Despite the fact that 67 years have passed since the victorious end of the Great Patriotic War, many historical facts need to be clarified and more carefully considered. This also applies to the episode of the initial period of the war, when the Katyushas fired their first salvo at the concentration of German troops at the Orsha railway station. Well-known historians-researchers Alexander Osokin and Alexander Kornyakov, based on archival data, suggest that the first Katyusha volley was fired at other Katyusha installations in order to prevent their capture by the enemy.

Three sources of information about the first salvo "Katyusha"

71 years ago, on July 14, 1941, at 15:15, the first volley of an unprecedented new type of weapon, rocket artillery, thundered against the enemy. Seven Soviet BM-13-16 multiple rocket launchers (combat vehicles with 16 132 mm rockets each), mounted on a ZIL-6 automobile chassis (soon to be called "Katyusha"), simultaneously hit the railway station of the city of Orsha, clogged with German trains with heavy military equipment, ammunition and fuel.

The effect of the simultaneous (7-8 sec.) impact of 112 132 mm caliber rockets was amazing in the literal and figurative sense - at first the earth shuddered and rumbled, and then everything blazed. Thus, the First Separate Experimental Rocket Artillery Battery under the command of Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov entered the Great Patriotic War... Such is the interpretation of the Katyusha's first salvo known today.

Photo.1 Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov

Until now, the main source of information about this event remains the combat log (ZhBD) of the Flerov battery, where there are two entries: “July 14, 1941, 3:15 p.m. They struck at the fascist trains at the Orsha railway junction. The results are excellent. A continuous sea of ​​\u200b\u200bfire"

And “14.7. 1941 16 hours 45 minutes. Volley at the crossing of the Nazi troops through Orshitsa. Large losses of the enemy in manpower and military equipment, panic. All the Nazis who survived on the east coast were taken prisoner by our units ... ".

Let's call it Source #1 . We are inclined to believe, however, that these are not texts from the ZhBD of Flerov’s battery, but from two combat reports sent by him to the Center by radio, because then no one in the battery had the right to have any documents or any papers with him.

Photo.2 Volley "Katyusha"

The story of the designer Popov. This is mentioned in the second main source of information about the fate and feat of the Flerov battery - the story of one of the participants in the development of "Katyusha" design engineer NII-3 Alexei Popov, which was recorded by the famous Soviet journalist Yaroslav Golovanov in 1983. Here is its content:

Photo.3 Constructor Alexey Popov

« On June 22, the war began. By June 24, we received an order to prepare three installations for shipment to the front. At that time, we had 7 RUs and about 4.5 thousand PCs for them. On June 28, I was called to the research institute. - “You and Dmitry Aleksandrovich Shitov will go with a battery to the front, to teach new technology ...”

So I found myself at the disposal of Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov. He managed to finish only the first year of the Academy. Dzerzhinsky, but was already a shelled commander: he participated in the Finnish campaign. Zhuravlyov, the political officer of the battery, selected reliable people from military registration and enlistment offices.

Muscovites, Gorky, Chuvashs served with us. Secrecy hindered us in many ways. For example, we could not use the combined arms services, we had our own medical unit, our own technical unit. All this made us clumsy: 7 rocket launchers accounted for 150 vehicles with attendants. On the night of July 1-2, we left Moscow.

Photo.4 Preparing "Katyusha" for combat work

On the Borodino field they swore: under no circumstances should they give the installation to the enemy. When there were especially curious people who tried to find out what we were carrying, we said that under the covers there were sections of pontoon bridges.

They tried to bomb us, after which we received an order: to move only at night. July 9th we arrived at Borisov district, deployed the position: 4 installations to the left of the highway, 3 RU and 1 aiming gun - to the right. They stayed there until July 13th. We were forbidden to fire from any type of personal weapon: pistols, 10-shot semi-automatic rifles, Degtyarev machine gun.

Each of them also had two grenades. They sat idle. Time spent studying. It was forbidden to take notes. Shitov and I conducted endless "practical exercises". Once the Messerschmidt-109 passed low over our battery, the soldiers could not stand it and fired at it from rifles. He turned around and, in turn, fired at us with a machine gun. After that we moved a little...

On the night of July 12-13, we were alerted. Our gunners pushed the cannon forward. An armored car drives up: “What part ?!” It turned out that we were so classified that the detachments that were supposed to hold the defense left. "The bridge will be blown up in 20 minutes, leave immediately!"

We left for Orsha. July 14 went to rn railway a node where many echelons were concentrated: ammunition, fuel, manpower and equipment. We stopped 5-6 km from the hub: 7 cars with RC and 3 cars with shells for a second salvo. They did not take the gun: direct visibility.

At 15:15 Flerov gave the order to open fire. A volley (7 vehicles with 16 rounds each, total 112 rounds) lasted 7-8 seconds. The railway junction was destroyed. There were no Germans in Orsha itself for 7 days. We got away right away. The commander was already in the cockpit, raised the jacks and go! They went into the woods and sat there.

The place where we shot from, the Germans then bombed. We got a taste of it and an hour and a half later we destroyed the German crossing. After the second salvo, they left along the Minsk highway towards Smolensk. We already knew that they would be looking for us…”.

Let's call it Source #2.

Report of two marshals about "Katyusha"

99% of all publications about the first volleys of the Katyusha and the fate of the Flerov battery are based only on these two sources. However, there is another very authoritative source of information about the first salvos of Flerov's battery - the daily report of the High Command of the Western Direction (Marshalov Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko and B.M. Shaposhnikov) to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (I.V. Stalin) of July 24, 1941. It says:

“The 20th army of Comrade Kurochkin, holding back attacks of up to 7 enemy divisions, defeated two German divisions, especially the newly arrived at the front 5 infantry division advancing on Rudnya and to the east. Especially effective and successful in defeating the 5th Infantry Division was the RS battery, which with three volleys at the enemy concentrated in Rudnya inflicted such losses on him that he took out the wounded all day and picked up the dead, stopping the offensive for the whole day. There are 3 volleys left in the battery. Please send two or three more batteries with charges ”(TsAMO, f. 246, op. 12928 ss, d. 2, ll. 38-41). Let's call it Source #3.

For some reason, it does not mention the volleys of the Flerov battery on July 14 across the Orsha and across the Orshitsa crossing, and does not indicate the date of its three volleys in Rudna.

Colonel Andrei Petrov's version

Having carefully studied all the circumstances of the first volley of Katyushas, ​​Andrey Petrov (engineer, retired colonel) in his article “The Mystery of the First Katyusha Volley” (NVO for June 20, 2008) made an unexpected conclusion: On July 14, 1941, the BM-13 battery of Captain Ivan Flerov fired at the accumulation of not enemy, but Soviet echelons with strategic cargo at the Orsha railway station!

This paradox is A. Petrov's brilliant guess. He gives several convincing arguments in her favor (we will not repeat) and leads to a number of questions related to the mysteries of the first salvo of the Katyusha and the fate of Captain Flerov and his battery, including:

1) Why was the commander of the heroic battery not immediately awarded? (After all, A.G. Kostikov, the chief engineer of NII-3, who appropriated the authorship of Katyusha alone, was already accepted by Stalin on July 28, 1941, and on the same day he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. And the heroically deceased I.A. Flerov only in 1963 he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree, and only in 1995 he was awarded the title of Hero Russian Federation).

2) Why did the Marshals of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko and B.M. Shaposhnikov, fully informed about the battery of I.A. Flerov (for example, they even knew that they had only three volleys of shells left), reported to the Headquarters as the first use "Katyusha" about their volleys in Rudna, and not in Orsha?

3) Where did the Soviet command have very accurate information about the intended movements of the echelon, which had to be destroyed?

4) Why did Flerov's battery fire on Orsha on July 14 at 15.15, when the Germans had not yet occupied Orsha? (A. Petrov claims that Orsha was occupied on July 14, a number of publications indicate the date July 16, and Source No. 2 says that after the volley the Germans were not in Orsha for 7 days).

Additional questions and our version

When studying the available materials about the first salvo of the Katyusha, we had several additional questions and considerations that we want to state, considering all three of the above sources to be absolutely reliable (although for some reason Source No. 1 still lacks archival references).

1) Source #2 states that “On July 9, the battery arrived in the Borisov region, deployed its position and stood there until July 13 ... We sat idle. Time spent studying. But Borisov is located 644 km from Moscow, 84 km west of Orsha. Taking into account the return to it, this is an extra 168 km of night roads for a battery of 157 cars! Plus 4 extra days of incomprehensible duty, each of which could be the last for the Flerovites.

What could have been the reason for this additional "forced march" of such an unbearable caravan of battery vehicles, and then its long sitting idle? In our opinion, there is only one thing - the expectation of the arrival of the echelon, which was most likely indicated to Flerov by the High Command as the primary target to be destroyed.

This means that the battery was sent not just to conduct military combat tests (with a simultaneous demonstration of the power of the new weapon), but to destroy a very specific target, which after July 9 was supposed to be in the area between Borisov and Orsha. (By the way, let's not forget that on July 10 the German offensive began, which became the beginning of the fiercest defensive battle of Smolensk, and the second part of the battery raid took place in its conditions).

2). Why did the High Command indicate to Flerov as a target a specific train that ended up on July 14, 1941 at 15.15 on the tracks of the Orsha freight station? How was it better or, rather, worse than hundreds of other trains on the clogged highways of the Moscow direction? Why were the installations sent from Moscow to meet the advancing German troops secret weapon and the column accompanying them literally hunted for this composition?

There is only one answer to the above questions - most likely, Flerov was really looking for a train with Soviet military equipment, which in no case should have fallen into the hands of the Germans. Having gone through its best types of that period, we came to the conclusion that these were not tanks (they then fell to the Germans in huge numbers, so there was no point in eliminating one or more trains with them).

And not airplanes (which at that time were often transported with dismantled wings in trains), because in 1939-1941, not even delegations, but commissions, German aviation was shown everything.

Oddly enough, it turned out that, most likely, the first volley of Flerov's Katyushas was made according to the composition (or compositions) of other Katyushas that moved to the western border even before the start of the war, so that, according to a secret agreement between Stalin and Hitler on the Great transport anti-British operation through Germany to transfer to the shores of the English Channel (one of the authors of this publication first published such a hypothesis of the beginning of the war in 2004.) But where could the Katyushas come from before the war?

Photo.5 One of the first versions of the Katyusha MU-1, also known as the 24-round M-13-24 (1938)

"Katyusha" appeared before the war

Almost every publication about the birth of the Katyusha claims that the Soviet high military command saw it for the first time in a few days, and the government decided to put it into service a few hours before the start of the war.

In fact, two and a half years before the start of the war - from December 8, 1938 to February 4, 1939 - at the GAU training ground in Kazakhstan, field and state tests of mechanized multiple rocket launchers on a ZIS-5 vehicle were successfully carried out: MU-1 and 16-round MU-2 for firing RS-132 rockets.

The MU-1 had a number of shortcomings, and the MU-2 (drawing No. 199910) on a three-axle ZIS-6 vehicle was planned to be put into service in 1939. The State Commission was headed by the deputy head of the GAU and the head of the Artkom Koromkor (since May 1940, Colonel General of Artillery) V.D. Grendal.

Just before the start of the Finnish War, from October 26 to November 9, 1940, demonstrative firing tests of rocketry were carried out at the Rzhevsky training ground near Leningrad, including the BM-13-16 mechanized launcher on the ZIS-6 chassis.

The commission was headed by the chief of artillery of the Red Army commander (since May 1940, Colonel-General of Artillery) N.N. Voronov. Based on the positive test results, NII-3 was obliged to introduce in 1940 in industry the mass production of mechanized installations BM-13-16, called "object 233" (it is interesting that the production of RS-132 was not assigned to NII-3, so all this year it was carried out serial factories of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition).

It is known that several types of rocket launchers on tanks were used to break through the Mannerheim Line. A number of other facts testify to the fact that it was Katyushas that were mass-produced even before the start of the war:

• of the 7 launchers of the Flerov battery, only 3 were manufactured by NII-3, and the remaining 4 are somewhere else
• already on July 3, the first Katyusha division was formed (43 installations, including 7 Flerov's)
• by mid-August 1941, 9 four-divisional Katyusha regiments were formed (12 installations each), 45 divisions, and in September another 6 three-divisional regiments

Total 1228 installations for July - September. Later they were called "guards mortar units". Such a pace would be unrealistic if the drawings for installations were transferred to mass-produced plants from June 22, 1941.

So a train with Katyushas and several trains with RSs could well have been taken to the border in the last days before the war. After June 22, 1941, moving only at night, these secret trains were especially secretly taken to the rear, so that in no case would they get to the Germans. But why?

The clue was announced by Levitan in the evening summary of the Sovinformburo

It can hardly be considered a mere coincidence that on July 22, 1941, in the evening summary of the Sovinformburo, the announcer Levitan said: “On July 15, in the battles west of Sitnya, east of Pskov, during the retreat of German units, our troops captured secret documents and chemical property of the 2nd battalion of the 52nd mortar chemical regiment of the enemy. One of the captured packages contained: secret instruction ND No. 199 “Shooting with chemical projectiles and mines”, editions of 1940, and secret additions to the instructions sent to the troops on June 11 of this year ... German fascism is secretly preparing a new monstrous atrocity - the widespread use of poisonous substances ... "

Photo 6. Six-barreled mortar "Nebelverfer" - "Vanyusha" (1940)

This is an amazing coincidence - the very next day after the first salvo of the Soviet Katyushas, ​​samples of German jet technology, possibly the six-barreled Vanyushas (aka Nebelwerfers, aka Donkeys), fell into the hands of the Soviet troops.

The fact is that the Katyushas, ​​or rather, their prototypes - a number of rocket launchers, starting with the MU-1 and ending with the BM-13-16, were developed in the USSR in the mid-1930s by order of the Chemical Department of the Red Army, in the first place, to carry out a surprise chemical attack.

And only later, high-explosive fragmentation and high-explosive incendiary charges were developed for their rocket projectiles, after which the development went along the line of the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU).

It is also possible that the financing of the first developments was carried out by the chemical department on orders from the German Reichswehr. Therefore, the Germans could well know many of their aspects. (In 1945, the commission of the Central Committee discovered that one of the Skoda factories produced shells for the SS troops - analogues of the Soviet M-8 rocket shells and launchers for them).

Photo 7. Alexander Nikolayevich Osokin, writer-historian

Therefore, Stalin decided to play it safe. After all, he understood that the Germans would definitely film the trains destroyed by the first salvo of Flerov's Katyushas, ​​be able to determine that they depicted fragments of Soviet rocket launchers, which means they would be able to use their film and photo frames for propaganda purposes: here, they say, the Soviet Union is preparing to use in chemical attacks against the German (and therefore it can also be against the British!) Troops poisonous substances thrown with the help of the latest rocket technology.

This could not be allowed. And where did our intelligence manage to find a similar one so quickly? German technology- rocket launchers, and even documentation for them? Judging by the dates indicated in the Information Bureau report, their development was completed before the start of the war (and practice confirms this - already on June 22, six-barreled Nebelwerfers fired at the Brest Fortress). It may not be accidental that later the German rocket launcher "Vanyusha" was nicknamed?

Maybe this is a hint at his Russian roots and kinship with the Katyusha? Or maybe there was no defeat of the 52nd German chemical regiment, and the Vanyusha-Nebelwerfers, along with instructions, were transferred to the USSR during the years of friendly cooperation, say, in order to maintain allied parity?

There was another one, also not very nice option- if the rocket launchers and shells for them destroyed in Orsha were of German or joint Soviet-German production (for example, the same Skodov ones) and had both Soviet and German markings. This threatened serious showdowns with both their own and allies in both warring countries.

Photo 8. Alexander Fedorovich Kornyakov designer of small arms and artillery weapons

So the next day after the defeat of the trains in Orsha, they gave a summary of the Information Bureau about the defeat of the 52nd German chemical regiment. And the Germans had to silently agree with the Soviet version of the defeat of the mortar chemical regiment, and what could they do? So this is what happened:

• the Soviet High Command was constantly informed where the echelon with the Katyushas was located, which was supposed to secretly destroy the Flerov battery
• the battery actually fired on the accumulation of trains in Orsha even before the Germans entered it
• Timoshenko and Shaposhnikov did not know about the Katyusha strike on Orsha
• Flerov was not awarded in any way (how is it to reward for hitting his own echelon ?!), and there were no reports of the first Katyusha strike in 1941 (for the same reason).

We hope that the train with Katyushas was driven onto a separate track, an air raid was announced and people were removed for the duration of its shelling, which, of course, was attributed to the Germans. We also assume that the second volley of the Flerov battery on the same day against the advancing German divisions in the area of ​​​​the crossing on the Orshitsa River was fired, first of all, in order to dispel a possible suspicion that the main task of the battery was to eliminate a specific Soviet echelon.

We believe that after the second salvo, the Germans spotted and surrounded the combat installations of the Flerov battery, and not three months later in early October 1941, but immediately after their salvo across the crossing. Probably, after air raids and an unequal battle, which ended with Flerov’s command “Blow up the installations!”, He himself blew up one of them along with himself.

The rest were also blown up, while part of the battery personnel died, part hid in the forest and got out to their own, including A. Popov. Several people, incl. the wounded crew commander, sergeant from Alma-Ata Khudaibergen Khasenov, were taken prisoner. He was released only in 1945, never talked about anything at home, only after Flerov was awarded the Order in 1963, he dropped: "I fought in his battery."

None of those who went out to their people ever told when Flerov died, for a long time he was considered missing (as he is still listed in the Podolsk archive today, however, for some reason since December 1941), despite the fact that he was allegedly the date of his death was established - October 7, 1941 and the place of burial - near the village of Bogatyr near Pskov.

Then, perhaps, at his command, only the very first volleys of Katyushas were fired, and all the rest - near Rudnya, near Yelnya, near Pskov - at the command of his comrades: Degtyarev, Cherkasov and Dyatchenko - commanders of the 2nd, 3rd , 4th battery of a separate artillery battalion created on July 3, 1941 special purpose... And then the enemy was smashed by another 10,000 Katyusha combat vehicles, which fired 12 million rockets!

"Katyusha" - vernacular name combat vehicles of rocket artillery BM-8 (with 82 mm shells), BM-13 (132 mm) and BM-31 (310 mm) during the Great Patriotic War. There are several versions of the origin of this name, the most likely of them is associated with the factory mark "K" of the manufacturer of the first combat vehicles BM-13 (Voronezh Plant named after the Comintern), as well as with the popular song of the same name at that time (music by Matvey Blanter, lyrics by Mikhail Isakovsky).
(Military Encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing. Moscow. In 8 volumes -2004. ISBN 5 - 203 01875 - 8)

The BM-13 received its baptism of fire on July 14, 1941, when the battery fired the first salvo from all installations at the Orsha railway station, where a large amount of enemy manpower and military equipment was concentrated. As a result of a powerful fire strike simultaneously by 112 rockets, a fire glow rose over the station: enemy echelons were burning, ammunition was exploding. An hour and a half later, Flerov's battery fired a second salvo, this time at the crossing of the Orshitsa River, on the approaches to which a lot of German equipment and manpower had accumulated. As a result, the enemy's crossing was disrupted, and he failed to develop success in this direction.

First experience with new missile weapons showed its high combat effectiveness, which was one of the reasons for its fastest commissioning and equipping the Ground Forces with it.

The restructuring of the industry associated with the production of rocket weapons was carried out in a short time, a large number of enterprises were involved in its production (already in July-August 1941 - 214 factories), which ensured the supply of this military equipment to the troops. In August-September 1941, mass production of BM-8 combat mounts with 82-mm rockets was launched.

Simultaneously with the deployment of production, work continued on the creation of new and improvement of existing samples of rockets and launchers.

On July 30, 1941, a special design bureau (SKB) at the Moscow Kompressor plant began to work - the head design bureau for launchers, and the plant itself became the lead enterprise for their production. This SKB, under the leadership of the head and chief designer Vladimir Barmin, developed 78 samples of launchers during the war years various types mounted on cars, tractors, tanks, railway platforms, river and sea ​​ships. Thirty-six of them were put into service, mastered by industry and used in combat.

Much attention was paid to the production of rockets, the creation of new and the improvement of existing samples. The 82-mm M-8 rocket projectile underwent modernization, powerful high-explosive rocket projectiles were created: 132-mm M-20, 300-mm M-30 and M-31; extended range - M-13 DD and improved accuracy - M-13 UK and M-31 UK.

With the beginning of the war, special troops were created as part of the Armed Forces of the USSR for the combat use of missile weapons. These were rocket troops, but during the war they were called guards mortar units (GMCH), and later - rocket artillery. The first organizational form of the HMC was separate batteries and divisions.

By the end of the war, rocket artillery had 40 separate divisions (38 M-13 and 2 M-8), 115 regiments (96 M-13 and 19 M-8), 40 separate brigades (27 M-31 and 13 M-31-12 ) and 7 divisions - a total of 519 divisions in which there were over 3000 combat vehicles.

The legendary Katyushas took part in all major operations during the war.

The fate of the first separate experimental battery was cut short at the beginning of October 1941. After the baptism of fire near Orsha, the battery successfully operated in battles near Rudnya, Smolensk, Yelnya, Roslavl and Spas-Demensk. During the three months of hostilities, Flerov's battery not only inflicted considerable material damage on the Germans, it also contributed to raising the morale of our soldiers and officers, exhausted by continuous retreats.

The Nazis staged a real hunt for new weapons. But the battery did not stay long in one place - having fired a volley, it immediately changed its position. A tactical technique - a volley - a change of position - was widely used by Katyusha units during the war.

In early October 1941, as part of the grouping of troops on the Western Front, the battery ended up in the rear of the Nazi troops. When moving to the front line from the rear on the night of October 7, she was ambushed by the enemy near the village of Bogatyr, Smolensk region. Most of the battery personnel and Ivan Flerov died, having shot all the ammunition and blowing up combat vehicles. Only 46 soldiers managed to get out of the encirclement. The legendary battalion commander and the rest of the fighters, who fulfilled their duty with honor to the end, were considered "missing." And only when it was possible to find documents from one of the army headquarters of the Wehrmacht, which reported what actually happened on the night of October 6-7, 1941 near the Smolensk village of Bogatyr, Captain Flerov was excluded from the list of missing persons.

For heroism, Ivan Flerov was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War 1st degree in 1963, and in 1995 he was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation posthumously.

In honor of the feat of the battery, a monument was erected in the city of Orsha and an obelisk near the city of Rudnya.

In the protocol of interrogation of German prisoners of war, it was noted that "two captured soldiers in the village of Popkovo went crazy from the fire of rocket launchers", and the captured corporal stated that "there were many cases of insanity in the village of Popkovo from the artillery cannonade of the Soviet troops."

T34 Sherman Calliope (USA) Multiple launch rocket system (1943). It had 60 guides for 114 mm M8 rockets. Mounted on the Sherman tank, guidance was carried out by turning the turret and raising and lowering the barrel (through the rod)

One of the most famous and popular symbols of the weapons of the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War- BM-8 and BM-13 multiple launch rocket systems, affectionately nicknamed "Katyusha" by the people. The development of rocket projectiles in the USSR was carried out from the beginning of the 1930s, and even then the possibilities of their salvo launch were considered. In 1933, the RNII, the Reactive Research Institute, was established. One of the results of his work was the creation and adoption by aviation in 1937-1938 of 82- and 132-mm rockets. By this time, considerations had already been expressed about the advisability of using rockets in ground forces Oh. However, due to the low accuracy of their use, the effectiveness of their use could only be achieved when firing simultaneously with a large number of shells. The Main Artillery Directorate (GAU) at the beginning of 1937, and then in 1938, set the institute the task of developing a multiply charged launcher for firing volley fire with 132-mm rockets. Initially, the installation was planned to be used for firing rockets in order to conduct chemical warfare.

In April 1939, a multiply charged launcher was designed according to a fundamentally new scheme with a longitudinal arrangement of guides. Initially, it received the name "mechanized installation" (MU-2), and after the SKB of the Kompressor plant was finalized and put into service in 1941, it was given the name "BM-13 combat vehicle". The rocket launcher itself consisted of 16 groove-type rocket guides. The location of the guides along the chassis of the vehicle and the installation of jacks increased the stability of the launcher and increased the accuracy of fire. Rocket loading was carried out from the rear end of the rails, which made it possible to significantly speed up the reloading process. All 16 shells could be fired in 7 to 10 seconds.

The beginning of the formation of guards mortar units was laid by the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of June 21, 1941 on the deployment of mass production of M-13 shells, M-13 launchers and the beginning of the formation of rocket artillery units. The first separate battery, which received seven BM-13 installations, was commanded by Captain I.A. Flerov. The successful operations of rocket artillery batteries contributed to the rapid growth of this young type of weapon. Already on August 8, 1941, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin, the formation of the first eight regiments of rocket artillery began, which was completed by September 12. Until the end of September, the ninth regiment was created.

tactical unit

Basic tactical unit Guards mortar units became the guards mortar regiment. Organizationally, it consisted of three divisions of rocket launchers M-8 or M-13, an anti-aircraft division, as well as service units. In total, the regiment had 1414 people, 36 combat vehicles, twelve 37-mm anti-aircraft guns, 9 DShK anti-aircraft machine guns and 18 light machine guns. However, the difficult situation on the fronts in the reduction in the release of anti-aircraft artillery guns led to the fact that in 1941 some parts of the rocket artillery in reality did not have an anti-aircraft artillery battalion. The transition to a full-time organization based on a regiment ensured an increase in the density of fire compared to a structure based on individual batteries or divisions. A volley of one regiment of M-13 rocket launchers consisted of 576, and a regiment of M-8 rocket launchers - of 1296 rockets.

The elitism and importance of batteries, divisions and regiments of rocket artillery of the Red Army was emphasized by the fact that immediately upon formation they were given the honorary title of Guards. For this reason, and also in order to maintain secrecy, the Soviet rocket artillery received its official name - “Guards mortar units”.

An important milestone in the history of the Soviet field rocket artillery was GKO Decree No. 642-ss of September 8, 1941. According to this resolution, the Guards mortar units were separated from the Main Artillery Directorate. At the same time, the post of commander of the Guards mortar units was introduced, who was supposed to report directly to the Headquarters of the High Command (SGVK). The first commander of the Guards mortar units (GMCH) was the military engineer of the 1st rank V.V. Aborenkov.

First experience

The first use of Katyushas took place on July 14, 1941. The battery of Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov fired two volleys from seven launchers at the Orsha railway station, where a large number of German echelons with troops, equipment, ammunition, and fuel had accumulated. As a result of battery fire, the railway junction was wiped off the face of the earth, the enemy suffered heavy losses in manpower and equipment.

T34 Sherman Calliope (USA) - multiple launch rocket system (1943). It had 60 guides for 114 mm M8 rockets. It was mounted on a Sherman tank, guidance was carried out by turning the turret and raising and lowering the barrel (through traction).

On August 8, Katyushas were involved in the Kiev direction. This is evidenced by the following lines of a secret report to Malenkov, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks: “Today at dawn, new means known to you were used in the Kiev UR. They hit the enemy to a depth of 8 kilometers. The setup is extremely efficient. The command of the sector where the installation was located reported that after several turns of the circle, the enemy completely stopped pressing on the sector from which the installation was operating. Our infantry boldly and confidently went forward. The same document states that the use of the new weapon caused an initially mixed reaction from Soviet soldiers who had never seen anything like it before. “I am transmitting as the Red Army soldiers said: “We hear a roar, then a piercing howl and a large trail of fire. Panic arose among some of our Red Army soldiers, and then the commanders explained where they were shooting from and where ... this literally caused the fighters to rejoice. Very good review gunners give ... ”The appearance of the Katyusha came as a complete surprise to the leadership of the Wehrmacht. Initially, the use of Soviet rocket launchers BM-8 and BM-13 was perceived by the Germans as a concentration of fire a large number artillery. One of the first mentions of the BM-13 rocket launchers can be found in the diary of the head of the German ground forces, Franz Halder, only on August 14, 1941, when he made the following entry: “The Russians have an automatic multi-barreled flamethrower gun ... The shot is fired by electricity. During the shot, smoke is generated ... When capturing such guns, report immediately. Two weeks later, a directive appeared entitled "Russian gun throwing rocket-like projectiles." It said: “Troops report the use by the Russians of a new type of weapon that fires rockets. A large number of shots can be fired from one installation within 3-5 seconds ... Each appearance of these guns must be reported to the general, commander of the chemical troops at the high command, on the same day.

By June 22, 1941, the German troops also had rocket mortars. By this time, the chemical troops of the Wehrmacht had four regiments of six-barreled chemical mortars of 150 mm caliber (Nebelwerfer 41), and the fifth was under formation. The regiment of German chemical mortars organizationally consisted of three divisions of three batteries. For the first time, these mortars were used at the very beginning of the war near Brest, as mentioned in his writings by the historian Paul Karel.

There is nowhere to retreat - behind Moscow

By the autumn of 1941, the main part of rocket artillery was concentrated in the troops of the Western Front and the Moscow Defense Zone. Near Moscow there were 33 divisions out of 59 that were at that time in the Red Army. For comparison: the Leningrad Front had five divisions, the South-Western - nine, the South - six, and the rest - one or two divisions each. In the Battle of Moscow, all armies were reinforced by three or four divisions, and only the 16th Army had seven divisions.

The Soviet leadership attached great importance to the use of Katyushas in the battle of Moscow. In the directive of the Headquarters of the All-Russian Supreme Command on October 1, 1941, “To the commanders of the troops of the fronts and armies on the procedure for using rocket artillery”, in particular, the following was noted: “Parts of the active Red Army for Lately received new powerful weapons in the form of combat vehicles M-8 and M-13, which are the best remedy destruction (suppression) of the enemy's manpower, its tanks, motor units and fire weapons. The sudden, massive and well-prepared fire of the M-8 and M-13 battalions provides an exceptionally good defeat of the enemy and at the same time has a strong moral shock to his manpower, leading to a loss of combat capability. This is especially true in this moment when the enemy infantry has much more tanks than we do, when our infantry most of all needs powerful support from the M-8 and M-13, which can be successfully opposed to enemy tanks.

A battalion of rocket artillery under the command of Captain Karsanov left a bright mark on the defense of Moscow. For example, on November 11, 1941, this division supported the attack of its infantry on Skirmanovo. After the salvos of the division, this locality was taken almost without resistance. When examining the area in which volleys were fired, 17 wrecked tanks, more than 20 mortars and several guns abandoned by the enemy in a panic were found. During November 22 and 23, the same division, without infantry cover, repelled repeated enemy attacks. Despite the fire of submachine gunners, Captain Karsanov's division did not retreat until it had completed its combat mission.

At the beginning of the counteroffensive near Moscow, not only infantry and military equipment of the enemy, but also fortified defense lines, using which the Wehrmacht leadership sought to detain Soviet troops. The BM-8 and BM-13 rocket launchers fully justified themselves in these new conditions. For example, the 31st separate mortar division under the command of political instructor Orekhov spent 2.5 divisional volleys to destroy the German garrison in the village of Popkovo. On the same day, the village was taken by Soviet troops with little or no resistance.

Defending Stalingrad

In repelling the enemy's continuous attacks on Stalingrad, the Guards mortar units made a significant contribution. Sudden volleys of rocket launchers devastated the ranks of the advancing German troops, burned them military equipment. In the midst of fierce fighting, many Guards mortar regiments fired 20 to 30 volleys a day. Remarkable examples of combat work were shown by the 19th Guards Mortar Regiment. In just one day of the battle, he fired 30 volleys. The combat rocket launchers of the regiment were located along with the advanced units of our infantry and destroyed a large number of German and Romanian soldiers and officers. Rocket artillery was greatly loved by the defenders of Stalingrad and, above all, by the infantry. The military glory of the regiments of Vorobyov, Parnovsky, Chernyak and Erokhin thundered on the entire front.

In the photo above - Katyusha BM-13 on the ZiS-6 chassis was a launcher consisting of rail guides (from 14 to 48). The BM-31-12 installation (“Andryusha”, photo below) was a constructive development of the Katyusha. It was based on the Studebaker chassis and fired 300-mm rockets from guides not of a rail type, but of a honeycomb type.

IN AND. Chuikov wrote in his memoirs that he would never forget the Katyusha regiment under the command of Colonel Erokhin. On July 26, on the right bank of the Don, Erokhin's regiment participated in repelling the offensive of the 51st Army Corps german army. In early August, this regiment entered the southern operational group of troops. In early September during German tanks th attacks on the Chervlenaya River near the village of Tsibenko, the regiment again fired a volley of 82-millimeter Katyushas at the main enemy forces in the most dangerous place. The 62nd Army fought street battles from September 14 to the end of January 1943, and the Katyusha regiment of Colonel Erokhin constantly received combat missions of the commander V.I. Chuikov. In this regiment, the guide frames (rails) for the shells were mounted on a T-60 tracked base, which gave these installations good maneuverability in any terrain. Being in Stalingrad itself and having chosen positions behind the steep bank of the Volga, the regiment was invulnerable to enemy artillery fire. Erokhin quickly brought his own combat installations on caterpillar tracks to firing positions, fired a volley and with the same speed again went into cover.

In the initial period of the war, the effectiveness of rocket launchers was reduced due to the insufficient number of shells.
In particular, in a conversation between Marshal Shaposhnikov of the USSR and General of the Army G.K. Zhukov, the latter stated the following: “volleys for R.S. (rockets - O.A.) it takes at least 20 to be enough for two days of battle, and now we give negligible. If there were more of them, I vouch that it would be possible to shoot the enemy with only RSs. In the words of Zhukov, there is a clear overestimation of the capabilities of the Katyushas, ​​which had their drawbacks. One of them was mentioned in a letter to GKO member G.M. This shortcoming was especially clearly revealed during the retreat of our troops, when, due to the threat of the capture of this latest secret equipment, the Katyusha crews were forced to blow up their rocket launchers.

Kursk Bulge. Attention tanks!

On the eve of the Battle of Kursk, Soviet troops, including rocket artillery, were intensively preparing for the upcoming battles with German armored vehicles. Katyushas drove their front wheels into dug recesses to give the guides a minimum elevation angle, and the shells, leaving parallel to the ground, could hit tanks. Experimental shootings were carried out on plywood models of tanks. In training, rockets smashed targets to pieces. However, this method also had many opponents: after all, the warhead of the M-13 shells was high-explosive fragmentation, and not armor-piercing. It was necessary to check the effectiveness of Katyushas against tanks already during the battles. Despite the fact that rocket launchers were not designed to fight against tanks, in some cases, Katyushas successfully coped with this task. Let us give one example from a secret report addressed personally to I.V. Stalin: “July 5-7, the guards mortar units, repelling enemy attacks and supporting their infantry, carried out: 9 regimental, 96 divisional, 109 battery and 16 platoon volleys against enemy infantry and tanks. As a result, according to incomplete data, up to 15 infantry battalions were destroyed and dispersed, 25 vehicles were burned and knocked out, 16 artillery and mortar batteries were suppressed, and 48 enemy attacks were repulsed. During the period July 5-7, 1943, 5,547 M-8 shells and 12,000 M-13 shells were used up. Particularly noteworthy is the combat work on the Voronezh Front of the 415th Guards Mortar Regiment (regiment commander Lieutenant Colonel Ganyushkin), who on July 6 defeated the crossing across the Sev River. Donets in the Mikhailovka area and destroyed up to one company of infantry and on July 7, participating in the battle with enemy tanks, firing direct fire, knocked out and destroyed 27 tanks ... "

In general, the use of Katyushas against tanks, despite individual episodes, turned out to be ineffective due to the large dispersion of shells. In addition, as noted earlier, the warhead of the M-13 shells was high-explosive fragmentation, and not armor-piercing. Therefore, even with a direct hit, the rocket was not able to penetrate the frontal armor of the Tigers and Panthers. Despite these circumstances, the Katyushas still inflicted significant damage on the tanks. The fact is that when a rocket projectile hit the frontal armor, the tank crew often failed due to severe shell shock. In addition, as a result of Katyusha fire, the tracks of the tanks were interrupted, the turrets jammed, and if fragments hit the engine part or gas tanks, a fire could start.

Katyushas were successfully used until the very end of World War II, earning the love and respect of Soviet soldiers and officers and the hatred of Wehrmacht servicemen. During the war years, the BM-8 and BM-13 rocket launchers were mounted on various vehicles, tanks, tractors, installed on the armored platforms of armored trains, combat boats, etc. The "brothers" of the Katyusha were also created and participated in the battles - launchers of heavy rockets M-30 and M-31 caliber 300 mm, as well as launchers BM-31-12 caliber 300 mm. Rocket artillery firmly took its place in the Red Army and rightfully became one of the symbols of victory.

"Katyusha" on the streets of Berlin.
Photo from the book "The Great Patriotic War"

The female name Katyusha entered the history of Russia and in world history as the name of one of the most terrible types of weapons of the Second World War. At the same time, none of the weapons was surrounded by such a veil of secrecy and disinformation.

PAGES OF HISTORY

No matter how much our fathers-commanders kept the Katyusha materiel secret, just a few weeks after the first combat use, it fell into the hands of the Germans and ceased to be a secret. But the history of the creation of "Katyusha" long years was kept "with seven seals" both because of ideological attitudes and because of the ambitions of the designers.

The first question is why rocket artillery was used only in 1941? After all, powder rockets were used by the Chinese a thousand years ago. In the first half of the 19th century, rockets were widely used in European armies (rockets by V. Kongrev, A. Zasyadko, K. Konstantinov and others). Alas, the combat use of missiles was limited by their huge dispersion. At first, long poles made of wood or iron - “tails” were used to stabilize them. But such missiles were effective only for hitting area targets. So, for example, in 1854, the Anglo-French from rowing barges fired rockets at Odessa, and the Russians in the 50-70s of the XIX century - the Central Asian cities.

But with the introduction of rifled guns, powder rockets become an anachronism, and between 1860-1880 they are removed from service with all European armies (in Austria - in 1866, in England - in 1885, in Russia - in 1879). In 1914, only signal rockets remained in the armies and navies of all countries. Nevertheless, Russian inventors constantly turned to the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU) with projects for combat missiles. So, in September 1905, the Artillery Committee rejected the high-explosive rocket project. The warhead of this rocket was stuffed with pyroxylin, and not black, but smokeless powder was used as fuel. Moreover, the good fellows from the State Agrarian University did not even try to work out an interesting project, but swept it away from the threshold. It is curious that the designer was Hieromonk Kirik.

It was not until World War I that interest in rockets revived. There are three main reasons for this. Firstly, slow-burning gunpowder was created, which made it possible to dramatically increase the flight speed and firing range. Accordingly, with an increase in flight speed, it became possible to effectively use wing stabilizers and improve the accuracy of fire.

The second reason: the need to create powerful weapon for airplanes of the First World War - "flying whatnots".

And finally the most main reason- the rocket was best suited as a means of delivering chemical weapons.

CHEMICAL PROJECT

As early as June 15, 1936, the head of the chemical department of the Red Army, corps engineer Y. Fishman, was presented with a report from the director of the RNII, military engineer 1st rank I. Kleimenov and the head of the 1st department, military engineer 2nd rank K. Glukharev on preliminary tests of 132 / 82-mm short-range rocket-chemical mines . This munition supplemented the 250/132 mm short-range chemical mine, the tests of which were completed by May 1936. Thus, “RNII has completed all the preliminary development of the issue of creating a powerful short-range chemical attack weapon, and is awaiting from you a general conclusion on testing and an indication of the need for further work in this direction. For its part, the RNII considers it necessary now to issue an experimental-gross order for the manufacture of RHM-250 (300 pieces) and RHM-132 (300 pieces) in order to conduct field and military tests. The five pieces of RHM-250 remaining from the preliminary tests, of which three at the Central Chemical Test Site (Prichernavskaya station) and three RHM-132 can be used for additional tests according to your instructions.

According to the RNII report on the main activity for 1936 on topic No. 1, samples of 132-mm and 250-mm chemical rockets with a warhead capacity of 6 and 30 liters of OM were manufactured and tested. Tests carried out in the presence of the head of the VOKHIMU of the Red Army gave satisfactory results and received a positive assessment. But VOKHIMA did nothing to introduce these shells into the Red Army and gave the RNII new tasks for shells with a longer range.

For the first time, the prototype of the Katyusha (BM-13) was mentioned on January 3, 1939 in a letter from People's Commissar of the Defense Industry Mikhail Kaganovich to his brother, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lazar Kaganovich: “In October 1938, an automobile mechanized rocket launcher to organize a surprise chemical attack on the enemy, it mainly passed factory tests by shooting at the Sofrinsky control and test artillery range and is currently undergoing field tests at the Central Military Chemical Range in Prichernavskaya.

Note that the customers of the future Katyusha are military chemists. The work was also financed through the Chemical Department and, finally, the warheads of the missiles are exclusively chemical.

132-mm RHS-132 chemical projectiles were fire tested at the Pavlograd artillery range on August 1, 1938. The fire was fired by single shells and series of 6 and 12 shells. The duration of firing a series of full ammunition did not exceed 4 seconds. During this time, the target area reached 156 liters of RH, which, in terms of an artillery caliber of 152 mm, was equivalent to 63 artillery shells when firing in a salvo of 21 three-gun batteries or 1.3 artillery regiments, provided that the fire was fired with unstable RH. The tests focused on the fact that the metal consumption per 156 liters of RH when firing rocket projectiles was 550 kg, while when firing chemical 152-mm projectiles, the weight of the metal was 2370 kg, that is, 4.3 times more.

The test report stated: “The automotive mechanized rocket launcher for chemical attack during the test showed significant advantages over artillery systems. A system capable of firing both single fire and a series of 24 shots within 3 seconds is installed on a three-ton machine. The speed of movement is normal for a truck. Transfer from marching to combat position takes 3-4 minutes. Firing - from the driver's cab or from cover.

The warhead of one RHS (reactive-chemical projectile. - “NVO”) holds 8 liters of OM, and in artillery shells of a similar caliber - only 2 liters. To create a dead zone on an area of ​​12 hectares, one volley from three trucks is enough, which replaces 150 howitzers or 3 artillery regiments. At a distance of 6 km, the area of ​​​​contamination of OM with one volley is 6-8 hectares.

I note that the Germans also prepared their multiple rocket launchers exclusively for chemical warfare. So, in the late 1930s, the German engineer Nebel designed a 15-cm rocket projectile and a six-barreled tubular installation, which the Germans called a six-barreled mortar. Mortar tests began in 1937. The system received the name "15-cm smoke mortar type" D ". In 1941, it was renamed 15 cm Nb.W 41 (Nebelwerfer), i.e. 15 cm smoke mortar mod. 41. Naturally, their main purpose was not to set up smoke screens, but to fire rockets filled with poisonous substances. Interestingly, the Soviet soldiers called 15 cm Nb.W 41 "Vanyusha", by analogy with the M-13, called "Katyusha".

The first launch of the Katyusha prototype (designed by Tikhomirov and Artemyev) took place in the USSR on March 3, 1928. The range of the 22.7-kg rocket was 1300 m, and the Van Deren mortar was used as a launcher.

The caliber of our rockets of the period of the Great Patriotic War - 82 mm and 132 mm - was determined by nothing more than the diameter of the powder cartridges of the engine. Seven 24-mm powder cartridges, tightly packed into the combustion chamber, give a diameter of 72 mm, the thickness of the chamber walls is 5 mm, hence the diameter (caliber) of the rocket is 82 mm. Seven thicker (40 mm) checkers in the same way give a caliber of 132 mm.

The most important issue in the design of rockets was the method of stabilization. Soviet designers preferred feathered rockets and adhered to this principle until the end of the war.

In the 1930s, rockets with an annular stabilizer that did not exceed the dimensions of the projectile were tested. Such shells could be fired from tubular guides. But tests have shown that it is impossible to achieve stable flight with the help of an annular stabilizer. Then they fired 82-mm rockets with a four-bladed tail span of 200, 180, 160, 140 and 120 mm. The results were quite definite - with a decrease in the scope of the plumage, flight stability and accuracy decreased. The plumage with a span of more than 200 mm shifted the center of gravity of the projectile back, which also worsened the stability of the flight. Lightening the plumage by reducing the thickness of the stabilizer blades caused strong vibrations of the blades until they were destroyed.

Grooved guides were adopted as launchers for feathered missiles. Experiments have shown that the longer they are, the higher the accuracy of the shells. The length of 5 m for the RS-132 became the maximum due to restrictions on railway dimensions.

I note that the Germans stabilized their rockets until 1942 exclusively by rotation. Turbojet rockets were also tested in the USSR, but they did not go into mass production. As it often happens with us, the reason for the failures during the tests was explained not by the wretchedness of the execution, but by the irrationality of the concept.

FIRST volleys

Whether we like it or not, for the first time in the Great Patriotic War, the Germans used multiple launch rocket systems on June 22, 1941 near Brest. “And then the arrows showed 03.15, the command “Fire!” sounded, and the devilish dance began. The earth shook. Nine batteries of the 4th Mortar Regiment special purpose also contributed to the infernal symphony. In half an hour, 2880 shells whistled over the Bug and hit the city and fortress on the eastern bank of the river. Heavy 600-mm mortars and 210-mm guns of the 98th Artillery Regiment unleashed their volleys on the fortifications of the citadel and hit point targets - positions Soviet artillery. It seemed that there would be no stone left unturned from the fortress.”

This is how the historian Paul Karel described the first use of 15 cm rocket-propelled mortars. In addition, the Germans in 1941 used heavy 28 cm high-explosive and 32 cm incendiary turbojet shells. The shells were over-caliber and had one powder engine (the diameter of the engine part was 140 mm).

A 28-cm high-explosive mine, with a direct hit on a stone house, completely destroyed it. The mine successfully destroyed field-type shelters. Living targets within a radius of several tens of meters were hit by a blast wave. Fragments of the mine flew at a distance of up to 800 m. The head part contained 50 kg of liquid TNT or ammatol brand 40/60. It is curious that both 28-cm and 32-cm German mines (rockets) were transported and launched from the simplest wooden closure such as a box.

The first use of Katyushas took place on July 14, 1941. The battery of Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov fired two salvos from seven launchers at the Orsha railway station. The appearance of "Katyusha" was a complete surprise for the leadership of the Abwehr and the Wehrmacht. On August 14, the High Command of the German Ground Forces notified its troops: “The Russians have an automatic multi-barreled flamethrower gun ... The shot is fired by electricity. During the shot, smoke is generated ... If such cannons are captured, report immediately. Two weeks later, a directive appeared entitled "Russian gun throwing rocket-like projectiles." It said: “...Troops report on the use by the Russians of a new type of weapon that fires rockets. A large number of shots can be fired from one installation within 3-5 seconds ... Every appearance of these guns must be reported to the general, commander of the chemical troops at the high command, on the same day.

Where the name "Katyusha" came from is not known for certain. The version of Pyotr Hook is curious: “Both at the front, and then, after the war, when I got acquainted with the archives, talked with veterans, read their speeches in the press, I met a variety of explanations of how a formidable weapon received a girl's name. Some believed that the beginning was laid by the letter "K", which was put by the Voronezh Comintern on their products. There was a legend among the troops that the guards mortars were named after a dashing partisan girl who destroyed many Nazis.

When the fighters and commanders asked the representative of the GAU to name the “genuine” name of the combat installation at the firing range, he advised: “Call the installation as usual artillery piece. It's important to maintain secrecy."

Soon, a younger brother named Luka showed up at Katyusha. In May 1942, a group of officers of the Main Armaments Directorate developed the M-30 projectile, in which a powerful over-caliber warhead made in the shape of an ellipsoid with a maximum diameter of 300 mm was attached to the rocket engine from the M-13.

After successful ground tests, on June 8, 1942, the State Defense Committee (GKO) issued a decree on the adoption of the M-30 and the start of its mass production. In Stalin's times, all important problems were solved quickly, and by July 10, 1942, the first 20 M-30 Guards mortar divisions were created. Each of them had a three-battery composition, the battery consisted of 32 four-charged single-tier launchers. The divisional salvo, respectively, was 384 shells.

The first combat use of the M-30 took place in the 61st Army of the Western Front near the city of Belev. On the afternoon of June 5, two regimental volleys hit the German positions in Annino and Upper Doltsy with a thunderous roar. Both villages were wiped off the face of the earth, after which the infantry occupied them without loss.

The power of the Luka shells (M-30 and its modifications M-31) made a great impression both on the enemy and on our soldiers. There were many different assumptions and inventions about the Luka at the front. One of the legends was that it was as if the warhead of the rocket was stuffed with some kind of special, especially powerful, explosive, capable of burning everything in the area of ​​​​the gap. In fact, conventional explosives were used in the warheads. The exceptional effect of the Luka shells was achieved through volley fire. With the simultaneous or almost simultaneous explosion of a whole group of projectiles, the law of addition of impulses from shock waves came into force.

M-30 shells had high-explosive, chemical and incendiary warheads. However, a high-explosive warhead was mainly used. For the characteristic shape of the head of the M-30, the front-line soldiers called it "Luka Mudischev" (the hero of Barkov's poem of the same name). Naturally, this nickname, in contrast to the replicated "Katyusha", the official press preferred not to mention. The Luka, like the German 28 cm and 30 cm shells, was launched from a wooden corking box in which it was delivered from the factory. Four, and later eight of these boxes were placed on a special frame, resulting in a simple launcher.

Needless to say, after the war, the journalistic and writer fraternity commemorated Katyusha out of place and out of place, but chose to forget her much more formidable brother Luka. In the 1970s and 1980s, at the first mention of Luka, veterans asked me with surprise: “How do you know? You didn't fight."

ANTI-TANK MYTH

"Katyusha" was a first-class weapon. As often happens, the father commanders wished it to become a universal weapon, including an anti-tank weapon.

An order is an order, and victorious reports rushed to the headquarters. If you believe the secret publication "Field Rocket Artillery in the Great Patriotic War" (Moscow, 1955), then on the Kursk Bulge in two days in three episodes "Katyushas" destroyed 95 enemy tanks! If it's true, then it should be disbanded anti-tank artillery and replace it with multiple rocket launchers.

In some ways, the huge numbers of wrecked tanks were influenced by the fact that for each wrecked tank, the crew of the combat vehicle received 2,000 rubles, of which 500 rubles. - commander, 500 rubles. - to the gunner, the rest - to the rest.

Alas, due to the huge dispersion, shooting at tanks is ineffective. Here I am picking up the most boring brochure "Tables of firing rockets M-13" of the 1942 edition. It follows from it that at a firing range of 3000 m, the range deviation was 257 m, and the side deviation was 51 m. For shorter distances, the range deviation was not given at all, since the dispersion of shells could not be calculated. It is not difficult to imagine the probability of a rocket hitting a tank at such a distance. If, theoretically, we imagine that the combat vehicle somehow managed to shoot at the tank at close range, then even here the muzzle velocity of the 132-mm projectile was only 70 m / s, which is clearly not enough to penetrate the armor of the Tiger or Panther.

It is not without reason that the year of publication of the shooting tables is specified here. According to the TS-13 firing tables of the same M-13 rocket projectile, the average range deviation in 1944 is 105 m, and in 1957 - 135 m, and the side deviation is 200 and 300 m, respectively. Obviously, the 1957 table is more accurate, in which the dispersion increased by almost 1.5 times, so that in the tables of 1944 there are errors in the calculations or, most likely, deliberate falsification to raise the morale of the personnel.

There is no doubt that if an M-13 projectile hits a medium or light tank, it will be disabled. The frontal armor of the "Tiger" is not able to penetrate the M-13 projectile. But in order to be guaranteed to hit a single tank from a distance of the same 3 thousand meters, it is necessary to fire from 300 to 900 M-13 shells due to their huge dispersion, while at shorter distances an even larger number of missiles will be required.

And here is another example, told by veteran Dmitry Loza. During the Uman-Botoshansk offensive on March 15, 1944, two Shermans from the 45th mechanized brigade of the 5th mechanized corps got stuck in the mud. The troops jumped off the tanks and retreated. German soldiers surrounded the stuck tanks, “smeared the viewing slots with mud, covered the aiming holes in the turret with black earth, completely blinding the crew. They knocked on hatches, tried to open them with rifle bayonets. And everyone bawled: “Rus, kaput! Give up! But then two combat vehicles BM-13 left. "Katyusha" front wheels quickly descended into the ditch and fired a volley of direct fire. Bright fiery arrows hissed and whistled into the hollow. A moment later, blinding flames danced around. When the smoke from the rocket explosions dissipated, the tanks stood unharmed at first glance, only the hulls and turrets were covered with thick soot...

Having corrected the damage to the tracks, having thrown out the burnt tarpaulins, the Emcha went to Mogilev-Podolsky. So, thirty-two 132-mm M-13 shells were fired at two Shermans point-blank, and their tarpaulin was only burned.

WAR STATISTICS

The first M-13 firing mounts had the BM-13-16 index and were mounted on the chassis of a ZIS-6 vehicle. The 82 mm BM-8-36 launcher was also mounted on the same chassis. There were only a few hundred ZIS-6 vehicles, and at the beginning of 1942 their production was stopped.

The launchers of the M-8 and M-13 missiles in 1941-1942 were mounted on anything. So, six M-8 guide shells were installed on machines from the Maxim machine gun, 12 M-8 guides - on a motorcycle, sled and snowmobile (M-8 and M-13), T-40 and T-60 tanks, armored railway platforms (BM-8-48, BM-8-72, BM-13-16), river and sea boats, etc. But basically, launchers in 1942-1944 were mounted on cars received under Lend-Lease: Austin, Dodge, Ford Marmont, Bedford, etc. During the 5 years of the war, out of 3374 chassis used for combat vehicles, the ZIS-6 accounted for 372 (11%), the Studebaker - 1845 (54.7%), the remaining 17 types of chassis (except for the Willis with mountain launchers) - 1157 (34.3%). Finally, it was decided to standardize combat vehicles based on the Studebaker car. In April 1943, such a system was put into service under the symbol BM-13N (normalized). In March 1944, a self-propelled launcher for the M-13 was adopted on the BM-31-12 Studebaker chassis.

But in the post-war years, the Studebakers were ordered to be forgotten, although combat vehicles on its chassis were in service until the early 1960s. In secret instructions, the Studebaker was referred to as a "cross-country vehicle." On numerous pedestals, "Katyusha" mutants ascended on the ZIS-5 chassis or post-war types of vehicles, which stubbornly pass off as genuine military relics, but the genuine BM-13-16 on the ZIS-6 chassis was preserved only in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg.

As already mentioned, back in 1941 the Germans captured several launchers and hundreds of 132-mm M-13 and 82-mm M-8 shells. The Wehrmacht command believed that their turbojet shells and tubular launchers with revolver-type guides were better than Soviet wing-stabilized shells. But the SS took up the M-8 and M-13 and ordered the Skoda company to copy them.

In 1942, on the basis of the 82-mm Soviet M-8 projectile, 8 cm R.Sprgr rockets were created in Zbroevka. In fact, it was a new projectile, and not a copy of the M-8, although outwardly the German projectile was very similar to the M-8.

Unlike the Soviet projectile, the stabilizer feathers were placed obliquely at an angle of 1.5 degrees to the longitudinal axis. Due to this, the projectile rotated in flight. The rotation speed was many times less than that of a turbojet projectile, and did not play any role in projectile stabilization, but it eliminated the thrust eccentricity of a single-nozzle rocket engine. But the eccentricity, that is, the displacement of the engine thrust vector due to the uneven burning of gunpowder in checkers, was the main reason for the low accuracy of Soviet missiles of the M-8 and M-13 types.

On the basis of the Soviet M-13, the Skoda company created a whole range of 15-cm missiles with oblique wings for the SS and Luftwaffe, but they were produced in small batches. Our troops captured several samples of German 8-cm shells, and our designers made their own samples based on them. Missiles M-13 and M-31 with oblique plumage were adopted by the Red Army in 1944, they were assigned special ballistic indices - TS-46 and TS-47.

The apotheosis of the combat use of the Katyusha and Luka was the assault on Berlin. In total, more than 44 thousand guns and mortars, as well as 1,785 M-30 and M-31 launchers, 1,620 rocket artillery combat vehicles (219 divisions) were involved in the Berlin operation. In the battles for Berlin, rocket artillery units used the rich experience they had gained in the battles for Poznan, which consisted in direct fire with single projectiles M-31, M-20 and even M-13.

At first glance, this method of firing may seem primitive, but its results turned out to be very significant. Shooting single rockets during the fighting in such a huge city as Berlin has found the widest application.

To conduct such fire in the guards mortar units, assault groups of approximately the following composition were created: an officer - group commander, an electrical engineer, 25 sergeants and soldiers for the M-31 assault group and 8–10 for the M-13 assault group.

The intensity of the battles and the fire missions performed by rocket artillery in the battles for Berlin can be judged by the number of rockets used up in these battles. In the offensive zone of the 3rd shock army, the following were used up: M-13 shells - 6270; shells M-31 - 3674; shells M-20 - 600; shells M-8 - 1878.

Of this amount, rocket artillery assault groups used up: M-8 shells - 1638; shells M-13 - 3353; shells M-20 - 191; shells M-31 - 479.

These groups in Berlin destroyed 120 buildings that were strong centers of enemy resistance, destroyed three 75-mm guns, suppressed dozens of firing points, and killed over 1,000 enemy soldiers and officers.

So, our glorious "Katyusha" and her unfairly offended brother "Luka" became a weapon of victory in the full sense of the word!

After the 82-mm air-to-air missiles RS-82 (1937) and 132-mm air-to-ground missiles RS-132 (1938) were adopted by aviation, the Main Artillery Directorate set before the projectile developer - Reactive Research Institute - the task of creating a reactive field multiple launch rocket system based on RS-132 shells. An updated tactical and technical assignment was issued to the institute in June 1938.

In accordance with this task, by the summer of 1939, the institute developed a new 132-mm high-explosive fragmentation projectile, which later received the official name M-13. Compared to the aviation RS-132, this projectile had a longer flight range and a much more powerful warhead. The increase in flight range was achieved by increasing the amount of propellant, for this it was necessary to lengthen the rocket and head parts of the rocket projectile by 48 cm. The M-13 projectile had slightly better aerodynamic characteristics than the RS-132, which made it possible to obtain higher accuracy.

A self-propelled multiply charged launcher was also developed for the projectile. Its first version was created on the basis of the ZIS-5 truck and was designated MU-1 (mechanized installation, first sample). Conducted in the period from December 1938 to February 1939, field tests of the installation showed that it did not fully meet the requirements. Taking into account the test results, the Reactive Research Institute developed a new MU-2 launcher, which in September 1939 was accepted by the Main Artillery Directorate for field tests. Based on the results of field tests that ended in November 1939, the Institute was ordered five launchers for military testing. Another installation was ordered by the Artillery Directorate of the Navy for use in the coastal defense system.

On June 21, 1941, the installation was demonstrated to the leaders of the CPSU (6) and the Soviet government, and on the same day, just a few hours before the start of World War II, it was decided to urgently deploy the mass production of M-13 rockets and the launcher, which received official name BM-13 (combat vehicle 13).

The production of BM-13 installations was organized at the Voronezh plant. Comintern and at the Moscow plant "Compressor". One of the main enterprises for the production of rockets was the Moscow plant. Vladimir Ilyich.

During the war, the production of launchers was urgently deployed at several enterprises with different production capabilities, in connection with this, more or less significant changes were made to the design of the installation. Thus, up to ten varieties of the BM-13 launcher were used in the troops, which made it difficult to train personnel and adversely affected the operation of military equipment. For these reasons, a unified (normalized) BM-13N launcher was developed and put into service in April 1943, during the creation of which the designers critically analyzed all the parts and assemblies in order to increase the manufacturability of their production and reduce the cost, as a result of which all the nodes received independent indexes and became universal. Compound

The composition of the BM-13 "Katyusha" includes the following weapons:

Combat vehicle (BM) MU-2 (MU-1);
Rockets.
Rocket M-13:

The M-13 projectile consists of a warhead and a powder jet engine. The head part in its design resembles a high-explosive fragmentation projectile and is equipped with an explosive charge, which is detonated by a contact fuse and an additional detonator. The jet engine has a combustion chamber in which a powder propellant charge is placed in the form of cylindrical pieces with an axial channel. For ignition powder charge fireworks are used. The gases formed during the combustion of powder pellets flow through a nozzle, in front of which there is a diaphragm that prevents the pellets from being ejected through the nozzle. Stabilization of the projectile in flight is provided by a tail stabilizer with four feathers welded from stamped steel halves. (This method of stabilization provides lower accuracy compared to stabilization by rotation around the longitudinal axis, however, it allows you to get a longer range of the projectile. In addition, the use of a feathered stabilizer greatly simplifies the technology for the production of rockets).

The flight range of the M-13 projectile reached 8470 m, but at the same time there was a very significant dispersion. According to the firing tables of 1942, with a firing range of 3000 m, the lateral deviation was 51 m, and in range - 257 m.

In 1943, a modernized version of the rocket was developed, which received the designation M-13-UK (improved accuracy). To increase the accuracy of fire of the M-13-UK projectile, 12 tangentially located holes are made in the front centering thickening of the rocket part, through which, during the operation of the rocket engine, part of the powder gases escapes, causing the projectile to rotate. Although the range of the projectile was somewhat reduced (to 7.9 km), the improvement in accuracy led to a decrease in the dispersion area and to an increase in the density of fire by 3 times compared to the M-13 projectiles. The adoption of the M-13-UK projectile into service in April 1944 contributed to a sharp increase in the firing capabilities of rocket artillery.

Launcher MLRS "Katyusha":

A self-propelled multiply charged launcher was developed for the projectile. Its first version - MU-1 based on the ZIS-5 truck had 24 guides mounted on a special frame in a transverse position with respect to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle. Its design made it possible to launch rockets only perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, and jets of hot gases damaged the elements of the installation and the body of the ZIS-5. Security was also not ensured when controlling fire from the driver's cab. The launcher swayed strongly, which worsened the accuracy of firing rockets. Loading the launcher from the front of the rails was inconvenient and time consuming. The ZIS-5 car had limited cross-country ability.

A more advanced MU-2 launcher based on a ZIS-6 off-road truck had 16 guides located along the axis of the vehicle. Each two guides were connected, forming a single structure, called "spark". A new unit was introduced into the design of the installation - a subframe. The subframe made it possible to assemble the entire artillery part of the launcher (as a single unit) on it, and not on the chassis, as it was before. Once assembled, the artillery unit was relatively easy to mount on the chassis of any brand of car with minimal modification of the latter. The created design made it possible to reduce the complexity, manufacturing time and cost of launchers. The weight of the artillery unit was reduced by 250 kg, the cost - by more than 20 percent. Both the combat and operational qualities of the installation were significantly increased. Due to the introduction of reservations for the gas tank, gas pipeline, side and rear walls of the driver's cab, the survivability of launchers in battle was increased. The firing sector was increased, the stability of the launcher in the stowed position was increased, improved lifting and turning mechanisms made it possible to increase the speed of aiming the installation at the target. Before launch, the MU-2 combat vehicle was jacked up similarly to the MU-1. The forces that rock the launcher, due to the location of the guides along the chassis of the car, were applied along its axis to two jacks located near the center of gravity, so the rocking became minimal. Loading in the installation was carried out from the breech, that is, from the rear end of the guides. It was more convenient and allowed to significantly speed up the operation. The MU-2 installation had swivel and lifting mechanisms of the simplest design, a bracket for mounting a sight with a conventional artillery panorama and a large metal fuel tank mounted at the rear of the cab. The cockpit windows were covered with armored folding shields. Opposite the seat of the commander of the combat vehicle, on the front panel, a small rectangular box was mounted with a turntable, resembling a telephone dial, and a handle for turning the dial. This device was called the "fire control panel" (PUO). From it came a harness to a special battery and to each guide.

With one turn of the PUO handle, the electrical circuit was closed, the squib placed in front of the rocket chamber of the projectile was fired, the reactive charge was ignited and a shot was fired. The rate of fire was determined by the rate of rotation of the PUO handle. All 16 shells could be fired in 7-10 seconds. The time for transferring the MU-2 launcher from traveling to combat position was 2-3 minutes, the angle of vertical fire was in the range from 4 ° to 45 °, the angle of horizontal fire was 20 °.

The design of the launcher allowed it to move in a charged state at a fairly high speed (up to 40 km / h) and quickly deploy to a firing position, which contributed to sudden strikes against the enemy.

A significant factor that increased the tactical mobility of rocket artillery units armed with BM-13N launchers was the fact that a powerful American Studebaker US 6x6 truck, supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease, was used as a base for the launcher. This car had an increased cross-country ability, provided by a powerful engine, three driven axles (6x6 wheel formula), a demultiplier, a winch for self-pulling, a high location of all parts and mechanisms that are sensitive to water. With the creation of this launcher, the development of the BM-13 serial combat vehicle was finally completed. In this form, she fought until the end of the war.

Tactical and technical characteristics MLRS BM-13 "Katyusha"
Rocket M-13
Caliber, mm 132
Projectile weight, kg 42.3
Warhead mass, kg 21.3
Mass of explosive, kg 4.9
Firing range - maximum, km 8.47
Volley production time, sec 7-10
Fighting vehicle MU-2
Base ZiS-6 (8x8)
Mass of BM, t 43.7
Maximum speed, km/h 40
Number of guides 16
Angle of vertical fire, degrees from +4 to +45
Angle of horizontal fire, degrees 20
Calculation, pers. 10-12
Year of adoption 1941

Testing and operation

The first battery of field rocket artillery, sent to the front on the night of July 1-2, 1941, under the command of Captain I.A. Flerov, was armed with seven installations manufactured by the Reactive Research Institute. With its first salvo at 15:15 on July 14, 1941, the battery wiped out the Orsha railway junction, along with the German trains with troops and military equipment on it.

The exceptional effectiveness of the actions of the battery of Captain I. A. Flerov and the seven more such batteries formed after it contributed to the rapid increase in the pace of production of jet weapons. Already in the autumn of 1941, 45 divisions of three-battery composition with four launchers in the battery operated on the fronts. For their armament in 1941, 593 BM-13 installations were manufactured. As military equipment arrived from industry, the formation of rocket artillery regiments began, consisting of three divisions armed with BM-13 launchers and an anti-aircraft division. The regiment had 1414 personnel, 36 BM-13 launchers and 12 anti-aircraft 37-mm guns. The volley of the regiment was 576 shells of 132mm caliber. At the same time, the manpower and military equipment of the enemy were destroyed on an area of ​​over 100 hectares. Officially, the regiments were called Guards Mortar Artillery Regiments of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command.

Headings:

"Katyusha"
Guards jet mortar became one of the most terrible weapons of the Great Patriotic War
Now no one can say for sure under what circumstances the multiple launch rocket launcher received female name, and even in a diminutive form - "Katyusha". One thing is known - at the front, far from all types of weapons received nicknames. Yes, and these names were often not at all flattering. For example, the Il-2 attack aircraft of early modifications, which saved the lives of more than one infantryman and was the most welcome "guest" in any battle, received the nickname "humpback" among the soldiers for the cockpit protruding above the fuselage. And the small I-16 fighter, which bore the brunt of the first air battles on its wings, was called the "donkey". True, there were formidable nicknames - the heavy Su-152 self-propelled artillery mount, which was capable of knocking down a turret from the Tiger with one shot, was respectfully called the "St. one-story house, - "sledgehammer". In any case, the names were most often given harsh and strict. And then such unexpected tenderness, if not love ...

However, if you read the memoirs of veterans, especially those who, in their military profession, depended on the actions of mortars - infantrymen, tankers, signalmen, it becomes clear why the fighters fell in love with these combat vehicles so much. In terms of its combat power, the Katyusha had no equal.

Behind us suddenly there was a rattle, a rumble, and fiery arrows flew through us to the height ... At the height everything was covered with fire, smoke and dust. In the midst of this chaos, fiery candles flared from individual explosions. We heard a terrible roar. When all this subsided and the command "Forward" was heard, we took the height, almost without meeting resistance, so cleanly "played the Katyushas" ... At the height, when we went up there, we saw that everything was plowed up. There were almost no traces of the trenches in which the Germans were located. There were many corpses of enemy soldiers. The wounded fascists were bandaged by our nurses and, together with a small number of survivors, were sent to the rear. The faces of the Germans were frightened. They still did not understand what happened to them, and did not recover from the Katyusha volley.

From the memoirs of a war veteran Vladimir Yakovlevich Ilyashenko (published on the site Iremember.ru)

Each projectile was approximately equal in power to a howitzer, but at the same time, the installation itself could almost simultaneously release, depending on the model and size of the ammunition, from eight to 32 missiles. Katyushas operated in divisions, regiments or brigades. At the same time, in each division, equipped, for example, with BM-13 installations, there were five such vehicles, each of which had 16 guides for launching 132-mm M-13 projectiles, each weighing 42 kilograms with a flight range of 8470 meters. Accordingly, only one division could fire 80 shells at the enemy. If the division was equipped with BM-8 installations with 32 82-mm shells, then one volley was already 160 missiles. What are 160 rockets that fall on a small village or a fortified height in a few seconds - imagine for yourself. But in many operations during the war, artillery preparation was carried out by regiments, and even brigades of "Katyusha", and this is more than a hundred vehicles, or more than three thousand shells in one volley. What is three thousand shells that plow trenches and fortifications in half a minute, probably no one can imagine ...

During offensives, the Soviet command tried to concentrate as much artillery as possible on the spearhead of the main attack. Super-massive artillery preparation, which preceded the breakthrough of the enemy front, was the trump card of the Red Army. Not a single army in that war could provide such fire. In 1945, during the offensive, the Soviet command pulled up to 230-260 cannon artillery guns per kilometer of the front. In addition to them, for every kilometer there were, on average, 15-20 rocket artillery combat vehicles, not counting stationary launchers - M-30 frames. Traditionally, Katyushas completed the artillery attack: rocket launchers fired a volley when the infantry was already on the attack. Often, after several volleys of Katyushas, ​​infantrymen entered a deserted settlement or enemy positions without encountering any resistance.

Of course, such a raid could not destroy all enemy soldiers - Katyusha rockets could operate in fragmentation or high-explosive mode, depending on how the fuse was set up. When set to fragmentation, the rocket exploded immediately after it reached the ground, in the case of a "high-explosive" installation, the fuse worked with a slight delay, allowing the projectile to go deep into the ground or other obstacle. However, in both cases, if the enemy soldiers were in well-fortified trenches, then the losses from shelling were small. Therefore, Katyushas were also often used at the beginning of an artillery raid in order to prevent enemy soldiers from hiding in the trenches. It was thanks to the suddenness and power of one volley that the use of rocket launchers brought success.

Already on the slope of the height, quite a bit before reaching the battalion, we unexpectedly came under a volley of our own "Katyusha" - a multi-barreled rocket mortar. It was terrible: large-caliber mines exploded around us for a minute, one after another. It didn’t take long for them to catch their breath and come to their senses. Now it seemed quite plausible newspaper reports about cases when German soldiers who had been under fire from Katyushas went crazy.

“If you involve an artillery barrel regiment, then the regiment commander will definitely say:“ I don’t have these data, I have to zero in the guns. "The shelter is usually given 15-20 seconds. During this time, the artillery barrel will fire one or two shells. And in 15-20 seconds, I will fire 120 missiles in 15-20 seconds, which go all at once," says Alexander Filippovich Panuev, commander of the regiment of rocket launchers.

It is difficult to imagine what it means to be hit by Katyushas. According to those who survived such attacks (both Germans and Soviet soldiers), it was one of the most terrible impressions of the entire war. The sound that the rockets made during the flight is described differently by everyone - grinding, howling, roaring. Be that as it may, in combination with subsequent explosions, during which for a few seconds on an area of ​​​​several hectares the earth mixed with pieces of buildings, equipment, people, flew into the air, this gave a strong psychological effect. When the soldiers took up enemy positions, they were not met with fire, not because everyone was killed - just the rocket fire drove the survivors crazy.

The psychological component of any weapon cannot be underestimated. The German Ju-87 bomber was equipped with a siren that howled during a dive, also suppressing the psyche of those who were on the ground at that moment. And during the attacks of the German tanks "Tiger", the calculations of anti-tank guns sometimes left their positions in fear of the steel monsters. The Katyushas also had the same psychological effect. For this terrible howl, by the way, they received the nickname "Stalin's organs" from the Germans.

The only ones who did not like the Katyusha in the Red Army were the gunners. The fact is that mobile installations of rocket launchers usually advanced to positions immediately before the salvo and just as quickly tried to leave. At the same time, for obvious reasons, the Germans tried to destroy the Katyushas in the first place. Therefore, immediately after a salvo of rocket-propelled mortars, their positions, as a rule, began to be intensively processed by German artillery and aviation. And given that the positions of cannon artillery and rocket launchers were often located not far from each other, the raid covered the artillerymen who remained where the rocketmen fired from.

SOVIET ROCKET MANAGERS LOAD THE KATYUSHA. Photo from the archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

"We are choosing firing positions. We are told: "There is a firing position in such and such a place, you will be waiting for soldiers or beacons." We take a firing position at night. At this time, the Katyusha division approaches. If I had time, I would immediately remove from there their position. "Katyushas" fired a volley, at the cars and left. And the Germans raised nine "Junkers" to bomb the division, and the division hit the road. They were on the battery. There was a commotion! An open place, they hid under gun carriages. who didn’t fit and left,” says former artilleryman Ivan Trofimovich Salnitsky.

According to the former Soviet missilemen who fought on the Katyushas, ​​most often the divisions operated within a few tens of kilometers of the front, appearing where their support was needed. First, officers entered the positions, who made the corresponding calculations. These calculations, by the way, were quite complex - they took into account not only the distance to the target, the speed and direction of the wind, but even the air temperature, which influenced the trajectory of the missiles. After all the calculations were made, the machines advanced to the position, fired several volleys (most often no more than five) and urgently left for the rear. The delay in this case was indeed like death - the Germans immediately covered the place from which they fired rocket-propelled mortars with artillery fire.

During the offensive, the tactics of using Katyushas, ​​finally worked out by 1943 and used everywhere until the end of the war, were different. At the very beginning of the offensive, when it was necessary to break open the enemy's defense in depth, artillery (cannon and rocket) formed the so-called "barrage". At the beginning of the shelling, all howitzers (often even heavy self-propelled guns) and rocket launchers "processed" the first line of defense. Then the fire was transferred to the fortifications of the second line, and the infantry occupied the trenches and dugouts of the first. After that, the fire was transferred inland - to the third line, while the infantrymen, meanwhile, occupied the second. At the same time, the farther the infantry went, the less cannon artillery could support it - towed guns could not accompany it throughout the offensive. This task was assigned to self-propelled units and Katyusha. It was they who, along with the tanks, followed the infantry, supporting it with fire. According to those who participated in such offensives, after the "barrage" of the Katyushas, ​​the infantry walked along a scorched strip of land several kilometers wide, on which there were no traces of a carefully prepared defense.

BM-13 "KATYUSHA" ON THE BASE OF THE TRUCK "STUDEBAKER". Photo from Easyget.narod.ru

After the war, "Katyushas" began to be installed on pedestals - combat vehicles turned into monuments. Surely many have seen such monuments throughout the country. All of them are more or less similar to each other and almost do not correspond to those machines that fought in the Great Patriotic War. The fact is that these monuments almost always feature a rocket launcher based on the ZiS-6 car. Indeed, at the very beginning of the war, rocket launchers were installed on ZiSs, but as soon as American Studebaker trucks began to arrive in the USSR under Lend-Lease, they were turned into the most common base for Katyushas. ZiS, as well as Lend-Lease Chevrolets, were too weak to carry a heavy installation with missile guides off-road. It's not just a relatively low-power engine - the frames of these trucks could not withstand the weight of the installation. Actually, the Studebakers also tried not to overload with missiles - if it was necessary to go to a position from afar, then the missiles were loaded immediately before the salvo.

In addition to ZiSs, Chevrolets and Studebakers, the most common among Katyushas, ​​the Red Army used T-70 tanks as a chassis for rocket launchers, but they were quickly abandoned - the tank engine and its transmission turned out to be too weak to so that the installation could continuously run along the front line. At first, the missilemen did without a chassis at all - the M-30 launch frames were transported in the back of trucks, unloading them directly to the positions.

From the history of Russian (Soviet) rocket science
KATYUSH RETAINTS:

M-8 - caliber 82 mm, weight eight kilograms, radius of destruction 10-12 meters, firing range 5500 meters

M-13 - caliber 132 mm, weight 42.5 kilograms, firing range 8470 meters, radius of destruction 25-30 meters

M-30 - caliber 300 millimeters, weight 95 kilograms, firing range 2800 meters (after completion - 4325 meters). These shells were launched from stationary M-30 machines. They were delivered in special boxes-frames, which were launchers. Sometimes the rocket did not come out of it and flew along with the frame

M-31-UK - shells similar to the M-30, but with improved accuracy. The nozzles, set slightly at an angle, forced the rocket to rotate along the longitudinal axis in flight, stabilizing it.

Russian and Soviet rocket science has a long and glorious history. For the first time, Peter I took missiles seriously as weapons. At the beginning of the 18th century, as noted on the Pobeda.ru website, the Russian army was armed with its light hand signal flares were received, which were used during Northern war. At the same time, rocket "departments" appeared in various artillery schools. IN early XIX century, the Military Scientific Committee begins to create combat missiles. For a long time, various military departments conducted tests and developments in the field of rocket science. In this case, the Russian designers Kartmazov and Zasyadko showed themselves brightly, who independently developed their missile systems.

This weapon was appreciated by the Russian military leaders. Incendiary and high-explosive rockets were adopted by the Russian army domestic production, as well as launchers of gantry, frame, tripod and carriage type.

In the 19th century, rockets were used in many military conflicts. In August 1827, the soldiers of the Caucasian Corps fired several thousand rockets at the enemy in the battle of Ushagan, near Alagez and during the assault on the Ardavil fortress. In the future, it was in the Caucasus that this weapon was used most of all. Thousands of rockets were brought to the Caucasus, and thousands were used during the assaults on fortresses and other operations. In addition, rocket men participated in the Russian-Turkish war as part of the artillery of the guards corps, actively supporting the infantry and cavalry in the battles near Shumla and during the siege of the Turkish fortresses of Varna and Silistra.

In the second half of the 19th century, rockets began to be used en masse. By this time, the number of combat missiles produced by the Petersburg Missile Institute numbered in the thousands. They were equipped with artillery units, the fleet, even supplied to the cavalry - a rocket machine was developed for the Cossack and cavalry units weighing only a few pounds, which were armed with individual cavalrymen instead of hand weapons or peaks. From 1851 to 1854 alone, 12,550 two-inch rockets were sent to the active army.

At the same time, their design, tactics of use, chemical composition filler, starting machines. It was at that time that the shortcomings of the missiles were identified - insufficient accuracy and power - and tactics were developed that made it possible to neutralize the shortcomings. “Successful operation of a missile from a machine depends largely on completely calm and attentive observation of its entire flight; but as it is currently impossible to fulfill such a condition, when missiles are used against the enemy, it should predominantly operate with several missiles suddenly, in quick fire or in a volley. Thus, if not by the accuracy of the strike of each individual missile, then by the combined action of a larger number of them, it is possible to achieve the desired goal, ”wrote the Artillery Journal in 1863. Note that the tactics described in the military publication became the basis for the creation of Katyushas. Their shells at first also did not differ in particular accuracy, but this shortcoming was compensated by the number of missiles fired.

The development of rocket weapons received a new impetus in the 20th century. Russian scientists Tsiolkovsky, Kibalchich, Meshchersky, Zhukovsky, Nezhdanovsky, Zander and others developed theoretical basis rocket technology and astronautics, created the scientific prerequisites for the theory of designing rocket engines, predetermining the appearance of the Katyusha.

The development of rocket artillery began in the Soviet Union before the war, in the thirties. A whole group of design scientists under the leadership of Vladimir Andreevich Artemiev worked on them. The first experimental rocket launchers began to be tested from the end of 1938, and immediately in a mobile version - on the ZiS-6 chassis (stationary launchers appeared already during the war due to the lack of a sufficient number of vehicles). Before the war, in the summer of 1941, the first unit was formed - a division of rocket launchers.

VALLEY "KATYUSH". Photo from the archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

The first battle with the participation of these installations took place on July 14, 1941. This is one of the most famous episodes of the Great Patriotic War. On that day, several German trains with fuel, soldiers and ammunition arrived at the Belarusian station Orsha - a more than tempting target. Captain Flerov's battery approached the station, and at 15:15 made only one salvo. Within seconds, the station was literally mixed into the ground. In the report, the captain then wrote: "The results are excellent. A continuous sea of ​​\u200b\u200bfire."

The fate of Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov, like the fate of hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers in 1941, turned out to be tragic. For several months, he managed to act quite successfully, leaving from under enemy fire. Several times the battery found itself surrounded, but always went out to its own, retaining military equipment. She took her last fight on October 30 near Smolensk. Once surrounded, the fighters were forced to blow up the launchers (each car had a box of explosives and fickford cord - under no circumstances should the launchers get to the enemy). Then, breaking out of the "cauldron", most of them, including Captain Flerov, died. Only 46 gunners of the battery reached the front line.

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However, by that time, new batteries of guards mortars were already operating at the front, throwing down on the heads of the enemy that very "sea of ​​fire" that Flerov wrote about in the first report from near Orsha. Then this sea will accompany the Germans on their entire sad journey - from Moscow through Stalingrad, Kursk, Orel, Belgorod and so on, all the way to Berlin. Already in 1941, those who survived that terrible shelling at the Belarusian junction station probably thought hard about whether it was worth starting a war with a country that could turn several trains into ashes in a few seconds. However, they had no choice - they were ordinary soldiers and officers, and those who ordered them to go to Orsha learned about how Stalin's organs sing less than four years later - in May 1945, when this music sounded in sky