I want to start an article quite frivolously. Finally we got there! Not to Berlin, as the heroine of our story, but to the history of the creation, construction and combat use of one of the first large-caliber artillery systems, created by Soviet designers.
So, the most famous unknown hero of the Great Patriotic War, a popular participant in documentary filmmaking, the enemy's thunderstorm 122-mm corps gun A-19.
It's a paradox, but, working with materials on this gun from various sources, you suddenly realize a strange thing. There are many materials. And at the same time, there are few materials. Even in fairly serious sources. But there are probably no films of victorious newsreels, where there would be no shots with this weapon. And rightfully so. In our opinion, the weapon is very "photogenic" and looks harmonious. And it hollows …
The first statement we'll make. The A-19 corps cannon does not have its ground roots in the artillery of the Red Army. Unlike other systems, this cannon has a naval weapon in its ancestors. A weapon that was used to equip warships, gunboats, heavy armored trains, coastal batteries.
This is a 120-mm gun of the French designer Canet's system. These cannons have been produced by the Obukhov and Perm factories since 1892 in accordance with the signed Agreement with the French company Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranes.
The second statement concerns the caliber of the gun. 48 lines of caliber (121, 92 mm) - this is a purely Russian invention. And it originates from the first Russian howitzers. We wrote about this earlier. Accordingly, over time, this caliber was established for heavy guns. We can say that the Russian military-historical specificity.
And the third statement. The appearance of the A-19 is closely related to the Civil War in Soviet Russia. It was the comprehension of the experience of this war that led the designers to understand the need to create a highly maneuverable weapon capable of firing in both aiming planes and at the same time not staying in positions for a long time. This statement is largely based on the use of Kane's systems on armored trains. It was there that the installation of guns in the column version was used.
The fact is that in most other armies at that time, the experience of the First World War was analyzed. And there, unlike the Civil, such weapons were used for counter-battery warfare. Simply put, they had very specific tasks.
But back to the turbulent 20s of the last century. Already during the Civil War, it became clear that the 107-mm gun mod. 1910 is "getting old". Its modernization was planned. However, after long discussions on this issue, they refused to modernize. The potential for improvements to this hull gun was exhausted.
Therefore, in January 1927, the Artillery Committee decided to start work on a new 122-mm corps gun. In the Design Bureau of the Artillery Committee, the work on the creation of the gun was headed by Franz Frantsevich Lender, who left his mark on world artillery and forever entered the history of this type of troops.
Let those who are only interested in technical issues of artillery systems forgive us, but here it is simply necessary to make a small but important digression. The fact is that, in our opinion, the name of FF Lender is simply not deservedly forgotten in Soviet-Russian historiography. As often happens.
But it was this designer who became the father of the Soviet anti-aircraft artillery! It is the anti-aircraft batteries formed in 1915 from the Lender-Tarnovsky cannons that are considered the beginning of the Russian air defense.
So, Franz Frantsevich Lender was born on April 12 (24), 1881. In 1909 he graduated with honors from the mechanical department of the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. After graduation, he was appointed technical director of the Artillery Technical Office of the Putilov Plant. In 1908 he designed the first wedge breechblock for guns, which was patented in Russia, the USA, France and England.
In 1914, together with the designer V. V. Tarnovsky, he created the first mobile anti-aircraft 76-mm gun in Russia.
Since 1920, he headed the Artillery Design Bureau. In 1927, already being sick, practically lying in bed, he created a 76-mm regimental gun mod. 1927 of the year. He died on September 14, 1927. His work was continued by his son, Vladimir Frantsevich Lender.
By the way, in 2017, the 76-mm Lender anti-aircraft gun, released in 1927, was found on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago during an exercise. In the area of the Matochkin Shar magnetic observatory. According to RIA Novosti on March 21, 2018, the gun was approved for test firing after repairs. Fired five shots with salute charges and put it on operational record in the service of the Northern Fleet RAV on the nomenclature of naval artillery weapons!
But back to our heroine. After Lender left, the development was continued by the team of the Arsenal Trust under the leadership of S. P. Shukalov. And the final revision was made by a team of engineers from the design bureau of plant # 38.
It's a paradox, but it was precisely the refinement of the plant's designers that made it possible to quickly test various design solutions. This applies both to the barrel group, where the differences are most visible (muzzle brake, lined or fastened barrel type), and to the gun carriage.
The carriage for this weapon has become in many ways a "stumbling block". It was necessary to combine high performance in pickup angles and the ability to move at a sufficiently high speed. Hence the need for compulsory suspension of the gun.
Ultimately, the designers settled on a carriage with sliding beds. According to most researchers, this was a progressive solution. However, the lack of automatic suspension shutdown, its not entirely satisfactory performance when driving off-road, as well as the combined barrel balancing and vertical aiming mechanism, were the main disadvantages of the 122-mm gun carriage mod. 1931. There was a separate bunch of complaints about the gun carriage, since it "distinguished itself" by an extremely slow change in the elevation angle, which in a number of combat situations was fraught with fatal consequences for the calculation and the weapon.
Officially, the case 122 mm cannon mod. 1931 of the year was put into service on March 13, 1936. 9 years after the start of development. However, work on its improvement continued. The fact is that in the process of operation, the flaws became visible to the naked eye.
Let us repeat the most important points. The not very successful design of the wheel travel limited the mobility of the gun. The lack of automatic suspension of the suspension reduced the speed of the transition from the stowed to the firing position and vice versa. The lifting mechanism was unreliable and did not have the required barrel lifting speed. And, finally, the technological complexity of the carriage production. The carriage was really difficult and time consuming for that time.
By the end of 1936, the ML-20 152-mm howitzer-gun appeared in the Red Army, which also had a modern carriage. And, as was often the case at the time, the idea arose to create a duplex. Put the A-19 barrel on the new gun carriage! This solved the problem of reducing the cost of production and operation of guns in the future.
The work on fine-tuning the A-19 was headed by F. F. Petrov.
These works were carried out in the design bureau of the Perm plant No. 172. In September 1938, the new gun was presented for testing. Two months of testing have shown the success of this design solution.
On April 29, 1939, a new cannon was officially adopted by the Red Army - "122-mm corps cannon model 1931/37". It is, however, somewhat strange that the index "A-19" in this case continued to be used. The guns turned out to be different, but the index was kept old.
For a more complete understanding of this fact, we present the performance characteristics of both guns:
arr. 1931 / arr. 1931-37
Length, stowed: 8900 mm / 8725 mm
Width, stowed: 2345 mm
Height, stowed position: 1990 mm / 2270 mm
Weight in firing position: 7100 kg / 7117 kg
Mass in the stowed position: 7800 kg / 7907 kg
Trunk
Caliber: 121, 92 mm
Barrel length: 5650 mm (L / 46, 3)
Threaded length: 5485 mm (L / 36)
The height of the line of fire: 1437 mm / 1618 mm
Fire characteristics
Elevation angle range: −2 ° to + 45 ° / −2 ° to + 65 °
Horizontal Angle Range: 56 ° (28 ° left and right) / 58 ° (29 ° left and right)
Maximum range of fire with OF-471 grenade: 19.800 m
Maximum rate of fire: 3-4 rounds per minute
Mobility
Clearance (ground clearance): 335 mm
Maximum towing speed on highway: 17 km / h / 20 km / h
Other
Crew: 9 people (gun commander, two gunners, castle, five loaders and carriers)
Summing up the entire development process of the A-19, we can say that the goals set were fulfilled almost entirely by their own forces - the Red Army received a long-range, powerful and moderately mobile artillery system.
122-mm cannon mod. 1931/37 until 1941 they were manufactured at the Stalingrad plant "Barrikady", in 1941-1946 - at the plant number 172 in Perm, also in 1941 the order for the manufacture of guns of this type was given to the new plant number 352 in Novocherkassk.
Unfortunately, the available statistics do not distinguish between the release of modifications of 122-mm corps guns, the approximate number of guns of the 1931/37 model. can be estimated at 2,450 pieces. In total, 2,926 units were produced in 1935-1946. 122-mm cannons of both modifications, not counting the guns intended for installation on self-propelled artillery mounts and tanks.
At the end of 1943, it was decided to create a variant of the ISU with the installation of a 122 mm A-19 cannon. In December 1943, the prototype Object 242 of the new ACS was built and handed over for testing. On March 12, 1944, the ACS was officially adopted by the Red Army under the ISU-122 index, and its serial production began in April of the same year.
For installation in the ACS, a special modification of the A-19 was developed under the A-19S index (GAU index - 52-PS-471). The differences between the self-propelled version of the gun and the towed one consisted in the transfer of the aiming organs of the gun to one side, equipping the breech with a receiver tray for ease of loading and the introduction of an electric trigger. The production of the ISU-122 from the A-19S continued until 1945 inclusive, a total of 1,735 vehicles were produced.
But A-19 also has "great children." Many of the readers have seen, but did not associate with this corps gun. Without a story about these weapons, any article would not be complete.
In August 1943, Zh. Ya. Kotin, the designer of the promising IS heavy tank, relying on the experience of the Battle of Kursk (which demonstrated the high efficiency of 122 mm cannons against German heavy tanks), proposed to equip the new tank with the A-19 cannon.
The proposal was accepted, and the design bureau of plant number 9 was ordered to urgently develop a tank version of the A-19. In November 1943, a new gun was created by placing the barrel group of the D-2 cannon on the cradle of the 85-mm D-5 tank gun, originally installed in the IS-1 tank. His trials were generally successful.
Since December 1943, the gun, which received the name 122-mm tank gun of the 1943 model (D-25T) ("combined" index from D-2 and D-5), began to be installed on the IS-2 tanks. Structurally, the D-25T differed from the A-19 in its lightweight design, the presence of a muzzle brake, the transfer of controls to one side, the introduction of an electric trigger and a number of other details.
The first modifications of the D-25T had, like the A-19, a piston bolt. From the beginning of 1944, a modification of the D-25T with a semi-automatic wedge gate went into the series. Ballistics and ammunition for the D-25T and A-19 were identical. Initially, the production volume of the D-25T was small and the possibility of installing the A-19 guns directly into the IS-2 was considered. However, Plant No. 9 successfully increased the production of the D-25T, and the question of mounting the A-19 in the IS-2 was dropped.
The D-25T cannons were installed on serial wartime heavy tanks IS-2 and IS-3, and its subsequent modifications were installed on prototypes and production models of post-war heavy tanks, for example, the T-10 heavy tank was armed with a 122 mm D-25TA cannon.
And now we will talk about something that is rarely found in technical descriptions and articles about the A-19.
On the personnel of the gun crews. The A-19 itself was a complex artillery system of its time, for the fullest possible disclosure of its capabilities, artillerymen who knew their business were required. And if from the carriers and loaders were required mainly remarkable physical strength and endurance, then the gunner already had to possess a solid amount of knowledge, not to mention the battery commanders and officers subordinate to them.
Alas, the personnel of the artillery units of the Red Army could not boast of education, like the USSR as a whole. Most of the gunners had only elementary education. In the USSR at that time it was customary to teach up to 7 grades. There were very few of those who completed the 10-year school. And people with higher education were sometimes worth their weight in gold.
Therefore, at the initial stage of the war, shooting was carried out at direct or semi-direct aim. Which, of course, led to huge losses among the gunners.
However, for the corps guns, due to the peculiarities of their use, high survivability of the crews was characteristic. Almost several times higher than in regimental and divisional levels. This contributed to the training of numbers already during the war. The commanders and gunners worked "from experience." A slide rule calculator was perceived as a miracle.
What it looked like, said the father of one of the authors, who served as the commander of a tank platoon in Germany at a time when most super-conscripts were front-line soldiers. "Front" crews performed any training exercise with a large margin of the standard. But they could not explain how this is done. The standard answer is: "If you acted like that in battle, then you will burn in a couple of minutes."
But the front-line soldiers explained the acquisition of knowledge by a large number of printed materials that were distributed then. It was from there that soldiers and sergeants drew options for methods of combat in various situations. According to some sources, the largest number of such leaflets was issued for the gunners. However, given the confusion of the time and the number of different printing houses, this statement can be questioned.
Nevertheless, by 1944, the corps artillery could quite normally perform tasks that could (and should) have been solved not only by direct fire. The best example is in the question. And who fired the first shot at Berlin?
I would like to finish the story about the A-19 with some calculations about the combat use of these guns. Precisely by some, because without laughter, there are countries where these guns are still in service.
For the first time, the A-19s began to fight on the Khalkhin-Gol River. We were unable to find out the exact number of guns. But most importantly, the losses of these corps guns were not recorded there either. So, they passed the test by fire successfully.
The 122-mm corps guns also took part in the Soviet-Finnish war. On March 1, 1940, there were 127 guns on the Soviet-Finnish front. Losses during the war were 3 units. Moreover, in both the first and second cases, there is no information about the modification of the guns.
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army consisted of 1,300 (1257) guns. Of these, 21 are in the Navy. However, there were only 583 guns in the western districts. So, I had to "get" from the eastern regions of the country.
The corps artillery suffered the most serious losses in 1941. According to various sources, at least 900 122-mm guns were lost this year. The remaining guns successfully beat the Nazis, and then the Japanese until the very Victory. By the way, an interesting fact and an answer to the question asked above. The first shot at Berlin was made by the 122 mm A-19 corps gun numbered 501 on April 20, 1945.
Well, for those who doubt the "non-core use" of weapons. During the defense of Moscow, on the Volokolamsk highway, 122-mm corps cannons successfully repelled German tank attacks. On the Kursk Bulge, corps guns were used as anti-tank guns against heavy tanks. These battles can be viewed not as the norm, but as the last chance for the command. After the battle, experts examined the destroyed German tanks from among those that the Germans did not manage to evacuate. Alas, the A-19 had no victories …
By the way, at one time at the test site in Kubinka, Soviet guns were tested against the German Panther tank. The A-19 pierced the frontal armor of this tank with a thickness of 80 mm with an inclination to the normal 55 ° at a distance of 2.5 km, and it was especially noted that this was not the limit. For comparison, the newest at that time 100-mm field gun BS-3 penetrated the same armor plate for a maximum of 1.5 km.
In general, for its time, the 122-mm cannon Model 1931/37 was a completely modern, constructively perfect weapon, which very successfully combined high firepower, mobility, manufacturability and ease of use. Modification of the gun of the 1931 model helped to get rid of most of the shortcomings of this product. And the success of the design was confirmed by many years of operation.
