Anti-tank rifle Degtyarev. Antitank guns of the Second World War

The film "The Ballad of a Soldier" begins with a scene full of tragedy. Soviet soldier-signalman pursues a German tank, there is nowhere to hide the young unarmed soldier, he runs, and the steel sword is about to overtake him and crush him. The soldier sees Deghtyarev's anti - tank rifle thrown by someone. And he uses unexpectedly turned up chance of salvation. He shoots at an enemy car and picks it up. Another tank is approaching him, but the signalman is not lost and burns it, too.

"This could not be! "Other" experts in military history "will say today. "You can not get armor from tank armor!" - "You can!" - Those who are familiar with this subject will know better. Inaccuracy in the film narrative may have been admitted, but it concerns not the combat capabilities of this class of weapons, but chronology.

A little about tactics

Antitank guns were created in the thirties of the XX century in many countries. They seemed quite logical and justified solution of the issue of confronting the armored vehicles of that time. The artillery was to become the main means of combating it, and the PTR - auxiliary, but more mobile. The tactics of conducting the offensive presupposed strikes with tank wedges involving dozens, even hundreds of vehicles, but the success of the attack was determined by whether it would be possible to create the necessary concentration of troops unnoticed by the enemy. Overcoming the well-fortified defensive lines equipped with armor-piercing artillery, with a strip of mine obstacles and engineering facilities (stakes, hedgehogs, etc.) was an adventurous business and fraught with the loss of a large amount of equipment. But if the enemy suddenly strikes on the poorly protected area of the front, it will not be a joke. We will have to "patch holes" on the defensive, transfer guns and infantry, which still need to be entrenched. Rapidly deliver the right amount of guns with ammunition on a dangerous site is difficult. That's where the antitank gun comes in handy. PTRD - weapons are relatively compact and inexpensive (much cheaper guns). They can be produced a lot, and then arm them all units. Just in case. Soldiers armed with them, possibly all enemy tanks, will not be burned, but they will be able to detain the offensive. Time will be won, the command will have time to pull up the main forces. So many military leaders thought in the late thirties.

Why did our fighters lack the MFR

The reasons for the development and production of anti-tank rifles in the USSR in the pre-war years were virtually eliminated, several, but the main one was exclusively the offensive military doctrine of the Red Army. Some analysts point to the allegedly poor knowledge of the Soviet leadership, overestimated the degree of armor protection of German tanks, and therefore made the wrong conclusion about the low effectiveness of the APG as an armament class. There are even references to the chief of Glavartupra, GI Kulik, who expressed this opinion. Later it turned out that even a 14.5-mm Rukavishnikov anti-tank rifle PTR-39, adopted in 1939 by the Red Army and one year later abolished, could easily penetrate the armor of all types of equipment that the Wehrmacht possessed in 1941.

With what the Germans came

The border of the USSR the army of Hitler passed with tanks in the amount of more than three thousand. It is difficult to evaluate this armada by its true worth, if you do not use the method of comparison. The newest tanks (T-34 and KV) from the Red Army were much smaller, only a few hundred. So, maybe the Germans had a technique that was about the same quality as ours, with a quantitative superiority? This is not true.

TI tank was not just easy, it can be called a wedge. Without a gun, with a crew of two, he weighed a little more than a car. The antitank gun Degtyarev, adopted in the fall of 1941, pierced his rifle. The German T-II was slightly better, it had bulletproof armor and a short-barreled gun of 37 mm caliber. There was also the T-III, which would withstand the impact of the PTR cartridge, but only if it hit the frontal part, but in other parts of the sector ...

Another "Panzerwaffe" had Czech, Polish, Belgian, French and other captured cars (they are included in the total number), worn out, outdated and poorly provided with spare parts. The fact that with any of them could make an anti-tank rifle Degtyarev, somehow do not want to think.

"Tigers" and "Panthers" appeared in the Germans later, in 1943.

Resumption of production

It is necessary to pay tribute to the Stalinist leadership, it is able to correct mistakes. The decision to resume work on the PTR was made the day after the outbreak of the war. This fact refutes the version of the poor knowledge of the stakes on the armor potential of the Wehrmacht, it is simply impossible to obtain such information in a day. In an urgent order (less than a month was spent on the production of experimental units), a tender was held for two samples, almost ready for launch into batch production. Simonov's anti-tank rifle showed good results, but in terms of technology, it was inferior to the second MTA being tested. It was more complicated in the device, and besides it is heavier, which also influenced the decision of the commission. On the last day of August, the Degtyarev anti-tank rifle was officially adopted by the Red Army and launched into production at the weapons factory in the city of Kovrov, and two months later in Izhevsk. Over three years they produced more than 270 thousand pieces.

First results

At the end of October 1941, the situation at the front was developing catastrophically. The avant-garde units of the Wehrmacht came to Moscow, the two strategic echelons of the Red Army were practically smashed in giant "boilers", the vast expanses of the European part of the USSR were under the heels of the invaders. In these circumstances, the Soviet soldiers did not lose heart. Not having artillery in sufficient numbers, the troops displayed mass heroism and fought tanks, using grenades and Molotov cocktails. Directly from the assembly line, new weapons entered the front. November 16 fighters of the 1075th Infantry Regiment of the 316th Division destroyed three enemy tanks, using the PTRD. Photos of the heroes and the fascist technology they burned were published by Soviet newspapers. Soon the continuation followed, under Lugovoi four more tanks, previously conquering Warsaw and Paris, were smoke.

Foreign MTAs

Newsreels of the war years repeatedly captured our fighters with anti-tank rifles. The episodes of battles with their use in art films were also reflected (for example, in the masterpiece of S. Bondarchuk "They fought for their Motherland"). French, American, British or German soldiers with PTRD documentaries recorded for history much less. Does this mean that the anti-tank guns of the Second World War were mostly Soviet? To some extent yes. In such quantities, these weapons were produced only in the USSR. But works on it were conducted in Britain (the Boyce system), and in Germany (PzB-38, PzB-41), and in Poland (UR), and in Finland (L-35), and in the Czech Republic (MSS-41) . And even in neutral Switzerland (S18-1000). Another thing is that the engineers of all these, no doubt, technologically "advanced" countries have not been able to surpass Russian weapons in its simplicity, the elegance of technical solutions, and even the quality. And not every soldier is capable of even cold-blooded shooting from a gun in the approaching tank from the trench. Our can.

How to penetrate the armor?

PTRD has roughly the same tactical and technical characteristics as Simonov's anti-tank rifle, but it is lighter than it (17.3 vs. 20.9 kg), shorter (2000 and 2108 mm, respectively) and is simpler in design, and therefore less time is required for Cleaning and easier to train shooters. These circumstances explain the preference given by the State Commission, in spite of the fact that the PTRS could fire with a higher rate of fire at the expense of the built-in five-cartridge shop. The main quality of this weapon was nevertheless the ability to penetrate armor protection from various distances. To do this, we had to send a special heavy bullet with a steel core (and, alternatively, with an additional incendiary charge, activated after passing through the barrier) with a sufficiently high speed.

Armor piercing

The distance on which Degtyarev's antitank gun becomes dangerous for enemy armored vehicles is half a kilometer. From it it is possible to hit other targets, such as pillboxes, bunkers, as well as aircraft. The caliber of the cartridge is 14.5 mm (grade B-32 conventional armor-piercing-incendiary or BS-41 with ceramic super-hard tip). The length of the ammunition corresponds to the projectile of an air gun, 114 mm. The distance of the target's defeat with a 30 cm armor is 40 mm, and from a hundred meters this bullet fakes 6 cm.

Accuracy

The accuracy of hits determines the success of shooting at the most vulnerable enemy equipment. The defense was constantly improved, so the soldiers were issued and promptly updated instructions that recommended how to most effectively use an anti-tank rifle. The modern idea of fighting armored vehicles also takes into account the possibility of getting into the weakest places. When firing at tests from a hundred-meter distance, 75% of the cartridges fell into the 22-centimeter neighborhood of the center of the target.

Design

Whatever the simple technical solutions, they should not be primitive. The weapon of the Second World War was often produced in difficult conditions due to forced evacuation and the deployment of workshops in unprepared squares (it used to happen that for a while it was necessary to work in the open air). This fate was avoided by the Kovrovsky and Izhevsk plants, where before 1944 PTRD was manufactured. Degtyarev's anti-tank rifle, despite the simplicity of the device, absorbed all the achievements of Russian gunsmiths.

The barrel is rifled, eight-blade. The sight is the most common, with a fly and two-position bar (up to 400 m and 1 km). Charged PTRD as a conventional rifle, but the strong impact has determined the presence of a barrel brake and a spring shock absorber. For convenience, a pen is provided (one of the carrying fighters can hold it) and bipods. Everything else: the whisper, the shock mechanism, the receiver, the butt and other attributes of the gun, are thought out with the ergonomics that the Russian weapons have always been famous for.

Service

In the field, most often, incomplete disassembly was carried out, involving the removal and disassembly of the shutter, as the most polluted node. If this was not enough, then it was necessary to remove bipods, butt, then disassemble the trigger mechanism and separate the gate delay. At low temperatures, a frost-resistant lubricant is used, in other cases, conventional oil No. 21. The set includes a ramrod (collapsible), a lubricator, a screwdriver, two cartridge belts, two moisture-proof covers of tarpaulin (one on each side of the gun) and a service form in which There are cases of training and combat use, as well as misfires and failures.

Korea

In 1943 German industry began to produce medium and heavy tanks with powerful anti-ballistic armor. Soviet troops continued to use PTRD against light, less protected vehicles, as well as to suppress firing points. At the end of the war, the need for anti-tank rifles fell away. To fight the remaining German tanks in 1945, powerful artillery and other effective weapons were used. The Second World War ended. It seemed that the time of PTRD was irretrievably gone. But five years later, the Korean War began, and the "old gun" again began to shoot, albeit in former allies - Americans. It was in service with the army of the DPRK and the PLA, who fought on the peninsula until 1953. American tanks of the post-war generation often withstood hitting, but everything happened. Used PTRD and as a means of air defense.

Postwar History

The presence of a large number of good weapons with unique qualities prompted him to seek some useful application for him. Tens of thousands of units were stored in a lubricant. Why can an anti-tank rifle be used? Modern protective reserving tanks can withstand even hitting a cumulative projectile, not to mention a bullet (even if it is with a core and a special tip). In the 60's they decided that it was possible to hunt seals and whales with PTRD. Thought is good, but it's really heavy this thing. Also from such a gun you can sniper fire at a distance of up to a kilometer, a high initial speed allows you to shoot very accurately with an optical sight. Armor BMP or BTR PTRD punches easily, means, and today the weapon is not completely lost relevance. So it lies in warehouses, waiting for its time ...