In one of the previous articles, I compared the history of the creation of almost any weapon of the early 20th century with a detective story. Now it will not be just a detective story, I intend to treat my favorite artillery fans with something more. To be honest, I don't even know how to properly name this story. But let's go along the path slowly and calmly.
So, the 76 mm F-22 cannon. The copy, which is in the photo, is in the UMMC museum in the city of Verkhnyaya Pyshma and feels just fine. The same cannot be said about the history of the gun.
If you look at most of the main sources, then the F-22 looks like the first pancake that came out lumpy. My main task is to dispel this frankly stupid myth. The cannon (like everything designed by the great Grabin) was excellent.
But - in order. And if so, then we return to the year 1931.
At that time, the aforementioned spirit of Tukhachevsky was not hovering over the Red Army at that time. Frankly stupid and not entirely healthy on the head of a person, but endowed with the highest trust. During his short, glory to Stalin, career, he caused such damage to both the army and finances that the wall to which the marshal was placed could have been made of platinum.
Since 1931, Tukhachevsky has been the chief of armaments of the Red Army, and in 1934 he became Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR for armaments and ammunition.
In these positions, he had all the possibilities for the development of tanks and artillery, but for some reason Tukhachevsky threw all his strength into producing completely useless freaks.
Here are huge and useless T-35 tanks and no less useless, but tiny T-27 tankettes. But the famous dynamo-reactive cannons of Kurchevsky became the champions in the destruction of money. You can add here the work on polygonal projectiles, which are also quite meaningless.
But I mean another masterpiece of Tukhachevsky's inflamed fantasy, namely the project to create a universal anti-aircraft divisional gun.
Thousands of people were thrown into the creation of this miracle, and in fact, a monster, in virtually all artillery design bureaus. Design Bureau of the Krasny Putilovets Plant, Design Bureau of Plant No. 8, GKB-38, Design Bureau of Plant No. 92. Everyone began to create freaks at the behest of the Marshal. Who would try to argue?
Grabin tried to argue. A man of the old school, Vasily Gavrilovich openly protested against the creation of a universal do not understand what, which should fight tanks, pillboxes, and even fire barrage at planes.
But Grabin was a specialist with a capital letter … Therefore, he did not seek adventure, but created an outright monster, the F-20 (A-51) cannon, which was not universal, but (only in those years such a formulation could exist) “semi-universal!
It was a monster weighing almost 2 tons, almost 700 kg heavier than the divisional gun of the 1902/1930 model that was then in service.
Plus, the genius of Tukhachevsky insisted that the gun must have a support pallet, for shooting upwards, connecting the gun to the ground when fired. During the transportation of the gun, the pallet had to be under the bed. When switching from a traveling position to a combat position, it must be quickly removed, lowered to the ground, the gun rolled onto the pallet, and only after that you can fire.
Masterpiece, isn't it? Given the state and availability of roads at that time, it would be safe to say that after the first transportation, the gun will cease to be even semi-universal, since it will come to a position without a pallet, that is, virtually unable to shoot.
We are silent about the cost, since we do not know it, but we suspect that the F-20 should have cost like three divisions. But when did such trifles confuse Tukhachevsky?
The cost of the semi-universal gun promised to be much higher than the special one. The advantages that were prescribed for her by the tactical and technical requirements did not in any way atone for her obvious shortcomings.
In short, the clever people at the Grabin Design Bureau understood the complete flaw in the semi-universal gun. Therefore, we created a project, reported, forgot and got down to real business.
Grabin associates proactively developed their own version of the divisional gun. The project turned out to be very promising, but the idiots of Tukhachevsky came and forced Grabin to make a field cannon and at the same time an anti-aircraft gun, that is, the idea of semi-universality again fiercely triumphed.
The elevation angle was adjusted to 75 °. Initially, the F-22 was equipped with a muzzle brake, a new 76-mm projectile with a more powerful powder charge was developed for it, and the chamber was enlarged.
Grabin believed (and who are we not to believe his calculations?) That the gun had a good groundwork in terms of armor penetration against existing tanks of foreign countries and even had a certain prospect for the future.
When it came to smotrin, a miracle happened. Stalin, at the suggestion of Voroshilov and Budyonny, ordered Tukhachevsky and Yegorov to calm down in terms of versatility and ordered Grabin to deal with divisional guns, and Makhanov with anti-aircraft guns.
Gritting their teeth with anger, Tukhachevsky and company took the gun for testing. Here they were lucky, the tests failed, which Tukhachevsky happily reported to the Kremlin. But Stalin ordered to continue work on the Grabin gun, because, obviously, he understood the value of the gun for the army better than his minister.
As a result, the F-22 went to the troops, but in what form! The muzzle brake was removed, the chamber was replaced with the old one, from the battalion, the new projectile was abandoned in favor of the old 76-mm model of 1902/30. And, most importantly, they were not allowed to reduce the elevation angle from 75 to 45 degrees, which would simplify the design of the gun.
With such a tool Tukhachevsky benefited the Red Army. This was the FIRST Soviet cannon, not copied from an imported model, which did not have a basis in the form of a pre-revolutionary weapon. The first Soviet cannon.
Say, it was possible to finish the F-22, as usual, "in the process"? Yes, you can. If Grabin had been given such an opportunity, the result would surely have been. But Grabin was either fired or sent to work at another plant, as a result, Vasily Gavrilovich could not stand it and ended up in the hospital with a heart attack.
Stalin intervened again with a growl, “Get off!” And they finally fell behind Grabin. But health was already undermined, and the nerves were not steel.
In fact, this was the time given to our opponents. If it were not for the struggle for health, the lightweight version of the F-22 USV would have appeared much earlier, and not in 1940. And many of Grabin's enhancements would have been more useful at the start of the war. But - we have what we have.
On June 22, 1941, the Red Army had 3,041 divisional F-22s in service. Yes, the very ones who had a reputation for being unreliable and inconvenient.
And then there was a war and a new portion of miracles.
In the initial period of the war, the Germans captured about 1300-1500 F-22 cannons. Since the guys in the Wehrmacht were thoroughly pragmatic, the guns went to Kummersdorf, to the Wehrmacht's artillery range.
And while the bulk of the guns, dubbed the 7, 62 cm F. K. 296 (r), fought on all fronts, work on comprehension was going on at the training ground. As a result, German engineers came to the conclusion that it was realistic to convert the F-22 into a more powerful anti-tank gun, with which the Germans had problems. That is, there were problems with the T-34 and KV, but there were no guns.
And the German engineers did this:
- Moved the handles of the gun aiming drives to one side with the sight.
- Reduced the elevation angle from 75 to 18 degrees (which is what Grabin was shouting about!).
- Removed the variable rollback mechanism, which is completely unnecessary now.
- We installed a new cover shield of a reduced height.
- We squandered the chamber for firing with a more powerful charge. The Soviet sleeve had a length of 385.3 mm and a flange diameter of 90 mm, the new German sleeve had a length of 715 mm with a flange diameter of 100 mm. The volume of the propellant charge increased by 2, 4 times.
- They returned the muzzle brake to the barrel.
- Established the release of ammunition.
A new ammunition load was designed for the gun, which included both conventional armor-piercing and subcaliber and cumulative shells.
The gun was named Pak 39 (r) and Pak 36 (r). The alteration went on until 1944, when the Germans simply ran out of F-22. A total of 1,454 guns were converted, including for installation on an SPG (Pak 36 (r)).
It turned out that the cannon is just great. The Pak 36 (r) was used throughout the war as an anti-tank gun. The intensity of use is indicated by the figures of the consumed armor-piercing ammunition.
In 1942: 49,000 pcs. armor-piercing and 8 170 pcs. subcaliber shells.
In 1943: 151,390 pcs. armor-piercing shells.
For comparison: "own" Pak 40 (75-mm) used 42,430 units in 1942. armor-piercing and 13 380 pcs. cumulative shells, in 1943 - 401 100 pcs. armor-piercing and 374,000 pcs. cumulative shells). Comparable.
The guns were used on the Eastern Front and in North Africa. By March 1945, the Wehrmacht still had 165 Pak 36 (r) and Pak 39 (r) cannons.
Pak 36 (r) can be considered one of the best anti-tank guns of the Second World War. Its power made it possible to confidently engage all types of medium and heavy tanks of that time at real battle distances. Soviet soldiers called this weapon "cobra" or "viper".
Only the IS-2 tanks that appeared at the end of the war in a number of cases (especially head-on) were not affected by this weapon.
Yes, Pak 36 (r) was inferior to Pak 40, since it had slightly lower armor penetration and larger dimensions and weight. However, the creation of the Pak 36 (r) was certainly justified, since the cost of rework was much cheaper than the cost of a new gun.
Speaking about installing a cannon on an SPG, it should be said that it was not only the Germans who did it. In general, for the sake of installing a modified F-22 on an ACS, the Germans simply took and designed a new self-propelled gun. We wrote that the Marder II, created for this weapon, apart from the name, had almost nothing to do with the Marder I.
The Romanians also did not stand aside, having received the F-22, they created their own self-propelled gun based on the Soviet light tank T-60, under the name ACS TACAM T-60.
In general, the practice of application showed that the Germans showed more common sense than the entire artillery command of the Red Army, headed by Tukhachevsky. Glory to Comrade Stalin, who did not let Tukhachevsky "devour" Grabin, glory to Grabin, who in the shortest possible time created a new magnificent weapon, which we know as the ZiS-3.
It is a pity, of course, that the F-22 remained in our history as the unsuccessful work of Grabin. Meanwhile, the work was not just successful. For without the F-22 there would have been no modernized F-22 USV, and, as a result, the appearance of the masterpiece ZiS-3.
So the F-22, although it became the first Soviet cannon, cannot be called a “lumpy first pancake”. A genius is a genius in Africa too. And Vasily Gavrilovich Grabin was just a genius and could not create anything. A-priory.
It is a pity, of course, that the F-22, brought to mind, demonstrated its best sides by shooting at Soviet and British tanks. Sorry.
TTX 76, 2-mm divisional gun F-22, model 1936:
Caliber, mm: 76, 2.
Instances: 2,932.
Calculation, people: 6.
Rate of fire, rds / min: 17-21 (with aiming correction 6-12).
Transportation speed on the highway, km / h: up to 30.
The height of the line of fire, mm: 1027.
Mass in the stowed position, kg: 2820.
Dimensions in the stowed position.
Length, mm: 7120.
Width, mm: 1926.
Height, mm: 1712.
Clearance, mm: 320.
Shooting angles:
HV angle, degrees: from −5 to + 75 °.
Angle GN, city: 60 °.
The weapon and front end are exhibited at the Museum of Military Equipment of the UMMC in the town of Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Region.
