Do Russian and shovel shoots!
Still, the Russian people are very talented in nature. To adapt one to the other, sometimes even incompatible things, you need to have golden hands. One of such masters was designer Mikhail G. Dyakonov. People say about them: “He shoots a shovel too.” He began to embody his dreams still in the service of the Russian Imperial Army, and in Soviet times was awarded the Order of the Red Star. As a talented designer and inventor Dyakonov was the author of such developments as a rifle grenade launcher and a Dyakonov grenade system (1917), WP-1914 / 30 - a hand grenade (1914 / 30), RGD-33 - a Dakonov hand grenade (1933) .) and the legendary mortar shovel VM-37. Mikhail Grigorievich died defending besieged Leningrad in December 1941.The latest invention of Dyakonov was 37-mm mortar-shovel, developed in 1938 year for the needs of the Red Army (RKKA), made according to the scheme of a unitary trunk. In the stowed position, the mortar was a shovel, the barrel of which served as its handle. Like the usual small sapper shovel, a mortar shovel could be used to dig trenches, and during shooting the shovel played the role of a mortar support plate.
The design was simple to impossibility. The mortar consisted of a trunk, a base plate (shovel) and a bipod with a cork. In the breech breech, the hammer was pressed in, on the sting of which the priming cartridge of the five hundred grams mine was prickling. The lower part of the trunk had a hinged one-piece connection with the support plate (shovel). For a rigid connection with a shovel, a rotating ring was available on a trunk in a walking manner. The ring had a slot where the feather of the spade was inserted, and after turning the ring, the spade was rigidly fixed for digging or carrying. The bipod served to support the barrel when firing, and in the stowed position it was placed in the barrel, so that the cork would close the muzzle of the mortar. The bipod was connected to the barrel with a spring lirka.
There were no aiming devices, and shooting from a mortar was carried out "by eye", ranging from 60 to 250 meters. The mass of the mortar shovel was about 1,5 kg.
15 fragmentation mines were fixed in the belt cartridge belt, which is more than 7,5 kg.
The head of one of the shops of the shoe-saddlery factory of the district center of the Proletarsky district A. I. Talaeva with a cartridge belt for mines, January 1942 (RGAKFD)
37-mm frag mines and containers for them
In pursuit of the ease of a mortar, the walls of his barrel had to be made thin. This made it necessary to reduce the charge of the expelling cartridge, which threw a mine at a distance of 250 meters. The fighter made aiming the mortar at the target, holding the barrel with his hand, and to protect against burn, a movable canvas clutch was worn on the barrel. It was recommended to shoot from a prone position, from a knee, or from a parapet of a trench, at elevation angles from 45 degrees and above. At small angles, the probability of a misfire increased.
The barrel for the mortar was made of a steel CT-45 steel seamless pipe, with an internal diameter of 37 ± 0,3 mm and a wall thickness of 2,5 mm. In this case, the barrel is not processed either from the inside or outside. The base plate, also known as a shovel, was made of sheet “helmet” steel 36-GHN 1,6 mm thick. The simplicity of manufacturing the entire structure and the large tolerances to the thickness of the walls of the 2,25 – 2,875 mm trunk made it possible to organize its mass production. Already by the beginning of the war in 1941, 15 500 units were released weapons.
During the fighting in Finland in the winter of the year 1940, using a mortar-shovel revealed the low efficiency of 37-mm mines, when almost all its fragments were stuck in deep snow. It turned out that the base plate, when fired in snow and soft ground, was broken and cracked. In addition, it turned out that in winter conditions it was almost impossible to dig in such a shovel on the frozen ground. The infantry had a very negative attitude towards the mortar-shovel due to its low accuracy of shooting, the absence of sighting devices and the weak fragmentation effect of the mine. But the paratroopers and partisans appreciated the capabilities of this mortar due to its portability and used it until the end of the war. The production of BM-37 mortar shovels was discontinued at the beginning of 1942 due to the listed shortcomings, as well as due to the shortage of helmet steel and fuses to mines. The Germans, our mortar-shovel VM-37 gained fame under the name "Russischer Spatengranatwerfer", or "Russian shovel, letting a grenade." Preserved even Instructions for the device and the use of 37-mm mortar.
37-mm mortar shovel and cartridge belt to it in the museum stories Kandalaksha
From the memoirs of Nikolai Nikolayevich Voronov, who was the chief of artillery of the Red Army from 1937 to 1940:
“At the end of December 1941, I received an act on testing a mortar-shovel. The head of the artillery of the 53 Infantry Division conducted it on his own initiative. The document cited the results of firing at distances from 100 to 300 meters. positive, indicating that “mortar-shovel is applicable in offensive and defensive combat in group use.” And then, reading the act, I was shocked to the depths of my soul: “The 53 starter tried to fire from the abdomen - as a result, severe pain. stre You can’t ... "This is what brings excessive zeal! Immediately we managed to estimate the approximate dynamic force of the blow during a shot from a mortar-shovel. To our surprise, it was equal to almost half a ton. It’s good that the tester fired while standing, not lying otherwise it would have ended his participation in the Great Patriotic War ... "
But the idea of combining the firing device under a fragmentation shot with the entrenching tool the designers of the weapon repeatedly addressed.
In 1978, the designer of TsKIB SOO, Viktor Vasilyevich Rebrikov, returned to the idea of a grenade launcher. At that time, the VOG-25 rifle fragmentation grenade was in service with the army, and there was an excellent foldable small infantry shovel MPL-50.
"Option" and its prototype. When digging, the differences are minor.
When designing, Rebrikov found it necessary to maintain the length of the standard shovel and the diameter of the handle at the top and bottom, where the cutting is covered by the hands when digging. The mass of the weapon was no more than 2 kg, with the mass of the shovel 1,2 kg. The new grenade launcher-shovel was intended for the crews of combat vehicles, gun crews, as well as for fighters armed with machine guns without a grenade launcher forced to dig in the forward position.
With the consent of the head of TsKIB SOO two samples were made. Since the product was proactive, it did not receive the TKB index, and it remained an Option product.
Most developer worried recoil energy when fired. Will it be possible to shoot from the hands or only with an emphasis on something solid?
Viktor Rebrikov himself tells about the tests:
“They began to shoot carefully, holding the shovel with their hands, but pressing it into the box with a blade fixed“ for digging ”. In various positions and “fixings”, the shovel blades were fired from the marshy ground with an emphasis on the hummocks. Hammering the blade into the dry ground and giving the hand different angles of elevation, we got a straight line of hits. Then we moved to the "town for working out street battles", where we shot from the street into the windows, from window to the window, with an emphasis on the wall. They fired from asphalt and soil with the blade nut fastened, stepping on it with a boot or pressing it with a knee and giving the hand various angles of elevation. The apotheosis was shooting with the support of the shovel in the shoulder with the angle fixed at an angle of 90 to the axis of firing of the blade. At first, tester V. Esipov, dressed in a padded jacket, shot, and then Major P. Zakharchenko, in uniform. After Zakharchenko said: “Recoil is like when firing an 12 caliber shotgun with the“ Magnum ”cartridge. There is little good, but, if necessary, you can suffer. ” It was decided to sew two 8-mm sponge rubber plates into the standard case of the shovel. This, of course, was an option in case of emergency, but it became clear that a grenade launcher with a 2 kg mass would not hurt anyone when firing. And since the shovel came without a moment of force, the axis of the shot was rolled back, then even with a rough tip from the hip, accuracy was acceptable and depended largely on habituation and skill. ”
In comparison with its predecessor, the 37-mm Dyakonov mortar-shovel, the new 40-mm grenade launcher-shovel was distinguished by the fact that the shooting was conducted by a regular VOG-25 grenade. Therefore, claims to the effectiveness of a grenade, like its predecessor to a mine, could not be. The barrel now has a rifling to give the grenade rotation along the axis to increase the accuracy of fire. And most importantly, that the grenade launcher was equipped with a quadrant sight, placed in the barrel when carrying. With the help of a special button is forced nakolka cap for shots grenades. In contrast to the mortar-shovel from the "Option" could be fired even with a negative tilt of the barrel, when it was needed. The preserved standard wooden handle at the end of the shovel and the diameter of the place of coverage of the shovel with the hand below, near the clamping nut of the blade, corresponded to those of the folding small infantry shovel. In the version of the grenade launcher, the wooden handle-stub was removed from the weapon. The additional increase in 0,8 kg to the mass of the standard shovel was determined only by the necessary strength requirements for firing and was insignificant compared to the new features of the product.
The grenade launcher was initially criticized, since the grenade launcher-shovel had to be equated with weapons. Consequently, the demand from the fighters in case of loss of weapons during marches or digging trenches will be like a weapon, not like a shovel. The second point is that during the use of the shovel for its intended purpose (digging a trench, chopping branches, etc.), the shovel is subjected to great physical exertion. And this will adversely affect the quality of the barrel and during the battle can lead to tragic consequences. Despite the fact that the military did not show much interest in the grenade launcher shovel, the inventor's certificate for the invention was obtained in the 1981 year. Then for a long time they tried to attach the product “Variant” to some department. As a result, this design did not go into a series, remaining within the framework of a prototype. And then the "restructuring" began in the country, and the army was no longer up to the new developments.
The wide distribution of GP-25 “Koster” grenade launchers and GP-30 “Obuvka”, intended for use with Kalashnikov assault rifles, also played its role.
All of these grenade launchers were originally developed as an army weapon, although they are widely used in special operations. Perhaps, for the needs of the modern Russian army, a grenade launcher will ever come in handy.
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