"Katyusha" BM-13-16 on the ZIS-6 chassis
The fate of the developers:
On November 2, 1937, as a result of the “war of denunciations” within the institute, the director of RNII-3 I. T. Kleymenov and the chief engineer G. E. Langemak were arrested. On January 10 and 11, 1938, respectively, they were shot at the NKVD Kommunarka training ground.Rehabilitated in 1955.
By decree of the President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev dated June 21, 1991, I. T. Kleimenov, G. E. Langemak, V. N. Luzhin, B. S. Petropavlovsky, B. M. Slonimer and N. I. Tikhomirov were posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
BM-31-12 on the ZIS-12 chassis in the Museum on Sapun Mountain, Sevastopol
BM-13N on a Studebaker US6 chassis (with exhaust protection armor plates lowered) at the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow
Origin of the name Katyusha
It is known why BM-13 installations began to be called “guards mortars” at one time. The BM-13 installations were not actually mortars, but the command sought to keep their design secret for as long as possible. When, at range shooting, soldiers and commanders asked a GAU representative to name the “true” name of the combat installation, he advised: “Name the installation as usual artillery piece. This is important for maintaining secrecy."There is no single version of why the BM-13 began to be called “Katyusha”. There are several assumptions:
1. Based on the name of Blanter’s song, which became popular before the war, based on the words of Isakovsky “Katyusha”. The version is convincing, since the battery first fired on July 14, 1941 (on the 23rd day of the war) at a concentration of fascists on Bazarnaya Square in the city of Rudnya, Smolensk region. She was shooting from a high, steep mountain - the association with the high, steep bank in the song immediately arose among the fighters. Finally alive former sergeant headquarters company of the 217th separate communications battalion of the 144th Infantry Division of the 20th Army Andrei Sapronov, now a military historian, who gave it this name. Red Army soldier Kashirin, having arrived with him at the battery after the shelling of Rudnya, exclaimed in surprise: “What a song!” “Katyusha,” answered Andrei Sapronov (from the memoirs of A. Sapronov in the Rossiya newspaper No. 23 of June 21-27, 2001 and in the Parliamentary Gazette No. 80 of May 5, 2005). Through the communications center of the headquarters company, the news about a miracle weapon called “Katyusha” within 24 hours became the property of the entire 20th Army, and through its command - the entire country. On July 13, 2011, the veteran and “godfather” of Katyusha turned 90 years old.
2. There is also a version that the name is associated with the “K” index on the mortar body - the installations were produced by the Kalinin plant (according to another source - by the Comintern plant). And front-line soldiers loved to give nicknames to their weapons. For example, the M-30 howitzer was nicknamed “Mother”, the ML-20 howitzer gun was nicknamed “Emelka”. Yes, and the BM-13 was at first sometimes called “Raisa Sergeevna,” thus deciphering the abbreviation RS (missile).
3. The third version suggests that this is how the girls from the Moscow Kompressor plant who worked on the assembly dubbed these cars.
Another, exotic version. The guides on which the projectiles were mounted were called ramps. The forty-two-kilogram projectile was lifted by two fighters harnessed to the straps, and the third usually helped them, pushing the projectile so that it lay exactly on the guides, and he also informed those holding that the projectile stood up, rolled, and rolled onto the guides. It was allegedly called “Katyusha” (the role of those holding the projectile and the one rolling it was constantly changing, since the crew of the BM-13, unlike cannon artillery, was not explicitly divided into loader, aimer, etc.)
4. It should also be noted that the installations were so secret that it was even forbidden to use the commands “fire”, “fire”, “volley”, instead they sounded “sing” or “play” (to start it was necessary to turn the handle of the electric coil very quickly) , which may also have been related to the song “Katyusha”. And for our infantry, a salvo of Katyusha rockets was the most pleasant music.
5. There is an assumption that initially the nickname “Katyusha” was a front-line bomber equipped with rockets - an analogue of the M-13. And the nickname jumped from an airplane to a rocket launcher through shells.
In the German troops, these machines were called “Stalin’s organs” due to the external resemblance of the rocket launcher to the pipe system of this musical instrument and the powerful, stunning roar that was produced when the missiles were launched.
During the battles for Poznan and Berlin, the M-30 and M-31 single-launch installations received the nickname “Russian Faustpatron” from the Germans, although these shells were not used as an anti-tank weapon. With “dagger” (from a distance of 100-200 meters) launches of these shells, the guards broke through any walls.
BM-13-16 on the chassis of the STZ-5-NATI tractor (Novomoskovsk)
Soldiers loading Katyusha
If Hitler's oracles had looked more closely at the signs of fate, then surely July 14, 1941 would have become a landmark day for them. It was then in the area of the Orsha railway junction and the crossing of the Orshitsa River Soviet troops For the first time, BM-13 combat vehicles were used, which received the affectionate name “Katyusha” among the army. The result of two salvos at the accumulation of enemy forces was stunning for the enemy. German losses fell under the “unacceptable” heading.
Here are excerpts from a directive to the troops of Hitler's high military command: "The Russians have an automatic multi-barrel flamethrower cannon... The shot is fired by electricity... During the shot, smoke is generated..." The obvious helplessness of the wording testified to the complete ignorance of the German generals regarding the design and technical characteristics of the new Soviet weapon - rocket mortar.
A striking example of the effectiveness of the Guards mortar units, and their basis was “Katyushas,” can be seen in the lines from the memoirs of Marshal Zhukov: “The rockets, by their actions, caused complete devastation. I looked at the areas where shelling was carried out and saw the complete destruction of defensive structures... "
The Germans developed a special plan to seize new Soviet weapons and ammunition. In the late autumn of 1941 they managed to do this. The “captured” mortar was truly “multi-barreled” and fired 16 rocket mines. Its firepower was several times more effective than the mortar used by the fascist army. Hitler's command decided to create equivalent weapons.
The Germans did not immediately realize that the Soviet mortar they had captured was truly unique phenomenon, opening new page in the development of artillery, era jet systems multiple rocket launchers (MLRS).
We must pay tribute to its creators - scientists, engineers, technicians and workers of the Moscow Jet Research Institute (RNII) and related enterprises: V. Aborenkov, V. Artemyev, V. Bessonov, V. Galkovsky, I. Gvai, I. Kleimenov, A. Kostikov, G. Langemak, V. Luzhin, A. Tikhomirov, L. Schwartz, D. Shitov.
The main difference between the BM-13 and similar German weapons was its unusually bold and unexpected concept: mortarmen could reliably hit all targets in a given square with relatively inaccurate rocket-propelled mines. This was achieved precisely due to the salvo nature of the fire, since every point of the area under fire necessarily fell into the affected area of one of the shells. German designers, realizing the brilliant “know-how” of Soviet engineers, decided to reproduce, if not in the form of a copy, then using the main technical ideas.
It was in principle possible to copy the Katyusha as a combat vehicle. Insurmountable difficulties arose when trying to design, test and establish mass production of similar missiles. It turned out that German gunpowder cannot burn in the chamber of a rocket engine as stably and steadily as Soviet ones. The analogues of Soviet ammunition designed by the Germans behaved unpredictably: they either sluggishly left the guides only to immediately fall to the ground, or they began flying at breakneck speed and exploded in the air from an excessive increase in pressure inside the chamber. Only a few successfully reached the target.
The point turned out to be that for effective nitroglycerin powders, which were used in Katyusha shells, our chemists achieved a spread in the values of the so-called heat of explosive transformation of no more than 40 conventional units, and the smaller the spread, the more stable the gunpowder burns. Similar German gunpowder had a spread of this parameter, even in one batch, above 100 units. This led to unstable operation of the rocket engines.
The Germans did not know that ammunition for the Katyusha was the fruit of more than ten years of activity by the RNII and several large Soviet research teams, which included the best Soviet gunpowder factories, outstanding Soviet chemists A. Bakaev, D. Galperin, V. Karkina, G. Konovalova, B Pashkov, A. Sporius, B. Fomin, F. Khritinin and many others. They not only developed the most complex formulations of rocket propellants, but also found simple and effective methods for their mass, continuous and cheap production.
At a time when in Soviet factories, according to ready-made drawings, the production of guards weapons was being expanded at an unprecedented pace and literally daily increased rocket launchers and shells for them, the Germans had yet to conduct research and design work by MLRS. But history has not given them time for this.
The first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “Katyusha” is a deadly artillery vehicle used by the Soviet Union during the. These vehicles were widely used during the war and were known for the force of the jet strike.
The technical purpose of the Katyusha was a rocket artillery combat vehicle (BMRA), such installations cost less than a full-fledged artillery gun, but at the same time they could literally bring hell down on the enemy’s head in a few seconds. Soviet engineers achieved a balance between firepower, mobility, accuracy and cost-effectiveness in creating this system, which made it world famous.
Creation of a combat vehicle
Work on the creation of Katyusha began in early 1938, when the Jet Research Institute (RNII) in Leningrad received permission to develop its own BMRA. Initially, large-scale testing of weapons began at the end of 1938, but the huge number of shortcomings in the machine did not impress the Soviet army, however, after the system was refined, in 1940, Katyusha was released in a small batch.
You are probably wondering where the artillery vehicle got its special name - the history of the Katyusha is quite unique. The existence of this weapon was a secret until the very end of the war, during which the combat vehicle, in order to hide its true nature, was marked with the letters “KAT”, which stood for “Kostikova automatic termite”, which is why the soldiers dubbed it Katyusha, in honor of the patriotic songs by Mikhail Isakovsky.
Katyusha also made a loud howling sound when fired, and the arrangement of missiles on the gun resembled a church organ, which is why German soldiers called the car “Stalin’s Organ” for the sound and fear that it generated in the ranks of the enemy. The weapon itself was so secret that only NKVD operatives and the most trusted people were trained to operate it, and had permission to do so, but when Katyusha went into mass production, the restrictions were lifted, and the machine came into the possession of the Soviet troops.
Capabilities of BMRA "Katyusha"
Katyusha used an improved aircraft rocket, the RS-132, adapted for ground installation - the M-13.
- The shell contained five kilograms of explosive.
- The vehicle on which the artillery mount was moved - BM-13 - was created specifically for rocket field artillery.
- The missile's flight range reached 8.5 kilometers.
- The dispersion of the projectile after a shot with fragmentation action reached ten meters.
- The installation contained 16 rockets.
A new, improved and enlarged version of the M-13 projectile, the three-hundred-millimeter M-30/31, was developed in 1942. This projectile was also launched from a specialized vehicle called BM-31.
- The bulbous warhead contained more explosive material and was launched, unlike the M-13, not from a rail installation, but from a frame.
- The frame on the BM-31 lacked mobility compared to the BM-13, since the original versions of such a launcher were not designed for mobile platforms.
- The explosive content of the M-31 increased to 29 kilograms, but at the cost of reducing the range to 4.3 km.
- Each frame contained 12 warheads.
A smaller projectile, the M-8, 82 millimeter caliber, attached to a mount on the BM-8, was also used.
- The range of the M-8 reached almost six kilometers, and the projectile itself contained half a kilo of explosive.
- To launch this warhead, a rail installation was used, on which, due to the smaller size of the projectiles, many more missiles could be placed.
- A machine that could hold thirty-six missiles was called BM-8-36, a vehicle that could hold forty-eight was called BM-8-48, and so on.
Initially, the M-13 was equipped only with explosive warheads and was used against concentrations of enemy troops, but the Katyusha, which proved its functionality during the war, began to be equipped with armor-piercing missiles to counter tank troops. Smoke, flare, and other missiles were also developed to complement explosive and armor-piercing warheads. However, the M-31 was still equipped exclusively with explosive shells. With a salvo of more than a hundred missiles, they inflicted not only maximum physical destruction, but also psychological damage to the enemy.
But all such missiles had one drawback - they were not accurate and were effective only in large quantities and in attacks on large targets spread over a territory.
Initially, Katyusha launchers were mounted on a ZIS-5 truck, but as the war progressed, the launchers were mounted on a variety of vehicles, including trains and boats, as well as on thousands of American trucks received during Lend-Lease.
The first battles of the BMRA "Katyusha"
The Katyusha made its combat debut in 1941, during the surprise invasion of the Soviet Union by German troops. This was not the best time to deploy the vehicle, as the single battery had only four days of training and the factories for mass production were barely established.
However, the first battery, consisting of seven BM-13 launchers and six hundred M-13 missiles, was sent into battle. At that time, Katyusha was a secret development, so a huge number of measures were taken to hide the installation before participating in battle.
On July 7, 1941, the first battery went into battle, attacking the attacking German troops near the Berezina River. German soldiers panicked as a shower of explosive shells rained down on their heads, shell fragments flying several meters away wounded and shell-shocked the soldiers, and the howling sound of the shot demoralized not only the recruits, but also the seasoned soldiers.
The first battery continued to participate in the battle, time after time justifying the expectations placed on it, but in October the enemy soldiers were able to surround the battery - however, they failed to capture it, since the retreating troops Soviet army destroyed shells and launchers to prevent secret weapons from falling into enemy hands.
A salvo of M-13 missiles fired by a battery of four BM-13s within 7-10 seconds launched 4.35 tons of explosives over an area of more than 400 square meters, which was approximately equal to the destructive power of seventy-two single-caliber artillery batteries.
The excellent demonstration of the combat capabilities of the first BM-13 battery led to mass production of the weapon, and already in 1942 an impressive number of launchers and missiles were available to the Soviet army. They were widely used in the defense of USSR territories and the subsequent attack on Berlin. More than five hundred Katyusha batteries served in the war with great success, and by the end of the war, more than ten thousand launchers and more than twelve million missiles were produced using about two hundred different factories.
The rapid production of guns benefited from the fact that the creation of Katyusha required only light equipment, and the time and resources spent on production were much less than those necessary to create howitzers.
Heirs BMRA " Katyusha"
The success of Katyusha in battle, its simple design and profitable production ensured that this weapon is still being manufactured and used to this day. "Katyusha" became common noun for Russian BMRAs of various calibers along with the prefix “BM”.
The most famous variant, the post-war BM-21 Grad, which entered the army arsenal in 1962, is still in use today. Like the BM-13, the BM-21 is based on simplicity, combat power and efficiency, which ensured its popularity both among the state military and among the militarized opposition, revolutionaries and other illegal groups. The BM-21 has forty missiles, which it launches at a distance of up to 35 kilometers, depending on the type of projectile.
There is also another option that appeared before the BM-21, namely in 1952 - BM-14, with a caliber of 140 mm. Interestingly, this weapon is widely used by extremists because it has a cheap, compact and mobile version. The last confirmed use of the BM-14 was in 2013, in the Syrian Civil War, where it again demonstrated the ability to provide enormous firepower in massive attacks.
This was inherited by the BM-27 and BM-30 BMRAs, which use 220 and 300 mm calibers, respectively. Similar Katyushas can be equipped long-range missiles with system guidance, allowing you to attack the enemy with much greater accuracy at greater distances than during the Second World War. The range of the BM-27 reaches 20 km, and the range of the BM-30 is up to 90 km. These installations can launch a huge number of projectiles for very a short time, making the old BM-13 look like an innocent toy. A well-coordinated 300-caliber salvo from several batteries can easily level an entire enemy division.
The latest successor to Katyusha, the Tornado MLRS, is a universal missile launcher that combines BM-21, BM-27 and BM-30 missiles on an eight-wheeled chassis. It uses automatic ammunition placement, targeting, satellite navigation and positioning systems, allowing it to fire with much greater accuracy than its predecessors. The Tornado MLRS is the future of Russian rocket artillery, ensuring that Katyusha will always remain in demand in the future.
, adopted for service in 1941, was in service until 1980, 30,000 pieces were manufactured during the Second World War. Legends about this weapon began to take shape immediately after it appeared. However, the history of the creation and use of the BM-13 guards mortar is indeed unusual; we will dilute the article a little with photos, although not always on time in the text, but on topic, that’s it.
BM-13 Katyusha multiple rocket launcher photo, was demonstrated to Soviet leaders on June 21, 1941. And on the same day, literally a few hours before the start of the war, a decision was made to urgently launch mass production of M-13 missiles and a launcher for them, which received the official name BM-13 (combat machine-13).
Diagram of the BM-13 Katyusha rocket launcher
First field battery BM-13 Katyusha multiple rocket launcher photo , sent to the front on the night of July 1-2, 1941 under the command of Captain Flerov, consisted of seven automobile installations based on the three-axle ZiS-6 truck. On July 14, a combat premiere took place in the form of shelling of the market square of the town of Rudnya. But " finest hour» missile weapons came on July 16, 1941. A salvo fired by the battery literally wiped out the occupied railway junction of Orsha from the face of the earth, along with the Red Army echelons located there, which did not have time to evacuate (!).
BM-13 Katyusha multiple rocket launcher based on the ZIS-6 photo, this is a three-axle version of the ZIS-5 truck and is largely unified with it.
As a result, a huge amount of weapons, fuel and ammunition did not reach the enemy. The effect of the artillery attack was such that many Germans caught in the affected area went crazy. This was, in addition to everything else, the psychological impact of the new weapon, as many Wehrmacht soldiers and officers admitted in their memoirs. It must be said that the first use of rockets occurred a little earlier, in air battles with the Japanese over the distant Khalkhin Gol river. Then the 82-mm air-to-air missiles RS-82 developed in 1937 and the 132-mm air-to-ground missiles PC-132, created a year later, were successfully tested. It was after this that the Main Artillery Directorate set the developer of these shells, the Jet Research Institute, the task of creating a multiple launch rocket system based on PC-132 shells. The updated tactical and technical specifications were issued to the institute in June 1938.
In the photo of "Katyusha" upon closer examination you can see a lot of interesting things
The RNII itself was created at the end of 1933 on the basis of two design groups. In Moscow, under the Central Council of Osoaviakhim, a “Group for the Study of Jet Propulsion” (GIRD) existed since August 1931; in October of the same year, a similar group called the “Gas Dynamic Laboratory” (GDL) was formed in Leningrad. The initiator of the merger of two initially independent teams into a single organization was the then chief of armaments of the Red Army, M.N. Tukhachevsky. In his opinion, the RNII was supposed to solve problems of rocket technology in relation to military affairs, primarily aviation and artillery. I.T. was appointed director of the institute. Kleymenov, and his deputy - G.E. Langemak, both military engineers. Aviation designer S.P. Korolev was appointed head of the 5th department of the institute, which was entrusted with the development of rocket planes and cruise missiles. In accordance with the assignment received, by the summer of 1939, a 132-mm rocket was developed, which later received the name M-13. Compared to its aviation counterpart, the PC-132 had a longer flight range, greater weight, and a significantly more powerful warhead. This was achieved by increasing the amount of rocket fuel and explosives, for which the rocket and head parts of the projectile were lengthened by 48 cm. The M-13 projectile also had better aerodynamic characteristics than the PC-132, which made it possible to obtain a higher accuracy of fire.
During their time at the institute, Kleymenov and Langemak almost completed the development of the RS-82 and RS-132 missiles. In total, in 1933, official field tests of nine types of missiles of various calibers designed by B.S. were carried out at the Gas Dynamics Laboratory from land, sea vessels and aircraft. Petropavlovsky, G.E. Langemak and V.A. Artemyeva, II.I. Tikhomirov and Yu.A. Pobedonostsev using smokeless powder.
M-13 rocket shells from the BM-13 Katyusha rocket artillery combat vehicle
And everything would be fine if... Over time, two opposing groups formed in the RNII. It was believed that the disagreement arose over what fuel to fill the rocket with. In fact, the roots of the conflict and subsequent tragedy should be sought deeper. Some of the employees led by A.G. The Kostikovs believed that they were being unfairly “overwritten” by Kleymenov, Langemak, Korolev and Glushko who took command posts. The method of fighting for a place in the sun was known and tested. Kostikov began writing denunciations against his colleagues to the NKVD. “The revelation of the counter-revolutionary Trotskyist sabotage and sabotage gang, their methods and tactics, persistently requires us to again take an even deeper look at our work, at the people leading and working in this or that section of the Institute,” he wrote in one of his letters. - I assert that in production a completely unsuitable system was clearly adopted, inhibiting development. This is also not a random fact. Give me all the materials, and I will clearly prove with facts that someone’s hand, perhaps due to inexperience, slowed down the work and brought the state into colossal losses. Kleymenov, Langemak and Padezhip are to blame for this, first of all...”
132-mm multiple launch rocket system BM-13 Katyusha photo of various chassis
Feeling that he would not be allowed to work at the RNII in peace, Kleymenov at the end of the summer of 1937 agreed with the head of TsAGI Kharlamov about his transfer there. However, he didn’t have time... On the night of November 2, 1937, Ivan Terentyevich Kleimenov was arrested as a German spy and saboteur. At the same time, the same fate befell his deputy G.E. Langemak (German by nationality, which was an aggravating circumstance).
BM-13 Katyusha multiple rocket launcher on the ZiS-6 chassis, almost all rocket launcher monuments are based on this chassis, pay attention to the square wings, in fact the ZiS-6 had rounded wings. Some BM-13 units on the ZIS-6 chassis served throughout the war and reached Berlin and Prague.
Soon both were shot. Perhaps an additional (or main) role in this crime was played by the close contacts of those arrested with Tukhachevsky. Much later, November 19, 1955, Military Collegium Supreme Court The USSR determined: “... the verdict... of January 11, 1938 against Georgy Erikhovich Langemak, due to newly discovered circumstances, is canceled, and the case against him on the basis of clause 5 of Art. 4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR should be terminated criminally due to the absence of corpus delicti in his actions...” Almost four decades later, by Decree of the President of the USSR of June 21, 1991, Langemaku G.E. awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (posthumously). The same Decree was awarded to his colleagues - I.T. Kleymenov, V.P. Luzhin, B.S. Petropavlovsky, B.M. Slonimer and II.I. Tikhomirov. All the heroes turned out to be innocent, but you can’t bring the dead back from the other world... As for Kostikov, he achieved his goal by becoming the head of the RPII. True, thanks to his efforts, the institute did not last long. On February 18, 1944, the State Defense Committee, in connection with the “unbearable situation that has arisen with the development of jet technology in the USSR,” decided: “... State Institute liquidate the jet technology under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and entrust the solution of this problem to the People's Commissariat of the Aviation Industry."
Katyusha multiple rocket launcher on a Studebaker chassis photo
So, one might say, the legendary Katyusha was born despite many circumstances. Poe was born! Its rockets were launched from guides located in the body of a self-propelled multi-charge launcher. The first option was based on the chassis of the ZiS-5 truck and was designated MU-1 (mechanized unit, first sample). Field tests of the installation carried out between December 1938 and February 1939 showed that it did not fully meet the requirements.
Installation of MU-1 photo, late version, the guides are located transversely, but the chassis is already used by the ZiS-6
In particular, when firing, the vehicle began to sway on the suspension springs, which reduced the accuracy of the fire, which was already not very high. Taking into account the test results, RPII developed a new launcher MU-2 (ZiS-6), which in September 1939 was accepted by the Main Artillery Directorate for field testing. Based on their results, the institute was ordered five such installations for military testing. Another stationary installation was ordered by the Navy Artillery Directorate for use in the coastal defense system.
BM-13 "Katyusha" on the chassis of the STZ-5-NATI tractor
The exceptional effectiveness of the combat operations of Captain Flerov’s battery and seven more such batteries formed after it contributed to the rapid increase in the rate of production of jet weapons. Already in the autumn of 1941, 45 divisions operated on the fronts, each of which consisted of three batteries with four launchers each. For their armament in 1941, 593 BM-13 installations were manufactured. As military equipment arrived from factories, the formation of full-fledged rocket artillery regiments began, consisting of three divisions armed with BM-13 launchers and an anti-aircraft division.
- Each regiment had 1414 personnel,
- 36 BM-13 launchers
- twelve 37-mm anti-aircraft guns.
- The artillery regiment's salvo amounted to 576 132 mm shells.
- At the same time, enemy manpower and equipment were destroyed over an area of over 100 hectares. Officially, such units began to be called “guards mortar regiments of the reserve artillery of the Supreme High Command.”
The crew, having driven to the rear, reloads the BM-13 combat mount based on the Chevrolet G-7117 truck, summer 1943.
What was the exceptional basis on? combat power Guards mortars? Each projectile was approximately equal in power to a howitzer of the same caliber, and the installation itself could almost simultaneously fire, depending on the model, from 8 to 32 missiles. Moreover, in each division, equipped, for example, with BM-13 installations, there were five vehicles, each of which had 16 guides for launching 132-mm M-13 projectiles, each weighing 42 kg, with a flight range of 8470 m. Accordingly, only one division could fire 80 shells at the enemy.
BM-8-36 rocket launcher based on the ZIS-6 vehicle
If the division was equipped with BM-8 launchers with 32 82-mm shells, then one salvo consisted of 160 smaller-caliber missiles. A literally avalanche of fire and metal fell on the enemy in a few seconds. It was the highest fire density that distinguished rocket artillery from cannon artillery. During offensives, the Soviet command traditionally tried to concentrate as much artillery as possible at the forefront of the main attack.
The device of rockets BM-13 Katyusha multiple rocket launcher photo
: 1 - fuse retaining ring, 2 - GVMZ fuse, 3 - detonator block, 4 - explosive charge, 5 - head part, 6 - igniter, 7 - chamber bottom, 8 - guide pin, 9 - rocket charge, 10 - rocket part , 11 - grate, 12 - critical section of the nozzle, 13 - nozzle, 14 - stabilizer, 15 - remote fuse pin, 16 - AGDT remote fuse, 17 - igniter.
The super-massive artillery barrage, which preceded the breakthrough of the enemy front, became one of the main trump cards of the Red Army. No army in that war could provide such a density of fire. Thus, in 1945, during the offensive, the Soviet command concentrated up to 230-260 cannon artillery pieces on one kilometer of the front. In addition to them, every kilometer there were, on average, 15-20 rocket artillery combat vehicles, not counting the larger stationary M-30 missile launchers. Traditionally, Katyushas completed an artillery attack: rocket launchers fired a salvo when the infantry was already attacking. The front-line soldiers said: “Well, the Katyusha started singing...”
Multiple rocket launcher on GMC CCKW chassis photo
By the way, why the gun mount received such an unofficial name, no one could really answer, either then or even today. Some say that it was simply in honor of a popular song at that time: at the beginning of the shooting, the shells, falling off the guides, flew off on their last eight-kilometer path with a drawn-out “singing.” Others believe that the name came from homemade soldier lighters, also nicknamed “Katyushas” for some reason. Even during the Spanish War, Tupolev SB bombers, sometimes armed with RSs, were called by the same name. One way or another, after the Katyusha mortars finished their song, the infantry entered the shelled settlement or enemy positions without encountering any resistance. There was no one to resist. The few enemy soldiers who remained alive were completely demoralized. True, over time the enemy reorganized. Yes, this is understandable. Otherwise, the entire Wehrmacht would have been completely demoralized after a while, gone crazy from the Katyusha rockets, and the Red Army would have had no one to fight with. German soldiers learned to hide in well-fortified dugouts at the first sounds of “Stalin’s organs,” as the enemy nicknamed our missiles for their unbearable howl. Then our rocket men also reorganized. Now the Katyushas began the artillery preparation, and the guns finished it.
BM-13 Katyusha multiple rocket launcher on a Ford chassis WOT photo
“If you bring in a gun regiment for artillery preparation, the regiment commander will definitely say: “I don’t have accurate data, I have to shoot the guns...” If they started shooting, and they usually shoot with one gun, taking the target into the “fork,” this is a signal to the enemy to hide. Which is what the soldiers did in 15-20 seconds. During this time, the artillery barrel fired only one or two shells. And in 15-20 seconds I will fire 120 missiles as a division, all of which fly at once,” said the commander of the rocket mortar regiment A.F. Panuev. But, as you know, there are no pros without cons. Mobile installations of rocket mortars usually moved into position immediately before the salvo and just as quickly after the salvo they tried to leave the area. At the same time, the Germans, for obvious reasons, tried to destroy the Katyushas first. Therefore, immediately after a salvo of mortars, volleys, as a rule, fell on the positions of those who remained German artillery and bombs from instantly arriving Yu-87 dive bombers. So now the rocket men had to hide. Here is what artilleryman Ivan Trofimovich Salnitsky recalled about this:
“We are choosing firing positions. They tell us: there is a firing position in such and such a place, you will wait for soldiers or placed beacons. We take a firing position at night. At this time the Katyusha division is approaching. If I had time, I would immediately remove my guns from there. Because the Katyushas fired a salvo and left. And the Germans raised nine Uikers and attacked our battery. There was a commotion! An open place, they were hiding under the gun carriages...”
Destroyed rocket launcher, photo date unknown
However, the rocket scientists themselves also suffered. As veteran mortarman Semyon Savelyevich Kristya said, there were the strictest secret instructions. On some forums there is a dispute that it was precisely because of the secret of the fuel that the Germans tried to capture the installation. As you can see in the photo, the installation was captured and not alone.
Rocket launcher BM-13-16, on the chassis of a ZIS-6 vehicle captured intact by German troops, photo Eastern Front, autumn 1941
A BM-13-16 rocket launcher abandoned during the retreat. Summer 1942, Eastern Front photo, as can be seen from both photos, the ammunition was fired, in fact, the composition of the shells was no secret, but at least for our allies, they made the bulk of the shells
B-13-16 Katyusha rocket launcher on a ZIS-6 chassis (captured by the Germans), as seen in the photo with full ammunition
In the event of a threat of possible capture of the missile launcher by the enemy, the crew " BM-13 Katyusha multiple rocket launcher photo "was supposed to blow up the installation using a self-destruction system. The compilers of the instructions did not specify what would happen to the crew themselves... This is exactly how the wounded captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov committed suicide while surrounded on October 7, 1941. But comrade Cristea was captured twice, caught by special teams of the Wehrmacht, who were sent to capture the Katyushas and their crews. Semyon Savelyevich, I must say, was lucky. He was able to escape from captivity twice, stunning the guards. But upon returning to his native regiment, he remained silent about these exploits. Otherwise, like many, he would have fallen from the frying pan into the fire... Such adventures happened more often in the first year of the war. Then our troops stopped retreating so quickly that it was impossible to keep up behind the front even with a car, and the rocket men themselves, having acquired the necessary combat experience, began to act more carefully.
BM-13 Katyusha rocket mortar on the chassis of the T-40 tank, by the way, the Americans also installed their multiple launch rocket systems on the Sherman
First, officers took positions and made the appropriate calculations, which, by the way, were quite complex, since it was necessary to take into account not only the distance to the target, the speed and direction of the wind, but even the air temperature, which also influenced the flight path of the missiles. After all the calculations were made, the vehicles moved into position, fired several salvos (usually no more than five) and quickly rushed to the rear. Delay in this case was indeed like death - the Germans immediately covered the place from which the rocket mortars were firing with return artillery fire.
During the offensive, the tactics of using Katyushas, which were finally perfected by 1943 and were used everywhere until the end of the war, were as follows: at the very beginning of the offensive, when it was necessary to break through the enemy’s deeply layered defenses, the artillery formed a so-called “barrage of fire” . At the beginning of the shelling, all howitzers (often heavy self-propelled guns) and rocket mortars worked on the first line of defense. Then the fire moved to the fortifications of the second line, and the attacking infantry occupied the trenches and dugouts of the first. After this, the fire was transferred to the third line, while the infantrymen occupied the second line.
Katyusha multiple rocket launcher based on Ford-Marmon photo
Most likely the same part, the photo was taken from a different angle
Moreover, the further forward the infantry went, the less cannon artillery could support it - towed guns could not accompany it throughout the entire offensive. This task was assigned to much more mobile self-propelled guns and Katyushas. It was they, along with the slippers, who followed the infantry, supporting it with fire.
Now the Wehrmacht soldiers had no time to hunt for Katyushas. And the installations themselves, which increasingly began to be based on the all-wheel drive American Studebaker US6, did not represent much of a secret. Steel rails served as missile guides during launch; their angle of inclination was manually adjusted by a simple screw gear. The only secret was the rockets themselves, or rather, their filling. And after the salvo, there weren’t any of them left on the installations. Attempts were made to install launchers on the basis of tracked vehicles, but the speed of movement for rocket artillery turned out to be more important than maneuverability. Katyushas were also installed on armored trains and ships
BM-13 Katyusha firing photo
BM-13 Katyusha multiple rocket launcher on the streets of Berlin photo
By the way, Kostikov was never really able to organize the production of gunpowder for equipping missiles at the RNII. It got to the point that at one time the Americans produced solid rocket fuel for us according to our recipes (!). This was another reason for the disbandment of the institute... And as things stood with our opponents, they had their own six-barreled mortar rocket launcher, the Nebelwerfer.
Nebelwerfer. German rocket launcher 15 cm photo
It was used from the very beginning of the war, but the Germans did not have such massive formations of units as we did, see the article “German six-barreled mortar.”
The design and combat experience gained with Katyushas served as the basis for the creation and further improvement of Grads, Hurricanes, Typhoons and other multiple rocket launchers. Only one thing remained almost at the same level - the accuracy of the salvo, which even today leaves much to be desired. The work of reactive systems cannot be called jewelry. That’s why they hit them mainly in squares, including in the current Ukrainian war. And it is often civilians who suffer more from this fire, like Soviet citizens who had the imprudence to end up in their huts in 41 near the Orsha station...
It all started with the development of black powder-based rockets in 1921. N.I. took part in the work on the project. Tikhomirov, V.A. Artemyev from the gas dynamic laboratory.
By 1933, the work was almost completed and official testing began. To launch them, multi-charge aviation and single-charge ground launchers were used. These shells were prototypes of those later used on Katyushas. The development was carried out by a group of developers from the Jet Institute.
In 1937-38, rockets of this type were adopted by the Air Force of the Soviet Union. They were used on the I-15, I-16, I-153 fighters, and later on the Il-2 attack aircraft.
From 1938 to 1941, work was underway at the Jet Institute to create a multi-charge launcher mounted on the base truck. In March 1941, field tests were carried out on installations called BM-13 - Fighting Machine 132 mm shells.
The combat vehicles were equipped with high-explosive fragmentation shells of 132 mm caliber called M-13, which were put into mass production just a few days before the start of the war. On June 26, 1941, the assembly of the first two production BM-13s based on the ZIS-6 was completed in Voronezh. On June 28, the installations were tested at a training ground near Moscow and became available to the army.
An experimental battery of seven vehicles under the command of Captain I. Flerov first took part in the battles on July 14, 1941 for the city of Rudnya, occupied by the Germans the day before. Two days later, the same formation fired at the Orsha railway station and the crossing of the Orshitsa River.
Production of BM-13 was established at the plant named after. Comintern in Voronezh, as well as at the Moscow Compressor. The production of shells was organized at the Moscow plant named after. Vladimir Ilyich. During the war, several modifications of the rocket launcher and its projectiles were developed.
A year later, in 1942, 310 mm shells were developed. In April 1944, a self-propelled unit with 12 guides was created for them, which was mounted on a truck chassis.
origin of name
In order to maintain secrecy, management strongly recommended calling the installation BM-13 whatever you like, as long as not to reveal the details of its characteristics and purpose. For this reason, soldiers at first called the BM-13 a “guards mortar.”
As for the affectionate “Katyusha”, there are many versions regarding the appearance of such a name for a mortar launcher.
One version says that the mortar launcher was called “Katyusha” after the name of Matvey Blanter’s song “Katyusha”, a popular song before the war, based on the words of Mikhail Isakovsky. The version is very convincing because during the shelling of Rudnya the installations were located on one of the local hills.
The other version is partly more prosaic, but no less heartfelt. There was an unspoken tradition in the army of giving affectionate nicknames to weapons. For example, the M-30 howitzer was nicknamed “Mother”, the ML-20 howitzer gun was called “Emelka”. Initially, the BM-13 was called “Raisa Sergeevna” for some time, thus deciphering the abbreviation RS - rocket.
The installations were such a guarded military secret that during combat operations it was strictly forbidden to use traditional commands like “fire”, “volley” or “fire”. They were replaced by the commands “play” and “sing”: to start it, you had to turn the handle of the electric generator very quickly.
Well, another version is quite simple: an unknown soldier wrote on the installation the name of his beloved girl - Katyusha. The nickname stuck.
Performance characteristics
Chief designer A.V. Kostikov
- Number of guides - 16
- Guide length - 5 meters
- Weight in camping equipment without shells - 5 tons
- Transition from traveling to combat position - 2 - 3 minutes
- Time to charge the installation - 5 - 8 minutes
- Volley duration - 4 - 6 seconds
- Type of projectile - rocket, high-explosive fragmentation
- Caliber - 132 mm
- Maximum projectile speed - 355 m/s
- Range - 8470 meters
Combat vehicle BM-13 "Katyusha". The BM-13 Guards rocket mortar consists of a launcher, rocket shells and a specially adapted vehicle on which it is mounted. The launcher was initially mounted on the chassis of a ZIS-6 vehicle. The installations were also equipped with STZ-5 tracked tractors, ZIL-151 vehicles, and Ford-Marmon, International Jimmy and Austin off-road vehicles obtained under Lend-Lease. But greatest number"Katyusha" was mounted on all-wheel drive three-axle cars from Studebaker. Launcher. Eight guides are fixed to the lifting boom, each of which has two grooves (top and bottom), along which rocket shells slide during launch. The guides are connected to each other using three transverse parts to form a so-called set of guides mounted on a lifting boom. It is welded from pipes and can be rotated in a vertical plane around its horizontal axis. The axle is located at the rear of the base mounted on a rotating frame. A given firing angle is attached to the guides by a lifting mechanism, with the help of which they are fixed in a certain position on the rotating frame. The rotating frame rotates around a vertical axis. The latter is installed on the brackets of the base of the rotating frame. To orient it, and therefore the arrow with guides, in the horizontal plane during shooting, a guiding mechanism is used. The base of the rotating frame is rigidly fixed to the vehicle chassis. It has a curved guide groove (part of a circular arc) in which the front support of the launcher's rotating frame slides. The Katyusha is loaded with rocket shells from behind. Accidental dropping of rockets is prevented by locks installed in each guide. They are designed so that when missile shells are installed in the guides, the pins of the shells are passed forward, preventing them from moving downwards. To ignite the rocket charge in the combustion chamber there are special contacts located in each guide. When charging the Katyusha, these contacts are connected to the contacts of the electric powder igniters of the rocket shells. Through them, current from the battery installed on the car is transmitted to the powder igniters. The starting panel is located in the driver's cab.
Tactical and technical characteristics of the BM-13 rocket artillery combat vehicle
Missile caliber, mm - 132
Number of guides, pcs - 16
Maximum angle of elevation, degrees. - 45
Minimum angle of elevation, degrees. - 7
Field (sector) of fire in the horizontal plane (direction to the target), deg. ±10
Salvo production time, s 7 -10
Firing range, m - 8470
Weight of the BM-13 launcher, kg - 2200 kg
Weight of the BM-13 combat vehicle (together with the launcher), kg - 6200 kg
M-13 rocket.
The M-13 projectile consists of a head and a body. The head has a shell and a combat charge. A fuse is attached to the front of the head. The body ensures the flight of a rocket projectile and consists of a casing, a combustion chamber, a nozzle and stabilizers. In front of the combustion chamber there are two electric powder igniters. On the outer surface of the combustion chamber shell there are two threaded guide pins, which serve to hold the missile projectile in the guide mounts. 1 — fuse retaining ring, 2 — GVMZ fuse, 3 — detonator block, 4 — explosive charge, 5 — warhead, 6 — igniter, 7 — chamber bottom, 8 — guide pin, 9 — propellant rocket charge, 10 — rocket part, 11 - grate, 12 - critical section of the nozzle, 13 - nozzle, 14 - stabilizer, 15 - remote fuse pin, 16 - AGDT remote fuse, 17 - igniter.
Voronezh Katyusha
The Great Patriotic War showed the world the crushing striking force and power of Soviet weapons. Moreover, about three quarters of the gun samples and up to half of the types small arms, with which the Armed Forces of the USSR came to victory, were created and put into mass production during the war. Among such weapons, a special place is occupied by the BM-13 guards mortar - the legendary "Katyusha", the lyrical name of which, according to one version, originates from the letter "K", the mark of the manufacturer - the Voronezh plant named after. The Comintern, which launched the production of this formidable weapon literally in the very first days of the war.
To the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Soviet Union already possessed samples of rocket artillery and had successful experience in its use. The development of rockets using smokeless powder was started by N.I. Tikhomirov and V.A. Artemyev back in 1921. Their many years of work culminated in the great success of Soviet rocket science - in 1928, successful tests The world's first smokeless powder rocket. By 1933, two types of rockets had been created - the fragmentation RS-82 and the high-explosive fragmentation RS-132. At the same time, the efforts of laboratories working on this topic are united - the Jet Research Institute is being created in Moscow. Soon, within its walls, several hundred prototypes of projectiles and launching devices were manufactured, intended for installation under the wing of an aircraft. In 1935, the first launches of RS-82 missiles from I-15 fighters began at the test site, and in 1937 military tests began. Their successful completion allowed the I-15 and I-16 fighters to adopt the RS-82 air-to-air missile in December 1937 and the RS-132 air-to-ground missile for SB bombers in July 1938.
After the adoption of rockets into aviation service, the Main Artillery Directorate set the Jet Research Institute the task of creating a multiple launch rocket system based on RS-132 projectiles. A refined tactical and technical assignment was issued to the institute in June 1938. In accordance with this assignment, by the fall of 1939, the institute developed a new 132-mm high-explosive fragmentation projectile, which later received the official name M-13 and the MU-2 launcher. In the summer of the same year, RS-82 missiles were first tested in air battles against Japanese militarists in the Khalkhin Gol River area. These battles fully confirmed the assumption that a qualitatively new type of ammunition was born - a rocket with a solid propellant engine. The combat successes of the "eres" confirmed the need and accelerated the development of missile weapons for ground forces.
Department head
In September 1939, tests of the MU-2 installation were carried out and, based on the results, it was accepted by the Main Artillery Directorate for field testing. After modifications in 1940, the world's first mobile multiple rocket launcher successfully passed factory and field tests. It received the army designation BM-13-16, or simply BM-13, and a decision was made on its industrial production. RNII received an order for the production of five such installations and a batch of missiles for military testing. In addition, the Navy Ordnance Department also ordered one BM-13 launcher for testing in the coastal defense system. The People's Commissariat of Ammunition did not hesitate to begin organizing the mass production of rockets, taking into account the large scale of their expenditure. In 1940, serial production of M-13 and M-8 rockets was established, and their mass production was fully mastered before the start of the war.
It turned out to be more difficult to establish mass production of launchers. Only in February 1941, the People's Commissariat of General Engineering issued an order to organize the Voronezh plant named after. Comintern for the production of BM-13 vehicles. The Voronezh plant was ordered to produce a prototype by July 1 and another 40 units by the end of 1941.
Director of the plant named after. Comintern Fyodor Nikolaevich Muratov was urgently summoned to the People's Commissariat. Returning to the plant two days later, he immediately familiarized the head of the department, Pyotr Semenovich Gavrilov, with the order of the People's Commissariat and instructed him to select a group of intelligent designers to work on the drawings in the coming days. The created group included leading machine designer Nikolai Andreevich Pucherov, chief technologist of the plant Serafim Semenovich Silchenko, designers Mikhail Ivanovich Pavlov, Alexander Alexandrovich Yakovlev and Nikolai Nikolaevich Avdeev.
BM-13 rocket artillery combat vehicle: 1 - switch, 2 - armor shields
cabin, 3 — package of guides, 4 — gas tank, 5 — base of the rotating frame,
6 — lifting screw casing, 7 — lifting frame, 8 — traveling support, 9 — stopper,
10 — rotating frame, 11 — M-13 projectile, 12 — brake light, 13 — jacks,
14 — launcher battery, 15 — towing device spring, 16 — bracket
sight, 17 — lifting mechanism handle, 18 — rotating mechanism handle,
19 — spare wheel, 20 — junction box.
Within a week, drawings of the launcher with the code BM-13-16 arrived at the plant from the RNII. The installation consisted of eight open guide rails interconnected into a single unit by tubular welded spars. 16 132-mm rocket projectiles were fixed using T-shaped pins on top and bottom of the guides in pairs. The design provided the ability to change the angle of elevation and azimuth rotation. Aiming at the target was carried out through a sight with a conventional artillery panorama by rotating the handles of the lifting and rotating mechanisms. The installation was mounted on the chassis of a three-axle ZIS-6 truck. The guides were installed along the car, the rear of which was additionally hung on jacks before shooting.
At first, it was only supposed to review the drawings of the RNII with the aim of their technological adaptation to factory conditions in order to establish mass production. However, it soon became clear that some components needed serious fine-tuning. ON THE. Pucherov expressed doubts about the reliability of the screw fastenings of the guide bars in field conditions. It was necessary to increase the reliability of the most critical unit so that it could withstand any load under the most unfavorable operating conditions. To speed up the work and quickly agree on fundamental design changes, three employees of the Jet Research Institute arrived at the plant. These were the head of the institute’s department, Ivan Isidorovich Gvai, leading designer Vladimir Nikolaevich Gvalkovsky, and technologist Sergei Ivanovich Kalashnikov. In order to maintain the strictest secrecy when working with drawings, a group of designers and technologists were allocated a small room on the second floor of the administrative building. Work on "Katyusha" began to boil almost around the clock.
After a thorough and comprehensive discussion, it was decided to replace the complex shaped guides, paired with two “cheeks” made of sheet steel, with an I-beam. This replacement increased the strength of the assembly and at the same time simplified its manufacture.
The next weak link was the remote fire control panel, with a cable length of 25 meters. To fire a shot, the installation commander had to take a reel-drum from the cockpit, run twenty-five meters with it into a previously prepared shelter and turn the handle to close sixteen contacts. After the salvo had been fired, the cable had to be quickly wound up and put back in the cabin. All this greatly reduced the maneuverability of the installation. At the suggestion of plant electrical engineers Yakov Mikhailovich Tupitsyn and Evgeniy Yakovlevich Nizovtsev, they decided to mount the fire control panel in the truck cabin, installing it next to the vehicle control panel. This modification made it possible to significantly reduce the salvo time. To ensure the safety of the commander and driver, an armor shield 5 mm thick was installed above the cabin.
The contactors for igniting the squibs in the rocket were also radically redesigned. Instead of the plate ones provided for in the project, they installed rod ones. As tests have shown, they reliably ensured the ignition of the squibs.
Significant design changes were made to other components as well. The locking part was re-developed, the rotating frame and the design of the supporting truss were changed, and the horizontal and vertical aiming mechanisms were combined, which greatly facilitated fire control.
On June 15-17, 1941, five vehicles, manufactured in the experimental workshops of the RNII by order of the Main Artillery Directorate, were exhibited at a review of new models of weapons of the Red Army, which was again held near Moscow. BM-13 was inspected by Marshal Timoshenko, People's Commissar of Armaments Ustinov, People's Commissar of Ammunition Vannikov and Chief General Staff Zhukov. During the reviews, a salvo of four combat vehicles was fired, which were highly praised by the leaders of the party and government. And on June 21, literally a few hours before the start of the Great Patriotic War, following the review, the government decided to urgently launch mass serial production of M-13 missiles and the BM-13 launcher.
The factory director
Chief Engineer
plant
On the morning of June 22, the heads of workshops, departments and services gathered in the office of the plant director. The director of the plant, Muratov, was absent; he was urgently summoned to Moscow. The emergency meeting was held by the chief engineer of the plant, Viktor Pavlovich Chernogubovsky. He announced that, in agreement with the union, the plant would immediately switch to two shifts with an eleven-hour working day. Summing up, Chernogubovsky emphasized that they would have to work with increasing tension, since many workers would be mobilized into the Red Army in the coming days. Indeed, already on the second and third days of the war, about four hundred people were called up from the plant.
The director returning from Moscow brought an order to speed up the production of launchers. By July 1, it was necessary to present not one, but two experimental installations, and already in July, it was necessary to produce thirty combat vehicles, and in August one hundred. The plant urgently switched to producing military products. In workshops engaged in the production of purely peaceful goods, they found machines suitable for the new work and set them up to produce parts for launchers.
By that time, the work of revising, adapting and changing the drawings at the Voronezh plant had been successfully completed. The production of parts for the assembly of prototypes has begun. There were a lot of difficulties, as with any new machine. First of all, there were no metalworking machines of the required length. The enterprise had only one planing machine for processing guides - the most important unit of the BM-13, and even that one was of a hopelessly outdated Butler design, with a very solid production history. The length required for the guides was decent - five meters. Arose serious problems and when bending guide troughs, which also have a five-meter length. There were no bending devices at the plant. At first, the troughs had to be made welded from three parts, which caused great technological difficulties in their processing. The welds needed to be thoroughly cleaned for subsequent assembly with the guides.
To produce test samples of rocket launchers, a specialized assembly shop No. 4 was organized, the head of which was Yakov Efimovich Leibovich. From the very first days, the most qualified workers of A.T. were sent here. Milyaeva, E.G. Myakisheva, M.V. Gunkina, I.D. Pakhorskgo, V.N. Strelkov, electricians A.M. Stakhurlova, G.A. Fedorenko, masters S.S. Zatsepina, M.F. Anisimova, I.E. Yurova. The operational management of the workshops was also carried out by the head of the production department, Nikolai Semenovich Rozanovsky, and the senior engineer of the first department, Nikolai Antonovich Ivanov.
The most labor-intensive task was assembling the assembly of guide beams with spars and the overall installation of this assembly with the entire supporting structure of the launcher. A particular difficulty was that the grooves of the eight guide beams must be strictly parallel; deviation was allowed no more than two millimeters. In addition, it should be taken into account that there was no experience in assembling such systems yet, and some components had to be redone several times. The best car assemblers I.E., Yurov, I.S. Bakhtin, M.F. Anisimov, S.S. The Zatsepins literally did not close their eyes for days. Largely only thanks to their vast experience and dedicated work, test samples of the installation were assembled on time.
Engineer-
constructor
Leading
constructor
And so, on the fifth day of the war, June 26, this long-awaited and exciting moment finally arrived. In the assembly shop, around two ready-made pilot plants, a team of assemblers and all the factory management gathered - director F. N. Muratov, chief engineer V. P. Chernogubovsky, chief technologist S. S. Silchenko, designer N. A. Pucherov, shop manager Ya. E. Leibovich. And also the leading designer V.N. Galkovsky and the representative of the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army, military engineer of the second rank A.G. Mrykin.
But it was too early to celebrate the victory. Lead designer Galkovsky assessed the installation with an experienced eye and immediately demanded a caliper. The designer's suspicions were confirmed - the distance between the axes of the grooves of the paired guides did not correspond to the drawings, it was less than the calculated one. The inspection showed that this was done on the instructions of the head of the RNII department, I. I. Gvai. Ivan Isidorovich came to the Comintern plant for the second time, when the drawings were basically worked out, and, looking at the guide assembly, he ordered to slightly reduce the dimensions between the axes of the guides in order to reduce the width of the entire package.
In the project, on paper, this looked quite logical, but now, in the finished installation, the designer’s trained eye immediately noticed a serious defect: during the very first salvo, the missile stabilizers could hit each other.
An order followed for two teams of assemblers to urgently remount the guide beams, establishing between them the dimensions previously provided for by the project. The task was completed efficiently, and after just a few hours of intense work, the assemblers and craftsmen breathed a sigh of relief - the first prototypes were ready. The installations were immediately accepted by representatives of the Main Artillery Directorate at the plant. Now the formidable combat vehicles were on their way to Moscow.
The next day, two cars, carefully covered with a tarpaulin, left the factory gates and headed for Moscow along the Zadonskoye Highway. In addition to two combat installations, there was a truck containing guard soldiers armed with grenades and light machine guns, and a supply of fuel. The cars with BM-13 were driven by Stepan Stepanovich Bobreshov and Mitrofan Dmitrievich Artamonov. The installations were accompanied by two workers and senior engineer of the first department Nikolai Antonovich Ivanov. After twenty hours of travel, the vehicles arrived at the People's Commissariat of Defense, where Ivanov received the necessary documents and a direction to a military warehouse for combat missiles, so that he could immediately proceed to testing grounds.
After successful tests, on the same day, June 28, five installations previously manufactured at the RNII and two Voronezh Katyushas were combined into a battery to be sent to the front and tested the quality of the new weapon and its combat effectiveness. Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov, a student of the F. Dzerzhinsky Military Artillery Academy, was appointed commander of the first separate experimental battery of rocket launchers. Already on July 2, 1941, the battery was sent from Moscow to the Western Front, and on July 14, Flerov’s battery, with about three thousand shells, took up a combat position near Orsha, on the banks of the Dnieper, from where it delivered its first crushing blow to the enemy. Mortar fire reduced the trains with manpower and equipment that had accumulated at the station to dust. The artillerymen did not just inflict serious damage on the enemy. They brought terror to him, which haunted the Nazis throughout the war at the mere mention of this formidable weapon.
And at the plant there was an intense search for reserves to increase the production of military weapons. On one of the last days of June, Muratov gathered shop managers, their deputies, and shift supervisors in his office. He was preoccupied and stern. Only the first samples of the machines were delivered. Too much time was spent on reworking the drawings, and other unforeseen difficulties were encountered in mastering this technologically complex machine. Muratov said that the rocket launcher has extremely important for the fiercely fighting Red Army. He criticized managers for their slowness in mastering the production of the most labor-intensive parts, for allowing defects, for the fact that many craftsmen are engaged in work unusual for them - obtaining blanks for machine operators, running from workshop to workshop. It was about setting a strict car production plan for each month. At the same time, it was necessary to take into account all the capabilities of each workshop, take into account every minute of working time, and do everything to ensure that not a single machine operator was idle due to a lack of workpieces or tools.
However, the plant was not ready for such a radical restructuring of all work. At the end of June, the plant received four planing machines, but their tables were short, and it turned out to be impossible to make guide beams on them. At an emergency meeting with the chief engineer, it was decided to lengthen the machine tables on our own. There was an urgent need to complete drawings of extension parts, make models, make cast iron castings, and process them. While this work was being carried out, changes were being agreed upon, holes were being dug in the workshop for the foundations of the elongated machines, anchor bolts were laid and concrete was poured. The work went on around the clock. The new machines were put into operation five days ahead of schedule.
Reconstructing machines and rebuilding the entire working rhythm in accordance with wartime is, of course, not easy. And all this was possible to do in super record time only thanks to dedication labor collective and managers. We worked for days, almost without breaks. Chief engineer V.P. devoted all his efforts to production. Chernogubovsky and mechanic P.I. Larin. There was not a workshop, shift or department where these managers would not visit at least one day, ready to help with advice and action.
The machine shop was having trouble making the starting guide beams. The main difficulty was that the guide beam, five meters long, went through two operations on a longitudinal planing machine. During the first operation, the excess metal from the edges of the I-beam profile was removed, the supporting planes were carefully planed on both sides, and grooves twenty millimeters wide and eight millimeters deep were selected in them. Then the beam was removed from the machine and guide troughs made of sheet steel three millimeters thick were riveted onto the planed planes. The beam with the troughs attached was returned to the planer, and grooves eleven millimeters wide were cut into it. Moreover, it was necessary to maintain strict parallelism between the guide edges of the trough and the grooves, because the accuracy of the projectile’s movement and the accuracy of fire depended on this.
Chief technologist
S. S. Silchenko
Workshop foreman
The site team spent a lot of effort and nerves on the guide beams, but at first a lot of parts were still scrapped. Plant director F.N. Muratov was forced to convene a meeting specifically on this issue. Shop managers A.G. Puzoshchatov and S.P. Zakharov, chief technologist S.S. Silchenko, craftsmen, and the most qualified planers were invited to attend. The meeting was also attended by a representative of the State Defense Committee and the secretary of the regional party committee A. A. Ivanov.
A more thorough study of the beam processing technology revealed insufficient rigidity of its fastening on the machine. The head of the guide beams section, Boris Lvovich Tagintsev, remembered one device that he had previously used for other purposes. I found it with difficulty, figured out what was what, and it turned out that with minor modifications it can be used for processing guide beams. Boris Lvovich told Muratov in detail about his idea and asked him to transfer it to the machine in order to try out the innovation with his own hands. The director agreed.
Tagintsev immediately went to the workshop, and twelve hours later the device was mounted on a Butler planing machine. Things went well. The strong and rigid mounting of the guide beam on the machine eliminated vibration. The military representative accepted the part made using the new device from the first presentation. Now another problem was on the line: reducing the time for processing the beam. To speed up this operation, Tagintsev and Fedin proposed a special tool holder, into which three incisors were inserted at once. This simple device made it possible to significantly increase the productivity of the machine.
A simple cutter was used to process the edges of the guide trough. Installing and refueling it was difficult and time consuming. Avdeev and Tagintsev developed the design of a special, somewhat unusual cutter, shaped like a tea saucer. 6 hard alloy plates were soldered around the circumference of a disk with a diameter of 132 millimeters. The plates were positioned symmetrically at an angle of 60 degrees. Each pair of such plates made it possible to process both edges of the guide trough at once, and exceptionally high processing accuracy was achieved.
Throughout July, intensive preparations continued for the implementation of a strictly daily schedule in the workshops. The party bureau, the factory trade union committee, the Komsomol organization, and the large-circulation newspaper Kominternovets were energetically involved in this matter. Large, beautifully designed posters were hung at the main entrance of the plant. The results of the activities of each workshop were updated on them twice a day. The area for assembly work was significantly increased by accommodating two large bays of the metal structures workshop. The leadership of some departments was strengthened. So, the communist Dmitry Ivanovich Zhirov was appointed head of assembly shop No. 3, and the chief mechanic of the plant, party member Pavel Ivanovich Larin, was sent to assembly shop No. 4.
The results of organizational and political-mass work were not slow to show. In all subsequent months, right up to the evacuation of the plant to the Urals, the daily schedule was the law for each production team; it made it possible to establish a precise production of all components and parts, and to significantly increase the number of manufactured launchers.
On July 2, 1941, the bureau of the Voronezh regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution on the speedy establishment and increase in the production of military weapons at the Comintern plant. With this resolution, the regional party committee involved other city enterprises in the production of formidable weapons. Thus, the Kalinin Machine-Building Plant began to produce beams for the guide trough. He also had to work on extending the planer table length first. This work was carried out by a group of designers from the chief mechanic’s department under the leadership of Yu. P. Smirnov. But even when the machines were rebuilt, many of the problems that were observed during the initial period of production of the first beams at the Comintern plant were repeated. The beams were often deformed; they had to be straightened with great difficulty on special massive slabs, which took a lot of time.
Technologist A.P. Molchanov and head of the mechanical shop K.P. Tarasov devoted a lot of effort, energy, and invention to debugging the technological process. For days they did not leave the planers A. I. Pankov, I. A. Zverev, M. V. Shedagubov, A. Perelygin. It turned out that it was impossible to remove large-section chips with a given length and complex profile of the beam. There was a threat of disruption to the production schedule of this important detail. Then they decided to first carry out rough processing using the milling method. For this purpose, a disc shears unit with a roller table available at the factory was used. The conversion of the unit for milling was carried out by designer F. E. Durov, and technologist A. P. Molchanov designed an original mandrel with a set of disk cutters. For final processing of the beams on the planer, the most minimal allowance was left. Things got going.
Kalinin residents also completely manufactured the so-called lifting unit. It included quite complex parts: a screw with a two-start tape thread, a nut and two bevel gears. The cutting of the threaded pair was entrusted to highly qualified turners S. Boev, P. Zotov, I. Komarov. It turned out to be more difficult with cutting bevel gears. We had to hastily restore the old gear cutting machine. This work was completed in a short time under the leadership of the head of the mechanical repair shop L. Ya. Agarkov, who spent more than one sleepless night with the machine operators.
Various components and parts for the launcher were manufactured by teams from the Lenin Machine-Building Plant, the Dzerzhinsky Locomotive Repair Plant, and the Elektrosignal plant. The Institute of Chemical Technology also joined them, in whose mechanical laboratory they mastered sighting sights with an optical part. Therefore, the Katyushas assembled at the Comintern plant can rightfully be called Voronezh.
Regional Committee The party kept the production of military weapons under constant control. At eleven o'clock at night, meetings were held in F.N. Muratov's office on the results of the day. They were often attended by the first secretary of the regional committee, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nikitin, or the secretary of industry, Alexander Alexandrovich Ivanov. They provided the Comintern members with invaluable assistance in organizing the rhythmic supply of parts to other factories in the city, as well as in the uninterrupted supply of metal and other materials. A. A. Ivanov was almost hopelessly at the Comintern plant. Together with the secretary of the party committee, Ivan Efimovich Brovin, he often visited workshops and departments. During shift changes, for five to eight minutes, he made a report on the situation at the fronts, informed about the working life of the city and the entire region. The intimate conversation, specific examples, and the party's rallying cry mobilized people to quickly complete an extremely important task.
In August, difficulties with transporting launchers to Moscow began to increase. Their delivery on railway platforms was impossible due to the increasing frequency of enemy air raids on the road. Most of the plant's drivers were drafted into the army from the very first days of the war, and there were also not enough cars. And here assistance was provided by the regional and city party committees. Industrial enterprises and various economic organizations were instructed to allocate the required number of vehicles and drivers to ensure emergency transportation of launchers to Moscow.
The column of machines was necessarily accompanied by a responsible employee of the enterprise, approved by the director of the plant - the head of the department, designer, technologist, engineer. Along the route, it was strictly forbidden to stop in populated areas and at gas stations. Short stops to refuel with fuel, which you always carried with you, for technical inspection of vehicles were arranged in an open field or in a sparse forest with good review terrain. Breaking up of cars in a convoy while driving was not allowed under any circumstances; drivers had the right to drive their cars even at a red traffic light.
The successful work of the entire plant team was greatly facilitated by a well-organized dispatch service. The chief dispatcher of the enterprise had at his disposal a switchboard with loud-speaking installations in workshops and departments. Clearly organized communication allowed planners and shop foremen to maintain contact all the time and at any moment make the most correct decision on any issue. The head of the factory telephone exchange, August Petrovich Yagund, put a lot of work and ingenuity into the implementation of a widely ramified dispatch communication system (at that time it was a novelty).
In 1972, on the territory of the plant
a monument to the installation of BM-13 was erected.
photo by S. Kolesnikov from the archives of the Kommuna newspaper.
Day by day, along with alarming reports from the front, labor tension grew. When the fascist hordes were on the outskirts of Moscow, the slogan “More combat vehicles for the defenders of the capital!” was hung in the factory workshops. People accepted this call with all their hearts, understanding the danger looming over their Motherland, and increased the production of rocket launchers to five or six per day.
The production of units at the Comintern plant continued until the fall. And in October the front moved close to the upper Don. Enemy aircraft began to appear more and more often over the city. First reconnaissance aircraft, and soon bombers. The decision was made to evacuate. The Moscow Kompressor plant was appointed the leading enterprise for the production of launchers.
The Kominternovsky plant was evacuated beyond the Urals to the village of Maly Istok, where at the Uralelectromashina plant as soon as possible resumed production of parts for missile launchers. And although a small number of combat vehicles were assembled at the Istok plant, its team provided a significant amount of parts to the Uralelectromashina plant, where the main assembly of BM-13 units was established.
In a short time, the Cominternists also mastered the mass production of 82 mm mortars and uninterruptedly supplied them to the Red Army throughout the war.
Savchenko A.A. © www.site
The article uses drawings and illustrations from the Modelist-Constructor magazine.