History of Katyusha

The history of the creation of Katyusha dates back to pre-Petrine times. In Rus', the first rockets appeared in the 15th century. By the end of the 16th century, Russia was well aware of the design, manufacturing methods and combat use rockets. This is convincingly evidenced by the “Charter of military, cannon and other matters relating to military science", written in 1607-1621 by Onisim Mikhailov. Since 1680, a special rocket establishment already existed in Russia. In the 19th century, missiles designed to destroy enemy personnel and materiel were created by Major General Alexander Dmitrievich Zasyadko . Zasyadko began work on creating rockets in 1815 on his own initiative at own funds. By 1817, he managed to create a high-explosive and incendiary combat rocket based on a lighting rocket.
At the end of August 1828, a guards corps arrived from St. Petersburg under the besieged Turkish fortress of Varna. Together with the corps, the first Russian missile company arrived under the command of Lieutenant Colonel V.M. Vnukov. The company was formed on the initiative of Major General Zasyadko. The rocket company received its first baptism of fire near Varna on August 31, 1828 during an attack on a Turkish redoubt located by the sea south of Varna. Cannonballs and bombs from field and naval guns, as well as rocket explosions, forced the defenders of the redoubt to take cover in holes made in the ditch. Therefore, when the hunters (volunteers) of the Simbirsk regiment rushed to the redoubt, the Turks did not have time to take their places and provide effective resistance to the attackers.

On March 5, 1850, Colonel was appointed commander of the Rocket Establishment Konstantin Ivanovich Konstantinov – illegitimate son Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich from his relationship with actress Clara Anna Lawrence. During his tenure in this position, 2-, 2.5- and 4-inch missiles of the Konstantinov system were adopted by the Russian army. The weight of combat missiles depended on the type of warhead and was characterized by the following data: a 2-inch missile weighed from 2.9 to 5 kg; 2.5-inch - from 6 to 14 kg and 4-inch - from 18.4 to 32 kg.

The firing ranges of the Konstantinov system missiles, created by him in 1850-1853, were very significant for that time. Thus, a 4-inch rocket equipped with 10-pound (4.095 kg) grenades had a maximum firing range of 4150 m, and a 4-inch incendiary rocket - 4260 m, while a quarter-pound mountain unicorn mod. 1838 had a maximum firing range of only 1810 meters. Konstantinov's dream was to create an airborne rocket launcher, firing rockets with hot air balloon. The experiments carried out proved the long range of missiles fired from a tethered balloon. However, it was not possible to achieve acceptable accuracy.
After the death of K.I. Konstantinov in 1871, rocketry in the Russian army fell into decline. Combat missiles sporadically and small quantity were used in Russian-Turkish war 1877-1878. Rockets were used more successfully during the conquest Central Asia in the 70-80s of the XIX century. They played a decisive role in. IN last time Konstantinov's missiles were used in Turkestan in the 90s of the 19th century. And in 1898, combat missiles were officially removed from service with the Russian army.
New impetus for development missile weapons was given during the First World War: in 1916, Professor Ivan Platonovich Grave created gelatin gunpowder, improving the smokeless gunpowder of the French inventor Paul Viel. In 1921, developers N.I. Tikhomirov and V.A. Artemyev from the gas dynamic laboratory began developing rockets based on this gunpowder.

At first, the gas-dynamic laboratory, where rocket weapons were created, had more difficulties and failures than successes. However, enthusiastic engineers N.I. Tikhomirov, V.A. Artemyev, and then G.E. Langemak and B.S. Petropavlovsky persistently improved their “brainchild,” firmly believing in the success of the business. Extensive theoretical development and countless experiments were required, which ultimately led to the creation of an 82-mm fragmentation weapon at the end of 1927. rocket with a powder engine, and after it a more powerful one, with a caliber of 132 mm. Test firing conducted near Leningrad in March 1928 was encouraging - the range was already 5-6 km, although dispersion was still large. For many years it was not possible to significantly reduce it: the original concept assumed a projectile with tails that did not exceed its caliber. After all, a pipe served as a guide for it - simple, light, convenient for installation.
In 1933, engineer I.T. Kleimenov proposed making a more developed tail, more than twice the caliber of the projectile in scope. The accuracy of fire increased, and the flight range also increased, but it was necessary to design new open - in particular, rail - guides for projectiles. And again, years of experiments, searches...
By 1938, the main difficulties in creating a mobile rocket artillery were overcome. Employees of the Moscow RNII Yu. A. Pobedonostsev, F. N. Poyda, L. E. Schwartz and others developed 82-mm fragmentation, high-explosive fragmentation and thermite shells (PC) with a solid propellant (powder) engine, which was started by a remote electric igniter.

At the same time, for firing at ground targets, the designers proposed several options for mobile multi-charge launchers volley fire(by area). Engineers V.N. Galkovsky, I.I. Gvai, A.P. Pavlenko, A.S. Popov took part in their creation under the leadership of A.G. Kostikov.
The installation consisted of eight open guide rails interconnected into a single unit by tubular welded spars. 16 132-mm rocket projectiles weighing 42.5 kg each were fixed using T-shaped pins on top and bottom of the guides in pairs. The design provided the ability to change the angle of elevation and azimuth rotation. Aiming at the target was carried out through the sight by rotating the handles of the lifting and rotating mechanisms. The installation was mounted on a truck chassis, and in the first version, relatively short guides were located across the vehicle, which received the general name MU-1 (mechanized installation). This decision was unsuccessful - when firing, the vehicle swayed, which significantly reduced the accuracy of the battle.

Installation of MU-1, late version. The location of the guides is still transverse, but the ZiS-6 is already used as the chassis. This installation could simultaneously accommodate 22 projectiles and could fire directly. If they had guessed in time to add retractable paws, then this version of the installation would have surpassed the MU-2 in combat qualities, which was later adopted for service under the designation BM-12-16.

M-13 shells, containing 4.9 kg of explosive, provided a radius of continuous damage by fragments of 8-10 meters (when the fuse was set to “O” - fragmentation) and an actual damage radius of 25-30 meters. In soil of medium hardness, when the fuse was set to “3” (slowdown), a funnel with a diameter of 2-2.5 meters and a depth of 0.8-1 meter was created.
In September 1939 it was created jet system MU-2 on a ZIS-6 three-axle truck more suitable for this purpose. The car was an off-road truck with dual-slope tires on the rear axles. Its length with a 4980 mm wheelbase was 6600 mm, and its width was 2235 mm. The car was equipped with the same in-line six-cylinder water-cooled carburetor engine that was installed on the ZiS-5. Its cylinder diameter was 101.6 mm and its piston stroke was 114.3 mm. Thus, its working volume was equal to 5560 cubic centimeters, so that the volume indicated in most sources is 5555 cubic centimeters. cm is the result of someone’s mistake, which was subsequently replicated by many serious publications. At 2300 rpm, the engine, which had a 4.6-fold compression ratio, developed 73 horsepower, which was good for those times, but due to the heavy load maximum speed limited to 55 kilometers per hour.

In this version, elongated guides were installed along the car, the rear of which was additionally hung on jacks before firing. The weight of the vehicle with a crew (5-7 people) and full ammunition was 8.33 tons, the firing range reached 8470 m. In just one salvo lasting 8-10 seconds, the combat vehicle fired 16 shells containing 78.4 kg of highly effective explosives at enemy positions substances. The three-axle ZIS-6 provided the MU-2 with quite satisfactory mobility on the ground, allowing it to quickly perform a march maneuver and change position. And to transfer the vehicle from the traveling position to the combat position, 2-3 minutes were enough. However, the installation acquired another drawback - the impossibility of direct fire and, as a result, a large dead space. However, our artillerymen subsequently learned to overcome it and even began to use it.
On December 25, 1939, the Artillery Directorate of the Red Army approved the 132-mm M-13 rocket and launcher, called BM-13. NII-Z received an order for the production of five such installations and a batch of missiles for military testing. In addition, the artillery department of the Navy also ordered one BM-13 launcher to test it in the coastal defense system. During the summer and autumn of 1940, NII-3 manufactured six BM-13 launchers. In the fall of the same year, BM-13 launchers and a batch of M-13 shells were ready for testing.

1 – switch, 2 – cabin armor shields, 3 – guide package, 4 – gas tank, 5 – rotating frame base, 6 – lifting screw casing, 7 – lifting frame, 8 – traveling support, 9 – stopper, 10 – rotating frame, 11 – M-13 projectile, 12 – brake light, 13 – jacks, 14 – launcher battery, 15 – towing device spring, 16 – sight bracket, 17 – lifting mechanism handle, 18 – turning mechanism handle, 19 – spare wheel, 20 – distribution box.

On June 17, 1941, at a training ground near Moscow, during an inspection of samples of new weapons of the Red Army, salvo launches were made from BM-13 combat vehicles. People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Soviet Union Timoshenko, People's Commissar of Armaments Ustinov and Chief General Staff Army General Zhukov, who attended the tests, praised the new weapon. Two were prepared for the show prototypes combat vehicle BM-13. One of them was loaded with high-explosive fragmentation rockets, and the second with illumination rockets. Salvo launches of fragmentation rockets were made. All targets in the area where the shells fell were hit, everything that could burn on this section of the artillery route burned. The shooting participants praised the new missile weapons. Immediately at the firing position, an opinion was expressed about the need to quickly adopt the first domestic MLRS installation.
On June 21, 1941, literally a few hours before the start of the war, after examining samples of missile weapons, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin decided to launch mass production of M-13 missiles and the BM-13 launcher and to begin the formation of missile military units. Due to the threat of an impending war, this decision was made despite the fact that the BM-13 launcher had not yet passed military tests and had not been developed to the stage allowing mass industrial production.

The commander of the first experimental Katyusha battery is Captain Flerov. On October 2, Flerov’s battery hit. The batteries covered more than 150 kilometers behind enemy lines. Flerov did everything possible to save the battery and break through to his own. On the night of October 7, 1941, a convoy of vehicles from Flerov’s battery was ambushed near the village of Bogatyri, Znamensky district, Smolensk region. Finding themselves in a hopeless situation, the battery personnel took up the fight. Under heavy fire they blew up the cars. Many of them died. Being seriously wounded, the commander blew himself up along with the main launcher.

On July 2, 1941, the first experimental battery of rocket artillery in the Red Army under the command of Captain Flerov set out from Moscow to the Western Front. On July 4, the battery became part of the 20th Army, whose troops occupied the defense along the Dnieper near the city of Orsha.

In most books about the war - both scientific and fiction - Wednesday, July 16, 1941, is named as the day of the first use of the Katyusha. On that day, a battery under the command of Captain Flerov attacked the Orsha railway station that had just been occupied by the enemy and destroyed the trains that had accumulated there.
However, in reality Flerov battery was first deployed at the front two days earlier: on July 14, 1941, three salvos were fired at the city of Rudnya, Smolensk region. This town with a population of only 9 thousand people is located on the Vitebsk Upland on the Malaya Berezina River, 68 km from Smolensk at the very border of Russia and Belarus. On that day, the Germans captured Rudnya, and the town’s market square was crowded with large number military equipment. At that moment, on the high, steep western bank of Malaya Berezina, the battery of captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov appeared. From a western direction that was unexpected for the enemy, it struck the market square. As soon as the sound of the last salvo had died down, one of the artillery soldiers named Kashirin sang at the top of his voice the popular song “Katyusha”, written in 1938 by Matvey Blanter to the words of Mikhail Isakovsky. Two days later, on July 16, at 15:15, Flerov’s battery struck the Orsha station, and an hour and a half later, the German crossing through Orshitsa. On that day, communications sergeant Andrei Sapronov was assigned to Flerov’s battery, ensuring communication between the battery and the command. As soon as the sergeant heard about how Katyusha came out onto a high, steep bank, he immediately remembered how missile launchers had just entered the same high and steep bank, and, reporting to the headquarters of the 217th separate communications battalion 144th rifle division 20th Army about Flerov’s completion of a combat mission, signalman Sapronov said: “Katyusha sang perfectly.”

2 August 1941 Chief of Artillery Western Front Major General I.P. Kramar reported: “According to the statements of the command staff of the rifle units and the observations of the artillerymen, the surprise of such massive fire causes big losses the enemy and acts so strongly morally that enemy units flee in panic. It was also noted that the enemy is fleeing not only from the areas fired by new weapons, but also from neighboring ones, located at a distance of 1-1.5 km from the shelling zone.
And here’s how the enemies talked about the Katyusha: “After the volley of Stalin’s organ, from our company of 120 people,” German Hart said during interrogation, “12 remained alive. Out of 12 heavy machine guns Only one remained intact, and even that one was without a carriage, and out of the five heavy mortars, not a single one.”
The stunning debut of jet weapons for the enemy prompted our industry to speed up the serial production of a new mortar. However, at first there were not enough self-propelled chassis carriers for the Katyushas. rocket launchers. They tried to restore production of the ZIS-6 at the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant, where the Moscow ZIS was evacuated in October 1941, but the lack of specialized equipment for the production of worm axles did not allow this to be done. In October 1941, a tank with an installation mounted in place of the turret was put into service. BM-8-24 . She was armed with rockets RS-82 .
In September 1941 - February 1942, NII-3 developed a new modification of the 82-mm M-8 projectile, which had the same range (about 5000 m), but almost twice as much explosive (581 g) compared to the aircraft projectile (375 g).
By the end of the war, the 82-mm M-8 projectile with a ballistic index TS-34 and a firing range of 5.5 km was adopted.
In the first modifications of the M-8 missile, a rocket charge made of nitroglycerin ballistic gunpowder, grade N, was used. The charge consisted of seven cylindrical blocks with an outer diameter of 24 mm and a channel diameter of 6 mm. The length of the charge was 230 mm, and the weight was 1040 g.
To increase the projectile's flight range, the engine's rocket chamber was increased to 290 mm, and after testing a number of charge design options, OTB specialists from Plant No. 98 tested a charge made from NM-2 gunpowder, which consisted of five blocks with an outer diameter of 26.6 mm and a channel diameter of 6 mm and length 287 mm. The weight of the charge was 1180 g. With the use of this charge, the projectile range increased to 5.5 km. The radius of continuous destruction by fragments of the M-8 (TS-34) projectile was 3-4 m, and the radius of actual destruction by fragments was 12-15 meters.

Katyusha's younger sister - installation of BM-8-24 on a tank chassis

Installation of the BM-13-16 on the chassis of the STZ-5 tracked tractor. Prototypes of launchers for M-13 projectiles on the STZ-5 chassis passed field tests in October 1941 and were put into service. Their serial production began at the plant named after. Comintern in Voronezh. However, on July 7, 1942, the Germans captured the right bank part of Voronezh, and the assembly of the installations stopped.

STZ-5 tracked tractors and Ford-Marmont, International Jiemsi and Austin off-road vehicles received under Lend-Lease were also equipped with jet launchers. But the largest number of Katyushas were mounted on all-wheel drive three-axle vehicles. In 1943, M-13 projectiles with a welded body, with a ballistic index TS-39, were put into production. The shells had a GVMZ fuse. NM-4 gunpowder was used as fuel.
The main reason for the low accuracy of missiles of the M-13 (TS-13) type was the eccentricity of the thrust jet engine, that is, the displacement of the thrust vector from the rocket axis due to uneven burning of gunpowder in the checkers. This phenomenon is easily eliminated when the rocket rotates. In this case, the thrust impulse will always coincide with the axis of the rocket. The rotation imparted to the finned rocket in order to improve accuracy is called rotation. Twist rockets should not be confused with turbojet rockets. The turning speed of the finned missiles was several tens, in extreme cases hundreds, of revolutions per minute, which is not enough to stabilize the projectile by rotation (moreover, rotation occurs during the active phase of the flight while the engine is running, and then stops). The angular velocity of turbojet projectiles that do not have fins is several thousand revolutions per minute, which creates a gyroscopic effect and, accordingly, higher hit accuracy than that of finned projectiles, both non-rotating and with rotation. In both types of projectiles, rotation occurs due to the outflow of powder gases from the main engine through small (several millimeters in diameter) nozzles directed at an angle to the axis of the projectile.

We called rockets with rotation due to the energy of powder gases UK - improved accuracy, for example M-13UK and M-31UK.
The M-13UK projectile differed in design from the M-13 projectile in that there were 12 tangential holes on the front centering thickening, through which part of the powder gases flowed out. The holes were drilled so that the powder gases flowing out of them created a torque. The M-13UK-1 projectiles differed from the M-13UK projectiles in the design of their stabilizers. In particular, the M-13UK-1 stabilizers were made of steel sheet.
Since 1944, new, more powerful BM-31-12 installations with 12 M-30 and M-31 mines of 301 mm caliber, weighing 91.5 kg each (firing range - up to 4325 m), began to be produced on the basis of Studebakers. To improve the accuracy of fire, the M-13UK and M-31UK projectiles with improved accuracy, rotating in flight, were created and developed.
The projectiles were launched from honeycomb-type tubular guides. The time to transfer to a combat position was 10 minutes. When a 301-mm projectile containing 28.5 kg of explosives exploded, a crater 2.5 m deep and 7-8 m in diameter was formed. A total of 1,184 BM-31-12 vehicles were produced during the war years.

BM-31-12 on a Studebaker US-6 chassis

The share of rocket artillery on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War was constantly increasing. If in November 1941 45 Katyusha divisions were formed, then on January 1, 1942 there were already 87 of them, in October 1942 - 350, and at the beginning of 1945 - 519. By the end of the war, there were 7 divisions in the Red Army, 40 separate brigades, 105 regiments and 40 separate divisions of guards mortars. Not a single major artillery barrage took place without Katyushas.

In the post-war period, Katyushas were going to be replaced with a BM-14-16, mounted on the chassis GAZ-63, but the installation adopted for service in 1952 was able to replace the Katyusha only partially, and therefore, until the very introduction into the troops, Katyusha installations continued to be produced on the chassis of the ZiS-151 car, and even ZIL-131.

BM-13-16 on ZIL-131 chassis

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What “Katyusha” is to a Russian, is “hellfire” to a German. The nickname that Wehrmacht soldiers gave to the Soviet rocket artillery combat vehicle was fully justified. In just 8 seconds, a regiment of 36 mobile BM-13 units fired 576 shells at the enemy. The peculiarity of the salvo fire was that one blast wave was superimposed on another, the law of addition of impulses came into force, which greatly increased the destructive effect.

Fragments of hundreds of mines, heated to 800 degrees, destroyed everything around. As a result, an area of ​​100 hectares turned into a scorched field, riddled with craters from shells. Only those Nazis who were lucky enough to be in a securely fortified dugout at the time of the salvo managed to escape. The Nazis called this pastime a “concert.” The fact is that the volleys of Katyushas were accompanied by a terrible roar; for this sound, the Wehrmacht soldiers awarded the rocket mortars with another nickname - “Stalin’s organs”.

The birth of Katyusha

In the USSR it was customary to say that the Katyusha was created not by some individual designer, but Soviet people. The country's best minds really worked on the development of combat vehicles. In 1921, employees of the Leningrad Gas Dynamic Laboratory N. Tikhomirov and V. Artemyev began creating rockets using smokeless powder. In 1922, Artemyev was accused of espionage and the following year he was sent to serve his sentence on Solovki; in 1925 he returned back to the laboratory.

In 1937, the RS-82 rockets, which were developed by Artemyev, Tikhomirov and G. Langemak, who joined them, were adopted by the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. air fleet. In the same year, in connection with the Tukhachevsky case, everyone who worked on new types of weapons was subjected to “cleansing” by the NKVD. Langemak was arrested as a German spy and executed in 1938. In the summer of 1939, aircraft rockets developed with his participation were successfully used in battles with Japanese troops on the Khalkhin Gol River.

From 1939 to 1941 employees of the Moscow Jet Research Institute I. Gvai, N. Galkovsky, A. Pavlenko, A. Popov worked on the creation of a self-propelled multi-charge rocket launcher. On June 17, 1941, she took part in a demonstration of the latest types of artillery weapons. People's Commissar of Defense Semyon Timoshenko, his deputy Grigory Kulik and Chief of the General Staff Georgy Zhukov were present at the tests.

Self-propelled rocket launchers were the last to be shown, and at first the trucks with iron guides attached to the top did not make any impression on the tired commission representatives. But the volley itself was remembered for a long time: according to eyewitnesses, the military leaders, seeing the rising column of flame, fell into a stupor for some time. Tymoshenko was the first to come to his senses; he sharply addressed his deputy: “Why were they silent and not reported about the presence of such weapons?” Kulik tried to justify himself by saying that this artillery system was simply not fully developed until recently. On June 21, 1941, literally a few hours before the start of the war, Supreme Commander Joseph Stalin, after inspecting rocket launchers, decided to launch their mass production.

The feat of Captain Flerov

The first commander of the first Katyusha battery was Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov. The country's leadership chose Flerov to test top-secret weapons, among other things, because he had proven himself well during the Soviet-Finnish war. At that time, he commanded a battery of the 94th Howitzer Artillery Regiment, whose fire managed to break through the Mannerheim Line*. For his heroism in the battles near Lake Saunayarvi, Flerov was awarded the Order of the Red Star.

The full baptism of fire of the Katyushas took place on July 14, 1941. Rocket artillery vehicles under the leadership of Flerov fired salvos at the Orsha railway station, where a large amount of enemy manpower, equipment and provisions were concentrated. Here is what Franz Halder, Chief of the Wehrmacht General Staff, wrote about these salvos in his diary: “On July 14, near Orsha, the Russians used weapons unknown until that time. A fiery barrage of shells burned the Orsha railway station and all the trains with personnel and military equipment of the arriving military units. The metal was melting, the earth was burning.”

Adolf Hitler greeted the news of the emergence of a new Russian miracle weapon very painfully. Abwehr chief Wilhelm Franz Canaris received a thrashing from the Fuhrer for the fact that his department had not yet stolen the drawings of the rocket launchers. As a result, a real hunt was announced for the Katyushas, ​​in which the chief saboteur of the Third Reich, Otto Skorzeny, was brought in.

Flerov’s battery, meanwhile, continued to smash the enemy. After Orsha followed successful operations near Yelnya and Roslavl. On October 7, Flerov and his Katyushas found themselves surrounded in the Vyazma cauldron. The commander did everything to save the battery and break through to his own, but in the end he was ambushed near the village of Bogatyr. Finding themselves in a hopeless situation, Flerov*** and his fighters accepted an unequal battle. The Katyushas fired all their shells at the enemy, after which Flerov self-detonated the rocket launcher, and the rest of the batteries followed the commander’s example. The Nazis failed to take prisoners, as well as receive the “Iron Cross” for capturing top-secret equipment in that battle.

Flerov was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Victory, the commander of the first Katyusha battery was awarded the title of Hero of Russia.

Katyusha" versus "donkey"

Along the front lines of the Great Patriotic War, the Katyusha often had to exchange volleys with the Nebelwerfer (German Nebelwerfer - “fog gun”) - a German rocket launcher. For the characteristic sound that this six-barreled 150 mm mortar made when firing, soviet soldiers They nicknamed him “donkey.” However, when the soldiers of the Red Army fought off enemy equipment, the contemptuous nickname was forgotten - in the service of our artillery, the trophy immediately turned into a “vanyusha”. True, Soviet soldiers did not have any tender feelings for these weapons. The fact is that the installation was not self-propelled; the 540-kilogram rocket mortar had to be towed. When fired, its shells left a thick trail of smoke in the sky, which unmasked the positions of the artillerymen, who could immediately be covered by enemy howitzer fire.

The best designers of the Third Reich failed to construct their own analogue of the Katyusha until the end of the war. German developments either exploded during testing at the test site, or were not very accurate.

Why was the multiple launch rocket system nicknamed “Katyusha”?

Soldiers at the front loved to name their weapons. For example, the M-30 howitzer was called “Mother”, the ML-20 howitzer gun was called “Emelka”. BM-13, at first, was sometimes called “Raisa Sergeevna,” as the front-line soldiers deciphered the abbreviation RS (missile). It is not known for certain who was the first to call the rocket launcher “Katyusha” and why. The most common versions link the appearance of the nickname:

With M. Blanter’s song, popular during the war years, based on the words of M. Isakovsky “Katyusha”;
-with the letter “K” stamped on the installation frame. This is how the Comintern plant labeled its products;
-with the name of the beloved of one of the fighters, which he wrote on his BM-13.

It all started with the development of black powder rockets in 1921. N.I. took part in the work on the project. Tikhomirov, V.A. Artemyev from the gas dynamic laboratory.

By 1933, the work was almost completed and official testing began. To launch them, multi-charge aviation and single-charge ground launchers were used. These shells were prototypes of those later used on Katyushas. The development was carried out by a group of developers from the Jet Institute.

In 1937-38, rockets of this type were put into service air force Soviet Union. They were used on the I-15, I-16, I-153 fighters, and later on the Il-2 attack aircraft.

From 1938 to 1941, work was underway at the Jet Institute to create a multi-charge launcher mounted on a truck. In March 1941, field tests were carried out on installations called BM-13 - Fighting Machine 132 mm shells.

On combat vehicles stood high-explosive fragmentation shells caliber 132 mm called M-13, literally a few days before the start of the war, put into mass production. On June 26, 1941, the assembly of the first two production BM-13s based on the ZIS-6 was completed in Voronezh. On June 28, the installations were tested at a testing ground near Moscow and became available to the army.

An experimental battery of seven vehicles under the command of Captain I. Flerov first took part in the battles on July 14, 1941 for the city of Rudnya, occupied by the Germans the day before. Two days later, the same formation fired at the Orsha railway station and the crossing of the Orshitsa River.

Production of BM-13 was established at the plant named after. Comintern in Voronezh, as well as at the Moscow Compressor. The production of shells was organized at the Moscow plant named after. Vladimir Ilyich. During the war, several modifications of the rocket launcher and its projectiles were developed.

A year later, in 1942, 310 mm shells were developed. In April 1944, they created self-propelled gun with 12 guides, which was mounted on a truck chassis.

Origin of the name

In order to maintain secrecy, management strongly recommended calling the installation BM-13 whatever you like, as long as not to reveal the details of its characteristics and purpose. For this reason, soldiers at first called the BM-13 a “guards mortar.”

As for the affectionate “Katyusha”, there are many versions regarding the appearance of such a name for a mortar launcher.

One version says that the mortar launcher was called “Katyusha” after the name of Matvey Blanter’s song “Katyusha”, a popular song before the war, based on the words of Mikhail Isakovsky. The version is very convincing because when Rudnya was shelled, the installations were located on one of the local hills.

The other version is partly more prosaic, but no less heartfelt. There was an unspoken tradition in the army of giving affectionate nicknames to weapons. For example, the M-30 howitzer was nicknamed “Mother”, the ML-20 howitzer gun was called “Emelka”. Initially, the BM-13 was called “Raisa Sergeevna” for some time, thus deciphering the abbreviation RS - rocket.

The installations were such a guarded military secret that during combat operations it was strictly forbidden to use traditional commands like “fire”, “volley” or “fire”. They were replaced by the commands “play” and “sing”: to start it, you had to turn the handle of the electric generator very quickly.

Well, another version is quite simple: an unknown soldier wrote on the installation the name of his beloved girl - Katyusha. The nickname stuck.

Performance characteristics

Chief designer A.V. Kostikov

• Number of guides - 16
• Guide length - 5 meters
• Weight in camping equipment without shells - 5 tons
• Transition from traveling to combat position - 2 - 3 minutes
• Time to charge the installation - 5 - 8 minutes
• Volley duration - 4 - 6 seconds
• Type of projectile - rocket, high-explosive fragmentation
• Caliber - 132 mm
• Maximum projectile speed - 355 m/s
• Range - 8470 meters

"Katyusha"- the popular name for rocket artillery combat vehicles 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 which is associated with the factory mark “K” of the manufacturer of the first BM-13 combat vehicles (Voronezh Comintern Plant), 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 House. Moscow. in 8 volumes - 2004 ISBN 5 - 203 01875 - 8)

The fate of the first separate experimental battery was cut short at the beginning of October 1941. After a baptism of fire near Orsha, the battery successfully operated in battles near Rudnya, Smolensk, Yelnya, Roslavl and Spas-Demensk. Over the course of 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 - after firing a salvo, it immediately changed position. The tactical technique - salvo - change of position - was widely used by Katyusha units during the war.

At the beginning of October 1941, as part of a group of troops on the Western Front, the battery found itself in the rear of the Nazi troops. While 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 were killed, having shot all the ammunition and blown up combat vehicles. Only 46 soldiers managed to escape from the encirclement. The legendary battalion commander and the rest of the soldiers, who had fulfilled their duty to the end with honor, were considered “missing in action.” And only when it was possible to discover documents from one of the Wehrmacht army headquarters, 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 lists 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 Russian Federation posthumously.

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

Barrelless field rocket artillery system, which received affectionate treatment in the Red Army female name“Katyusha”, without exaggeration, became probably one of the most popular types of military equipment of the Second World War. In any case, neither our enemies nor our allies had anything like this.

Initially barrelless jets artillery systems in the Red Army they were not intended for ground battles. They literally descended from heaven to earth.

The 82 mm caliber rocket was adopted by the Red Army Air Force back in 1933. They were installed on fighters designed by Polikarpov I-15, I-16 and I-153. In 1939, they underwent baptism of fire during the fighting at Khalkhin Gol, where they performed well when shooting at groups of enemy aircraft.

In the same year, employees of the Jet Research Institute began work on a mobile ground launcher that could fire rockets at ground targets. At the same time, the caliber of the rockets was increased to 132 mm.
In March 1941, field tests were successfully carried out new system weapons, and the decision to mass produce combat vehicles with RS-132 missiles, called BM-13, was made the day before the start of the war - June 21, 1941.

How was it structured?

The BM-13 combat vehicle was a chassis of a three-axle ZIS-6 vehicle, on which a rotary truss with a package of guides and a guidance mechanism was installed. For aiming, a rotating and lifting mechanism and an artillery sight were provided. At the rear of the combat vehicle there were two jacks, which ensured its greater stability when firing.
The missiles were launched using a hand-held electric coil connected to a battery and contacts on the guides. When the handle was turned, the contacts closed in turn, and the starting squib was fired in the next projectile.
The explosive material in the warhead of the projectile was detonated from both sides (the length of the detonator was only slightly less than the length of the explosive cavity). And when two waves of detonation met, the gas pressure of the explosion at the meeting point increased sharply. As a result, the hull fragments had a significantly higher acceleration, heated up to 600-800 ° C and had a good ignition effect. In addition to the body, part of the rocket chamber also burst, which was heated from the gunpowder burning inside; this increased the fragmentation effect by 1.5-2 times compared to artillery shells of the same caliber. That is why the legend arose that Katyusha rockets were equipped with a “thermite charge.” The “thermite” charge was indeed tested in besieged Leningrad in 1942, but it turned out to be unnecessary - after the Katyusha salvo, everything around was burning. And the joint use of dozens of missiles at the same time also created interference of blast waves, which further enhanced the damaging effect.

Baptism of fire near Orsha

The first salvo of a battery of Soviet rocket launchers (as they began to call it for greater secrecy) new look military equipment) as part of seven combat installations BM-13 was produced in mid-July 1941. This happened near Orsha. An experienced battery under the command of Captain Flerov launched a fire strike at the Orsha railway station, where a concentration of enemy military equipment and manpower was noticed.
At 15:15 on July 14, 1941, enemy echelons were opened heavy fire. The entire station instantly turned into a huge cloud of fire. On the same day, the Chief of the German General Staff, General Halder, wrote in his diary: “On July 14, near Orsha, the Russians used weapons unknown until that time. A fiery barrage of shells burned the Orsha railway station and all the trains with personnel and military equipment of the arriving military units. The metal was melting, the earth was burning.”

The morale effect of the use of rocket mortars was stunning. The enemy lost more than an infantry battalion and a huge amount of military equipment and weapons at the Orsha station. And Captain Flerov’s battery dealt another blow on the same day - this time at the enemy crossing over the Orshitsa River.
The Wehrmacht command, having studied the information received from eyewitnesses of the use of new Russian weapons, was forced to issue a special instruction to its troops, which stated: “ There are reports from the front that the Russians are using a new type of weapon that fires rockets. A large number of shots can be fired from one installation within 3-5 seconds. Any appearance of these weapons must be reported on the same day to the general commander of the chemical forces at the high command." A real hunt began for Captain Flerov's battery. In October 1941, she found herself in the Spas-Demensky “cauldron” and was ambushed. Of the 160 people, only 46 managed to reach their own. The battery commander himself died, having first made sure that all the combat vehicles were blown up and would not fall into enemy hands intact.

On land and sea...

In addition to the BM-13, in the SKB of the Voronezh plant. The Comintern, which produced these combat installations, developed new options for placing missiles. For example, taking into account the extremely low cross-country ability of the ZIS-6 vehicle, an option was developed for installing guides for missiles on the chassis of the STZ-5 NATI tracked tractor. In addition, an 82 mm caliber rocket has also found use. Guides were developed and manufactured for it, which were later installed on the chassis of the ZIS-6 vehicle (36 guides) and on the chassis of the T-40 and T-60 light tanks (24 guides).

A 16-charging installation for RS-132 shells and a 48-charging installation for RS-82 shells for armored trains were developed. In the fall of 1942, during the fighting in the Caucasus, for use in mountain conditions 8-charge mining pack launchers for RS-82 shells were manufactured.

Later they were installed on American Willys all-terrain vehicles, which came to the USSR under Lend-Lease.
Special launchers for 82 mm and 132 mm caliber rockets were manufactured for their subsequent installation on warships— torpedo boats and armored boats.

The launchers themselves received the popular nickname “Katyusha”, under which they entered the history of the Great Patriotic War. Why Katyusha? There are many versions on this matter. The most reliable - due to the fact that the first BM-13 had the letter “K” - as information that the product was produced at the plant named after. Comintern in Voronezh. By the way, the cruising boats of the Soviet Union received the same nickname. navy, which had the letter index “K”. In total, 36 launcher designs were developed and produced during the war.

And the Wehrmacht soldiers nicknamed the BM-13 “Stalin's organs.” Apparently, the roar of the rockets reminded the Germans of the sounds of a church organ. This “music” clearly made them feel uncomfortable.
And from the spring of 1942, guides with missiles began to be installed on British and American all-wheel drive chassis imported into the USSR under Lend-Lease. Still, the ZIS-6 turned out to be a vehicle with low cross-country ability and carrying capacity. The three-axle all-wheel drive American truck Studebakker US6 turned out to be most suitable for installing rocket launchers. Combat vehicles began to be produced on its chassis. At the same time, they received the name BM-13N (“normalized”).

During the entire Great Patriotic War, Soviet industry produced more than ten thousand rocket artillery combat vehicles.

Relatives of the Katyusha

For all their advantages, high-explosive fragmentation rockets RS-82 and RS-132 had one drawback - large dispersion and low efficiency when affecting enemy personnel located in field shelters and trenches. To correct this shortcoming, special 300 mm caliber rockets were manufactured.
They received the nickname “Andryusha” among the people. They were launched from a launching machine (“frame”) made of wood. The launch was carried out using a sapper blasting machine.
“Andryushas” were first used in Stalingrad. The new weapons were easy to manufacture, but installing them in position and aiming at the target required a lot of time. In addition, the short range of the M-30 rockets made them dangerous for their own crews.

Therefore, in 1943, the troops began to receive an improved missile, which, with the same power, had a greater firing range. The M-31 shell could hit manpower in an area of ​​2 thousand square meters or form a crater 2-2.5 m deep and 7-8 m in diameter. But the time to prepare a salvo with new shells was significant - one and a half to two hours.
Such shells were used in 1944-1945 during the assault on enemy fortifications and during street battles. One hit from an M-31 missile was enough to destroy an enemy bunker or a firing point located in a residential building.

Fire sword of the "god of war"

By May 1945, rocket artillery units had about three thousand combat vehicles of the most different types and many “frames” with M-31 shells. Not a single Soviet offensive since Battle of Stalingrad, did not begin without artillery preparation using Katyusha rockets. Salvos of combat installations became the “ fire sword", with the help of which our infantry and tanks made their way through enemy fortified positions.
During the war, BM-13 installations were sometimes used for direct fire at enemy tanks and firing points. To do this, the combat vehicle drove its rear wheels onto some elevation so that its guides assumed a horizontal position. Of course, the accuracy of such shooting was quite low, but a direct hit from a 132-mm rocket would smash any enemy tank to pieces, and a nearby explosion would knock over military equipment enemy, and heavy hot fragments reliably disabled it.

After the war, Soviet designers of combat vehicles continued to work on Katyushas and Andryushas. Only now they began to be called not guards mortars, but multiple launch rocket systems. In the USSR, such powerful SZOs as “Grad”, “Hurricane” and “Smerch” were designed and built. At the same time, the losses of an enemy caught in a salvo from a battery of Hurricanes or Smerchs are comparable to losses from the use of tactical nuclear weapons with a power of up to 20 kilotons, that is, with an explosion atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima.

BM-13 combat vehicle on a three-axle vehicle chassis

The caliber of the projectile is 132 mm.
Projectile weight - 42.5 kg.
The mass of the warhead is 21.3 kg.
The maximum projectile flight speed is 355 m/s.
The number of guides is 16.
The maximum firing range is 8470 m.
Charging time of the installation is 3-5 minutes.
The duration of a full salvo is 7-10 seconds.

Guards mortar BM-13 Katyusha

1. Launcher
2. Missiles
3. The car on which the installation was mounted

Guide package
Cabin armor shields
Hiking support
Lifting frame
Launcher battery
Sight bracket
Swivel frame
Lifting handle

The launchers were mounted on the chassis of ZIS-6, Ford Marmont, International Jimmy, Austin vehicles and on STZ-5 tracked tractors Largest number"Katyusha" was mounted on all-wheel drive three-axle Studebaker vehicles.

M-13 projectile

01. Fuse retaining ring
02. GVMZ fuze
03. Detonator checker
04. Bursting charge
05. Head part
06. Igniter
07. Bottom of the chamber
08. Guide pin
09. Powder rocket charge
10. Missile part
11. Grate
12. Critical section of the nozzle
13. Nozzle
14. Stabilizer

Few survived

The effectiveness of the combat use of Katyushas during an attack on an enemy fortified unit can be illustrated by the defeat of the Tolkachev defensive unit during our counteroffensive near Kursk in July 1943.
The village of Tolkachevo was turned by the Germans into a heavily fortified resistance center with a large number dugouts and bunkers of 5-12 rolls, with a developed network of trenches and communication passages. The approaches to the village were heavily mined and covered with wire fences.
Salvos of rocket artillery destroyed a significant part of the bunkers, the trenches, along with the enemy infantry located in them, were filled up, fire system completely depressed. Of the entire garrison of the junction, numbering 450-500 people, only 28 survived. The Tolkachev junction was taken by our units without any resistance.

Supreme High Command Reserve

By decision of the Headquarters, in January 1945, the formation of twenty guards mortar regiments began - this is how the units armed with the BM-13 began to be called.
The Guards Mortar Regiment (Gv.MP) of the artillery of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command (RVGK) consisted of a command and three divisions of three batteries. Each battery had four combat vehicles. Thus, a salvo of only one division of 12 BM-13-16 PIP vehicles (Staff Directive No. 002490 prohibited the use of rocket artillery in quantities less than a division) could be compared in strength to a salvo of 12 heavy howitzer regiments of the RVGK (48 152 mm howitzers per regiment ) or 18 heavy howitzer brigades of the RVGK (32 152 mm howitzers per brigade).

Victor Sergeev