Soviet blunt-headed ammunition of the Second World War. An overview of small arms ammunition encountered at the sites of former battles of the European part of the USSR. Ammunition of the former German army

Everyone is familiar with the popular print image of the Soviet "soldier-liberator". In the minds of Soviet people, the Red Army men of the Great Patriotic War are emaciated people in dirty greatcoats who run in a crowd to attack after the tanks, or tired elderly men smoking on the breastwork of a hand-rolled trench. After all, it was precisely such shots that were mainly captured by military newsreels. In the late 1980s, filmmakers and post-Soviet historians put the "victim of repression" on a cart, handed the "three-line" without cartridges, sending them to meet the armored hordes of fascists under the supervision of barrage detachments.

Now I propose to see what happened in reality. We can responsibly declare that our weapons were in no way inferior to foreign ones, while more suited to local conditions of use. For example, the three-line rifle had larger gaps and tolerances than foreign ones, but this "drawback" was a forced feature - the weapon grease, thickening in the cold, did not remove the weapon from combat.

N agan - a revolver developed by the Belgian gunsmiths brothers Emil (1830-1902) and Leon (1833-1900) Nagan, which was in service and produced in a number of countries in the late 19th - mid-20th centuries.


TC (Tulsky, Korovina) - the first Soviet serial self-loading pistol. In 1925, the Dynamo sports society ordered the Tula Arms Plant to develop a compact pistol chambered for 6.35 × 15 mm Browning for sports and civilian needs.

Work on the creation of the pistol took place in the design bureau of the Tula Arms Plant. In the fall of 1926, the gunsmith designer S. A. Korovin completed the development of a pistol, which was named the TK pistol (Tula Korovin).

At the end of 1926, TOZ began producing a pistol, the next year the pistol was approved for use, receiving the official name "Pistol Tulsky, Korovin, model 1926".

TK pistols entered service with employees of the NKVD of the USSR, middle and senior command personnel of the Red Army, civil servants and party workers.

Also, the TC was used as a gift or award weapon (for example, there are cases of awarding them to the Stakhanovites). In the period from autumn 1926 to 1935, several tens of thousands of "Korovins" were produced. In the period after the Great Patriotic War, TK pistols were kept for some time in savings banks as a backup weapon for employees and collectors.


Pistol mod. 1933 TT (Tulsky, Tokareva) - the first army self-loading pistol of the USSR, developed in 1930 by the Soviet designer Fyodor Vasilyevich Tokarev. The TT pistol was developed for the 1929 competition for a new army pistol, announced to replace the revolver "revolver" and several models of foreign-made revolvers and pistols that were in service with the Red Army by the mid-1920s. The German cartridge 7.63 × 25 mm Mauser was adopted as a regular cartridge, which was purchased in significant quantities for the Mauser S-96 pistols in service.

Mosin rifle. The 7.62-mm (3-line) rifle of the 1891 model (Mosin rifle, three-line) is a magazine rifle adopted by the Russian Imperial Army in 1891.

It was actively used in the period from 1891 to the end of the Great Patriotic War, during this period it was modernized many times.

The name of the three-line comes from the caliber of the rifle barrel, which is equal to three Russian lines (the old measure of length equal to one tenth of an inch, or 2.54 mm - respectively, three lines are equal to 7.62 mm).

On the basis of the 1891 model rifle and its modifications, a number of models of sporting and hunting weapons, both rifled and smooth-bore, were created.

Simonov automatic rifle. 7.62-mm automatic rifle of the Simonov system, model 1936, ABC-36 is a Soviet automatic rifle developed by gunsmith Sergei Simonov.

Originally developed as a self-loading rifle, improvements have added an automatic fire mode for use in an emergency. The first automatic rifle developed in the USSR and put into service.

Tokarev's self-loading rifle. 7.62-mm self-loading rifles of the Tokarev system of the 1938 and 1940 models (SVT-38, SVT-40), as well as the Tokarev automatic rifle of the 1940 model - a modification of the Soviet self-loading rifle developed by F.V. Tokarev.

SVT-38 was developed as a replacement for the Simonov automatic rifle and was adopted by the Red Army on February 26, 1939. The first SVT arr. 1938 was released on July 16, 1939. From October 1, 1939, gross production began at Tula, and from 1940 - at the Izhevsk arms plant.

Self-loading carbine Simonov. The 7.62 mm Simonov self-loading carbine (also known abroad as the SKS-45) is a Soviet self-loading carbine designed by Sergei Simonov, entered service in 1949.

The first copies began to arrive in active units at the beginning of 1945 - this was the only case of the 7.62 × 39 mm cartridge used in World War II

Tokarev's submachine gun, or the original name is Tokarev's light carbine - an experimental model of automatic weapons created in 1927 for the modified revolver cartridge of the Nagant, the first of the submachine guns developed in the USSR. It was not adopted for service, it was produced in a small experimental batch, it was used to a limited extent in the Great Patriotic War.

Degtyarev's machine gun. 7.62 mm submachine guns of the 1934, 1934/38 and 1940 Degtyarev systems are various modifications of the submachine gun developed by the Soviet gunsmith Vasily Degtyarev in the early 1930s. The first submachine gun adopted by the Red Army.

The Degtyarev submachine gun was a fairly typical representative of the first generation of this type of weapon. Used in the Finnish campaign of 1939-40, as well as at the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War.

Shpagin's machine gun. The 7.62-mm submachine gun of the 1941 Shpagin system (PPSh) is a Soviet submachine gun developed in 1940 by designer G.S. Shpagin and adopted by the Red Army on December 21, 1940. The PPSh was the main submachine gun of the Soviet armed forces in the Great Patriotic War.

After the end of the war, in the early 1950s, the PPSh was withdrawn from service by the Soviet Army and was gradually replaced by a Kalashnikov assault rifle; for a little longer it remained in service with rear and auxiliary units, units of internal troops and railway troops. It was in service with the units of the paramilitary guard at least until the mid-1980s.

Also, in the post-war period, the PPSh was supplied in significant quantities to countries friendly to the USSR, for a long time it was in service with the armies of various states, was used by irregular formations and throughout the twentieth century was used in armed conflicts around the world.

P gun-machine gun Sudaev. 7.62 mm submachine guns of the 1942 and 1943 Sudaev system (PPS) systems are variants of a submachine gun developed by the Soviet designer Alexei Sudaev in 1942. They were used by the Soviet troops during the Great Patriotic War.

PPS is often regarded as the best submachine gun of the Second World War.

Ulemet "Maxim" model 1910. The Maxim machine gun of the 1910 model is a heavy machine gun, a variant of the British Maxim machine gun, widely used by the Russian and Soviet armies during the First World War and the Second World War. The Maxim machine gun was used to engage open group targets and enemy fire weapons at a distance of up to 1000 m.

Anti-aircraft variant
- 7.62 mm quad machine gun "Maxim" on the anti-aircraft mount U-431
- 7.62-mm coaxial machine gun "Maxim" on the anti-aircraft mount U-432

Ulemet Maxim-Tokarev - Soviet light machine gun designed by F.V. Tokarev, created in 1924 on the basis of the Maxim machine gun.

DP (Degtyareva Infantry) - a light machine gun developed by V. A. Degtyarev. The first ten serial DP machine guns were manufactured at the Kovrov plant on November 12, 1927, then a batch of 100 machine guns was transferred to military trials, as a result of which on December 21, 1927 the machine gun was adopted by the Red Army. DP became one of the first models of small arms created in the USSR. The machine gun was massively used as the main weapon of fire support for the infantry of the platoon-company link until the end of the Great Patriotic War.

DT (Degtyarev tank) - a tank machine gun developed by V.A.Degtyarev in 1929. It entered service with the Red Army in 1929 under the designation "7.62-mm tank machine gun of the Degtyarev system mod. 1929 " (DT-29)

DS-39 (7.62-mm heavy machine gun Degtyarev model 1939).

SG-43. 7.62 mm Goryunov machine gun (SG-43) - Soviet easel machine gun. It was developed by the gunsmith P. M. Goryunov with the participation of M. M. Goryunov and V. E. Voronkov at the Kovrov Mechanical Plant. Introduced into service on May 15, 1943. The SG-43 began to enter the troops in the second half of 1943.

DShK and DShKM - large-caliber heavy machine guns chambered for 12.7 × 108 mm as a result of modernization of the large-caliber heavy machine gun DK (Degtyarev Large-caliber). DShK was adopted by the Red Army in 1938 under the designation "12.7 mm heavy machine gun Degtyarev - Shpagin model 1938"

In 1946, under the designation DShKM (Degtyarev, Shpagin, modernized large-caliber,) machine gun was adopted by the Soviet Army.

PTRD. Anti-tank single-shot rifle mod. 1941 Degtyarev system, put into service on August 29, 1941. It was intended to combat medium and light tanks and armored vehicles at distances of up to 500 m.Also, a gun could fire at pillboxes / pillboxes and firing points covered with armor at distances of up to 800 m and at aircraft at distances up to 500 m.

PTRS. Anti-tank self-loading rifle mod. 1941 of the Simonov system) is a Soviet self-loading anti-tank rifle, put into service on August 29, 1941. It was intended to combat medium and light tanks and armored vehicles at distances of up to 500 m. Also, a gun could fire at bunkers / bunkers and firing points, covered with armor, at distances of up to 800 m and at aircraft at distances of up to 500 m. During the war some of the guns were captured and used by the Germans. The guns were named Panzerbüchse 784 (R) or PzB 784 (R).

Dyakonov's grenade launcher. The rifle grenade launcher of the Dyakonov system is designed to hit live, mostly closed, targets with fragmentation grenades that are inaccessible to weapons of flat fire.

It was widely used in pre-war conflicts, during the Soviet-Finnish war and at the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War. According to the staff of the rifle regiment in 1939, each rifle squad was armed with a rifle grenade launcher of the Dyakonov system. In the documents of that time, it was called a hand mortar for throwing rifle grenades.

125-mm ampoule gun sample 1941 - the only serially produced ampoule-thrower model in the USSR. It was widely used with varying success by the Red Army at the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War; it was often made in semi-handicraft conditions.

A glass or tin ball filled with a flammable liquid "KS" was most often used as a projectile, but the range of ammunition included mines, a smoke bomb and even artisanal "propaganda shells". With the help of a blank 12-caliber rifle cartridge, the projectile was fired at 250-500 meters, thereby being an effective means against some fortifications and many types of armored vehicles, including tanks. However, difficulties in use and maintenance led to the fact that in 1942 the ampoule gun was removed from service.

ROX-3 (Knapsack Flamethrower Klyuev - Sergeev) - Soviet infantry knapsack flamethrower during the Great Patriotic War. The first model of the ROKS-1 backpack flamethrower was developed in the USSR in the early 1930s. At the beginning of World War II, the rifle regiments of the Red Army had flamethrower teams in two squads, armed with 20 ROKS-2 knapsack flamethrowers. Based on the experience of using these flamethrowers at the beginning of 1942, the designer of the Scientific Research Institute of Chemical Engineering M.P. Sergeev and the designer of the military plant No. 846 V.N. Klyuev developed a more advanced ROKS-3 knapsack flamethrower, which was in service with individual companies and battalions of the Red Army knapsack flamethrowers throughout the war.

Bottles with a combustible mixture ("Molotov cocktail").

At the beginning of the war, the State Defense Committee decided to use bottles with a combustible mixture in the fight against tanks. Already on July 7, 1941, the State Defense Committee adopted a special decree "On anti-tank incendiary grenades (bottles)", which ordered the People's Commissariat of the Food Industry to organize, from July 10, 1941, equipping liter glass bottles with fire mixture according to the recipe of the Research Institute 6 of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition. And the head of the Red Army's Military Chemical Protection Directorate (later the Main Military Chemical Directorate) was ordered to begin "supplying military units with hand-held incendiary grenades" from July 14.

Dozens of distilleries and breweries throughout the USSR turned into military enterprises on the fly. Moreover, "Molotov Cocktail" (named after the then deputy IV Stalin in the State Committee for Defense) was prepared right on the old factory lines, where citro, port and sparkling "Abrau-Durso" were bottled yesterday. From the first batches of such bottles, they often did not even have time to tear off the "peaceful" alcohol labels. In addition to the liter bottles indicated in the legendary "Molotov" decree, the "cocktail" was also made in beer and wine-cognac containers with a volume of 0.5 and 0.7 liters.

The Red Army adopted two types of incendiary bottles: with a self-igniting liquid KS (a mixture of phosphorus and sulfur) and with combustible mixtures No. 1 and No. 3, which is a mixture of aviation gasoline, kerosene, naphtha, thickened with oils or a special hardening powder OP- 2, developed in 1939 under the leadership of A.P. Ionov - in fact, it was the prototype of modern napalm. The abbreviation "KS" is deciphered in different ways: and "Koshkin mixture" - by the name of the inventor N. V. Koshkin, and "Old cognac", and "Kachugin-Solodovnik" - by the names of other inventors of liquid grenades.

A bottle with a self-igniting liquid KS, falling on a solid, broke, the liquid spilled and burned with a bright flame for up to 3 minutes, developing a temperature of up to 1000 ° C. At the same time, being sticky, it adhered to the armor or covered up viewing slots, glass, observation devices, blinded the crew with smoke, smoking it out of the tank and burning everything inside the tank. Falling on the body, a drop of burning liquid caused severe, difficult to heal burns.

Combustible mixtures No. 1 and No. 3 burned for up to 60 seconds at temperatures up to 800 ° C and emitting a lot of black smoke. Bottles with gasoline were used as a cheaper option, and thin glass tube ampoules with KS liquid, which were attached to the bottle with the help of pharmaceutical rubber bands, served as an incendiary. Sometimes the ampoules were inserted inside the bottles before being thrown.

B rone vest PZ-ZIF-20 (protective shell, Frunze Plant). He is also the CH-38 Breastplate type (CH-1, steel breastplate). It can be called the first mass Soviet body armor, although it was called a steel bib, which does not change its purpose.

The bulletproof vest provided protection against the German submachine gun, pistols. Also, the bulletproof vest provided protection against fragments of grenades and mines. The bulletproof vest was recommended to be worn by assault groups, signalmen (during the laying and repair of cables) and when performing other operations at the discretion of the commander.

Information often comes across that the PZ-ZIF-20 is not the SP-38 (SN-1) body armor, which is incorrect, since the PZ-ZIF-20 was created according to the documentation of 1938, and the industrial production was established in 1943. The second point is that in appearance they have 100% similarity. Among the military search units it has the name "Volkhovsky", "Leningrad", "Five-section".
Reconstruction photo:

Steel bibs CH-42

Soviet assault engineer-sapper guards brigade in steel bibs CH-42 and with DP-27 machine guns. 1st ShISBr. 1st Belorussian Front, summer 1944

Hand grenade ROG-43

Hand-held fragmentation grenade ROG-43 (index 57-G-722) of remote action, designed to defeat enemy personnel in offensive and defensive battles. The new grenade was developed in the first half of the Great Patriotic War at the plant. Kalinin and had the factory designation RGK-42. After being put into service in 1943, the grenade received the designation ROG-43.

Manual smoke grenade RDG.

RDG device

Smoke grenades were used to provide curtains with a size of 8-10 m and were mainly used to "blind" the enemy in shelters, to create local curtains in order to mask crews leaving armored vehicles, as well as to simulate the burning of armored vehicles. Under favorable conditions, one RDG grenade created an invisible cloud 25 - 30 m long.

Burning grenades did not sink in water, so they could be used when crossing water obstacles. The grenade could smoke from 1 to 1.5 minutes, forming, depending on the composition of the smoke mixture, thick gray-black or white smoke.

RPG-6 grenade.


RPG-6 exploded instantly at the moment of impact on a rigid barrier, destroyed armor, hit the crew of an armored target, its weapons and equipment, could also ignite fuel and detonate ammunition. Military tests of the RPG-6 grenade took place in September 1943. A captured assault gun "Ferdinand" was used as a target, which had frontal armor up to 200 mm and side armor up to 85 mm. The tests carried out showed that the RPG-6 grenade, when struck by its head on the target, could penetrate armor up to 120 mm.

Anti-tank hand grenade mod. 1943 RPG-43

Hand anti-tank grenade model 1941 RPG-41 shock action

RPG-41 was intended to combat armored vehicles and light tanks with armor up to 20-25 mm thick, and could also be used to combat bunkers and field-type shelters. RPG-41 could also be used to destroy medium and heavy tanks when hitting vulnerable spots of the vehicle (roof, tracks, chassis, etc.)

Chemical grenade sample 1917


According to the "Provisional RKKA rifle regulations. Part 1. Small arms. Rifle and hand grenades ”, published by the head of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs and the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR in 1927, at the disposal of the Red Army to arm the troops in positional combat remained a chemical hand grenade mod. 1917 from the stock prepared during the First World War.

VKG-40 grenade

In service with the Red Army in the 1920s-1930s, there was a muzzle-loading "Dyakonov grenade launcher", created at the end of the First World War and subsequently modernized.

The grenade launcher consisted of a mortar, a bipod and a quadrant sight and was used to defeat manpower with a fragmentation grenade. The barrel of the mortar had a caliber of 41 mm, three screw grooves, it was rigidly attached to a cup screwed onto the neck, which was put on the rifle barrel, fixing on the front sight with a cutout.

RG-42 hand grenade

RG-42 model 1942 with an UZRG fuse. After the grenade was adopted, the index RG-42 (hand grenade of 1942) was assigned. The new fuse of the UZRG used in the grenade became the same for both the RG-42 and the F-1.

The RG-42 grenade was used both in the offensive and in the defense. In appearance, it resembled an RGD-33 grenade, only without a handle. The RG-42 with the UZRG fuse belonged to the type of remote-action fragmentation grenades. It was intended to defeat the enemy's manpower.

Anti-tank rifle grenade VPGS-41



VPGS-41 when using

Characteristic hallmark ramrod grenades had a "tail" (ramrod) inserted into the barrel of a rifle and served as a stabilizer. The grenade was fired with a blank cartridge.

Soviet hand grenade mod. 1914/30 g. with defensive cover

Soviet hand grenade mod. 1914/30 is a double-type remote-action anti-personnel fragmentation hand grenade. This means that it is designed to destroy enemy personnel with shell fragments during its explosion. Remote action - means that the grenade will explode after a certain period of time, regardless of other conditions, after the soldier releases it.

Double type - means that the grenade can be used as an offensive, i.e. fragments of a grenade have a small mass and fly at a distance less than the possible throwing range; or as defensive, i.e. fragments fly at a distance exceeding the throw range.

The double action of the grenade is achieved by putting on the so-called "shirt" - a cover made of thick metal, which, in the event of an explosion, provides fragments of a larger mass flying over a greater distance.

Hand grenade RGD-33

An explosive charge is placed inside the body - up to 140 g of TNT. Between the explosive charge and the body is placed a steel tape with a square notch to obtain fragments in an explosion, rolled into three or four layers.


The grenade was equipped with a defensive cover that was used only when throwing a grenade from a trench or cover. In other cases, the protective cover was removed.

And of course, F-1 grenade

Initially, the F-1 grenade used a fuse designed by F.V. Koveshnikov, who was much more reliable and more convenient in using the French fuse. The deceleration time of the Koveshnikov fuse was 3.5-4.5 sec.

In 1941, the designers E.M. Viceni and A.A. Poor people developed and put into service instead of Koveshnikov's fuse a new, safer and simpler fuse for the F-1 hand grenade.

In 1942, the new fuse became the same for the F-1 and RG-42 hand grenades, it was named UZRG - "unified fuse for hand grenades."

* * *
After the above, it cannot be argued that only rusty three-rulers without cartridges were in service.
About chemical weapons during the Second World War, the conversation is separate and special ...

Universal shooting system of low ballistics for close combat infantry units of the Red Army

The available information about the ampulometre of the Red Army is extremely scarce and is mainly based on a couple of paragraphs from the memoirs of one of the defenders of Leningrad, the description of the design in the ampulomet manual, as well as some conclusions and common speculations of modern search engines and diggers. Meanwhile, in the museum of the capital's Iskra plant named after I.I. For a long time, Kartukov's life was a dead weight of an amazingly high quality view of the shooting of the front years. The text documents to it are obviously buried in the bowels of the archive of the economy (or scientific and technical documentation) and are still waiting for their researchers. So when working on the publication, I had to generalize only known data and analyze references and images.
The existing concept of "ampulomet" in relation to the combat system developed in the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War does not reveal all the capabilities and tactical advantages of this weapon. Moreover, all the available information refers only, so to speak, to the late period of serial ampulomet. In fact, this "pipe on the machine" was capable of throwing not only ampoules from a tin or bottle glass, but also more serious ammunition. And the creators of this simple and unpretentious weapon, the production of which was possible almost on the knee, undoubtedly deserve much more respect.

Simplest mortar

In the flamethrower system of weapons of the ground forces of the Red Army, the ampulometre occupied an intermediate position between knapsack or easel flamethrowers, firing a stream of liquid fire mixture at short distances, and field artillery (cannon and rocket), which occasionally used incendiary projectiles with solid incendiary mixtures of the military type grade 6. As conceived by the developers (and not by the customer's requirements), the ampulomet was mainly (as in the document) intended to combat enemy tanks, armored trains, armored vehicles and fortified firing points by firing any ammunition of a suitable caliber at them.

Experienced 125-mm ampulomet during factory tests in 1940

The opinion that the ampulomet is a purely Leningrad invention is obviously based on the fact that this type of weapon was also produced in besieged Leningrad, and one of its samples is on display at the State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad. However, ampulo throwers (as well as infantry flamethrowers) were developed in the pre-war years in Moscow in the experimental design department of the plant No. 145 named after SM. Kirov (chief designer of the plant - II Kartukov), which is under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat of the aircraft industry of the USSR. Unfortunately, the names of the ampulomet designers are unknown to me.

It has been documented that with ammunition from ampoules, the 125-mm ampulomet passed field and military tests in 1941 and was adopted by the Red Army. The description of the ampulomet design given on the Internet is borrowed from the manual and only in in general terms corresponds to pre-war prototypes: "Ampulomet consists of a barrel with a chamber, a bolt-slide, a firing device, sighting devices and a gun carriage with a fork." In our supplemented version, the barrel of the serial ampulomet was a steel seamless tube made of Mannesmann rolled stock with an inner diameter of 127 mm, or rolled of sheet 2-mm iron, plugged in the breech. The barrel of a standard ampulo-gun freely rested with trunnions on the lugs in the fork of a wheel (summer) or ski (winter) machine. There were no horizontal or vertical guidance mechanisms.

In an experienced 125-mm ampulomet, a rifle-type bolt in the chamber locked a blank cartridge from a 12-gauge hunting rifle with a folder case and a 15-gram sample of black powder. The firing mechanism was released when the thumb of the left hand pressed the trigger lever (forward or downward - were different variants), located near the handles similar to those used on heavy machine guns and welded to the breech of the ampoule gun.

In the serial ampulomet, the firing mechanism was simplified due to the manufacture of many parts by stamping, and the trigger lever was moved under the thumb of the right hand. Moreover, the handles in serial production were replaced by steel pipes bent like ram's horns, constructively combining them with a piston bolt. That is, now, for loading, the shutter was turned with both handles all the way to the left and, with support on the tray, was pulled towards itself. The entire breech with handles along the slots in the tray moved off to the rearmost position, completely removing the spent cartridge case of a 12-gauge cartridge.

The sighting devices of the ampoule gun consisted of a front sight and a folding sight rack. The latter was designed for shooting at four fixed distances (obviously, from 50 to 100 m), indicated by holes. And the vertical slot between them made it possible to target at intermediate ranges.
The photographs show that a roughly made wheeled machine welded from steel pipes and an angle profile was used on the experimental version of the ampulomet. It would be more correct to consider it a laboratory bench. At the ampoule thrower machine proposed for armament, all the details were more carefully trimmed and supplied with all the attributes necessary for operation in the troops: handles, openers, slats, brackets, etc. However, the wheels (rollers) on both the experimental and serial samples were provided with monolithic wooden , upholstered with a metal strip along the generatrix and with a metal sleeve as a plain bearing in the axial bore.

In the St. Petersburg, Volgograd and Arkhangelsk museums there are later versions of a factory-made ampulomet on a simplified lightweight wheelless non-folding machine with a support of two pipes, or without a machine at all. Tripods made of steel rods, wooden decks or oak crosses as carriages for ampulomet were already adapted in war time.

The manual mentions that the ammunition load carried by the calculation of the ampoule gun was 10 ampoules and 12 knockout cartridges. On the machine of the pre-production version of the ampoule thrower, the developers proposed to install in the transport position two easily removable tin boxes with a capacity of eight ampoules each. One of the soldiers apparently carried two dozen rounds in a standard hunting bandolier. In a combat position, ammunition boxes were quickly removed and placed in cover.

On the barrel of the pre-production version of the ampulomet, two welded swivels were provided for carrying it on a belt over the shoulder. Serial samples were devoid of any "architectural excesses", and the barrel was carried on the shoulder. Many people note the presence of a metal splitter grille inside the barrel, in its breech. This was not the case on the prototype. Obviously, the grill was needed to prevent the blank cartridge from hitting the glass ampoule with the cardboard and felt wad of a blank cartridge. In addition, it limited the movement of the ampoule to the breech of the barrel to the stop, since the serial 125-mm ampoule gun had a chamber in this place. The factory data and characteristics of the 125-mm ampulomet are somewhat different from those given in the descriptions and manuals for use.

Incendiary ampoules

As indicated in the documents, the main ammunition for the ampulomet was the aviation tin ampoules AZh-2 of 125 mm caliber, equipped with a self-igniting type of condensed kerosene brand KS. The first tin spherical ampoules entered serial production in 1936. At the end of the 1930s. they were also improved in OKO of the 145th plant (in evacuation this is OKB-NKAL of plant No. 455). In the factory documents, they were referred to as aviation liquid ampoules AZ-2. But still right
it is more appropriate to call the ampoules tin, since the Red Army Air Force planned to gradually replace the AK-1 glass ampoules, which have been in service since the early 1930s. like chemical ammunition.

There were constant complaints about the glass ampoules that they were fragile, and having broken ahead of time, they could poison both the aircraft crew and ground personnel with their contents. Meanwhile, mutually exclusive requirements were imposed on the glass of ampoules - strength in handling and fragility in use. The first, of course, prevailed, and some of them, with a wall thickness of 10 mm, even when bombing from a height of 1000 m (depending on the density of the soil) gave a very large percentage of unbreakable ones. Theoretically, their thin-walled tin counterparts could solve the problem. As tests later showed, the hopes of the aviators for this were also not fully justified.

This feature probably also manifested itself when firing from an ampulo thrower, especially along flat trajectories at a short distance. Note that the recommended target types for the 125mm ampoule gun are also solid-walled targets. In the 1930s, gt. aircraft tin ampoules were made by stamping two hemispheres of thin brass 0.35 mm thick. Apparently, since 1937 (with the beginning of the austerity of non-ferrous metals in the production of ammunition), they began to be converted to tinplate 0.2-0.3 mm thick.

The configuration of parts for the production of tin ampoules varied greatly. In 1936, at the 145th plant, the Ofitserova-Kokoreva design was proposed for the manufacture of AZ-2 from four spherical segments with two options for rolling the edges of parts. In 1937, even AZh-2 consisted of a hemisphere with a filler neck and a second hemisphere of four spherical segments in production.

At the beginning of 1941, in connection with the expected transition of the economy to a special period, the technologies for the production of AZh-2 from black tin (thin rolled 0.5 mm pickled iron) were tested. From the middle of 1941, these technologies had to be used to the full. When stamping, black plate was not as plastic as white or brass, and deep drawing of steel complicated production, therefore, with the beginning of the war, AF-2 was allowed to be made from 3-4 parts (spherical segments or belts, as well as their various combinations with hemispheres).

Soldering the seams of ferrous tin products in the presence of special fluxes then turned out to be quite an expensive pleasure, and the method of welding thin steel sheets with a continuous seam, Academician E.O. Paton introduced ammunition into production only a year later. Therefore, in 1941, parts of the AZ-2 hulls began to be connected by rolling the edges and recessed seam flush with the contour of the sphere. By the way, before the birth of ampoulometres, the filler necks of metal ampoules were soldered on the outside (for use in aviation, this was not so fundamental), but since 1940, the necks were fastened inside. This made it possible to avoid the diversity of ammunition for use in aviation and ground forces.

The filling of ampoules АЖ-2КС, the so-called "Russian napalm" - condensed kerosene KS - was developed in 1938 by A.P. Ionov in one of the metropolitan research institutes with the assistance of chemists V.V. Zemskova, L.F. She-velkin and A.V. Yasnitskaya. In 1939 he completed the development of a technology for the industrial production of the OP-2 powder thickener. How the incendiary mixture acquired the properties of instantly self-igniting in air remains unknown. I am not sure that the trivial addition of white phosphorus granules to a thick petroleum-based incendiary mixture here would guarantee their spontaneous combustion. In general, be that as it may, already in the spring of 1941, at factory and field tests, the 125-mm ampoulo-gun AZh-2KS normally fired without fuses and intermediate ignitors.

According to the initial plan, the AZh-2 were intended to infect the terrain from aircraft with persistent toxic substances, as well as to destroy manpower with persistent and unstable toxic substances, and later (when used with liquid fire mixtures) - to ignite and smoke tanks, ships and firing points. Meanwhile, the use of chemical warfare agents in ampoules against the enemy was not ruled out by using them from ampoulomettes. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the incendiary purpose of the ammunition was supplemented by the smoking of manpower from field forts.

In 1943, for guaranteed operation of AZH-2SOV or AZH-2NOV when bombing from any height and at any carrier speed, the ampoule developers supplemented their designs with fuses made of thermosetting plastic (resistant to the acid base of poisonous substances). As conceived by the developers, such modified ammunition affected manpower already as fragmentation-chemical.

Ampoule fuses UVUD (universal percussion fuse) belonged to the category of all-blown fuses, i.e. even if the ampoules fell sideways. Structurally, they were similar to those used on aircraft smoke bombs ADSh, but it was no longer possible to shoot such ampoules from ampoule throwers: from overloads, a non-safety fuse could go off right in the barrel. During the war period, and for incendiary ampoules in the Air Force, they sometimes used cases with fuses or with plugs instead.

In 1943-1944. have passed tests of ampoules AZH-2SOV or NOV, intended for long-term storage in the loaded state. For this, their hulls were covered with bakelite resin inside. Thus, the resistance of the metal case to mechanical stress increased even more, and fuses were mandatory installed on such ammunition.

Today, at the sites of past battles, "diggers" can only come across in conditioned form only ampoules of AK-1 or AU-125 (AK-2 or AU-260 are extremely rare exotic) made of glass. Thin-walled tin ampoules practically all decayed. You should not try to discharge glass ampoules if you can see that there is liquid inside. White or yellowish turbid - this is a COP, which has by no means lost its properties to self-ignition in air even after 60 years. Transparent or translucent with yellow large crystals of the sediment - this is COB or NOV. In their glass containers combat properties can also persist for a very long time.

Ampulothons in battle

On the eve of the war, units of knapsack flamethrowers (flamethrower teams) were organizationally part of the rifle regiments. However, due to the difficulties of using in defense (extremely short range of flamethrowing and unmasking signs of the ROKS-2 knapsack flamethrower), they were disbanded. Instead, in November 1941, teams and companies were created, armed with ampoule throwers and rifle mortars for throwing metal and glass ampoules and Molotov cocktails at tanks and other targets. But, according to the official version, ampoulometry also had significant drawbacks, and at the end of 1942 they were removed from service.
At the same time, no mention was made of the abandonment of rifle-bottle mortars. Probably, for some reason they did not have the disadvantages of ampulomettes. Moreover, in the remaining divisions of the rifle regiments of the Red Army, it was proposed to throw bottles with KS at tanks exclusively by hand. The bottle-throwers of the flamethrower teams, obviously, were told a terrible military secret: how to use the aiming bar of the Mosin rifle for aimed shooting with a bottle at a given distance, determined by eye. As I understand it, there was simply no time to teach the rest of the illiterate infantrymen this "tricky business". Therefore, they themselves adapted a three-inch sleeve to cut a rifle barrel and themselves "after hours" were trained in targeted bottle throwing.

When meeting with a solid barrier, the body of the ampoule AZh-2KS broke, as a rule, along the soldering seams, the incendiary mixture splashed out and ignited in air with the formation of a thick white
th smoke. The combustion temperature of the mixture reached 800 ° C, which, when it got on clothes and exposed parts of the body, caused the enemy a lot of trouble. No less unpleasant was the meeting of the sticky COP with armored vehicles - from the change in the physicochemical properties of the metal during local heating to such a temperature and ending with an indispensable fire in the engine-transmission compartment of carburetor (and diesel) tanks. It was impossible to clean the burning COP from the armor - it was only required to cut off the air access. However, the presence of a self-igniting additive in the combustion chamber did not exclude spontaneous combustion of the mixture again.

Here are a few excerpts from war reports from the Great Patriotic War, published on the Internet: “We also used ampoule throwers. From an obliquely installed tube mounted on a sleigh, a blank cartridge shot pushed a glass ampoule with a combustible mixture. It flew along a steep trajectory at a distance of up to 300-350 m. Crashing when falling, the ampoule created a small but stable fire, striking the enemy's manpower and setting fire to his dugouts. Consolidated ampulometric company under the command of Senior Lieutenant Starkov, which included 17 crews, fired 1,620 ampoules during the first two hours. “Ampulo-makers have also moved here. Acting under the cover of infantry, they set fire to an enemy tank, two guns and several firing points. "

By the way, intense shooting with black powder cartridges inevitably created a thick layer of carbon deposits on the barrel walls. So after a quarter of an hour of such a cannonade, the ampoule makers would probably find that the ampoule is rolled into the barrel with increasing difficulty. Theoretically, before this, carbon deposits, on the contrary, would somewhat improve the obturation of the ampoules in the barrel, increasing their firing range. However, the usual marks of range on the sight bar, for sure, "floated". Banners and other tools and devices for cleaning ampulomet barrels were probably mentioned in the technical description ...

And here is the quite objective opinion of our contemporaries: “The calculation of the ampulomet was three people. The loading was carried out by two people: the first number of the crew inserted a bullet cartridge from the treasury, the second one inserted the ampoule into the barrel from the muzzle ”. “Ampulothrowers were very simple and cheap“ flamethrower mortars ”, they were armed with special ampulometric platoons. The 1942 infantry combat manual mentions the ampulomet as a standard infantry firearm. In battle, the ampulomet often served as the core of a group of tank destroyers. Its use in defense as a whole justified itself, while attempts to use it in an offensive led to large losses of crews due to a short firing range. True, they were not without success used by assault groups in urban battles - in particular, in Stalingrad. "

There are also memoirs of veterans. The essence of one of them boils down to the fact that at the beginning of December 1941 on the Western Front in one of the battalions of the 30th Army of Major General D.D. Lelyushenko was delivered 20 ampulomettes. The designer of this weapon came here, as well as the commander himself, who decided to personally test the new technology. In response to the designer's comments on loading the ampulo-gun, Leliushenko grumbled that everything was painful and cunning for a long time, and the German tank would not wait ... At the first shot, the ampoule broke in the barrel of the ampulo-gun, and the entire installation burned out. Lelyushenko, already with metal in his voice, demanded a second ampulomet. It all happened again. The general "got angry", switching to profanity, forbade the soldiers to use such an unsafe weapon for calculations and crushed the remaining ampoule guns with a tank.

Quite a plausible story, although not very pleasant in the general context. As if ampoule throwers did not pass factory and field tests ... Why could this happen? As a version: the winter of 1941 (all eyewitnesses mentioned this) was very frosty, and the glass ampoule became more fragile. Here, unfortunately, the respected veteran did not specify what material those ampoules were of. The difference in temperatures of thick-walled glass (local heating), which is fired when fired with a flame of high-powered gunpowder, can also affect. Obviously, in severe frost it was necessary to shoot only metal ampoules. But "in the hearts" of the general could easily and ride the ampoules!

Frontline spill fiery cocktail

It is only at first glance that the scheme of using the ampulomet in the troops seems primitively simple. For example, the calculation of the ampoule gun in the combat position fired off the wearable ammunition and dragged the second ammunition ... What is easier - take and shoot. Look, Senior Lieutenant Starkov's two-hour unit consumption exceeded one and a half thousand ampoules! But in fact, when organizing the supply of incendiary ampoules to the troops, it was necessary to solve the problem of transporting incendiary ammunition far from safe in handling from factories from the deep rear.

Tests of ampoules in the pre-war period have shown that these ammunition in a fully equipped form can withstand transportation for no more than 200 km along peacetime roads in compliance with all the rules and with the complete exclusion of "road adventures". In wartime, things became much more complicated. But here, no doubt, the experience of Soviet aviators came in handy, where ampoules were equipped at airfields. Before the mechanization of the process, the filling of ampoules, taking into account the unscrewing and tightening of the union plug, required 2 man-hours per 100 pieces.

In 1938, for the Air Force of the Red Army at the 145th plant of the NKAP, a towed aviation filling station ARS-203, made on a single-axle semitrailer, was developed and later put into service. A year later, the self-propelled ARS-204 entered service, but it was focused on servicing the pouring aircraft devices, and we will not consider it. ARSs were mainly intended for filling chemical warfare agents into ammunition and insulated tanks, but for working with a ready-made self-igniting incendiary mixture they turned out to be simply irreplaceable.

In theory, a small unit was supposed to work in the rear of each rifle regiment to equip ampoules with a mixture of KS. Without a doubt, it had an ARS-203 station. But KS was also not transported in barrels from factories, but prepared on the spot. For this, in the front-line zone, any refined products (gasoline, kerosene, solarium) were used and according to the tables compiled by A.P. Ionov, added different amounts of a thickener to them. As a result, despite the difference in the initial components, a CS was obtained. Then it was apparently pumped into the ARS-203 tank, where the self-ignition component of the fire mixture was added.

However, the option of adding the component directly to the ampoules and then pouring the KS liquid into them is not excluded. In this case, the ARS-203, in general, was not so necessary. And an ordinary soldier's aluminum mug could serve as a dispenser. But such an algorithm required that the self-igniting component be inert for some time outdoors (for example, wet white phosphorus).

ARS-203 was specially developed for mechanization of the process of loading ampoules of AZh-2 to the working volume in the field. On it, from a large reservoir, the liquid was first poured simultaneously into eight measuring tanks, and then eight ampoules were filled at once. Thus, in an hour, it was possible to equip 300-350 ampoules, and after two hours of such work, the 700-liter tank of the station was emptied, and it was refilled with KS liquid. It was impossible to speed up the process of filling the ampoules: all overflows of liquids took place in a natural way, without pressurizing the container. The filling cycle of eight ampoules was 17-22 s, and 610 liters were pumped into the working capacity of the station using a Garda pump in 7.5-9 minutes.

Obviously, the experience of operating the ARS-203 in the ground forces turned out to be unexpected: the productivity of the station, oriented to the needs of the Air Force, was recognized as excessive, as, indeed, its dimensions, weight and the need for towing by a separate vehicle. The infantry needed something smaller, and in 1942 in the OKB-NKAP of the 455th plant "Kartukovtsy" developed a field filling station PRS. In its design, the measuring tanks were abolished, and the filling level of the opaque ampoules was controlled using the Glass SIG-Extremely simplified version of the ORS nal tube. for use in the field. Working capacity
the tank was 107 liters, and the mass of the entire station did not exceed 95 kg. The PRS was designed in a “civilized” version of the workplace on a folding table and in an extremely simplified version, with the installation of a working capacity “on hemp”. The capacity of the station was limited to 240 ampoules of AZh-2 per hour. Unfortunately, when the field tests of the PRS were completed, the ampoulometry in the Red Army had already been removed from service.

Russian reusable "Faustpatron"?

However, it will not be entirely correct to unconditionally classify the 125-mm ampulomet as an incendiary weapon. After all, no one dares to consider the barrel artillery system or the Katyusha MLRS as flamethrowers, which, if necessary, fired incendiary ammunition. By analogy with the use of aviation ampoules, the designers of the 145th plant suggested expanding the arsenal of ammunition for the ampoule gun through the use of modified Soviet anti-tank bombs PTAB-2.5 of cumulative action, created at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

In the book by E. Pyriev and S. Reznichenko "Bomber armament of Russian aviation in 1912-1945." in the PTAB section it says that small cumulative aerial bombs in the USSR were developed only in GSKB-47, TsKB-22 and in SKB-35. From December 1942 to April 1943, it was possible to design, test and work out in full program 1.5-kg PTAB cumulative action. However, at the 145th plant I.I. Kartukov dealt with this problem much earlier, back in 1941. Their 2.5-kg ammunition was called the AFBM-125 aircraft high-explosive armor-piercing mine of 125 mm caliber.

Outwardly, such a PTAB strongly resembled Colonel Gronov's high-explosive bombs of small calibers during the First World War. Since the wings of the cylindrical empennage were spot-welded to the body of the aviation munition, it was not possible to do with the use of the mines in the infantry by simply replacing its plumage. The new plumage of the mortar type on the bombs was installed with an additional propellant charge mounted in it in the capsule. The ammunition was fired as before, with a blank 12-gauge rifle cartridge. Thus, as applied to the ampulometry, the system was obtained in a certain STpemina fBM. 125 without additional NI active-reactive. fuse contact fuse.

For quite a long time, the designers had to work on increasing the reliability of the cocking of the mine contact fuse on the trajectory.

Meanwhile, the problem in the above-mentioned episode of 1941 with the commander of the 30th army D.D. Lelyushenko could also have arisen when firing early models with high-explosive armor-piercing mines FBM-125 from ampulometers. This is indirectly indicated by Leliushenko's grumbling: “Everything hurts is cunning and takes a long time, the German tank will not wait,” since the insertion of an ampoule and loading of a cartridge did not require any special tricks in a conventional ampulomet. In the case of using the FBM-125, before firing at the ammunition, it was necessary to unscrew the safety key, opening the fire to the powder pressing of the safety mechanism that holds the inertial striker of the contact fuse in the rear position. For this, all such ammunition was supplied with a cardboard cheat sheet with the inscription "Turn out before firing", tied to the key.

The cumulative recess in the front of the mine was hemispherical, and its thin-walled steel lining rather formed a given configuration when filling explosives, rather than played the role of a shock core in the cumulation of a war charge of ammunition. The documents indicated that the FBM-125, when fired from standard ampulometers, was designed to disable tanks, armored trains, armored vehicles, vehicles, as well as to destroy fortified firing points (pillboxes, bunkers).

Field tests of the ammunition took place in 1941.They resulted in the launch of the mines into pilot production. Military trials of the FBM-125 were successfully completed in 1942. The developers suggested, if necessary, equipping such mines with irritating chemical agents (chloroacetophenone or adamsite), but this did not come to that. In parallel with the FBM-125, the OKB-NKAP of the 455th plant also developed the BFM-125 armor-piercing fu-gas mine. Unfortunately, its combat properties are not mentioned in the factory certificates.

Cover the infantry with smoke

In 1941, it passed field tests developed at the plant №145 named. CM. Kirov aviation smoke bomb ADSh. It was intended for setting vertical masking (blinding the enemy) and poisonous smoke (shackling and exhausting the enemy's combat forces) curtains when dropping checkers from an aircraft. On aircrafts, ADSh was loaded into ampoule-bomb cassettes, after removing the safety plugs of the fuses. Checkers poured out in one gulp when opening the doors of one of the sections of the cassette. Ampoule-bomb cassettes were also developed at the 145th plant for fighters, attack aircraft, long-range and short-range bombers.

The contact action checker fuse was already made with an all-blowing mechanism, which ensured its operation when the ammunition fell to the ground in any position. The fuse spring prevented the striker from piercing the igniter in case of insufficient overloads (when falling from a height of up to 4 m onto concrete) from being triggered by an accidental fall of the checker.

Probably, it is no coincidence that this ammunition also turned out to be made in a caliber of 125 mm, which, according to the assurances of the developers, made it possible to use ADSh and from standard ampulomettes. By the way, when fired from an ampulo gun, the ammunition received an overload much greater than when falling from 4 m, which means that the checker began to smoke already in flight.

Even in the pre-war years, it was scientifically proven that it is much more effective to cover your troops if, in an attack on a firing point, it is it, and not your infantry, that is smoked. Thus, the ampulomet would be a very useful thing when, before the attack, it was required to throw several checkers a couple of hundred meters to the bunker or bunker. Unfortunately, it is not known whether ampoulo throwers were used on the fronts in this version ...

When firing heavy ADSh checkers from a 125-mm ampulo-gun, its sights could only be used with amendments. However, great shooting accuracy was not required in this case: one ADS created an obscure creeping cloud up to 100 m long.
an additional expelling charge was impossible, for shooting at the maximum distance it was required to use a steep trajectory at elevation angles close to 45 °.

Regimental campaigning amateur performance

I also borrowed the plot for this section of the article about the ampulomet from the Internet. Its essence consisted in the fact that one day the political officer, having come to the sappers in the battalion, asked who could make a propaganda mortar mine? Pavel Yakovlevich Ivanov volunteered. He found the tools at the site of a destroyed smithy, made the body of the ammunition from a block, adapting a small powder charge to explode it in the air, the fuse from a beak-ford cord, and the stabilizer from cans. However, the wooden mortar mine turned out to be light and sank slowly into the barrel without piercing the primer.

Ivanov reduced its diameter so that the air from the barrel came out more freely, and the primer stopped falling on the firing pin. In general, the craftsman did not sleep for days, but on the third day the mine flew and exploded. Leaflets circled over the enemy trenches. Later he adapted an ampulomet for firing wooden mines. And in order not to call back fire on his trenches, he carried it out to the neutral zone or to the side. Result: German soldiers once came over to our side in a group, drunk, in broad daylight.

This story is also quite plausible. It is rather difficult to make an agitmina in a metal case from improvised means in the field, but from wood it is quite possible. In addition, such ammunition, by common sense, should be non-lethal. Otherwise, what kind of agitation is there! But the factory propaganda mines and artillery shells were in metal cases. To a greater extent, so that they fly further and not greatly violate the ballistics. However, before that, the designers of the ampoule thrower did not even think to enrich the arsenal of their brainchild with this kind of ammunition ...

loading, with a piston bolt. Firing mechanisms are similar in both caliber systems.
The Ampulomet easel mortars did not enter service. According to the classification of artillery systems, samples of both calibers can be attributed to hard-type mortars. Theoretically, the forces of recoil when firing high-explosive armor-piercing mines should not have increased in comparison with throwing ampoules. The mass of the FBM was greater than that of the AZh-2KS, but less than that of the ADSh. And the expelling charge is the same. However, in spite of the fact that the Ampulomet mortars fired at more flat trajectories than the classic mortars and bombers, the former were still much more "mortar" than the Katyusha guards mortars.

conclusions

So, the reason for the withdrawal of ampulometry from the armament of the ground forces of the Red Army at the end of 1942 was officially their unsafe handling and use. But in vain: in front of our army was not only an offensive, but also numerous battles in settlements. It was there that would be fully useful
100-mm heavy anti-tank mortar in the process of loading.

By the way, the safety of using a backpack flamethrower in an offensive battle is also very doubtful. Nevertheless, they were returned to "service" and used until the end of the war. There are front-line memories of a sniper, where he claims that the enemy flamethrower is always visible from afar (a number of unmasking signs), so it is better to aim him at chest level. Then, from short distances, a bullet of a powerful rifle cartridge pierces right through both the body and the tank with the fire mixture. That is, the flamethrower and flamethrower "cannot be restored".
Exactly in the same situation, the calculation of the ampulomet could be found when bullets or fragments hit the incendiary ampoules. Glass ampoules in general could be hit against each other by a shock wave from a close burst. And in general, the whole war is a very risky business ... And thanks to the "hussars of generals Lelyushenko" such hasty conclusions about the low quality and combat ineffectiveness of certain types of weapons were born. Recall, for example, the pre-war ordeals of the designers of the Katyusha MLRS, mortar weapons, submachine guns, the T-34 tank, etc. Our gunsmith designers in the overwhelming majority were not amateurs in their field of knowledge and no less generals sought to bring victory closer. And they were "dipped" like kittens. The generals are also easy to understand - they needed reliable models of weapons and with "foolproof protection."

And then, the fond memories of the infantrymen about the effectiveness of Molotov cocktails against tanks look somehow illogical against the background of a very cool attitude towards ampulomettes. Both are weapons of the same order. Unless the ampoule was exactly twice as powerful, and it could be thrown 10 times further. Here it is not entirely clear why there were more complaints "in the infantry": to the ampulomet itself or to its ampoules?

At the same time, the same "very dangerous" ampoules AZh-2KS in the Soviet assault aviation lasted in service, at least until the end of 1944 - the beginning of 1945 (in any case, M.P. Odintsov's assault aviation regiment used them already in the German territories by tank columns hiding in the forests). And this is on stormtroopers! With unarmored bomb bays! When from the ground all the enemy's infantry beat them from anything! The pilots were well aware of what would happen if only one stray bullet hit a cartridge with ampoules, but, nevertheless, they flew. By the way, the timid mention on the Internet that ampoules were used in aviation when firing from such aircraft ampulometrs is absolutely not true.

The cumulative effect of a directional explosion became known as early as the 19th century, soon after the mass production of high explosives began. The very first scientific work on this issue was published in 1915 in Great Britain.

This effect is achieved by shaping explosive charges. Usually for this purpose, charges are made with a recess in the part opposite to its detonator. When an explosion is initiated, a converging flow of detonation products is formed into a high-speed cumulative jet, and the cumulative effect increases when the cavity is lined with a metal layer (1-2 mm thick). The speed of the metal jet reaches 10 km / s. Compared to the expanding detonation products of conventional charges, in the converging flow of shaped charge products, the pressure and density of matter and energy are much higher, which provides a directed explosion and a high penetrating force of the shaped charge.

When the conical shell collapses, the velocities of the individual parts of the jet turn out to be somewhat different; as a result, the jet stretches in flight. Therefore, a slight increase in the gap between the charge and the target increases the penetration depth due to the elongation of the jet. The thickness of armor penetrated by HEAT shells does not depend on the firing range and is approximately equal to their caliber. At significant distances between the charge and the target, the jet breaks into pieces, and the penetration effect decreases.

In the 30s of the XX century, there was a massive saturation of troops and armored vehicles. In addition to the traditional means of dealing with them, in the pre-war period, cumulative projectiles were being developed in some countries.
It was especially tempting that the armor penetration of such ammunition did not depend on the speed of meeting the armor. This made it possible to successfully use them to destroy tanks in artillery systems that were not originally intended for this, as well as create highly effective anti-tank mines and grenades. Germany advanced the most in the creation of cumulative anti-tank ammunition; by the time of the attack on the USSR, cumulative artillery shells of 75-105-mm caliber were created and adopted there.

Unfortunately, in the Soviet Union before the war, this direction was not given due attention. In our country, the improvement of anti-tank weapons proceeded by increasing the calibers of anti-tank guns and increasing the initial speeds of armor-piercing shells. For the sake of fairness, it should be said that in the USSR at the end of the 30s, an experimental batch of 76-mm cumulative shells was fired and tested by firing. During the tests, it turned out that cumulative projectiles equipped with standard fuses from fragmentation shells, as a rule, do not penetrate armor and give ricochets. Obviously, the matter was in the fuses, but the military, already not showing much interest in such shells, after unsuccessful firing, finally abandoned them.

At the same time, a significant number of recoilless (dynamo-reactive) Kurchevsky guns were manufactured in the USSR.

Kurchevsky's 76-mm recoilless gun mounted on a truck chassis

The advantage of such systems is their low weight and lower cost compared to "classic" tools. Recoilless systems in combination with cumulative shells could quite successfully prove themselves as anti-tank shells.

With the outbreak of hostilities, reports began to arrive from the fronts that German artillery was using previously unknown so-called "armor-burning" shells that effectively hit tanks. When inspecting the wrecked tanks, they drew attention to the characteristic type of holes with melted edges. At first, a version was expressed that unknown shells use "fast-burning termite", accelerated by powder gases. However, this assumption was soon refuted experimentally. It was found that the processes of combustion of thermite incendiary compounds and the interaction of a jet of slags with the metal of the tank's armor proceed too slowly and cannot be realized in a very short time of penetrating the armor by a projectile. At that time, samples of the "armor-burning" shells captured from the Germans were delivered from the front. It turned out that their design is based on the use of the cumulative explosion effect.

At the beginning of 1942, the designers M.Ya. Vasiliev, Z. V. Vladimirova and N.S. Zhitkikh designed a 76-mm cumulative projectile with a conical cumulative recess, lined with a steel shell. The body of an artillery projectile with bottom equipment was used, the chamber of which was additionally bored into a cone at its head. A powerful explosive was used in the projectile - an alloy of TNT with RDX. The bottom hole and plug were used to install an additional detonator and a beam detonator capsule. A big problem was the lack of a suitable fuse in production. After a series of experiments, the AM-6 instantaneous aviation fuse was chosen.

Cumulative shells, which had armor penetration of the order of 70-75 mm, appeared in the ammunition of regimental guns since 1943, and were mass-produced throughout the war.

Regimental 76-mm gun mod. 1927 g.

Industry supplied the front with about 1.1 million 76-mm cumulative anti-tank shells. Unfortunately, it was forbidden to use them in tank and divisional 76-mm guns due to the unreliable operation of the fuse and the danger of an explosion in the barrel. Fuses for cumulative artillery projectiles, satisfying safety requirements when firing from long-barreled guns, were created only at the end of 1944.

In 1942, a group of designers including I.P. Dzyuba, N.P. Kazeykina, I.P. Kucherenko, V. Ya. Matyushkin and A.A. Greenberg developed cumulative anti-tank rounds for 122-mm howitzers.

The 122-mm cumulative projectile for the 1938 model howitzer had a steel cast iron body, was equipped with an effective RDX-based explosive composition and a powerful PETN detonator. The 122-mm cumulative projectile was completed with a V-229 instant fuse, which was developed in a very short time at TsKB-22, led by A.Ya. Karpov.

122 mm howitzer M-30 mod. 1938 g.

The shell was put into service, launched into mass production at the beginning of 1943, and managed to take part in the Battle of Kursk. Until the end of the war, more than 100 thousand 122-mm shaped-charge projectiles were produced. The projectile penetrated armor up to 150 mm thick along the normal, ensuring the defeat of the heavy German tanks "Tiger" and "Panther". However, the effective range of howitzers at maneuvering tanks was suicidal - 400 meters.

The creation of cumulative shells opened up great opportunities for the use of artillery guns with relatively low initial velocities - 76-mm regimental guns of the 1927 and 1943 models. and 122-mm howitzers of the 1938 model, which were in large numbers in the army. The presence of HEAT shells in the ammunition load of these guns significantly increased the effectiveness of their anti-tank fire. This significantly strengthened the anti-tank defense of the Soviet rifle divisions.

One of the main tasks of the Il-2 armored attack aircraft, which was put into service at the beginning of 1941, was the fight against armored vehicles.
However, the cannon armament available to attack aircraft made it possible to effectively hit only lightly armored vehicles.
Reactive 82-132 mm projectiles did not have the required firing accuracy. Nevertheless, cumulative RBSK-82s were developed to arm the Il-2 in 1942.

The head of the RBSK-82 missile consisted of a steel cylinder with a wall thickness of 8 mm. A cone of sheet iron was rolled into the front of the cylinder, creating a notch in the explosive that was poured into the cylinder of the projectile head. A tube ran along the center of the cylinder, which served "to transmit a beam of fire from the piercing cap to the TAT-1 detonator cap". The shells were tested in two versions of explosive equipment: TNT and alloy 70/30 (TNT with RDX). Shells with TNT had a point for the AM-A fuse, and shells with 70/30 alloy - the M-50 fuse. The fuses had an APUV-type blast cap. The missile part of the RBSK-82 is standard, from the M-8 rocket shells, equipped with pyroxylin powder.

In total, during the tests, 40 pieces of RBSK-82 were consumed, of which 18 were fired in the air, the rest were on the ground. Captured German tanks Pz. III, StuG III and Czech tank Pz.38 (t) with enhanced armor. Shooting in the air was carried out at the StuG III tank from a dive at an angle of 30 ° with volleys of 2-4 projectiles in one run. The firing distance is 200 m. The shells showed good stability on the flight path, but they failed to get a single fall into the tank.

Reactive armor-piercing projectile of cumulative action RBSK-82, equipped with alloy 70/30, pierced armor 30 mm thick at any meeting angles, and pierced 50 mm armor at right angles, but did not penetrate at an angle of meeting 30 °. Apparently, the low armor penetration is a consequence of the delay in the detonation of the fuse "from a rebound and a cumulative jet is formed with a deformed cone."

RBSK-82 shells in TNT equipment pierced armor with a thickness of 30 mm only at meeting angles of at least 30 °, and armor of 50 mm was not pierced under any impact conditions. The holes obtained during the through penetration of the armor had a diameter of up to 35 mm. In most cases, the penetration of the armor was accompanied by the spalling of metal around the outlet.

The cumulative PCs were not adopted for service due to the lack of a clear advantage over standard missiles. On the way, there was already a new, much stronger weapon - PTABs.

The priority in the development of small aerial bombs of cumulative action belongs to domestic scientists and designers. In the middle of 1942, the well-known developer of fuses I.A. Larionov, proposed the design of a light anti-tank bomb of cumulative action. The Air Force Command showed interest in implementing the proposal. TsKB-22 quickly carried out design work and tests of the new bomb began at the end of 1942. The final version was PTAB-2.5-1.5, i.e. a cumulative anti-tank aviation bomb weighing 1.5 kg in the dimensions of a 2.5-kg aviation fragmentation bomb. GKO urgently decided to adopt PTAB-2.5-1.5 and organize its mass production.

In the first PTAB-2.5-1.5 housings and riveted pinnacle-cylindrical stabilizers were made of 0.6 mm thick sheet steel. To increase the fragmentation effect, a 1.5-mm steel shirt was additionally put on the cylindrical part of the bomb. The combat charge of the PTAB consisted of a composite BB of the TGA type, equipped through a bottom point. To protect the impeller of the AD-A fuse from spontaneous folding, a special fuse was put on the bomb stabilizer from a square-shaped tin plate with a plug of two wire whiskers attached to it, passing between the blades. After dropping the PTAB from the plane, it was blown off the bomb by the oncoming air flow.

When it hit the tank's armor, a fuse was triggered, which, through a tetril detonator bombs, detonated the explosive charge. During detonation of the charge, due to the presence of a cumulative funnel and a metal cone in it, a cumulative jet was created, which, as shown by field tests, pierced armor up to 60 mm thick at an angle of meeting 30 ° with subsequent destructive action behind the armor: defeat of the tank crew, initiation of detonation of ammunition , as well as ignition of fuel or its vapors.

The bomb loading of the Il-2 aircraft included up to 192 PTAB-2.5-1.5 bombs in 4 cassettes of small bombs (48 pieces each) or up to 220 pieces with their rational bulk placement in 4 bomb compartments.

The adoption of the PTAB for some time was kept secret, their use without the permission of the high command was prohibited. This made it possible to use the effect of surprise and effectively use new weapons in the battle of Kursk.

The massive use of PTAB had a stunning effect of tactical surprise and had a strong moral impact on the enemy. German tankers, however, like Soviet ones, by the third year of the war were already accustomed to the relatively low effectiveness of bombing strikes. At the initial stage of the battle, the Germans did not use dispersed marching and pre-battle formations at all, that is, on the routes of movement as part of the columns, in the places of concentration and at the starting positions, for which they were severely punished - the flight path of the PTAB blocked 2-3 tanks, one distance from the other at 60-75 m, as a result of which the latter suffered significant losses, even in the absence of the massive use of IL-2. One IL-2 from a height of 75-100 meters could cover an area of \u200b\u200b15x75 meters, destroying all enemy equipment on it.
On average, during the war, the irrecoverable losses of tanks from aviation actions did not exceed 5%, after the use of PTAB in certain sectors of the front, this figure exceeded 20%.

Having recovered from the shock, the German tankers soon switched exclusively to dispersed marching and pre-battle formations. Naturally, this greatly complicated the control of tank units and subunits, increased the time for their deployment, concentration and redeployment, and complicated interaction between them. In the parking lots, German tankers began to place their vehicles under trees, light mesh sheds and install light metal nets over the roof of the tower and hull. The effectiveness of Il-2 strikes with the use of PTAB decreased by about 4-4.5 times, nevertheless remaining, on average, 2-3 times higher than with the use of high-explosive and high-explosive bombs.

In 1944, the more powerful anti-tank bomb PTAB-10-2.5, in the dimensions of a 10-kg aerial bomb, was adopted. It provided penetration of armor up to 160 mm thick. In terms of the principle of operation and the purpose of the main units and elements, PTAB-10-2.5 was similar to PTAB-2.5-1.5 and differed from it only in shape and dimensions.

In service with the Red Army in the 1920s-1930s, there was a muzzle-loading "Dyakonov grenade launcher", created at the end of the First World War and subsequently modernized.

It was a 41-mm mortar, which was worn on the barrel of a rifle, fixed on the front sight with a cutout. On the eve of World War II, a grenade launcher was available in every rifle and cavalry squad. Then the question arose about giving the rifle grenade launcher "anti-tank" properties.

During World War II, in 1944, the VKG-40 cumulative grenade entered service with the Red Army. A grenade was fired with a special blank cartridge with 2.75 g of gunpowder of the VP or P-45 brand. The reduced charge of the blank cartridge made it possible to shoot a direct-fire grenade with a stock rest on the shoulder, at a distance of up to 150 meters.

The cumulative rifle grenade is designed to combat lightly armored vehicles and mobile means of the enemy, not protected by armor, as well as firing points. The VKG-40 was used very limitedly, which is explained by the low accuracy of fire and weak armor penetration.

During the war, a significant number of hand-held anti-tank grenades were fired in the USSR. Initially, these were high-explosive grenades, as the thickness of the armor increased, the weight of anti-tank grenades also increased. However, this still did not ensure the penetration of the armor of medium tanks, so the RPG-41 grenade with an explosive weight of 1400 g could penetrate 25 mm armor.

Needless to say, what danger this anti-tank weapon posed to the one who used it.

In the middle of 1943, a fundamentally new cumulative RPG-43 grenade, developed by N.P. Belyakov. It was the first cumulative hand grenade developed in the USSR.

Hand-held cumulative grenade RPG-43 in the context

The RPG-43 had a flat-bottomed body with a conical lid, a wooden handle with a safety mechanism, a tape stabilizer, and a shock-ignition mechanism with a fuse. A bursting charge with a conical shaped recess, lined with a thin layer of metal, and a cup with a safety spring and a sting fixed in its bottom are placed inside the body.

At its front end of the handle there is a metal sleeve, inside of which there are the fuse holder and the pin holding it in the extreme rear position. Outside, a spring is put on the bushing and fabric bands are laid, attached to the stabilizer cap. The safety mechanism consists of a flap and a check. The flap serves to hold the stabilizer cap on the grenade handle before throwing it, preventing it from sliding or turning in place.

During the throw of the grenade, the flap is detached and releases the stabilizer cap, which, under the action of a spring, slides off the handle and pulls the ribbons behind it. The safety pin falls out under its own weight, releasing the fuse holder. Due to the presence of the stabilizer, the flight of the grenade took place with its head forward, which is necessary for optimal use of the energy of the shaped charge of the grenade. When the grenade hits the obstacle with the bottom of the case, the fuse, overcoming the resistance of the safety spring, is impaled on the sting with a detonator cap, which causes the explosive charge to detonate. The RPG-43 shaped charge pierced armor up to 75 mm thick.

With the advent of German heavy tanks on the battlefield, a hand-held anti-tank grenade with greater armor penetration was required. A group of designers consisting of M.Z. Polevanova, L.B. Ioffe and N.S. Zhitkikh has developed an RPG-6 cumulative grenade. In October 1943, the grenade was adopted by the Red Army. The RPG-6 grenade is in many ways similar to the German PWM-1.

German hand anti-tank grenade PWM-1

The RPG-6 had a teardrop-shaped body with a charge and an additional detonator and a handle with an inertial fuse, a detonator cap and a ribbon stabilizer.

The fuse striker was blocked by a check. The stabilizer strips were placed in the handle and held by a safety bar. The safety pin was removed before throwing. After the throw, the safety bar flew off, the stabilizer pulled out, the drummer's check was pulled out - the fuse was cocked.

Thus, the protection system of the RPG-6 was three-stage (the RPG-43 had two-stage). In terms of technology, an essential feature of the RLG-6 was the absence of turned and threaded parts, the widespread use of stamping and knurling. Compared to the RPG-43, the RPG-6 was more technologically advanced in production and somewhat safer to use. RPG-43 and RPG-6 dashed about 15-20 m, after the throw the fighter should have taken cover.

During the war years in the USSR, hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers were never created, although work in this direction was carried out. The main anti-tank weapons of the infantry were still anti-tank missiles and anti-tank hand grenades. This was partly offset by a significant increase in the second half of the war in the number of anti-tank artillery. But in an offensive, anti-tank guns could not always accompany the infantry, and in the event of a sudden appearance of enemy tanks, this often led to large and unjustified losses.

Any beginner, or already an experienced search engine, knows how often cartridges or cartridges come across from the time of the Second World War. But in addition to casings, or cartridges, there are even more dangerous finds. This is what we will talk about and about safety in the hunt.

During my 3 years of search activity, I dug out more than a hundred shells of various calibers. Starting from conventional cartridges, ending with 250 mm aerial bombs. In my hands have visited, F1 grenades with pulled out rings, not exploded mortar mines, etc. My limbs are still intact due to the fact that I know how to behave correctly with them.

Let's talk about the cartridge right away. Patron is the most frequent and widespread find, found absolutely everywhere, in any field, farm, forest, etc. A mutilated or not fired cartridge is safe as long as you do not throw it into the fire. Then it will work anyway. Therefore, this is not worth doing.

Further more dangerous finds, which are also very often found and raised by our fellow search engines. These are RGD-33, F1, M-39, M-24 grenades and more rare varieties. Of course, with such things, you need to be more careful. If the check or fuse of the grenade is intact, then you can easily pick it up and drown it in the nearest lake. If, however, the check was pulled out of the grenade and it did not work, which happens very often. And you accidentally stumbled upon such a find with a shovel, it is better to bypass it and call the Ministry of Emergencies. But, as a rule, they will ignore your challenge, and say you shouldn't go to such places.

Very often you come across mortar mines on the battlefield. They are less dangerous than grenades, but you also need to be more careful with such a find, especially if the mine did not work.

Above the mine, this is her dangerous place. There is a fuse, when a mine was fired from a mortar, flying out of the barrel, it flew down with a fuse, and hitting the ground the same fuse was triggered. But, if the mine hit a swamp or very soft ground, it might not work. Therefore, if you find something similar to this projectile in the ground, be careful with the top of the mine.

Of course, you can transport it and bring it to the nearest body of water to drown it. But you need to be careful. And do not drop or hit it with a shovel.

And of course, larger projectiles are high-explosive fragmentation projectiles, which are better not to touch because of their size and volume of the affected area. If you can tell by the copper strap whether it's fired or not. If he is not fired, then he can be carried into the river and drowned, and if he is fired and for some reason did not work. It is better not to touch or move it.

The photo shows a 125 mm caliber shell:

In general, the shells are not as dangerous as everyone talks about them. Observing basic safety techniques, and those short rules that you met in this article, you will protect yourself from dangerous finds, and you can safely engage in excavations without fear of explosions.

And by the way, do not forget about the law of Art. 263 of the Criminal Code "illegal storage of ammunition and weapons", this can include even a small cartridge.

Here's a little illustration:

Suppose I read in a 12-volume book (which usually exaggerates the strength of the Germans and satellites opposing us) that by the beginning of 1944 on the Soviet-German front the ratio of forces in artillery and mortars was 1.7: 1 (95.604 Soviet versus 54.570 enemy). More than one and a half overall superiority. That is, in active areas it could be brought up to three times (for example, in the Belarusian operation 29,000 Soviet against 10,000 enemy) Does this mean that the enemy could not raise his head under the hurricane fire of Soviet artillery? No, an artillery piece is just a tool for spending projectiles. No shells - and the weapon is a useless toy. And the provision of shells is just the task of logistics.

In 2009, at VIF, Isaev posted a comparison of the ammunition consumption of Soviet and German artillery (1942: http://vif2ne.ru/nvk/forum/0/archive/1718/1718985.htm, 1943: http://vif2ne.ru/nvk/ forum / 0 / archive / 1706 / 1706490.htm, 1944: http://vif2ne.ru/nvk/forum/0/archive/1733/1733134.htm, 1945: http://vif2ne.ru/nvk/forum/ 0 / archive / 1733 / 1733171.htm). I collected everything in a plate, added rocket artillery, according to the Germans, he added from Hannah the consumption of trophy calibers (it often gives an indispensable addition) and the consumption of tank calibers for comparability - in Soviet figures, tank calibers (20-mm ShVAK and 85-mm non-anti-aircraft) are present. I posted it. Well, I grouped it a little differently. It turns out quite amusing. Despite the superiority of the Soviet artillery in the number of barrels, the Germans have more shells if we take artillery calibers (i.e., 75-mm and higher guns, without anti-aircraft guns):
USSR Germany 1942 37,983,800 45,261,822 1943 82,125,480 69,928,496 1944 98,564,568 113,663,900
If translated into tons, then the superiority is even more noticeable:
USSR Germany 1942 446.113 709.957 1943 828.193 1.121.545 1944 1.000.962 1.540.933
Tons here are taken by the weight of the projectile, not the shot. That is, the weight of metal and explosives falling directly on the head of the opposing side. Note that I did not consider the armor-piercing shells of tank and anti-tank guns for the Germans (I hope it is clear why). It is not possible to exclude them for the Soviet side, but, judging by the Germans, the amendment will be insignificant. For Germany, consumption is given on all fronts, which begins to play a role in 1944.

IN soviet army on average, 3.6-3.8 shells were fired per day on the barrel of a gun from 76.2 mm and above of the active army (without RGK). The figure is quite stable both by years and by calibers: in 1944 the average daily shot at all calibers was 3.6 per barrel, for a 122-mm howitzer - 3.0, for 76.2 mm barrels (regimental, divisional, tank) - 3.7. The average daily shot on the mortar barrel, on the other hand, grows from year to year: from 2.0 in 1942 to 4.1 in 1944.

For the Germans, I do not have the availability of guns in the army. But if we take the general availability of guns, then the average daily shot on a barrel of 75 mm and higher in 1944 will be about 8.5. At the same time, the main workhorse of the divisional artillery (105-mm howitzers - almost a third of the total tonnage of shells) fired an average of 14.5 shells per day per day, and the second main caliber (150-mm divisional howitzers - 20% of the total tonnage) was about 10, 7. Mortars were used much less intensively - 81-mm mortars were fired a day by 4.4 rounds per barrel, and 120-mm only 2.3. Regimental artillery guns gave a consumption closer to the average (75-mm infantry gun 7 rounds per barrel, 150-mm infantry gun - 8.3).

Another instructive metric is ammunition consumption per division.

The division was the main organizational building block, but typically divisions sought out reinforcements. It is interesting to see how the middle division was supported in terms of firepower. In 1942-44, the USSR had in the army in the field (without the RGK) about 500 calculated divisions (weighted average number: 1942 - 425 divisions, 1943 - 494 divisions, 1944 - 510 divisions). In the ground forces of the active army there were about 5.5 million, that is, the division had about 11 thousand people. It was natural to "have to" take into account both the actual composition of the division and all the reinforcement and support units that worked for it both directly and in the deep rear.

For the Germans, the average number of troops per division of the Eastern Front, calculated in the same way, decreased from 16,000 in 1943 to 13,800 in 1944, approximately 1.45-1.25 times more "thicker" than the Soviet one. At the same time, the average daily shot on a Soviet division in 1944 was about 5.4 tons (1942 - 2.9; 1943 - 4.6), and on a German - three times more (16.2 tons). If you count for 10,000 people in the active army, then from the Soviet side to support their actions in 1944, 5 tons of ammunition were spent per day, and from the German side, 13.8 tons.

In this sense, the American division in the European theater of operations stands out even more. It had three times as many people as the Soviet: 34,000 (this is without the Supply Command troops), and the daily ammunition consumption was almost ten times more (52.3 tons). Or 15.4 tons per day for 10,000 people, that is, more than three times more than in the Red Army.

In this sense, it was the Americans who implemented the recommendation of Joseph Vissarionovich "to fight with little blood, but with a large expenditure of shells." It can be compared - in June 1944, the distance to the Elbe was approximately the same from Omaha Beach and from Vitebsk. The Russians and the Americans also reached the Elbe at about the same time. That is, they provided themselves with the same speed of advancement. However, the Americans spent 15 tons per day per 10,000 personnel on this route and lost an average of 3.8% of troops per month in killed, wounded, captured and missing. Soviet troops, advancing at the same speed, spent (in specific) three times less shells, but they also lost 8.5% per month. Those. speed was provided by the expense of manpower.

It is interesting to see the distribution of the weight consumption of ammunition by types of weapons:

Let me remind you that all the numbers here are for artillery of 75 mm and above, that is, without anti-aircraft guns, without 50-mm mortars, without battalion / anti-tank guns with a caliber of 28 to 57 mm. Infantry guns include German guns with this name, Soviet 76-mm regiments and an American 75-mm howitzer. The rest of the guns with a combat weight of less than 8 tons are counted as field guns. Here, at the upper limit, such systems as the Soviet 152-mm ML-20 howitzer-gun and the German s.FH 18 fall into the range. mm mortar, as well as 152-155-170-mm long-range guns on their carriages fall into the next class - heavy and long-range artillery.

It can be seen that in the Red Army the lion's share of fire falls on mortars and regimental guns, i.e. to fire on the close tactical zone. Heavy artillery plays a very minor role (in 1945, more, but not much). In field artillery, the efforts (by the weight of the projectiles fired) are roughly evenly distributed between the 76 mm cannon, 122 mm howitzer and 152 mm howitzer / howitzer-cannon. Which leads to the fact that the average weight of the Soviet shell is one and a half times less than the German one.

In addition, it should be noted that the further the target is, the (on average) it is less covered. In the near tactical zone, most of the targets are dug / covered in one way or another, while in the depths such uncovered targets appear as advancing reserves, enemy troops in places of concentration, headquarters locations, etc. In other words, a projectile hitting the target in depth, on average, does more damage than a projectile fired along the leading edge (on the other hand, the dispersion of projectiles at long distances is higher).

Then, if the enemy has a parity in the weight of the shells fired, but at the same time keeps half the number of people at the front, thereby he gives half the targets of our artillery.

All this works for the observed loss ratio.

(As a detailed comment to