Heavy machine gun Vladimirov. History and modernity
The BS-41 bullet with a metal-ceramic core fired from these guns had normal armor penetration: 300mm on 35 and 100mm on 40.
This allowed the lungs to be affected. Tanks and armored vehicles, and also provided penetration of the side armor of the medium German tank Pz.IV and self-propelled guns created on its basis, which were used from the first to the last day of the war and formed the basis of the enemy’s armored forces.
However, the anti-tank guns posed a certain danger for heavy vehicles. Being unable to penetrate the thick armor, they were quite capable of knocking down the caterpillar, damage the undercarriage, smash optical devices, wedge a tower or shoot through a weapon.
The experience of using PTRs during the war shows that they had the greatest effect in the period before July 1943, when the enemy used light and medium tanks, and the battle formations of our troops were relatively weakly saturated with anti-tank artillery.
In the future, their role in the fight against tanks gradually decreased, but they continued to be used to fight armored vehicles and against firing points. There were cases of successful shooting at aerial targets.
At the final stage of the war, the number of anti-tank rifles in the troops declined, and since January 1945, their production was discontinued.
In the classic work of D.N. Bolotin “Soviet rifle weapon"Quoted a letter written by a group of front-line soldiers to famous designer V.A. Degtyarev 23 August 1942:" We are often seduced by the idea of what a formidable weapon an anti-tank machine gun would be against tanks ... An anti-tank machine gun could be a decisive weapon in repelling enemy attacks and destruction his living strength. "
The very idea of anti-machine gun was not new - it goes back to the First World War. And in the 20-e - the beginning of the 30-s large-caliber machine guns were created taking into account the "anti-aircraft" and "anti-tank" requirements. The Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR in December 1929 reported to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) that “the adopted infantry weapon system of the Red Army envisages the introduction of ... a large-caliber machine gun in the near future — to combat the armor and air enemy, caliber 18-20 mm.”
However, the Red Army received an 12,7-mm machine gun DShK. But in 1938, a more powerful 14,5-mm cartridge, designed for use in automatic weapons, had already appeared, and attempts were made to develop an 14,5-mm machine gun on its basis. However, the prototypes didn’t go further, and the new cartridges served as ammunition for anti-tank guns.
During the war, it became necessary to create large-caliber rapid-fire weapons for firing not only at armored vehicles, but also at clusters of manpower and equipment, enemy firing points at ranges up to 1500 meters. Such weapons could also be used to repel low-altitude attacks of armored attack aircraft.
There was a need to supplement the 12,7-mm DShK with a machine gun with a large armor-piercing bullet action, superior to the weapons of Degtyarev and Shpagin in reach in range and height. In December 1942, the Main Artillery Directorate approved the tactical and technical requirements for the 14,5-mm machine gun.
Attempts to create such weapons on the basis of technical solutions used in the ASC, were not crowned with success. The high pressure created by the 14,5-mm cartridge made the work of the automatics gas engine sharp, made it difficult to extract the spent cartridge, the barrel survivability was not high when firing armor-piercing bullets.
In May 1943, S. V. Vladimirov (1895-1956), an employee of the Department of the chief designer of the plant, began developing his own version of the machine gun, taking as his basis his 20 mm aviation a V-20 cannon with a sliding engine of automation (in 1942, this cannon lost the B-20 Berezin cannon).
In the large-caliber machine gun Vladimirov was used automation with the use of recoil energy in the short course of the trunk. Locking the barrel at the time of the shot is carried out by rotating the coupling attached to the gate; The inner surface of the coupling has combat stops in the form of discontinuous thread segments, which, when rotated, engage in engagement with corresponding combat stops on the breech breech. The rotation of the coupling occurs when the cross pin interacts with figured notches in the receiver. Quick-change barrel, enclosed in a perforated metal casing and removed from the body of the machine gun along with the casing, for which there is a special handle on the casing. Meals are fed from a metal tape with a closed link, assembled from non-loose pieces of 10 cartridges each. The connection pieces of the tape is carried out using the cartridge.
Machine gun weight, kg: 52,3
Length, mm: 2000
Barrel length, mm: 1346
Rate of fire, shots / min: 550-600
Already in February, the machine gun of Vladimirov with a modernized Kolesnikov universal wheel-tripod machine was tested in February at the Scientific and Testing Range of Rifle and Mortar Weapons.
In April, the 1944, GAU and the People's Commissariat of Arms, ordered the plant No. 2 to manufacture 50 machine guns and one anti-aircraft gun for military tests. The machine gun received the designation KPV-44 ("a large-caliber machine gun Vladimirov arr. 1944 g."). On the test machine gun and anti-aircraft installation hit immediately after the end of World War II - in May 1945 year.
In May, 1948 passed ground tests of the CPV-44 on infantry machines of several systems - G. S. Garanina (KB-2), G. P. Markova (WGC plant No. 2), S. A. Kharykina (Leningrad OKB-43) and Kuibyshev machine-building plant. The choice finally fell on the Kharykina machine, modified in Kovrov in KB-2.
A large-caliber machine gun of Vladimirova was accepted into service only in 1949 year, in the version of an infantry machine gun on a Kharykin wheeled machine (under the designation PKP - Machine gun Large-caliber Infantry system of Vladimirov).The new machine gun used the ammunition used earlier in the PTR:
B-32-intrigue-incendiary bullet with a steel core,
BS-39-armor-piercing bullet with steel core, 1939 g.,
BS-41-rebel-incendiary with metal-carbon center,
BZT-44-armor-piercing incendiary tracer bullet arr. 1944,
For solving new problems, 14,5-mm cartridges with bullets are accepted:
ZP incendiary bullet,
MDZ-bullet incendiary instant action (bursting),
BST-brontechno-incendiary-tractive bullet.
The brass sleeve was replaced with a less expensive steel, covered with green lacquer.
Bullet weight 60-64 gr., Initial speed from 976 to 1005 m / s. The muzzle energy of the CPV reaches 31 kJ (for comparison, the 12,7-mm machine gun DShK only 18 kJ, the 20-mm ShVAK aircraft cannon is about 28 kJ). The range range of 2000 meters.
KPV successfully combines the rate of easel machine gun with armor penetration anti-tank gun.
However, an infantry machine gun on a wheel machine was not widely used, despite the high combat qualities of a large mass significantly limited the ability to use.
Much more recognition was gained by anti-aircraft machine gun installations (ZPU) and the variant intended for installation on armored vehicles (KPVT).
14,5-mm anti-aircraft machine-gun systems were designed to combat enemy aircraft at altitudes up to 1500 m.
In 1949, in parallel with the infantry, anti-aircraft installations were adopted: a single-barreled unit, ZPU-1, a paired ZPU-2, a quadruple ZPU-4.
On the basis of the BTR-40, a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun was created by mounting the ZPU-2.
Anti-aircraft installation with two machine guns KPV caliber 14.5 mm mounted on a pedestal in the troop compartment. The maximum angle of elevation of machine guns + 90 \ declination - 5 °. For shooting at ground targets there was a telescopic sight OP-1-14. on air - collimator sight VK-4. Ammunition - 1200 ammo. The installation was controlled by a single gunner using a mechanical manual drive.
In 1950, an order was issued for the development of a paired installation for airborne forces. This was due to the fact that the ZPU-2 did not correspond to the specifics of the fighting of this kind of troops. The ground tests of the installation were carried out in 1952. When it was put into service in 1954, it was named “14,5-mm anti-aircraft machine-gun unit ZU-2”. Installation could understand on the small weight weights. It was provided with a higher azimuth focusing speed.
Due to its low mass and increased maneuverability, the ZU-2 has become a battalion anti-aircraft weapon. However, transportation of the ZPU-1 and ZU-2, not to mention the ZPU-4 on a four-wheel cart in the highlands, presented great difficulties.
Therefore, in the 1953 year, it was decided to create a special small-sized mining machine for the 14,5-mm machine gun, which can be disassembled into parts carried by one fighter.
The installation successfully passed the ground tests in 1956 year, but did not enter mass production.
She was remembered at the end of 60, when there was an urgent need for such weapons in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese comrades turned to the leadership of the USSR with a request to provide them, among other weapons, with a light anti-aircraft system capable of effectively fighting American aircraft in the conditions of partisan warfare in the jungle.
PGI-1 was ideally suited for this purpose. It was urgently refined for a tank version of the Vladimirov KPVT machine gun (the KPV variant, which was designed for ZGU-1, had been discontinued by that time) and was launched into serial production in 1967. The first installments of installations were intended exclusively for export deliveries to Vietnam.
The ZGU-1 design is distinguished by its low weight, which is in combat position together with the cartridge box and 70 220 cartridges kg, while ensuring quick disassembly (within 4 min) into parts with a maximum mass of each 40 kg each.
Later, during the Afghan war, the capabilities of the ZSU-1 were appreciated by the Afghan mojaheds.
With the ability to receive Western-made anti-aircraft installations, they preferred the Chinese version of the ZSU-1. Appreciate it for high firepower, reliability and compactness.
On the navy, in the postwar years, heavy machine guns were not installed on large ships. This was due, on the one hand, to an increase in aircraft speeds and survivability, and on the other hand, to the advent of relatively effective anti-aircraft guns. But the 14,5-mm machine guns on the pedestal installations were widely used on boats of all classes.
Thus, the installation 2-5 received torpedo boats projects 123bis and 184; 2М-6 - 191М armored boat and part of the 1204 project boats; 2М-7 - the “Grif” type patrol boats of the 1400 project and the 368T project, minesweepers of the 151, 361T projects, etc.
In the 70-x on the ships got 14,5-mm machine gun Vladimirov on a wheeled machine. In those days in the Indian Ocean in the waters adjacent to Somalia and Ethiopia, a large number of pirate boats appeared. So we had to put army machine guns on the hydrographic or other auxiliary vessels for protection against them.
In 1999, at the MAKS-99 exhibition, the 14,5-mm sea thumb machine-gun unit MTPU was introduced, based on the 14,5-mm machine gun KPVT (large-caliber machine gun Vladimirova tank). Installation is Kovrov plant them. Degtyarev.
The body of the machine gun has minor structural differences compared with Vladimirov's machine guns in installations 2М-5, 2М-6 and 2М-7. Ammunition and ballistics are the same. Cooling machine gun air. KPVT machine gun mounted on a swivel, which in turn rotates on a light pedestal. Manual guidance drives.
The most numerous modification of the machine gun was the version designed for installation on armored vehicles.
The tank version of the KPV machine gun, which has the designation KPVT (a large-caliber machine gun of Vladimirova tank), is equipped with an electric trigger and a pulse counter of shots. The barrel casing is extended to facilitate the maintenance of the machine gun. The rest has the characteristics, as well as CPV.
Initially, the CPVT was installed on domestic T-10 heavy tanks, where it was located in a turret, in an anti-aircraft 122-mm cannon, and as anti-aircraft, on the hatch of a tank commander. From 1965, KPVT is the main weapon of domestic wheeled armored personnel carriers BTR, starting with the model BTR-60PB, as well as the armored reconnaissance and patrol vehicle 2 of the BRDM-2.
In the BTR (BTR-60PB, BTR-70, BTR-80) and BRDM-2, the CPVT is installed in a unified rotating conical turret, together with a paired 7,62-mm PKT machine gun.
Recently KPVT began to give way to positions, on the latest modifications of domestic armored personnel carriers BTR-80А and BTR-82 as the main armament 30-mm cannon are mounted.
Vladimirova heavy machine gun was effectively used in many large and small local conflicts.
Often installed on self-made artisanal turrets and civilian transport.
He had a significant impact on the formation of the appearance of modern Western armored vehicles.
According to the experience of the Vietnamese events, where the KPV easily punched the frontal armor of the most popular American BTR М113, starting from 1970-s to the present, the requirements for combat armored vehicles of the types BMP, BTR, BRDM and light tank are being created fire protection 14,5-mm machine gun.
To meet this requirement, the thickness of the sides of combat vehicles is 35-45 mm steel homogeneous armor. This was one of the reasons for the almost doubled excess of the combat mass of the main NATO BMPs relative to Soviet BMPs.
Until recently, he had no analogues in the world, the Belgian FN BRG 15 chambered for 15,5x106 mm, has not yet entered mass production.
In China, its own version of the CPV was launched, which is distinguished by the arrangement of the tape on 80 cartridges, some changes in the mechanism of feeding the tape, and the finning of the barrel. This machine gun with a body weight of 165 kg is used mainly as an anti-aircraft gun. In China, several 14,5-mm anti-aircraft machine guns were produced. Type 56 is almost the same as ZPU-4, Type 58 - ZPU-2, Type 75 - ZPU-1 on a tripod-wheel set. Type 75 and its modification Type 75-1 was supplied in a number of countries.
On the armament of the PLA in 2002, the 14.5 mm heavy machine gun QJG 02 was adopted.
It is designed to combat low-flying aircraft and helicopters, as well as to combat lightly armored ground targets. The 14.5 mm QJG 02 large-caliber machine gun is designed over time to replace the gun type 58 of the same caliber armed with the PLA.
A version of a large-caliber machine gun Type 02 under the designation QJG 02G is offered for export, the main difference of which is a machine having wheels on rubber tread allowing towing a machine gun behind the car.
Despite the venerable age (next year, the CPV will be 70 years old), the machine gun, by virtue of its high fighting qualities and high prevalence, continues to be in service. And it has all the chances to celebrate its 100 anniversary.
Information sources:
http://world.guns.ru/machine/rus/kpv
http://army-news.ru/2013/05/kpv-krupnokalibernyj-pulemyot-vladimirova/
http://scalemodels.ru/modules/forum/viewtopic_t_20166.html
D.N. Bolotin "Soviet small arms"
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