Why was the Katyusha combat vehicle called Katyusha? Weapon of Victory

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

Three sources of information about the first Katyusha salvo

71 years ago, on July 14, 1941, at 15:15, the first salvo of an unprecedented new type of weapon - rocket artillery - rang out against the enemy. Seven Soviet installations volley fire BM-13-16 (combat vehicles with 16 132 mm missile shells on each), mounted on a ZIL-6 automobile chassis (soon called “Katyusha”), simultaneously hit the railway station of the city of Orsha, packed with German trains with heavy military equipment, ammunition and fuel.

The effect of the simultaneous (7-8 sec.) strike of 112 132 mm caliber rockets was amazing in the literal and figurative sense - first the earth shook and rumbled, and then everything burst into flames. This is how the First Separate Experimental Battery of Rocket Artillery under the command of Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov entered the Great Patriotic War... This is the interpretation of the first Katyusha salvo that is known today.

Photo.1 Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov

Until now, the main source of information about this event remains the combat log (CAB) of the Flerov battery, where there are two entries: “14.7.1941 15 hours 15 minutes. They attacked fascist trains at the Orsha railway junction. The results are excellent. A continuous sea of ​​fire"

And "14.7. 1941 16 hours 45 minutes. A salvo at the crossing of fascist troops through Orshitsa. Large enemy losses in manpower and military equipment, panic. All the Nazis who survived on the eastern bank were taken prisoner by our units...”

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

Photo.2 Katyusha salvo

The story of 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, NII-3 design engineer Alexei Popov, which was recorded by the famous Soviet journalist Yaroslav Golovanov in 1983. Here is its content:

Photo.3 Designer Alexey Popov

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

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

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

Photo.4 Preparing the Katyusha for combat work

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

They tried to bomb us, after which we received an order: to move only at night. On July 9 we arrived in Borisov district, deployed the position: 4 installations to the left of the route, 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-round semi-automatic rifles, Degtyarev machine gun.

Each also had two grenades. We sat idle. Time was spent studying. It was forbidden to make notes. Shitov and I conducted endless “practical classes.” Once a Messerschmidt-109 passed low over our battery, the soldiers could not stand it and fired at it with rifles. He turned around and in turn fired at us with a machine gun. After which we moved a little...

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

We left for Orsha. On July 14th we went to railway district a hub where many echelons were concentrated: ammunition, fuel, manpower and equipment. We stopped 5-6 km from the hub: 7 vehicles with rocket launchers and 3 vehicles with shells for a second salvo. They didn’t take the gun: direct visibility.

At 15:15 Flerov gave the order to open fire. The salvo (7 vehicles with 16 shells each, 112 shells in total) lasted 7-8 seconds. The railway junction was destroyed. There were no Germans in Orsha itself for 7 days. We ran away immediately. The commander was already sitting in the cockpit, raised the jacks and off he went! They went into the forest and sat there.

The place where we fired from was later bombed by the Germans. We got the hang of it and after another hour and a half 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 him Source No. 2.

Report of two marshals about Katyusha

99% of all publications about the first salvos 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 salvoes of Flerov’s battery - the daily report of the Main Command of the Western Direction (Marshalov Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko and B.M. Shaposhnikov) to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (to J.V. Stalin) dated July 24, 1941. It says:

“Comrade Kurochkin’s 20th army, holding back attacks from up to 7 enemy divisions, defeated two German divisions, especially the 5th Infantry Division, which had newly arrived at the front and was advancing on Rudnya and to the east. Particularly effective and successful in the defeat of the 5th Infantry Division was the RS battery, which, with three salvos at the enemy concentrated in Rudnya, inflicted such losses on him that he took out the wounded and picked up the dead all day, stopping the offensive for the whole day. There are 3 salvos left in the battery. We ask you to send two or three more batteries with charges” (TsAMO, f. 246, op. 12928 ss, d. 2, pp. 38-41). Let's call him Source No. 3.

For some reason, it does not mention the salvoes of Flerov’s battery on July 14 in Orsha and at the crossing of Orshitsa, and the date of its three salvos in Rudna is not indicated.

Version of Colonel Andrei Petrov

Having carefully studied all the circumstances of the first Katyusha salvo, Andrei Petrov (engineer, reserve colonel) in his article “The Mystery of the First Katyusha Salvo” (NVO, June 20, 2008) made an unexpected conclusion: On July 14, 1941, the BM-13 battery of Captain Ivan Flerov fired at a concentration of not enemy, but Soviet trains with strategic cargo at the Orsha railway station!

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

1) Why was the commander of the heroic battery not awarded immediately? (After all, A.G. Kostikov - chief engineer NII-3, which took credit for the 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 was only posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, in 1963, and only in 1995 was he awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation).

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

3) Where did the Soviet command get very accurate information about the expected movements of the train that needed 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 salvo there were no Germans 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 present, considering all three of the above sources to be absolutely reliable (although Source No. 1 for some reason still lacks archival links).

1) Source No. 2 states that “On July 9, the battery arrived in the Borisov area, deployed its position and stood there until July 13... They sat idle. We spent time 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 vehicles! Plus 4 extra days incomprehensible duty, each of which could have been the last for the Flerovites.

What could be the reason for this additional “forced march” of such a heavy caravan of battery vehicles, and then its long sitting idle? In our opinion, there is only one thing - waiting for the arrival of the train, which was probably indicated to Flerov by the High Command as a priority 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 July 10th began German offensive, which became the beginning of the fiercest Smolensk defensive battle 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 found itself on the tracks of the Orsha freight station on July 14, 1941 at 15.15? How was it better, or rather worse, than hundreds of other trains on the clogged Moscow highways? Why did the installations with secret weapons sent from Moscow to meet the advancing German troops and the accompanying column literally hunt for this train?

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 the best types of it from that period, we came to the conclusion that these were not tanks (they then fell to the Germans in huge quantities, so there was no point in liquidating one or more trains with them).

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

Oddly enough, it turned out that, most likely, the first salvo of Flerov’s Katyushas was fired at the composition (or compositions) of other Katyushas, ​​which moved to the western border even before the start of the war, so that, according to the secret agreement of 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 variants of the Katyusha MU-1, also known as the 24-round M-13-24 (1938)

"Katyushas" appeared before the war

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

In fact, even 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 were successfully carried out on the ZIS-5 vehicle: 24-round MU-1 and 16-round MU-2 for firing RS-132 missile shells.

The MU-1 had a number of shortcomings, and the MU-2 (drawing No. 199910) on the 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, corps commander (since May 1940, Colonel General of Artillery) V.D. Grendal.

Just before the start Finnish war From October 26 to November 9, 1940, demonstration firing tests of rocket technology were carried out at the Rzhev test site 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, corps commander (since May 1940, colonel general of artillery) N.N. Voronov. Based on the positive test results, NII-3 was obliged to introduce serial production of mechanized installations BM-13-16, called “object 233” in industry in 1940 (interestingly, the production of RS-132 was not assigned to NII-3; this was how it was carried out throughout that year 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 indicate that it was the 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 were manufactured somewhere else
• already on July 3, the first Katyusha division was formed (43 installations, including 7 Flerov ones)
• by mid-August 1941, 9 four-divisional Katyusha regiments (12 units each), 45 divisions were formed, and in September another 6 three-divisional regiments

A total of 1228 installations for July - September. They were later called "Guards Mortar Units". Such a pace would be unrealistic if drawings for installations began to be transferred to serial factories from June 22, 1941.

So a train with Katyushas and several trains with RSs could well have been transported 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 fall into the hands of the Germans. But why?

Levitan announced the clue in the evening report of the Sovinformburo

It can hardly be considered a mere coincidence that on July 22, 1941, in the evening report of the Sovinformburo, announcer Levitan said: “On July 15, in battles west of Sitnya, which is east of Pskov, during the retreat of German units, our troops captured secret documents and chemical property of the 2nd battalion of the 52nd chemical mortar regiment of the enemy. One of the captured packages contained: secret instruction ND No. 199 “Firing with chemical shells and mines”, edition 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 crime - the widespread use of poisonous weapons substances..."

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

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

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

It was only later that high-explosive fragmentation and high-explosive incendiary charges were developed for their missile shells, after which development went through 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 have a good knowledge of many of their aspects. (In 1945, a Central Committee commission discovered that one of the Skoda factories produced shells for the SS troops - analogues of Soviet M-8 rocket shells and launchers for them).

Photo 7. Alexander Nikolaevich Osokin, writer-historian

Therefore, Stalin decided to play it safe. He understood that the Germans would definitely film the trains destroyed by the first salvo of Flerov’s Katyushas, ​​they would be able to determine that they depicted the wreckage of Soviet missile launchers, and therefore would be able to use their film and photographic footage for propaganda purposes: here, they say, the Soviet Union is preparing use toxic substances thrown with the help of the latest rocket technology in chemical attacks against German (and therefore against English!) troops.

This could not be allowed to happen. And where did our intelligence manage to so quickly find similar German equipment - rocket-propelled mortars, 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 Brest Fortress). Perhaps it is no coincidence that the German rocket mortar was later nicknamed “Vanyusha”?

Maybe this is a hint at his Russian roots and kinship with 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, also not very pleasant option - if the missile launchers and shells for them destroyed in Orsha were German or joint Soviet-German production (for example, the same Skoda ones) and had both Soviet and German markings. This threatened serious showdowns with both our own and our allies in both warring countries.

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

So, the day after the defeat of the trains in Orsha, they gave a report from 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? That's why all this happened:

• the Soviet High Command was constantly reported where the train with Katyushas was located, which Flerov’s battery was supposed to secretly destroy
• The battery actually fired at the accumulation of trains in Orsha even before the Germans entered it
• Tymoshenko and Shaposhnikov did not know about the Katyusha strike on Orsha
• Flerov was not awarded in any way (how is it to be awarded for a strike on one’s own train?!), and there were no reports of the first Katyusha strike in 1941 (for the same reason).

We hope that the train with the Katyushas was driven onto a separate track, an air raid alert was declared and people were removed during the shelling, which, of course, was attributed to the Germans. We also assume that the second salvo of Flerov’s 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 the 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, not three months later in early October 1941, but immediately after their salvo at 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, some disappeared into the forest and got out to their own, including A. Popov. Several people, incl. the wounded crew commander, sergeant from Alma-Ata, Khudaibergen Khasenov, was captured. He was released only in 1945, never talked about anything at home, and only after Flerov was awarded the Order in 1963, he said: “I fought in his battery.”

None of those who came out to their friends ever told when Flerov died; for a long time he was considered missing (he is still listed in the Podolsk archive today, though for some reason since December 1941), despite the fact that there 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 two 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 , the 4th battery of a separate special-purpose artillery division created on July 3, 1941... And then the enemy was crushed by another 10 thousand Katyusha combat vehicles, firing 12 million rockets!

The famous Katyusha installation was put into production a few hours before Nazi Germany attacked the USSR. A multiple launch rocket artillery system was used for massive attacks on areas, it had an average sighting range shooting.

Chronology of the creation of rocket artillery combat vehicles

Gelatin gunpowder was created in 1916 by Russian professor I.P. Grave. The further chronology of the development of rocket artillery of the USSR is as follows:

• five years later, already in the USSR, the development of a rocket began by V. A. Artemyev and N. I. Tikhomirov;
• in the period 1929 – 1933 a group led by B. S. Petropavlovsky created a prototype of a projectile for MLRS, but the launch units were ground-based;
• rockets entered service with the Air Force in 1938, were labeled RS-82, and were installed on I-15 and I-16 fighters;
• in 1939 they were used at Khalkhin Gol, then they began to assemble warheads from RS-82 for SB bombers and L-2 attack aircraft;
• starting in 1938, another group of developers - R.I. Popov, A.P. Pavlenko, V.N. Galkovsky and I.I. Gvai - worked on a multi-charged installation of high mobility on a wheeled chassis;
• the last successful test before the launch of the BM-13 into mass production ended on June 21, 1941, that is, a few hours before the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR.

On the fifth day of the war, the Katyusha apparatus in the amount of 2 combat units entered service with the main artillery department. Two days later, on June 28, the first battery was formed from them and 5 prototypes that participated in the tests.

The first combat salvo of Katyusha officially took place on July 14. The city of Rudnya, occupied by the Germans, was shelled with incendiary shells filled with thermite, and two days later the crossing of the Orshitsa River in the area of ​​the Orsha railway station was fired upon.

History of the nickname Katyusha

Since the history of Katyusha, as the nickname of the MLRS, does not have accurate objective information, there are several plausible versions:

• some of the shells had an incendiary filling with the KAT marking, indicating the “Kostikov automatic thermite” charge;
• the bombers of the SB squadron, armed with RS-132 shells, taking part in the fighting at Khalkhin Gol, were nicknamed Katyushas;
• in the combat units there was a legend about a partisan girl with that name, who became famous for the destruction of a large number of fascists, with whom the Katyusha salvo was compared;
• the rocket mortar was marked K (Comintern plant) on its body, and the soldiers liked to give the equipment affectionate nicknames.

The latter is supported by the fact that previously rockets with the designation RS were called Raisa Sergeevna, the ML-20 howitzer Emelei, and the M-30 Matushka, respectively.

However, the most poetic version of the nickname is considered to be the song Katyusha, which became popular just before the war. Correspondent A. Sapronov published a note in the Rossiya newspaper in 2001 about a conversation between two Red Army soldiers immediately after an MLRS salvo, in which one of them called it a song, and the second clarified the name of this song.

Analogues of MLRS nicknames

During the war, the BM rocket launcher with a 132 mm projectile was not the only weapon with its own name. Abbreviated as MARS mortar artillery rockets (mortar launchers) received the nickname Marusya.

Mortar MARS - Marusya

Even the German Nebelwerfer towed mortar soviet soldiers They jokingly called him Vanyusha.

Nebelwerfer mortar - Vanyusha

When fired in an area, Katyusha's salvo exceeded the damage from Vanyusha and the more modern analogues of the Germans that appeared at the end of the war. Modifications of the BM-31-12 tried to give the nickname Andryusha, but it did not catch on, so at least until 1945, any domestic MLRS systems were called Katyushas.

Characteristics of the BM-13 installation

The BM 13 Katyusha multiple rocket launcher was created to destroy large enemy concentrations, therefore the main technical and tactical characteristics were:

• mobility - the MLRS had to quickly deploy, fire several salvos and instantly change position before destroying the enemy;
• firepower - from the MP-13 batteries of several installations were formed;
• low cost - a subframe was added to the design, which made it possible to assemble the artillery part of the MLRS at the factory and mount it on the chassis of any vehicle.

Thus, the weapon of victory was installed on railway, air and ground transport, and production costs decreased by at least 20%. The side and rear walls of the cabin were armored, and protective plates were installed on the windshield. The armor protected the gas pipeline and fuel tank, which dramatically increased the “survivability” of the equipment and the survivability of combat crews.

The guidance speed has increased due to the modernization of the rotating and lifting mechanisms, stability in the combat and traveling position. Even when deployed, Katyusha could move over rough terrain within a range of several kilometers at low speed.

Combat crew

To operate the BM-13, a crew of at least 5 people and a maximum of 7 people was used:

• driver - moving the MLRS, deploying to a firing position;
• loaders - 2 - 4 fighters, placing shells on the guides for a maximum of 10 minutes;
• gunner - providing aiming with lifting and turning mechanisms;
• gun commander - general management, interaction with other crews of the unit.

Since the BM guards rocket mortar began to be produced from the assembly line already during the war, there was no ready-made structure of combat units. First, batteries were formed - 4 MP-13 installations and 1 anti-aircraft gun, then a division of 3 batteries.

In one salvo of the regiment, enemy equipment and manpower were destroyed over an area of ​​70–100 hectares by the explosion of 576 shells fired within 10 seconds. According to Directive 002490, the headquarters prohibited the use of Katyushas of less than a division.

Armament

A Katyusha salvo was fired within 10 seconds with 16 shells, each of which had the following characteristics:

• caliber – 132 mm;
• weight – glycerin powder charge 7.1 kg, explosive charge 4.9 kg, jet engine 21 kg, warhead 22 kg, projectile with fuse 42.5 kg;
• stabilizer blade span – 30 cm;
• projectile length - 1.4 m;
• acceleration – 500 m/s 2 ;
• speed - muzzle 70 m/s, combat 355 m/s;
• range – 8.5 km;
• funnel - 2.5 m in diameter maximum, 1 m deep maximum;
• damage radius - 10 m design, 30 m actual;
• deviation - 105 m in range, 200 m lateral.

M-13 projectiles were assigned the ballistic index TS-13.

Launcher

When the war began, the Katyusha salvo was fired from rail guides. Later they were replaced by honeycomb type guides to increase the combat power of the MLRS, then spiral type to increase the accuracy of fire.

To increase accuracy, a special stabilizer device was first used. This was then replaced with spirally arranged nozzles that twisted the rocket during flight, reducing terrain spread.

History of application

In the summer of 1942, BM 13 multiple launch rocket combat vehicles in the amount of three regiments and a reinforcement division became a mobile striking force on the Southern Front, helping to hold back the offensive 1 tank army enemy near Rostov.

Around the same time, a portable version, the “Mountain Katyusha”, was manufactured in Sochi for the 20th Mountain Rifle Division. In the 62nd Army, an MLRS division was created by installing launchers on the T-70 tank. The city of Sochi was defended from the shore by 4 railcars with M-13 mounts.

During the Bryansk operation (1943), multiple rocket launchers were spread along the entire front, making it possible to distract the Germans to carry out a flank attack. In July 1944, a simultaneous salvo of 144 BM-31 installations sharply reduced the number of accumulated forces of Nazi units.

Local conflicts

Chinese troops used 22 MLRS during artillery preparation before the Battle of Triangular Hill during Korean War in October 1952. Later, the BM-13 multiple rocket launchers, supplied from the USSR until 1963, were used in Afghanistan by the government. Katyusha remained in service in Cambodia until recently.

"Katyusha" vs. "Vanyusha"

Unlike the Soviet BM-13 installation, the German Nebelwerfer MLRS was actually a six-barreled mortar:

• a carriage from a 37 mm anti-tank gun was used as a frame;
• the guides for the projectiles are six 1.3 m barrels, united by clips into blocks;
• the rotary mechanism provided 45 degree angle elevations and horizontal firing sector 24 degrees;
• the combat installation rested on a folding stop and sliding frames of the carriage, the wheels were hung out.

The mortar fired turbojet missiles, the accuracy of which was ensured by rotating the body within 1000 rps. The German troops had several mobile mortar launchers on the half-track base of the Maultier armored personnel carrier with 10 barrels for 150 mm rockets. However, all German rocket artillery was created to solve a different problem - chemical warfare using chemical warfare agents.

By 1941, the Germans had already created powerful toxic substances Soman, Tabun, and Sarin. However, none of them were used in the Second World War; fire was carried out exclusively with smoke, high-explosive and incendiary mines. The main part of the rocket artillery was mounted on towed carriages, which sharply reduced the mobility of units.

The accuracy of hitting the target of the German MLRS was higher than that of the Katyusha. However, Soviet weapons were suitable for massive attacks on large areas, had a powerful psychological effect. When towing, Vanyusha’s speed was limited to 30 km/h, and after two salvos the position was changed.

The Germans managed to capture the M-13 sample only in 1942, but this did not bring any practical benefit. The secret was in powder bombs based on smokeless powder based on nitroglycerin. Germany failed to reproduce its production technology; until the end of the war, it used its own rocket fuel recipe.

Modifications of Katyusha

Initially, the BM-13 installation was based on the ZiS-6 chassis and fired M-13 rockets from rail guides. Later modifications of the MLRS appeared:

• BM-13N - since 1943, the Studebaker US6 has been used as a chassis;
• BM-13NN – assembly on a ZiS-151 vehicle;
• BM-13NM - chassis from ZIL-157, in service since 1954;
• BM-13NMM - since 1967, assembled on ZIL-131;
• BM-31 – projectile 310 mm in diameter, honeycomb type guides;
• BM-31-12 – the number of guides has been increased to 12;
• BM-13 SN – spiral type guides;
• BM-8-48 – 82 mm shells, 48 ​​guides;
• BM-8-6 - based on heavy machine guns;
• BM-8-12 - on the chassis of motorcycles and snowmobiles;
• BM30-4 t BM31-4 – frames supported on the ground with 4 guides;
• BM-8-72, BM-8-24 and BM-8-48 - mounted on railway platforms.

T-40 and later T-60 tanks were equipped with mortar mounts. They were placed on a tracked chassis after the turret was dismantled. The USSR's allies supplied Austin, International GMC and Ford Mamon all-terrain vehicles under Lend-Lease, which were ideal for the chassis of installations used in mountain conditions.

Several M-13s were mounted on KV-1 light tanks, but they were taken out of production too quickly. In the Carpathians, Crimea, Malaya Zemlya, and then in China, Mongolia, and North Korea, torpedo boats with MLRS on board were used.

It is believed that the Red Army's armament consisted of 3,374 Katyusha BM-13s, of which 1,157 on 17 types of non-standard chassis, 1,845 units on Studebakers and 372 on ZiS-6 vehicles. Exactly half of the BM-8 and B-13 were lost irretrievably during the battles (1,400 and 3,400 units of equipment, respectively). Of the 1,800 BM-31s produced, 100 units of equipment out of 1,800 sets were lost.

From November 1941 to May 1945, the number of divisions increased from 45 to 519 units. These units belonged to the artillery reserve of the Supreme Command of the Red Army.

Monuments BM-13

Currently, all military MLRS installations based on the ZiS-6 have been preserved exclusively in the form of memorials and monuments. They are located in the CIS as follows:

• former NIITP (Moscow);
• "Military Hill" (Temryuk);
• Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin;
• Lebedin-Mikhailovka (Sumy region);
• monument in Kropyvnytskyi;
• memorial in Zaporozhye;
• Artillery Museum (St. Petersburg);
• WWII Museum (Kyiv);
• Monument of Glory (Novosibirsk);
• entry to Armyansk (Crimea);
• Sevastopol diorama (Crimea);
• Pavilion 11 VKS Patriot (Kubinka);
• Novomoskovsk Museum (Tula region);
• memorial in Mtsensk;
• memorial complex in Izium;
• Museum of the Korsun-Shevchenskaya Battle (Cherkasy region);
• military museum in Seoul;
• museum in Belgorod;
• WWII Museum in the village of Padikovo (Moscow region);
• OJSC Kirov Machinery Plant May 1;
• memorial in Tula.

Katyusha is used in several computer games, two combat vehicles remain in service with the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Thus, the Katyusha MLRS installation was a powerful psychological and rocket-artillery weapon during the Second World War. The weapons were used for massive attacks on large concentrations of troops, and at the time of the war they were superior to enemy counterparts.

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 adopted by the Air Force of the Soviet Union. They were used on the I-15, I-16, I-153 fighters, and later on the Il-2 attack aircraft.

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

The combat vehicles were equipped with high-explosive fragmentation shells of 132 mm caliber called M-13, which were put into mass production just a few days before the start of the war. On June 26, 1941, the assembly of the first two production BM-13s based on the ZIS-6 was completed in Voronezh. On June 28, the installations were tested at a 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, a self-propelled unit with 12 guides was created for them, 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

After the adoption of 82-mm air-to-air missiles RS-82 (1937) and 132-mm air-to-ground missiles RS-132 (1938) into aviation service, the Main Artillery Directorate set the projectile developer - Reactive Research Institute - the task of creating a multiple launch rocket system based on RS-132 projectiles. The updated tactical and technical specifications were 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 aircraft RS-132, this projectile had a longer flight range and a significantly more powerful warhead. The increase in flight range was achieved by increasing the amount of rocket fuel; this required lengthening the rocket and warhead parts of the rocket 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 multi-charge 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 unit, first sample). Field tests of the installation carried out between December 1938 and February 1939 showed that it did not fully meet the requirements. Taking into account the test results, the Jet Research Institute developed a new MU-2 launcher, which was accepted by the Main Artillery Directorate for field testing in September 1939. Based on the results of field tests completed in November 1939, the institute was ordered five launchers for military testing. Another installation was ordered by the Ordnance Department of the Navy for use in the coastal defense system.

On June 21, 1941, the installation was demonstrated to the leaders of the All-Union Communist Party (6) and the Soviet government, and on the same day, literally a few hours before the start of the Great Patriotic War, a decision was made to urgently launch mass production of M-13 missiles and the launcher, which received official name BM-13 (combat vehicle 13).

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

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

The BM-13 "Katyusha" includes the following military means:

Combat vehicle (BM) MU-2 (MU-1);
Missiles.
M-13 rocket:

The M-13 projectile consists of a warhead and a powder jet engine. The design of the warhead resembles a high-explosive fragmentation artillery shell and is equipped with an explosive charge, which is detonated using a contact fuse and an additional detonator. Jet engine has a combustion chamber in which a propellant propellant charge is placed in the form of cylindrical blocks with an axial channel. Pyro-igniters are used to ignite the powder charge. The gases formed during the combustion of powder bombs flow through the nozzle, in front of which there is a diaphragm that prevents the bombs from being ejected through the nozzle. Stabilization of the projectile in flight is ensured 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, but allows for a greater range of projectile flight. In addition, the use of a feathered stabilizer greatly simplifies the technology for producing rocket projectiles).

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

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

MLRS "Katyusha" launcher:

A self-propelled multi-charge launcher has been 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 relative 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. Safety was also not ensured when controlling fire from the driver's cabin. The launcher swayed violently, which worsened the accuracy of the rockets' firing. Loading the launcher from the front of the rails was inconvenient and time-consuming. The ZIS-5 vehicle had limited cross-country ability.

A more advanced MU-2 launcher based on the 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 a “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 was previously the case. Once assembled, the artillery unit was relatively easily mounted on the chassis of any make of car with minimal modification to the latter. The created design made it possible to reduce the labor intensity, manufacturing time and cost of launchers. The weight of the artillery unit was reduced by 250 kg, the cost by more than 20 percent. The combat and operational qualities of the installation were significantly increased. Due to the introduction of armor for the gas tank, gas pipeline, side and rear walls of the driver's cabin, the survivability of the launchers in combat was increased. The firing sector was increased, the stability of the launcher in the traveling position was increased, and improved lifting and turning mechanisms made it possible to increase the speed of pointing the installation at the target. Before launch, the MU-2 combat vehicle was jacked up similarly to the MU-1. The forces rocking the launcher, thanks to the location of the guides along the chassis of the vehicle, 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. This was more convenient and made it possible to significantly speed up the operation. The MU-2 installation had a rotating and lifting mechanism 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 cabin. The cockpit windows were covered with armored folding shields. Opposite the seat of the commander of the combat vehicle, on the front panel there was mounted a small rectangular box with a turntable, reminiscent of a telephone dial, and a handle for turning the dial. This device was called the “fire control panel” (FCP). From it went a harness of wires to a special battery and to each guide.

With one turn of the launcher handle, the electrical circuit closed, the squib placed in the front part of the projectile’s rocket chamber was triggered, 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 it took to transfer the MU-2 launcher from traveling to combat position was 2-3 minutes, the vertical firing angle ranged from 4° to 45°, and the horizontal firing angle was 20°.

The design of the launcher allowed it to move in a charged state with fairly high speed(up to 40 km/h) and rapid deployment to a firing position, which contributed to the delivery of surprise attacks on the enemy.

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

Tactical and technical characteristics of the BM-13 "Katyusha" MLRS
M-13 rocket
Caliber, mm 132
Projectile weight, kg 42.3
Warhead mass, kg 21.3
Mass of explosive, kg 4.9
Maximum firing range, km 8.47
Salvo production time, sec 7-10
MU-2 combat vehicle
Base ZiS-6 (8x8)
BM weight, t 43.7
Maximum speed, km/h 40
Number of guides 16
Vertical firing angle, degrees from +4 to +45
Horizontal firing angle, 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 Jet 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 located on it.

The exceptional efficiency of the battery of Captain I. A. Flerov and the seven more such batteries formed after it contributed to the rapid increase in the rate of production of jet weapons. Already in the autumn of 1941, 45 three-battery divisions with four launchers per battery operated at the fronts. For their armament, 593 BM-13 installations were manufactured in 1941. 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 1,414 personnel, 36 BM-13 launchers and 12 37-mm anti-aircraft guns. The regiment's salvo amounted to 576 132mm shells. At the same time, enemy personnel and military equipment were destroyed over an area of ​​over 100 hectares. Officially, the regiments were called Guards Mortar Regiments of the Reserve Artillery of the Supreme High Command.

Categories:

"Katyusha"
The Guards rocket mortar became one of the most terrible types of weapons of the Great Patriotic War
Now no one can say for sure under what circumstances the multiple rocket launcher received a female name, and even in a diminutive form - “Katyusha”. One thing is known - not all types of weapons received nicknames at the front. 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 its 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.” There were, however, also formidable nicknames - the heavy self-propelled artillery unit Su-152, which was capable of knocking down the turret of a Tiger with one shot, was respectfully called the “St. one-story house - "sledgehammer". In any case, the names most often given were stern and strict. And here is such unexpected tenderness, if not love...

However, if you read the memories of veterans, especially those who, in their military profession, depended on the actions of mortars - infantrymen, tank crews, signalmen, then it becomes clear why the soldiers loved these combat vehicles so much. In terms of its combat power, "Katyusha" had no equal.

Suddenly there was a grinding noise behind us, a rumble, and fiery arrows flew through us to the heights... At the heights, everything was covered with fire, smoke and dust. In the midst of this chaos, fiery candles flared from individual explosions. A terrible roar reached us. When all this calmed down and the command “Forward” was heard, we took the height, meeting almost no resistance, we “played the Katyushas” so cleanly... At the height, when we got up there, we saw that everything had been plowed up. There are almost no traces left 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 amount the survivors were sent to the rear. There was fear on the faces of the Germans. They had not yet understood what had happened to them, and had not recovered from the Katyusha salvo.

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

Each projectile was approximately equal in power to a howitzer, but the installation itself could almost simultaneously fire, depending on the model and size of the ammunition, from eight to 32 missiles. "Katyushas" operated in divisions, regiments or brigades. Moreover, 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 launchers with 32 82-mm shells, then one salvo would already amount to 160 missiles. What are 160 rockets that fall on a small village or 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 Katyusha brigades, and this is more than a hundred vehicles, or more than three thousand shells in one salvo. Probably no one can imagine what three thousand shells are that plow up trenches and fortifications in half a minute...

During the offensive, the Soviet command tried to concentrate as much artillery as possible at the forefront 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 was able to provide such fire. In 1945, during the offensive, the Soviet command concentrated up to 230-260 cannon artillery guns along one 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 an artillery attack: rocket launchers fired a salvo when the infantry was already attacking. Often, after several volleys of Katyusha rockets, the infantrymen entered an empty 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 configured. When set to fragmentation action, the rocket exploded immediately after it reached the ground; in the case of a “high-explosive” installation, the fuse fired with a slight delay, allowing the projectile to go deeper into the ground or other obstacle. However, in both cases, if the enemy soldiers were in well-fortified trenches, then the losses from the shelling were small. Therefore, Katyushas were often used at the beginning of an artillery attack in order to prevent enemy soldiers from having time to hide in the trenches. It was thanks to the surprise and power of one salvo that the use of rocket mortars brought success.

Already on the slope of the height, just a short distance from reaching the battalion, we unexpectedly came under a salvo from our native Katyusha - a multi-barreled rocket mortar. It was terrible: mines exploded around us within a minute, one after another. large caliber. It took them a while to catch their breath and come to their senses. Now newspaper reports about cases in which German soldiers who were under fire from Katyusha rockets went crazy seemed quite plausible.

“If you attract an artillery regiment, the regiment commander will definitely say: “I don’t have this data, I have to shoot the guns.” If he starts shooting, and they shoot with one gun, taking the target into the fork - this is a signal to the enemy: what to do? Take cover It usually takes 15-20 seconds to cover. During this time, the artillery barrel will fire one or two shells, and in 15-20 seconds I will fire 120 missiles, all at once,” says the commander of the rocket mortar regiment, Alexander Filippovich Panuev.

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

The psychological component of any weapon should not 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 attacks by German Tiger tanks, anti-tank gun crews sometimes left their positions in fear of the steel monsters. "Katyushas" had the same psychological effect. For this terrible howl, by the way, they received the nickname “Stalin’s organs” from the Germans.

The only people in the Red Army who were not comfortable with the Katyusha were the artillerymen. The fact is that mobile installations of rocket mortars usually moved into positions immediately before the salvo and just as quickly tried to leave. At the same time, the Germans, for obvious reasons, tried to destroy the Katyushas first. Therefore, immediately after a salvo of rocket mortars, their positions, as a rule, began to be intensively attacked by German artillery and aviation. And given that the positions of cannon artillery and rocket-propelled mortars were often located not far from each other, the raid covered the artillerymen who remained where the rocket men were firing from.

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

“We choose firing positions. They tell us: “There is a firing position in such and such a place, you will wait for soldiers or beacons placed.” We accept firing position at night. At this time the Katyusha division is approaching. If I had time, I would immediately remove my position from there. The Katyushas fired a salvo at the cars and left. And the Germans raised nine Junkers to bomb the division, and the division ran away. They're on the battery. There was a commotion! An open place, they hid under the gun carriages. They bombed, some hit or miss, and left,” says former artilleryman Ivan Trofimovich Salnitsky.

According to former Soviet rocket scientists, who fought on the Katyushas, ​​most often the divisions operated within several tens of kilometers of front, appearing where their support was needed. First, officers entered the positions and made the appropriate 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 vehicles moved into position, fired several salvos (most often, no more than five) and urgently went to the rear. Delay in this case was indeed like death - the Germans immediately covered the place from which the rocket mortars were fired with artillery fire.

During the offensive, the tactics of using Katyushas, ​​which were finally perfected by 1943 and were used everywhere until the end of the war, were different. At the very beginning of the offensive, when it was necessary to break through the enemy’s deeply layered defenses, artillery (barrel and rocket) formed the so-called “barrage of fire.” At the beginning of the shelling, all howitzers (often even heavy self-propelled guns) and rocket-propelled mortars “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 this, the fire was transferred inland - to the third line, and meanwhile the infantrymen occupied the second. Moreover, the further the infantry went, the less cannon artillery could support it - towed guns could not accompany it throughout the entire offensive. This task was assigned to self-propelled units and "Katyusha". It was they who, together with the tanks, followed the infantry, supporting them with fire. According to those who participated in such offensives, after the “barrage” of Katyusha rockets, the infantry walked along a scorched strip of land several kilometers wide, on which there were no traces of carefully prepared defenses.

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

After the war, Katyushas began to be installed on pedestals - the 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 vehicles that fought in the Great Patriotic War. The fact is that these monuments almost always feature a rocket launcher based on the ZiS-6 vehicle. 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 guides for missiles off-road. It's not just the relatively low-power engine - the frames of these trucks couldn't support the weight of the unit. Actually, the Studebakers also tried not to overload with missiles - if they had to travel to a position from afar, then the missiles were loaded immediately before the salvo.

In addition to ZiSovs, Chevrolets and the most common Studebakers among Katyushas, ​​the Red Army used T-70 tanks as chassis for rocket launchers, but they were quickly abandoned - the tank’s engine and its transmission turned out to be too weak for this purpose. so that the installation can continuously cruise along the front line. At first, the rocketeers did without a chassis at all - the M-30 launch frames were transported in the backs of trucks, unloading them directly to their positions.

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

M-8 - caliber 82 millimeters, weight eight kilograms, damage radius 10-12 meters, firing range 5500 meters

M-13 - caliber 132 millimeters, weight 42.5 kilograms, firing range 8470 meters, damage radius 25-30 meters

M-30 - caliber 300 millimeters, weight 95 kilograms, firing range 2800 meters (after modification - 4325 meters). These shells were launched from stationary M-30 machines. They were supplied in special frame boxes, 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, installed slightly at an angle, forced the rocket to rotate along its 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 received signal flares from his light hand, which were used during Northern War. At the same time, missile “departments” appeared in various artillery schools. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Military Scientific Committee began creating combat missiles. For a long time Various military departments carried out testing and development in the field of rocket science. In this case, the Russian designers Kartmazov and Zasyadko showed themselves clearly, who independently developed their missile systems.

This weapon was highly appreciated by Russian military leaders. The Russian army adopted incendiary and high-explosive missiles of domestic production, as well as gantry, frame, tripod and carriage-type launchers.

In the 19th century, rockets were used in many military conflicts. In August 1827, 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. Subsequently, it was in the Caucasus that these weapons were used most of all. Thousands of missiles were transported to the Caucasus, and thousands were used during storming of 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 infantry and cavalry in the battles near Shumla and during the siege of the Turkish fortresses of Varna and Silistria.

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 St. Petersburg missile establishment already amounted to many thousands. They were equipped with artillery units, the navy, and even supplied to the cavalry - a rocket launcher was developed for Cossack and cavalry units weighing only a few pounds, which was used to arm individual cavalrymen instead hand weapons or peak. Only from 1851 to 1854 in active army 12,550 two-inch rockets were launched.

At the same time, their design, tactics of use, chemical composition filler, launchers. It was at that time that the shortcomings of 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 since it is currently impossible to fulfill such a condition, when using missiles against the enemy, one should primarily operate with several missiles at once, in rapid fire or in a salvo. Thus “In this way, if not by the accuracy of the strike of each individual rocket, 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. At first, their shells were also not particularly accurate, but this deficiency was compensated by the number of missiles fired.

New impetus for development missile weapons received in the 20th century. Russian scientists Tsiolkovsky, Kibalchich, Meshchersky, Zhukovsky, Nezhdanovsky, Tsander and others developed the theoretical foundations of rocketry and astronautics, created the scientific prerequisites for design theory rocket engines, predetermining the appearance of "Katyusha".

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

KATYUSH VOLLOSE. Photo from the archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense

The first battle involving 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 Orsha station - a more than tempting goal. Captain Flerov's battery approached the station and at 15:15 fired only one salvo. Within a few seconds the station was literally mixed with the ground. In the report, the captain later wrote: “The results are excellent. A continuous sea of ​​fire.”

The fate of Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov, like the fate of hundreds of thousands of Soviet military personnel in 1941, turned out to be tragic. For several months he managed to operate quite successfully, escaping enemy fire. Several times the battery found itself surrounded, but always returned to its own, maintaining military equipment. She fought her last battle on October 30 near Smolensk. Once surrounded, the fighters were forced to blow up the launchers (each vehicle had a box of explosives and a fire cord - under no circumstances were the launchers supposed to fall into the hands of the enemy). Then, breaking out of the “cauldron”, most of them, including Captain Flerov, died. Only 46 battery artillerymen 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 the same “sea of ​​fire” that Flerov wrote about in the first report from near Orsha. Then this sea will accompany the Germans along their entire sad path - 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 - these were ordinary soldiers and officers, and those who ordered them to go to Orsha learned about how the Stalinist organs sing less than four years later - in May 1945, when this music sounded in sky

The Soviet Katyusha multiple launch rocket system is one of the most recognizable symbols of the Great Patriotic War. In terms of popularity, the legendary Katyusha is not much inferior to the T-34 tank or the PPSh assault rifle. It is still not known for certain where this name came from (there are numerous versions), but the Germans called these installations “Stalinist organs” and were terribly afraid of them.

“Katyusha” is the collective name for several rocket launchers from the Great Patriotic War. Soviet propaganda presented them as exclusively domestic “know-how,” which was not true. Work in this direction was carried out in many countries, and the famous German six-barreled mortars are also MLRS, albeit of a slightly different design. The Americans and the British also used rocket artillery.

However, the Katyusha became the most effective and most mass-produced vehicle of its class during World War II. BM-13 is a real weapon of Victory. She took part in all significant battles on the Eastern Front, clearing the way for infantry formations. The first Katyusha salvo was fired in the summer of 1941, and four years later the BM-13 installations were already shelling besieged Berlin.

A little history of the BM-13 Katyusha

Several reasons contributed to the revival of interest in rocket weapons: firstly, more advanced types of gunpowder were invented, which made it possible to significantly increase the flight range of rockets; secondly, the missiles were perfect as weapons for combat aircraft; and thirdly, rockets could be used to deliver toxic substances.

The last reason was the most important: based on the experience of the First World War, the military had little doubt that the next conflict would definitely not happen without military gases.

In the USSR, the creation of rocket weapons began with the experiments of two enthusiasts - Artemyev and Tikhomirov. In 1927, smokeless pyroxylin-TNT gunpowder was created, and in 1928, the first rocket was developed that managed to fly 1,300 meters. At the same time, the targeted development of missile weapons for aviation began.

In 1933, experimental samples of aircraft rockets of two calibers appeared: RS-82 and RS-132. The main drawback of the new weapons, which absolutely did not suit the military, was their low accuracy. The shells had a small tail that did not exceed its caliber, and a pipe was used as a guide, which was very convenient. However, to improve the accuracy of the missiles, their empennage had to be increased and new guides had to be developed.

In addition, pyroxylin-TNT gunpowder was not very suitable for mass production of this type of weapon, so it was decided to use tubular nitroglycerin gunpowder.

In 1937, new missiles with enlarged tails and new open rail-type guides were tested. Innovations significantly improved the accuracy of fire and increased the missile's flight range. In 1938, the RS-82 and RS-132 missiles were put into service and began to be mass-produced.

In the same year, the designers were given a new task: to create a rocket system for the ground forces, using a 132 mm caliber rocket as a basis.

In 1939, the 132-mm M-13 high-explosive fragmentation projectile was ready; it had a more powerful warhead and an increased flight range. Such results were achieved by lengthening the ammunition.

In the same year, the first MU-1 rocket launcher was manufactured. Eight short guides were installed across the truck, and sixteen missiles were attached to them in pairs. This design turned out to be very unsuccessful; during the salvo, the vehicle swayed strongly, which led to a significant decrease in the accuracy of the battle.

In September 1939, testing began on a new rocket launcher, the MU-2. The basis for it was the three-axle ZiS-6 truck; this vehicle provided the combat complex with high maneuverability and allowed it to quickly change positions after each salvo. Now the guides for the missiles were located along the car. In one salvo (about 10 seconds), the MU-2 fired sixteen shells, the weight of the installation with ammunition was 8.33 tons, the firing range exceeded eight kilometers.

With this design of the guides, the rocking of the car during a salvo became minimal, in addition, two jacks were installed in the rear of the car.

In 1940, state tests of the MU-2 were carried out, and it was put into service under the designation “BM-13 rocket mortar”.

The day before the start of the war (June 21, 1941), the USSR government decided to mass produce BM-13 combat systems, ammunition for them, and form special units for their use.

The first experience of using the BM-13 at the front showed their high efficiency and contributed to the active production of this type of weapon. During the war, "Katyusha" was produced by several factories, it was established mass release ammunition for them.

Artillery units armed with BM-13 installations were considered elite, and immediately after their formation they received the name Guards. The BM-8, BM-13 and other rocket systems were officially called “Guards mortars.”

Application of BM-13 "Katyusha"

The first combat use of rocket launchers took place in mid-July 1941. The Germans occupied Orsha, a large junction station in Belarus. It has accumulated large number enemy military equipment and manpower. It was for this purpose that the battery of rocket launchers (seven units) of Captain Flerov fired two salvos.

As a result of the actions of the artillerymen, the railway junction was practically wiped off the face of the earth, and the Nazis suffered severe losses in people and equipment.

"Katyusha" was also used in other sectors of the front. New soviet weapons became a very unpleasant surprise for the German command. Particularly strong psychological impact Wehrmacht soldiers were affected by the pyrotechnic effect of using shells: after a Katyusha salvo, literally everything that could burn burned. This effect was achieved through the use of TNT blocks in the shells, which upon explosion formed thousands of burning fragments.

Rocket artillery was actively used in the battle of Moscow, Katyushas destroyed the enemy at Stalingrad, they tried to use them as anti-tank weapons on the Kursk Bulge. To do this, special recesses were made under the front wheels of the vehicle, so the Katyusha could fire directly. However, the use of the BM-13 against tanks was less effective, since the M-13 rocket was a high-explosive fragmentation projectile, and not armor-piercing. In addition, "Katyusha" has never been distinguished by high accuracy of fire. But if her shell hit the tank, everything was destroyed attachments vehicles, the turret often jammed, and the crew received severe concussion.

Rocket launchers were used with great success until the Victory; they took part in the storming of Berlin and other operations in the final stage of the war.

In addition to the famous BM-13 MLRS, there was also a BM-8 rocket launcher, which used 82 mm caliber rockets, and over time heavy ones appeared jet systems, launching 310 mm rockets.

During the Berlin operation, Soviet soldiers actively used the experience of street fighting they gained during the capture of Poznan and Königsberg. It consisted of firing single heavy rockets M-31, M-13 and M-20 direct fire. Special assault groups were created, which included an electrical engineer. The rocket was launched from machine guns, wooden caps, or simply from any flat surface. A hit from such a projectile could easily destroy a house or be guaranteed to suppress an enemy firing point.

During the war years, about 1,400 BM-8, 3,400 BM-13 and 100 BM-31 units were lost.

However, the story of the BM-13 did not end there: in the early 60s, the USSR supplied these installations to Afghanistan, where they were actively used by government troops.

Device BM-13 "Katyusha"

The main advantage of the BM-13 rocket launcher is its extreme simplicity both in production and in use. The artillery part of the installation consists of eight guides, the frame on which they are located, rotating and lifting mechanisms, sighting devices and electrical equipment.

The guides were a five-meter I-beam with special overlays. A locking device and an electric igniter were installed in the breech of each of the guides, with the help of which the shot was fired.

The guides were mounted on a rotating frame, which, using simple lifting and rotating mechanisms, provided vertical and horizontal guidance.

Each Katyusha was equipped with an artillery sight.

The crew of the vehicle (BM-13) consisted of 5-7 people.

The M-13 rocket consisted of two parts: a combat and a jet powder engine. Warhead, which contained an explosive and a contact fuse, is very reminiscent of the warhead of a conventional artillery high-explosive fragmentation projectile.

The powder engine of the M-13 projectile consisted of a chamber with powder charge, nozzles, special grilles, stabilizers and fuse.

The main problem faced by the developers of missile systems (and not only in the USSR) was the low accuracy of the missiles’ accuracy. To stabilize their flight, the designers took two paths. German six-barreled mortar rockets rotated in flight due to obliquely located nozzles, and flat stabilizers were installed on Soviet RSakhs. To give the projectile greater accuracy, it was necessary to increase its initial speed; for this, the guides on the BM-13 were longer.

The German stabilization method made it possible to reduce the size of both the projectile itself and the weapon from which it was fired. However, this significantly reduced the firing range. Although, it should be said that the German six-barreled mortars were more accurate than the Katyushas.

The Soviet system was simpler and allowed shooting over considerable distances. Later, installations began to use spiral guides, which further increased accuracy.

Modifications of "Katyusha"

During the war, numerous modifications of both rocket launchers and ammunition were created. Here are just a few of them:

BM-13-SN - this installation had spiral guides that delivered the projectile rotational movement, which significantly increased its accuracy.

BM-8-48 - this rocket launcher used 82 mm caliber projectiles and had 48 guides.

BM-31-12 - this rocket launcher used 310 mm caliber shells for firing.

310 mm caliber rockets were initially used for firing from the ground, only then self-propelled guns appeared.

The first systems were created on the basis of the ZiS-6 car, then they were most often installed on vehicles received under Lend-Lease. It must be said that with the beginning of Lend-Lease, only foreign cars were used to create rocket launchers.

In addition, rocket launchers (from M-8 shells) were installed on motorcycles, snowmobiles, and armored boats. The guides were installed on railway platforms, T-40, T-60, KV-1 tanks.

To understand how widespread the Katyusha weapons were, it is enough to cite two figures: from 1941 to the end of 1944, Soviet industry produced 30 thousand launchers various types and 12 million shells for them.

During the war years, several types of 132 mm caliber rockets were developed. The main directions of modernization were to increase the accuracy of fire, increase the range of the projectile and its power.

Advantages and disadvantages of the BM-13 Katyusha missile launcher

The main advantage of rocket launchers was the large number of projectiles they fired in one salvo. If several MLRS were operating in one area at once, the destructive effect was increased due to the interference of shock waves.

Easy to use. “Katyushas” were distinguished by an extremely simple design, and the sighting devices of this installation were also uncomplicated.

Low cost and easy to manufacture. During the war, the production of rocket launchers was established in dozens of factories. The production of ammunition for these complexes did not present any particular difficulties. Particularly eloquent is the comparison between the cost of the BM-13 and a conventional artillery gun of a similar caliber.

Installation mobility. The time of one BM-13 salvo is approximately 10 seconds; after the salvo, the vehicle left the firing line without exposing itself to enemy return fire.

However, this weapon also had disadvantages, the main one being low shooting accuracy due to the large dispersion of projectiles. This problem was partially solved by the BM-13SN, but it has not been completely resolved for modern MLRS.

Insufficient high-explosive effect of M-13 shells. "Katyusha" was not very effective against long-term defensive fortifications and armored vehicles.

Short firing range compared to cannon artillery.

Large consumption of gunpowder in the manufacture of rockets.

There was heavy smoke during the salvo, which served as an unmasking factor.

The high center of gravity of the BM-13 installations led to frequent rollovers of the vehicle during the march.

Technical characteristics of "Katyusha"

Characteristics of the combat vehicle

Characteristics of the M-13 missile

Video about MLRS "Katyusha"

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