Degtyarev anti-tank rifle. Domestic anti-tank rifles

21.04.2020

hand weapons

Recoilless guns

There is no clear boundary between rocket-propelled grenade launchers and recoilless rifles. English term recoilless rifle(recoilless gun) designates both the L6 WOMBAT weighing 295 kg on a wheeled carriage, and the M67 weighing 17 kg for firing from the shoulder or bipod. In Russia (USSR), a grenade launcher was considered an SPG-9 weighing 64.5 kg on a wheeled carriage and an RPG-7 weighing 6.3 kg for firing from the shoulder. In Italy, the Folgore system weighing 18.9 kg is considered a grenade launcher, and the same system on a tripod and with a ballistic computer (weight 25.6 kg) is considered a recoilless gun. The appearance of HEAT shells made smooth-bore recoilless guns promising as light anti-tank guns. Such guns were used by the United States at the end of World War II, and in the post-war years, recoilless anti-tank guns were adopted by a number of countries, including the USSR, and were actively used (and continue to be used) in a number of armed conflicts. The most widely used recoilless rifles are in the armies of developing countries. In the armies of developed countries, BO as an anti-tank weapon has been mainly replaced by anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). Some exceptions are the Scandinavian countries, for example, Sweden, where BO continues to develop, and, by improving ammunition using the latest technological advances, they have achieved armor penetration of 800 mm (with a caliber of 90 mm, that is, almost 9klb)

ATGM

The main advantage of tank ATGMs is greater, compared to any type of tank armament, accuracy in hitting targets, as well as a large range of aimed fire. This allows the tank to fire at an enemy tank while remaining out of range of its weapons, with a hit probability greater than that of modern tank guns at that distance. Significant disadvantages of the KUV include 1) lower than that of a tank gun projectile, the average speed of the rocket and 2) the extremely high cost of a shot.

Artillery mounts

An anti-tank gun (ATG) is a specialized artillery weapon for combating enemy armored vehicles by direct fire. In the vast majority of cases, it is a long-barreled gun with a high muzzle velocity and a low elevation angle. Other salient features of the anti-tank gun include unitary loading and a wedge-shaped semi-automatic breech, which contribute to maximum rate of fire. When designing anti-tank guns, special attention is paid to minimizing its weight and dimensions in order to facilitate transportation and camouflage on the ground. A self-propelled artillery mount can be structurally very similar to a tank, but is designed to solve other tasks: destroy enemy tanks from ambushes or fire support for troops from a closed firing position, and therefore has a different balance of armor and weapons. A tank destroyer is a fully and well-armored self-propelled artillery mount (ACS) specialized for combating enemy armored vehicles. It is in its armor that the tank destroyer differs from the anti-tank self-propelled guns, which have light and partial armor protection.

tactical missiles

Tactical missiles, depending on the type, can be equipped with all kinds of anti-tank submunitions, mines.

Aircrafts

Attack aircraft A-10 Thunderbolt (USA)

Attack is the defeat of land and sea targets with the help of small arms (guns and machine guns), as well as missiles. Attack aircraft - a combat aircraft (airplane or helicopter) designed for attack. Non-specialized types of aircraft, such as conventional fighters, as well as light and dive bombers, can be used for ground attack. However, in the 1930s, a specialized class of aircraft was allocated for ground attack operations. The reason for this is that, unlike the attack aircraft, the dive bomber only hits point targets; a heavy bomber operates from a great height over areas and large stationary targets - it is not suitable for hitting a target directly on the battlefield, since there is a high risk of missing and hitting your own; a fighter (like a dive bomber) does not have strong armor, while at low altitudes the aircraft is subjected to targeted fire from all types of weapons, as well as to the effects of stray fragments, stones and other dangerous objects flying over the battlefield. The role of attack decreased after the appearance of cluster bombs (with which it is more effective to hit elongated targets than from small arms), as well as during the development of air-to-surface missiles (accuracy and range increased, guided missiles appeared). The speed of combat aircraft has increased, and it has become problematic for them to hit targets at low altitude. On the other hand, attack helicopters appeared, almost completely displacing the aircraft from low altitudes.

Unmanned aircraft

Most often, UAVs are understood as remotely controlled aircraft used for aerial reconnaissance and strikes. The most famous example of a UAV is the American MQ-1 Predator. In February 2001, at Nellis Air Force Base, for the first time, test launches of AGM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missiles (ATGMs) from the Predator UAV were performed. The Predator can be armed with two ATGMs (one under each wing). Aiming at the target is carried out using a standard laser designator

anti-tank mines

Anti-tank mines are anti-bottom, anti-track mines, anti-aircraft mines. They are designed to disable tanks and other equipment, but do not work when a person or animal steps on it.

Anti-tank gouges

They belong to non-explosive anti-tank barriers. They are usually part of a defensive line and combined with minefields and barbed wire.

Links

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See what "Anti-tank weapons" is in other dictionaries:

Simonov anti-tank rifle PTRS 41 Tankgewehr M1918 Lahti L 39 ... Wikipedia

World War II became the "finest hour" of the tank forces. The massive use of armored vehicles and the improvement of its basic combat characteristics also required the improvement of the means of combating them. One of the simplest yet most effective ways to stop tanks opposing infantry units is with an anti-tank rifle (ATR).

Infantry against tanks

The main burden of the offensive of tank armadas fell on the infantry, which did not have powerful means to resist armored vehicles, especially in the early stages of the Second World War. In the conditions of highly maneuverable combat operations of mobile enemy units, conducted with unprecedented intensity and scope, the “queen of the fields” was in dire need of its own simple, affordable, cheap anti-tank weapons that can be used in combat formations, fighting tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment in close combat.

The role of infantry close combat anti-tank weapons (PTS) remained significant throughout the course of the war, even as the warring parties en masse introduced more and more armored and protected tank models. The war gave birth in the infantry to such new specialties of fighters as "armor-piercer", "tank destroyer", the main weapon of which was an anti-tank rifle.

anti-tank weapons

During the Second World War, cardinal changes took place in the arsenal of close-range combat vehicles and in the methods of their use. If at the beginning of the Second World War the main anti-tank weapons of the infantry were simple in design anti-tank guns, then by the end of the war, prototypes of guided anti-tank weapons appeared.

High-explosive grenades, bundles of hand grenades, and incendiary bottles were also of great help to the soldiers in the trenches. By the middle of the military campaign, cumulative grenades, mounted and hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers of recoilless and reactive schemes were already being used.

Purpose of PTR

The anti-tank guns of World War II played a very significant role in the victory. Of course, the main burden of anti-tank defense (ATD) fell on guns (guns) of various types. However, when the course of the battle took on a complex, highly maneuverable and "tangled" character with the massive use of armored vehicles, the infantry needed its own armor-piercing means. At the same time, it is important that the soldiers be able to use them directly in combat formations and fight tanks and armored vehicles in close combat. Soviet engineers, under the guidance of outstanding weapons designers Simonov, Degtyarev, Rukavishnikov, presented the fighters with simple but reliable means against armored vehicles.

The term "anti-tank gun" is not entirely correct. A more precise designation is "anti-tank rifle". However, it has developed historically, apparently as a literal translation of "panzerbuchse" from the German language.

Ammunition

A few words should be said about the anti-tank rifle cartridge and its damaging effect. For anti-tank rifles, ammunition of a larger caliber than traditional small arms has been developed. In domestic samples, armor-piercing bullets of 14.5 mm caliber were used. Its kinetic energy was enough to break through 30 mm armor or inflict damage on weakly protected armored vehicles.

The effect of an armor-piercing bullet (projectile) on a target consists of an armor-piercing (impact) action and a damaging effect behind the armor (armor-penetrating action). The action of PTR bullets is based on their kinetic effect on the armor and its penetration by the hull or solid core. The thickness of the pierced protection is the higher, the higher the kinetic energy of the projectile (bullet) at the moment of collision with the armor. Due to this energy, work is done to break through the metal.

Damaging armor action

The WWII anti-tank rifle was very effective. Of course, with its help it was impossible to overcome the armor protection of the turret and hull of medium and heavy tanks, however, any vehicle has vulnerable zones, which were amazed by experienced shooters. Armor only protects the engine, fuel tanks, mechanisms, weapons, ammunition and crew of the combat vehicle, which, in fact, must be hit. In addition, anti-tank missiles were used against any equipment, including lightly armored ones.

The action of the damaging element and armor on each other is mutual, the same energy is spent on the destruction of the bullet itself. Therefore, the shape and transverse load of the projectile, the strength of its material and the quality of the armor itself are also of decisive importance. Since mass is included in the formula of kinetic energy in the first power, and speed in the second, the final velocity of the ammunition is of particular importance.

Actually, it is the speed of the bullet and the angle of its meeting with the armor barrier that are the most important factors that determine the armor-piercing effect. An increase in speed is preferable to an increase in the mass of the projectile also from the point of view of accuracy:

the flatness of the trajectory increases, and hence the range of a direct shot at a “tank” type target, when shooting is carried out at one sight setting;
the time of flight of the bullet to the target also decreases, along with it the amount of drift by the side wind and the movement of the target during the time from the start of the shot to the expected meeting of the striking element with the target.

On the other hand, the mass is directly related to the transverse load, so the armor-piercing core must still have a high density.

Armor action

It is no less important than armor-piercing. Having pierced the armor, a bullet, a solid projectile or an armor-piercing core inflicts damage due to fragmentation and incendiary action. Their highly heated fragments, together with armor fragments, penetrate inside the vehicle at high speed, hit the crew, mechanisms, ammunition, tanks, supply pipelines, lubrication systems, and are capable of igniting fuel and lubricants.

To improve efficiency, cartridges with armor-piercing incendiary and armor-piercing tracer bullets were used, which had armor-piercing and armor-piercing effects. The high initial velocity of the bullet was achieved by using a powerful cartridge and a large relative barrel length (from 90 to 150 mm).

The history of the creation of domestic anti-tank rifles

In the USSR back in 1933, the “dynamo-reactive” 37-mm Kurchevsky anti-tank rifle was adopted for service, but it lasted in service for about two years. Before the war, PTR did not arouse keen interest among Soviet military leaders, although there was experience in their development and production. Soviet designers S. Korovin, S. Vladimirov, M. Blum, L. Kurchevsky created samples in the 30s that surpassed foreign counterparts. However, their designs and characteristics were imperfect due to the lack of a clear vision of what exactly they should be.

With the adoption of specific requirements for this type of weapon, the situation has changed. It was then that the caliber of the anti-tank rifle was increased to 14.5 mm, the bullet weight was 64 g, and the muzzle velocity was 1000 m/s. In 1938, the basic armor-piercing cartridge B-32 was developed, later improved. At the beginning of 1941, ammunition appeared with an armor-piercing incendiary bullet equipped with a steel core, and in August, a cartridge with a metal core.

PTR Rukavishnikov

On October 7, 1939, the USSR Defense Committee approved the adoption of an anti-tank 14.5-mm gun of the design comrade. Rukavishnikov. Kovrov Plant No. 2 was given the task of manufacturing Rukavishnikov's PTR (also known as PTR-39) in the amount of 50 pieces. in 1939 and 15,000 in 1940. Mass production of 14.5 mm cartridges was entrusted to plant No. 3 in Ulyanovsk and No. 46 in Kuntsevo.

However, work on organizing the mass production of Rukavishnikov's PTR was delayed by a number of circumstances. At the end of 1939, the Kovrov Plant carried out an urgent task to organize the large-scale production of the PPD submachine gun due to the Soviet-Finnish war, which required an urgent increase in the number of individual automatic weapons in the troops. Therefore, before the "big" war, these guns were clearly not enough.

Specifications

Rukavishnikov's anti-tank gun had an automatic gas engine with the removal of powder gases through a transverse hole directly in the barrel wall. The stroke of the gas piston is long. The gas chamber was located at the bottom of the barrel. The channel was locked by a shutter collar. On the receiver, on the left, there was a receiver under the clip (pack) for 5 cartridges. The PTR had a muzzle brake, a buttstock with a sponge rubber shock absorber and a folding shoulder pad, a pistol grip, a folding bipod, and carrying handles.

USM allowed to fire only single shots, included a flag non-automatic fuse, the lever of which was located on the right side of the trigger. The percussion mechanism was of a percussion type, the mainspring was located inside a massive drummer. The combat rate of fire reached 15 rds / min. The sighting device included an open sector sight and a front sight on a bracket. The sight was notched at a distance of up to 1000 m. With a barrel length of 1180 mm, Rukavishnikov's PTR had a length of 1775 mm and weighed 24 kg (with cartridges).

At the beginning of the war, seeing the lack of anti-tank weapons, the army leadership hastily began to take adequate measures. In July 1941, the most prominent Soviet weapons designers V. Degtyarev and his talented student S. Simonov were involved in the rapid development of anti-tank rifles. At the end of the month, V. Degtyarev proposed 2 variants of a 14.5-mm gun that had already passed field tests. The system was called PTRD - Degtyarev anti-tank rifle. Although the gun received universal approval at the training ground, in trench conditions, with insufficient care, it often jammed.

Greater success was achieved when creating a magazine self-loading rifle of the S. Simonov system. Only the trigger and burst loading mechanics were changed. Based on the positive test results, on August 29, 1941, the USSR State Defense Committee decided to adopt the Simonov magazine self-loading anti-tank rifle (PTRS) and the single-shot Degtyarev 14.5 mm caliber.

Despite a number of "growing pains" - design flaws that were corrected throughout the war and after it - guns became a powerful argument against tanks in the hands of Soviet soldiers. As a result, PTRD and PTRS are still being used effectively in regional conflicts.

High efficiency

The need for this weapon was so high that sometimes the guns fell directly from the factory floor to the front line. The first batch was sent to the 16th Army, to General Rokossovsky, who was defending Moscow northwest of the Soviet capital, in the Volokolamsk direction. The application experience was successful: on the morning of November 16, 1941, near the settlements of Shiryaevo and Petelino, the soldiers of the 1075th Infantry Regiment of the 8th Guards Division, holding the front, shot a group of German tanks from 150-200 m, 2 of which burned down completely.

The role that Degtyarev's (and Simonov's) anti-tank rifle played in the defense of the Soviet capital is evidenced by the fact that V. Degtyarev himself and many factory workers who organized the production of deadly weapons for armored vehicles were awarded the medal "For the Defense of Moscow".

As a result of the combat use of gun systems, designers have made significant improvements to their mechanics. The production of guns increased every day. If in 1941 17,688 units of the V. Degtyarev system and only 77 units of the S. Simonov system were manufactured, then in 1942 the number of guns increased, respectively, to 184,800 and 63,308 pieces.

PTRD device

The single-shot PTRD (Degtyarev anti-tank rifle) consisted of the following units:

trunk;
cylindrical receiver;
butterfly valve of sliding type;
butt;
trigger box;
aiming device;
bipod.

Specifications PTRD

Degtyarev's anti-tank rifle was developed in a record (for many unthinkable) 22 days. Although the designer took into account the achievements of the creators of previous samples of the 30s, he managed to embody the basic requirements of the military in metal: simplicity, lightness, reliability and low cost of manufacture.

The barrel is 8-rifled, with a rifling stroke of 420 mm. The active muzzle brake of the box system is able to absorb most of the recoil energy (up to 2/3). The rotary (“piston type”) bolt of cylindrical shape is equipped with two lugs in the front part and a straight handle in the rear part. An impact mechanism, a reflector and an ejector were mounted in it.

The percussion mechanism activates the drummer with the striker, also the mainspring. The drummer could be cocked manually by the protruding tail or put on the fuse - for this, the tail had to be pulled back and turned to the right by 30 °. In the receiver, the bolt was held by a stop located on the left side of the receiver.

The shutter was unlocked and the spent cartridge case was extracted automatically, the shutter remained open, and in order to prepare for the next shot, it remained to manually insert a new cartridge into the upper window on the receiver, send and lock the shutter. This made it possible to increase the combat rate of fire with the coordinated work of the calculation of two people. The buttstock is equipped with a soft cushion-shock absorber. Folding stamped bipod was attached to the trunk. The Degtyarev anti-tank rifle with ammunition and additional equipment weighed up to 26 kg (17 kg net weight without cartridges). Aimed shooting - 800 m.

PTRS device

The gun was equipped with an automatic gas engine with gas exhaust through a transverse hole in the barrel wall, an open-type gas chamber, reinforced from the bottom of the barrel. The stroke of the gas piston is short. The overall design and bore are generally similar to the PTRD, which is logically explained by unified ammunition.

Simonov's anti-tank rifle had a barrel locking with a skew down the bolt core. The shutter stem, supplemented by a handle, locked and unlocked the channel. The "reloading mechanism" referred to the details of the weapon's automation, namely, a gas three-mode regulator, a rod, a piston, a tube and a pusher with a spring. After the shot, the pusher, under the pressure of powder gases, moved back, transmitted an impulse to the bolt stem, and itself returned forward. Under the action of the bolt stem moving backwards, the frame unlocked the barrel bore, after which the entire bolt moved back. The cartridge case was removed by the ejector and reflected upwards with a special protrusion. The shutter, when the cartridges were used up, rose to a stop, mounted in the receiver.

USM is mounted on the trigger guard. The non-automatic flag safety lock blocked the trigger when the flag was turned back. A permanent magazine (lever-type feeder) is attached to the bottom of the receiver, the magazine cover latch is located on the trigger guard. The magazine is equipped with a pack (clip) for 5 rounds, placed in a checkerboard pattern.

The Simonov anti-tank rifle of 1941 is 4 kg heavier than the Degtyarev model, due to the multi-shot automatics (21 kg without cartridges). Aimed shooting - 1500 m.

The barrel length of both anti-tank rifles is the same - 1350 mm, as well as armor penetration (average indicators): at a lethal distance of 300 m, the B-32 bullet overcame armor of 21 mm, the BS-41 bullet - 35 mm.

German PTR

German anti-tank guns developed a slightly different scenario. Back in the mid-20s, the German command abandoned large-caliber anti-tank rifles in favor of the "rifle" caliber 7.92 mm. The bet was made not on the size of the bullet, but on the power of the ammunition. The effectiveness of the specialized cartridge P318 was sufficient to deal with the armored vehicles of potential opponents. However, like the USSR, Germany entered World War II with a small number of anti-tank rifles. Subsequently, their production was increased many times, and the developments of Polish, Czech, Soviet, British, French gunsmiths were used.

A typical example of 1939-1942. there was a 1938 Panzerbuchse model of the year - an anti-tank rifle, a photo of which can often be seen in archival military photographs. Pz.B 38 (abbreviated name), and then Pz.B 39, Pz.B 41 were developed in the city of gunsmiths Sule by designer B. Bauer.

The bore of the Pz.B 38 was locked with a vertical wedge bolt. To soften the recoil, the barrel-bolt clutch was moved back in the box. The recoil was used to unlock the shutter, similar to how it is done in semi-automatic artillery pieces. The use of such a scheme made it possible to limit the length of the barrel stroke to 90 mm and reduce the overall length of the weapon. The large flatness of the trajectory of bullets at a distance of up to 400 m made it possible to install a permanent sighting device.

The design of the weapon showed a desire common to the end of the 1930s to switch to mass production technologies - the box, in particular, was assembled from two stamped halves, equipped with stiffeners and connected by spot welding. The system was further refined by Bauer several times.

Conclusion

The first anti-tank guns appeared along with the tanks themselves - in the First World War. Before the start of the Second World War, both Germany and the USSR did not realize their obvious importance, giving priority to other types of weapons. However, the very first months of the collision of infantry units with the tank armada of the Wehrmacht showed how erroneous the underestimation of mobile, cheap, effective anti-tank rifles was.

In the 21st century, the “good old” anti-tank rifle still remains in demand, the modern purpose of which is fundamentally different from that for samples of the Great Patriotic War. Considering that tanks can withstand several RPG hits, the classic anti-tank rifle is unlikely to hit an armored vehicle. In fact, anti-tank rifles have evolved into a class of "heavy" universal sniper rifles, in the image of which the outlines of anti-tank guns are guessed. They are designed to hit "drones", manpower at a considerable distance, radars, missile launchers, protected firing points, communications and control equipment, unarmored and lightly armored mobile equipment, and even hovering helicopters.

At first, they were carried out mainly under 12.7-mm ammunition from heavy machine guns. For example, the American M82A1 Barret, M87 and M93 MacMillan, the British AW50, the French Hecate II, the Russian ASVK and OSV-96. But in the 2000s, special “sniper” cartridges appeared within the 12.7x99 (.50 Browning) and 12.7x108 families of large-caliber cartridges. Such cartridges were included, for example, in the same Russian 12.7-mm OSV-96 and ASVK (6S8) sniper systems, and the American M107. Rifles for more powerful cartridges are also presented: the Hungarian Gepard (14.5 mm), the South African NTW (20 mm), the American M-109 (25 mm) and others. The start, taken at the beginning of the 20th century, continues!

The Second World War, which became the finest hour of tanks, sharply posed the problem of effective anti-tank defense (ATD) for the armies. Anti-tank guns - towed or self-propelled, as well as anti-tank (AT) melee weapons were assigned a special role during this period. Before the outbreak of hostilities, the infantry had anti-tank rifles, bundles of grenades, and heavy high-explosive grenades. However, the tanks became more and more "strong" and "thick-skinned", and in order to cope with them, the infantry needed new, more powerful anti-tank weapons.

An attempt at improvisation

Disputes about the importance of anti-tank rifles (PTR) largely delayed their development, but nevertheless, by the beginning of World War II, this type of weapon was nevertheless introduced and even entered service with a number of armies. The common features of the PTR were a long barrel and a powerful cartridge, which provided armor-piercing and armor-piercing incendiary bullets with high initial speeds. However, views on the appointment of anti-tank rifles, their place in the battle order and the requirements for them varied widely. For example, Polish designers were among the first in 1935 to adopt the PTR of the so-called “normal”, rifle caliber, but with a cartridge much more powerful than the rifle one, and they performed the PTR UR wz.35 according to the scheme of a repeating rifle with a rotary bolt. The Germans preferred a single-shot version with automatic unlocking of the wedge bolt after a shot (similar to an anti-tank gun), and for a powerful 7.92-mm cartridge they used a 15-mm aircraft machine gun case. The German 7.92-mm PTR single-shot Pz.B.38 (Panzerbuhse 1938), developed by Bauer at the Gustlow-Werck, was quite compact, but heavy. And then the designer lightened his PTR. To simplify, he introduced manual shutter control, installing a more effective muzzle brake to reduce recoil - this is how the Pz.B.39 appeared.

In 1941, Czech designers also created a magazine-type 7.92-mm PTR MSS-41, which was distinguished by its layout with the location of the magazine itself behind the pistol grip. Reloading in it was carried out by moving the barrel back and forth.

In addition, there were models whose caliber was directly adjacent to the guns. Such were the self-loading anti-tank rifles for various types of 20-mm cartridges - the Japanese Type 97, the Finnish L-39 of the Lahti system (it is characteristic that both of these anti-tank rifles were created on the basis of aircraft guns) and others. Faced in 1940-1941, first with the British tanks Mk II "Matilda" with an armor thickness of up to 78 mm, then with the Soviet T-34 and KV with armor up to 45 and up to 75 mm, the Germans realized the futility of the 7.92-mm PTR- Pz.B.39 and converted it into a Gr.B.39 grenade launcher with a 30-mm rifled muzzle mortar. By the end of 1941, a “heavy PTR” 2.8 / 2 cm s.Pz.B.41 with conical bore drilling appeared. The idea of "tapered" barrels was also developed long ago; in the previous decade, the German engineer Hermann Gerlich, who managed to attract wide attention, was actively engaged in them. By gradually reducing the diameter of the bore from the breech to the muzzle, he tried to increase the level of average pressure in the bore and thus make it more rational to use powder gases to accelerate the bullet without significantly increasing the maximum pressure. A bullet of a special design was compressed, passing the conical section of the barrel, increasing the mass per unit area and acquiring a high initial velocity. The result is a significant increase in the flatness of the trajectory and the penetrating effect of the bullet. The s.Pz.B.41 barrel had a caliber of 28 mm in the breech and 20 mm in the muzzle, two conical transitions were made in the bore, that is, the projectile was crimped twice. The “heavy PTR” itself looked more like a reduced cannon (a fragmentation projectile was even introduced into the ammunition load), besides, the production of conical rifled barrels and shells for them was quite expensive, so this tool was used, like heavier anti-tank guns with a conical barrel, limited. Sub-caliber projectiles, the impact core of which is much smaller in diameter than the barrel caliber, have become a much more popular technique for achieving high initial velocities.

In the USSR, work on PTR caliber from 20 to 25 mm was carried out from 1936, until a decision was made to revise the very requirements for PTR, finally formulated in November 1938 by the Artillery Directorate and providing for a large, but still "rifle" caliber. Since 1940, they began serial production of a 14.5-mm cartridge with an armor-piercing incendiary bullet. Under this cartridge, Nikolai Rukavishnikov developed a self-loading anti-tank rifle, which was put into service as the PTR-39. But the troops did not receive serial anti-tank missiles by the beginning of the war.

The subjective factor intervened, often determining the fate of military weapons. At the beginning of 1940, intelligence reported on "the latest types of German tanks" with significantly enhanced armor and weapons. Poorly versed in the military industry of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, the head of the GAU, Marshal Grigory Kulik, apparently expecting the imminent appearance of a large number of such tanks on the German side, ordered the removal of the Rukavishnikov anti-tank rifle from service (serial production did not begin), as well as the termination of production of 45- mm anti-tank guns. As a result, the infantry of the Red Army was deprived of an effective close combat anti-tank weapon, having only high-explosive hand grenades. Yes, and they were not enough - anti-tank grenades were considered a special tool. The perniciousness of such decisions was confirmed in the very first weeks of the war. The hastily formed units of infantrymen - "tank destroyers" usually had only bundles of hand grenades and incendiary bottles, and to use both of them, the tanks had to be let in by 20 meters. Losses grew.

And then the improvisations began. An attempt to produce the German 7.92-mm Pz.B.39 in-house did not work - in addition to technological problems, insufficient armor penetration also affected. Although the German army still used light tanks, medium vehicles with armor up to 30 mm thick had already begun to play the main role.

At the suggestion of engineer V.N. Sholokhov as a temporary measure in July 1941 in the workshops of the Moscow State Technical University. Bauman and other engineering and technical universities in Moscow set up the assembly of a single-shot PTR chambered for a 12.7-mm DShK cartridge. A simple design with some improvements was copied from the old German Mauser PTR and did not provide the required parameters, although a 12.7-mm cartridge with an armor-piercing bullet BS-41 was produced specifically for these PTRs.

The same Kulik demanded that the production of Rukavishnikov's PTR be started as soon as possible, but its production and fine-tuning required a lot of time. According to the memoirs of Marshal Dmitry Ustinov, Stalin, at one of the meetings of the State Defense Committee, proposed to entrust the development of PTR "to one more, and for reliability - to two designers." The task at the beginning of July 1941 was received by Vasily Degtyarev and Sergey Simonov, and a month later they presented samples.

The refinement of the cartridge continued. On August 15, a version of the 14.5-mm cartridge was adopted with a BS-41 bullet containing a carbide core made using powder technology. And two weeks later, without waiting for the end of the tests (the question was of particular urgency), they adopted a single-shot version of the Degtyarev PTR and Simonov's self-loading PTR. Both types were called "14.5 mm anti-tank rifle model 1941." - PTRD and PTRS, respectively.

PTRD, developed by Degtyarev and his KB-2 at the plant number 2 named after. Kirkizh, was one of the examples of combining maximum simplicity - to speed up and reduce the cost of production - with efficiency. To increase the rate of fire, the rotary shutter is made "quarter-automatic". When the barrel was displaced with the receiver, under the action of recoil relative to the butt, the bolt handle ran onto the copier and unlocked the bolt. When the system returned forward, the spent cartridge case was removed and ejected, the bolt stopped, opening the receiver window for inserting the next cartridge.

On an industrial scale

The production of PTRD began at the plant. Kirkizha, later Izhmash and the part of TOZ production evacuated to Saratov joined in.

The first combat use of the PTRD was received near Moscow in the 16th army of Rokossovsky. The most famous then was the battle of a group of tank destroyers from the 1075th regiment of the 316th Panfilov rifle division at the Dubosekovo junction on November 16, 1941. Of the 30 attacking tanks, 18 were hit, but the losses were also high: a fourth of the entire company remained alive. This battle showed not only the effectiveness of the PTR, but also the need to cover their positions with arrows, support at least with light artillery. The integrated use of anti-tank weapons using anti-tank artillery, armor-piercers (as the PTR calculations were called), tank destroyers with grenades and bottles, machine gunners, shooters, and, if possible, sappers, in anti-tank strongholds not only strengthened the anti-tank defense, but also reduced losses. Already by December 30, 1941, 17,688 ATGMs were produced, and over the next year - 184,800. also Vasily Volkhin). Despite the novelty, the PTRS on tests showed fewer delays than the Rukavishnikov PTR, with the same ballistics, mass and magazine capacity. For ease of transportation, the gun was disassembled into two parts. The PTRS was 1.5-2 times superior to the PTRD in terms of combat rate of fire, which greatly increased the likelihood of a tank being hit. In terms of production complexity, it was between the PTRD and Rukavishnikov’s PTR: in 1941, only 77 PTRS were produced, and a year later, already 63,308 (production was set in Saratov and Izhevsk). In terms of the combination of combat and operational qualities, the PTRS can be considered the best PTR of the Second World War.

At the position, the PTR calculation, consisting of a gunner and his assistant, in addition to a gun, prepared grenades and incendiary bottles for battle. PTRD and PTRS, capable of fighting enemy medium tanks at ranges up to 300 m, played an important role in the anti-tank system in 1941-1942. German tankers recalled Soviet anti-tank rifles as "respectable" weapons, paying tribute to their calculations. And General Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin wrote: “It seemed that every infantryman had an anti-tank rifle or an anti-tank gun. The Russians are very skillful at disposing of these funds, and it seems that there is no such place where they would not be.”

With all the manufacturability, the deployment of mass production of anti-tank rifles in wartime conditions required a certain period of time. And the shortcomings of the hastily created systems - the tight extraction of the cartridge case for the PTRD, the twin shots for the PTRS - had to be corrected during production. The needs of the troops began to be satisfied to a sufficient extent only from November 1942. But already at the beginning of the next year, the effectiveness of the PTR decreased due to the build-up of armor of German tanks and assault guns over 40 mm. The new "panthers" and "tigers" turned out to be "armor-piercing" simply too tough.

The following figures testify to the intensity of the use of anti-tank rifles in the Red Army: in the defensive operation near Kursk, the Central Front used up 387,000 rounds of ammunition for PTRD and PTRS (or 48,370 on the day of the battle), Voronezh - 754,000 (68,250 on the day), and for the entire Battle of Kursk 3.6 million of these cartridges were used up.

And yet, PTRD and PTRS did not leave the scene. But now their targets are light armored vehicles, lightly armored self-propelled guns, firing points - especially in urban battles, embrasures of bunkers and bunkers at ranges up to 800 m, as well as aircraft at ranges up to 500 m.

The troops for the PTR even made handicraft anti-aircraft installations, the anti-aircraft tripod for the PTR created in Kovrov was not allowed into the series. PTRs were often used by snipers to hit distant targets or shooters behind armored shields - in forty years this experience will be revived in the form of large-caliber sniper rifles. The production of 14.5-mm anti-tank rifles continued until January 1945, in total, about 471,500 of them were produced during the war.

But the service life of the 14.5 mm cartridge turned out to be much longer.

The spread of light armored vehicles and the increase in the security of aviation operating at low altitudes required a machine gun with the ability to destroy lightly armored targets at ranges up to 1,000 m, accumulation of manpower and equipment, firing points up to 1,500 m, and also combat air targets. Such a machine gun was developed in Kovrov by a group of designers led by Semyon Vladimirov. The design was based on the 20-mm V-20 aircraft gun. Already in 1944, "Vladimirov's large-caliber machine gun arr. 1944" (KPV-44) fell into small-scale production, and after the war gave rise to a family of infantry, tank and anti-aircraft 14.5-mm machine guns.

Of course, they tried to create more powerful PTRs. For example, Mikhail Blum's 14.5 mm anti-tank rifle chambered for a reinforced cartridge (based on a 23 mm cartridge case) and with an initial bullet speed of 1,500 m / s, Rashkov, Ermolaev, Slukhotsky's 20 mm anti-tank rifle, and other developments. But in 1945, Anatoly Blagonravov stated: "In its current form, this weapon (PTR) has exhausted its capabilities."

Jet systems

A new stage of anti-tank weapons was associated with a combination of a reactive or recoilless projectile throwing principle with a cumulative warhead. Rocket weapons have been known for almost as long as firearms: gunpowder firecrackers and rockets appeared in China and India between the 10th and 13th centuries. Another revival of interest in combat missiles occurred at the end of the First World War. At the same time, work began on recoilless, or "dynamo-reactive", as they were then called, guns (although their schemes were proposed as early as the 1860s). The greatest attention in artillery was attracted by powder rockets and dynamo-reactive systems with dampening of the recoil energy by the reactive force of a part of the propellant gases of the propellant charge discharged through the breech. Work was carried out in a number of countries and most intensively - in the USSR, Germany and the USA. Among other areas were light anti-tank weapons. In the USSR, for example, in 1931 they tested the 65-mm "jet gun" of Petropavlovsky. And two years later, Leonid Kurchevsky's 37-mm "dynamo-reactive anti-tank guns" were adopted. True, two years later they were abandoned due to poor armor penetration and poor maneuverability. Kondakov, Rashkov, Trofimov, Berkalov were also involved in recoilless systems. But the actual failure of Kurchevsky's most noisily presented works undermined the credibility of this topic. In addition, the armor-piercing effect of shells was based on kinetic energy and, at low speeds given by recoilless and jet systems, was insufficient.

The cumulative effect of "hollow charges" has also been known for a long time - Mikhail Boreskov began his research in Russia back in 1865. Abroad, this effect is better known as the "Munro effect". A study of the practical application of shaped charges in the construction business in the USSR was carried out in the 1920s by M.Ya. Sukharevsky. By the beginning of the war in the USSR and Germany, there were samples of engineering shaped charges to destroy concrete and armor caps. Briefly, the principle of operation of the shaped charge looks like this. A funnel with a thin metal lining is made in the front hollow part of the charge. When explosives are detonated, shock waves seem to be focused and a “pestle” is formed from the outer layers of the lining, and a “needle” is squeezed out of the inner layers in the form of a narrow stream of gases and molten metal with a high temperature and a speed of up to 10,000 - 15,000 m / s. Under the action of such a jet at a pressure of more than 100,000 kg/cm2, the armor, like a liquid, "spreads" to the sides and, following the "needle", a "pestle" bursts into the hole. The armor-piercing (“armor-burning”, as it was not quite rightly called then) action of the shaped charge does not depend on the speed of the projectile, and therefore on the firing range and initial speed. High temperature and gas pressure give a strong "armored" destructive effect. The practical implementation of the effect requires not only the accuracy of the execution of the warhead, but also special fuses - it was their development that delayed the creation of artillery and jet cumulative projectiles. The detonation of such charges was calculated so that the cumulative jet had time to form before the warhead touches the armor.

In arming the armies with a new type of weapon - a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher (RPG) with a feathered cumulative grenade - Great Britain was ahead of everyone. However, the grenade launcher, developed under the leadership of Colonel Blackker according to the schemes of engineers Jeffrey and Wells and put into service in 1942 under the designation PIAT Mk I (Projectile Infantry Anti-Tank Mark I - “infantry anti-tank projectile, brand one”), did not use either a reactive, no dynamo-reactive circuit. The propellant charge burned out before the grenade left the grenade launcher tray, and the recoil was extinguished by a massive bolt-striker, its spring and butt shock absorber. Under the action of recoil, the bolt-drummer rolled back and got up on a combat platoon and the grenade launcher was ready to be loaded and fired. This weighed the weapon down to 15.75 kg with an effective range of only 100 yards (91 m). The only advantage of the PIAT was the absence of a jet of gases behind the RPG and the possibility of firing from tight spaces.

Legendary faustpatrons

By the middle of the war, the German infantry turned out to be almost as helpless in front of the new Soviet tanks as the Soviet one was in front of the German ones at the beginning of the war. It is not surprising that the "Infantry Armament Program" adopted in 1943 gave special importance to anti-tank weapons. Chief among them were the reusable reactive RPG and the dynamo-reactive (recoilless) disposable. The first one was created on the basis of an experimental Schulder 75 rocket launcher to fight tanks of all types. A grenade with a hard tail was inserted into the launch tube by an assistant grenade launcher from the breech cut, firing was carried out from the grenade launcher's shoulder, the grenade engine was ignited by a pulsed electric generator. In addition to the official designation 8.8cm R.Pz.B.54 ("Raketenpanzerbuchse 54"), the RPG received the "nickname" "Ofenror". Otherwise - a "chimney", so powerfully flame and smoke escaped from its official cut. To protect against the flames of the engine of a thrown grenade, the grenade launcher put on a gas mask and a steel helmet. Therefore, the modification R.Pz.B.54 / 1 "Panzershrek" ("thunderstorm of tanks") was equipped with a shield. It is characteristic that "Arctic" - for the Eastern Front and "tropical" - for North Africa - modifications of the grenade were created. "Ofenror" and "Panzershrek" were quite powerful weapons, but rather cumbersome to carry and difficult to manufacture.

Disposable "Panzerfausts" turned out to be more mobile and cheaper (they are also "faustpatrons", the name Panzerfaust, "armored fist", is associated with the German legend of the 16th century about a knight with a "steel arm"). The Panzerfaust models F-1 and F-2 ("system 43"), F-3 ("system 44") and F-4 turned out to be the simplest recoilless devices with an over-caliber grenade and a simple trigger mechanism. A charge of smoky gunpowder threw a grenade out of the launch tube, the plumage of which was revealed in flight. The effective range of the F-1 and F-2 reached 30 m. The flight path of the grenade was quite steep, so when firing the Panzerfaust they often took it under the arm, aiming at the sighting hole and the rim of the grenade.

The F-3 (or Panzerfaust-60) model had a 150 mm grenade, an increased propellant charge and an effective range of up to 75 m. Samples with a longer range were developed, but did not manage to be put into production. When fired behind the RPG, a jet of hot gases and a cloud of smoke escaped, making it difficult to shoot from shelters and premises and unmasking the shooter. But the Panzerfausts were very easy to handle and manufacture. In addition to the troops, they were given out in large numbers to the Volkssturm and the boys from the Hitler Youth. Standardization, traditional for the German industry, made it possible to quickly connect several companies to production. And from July 1944 to April 1945, more than 7.1 million Panzerfausts were produced. They were especially effective in urban battles - during the East Pomeranian operation, for example, in the 2nd mechanized corps of the 2nd Guards Tank Army, 60% of the lost tanks were hit by Panzerfausts. To combat the Faustniks, it was necessary to allocate special groups of submachine gunners and snipers (the war generally exacerbated the problem of interaction between tanks and infantry and their mutual cover for each other). Soviet fighters, having no such means of their own, willingly used captured Panzerfausts to fire not only at armored vehicles, but also at pillboxes and fortified buildings. Colonel-General Vasily Chuikov even offered to introduce them into the troops under the playful name "Ivan Patron".

According to a number of experts, the Panzerfaust was "the best hand-held infantry anti-tank weapon of the war." True, immediately after the war, this type attracted less attention than reusable grenade launchers and recoilless rifles.

The American reusable reactive 60-mm RPG M1 "Bazooka", developed under the guidance of Colonel Skinner, gained combat experience earlier than the German "Ofenror", was lighter and more mobile, but inferior to him in armor penetration and reliability. Nevertheless, the Bazooka (this nickname, which has become a household name, is associated with the external resemblance of the RPG to the wind musical instrument of the same name) became the main anti-tank weapon of small units, and their production was diligently increased. At the end of the war, an 88.9-mm RPG M20 "Bazooka" was created with a firing range of up to 150-200 m and armor penetration of 280 mm. But it entered service only during the Korean War in the early 1950s.

The American 57-mm M18 recoilless rifle weighing only 20 kg, which was fired from the shoulder or from a support at a distance of up to 400 m, was also essentially included in the infantry anti-tank weapons, which got to the front in March 1945. True, the armor penetration of its projectile was already insufficient.

The Germans used a heavier version of the "mounted grenade launcher" - the 88-mm "Puphen" (otherwise - "pupa", nicknamed so for its similarity to a toy gun) in 1943 was active-reactive. The bore was locked with a bolt, the grenade was thrown like a regular projectile, and accelerated in flight by a jet engine. With armor penetration up to 160 mm, "Puphen" had an effective firing range of no more than 200 m, weighed 152 kg and required the calculation of 4-6 people. On March 1, 1945, the Wehrmacht had 139,700 Panzerschreck and 1,649 Pupchen.

original grenades

The low effectiveness of high-explosive anti-tank grenades against the rapidly growing armor protection of tanks became clear already at the beginning of the war. For example, the Soviet RPG-40 grenade with a mass of 1.2 kg (it is clear that its accurate throw required considerable skill) “broke through” armor no thicker than 20 mm. Heavy grenades (nicknamed "Tanyusha") and bundles of ordinary hand grenades were usually thrown under the tracks, under the bottom or on the stern of the tank with the expectation to immobilize the vehicle. From the middle of the war, high-explosive grenades were replaced by cumulative grenades. In 1943, the PWM1 (L) appeared in the German army, and the RPG-43, developed by N.P. Belyakov in KB-20. After the appearance of German heavy tanks on the Kursk Bulge, the more powerful RPG-6, developed at NII-6 by M.Z., began to be used. Polevikov, L.B. Ioffe and N.S. Zhitkikh. The tape stabilizer ensured that the grenade approached the target with the head part forward, and the impact inertial fuse - undermining immediately upon meeting the target. The armor penetration of the RPG-43 was 75 mm, RPG-6 - 100 mm, PWM - up to 150 mm.

The original combination of grenades and mines was the German HH.3 magnetic grenade. She was "placed" on the enemy tank when it passed over the trench. Akin to her was a sticky grenade with an adhesive layer on the bottom of the case. During the war, by the way, the infantry began to be trained in the handling of anti-tank mines - the Soviet Infantry Combat Regulations of 1942 introduced anti-tank land mines and mines into the number of "infantry combat weapons".

Cumulative grenades also came to rifle grenade launchers. For the German rifled 30-mm rifle grenade launcher, for example, they adopted the “small” caliber (G.Pz.gr.) and over-caliber “large” (Gr.G.Pz.gr.) cumulative grenades with armor penetration, respectively - 25 and 40 mm. The Germans generally tried to adapt any means to anti-tank weapons - a cumulative grenade was even created for firing from a rifled signal pistol.

A VKG-40 grenade with armor penetration up to 50 mm, fired with a special blank cartridge, was also developed for the Soviet Dyakonov rifle grenade launcher. However, both in the Red Army and in the Wehrmacht, anti-tank rifle grenades were used to a limited extent. Serdyuk's VPGS41 ramrod rifle anti-tank grenade, ordered by the Red Army at first in large quantities, was already discontinued in 1942.

Work on a special light grenade launcher for firing an RPG-6 grenade was never completed. Deployed in the middle of the war, impressed by the appearance of German models of work on rocket-propelled grenade launchers, they yielded results only after the war. In 1949, the RPG-2, created in GSKB-30, entered service, and a year later, the easel SG-82, developed in SKB No. 36. As a result, in the last period of the war, hand grenades again turned out to be the only effective anti-tank weapon for close combat of the Soviet infantry.

Of the various rifle grenades used during World War II, perhaps the most promising were the American ones (anti-tank M9-A1, fragmentation M17, smoke M19-A1WP), equipped with plumage and fired with a blank (throwing) cartridge from a small muzzle attachment. After the war, feathered rifle grenades proved to be very popular. NATO even established a standard for the outer diameter of a muzzle or flash hider of a rifle - 22 mm. True, France, Belgium and Israel have already become leaders in the creation of new rifle grenades.

Bottles - to battle!

The idea of using incendiary weapons against tanks originated in the First World War, and after it this idea was developed and refined. The fire mixture, of course, cannot burn through the armor, but, flowing into the cracks and blinds, it can cause a fire inside the tank (especially in the engine compartment), the flame and smoke blind the tankers, forcing them to stop and leave the car. In fact, incendiary weapons are within the competence of the chemical forces. Incendiary weapons, massively used by the infantry, were Molotov cocktails. With a shortage or complete absence of anti-tank melee weapons in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, the production and supply of incendiary bottles was widely developed. The simplest incendiary bottles were used against tanks back in Spain; Soviet tankers had to deal with them during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940.

In the first months of the Great Patriotic War, this simple weapon went through a peculiar path of development. At first, the bottles had a fuse in the form of a match or a rag soaked in gasoline, but preparing such a bottle for throwing took a lot of time and was dangerous. Then chemical fuses appeared in ampoules: breaking together with the bottle, they gave a "beam" of flame. Hand grenade fuses were also used. The top of the steel bottles with self-igniting liquid "KS" or "BGS" - they ignited on contact with air, burned for 2-3 minutes, giving a temperature of 800-1,000 ° C and abundant white smoke. It was these liquids that received the well-known nickname "Molotov cocktail" from the enemy. The bottle had only to be removed from the cap and thrown at the target. When facing tanks with only incendiary bottles, the infantry usually suffered heavy losses, but in combination with other anti-tank weapons, the "bottles" gave a good effect. During the war, they accounted for 2,429 destroyed tanks, self-propelled guns and armored vehicles, 1,189 bunkers and bunkers, 2,547 other fortifications, 738 vehicles and 65 military depots. The Molotov Cocktail has remained a unique Russian recipe.

New experience - new requirements

The Second World War gave a bloody, but rich experience in the use and development of weapons and military equipment, forced a significant revision of various types of weapons. All this formed the basis of a new generation of weapons, including infantry weapons.

Anti-tank weapons have become an integral part of weapons at the squad-platoon-company level. At the same time, it was supposed to hit all types of tanks at ranges up to 500 m (and according to other experts, up to 1,000 m).

The new set of anti-tank infantry weapons, as well as the infantry weapon system as a whole, basically took shape by the spring of 1945. According to many researchers, they were most fully developed by German specialists. Fortunately, the rapid actions of the Red Army and the rapidly depleted resources of the German industry did not allow the German designers to "bring" a number of samples.

In World War II, guided rocket weapons were first used. In the field of anti-aircraft weapons, the case was limited to an experienced German rocket X-7 "Rotkapchen" ("Little Red Riding Hood") with manual control by wire. A decade and a half later, a whole series of various first-generation anti-tank missile systems appeared.

In terms of small arms, the experience of the war revealed the need to solve many problems: improving the maneuverability of weapons in connection with the increased mobility of infantry on the battlefield; increasing the efficiency of fire by optimizing the ratio of density, accuracy of fire and the damaging effect of a bullet; cartridge power selection; unification of weapons by cartridge and system, full automation of weapons, etc.

The need for new light and mobile short-range air defense systems stimulated the development of large-caliber machine gun mounts. In Germany, by the end of the war, they managed to release the first portable anti-aircraft missile system in an experimental batch, which, however, still did not belong to the "high-precision weapon": "Fliegerfaust" was a kind of multiple launch rocket system for launching nine unguided 20-mm missiles from the shoulder with an effective range not more than 500 m.

During the course of the war, the range of infantry armaments grew significantly. The complex use of various means with the increased dynamism of the battle required better training of commanders and fighters. And this, in turn, required the ease of development and operation of each type of weapon separately.

To be continued

In the autumn of 1941, a new soldier's specialty appeared in the Red Army - armor-piercing. So they began to call fighters with anti-tank rifles (PTR). creation and application of PTR is worthy of a separate and fairly detailed story.

For the first time, anti-tank guns - single-shot 13.37-mm Mauser Tankgewehr - were used by the German Reichswehr in 1918, at the final stage of the First World War. This experience turned out to be rather negative, therefore, in subsequent years, the armies of the leading states of the world intended to hit the enemy with the help of light cannons and "universal" heavy machine guns. However, the scale of the mechanization of troops made the idea of light infantry anti-tank weapons with a range of several hundred meters all the more tempting. In the 1930s, work on PTR intensified, including in our country. By the way, the term "anti-tank gun" is apparently borrowed from the German Panzerbüchse - after all, we are really talking about rifled weapons.

In 1936-1938, 15 different PTR systems of caliber from 12.7 to 25 mm were tested, until it became clear that the requirements for an anti-tank rifle were initially overstated. On November 9, 1938, the Artillery Directorate of the Red Army formulated a new task, which provided for the development of a 14.5-mm self-loading anti-tank rifle, which could be constantly located with units of a rifle company on any terrain and in any combat conditions. Work on a new cartridge of 14.5 mm caliber began at the Scientific Testing Range for Small Arms (NIPSVO) and continued at one of the Moscow factories.

With the expectation of this ammunition, an employee of the same training ground, N.V. Rukavishnikov, designed an anti-tank rifle, which was put into service on October 7, 1939. And yet, by June 22, 1941, the troops did not have serial anti-tank guns. This dramatic situation is often explained by the position of Marshal G. I. Kulik, who headed the Main Artillery Directorate before the war and declared in the spring of 1940 that light anti-tank weapons were ineffective in the fight against "the latest German tanks." The opinion of the marshal probably contributed to the delay in work on the anti-tank guns (as, by the way, and the decommissioning of 45-mm anti-tank guns), but did not stop them. Where technical reasons played a big role - plant No. 2, which was entrusted with the production of the first batch, in the winter of 1939-1940, used the main facilities for the production of PPD. In addition, repeated tests of Rukavishnikov's PTR showed its high sensitivity to pollution, unmasking the position by dust raised by gases from the muzzle brake. The gun needed to be improved and was withdrawn from service on July 26, 1940. Tests of the converted PTR took place in June 1941, and the NIPSVO report on the results is dated the 23rd - the second day of the Great Patriotic War.

MASS SAMPLES

The urgent establishment of the production of anti-tank rifles in the conditions of the outbreak of war, when all the capacities of the existing enterprises of the People's Commissariat of Armaments were loaded, required the solution of many organizational and technological problems. In the meantime, in July 1941, temporary measures are being taken for the speedy supply of the PTR army.

One of them was an attempt to urgently organize the production at the Tula Machine Tool Plant (Plant No. 66) of a 7.92-mm gun modeled on the captured German Pz.B.39. Its armor penetration (at a distance of 300 m, the bullet pierced armor up to 23 mm thick) was sufficient to deal with Wehrmacht light tanks. Yes, and medium tanks of the enemy, it could hit when firing into the side. Plant No. 66 was to produce 5,000 of these PTRs. But even in September there were still problems with the operation of the gun mechanisms. In October, the machine-tool plant was evacuated. According to some data, up to 1 thousand fell into the troops, according to others - only 426 such PTRs. In any case, 7.92-mm guns were used in the defense of Tula (a few pieces were received by the Tula workers' regiment).

They also remembered at that time about 12.7-mm single-shot guns, similar in type to the German Mauser Tankgever - in the 30s they were made in small quantities in Tula to work out a 12.7-mm cartridge, and NIPSVO in 1938 -m proposed to develop on this basis a magazine PTR. Now a proposal has arisen for the production of a single-shot anti-tank rifle chambered for a 12.7-mm DShK cartridge by small workshops (engineer V.N. Sholokhov is called its initiator). Semi-handicraft production began in Moscow in the workshops of the Mechanical Engineering Institute. Bauman, then - in OKB-16. The simple design of the German Mauser anti-tank rifle was supplemented by a muzzle brake, butt shock absorber and a folding bipod. Especially for these guns, 12.7-mm cartridges were produced with an armor-piercing bullet, which made it possible to penetrate 20 mm thick armor at a distance of 400 m.

The refinement of the 14.5-mm cartridge continued: in August, its variant with a BS-41 bullet with a solid core was put into service. This core is often referred to as cermet, although this is not about ceramics, but about the use of powder metallurgy. If the 14.5-mm bullet B-32 at a distance of 300 m pierced armor 21 mm thick, then the BS-41 - 35 mm.

The production of Rukavishnikov's PTR was still a problem. To speed up work on a more technologically advanced 14.5-mm PTR, according to the memoirs of D. F. Ustinov, Stalin, at one of the meetings of the State Defense Committee, suggested entrusting the development to one more, and for reliability - to two designers. At the beginning of July, V. A. Degtyarev and S. G. Simonov received the assignment. Soon, samples ready for testing appeared - only 22 days passed from setting the task to the first trial shots. New anti-tank rifles were supposed to fight medium and light tanks and armored vehicles at ranges up to 500 m.

Degtyarev with the staff of his KB-2 at the tool plant No. 2 in Kovrov developed two options with varying degrees of automation. Already on July 14, the working drawings were transferred to production. On July 28, Degtyarev's PTR project was considered at a meeting at the Small Arms Directorate. On July 30, in order to speed up the organization of mass production, Degtyarev was offered to simplify one of the samples, turning it into a single-shot one, because it is the power system that usually gives the greatest number of problems when fine-tuning weapons. A few days later, this option was presented.

On August 28-29, Degtyarev's PTR was tested at NIPSVO. And on August 6-12, Simonov's self-loading PTR (created on the basis of his own experimental self-loading rifle of 1938) and Rukavishnikov's modified PTR were tested here. Simonov's sample showed the best results.

On August 29, 1941, Degtyarev's single-shot rifle and Simonov's self-loading shotgun were adopted under the designations PTRD and PTRS, respectively. This was done even before the end of the PTR tests (survivability tests took place on September 12-13, and the final ones on September 24).

The rotary longitudinally sliding bolt of the Degtyarev gun had two lugs in the front and a straight handle in the back. The percussion mechanism is a striker type with a helical mainspring, the tail of the striker went out behind the bolt and looked like a hook. The drummer was cocked when the shutter was unlocked. The PTRD barrel was equipped with an active muzzle brake, which absorbed up to 2/3 of the recoil energy. The tubular butt contained the shock absorber spring. A witty feature of the design was the principle of automatic unlocking of the shutter when recoiling, creatively borrowed from artillery. After the shot, the barrel with the receiver moved back, the bolt handle ran into the copy profile, mounted on the butt, and turned, unlocking the bolt. After the barrel stopped, the bolt moved back by inertia and got up on the bolt delay, the bolt reflector pushed the spent cartridge case into the lower receiver window. The movable system was returned to the forward position by a shock absorber spring. The shutter remained open, and in order to prepare for the next shot, it was necessary to put a new cartridge into the upper window of the receiver, send and lock the shutter. This made it possible to increase the combat rate of fire with the coordinated work of the calculation of two people. The sighting device was moved to the left on the brackets and included a front sight and a flip rear sight at a distance of up to 600 m and more (in the PTR of the first releases, the rear sight moved in a vertical groove).

The butt had a soft cushion, a wooden stop for holding the weapon with the left hand, a wooden pistol grip, and an emphasis for the shooter's cheek. A folding stamped bipod and a carrying handle were attached to the barrel. The accessory included two canvas bags for 20 rounds each. The total weight of the PTRD with ammunition was about 26 kg. In combat, the gun carried one or both crew numbers. Imagine the load on the calculation on the march and in battle.

A minimum of parts, the use of a butt tube instead of a frame simplified the production of anti-tank guns, and this was of decisive importance in those conditions. The production of ATGMs began at Kovrov Plant No. 2: in early October, the first batch of 50 guns was assembled here, on October 28 a specialized production was created - the task for anti-tank weapons was a priority. The first batch of 300 ATGMs was produced in October and sent to the 16th Army of Lieutenant General K.K. Rokossovsky in early November. Later, Plant No. 74 (Izhevsk Machine-Building) was connected to the production of PTRD. By December 30, 1941, 17,688 ATGMs were manufactured, and for the entire 1942 - 184,800. The main production of ATGMs was carried out in Kovrov until November 1943, when plant No. 2 stopped production. But since October 1943, they began to assemble the PTRD in Zlatoust at plant No. 385.

Self-loading PTRS had automation based on the removal of powder gases through a transverse hole in the barrel wall. The barrel bore was locked by tilting the bolt core down. The percussion mechanism is trigger, with a helical mainspring. A double-row magazine with a lever feeder was hinged to the receiver, equipped with a clip (pack) with 5 rounds with the lid folded down. Accessory included 6 clips. When the cartridges were used up, the shutter got up on a delay. The sighting device included a front sight with a fuse and a sector sight notched from 100 to 1500 m. The PTR had a wooden butt with a soft cushion and a shoulder pad, a pistol grip. The neck of the butt was used for holding with the left hand. The barrel was equipped with a muzzle brake, a folding bipod and a carrying handle were attached to it.

The manufacture of PTRS was simpler than Rukavishnikov's PTR (a third fewer parts, 60% less machine hours), but much more difficult than PTRD. It was planned to produce PTRS in Tula, but after the evacuation of part of the production of plant No. 66 to Saratov, the production of PTRS was established there, at plant No. 614 (former Traktorodetal). For the rapid organization of production, there was not enough equipment or capacity. The way out was found in the cooperation of enterprises: the manufacture of the magazine box was entrusted to the combine plant, the striker - to the mechanical workshops of the local university. On November 7, the first PTRS was successfully tested, and since December its mass production began in Saratov. Izhevsk Plant No. 74 was also involved in the production of PTRS: on November 6, he received the task of organizing the production of PTRS, and already on November 11 - additionally for the production of PTRS. In November, the people of Izhevsk produced 36 ATGMs, and the first two PTRSs were only delivered in December. At first, the production of PTR parts was distributed among the workshops of the plant, then separate wooden barracks were built. They used the evacuated production of the Tula Arms and Podolsk Mechanical Plants. On July 1, 1942, on this basis, Plant No. 622 (later the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant) was spun off from Plant No. 74, which also produced anti-tank guns of both systems, and from the middle of 1943, only PTRS.

In 1941, only 77 PTRS were produced, in 1942 - 63,308. The establishment of mass production made it possible to reduce the cost of PTRS - from the first half of 1942 to the second half of 1943, it almost halved.

Since the PTRs were adopted on an urgent basis, the shortcomings of the new systems - the tight extraction of the cartridge case for the PTRD, the twin shots for the PTRS - had to be corrected during production. Due to the tight extraction of the cartridge cases, it was recommended to lubricate the PTR chamber before firing and every 10-12 shots. This, as well as a rather sensitive recoil, reduced the actual combat rate of fire compared to that stated in the manuals. The deployment of mass production in war conditions still required a certain period of time - the needs of the troops began to be sufficiently satisfied only from November 1942.

The production of PTRDs was stopped in Izhevsk at plant No. 622 in July, and in Kovrov at plant No. 2 in November 1943, in Zlatoust at plant No. 385 in December 1944. PTRS were produced in Saratov at plant No. 614 until June 1944, in Izhevsk at plant No. 622 until December of the same year. In total, these five plants produced 471,726 PTRs - 281,111 PTRDs and 190,615 PTRS. 469,700 PTRs of both systems were delivered to the troops. The peak of production - 249,642 units - falls on 1942, when the role of the PTR in the anti-tank defense system was the most significant. The number of 14.5 mm cartridges produced in 1940-1945 is estimated at 139.8 million pieces, the peak of production was 1942-1943.

COMBAT EXPERIENCE

With sufficiently high ballistic data, 14.5-mm anti-tank rifles were distinguished by maneuverability and manufacturability. Of course, they were not a replacement for even light anti-tank guns, but they bridged a significant gap between the "anti-tank" capabilities of infantry and artillery. Although in 1941 the PTR had to play precisely the role of the latter - back in August, 45-mm guns were withdrawn from the battalion and division level and transferred to the formation of anti-tank regiments and brigades.

The troops of the Western Front, who defended Moscow, were the first to receive new anti-tank rifles (here, by the way, a certain amount of Rukavishnikov's anti-tank rifles was also used). The directive of the front commander, General of the Army G.K. Zhukov, dated October 26, 1941, speaking about sending 3-4 anti-tank rifle platoons to the 5th, 33rd and 16th armies, demanded “to take measures for the immediate use of this weapon, exceptional in strength and effectiveness. .. giving them to regiments and battalions. And in his order of December 29, Zhukov pointed out the shortcomings in the use of anti-tank rifles: the use of their crews as shooters, the lack of interaction with groups of tank destroyers and anti-tank artillery, cases of leaving anti-tank missiles on the battlefield.

The most famous during the defense of Moscow was the battle at the Dubosekovo junction on November 16, 1941 of the 4th company of the 2nd battalion of the 1075th regiment of the 316th rifle division, Major General I.V. Panfilov. Of the 30 German tanks that participated in the attacks, 18 were hit, but out of the entire company on the front of which the attack took place, less than 20% of the Red Army soldiers survived. This battle showed not only the ability of PTR crews (there were only 4 crews in the battalion) to fight tanks, but also the need to cover them with riflemen, machine gunners and support with anti-tank and regimental artillery. Anti-tank strongholds have become a form of organizing close interaction between anti-tank artillery, anti-tank missiles, tank destroyers and automatic infantry weapons.

From December 1941, anti-tank rifle companies were introduced into rifle regiments (27 each, then 54 rifles each), and from the autumn of 1942, anti-tank rifle platoons of 18 rifles each were introduced into battalions. In January 1943, the PTR company was included in the motorized rifle and machine-gun battalion of the tank brigade, and the PTR companies will exist here until March 1944. PTR companies were also introduced into artillery anti-tank battalions, and anti-tank battalions - into the anti-tank brigades. Anti-tank rifles, together with light machine guns, ensured the self-defense of artillery batteries from enemy surprise attacks.

It should be noted that the effectiveness of the combat work of PTR crews is assessed in different ways, in the Russian literature of recent years it is customary to focus on their shortcomings and consider that they had only “psychological significance” in the face of a clear shortage of anti-tank artillery. However, the former Lieutenant General of the Wehrmacht E. Schneider wrote: “In 1941, the Russians had a 14.5-mm anti-tank rifle ... which brought a lot of trouble to our tanks and light armored personnel carriers that appeared later.” Former Major General F. von Mellenthin noted: “It seemed that every infantryman had an anti-tank rifle or an anti-tank gun. The Russians were very clever at disposing of these funds, and it seems that there was no such place where they were not.” In general, in a number of German works about the Second World War and the memoirs of German tankers, Soviet anti-tank rifles are mentioned as a “worthy of respect” weapon, but the courage of their calculations is also given due. As early as 1942, Soviet commanders noted new features of German attacks involving tanks and assault guns - they sometimes stopped 300-400 meters from the advanced trenches, supporting their infantry with fire from a place. And these are the ranges from which Soviet anti-tank missiles opened fire. As you can see, the fire of anti-tank rifles had more than just "psychological significance."

Having played a big role in anti-tank defense in 1941-1942, anti-tank rifles from the middle of 1943 - with the growth of armor protection of tanks and assault guns over 40 mm - lost their positions. If in January 1942 the number of anti-tank rifles in the troops was 8116, in January 1944 - 142 861, that is, it increased by 17.6 times in two years, then in 1944 it began to decline and by the end of the war the active army had only about 40,000 PTR.

On October 30, 1944, the chief of staff of the 1st Baltic Front, Colonel-General V.V. Kurasov, reported: “The experience of using anti-tank rifles during World War II shows that they had the greatest effect in the period up to July 1943, when the enemy used light and medium tanks , and the battle formations of our troops were relatively less saturated with anti-tank artillery. Starting from the second half of 1943, when the enemy began to use heavy tanks and self-propelled guns with powerful armor protection, the effectiveness of anti-tank rifles decreased significantly. The main role in the fight against tanks is now entirely played by artillery. Anti-tank rifles, which have good accuracy of fire, are now used mainly against enemy firing points, armored vehicles and armored personnel carriers. Unit commanders successfully used the main advantages of the PTR - maneuverability, the ability to constantly be in combat formations of small units, ease of camouflage - both in 1944 and in 1945. For example, when fighting in encirclement, in settlements, when capturing and securing bridgeheads, when it was not possible to use artillery.

PTR was used to fight not only with tanks and armored vehicles. Armor-piercers often silenced enemy bunkers and pillboxes. Snipers used the PTR instead of a sniper rifle to engage the enemy at long ranges or behind closes (attempts to install an optical sight on the PTR were unsuccessful due to too much recoil of the weapon). Anti-tank rifles were also used to fight low-flying aircraft - here the self-loading PTRS had advantages.