There is no need to prove that a modern person is simply swimming in a sea of information. Moreover, in some areas there is even too much of it. For example, the situation in Ukraine has practically ceased to worry Russians. The latest poll by the Levada Center showed that 44% of our citizens are no longer interested in it, and 26% ignore it completely. As for the development of events in Ukraine, only 6% of Russians closely follow this "process". There are also fewer of those who are "quite attentively" watching them. Moreover, in September of this year, this figure was 28%, but by November the number of those dropped to 23%. The reason is obvious - stupid and inept media planning, which, like everything else, needs to be learned.
Archive building in Samara
However, on the other hand, against this background, an overabundance of information is very often … not enough! And I had a chance to experience it on my own experience.
When from 1985 to 1988 I studied at the graduate school of Kuibyshev State University in the city of Kuibyshev (now Samara), I had to go around a lot of archives there in order to collect the required amount of information. And then somehow by chance I came across the "Archive of Scientific and Technical Information" (a branch of the state archive in Moscow - today (RGANTD)), located in an inconspicuous building in the very center of the city. At that time, getting there was not easy at all. As it turned out, abandoned inventions were stored there, that is, applications for inventions for which a refusal was received at one time. And it was a big problem to get to know them. In fact, it was waste paper. But it was kept "just in case", moreover, as I was told, the Japanese wanted to buy all these "papers" from us and they offered good money, but we did not sell them!
Meanwhile, this archive is simply wonderful. I don’t know how it is now, but then there was a large and bright working room for visitors (more than in some state archives of the Volga region and even … in the Penza party archive !!!). There was no one but me there, but … to photocopy the documents … oh, that had to be "very strongly asked." Fortunately, women worked in the archive, and the society of total scarcity was good because many services were paid for with a box of chocolates.
Unfortunately, when I got there, I still worked on my dissertation and went to this archive to “have a rest”. Even then, I was planning to write a book "about tanks", so I collected material mainly on them. But … how many interesting things were there for the same future engineers! “Fork-spoon” is the most commonplace, just like a kettle with five spouts for a factory canteen.
Much more interesting, for example, was … a rubberized suit for taking baths from mineral water! That there were not enough baths in Pyatigorsk in the USSR? No, it was enough, but for the sake of saving water! And now, interestingly, for 1927 it was complete nonsense. But what if such a suit with a supply of mineral water is sent to the ISS? Let the astronauts improve their health!
One of the documents on its foundation …
And what games were offered, this is brilliance! For example, the game "World Revolution". Two are playing. For the "capitalist" chips are "banks", "sacks of gold", "soldiers" … but for a "revolutionary" - "proletarians", "peasants", "hammers", "sickles" - in short, a complete revolutionary set - a sickle seki, hammer with a hammer!
But, of course, it was especially interesting to read sentences marked “Sov.secret on military inventions. Written on sheets of notebooks, in pen, or even in pencil - but there are also many drawn in ink, they perfectly convey the atmosphere of that era - an era of great hopes and at the same time unfulfilled expectations.
For example, student V. Lukin from Leningrad in 1928 proposed something that he called “Shoduket”, that is, “High-speed two-wheeled tanga”. Why tanga, not a tank, he did not explain. Lebedenko's "Tsar Tank" with wheels of 9 m, next to the "tango" would have seemed like her younger brother, because her diameter was 12 m! He neatly drew the car from the outside in two angles, but alas, he never drew what it had inside. Well, he didn't present any calculations either. Moreover, in a cover letter, he wrote that he was “expelled from the Leningrad Technological Institute for academic failure”, since “he devoted all his free time from food and sleep to the development of“Shoduket”. Poor!
In 1927, a certain V. Mayer proposed a "movable shield for protection against rifle and other bullets", which looked like two hollow cylinders - wheels slightly taller than human height, and a narrow booth between them, where a fighter with a Maxim machine gun was supposed to be. Behind "it" was supported by a "tail" with two rollers at the end, and the Red Army soldier himself had to move it forward, stepping on the brackets inside the cylinders. However, it is not clear from the author's scheme how his "shield" worked. This is how, forgive me, you have to “swing up, so that you can hold on to the machine gun at the same time and step inside the high wheels with your feet.
The collapsible "counter-tank" of F. Borodavkov for five people, which they, poor fellows, had to roll on the enemy, clinging to the brackets on the inner surface, should have acted in a similar way (that is, it is completely incomprehensible how). And if there is a hollow or a ravine on the way? He thought about that too! Provided as brakes "knife stops". The author saw the main advantage of the "armored barrel" in its cheapness and tried to assure the reviewer that its efficiency is equal (!) To the efficiency of a tank with a motor! But for some reason I never drew guns for him.
V. Nalbandov in 1930 proposed the project of a single-seat wedge "Lilliputian", which the driver-machine gunner controlled lying down. There were calculations in the application documents, that is, he had no problems with academic performance, unlike Lukin, a poor student. But, for some reason, he did not think that a combat vehicle with a height of only 70 cm could overcome vertical obstacles of even the smallest height, and the armor covering the chassis almost to the ground would be a serious obstacle when moving; besides, it is inconvenient for one person to steer and fire a machine gun at the same time. So the project was rejected, although its author provided for the possibility of firing even at aircraft.
Authors A. Lisovskiy and A. Grach proposed to book a snowmobile, the body of which was supposed to resemble a turtle's shell - "so that the bullets would bounce off." I. Lysov in 1928 applied for a tank-ball with lateral sponsons on the axis of rotation for machine guns and cannons. Its engine hung on a gimbal, that is, its center of gravity was very low. Well, the turn of the car had to happen by changing the center of gravity. He was refused a patent, since there was a German analogue with patent number 159411, issued back in 1905.
G. Lebedev suggested that at the beginning of the war, all city buses should be equipped with armor cases that had to be stored in warehouses before. This idea, in his mind, deserved a patent, but the patent experts did not agree with him.
But the most absurd proposal belongs to a certain Tsyprikov and has the proud title "Defense of the USSR". The bottom line is that the gun is put on the barrel … a cart with wheels! The projectile, flying out of the barrel, clings to this cart and flies to the target already on it! And there he falls to the ground, drives on it and inflicts damage with a barbed wire fence and only then explodes. In the correspondence, it is noted that the patent scientist asked him why he thinks that the projectile will necessarily fly with its wheels down? That was the end of their correspondence …
Rice. A. Shepsa
Here are all of them, mentioned in the text of the "invention", except for the most … the most. Here on the left is the famous Shoduket in front and behind, studded with machine-gun barrels like a hedgehog. And where is the motor, "where are the holes to look at"? Where the driver sits - eh, constructor! At the top right is Nambaldov's wedge heel. To build, to put him in it and go to war. How he would have jumped over the stones in it, he would have grown wiser at once. Below is an armored barrel with "knife stops" and (on the right) Tsyprikov's "Defense of the USSR" projectile. Now about this on VO they usually say: “man, why are you smoking !? Even lower is the "rocket with a sticky warhead" and Demidov's gas-cutting gas cannon. In fact, the British had "sticky grenades", they did. But the "sticky rocket" with a mustache is already out of the ordinary. But Novoselov's wire "lattice" (on the right) did not work then. Today, the performance has increased by an order of magnitude and similar devices began to work. On the left is a tank-ball. There were so many projects of these "balls": the Germans, the Americans, and ours. And there is still no ball-tank in the metal! And this is Mayer's invention. It seems to me that it would be convenient to use not infantrymen, but cavalrymen in it … Well, and Paliychuk's "honeycombs" … It was interesting to hold his project in hand, read the refusal and remember all the vicissitudes of the appearance of such armor on our tanks.
In the 1920s. they also had to deal with many of the most amazing anti-tank devices.
So, G. Demidov proposed "a device for drilling the walls of armored vehicles with the subsequent launch of the OV." Judging by the diagram, it was a missile with … "a sticky head and three centering wire whiskers", on the side of which a gas cutter was installed. The shell hit the tank, stuck, after which the "gas cutter" burned a hole in it, through which a poisonous substance was injected into it. What the tankers were doing all this time is unclear. Probably, they were guessing, if it burns it won't burn it!
Also in the 1920s, F. Khlystov invented a "foam cannon" covering observation devices on enemy armored vehicles with special foam. And now, interestingly, an inventor from Germany filed a similar application again in 1988. At the same time, a proposal was made to fire tanks with nitrogen cylinders, and was also duplicated in Germany in 1989 - to shoot at tanks with cylinders containing liquid nitrogen. It will evaporate, create a high concentration gas cloud in front of the tank, and its engine will stall. Both authors (ours and the German one) did not think about two important things: what concentration of gas is needed so that the tank would not be able to slip through this gas cloud on the move, and … what will prevent the crew from starting the engine again when the gas sooner or later dissipates ?!
However, along with frankly stupid ideas like "down armor" on airplanes made of pressed down, designs were also proposed that were ahead of their time. For example, in 1929 A. Novoselov proposed "automatic armored cover for drivers of armored vehicles." It consisted of a wire screen and a vertical armored damper, which was powered by two solenoids. The bullet, passing through the screen, closed the wires, an electric current was turned on, and the solenoids pushed down the rods with an armored shield: and that thus closed the inspection hatch. The inventor was refused on the grounds that his device would be delayed, since a bullet at a distance of 2 km has a velocity of about 150 m / s, and this, they say, is too much for this device to work.
Well, the most surprising offer came from D. Paliychuk from Odessa in 1927. To protect warships from artillery shells, the author suggested attaching armor made of hexagonal prisms filled with explosives along the sides, they say, they would act like "gun barrels, producing a gas-dynamic reflection effect in the event of a hit."He also offered containers with hot gas coming into them from furnaces, but this proposal, of course, could not be realized. But the prisms with explosives - it was quite real. But … the idea remained an idea, and no one paid attention to it during the war years!
But then I never got to this document … But it would be interesting to see. Still, as many as 10 sheets. The man worked. Thought!
Interestingly, since the beginning of the 30s, the number of military curiosities in archive folders for some reason decreased. But on the other hand - and this is especially interesting - there have appeared many patent applications (with perfectly executed drawings!) For various prototypes of weapons - ABC, SVT rifles, Korovin, Prilutsky pistols, submachine guns - participants in various competitions. Then all this did not interest me, and besides, one cannot grasp the immensity. Therefore, I would like to turn now to my colleagues from Samara, who are here at VO and who will be interested in this topic. There, in this archive, everything is still there. Just go there and work a little so that interesting information spreads to people, and does not gather dust on the archive shelves and beyond! However, Samara residents can visit it whenever they like. The Internet makes it possible to place orders for information from this archive from anywhere in Russia and to receive books from there on an interlibrary loan. In the archives, for example, projects of the first Soviet cars are presented: the passenger car GAZ-A and the truck GAZ-AA, the first domestic limousine GAZ-51, GAZ-63, GAZ-12 ZIM and GAZ-20 Pobeda, that is, they can be viewed and… use in your work, like many, many other things. Michurina Street, 58 … is waiting for "our people"!
