In our publications, we wrote a lot about artillery systems that covered themselves with glory on the fields of the Great Patriotic War. About systems that some of our readers remember, saw or worked with. But there are copies of such systems in our archives that few have heard of, and even fewer have seen them "live".
Today our heroine is a 210-mm cannon of special power Br-17. The gun that really did a lot in the defense of Leningrad. The cannon that helped our units break into the German fortifications in Königsberg.
Few can boast of a "close acquaintance" with this system. This is truly a piece of equipment. In total, the Red Army had 9 such systems. Suffice it to say that in the artillery regiment of special power there were only 2 such guns! They were supplemented by 6 pieces of 152-mm Br-2 cannons. In total, four regiments of special power for the entire army!
So, the artillery system Br-17 is designed to fight against long-term field and fortifications of the enemy. The importance of developing such weapons for the USSR can be summed up in two words - Stalin's order!
This means that the gun was created in a complete carte blanche for designers and engineers. The general designer could invite any designer from other design bureaus, use the capacities of any factories, use ranges and test stands of any organization. Design bureaus worked in a two-shift mode. Almost non-stop.
But that meant something else as well. Failure to fulfill Stalin's order meant acquaintance not only with the investigators of the NKVD, but, quite possibly, with the executioners. This applied not only to the General Designer, but also to the entire KB team.
Let's start from afar. We have already said more than once that in the mid-30s, the command of the Red Army came to the conclusion that the guns that were in service were outdated. Rearmament was required for modern models. During the discussion of the issue, it was decided to use foreign experience in the design of such systems.
In the summer of 1937, a commission of representatives of the Red Army and military engineers was sent to the Skoda plant in Czechoslovakia to negotiate a new duplex, a 210-mm cannon and a 305-mm howitzer. The commission also included Professor Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov, who headed a whole group of designers at plant # 221. It was this plant that was entrusted with organizing the production of duplexes in the Soviet Union.
Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov, lieutenant general of the engineering and technical service, an outstanding designer of artillery systems. One of the creators of the Soviet artillery of great and special power.
Born in 1899 in Bryansk, in the family of a shoemaker. In 1918 he entered the Petrograd military-technical artillery school. During his studies he went to the front twice. In 1922 he entered the St. Petersburg Artillery Academy. In 1928, a young military engineer was sent to factory # 7. In 1929 he was transferred to the Bolshevik plant (Obukhov plant).
Since 1932 - Head of the Department of Artillery Systems Design at the Artillery Academy named after V. I. Dzerzhinsky. At the same time, he is the head of the same department at the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute.
In 1937 he was appointed General Designer of the Bolshevik plant. The next two years of I. I. Ivanov were awarded the first Order of Lenin. For his significant contribution to equipping the ground forces and naval forces with new types of weapons. Military engineer Ivanov was engaged in high-power systems!
On March 19, 1939, 1st rank military engineer Professor Ivanov was appointed Chief Designer of OKB-221 (special design bureau) of the Stalingrad plant "Barrikady" (plant No. 221).
But let's return to our heroine.
The Soviet commission did not agree with the duplex options proposed by Skoda. The company has finalized the design taking into account the customer's requirements. The barrels of the cannon and howitzers received free liners. The wedge gates were changed to piston ones, and the loading became cartridge-type.
According to the agreement D / 7782 of April 6, 1938, concluded by the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade with the Skoda firm, the latter undertook to produce for the USSR one prototype 210-mm cannon and a 305-mm howitzer with a set of ammunition and accessories. The deadline for the delivery of prototypes was set on December 1, 1939.
In addition to prototypes, sets of working drawings and other documentation for the manufacture of these artillery systems were to be transferred. The total cost of the order was USD 2,375,000 (approx. CZK 68 million).
In addition, Skoda supplied (under another agreement with the industry) three sets of barrel and bolt forgings for a 305-mm howitzer in the first quarter of 1939 and six sets of barrel and bolt forgings for 210-mm guns in the first half of 1939 (according to one set monthly), as well as a ready-made toolkit a month after its introduction into production at the Skoda plant.
The first batch of drawings for barrels with bolts and forgings was received from Skoda in August 1938.
In principle, the further actions of the USSR are clear. There is documentation, there are samples, there is a license. All that remains is to start the release of the guns. However, everything turned out to be not so simple.
The USSR already then had its own path, including in production. We went exactly this way, our own way. The whole world, in a similar situation, changes the production process for a new product. We change the product for the existing production process.
By the protocol of September 15, 1939, approved by the People's Commissar of Arms and the head of the AU of the Red Army, it was decided to make some changes to the company's drawings, including simplifying some of the parts, replacing the forging with casting here and there, reducing the consumption of bronze, switching to OST, and so on.
The main changes in the plant No. 221:
1. The Skoda trunk consisted of a monoblock, a coupling, a support ring and a liner. The barrel of plant No. 221 consisted of a monoblock barrel, breech with bushing and liner.
Liner "Skoda" is cylindrical, and plant number 221 - conical with protrusions at the breech end. The diametral gap between the liner and the monoblock was brought from 0, 1-0, 2 mm to 0.25 mm (constant). The elastic limit of the liner is increased to 80 kg / mm2.
2. The Skoda firing mechanism was replaced with the B-4 howitzer firing mechanism. In addition, the bolt frame has been simplified.
3. A number of changes have been made to the wagons. The cannon was placed on Russian wheels.
By KO decree # 142 of June 1, 1939, plant # 221 was supposed to hand over three 210-mm cannons and three 305-mm howitzers by April 1, 1940. Despite the capture of Czechoslovakia by Germany, deliveries to the USSR continued, albeit with some delays in schedule.
Factory tests were carried out in Slovakia in the presence of the Soviet selection committee chaired by I. I. Ivanov. Factory tests of the 210-mm cannon were completed on November 20, 1939, and the 305-mm howitzers - on December 22, 1939.
Factory test results of a 210-mm cannon:
a) The gun is unstable when fired with a full charge at elevation angles up to + 20 °.
b) Arming time - 1 hour 45 minutes, and disarmament - 1 hour 20 minutes.
c) The transition time from the traveling position to the combat position and back is about two hours.
The Barricades plant continued to modernize the gun. The modernization was no longer carried out even at the request of the production workers. Simply replacing one part led to problems with another. Thus, we can talk about a complete modernization of the system. The leadership of "Barricades" took great risks by independently changing the design of the system. But the winners are not judged. Stalin's order was fulfilled, which means we won.
A prototype of the 210-m gun Br-17 was presented for field tests in August 1940, that is, 2 (!) Years after receiving Czech documentation. The gun had a barrel length of 49, 60 calibers, the length of the rifled part of the barrel was 37, 29 calibers. 64 constant-steepness grooves were made in the bore. The shutter was piston with an obturator.
The weight of the barrel with the shutter was 12 640 kg. The barrel is installed in a yoke-type cradle. When fired, it rolled back in the cradle along with the cylinders of the recoil devices - a hydropneumatic knurler located in the barrel and a hydraulic recoil brake mounted under the barrel.
The gun machine is riveted, connected to the rotary part of the base by bolts. Guidance of the gun in the vertical plane was carried out manually using a lifting mechanism equipped with two toothed sectors. Guidance was carried out in the range of angles from 0 ° to + 50 °. The system remained stable when fired at elevation angles over 20 °.
The rotary part of the base of the Br-17 cannon rested on balls to facilitate horizontal guidance. When operated by a rotary mechanism mounted on a machine with a rotary part of the base, the latter rotated on a ball bearing due to the engagement of the main gear of the rotary mechanism with a ring gear fixed to the stationary part of the base.
The rotary mechanism with a manual drive provided guidance of the gun in the horizontal plane in the ± 45 ° sector. When transferring the support feet and coulter supports, you can get a circular fire.
The role of the combat pin was performed by the lower support ring attached to the fixed part and enclosed in a circle by the shoulder of the upper support ring riveted to the rotary part of the base. The fixed part of the base is lowered in a combat position into a pit in the ground, and the pit is preliminarily lined with special squares and beams. Both the rotary and fixed parts of the base are riveted.
The fixed part of the base had spreading support frames at all four corners. The ends of the beds with screws with ball heels rested on the coulter supports, connected to the ground by driven openers, and on the support feet.
The screws (jacks) at the ends of the support frames of the Br-17 cannon served to create additional pressure from the cannon on the support feet and coulter supports in order to partially unload the lower part of the base. The cannon was fired using a sight with an independent line of sight.
When firing with a full charge, the initial velocity of the F-643 projectile was 800 m / s. The firing range reached 30,360 m. A 210-mm high-explosive projectile on sandy ground made a funnel with a depth of 1.5-2 m and a diameter of 5-5.5 m. A 5-meter concrete wall, and at an initial speed of 358 m / s at an angle of 60 °, it punched a concrete wall 2 m thick.
The loading of the gun was carried out using a special device, which consisted of the following devices:
a) an inclined rail track, secured on the rotary suit of the system;
b) a feed carriage, moved along the rail track using a cable and a winch;
c) carts for shells.
The loading process itself was carried out as follows. The shell is manually loaded onto a special shell trolley. Then the cart rolls up to the beginning of the rail track and the projectile is loaded onto the slug carriage. The carriage with the projectile is pulled up to the breech of the gun using a manual winch mounted on the carriage truss.
After bringing the swinging part to the loading position (angle + 8 °) manually by force of 6-8 numbers using a punch, the projectile was sent out. The charges were brought in manually and also sent by a punch.
The mass of the gun in the firing position was 44,000 kg. When transferring a gun from a combat position to a traveling position, it was disassembled into three main parts:
1. Base with support coulters (carriage no. 1).
2. Machine with cradle, yoke and anti-recoil devices (carriage # 2).
3. Barrel with a bolt (carriage # 3).
For transportation on a campaign of standard volumetric parts of the system (except for those carried on 3 carts), as well as spare parts, one three-ton vehicle was attached to each gun for transporting the lining of the pit and a sapper tool, and four three-ton trailers for transporting the rest of the property. Carts with parts of the gun and trailers were towed by Voroshilovets and Komintern tracked tractors, the maximum transport speed was 30 km / h.
It remains to combine the performance characteristics of the system into a table:
Caliber, mm - 210
Barrel length, calibers - 49.6
Greatest elevation angle, degrees - 50
Declination angle, degrees - 0
Horizontal angle of fire, degrees - 90
Weight in firing position, kg - 44,000
High-explosive projectile weight, kg - 135
The initial velocity of the projectile, m / s - 800
The greatest firing range, m - 30360
Rate of fire - 1 shot in 2 minutes
Calculation, people - 20-26
According to the recollections of soldiers who saw the combat work of these artillery systems, no weapon evoked such admiration and respect. Power and beauty. There are recollections that during the assault on Koenigsberg such a weapon was installed 800 (!) Meters from the line of contact!
However, in 1945, the history of this artillery system did not end. Suffice it to say that in 1952 all 210-mm Br-17 cannons were overhauled at the Barrikady plant. 9 guns that went through the war again took up military service in the Soviet Army.
After the war, the Škoda company developed a new generation of high-explosive shells for cannons. But the widespread appearance of rocketry still sent the guns to a well-deserved rest. And in the 60s they were withdrawn from the armed forces. Some have been sent for storage, some have been disposed of.
To date, there are 3 weapons that are on display in museums:
Br-17 No. 1 - Verkhnyaya Pyshma (Museum of military equipment of the UMMC. Until 2012, it was located on the territory of the 39th arsenal of GRAU in Perm.
Br-17 No. 4 - St. Petersburg (Museum of Artillery).
Br-17 No. 2 - Moscow (Central Museum of the Russian Army).
