About the puzzles of the PUAZO Soviet battleships and the "small-caliber misunderstanding" 21-K
In general, the artillery system was not bad and was distinguished by good ballistic qualities, but for firing at long distances it obviously lacked the power of a projectile, and the shelling of short-range targets was hampered by low horizontal and vertical laying speeds. In addition, 10 such guns on the battleship, albeit small by the standards of the interwar period, looked clearly not enough.
The situation was aggravated by the primitiveness of fire control. Of course, the indisputable advantage was the fact that rangefinders with a three-meter base were used to service 76,2-mm artillery, one for the battery (there were a total of two range-finders), but judging by the author’s data from PUAZO “Tablet”, which controlled 76,2-mm artillery systems , were extremely primitive. In them, apparently, there were no calculating devices that allow calculating the angles of vertical and horizontal pickup, that is, the anti-aircraft fire controllers had to calculate such parameters manually, based on tables.
The situation was similar in the “October Revolution” - in 1934 g, when the battleship completed the modernization, its bow and stern towers decorated the 6 “three-inch” of Lender. Interestingly, the modernization plans initially included the installation of 37-mm 11-K automatons (four installations), but due to their unavailability, Lender had to do with it. Accordingly, in 1940, six Lender guns were replaced with the same number of 34-Ks, and then, in 1941, two “Sparky” 81-Ks were installed on the ship. The location of the guns completely repeated the "Marat".
PUAZO "October Revolution"
As for fire control systems, there is again confusion with them. The fact is that A. Vasiliev in his monograph “The First Battleships of the Red fleet”Indicates that the“ October Revolution ”was armed with two anti-aircraft fire control posts, each of which was equipped with a set of imported PUZO“ West-5 ”arr. 1939 At the same time, the distinguished author notes that the connection between the anti-aircraft gun control posts and guns was carried out by the "good old" Geisler and K, that is, the POISOs were not equipped with means of transmitting information to the guns.
At the same time, A.V. Platonov, who in his works always paid great attention to the descriptions of fire control systems, did not mention any "Vesta-five" on the battleship "October Revolution" or outside it. According to A.V. Platonov centralized control of anti-aircraft fire on the battleship was carried out by means of improved control devices for shooting "Geisler and K".
The attempt of the author of this article to somehow sort it out has suffered a complete fiasco. As mentioned earlier, according to A. Vasiliev, a PUAZO “Tablet” was installed on the “Marat” in 1932 g, but what it is is impossible to understand, since such a system is not mentioned in the special literature known to the author.
In the comments to the previous article, one of the distinguished readers made an interesting suggestion that the “Tablet” was a “crinkled” Kruse device. It was a fairly simple and primitive device capable of calculating data for firing, based on the hypothesis of a straight and uniform horizontal movement of the target. In fact, by 1932 it was the only PUAZO created and produced in the USSR and, as such, could well be installed on the “Marat”. Further, alas, begin to guess. The fact is that in various sources the Soviet anti-aircraft fire control devices are called differently. In one case, it is the Kruze device, “West”, etc., in the second they are simply indicated by numbers: PUAZO-1, PUAZO-2, etc. So, we can assume that the Kruse devices are the PUAZO-1, and the PUAZO-1934 created in 2 was an advanced Kruse device and has its own name “West”. Perhaps, this device was installed on the “October Revolution”, or some modification of it with the serial number “5”? However, not a single source reports about this. In addition, "West" - domestic, and not import development, while A. Vasilyev points to the foreign origin of the devices installed on the battleship. And, again, apparently, "West" was not developed in 1939, but five years earlier.
But in 1939, the mass production of a new device, called PUAZO-3, began. Unlike the previous ones, it was made on the basis of imported, Czech PUAZO SP. Thus, PUAZO-3 has a tangible similarity with the devices that A. Vasiliev mentions - it can (with a stretch!) Be considered imported, and was produced in 1939, but it obviously has nothing to do with “West” completely different design.
It should be noted that PUAZO-3 turned out to be a fairly successful system and quite successfully corrected the fire of the Soviet 85-mm anti-aircraft guns during the Great Patriotic War. But about its application on ships could not find anything at all. In general, it turns out a complete confusion, and the opinion of the author of this article is as follows.
It must be said that both PUAZO Kruze and its improved version of “West” differed in one feature of the design, which was completely insignificant on land, but of fundamental importance at sea. The fact is that both of these PUAZOs demanded a stable position relative to the ground. That is, when installing them in the field, a special adjustment was made so that these devices would be located parallel to the surface of the earth - but at sea, with its rolling, it was obviously impossible to do. In order to ensure the work of PUAZO Kruze or West, it was necessary either to make revolutionary changes to their design, or to create a stabilized post for them, but in the USSR they were not yet able to do such.
Accordingly, the author's assumption is that the battleships Marat and the October Revolution were planning to install the well-worn versions of PUAZO Kruze, as well as West, or, perhaps, PUAZO-3. But they did not succeed in adapting them to work in pitching conditions, and it is possible that they didn’t even begin these works, and there were no stabilized posts for them, so ultimately they didn’t install these instruments on the battleships, having limited to upgrading Geisler systems and K.
Medium-caliber antiaircraft caliber and the Paris Commune MPUAZ
But with the "Paris Commune", fortunately, these puzzles can not be solved. In terms of the number of artillery barrels, its average anti-aircraft artillery was the weakest — the six 76,2-mm Lender guns were replaced by the same number of single-gun 34-Ks. As mentioned above, the number of anti-mine artillery was reduced on the Marat and the October Revolution in order to place two 81-K two-gun installations in the stern, but did not do this on the Paris Commune. In addition, the location of the guns has changed; they were installed on the Parisian not on the towers, but on the fore and aft superstructures, three guns, respectively.
But on the other hand, the fire control of these guns should have significantly exceeded what was available on the other battleships. Measuring distances to air targets should have been carried out by two rangefinders with a three-meter base, as was the case with the Marat with the October Revolution, but processing the data and issuing solutions for firing should be made by MPUAZO SOM — devices specially designed for shipboard specifics of air defense. The MPUAZO COM had, at least, a primitive computing device, and in addition, two stabilized sighting posts, SVP-1, located on the same platforms as the KDP of the main caliber.
SVP-1 was an open platform, mounted in a gimbal. A “three-meter” rangefinder was located on this site, and the viziers of the post were already attached to it. With the help of these sights, the course angle to the target and the angle of the target site were determined. Thus, we can say that the “Paris Commune” from all three battleships received a full-fledged anti-aircraft fire control system. Alas, the first pancake was a little lumpy. The fact is that the stabilization of the post SVP-1 was made ... manually. For this, the VS-SVP device was invented, which was served by two people. It consisted of two reticle in one case, 90 deg. Located at an angle to each other. Thus, each visitor, observing the horizon as his own viewfinder, could “twist” the SVP-1 in such a way as to achieve its level position, which occurred when combining the sighting line with the horizon line. In case the horizon was not visible, it was possible to use the so-called artificial horizon, or the usual bubble inclinometer.
In theory, all this was supposed to work well, but in practice it didn’t function properly - the viewers had to put too much effort on the steering wheels (it seems that there were no electric motors there, and the SVP-1 stabilized manually!), But still did not have time, and deviations from the horizontal plane were too large. In total, only three SVP-1 posts were made, two of which decorated the "Paris Commune", and another one was installed on the destroyer "Able". According to unconfirmed data (A. Vasiliev indicates this, and he, alas, is not always accurate in describing fire control systems) both SVP-1 were dismantled at the Paris Commune before the end of the war, although, again, it is not clear what happened this is before our troops ousted the enemy outside the Black Sea region or after that. In any case, it is reliably known that in the future more advanced posts were installed on the ships of the Soviet fleet.
Of course, the presence of even a simple but mechanical calculator and let them not working very well, but still capable of giving a course angle and a corner of the purpose of the posts, gave the Paris Commune undoubted advantages over Marat and the October Revolution. On the latter, as the author suggests, the centralized control of anti-aircraft fire was carried out as follows: the range finder measured the distance to the target, and reported it to the firing director, and he, using ordinary binoculars, or something slightly better, tried to figure out the parameters of her movement Then, using the tables, again “by eye” and manually determined the lead time to the target, which was also reported to the calculations of anti-aircraft guns. However, it is possible that he still had some calculating device, but in this case it was necessary to determine the initial data for the calculations on the same “eye” and enter it manually.
However, the advantages of the Paris Commune MPUAZ were largely negated by the very small average zenith caliber - only six 76,2-K 34-mm guns. For many cruisers of the Second World War era, the average anti-aircraft caliber was much stronger. Of course, the Soviet admirals fully understood the weakness of such a composition of weapons, and according to the original project, the Paris Commune was supposed to receive not 76,2-mm, but 100-mm anti-aircraft guns. But they turned out to be too heavy to be placed on the towers of the main caliber or on the superstructures of the battleship, and for this reason they were abandoned.
Small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery
The October Revolution was the first Soviet battleship to receive small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery. During the modernization of 1934, along with six 76,2-mm Lender guns, four 45-mm semi-automatic 21-K guns and the same quad Maxim 7,62-mm machine guns were mounted on it.
Usually history appearances in the navy of the universal gun 21-K say so. In the USSR, knowing full well the need for small-caliber rapid-fire artillery, but not having experience in its design, we bought quite remarkable 20-mm and 37-mm automatic guns from the German company Rheinmetall. But, to their misfortune, they entrusted their development and mass production to the plant No. XXUMX located in Podlipkah near Moscow, whose employees, due to low engineering and technical culture, completely failed this task. As a result, the fleet did not receive either 8-mm 8-K or 20-mm 2-K from the plant №37, which was very much calculated and moreover - remained completely without a small-caliber automatic weapons. But at least it was necessary to put some anti-aircraft guns on the ships, and there was nothing left to do, how to adopt the 45-mm ersatz anti-aircraft gun, made on the basis of the 45-K anti-tank 19-mm gun. 1932 of the year ...
In fact, the history of the German "guns" is not as simple as it may seem at first glance, but we will consider it in more detail when we get to the domestic 37-mm anti-aircraft guns 70-K. Now we only note that the German artillery systems really did not succeed in bringing to mass production, and that in the early 30s, the naval forces of the Soviet Union were completely without small-caliber artillery. All this made the adoption of the "universal semi-automatic" 21-K an alternative option.
What can be said about this good system? She had a fairly modest weight of 507 kg, which allowed her to be installed even on small boats, and did not have the worst ballistics for her time, sending a projectile with an initial speed of 1,45 m / s in flight of 760 kg. In this, her dignity, in general, ended.
Before 1935, the 21-K was not “semi-”, but, as it was then expressed, “quarter-automatic”: all their “automatic equipment” was reduced to the fact that the shutter was automatically closed after the filling of the projectile. Apparently, it was such guns that the October Revolution received. But the “semi-automatics”, in which the shutter was not only closed after the projectile was sent, but also automatically opened after the shot, was achieved only in 1935. The calculation of the gun was 3 man, the rate of fire did not exceed 20-25 shots per minute (according to other data to 30), and even that is unclear how long the calculation of such a rate of fire could support. The ammunition consisted of fragmentation, fragmentation-tracer and armor-piercing shells, with two fragmentation shells - one weighing 1,45 and the second (O-240) 2,41 kg. But it will be completely inappropriate to talk about the increased power of the projectile, because 21-K ammunition did not have a distance pipe. Accordingly, in order to shoot down an enemy aircraft, a direct hit was required, but such a thing with such a “density” of fire could have happened unless by accident. Obviously, the 45-mm gun was a melee weapon, for which, in addition to the rate of fire, the speed of vertical / horizontal pickup is also important. Alas, the data on 21-K give a very large variation of these parameters, usually indicated 10-20 and 10-18 hail. respectively. However, such a highly reputable source as the Naval Artillery Naval Handbook gives exactly the upper values, that is, 20 and 18 degrees, which, generally speaking, is quite acceptable and can also be written into the few advantages of this artillery system.
Nevertheless, the sense of such an air defense during the years of the Great Patriotic War was quite a bit - in essence, these guns were fit only so that the crew of the ship did not feel unarmed, and the attacking aircraft were forced to take into account the appearance of anti-aircraft fire on them.
And the same can be said about the 7,62-mm "quad" "Maxim".
Without a doubt, “Maxim” was for its time a remarkable machine gun, moreover, its water cooling (and in the sea there is a lot of water) made it possible to maintain firing for quite a long time. But the rifle-caliber machine gun as an air defense weapon was unconditionally outdated at the end of the 20 and the beginning of the 30. Therefore, it is not surprising that even before the war the small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery of the October Revolution was radically strengthened, and, instead of the artillery systems described above, the battleship received 37-K and 70-mm DShK machine guns.
To be continued ...
- Andrei from Chelyabinsk
- Soviet battleships between wars
Battleships type "Marat". Modernization of the main caliber
Modernization of Soviet battleships: anti-mine caliber and torpedoes
From 75-Kane to 34-K, or Evolution of anti-aircraft artillery between Soviet battleships
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