Anti-tank guns appeared in Russia in the fall of 1914. No, this statement is not a typo or the author's desire to prove that Russia is the "homeland of elephants." It's just that the anti-tank guns had a different purpose at that time, the fight against enemy machine guns, and the penetration not of the armor of the tank, but of the machine-gun shield. And, it should be noted that the armor penetration of the old 47-mm guns was the same as that of the Russian 45-mm guns or the German 37-mm RAK.36 in 1941.
To clarify the situation, it is necessary to make an excursion into history. For 80 years, there has been a dispute about Russia's readiness for the First World War. Most Soviet historians argued that the Russian army was poorly armed. Despite this, Russia was practically not inferior to Germany in terms of the number of field guns, significantly superior to France and England, not to mention the United States and Italy. In terms of the quality of guns, Russia was slightly inferior or not at all inferior to Germany, but was superior to other states. The field guns used the latest systems manufactured in 1902-1914, and more than 50% of the guns were made in general in 1910-1914 just before the war. By August 1 of the 14th year, the staff of the active artillery was staffed by 100%, and the mobilization reserve was staffed by 98%. In the Russian artillery, such an ideal situation never existed, neither before the 14th year, nor after it. Bad one thing Russian artillery was preparing to confront Napoleon, not the Kaiser. During the exercises, columns of infantry marched, cavalry lavas galloped. Sometimes several cavalry divisions marched in the same longwall. Using such combat tactics, one 76-millimeter battery, using shrapnel for fire, shot a cavalry regiment in half a minute. And our generals, at the suggestion of the French, at the end of the 19th century adopted the theory of a single projectile and a single cannon. The 76-mm divisional guns of the 1900 and 1902 models became such a weapon (the differences between the guns consisted only of the carriage device, in this regard, only the 76-mm cannon of the 1902 model of the year will be considered further, especially since the cannons of the 1900 model were discontinued in 1904 g.), and a shell - shrapnel. The Japanese war of 1904-1905 prevented the completion of this theory.
The Russian generals made a slight correction. In 1907, a high-explosive fragmentation projectile was adopted for 76-mm divisional guns. In divisional artillery, 122 mm howitzers of the 1909 and 1910 models were introduced. In 1909-1911, corps artillery was created, which included 107-mm cannons of the 1910 model and 152-mm howitzers of the 1909 and 1910 models. In 1914, Russia entered the war with these weapons.
Battalion and company artillery never happened in Russia. Regimental artillery was introduced by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and was completely abolished by Emperor Paul I. Siege artillery (high-power weapons), created under Ivan III, was completely eliminated by Nicholas II. During the twenty years of the reign of Nicholas II, siege artillery did not receive a single new system. And in 1911, according to the "Imperial command", all siege artillery regiments were disbanded, and the guns of the 1877 model that were in their service were deposited in the fortress. The formation of new units of heavy artillery with a new material part was planned to begin between the 17th and 21st years.
However, in 1914, a quick mobile war did not work out. Machine gun fire and shrapnel drove the armies of the belligerent countries into the trenches. Trench warfare began.
Already in 1912, the "Manual of Field Artillery Action in Battle" stated that the artillery commander must "take measures to immediately destroy or silence any indicated or seen machine gun."
It was quite easy to write this instruction on paper, but it was unclear how and how to actually fight the enemy's machine-gun firing positions. The 76mm divisional gun was not suitable for the given target in most cases. A gun was needed that could be transported, or even carried on the battlefield by forces of one or two, maximum three soldiers, which could easily fit into a trench (trench) and could move there freely. Such a gun was supposed to be constantly with the infantry in defense and offensive, and, accordingly, obey the company commander or battalion commander, and not the division commander. In this regard, such artillery was called battalion or trench.
And in this situation, the army was rescued by the fleet. After the Japanese war, several hundred single-barreled 47-mm Hotchkiss cannons were removed from Russian ships, which at that time ceased to be an effective means of mine defense. Back in 1907-1909, the naval department tried to fuse these weapons to the military department, but received a decisive refusal. The situation with the outbreak of hostilities changed dramatically.
47-mm gun of the Hotchkiss system
By the forces of military units or in small civil workshops under the 47-mm Hotchkiss cannon, improvised wooden wheeled carriages were created. These guns took part in battles in the first weeks of the war near Novogeorgievsk, Ivangorod and Warsaw. During the hostilities, a serious shortcoming of the Hotchkiss 47-mm cannons was revealed - high ballistic qualities that are not required by battalion artillery. A gun with this ballistics had a strong recoil and a heavy barrel. As a result, the dimensions and total weight of the system with the gun carriage were large, and the gun carriage was constantly breaking.
37 mm Rosenberg cannon
In the battalion artillery, they were forced to abandon the 47-mm Hotchkiss cannon, although it showed itself well on stationary installations on river boats, armored trains, etc.
The first specially designed battalion weapon of domestic development was the 37-mm Rosenberg cannon, which, being a member of art. committee, persuaded the Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, the chief of artillery to give him the task of designing this system. Rosenberg went to the estate and after 1, 5 months a project for a 37-millimeter cannon was presented. Without diminishing the merits of Rosenberg, we note that Soviet designers in the Second World War, while working in the barracks position, such projects were done in 48 hours, and sometimes in one day.
As a barrel, Rosenberg used a 37-mm regular barrel, which was used to zero the coastal gun. The barrel design included a barrel tube, a copper muzzle ring, a trunnion steel ring, and a copper knob screwed onto the barrel. The shutter is two-stroke piston.
The machine is one-bar, wooden, rigid (without recoil devices). The recoil energy was partially extinguished with the help of special rubber buffers.
The lifting mechanism had a screw attached to the breech breech tide, screwed into the right frame of the slide. There was no turning mechanism. For turning it was carried out by moving the trunk of the machine.
The machine was equipped with a 6 or 8 mm shield. Moreover, the latter withstood a bullet fired at close range from a Mosin rifle.
As you can see, the carriage was cheap, simple and could be made in a semi-handicraft workshop.
The system could be easily disassembled into two parts weighing 106.5 and 73.5 kilograms within a minute.
The gun was transported on the battlefield with three numbers of the crew manually. For the convenience of movement by means of parts, a small skating rink was attached under the trunk beam.
In winter, the system was installed on skis.
The gun was transported on the campaign:
- in a shafts harness, when two shafts are attached directly to the carriage;
- on a special front end, which was made on its own, for example, by removing the boiler from the field kitchen;
- on a cart. As a rule, infantry units were given 3 paired carts of the 1884 model for two guns, two carts were packed with one gun and 180 cartridges in boxes, and 360 cartridges were packed on the third cart.
In 1915, a prototype of the Rosenberg cannon was tested, which was put into service under the name "37-millimeter cannon of the 1915 model of the year." This name did not take root, therefore, in official papers and in parts, this gun continued to be called the 37-mm Rosenberg cannon.
The first Rosenberg guns appeared at the front in the spring of 1916. The old barrels were no longer enough and the Obukhov plant was ordered by the GAU order of March 22, 1916 to make 400 barrels for Rosenberg's 37-mm guns. By the end of 1919, 342 barrels of this order had been shipped from the factory, and the remaining 58 were 15 percent ready.
By the beginning of 1917, 137 Rosenberg guns were sent to the front, 150 were supposed to go in the first half of the year. Each infantry regiment, according to the plans of the command, was to be supplied with a battery of 4 trench guns. Accordingly, for 687 regiments, 2,748 guns were needed, and 144 guns were also required for monthly replenishment.
Alas, these plans were not implemented due to the beginning of the collapse of the army in February 1917 and the subsequent collapse of the military industry with some delay.
In the years 1916-1917, 218 units were delivered to Russia from the United States. McLean's 37mm automatic cannons, also used as battalion artillery.
37-mm Rosenberg cannon on the Durlaher machine
The cannon's automation implements the principle of gas evacuation. Power was supplied from a clip with a capacity of 5 rounds.
The McLean cannon was installed on a wheeled and pedestal carriage. In battalion artillery, guns were used only on a rigid wheeled carriage. There were no recoil devices. Rotary and lifting screw mechanisms.
The gun in the stowed position was towed by horse-drawn traction with a front end, in which 120 cartridges were placed. The shot from the 37mm McLean cannon is interchangeable with the shot from other 37mm cannons (Rosenberg, Hotchkiss and others).
During the First World War, German tanks never appeared on the eastern front. At the same time, during the Civil War, France and England delivered more than 130 tanks to the armies of Wrangel, Yudenich and Denikin.
Tanks were first used in March 1919 by Denikin's Volunteer Army. Tanks of the White Guards were a significant psychological weapon against morally unstable units. However, the white command used tanks tactically illiterate, without organizing their interaction with the infantry and artillery. In this regard, tank attacks against combat-oriented units, in the main, ended in the capture or destruction of tanks. During the war, the Reds captured 83 white tanks.
76, 2-mm (3-in.) Field gun sample 1902 g
The civil war became the very mobile war for which the Russian generals were preparing. The three-inch (76-mm model 1902 cannon) reigned supreme on the battlefields. Battalion and corps artillery was rarely used, heavy artillery was used more than once, if you do not take into account the heavy guns installed on river ships and armored trains.
There were more three-inch tanks in the warehouses than were used by the Red Army. And 76-mm shells by 1918, there were several tens of millions. They were not used up even during the Second World War.
Needless to say, during the Civil War, the three-inch was the main anti-tank weapon. Usually firing was carried out with a shrapnel projectile having a remote tube mounted on impact. This was enough to penetrate the armor of any tank in service with the White Guards.
The Artillery Directorate (AU) of the Red Army in 1922-1924 carried out something like an inventory of the artillery equipment that the Red Army inherited after the Civil War. As part of this property, there were the following 37-mm guns (trench and automatic anti-aircraft guns of Maxim, Vickers and McLean, which are a fundamentally different type of guns, are not considered in this article): 37-mm Rosenberg guns, in most cases their wooden carriages became unusable, about two dozen 37-mm French Puteaux cannons with "native" carriages and 186 bodies of 37-mm Gruzonwerke cannons, which the Artillery Directorate decided to convert them into battalion guns. There is no information about where the bodies of the guns of the German plant "Gruzonwerke" came from.
37mm Puteau cannon, wheel drive removed, telescopic sight visible
At the end of 1922, the Artillery Directorate ordered to urgently create the simplest carriage, designed to overlay the Gruzonverke's barrels on it. Such a gun carriage was developed by the famous Russian artilleryman Durlyakher.
On August 4, 1926, AU ordered the production of 186 Durlaher carriages for the Gruzonverke cannons at the Moscow Mostyazhart plant. All 186 carriages were manufactured by the plant by October 1, 1928, of which 102 were taken out of the plant.
The barrel of the new system is similar to the Rosenberg barrel, but the carriage had some fundamental differences. The barrel of the system consisted of a barrel tube fastened with a barrel casing equipped with trunnions. The vertical wedge gate was housed in a casing. The shutter was opened and closed manually. Ballistic data and ammunition of the Gruzonwerke cannon matched the Rosenberg cannon.
The Durlakher machine, in contrast to the Rosenberg machine, was made of iron, however, it was arranged according to the scheme of the Durlakher machine created at the end of the 19th century for heavy coastal and fortress guns. The gun was rigidly connected to the upper machine, which rolled back along the beam of the lower machine after the shot. Inside the upper machine were placed recoil devices - a spring knurler and a hydraulic recoil brake. The lifting mechanism is screw.
The wooden wheels had a metal tire. The gun on the battlefield was moved by the forces of two crew numbers. At the rear of the timber there was a metal roller for easy manual movement.
The gun in the stowed position was transported on a twin wagon, since transportation on wheels negatively affected the carriage and, especially, on its wheels.
If necessary, the system could be disassembled into the following parts: a bar with an axle, a shield and a pair of wheels - 107 kg; a machine with a lifting mechanism - 20 kg; barrel - 42 kg.
In 1927, the Artillery Directorate decided to replace the worn-out wooden machines of Rosenberg's 37-mm cannons with Durlakher machines made of iron. On January 10, 1928, the first Rosenberg cannon installed on the Durlakher machine was tested at the test site after completing one hundred shots. After testing the carriage of Durlyakher was slightly changed and on July 1, 1928, the Mastiazhart plant received an order for the production of 160 modified carriages of Durlyakher. By the middle of 1929, 76 gun carriages were manufactured by the plant.
By order of the Revolutionary Military Council in September 1928, "the 37-mm Gruzonwerke and Rosenberg cannons on the carriages of Durlaher were temporarily put into service."
Simplifying the reality, it can be noted that the development of art. armament in the USSR in 1922-1941 was carried out by campaigns, and depended on the hobbies of the leadership.
The first campaign was the development of battalion guns in the years 1923-1928. At the same time, it was believed that with the help of battalion guns of a caliber of 37-65 millimeters, it was possible to successfully destroy tanks at distances of up to 300 meters, which was quite true for tanks and armored vehicles of that time. Three-inch guns from divisional and regimental artillery were to be involved in the fight against tanks. In the early 1920s, for lack of a better, 76-mm cannons of the 1902 model were introduced into the regimental artillery. In this regard, in 1923-1928 in the Soviet Union, efforts to create special. No PTP was undertaken.
The caliber of the battalion guns ranged from 45 to 65 millimeters. The choice of calibers was not accidental for the battalion artillery. It was decided to abandon the 37-mm guns, since the 37-mm fragmentation projectile had a weak effect. In this regard, they decided to increase the caliber and have two shells for the new cannon - a light armor-piercing projectile, which was used to destroy tanks and a heavy fragmentation shell designed to destroy machine guns and enemy manpower. In the warehouses of the Red Army, there was a large number of 47-mm armor-piercing shells intended for the 47-mm Hotchkiss naval guns. When grinding the leading belts of the projectile, its caliber became equal to 45 millimeters. Thus, a caliber of 45 millimeters arose, which until 1917 was neither in the army nor in the navy.
Thus, it turned out that even before the start of the creation of the 45-mm battalion gun, there was an armor-piercing projectile, the weight of which was 1.41 kilograms.
For the battalion artillery, two 45-mm "low power" cannons designed by F. F. Lender and A. A. Sokolov, as well as a duplex designed by Lender, which consisted of a 45-mm "high-power" cannon and a 60-mm howitzer, and a 65-mm howitzer by R. A. Durlyakhera.
The 60- and 65-mm howitzers were actually cannons, since their angle of elevation was small. The only thing that brought them closer to howitzers was the short barrel length. Probably, the designers called them howitzers, based on certain official circumstances. All guns had a unitary loading and were equipped with iron carriages with a rollback along the axis of the barrel. All guns in the stowed position were to be transported with the help of a pair of horses behind a wheeled primitive front end.
The barrel for the experimental low-power 45-mm cannon of the Sokolov system was manufactured at the Bolshevik plant in 1925, and the carriage was manufactured at the plant No. 7 (Krasny Arsenal) in 1926. The system was completed in 1927 and immediately handed over for factory testing.
Sokolov's 45-mm battalion cannon
The barrel of Sokolov's gun was fastened with a casing. Semi-automatic vertical wedge shutter.
The recoil is spring-loaded, the recoil brake is hydraulic. The lifting mechanism is sector. A large angle of horizontal guidance equal to 48 ° was provided by sliding beds. In fact, it was the first domestic artillery system to have a sliding frame.
The system was designed to fire from the wheels. Wooden wheels had no suspension. On the battlefield, the gun was easily rolled by two or three numbers of the crew. If necessary, the system was easily disassembled into seven parts and carried in human packs.
In addition to the towed version of the Sokolov cannon, a self-propelled version called "Arsenalets-45" was developed. The self-propelled artillery mount was named the Karataev mount by its chassis design. "Arsenalets-45" had a super-original design and had no analogues in other countries. It was a tracked self-propelled artillery installation - a midget. The length of the ACS was about 2000 mm, the height was 1000 mm, and the width was only 800 mm. The swinging part of the Sokolov cannon was slightly changed. Installation reservation consisted only of a front plate. A horizontal four-stroke engine with a power of 12 hp was installed on the self-propelled gun. The volume of the tank was 10 liters, which was enough for 3.5 hours of travel at a speed of 5 kilometers. The total weight of the installation is 500 kilograms. Transportable ammunition - 50 rounds.
ACS "Arsenalets" on trials. Drawing from a photo
The installation on the battlefield was to be controlled by a Red Army soldier walking behind and self-propelled. On the march, the self-propelled unit was transported in the back of a truck.
An order for the manufacture of a self-propelled artillery mount was issued in 1923. The chassis and the swinging part of the gun were manufactured by Plant No. 7. The installation was completed in August 1928, and factory tests began in September.
During the tests, the ACS overcame a rise of up to 15 °, and also withstood an 8 ° roll. At the same time, the cross-country ability of the ACS was very low, and the engine also often stalled. The system was vulnerable to enemy fire.
In 1929, they tried to modify the self-propelled gun mount, but it ended unsuccessfully. Then the chassis of the "Arsenalets" was thrown in the shed of the plant No. 7, and the barrel and sled - in an experimental workshop. AU RKKA in May 1930 transferred materials for the manufacture and testing of the system to the OGPU. There is no information about the further fate of Arsenalts.
The main competitor of Sokolov's cannon was the Lender's 45-mm low-power cannon. The design began in 1923 at the Kosartop battery. On September 25, 1925, an agreement was signed with Krasny Putilovts for the manufacture of a 45-mm Lender low-power cannon. The completion date was set for December 10, 1926. But since Lender fell ill, the work was delayed, and the gun was actually completed at the beginning of 1927.
According to the project, the main method of firing was fire from rollers, however, if necessary, fire could be fired from traveling wooden wheels. There was no suspension.
We designed two versions of the cannon - one-piece and one-piece. In the latter version, the gun could be disassembled into 5 parts, for carrying on human packs.
On the battlefield, the cannon was rolled by two or three numbers of the crew on marching wheels or on rollers. In the stowed position, the system was transported behind a wheeled front end by a pair of horses. In a semi-disassembled form, the gun was transported on a Tachanka-Tavrichanka.
Under the leadership of Lender, in the Kosartop battery, in parallel with the development of a low-power 45-mm cannon, a battalion duplex was developed, installed on a unified carriage on which a 45-mm high-power cannon or a 60-mm howitzer could be placed. The trunks of the systems were made up of a pipe and a casing. At the same time, the weight of the bodies and the outer dimensions of the casing of both guns were the same, which made it possible to impose them on the same sled. Both guns had vertical wedge gates with 1/4 automatic. Some documents erroneously indicate semi-automatic locks.
The recoil pad is spring, the recoil brake is hydraulic, the cylinders of the recoil devices were placed in a cradle under the barrel, and during recoil it was motionless. Since the swinging part was unbalanced, a counterbalancing spring mechanism was introduced. The lifting mechanism is sector. The combat axle is cranked, the beds are sliding.
The main method of firing both systems was shooting from rollers, but it was possible to fire from traveling wheels. Interestingly, the travel wheels consisted of a metal circular ring and a metal roller. During the transition from rollers to marching wheels, circular rings were put on the rollers.
Both systems on the rollers had a shield, but the shield was not worn with traveling wheels.
For carrying by people in packs, both systems were disassembled into eight parts. In the stowed position and on the battlefield, the movement of the system was similar to the 45-mm Lender cannon.
The 65-mm Durlyakher howitzer was manufactured in 1925-1926 at the plant number 8 (named after Kalinin, Podlipka).
Durlakhera 65mm Howitzer
Howitzer barrel - barrel and casing. The shutter is piston. The reel is hydropneumatic, the recoil brake is hydraulic. The carriage is single-deck. Shooting was carried out from wheels, which were both combat and marching, the system was non-separable. Disc wheels with rubber tires. There was no suspension. The system in the combat position was transported by the crew, in the marching position - by two horses behind the wheeled front end.
In the period from 1927 to 1930, numerous individual and comparative tests of battalion guns were carried out. For example, on March 29-31, 28, NIAP conducted comparative tests of the 45-mm low-power Lender and Sokolov guns, the 45-mm high-power Lender cannon, the 60-mm Lender howitzer, the 65-mm Durlyakher howitzer, the 37-mm Puteau cannon, and also two 76-mm recoilless (dynamo-reactive) guns. Although the latest samples showed worse results compared to classic guns (accuracy, rate of fire, and so on), however, Tukhachevsky, the head of the tests, liked the DRP the most. The “genius theorist” wrote a historic resolution on this occasion: “For further experiments on AKUKS, it is necessary to refine the DRP in order to destroy the unmasking. Completion date of revision is August 1, 1928. To raise the issue of combining anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns."
In Russia they have always loved martyrs and fools. Tukhachevsky was lucky in both cases, but practically no one knows how much damage was caused to the defenses of the Soviet Union by the whims of the DRP and attempts to combine an anti-aircraft gun with an anti-tank or divisional one.
All battalion artillery systems of caliber 45-65 millimeters fired armor-piercing, fragmentation shells and buckshot. The Bolshevik plant also produced a series of "muzzle" (over-caliber) mines - 150 pieces weighing 8 kilograms for 45-millimeter guns and 50 pieces for 60-millimeter howitzers. However, the Artillery Directorate, for no understandable reason, refused to adopt over-caliber mines. It should be recalled here that during the Second World War, the Germans on the eastern front quite widely used over-caliber mines (shells), both cumulative (anti-tank) mines from 37-mm guns, and high-explosive heavy mines from 75- and 150-mm infantry guns.
In general, the tests showed that the 45-65-mm guns that passed the tests basically corresponded to the tactical and technical tasks of the first half of the 20s, but for the 30s they were rather weak systems, since they could only deal with weakly armored vehicles (up to 15 millimeters) and even then at small distances. They could not carry on the hinged fire. If the guns on the battlefield were mobile enough, then the lack of suspension and the weakness of the carriages excluded movement with the help of mechanical traction, so there were only a couple of horses moving at a pace.
All this and Tukhachevsky's unhealthy hobby for recoilless guns was the reason that only the 45-mm low-power Lender system was adopted, which was given the official name "45-mm battalion howitzer of the 1929 model of the year." By the beginning of 1930, AU had issued an order for 130 45-mm battalion howitzers of the 1929 model, of which 50 were for plant number 8 and 80 for the plant “Krasny Putilovets”. Moreover, at plant No. 8, it is quite common for other people's guns (plants of Hotchkiss, Bolshevik, Rheinmetall, Maxim and others) to assign their own factory index. Thus, the Lender system also received the designation "12-K" (the letter "K" stood for the Kalinin plant). In total, in the 31-32 years, about a hundred 45-mm howitzers were handed over.
45mm Battalion Howitzer Model 1929
Despite the small number of manufactured 45-mm howitzers, they participated in the Second World War. In 1942, new shooting tables were even issued for them.
