The largest ship caliber. The first cannons on sailing ships. Soviet naval artillery
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Episode of the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805: the stubbornly fighting French flagship - the 80-gun battleship Bucentaur (left) and the British 98-gun battleship of the 2nd class Temeraire, finishing off the enemy (right) Once upon a time, military fleets were large amphibious transport units, used primarily for transportation by sea. ground armies
and supplying them on long journeys. And if the ships of such fleets entered into confrontation, they simply stood side by side and decided the matter with hand-to-hand combat. However, with the development of naval artillery, ships were boarded less and less often and were increasingly limited to fire contact. Ship weapons for a long time
was represented only by examples of close combat - a ram and various mechanical devices for destroying oars, masts, sides and bottom. The means of land warfare developed more rapidly, and soon the opposing armies began to shower each other with huge stones, cobblestones, logs, arrows fired by petrobles, ballistas and catapults.
A new step in the use of throwing machines in naval combat was made by Demetrius I Poliocrets (c. 337-283 BC), a Macedonian king from the Antigonid dynasty. It was he who began to build huge warships, which he armed with throwing machines. Demetrius radically revised the tactics of naval combat, which then relied on speed and maneuverability, ramming strikes and fleeting boarding combat. In the battle of the Phrygian flotilla he led with the fleet of Ptolemy I at Salamis of Cyprus in 306 BC. e. Demetrius, having commissioned his "dreadnoughts", for the first time achieved victory in a naval battle only with the help of "artillery": floating batteries - ten six-row and seven seven-row ships - did not allow the Egyptian fleet to launch a ramming attack, pushed it to the shore and destroyed it. The number of Egyptian flotillas reached several hundred ships. After this battle, Demetrius I built several “leviathan-catamarans” with a crew of about 4,000 people each. The platform connecting the hulls of the catamarans accommodated a large number of throwing machines and soldiers. After the defeat of Demetrius I, his giant ships “went from hand to hand” for many years, ruling the vastness of the Mediterranean and bringing death and destruction.
Around the same time, triremes were replaced by larger ships with combat platforms on the bow and even with entire combat towers on which throwing machines - catapults (or easel bows) were installed. For shooting from them, arrows with a length of 44-185 centimeters and weighing up to 1.5 kilograms were used. The maximum firing range reached 300-400 meters, but the fire was most effective at a distance of up to 150 meters. And in the 3rd century BC. e. At the direction of the ruler of Syracuse, a huge 8-tower ship was built with a powerful catapult that threw large cannonballs and huge spears. Technical equipment This ship was carried out under the direct supervision of the famous Archimedes.
Hello, gunpowder
Roman "scorpion" from around 50 BC. e. The ancient Romans actively used similar throwing machines on their ships
With the invention and spread of gunpowder, ships received new, very powerful weapons for those times. The first to be “registered” in the fleet was the bombard (from the Latin bombus - “thunderous” and ardere - “to burn”), which was a large-caliber artillery piece with a cylindrical channel, structurally consisting of two individual parts: a trunk in the form of a thick and smooth inside pipe of equal thickness along the entire length, which had a composite structure (longitudinal forged iron strips were welded together in length and fastened with heavy iron hoops stuffed on them, hot-tensioned), and a chamber - a small pipe smaller than trunk, diameter, had a solid bottom.
The barrel was attached with iron hoops to a wooden block, in the rear part of which, behind the barrel, there was a recess for the chamber. The gunpowder was placed in the chamber, after which it was closed with a wooden stopper, and then inserted with the front end into the barrel. Moreover, in order to avoid breakthrough of powder gases, the connection between the chamber and the barrel was covered with clay. The shells - stone cannonballs - were inserted into the barrel from the breech. It is interesting that the stones were given a round shape not by hewing, but by wrapping them with ropes. In order to ignite the gunpowder, there was a hole in the chamber at the top, called the fuse. It was filled with gunpowder, which was ignited with a hot iron rod (in large bombards) or a special wick (in small bombards). Of course, these guns did not yet have any sights.
However, the sailors initially accepted the new weapon with reluctance - the gunpowder became damp in sea conditions and often did not ignite. It was necessary to duplicate the “underdeveloped” gunpowder artillery with a more reliable pre-powder artillery - throwing machines, which, after installing metal spring mechanisms, began to shoot much further. The “golden period” of ship bombards occurred in the 14th-15th centuries, when fleets consisted mainly of galleys and clumsy sailing naves: most often bombards were placed on the bow of the ship, and from 1493 they began to fire cast-iron cannonballs. The armament of a typical galley of that time included three to five guns at the bow - a 36-pounder stood in the middle, and two 8-pounders and a pair of 4-pounders on the sides and rear. Additionally, the galley also had stone throwers for throwing stones weighing 13.6-36.3 kilograms at close range - gunpowder artillery was not yet very reliable and misfired, which could be of poor service in close combat.
Technological revolution
At the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries, on the one hand, the rapid growth of productive forces began in the Netherlands, England and France, and on the other hand, the process of creating large colonial empires. Spain and Portugal first joined the “great game”, and then France, England and the Netherlands, which led to a gradual strengthening of the role of the navy in ensuring the national interests of the state, including those related to the disruption of enemy merchant shipping and the defense of its sea routes and coast.Improvements in metallurgical production technology have made it possible to improve the quality of tool casting. Bronze and cast iron replaced the iron from which bombards had previously been made. It became possible to reduce the weight of guns and improve their ballistic properties. The greatest successes in the development of artillery at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries were achieved by the French, who changed the very design of the gun and began to cast the barrel in one piece, abandoning its movable breech. Primitive sighting devices and wedge devices appeared to change the elevation angle of the gun barrel.
Mobile deck bombard-mortar. The sailors did not accept the first bombards well, but subsequently mortar bombards became widespread on ships
The casting of cast iron cores, which replaced stone ones, was of great importance. The use of a cast iron core made it possible to increase the barrel length to 20 calibers. The mass of the ammunition and its flight speed have increased. By the middle of the 16th century, the quality of gunpowder also improved: instead of the inconvenient and even dangerous pulp that stuck to the walls of the bore, it began to be produced in the form of grains, which made it possible to improve the ballistic qualities of guns and move on to new, more advanced designs of artillery barrels. All this led to optimization of the ballistic properties of the guns and firing efficiency. Incendiary and explosive cast iron cannonballs also came into circulation.
Naval artillery began to play an increasingly prominent role in the war in coastal areas. Thus, the outcome of the Battle of Gravelin on July 13, 1558, which took place between the French (Marshal de Termas) and Spanish (Count Egmont) armies on the coast of Pas-de-Calais, was largely predetermined by the unexpected appearance of 10 English ships. An artillery strike from the sea brought confusion to the ranks of the bravely fighting French, who could not withstand the subsequent attack and fled.
But a classic example of the successful and massive use of artillery in a naval battle is, of course, the battle of Lepanto (the medieval name of the city of Naftaktos, Greece) in the Gulf of Patraikos between the Turkish rowing fleet (276 galleys and galliots) and the united fleet of the Holy League consisting of Venice, the Vatican, Genoa, Spain, Malta, Sicily and others (199 galleys and 6 galleasses). This happened on October 7, 1571. The League then used its “miracle weapons” - floating batteries, galleasses, which threw the Turks into confusion in the very first minutes of the battle.
The sailing-rowing galleas (from the Italian galeazza - “big galley”), which became an intermediate type of warship between the rowing galley and the Spanish sailing ship - galleon, appeared as a result of the rapid development of artillery. As soon as the latter began to acquire serious importance on land battlefields, Venetian shipbuilders decided to create powerful floating batteries.
It was impossible to increase the number of artillery on light galleys or install heavier caliber guns on them. Therefore, they began to build, preserving as much as possible the previous drawing (but changing the proportions), longer, wider and taller, and as a result, much heavier ships (with a displacement of 800-1000 tons) with a high forecastle and quarterdeck and with loopholes for firing from arquebuses. The length of such ships increased to 57 meters with a length to width ratio of 6:1. Galeasses were much more clumsy than galleys, they moved for the most part under sail and only in battle they rowed.
The galleas's armament was distributed at the bow and stern, with the bow being more armed: the strongest gun, 50-80 pound, stood there, it rolled back all the way to the foremast, for which a free passage was left in the middle of the deck. Later, up to 10 heavy bow guns (in two tiers) and 8 stern guns were installed on galleasses, even many light guns were installed between the rowers, so total number guns reached 72. In the battle of Lepanto artillery weapons The galleasses were so outgunned by the galleys that the commander of each galleas was obliged to fight with five galleys. From now on, the main thing in a naval battle became the destruction of an enemy ship with the help of naval artillery or inflicting severe damage on it and only after that boarding it.
Artillery of Ivan the Terrible
One of the first bombards used on ships. The chamber is made removable: after filling it with gunpowder, it was placed in a wooden block, and the connection between the chamber and the barrel was coated with clay
In Russia, attempts to use naval artillery were made back in the pre-Petrine era.
Thus, the Chronicle of Abraham reports a battle in 1447 on the Narova River between the Livonians and Novgorodians, in which both sides used naval artillery. In 1911, an iron forged breech-loading gun, dating from the mid-15th century and belonging to the type of breech-loading guns with replaceable charging chambers common at that time, was lifted from the river. The caliber of the gun is 43 millimeters (or 3/4 hryvnia), length - 112 centimeters, weight - 34 kilograms. The barrel is made in the form of an iron pipe, the outer surface of which was reinforced with welded rings. An iron frame was attached to the breech to install the charging chamber, and a metal arc-shaped locking wedge was connected to the gun with a chain. The charging chamber was cylindrical, forged, in the front part it narrowed slightly to a cone, and in the rear part there was a ignition hole. The body of the gun, using iron hoops with nails, was secured in a wooden block 226 millimeters long, and in the middle part of the block there was a transverse hole for a removable trunnion. Most likely, this is what was used here in 1447.
The first real warship, armed with artillery, appeared in Rus' during the reign of Ivan the Terrible during the struggle with Livonia for the Baltic Sea coast. It was then that the Moscow Tsar decided to create a mercenary privateer fleet, whose task was to protect the Narva trade route and fight enemy maritime trade.
At the beginning of 1570, a year before the famous battle of Lepanto, Tsar Ivan IV issued a “letter of grant” to the Dane Carsten Rohde to organize a privateering flotilla. The newly-minted naval commander armed the first ship with three cast iron cannons, ten small-caliber cannons - “leopards”, as well as eight small shotguns called pishchal. The ship's actions were so successful that Rode soon had three armed ships (with 33 cannons), and by the beginning of August 1570 he was able to capture 17 enemy merchant ships. However, the unsuccessful attempt to take Revel caused the collapse of the privateer fleet of the Moscow Tsar - the ships simply had nowhere to be based.
Age of Sail
This is the common name for the period from 1571 to 1863 - the time when large sailing ships, well armed with numerous artillery, reigned supreme over the sea. Accordingly, for this period, its own unique naval tactics were developed - the tactics of the sailing fleet. But it took the admirals quite a long time to create it.As Alfred Stenzel wrote in his famous work “History of Wars at Sea,” the main reason for this state of affairs should be sought “in the main weapon of the ship, in the artillery, which was then still very imperfect: about long-distance combat in mid-17th century a century was out of the question. The fleets converged as close as possible to be able to fight." The admirals were forced to bring their squadrons close together, and the ships, having quickly exchanged gun salvos, ultimately still “fell into boarding battles” already at the first stage of the battle. In all maritime countries, even the stable term “dump” appeared, which was included in the works of military theorists and in manuals for navies.
But gradually the ships and their artillery weapons were brought to uniformity and standardized. This simplified both their production and the supply of fleets with combat and other supplies. The British were the first to build warships based on their purpose for solving individual tactical tasks, for example, battleships - for artillery combat in a wake column. They were the first to introduce massively into the fleet three-deck (three-deck) battleships, armed with very powerful large-caliber cannons that stood on the lower battery deck and caused severe damage. In the very first battle of the next Anglo-Dutch war, the three-deck giants of the British demonstrated their enormous destructive power - their advantages in close formation became obvious after the very first salvos.
The number of guns on ships began to constantly increase. Thus, in 1610, the British fleet included the 64-gun flagship Prince Royal, which had a length of 35 meters and a displacement of 1,400 tons, built in Woolwich by the outstanding shipbuilding engineer of that time, Phineas Pett. The ship was considered the founder of a new class - sailing battleships. In 1635, the French, under the leadership of shipwright C. Maurier, built the 72-gun galleon “La Corona” with a displacement of 2100 tons and a length of 50.7 meters. For almost 200 years it remained the standard of large sailing warship. And three years later, the British fleet received its “leviathan” - the 104-gun battleship Sovereign of Seas, built by shipbuilder Peter Pett and, after half a century of service, burned to the ground in 1696 from a simple wax candle forgotten by someone. The French built a similar, first three-deck battleship in their fleet only in 1670. It was the 70-gun Soleil Royale, created on the basis of the first technical rules introduced by the French Admiralty. By the way, the same Pett built for English sailors in 1646 the new 32-gun Constant Warwick - the first ship of the frigate class, designed for reconnaissance and protection of sea trade routes. And finally, in 1690, the British 112-gun battleship of the 1st rank “Royal Louis” was launched, long considered the best ship in its class - the ship with a displacement of 2130 tons served in the fleet for more than 90 years (!). For comparison: in Russia, at the beginning of the next century, the largest warship with 64 guns was built - the battleship Ingermanland, the flagship of Peter the Great during the Northern War.
Diagram of the installation of a caronade on the upper battery deck of a British warship. Late 18th - early 19th centuries:
1 - caronade, 2 - cable for opening the cannon port, 3 - cover of the gun port, 4 - fastening of eyelets for cables, 5 - cable closing the cannon port, 6 - gate for aiming the caronade at the target in height, 7 - slider, 8 and 9 - cannon hoists, 10 - trousers (British version), 11 - fastening the gun to the machine (an eye and an axle inserted into it)
We're on fire, brothers!
Along with the improvement of tactics and guns, naval artillery ammunition was also being developed. In the 17th century, explosive and incendiary shells, consisting of two hemispheres tied together with bolts, filled with either an explosive or a flammable substance, which when exploded, produced a lot of fire, smoke and stench, were widely used in navies. Incendiary shells - firebrands - replaced hardened cannonballs in the fleet, the use of which was associated with big amount problems. In Russia, by the way, red-hot cannonballs were used long before the time of Ivan the Terrible - they were called “heated”.The new ammunition turned out to be very effective in naval combat - they caused colossal damage to wooden ships and literally “mowed down” the crews and marines on the decks. This even caused a desire to ban such “inhumane” weapons - much earlier than the desire to ban the use anti-personnel mines Nowadays.
For the first time, explosive shells - bombs - were used by Russian artillerymen in 1696 during the capture of the Turkish fortress of Azov. Bombs were fired from short guns. It was difficult to do this with long ones: gunsmiths did not yet know how to make strong hollow projectiles suitable for firing from long-barreled guns. The result is a short firing range with such ammunition.
However, in 1756 in Russia, artillery officers M.V. Danilov and M.G. Martynov invents a new howitzer-type weapon, called the “unicorn”, capable of firing any projectiles: bombs, cannonballs, buckshot, firebrands and “luminous” ammunition. The very next year, the Russian army received five variants of “unicorns”, and soon they appeared in the navy. The high quality of the new gun was achieved due to the advantageous barrel length (an intermediate option between long naval guns 18-25 calibers long and howitzers 6-8 calibers long) and a conical chamber.
An interesting incident occurred during the Battle of Hogland on July 6, 1788 between the Russian and Swedish fleets during the Russian-Swedish War of 1788-1790. Russian gunners literally “bombarded” the Swedish ships with hollow shells filled with flammable substances - the Swedes even found traces of such ammunition on the quarterdeck of their flagship ship, from where Admiral General Duke Karl of Südermanland led the battle.
The Swedes, having suffered defeat in battle and took refuge in Sveaborg, through envoys pointed out to Admiral Samuil Karlovich Greig that “such shells are no longer used by civilized peoples.” The commander of the Russian squadron politely replied through the messenger that the firing of incendiary shells was carried out from his ships only after the Swedes themselves began to fire the same ammunition. As evidence, Greig handed over to the Swedish command a Swedish shell found by his subordinates, equipped with an iron hook. The Swedes were not satisfied with this and responded by saying that this shell was Russian, since they found the same ones on a captured Russian battleship. The Swedes themselves suggested, however, that these were grenades intended for action against the Turks (not long before this, in the Battle of Chesma, a Russian squadron, using mainly firebrands, burned to the ground the powerful Turkish fleet; by the way, S.K. Greig also commanded the Russians at that time), but anyway, they were “offended” by the “insidious Russians.” How can one not remember the saying: after a fight one does not wave one’s fists.
By the way, in that war the Swedes tried to introduce small-caliber guns of a new type (no more than 3-pound caliber), mounted on the deck on a vertical axis, which did not take root in the navy. Since they were intended for close-range combat, they used buckshot or stones as projectiles. And they were developed specifically for the so-called “skerry” ships, used for operations in shallow coastal areas. They were usually placed on the forecastle, above the bow guns, or on the poop deck.
Gun ports and gun decks
Russian "unicorn" of one-pound caliber (barrel diameter - 50.8 mm), mounted on a ship's machine. The barrel was cast in 1843 and is decorated with the traditional image of the mythical unicorn
One of the main promises for further improvement of naval artillery was the invention of such a seemingly simple design as a cannon port. It would seem that nothing could be simpler - cut a hole in the side of the ship and make a lifting lid to it. However, the first cannon ports appeared only around 1500.
There is also a supposed author of the invention - the French shipbuilder Descharges from Brest. It is believed that it was he who first used such a design on the large warship Charente, built during the reign of Louis XII. Moreover, the ship had, in addition to small guns, also 14 large guns mounted on powerful wheeled carriages. Soon he was joined by a ship of the same type, called La Cordeliere.
A cannon (gun) port is a hole that had a square (or close to it) shape and was cut into the sides of ships, as well as in the bow and stern. The latter were usually equipped with guns removed from the nearby side ports of the same artillery deck. They also made cannon ports in the bulwarks - for firing from guns placed on the upper, open deck, but in this case they could be without covers and were called half-ports.
The ports were tightly closed with lids, which were made of thick boards, sheathed transversely with thinner ones. Each cover was suspended on hinges located in its upper part and opened from the inside using cables, the ends of which were secured in eyelets on its outer side. The lid was closed with the help of other cables attached to the eyelets on its inside.
The dimensions of the ports and the distance between adjacent ports on the same artillery deck were determined based on the diameter of the core: usually the width of the port was approximately 6 diameters of the core, and the distance between the axes of adjacent ports was about 20-25 diameters of it. Naturally, the distance between the ports depended on the caliber of the largest guns located on the lower deck. Gun ports on the rest artillery decks they did it, relatively speaking, in a checkerboard pattern.
From now on, special artillery decks began to be built on ships, called “decks” (from the English deck - “deck”). Accordingly, ships with several artillery decks began to be called two- and three-deck. Moreover, the upper, open deck, on which the guns of the so-called open battery were installed, was not taken into account. Thus, a two-deck warship is a ship that had two artillery decks located below the upper deck.
Each artillery deck had its own name: the lowest one was called the gondeck (it was on all warships without exception), above it from the bottom up were the middeck and forward deck, and only then the open deck. On a two-deck ship there was no forward deck, and on frigates, corvettes and brigs there was no longer a middeck or forward deck. In addition, unlike a frigate, the “smaller” corvettes and brigs no longer had an orlopdeck (the lowest deck on large ships, above the hold) and a cockpit located on it - a room where hanging bunks were hung at night and the crew rested.
Types of ammunition for the artillery of the sailing fleet: 1. bomb 2. grapeshot charge (in the case) of the early type for conventional guns 3. from top to bottom: nipple with a chain, nipple with a rod, grapeshot charge with knitted grapeshot for firing from long-barreled guns (the term was used in the West “grape shot”) 4. from top to bottom: “scissors”, used to cause greater damage to rigging, deck structures and personnel, as well as another type of knipple - after the shot, the rods connected by a ring opened, separating the two halves of the hollow core into side 5. chain charge
Killer caronade
TO early XVIII century, naval cannons, which fired mostly ordinary cannonballs or small charges of grapeshot, could no longer cause much damage to large warships, which were distinguished by their large displacement, strong and thick sides and superstructures. In addition, the constant desire to increase the firing range and the mass of the projectile (core) led to the fact that the weight and size of ship guns turned out to be simply gigantic - they became increasingly difficult to aim and load. As a result, other important components of a successful naval battle also deteriorated - the rate of fire of the guns and the accuracy of their fire. And firing explosive (incendiary) ammunition (bombs) from such guns was generally impossible or ineffective and unsafe.Having assessed the situation, British Lieutenant General Robert Melville in 1759 proposed the idea of a lighter, but larger-caliber ship's gun. The idea aroused interest among the military and industrialists, and in 1769-1779, at the Carron plant (Falkirk, Scotland), under the leadership of engineer Charles Gascoigne, the final development was carried out and the first, as they now say - experimental, samples of a new weapon, which was first named Melvillada and Gasconade and only then - caronade.
Structurally, the caronade was a short-barreled cast iron (then bronze) thin-walled gun with a caliber of 12, 18, 24, 32, 42, 68 and even 96 pounds, which had a powder chamber of a smaller diameter, and therefore was charged with a small amount of gunpowder. That is why the speed of the cannonball was low - an ordinary cannonball caused damage not due to speed, but due to its large caliber and mass. But the new weapon was relatively light: for example, a 32-pound caronade weighed less than a ton. And an ordinary gun of this caliber weighed more than three tons. Such a caronade was even lighter than a 12-pound conventional cannon. It could fire cannonballs, bombs and a variety of other ammunition.
It was the large caliber and variability in the issue of ammunition that were the main advantages of the caronade, which influenced the nature and goals of naval combat. Indeed, at that time, boarding was still the main means of quickly and completely disabling enemy ships, especially large ones. You could fire cannonballs at each other, even hardened ones, for a long time and still not achieve results.
The most illustrative example here is the Russian battleship "Azov" (Captain 1st Rank M.P. Lazarev), which in the Battle of Navarino in 1827 received 153 holes in the hull from conventional cannonballs used in the Turkish fleet, but retained the ability to fight for three within an hour, he launched two frigates and a corvette to the bottom of the bay with his artillery, forced an 80-gun battleship to run aground, and destroyed another one - the enemy's flagship - along with the British. Moreover, the ship received seven holes in the underwater part.
Fire at close range from large-caliber cannonades using bombs and other ammunition made it possible to quickly disable an enemy ship, force it to lower its flag, or completely destroy it. The use of bombs and grapeshot charges had a particularly strong effect: in the legendary Battle of Trafalgar, from the battleship Victory (under the flag of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson), which quickly cut through the line of the enemy squadron, a salvo of two mounted on the French flagship Bucentaur was fired at forecastle 68-pound caronade. Shooting was carried out with grapeshot charges through the stern windows of the French battleship - along the stern and battery deck. Each charge included 500 musket balls, which literally riddled everything in its path. 197 people were killed and another 85 were wounded, including the ship's commander, Jean-Jacques Majendie. This salvo of two caronades inflicted irreparable losses on the crew and disrupted their formation, after which, after fighting for another three hours, the flagship, Vice Admiral Pierre Villeneuve, surrendered to the British marines from the Conqueror.
It's a bomb large caliber, exploding inside the ship, caused enormous damage to ship structures and tore apart the sailors who were there. In addition, the fire quickly caused the detonation of powder charges on artillery decks and often in ship magazines. And an ordinary cannonball fired from a caronade, thanks to its relatively low flight speed at short distances, literally broke through the side of an enemy ship and even shook the ship’s frame itself.
The fastening of caronades on ships was somewhat different: they were installed on sliders, rather than on wheeled ones. And the caronade was aimed at the target by rotating the knob, as in field artillery (not with the help of a wooden wedge, like with conventional naval guns). The caronade was attached to the machine using an eye (at the bottom of the barrel) and an axle inserted into it, and not using trunnions located on the sides of a conventional gun.
In the very first battles, the guns clearly demonstrated their advantages. Their effectiveness impressed the admirals so much that an arms race, one might say, began in Europe. The English fleet became a “pioneer” - the caronade began to be used there already in 1779. She received the spectacular nickname smasher - something like “destroyer” or “sweeping away everything in her path.” The new gun became so fashionable that ships appeared whose artillery armament consisted only of caronades; This was the British 56-gun battleship Glatton.
The Russian fleet adopted it for service in 1787 - at first these were English-made samples, but then Russian caronades, manufactured directly by the developer himself, Charles Gascoigne, came to the fleet. Having received instructions from Empress Catherine II, Russian diplomats did everything possible to lure the Scot to work in Russia, where from 1786 to 1806 he headed production at the Alexander Cannon Foundry in Petrozavodsk; the caronades there were marked with the words “Gascoigne” and “Alex. Zvd.”, had the gun number and year of manufacture.
The caronade began to be removed from service only in the middle of the 19th century. For example, the British did this only in 1850 - after the introduction of steel guns of the William George Armstrong system into the navy. The era of armored ships and rifled guns was coming.
Artillery on sailing ships began to fully manifest itself only in the 16th century. Although the appearance of the first guns on ships was noted in 1336-1338. One of the first mentions speaks of a cannon that fired miniature cannonballs or crossbow arrows, which was installed on an English royal ship.
The first use of naval artillery was recorded in 1340 during the Battle of Sluis, which, however, was not noticed by the majority of participants in the battle. Not only in the 14th century, but also throughout the 15th century, naval artillery was a rare and little-tested weapon. Thus, on the largest ship of that time, the English carrack "Grace Dew" ("The Grace of God", years of service: 1418-1439), only 3 guns were installed. Presumably in 1500, on the Charente carrack, the French shipbuilder Descharges first used cannon ports.
Following this event, in the first quarter of the 16th century, large carracks appeared in England - “Peter Pomigranite” (1510), “Mary Rose” (1511), “Henry Grace e" Dew (“Henry’s Grace of God”, 1514). The last one was the largest of them carried 43 cannons and 141 small rotary guns of the hand-held culverin class.
Until the end of the 16th century, catapults and ballistae were still used on ships. The first naval artillery gun was bombard. From the middle of the 15th century, cast iron cannonballs began to be used in artillery, and they also began to use red-hot cannonballs to set fire to enemy ships.
Boxes with bombards were usually placed without fastenings, so as not to damage the deck during recoil, tying them to the side with a pair of ropes, and small wheels were attached to the end of the box to return to their original position. The presence of wheels was a precursor to wheeled mounts, which became necessary when guns gradually moved from the main deck below the quaterline. With the development of metallurgy, tools began to be made not only from copper and wrought iron, but also from cast iron. Compared to forged ones, cast iron tools turned out to be easier to manufacture and more reliable in operation, therefore XVII century forged cannons are completely out of use.
Bombards of the 15th century.
In the era of the sailing fleet, sinking a wooden ship, even loaded with cannons and ammunition, was not so easy. In addition, the efficiency, range and accuracy of the guns of that time left much to be desired. In many cases, the success of the battle was decided by boarding, so the main goal of naval artillery was to hit the crew and rigging of the ship to deprive it of the ability to control it. By the end of the 15th century, mortars appeared on the decks of ships, which existed almost unchanged until the middle of the 19th century.
Mortar 1727.
In the 16th century, guns with a length of 5-8 calibers appeared - howitzers, which were adapted for firing buckshot and explosive shells. Around the same time, the first classification of guns appeared depending on the ratio of their barrel length to caliber: in increasing order - mortars, howitzers, cannons, culverins. The main types of ammunition also appeared: cast iron cannonballs, explosive, incendiary, buckshot. Gunpowder was also improved: instead of the usual powder mixture (charcoal, saltpeter, sulfur), which had a number of inconveniences in use and a significant drawback in the form of the ability to absorb moisture, granular gunpowder appeared.
Bronze ship culverins from the 16th century.
Since the 16th century, artillery has become the subject of scientific work and this affects its development - a quadrant and an artillery scale appear. Gun ports appeared on the sides of ships, and guns began to be placed on several decks, which significantly increased the power of a broadside salvo. In addition to increasing the number of guns on board, the invention of the gun port made it possible to install larger caliber artillery without affecting the stability of the ship by placing them closer to the waterline. By that time, artillery on ships was still insignificantly different from coastal artillery, but by the 17th century, the types, caliber, length of guns, accessories and methods of firing were gradually determined, which led to the natural separation of naval artillery, taking into account the specifications of firing from a ship.
Fragment of the lower battery of a sailing ship.
Machines with wheels for ease of reloading, vingrads to limit rollback, and a number of special accessories appear. The introduction of targeted shooting begins, and ballistics also develops. The main goal of naval artillery is still to defeat the enemy crew, and all naval battle tactics boil down to firing a successful salvo. In the 18th century, gunpowder improved, guns were charged in caps and cartridges, and flint locks for ignition appeared. The result is an increased rate of fire. Knipples, explosive bombs, firebrands and grenades appear. A new weapon has been introduced - the ship's "unicorn". In 1779, a gun called a carronade was designed specifically for the fleet. It became the lightest naval gun, which was located on the upper deck, had a length of 7 calibers and a small powder charge, and was also without trunnions.
A weapon mounted in a stowed position.
In the 19th century, the tasks of naval artillery changed - now the main objective not the crew, but the ship itself. To solve such problems, it was called upon to introduce bomb guns into the fleet - these are short, large-caliber guns that fire explosive shells. The demonstration of Peksan cannon by Commodore Perry during his expedition to Japan in 1854 convinced the Japanese authorities of the need to accept an unequal trade treaty with America and end the policy of isolation of the state.
With the introduction of these guns, the armament of the ships changed noticeably, and their armoring also began. TO 19th century the development of smooth-bore naval artillery reached the highest level. Improvements affected not only the guns themselves, but also machines, accessories, powder charges, ammunition, as well as shooting methods and techniques. Along with the armoring of ships, a turret system for placing guns and an increase in caliber are introduced. The weight of the installations reached 100 tons. To control such heavy and powerful guns, steam traction, hydraulics and electric motors began to be used. But the main step of naval artillery was the introduction of rifled guns in the second half of the 19th century.
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All warships are armed different kinds military weapons. Guns were of great importance for the development of the Navy of any country. The first of them appeared in the 14th century, but over the next 200 years artillery was practically not used. It was only at the end of the 16th century that they became an important element in naval battles. England is considered the ancestor of such weapons on board ships. What is the history of naval artillery? What types of guns left a significant mark on the history of world battles? How have these weapons changed over time? We will learn about all this below.
Prerequisites for the creation of naval artillery
The tactics of ship battles until the 16th century invariably included close combat and boarding. The main way to destroy an enemy ship is to destroy the crew. There were 2 main ways to get to an enemy ship during an attack:
- When a ship rammed an enemy with a bow ram, to inflict more time on the ship and crew;
- When they wanted to cause less damage to the ship, they used special gangways (corvus) and cables when the ships were aligned with their sides.
In the first case, when it is necessary to disable the enemy combat unit. Small guns were installed on the bow of the ship. Which, at the moment of ramming, fired cannonballs or grapeshot. Tearing apart the sides of the ship, the cannonball created many dangerous “splinters” up to several meters in length. Buckshot, in turn, was useful against groups of sailors. In the second case, the goal was to capture the cargo and the ship itself with less damage. In such cases, shooters and snipers were more often used.
Bow cannons were used in ramming
It was difficult to make an aimed and powerful shot from guns of the 14th-15th centuries. The stone cannonballs were poorly balanced, and the gunpowder did not have sufficient explosive power.
Smoothbore guns
Constant wars for new territories forced the production of increasingly powerful weapons for warships. At first they used stone projectiles. Over time, cast iron, much heavier, cannonballs appeared. For maximum damage, they were launched even when they were hot. In this case, there was a greater chance of the enemy target catching fire. It could have been for more a short time destroy more enemy ships and save your team.
To use such shells it was necessary to create new types of artillery. Thus, various types of smoothbore guns appeared, providing the possibility of long-range shooting and the use of a variety of charges. At the same time, the accuracy of the hit left much to be desired. Moreover, it was almost impossible to sink a wooden ship. Made of wood, they could remain afloat even with severe damage.
Bombard
The predecessors of ship guns were bombards. They were used in the 14th-16th centuries. During this period, it was still impossible to work with cast iron, the melting degree of which was 1.5 times higher than that of bronze or copper. That's why this weapon made from forged iron plates, they were attached to a wooden cylindrical form. From the outside, the structure was secured with metal hoops. At first, the dimensions of such weapons were small - the weight of the core did not exceed 2.5 kg. In those years, there was no standardization of weapons, so all subsequent, larger guns were also called bombards. So, some of them reached a weight of 15 tons. The total length of a large specimen could be 4 meters. The chamber is the back part of the weapon into which gunpowder was placed; in the first examples of bombards it was removable.
Bombard
The development of metallurgy made it possible to produce cast bombards from cast iron. They were more reliable in operation and easier to maintain. The most famous bombard, although not a ship's one, is the famous Tsar Cannon.
It is worth noting that, along with bombards, until the 16th century, ships had catapults and ballistae - devices for throwing stone cannonballs.
One of the most famous battles of the Middle Ages is considered to be the naval battle between Spain and England at the end of the 16th century. The Spanish Armada in those years was considered the most powerful military force in the world. In 1588, 75 warships and 57 Spanish transport vessels approached the English Channel. There were 19,000 soldiers on board. King Philip II wanted to take over the British island. At that time, Queen Elizabeth did not have a strong army, but she sent a small fleet to meet them, which had naval cannons on board.
The long-barreled bronze cannon, the culverina, also called the snake, could hit a target at a distance of up to 1000 meters. The projectile's flight speed was prohibitively high for the Middle Ages - about 400 meters per second. The British believed that a long barrel would help optimize the flight path. The Culevrins took the Spaniards by surprise, after which they turned their ships in the opposite direction. However, tragedy happened later. As a result of the Gulf Stream, a powerful current that was unknown to the Spaniards at that time, the arcade lost more than 40 ships.
Naval guns of the 17th century, the appearance of the “Classical cannon”.
Initially, all artillery pieces were called bombards, and then cannons. However, in the 16th century, after the advent of cast iron and the consequent development of ship armament, it was necessary to somehow classify all installations. Thus, it was customary to consider cannons to be artillery devices whose barrels were 10 feet long. This size was not chosen by chance; in England in the 17th century, there was an opinion that the length of a gun barrel was directly related to the range of the projectile. However, this turned out to be true, only in theory. The black powder used at the time had a low combustion rate, meaning that the projectile only gained acceleration in a small part of the gun barrel. Having calculated the optimal barrel length, they created a weapon that was not too large and heavy and had an optimal rate of use of the powder charge.
At the same time, it became possible to implement targeted shooting– the charge received a clear flight path. Weapons with a shorter barrel length were called mortars, howitzers, and others. Their flight trajectory was not strictly defined; the cannonball was launched upward - overhead firing.
Until the 17th century, artillery installations for sea and land battles were no different. But with the increase in naval battles, ships appeared additional elements for working with artillery. On warships, guns were tied with a powerful cable, which served to hold the ship's gun during rollback, and were also mounted on wheels. With their help, the device was returned to its original position. To reduce kickbacks, a vingrad was installed - a protruding part of the rear of the gun.
Sailors begin to study ballistics - the analysis of the movement of a projectile, which determines the speed and trajectory of flight. Ammunition consisted of cast iron cannonballs, grapeshot, and explosive or incendiary shells.
Increasingly, when evaluating a gun, attention was paid to aiming speed, simplicity and convenience of loading, and reliability. During naval battles The ship fired tens of tons of cannonballs at each other.
18th century ship cannons – Coronada
Warships in the 18th century already had a large number of cannons. Their weight and size were no different from 17th century installations. However, several improvements have been created:
- The ignition of gunpowder was no longer carried out using a wick - instead a flint lock was installed;
- The guns were located not only on the deck, they were installed throughout the ship: lower and upper decks, bow, stern. The heaviest installations were located in the lower part of the ship.
- For large guns, as before, a carriage with wheels was used. But now special guides have been made for them, along which the wheels rolled back when fired from a cannon and returned back.
- In the 17th century, cannonballs flew no more than 200 meters. Now the projectile covered 1000 meters.
- The quality of gunpowder has improved. In addition, it was already packaged in the form of caps or cartridges.
- New types of shells appear - nipples, explosive bombs, grenades.
Also at the end of the 18th century, a new type of artillery weapon appeared - the carronade. Which, although they had a weak charge and low core speed, could quickly recharge, which was of key importance in close combat. Coronades were used against the crew and rigging of an enemy ship. In general, the reload speed of the gun reached 90 seconds, with an average of 3-5 minutes.
A striking representative of a warship of the 18th century is the battleship Victoria, which was launched in 1765; it is currently a museum exhibit and docked in Portsmouth.
Ship “Victoria”
19th century naval guns – bombing guns
Improved technology and the invention of granular gunpowder. It made it possible to build more accurate and powerful guns. But this was already a necessity, and not just a consequence of technological progress. The appearance of the first ships, whose hulls were lined with metal plates below the waterline, began to change the previous idea of war at sea.
Improving unsinkability in parallel with firepower, the ships were well protected in close combat. The age of boarding battles has already passed and the targets of the battles were the ships themselves. Simple nuclei could no longer cause serious damage to the ship. This led to the creation of guns that fired high explosive shells and bombs. They were called bomb guns.
The design of the smoothbore gun itself was changed; the projectile was now loaded from the breech of the barrel. Now there was no longer any need to roll back the barrel to load the cap (gunpowder) and the projectile. With the gun weighing several tons, this greatly exhausted the team. Such guns could send shells 4 km.
At the end of the century, ships appeared in the fleet whose hulls were made only of metal. Torpedoes were used to damage the underwater part of the ship.
The arms race led to the fact that the sailors simply could not cope with the new guns. Increasing the projectile's flight range made aiming very difficult. Combat tests of large calibers up to 15 inches (381 mm) were carried out - such artillery was very expensive to produce and had very short term services.
20th century ship guns
In the 20th century, ship guns underwent significant changes. The development of weapons in general was reflected in changes in artillery. Smoothbore guns were replaced by rifled artillery mounts. They have increased trajectory accuracy and increased flight range. Ammunition carries a large amount explosives. Hydrostabilization systems appear.
Second World War demanded new types of weapons naval battles. Single guns are no longer relevant. Large artillery installations are being installed. Such installations are distinguished by caliber, method of shooting and type.
The following types of purposes for firing guns of the 20th century are distinguished:
- Main or main - used when identifying a surface target: another ship or coastal objects;
- Anti-mine artillery;
- Anti-aircraft artillery - used against air targets;
- Universal artillery - used against sea, coastal and air targets.
Technological progress in the post-war years gave impetus to new types of weapons, radio-controlled and jet. And more and more military experts wrote off naval artillery as an already outdated type of naval weapon.
Afternoon rest American soldiers on the island of Kagoshima on April 7, 1945, was interrupted by a monstrous explosion. On the horizon, a column of smoke rose into the sky to a height of 6 km, looking like a nuclear mushroom. It was the most powerful battleship in all of mankind, the Japanese Yamato, armed with nine guns of a fantastic caliber of 460 mm, that met its demise.
During all the years of the war, he never managed to get close to the American battleships within range of his monstrous artillery, and he died without ever seeing the enemy under the attacks of carrier-based aircraft from invisible aircraft carriers. In its last battle, the Yamato shot down five and damaged twenty American aircraft - a paltry price for the most expensive ship in the world. This was the last point in the history of sea giants - dreadnoughts were not built anywhere else in the world.
Superdreadnoughts
And this last chapter in the history of superships began on October 23, 1911, when British Prime Minister McKenna appointed Secretary of the Navy 36-year-old Sir Winston Churchill. A few weeks later, Churchill made a policy statement in Glasgow: “The English fleet is a necessity for us, and if we approach the German fleet from a certain point of view, then for the Germans it is basically a luxury.
The very existence of England is directly linked to our naval power. It is the guarantee of our existence. For the Germans, naval power means expansion.” Churchill, concerned about the qualitative superiority of German naval artillery, proposed increasing the caliber of battleship guns to 381 mm. “I immediately decided to go one step higher,” Churchill recalled in his memoirs, “and during the regatta I hinted at this to Lord Fisher. No less than 15 inches for battleships and battlecruisers of the new program."
And so, on October 21, 1912, the world’s first super-dreadnought, Queen Elizabeth, was laid down with a displacement of 33,000 tons and a speed of 24 knots. The armament consisted of eight 381 mm MK.1 cannons in four turrets. To imagine the full power of the new artillery, note that the mass of a 15-inch (381 mm) projectile was 885 kg - 2.3 times more than that of a 12-inch! The military plant in Elswick produced an experimental 15-inch gun with a 42-caliber barrel in just 4 months. The test results exceeded all expectations. Firing accuracy even at the maximum range (at the firing range - 32 km; for ship installations, due to the smaller elevation angle of the barrels, the range did not exceed 21.4 km) was simply excellent.
Like the Dreadnought, the Queen Elizabeth could hit any battleship in the world and calmly escape if necessary. Five ships of the Queen Elizabeth class entered service during the war, in January 1915 - February 1916. A year later, five more Rivage-class battleships with similar weapons entered service.
The Germans responded with some delay by building four of their own super-dreadnoughts, the lead of which, Baden, with a displacement of 28,500 tons and a speed of 22 knots, was laid down in 1913. The main caliber artillery was represented by eight 380 mm cannons with a firing range of 37.3 km.
Meanwhile, the British had another naval idea: lightly armored but fast ships the size of a dreadnought. They were called quite funny - “large light cruisers.” Three such vessels, Coreys, Glorius and Furies, with a displacement of 23,000 tons and a speed of 31–32 knots, were laid down in March–June 1915. The first two ships were armed with four 381 mm cannons in two turrets, while the Furies were armed with two 457 mm and four 140 mm. Monstrous 457-mm cannons with a barrel weight of 150 tons fired one and a half ton shells at a range of 27.4 km. However, the “large light cruisers” proved too vulnerable to enemy fire, and at the end of the First World War they were converted into aircraft carriers.
Three guns
Among other states, the United States was the first to raise the caliber of the guns of its dreadnoughts - from 305 mm to 356 mm. In 1911, the New York and Texas were laid down, which entered service in the spring of 1914. Their displacement was 28,400 tons, their speed was 21 knots, and they were armed with ten 356 mm and twenty-one 127 mm guns. It is curious that the Americans were the first to use three-gun main caliber turrets. Then the USA built two more ships with the same weapons. But the dreadnought Pennsylvania, laid down on October 27, 1913, with a displacement of 32,600 tons, already had twelve 356-mm guns. In total, seven battleships with twelve 356 mm guns were commissioned in the United States.
On April 24, 1917, the new super-dreadnought Maryland was laid down with eight 406 mm guns in four turrets. A series of three such ships entered service in 1917–1923, a little later they were joined by six huge battlecruisers with similar weapons. At the same time, in 1920, six super-dreadnoughts of the South Dakota class were laid down, carrying twelve 406-mm guns. In Japan, the first 356 mm guns appeared on four Kongo-class battleships in 1913–1915. And in 1917, the battleship Nagato with eight 410 mm guns entered service.
Government ships
On June 30, 1909, four dreadnoughts were laid down at state-owned factories in St. Petersburg: Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol at Baltiysky, and Gangut and Poltava at Admiralteysky, with twelve 305-mm main caliber guns. A lot has been written about these ships in our literature, and I will limit myself to only a very brief remark that the artillery on them was poorly positioned, and the armor also left much to be desired. At the time of laying, the firepower of Russian ships was not inferior to British dreadnoughts, but by the beginning of 1915, by the time they were commissioned, they were significantly inferior to battleships with 343 mm and 381 mm guns.
Therefore, the Naval Ministry decided to increase the caliber of the guns, and on December 19, 1913, four Borodino-class battlecruisers with a total displacement of 36,646 tons, armed with twelve 356-mm guns each, were laid down at the state-owned shipyards of St. Petersburg.
At the same time, the design of new battleships was underway. At the beginning of 1914, the Deputy Chief of the Naval General Staff for shipbuilding, Captain 1st Rank Nenyukov, provided the Minister of the Navy Grigorovich with “Basic tasks for battleships of the Baltic Sea.” According to the General Staff, the guns of battleships at a distance of 100 cables (18,520 m) were supposed to pierce normally armor equal in thickness to the caliber of the gun. Having examined the characteristics of modern 14-, 15- and 16-inch guns, General Staff staff came to the conclusion that “subject to almost the same ballistic data, the advantage remains with 16-inch guns.”
At the beginning of 1914, the Artillery Department of the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding designed a 406/45 mm gun, similar in design to 305 mm and 356 mm guns. In April 1914, the Obukhov plant was given an order to produce an experimental 406-mm cannon by the end of 1915. In parallel, a 406/45 mm gun of a slightly different design was ordered from Vickers for £27,000, in particular, with two internal tubes. The ballistic data for the project were as follows: projectile weight 1128 kg, charge weight 332 kg, starting speed 758 m/s.
The first test of an experimental 406-mm cannon manufactured by Vickers was carried out on August 22, 1917 at the company's training ground near the town of Axmills. In January 1914, the Naval Ministry issued tactical and technical specifications for the design of a battleship for the Baltic Sea. It was to have twelve 406 mm guns in three or four gun turrets, as well as twenty-four 130 mm guns. The battleship's speed was supposed to be 25 knots, and its cruising range was 5,000 miles. The thickness of the main armor belt along the waterline is 280 mm.
If such a battleship could be built, it would be superior in artillery to any battleship in the world built before 1946, except for the Japanese Yamato-class battleships with 460 mm artillery. However, in 1917, a revolution broke out in Russia, and the projects of Russian super-dreadnoughts remained on paper.
Expensive toys
Ironically, the super-expensive super-battleships barely managed to fight. The only classic battleship battle of the First World War - the Battle of Jutland, in which four super-battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class took part - Barham, Worspite, Valient and Malaya - ended not in favor of the British (fourteen ships with a total tonnage 111,000 tons and 6,784 sailors and officers killed against eleven German ships (62,000 tons) and 3,058 personnel), despite the fact that the German battleships were inferior in caliber to the English (the largest German caliber in that battle was 305 mm versus 381 mm from the English).
In World War II, the role of super battleships was completely comical - only two Japanese took part in the fighting - Yamato and Musashi. The 460-mm Yamato guns were used in combat conditions only once: on October 25, 1944, off the island of Samar (Philippines). Several shells penetrated the American convoy aircraft carriers, but did not explode, since the fuses were designed for the armor of battleships. Most of the time, countries that owned super-battleships hid their super-expensive toys in protected roadsteads, but most of them were still sunk by enemy aircraft. Until now, only two super-battleships remain in service - the American Iowa and Wisconsin (nine 406 mm guns each), which are used more as a psychological than as a real thing.
On the closed territory of the Rzhevsky training ground there is a gun that could rightfully be called the “Main caliber Soviet Union". With equal success it can claim the title of "Tsar Cannon". Of course, its caliber is no less than 406 mm. Created on the eve of the Great Patriotic War artillery installation was intended to arm the world's largest battleships, the Sovetsky Soyuz, Sovetskaya Belorussia and Sovetskaya Rossiya. These plans were not destined to come true, but the guns themselves served well during the defense of Leningrad and for this alone earned the right to take their rightful place in the museum. But so far the unique Russian monument does not even have the status of a museum exhibit...
Anyone who has been to the Moscow Kremlin, of course, has seen there the famous “Tsar Cannon”, cast by Russian gunsmith Andrei Chokhov in 1586. But few people know that there is a Soviet analogue. This is the largest-caliber artillery gun of the Soviet Union, which passed field tests on the eve of the war, and during the Great Patriotic War defended besieged Leningrad from the enemy.
In the early 1920s, Soviet naval and coastal artillery Navy significantly lagged behind the corresponding artillery of the leading capitalist states. At that time, a whole galaxy of talented designers of naval artillery systems and organizers of their mass production worked in the USSR: I.I. Ivanov, M.Ya. Krupchatnikov, B.S. Korobov, D.E. Bril, A.A. Florensky and others.
Designers Ivanov I.I., Krupchatnikov M.Ya., Grabin V.G. (from left to right)
Biggest success Soviet designers and artillery factories was the creation of a unique and complex 406-mm artillery system - a prototype of the main caliber guns of the new battleships.
In accordance with the new shipbuilding program of the USSR, new battleships were laid down on the stocks of shipyards: in 1938 - "Soviet Union" and "Soviet Ukraine", in 1939 - "Soviet Belarus" and in 1940 - "Soviet Russia". The total displacement of each of the battleships, which embodied the traditions of domestic shipbuilding and the latest achievements of science and technology, was 65,150 tons. Power point was supposed to provide a speed of 29 knots (53.4 km/h). The main armament of the battleships - nine 406-mm guns - was housed in three armored turrets, two of which were located in the bow. This arrangement of the main caliber allowed the best way direct and concentrate the fire of 16-inch guns firing thousand-kilogram shells at a range of 45 km. The artillery armament of the new battleships also included twelve new 152-mm guns, eight 100-mm universal cannons, and the air defense of each ship was provided by thirty-two 37-mm anti-aircraft guns. Artillery guidance was carried out using the latest rangefinders, automatic fire control devices and four spotter seaplanes, which were launched using a catapult.
The designed 406-mm turret mount was a unique artillery system, for which all elements - from the gun itself to the ammunition - were developed for the first time.
The experimental MK-1 gun mount itself was manufactured in less than a year.
By order of the People's Commissar of the Navy Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov No. 0350 dated June 9, 1940 for the production of range tests of the 406-mm B-37 gun, the MK-1 swinging part for the B-37 gun, the MP-10 range machine and ammunition for the gun mount (shells, charges, gunpowder and fuses) was a commission was appointed under the chairmanship of Rear Admiral I.I. Gren. The test program developed by ANIMI (Artillery Research Maritime Institute) was approved by the head of the Navy Administration, Lieutenant General of the Coastal Service I.S. Mushnov. Military engineer 2nd rank S.M. was appointed head of the tests. Reidman.
Engineer-Captain 2nd Rank S. M. Reidman. 1943
Field tests began at NIMAP (Naval Research Artillery Range) on July 6, 1940. The total volume of tests was determined to be 173 shots with an expected barrel survivability of 150 shots.
The ballistic characteristics of the gun were as follows: the initial flight speed of the projectile with its weight of 1,105 kg – 830 m/s, muzzle energy – 38,800 t.m., maximum pressure of powder gases in the barrel bore – 3,200 kg/cm2, maximum range projectile flight - 45.5 km. The weight of the swinging part is 198 tons, the ratio of muzzle energy to the weight of the swinging part is 196.5 tons. The mass of the B-37 barrel with breech and bolt was 140 tons, and the gun’s rate of fire was 2.6 rounds per minute.
During this period, a lot of work was done at the naval artillery range to prepare a measuring base, which by 1940 had reached a very high level and made it possible to widely use instrumental monitoring methods in testing practice, including oscillography of dynamic processes.
The preparation and conduct of the tests were difficult and intense, especially in terms of preparing the ammunition (projectile weight - 1,105 kg, charge - 319 kg), a lot of time was spent digging them out of the ground after the shot, assembling them and delivering them to the laboratory for inspection and measurements. Many experiments during the testing process were innovative. Thus, when firing at a distance of 25 km, in order to find out the reasons for the increased dispersion of projectiles, it was necessary to build ballistic frames 40 meters high. At that time, the initial speed of projectiles was determined only by chronographs, so after each shot on these target frames it was necessary to change the wire wound damaged by the charge, which also presented great difficulties. Each shot from the B-37 gun was of high significance, so the tests were structured very thoughtfully in the interests of the entire range of tasks. The results of each shooting were considered in subcommittees according to the issues and were very often discussed at the general meeting of the commission.
On October 2, 1940, field tests of the B-37 gun, the MK-1 swinging part, the MP-10 machine and ammunition were completed.
406 mm (16 inch) shell from the B-37 gun. Central Naval Museum
The conclusions of the commission’s report noted: “The tests carried out on the 406/50-mm B-37 gun, the MK-1 swinging part and the MP-10 testing machine gave quite satisfactory results.” This is how the many months of hard work of design engineers and test gunners were succinctly noted.
The MK-1 swinging part with the B-37 gun was recommended by the commission for mass production with some design changes.
Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union N.G. Kuznetsov in his memoirs “On the Eve” recalls: “...In August I went to the Baltic... The head of the naval training ground, Rear Admiral I.I. Gren, asked me to attend the testing of a new twelve-inch gun.” Best gun in the world," he said. And, as life has shown, he was not exaggerating. They also showed me a sixteen-inch cannon for future battleships. This weapon - a clear proof of our economic capabilities and the talent of Soviet designers - also turned out to be excellent..."
Rear Admiral I.I. Gren. 1942
October 19, 1940, due to the aggravation international situation, the Soviet government adopted a resolution to concentrate efforts on the construction of small and medium-sized warships and on completing the laid down large ships with a high degree of readiness. The battleship "Soviet Union" was not among the latter, therefore mass production There were no 406 mm guns deployed. After the completion of field tests, the B-37 gun continued to remain at NIMAP in Leningrad.
On June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War began. In the first weeks, Nazi troops managed to penetrate deeper into the territory of the Soviet Union. In mid-August 1941, fierce fighting began on the near approaches to Leningrad. As a result of the enemy's rapid advance, a threatening situation developed. A mortal danger looms over the city. Red Army troops in all directions courageously repelled attacks from superior enemy forces.
The Red Banner Baltic Fleet, concentrated in Leningrad and Kronstadt at the end of August 1941, provided significant assistance to the Leningrad Front with its powerful long-range naval and coastal artillery, which covered the city with a reliable fire shield throughout the blockade.
Immediately after the start of the war, NIMAP took an active part in resolving issues related to the preparation of Leningrad for defense. In the shortest possible time, a skillful, quick and purposeful restructuring of its work was carried out in the interests of the city’s defense. The gun mounts at the naval range could not be evacuated due to their heavy weight, and they began to be prepared for the battle for Leningrad.
In July-August 1941, at the naval artillery range, all available artillery weapons were brought into battle, an artillery division and an anti-aircraft defense team (local air defense).
During the preparation of NIMAP for the defense of Leningrad, the barrel was changed and the 406-mm gun (B-37) was armored, all artillery mounts were prepared for all-round firing, aiming points with light guidance for night firing were installed, four command posts of artillery batteries and two armored artillery cellars were equipped near firing positions.
Military technician 1st rank Kukharchuk, commander of battery No. 1 NIMAP, which included a 406-mm gun. 1941
The entire artillery of the naval range consisted of fourteen guns: one 406 mm, one 356 mm, two 305 mm, five 180 mm, one 152 mm and four 130 mm. The 406 mm caliber gun was included in battery No. 1, which also included one 356 mm and two 305 mm guns. These were the main caliber guns, the most powerful and long-range. Military technician 2nd rank Alexander Petrovich Kukharchuk was appointed commander of the battery.
At the end of August 1941, the NIMAP artillery was ready to begin carrying out combat missions, and on the eve of this the following message was published in the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper: “Starting from August 22, test firing will be carried out from the sea range in Leningrad, which is being brought to public attention . Military commandant of the city of Leningrad, Colonel Denisov."
NIMAP fired its first combat shots on August 29, 1941, at a concentration of enemy troops in the area of the Krasny Bor state farm in the Kolpino direction, precisely from the B-37, the most powerful and long-range weapon of the USSR Navy. And already at the beginning of September, a column of enemy tanks was moving in the same direction with the goal of breaking through to Leningrad, and again powerful explosions of 406-mm shells that fell at the head and tail of the column caused confusion among the enemy and forced him to stop. The surviving tanks turned back. The people's militia fighters from the Izhora battalion, who defended Kolpino, always remembered with great gratitude the artillerymen of the naval range, who with their fire helped them hold the defense lines on the outskirts of Leningrad in 1941.
From August 29 to December 31, 1941, NIMAP artillery opened fire 173 times, destroying large concentrations of enemy manpower and equipment and suppressing its batteries. During this period, the 406-mm gun fired 81 shells (17 high-explosive and 64 armor-piercing) at the enemy.
In 1942, the naval artillery range carried out 9 live firing exercises. On February 10, the B-37 gun supported the offensive operation of the 55th Army in the area of the settlements of Krasny Bor, Yam-Izhora and Sablino with its fire. Three shells were expended. It is known about the results of this operation that: “... in the area where the 55th Army held the defense, the artillerymen distinguished themselves. In one day they destroyed 18 guns and 27 machine guns, destroyed 19 bunkers and dugouts.” The 406-mm gun of the naval artillery range also contributed to these enemy losses.
Command and engineering staff of the Scientific Test Naval Artillery Range (NIMAP). 1942
This is how Nikolai Kislitsyn, an eyewitness of those events and a participant in the defense of Leningrad, describes his impressions of the combat use of the B-37: “I remember how, among the usual sounding explosions of shells and shots from our artillery, occasionally a muffled sound was heard somewhere powerful sound, shaking the glass. I was perplexed for a long time until I met one artilleryman. It turned out that in the pre-war period the design and construction of the latest surface ships began high class. For them, tests of a 406 mm gun were carried out at a naval training ground near Leningrad. Firing from this weapon with cooled shells was carried out at a long range over a certain area of the training ground. The weapon was successfully tested. Due to the outbreak of war, testing was stopped. When Leningrad was under siege, this powerful weapon was used to destroy important military targets deep in the enemy's location. The supply of shells turned out to be small, and when it was used up, the artillerymen began to dig up the shells that had been buried deep in the ground during testing and bring them into combat condition. Enemy aircraft searched in vain for the firing position of this giant; skillful camouflage helped it remain undetected..."
On December 8, 1942, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army issued a directive to conduct an offensive operation to break the blockade of Leningrad.
The operation began on January 12, 1943 at 9:30 am. For 2 hours and 20 minutes, an artillery hurricane raged at enemy positions - it was hit by 4,500 guns and rocket mortars from two Soviet fronts and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet: 11 artillery batteries of stationary coastal artillery, 16 batteries of railway artillery, artillery of the leader "Leningrad", 4 destroyers and 3 gunboats. The Red Banner Baltic Fleet artillery also included a 406-mm naval artillery range gun
On January 12, for 3 hours and 10 minutes it conducted methodical fire on enemy resistance units in the area of the 8th Hydroelectric Power Station, 22 high-explosive shells were expended.
On February 13, it also fired artillery at the enemy’s defensive lines, fire weapons and manpower in the area of the 8th Hydroelectric Power Station and the 2nd Workers’ Village; 16 shells were expended (12 high-explosive and 4 armor-piercing).
The ruins of the 6th hydroelectric power station after shelling with a 406-mm gun during the operation to break the blockade of Leningrad. January 1943
At the end of 1943, Leningrad continued to remain on the front line of fire. If enemy planes were no longer able to bomb the city either in November or December, the shelling from large-caliber guns continued. Artillery shelling kept Leningrad in constant tension; it was necessary to rid the city of them. Strategic considerations required the complete lifting of the blockade of Leningrad and the expulsion of the Nazi invaders from the Leningrad region.
The headquarters of the Supreme High Command, planning military operations to liberate the territory of the Soviet Union, decided to begin 1944 with an offensive operation near Leningrad and Novgorod (Stalin's First Strike).
The start of the operation to completely liberate Leningrad from the enemy blockade was scheduled for January 14, 1944.
On the morning of January 14, for 65 minutes, enemy positions were fired upon by the artillery of the Leningrad Front and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, 100 thousand shells and mines fell on battle formations enemy.
On January 15, troops of the Leningrad Front delivered a powerful blow to the enemy from the Pulkovo Heights. 200 guns and mortars destroyed enemy fortifications for 100 minutes, literally plowing up trenches and communication passages, pillboxes and bunkers. More than 200 guns of naval and coastal artillery of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet hit large-caliber artillery positions, resistance centers and enemy strongholds.
An enemy bunker destroyed by fire from a 406 mm gun. Red Village. January 1944
In the offensive operation, the Leningrad Front was supported by Red Banner Baltic Fleet artillery consisting of 215 guns with calibers ranging from 100 to 406 mm. The use of large-caliber coastal (stationary and railway) and naval artillery ensured the destruction of targets located at a considerable distance from the enemy’s forward defense.
On January 15, a 406-mm gun fired at planned targets in the area of Pushkin, 30 shells were expended.
On January 20, it fired at targets in the area of the village of Koporskaya and the railway. d. station Antropshino, three shells were used up.
From January 15 to 20, 1944, during the offensive operation of the Leningrad Front to completely liberate Leningrad from the enemy blockade, the B-37 gun fired 33 shells (28 high-explosive and 5 armor-piercing).
During this operation, target No. 23 (height 112.0) was destroyed - a node of enemy resistance on the approaches to the city of Pushkin from the north.
About the destruction of this target with a 406-mm gun from a naval artillery range, the former commander of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, Admiral V.F. Tributs recalled this: “I already knew about this so-called target No. 23. But I still checked my assumptions by phone, called the commander of the fourth [artillery] group, engineer-captain 1st rank I.D. Snitko. He confirmed my information, and I instructed him to fundamentally deal with the evil “nut.” The 406 mm gun managed to split it. An explosion soon erupted at height 112 and, as it later turned out, a reinforced concrete command post was destroyed there, as well as long-term structures and ammunition depots were blown up.”
The artillery of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet completed the tasks assigned to it to ensure the offensive of the troops of the Leningrad Front and liberate Leningrad from the enemy blockade. During the 14 days of the offensive operation, she conducted 1,005 firing exercises, firing 23,600 shells of various calibers from 100 mm to 406 mm at the enemy.
After the defeat Nazi troops in the southwestern direction, Leningrad remained under threat from the northwest, from Finland, whose army had been defending the Karelian Isthmus for about three years.
49 ships (130–305 mm) took part in the Vyborg offensive operation from the Red Banner Baltic Fleet; 125 coastal (100–406 mm). In accordance with the order of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet artillery commander No. 001/OP dated June 2, 1944, two long-range guns sea range, 406 mm and 356 mm, were included in the third artillery group.
During the first four days of the offensive, the Red Banner Baltic Fleet artillery fired 582 times and expended more than 11,000 shells with a caliber ranging from 100 mm to 406 mm.
On June 9, the B-37 gun fired at planned targets, and 20 shells were expended, and on June 10, it fired at one unplanned target, and 10 shells were expended. All shells were high-explosive.
Based on the results of the inspection of hitting targets near railway station Beloostrov the following results were obtained:
- fire on target G-208 - command height included in common system enemy resistance node. The fire was conducted by a 406 mm gun. The following were destroyed: a machine gun point along with its crew, two machine gun nests, and an armored observation tower. Trenches and a section of road were also destroyed, forcing the enemy to abandon four 76 mm guns. Many corpses of enemy officers and soldiers remained lying on the road;
– fire on target G-181 – command height in the village of Kameshki. The fire was conducted by a 406 mm gun. A direct hit from a shell destroyed a road intersection from three directions, which prevented the enemy from removing anti-tank and anti-aircraft batteries. In the area where the positions of the 152-mm and 210-mm enemy artillery batteries were located, there were craters from 406-mm shells.
As a result of the Vyborg offensive operation, a large group was defeated Finnish troops and the northern part of the Leningrad region was liberated, after which the battle for Leningrad was finally completed.
These were the last for the B-37 gun live shooting.
During the entire period of the defense of Leningrad, 185 shots were fired from a 406-mm gun, while 109 high-explosive and 76 armor-piercing shells were fired.
Memorial plate perpetuating the military merits of the 406-mm gun of the Red Banner NIMAP. Central Naval Museum
After the end of the Great Patriotic War, by decision of the Navy command, a memorial plate was installed on the B-37, which is currently stored in the Central Naval Museum in St. Petersburg. The following is stamped on it: “406 mm gun mount of the Navy USSR. From August 29, 1941 to June 10, 1944, this weapon of the Red Banner NIMAP took an active part in the defense of Leningrad and the defeat of the enemy. With well-aimed fire it destroyed powerful strongholds and centers of resistance, destroyed military equipment And manpower enemy, supported the actions of units of the Red Army of the Leningrad Front and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet in the Nevsky, Kolpinsky, Uritsk-Pushkinsky, Krasnoselsky and Karelian directions."
406-mm gun mount at the Rzhev training ground. 2008
In order to preserve this unique weapon for posterity, it is necessary to create a Museum of Naval Armament and Equipment at the Rzhevsky training ground, which will house exhibits that, due to their weight and size characteristics, do not fit within the walls of other military history museums. And such exhibits, in addition to the B-37, already exist. For example, standing next to the 406-mm artillery mount is a 305-mm coastal gun made in 1915, which also defended Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War, and the barrel on it, by the way, was inherited from the battleship "Empress Maria".
Museums of military equipment and weapons - tank, aviation, automobile, etc. - the interest in which is constantly growing, already exist in other regions. So maybe the time has come to organize a similar museum in St. Petersburg - a museum of naval weapons and equipment? It will also be possible to present the experimental testing work of the Navy training grounds. And it doesn’t matter that this museum will not be located in the historical center. After all, there are museums far from the city center that are visited with no less interest. It would be interesting to know the opinion of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Governor of St. Petersburg on this issue, because the decision to create a new state museum at the Rzhev test site must be taken today.