On February 25, 1836, Samuel Colt patented his revolver design. This pistol became one of the most famous repeating revolvers and revolutionized gunfighting during the Civil War. Colt's design turned out to be just the beginning of firearm innovation.

Here is the story of how such weapons evolved from primitive tools to ultra-precise devices that bring death.

Chinese squeakers

The simplest type of firearm appeared in China in the twelfth century and consisted of a squeaker loaded with gunpowder and a pike that warriors carried with them.

Primitive gun

Gunpowder came to Europe along the Great Silk Road, and since then people began to experiment with the simplest guns. They were in use in the 13th and 14th centuries.

matchlock shotgun

In the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe and Asia, the technology of firearms advanced a lot. Guns appeared in which gunpowder was ignited using a complex system called a matchlock.

flintlock gun

The flintlock soon replaced the matchlock. Pistols and rifles known to everyone today appeared, which will soon become the most common weapons among the troops.

Musket

The muzzle-loaded smoothbore weapon, called the musket, was the most common flintlock rifle, often with a bayonet.

Whitworth rifle

During the American Civil War, both sides made extensive use of the first sniper rifle, the Whitworth rifle, which could hit very distant targets from its rifled barrel.

Breech-loading shotgun

Back-loading weapons became very common in the 19th century. Almost all shotguns and rifles were like that.

springfield rifle

The Springfield Rifle was one of the first to be breech loaded. It was developed in the 1850s and became known for its accuracy because standardized cartridges were used for it.

Gatling gun

In 1861, Dr. Richard Gatling invented the rapid-fire weapon. The machine gun fired bullets from several barrels rotating under the force of gravity.

Pepper Revolver

The problem of loading weapons with more than one bullet at a time was practically solved by a multi-barreled pepper pistol with rotating barrels. The shooter had to twist the barrels manually after each shot.

Colt revolver

In 1836, Samuel Colt invented the revolver, which soon became the first mass-produced revolver and was widely used in the Civil War.

Lever-action rifles and Winchesters

The reloading of this type of rifle is carried out manually by a semicircular movement of the trigger guard around the trigger. The most popular model that brought popularity to this weapon is the Winchester, model 1873.

Bolt action rifles

The sliding bolt very soon became the most used method of reloading rifles. The rate of fire of such weapons had a great effect in the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries.

machine guns

The size and weight of the very first machine guns - Gatling guns - significantly limited their ability to be used in military operations. Smaller and more convenient machine guns were invented on the eve of the First World War and brought considerable destruction.

Cartridge belts

The cartridge belt quickly became popular because it allowed you to simply store a large number of cartridges and quickly load them into a weapon (mainly a machine gun).

The shops

The magazine is a device for storing ammunition in the immediate vicinity or directly on the repeating weapon itself. Stores were greatly developed during the First World War, as a means of quickly reloading mainly such weapons as a pistol.

Browning HP and semi-automatic shotguns

The Browning HP 9mm pistol, developed by American firearms inventor John Browning in 1929, became one of the most famous semi-automatic pistol models due to its widespread use during World War II. Semi-automatic shotguns are also known as self-loading shotguns. In such weapons, cartridges are automatically reloaded after each shot, but semi-automatic weapons do not assume continuous fire, unlike automatic weapons.

Sniper rifle Garand M1

The Garand M1 rifle was invented by John Garand and was described by General George Patton as "the greatest weapon for fighting". This semi-automatic rifle replaced the Springfield rifle in the US Army in 1939 and performed quite well during World War II.

Thompson submachine gun

The Thompson submachine gun, or Tommy, got a bad rap during American Prohibition because it was the weapon used by gangsters. However, Tommy submachine guns also took part in World War II.

Browning M2

The 50-caliber Browning M2 was a heavy machine gun developed at the end of World War I by John Browning and widely used in World War II. Known for its reliability and firepower, this machine gun is still used by the American army and the armies of NATO countries to this day.

AK-47

The AK-47 was not the very first machine gun, but nevertheless it is known more than others. The assault rifle was invented by Soviet small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1948. Due to the reliability of these weapons, the AK-47 and its various variants remain the most widely used assault rifles today.

Rifle M-16

The M-16 rifle and its various variants were developed in 1963 for fighting in the jungle during the Vietnam War. Soon, the M-16 became the standard combat rifle of the American troops. Its variants remain in service to this day and have also spread among the armed forces of other countries.

Modern firearms

Current firearms technology seeks to reduce their weight and ease of use in order to increase the mobility and capabilities of soldiers in combat.

3D weapon production

The market for personal firearms is becoming more and more advanced in a technical sense. Today it is even possible to 3D print plastic weapons that fire live ammunition.

The beginning of firearms was laid by the invention of a mixture of substances that hide the reserves of thermal energy and the energy of compressed gases. This mixture could be stored almost indefinitely, however, at any moment, energy reserves could be released when exposed to a mixture of a spark or a beam of flame, such a mixture of substances was first called black powder. Black powder, most likely, first appeared in China or India long before the era accessible to historical research.

Combustible and explosive compounds appeared in ancient times, however, it is unlikely that compounds such as Greek fire, which penetrated Europe around 668 and contained saltpeter (one of the active principles of black powder), had propelling properties.

In medieval Europe, black powder, similar in composition to modern (75% potassium nitrate, 15% coal, 10% sulfur), was most likely introduced into general use around 1260-1280. one of the most prominent and versatile scientists of the Middle Ages, Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus), a German by nationality. According to other sources, gunpowder was studied by the English philosopher Roger Bacon (Bacon) in 1267, or the German monk Berthold Schwartz (Black Berthold), to whom the invention of gunpowder is attributed, according to various sources, from 1259 to 1320. It is noteworthy that the priority The creation of gunpowder is attributed to the greatest scientists of the Middle Ages, this indicates the importance of the discovery and its significance for society. Until now, the proverb has been used in relation to creatively limited people: "This man will not invent gunpowder!"

The invention of gunpowder was a milestone in the history of mankind, as it laid the foundation for methods for effectively killing a person by a person, which method was and is the ultimate means in the struggle of human and other living beings for food, a female and power in a flock, sadly to state. In addition, this invention laid the foundation for heat engines, which subsequently transformed the planet, and gave impetus to the development of metallurgy, chemistry and some other sciences, and was also an indirect, but important factor in the destruction of chivalry as the bearer of feudalism and the transition to the next socio-political formation capitalism.

The first reliable indication of the manufacture of firearms is contained in a Florentine document of 1326, although there is evidence of the use of such weapons by the Mongols as early as 1241. At the Battle of Cressy in 1346, Berthold Niger-Schwartz first used cannons in a field war and contributed to the defeat of the French knightly corps. In Russia, firearms appeared, of course, later than in the east and west, and were first brought from Germany through the Hanseatic League around 1380-1382.

The first firearms, most likely, were wooden and made like a deck of two halves, or barrels fastened with iron hoops. Known tools made of durable wood stumps with a removed core. Then they began to use tools welded by forging from iron strips, as well as cast bronze. Such weapons, according to modern terminology, were cannons, were bulky and heavy, mounted on large wooden decks, or even rested against specially built brick walls or piles driven into the back of the guns. Their caliber ranged from a few centimeters to a meter or more. The effectiveness of fire is extremely low, while the psychological effect of the application is extremely great.

The first hand firearms, apparently, appeared among the Arabs in the 12th century and were called "modfa". It consisted of a short metal barrel attached to a shaft, and such a weapon was fired from a bipod. In Europe, hand firearms appeared around 1360-1390, and in 1425 they were already often used in the Hussite wars. The ancestors of handguns in Europe were called pedernals or petrinals. The weapon was a relatively short barrel of large caliber with a fuse hole on top, attached to a long shaft, another name for this weapon was a hand-held bomber or a handgun. Shooting from such weapons could only be carried out by very physically strong people, since the recoil when fired was great. In the middle to the end of the 15th century, more convenient examples of hand weapons appeared, called arquebuses or culverins. The arquebus had a semblance of a butt, which was first clamped under the armpit or placed on the shoulder, like crossbows. The ignition or seed hole was located on top, and then on the side of the barrel, and was subsequently equipped with a shelf for pouring seed powder. Shooting from an arquebus was carried out first from a bipod, with one person pointing the weapon, and the other applying a lit wick to the seed hole. Then the arquebus was lightened, and shooting could be done by one person. The effectiveness of arquebus fire was low, crossbow combat was superior to arquebus combat in strength, accuracy and reloading speed, so the caliber, bullet weight and powder charge mass were increased, respectively, the mass of the weapon, which was called the musket, increased. The musket weighed 6-8 kg, had a length of about 1.5 m, a caliber of 20-22 mm, a bullet weight of 40-50 g, a mass of a powder charge of 20-25 g, the recoil was enormous when fired, only strong people could endure such a recoil, therefore, the musketeers were, as a rule, soldiers of high stature and great physical strength. To soften the recoil when fired, the musketeer rested the butt of the musket in a special leather pillow, which he wore on his right shoulder. The musket accurately hit the target at a distance of up to 80 meters, pierced armor at a distance of up to 200 m and inflicted wounds at a distance of up to 600 m. Wounds inflicted on a person's body were almost always fatal. The rate of fire from a musket, with a wick constantly burning in battle, which at the time of firing with the help of a serpentine (like a trigger) was pressed against the gunpowder, poured on a special shelf next to the ignition hole, did not exceed 2 shots per minute. During this time, the archer could fire up to 10 well-aimed arrows, but the penetrating effect of the musket already significantly exceeded the effect of bow arrows and crossbow bolts.

At the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, a wheeled flintlock was invented, in which a beam of sparks that ignited gunpowder on a weapon shelf was obtained by rubbing a piece of flint pressed with serpentine against a rapidly rotating steel wheel driven by a pre-cocked spring. This invention most likely belongs to the great medieval scientist Leonardo da Vinci. The constructive embodiment of the invention belongs to the Germans Wolf Donner, Johann Kinfuss and the Dutchman Ettor, who lived at the same time as Leonardo. The wheel lock gave a new impetus to the development of hand weapons, since the ignition of gunpowder ceased to depend on weather conditions, such as rain, wind, dampness, due to which failures and misfires constantly occurred in the wick ignition method.

With the advent of the wheel lock, called "German", it became possible to create a "little gun", that is, a pistol that got its name from the city of Pistoia, where it is believed that it was invented by the Italian Camillo Vetelli. Previously, shortened guns were known, which were called blunderbusses, but with wick ignition, the convenience of using them was clearly not enough for a one-handed weapon constantly ready for battle.

In 1498, the Austrian gunsmith Gaspar Zollner uses straight rifling in his guns. Later, he, along with Augustin Kotter and Wolf Danner, uses screw rifling. It is believed that the screw rifling was first obtained by accident, however, this idea is fundamentally wrong. The technology for obtaining straight cuts, in no case, did not allow to accidentally get screw cuts. Most likely, the screw thread was born as a result of the experiment, since the stabilizing effect of rotation was known in antiquity.

Around 1504, the Spaniards had a flintlock, in which a beam of sparks for igniting gunpowder was obtained from a single blow of a flint, fixed in the jaws of the trigger, on a steel flint. The energy of the trigger was transmitted by a pre-compressed mainspring. It is believed that the percussion flintlock was first invented by the Arabs or the Turks. However, history has not conveyed to us the name of the genius of that time, who invented such a perfect thing.

In Europe, flintlocks were first made by the Spaniards, the brothers Simon and Pedro Marquarte, such locks were called Spanish-Moorish. Later, improved by German gunsmiths, the percussion flintlock began to be called "German", like the wheel lock.
Wheel and flint impact locks made it possible to significantly increase the rate of fire of hand weapons compared to matchlocks. Experienced shooters could make 6 shots in 5-6 minutes, special masters up to 4 shots per minute!

In the 1530s, a muzzle cartridge was invented in Spain to speed up loading. In 1537, breech-loading guns already existed in France, however, even earlier, in 1428, the Germans had such weapons. The first hand-held multi-shot weapon saw the light back in the 15th century; a four-shot drum arquebus of French or German work, dating back to 1480-1560, is known. At the same time, multi-barreled guns with several locks or one lock and rotating barrels were known.

After the introduction of these inventions, the development of handguns stalled, flint locks were improved, the quality of barrels was improved, however, no fundamental changes that could lead to an increase in the rate of fire, ease of use, increase in accuracy and range of fire were no longer followed until the beginning of the 19th century. A smooth-bore muzzle-loading gun with a flintlock percussion lock, though of a high degree of reliability, remained an army weapon. Hunting weapons could be double-barreled. Pistols were also muzzle-loading, single-barreled, rarely multi-barreled, and equipped with the same type of flintlock as guns. Mechanics has already given the principles of multi-shot weapon construction, there were hand-held weapon systems, some of the reloading actions of which were already performed automatically. However, the further development of the weapon was held back by the flint ignition system for the powder charge. The content of the weapon was exhausted, the form could not change anything, the idea of ​​a new content was required. And it appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in connection with the development of chemical science.

In 1788, French chemist Claude-Louis Berthollet discovered salt, named after him. Bertolet's salt was potassium chlorate, which, when mixed with sulfur, coal or antimony sulfide, had the property of exploding on impact or friction. Such mixtures became the first shock compositions, along with mercury fulminate (mercury fulminate), discovered back in 1774 by the chief royal physician of France, Dr. Boyen, or, according to other sources, Edward Howard in 1788-1799. The discovery of percussion compositions, still consisting mostly of a mixture of mercury fulminate, berthollet salt and auxiliary substances, made it possible to proceed with the development of a further content of hand weapons.

The next epochal step forward was the invention in 1805-1806 by the Scottish priest Alexander John Forsyth of explosive balls and cakes, the prototype of modern capsule devices. These balls and cakes were broken by a blow of a lowered trigger near the priming hole of the barrel of the weapon and, with their explosion, ignited the powder charge in the barrel. Forsyth ignition guns were imperfect, although they had very ingenious designs, including partially automated ones.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Swiss Samuel-Johann Pauli (Poly), apparently the most outstanding weapon artist in recent centuries, made a giant leap, ahead of the weapons thought of mankind by 50 years! On September 29, 1812, Pauli received a patent for a center-fire breech-loading gun, loaded with the world's first unitary cartridge.

The Pauli gun was distinguished by its amazing for that time and not bad even for our time rate of fire of a single-shot gun with a unitary cartridge. The gun used metal or paper with a metal pallet (such as modern hunting) cartridges with a primer device of the original design, which was located in the center of the sleeve. As you can see, the device of the cartridge did not differ from the modern one. The gun had a hinged or sliding bolt, automatic cocking when reloading, and even a cartridge case extraction system, that is, all the principles of the structure of rifles that appeared 50 years after his inventions.

It is interesting to note here how quite often fate is unfair to the most talented people of their time. Their names are mentioned in passing even in later literature, when it has long become clear who was a brilliant star talent, and who was just mediocrity and a compiler.

On January 2, 1813, the Minister of Police of France, General Anne-Jean-Marie-René Savary, the Duke of Rovigo wrote to Emperor Napoleon I about a very advantageous invention of Mr. Pauli, who, in the presence of the Duke, produced a 16.6 mm caliber gun from his gun. 22 shots in 2 minutes (10 times more than from a muzzle-loading army rifle with a flintlock). The range and accuracy of fire was twice as high as that of an army rifle. General Savary was so surprised that he asked the inventor to allow the artillery committee to be immediately informed about his invention, and personally informed the emperor about the miracle weapon.

Napoleon I answered General Savary already on January 3rd, wishing to personally see the inventor, instructed to carry out extended tests of new weapons and report on the results. Unfortunately, urgent matters did not give the emperor the opportunity to complete the work, there was too little time left before the fall of the empire ... Who knows what the fate of the world would have been if Pauli's invention had appeared a little earlier.

After the fall of Napoleon, those in power were very busy with their favorite thing for all ages - the struggle for the best piece of the pie. Before inventions, even fateful ones, at such an exciting moment!

In 1818, Samuel Pauli, on top of his creative achievements, released a gun in which, instead of an ordinary side lock with a rotary trigger, a coil spring striker was used for the first time, the striker of which broke the striking composition of the original capsule device. The use of a combat coil spring, along with a rod striker, was unknown before Pauli. It was this idea that Dreyse subsequently developed in his needle gun.

Samuel Pauli died in obscurity, the laurels of the inventors of the unitary cartridge and breech-loading weapons went to the apprentice Pauli Dreize and the French gunsmith Lefoshe.

In 1814, the American Joshua Shaw invented metal capsules (pistons), which differ little from modern capsules and are small metal caps into which an explosive composition with a base of mercury fulminate is pressed. The pistons were put on a short tube protruding from the breech breech (brand tube), which serves to transmit the flame beam from the piston broken by the trigger to the powder charge in the barrel. Shaw's capsules were made of steel. Copper capsules were introduced by the English Hawker or Joe Egg in 1818.

In 1827, the German Nicholas-Johann Dreyse proposed a unitary cartridge, the prototype of the modern one, the idea of ​​which he borrowed from Pauli. The Dreyse cartridge, using the principle of unitarity, combined the bullet, gunpowder and primer into one whole with a paper shell (sleeve). Thus, separate operations for the introduction of each of the listed elements into the barrel were excluded, while the loading speed increased significantly.

Under his patron, Dreyse developed the design of a rifle, which received the name needle. The striker of this rifle was a rather long needle, which, when fired, pierced the paper shell of the cartridge, the powder charge, and at the end of the stroke, pierced the capsule device located in the pan, which at the same time served as a solid wad-obturator of the bullet. The introduction of Dreyse rifles was a big step forward in increasing the rate of fire of weapons, since needle rifles were loaded from the treasury with almost two movements of the bolt and lug of the lock spring, in contrast to the flint and primer weapon systems loaded from the muzzle.

Before the advent of Dreyse rifles, the bulk of the weapon had a primer lock, the only difference from the flint lock was that the unreliable flint with flint and flint was replaced by a primer, but this had practically no effect on the rate of fire of the weapon. The rate of fire of capsular weapons did not exceed 2-5 rounds per minute, for the Dreyse rifle - from 5 rounds per minute with aiming, to 9 without aiming, thus, the practical rate of fire was almost doubled.

Dreyse systems were quite popular. Under the needle cartridge, even revolvers were designed that did not become widespread, since already in 1836 a revolver was invented, albeit with primer ignition, but practically modern in design of the main components.

Since this book does not pursue the goal of a detailed description of the development of all types of handguns, but only points to the special role of one-handed personal weapons as a subject of a special kind of art, the author describes the further history of the development of handguns as, mainly, the history of one-handed short-barreled weapons, and will refer to the description of other types of weapons only if they are of particular importance, or when they were the starting point of any new ideas in personal weapons.

By the time the revolver appeared, the gunsmiths of the world had introduced almost all the elements necessary to create a multiply charged personal weapon with one hand: a trigger lock, a reliable igniter (primer), a unitary cartridge, a drum system, complex mechanisms that transmit and transform various kinds of mechanical movements. And, finally, there was a person who was able to combine all the previously found elements into a single whole.

The history of the modern revolver begins with the invention of the American John Pearson from Baltimore. In the 1830s, the remarkable weapon artist Pearson invented the revolver, the design of which was bought by the American entrepreneur Samuel Colt for a measly fee. The first model of the revolver, which subsequently brought huge profits to Colt, was called the "Paterson Model". We must pay tribute to the greatest scent of this businessman, his name has thundered all over the world and is still thundering, although it had and has nothing to do with the actual weapon. By analogy with Pauli, Pearson's name is known only to a narrow circle of specialists. It should be noted that in the history of weapons business, the name of industrialists who produced weapons at their factories was often assigned to the most popular models of weapons, designed by completely undeservedly forgotten, talented people.

Pearson's revolver had primer ignition, each nest (chamber) of the drum was charged separately, using a special ramrod with a lever. A powder charge and bullets were introduced into the drum chambers, the capsules were put on the drum brand pipes, after which the revolver was considered ready for battle. After loading from a revolver, it was possible to fire 5 shots within no more than 2-3 seconds when using the second hand, or 5 aimed shots in 5 seconds when using one hand. For that time, these were amazing results. Capsule ignition acted so reliably that misfires during firing were practically excluded. With two revolvers, a person was completely protected during a short skirmish with one or more opponents.

In addition to Pearson, Elisha Ruth and P. Lawton participated in the design of various models of revolvers under the Colt brand. There is evidence that the Englishman Charles Shirk invented the revolver scheme around 1830, in turn, having the basis for the construction scheme of the drum gun E.Kh. Koller and the mechanics of drum rotation by the French gunsmith Marietta. And according to this version, Colt used someone else's invention under his own name, which enriched him, and Charles Shirk died in poverty, living to a ripe old age.

At first, revolvers were made exclusively single-action, that is, for the production of each shot, it was necessary to cock the hammer with your thumb or other hand. Then self-cocking revolvers of an imperfect design appeared, in which all reloading actions were carried out only by pressing a finger on the trigger.

Back in 1832, the Frenchman Casimir Lefoshe, who was strongly influenced by Pauli, invented a unitary cartridge consisting of a cartridge case, first paper with a metal bottom, and then completely metal, which housed a powder charge, a wad, a bullet and a capsule device. This device first consisted of a small brand tube attached to the cartridge case, and then was replaced by a metal rod (pin) passing through the side generatrix of the cartridge inward, where the primer was placed, on which the rod acted when the hammer hit it outside the cartridge. Under his patron, Lefoshe released a gun of a turning point with the original locking of the barrels. Lefoshe's weapons were extremely convenient to use due to the speed of reloading, excellent obturation of powder gases, hermetic design of cartridges, little exposed to atmospheric influences and having a long shelf life. In fact, with the invention of Lefoshe, the era of breech-loading weapons on unitary cartridges began.

The cartridges of the Lefoshe system were significantly superior to the Dreyse cartridges, because the primer, located inside the sleeve, like the Dreyse, did not need to be pierced with a needle-striker passing through the entire charge of gunpowder. It was enough for a relatively weak blow to the stud protruding from the side of the cartridge, which itself pricked the primer. In fact, the hairpin was a disposable needle or a striker built into the sleeve. Weapons chambered for such a cartridge could be made simpler and more reliable. It lacked a fairly thin and fragile needle, which, under the influence of powder gases, constantly failed.

In 1853, hairpin revolvers designed by Eugene Lefoshe, son of K. Lefoshe, appeared under a metal hairpin cartridge. Although the design of the revolver did not differ from the Pearson revolver, the use of a unitary cartridge was a big step forward. Reloading a revolver with unitary cartridges takes incomparably less time than loading a Pearson capsule revolver with successive filling of gunpowder into the drum chambers, puffing, pushing a bullet, putting a piston on the end of the brand pipe protruding from the drum.

In 1842-1845, the Frenchman Flaubert invented the side-fire cartridge, which has remained completely unchanged to this day. The impact composition in this cartridge is located inside the annular shoulder of the cartridge (rim), which is formed when the sleeve is drawn. Such a cartridge does not have a capsule device as a separate part. Flaubert's cartridges, improved in 1856 by the American Behringer, already in 1857, the Smith-Wesson company began to produce for the first revolver in America produced by it under a unitary cartridge. The use of studless cartridges in revolvers was also a step forward, since Lefoshe's studded cartridges, for all their merits, were not entirely safe to handle due to the protruding stud.

The Smith-Wesson Model 1857 revolver was designed by the American Rollin A. White, and the name of the owners of the company, G. Smith and D. Wesson, went down in history. White's revolvers were a turning point, which favorably distinguished them from Pearson's cap revolvers and Lefoshe's hairpin revolvers, in terms of convenience and speed of reloading. The fracture of the revolver occurred in such a way that the barrel did not fold down, as in modern revolvers, but up. Rollin White revolvers chambered for side-fire Flaubert-Behringer are widely distributed in the United States, and were produced in various capacities for 5.6-9 mm calibers.

In 1853, the Frenchman Shene invented a double-action revolver trigger mechanism, which made it possible to significantly increase the rate of fire of revolvers and give them new properties for a quick fight with a group of opponents. The double-action mechanism made it possible to conduct both relatively slow, but aimed fire by cocking the trigger with the thumb and lowering it by pressing the trigger or nipple with the index finger, and fast, but less aimed fire by pressing the trigger with one index finger.

The invention of the double action mechanism actually completed the fundamental evolution of the trigger mechanism of the revolver and the revolver as a whole. All further improvements do not make qualitative changes in the rate of fire of the revolver. Already in 1855, Lefochet's double-action revolvers were adopted by the French navy.

In 1855, the Frenchman M. Potte invented a central ignition cartridge, which outwardly resembled the Lefoshe cartridge, but with a primer device installed in the center of the sleeve. The primer anvil was not a single unit with the cartridge case, the primer itself had not yet a perfect design, but it was a prototype of primers with a built-in anvil such as the modern American "68" or the French "Gevelo".

In 1860 King and in 1865 Dodge invented break revolvers of a modern design, that is, with barrels that swing down while extracting spent cartridges. This made it possible to significantly increase the rate of fire of the revolver in long-term fire contact. Revolvers of this design are still used and manufactured.

In 1864, the Englishman Edward M. Boxer improved the Potte cartridge. The cardboard case began to be made of a metal tape wound in two layers. The ends of the tape were not fastened together, and although the deployment of the tape during the shot provided the intended obturation, in general, the cartridge had certain disadvantages. Subsequently, it was replaced by a cartridge of a modern design with a rigid sleeve, which provides obturation due to the elasticity of the sleeve material. The same Boxer proposed a new design of the capsule device, on the basis of which modern capsules with a built-in anvil of the Hubertus 209 and Winchester types were built.

In 1865, the American Hiram Berdan, a well-known designer of breech-loading rifles, created a cartridge that practically completed the fundamental evolution of central ignition cartridges with a seamless metal sleeve. The main difference between the Berdan cartridge and the existing ones was the combination of the sleeve and the anvil into one whole and the isolation of the primer into a separate pyrotechnic device, the design of which has not changed to this day. Cartridges designed by Berdan are still used in hunting weapons, although the bullet does not protrude beyond the cartridge case according to the conditions of equipping such cartridges.

In 1883, the Belgian Léon Amal invented a retractable drum with non-automatic cartridge case extraction. Revolvers using this principle of reloading the drum dominate at the present time.

With this last invention, the evolution of revolvers was completed. All military or police revolvers produced today are double-action weapons (except souvenir exotic ones) with reloading with the barrel with a drum folded back or with the drum folded to the side.

Doing.

Ranged weapons are firearms that hit targets with bullets. Small arms include: pistols, revolvers, submachine guns, machine guns, automatic rifles, machine guns, various types of sporting and hunting firearms. Modern small arms are mostly automatic. It is used to destroy manpower and firepower of the enemy, and some heavy machine guns - and to destroy lightly armored and air targets. Small arms have a fairly high firing efficiency, reliability of action, and maneuverability. It is convenient and easy to operate with the relative simplicity of the device, which allows the production of weapons in mass quantities.

This essay aims to show the history of the development of small arms, to find out the principle of operation of some of its types: revolvers, pistols, repeating rifles, to compare them.

1. The appearance of pistols and revolvers.

Revolvers and pistols have many common features arising from their purpose, and fundamentally differ only in the arrangement of mechanisms. A pistol in the broad sense of the word is a firearm that is held with one hand during firing. This definition does not provide for the design features of the weapon, therefore, the revolver, in essence, is also a pistol, but a pistol, arranged in a peculiar way. The charges of the revolver are located in a rotating drum, and this design feature of it turned out to be so significant during the period of the birth of this weapon that it gave it the right to an independent name (revolver - from the English word revolve - rotate). A number of innovations, the main of which was a rotating drum, made revolvers qualitatively different from their predecessors - pistols. Modern pistols are technically superior to revolvers and, of course, incomparably superior to those pistols that were replaced by revolvers in their time, because the operation of their mechanisms is automated. Since the mechanisms of all pistols now work automatically, with the exception of signal, target and some others, the need to use defining words has disappeared, that is, the word “automatic” or “self-loading” is usually omitted. Former single-shot, muzzle-loading pistols now need characteristics such as "flint" or "primer" to distinguish them from modern ones.

Revolvers and pistols begin their history relatively recently. If the first samples of firearms, that is, weapons in which the energy of burning gunpowder is used to throw projectiles, originated at the beginning of the 14th century, then “small guns” that allow firing with one hand appeared much later - only in the middle of the 16th century. Formally, the Italian master Camille Vetelli is considered to be their inventor, and, perhaps because he lived and worked in the city of Pistoia, this new cavalry weapon was called a pistol, or perhaps this word came from the Czech pistala - a pipe. The appearance of pistols was facilitated by the invention of spark locks, first wheel locks (Fig. 1), and then percussion flintlocks (Fig. 2). Prior to this, there were only separate, relatively small samples of firearms that could not be developed due to the imperfection of the wick method of igniting the charge. However, spark locks, representing a higher technical level than matchlocks, could only give rise to pistols, but they could not contribute to their development, since they had a number of shortcomings. For a good two and a half centuries, pistols have absolutely not changed in a constructive sense. During this time, only the following moments of their development could be noted. Emerged by the end of the 16th century. an increase in the length of the barrel with a simultaneous slight decrease in caliber; gradual displacement during the 17th century. wheel locks with flintlocks, the appearance in external forms - especially in the forms of handles - of greater rationalism and elegance; the emergence of a new variety of these weapons - dueling pistols, which are distinguished by especially high qualities. It cannot be said that during this time no attempts were made to improve pistols. These attempts took place throughout the entire period of spark ignition, but everything that was undertaken was only separate attempts, as a rule, with little result, along with minor improvements that gave the weapon a number of shortcomings - especially the bulkiness and complexity of the device, which turned out to be unbearable for the primitive production of those times. Therefore, the entire period of spark ignition cannot yet be considered the history of pistols - rather, this is their prehistory.

Rice. one. Spark wheel lock.

Rice. 2. Spark percussion flintlock a - cocked; b - at the moment the trigger strikes the flint.

2. The beginning of the rapid development of pistols and revolvers. 19th century.

And only at the beginning of the 19th century, when primer (more precisely, shock-capsule) locks (Fig. 3) appeared and quickly won recognition, the time for rapid development came for pistols and all firearms. The use of an impact composition to ignite a charge was patented in 1807 by the Englishman Forsyth. Important prerequisites for the successful development of pistols, in addition to primers with shock-igniting compositions, were also a rifled barrel, a rotating drum and a charging chamber inserted from the treasury. These inventions were made before the advent of percussion caps, but then they, as separate innovations, could not give the effect that was possible when combined with a new idea - the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bprimer ignition.

The primary goal pursued by the designers in improving pistols was to increase the rate of fire, because compared to it, no other qualities of melee weapons, which were pistols, were as important. The accuracy and range of the shot, the lethal force of the bullet and the comparative compactness of the pistols that existed at that time, although they left much to be desired, were nevertheless provided to some extent. As for the rate of fire, it practically did not exist. The duration of the muzzle-loading process and the conditions in which the pistols were used alone, that is, the close proximity of the enemy, were so incompatible that they, in fact, turned the pistols into a one-time weapon. Therefore, as soon as the industry rose to a level where it could provide more or less mass production of sufficiently accurate mechanical devices, and when percussion caps appeared, an intensive search began for ways to increase the rate of fire of pistols.

In 1836, the first and very successful revolver of the American Samuel Colt appeared, which he called « Paterson" after the name of the city where it was released. Colt himself was not a designer, but only a typical industrial businessman. The true creator of the revolver is John Pearson, who received a meager reward for his invention, which brought Colt huge profits and world fame. Following the Paterson, other, more advanced models of Colt revolvers began to be produced, which were becoming increasingly common not only in the USA, but also in other countries. Colt revolvers were a new rapid-fire weapon, the advantages of which over single-shot pistols were undeniable. The main feature of this new weapon is a rotating drum with several charges (five or six) located in its chambers. In order to make a series of shots from a revolver, the shooter only had to sequentially cock the trigger and pull the trigger.

With the advent of percussion caps, a lot of so-called bundelrevolvers, or pepperboxes (“pepperboxes”), were created, weapons in which an increase in the rate of fire was achieved by using a rotating bunch of barrels (Fig. 4). However, although pepperboxes were produced and improved for some time, they could not stand the competition with revolvers, since, along with a high rate of fire, they had all the shortcomings of a muzzle-loading weapon. Revolvers, in comparison with them, also had greater compactness, better accuracy, range and penetration, because they were rifled, fired oblong bullets and were loaded without driving bullets through the bore. When fired, the bullet cut tightly into the rifling, as in any other breech-loading weapon.

The popularity of Colt's capsule revolvers (Fig. 5) was so great that even today a certain interest has remained in them. The interest in antique weapons in the West, which has become something of a fashion, has led to the resumption of production of primer revolvers in a number of countries. These modern copies of older models are called "replicas".

The appearance of Colt revolvers caused a number of imitations from other designers, both American and European. Very soon, following the Colt revolvers, many new, more advanced systems appear. So, the trigger mechanisms become self-cocking, the cases become more durable, monolithic, the handles become more comfortable (Fig. 6 shows a Russian-made revolver). The development of capsule revolvers has led to an increase in the power of portable weapons and at the same time to a decrease in their size and weight. The firepower of revolvers, their high rate of fire, combined with sufficient accuracy, made this new weapon truly formidable, decisively reducing the value of such a former argument of strength as numerical superiority.

Rice. 3. Russian capsule pistols. The trigger of the lower gun is cocked, the primer-igniter is visible on the seed rod (piston or brand tube).

Fig.4. Capsule revolver Marietta. 6 stems. On the right is a front view of the muzzle and spherical lead bullets.

Rice. 5. Capsule revolver Colt 1851, bullets for it and a bullet gun.

Rice. 6. Capsule self-cocking revolver Goltyakova 1866. Next to the primers-igniters and a powder flask.

3. The appearance of unitary cartridges.

One of the most important inventions that found application in revolvers was the invention of unitary cartridges - cartridges in which the charge, bullet and primer-igniter were combined by a sleeve into a single whole. Their appearance not only contributed to the improvement of revolvers, but later served as the basis for the emergence and development of fundamentally new designs of portable weapons - automatic pistols. Unitary cartridges, along with needle percussion mechanisms, were proposed by the German gunsmith Dreyse back in 1827, but due to the bulkiness of needle mechanisms, they did not then become widespread among revolvers, although individual samples of needle revolvers were released. The widespread introduction of unitary cartridges with a metal sleeve for revolvers began in the 50s of the 19th century after the invention of the Frenchman Casimir Lefoshe, who proposed the so-called hairpin cartridge. The invention of hairpin cartridges dates back to 1836, but then they had cardboard sleeves. In 1853, cartridges with metal sleeves appeared. The Lefoshe cartridge was called a hairpin cartridge because it had a hairpin, one end of which was in front of the percussion composition of the primer placed inside the cartridge case, and the other protruded outward through a hole in the side wall of the cartridge case near the bottom (Fig. 7, c). The cartridges were inserted into the drum in such a way that the protruding ends of the pins stuck out in different directions in the direction from the center of the drum. During the functioning of the percussion mechanism and the rotation of the drum, successive hammer blows were applied from above. Through the studs, these blows were transmitted to the primers.

Revolvers under a unitary cartridge had huge advantages over capsule revolvers, as well as great opportunities for further improvement. At the same time, the hairpin system had a number of significant drawbacks. Loading was complicated by the fact that the cartridges were inserted into the drum chambers in a strictly defined position - in one in which the studs entered the corresponding cutouts on the drum. The studs protruding to the sides posed some danger in that, being sensitive to impacts, they could lead either to an accidental shot or to an explosion of a charge in a chamber located not against the bore. The rim protruding above the surface of the drum did not completely protect the studs from accidental impacts, and the protective ring covering the studs, although it sufficiently protected them, increased the dimensions of the weapon and its weight. Therefore, shortly after the appearance of hairpin unitary cartridges, unitary cartridges began to appear with seamless metal sleeves and various arrangements of impact compositions in them (Fig. 7, a, b, d). The best of them turned out to be circular ignition cartridges (Fig. 7, d), which at first became widespread among American revolvers. The shock-igniting composition was in their annular protrusion located along the edge of the bottom of the sleeve, and ignited from the flattening of the protrusion when the striker hit it. Such cartridges appeared in 1856 after the improvement by the American Beringer of an extremely low-power, toy cartridge for entertaining room shooting, proposed by the Frenchman Flaubert in 1842. Since 1861, even more advanced cartridges began to spread rapidly - central ignition cartridges (Fig. 7, e) . It was a remarkable invention that caused the improvement of all firearms, including revolvers and pistols. The primer in such a cartridge was located in the center of the bottom of the sleeve, which greatly facilitated and accelerated loading. The advantage of the new cartridges was that their capsules in a loaded weapon were absolutely inaccessible to accidental strikes and other outside influences. The central ignition cartridge proposed by the Frenchman Potte and improved by the Englishman Boxer is quickly gaining universal recognition, despite the fact that the obvious advantages of unitary cartridges generally gave such an impetus to the spread of hairpin cartridges that they continued to exist and be manufactured until the beginning of the 20th century.

Rice. 7. Options for the location of shock-igniting compositions in unitary cartridges (the arrows show the directions of strikes of the strikers):

a and b - obsolete American cartridges inserted into the drum from the front; a - Lefoshe hairpin cartridge; g - circular ignition cartridge; e - cartridge of central ignition.

4. Further development of revolvers.

So, having originated in America, revolvers began to spread in Europe. In the second half of the 19th century in their development, two directions have been outlined - American and European. American revolvers were characterized by the use of mainly circular ignition cartridges and single-action trigger mechanisms, European - by the use of mainly pin and center ignition cartridges, as well as the predominance of self-cocking. Over time, the improvements that appeared on both revolvers were borrowed from each other, and thus the line between them quickly blurred. Well-known, recognized and popular systems were readily copied by many arms firms, so a lot of revolvers appeared on the world arms market, which were variations of a relatively small number of systems. The use of centerfire cartridges allowed revolvers to achieve such significant perfection that it would seem that it excluded the possibility of competition from pistols. However, the appearance in 1884-1888. smokeless powders, achievements in the field of metallurgy and the general development of technology have decisively changed the situation. The championship passed to pistols, since almost all the design possibilities of revolvers were already exhausted, and new opportunities were just opening up for improving pistols.

Attempts to further develop revolvers by automating them based on the use of gunpowder energy did not lead to the desired results - automatic revolvers always turned out to be worse than non-automatic ones. Acquiring only minor advantages in the form of a slightly higher rate of fire, they inevitably lost the remarkable qualities inherent in conventional revolvers - simplicity of design and reliability in operation.

Attempts to create non-automatic multi-shot (multi-barreled and magazine) pistols also failed. As a rule, they all turned out to be so complex that they could not compete with revolvers in any way (Fig. 8).

Fig.8. Pistols for unitary cartridges, non-automatic, single-shot and multi-shot (multi-barreled):

Single-barreled single-shot pistols: 1 - Delvik. Shoots hairpin cartridges Lefoshe; 2 - Flaubert, Montecristo, circular ignition cartridge of 6 or 9 mm caliber. The most common 6-mm cartridge appeared for the first time in 1856. There is no powder charge, a spherical bullet (shot) is pushed out of the barrel by the force of an explosion of a shock-igniting composition. Trunks of different lengths are rifled or smooth. The shutter is in the form of a shield, when opened, it turns up to the left. Late 19th - early 20th century; 3 - "Montecristo" with a barrel that folds down; 4 - Colt, I model. Fires rimfire rounds. Caliber.41. For reloading, the barrel rotates around the longitudinal axis of the hinge located in front of the descent;

5-Stevens. To reload the barrel folds down; 6-Martin, "Victor". To reload the barrel rotates around a vertical axis; 7 - "Liberator", caliber 45 AKP (11.43 mm). A million of these pistols were made in the USA during the 2nd World War; they were dropped from aircraft to support the resistance movement in Europe.

Double-barreled pistols: 8-Remington, "Derringer", .41 caliber, first issued in the USA in 1863 and has been a success to this day. Its West German copies of various calibers from .38 to .22 are called RG-15S and RG-16; 9-High standard with a self-cocking trigger mechanism.

Multi-barrel pistols: 10 - Sharps. With each cocking of the hammer, the cylinder with the striker rotates yes 90 ", ensuring consistent breaking of cartridge primers in all four barrels; 11 - Thomas Bland and sons, an imitation of the Lancaster system. The self-cocking trigger mechanism allows you to shoot sequentially from four barrels.

5. The emergence and development of automatic pistols.

Pistols, whose mechanisms are automated by using the energy of powder gases, begin their history even before the advent of smokeless powders. The first patents for them were taken in 1872 by the European Plesner and in 1874 by the Americans Wheeler and Luce. At the end of the 19th century many samples of such pistols appear, but if the first revolvers immediately received recognition and distribution, then with pistols the situation was different. At first, automatic pistols were only prototypes, and a certain time passed before they were widely used, especially as military weapons. An obstacle to the development of automatic systems was some of the properties of black powder, so only the appearance of smokeless powders with new remarkable qualities served as an impetus for the very rapid development of pistols, the number of systems of which by the end of the 19th century. reached several tens. An obstacle to the development of pistol mechanisms was the traditional form of previous systems of personal weapons. So, the first samples of pistols were clearly influenced by the shape of the revolvers, which did not allow achieving the optimal layout of fundamentally new mechanisms. For example, stores at first were located near the place where the revolvers had a drum, leaving the handle almost empty of any devices. But the Browning pistols that appeared in 1897 with a fundamentally new arrangement of mechanisms, where the store was located in the handle, removed the last obstacles in the development of pistols and served as a model for creating so many systems ..

During the first decades of the 20th century, a lot of different automatic pistol systems were produced. The overall layout of the pistol mechanisms was improved, due to which their compactness increased even more and their fighting qualities increased. So, for example, the return spring, which was located above the barrel on most early models, began to be placed under the barrel or around it - this made it possible, while maintaining the given dimensions of the pistol, to increase the magazine capacity or, without reducing the number of charges, to reduce the height of the pistol. Various pistol mechanisms were also improved - trigger systems began to become more widespread, and recently self-cocking trigger mechanisms began to be introduced. There were shutter delays, signaling the emptying of the magazine and speeding up reloading, as well as indicators of cartridges in the chambers, more convenient safety devices and other improvements.

Revolvers and pistols have long reached a high degree of perfection, and the involvement of one or another of their models with modern ones is determined not by the date of their release, but by the possibility of using modern cartridges in them, especially since the vast majority of modern cartridges were designed in the late 19th - early 20th century. Thus, if a given sample of a revolver or pistol shoots the standard cartridges currently used and does not have obviously curious fixtures and shapes, then it can be considered modern. Of course, among the modern ones there are models of different ages, both new and outdated, but there are no fundamental differences in this division. Of course, new models, as a rule, are more convenient, more technologically advanced, and therefore cheaper to manufacture, but these qualities, although they are important, have almost, and sometimes absolutely, no effect on performance data.

Pistols continue to improve even now, but some stagnation can be noted in their development. Now here, too, a situation has arisen in which most of the constructive possibilities have been exhausted. Quite often it can be noted that the so-called new pistols are fundamentally no different from the old ones, released decades ago, and are only more or less successful compositions made up of structural units borrowed from different systems.

A well-known stagnation in this area also occurred because qualitatively new types of small arms appeared - submachine guns. In addition, the huge growth of military equipment assigns a very modest role to personal portable weapons in modern conditions. Nevertheless, this type of weapon, despite its relatively ancient origin, has not become obsolete, since it has exceptional qualities - high portability and unsurpassed flexibility of fire.

Is it possible to further improve portable weapons? It is certainly possible, but its improvement in terms of mechanics is, perhaps, unpromising. The development of small arms in general, and pistols in particular, has much greater scope for the use of new materials and for the use of new explosive fuels and other chemicals. A significant improvement in even one quality will inevitably cause a number of other quality changes. For example, if it were possible to change the quality of the powder, then it would be possible to change the design of the cartridge, which, in turn, would allow changing the caliber, increasing the capacity of the magazine, changing the configuration of the weapon, etc. As they think abroad, the use of caseless cartridges, as well as jet bullets, is promising, requiring fundamental changes in the design of the weapon.

6. Modern samples of revolvers and pistols.

As mentioned above, a characteristic part of a revolver is a drum with chambers for cartridges. The drum can rotate around its axis, and at the same time all its chambers will be alternately combined with a fixed barrel, acting as chambers. Thus, the barrel of a revolver is essentially a rotating bundle of chambers. The turns of the drum are carried out mechanically - the source of energy is the muscular strength of the shooter. This force is transmitted to the drum not directly, but through the trigger mechanism. Basically, the efforts of the shooter are spent on compressing the mainspring when cocking the hammer, carried out by pressing a finger either on the trigger spoke or on the trigger. This pressure makes the trigger mechanism work, and its work causes the device to turn the drum. After all the cartridges are used up, the spent cartridges remain in the drum. To reload, you need to free the drum from the shells, and then equip it with cartridges.

An automatic pistol is fundamentally different in design from a revolver. He has one chamber, in which the cartridges from the box magazine are fed alternately with the movements of the shutter. These movements are carried out automatically - back due to the energy of the powder gases formed during the shot, forward under the influence of a return spring compressed when moving back. The energy of powder gases is used for the functioning of other mechanisms - trigger and locking. Thus, the role of the shooter while firing a pistol is reduced to only aiming and sequentially pulling the trigger. The automatic operation of the mechanisms provides a much higher rate of fire, since the reloading cycle is so fleeting that in the next instant after the shot, you can repeat the trigger pull and fire a new shot. After each shot, the spent cartridge case is ejected from the pistol, so that when all the cartridges are used up, the magazine and the chamber are empty. Reloading a pistol is much faster than reloading a revolver.

Despite the fundamental difference in the designs of revolvers and pistols, they have a number of common features due to the very purpose of personal weapons. These common features are ballistic qualities that provide short-range effectiveness (sufficient accuracy and bullet damage), portability and safety necessary for constantly carrying a loaded weapon with you, constant readiness for action, and a high rate of fire. However, there are specific, individual features that are inherent only to any one of these species. The characteristic qualities inherent in each of these types of weapons separately stem from completely different principles of operation of their mechanisms. These include the different efforts made by the shooter when firing a revolver and a pistol, the difference in reloading speed, the unequal impact on the operation of the mechanisms of the degree of clogging and the quality of the cartridges, and the reliability of the weapon as a whole that depends on this.

Of these common features, only ballistic qualities are independent of design features, so they should be said specifically before other qualities of revolvers and pistols that characterize them separately are considered. The ballistic qualities of both revolvers and pistols are about the same. Although muzzle velocities are slow compared to other types of firearms, they usually provide such a flat trajectory that allows you to use a constant sight to shoot at ranges that are generally available for this type of weapon.

The question of the striking ability of a bullet is raised here separately, not in the same way as it is raised in relation to other types of small arms. For a rifle bullet, for example, range and penetration are very important. They are achieved by combining a high initial velocity with a significant lateral load of the bullet (the lateral load of a bullet is expressed by the ratio of its mass to the cross-sectional area). As for the lethality of such a bullet, it remains almost throughout the entire trajectory, although the nature of the defeat at the beginning and at the end of the bullet's path is very different. At close range, the rifle bullet has a very high speed, allowing it, with its pointed shape, to spread the blow to the sides. So, a shot from a short distance at a vessel with liquid causes a rupture in parts of this vessel due to the fact that the kinetic energy of the bullet through the liquid affects all the walls of the vessel. and even completely lost, but the striking ability is still preserved mainly due to its relatively large mass with a large transverse load. How soon the enemy goes out of action after a bullet hits him is of no significant importance when shooting from a rifle, since this shooting is usually carried out at a considerable distance, and here it is only important to hit the target - one way or another it will already be put out of action, and it will happen whether it's immediate or after a few seconds, it doesn't matter. The situation is quite different when shooting from revolvers and pistols. The conditions under which they are applied require immediate incapacitation of the affected target. Indeed, being in close proximity to the enemy, it is very important to have a weapon that could instantly completely paralyze the enemy even if a bullet hits parts of the body that are not directly dangerous to life. Otherwise, the enemy, struck but not instantly incapacitated, continues to threaten the life of the shooter, because in the next moment he can respond with a much more successful shot. Since revolvers and pistols, compared to other types of small arms, have small initial bullet velocities, the simplest and most effective way to achieve the required lethality was the use of bullets of significant caliber. Such bullets have a large, so-called stopping effect, the ability to transfer the maximum of their kinetic energy to the obstacle they hit.

Thus, the best examples of pistols surpass the best examples of revolvers in most characteristics, but the latter, thanks to some positive qualities inherent only in them, are still not completely ousted from use. So, in a number of countries, revolvers continue to be produced, improved and remain in service, not only in the police, but also in the army. Their latest models, both civilian police and military, are produced in the USA, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan and other countries.

7. Repeating rifles. general characteristics

In the evolution of non-automatic guns, the main type of individual small arms, in which the energy of gunpowder is used only for throwing a bullet, magazine rifles turned out to be the pinnacle of technical excellence, which gunsmiths in many countries have been striving for for a very long time. All the best inventions of the previous time were embodied in the design of magazine rifles. All their qualities were brought to a very high degree of perfection.

The kinetic energy of the bullet, and it determined the lethality and penetrating effect of the bullet, was quite large and often significantly exceeded that required to hit the target. This is mainly an open target, but it is known that part of the energy of the bullet is intended to break through the cover behind which the target is located.

The range and accuracy of shooting were excellent, even exceeding the capabilities of human vision. The rate of fire was also quite high - the reloading of rifles was carried out easily and quickly, and the intervals between shots were mainly determined by the time for aiming, and not for actions with the shutter. And only in relation to the mass and size of some rifles one could wish for the best, but still, the longest of them then served their purpose, since the infantryman’s weapon should be largely suitable for bayonet fighting, that is, the Suvorov installation “bayonet - well done » in the design of early models of magazine rifles still played a significant role.

Eloquent evidence of the perfection of magazine rifles can be the almost unified concept of many rifles designed and adopted in different countries, and their very long service life. Common, inherent in all magazine rifles, are such qualities as the exceptional simplicity of the device and the resulting unpretentiousness to external conditions, the reliability of the mechanisms and their survivability, a satisfactory rate of fire, high accuracy and firing range with a large lethality of the bullet.

In general, each magazine rifle is arranged as follows.

Its main part is a barrel with a threaded channel. Behind the barrel adjoin the receiver and the shutter placed in it. Under the receiver are a store that usually holds 5 rounds, and a trigger. Sights are mounted on top of the barrel. All the mentioned metal parts of the rifle are attached to a wooden stock, ending at the back with a butt. Rifles are equipped with bayonets, usually removable and most often knife-shaped.

The main mechanisms of the rifle - bolt, magazine, sights.

The shutters of magazine rifles, as a rule, are longitudinally sliding, driven by the muscular strength of the shooter. With the help of the shutter, the cartridge is sent into the chamber, the barrel is locked, the shot is fired and the spent cartridge case is ejected. The implementation of all these actions occurs when the shutter moves and when the trigger is pressed. The effort of the shooter, necessary for the operation of the shutter, is transmitted to the latter with the help of its handle. The shooter informs the shutter not only translational movement, but also rotational - rotation of the shutter around its longitudinal axis by about 90 ° is necessary to lock and unlock the barrel. (Fig. 9) In the receiver, the shutters are usually held either by a special delay, or by a part associated with the trigger. The shutters of all rifles are equipped with fuses, most often designed in the form of small levers, more or less resembling flags, or in the form of a special trigger device, when the position of which is changed, the shot is impossible.

The way the rifle is handled largely depends on the location of the handle on the bolt and on its shape.

The handles of some shutters are located in their middle part, while others are behind them. The difference in the removal of both from the butt, it would seem, is small and amounts to only a few centimeters, but it has a significant impact on the convenience of reloading. Bolts with handles that are more distant from the butt, for each reloading require a change in the position of the rifle - some lowering it with moving the butt from the shoulder to the arm. Only after that the handle is within reach for the shooter, and he can turn it with his hand, palm up, to open and close the shutter. Shutters with handles located at the back make it possible to reload the rifle without taking the butt off the shoulder, especially if their handles are not horizontal, but inclined, as if bent downwards. With the help of such handles, it is more convenient to reload by placing the hand on them from above, palm down. Of no small importance is the fact that such handles, being as close as possible to the trigger, somewhat reduce the time it takes the shooter to transfer the hand from the trigger to the handle and back when reloading. The conditions for the tactical use of guns, when their first magazine samples were designed, were fully consistent with the handles moved forward and located horizontally, but on later samples, created taking into account the experience of the First World War, which showed that rifle shooting is carried out mainly from a prone (or standing) position in the trenches), the tendency for the handles to be located at the rear of the bolt becomes clear. It turns out that when firing from rifles with such an arrangement of handles, reloading is more convenient and faster, which means that the practical rate of fire increases, the monotony of aiming is maintained, which has a positive effect on accuracy, and, finally, the shooter is less tired.

The shutter arrangement has a particularly positive effect on the rate of fire, the handles of which do not need to be turned for reloading - to open and close such a shutter, you just need to pull the handle back and immediately send it forward. Unlocking and locking the barrel of rifles with such bolts is achieved by the fact that the bolt stem, having a slightly longer stroke length than the combat larva, uses the excess of its movement to turn the locking devices on or off. Despite the obvious advantages, such valves also had a number of disadvantages (difficulty extracting the sleeve, high sensitivity to contamination, etc.), so their distribution was relatively small.

Of the military magazine rifles firing cartridges on smokeless powder, the 1895 Winchester rifle stands out sharply with the bolt device. Its bolt is also longitudinally sliding, but it is not controlled in the usual way - its movements are carried out not with the help of a handle on the bolt itself, but with the help of a lever system . In order to open and close the bolt, a special bracket located under the neck of the butt and merged with the safety bracket should be moved down and forward until it stops, and then returned to its place. Both the locking device and the percussion mechanism are unusual in this shutter - locking here is carried out by a special wedge that moves vertically and enters the support recesses in the shutter stems, and the primer is broken by the drummer when the trigger is lowered from the cocking cock, a part that has not a rectilinear, but a rotational motion.

Stores (Fig. 10). Only on early single samples of repeating rifles firing cartridges on smokeless powder, the stores could be equipped with one cartridge each. These were either grenade or middle magazines, the latter being permanent or removable. Most rifles have middle magazines filled with several rounds at once. According to the method of loading, such rifles are divided into burst-loading and clip-loading rifles. Batch loading was invented in Austria-Hungary by Mannlicher in 1886. Its essence is as follows. The cartridges were inserted into the store along with a metal pack that combined them in 5 pieces. At the same time, they lay down on the feeder and lowered it down, compressing the spring. A pack of cartridges inserted into the magazine was not pushed back by the feeder, because with a special protrusion located on it, it engaged with the latch tooth mounted on the magazine. By releasing the pack from adhesion to this tooth, it could be removed from the magazine and thus unload the rifle. Thanks to the edges of the pack curved in a special way, the cartridges could only move forward from the magazine, that is, in the direction of the chamber. As the cartridges were used up, the feeder rose higher and higher without touching the pack, since it was narrower than the distance between the walls of the pack, and did not act on it, but only on the cartridges. When all the cartridges were used up, the pack fell freely down.

In 1889, another way to quickly fill the middle stores appeared - loading with a clip (Mauser system). The clip, which combined cartridges of 5 pieces, was not inserted into the store, but served only for the convenience of filling it.

With the shutter open, the clip with cartridges was installed in special grooves in the receiver. After that, the shooter pressed the upper cartridge with his finger and thus pushed all the cartridges out of the clip into the magazine at once. At the same time, the feeder spring was compressed, trying to push the cartridges back, but they were held in the store thanks to special spring grips. The empty clip was ejected, the bolt was closed (while the upper cartridge was sent into the chamber), and the rifle was ready to fire.

Clip loading initially required a little more time than batch loading, but the use of clips provided advantages that turned out to be more significant than the very slight gain in time with batch loading. Among these advantages, first of all, is a much smaller mass of clips. Therefore, the portable supply of ammunition contained less "dead" weight, which fell on the clips. For example, the mass of a German pack was 17.5 g, and the clips were only 6.5 g. This means that for every hundred cartridges in batch loading, there was an excess mass of 220 g. The middle magazines filled with cartridges using clips had unequal devices . In addition to the aforementioned store with the arrangement of cartridges in one vertical row, stores soon appeared - also Mauser systems - with a two-row arrangement of cartridges. Unlike single-row magazines, which had one way or another arranged spring devices to hold cartridges in them when the shutter was open, double-row magazines did not have these devices. As if jamming each other, the cartridges were securely held in the magazine with the shutter open, but when the shutter moved forward, they easily moved into the chamber. Due to the simplicity of the device, reliability and compactness, such stores were considered the best.

The drum magazine of the Mannlicher-Schönauer rifle had a peculiar device (Fig. 10, D).

The sights of magazine rifles are designed for a fairly long firing range - up to 2000 m or more. Practically at such a range, in combat conditions, individual living targets are not visible to the naked eye, but when firing in volleys, for example, at group targets, the notches on the sights of such long distances turned out to be useful. At first, various frame sights prevailed, usually with several slots (Fig. 11, L, B). The slots on such sights were located on the frames themselves and on the movable clamps that moved along the frames. To use the slot located on the collar, the frame was installed vertically, while limiting the field of view. Subsequently, with the improvement of rifles, sector sights began to become widespread, that is, those in which the movable part, turning around the transverse axis, could move along an imaginary sector and, depending on the set firing range, was fixed with a collar or (less often) in some other way (Fig. 11, C, D). Such sights had only one slot for firing at all ranges. They were simpler and stronger than frame sights. Using them turned out to be more convenient, despite the fact that, like all open sights, they had some drawback, which was that, due to the peculiarities of human vision, it was impossible to clearly see three objects at the same time - a slot, a front sight and a target. The eye can adapt to a clear vision of objects at different distances, but not to simultaneous, but to sequential.

Frame or sector diopter sights with a hole instead of a slot in the rear sight have also received some distribution. Such sights are located on rifles as close as possible to the shooter's eye. They seem to diaphragm the pupil and allow you to see both the target and the front sight with almost the same clarity. In this and in the possibility of obtaining a longer sighting line, the advantages of diopter sights over open sights. Their disadvantages are that they limit the field of view and reduce the brightness of the target image perceived by the eye. Therefore, when the illumination decreases, the possibilities of diopter sights are exhausted earlier than the possibilities of open sights (in the thickening twilight, the impossibility of aiming when using a diopter occurs earlier than when using a slot).

Some rifles also have side diopter sights. They are, as it were, an addition to the main sights and are used for shooting at very long distances.

The front sights on rifles are usually movable, fixed after zeroing by punching. Their bases are special protrusions on the muzzle of the barrel. The bases of the flies on the old samples were one with the trunk; on later ones, they are made separately and tightly fixed on the trunk. This reduces the cost of production, since in this case the barrels are a body of revolution without protrusions that need additional processing. Many specimens have different shapes of earmuffs that protect the flies from accidental strikes. Some rifles have front sights located on the upper stock ring.

For arming snipers, rifles are produced that are distinguished by particularly heaped combat. Such rifles, as a rule, are equipped with optical sights, which significantly increase the accuracy of shooting. These sights are optical spotting scopes with multiple magnification mounted on a rifle. In the field of view of the sight there is an image of aiming marks. With the help of a special mechanism, it is possible to change the direction of the aiming line in relation to the axis of the bore and thereby set the sight for firing at different ranges. The magnifying ability of optical sights makes it possible to distinguish targets on the battlefield that are inaccessible to the naked eye, and their luminosity allows for the possibility of aimed shooting even at dusk and in moonlight.

Stocks on all rifles are made of wood, and only as an experiment in some countries plastic was used to make stocks. The neck of the stock in most cases has one or another, pistol-shaped shape, which is considered more convenient. Barrel pads can be more or less long.

The ramrods on rifles are solid or composite. Composite ramrods for use are screwed from separate relatively short rods, which are parts of several rifles. Thus, the mass of the ramrod, the length of which will be sufficient to clean the bore, is distributed over several rifles, which contributes to their relief. To compile ramrods of the length necessary for cleaning, soldiers borrow their individual parts from each other. Some rifles do not have a ramrod.

The experience of the First World War showed that the length of the infantry rifles of some countries is excessive. With the development of machine guns, to which a number of fire missions were transferred, the need for long-distance rifle shooting practically disappeared. A long rifle firing a powerful cartridge has already ceased to be the optimal weapon for infantrymen. It took a shortening and lightening of the rifle, its modernization, which was carried out after the First World War in a number of countries. In some countries, during this period, new models of magazine rifles were designed that already met new tactical requirements. However, only a reduction in the size and mass of the latest models of repeating rifles was a half measure on the way to creating an infantry weapon that fully meets the new requirements. If the new requirements for infantry weapons provided for a slight reduction in the range of rifle fire, then it would be more logical and correct to achieve this by reducing the power of the cartridge. Depending on the power of the new cartridge, a new weapon would also be created.

The use of a new, less powerful and lighter cartridge promised many benefits. For example, it made it possible to increase the stock of cartridges carried by the shooter, to reduce, lighten, simplify and reduce the cost of weapons. However, almost nowhere between the first and second world wars new cartridges were adopted, and the reduction in the range of infantry weapons was carried out exclusively by shortening and lightening the rifles of old systems. This approach was due to economic considerations, since the shortening of existing rifles was much cheaper than the radical replacement of all small arms and ammunition in service, associated with the re-equipment of weapons and cartridge factories.

Only in France could one note the transition to weapons under a new reduced cartridge, but here this cartridge was created mainly for a light machine gun, and not for a rifle.

After the Second World War, repeating rifles ceased to develop as military weapons, giving way to various models of automatic small arms. Therefore, the creation and improvement of new cartridges was carried out mainly in relation to automatic weapons. However, in the 1940s there were prototypes of rifles designed for new cartridges of reduced power. Structurally, these were typical repeating rifles, but when classifying them in terms of the ammunition used, they should have been attributed to a new weapon chambered for an intermediate cartridge. However, the lack of automatic weapon reloading turned out to be a more significant feature than the cartridges used.

Compared to magazine rifles firing conventional rifle cartridges, the new rifles were more advanced, they were free from those shortcomings of individual small arms that were caused by the use of old, overly powerful cartridges. These rifles were smaller and lighter than conventional magazine rifles. They were distinguished by their simplicity, reliability, manufacturability, low cost, larger magazine capacity, but, despite all this, they did not receive further distribution, since their birth was clearly belated. This weapon, as it were, died before it was born, and left its mark on history only in the form of a few prototypes.

Rice. nine. The main types of shutters for non-automatic rifles:

A - with a turning handle located in the middle part of the bolt stem (Mosin rifle 1891, Russia, USSR); B, C - with turning handles located at the rear of the bolt stem (respectively, Mauser 1898 rifles, Germany, and MAC-36, France); G - with a handle that has only rectilinear movement (Mannlicher, 1895, Austria-Hungary). Screw grooves with a gentle pitch, located on the combat larva (inside the bolt stem, shown by a dotted line), when interacting with the protrusions inside the bolt stem, ensure that the combat larva rotates when the bolt is opened and closed: 1 - stem; 2 - handle; 3 - combat larva; 4 - combat ledges; 5 - drummer; 6 - mainspring; 7 - trigger; 8 - ejector; 9 - connecting bar; 10 - coupling; 11 - fuse.

Rice. 10. Medium permanent magazines for non-automatic rifles:

A - with batch loading (on the right - the moment of sending the cartridge); B - with a horizontal arrangement of cartridges, filling by one cartridge; B - with a vertical single-row arrangement of cartridges, filling from a clip; G - with a two-row (staggered) arrangement of cartridges, filling from a clip; D - drum, filling from the clip.

Fig.11. The main types of rifle sights (the arrows show the direction of movement of the moving parts of the sights when they are installed for firing at increasing ranges):

L-frame with several slots (Mannlicher rifle, 1895); B-frame stepped (Konovalov systems, Mosin rifle, 1891, Russia); B-sector without a clamp, sometimes called quadrant (Schmidt-Rubin 1889/96, Switzerland); G-sector with a clamp moving along the aiming bar (Mosin rifle 1891/1930, USSR); D - diopter sector with an engine moving along an aimed chill (MAC-36 rifle, France).

Bibliography.

Bolotin D.N. Soviet small arms for 50 years. L., 1967

Bolotin D.N. Soviet small arms. M., Military publishing house, 1986.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia T.21

Gnatovsky N.I. history of the development of domestic small arms. M., Military publishing house, 1959.

Zhuk A.B. Handbook of small arms M., 1993.

Mavrodin V.V. Russian rifle L., 1984

Pastukhov I.P. Stories about small arms. M., DOSAAF, 1983

Razin E.A. History of military art M., Military publishing house 1961.

Soviet military encyclopedia M., Military publishing house 1976-1980.

Fedorov V.G. The evolution of small arms, Parts 1-3 Publishing house of the Artillery Academy. F.E. Dzerzhinsky, 1939

Rice. 5. Flintlock single-shot pistols with spark percussion flintlocks:

15, 16 - Scottish all-metal (brass suckers) of the middle of the 18th century; 17 - American military model 1836. The so-called unlostable ramrod (ns is separated from the pistol during the loading of the charge); 18.19-Caucasian, 18-19 centuries; 20th Arabic from North Africa, 17th-19th centuries

XIIRegional Competition for Young Researchers

"Step into Science"

Section:Story

Subject:

Khachetlov Musa Zelimkhanovich

Place of work:

North Caucasian Suvorov

military school, 9th grade

Vladikavkaz

Supervisor:

Tokarev Sergey Anatolievich

Basics teacher

military training

Vladikavkaz, 2014-2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

ChapterI. Historical features of the creation and adoption of small arms in the pre-October period (mid-19th - early 20th centuries)

3-5

ChapterII. The views of the military-political leadership of the Soviet Union on the issues of equipping the armed forces with modern small arms.

6-7

ChapterIII. The need to provide the Russian army with promising small arms.

8-9

Conclusion.

Bibliographic list

INTRODUCTION

"SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM""

Who wants peace, let him prepare for war.

Whoever wants victory, let him diligently train warriors.

Whoever desires a favorable result, let him wage war on the basis of art and knowledge, and not on chance."

Roman historian Cornelius Nepos

(Biography of the Theban general Epaminondas)

.

Project relevance due to:

1. The most important role of small arms in the general armament system of the state.

2. The construction of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, during which the organization of weapons is being improved, including the provision of small arms.

Subject of study: Arming the Russian, Soviet and Russian armies with small arms.

Purpose of the study:

Analyze the factors behind the development of small arms;

CHAPTER I .HISTORICAL FEATURES OF THE CREATION AND ADOPTION OF SMALL ARMS IN THE PRE-OCTOBER PERIOD

(middle XIX - Start XX centuries)

The creation and adoption of new models of small arms in the period under review is characterized by the extreme conservatism of state and military authorities, even in the conditions that have developed on the basis of the experience of previous wars and existing weapons systems.

Design thought often encountered a dismissive, bureaucratic attitude to business on the part of leading military circles, which was typical of that time. The command of the Russian army for a certain time was against equipping the troops with new models of small arms.

Thus, our army, in contrast to Napoleon's, met the war of 1812 with terribly versatile weapons. Rearmament and unification were delayed so that the troops had 28 caliber guns! The wear and tear of which was not particularly surprising: in the troops one could even meet the fuzei of Peter the Great. And such “economy” triumphs for several more decades.

In its history, Russia lost one war precisely because of the backwardness of small arms - the Crimean one. As the Russian weapons designer V.G. wrote with bitterness. Fedorov, none of the wars waged by Russia "revealed such a sharp backwardness in armaments as the Eastern War of 1853-1856." .

The Russian army met the war virtually without fittings, rifled guns, with which almost the entire English and most of the French armies were equipped. “Neither the British, nor the French and Italians had flint weapons,” the gunsmith Fedorov wrote in his study, “only a small part of the reserve troops had it in the Turkish army” .

Our soldiers could fire only 300 paces, while the enemy could shoot our troops with impunity without entering the zone of their fire - from 1200 paces.

The Russian army suffered the biggest losses precisely from rifle fire: the British and French riflemen with impunity knocked out not only the first line, but even reserves. Moreover, the enemy shooters actually paralyzed the Russian artillery, destroying the gun servants with the fire of fittings all from the same 1200 steps.

At the height of the war, military officials, as usual, caught on, trying to solve the problem with massive purchases from abroad. Ordering mostly not rifled weapons, but again smoothbore guns! They tried to place an order in the Belgian Littich (now Liege), but the factories were already loaded with orders for ... England and Turkey, opponents of Russia. And those manufacturers who agreed to supply refused to determine the exact dates for the delivery of weapons, inflated prices to the point of madness, and even began to raise them every 15 days.

They tried to get out of the situation in the traditional national way: they hastily collected all over the country and brought to Sevastopol different suits, different caliber guns, including those made in 1811-1815.

Approximately the same situation happened during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. “Suddenly” it turned out that the Turks were shooting “further” than the Russians! Only this time it was not at all that the Russian rifles were worse than the Turkish ones.

The Krnka rifle, which was in service with the Russian infantry, fired at 2000 steps, but only it was “prudently” equipped with a sight for only 600 steps in order to “deprive the soldiers of the temptation to shoot so far.” And the maximum distance for aimed shooting was generally ordered to be 300 steps - like a smoothbore gun! Because the most important type of combat, the Russian military leaders stubbornly continued to consider only a bayonet fight.

How this concept was philosophically substantiated by its main ideologist, General M.I. Dragomirov, “firearms meet self-preservation; cold - self-denial. Therefore, the first concern of any commander during the firing period of the battle is the saving of reserves for the period of the dump.

Hence the practical conclusion: to teach a soldier to shoot far and fast is to spoil and destroy him morally!

Until the end of the 19th century, Russian military officials did their best to avoid real rearmament, always preferring the “economical” reworking of old weapons: under a new lock, bolt, cartridge, etc.

The lack of a systematic approach in the field of small arms is an age-old disease of Russian officials, who are used to solving everything exclusively “at the hardware level”. More precisely, terribly unwilling, in general, to decide and change anything. And the argument at the same time always sounded the same: you need to be more economical.

In the second half of the 19th century, dense masses of infantry advancing in columns and in close formation, troops operating in dismembered battle formations, widely using crawling and rushing to approach the enemy, predetermined the need to further increase the rate of fire of small arms. This led to the search for ways to improve it, in particular through the development and creation of repeating rifles.

However, the development and adoption of new models of small arms by the Russian army was hampered by the lag behind the views officially adopted in Russia on the tactics of the troops.

The military theorist of the late 19th century, General Mikhail Dragomirov, categorically opposed the adoption of a repeating rifle. “A new military specter has been born in Europe,” the general scoffed, “magic guns. France, Austria, Germany and Italy have accepted: shall we not? According to the logic of the panurge's flock, they should be accepted: for if Europe has accepted, how can we not accept? After all, this is Europe, because from an early age they taught us that without the Germans there is no salvation for us. ” .

According to Dragomirov, the Berdan rifle No. 2 is an eternal weapon, why do we need a Mosin rifle ?! And after all, the commission chaired by the Minister of War P.S. Vannovsky, who decided whether the Russian army needed a magazine rifle, came to the conclusion that "increased shooting in general, and magazine shooting in particular, is only suitable for defense." And "turning to the answer to the main question posed in the commission's program: which of the guns has the advantage - a burst system or a single shot - the commission leans towards the latter" .

This was said in 1889, when the overwhelming majority of states had already rearmed with magazine rifles! So the Russian army could easily meet the war with Japan in a Dragomir style - with single-shot rifles firing cartridges with black powder.

In April 1887, during testing, General Dragomirov also spoke negatively about the Maxim machine gun: “If the same person had to be killed several times, then this would be a wonderful weapon. Unfortunately for fans of the rapid release of bullets, it’s enough to shoot a person once and shoot him then, in pursuit, while he falls, as far as I know, there is no need ”

With this approach to equipping the army with modern small arms, another equally serious problem arose - in Russia there were no specialized institutions that were engaged in the development and design of new types of small arms.

From the end of the XIX to the beginning of the XX century. weapons of the Russian army, as a rule, were created on the basis of foreign models. This applies to the Berdan rifles No. 2 and No. 1, the three-line rifle of the 1891 model, the Nagant revolver of the 1895 model and the Maxim machine gun of the 1905 model.

Thus, the development of small arms in Russia during the period under review lagged behind the advanced foreign countries.

CHAPTER II . VIEWS OF THE MILITARY-POLITICAL MANAGEMENT OF THE SOVIET UNION ON ISSUES OF EQUIPMENT OF THE ARMED FORCES

MODERN SMALL ARMS.

The revolution of 1917 in Russia opened a new era in the history of mankind. It was the beginning of a civil war that shook the whole world.

The very meager stocks of weapons of the old Russian army were transferred to equip the Red Army. From small arms, these were the famous Russian three-line (7.62 mm) repeating rifle of the Mosin system mod. 1891, carbine of the same system mod. 1907 and the machine gun of the Maxim system arr. 1910

With the end of hostilities, the question arose of revising the entire weapon system of the Red Army and equipping it with new models of automatic small arms.

Great merit in equipping the Red Army with automatic weapons belongs to the outstanding Soviet generals and military leaders M. V. Frunze, K. E. Voroshilov, M. N. Tukhachevsky, I. P. Uborevich, B. M. Shaposhnikov and others.

Despite significant successes in arming the Red Army with new types of weapons, the available opportunities were far from being fully used.

In the Soviet Union, despite the constant concern of its leadership to strengthen the country's defense capability, in 1941 history repeated itself again. According to the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, a member of the State Defense Committee of the USSR A. I. Mikoyan, already “a month after the start of the war, we did not have enough rifles.

During the Second World War, submachine guns, automatic weapons that use a pistol cartridge, were widely used. Submachine guns appeared in the 1920s and quickly gained popularity due to their efficiency and convenience.

Initially, the military-political leadership of the Soviet Union was against the adoption of submachine guns: Stalin considered them “gangster weapons” unworthy of the Red Army, and Marshal Grigory Kulik believed: “A machine gun is a weapon of police in capital countries to suppress demonstrations of workers. Aimless shooting with a large waste of ammo. The Red Army soldier must hit the target with accurate well-aimed shots, and for this the most suitable weapon is the Mosin rifle. .

The top military leadership of the Red Army considered the submachine gun exclusively as an auxiliary type of weapon, not suitable for arming the entire army or even a significant part of it, mainly due to its characteristic small effective firing range.

However, the experience of the 1939/40 Winter War dramatically changed the attitude towards this type of weapon.

The main model of individual small arms in it was the modernized Mosin repeating rifle of the 1930 model, supplemented by significant quantities of automatic rifles of the Simonov system and, subsequently, Tokarev self-loading systems. The main support weapon was the Degtyarev machine gun.

The effective use by the Finns of the Suomi submachine guns they had made a great impression on the leadership of the Red Army. It was after the Finnish War in the USSR that work was intensified to set up mass production and modernize existing Degtyarev submachine guns, as well as to develop new types of submachine guns, in particular, a competition was launched, in which the famous PPSh (Shpagin submachine gun) later became the winner.

In the Soviet Union, after the end of the war, the development of submachine guns as a class of weapons generally ceased for many decades to come. In the conditions of the low need of the police to create new models and the presence in the warehouses of large stocks of PPSh and PPS, which are replaced by Kalashnikov assault rifles in the troops, the production of this type of weapon was discontinued, and the prototypes being created were not put into production.

At the same time, in a number of countries during this period, work on the creation of new models of submachine guns still continued. For example, in Czechoslovakia, the submachine gun Sa. 23, according to a number of sources, which subsequently served as the prototype of the famous Uzi.

Developed in 1946–47, and still in service, the Kalashnikov assault rifle has found a wide variety of ratings throughout its long service life.

At the time of its appearance, the AK was an effective weapon, far surpassing in all main indicators the models of submachine guns for pistol cartridges available at that time in the armies of the world, and at the same time not inferior to automatic rifles for rifle ammunition, having an advantage over them in compactness, weight and effectiveness of automatic fire. The Kalashnikov assault rifle was brought "to mind" until the 1970s.

Small arms designer F.V. Tokarev at one time described the AK as distinguished by "reliability in operation, high accuracy and accuracy of shooting, and relatively low weight."

In 1974, the Kalashnikov assault rifle chambered for the 5.45 mm caliber - AK-74 was adopted: it was also brought for a long time, reworked, completed and modernized. The military initially considered the adoption of the AK-74 family a temporary half-measure: there was nothing breakthrough in its design that could provide the Soviet army with superiority over the weapons of potential opponents.

Reliability and non-failure operation of the weapon are almost standard for its class.

However, technological progress does not stand still, and, despite the reliability and simplicity of this weapon, many gunsmith experts started talking about the fact that the machine gun is morally and technically obsolete. For example, it is inferior in shooting accuracy to modern Western models of small arms (a kind of retribution for reliability and simplicity). The accuracy of the battle also leaves much to be desired, especially when firing bursts.

To date, even the latest modifications of the Kalashnikov assault rifle are outdated weapons with virtually no reserves for modernization.

The main disadvantages of the Kalashnikov assault rifle are the following:

1. Weight. By itself, the machine can not be called too heavy, but when using additional sights, it is considered heavy.

2. Ergonomics. Compared to other types of small arms, the Kalashnikov is not considered the most convenient weapon.

3. Receiver with a detachable cover does not allow the use of modern sights (collimator, optical, night) .

Undoubtedly, the Kalashnikov assault rifle has numerous positive qualities and will be suitable for arming the armies of a number of countries for a long time to come, but there is already a need to replace it with more modern models, moreover, having radical differences in design that would allow not to repeat the shortcomings of the outdated system.

CHAPTER III .NEED TO PROVIDE THE RUSSIAN ARMY WITH PROMISING SMALL ARMS

The set of requirements for modern automatic small arms has been the driving force behind promising Russian developments in this area.

The Russian military equipment "Warrior" is part of a general project to improve the quality of a single soldier on the battlefield and is a complex of modern means of protection, communications, weapons and ammunition.

As of June 22, 2014, automatic weapons for the Ratnik equipment are being tested by automatic weapons from two manufacturers: the Kalashnikov concern and the Kovrov plant named after Degtyarev. A new type of small arms should be adopted in the coming months.

The absence of a pistol in the Ratnik combat gear causes bewilderment - it is not provided for among the nine small arms and grenade launchers. At the same time, a number of military leaders believe that a soldier does not need a pistol at all.

The experience of combat use of law enforcement agencies in local conflicts, including in the North Caucasus region, clearly proves the need for a serviceman to have a pistol as a "weapon of last chance", which is used as a last resort when other types of weapons are no longer available.

At present, it is urgent to address the issue of increasing the combat capabilities of motorized rifle units of the Russian Ground Forces, as there has been an imbalance in the balance of forces with similar units of the armies of leading foreign states.

For example, the smallest tactical unit of the US Army is a mechanized infantry squad of 10 people. The department is armed with:

7.62-mm single machine gun M240 - 1 unit.

5.56 mm M249 light machine gun - 2 units.

5.56 mm M16A2 rifle - 6 units.

ATGM "Javelin" - 1 unit.

66 mm grenade launcher M72A2 - 3 units.

The smallest tactical unit of the Russian army is a motorized rifle squad of 8 (7) people. The department is armed with:

5.45 mm light machine gun RPK-74M - 1 unit

5.45 mm AK-74M assault rifle - 5 units.

40 mm RPG-7V2 - 1 unit .

As we can see, the Russian motorized rifle squad is significantly inferior to the US motorized infantry squad, both in terms of the quantity of small arms and their quality. The firepower and fire capabilities of a motorized infantry squad are 2 times higher than those of a motorized rifle squad. The conclusion suggests itself that urgent measures must be taken to eliminate the existing inequality in the combat capabilities of the motorized rifle squad.

We believe that the personnel of the squad should replace the AK-74M assault rifle with a more advanced one, or increase the caliber, and also equip it with an optical sight with the Day-Night mode.

The Dragunov sniper rifle (SVD) with a 7.62x54 mm cartridge should be replaced with a more modern one that can cope with NATO body armor, for example, an SVDK with a 9.3x64 mm cartridge.

Introduce a sniper rifle of increased accuracy and penetration into the staff of motorized rifle units, for example, the SV-338 chambered for a larger caliber, which is designed to destroy enemy manpower, including those protected by personal armor protection at distances up to 1500 meters.

The motorized rifle units of the Ground Forces of the Russian Federation are not armed with such a type of weapon as a light machine gun chambered for 5.45x39 mm with tape feed. A light machine gun is necessary to create a high density of fire in modern combined arms combat, especially to support the actions of a maneuver group, to give it additional firepower and perform other fire missions.

The creation of a new machine gun (following the example of the Belgian Minimi Para) will make it possible to have in service a more powerful, highly mobile weapon with a large ammunition load, with approximately equal dimensions (914 mm and 1065 mm) and weight (6.56 kg and 5.5 kg) of a regular light machine gun RPK-74M. At the same time, the new machine gun will be an addition to the PKM and PKP machine guns.

AK-12 (2012) AEK-971 (1984)

RPK-74M (1990.) FNMinimi(Belgium)

Winston Churchill once said that generals always prepare for the last war. Who, then, is preparing for the wars of the future?

CONCLUSION

Thus, until the 20s of the XX century. the process of designing weapons in Russia continued to be the lot of lone designers. The absence of specialized organizations involved in the development of new types and models of weapons inevitably leads to a lag in equipping the army with modern weapons.

The creation of new models of weapons should be based on the knowledge accumulated by previous generations in various fields of science and technology. At the same time, taking into account the experience of foreign designers is of particular importance.

To successfully solve the problems of equipping the army with new models of weapons, it is necessary to take into account objective factors: the level of economic development and scientific and technological achievements, the nature and characteristics of the armed struggle, the assessment of the weapons of a potential enemy and the tactics of its use.

Management bodies and officials responsible for the success of solving weapons problems in the system of power structures should occupy one of the key positions and have the ability to influence decision-making, both in the military department of the state and in the highest echelon of power.

An indispensable condition for the realization of the achievements and possibilities of science and technology in the creation of new models of small arms is the availability of trained personnel of gunsmiths.

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

1. Bolotin D.N., History of Soviet small arms and cartridges, St. Petersburg, Polygon, 1995.-302 p.

2. Leshchenko Yu.N., Organization of armament of the Russian army with small arms: late XIX - early XX centuries - M., 2009.

3. Zhukov G.K., Memoirs and reflections. M .: Military Publishing House, 1986. T. 2, S. 56 - 57

4. Dragomirov M.I., The action of infantry fire in battle // Arms collection. 1888. No. 3

5. Fedorov V.G., Armament of the Russian army in the 19th century. SPb., 1911. 275 p.

6. Fedorov VG, Evolution of small arms. Ch. 1, 2. M .: Military Publishing House, 1938 - 1939

7. Zhuk A.B. Encyclopedia of small arms. M.: Military Publishing House, 1998.-782 p.

"Historical aspects of the organization of armament of the Russian, Soviet and Russian army with small arms"

Khachetlov Musa Zelimkhanovich

Scientific adviser: Tokarev Sergey Anatolyevich

Teacher of the basics of military training

FGKOU "North Caucasian Suvorov Military School", 9 A class, Vladikavkaz

The problems of war and peace are the most vital for modern civilization. The experience of local wars and armed conflicts in the late XX - early XXI centuries. shows that, despite the widespread use of high-precision weapons, small arms continue to play an important role and are an effective weapon in close combat.

Combat experience shows that in conditions where the use of aviation, tanks and artillery is impossible or ineffective due to various circumstances, small arms remain the only means of fire destruction of the enemy.

Meanwhile, it has historically developed that the insufficient provision of small arms has accompanied the domestic armed forces throughout almost the entire history of their existence.

The famous designer and historian of small arms V.G. Fedorov noted: “... Russia has not waged a single war during which the tsarist army would have had enough weapons ...” .

It is important to note that each “gun drama” was preceded by general calm and confidence in the impossibility of its repetition, and without analyzing historical experience, the lessons of military history, it is difficult to comprehend the essence of the phenomena and processes in military affairs that are currently taking place, and even more so to predict the main directions of their development. in future.

Therefore, from the point of view of trends and prospects for the development of small arms, the project topic is of great theoretical value and practical significance.

The foregoing puts forward the task of organizing the armament of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation with modern small arms as a priority.

The relevance of the project is due to the most important role of small arms in the general armament system of the state, the construction of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, during which the organization of weapons is being improved, including the provision of small arms.

The subject of the study is the armament of the Russian, Soviet and Russian armies with small arms.

The main objectives of the study were:

Analysis of the factors that determined the development of small arms;

Explore the process of creating and adopting small arms;

Show the features of activities to equip the Russian army with small arms;

Formulate proposals on the use of historical experience in modern conditions.

In the course of work on the project, the authors proceeded from the concept given in the national military encyclopedia: "Armament is a process of qualitative development and quantitative growth of military equipment in the state, as well as equipping the Armed Forces with it."

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http:// www. allbest. en/

Autonomous non-profit organization

Higher professional education

"NORTH-WESTERN OPEN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY"

Discipline: " Story technology"

SUMMARY ON THE TOPIC:

"History of Small Arms"

Student: Makeev Pavel Yurievich

Direction of training: 150301 "Engineering"

Supervisor: Marinova Olga Aleksandrovna

St. Petersburg

Table of contents

• Introduction
• History of small arms
• wheel lock
• Firearms plus cold
• capsule lock
• cartridge invention
• Gates and stores
• Smokeless powder
• Conclusion
• Bibliographic list

Introduction

Shootingweapon - gunshotweapon,strikinggoalsbullets. Small arms include: pistols, revolvers, submachine guns, machine guns, automatic rifles, machine guns, various types of sporting and hunting firearms. Modern small arms are mostly automatic. It is used to destroy manpower and firepower of the enemy, and some heavy machine guns - and to destroy lightly armored and air targets. Small arms have a fairly high firing efficiency, reliability of action, and maneuverability. It is convenient and easy to operate with the relative simplicity of the device, which allows the production of weapons in mass quantities.

small arms cartridge gunpowder

History of small arms

Evidence has been preserved that already in ancient times there was a powerful weapon that spewed fire and smoke and acted at a considerable distance. Naturally, his device was kept in the strictest confidence, and everything that was connected with him was shrouded in a fog of legends. Was it a firearm, did it use the energy released during the combustion of some propellant, similar in properties to gunpowder? In some cases, judging by the manuscripts, this was indeed the case. At least it has been established that gunpowder was invented in ancient China, where it was used in military affairs and for festive fireworks. Then he moved to India. There is evidence that incendiary and, probably, explosives were also known in the Byzantine Empire. But the true history of firearms still began in Europe, at the turn of the 8th-14th centuries.

Usually weapons are divided into artillery and small arms. The first strikes the enemy with large projectiles fired along a hinged or flat trajectory. To service artillery systems, a calculation of several gunners is required. The second, mostly individual, is used for direct fire at open, relatively close targets.

With a variety of systems, calibers and other parameters, against the background of modern handguns, its first samples will seem primitive. However, we must not forget that the transition to them from the bow and crossbow (throwing weapons) was much more difficult than the subsequent development of firearms. So what were the predecessors of today's rifles, pistols, submachine guns and revolvers?

Specialists recreate their general appearance and structure according to old drawings and descriptions, but a few examples have survived. In our country, they are exhibited in the State Historical Museum, the State Hermitage Museum, the Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps, the museums of the Moscow Kremlin, the Central Museum of the Armed Forces.

It should be noted right away that hand weapons, according to the principle of operation, were not much different from the guns of that time. Even the names were similar: in Western Europe - bombardelles (small bombards) (Fig. 1), and in Russia - squeaked (hands).

Rice. 1 . bombardella startXVcentury

Rice2 . Russian pischal, 1375-1450

At the end of the 14th - beginning of the 15th century, their barrels were a short iron or bronze tube, about 30 cm long and 25-33 mm in caliber, with a blind end, near which a small ignition hole was drilled from above. It was laid in a chute hollowed out in a deck - a bed 1.5 m long, and fastened with metal clip rings. It was loaded through the muzzle with pulverized gunpowder (they began to make it grainy later) and a spherical bullet made of copper, iron or lead. By the way, the shape of the bullet practically did not change throughout the long era of smooth-bore, muzzle-loading weapons. This was due to the fact that it is easy to manufacture and does not require stabilization in flight.

Having loaded the bombardella or handgun, the shooter either rested the butt on the ground or chest, or laid it on his shoulder and clamped it under his arm (this depended on the length of the butt and its configuration), aimed, and then ignited the powder charge, bringing a hot metal rod to the ignition hole (Fig. .3).

Rice. 3 .

The Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps has a short iron barrel of the 14th - 15th centuries, fastened with three rings. On the back there is a narrow groove leading to the ignition hole - this is what the ancestor of the current pistols looks like.

When creating hand weapons, medieval craftsmen solved the same problems as modern designers - they increased the range and accuracy of fire, tried to reduce recoil, and increase the rate of fire. The range and accuracy of fire were improved by lengthening the barrels, and they fought against recoil by equipping hand-helds and other self-propelled guns with support hooks and additional stops. It turned out to be much more difficult to increase the rate of fire. In the 14-15 centuries, they launched the production of multi-barreled bombardelles, handguns, and also guns. Of course, their charging required more time, but in battle, when every second is precious, the shooter fired several shots in turn without reloading.

New military equipment immediately affected the tactics of battles. Already in the 15th century, detachments of shooters armed with “mini-guns” appeared in many countries. True, at first such weapons were inferior to bows and crossbows brought to perfection in rate of fire, accuracy and range, and often in penetrating power. In addition, forged or barrels cast by eye did not last long, or even simply burst at the moment of the shot.

Experience has shown that it is very inconvenient to aim and at the same time bring the rod to the weapon. Therefore, at the end of the 15th century, the ignition hole was moved to the right side of the barrel. A small shelf with a recess was placed nearby, where they poured a measure of the so-called seed gunpowder. Now it was enough to ignite it so that the fire through the pilot hole spread into the breech and ignited the main charge. This seemingly small improvement made a small revolution in the history of handguns.

After some time, the shelf was covered from wind, rain and snow with a hinged lid. At the same time, they found a replacement for the red-hot rod - a long wick, which in Western European countries was impregnated with saltpeter or wine alcohol, and in Russia it was boiled in ashes. After such treatment, the wick no longer burned out, but slowly smoldered, and the shooter could at any time put the weapon into action. But it was still inconvenient to bring the wick to the shelf every time. Well, this operation was also simplified and accelerated by connecting the wick to the weapon. A hole was made in the stock, through which they passed a thin metal strip in the form of the Latin letter S with a clip at the end, called serpentine (in our case - jagra). When the shooter lifted the lower end of the serpentine, the upper end, from which a smoldering wick stuck out, fell to the shelf and touched the ignition powder. In a word, from now on there was no need to stay close to the field brazier in order to heat the rod.

At the end of the 15th century, weapons were equipped with a wick lock, which was rather complicated for those times, in which a sear was added to the serpentine - a lamellar spring with a ledge, fixed on an axis on the inside of the lock board. It connected with the serpentine in such a way that as soon as the shooter pulled the trigger, the rear end of the sear rose, and the wick fell on the shelf, setting fire to the ignition powder. And soon the shelf itself was moved to the lock board.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the British attached a small shield to the shelf, which protected the eyes from the flash when fired. Then they switched to a more effective type of gunpowder. The former, crushed into dust, quickly absorbed moisture in wet weather, stuck together, and generally burned unevenly, due to which unburned particles constantly clogged the barrel and the seed hole. Experience has shown that small hard cakes should be molded from the powder mixture, and then split into relatively large grains. They burned slower than "dust", but without residue and released more energy. The new gunpowder soon replaced all previous varieties and existed safely until the middle of the 19th century, when more effective pyroxylin gunpowder replaced it.

The bullets have also changed. At first they were made from steel and other alloys in the form of arrows, balls, cubes and rhombuses. But then they settled on a round bullet made of lead, which is easy to process, and its weight gave the bullet good ballistic properties.

It is curious, but for some time it was believed that the metal of the bullet must necessarily correspond to the intended purpose. Indeed, only a steel bullet could effectively hit an enemy dressed in metal armor. And a certain French conspirator, before the assassination attempt on the Spanish king Charles 5, cast bullets for him ... from gold!

No matter how hard the masters tried to improve the wick lock, it was not possible to achieve significant changes. The hindrance was the wick itself, which the shooter had to constantly keep smoldering. But how then to ignite the propellant charge in the barrel? And then a brilliant idea arose - to replace the wick with flint and a metal flint. The invention of the flintlock wheellock marked the beginning of a new era in the history of handguns.

wheel lock

A wheel lock is a combination of a metal disk (wheel) and a cylindrical spring, which is locked with a key. When the trigger is pressed, the lock rises, the released spring scrolls the corrugated wheel, carving a sheaf of sparks from the flint, more than enough to ignite the well-ground gunpowder on the lock shelf.

The appearance of a spark wheel lock at the end of the 15th century added to the “lethal power” of firearms and other advantages inherent in its today’s varieties: constant readiness for firing and the possibility of concealed wearing. Matchlock weapons did not provide this. , and you can’t hide it in your bosom ...

The principle of operation of a wheel lock can be imagined by looking at an ordinary disposable gas lighter: a wheel with a notch, rotating, knocks out a spark from flint and ignites gas in the lighter, and seed gunpowder into the weapon. Only the lock wheel of a shotgun or pistol is spring-loaded with a cocking and triggering mechanism.

The forerunner of the wheel lock were grater locks (Fig. 4). In such a lock, sparks were obtained by moving a notched plate (grater) relative to a flint fixed in a spring clip (serpentine) near the shelf. For a shot, the grater had to be pulled or pushed, depending on the design. Surely there were options with a spring-driven grater and a trigger mechanism, but they did not receive significant distribution.

1 - gear grater handle; 2 - retractable grater; 3 - flint; 4 - clamping jaws of the serpentine (trigger)

Rice. 4 . German spark grater lock on a pistolXVin.

The authorship of the first wheel lock has not been reliably determined. Some researchers of the history of weapons attribute it to Leonardo da Vinci (Fig. 5). His manuscripts contain sketches of such locks, but who created them and when they began to be used is not exactly known. The products of Nuremberg gunsmiths became quite common and famous, and during the 16th and 17th centuries they made many improvements to the design of the spark wheel lock.

1 - wheel; 2 - trigger with flint; 3 - trigger and trigger spring; 4 - wheel spring; 5 - descent

Rice. 5 . Wheeled castle by Leonardo da Vinci

1 - mainspring; 2 - the upper lip of the trigger; 3 - lower lip of the trigger; 4 - trigger; 5 - trigger leg; 6 - spring latch; 7 - shelf cover lever; 8 - cam on the wheel axle; 9 - chain; 10 - wheel; 11 - front shoulder of the trigger lever; 12 - key board; 13 - wheel axle; 14 - powder shelf; 15 - shelf cover; 16 - casing; 17 - trigger spring; 18 - trigger screw; 19 - head of the trigger screw; 20 - pyrite; 21 - winding key

Rice6 . wheel lock

The wheel lock consisted of 30-50 parts. To start a powerful spring connected to the wheel axle, the shooter used a special key. In more advanced designs, the cocking of the spring began to be produced by turning the trigger.

The main disadvantage of all types of wheel locks was their complexity and, accordingly, the price. One lock was more expensive than a whole matchlock gun. In addition, the repair of such a complex mechanism in the conditions of field workshops was not very realistic. Therefore, the infantry practically did not receive them. But long-barreled pistols with such locks became the main weapon of the cavalry. Also, most hunting rifles, for which the price and complexity of the design are not a drawback, but a source of pride for the owner, received wheel locks, which were successfully used in hunting weapons until the 1750s.

Ignition.

The complexity and high cost of the wheel lock forced us to look for a simpler and less expensive solution. The flint was fixed between the teeth of the striker, which was attached to one side of the pistol. The trigger was cocked, while compressing the mainspring, and locked. When the trigger was pressed, the flint received a move. He hit a steel plate located at the pilot hole, and carved sparks ignited the powder on the shelf, which in turn ignited the main powder charge in the barrel.

The development of the flintlock took several centuries. One of the options for such a lock was a shock lock. This system consisted of two types of drummers. The first had a threaded tooth in which flint was attached. The drummer cocked, compressed its spring and locked. The second striker was a kind of flat plate, located directly above the pilot hole. When the trigger was pressed, the flint striker hit the plate and cut out a beam of sparks that fell on the powder shelf. Well crushed gunpowder ignited and ignited the main powder charge. Another flintlock appeared. Since the castle described above was too sensitive to weather conditions, a lid was invented to cover the gunpowder. At the same time, it also served as a plate against which the flint hit.

Firearms plus cold

For a long time, firearms and edged weapons coexisted in the troops on equal terms. At first, firearms, having excellent destructive power, did not shine with either accuracy or rate of fire. It was natural to want to combine its advantages with the advantages of cold weapons tested for thousands of years ...

The function of "shooting" was added to a variety of types of edged weapons: clubs, daggers, axes and even shields. These combinations appeared together with the first samples of firearms and, in some variations, have survived to this day. Let's look at some examples of such combinations.

A sample of a baton-pistol dates back to the fifteenth century. This weapon is made entirely of iron. At the opposite end of the barrel, a ring is made for attaching a belt loop. A massive iron ring was welded on the muzzle for greater weight of the "strike part" (Fig. 7).

Rice. 7.

Another variant, dating from about the same time, has four trunks. All barrels have one common shelf, closed by a sliding ring. The gunpowder on the shelf was set on fire with a smoldering wick, the shot is fired from all four barrels simultaneously (Fig. 8).

Rice8 .

Combination of an ax and a wheeled gun. Here the ax performs the function of a butt, and the trunk and stock, in turn, the function of an ax handle (Fig. 9).

Rice. 9 .

Another option: pickaxes with wheeled pistols in the handle. We shoot from the same side that we hit (Fig. 10).

Rice10 .

In the picture below, a combination of wheeled firearms with a hatchet, saber and six-blade (Fig. 11).

Rice. 11 .

English shooting shield. Its feature was the use of a breech-loading barrel with a wick lock. The shield was not pierced by bullets; a barred window was made for aiming above the barrel (Fig. 12).

Rice. 12 .

Combined weapons have never been massive. Both combat and hunting weapons of this type were created by craftsmen in single copies. But there were thousands of combination options. In army weapons, the combination of "cold" and "hot" ended with the creation of bayonets of various designs ...

capsule lock

A new era in the development of handguns is closely associated with the invention of initiating explosives, i.e. explosive compositions ignited upon impact, as well as with the creation of small metal containers for them, called capsules.

Mercury fulminate was discovered by the French physician Boyen in 1774. 14 years later, also a Frenchman, but this time a chemist, Claude Berthollet invented an explosive composition, named in his honor berthollet salt. It was impossible to use these initiating compositions in practice. Their treatment could end tragically at any moment. By the way, Bertolet's salt let down its inventor very well. Her obstinate nature deprived him of his own enterprise. One fine day, the explosion of this substance left no stone unturned from the Berthollet factory.

In 1788, in England, E. Howard made an explosive mixture of mercury fulminate with saltpeter. It was called Howard's powder. It took a short but strong blow to ignite it. With increased

sensitivity to mechanical impact, this mixture replaced the seed gunpowder in the castle. And the design of the flintlock itself was adapted for the use of a striking composition in special capsules.

Attempts to use shock compositions were made even before the advent of metal primers. The explosive (shock) composition during this period was produced in the form of powder, balls, cakes, tubes, etc. Howard's mixture was safe to manufacture and ship.

The first model of a lock using an impact composition to ignite the main charge of small arms was proposed in 1807 by the English. priest Forsythe (Fig. 13).

Rice. 13 . Capsule lock system Forsythe model 1807 England

The castle had a small revolving magazine with an explosive composition. After each of its overturning, a ball of explosive composition fell on the shelf. It was struck by a battery-type trigger with a small hammer. There was an ignition. The resulting jet of fire through the seed channel in the barrel penetrated inside and ignited the main charge of gunpowder, which ejected the bullet. The contents of the store with an explosive mixture were enough for 20-30 shots. Later, similar rifle locks, but somewhat improved, were developed by the Parisian masters Pote and Brute, the Austrian Kontriner and others (Fig. 14).

Rice. 14 . Capsule lock system Contriner. Austria

The castles of Forsythe and his followers were quickly appreciated by hunters and implemented them on their weapons. However, for army weapons, often operated in extreme conditions, such a lock system was of little use. After all, the initiating explosive placed in the gun lock was highly sensitive to various mechanical influences, primarily shocks. Military weapons required a simple and safe ignition device. The creation of such a mechanism became possible thanks to the invention of metal capsules. In 1818, Joe Egg from London designed a copper primer - a small cap with an impact composition. The body of the primer was covered with foil and treated with varnish - so that dampness did not affect the ignition of the explosive. Shortly after the invention of capsules, their bodies began to be made of brass. Firstly, such capsules, when the trigger was struck and the explosive mixture exploded, formed fewer fragments. Secondly, brass, which did not oxidize as quickly as copper, lengthened the shelf life of capsules.

Compared to flintlocks, percussion cap locks had a number of advantages that ensured their rapid spread, including in military weapons. What were they?

The use of percussion caps made it possible to drastically reduce the number of misfires. Here's your first benefit. If for flintlock guns they reached 20%, then for primer guns - only 0.03%. With a capsule lock, it was possible to shoot in any weather. After all, his work was not affected by any precipitation. Here's your second advantage. The use of a capsule lock made it possible to increase the rate of fire. It was cheaper to make. In its design, it was simpler and more reliable than flint. Here are some more benefits.

However, despite all this, the capsule lock was not immediately appreciated by the military. At first, he had many opponents. Supporters of flintlocks argued that rough soldier's hands would not be able to cope with a tiny primer; that they are expensive to produce and there are not enough workshops to make them; that there is a risk of injury to the shooter in the face by flying fragments of the primer; that cleaning the seed rod, on which the primer was put on, is very difficult. Over time, these shortcomings were overcome. The seed rod was made removable, and a special needle (treater) was made to clean it. So that the fragments of the primer do not interfere with the shooter and do not fly in the face, a recess and a cutout in front appeared in the trigger. Now the fragments were knocked down when the trigger was struck. Gradually capsules ceased to be very expensive products. This happened as a result of the expansion of the network of private and state-owned enterprises for their production.

How did the percussion lock work? The action of this mechanism can be seen on one of its classic samples - a lock for a Russian infantry percussion rifle of the 1845 model. It consisted of 8 parts: a keyboard, a trigger, an ankle, a trigger, a rifle larva, a mainspring, a trigger spring and a trigger. Thus, his device was somewhat simpler than that of its predecessor, and included fewer parts. The primer lock did not have a shelf for priming gunpowder, a steel with a lid and a flint spring. They were simply not needed by this mechanism. The reduction in the number of parts led to a reduction in manufacturing costs. When preparing a capsule gun for a shot, the shooter pulled the trigger with his hand to the rear position. At the same time, the ankle, located on the same axis, which had two cutouts (combat and safety), turned and compresses the mainspring. The trigger sear entered one of the cutouts, depending on how far back the trigger was retracted. If it jumped into the back cutout, then the lock was ready to fire. To produce it, it was enough to press the trigger with your finger.

For about half a century, a percussion cap lock was used in hunting and combat small arms. During this time, several of its varieties were created. Including - locks with a lower trigger, very simplified constructively, such as the mechanisms of the French gunsmith Potet.

cartridge invention

In the 1850s, a huge variety of breech-loading rifle systems appeared with primer ignition and cartridges made of paper or other combustible material. During the American Civil War, the warring parties were armed with more than 50 examples of such weapons, among them two or three samples of the first repeating rifles. They fired "self-exploding metal cartridges" of circular ignition (side-firing), called so

because the shock-igniting composition was in their annular cavity at the bottom of the sleeve. To break this rim, a trigger with a chisel-shaped striker was used. The metal sleeve provided reliable obturation of the shutter from the breakthrough of powder gases due to some expansion of the sleeve when fired and its snug fit to the walls of the chamber. The creation of metal cartridges falls on the period from 1835 to the middle of the 1870s. Among the first samples, a prominent place is occupied by a hairpin cartridge, invented in France by Lefoshe. His sleeve, like modern hunting cartridges, was cardboard, but with a brass bottom. A powder charge and a primer were placed in the sleeve. A small pin-stud protruded from the primer through a hole in the side wall of the sleeve near the bottom (a cut was made for it in the breech of the weapon). When the trigger with a flat striker was struck, the pin moved and pricked the primer. When reloading, the shooter opened the lock, pulled out the spent cartridge case by the pin and inserted a new cartridge. The subsequent improvement of cartridges can be traced to Hollyer's patents, which he received in the late 1840s: this is an all-metal cartridge case, usually made of copper or brass; side-firing cartridge still in use today; some early examples of centerfire cartridges. The latter subsequently became widespread. The bottom of the cartridge case of such a cartridge has in the center a nest for the primer, an anvil on which the primer is broken by the striker's striker, and two seed holes through which the flame from the primer passes to the gunpowder. With the discovery of new, more powerful powders, the sleeves, so that they would not be "inflated", began to be made exclusively from brass (except for side-fire cartridges for training weapons of very small calibers), while reinforcing the bottom part, which is experiencing increased loads. To capture the ejector with a hook, the first brass sleeves had a hat with a rim, however, with the introduction of box magazines, only a groove began to be made in the bottom of the sleeve.

Gates and stores

The first magazine rifles were equipped with lever-type breechblocks. When the lever (which simultaneously served as a trigger guard) was pulled down and forward, the spent cartridge case was extracted, and when it was returned to its previous position, a new cartridge was fed into the chamber from the magazine (usually tubular, located under the barrel or in the butt).

The longitudinally sliding bolt with a handle was first installed on military small arms by the German I. Dreyse (Fig. 15).

Rice. 15 . Dreyse shutter device (section)

The single-shot needle rifle he created was adopted by the Prussian army in 1840. This rifle fired a unitary cartridge with a paper sleeve. The capsule was placed between the powder and the bullet. In the tubular shutter there was a spiral mainspring, under the influence of which a long and thin, like a needle, striker's striker penetrated the sleeve, a powder charge and pricked the primer. The rifle demonstrated exceptional effectiveness in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, when the Prussian army, armed with new (long a military secret) breech-loading and rifled (and therefore faster-firing and long-range) rifles, quickly and with low losses defeated the Austrians who went on the offensive in still in close columns and armed with muzzle-loading guns. The shutter device of the Dreyse system was simple. Its tubular frame was moved by a handle in the receiver, which had a window for inserting a cartridge. When locking, the handle turned to the right and entered the groove in the receiver; at the same time, the conical front part of the shutter rested against the conical edge of the barrel, providing reliable obturation. The Dreyse rifle was the forerunner of all bolt-action rifles; various improvements made to its design over the next 50 years led to the creation of such magnificent systems as the Mauser rifle model 1898 (Fig. 16) and the Springfield rifle model 1903 (Fig. 17). With the invention of the middle box magazine by the American J. Lee in 1879, the rifle acquired a new quality - it became a magazine. The cartridges in the magazine were arranged in one or two (staggered) rows, and a spring mounted on the bottom of the magazine pushed the cartridges up to the bolt. The combination of longitudinally sliding bolts and middle stores determined a single design scheme for military small arms, which also found wide application in sports and hunting weapons. Significant improvements to this scheme were made by the famous European weapon designers P. Mauser in Germany and F. Mannlicher in Austria.

Rice16 . Rifle system "Mauser" 1898G.

Rice. 17 . American M1903 Springfield rifle

Smokeless powder

For the first time, smokeless powder for firearms was obtained by the French chemist P. Viel in 1884. In 1886, they began to equip 8-mm cartridges for an infantry rifle developed by the director of the French shooting school, Lebel. It was found that from nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin it is possible to obtain gunpowder with more uniform combustion and greater gas formation than black powder. In 1887, A. Nobel developed ballistic smokeless powder, the forerunner of cordite smokeless powder. The case used with these powders was given a bottle shape; the narrowed part in which the bullet is attached is called the "muzzle". In such a sleeve, even greater gas pressure was achieved, and copper, nickel, steel and bronze were used to strengthen it. With an increase in the pressure of powder gases, the firing range increased.

Conclusion

At the initial stage of weapon development, a lot of time had to be spent preparing it for firing, and calm weather was also necessary for ignition. In addition, the accuracy of a shot was more a matter of luck than calculation. Nowadays, weapons are being produced that can fire at a rate of 600 rounds per minute in all weather conditions with a high probability of hitting and reliability. Changing the magazine takes a few seconds.

Small arms firearms can be broadly divided into buttstock firearms and handguns. This division is largely arbitrary, since many machine guns, self-loading rifles and carbines can be considered as hand weapons due to the small size achieved by the invention of folding stocks and interchangeable barrels.

Weapon with butt

It is divided into the following types:

· Rifles: single-shot, bolt-action, lever-action, pump-action, semi- and automatic.

· Shotguns: single-shot, bolt-action, lever-action, pump-action, semi- and automatic.

· Carabiners: single-shot bolt action, lever action, pump action, semi-automatic and automatic.

Manual weapon

It is divided into the following types:

· Revolvers: black powder, small-caliber rimfire, centerfire.

· Pistols: black powder, small-caliber rimfire, centerfire.

Bibliographic list

1. Personal firearms. M., 1995 Zhuk A.B.

2. Encyclopedia of small arms. M., 1998 Smith G.

3. Encyclopedia of combat small arms. M., 1998

4. History of military art M., Military publishing house 1961 Razin E.A.

5. The evolution of small arms, parts 1-3, Publishing house of the Artillery Academy named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky, 1939 Fedorov V.G.

Hosted on Allbest.ru

...

Similar Documents

History of firearms. Invention of the matchlock and the matchlock arquebus. Using the energy of gunpowder to throw bullets and projectiles. A weapon that uses the principles of gas pressure force when a substance is burned.

presentation, added 01/31/2014


The history of the creation of the AK-47. Biography of Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov. Assault rifle. The use of a caseless cartridge. The concept of a new class of small arms. Self-loading carbine. The introduction of the Kalashnikov assault rifle into the troops. Target line length.

article, added 03/06/2009


The history of the development of the Mosin rifle at the end of the 19th century. Experimental production of the Simonov automatic rifle. The advantages of using revolvers of the Nagant system and Tokarev pistols. Design features of the Shpagin submachine gun.

term paper, added 07/17/2014


Designing a sample of a self-loading smoothbore weapon for practical shooting and a test cartridge for it. Performing the basic calculations of this weapon: the barrel for strength, the automation engine, the locking unit for strength and rigidity, etc.

thesis, added 11/15/2012


Studying the military-technical revolution: the transition from weapons of group destruction (firearms) to weapons of mass destruction, and then to weapons of global destruction. The history of the emergence of nuclear weapons, the characteristics of their damaging factors.

abstract, added 04/20/2010


Fundamentals of the development of the design of bullets for small arms and sporting weapons. Purpose and design features of the bullet, evaluation of its mass-inertia properties, calculation of aerodynamic characteristics. Conditions for the flight of bullets, accuracy of fire according to a deterministic model.

test, added 09/04/2010


Creation, improvement of nuclear weapons and thermonuclear munitions. Increasing the number of strategic offensive weapons. Development of a neutron fuse, submarines, bombers, ballistic and monoblock missiles, and other weapons.

term paper, added 12/26/2014


The appearance of multi-barreled pistols, their high fighting qualities. Invention and modification of revolvers. The advantages of guns loaded from the treasury, the development of rapid-fire breech-loading weapons. Rifles and carbines on smokeless powder. Machine guns and machine guns.

book, added 02/08/2010


Gunpowder as the most important invention, which helped the conquerors to annex new lands to their possessions, and the defenders to protect their territory and independence. The history of its research and features of its use in military affairs in different periods.

abstract, added 09/05/2014


Classification of weapons: traumatic, sonic, electroshock, microwave weapons, special non-lethal weapons. The principle of operation of the weapon and its effectiveness of impact on the object. Long range acoustic crowd control device.