Katyusha car brand. Weapon of Victory: Katyusha multiple launch rocket system

Despite the fact that 67 years have passed since the victorious end of the Great Patriotic War, many historical facts need clarification and more careful consideration. This also applies to the episode of the initial period of the war, when the first Katyusha salvo was fired at a concentration of German troops at the Orsha railway station. Well-known historian-researchers Alexander Osokin and Alexander Kornyakov, based on archival data, suggest that the first Katyusha salvo was fired at other Katyusha installations in order to prevent their capture by the enemy.

Three sources of information about the first Katyusha salvo

71 years ago, on July 14, 1941, at 15:15, the first salvo of an unprecedented new type of weapon - rocket artillery - rang out against the enemy. Seven Soviet BM-13-16 multiple launch rocket launchers (combat vehicles with 16 132 mm rocket shells each), mounted on a ZIL-6 automobile chassis (soon called “Katyusha”), simultaneously hit the Orsha railway station, which was packed with German trains. with heavy military equipment, ammunition and fuel.

The effect of the simultaneous (7-8 sec.) strike of 112 132 mm caliber rockets was amazing in the literal and figurative sense - first the earth shook and rumbled, and then everything burst into flames. This is how the First Separate Experimental Battery of Rocket Artillery under the command of Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov entered the Great Patriotic War... This is the interpretation of the first Katyusha salvo that is known today.

Photo.1 Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov

Until now, the main source of information about this event remains the combat log (CAB) of the Flerov battery, where there are two entries: “14.7.1941 15 hours 15 minutes. They attacked fascist trains at the Orsha railway junction. The results are excellent. A continuous sea of ​​fire"

And "14.7. 1941 16 hours 45 minutes. A salvo at the crossing of fascist troops through Orshitsa. Large enemy losses in manpower and military equipment, panic. All the Nazis who survived on the eastern bank were taken prisoner by our units...”

Let's call him Source #1 . We are inclined to believe, however, that these texts are not from the ZhBD of Flerov’s battery, but from two combat reports sent by him to the Center by radio, because no one in the battery had the right to have any documents or any papers with them at that time.

Photo.2 Katyusha salvo

The story of designer Popov. This is mentioned in the second main source of information about the fate and feat of the Flerov battery - the story of one of the participants in the development of Katyusha, NII-3 design engineer Alexei Popov, which was recorded by the famous Soviet journalist Yaroslav Golovanov in 1983. Here is its content:

Photo.3 Designer Alexey Popov

« On June 22 the war began. By June 24, we received orders to prepare three installations for sending to the front. At that time we had 7 RUs and approximately 4.5 thousand PCs for them. On June 28, I was called to the research institute. - “You and Dmitry Aleksandrovich Shitov will go with the battery to the front to teach new technology...”

So I found myself at the disposal of captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov. He managed to complete only the first year of the Academy. Dzerzhinsky, but was already a commander under fire: he participated in the Finnish campaign. The political officer of the battery, Zhuravlev, selected reliable people from the military registration and enlistment offices.

Muscovites, Gorky residents, and Chuvash served with us. Secrecy hindered us in many ways. For example, we could not use combined arms services; we had our own medical unit, our own technical unit. All this made us clumsy: for 7 rocket launchers there were 150 vehicles with attendants. On the night of July 1-2, we left Moscow.

Photo.4 Preparing the Katyusha for combat work

On the Borodino field they swore: under no circumstances would they give the installation to the enemy. When there were particularly curious people who tried to find out what we were carrying, we said that under the covers were sections of pontoon bridges.

They tried to bomb us, after which we received an order: to move only at night. On July 9, we arrived in the Borisov district, deployed a position: 4 installations to the left of the route, 3 RU and 1 aiming gun to the right. They stayed there until July 13th. We were forbidden to fire from any type of personal weapon: pistols, 10-round semi-automatic rifles, Degtyarev machine gun.

Each also had two grenades. We sat idle. Time was spent studying. It was forbidden to make notes. Shitov and I conducted endless “practical classes.” Once a Messerschmidt-109 passed low over our battery, the soldiers could not stand it and fired at it with rifles. He turned around and in turn fired at us with a machine gun. After which we moved a little...

On the night of July 12-13, we were put on alert. Our gunners moved their cannon forward. An armored car pulls up: “What part?!” It turned out that we were so classified that the barrier detachments that were supposed to hold the defense left. “The bridge will be blown up in 20 minutes, leave immediately!”

We left for Orsha. On July 14, we reached the railway junction area, where many trains were concentrated: ammunition, fuel, manpower and equipment. We stopped 5-6 km from the hub: 7 vehicles with rocket launchers and 3 vehicles with shells for a second salvo. They didn’t take the gun: direct visibility.

At 15:15 Flerov gave the order to open fire. The salvo (7 vehicles with 16 shells each, 112 shells in total) lasted 7-8 seconds. The railway junction was destroyed. There were no Germans in Orsha itself for 7 days. We ran away immediately. The commander was already sitting in the cockpit, raised the jacks and off he went! They went into the forest and sat there.

The place where we fired from was later bombed by the Germans. We got the hang of it and after another hour and a half we destroyed the German crossing. After the second salvo they left along the Minsk highway towards Smolensk. We already knew that they would be looking for us...”

Let's call him Source No. 2.

Report of two marshals about Katyusha

99% of all publications about the first salvos of the Katyusha and the fate of the Flerov battery are based only on these two sources. However, there is another very authoritative source of information about the first salvos of Flerov’s battery - the daily report of the Main Command of the Western Direction (Marshals of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko and B.M. Shaposhnikov) to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (I.V. Stalin) dated July 24, 1941 of the year. It says:

“Comrade Kurochkin’s 20th Army, holding back attacks from up to 7 enemy divisions, defeated two German divisions, especially the 5th Infantry Division, which had newly arrived at the front and was advancing on Rudnya and to the east. Particularly effective and successful in the defeat of the 5th Infantry Division was the RS battery, which, with three salvos at the enemy concentrated in Rudnya, inflicted such losses on him that he took out the wounded and picked up the dead all day, stopping the offensive for the whole day. There are 3 salvos left in the battery. We ask you to send two or three more batteries with charges” (TsAMO, f. 246, op. 12928 ss, d. 2, pp. 38-41). Let's call him Source No. 3.

For some reason, it does not mention the salvoes of Flerov’s battery on July 14 in Orsha and at the crossing of Orshitsa, and the date of its three salvos in Rudna is not indicated.

Version of Colonel Andrei Petrov

Having carefully studied all the circumstances of the first Katyusha salvo, Andrei Petrov (engineer, reserve colonel) in his article “The Mystery of the First Katyusha Salvo” (NVO, June 20, 2008) made an unexpected conclusion: On July 14, 1941, the BM-13 battery of Captain Ivan Flerov fired at a concentration of not enemy, but Soviet trains with strategic cargo at the Orsha railway station!

This paradox is a brilliant guess by A. Petrov. He provides several convincing arguments in its favor (we will not repeat ourselves) and raises a number of questions related to the mysteries of the first Katyusha salvo and the fate of Captain Flerov and his battery, including:

1) Why was the commander of the heroic battery not awarded immediately? (After all, A.G. Kostikov, the chief engineer of NII-3, who assigned to himself the authorship of “Katyusha” alone, was already accepted by Stalin on July 28, 1941, and on the same day he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. And I.A. Flerov, who died heroically Only in 1963 was he posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and only in 1995 was he awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation).

2) Why did Marshals of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko and B.M. Shaposhnikov, fully informed about I.A. Flerov’s battery (they, for example, even knew that they had only three salvoes of shells left), reported to Headquarters as the first use “Katyusha” about their salvoes in Rudna, and not in Orsha?

3) Where did the Soviet command get very accurate information about the expected movements of the train that needed to be destroyed?

4) Why did Flerov’s battery fire on Orsha on July 14 at 15.15, when the Germans had not yet occupied Orsha? (A. Petrov claims that Orsha was occupied on July 14, a number of publications indicate the date July 16, and Source No. 2 says that after the salvo there were no Germans in Orsha for 7 days).

Additional questions and our version

When studying the available materials about the first salvo of the Katyusha, we had several additional questions and considerations that we want to present, considering all three of the above sources to be absolutely reliable (although Source No. 1 for some reason still lacks archival links).

1) Source No. 2 states that “On July 9, the battery arrived in the Borisov area, deployed its position and stood there until July 13... They sat idle. We spent time studying". But Borisov is located 644 km from Moscow, 84 km west of Orsha. Taking into account the return to it, this is an extra 168 km of night roads for a battery of 157 vehicles! Plus 4 extra days of incomprehensible duty, each of which could have been the last for the Flerovites.

What could be the reason for this additional “forced march” of such a heavy caravan of battery vehicles, and then its long sitting idle? In our opinion, there is only one thing - waiting for the arrival of the train, which was probably indicated to Flerov by the High Command as a priority target to be destroyed.

This means that the battery was sent not just to conduct military combat tests (with a simultaneous demonstration of the power of the new weapon), but to destroy a very specific target, which after July 9 was supposed to be in the area between Borisov and Orsha. (By the way, let’s not forget that on July 10, the German offensive began, which became the beginning of the fierce Smolensk defensive battle, and the second part of the battery raid took place in its conditions).

2). Why did the High Command indicate to Flerov as a target a specific train that found itself on the tracks of the Orsha freight station on July 14, 1941 at 15.15? How was it better, or rather worse, than hundreds of other trains on the clogged Moscow highways? Why did the installations with secret weapons sent from Moscow to meet the advancing German troops and the accompanying column literally hunt for this train?

There is only one answer to the above questions - most likely, Flerov was really looking for a train with Soviet military equipment, which in no case should have fallen into the hands of the Germans. Having gone through the best types of it from that period, we came to the conclusion that these were not tanks (they then fell to the Germans in huge quantities, so there was no point in liquidating one or more trains with them).

And not airplanes (which at that time were often transported with dismantled wings on trains), because in 1939-1941, German aviation commissions, not even delegations, were shown everything.

Oddly enough, it turned out that, most likely, the first salvo of Flerov’s Katyushas was fired at the composition (or compositions) of other Katyushas, ​​which moved to the western border even before the start of the war, so that, according to the secret agreement of Stalin and Hitler on the Great transport anti-British operation through Germany to transfer to the shores of the English Channel (one of the authors of this publication first published such a hypothesis of the beginning of the war in 2004.) But where could the Katyushas come from before the war?

Photo.5 One of the first variants of the Katyusha MU-1, also known as the 24-round M-13-24 (1938)

"Katyushas" appeared before the war

Almost every publication about the birth of the Katyusha claims that the Soviet high military command first saw it a few days before, and the government decided to adopt it a few hours before the start of the war.

In fact, even two and a half years before the start of the war - from December 8, 1938 to February 4, 1939 - at the GAU training ground in Kazakhstan, field and state tests of mechanized multiple rocket launchers were successfully carried out on the ZIS-5 vehicle: 24-round MU-1 and 16-round MU-2 for firing RS-132 missile shells.

The MU-1 had a number of shortcomings, and the MU-2 (drawing No. 199910) on the three-axle ZIS-6 vehicle was planned to be put into service in 1939. The State Commission was headed by the deputy head of the GAU and the head of the Artkom, corps commander (since May 1940, Colonel General of Artillery) V.D. Grendal.

Just before the start of the Finnish War, from October 26 to November 9, 1940, demonstration firing tests of rocket technology were carried out at the Rzhev test site near Leningrad, including the BM-13-16 mechanized launcher on the ZIS-6 chassis.

The commission was headed by the chief of artillery of the Red Army, corps commander (since May 1940, colonel general of artillery) N.N. Voronov. Based on the positive test results, NII-3 was obliged to introduce serial production of mechanized installations BM-13-16, called “object 233” in industry in 1940 (interestingly, the production of RS-132 was not assigned to NII-3; this was how it was carried out throughout that year serial factories of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition).

It is known that several types of rocket launchers on tanks were used to break through the Mannerheim Line. A number of other facts indicate that it was the Katyushas that were mass-produced even before the start of the war:

• of the 7 launchers of the Flerov battery, only 3 were manufactured by NII-3, and the remaining 4 were manufactured somewhere else
• already on July 3, the first Katyusha division was formed (43 installations, including 7 Flerov ones)
• by mid-August 1941, 9 four-divisional Katyusha regiments (12 units in each), 45 divisions were formed, and in September another 6 three-divisional regiments

A total of 1228 installations for July - September. They were later called "Guards Mortar Units". Such a pace would be unrealistic if drawings for installations began to be transferred to serial factories from June 22, 1941.

So a train with Katyushas and several trains with RSs could well have been transported to the border in the last days before the war. After June 22, 1941, moving only at night, these secret trains were especially secretly taken to the rear so that in no case would they fall into the hands of the Germans. But why?

Levitan announced the clue in the evening report of the Sovinformburo

It can hardly be considered a mere coincidence that on July 22, 1941, in the evening report of the Sovinformburo, announcer Levitan said: “On July 15, in battles west of Sitnya, which is east of Pskov, during the retreat of German units, our troops captured secret documents and chemical property of the 2nd battalion of the 52nd chemical mortar regiment of the enemy. One of the captured packages contained: secret instruction ND No. 199 “Firing with chemical shells and mines”, edition of 1940, and secret additions to the instructions sent to the troops on June 11 of this year... German fascism is secretly preparing a new monstrous crime - the widespread use of poisonous weapons substances..."

Photo 6. Six-barreled mortar "Nebelwerfer" - "Vanyusha" (1940)

This is an amazing coincidence - the very next day after the first salvo of Soviet Katyushas, ​​samples of German rocket technology, possibly six-barreled Vanyushas (aka Nebelwerfers, aka Donkeys), fell into the hands of the Soviet troops.

The fact is that “Katyushas”, or more precisely, their prototypes - a number of rocket launchers, starting with MU-1 and ending with BM-13-16, were developed in the USSR in the mid-1930s by order of the Red Army Chemical Administration, first of all, to carry out a surprise chemical attack.

It was only later that high-explosive fragmentation and high-explosive incendiary charges were developed for their missile shells, after which development went through the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU).

It is also possible that the financing of the first developments was carried out by the chemical department on orders from the German Reichswehr. Therefore, the Germans could have a good knowledge of many of their aspects. (In 1945, a Central Committee commission discovered that one of the Skoda factories produced shells for the SS troops - analogues of Soviet M-8 rocket shells and launchers for them).

Photo 7. Alexander Nikolaevich Osokin, writer-historian

Therefore, Stalin decided to play it safe. He understood that the Germans would definitely film the trains destroyed by the first salvo of Flerov’s Katyushas, ​​they would be able to determine that they depicted the wreckage of Soviet missile launchers, and therefore would be able to use their film and photographic footage for propaganda purposes: here, they say, the Soviet Union is preparing use toxic substances thrown with the help of the latest rocket technology in chemical attacks against German (and therefore against English!) troops.

This could not be allowed to happen. And where did our intelligence manage to so quickly find similar German equipment - rocket-propelled mortars, and even documentation for them? Judging by the dates indicated in the Information Bureau report, their development was completed before the start of the war (and practice confirms this - already on June 22, six-barreled Nebelwerfers fired at the Brest Fortress). Perhaps it is no coincidence that the German rocket mortar was later nicknamed “Vanyusha”?

Maybe this is a hint at his Russian roots and kinship with Katyusha? Or maybe there was no defeat of the 52nd German Chemical Regiment, and the Vanyusha-Nebelwerfers, along with instructions, were transferred to the USSR during the years of friendly cooperation, say, in order to maintain allied parity?

There was another, also not very pleasant option - if the missile launchers and shells for them destroyed in Orsha were German or joint Soviet-German production (for example, the same Skoda ones) and had both Soviet and German markings. This threatened serious showdowns with both our own and our allies in both warring countries.

Photo 8. Alexander Fedorovich Kornyakov, designer of small arms and artillery weapons

So, the day after the defeat of the trains in Orsha, they gave a report from the Information Bureau about the defeat of the 52nd German chemical regiment. And the Germans had to silently agree with the Soviet version of the defeat of the mortar chemical regiment, and what could they do? That's why all this happened:

• the Soviet High Command was constantly reported where the train with Katyushas was located, which Flerov’s battery was supposed to secretly destroy
• The battery actually fired at the accumulation of trains in Orsha even before the Germans entered it
• Tymoshenko and Shaposhnikov did not know about the Katyusha strike on Orsha
• Flerov was not awarded in any way (how is it to be awarded for a strike on one’s own train?!), and there were no reports of the first Katyusha strike in 1941 (for the same reason).

We hope that the train with the Katyushas was driven onto a separate track, an air raid alert was announced and people were removed during the shelling, which, of course, was attributed to the Germans. We also assume that the second salvo of Flerov’s battery on the same day against the advancing German divisions in the area of ​​the crossing on the Orshitsa River was fired, first of all, in order to dispel the possible suspicion that the main task of the battery was to eliminate a specific Soviet echelon.

We believe that after the second salvo, the Germans spotted and surrounded the combat installations of the Flerov battery, not three months later in early October 1941, but immediately after their salvo at the crossing. Probably, after air raids and an unequal battle, which ended with Flerov’s command “Blow up the installations!”, he himself blew up one of them along with himself.

The rest were also blown up, while part of the battery personnel died, some disappeared into the forest and got out to their own, including A. Popov. Several people, incl. the wounded crew commander, sergeant from Alma-Ata, Khudaibergen Khasenov, was captured. He was released only in 1945, never talked about anything at home, and only after Flerov was awarded the Order in 1963, he said: “I fought in his battery.”

None of those who came out to their friends ever told when Flerov died; for a long time he was considered missing (he is still listed in the Podolsk archive today, though for some reason since December 1941), despite the fact that there was allegedly the date of his death was established - October 7, 1941 and the place of burial - near the village of Bogatyr near Pskov.

Then, perhaps, at his command only the very first two volleys of Katyushas were fired, and all the rest - near Rudnya, near Yelnya, near Pskov - at the command of his comrades: Degtyarev, Cherkasov and Dyatchenko - commanders of the 2nd, 3rd , the 4th battery of a separate special-purpose artillery division created on July 3, 1941... And then the enemy was crushed by another 10 thousand Katyusha combat vehicles, firing 12 million rockets!

Katyusha - a unique combat vehicle of the USSR which had no analogues in the world. The unofficial name for barrelless field rocket artillery systems (BM-8, BM-13, BM-31 and others) was developed during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. Such installations were actively used by the Armed Forces of the USSR during the Second World War. The popularity of the nickname turned out to be so great that post-war MLRS on automobile chassis, in particular BM-14 and BM-21 Grad, were often referred to colloquially as “Katyushas”.

"Katyusha" BM-13-16 on the ZIS-6 chassis

The fate of the developers:

On November 2, 1937, as a result of the “war of denunciations” within the institute, the director of RNII-3 I. T. Kleymenov and the chief engineer G. E. Langemak were arrested. On January 10 and 11, 1938, respectively, they were shot at the NKVD Kommunarka training ground.
Rehabilitated in 1955.
By decree of the President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev dated June 21, 1991, I. T. Kleimenov, G. E. Langemak, V. N. Luzhin, B. S. Petropavlovsky, B. M. Slonimer and N. I. Tikhomirov were posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

BM-31-12 on the ZIS-12 chassis in the Museum on Sapun Mountain, Sevastopol

BM-13N on a Studebaker US6 chassis (with exhaust protection armor plates lowered) at the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow

Origin of the name Katyusha

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

There is no single version of why the BM-13 began to be called “Katyusha”. There are several assumptions:
1. Based on the name of Blanter’s song, which became popular before the war, based on the words of Isakovsky “Katyusha”. The version is convincing, since the battery first fired on July 14, 1941 (on the 23rd day of the war) at a concentration of fascists on Bazarnaya Square in the city of Rudnya, Smolensk region. She was shooting from a high, steep mountain - the association with the high, steep bank in the song immediately arose among the fighters. Finally, the former sergeant of the headquarters company of the 217th separate communications battalion of the 144th Infantry Division of the 20th Army, Andrei Sapronov, is alive, now a military historian, who gave it this name. Red Army soldier Kashirin, having arrived with him at the battery after the shelling of Rudnya, exclaimed in surprise: “What a song!” “Katyusha,” answered Andrei Sapronov (from the memoirs of A. Sapronov in the Rossiya newspaper No. 23 of June 21-27, 2001 and in the Parliamentary Gazette No. 80 of May 5, 2005). Through the communications center of the headquarters company, the news about a miracle weapon called “Katyusha” within 24 hours became the property of the entire 20th Army, and through its command - the entire country. On July 13, 2011, the veteran and “godfather” of Katyusha turned 90 years old.

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

3. The third version suggests that this is what the girls from the Moscow Kompressor plant who worked on the assembly dubbed these cars.
Another, exotic version. The guides on which the projectiles were mounted were called ramps. The forty-two-kilogram projectile was lifted by two fighters harnessed to the straps, and the third usually helped them, pushing the projectile so that it lay exactly on the guides, and he also informed those holding that the projectile stood up, rolled, and rolled onto the guides. It was allegedly called “Katyusha” (the role of those holding the projectile and the one rolling it was constantly changing, since the crew of the BM-13, unlike cannon artillery, was not explicitly divided into loader, aimer, etc.)

4. It should also be noted that the installations were so secret that it was even forbidden to use the commands “fire”, “fire”, “volley”, instead they sounded “sing” or “play” (to start it was necessary to turn the handle of the electric coil very quickly) , which may also have been related to the song “Katyusha”. And for our infantry, a salvo of Katyusha rockets was the most pleasant music.

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

In the German troops, these machines were called “Stalin’s organs” due to the external resemblance of the rocket launcher to the pipe system of this musical instrument and the powerful, stunning roar that was produced when the missiles were launched.

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

BM-13-16 on the chassis of the STZ-5-NATI tractor (Novomoskovsk)

Soldiers loading Katyusha

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

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

A striking example of the effectiveness of the Guards mortar units, and their basis was “Katyushas,” can be seen in the lines from the memoirs of Marshal Zhukov: “The rockets, by their actions, caused complete devastation. I looked at the areas where shelling was carried out and saw the complete destruction of defensive structures... "

The Germans developed a special plan to seize new Soviet weapons and ammunition. In the late autumn of 1941 they managed to do this. The “captured” mortar was truly “multi-barreled” and fired 16 rocket mines. Its firepower was several times more effective than the mortar used by the fascist army. Hitler's command decided to create equivalent weapons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

At a time when at Soviet factories, according to ready-made drawings, the production of guards rocket mortars and shells for them was being expanded at an unprecedented pace and literally daily was increasing, the Germans had yet to conduct research and design work on the MLRS. But history has not given them time for this.

BM-13 "Katyusha" Multiple Launch Rocket System -Soviet rocket artillery combat vehicle of the Great Patriotic War, the most popular and famous Soviet vehicle of this class.
Has a modification BM-13N

Modification of Guards rocket-propelled mortars of the "Katyusha" type. Index "N" - normalized. Produced since 1943. It was distinguished by the fact that American Studebaker US6 trucks, supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease, were used as the chassis.

Characteristics of the BM-13 combat vehicle

Chassis ZiS-6
Number of guides 16
Weight in stowed position without shells, kg 7200
Time to transfer from traveling to combat position, min 2-3
[Charging time, min 5-8
Full salvo time, s 8-10

History of creation

Back in 1921, employees of the Gas Dynamics Laboratory N.I. Tikhomirov and V.A. Artemyev began developing rockets for aircraft.

In 1937-1938, rockets developed by the RNII (GDL together with the GIRD in October 1933 formed the newly organized RNII) under the leadership of G. E. Langemak were adopted by the RKKVF. RS-82 rockets (82 mm caliber rocket) were installed on I-15, I-16, I-153 fighters, during the war - on Il-2 attack aircraft, with the development of the RS-132 - on SB bombers and Il-attack aircraft 2.
In the summer of 1939, RS-82 on I-16 and I-153 were successfully used in battles with Japanese troops on the Khalkhin Gol River.
In 1939-1941, RNII employees I. I. Gvai, V. N. Galkovsky, A. P. Pavlenko, A. S. Popov and others created a multi-charge launcher mounted on a truck.
In March 1941, field tests of BM-13 installations (a combat vehicle with 132 mm caliber shells) were successfully carried out.

The famous “Katyusha” left its unforgettable mark on the history of the Great Patriotic War ever since, on July 14, 1941, this secret weapon under the command of Captain I. A. Flerov literally wiped off the face of the earth the station in the city of Orsha along with the German trains on it. with troops and equipment. The first samples of rockets launched from a mobile carrier (vehicles based on the ZIS-5 truck) were tested at Soviet test sites from the end of 1938.
On June 21, 1941, they were demonstrated to the leaders of the Soviet government, and literally a few hours before the start of the Great Patriotic War, a decision was made to urgently launch mass production of rockets and a launcher, officially named “BM-13.”

It was truly a weapon of unprecedented power - the projectile’s flight range reached eight and a half kilometers, and the temperature at the epicenter of the explosion was one and a half thousand degrees. The Germans repeatedly tried to capture a sample of the Russian miracle technology, but the Katyusha crews strictly adhered to the rule - they could not fall into the hands of the enemy. In case of emergency, the vehicles were equipped with a self-destruct mechanism. Essentially, the entire history of Russian rocketry stems from those legendary installations. And rockets for Katyushas were developed by Vladimir Andreevich Artemyev.

The fate of the developers

On November 2, 1937, as a result of the “war of denunciations” within the institute, the director of RNII-3 I. T. Kleymenov and the chief engineer G. E. Langemak were arrested. On January 10 and 11, 1938, respectively, they were shot at the NKVD Kommunarka training ground.
Rehabilitated in 1955.
By decree of the President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev dated June 21, 1991, I. T. Kleimenov, G. E. Langemak, V. N. Luzhin, B. S. Petropavlovsky, B. M. Slonimer and N. I. Tikhomirov were posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

Device

The weapon is relatively simple, consisting of rail guides and a device for guiding them. For aiming, rotating and lifting mechanisms and an artillery sight were provided. There were two jacks at the rear of the vehicle, providing greater stability when firing. One machine could accommodate from 14 to 48 guides.
Due to secrecy, 30 kg of explosives were installed on each car.
The crew (calculation) consisted of 5 - 7 people,
Gun commander - 1.
Gunner - 1.
Driver - 1.
Loader - 2 - 4.
The crew swore an oath to destroy the car, even at the cost of their lives, but not to give the car to the enemy.

The BM-13 "Katyusha" includes the following combat weapons:
Combat vehicle (BM) MU-2 (MU-1) ;
Missiles .

Katyusha rockets

Unguided surface-to-surface missile - the simplest rocket equipped with an engine, a warhead with a fuse and an aerodynamic stabilizer (tail). Aiming is accomplished by setting the initial launch angle, usually using a guide beam or pipe, and sometimes by setting the engine run time.

Let's look at the most common M-13 projectile


Characteristics of the M-13 missile

Caliber, mm 132
Stabilizer blade span, mm 300
Length, mm 1465
Weight, kg:
finally equipped projectile 42,36
equipped warhead 21,3
bursting charge 4,9
loaded jet engine 20,8
Projectile speed, m/s:
muzzle (when leaving the guide) 70
maximum 355
Length of the active trajectory section, m 125
Maximum firing range, m 8470

origin of name

It is known why BM-13 installations began to be called “guards mortars” at one time. The BM-13 installations were not actually mortars, but the command sought to keep their design secret for as long as possible:

When, at a firing range, soldiers and commanders asked a GAU representative to name the “true” name of the combat installation, he advised: “Call the installation as an ordinary artillery piece. This is important for maintaining secrecy."

.

There is no single version of why the BM-13 began to be called “Katyusha”. There are several assumptions:

Based on the title of Blanter’s song “Katyusha”, which became popular before the war, based on the words of Isakovsky. The version is convincing, since the battery fired for the first time on July 14, 1941 (on the 23rd day of the war). On July 14 at 15.15, on the direct order of the deputy chief of artillery of the Western Front, General G.S. Cariophylli, Flerov’s battery fired a salvo at the Orsha railway junction. This was the first combat use of Katyushas. She was shooting from a high, steep mountain - the association with the high, steep bank in the song immediately arose among the fighters. Finally, the former sergeant of the headquarters company of the 217th separate communications battalion of the 144th Infantry Division of the 20th Army, Andrei Sapronov, is alive, now a military historian, who gave it this name. Red Army soldier Kashirin, having arrived with him at the battery after the shelling of Rudnya, exclaimed in surprise: “What a song!” “Katyusha,” answered Andrei Sapronov (from the memoirs of A. Sapronov in the Rossiya newspaper No. 23 of June 21-27, 2001 and in the Parliamentary Gazette No. 80 of May 5, 2005). Through the communications center of the headquarters company, the news about a miracle weapon called “Katyusha” within 24 hours became the property of the entire 20th Army, and through its command - the entire country. On July 13, 2011, the veteran and “godfather” of Katyusha turned 90 years old.

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

The third version suggests that this is what the girls from the Moscow Kompressor plant who worked on the assembly dubbed these cars.

Germans about Katyusha
In the German troops, these machines were called “Stalin’s organs” due to the external resemblance of the rocket launcher to the pipe system of this musical instrument and the powerful, stunning roar that was produced when the missiles were launched.

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

Foreign "analogues"

Germany

"Nebelwerfer" - German towed rocket mortar from the Second World War. For the characteristic sound made by the shells, he received the nickname “donkey” from Soviet soldiers.
Maximum range, m: 6 km

Under the command of Captain I.A. Flerov, the station in the city of Orsha, along with the German trains with troops and equipment located on it, was literally wiped off the face of the earth. The first samples of missiles launched from a mobile carrier (vehicles based on the ZIS-5 truck) were tested at Soviet test sites from the end of 1938. On June 21, 1941, they were demonstrated to the leaders of the Soviet government, and literally a few hours before the start of the Great Patriotic War War, a decision was made to urgently launch mass production of rockets and a launcher, officially named “BM-13”.

It was truly a weapon of unprecedented power - the projectile’s flight range reached eight and a half kilometers, and the temperature at the epicenter of the explosion was one and a half thousand degrees. The Germans repeatedly tried to capture a sample of the Russian miracle technology, but the Katyusha crews strictly adhered to the rule - they could not fall into the hands of the enemy. In case of emergency, the vehicles were equipped with a self-destruct mechanism. Essentially, the entire history of Russian rocketry stems from those legendary installations. And rockets for Katyushas were developed by Vladimir Andreevich Artemyev.

He was born in 1885 in St. Petersburg in the family of a military man, graduated from the St. Petersburg gymnasium and volunteered for the Russo-Japanese War. For courage and courage he was promoted to junior non-commissioned officer and awarded the St. George Cross, then graduated from the Alekseevsky Junker School. At the beginning of 1920, Artemyev met N.I. Tikhomirov and became his closest assistant, but in 1922, in the wake of general suspicion towards former officers of the tsarist army, he was imprisoned in a concentration camp. Returning from Solovki, he continued to improve rockets, work on which he began back in the twenties and was interrupted due to his arrest. During the Great Patriotic War, he made many valuable inventions in the field of military equipment.

After the war, V. A. Artemyev, being the chief designer of a number of research and design institutes, created new models of missile shells, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and the Red Star, and was a laureate of the Stalin Prizes. Died on September 11, 1962 in Moscow. His name is on the map of the Moon: one of the craters on its surface is named in memory of the creator of the Katyusha.

“Katyusha” is the unofficial collective name for the BM-8 (82 mm), BM-13 (132 mm) and BM-31 (310 mm) rocket artillery combat vehicles. Such installations were actively used by the USSR during the Second World War.

After the adoption of 82-mm air-to-air missiles RS-82 (1937) and 132-mm air-to-ground missiles RS-132 (1938) into aviation service, the Main Artillery Directorate set the projectile developer - The Jet Research Institute is tasked with creating a multiple launch rocket system based on RS-132 projectiles. The updated tactical and technical specifications were issued to the institute in June 1938.

In accordance with this task, by the summer of 1939 the institute had developed a new 132-mm high-explosive fragmentation projectile, which later received the official name M-13. Compared to the aircraft RS-132, this projectile had a longer flight range and a significantly more powerful warhead. The increase in flight range was achieved by increasing the amount of rocket fuel; this required lengthening the rocket and warhead parts of the rocket by 48 cm. The M-13 projectile had slightly better aerodynamic characteristics than the RS-132, which made it possible to obtain higher accuracy.

A self-propelled multi-charge launcher was also developed for the projectile. Its first version was created on the basis of the ZIS-5 truck and was designated MU-1 (mechanized unit, first sample). Field tests of the installation carried out between December 1938 and February 1939 showed that it did not fully meet the requirements. Taking into account the test results, the Jet Research Institute developed a new MU-2 launcher, which was accepted by the Main Artillery Directorate for field testing in September 1939. Based on the results of field tests completed in November 1939, the institute was ordered five launchers for military testing. Another installation was ordered by the Ordnance Department of the Navy for use in the coastal defense system.

On June 21, 1941, the installation was demonstrated to the leaders of the All-Union Communist Party (6) and the Soviet government, and on the same day, literally a few hours before the start of the Great Patriotic War, a decision was made to urgently launch mass production of M-13 missiles and the launcher, which received official name BM-13 (combat vehicle 13).

The production of BM-13 units was organized at the Voronezh plant named after. Comintern and at the Moscow plant "Compressor". One of the main enterprises for the production of rockets was the Moscow plant named after. Vladimir Ilyich.

During the war, the production of launchers was urgently launched at several enterprises with different production capabilities, and in connection with this, more or less significant changes were made to the design of the installation. Thus, the troops used up to ten varieties of the BM-13 launcher, which made it difficult to train personnel and had a negative impact on the operation of military equipment. For these reasons, a unified (normalized) launcher BM-13N was developed and put into service in April 1943, during the creation of which the designers critically analyzed all parts and components in order to increase the manufacturability of their production and reduce cost, as a result of which all components received independent indexes and became universal.

The BM-13 "Katyusha" includes the following combat weapons:

Combat vehicle (BM) MU-2 (MU-1);
Missiles.

M-13 rocket:

The M-13 projectile (see diagram) consists of a warhead and a powder jet engine. The design of the warhead resembles a high-explosive fragmentation artillery shell and is equipped with an explosive charge, which is detonated using a contact fuse and an additional detonator. A jet engine has a combustion chamber in which a propellant propellant charge is placed in the form of cylindrical blocks with an axial channel. Pyro-igniters are used to ignite the powder charge. The gases formed during the combustion of powder bombs flow through the nozzle, in front of which there is a diaphragm that prevents the bombs from being ejected through the nozzle. Stabilization of the projectile in flight is ensured by a tail stabilizer with four feathers welded from stamped steel halves. (This method of stabilization provides lower accuracy compared to stabilization of rotation around the longitudinal axis, but allows for a greater range of projectile flight. In addition, the use of a feathered stabilizer greatly simplifies the technology for producing rockets).

The flight range of the M-13 projectile reached 8470 m, but there was very significant dispersion. According to the shooting tables of 1942, with a firing range of 3000 m, the lateral deviation was 51 m, and the range deviation was 257 m.

In 1943, a modernized version of the rocket was developed, designated M-13-UK (improved accuracy). To increase the accuracy of fire, the M-13-UK projectile has 12 tangentially located holes in the front centering thickening of the rocket part, through which, during operation of the rocket engine, part of the powder gases escapes, causing the projectile to rotate. Although the projectile’s flight range decreased somewhat (to 7.9 km), the improvement in accuracy led to a decrease in the dispersion area and an increase in fire density by 3 times compared to M-13 projectiles. The adoption of the M-13-UK projectile into service in April 1944 contributed to a sharp increase in the fire capabilities of rocket artillery.

MLRS "Katyusha" launcher:

A self-propelled multi-charge launcher has been developed for the projectile. Its first version - MU-1 based on the ZIS-5 truck - had 24 guides installed on a special frame in a transverse position relative to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle. Its design made it possible to launch rockets only perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, and jets of hot gases damaged the elements of the installation and the body of the ZIS-5. Safety was also not ensured when controlling fire from the driver's cabin. The launcher swayed strongly, which worsened the accuracy of the rockets. Loading the launcher from the front of the rails was inconvenient and time-consuming. The ZIS-5 vehicle had limited cross-country ability.

The more advanced MU-2 launcher (see diagram) based on the ZIS-6 off-road truck had 16 guides located along the axis of the vehicle. Every two guides were connected, forming a single structure called a “spark”. A new unit was introduced into the design of the installation - a subframe. The subframe made it possible to assemble the entire artillery part of the launcher (as a single unit) on it, and not on the chassis, as was previously the case. Once assembled, the artillery unit was relatively easily mounted on the chassis of any make of car with minimal modification to the latter. The created design made it possible to reduce the labor intensity, manufacturing time and cost of launchers. The weight of the artillery unit was reduced by 250 kg, the cost by more than 20 percent. The combat and operational qualities of the installation were significantly increased. Due to the introduction of armor for the gas tank, gas pipeline, side and rear walls of the driver's cabin, the survivability of the launchers in combat was increased. The firing sector was increased, the stability of the launcher in the traveling position was increased, and improved lifting and turning mechanisms made it possible to increase the speed of pointing the installation at the target. Before launch, the MU-2 combat vehicle was jacked up similarly to the MU-1. The forces rocking the launcher, thanks to the location of the guides along the chassis of the vehicle, were applied along its axis to two jacks located near the center of gravity, so the rocking became minimal. Loading in the installation was carried out from the breech, that is, from the rear end of the guides. This was more convenient and made it possible to significantly speed up the operation. The MU-2 installation had a rotating and lifting mechanism of the simplest design, a bracket for mounting a sight with a conventional artillery panorama, and a large metal fuel tank mounted at the rear of the cabin. The cockpit windows were covered with armored folding shields. Opposite the seat of the commander of the combat vehicle, on the front panel there was mounted a small rectangular box with a turntable, reminiscent of a telephone dial, and a handle for turning the dial. This device was called the “fire control panel” (FCP). From it went a wiring harness to a special battery and to each guide.

Launcher BM-13 "Katyusha" on a Studebaker chassis (6x4)

With one turn of the launcher handle, the electrical circuit closed, the squib placed in the front part of the projectile’s rocket chamber was triggered, the reactive charge was ignited and a shot was fired. The rate of fire was determined by the rate of rotation of the PUO handle. All 16 shells could be fired in 7-10 seconds. The time it took to transfer the MU-2 launcher from traveling to combat position was 2-3 minutes, the vertical firing angle ranged from 4° to 45°, and the horizontal firing angle was 20°.

The design of the launcher allowed it to move in a charged state at a fairly high speed (up to 40 km/h) and quickly deploy to a firing position, which facilitated the delivery of surprise attacks on the enemy.

A significant factor increasing the tactical mobility of rocket artillery units armed with BM-13N installations was the fact that the powerful American Studebaker US 6x6 truck, supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease, was used as a base for the launcher. This car had increased cross-country ability, provided by a powerful engine, three drive axles (6x6 wheel arrangement), a range multiplier, a winch for self-pulling, and a high location of all parts and mechanisms sensitive to water. The development of the BM-13 serial combat vehicle was finally completed with the creation of this launcher. In this form she fought until the end of the war.

Testing and operation

The first battery of field rocket artillery, sent to the front on the night of July 1–2, 1941, under the command of Captain I.A. Flerov, was armed with seven installations manufactured by the Jet Research Institute. With its first salvo at 15:15 on July 14, 1941, the battery wiped out the Orsha railway junction along with the German trains with troops and military equipment located on it.

The exceptional efficiency of the battery of Captain I. A. Flerov and the seven more such batteries formed after it contributed to the rapid increase in the rate of production of jet weapons. Already in the autumn of 1941, 45 three-battery divisions with four launchers per battery operated at the fronts. For their armament, 593 BM-13 installations were manufactured in 1941. As military equipment arrived from industry, the formation of rocket artillery regiments began, consisting of three divisions armed with BM-13 launchers and an anti-aircraft division. The regiment had 1,414 personnel, 36 BM-13 launchers and 12 37-mm anti-aircraft guns. The regiment's salvo amounted to 576 132mm shells. At the same time, enemy manpower and military equipment were destroyed over an area of ​​over 100 hectares. Officially, the regiments were called Guards Mortar Regiments of the Reserve Artillery of the Supreme High Command.

Materials provided by: S.V. Gurov (Tula)

The list of contractual work carried out by the Jet Research Institute (RNII) for the Armored Tank Directorate (ABTU), the final payment for which was to be carried out in the first quarter of 1936, mentions contract No. 251618с dated January 26, 1935 - a prototype rocket launcher on the BT tank -5 with 10 missiles. Thus, it can be considered a proven fact that the idea of ​​​​creating a mechanized multiple-charging installation in the third decade of the 20th century did not appear at the end of the 30s, as previously stated, but at least at the end of the first half of this period. Confirmation of the idea of ​​using cars to fire missiles in general was also found in the book “Rockets, their design and use,” authored by G.E. Langemak and V.P. Glushko, released in 1935. At the conclusion of this book, in particular, the following is written: " The main area of ​​application of powder rockets is the armament of light combat vehicles, such as airplanes, small ships, vehicles of all kinds, and finally escort artillery".

In 1938, employees of Research Institute No. 3, commissioned by the Artillery Directorate, carried out work on object No. 138 - a gun for firing 132 mm chemical shells. It was necessary to make non-rapid-firing machines (such as a pipe). According to the agreement with the Artillery Directorate, it was necessary to design and manufacture an installation with a stand and a lifting and turning mechanism. One machine was manufactured, which was then recognized as not meeting the requirements. At the same time, Research Institute No. 3 developed a mechanized multiple rocket launcher mounted on a modified ZIS-5 truck chassis with 24 rounds of ammunition. According to other data from the archives of the State Scientific Center FSUE “Keldysh Center” (former Research Institute No. 3), “2 mechanized installations on vehicles were manufactured. They passed factory shooting tests at the Sofrinsky Artillery Ground and partial field tests at the Ts.V.Kh.P. R.K.K.A. with positive results." Based on factory tests, it could be stated: the flight range of the RHS (depending on the specific gravity of the explosive agent) at a firing angle of 40 degrees is 6000 - 7000 m, Vd = (1/100)X and Vb = (1/70)X, useful volume of the explosive agent in a projectile - 6.5 liters, metal consumption per 1 liter of explosive agent - 3.4 kg/l, radius of dispersion of explosive agent when a projectile explodes on the ground is 15-20 liters, the maximum time required to fire the entire ammunition load of the vehicle is 3-4 seconds.

The mechanized rocket launcher was intended to provide a chemical attack with chemical rocket projectiles /SOV and NOV/ 132 mm with a capacity of 7 liters. The installation made it possible to fire across areas with both single shots and a salvo of 2 - 3 - 6 - 12 and 24 shots. “The installations, combined into batteries of 4 - 6 vehicles, represent a very mobile and powerful means of chemical attack at a distance of up to 7 kilometers.”

The installation and a 132 mm chemical rocket projectile for 7 liters of toxic substance passed successful field and state tests; its adoption was planned in 1939. The table of practical accuracy of chemical missile projectiles indicated the data of a mechanized vehicle installation for a surprise attack by firing chemical, high-explosive fragmentation, incendiary, illuminating and other missile projectiles. Option I without a guidance device - the number of shells in one salvo is 24, the total weight of the toxic substance released in one salvo is 168 kg, 6 vehicle installations replace one hundred and twenty 152 mm caliber howitzers, the vehicle reload speed is 5-10 minutes. 24 shots, number of service personnel - 20-30 people. on 6 cars. In artillery systems - 3 Artillery Regiments. II-version with control device. Data not provided.

From December 8, 1938 to February 4, 1939, tests were carried out on unguided 132 mm caliber rockets and an automatic launcher. However, the installation was submitted for testing unfinished and did not withstand them: a large number of failures were discovered when the missiles were discharged due to the imperfections of the corresponding installation components; the process of loading the launcher was inconvenient and time-consuming; the rotating and lifting mechanisms did not provide easy and smooth operation, and the sighting devices did not provide the required pointing accuracy. In addition, the ZIS-5 truck had limited cross-country ability. (See Tests of an automobile rocket launcher on the ZIS-5 chassis, NII-3 design, drawing No. 199910 for launching 132 mm rockets. (Test time: from 12/8/38 to 02/04/39).

The letter about the bonus for the successful testing in 1939 of a mechanized installation for chemical attack (out. Research Institute No. 3, number 733c dated May 25, 1939 from the director of Research Institute No. 3 Slonimer addressed to the People's Commissar of Ammunition comrade Sergeev I.P.) indicates the following participants of the work: Kostikov A.G. - Deputy technical director parts, installation initiator; Gwai I.I. - leading designer; Popov A. A. - design technician; Isachenkov - installation mechanic; Pobedonostsev Yu. - prof. advised the subject; Luzhin V. - engineer; Schwartz L.E. - engineer .

In 1938, the Institute designed the construction of a special chemical motorized team for salvo firing of 72 rounds.

In a letter dated 14.II.1939 to Comrade Matveev (V.P.K. of the Defense Committee under the Supreme Council of the S.S.S.R.) signed by the Director of Research Institute No. 3 Slonimer and Deputy. Director of Research Institute No. 3, military engineer 1st rank Kostikov, says: “For ground forces, use the experience of a chemical mechanized installation for:

• the use of high-explosive fragmentation missiles to create massive fire in areas;
• the use of incendiary, illuminating and propaganda projectiles;
• development of a 203mm caliber chemical projectile and a mechanized installation providing double the firing range compared to existing chemicals."

In 1939, Research Institute No. 3 developed two versions of experimental installations on a modified ZIS-6 truck chassis for launching 24 and 16 unguided rockets of 132 mm caliber. The installation of sample II differed from the installation of sample I in the longitudinal arrangement of the guides.

The ammunition load of the mechanized installation /on the ZIS-6/ for launching chemical and high-explosive fragmentation shells of 132mm caliber /MU-132/ was 16 missile shells. The firing system provided for the possibility of firing both single shells and a salvo of the entire ammunition load. The time required to fire a salvo of 16 missiles is 3.5 - 6 seconds. The time required to reload ammunition is 2 minutes with a team of 3 people. The weight of the structure with a full ammunition load of 2350 kg was 80% of the design load of the vehicle.

Field tests of these installations were carried out from September 28 to November 9, 1939 on the territory of the Artillery Research Experimental Test Site (ANIOP, Leningrad) (see those made at ANIOP). The results of field tests showed that the installation of the first model cannot be allowed for military testing due to technical imperfections. The installation of model II, which also had a number of serious shortcomings, according to the conclusion of the commission members, could be allowed for military testing after making significant design changes. Tests have shown that when firing, the installation of sample II swings and the elevation angle reaches 15"30", which increases the dispersion of projectiles; when loading the lower row of guides, the projectile fuse can hit the truss structure. Since the end of 1939, the main attention has been focused on improving the layout and design of the II sample installation and eliminating the shortcomings identified during field tests. In this regard, it is necessary to note the characteristic directions in which the work was carried out. On the one hand, this is further development of the II sample installation in order to eliminate its shortcomings, on the other hand, the creation of a more advanced installation, different from the II sample installation. In the tactical and technical assignment for the development of a more advanced installation (“upgraded installation for RS” in the terminology of documents of those years), signed by Yu.P. Pobedonostsev on December 7, 1940, provided for: constructive improvements to the lifting and rotating device, increasing the horizontal guidance angle, and simplifying the sighting device. It was also envisaged to increase the length of the guides to 6000 mm instead of the existing 5000 mm, as well as the possibility of firing unguided rockets of 132 mm and 180 mm caliber. At a meeting at the technical department of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition, it was decided to increase the length of the guides even to 7000 mm. The delivery date for the drawings was set for October 1941. Nevertheless, to conduct various types of tests in the workshops of Research Institute No. 3 in 1940 - 1941, several (in addition to the existing) modernized installations for RS were manufactured. The total number is indicated differently in different sources: in some - six, in others - seven. The data from the archive of Research Institute No. 3 as of January 10, 1941 contains data on 7 pieces. (from the document on the readiness of object 224 (topic 24 of the superplan, an experimental series of automatic installations for firing RS-132 mm (in the amount of seven pieces. See letter from UANA GAU No. 668059) Based on available documents, the source states that there were eight installations, but at different times. On February 28, 1941 there were six of them.

The thematic plan of research and development work for 1940 of the Scientific Research Institute No. 3 of the NKB provided for the transfer to the customer - the Red Army AU - of six automatic installations for the RS-132mm. The report on the implementation of experimental orders in production for the month of November 1940 by Research Institute No. 3 NKB indicates that when the delivery batch of six installations to the customer by November 1940, the quality control department accepted 5 units, and the military representative - 4 units.

In December 1939, Research Institute No. 3 was tasked with developing a powerful rocket and rocket launcher in a short period of time to carry out the tasks of destroying long-term enemy defenses on the Mannerheim Line. The result of the work of the institute's team was a finned missile with a flight range of 2-3 km with a powerful high-explosive warhead with a ton of explosives and an installation with four guides on a T-34 tank or on a sled towed by tractors or tanks. In January 1940, the installation and missiles were sent to the combat area, but a decision was soon made to conduct field tests before using them in combat. The installation with shells was sent to the Leningrad Scientific Testing Artillery Range. The war with Finland soon ended. The need for powerful high-explosive shells disappeared. Further work on the installation and projectile was stopped.

In 1940, the department of 2n Research Institute No. 3 was asked to carry out work on the following objects:

• Object 213 - Electrified installation on a ZIS for firing lighting and signaling devices. R.S. calibers 140-165mm. (Note: for the first time, an electric drive for a rocket artillery combat vehicle was used in the design of the BM-21 combat vehicle of the M-21 Field Rocket System).
• Object 214 - Installation on a 2-axle trailer with 16 guides, length l = 6mt. for R.S. calibers 140-165mm. (remodeling and adaptation of object 204)
• Object 215 - Electrified installation on a ZIS-6 with a transportable reserve of R.S. and with a large range of aiming angles.
• Object 216 - Charging box for PC on trailer
• Object 217 - Installation on a 2-axle trailer for firing long-range missiles
• Object 218 - Anti-aircraft moving installation for 12 pcs. R.S. caliber 140 mm with electric drive
• Object 219 - Anti-aircraft stationary installation for 50-80 R.S. caliber 140 mm.
• Object 220 - Command installation on a ZIS-6 vehicle with an electric current generator, aiming and firing control panel
• Object 221 - Universal installation on a 2-axle trailer for possible range shooting of RS calibers from 82 to 165 mm.
• Object 222 - Mechanized unit for tank escort
• Object 223 - Introduction of mass production of mechanized installations into industry.

In the letter to the acting Director of Research Institute No. 3, military engineer 1st rank Kostikov A.G. about the possibility of submitting to K.V.Sh. with the USSR Council of People's Commissars for the award of the Comrade Stalin Prize, based on the results of work in the period from 1935 to 1940, the following participants in the work are indicated:

• rocket launcher for a sudden, powerful artillery and chemical attack on the enemy using rocket shells - Authors according to the application certificate GBPRI No. 3338 9.II.40 (author's certificate No. 3338 dated February 19, 1940) Kostikov Andrey Grigorievich, Gvai Ivan Isidorovich, Aborenkov Vasily Vasilevich.
• tactical and technical justification for the scheme and design of the automatic installation - designers: Pavlenko Alexey Petrovich and Galkovsky Vladimir Nikolaevich.
• testing of high-explosive fragmentation chemical rocket projectiles of 132 mm caliber. - Schwartz Leonid Emilievich, Artemyev Vladimir Andreevich, Shitov Dmitry Alexandrovich

The basis for nominating Comrade Stalin for the Prize was also the Decision of the Technical Council of the Scientific Research Institute No. 3 of the NKB dated December 26, 1940. ,.

On April 25, 1941, tactical and technical requirements for the modernization of a mechanized installation for firing rockets were approved.

On June 21, 1941, the installation was demonstrated to the leaders of the All-Union Communist Party (6) and the Soviet government, and on the same day, literally a few hours before the start of the Great Patriotic War, a decision was made to urgently launch the production of M-13 rockets and M-13 installations (see. Scheme 1, Scheme 2). The production of M-13 units was organized at the Voronezh plant named after. Comintern and at the Moscow plant "Compressor". One of the main enterprises for the production of rockets was the Moscow plant named after. Vladimir Ilyich.

During the war, the production of component installations and shells and the transition from mass production to mass production required the creation of a broad structure of cooperation in the country (Moscow, Leningrad, Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), Nizhny Tagil, Krasnoyarsk, Kolpino, Murom, Kolomna and, possibly , other). It was necessary to organize a separate military acceptance of guards mortar units. For more information about the production of shells and their elements during the war, see our website (follow the links below).

According to various sources, the formation of Guards mortar units began at the end of July - beginning of August (see:). In the first months of the war, the Germans already had information about the new Soviet weapons (see:).

The date of adoption of the M-13 installation and shells into service has not been documented. The author of this material has established only data on the draft Resolution of the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of February 1940 (See electronic versions of documents: , , ). In M. Pervov’s book “Stories about Russian Missiles” Book One. on page 257 it is stated that “On August 30, 1941, by the Decree of the State Defense Committee, the BM-13 was adopted by the Red Army.” I, Gurov S.V., got acquainted with the electronic versions of the GKO Resolutions for August 30, 1941 in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI, Moscow) and did not find in any of them any mention of data on the adoption of the M-13 installation for service.

In September-October 1941, on the instructions of the Main Armament Directorate of the Guards Mortar Units, the M-13 installation was developed on the STZ-5 NATI tractor chassis modified for installation. The development was entrusted to the Voronezh plant named after. Comintern and SKB at the Moscow plant “Compressor”. SKB carried out the development more efficiently, and prototypes were manufactured and tested in a short time. As a result, the installation was put into service and put into mass production.

In the December days of 1941, SKB, on the instructions of the Main Armored Directorate of the Red Army, developed, in particular, for the defense of the city of Moscow, a 16-round installation on an armored railway platform. The installation was a missile launcher of the serial M-13 installation on a modified ZIS-6 truck chassis with a modified base. (for more information about other works of this period and the war period in general, see: and).

At a technical meeting at SKB on April 21, 1942, it was decided to develop a normalized installation known as the M-13N (after the war BM-13N). The goal of the development was to create the most advanced installation, the design of which would take into account all the changes previously made to various modifications of the M-13 installation and the creation of such a throwing installation that could be manufactured and assembled on a stand and, when assembled, installed and assembled on a chassis cars of any brand without extensive processing of technical documentation, as was the case previously. The goal was achieved by dividing the M-13 installation into separate units. Each node was considered as an independent product with an index assigned to it, after which it could be used as a borrowed product in any installation.

When testing components and parts for the normalized combat installation BM-13N, the following were obtained:

increase in the firing sector by 20%

reduction of forces on the handles of guidance mechanisms by one and a half to two times;

doubling the vertical aiming speed;

increasing the survivability of the combat installation by armoring the rear wall of the cabin; gas tank and gas lines;

increasing the stability of the installation in the stowed position by introducing a support bracket to disperse the load on the side members of the vehicle;

increasing the operational reliability of the unit (simplification of the support beam, rear axle, etc.;

significant reduction in the volume of welding work, machining, elimination of bending of truss rods;

reducing the weight of the unit by 250 kg, despite the introduction of armor on the rear wall of the cabin and the gas tank;

reduction of production time for the manufacture of the installation due to the assembly of the artillery part separately from the vehicle chassis and installation of the installation on the vehicle chassis using fastening clamps, which made it possible to eliminate the drilling of holes in the side members;

reducing by several times the idle time of the chassis of vehicles arriving at the plant for installation of the unit;

reduction in the number of standard sizes of fasteners from 206 to 96, as well as the number of parts: in the rotary frame - from 56 to 29, in the truss from 43 to 29, in the support frame - from 15 to 4, etc. The use of normalized components and products in the design of the installation made it possible to use a high-performance in-line method for assembling and installing the installation.

The throwing unit was mounted on a modified chassis of a Studebaker series truck (see photo) with a 6x6 wheel arrangement, supplied under Lend-Lease. The normalized M-13N mount was adopted by the Red Army in 1943. The installation became the main model used until the end of the Great Patriotic War. Other types of modified chassis of foreign-made trucks were also used.

At the end of 1942 V.V. Aborenkov proposed adding two additional pins to the M-13 projectile in order to launch it from dual guides. For this purpose, a prototype was made, which was a serial M-13 installation, in which the swinging part (guides and truss) was replaced. The guide consisted of two steel strips placed on an edge, each of them had a groove cut for the drive pin. Each pair of strips was fastened opposite each other with grooves in a vertical plane. The field tests carried out did not give the expected improvement in the accuracy of fire and the work was stopped.

At the beginning of 1943, SKB specialists carried out work to create installations with a normalized propellant installation for the M-13 installation on modified chassis of Chevrolet and ZIS-6 trucks. During January - May 1943, a prototype was manufactured on a modified Chevrolet truck chassis and field tests were carried out. The installations were adopted by the Red Army. However, due to the availability of sufficient quantities of chassis of these brands, they did not go into mass production.

In 1944, SKB specialists developed the M-13 installation on an armored chassis of the ZIS-6 vehicle, modified for installation of a missile launcher, for launching M-13 projectiles. For this purpose, the normalized “beam” type guides of the M-13N installation were shortened to 2.5 meters and assembled into a package on two spars. The truss was made of shortened pipes in the form of a pyramidal frame, turned upside down, and served mainly as a support for fastening the screw of the lifting mechanism. The elevation angle of the guide package was changed from the cockpit using handwheels and the cardan shaft of the vertical guidance mechanism. A prototype was made. However, due to the weight of the armor, the front axle and springs of the ZIS-6 vehicle were overloaded, as a result of which further installation work was stopped.

At the end of 1943 - beginning of 1944, SKB specialists and rocket projectile developers were faced with the question of improving the accuracy of fire of 132 mm caliber projectiles. To impart rotational motion, the designers introduced tangential holes into the projectile design along the diameter of the head working belt. The same solution was used in the design of the standard projectile, and was proposed for the projectile. As a result of this, the accuracy indicator increased, but there was a decrease in the flight range indicator. Compared to the standard M-13 projectile, whose flight range was 8470 m, the range of the new projectile, designated M-13UK, was 7900 m. Despite this, the projectile was adopted by the Red Army.

During the same period, NII-1 specialists (Lead Designer V.G. Bessonov) developed and then tested the M-13DD projectile. The projectile had the best accuracy, but it could not be fired from the standard M-13 installations, since the projectile had a rotational motion and, when launched from the usual standard guides, destroyed them, tearing off the linings from them. To a lesser extent, this also occurred when launching M-13UK projectiles. The M-13DD projectile was adopted by the Red Army at the end of the war. Mass production of the projectile was not organized.

At the same time, SKB specialists began exploratory design studies and experimental work to improve the accuracy of firing rockets and by testing the guides. It was based on a new principle of launching rockets and ensuring they were strong enough to fire M-13DD and M-20 projectiles. Since imparting rotation to finned unguided rocket projectiles at the initial segment of their flight trajectory improved accuracy, the idea was born of imparting rotation to projectiles on guides without drilling tangential holes in the projectiles, which consume part of the engine power to rotate them and thereby reduce their flight range. This idea led to the creation of spiral guides. The design of the spiral guide took the form of a barrel formed by four spiral rods, three of which are smooth steel pipes, and the fourth, the leading one, is made of a steel square with selected grooves forming an H-shaped cross-section profile. The rods were welded to the legs of the ring clips. In the breech there was a lock for holding the projectile in the guide and electrical contacts. Special equipment was created for bending guide rods in a spiral, having different angles of twisting and welding of guide barrels along their length. Initially, the installation had 12 guides, rigidly connected into four cassettes (three guides per cassette). Prototypes of a 12-charge unit were developed and manufactured. However, sea trials showed that the vehicle chassis was overloaded, and a decision was made to remove two guides from the upper cassettes. The launcher was mounted on a modified chassis of a Studebeker off-road truck. It consisted of a set of guides, a truss, a rotating frame, a subframe, a sight, vertical and horizontal guidance mechanisms, and electrical equipment. Except for the cassettes with guides and the truss, all other components were unified with the corresponding components of the M-13N normalized combat installation. Using the M-13-SN installation, it was possible to launch M-13, M-13UK, M-20 and M-13DD projectiles of 132 mm caliber. Significantly better indicators were obtained in terms of accuracy of fire: with M-13 shells - 3.2 times, M-13UK - 1.1 times, M-20 - 3.3 times, M-13DD - 1.47 times) . With the improvement in the accuracy of firing M-13 rocket projectiles, the flight range did not decrease, as was the case when firing M-13UK projectiles from M-13 installations that had “beam” type guides. There was no longer a need to manufacture M-13UK projectiles, which were complicated by drilling in the engine casing. Installation of the M-13-SN was simpler, less labor-intensive and cheaper to manufacture. A number of labor-intensive machine tools have been eliminated: gouging long guides, drilling a large number of rivet holes, riveting linings to the guides, turning, calibrating, manufacturing and cutting threads of spars and nuts for them, complex machining of locks and lock boxes, etc. The prototypes were manufactured at the Moscow Kompressor plant (No. 733) and were subjected to field and sea trials, which ended with good results. After the end of the war, the M-13-SN installation passed military tests in 1945 with good results. Due to the fact that the M-13 type projectiles had to be modernized, the installation was not put into service. After the 1946 series, on the basis of NCOM order No. 27 of October 24, 1946, the installation was discontinued. However, in 1950 a Brief Guide to the BM-13-SN combat vehicle was published

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, one of the directions in the development of rocket artillery was the use of missile launchers developed during the war for installation on modified types of domestically produced chassis. Several variants were created based on the installation of the M-13N on modified chassis of the ZIS-151 (see photo), ZIL-151 (see photo), ZIL-157 (see photo), ZIL-131 (see photo) trucks. .

M-13 type installations were exported to different countries after the war. One of them was China (see photo from the military parade on the occasion of National Day 1956, held in Beijing (Beijing).

In 1959, when carrying out work on a projectile for the future Field Rocket System, the developers were interested in the issue of technical documentation for the production of ROFS M-13. This is what was written in the letter to the Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs of NII-147 (now FSUE SNPP Splav (Tula), signed by the chief engineer of plant No. 63 SSNH Toporov (State Plant No. 63 of the Sverdlovsk Economic Council, 22.VII.1959 No. 1959c): “In response to your request No. 3265 dated 3/UII-59 about sending technical documentation on the production of ROFS M-13, I inform you that at present the plant does not produce this product, and the classification of secrecy has been removed from the technical documentation.

The plant has outdated tracing papers of the technological process of mechanical processing of the product. The plant has no other documentation.

Due to the workload of the photocopying machine, the album of technical processes will be blueprinted and sent to you no earlier than in a month."

Compound

Main cast:

• M-13 installations (combat vehicles M-13, BM-13) (see. gallery images M-13).
• The main missiles are M-13, M-13UK, M-13UK-1.
• Machines for transporting ammunition (transport vehicles).

The M-13 projectile (see diagram) consisted of two main parts: the warhead and the rocket part (jet powder engine). The warhead consisted of a body with a fuse point, the bottom of the warhead and an explosive charge with an additional detonator. The projectile's jet powder engine consisted of a chamber, a nozzle cover that closed to seal the powder charge with two cardboard plates, a grate, a powder charge, an igniter and a stabilizer. On the outer part of both ends of the chamber there were two centering bulges with guide pins screwed into them. Guide pins held the projectile on the combat vehicle's guide before firing and directed its movement along the guide. The chamber contained a powder charge of nitroglycerin powder, consisting of seven identical cylindrical single-channel bombs. In the nozzle part of the chamber, the checkers rested on a grate. To ignite the powder charge, an igniter made of black gunpowder is inserted into the upper part of the chamber. The gunpowder was placed in a special case. Stabilization of the M-13 projectile in flight was carried out using the tail unit.

The flight range of the M-13 projectile reached 8470 m, but there was very significant dispersion. In 1943, a modernized version of the rocket was developed, designated M-13-UK (improved accuracy). To increase the accuracy of fire, the M-13-UK projectile has 12 tangentially located holes in the front centering thickening of the rocket part (see photo 1, photo 2), through which, during operation of the rocket engine, part of the powder gases escapes, causing the projectile to rotate. Although the projectile’s flight range decreased somewhat (to 7.9 km), the improvement in accuracy led to a decrease in the dispersion area and an increase in fire density by 3 times compared to M-13 projectiles. In addition, the M-13-UK projectile has a nozzle critical section diameter that is slightly smaller than that of the M-13 projectile. The M-13-UK projectile was adopted by the Red Army in April 1944. The M-13UK-1 projectile with improved accuracy was equipped with flat stabilizers made of steel sheet.

Performance characteristics

Characteristic	M-13	BM-13N	BM-13NM	BM-13NMM
Chassis	ZIS-6	ZIS-151,ZIL-151	ZIL-157	ZIL-131
Number of guides	8	8	8	8
Elevation angle, degrees: - minimal - maximum	+7 +45	8±1 +45	8±1 +45	8±1 +45
Angle of horizontal fire, degrees: - to the right of the chassis - to the left of the chassis	10 10	10 10	10 10	10 10
Handle force, kg: - lifting mechanism - rotating mechanism	8-10 8-10	up to 13 up to 8	up to 13 up to 8	up to 13 up to 8
Dimensions in stowed position, mm: - length - width - height	6700 2300 2800	7200 2300 2900	7200 2330 3000	7200 2500 3200
Weight, kg: - package of guides - artillery unit - installations in combat position - installations in stowed position (without calculations)	815 2200 6200 -	815 2350 7890 7210	815 2350 7770 7090	815 2350 9030 8350
	2-3
	5-10
Full salvo time, s	7-10

Basic tactical and technical data of the BM-13 combat vehicle (on Studebaker) 1946
Number of guides	16
Projectile used	M-13, M-13-UK and 8 M-20 shells
Guide length, m	5
Guide type	straight
Minimum elevation angle, °	+7
Maximum elevation angle, °	+45
Horizontal guidance angle, °	20
	8
Also, on a rotating mechanism, kg	10
Overall dimensions, kg:
length	6780
height	2880
width	2270
Guide set weight, kg	790
Weight of artillery unit without shells and without chassis, kg	2250
The weight of a combat vehicle without shells, without crews, with a full tank of gasoline, snow chains, tools and spare parts. wheel, kg	5940
Weight of a set of shells, kg
M13 and M13-UK	680 (16 rounds)
M20	480 (8 shells)
Weight of a combat vehicle with a crew of 5 people. (2 in the cabin, 2 on the rear wings and 1 on the gas tank) with full refueling, tools, snow chains, spare wheel and M-13 shells, kg	6770
Axle loads from the weight of a combat vehicle with a crew of 5 people, fully loaded with spare parts and M-13 shells, kg:
to the front	1890
to the back	4880

Basic data of BM-13 combat vehicles
Characteristic	BM-13N on a modified ZIL-151 truck chassis	BM-13 on a modified ZIL-151 truck chassis	BM-13N on a modified Studebaker truck chassis	BM-13 on a modified Studebaker truck chassis
Number of guides*	16	16	16	16
Guide length, m	5	5	5	5
Maximum elevation angle, degrees	45	45	45	45
Minimum elevation angle, degrees	8±1°	4±30 "	7	7
Horizontal aiming angle, degrees	±10	±10	±10	±10
Force on the handle of the lifting mechanism, kg	up to 12	up to 13	to 10	8-10
Force on the rotating mechanism handle, kg	up to 8	up to 8	8-10	8-10
Guide package weight, kg	815	815	815	815
Artillery unit weight, kg	2350	2350	2200	2200
Weight of the combat vehicle in the stowed position (without people), kg	7210	7210	5520	5520
Weight of the combat vehicle in combat position with shells, kg	7890	7890	6200	6200
Length in stowed position, m	7,2	7,2	6,7	6,7
Width in stowed position, m	2,3	2,3	2,3	2,3
Height in stowed position, m	2,9	3,0	2,8	2,8
Time to transfer from traveling to combat position, min	2-3	2-3	2-3	2-3
Time required to load a combat vehicle, min	5-10	5-10	5-10	5-10
Time required to fire a salvo, sec	7-10	7-10	7-10	7-10
Combat vehicle index	52-U-9416	8U34	52-U-9411	52-TR-492B

NURS M-13, M-13UK, M-13UK-1
Ballistic index	TS-13
Head type	high-explosive fragmentation
Fuse type	GVMZ-1
Caliber, mm	132
Total projectile length, mm	1465
Stabilizer blade span, mm	300
Weight, kg: - finally equipped projectile - equipped warhead - explosive charge of the warhead - powder rocket charge - equipped jet engine	42.36 21.3 4.9 7.05-7.13 20.1
Projectile weight coefficient, kg/dm3	18.48
Head filling coefficient, %	23
Current required to ignite the squib, A	2.5-3
	0.7
Average reactive force, kgf	2000
Projectile exit speed from the guide, m/s	70
	125
Maximum projectile flight speed, m/s	355
Tabular maximum projectile range, m	8195
Deviation at maximum range, m: - by range - lateral	135 300
Powder charge burning time, s	0.7
Average reaction force, kg	2000 (1900 for M-13UK and M-13UK-1)
Muzzle velocity of the projectile, m/s	70
Length of the active trajectory section, m	125 (120 for M-13UK and M-13UK-1)
Highest projectile flight speed, m/s	335 (for M-13UK and M-13UK-1)
Maximum projectile flight range, m	8470 (7900 for M-13UK and M-13UK-1)

According to the English catalog Jane's Armor and Artillery 1995-1996, section of Egypt, in the mid-90s of the 20th century due to the impossibility of obtaining, in particular, shells for combat vehicles of the M-13 type, the Arab Organization for Industrialization (Arab Organization for Industrialisation) was engaged in the production of 132 mm caliber rockets. Analysis of the data presented below allows us to conclude that we are talking about a projectile of the M-13UK type.

The Arab Organization for Industrialization included Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with the majority of production facilities located in Egypt and with major funding from the Gulf countries. Following the Egyptian-Israeli agreement in mid-1979, the other three members of the Gulf countries withdrew their funds intended for the Arab Organization for Industrialization, and at that time (data from the Jane's Armor and Artillery catalog 1982-1983) Egypt received another assistance in projects.

Characteristics of the Sakr 132 mm caliber missile (RS type M-13UK)
Caliber, mm	132
Length, mm
full shell	1500
head part	483
rocket engine	1000
Weight, kg:
starting	42
head part	21
fuse	0,5
rocket engine	21
fuel (charge)	7
Maximum tail span, mm	305
Head type	high-explosive fragmentation (with 4.8 kg of explosive)
Fuse type	inertial cocked, contact
Fuel type (charge)	dibasic
Maximum range (at an elevation angle of 45º), m	8000
Maximum projectile speed, m/s	340
Fuel (charge) burning time, s	0,5
Projectile speed when meeting an obstacle, m/s	235-320
Minimum fuse arming speed, m/s	300
Distance from the combat vehicle for arming the fuse, m	100-200
Number of oblique holes in the rocket engine housing, pcs.	12

Testing and operation

The first battery of field rocket artillery, sent to the front on the night of July 1-2, 1941 under the command of Captain I.A. Flerov, was armed with seven installations manufactured in the workshops of Research Institute No. 3. With its first salvo at 15:15 on July 14, 1941 year, the battery wiped out the Orsha railway junction from the face of the earth, along with the German trains with troops and military equipment located on it.

The exceptional efficiency of the battery of Captain I. A. Flerov and the seven more such batteries formed after it contributed to the rapid increase in the rate of production of jet weapons. Already in the autumn of 1941, 45 three-battery divisions with four launchers per battery operated at the fronts. For their armament in 1941, 593 M-13 installations were manufactured. As military equipment arrived from industry, the formation of rocket artillery regiments began, consisting of three divisions armed with M-13 launchers and an anti-aircraft division. The regiment had 1,414 personnel, 36 M-13 launchers and 12 37-mm anti-aircraft guns. The regiment's salvo amounted to 576 132mm shells. At the same time, enemy manpower and military equipment were destroyed over an area of ​​over 100 hectares. Officially, the regiments were called Guards Mortar Regiments of the Reserve Artillery of the Supreme High Command. Unofficially, the rocket artillery installations were called "Katyusha". According to the memoirs of Evgeniy Mikhailovich Martynov (Tula), who was a child during the war, in Tula at first they were called infernal machines. Let us note on our own that multi-charge machines were also called infernal machines in the 19th century.

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