Combat rocket launchers "Katyusha". Reference

Layouts military equipment both children and many men like to create with their own hands. This exciting hobby can be applied in the process of collecting crafts of wartime technology, in working with school students for or for an exhibition, dedicated to the Day Great victory.

many children preschool age like to play with cars and tanks, planes and armored cars. Also, the guys will be happy to provide all possible assistance in creating a model of military equipment with their own hands. For very young children, dads or older brothers can build appliances of such a size that the baby can fit in there and play with friends in the room.

Corrugated Carton Tank

To create military equipment from waste material, you need to find an old packing cardboard box. Product from corrugated cardboard will be tight and will be easier to play. For the main part, you will need a strip of cardboard 16-20 cm wide and 60 cm long. This strip is twisted into a tube, gluing the thin sides of the rectangle together. It turned out the body of the tank. Next, create the shape of a small box and attach it to the top. This is a tank turret.

Then we start working on the tracks. Carefully remove the top layer of paper from the cardboard so that the corrugated part remains on top. Then we cut out two strips 4 cm wide, the length corresponds to the perimeter of the case. The wavy part of the element is located outward, and the smooth side is smeared with PVA glue and glued to the edges of the case on both sides. The caterpillar is ready.

The wheels are created from twisted strips, 3 pieces on each side. They need to be glued tightly in the middle of the caterpillar. For the layout, it remains only to create a gun. First, we make a triangular base where the muzzle cylinder will be inserted. It can be rolled from simple cardboard or from a thin layer of the same box from which the entire layout was made.

Another tank model

This version of the tank is also made of thick packaging cardboard. In the manufacture of military equipment from paper and craftsmen often enjoy significant cost savings. And it’s easy to assemble such layouts. This version of the tank is made in one piece by folding and folding cardboard. The hull is assembled together with the tower. To do this, take a wide strip and bend to form the hull and tower. Then the sides are cut out along the contour, they are glued to the adhesive tape or from the inside to the strips of paper. Cut out from above sharp knife square hole. This is a tank hatch in which a child can put soldiers.

Caterpillars are made according to the same principle and attached to the sides. It remains to roll a triangular barrel out of cardboard and, having made a hole of the same shape in front of the tower, insert the gun barrel there. That's it, the do-it-yourself model of military equipment is made! You can start the game.

big plane

Such a large combat vehicle is made for kids. They can sit there and fly the plane while playing in the room. Making this toy is easy. You need to take a large box and cut off the closing part - the lid. On the sides, you need to cut out semicircular entrance places so that it is convenient for the child to climb there.

On both sides there are two slots where the wings are inserted. As you can see in the photo, making them is easy. A screw is attached to the front. You can attach it with a bolt, then the baby will be able to twist it. Children love dynamic toys.

The final touch when doing the work will be the tail. For such a structure, you need to glue a rounded triangle on a strip of cardboard in the center.

DIY paper machines

Schemes of various machines, including military equipment, can be found for sale - in stationery and toy stores. There are a number of magazines that produce ready-made circuits that are bought by both children and military equipment collectors.

The purchase option is enough to cut it with scissors and glue it together, smearing the white corners with PVA glue. If you do not have such a scheme, you can use the drawing of the combat vehicle presented in the article, and, having redrawn it, assemble the finished layout.

The fate of the developers:

Origin of the name Katyusha

There is no single version of why BM-13s began to be called "Katyushas". There are several assumptions:
1. By the name of Blanter's song, which became popular before the war, to the words of Isakovsky "Katyusha". The version is convincing, since for the first time the battery fired on July 14, 1941 (on the 23rd day of the war) at the concentration of Nazis on the Market Square of the city of Rudnya, Smolensk Region. She shot from a high steep mountain - the association with a high steep bank in the song immediately arose among the fighters. Finally, the former sergeant of the headquarters company of the 217th separate communications battalion of the 144th is alive rifle division 20th Army Andrei Sapronov, now a military historian, who gave her this name. The Red Army soldier Kashirin, having arrived with him after the shelling of Rudny on the battery, exclaimed in surprise: “This is a song!” “Katyusha,” Andrey Sapronov answered (from the memoirs of A. Sapronov in the newspaper Rossiya No. 23 of June 21-27, 2001 and in Parliamentary Newspaper No. 80 of May 5, 2005). Through the communication center of the headquarters company, the news about the miracle weapon named "Katyusha" within a day became the property of the entire 20th Army, and through its command - of the whole country. On July 13, 2011, the veteran and “godfather” of Katyusha turned 90 years old.

2. There is also a version that the name is associated with the “K” index on the mortar body - the installations were produced by the Kalinin plant (according to another source, the Comintern plant). And the front-line soldiers liked to give nicknames to weapons. For example, the M-30 howitzer was nicknamed "Mother", the ML-20 howitzer gun - "Emelka". Yes, and BM-13 at first was sometimes called "Raisa Sergeevna", thus deciphering the abbreviation RS (missile).

3. The third version suggests that this is how the girls from the Moscow Kompressor plant, who worked at the assembly, dubbed these cars.
Another exotic version. The guides on which the shells were mounted were called ramps. The forty-two-kilogram projectile was lifted by two fighters harnessed to the straps, and the third usually helped them, pushing the projectile so that it exactly lay on the guides, he also informed the holders that the projectile had risen, rolled, rolled onto the guides. It was supposedly that they called him “Katyusha” (the role of those who held the projectile and rolled up was constantly changing, since the calculation of the BM-13, unlike barrel artillery, was not explicitly divided into loader, pointer, etc.)

4. It should also be noted that the installations were so secret that it was even forbidden to use the commands “plee”, “fire”, “volley”, instead of them they sounded “sing” or “play” (to start it was necessary to turn the handle of the electric coil very quickly) , which, perhaps, was also associated with the song "Katyusha". And for our infantry, the volley of Katyushas was the most pleasant music.

5. There is an assumption that the original nickname "Katyusha" had frontline bomber, equipped with rockets - an analogue of the M-13. And the nickname jumped from the plane to rocket launcher through projectiles.

AT German troops these machines were called "Stalin's organs" because of the external similarity of the rocket launcher with the pipe system of this musical instrument and the powerful staggering roar that was produced when the rockets were launched.

During the battles for Poznan and Berlin, the M-30 and M-31 single launchers received the nickname "Russian faustpatron" from the Germans, although these shells were not used as an anti-tank weapon. With "dagger" (from a distance of 100-200 meters) launches of these shells, the guardsmen broke through any walls.

If Hitler's oracles had looked more closely at the signs of fate, then July 14, 1941 would certainly have become a landmark day for them. It was then that in the area of ​​the Orsha railway junction and the crossing over the Orshitsa River Soviet troops were first applied combat vehicles BM-13, received in army environment affectionate name "Katyusha". The result of two volleys on the accumulation of enemy forces was stunning for the enemy. The losses of the Germans fell under the column "unacceptable".

Here are excerpts from the directive to the troops of the Nazi high military command: "The Russians have an automatic multi-barreled flamethrower gun ... The shot is fired by electricity ... During the shot, smoke is generated ..." The obvious helplessness of the wording testified to the complete ignorance of the German generals regarding the device and specifications new Soviet weapons- jet mortar.

A vivid example of the effectiveness of the Guards mortar units, and their basis was the "Katyusha", can serve as a line from the memoirs of Marshal Zhukov: "Rockets by their actions produced complete devastation. I looked at the areas that were shelled and saw the complete destruction of defensive structures ... "

The Germans developed a special plan to capture new Soviet weapons and ammunition. In the late autumn of 1941, they managed to do this. The "captured" mortar was really "multi-barreled" and fired 16 rocket mines. His firepower several times superior in effectiveness to the mortar that was in service fascist army. Hitler's command decided to create an equivalent weapon.

The Germans did not immediately realize that the Soviet mortar they had captured was a truly unique phenomenon, opening new page in the development of artillery, era jet systems salvo fire (MLRS).

We must pay tribute to its creators - scientists, engineers, technicians and workers of the Moscow Reactive Research Institute (RNII) and related enterprises: V. Aborenkov, V. Artemyev, V. Bessonov, V. Galkovsky, I. Gvai, I. Kleimenov, A. Kostikov, G. Langemak, V. Luzhin, A. Tikhomirov, L. Schwartz, D. Shitov.

The main difference between BM-13 and similar German weapons was an unusually bold and unexpected concept: mortars could reliably hit all targets of a given square with relatively inaccurate rocket-propelled mines. This was achieved precisely due to the salvo nature of the fire, since each point of the shelled area necessarily fell into the affected area of ​​one of the shells. German designers, realizing the brilliant "know-how" of Soviet engineers, decided to reproduce, if not in the form of a copy, then using the main technical ideas.

Copy "Katyusha" as a combat vehicle was, in principle, possible. Insurmountable difficulties began when trying to design, develop and establish mass production of similar rockets. It turned out that German gunpowder cannot burn in the chamber of a rocket engine as stably and steadily as Soviet ones. The analogues of Soviet ammunition designed by the Germans behaved unpredictably: either sluggishly descended from the guides to immediately fall to the ground, or they began flying at breakneck speed and exploded in the air from an excessive increase in pressure inside the chamber. Only a few units made it to the target.

The point turned out to be that for effective nitroglycerin powders, which were used in Katyusha shells, our chemists achieved a spread in the values ​​of the so-called heat of explosive transformation no higher than 40 conventional units, and the smaller the spread, the more stable the powder burns. Similar German gunpowder had a spread of this parameter even in one batch above 100 units. This led to precarious work rocket engines.

The Germans did not know that ammunition for the "Katyusha" was the fruit of more than a decade of activity of the RNII and several large Soviet research teams, which included the best Soviet powder factories, outstanding Soviet chemists A. Bakaev, D. Galperin, V. Karkina, G. Konovalova, B Pashkov, A. Sporius, B. Fomin, F. Khritinin and many others. They not only developed the most complex recipes for rocket powders, but also found simple and effective ways their mass, continuous and cheap production.

At a time when the production of Guards rocket launchers and shells for them was unfolding at an unprecedented pace at Soviet factories according to ready-made drawings and literally daily increased, the Germans only had to conduct research and design work according to MLRS. But history didn't give them time for that.

But our toy army also needs equipment to transport foot soldiers and support the offensive with armored vehicles. We are now going to fill this gap. Today we have to learn how to make machines from matchboxes.

For work, we need several empty matchboxes, cardboard, an awl, a knife, PVA glue, scissors, a ruler, compasses and a simple pencil.

We also need to make our empty pen refills and insulated aluminum wire.

Well then, let's get to work. Take and remove the box from it. In the box itself, make side cuts according to the dimensions indicated in Figure 1a. and fold it up at a slight angle. The part that is shaded is to be cropped. Insert the box back into the box. We got the future cabin of the car.

Now take another box and cut its lid in half. Cut the removed one according to the dimensions indicated in the figure (Fig. 1b). Insert both parts of the cut box into the half of the box on both sides. Glue the resulting part to the cabin (Fig. 1c). Cut out two benches from the second half of the box (Fig. 1d) and fix them in the body with glue.

Next we will do undercarriage car. and with a compass draw on it twelve circles with a diameter of twenty millimeters (Fig. 1e). The circles should be cut out and glued together in four pieces (Fig. 1e). Paste the resulting wheels with prepared colored paper, as shown in the figure (Fig. 1g, Z.).

Now take the rods from fountain pens and make two axles of wheelsets out of them (Fig. 1k). Pierce all the wheels with an awl in the center and put them on the resulting axles. To prevent the wheels from flying off the axle, secure them with pieces of insulation from aluminum wire, pulling it gently with a knife.

Now we need to make bearings so that the wheelsets spin freely, and our homemade car can drive. We make bearings from cardboard (Fig. 1i). Bend the part along the dash-dotted lines in the form of a triangle (Fig. 1l), insert the wheels there and glue it to the bottom of the car. That's it, our matchbox car is ready to transport soldiers. You can make any number of such cars, as long as there are enough boxes.

To make an armored personnel carrier from matchboxes, you need to carefully consider Figure 2. Its device differs from a car only in that those boxes that are intended for making a hood (Fig. 2a, b) and making a tower (Fig. 2d, e) are cut obliquely and .

After you assemble the hood (Fig. 26), the body of the armored personnel carrier (Fig. 2c), as well as the turret (Fig. 2e), you need to cut out several round side and upper rectangular hatches for the turret (Fig. 2g). We will also make motor blinds (Fig. 2h).

The machine-gun barrel can be carefully rounded with a knife (Fig. 2f). Make a thickening by wrapping the base of the barrel with a thin copper wire, and glue it with a strip of colored paper. Now take the metal tip of the rod and pre-pierce a hole in the thickening of the machine gun with an awl, attach it to the tower by inserting it into the tower hole pierced with the same awl.

Figures 3 and 4 show how to make a Katyusha and a rocket launcher. The principle of their manufacture is the same as that of the machines described above. They are similar to trucks, but instead of a body they have special platforms (Fig. 3e and 4d), consisting of two parts. One part is made from the lid of the box (bottom part).

For "Katyusha" it is made rotary. It turns with the help of a round piece, which can be made from a piece or folded paper. One end of the tube is fixed at the bottom of the platform (Fig. 3f), its other end is inserted into the hole “o” of the second platform, which remains motionless (Fig. 3h).

To the inclined part of the platform (d), glue the next part (e), as shown in the figure (Fig. 3f).

We make Katyusha barrels in the amount of six pieces using a pencil, winding glued paper strips around it. Now you need to fix the trunks three pieces in a row on the part (d.) (Fig. 4)

The site, or rather, its upper part (c) at the rocket launcher is done a little differently. In the middle of the box, a longitudinal incision is made, which bends inward and is fixed with a clerical bracket. Then the upper honor is glued to the bottom of the site (Fig. 4d).

Glue the entire platform assembly in the back of the Katyusha. We do the same for the rocket launcher.

For a rocket launcher. Make its body as follows: wind a paper strip around a pencil (Fig. 4b) and glue its edge. Make the warhead and stabilizers as shown in the figure (Fig. 4e, f). It remains to glue them to the rocket body and fix them in the recess of the rocket platform.

All models of military equipment made by us can be painted with paints or pasted over with colored paper.

Our army has grown powerful armored vehicles, which we made with our own hands from ordinary matchboxes.

July 14, 1941 at one of the defense sectors 20 th army, in the forest to the east Orsha, flames shot up to the sky, accompanied by an unusual rumble, not at all like artillery shots. Clouds of black smoke rose from the trees, and barely noticeable arrows hissed in the sky towards the German positions.

Soon the entire area of ​​the local station, captured by the Nazis, was engulfed in furious fire. The Germans, stunned, fled in panic. It took the enemy a long time to gather their demoralized units. So for the first time in history they declared themselves "Katyusha".

The first combat use of powder rockets of a new type by the Red Army refers to the battles at Khalkhin Gol. On May 28, 1939, the Japanese troops that occupied Manchuria, in the region of the Khalkhin Gol River, went on the offensive against Mongolia, with which the USSR was bound by a mutual assistance treaty. A local, but no less bloody war began. And here in August 1939, a group of fighters I-16 under the command of a test pilot Nikolay Zvonarev first used RS-82 missiles.

The Japanese at first thought that their planes were attacked by a well-camouflaged anti-aircraft installation. Only a few days later, one of the officers who took part in the air battle reported: “Under the wings of Russian aircraft, I saw bright flashes of flame!”

"Katyusha" in combat position

Experts flew in from Tokyo, examined the wrecked planes, and agreed that only a projectile with a diameter of at least 76 mm could cause such destruction. But after all, calculations showed that an aircraft capable of withstanding the recoil of a gun of such a caliber simply could not exist! Only on experimental fighters 20 mm caliber guns were tested. To find out the secret, a real hunt was announced for the planes of Captain Zvonarev and his comrade-in-arms pilots Pimenov, Fedorov, Mikhailenko and Tkachenko. But the Japanese failed to shoot down or land at least one car.

The results of the first use of missiles launched from aircraft exceeded all expectations. In less than a month of fighting (on September 15, a truce was signed), the pilots of the Zvonarev group made 85 sorties and shot down 13 enemy planes in 14 air battles!

rockets, which proved to be so successful on the battlefield, were developed from the beginning of the 1930s at the Reactive Research Institute (RNII), which, after the repressions of 1937-1938, was led by a chemist Boris Slonimer. Directly worked on rockets Yuri Pobedonostsev, to whom now belongs the honor of being called their author.

The success of the new weapon spurred work on the first version of the multiply charged installation, which later turned into the Katyusha. In NII-3 of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition, as RNII was called before the war, this work was led by Andrey Kostikov, Modern historians speak rather disrespectfully of Kostikov. And this is true, because his denunciations about colleagues (for the same Pobedonostsev) were found in the archives.

The first version of the future "Katyusha" was charging 132 -mm shells similar to those fired at Khalkhin Gol by Captain Zvonarev. The entire installation with 24 rails was mounted on a ZIS-5 truck. Here the authorship belongs to Ivan Gvai, who had previously made the "Flute" - an installation for rockets on I-15 and I-16 fighters. The first ground tests near Moscow, carried out in early 1939, revealed many shortcomings.

Military experts who approached the assessment rocket artillery from the positions of cannon artillery, they saw a technical curiosity in these strange machines. But, despite the ridicule of the gunners, the staff of the institute continued hard work on the second version of the launcher. It was installed on a more powerful ZIS-6 truck. However, 24 rails, mounted, as in the first version, across the machine, did not ensure the stability of the machine when firing.

Field tests of the second option were carried out in the presence of the marshal Klima Voroshilova. Thanks to his favorable assessment, the development team received the support of the commanding staff. At the same time, the designer Galkovsky proposed completely new version: leave 16 rails and mount them longitudinally on the machine. In August 1939, the pilot plant was manufactured.

By that time, a group led by Leonid Schwartz designed and tested samples of new 132-mm rockets. In the autumn of 1939, another series of tests was carried out at the Leningrad artillery range. This time launchers and shells for them were approved. From that moment on, the rocket launcher became officially known as BM-13, which meant "fighting vehicle", and 13 is short for the caliber of a 132-mm rocket projectile.

The BM-13 combat vehicle was a chassis of a three-axle ZIS-6 vehicle, on which a rotary truss was installed with a package of guides and a guidance mechanism. For aiming, a swivel and lifting mechanism and an artillery sight were provided. At the rear of the combat vehicle were two jacks, which ensured its greater stability when firing. The launch of rockets was carried out by a handle electric coil connected to the battery and contacts on the rails. When the handle was turned, the contacts closed in turn, and in the next of the shells the starting squib was fired.

At the end of 1939, the main artillery control The Red Army was given an order by NII-3 for the manufacture of six BM-13s. By November 1940, this order was completed. On June 17, 1941, the vehicles were demonstrated at a review of the Red Army weapons, which took place near Moscow. BM-13 was examined by the marshal Tymoshenko, People's Commissar of Arms Ustinov, People's Commissar of Ammunition Vannikov and Chief of the General Staff Zhukov. On June 21, following the results of the review, the command decided to expand the production of missiles M-13 and installations BM-13.

On the morning of June 22, 1941, the employees of NII-3 gathered within the walls of their institute. It was clear that the new weapons would no longer undergo any military tests - now it is important to collect all the installations and send them into battle. Seven BM-13 vehicles formed the backbone of the first rocket artillery battery, the decision to form which was made on June 28, 1941. And already on the night of July 2, she left for the Western Front under her own power.

The first battery consisted of a control platoon, a sighting platoon, three firing platoons, a combat power platoon, an economic department, a fuel and lubricants department, and a sanitary unit. In addition to seven BM-13 launchers and a 122-mm howitzer of the 1930 model, which served for sighting, the battery had 44 trucks for transporting 600 M-13 rocket projectiles, 100 shells for howitzers, entrenching tools, three refueling of fuel and lubricants, seven daily norms of food and other property.

Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov - the first commander of the experimental battery "Katyusha"

The command staff of the battery was staffed mainly by students of the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy, who had just completed the first course of the command faculty. Capt. was appointed battery commander Ivan Flerov- an artillery officer who had experience behind him Soviet-Finnish war. Neither the officers nor the numbers of the combat crews of the first battery had any special training; only three classes were held during the formation period.

Developers run them missile weapons design engineer Popov and military engineer 2nd rank Shitov. Just before the end of classes, Popov pointed to a large wooden box, mounted on the footboard of a combat vehicle. “When you are sent to the front,” he said, “we will fill this box with heavy bombs and put a squib so that at the slightest threat of an enemy seizing a rocket weapon, both the installation and the shells can be blown up.” Two days after the march from Moscow, the battery became part of the 20th Army of the Western Front, which fought for Smolensk.

On the night of July 12-13, she was alerted and sent to Orsha. A lot of German echelons with troops, equipment, ammunition and fuel accumulated at the Orsha station. Flerov ordered to deploy the battery five kilometers from the station, behind the hill. The engines of the vehicles were not turned off in order to immediately leave the position after the salvo. At 15:15 on July 14, 1941, Captain Flerov gave the command to open fire.

Here is the text of the report to the German General Staff: “The Russians used a battery with an unprecedented number of guns. High-explosive incendiary shells, but of unusual action. The troops fired upon by the Russians testify: the fire raid is like a hurricane. The projectiles explode at the same time. The loss of life is significant." The morale effect of the use of rocket-propelled mortars was overwhelming. The enemy lost more than an infantry battalion at the Orsha station and great amount military equipment and weapons.

On the same day, Flerov's battery fired at the crossing over the Orshitsa River, where a lot of manpower and equipment of the Nazis had also accumulated. In the following days, the battery was used in various directions of operations of the 20th Army as a fire reserve for the chief of artillery of the army. Several successful volleys were fired at the enemy in the areas of Rudnya, Smolensk, Yartsevo, Dukhovshina. The effect exceeded all expectations.

The German command tried to get samples of the Russian miracle weapon. For the battery of Captain Flerov, as once for Zvonarev's fighters, the hunt began. On October 7, 1941, near the village of Bogatyr in the Vyazemsky district of the Smolensk region, the Germans managed to surround the battery. The enemy attacked her suddenly, on the march, firing from different sides. The forces were unequal, but the calculations fought desperately, Flerov used up the last of his ammunition and then blew up the launchers.

Leading people to a breakthrough, he died heroically. 40 people out of 180 survived, and everyone who survived after the death of the battery in October 41 was declared missing, although they fought until the very victory. Only 50 years after the first salvo of the BM-13, the field near the village of Bogatyr revealed its secret. The remains of Captain Flerov and 17 other rocket men who died with him were finally found there. In 1995, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, Ivan Flerov was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Russia.

Flerov's battery died, but the weapon existed and continued to inflict damage on the advancing enemy. In the first days of the war, the manufacture of new installations began at the Moscow Kompressor plant. Designers also did not have to be customized. In a matter of days, they completed the development of a new combat vehicle for 82-millimeter shells - BM-8. It began to be produced in two versions: one - on the chassis of the ZIS-6 car with 6 guides, the other - on the chassis of the STZ tractor or T-40 and T-60 tanks with 24 guides.

Obvious successes at the front and in production allowed Stavka Supreme High Command already in August 1941, to decide on the formation of eight regiments of rocket artillery, which, even before participation in the battles, were given the name "Guards mortar regiments of artillery of the reserve of the Supreme High Command." This emphasized the special importance attached to the new type of weapons. The regiment consisted of three divisions, the division - of three batteries, four BM-8 or BM-13 each.

Guides were developed and manufactured for the 82 mm caliber rocket, which were later installed on the chassis of the ZIS-6 car (36 guides) and on the chassis of the T-40 and T-60 light tanks (24 guides). Special launchers for 82 mm and 132 mm caliber rockets were made for their subsequent installation on warships - torpedo boats and armored boats.

The production of BM-8 and BM-13 was continuously growing, and the designers were developing a new 300-millimeter rocket M-30 weighing 72 kg and with a firing range of 2.8 km. Among the people they received the nickname "Andryusha". They were launched from a launching machine (“frame”) made of wood. The launch was carried out with the help of a sapper blasting machine. For the first time, "andryushas" were used in Stalingrad. The new weapons were easy to make, but they took a long time to set up and aim at. In addition, the short range of M-30 rockets made them dangerous for their own calculations. Subsequently, combat experience showed that the M-30 - powerful weapon offensive, capable destroy bunkers, trenches with canopies, stone buildings and other fortifications. There was even an idea to create a mobile phone based on Katyushas. anti-aircraft missile system to destroy enemy aircraft, however, the prototype was never brought to a production standard.

About efficiency combat use"katyush" in the course of an attack on the enemy’s fortified center, an example can serve as an example of the defeat of the Tolkachev defensive center during our counteroffensive near Kursk in July 1943. Village Tolkachevo was turned by the Germans into a heavily fortified center of resistance with a large number of dugouts and bunkers in 5-12 runs, with a developed network of trenches and communications. The approaches to the village were heavily mined and covered with barbed wire. A significant part of the bunkers was destroyed by volleys of rocket artillery, the trenches, together with the enemy infantry in them, were filled up, fire system completely suppressed. Of the entire garrison of the knot, which numbered 450-500 people, only 28 survived. The Tolkachev knot was taken by our units without any resistance.

By the beginning of 1945, 38 separate divisions, 114 regiments, 11 brigades and 7 divisions armed with rocket artillery were operating on the battlefields. But there were also problems. Mass production of launchers was established quickly, however wide application"Katyusha" was held back due to lack of ammunition. There was no industrial base for the manufacture of high-quality gunpowder for projectile engines. Ordinary gunpowder in this case could not be used - special grades were required with the desired surface and configuration, time, character and combustion temperature. The deficit was limited only by the beginning of 1942, when the factories transferred from west to east began to gain the required production rates. During the entire period of the Great Patriotic War, Soviet industry produced more than ten thousand rocket artillery combat vehicles.

Origin of the name Katyusha

It is known why the BM-13 installations began to be called "guards mortars" at one time. The BM-13 installations were not actually mortars, but the command sought to keep their design secret for as long as possible. When the fighters and commanders asked the representative of the GAU to name the “true” name of the combat installation at the firing range, he advised: “Call the installation as an ordinary artillery piece. It's important to maintain secrecy."

There is no single version of why BM-13s began to be called "Katyushas". There are several assumptions:
1. By the name of Blanter's song, which became popular before the war, to the words of Isakovsky "Katyusha". The version is convincing, since for the first time the battery fired on July 14, 1941 (on the 23rd day of the war) at the concentration of Nazis on the Market Square of the city of Rudnya, Smolensk Region. She shot from a high steep mountain - the association with a high steep bank in the song immediately arose among the fighters. Finally, the former sergeant of the headquarters company of the 217th separate communications battalion of the 144th rifle division of the 20th army, Andrei Sapronov, is now alive, now a military historian who gave her this name. The Red Army soldier Kashirin, having arrived with him after the shelling of Rudny on the battery, exclaimed in surprise: “This is a song!” “Katyusha,” Andrey Sapronov answered (from the memoirs of A. Sapronov in the newspaper Rossiya No. 23 of June 21-27, 2001 and in Parliamentary Newspaper No. 80 of May 5, 2005). Through the communication center of the headquarters company, the news about the miracle weapon named "Katyusha" within a day became the property of the entire 20th Army, and through its command - of the whole country. On July 13, 2011, the veteran and “godfather” of Katyusha turned 90 years old.

2. There is also a version that the name is associated with the “K” index on the mortar body - the installations were produced by the Kalinin plant (according to another source, the Comintern plant). And the front-line soldiers liked to give nicknames to weapons. For example, the M-30 howitzer was nicknamed "Mother", the ML-20 howitzer gun - "Emelka". Yes, and BM-13 at first was sometimes called "Raisa Sergeevna", thus deciphering the abbreviation RS (missile).

3. The third version suggests that this is how the girls from the Moscow Kompressor plant, who worked at the assembly, dubbed these cars.
Another exotic version. The guides on which the shells were mounted were called ramps. The forty-two-kilogram projectile was lifted by two fighters harnessed to the straps, and the third usually helped them, pushing the projectile so that it exactly lay on the guides, he also informed the holders that the projectile had risen, rolled, rolled onto the guides. It was supposedly that they called him “Katyusha” (the role of those who held the projectile and rolled up was constantly changing, since the calculation of the BM-13, unlike barrel artillery, was not explicitly divided into loader, pointer, etc.)

4. It should also be noted that the installations were so secret that it was even forbidden to use the commands “plee”, “fire”, “volley”, instead of them they sounded “sing” or “play” (to start it was necessary to turn the handle of the electric coil very quickly) , which, perhaps, was also associated with the song "Katyusha". And for our infantry, the volley of Katyushas was the most pleasant music.

5. There is an assumption that initially the nickname "Katyusha" had a front-line bomber equipped with rockets - an analogue of the M-13. And the nickname jumped from an airplane to a rocket launcher through shells.

In the German troops, these machines were called "Stalin's organs" because of the external resemblance of the rocket launcher to the pipe system of this musical instrument and the powerful stunning roar that was produced when the rockets were launched.

During the battles for Poznan and Berlin, the M-30 and M-31 single launchers received the nickname "Russian faustpatron" from the Germans, although these shells were not used as an anti-tank weapon. With "dagger" (from a distance of 100-200 meters) launches of these shells, the guardsmen broke through any walls.

If Hitler's oracles had looked more closely at the signs of fate, then July 14, 1941 would certainly have become a landmark day for them. It was then that in the area of ​​​​the railway junction of Orsha and the crossing of the Orshitsa River, Soviet troops for the first time used BM-13 combat vehicles, which received the affectionate name "Katyusha" in the army environment. The result of two volleys on the accumulation of enemy forces was stunning for the enemy. The losses of the Germans fell under the column "unacceptable".

Here are excerpts from the directive to the troops of the Nazi high military command: “The Russians have an automatic multi-barreled flamethrower cannon ... The shot is fired by electricity ... During the shot, smoke is generated ...” The obvious helplessness of the wording testified to the complete ignorance of the German generals regarding the device and technical characteristics of the new Soviet weapon - a rocket mortar.

A vivid example of the effectiveness of the guards mortar units, and their basis was the "Katyusha", can serve as a line from the memoirs of Marshal Zhukov: "Rockets by their actions produced complete devastation. I looked at the areas where the shelling was carried out, and saw the complete destruction of the defensive structures ... "

The Germans developed a special plan to capture new Soviet weapons and ammunition. In the late autumn of 1941, they managed to do this. The "captured" mortar was really "multi-barreled" and fired 16 rocket mines. Its firepower was several times more effective than the mortar, which was in service with the fascist army. Hitler's command decided to create an equivalent weapon.

The Germans did not immediately realize that the Soviet mortar they captured was a truly unique phenomenon, opening a new page in the development of artillery, the era of multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS).

We must pay tribute to its creators - scientists, engineers, technicians and workers of the Moscow Reactive Research Institute (RNII) and related enterprises: V. Aborenkov, V. Artemiev, V. Bessonov, V. Galkovsky, I. Gvai, I. Kleimenov, A. Kostikov, G. Langemak, V. Luzhin, A. Tikhomirov, L. Schwartz, D. Shitov.

The main difference between the BM-13 and similar German weapons was an unusually bold and unexpected concept: mortars could reliably hit all targets of a given square with relatively inaccurate rocket-propelled mines. This was achieved precisely due to the salvo nature of the fire, since each point of the shelled area necessarily fell into the affected area of ​​one of the shells. German designers, realizing the brilliant "know-how" of Soviet engineers, decided to reproduce, if not in the form of a copy, then using the main technical ideas.

It was, in principle, possible to copy the Katyusha as a combat vehicle. Insurmountable difficulties began when trying to design, develop and establish mass production of similar rockets. It turned out that German gunpowder cannot burn in the chamber of a rocket engine as stably and steadily as Soviet ones. The analogues of Soviet ammunition designed by the Germans behaved unpredictably: either sluggishly descended from the guides to immediately fall to the ground, or they began flying at breakneck speed and exploded in the air from an excessive increase in pressure inside the chamber. Only a few units made it to the target.

The point turned out to be that for effective nitroglycerin powders, which were used in Katyusha shells, our chemists achieved a spread in the values ​​of the so-called heat of explosive transformation no higher than 40 conventional units, and the smaller the spread, the more stable the gunpowder burns. Similar German gunpowder had a spread of this parameter even in one batch above 100 units. This led to unstable operation of rocket engines.

The Germans did not know that ammunition for the Katyusha was the fruit of more than a decade of activity of the RNII and several large Soviet research teams, which included the best Soviet powder factories, outstanding Soviet chemists A. Bakaev, D. Galperin, V. Karkina, G. Konovalova, B Pashkov, A. Sporius, B. Fomin, F. Khritinin and many others. They not only developed the most complex recipes for rocket powders, but also found simple and effective ways to mass-produce them continuously and cheaply.

At a time when the production of Guards rocket launchers and shells for them was being developed at an unprecedented pace at Soviet factories according to ready-made drawings and literally increased daily, the Germans had only to carry out research and design work on MLRS. But history didn't give them time for that.

The article is based on the materials of the book Nepomniachtchi N.N. "100 great secrets of World War II", M., "Veche", 2010, p. 152-157.

"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 them is associated with the factory mark "K" of the manufacturer of the first combat vehicles BM-13 (Voronezh Plant named after the Comintern), as well as with the popular song of the same name at that time (music by Matvey Blanter, lyrics by Mikhail Isakovsky).
(Military Encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing. Moscow. In 8 volumes -2004. ISBN 5 - 203 01875 - 8)

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

The first experience of using a new missile weapon showed its high combat effectiveness, which was one of the reasons for its fastest commissioning and equipping the Ground Forces with it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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