movie "Ballad of a Soldier" opens with a scene full of tragedy.Soviet soldiers signalman pursues a German tank, hiding the young untried fighter ever, he runs a machine of steel is about to overtake him and crush.A soldier sees someone abandoned anti-tank gun Degtyarev.And use the surprise tucked chance for salvation.He shoots at the enemy machine and inciting it.On his coming another tank, but the signalman is not lost and it burns too.
«It could not be!- Say today other "experts of Military History."- Do not pierce tank armor with a gun! "-" You can! "- Will answer those who are familiar with the subject better.Mistakes in cinematic, perhaps admitted, but it concerns not the combat capabilities of this class of weapons, and chronology.
little about tactics
antitank guns were created in the thirties of the XX century in many countries.They seemed quite logical and reasonable solution to the issue of opposition armored vehicles of the time.The artillery was to be the main means of combating it, and ATR - secondary, but more mobile.Management of the occurrence of anticipated strikes by tank wedges involving dozens, even hundreds of machines, but the success of the attack was determined, will be able to create a desired concentration of troops unnoticed by the enemy.To overcome the well-fortified defense lines, equipped with armor-piercing artillery, with a strip of minefields and civil engineering constructions (tank obstacles, hedgehogs and others.) Was a matter of adventurous and fraught with the loss of a large amount of equipment.But if the opponent suddenly hit poorly protected sections of the front, there will be no time for jokes.It is necessary to urgently "patch holes" in the defense, throw the gun and infantry, which still need to dig.Quickly deliver the right amount of guns with ammunition in the dangerous area is difficult.Here and useful anti-tank gun.PTRD - Weapon relatively compact and inexpensive (much cheaper than gun).They can produce a lot, and then equip them all divisions.Just in case.Soldiers, armed them, perhaps all is not perezhgut enemy tanks, but can delay the onset.Time will be won, the command will have time to pull up the main force.So many commanders thought in the late thirties.
Why do our soldiers lacked PTR
reasons for which the USSR development and production of anti-tank guns in the prewar years was almost curtailed somewhat, but chief among them was the only offensive military doctrine of the Red Army.Some analysts point to the alleged lack of awareness of the Soviet leadership, to overestimate the degree of armor protection of the German tanks, and so did the wrong conclusion about the low efficiency of SSS as a class of weapons.There are even references to the Chief Glavartupra GI Kulik, it opined.Later it turned out that even the 14.5-mm anti-tank gun Rukavishnikova ATR-39, adopted in 1939, adopted the Red Army and a year later abolished, it could pierce the armor of all types of equipment, which had the Wehrmacht in 1941.
What the Germans came
borders of the USSR army of Hitler's tanks passed in excess of three thousand.It is difficult to evaluate this armada appreciated, if you do not use the method of comparison.Newest tanks (T-34 and KV), the Red Army was much smaller, only a few hundred.So, maybe the Germans technique was about the same quality as we have, in the quantitative superiority?This is not true.
Tank TI was not just easy, it can be called guideshoe.Without guns, with a crew of two, it weighed a little more than a car.Degtyarev antitank rifle taken into service in the autumn of 1941, it pierced right through.German T-II was a little better, he had a bulletproof booking and short-gun caliber 37 mm.Still there was a T-III, which has stood to blow cartridge PTR, but only if it enters the frontal part, but in other similar areas ...
more "Panzerwaffe" were Czech, Polish, Belgian, French and other captured machines (they come intotal), worn, outdated and poorly secured parts.The fact that any of them could make anti-tank gun Degtyarev, somehow do not want to think.
«Tigers" and "Panthers" were the Germans later in 1943.
Resumption of
should pay tribute to the leadership of Stalin, correct mistakes, it skillfully.The decision to resume work on the PTR was taken the day after the war began.This fact refutes the version of a lack of awareness regarding the Bids building armored Wehrmacht, a day to receive such information simply impossible.The urgent (less than a month spent on the production of experimental units) competition was held two samples is almost ready to launch into production.Anti-tank rifle Simonov showed good results, but in the technological aspect of inferior second test PTR.It was difficult in the device, and also heavier, which also influenced the Commission's decision.The last day of August Degtyarev antitank rifle was officially adopted by the Red Army and put into production at the arms factory in the city of Kovrov, and in two months - in Izhevsk.For three years they were produced more than 270 thousand pieces.
first results at the end of October 1941 the situation evolved on the front catastrophic.The avant-garde of the Wehrmacht approached Moscow, two strategic echelon of the Red Army almost been crushed in the giant "pot", a huge area of the European part of the USSR were under five occupants.In these circumstances, Soviet soldiers did not lose heart.Without sufficient quantities of artillery, the troops showed heroism and fought with tanks, using grenades and Molotov cocktails.Right off the assembly line received new weapons for the front.16 November 1075 soldiers Infantry Regiment, 316th Division destroyed three enemy tanks, using PTRD.Photo heroes and burned them fascist art published Soviet newspapers.Soon followed by a sequel, under Lugovoi began to smoke four tank previously conquer Warsaw and Paris.
Foreign MFI
wartime newsreel repeatedly captured our soldiers with anti-tank guns.They reflected and episodes of fights with their use in feature films (for example, in a masterpiece S. Bondarchuk "They Fought for Their Country").French, American, British and German soldiers with PTRD documentary recorded history is much less.Does this mean that anti-tank guns of World War II were mainly Soviet?To some extent, yes.In such quantities of these weapons are produced in the USSR.However, work on it were in Britain (system Boyce) and Germany (PzB-38, PzB-41) and Poland (UR), and in Finland (L-35), and the Czech Republic (MSS-41).And even in neutral Switzerland (S18-1000).Another thing that engineers have all of these, without a doubt, technologically "advanced" countries have not been able to beat Russian weapons for its simplicity, elegance technical solutions, and the quality too.And coolly fire a gun into the oncoming tank out of the trench, not every soldier can do.Our can.
The pierce armor?
PTRD has about the same performance characteristics as the anti-tank rifle Simonov, but it is easier for it (17.3 vs. 20.9 kg), shorter (2000 and 2108 mm, respectively) and structurally simpler, and therefore, require lesstime to clean and easier to train shooters.These factors explain the preference given to the State Commission, despite the fact that PTSD could be fired with greater rate of fire due to built pyatipatronnogo store.The main quality of this weapon still had the ability to penetrate armor protection from different distances.This required to send a special heavy bullet from a steel core (and, optionally, with an additional incendiary charge is activated after the passage through the barrier) a sufficiently high rate.
armor-piercing
distance at which the anti-tank gun Degtyarev is dangerous for armored vehicles of the enemy, - half a kilometer.From this it is possible to hit other targets such as pillboxes, bunkers and aircraft.The caliber of the cartridge is 14.5 mm (grade B-32 conventional armor-piercing incendiary or BS-41 ceramic superhard tip).Length corresponds to projectile ammunition aerogun, 114 mm.Distance defeats the purpose of book thickness of 30 cm is 40 mm, and a hundred meters of the bullet pierces 6 cm.
accuracy
Accuracy of results determines the success of shooting at the most vulnerable places of the enemy equipment.Protection has been continuously improved, so the soldiers were released and promptly updated instructions to recommend how best to apply the anti-tank gun.The modern idea of the anti-armor just takes into account the possibility of falling into the weakest points.When firing on tests with hundred-meter distance rounds fell 75% in the 22-centimeter neighborhood center of the target.
design
Whatever simple technical solutions, primitive, they should not be.Weapons of WWII often performed in difficult conditions due to the forced evacuation and the deployment of workshops on unprepared areas (it happened that some time had to work in the open air).We escaped this fate Kovrov and Izhevsk plant, which until 1944 produced PTRD.Anti-tank gun Degtyarev, despite the simplicity of the device, which incorporates all the achievements of Russian gunsmiths.
barrel is threaded, vosmizahodny.The sight is the most common, with a front sight and a two-stage bar (up to 400 m and 1 km).Charging PTRD as an ordinary rifle, but a strong rebound has led to the presence of the barrel brake and shock absorber spring.For convenience, the handle provided (for it can keep one of the carrying fighters) and bipod.Everything else: sear, hammer mechanism, receiver, buttstock and other attributes of a gun, thought with the ergonomics, which has always been famous for Russian weapons.
Service
In the field, often made partially disassembled, providing disassembly and removal of the gate as the most polluting unit.If this is not enough, you have to remove the bipod, butt, then disassemble the trigger and separate the slide stop.At low temperature, cold-resistant grease is used in other cases the usual gun oil № 21. Includes a ramrod (folding), oiler, screwdriver, two cartridge belt, two water-resistant tarpaulin cover (one on each side of the gun) and official form, in whichthere are cases of training and combat use, as well as misfiring and failures.
Korea
In 1943, German industry began to produce medium and heavy tanks with powerful protivosnaryadnym booking.Soviet troops continued to use PTRD against light, less secure machine, as well as to suppress the firing points.At the end of the war the need for anti-tank guns disappeared.To combat the remaining German tanks in 1945, a powerful artillery and more effective weapons.World War II ended.It seemed that the time PTRD irretrievably gone.But after five years of the Korean War, and the "old gun" start shooting again, however, in the former allies - the Americans.It consisted armed with the DPRK army and the PLA, who fought on the peninsula until 1953.American tanks of the postwar generation often kept falling, but there was everyone.PTRD used as a means of air defense.
postwar history
presence of a large number of a good weapon with unique characteristics prompted him to look for some useful application.Tens of thousands of units were stored in the lubricant.What can be used anti-tank gun?Modern protective reservation tank can withstand even the cumulative projectile hit, not to mention the pool (even if it is the core and a special tip).In the 60th decided to PTRD can hunt seals and whales.The idea is good, but it was too heavy this thing.Also from this rifle can be carried out sniper fire at a distance of up to a kilometer, high initial velocity allows to shoot very accurately in the presence of an optical sight.Armor BMP or BTR PTRD breaks easily, so today weapons are not completely lost relevance.So is it in warehouses, waiting in the wings ...
