begin with, the star-shaped pallets were tested on the 76-mm anti-aircraft gun of the 1931 model and the 152-mm Br-2 cannon. And only then did the Barrikady plant start cutting a 356/50-mm cannon using the CEA system. The caliber of the gun became 380/250 mm (rifling / field), and only four rifling. Such guns were supposed to be installed on the TM-1-14 railway installations. It was not possible to test the CEA cannon at full range, but according to calculations it should have exceeded 150 km.
Artillerymen from Lubyanka
And then the thunder struck! At the end of 1938, several vigilant comrades drew up a large report "The results of tests of rifled and polygonal projectiles in 1932-1938", where they clearly showed how the test results were juggled, how the designers of these projectiles were actually marking time. All the tricks were in vain, and the test results, in principle, corresponded to those obtained at Volkovo Pole in 1856-1870 when testing the guns of Whitworth, Blackley, and others.
The report was sent to the Art Department of the Red Army, where they knew the situation and, at best, turned a blind eye to it. And a copy of the report went to the NKVD, where nothing was known about it.
Denunciations are undeniably disgusting. But in the Archives of the Soviet Army, I carefully read the denunciation, and in the Military Historical Archives - a report on the firing of 12-foot, 32-pound and 9-inch Whitworth cannons. And, alas, it all came together. Indeed, theoretically, polygonal projectiles gave a huge gain in weight and firing range, but at a long firing range, they began to somersault, to load them required, if not engineers, then virtuosos from polygon teams, the projectiles jammed in the channel, etc. Russian artillerymen, at the direction of their superiors, tested several polygonal guns, and each time they categorically excluded the possibility of adopting them for service in Russia. The results of tests of polygonal guns in 1928-1938 coincided one to one with the results obtained at Volkovo Pole. The same picture was with rifled shells.
Needless to say, in 1938-1939, dozens of developers of "miracle shells" were repressed, and in 1956-1960 they were completely rehabilitated. Work on the "miracle shells" in the USSR stopped, and none of them was used during the Great Patriotic War.
What death is for a Russian is good for a German
In the summer of 1940, German ultra-long-range guns opened fire on England across the English Channel. Artillery shelling of the southern part of England stopped only in the fall of 1944, after the capture of the French coast by the allied forces.
The Germans fired from special long-barreled railway guns with both conventional shells and shells with ready-made projections. So, the 210-mm ultra-long-range railway installation K12 (E) had a barrel length of 159 klb. The 1935 high-explosive projectile weighing 107.5 kg had an initial speed of 1625 m / s and a range of 120 km. At the beginning of the war, a smooth barrel and a feathered projectile weighing 140 kg were made for this gun, with an initial speed of 1850 m / s and a range of about 250 km.
Another ultra-long-range railway installation, the 278-mm K5E, fired 28-cm shells with ready-made projections, which had 12 deep grooves (depth 6, 75 mm). These barrels were fired with 28-cm Gr. 35 grenades with a length of 1276/4, 5 mm / clb and a weight of 255 kg. The shells had 12 ready-made protrusions on the hull. With a charge weighing 175 kg, the initial speed was 1130 m / s, and the range was 62.4 km. The Germans managed to keep the population of southern England at bay. But, of course, according to the criterion "efficiency / cost", the German ultra-long-range weapon was significantly inferior to aviation and submarines.
Already by 1941, the Germans had reached the limit of the capabilities of both conventional (belt) and shells with ready-made protrusions. To further increase the firing range and weight of the explosive in the projectile, a radically new technical solution was required. And they became active reactive projectiles, the development of which began in Germany back in 1938. For the same K5 (E) railway gun, the Raketen-Granate 4341 active-rocket projectile weighing 245 kg was created. The muzzle velocity of the projectile was 1120 m / s. After the projectile flew out of the barrel, the jet engine was turned on, which worked for 2 seconds. The average thrust of the projectile is 2100 kg. The engine contained 19.5 kg of diglycol powder as fuel. The firing range of the Raketen-Granate 4341 projectile was 87 km.
In 1944, the development of a German ultra-long-range rocket-artillery system for firing RAG projectiles began. The RAG rocket weighed 1158 kg. The charge was small - only 29.6 kg, muzzle velocity - 250 m / s, but the maximum pressure in the channel was also small - only 600 kg / cm2, which made it possible to make both the barrel and the entire system light.
At a distance of about 100 meters from the muzzle of the gun, a powerful jet engine was turned on. For 5 minutes of its operation, about 478 kg of rocket fuel burned, and the projectile speed increased to 1200-1510 m / s. The firing range was supposed to be about 100 kilometers.
Curiously, work on the RAG system did not end with the surrender of Germany. In June 1945, a group of German designers working on RAG received a new chief - engineer-colonel A. S. Butakov. For half a century, the dream of a red supergun has never left the heads of Soviet military leaders.
After the end of World War II, enthusiasm for ultra-long range artillery began to wane. Military designers were carried away by a new trend - rocketry. Rockets have begun to penetrate even the traditional fiefdom of large-caliber cannons - the Navy. Read about the developments of the Russian shipborne missile in the next issue of our magazine.
