Many samples of military equipment and weapons used during the Great Patriotic War passed it from beginning to end, which indicates the success of their design and the most complete compliance with tactical and technical requirements (TTT). However, a number of products of the Soviet defense industry, with which the Red Army entered into a confrontation with the German troops, did not live up to its completion due to either obsolescence or inconsistency with these most notorious TTTs. But the same fate was shared by some combat vehicles created during the war, including the T-60 light tank.

Counteroffer

In May 1941, Moscow Plant No. 37 was given the task of mastering the serial production of a new generation light tank T-50, which shocked the management of the enterprise, modest production capabilities which obviously did not correspond to the new object. Suffice it to say that the T-50 had a complex eight-speed planetary gearbox, and gear-cutting production has always been a weak point at this plant. At the same time, the workers of plant number 37 came to the conclusion that it was possible to create a new light tank for direct infantry escort. At the same time, it was supposed to use a used engine-transmission installation and the running gear of the T-40 amphibious tank. The hull was supposed to have a more rational shape, reduced dimensions and enhanced armor.

Convinced of the expediency and advantages of such a solution, the chief designer N.A. Astrov, together with the senior military representative of the enterprise, lieutenant colonel V.P. Okunev, wrote a letter to I.V. mastering the production of a new tank. The letter, in the prescribed manner, was dropped into the mailbox at the Nikolsky Gates of the Kremlin in the evening, Stalin read it at night, and in the morning the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, V. A. Malyshev, who was instructed to deal with the new machine, arrived at the plant. He examined the model of the tank with interest, approved it, discussed technical and production problems with the designers and advised replacing the DShK machine gun with a much more powerful 20-mm ShVAK automatic cannon, well mastered in aviation.

Already in the evening of July 17, 1941, a resolution was signed State Committee Defense No. 179 "On the production of T-60 light tanks at the plant No. 37 of Narkomsredmash". It should be noted that this resolution was not about the classic "sixties", but about the T-60 (030), outwardly identical to the T-40 except for the aft hull plate and better known under the unofficial designation T-30.

For the T-60 (already in the 060 variant), designer A.V. Bogachev designed a fundamentally new, more durable all-welded hull with a significantly smaller armored volume than the T-40 and a low silhouette - only 1360 mm high, with large frontal tilt angles and stern sheets made of rolled homogeneous armor. The smaller dimensions of the hull made it possible to bring the thickness of all frontal sheets to 15-20 millimeters, and then with the help of shielding to 20-35 millimeters, onboard - up to 15 millimeters (later up to 25), stern - up to 13 millimeters (then in some places up to 25). The driver was located in the middle in the wheelhouse protruding forward with a frontal shield that folds down in a non-combat situation and an upper landing hatch. The driver's viewing device - a quick-change triplex mirror glass block with a thickness of 36 millimeters - was located in the front shield (initially and on the sides of the cabin) behind a narrow slot covered by an armored shutter. At the bottom, six to ten millimeters thick, there was an emergency hatch.

The new tower, 375 mm high, designed by Yu. P. Yudovich, had a cone-shaped octahedral shape. It was welded from flat armor plates 25 mm thick, located at large angles of inclination, which significantly increased its resistance to shelling. The thickness of the front zygomatic armor plates and armament mask subsequently reached 35 millimeters. In the roof there was a large commander's hatch with a round cover. In the side faces of the tower to the right and left of the shooter, narrow slots were made, equipped with two viewing devices of the "triplex" type. The tower was shifted to the port side.

On the second prototype T-60 (060), instead of the DShK, a rapid-fire 20-mm ShVAK-tank cannon with a barrel length of 82.4 calibers was installed, created on the basis of the wing and turret versions of the ShVAK-20 air gun. The finalization of the gun, including the results of front-line use, continued in parallel with the development of its production. Therefore, it was officially put into service only on December 1, and on January 1, 1942, it received the designation TNSh-1 (tank Nudelman - Shpitalny) or TNSh-20, as it was called later.

For ease of aiming, the gun was placed in the turret with a significant offset from its axis to the right, which made it necessary to introduce amendments to the readings of the TMFP-1 telescopic sight. The tabular range of a direct shot reached 2500 meters, the aiming range - 7000, the rate of fire - up to 750 shots / min, the mass of a second salvo with armor-piercing shells - 1.208 kilograms. The gun had a belt feed with a capacity of 754 rounds (13 boxes). The ammunition included fragmentation tracer and fragmentation incendiary shells and armor-piercing incendiary shells with a tungsten carbide core and a high initial velocity Vo = 815 m / s, which made it possible to effectively hit light and medium armored targets, as well as machine-gun points, anti-tank guns and manpower of the enemy. The subsequent introduction of a sub-caliber armor-piercing incendiary projectile increased armor penetration to 35 millimeters. As a result, the T-60 could fight at short distances with German medium tanks Pz.III and Pz.IV of early versions when firing into the side, and at distances up to 1000 meters - with armored personnel carriers and light self-propelled guns.

To the left of the gun, in one installation paired with it, there was a DT machine gun with an ammunition load of 1008 rounds (16 disks, later 15).

Manufacturers

On September 15, 1941, Moscow Plant No. 37 produced the first serial T-60, but due to the evacuation that followed soon, production was stopped on October 26. In total, 245 T-60 tanks were made in Moscow. Instead of the originally planned Tashkent, the enterprise was sent to Sverdlovsk, where a new tank factory No. 37 soon started working. The first two dozen T-30s and T-60s, assembled on it from December 15, 1941, mainly from parts brought from Moscow, passed on January 1, 1942 along the Sverdlovsk streets. In total, until September 1942, 1144 T-60s were built in the Urals, after which plant No. 37 was redesigned for the manufacture of components and assemblies for the T-34, as well as ammunition.

The workshops of the Kolomna Machine-Building Plant named after Kuibyshev were involved in the production of armored hulls of the T-60 tank. In October 1941, some of them, including those that produced T-60 tank hulls for plant No. 37, were evacuated to Kirov, to the site of the May 1 NKPS machine-building plant there. A new plant No. 38 was created here, and already in January 1942, the first T-60s came out of its gates. Since February, the 38th began their planned production, at the same time supplying the rest of the enterprises with cast tracks for caterpillars, which were previously made only by STZ. During the first quarter, 241 cars were manufactured, by June - another 535 units.

T-30

T-40

T-70

Was involved in the production of T-60 and plant number 264 (Krasnoarmeisky shipyard in the city of Sarepta near Stalingrad, which previously produced river armored boats). He received the technical documentation for the tank in a timely manner, but in the future he drove the car on his own, without resorting to the help of the parent company, however, without trying to modernize it. On September 16, 1941, the workers of the evacuated KhTZ, familiar with tank building, joined the factory team, who, while still in Kharkov, began to master the production of the T-60. They arrived at the 264th with a stock of tools, templates, dies and tank blanks already prepared, so the first armored hull was welded by September 29th. Transmission and chassis units were supposed to be supplied by STZ (factory No. 76). Loaded with the manufacture of T-34s and V-2 diesel engines, besides being their only manufacturer at the end of 1941, the Stalingrad enterprise and factory No. attention. Nevertheless, in December it was possible to assemble the first 52 cars. In total, up to June 1942, 830 T-60s were produced here. A significant part of them participated in the Battle of Stalingrad, especially in its initial phase.

GAZ became the head and largest plant for the production of the T-60, where on October 16, 1941 permanent job N. A. Astrov arrived with a small group of Moscow colleagues to provide design support for production. Soon he was appointed deputy chief designer of the enterprise for tank building, and in early 1942 he received the Stalin Prize for the creation of the T-40 and T-60.

In a short time, GAZ completed the production of non-standard technological equipment and, on October 26, began the mass production of T-60 tanks. Armored hulls for them began to be supplied in increasing quantities by the Vyksa Crushing and Grinding Equipment Plant (DRO) No. 177, and later by the Murom Locomotive Repair Plant named after. Dzerzhinsky No. 176 with its powerful boiler production, technologically similar to the tank corps, and, finally, the oldest armored plant No. 178 in the city of Kulebaki. Then they were joined by a part of the Podolsk Plant No. 180 evacuated to Saratov on the territory of the local locomotive repair plant. And yet there was a chronic shortage of armored hulls, which held back the expansion of mass production of the T-60. Therefore, soon their welding was additionally organized at GAZ. In September, only three T-60 tanks were manufactured in Gorky. But already in October - 215, in November - 471. Until the end of 1941, 1323 cars were produced here.

In 1942, despite the creation and adoption of a more combat-ready light tank T-70, parallel production of the T-60 was maintained at GAZ until April (in total for 1942 - 1639 vehicles), at the Sverdlovsk plant No. 37 - until August , at plant number 38 - until July. In 1942, 4164 tanks were made at all factories. Plant No. 37 delivered the last 55 vehicles already at the beginning of 1943 (until February). In total, since 1941, 5839 T-60s have been produced, the army has received 5796 vehicles.

Baptism of fire

The first mass use of the T-60 refers to the battle for Moscow. They were available in almost all tank brigades and individual tank battalions that defended the capital. On November 7, 1941, 48 T-60s from the 33rd Tank Brigade took part in the parade on Red Square. These were Moscow-made tanks, the Gorky T-60s first entered the battle near Moscow only on December 13th.

T-60s began to arrive on the Leningrad Front in the spring of 1942, when 60 vehicles with crews were allocated to form the 61st Tank Brigade. The story of their delivery to the besieged city is not without interest. Tanks decided to be transported on barges with coal. It was not bad in terms of disguise. Barges carried fuel to Leningrad, became familiar to the enemy, and not every time they were actively hunted. In addition, coal as ballast provided river vessels with the necessary stability.

They loaded combat vehicles from the pier above the Volkhov hydroelectric power station. Log decks were laid on the coal, tanks were placed on them, and barges set sail from the shore. Enemy aviation did not manage to detect the movement of our military unit.

The baptism of fire of the 61st Tank Brigade fell on January 12, 1943 - the first day of the operation to break the blockade of Leningrad. Moreover, the brigade, like the 86th and 118th tank battalions, which also had light tanks in service, operated in the first echelon of the 67th Army and crossed the Neva on the ice. Units equipped with medium and heavy tanks entered the battle only on the second day of the offensive, after a bridgehead two or three kilometers deep had been captured, and sappers had strengthened the ice.

T-60s also fought on the Southern Front, especially actively in the spring of 1942 in the Crimea, participated in the Kharkov operation and in the defense of Stalingrad. T-60s made up a significant part of the combat vehicles of the 1st Tank Corps (commander - Major General M.E. Katukov), together with other formations of the Bryansk Front, which repelled the German offensive in the Voronezh direction in the summer of 1942.

By the beginning of the counter-offensive of the Stalingrad, Don and South-Western fronts on November 19, 1942, quite a few combat vehicles of this type remained in the tank brigades. Underarmored and underarmored, the T-60 had very low stability on the battlefield, becoming easy prey for enemy medium and heavy tanks. In fairness, it must be admitted that the tankers were not particularly fond of these lightly armored and lightly armed vehicles with fire hazardous gasoline engines, calling them BM-2 - a mass grave for two.

The last major operation in which the T-60 was used was the lifting of the blockade of Leningrad in January 1944. So, among the 88 vehicles of the 1st Tank Brigade of the Leningrad Front there were 21 T-60s, in the 220th Tank Brigade there were 18 of them, and in the 124th Tank Regiment of the Volkhov Front, by the beginning of the operation on January 16, 1944, there were only 10 combat vehicles: two T-34s, two T-70s, five T-60s and even one T-40.

On the basis of the T-60, the BM-8-24 rocket launcher (1941) was produced, and prototypes of a tank with a 37-mm ZIS-19 gun, a 37-mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (1942), 76.2-mm a self-propelled artillery mount, a T-60-3 anti-aircraft tank with two twin 12.7 mm DShK machine guns (1942) and an OSU-76 self-propelled artillery mount (1944). All these vehicles were not very successful, since the T-60 tank was clearly not suitable for use as a base for self-propelled guns.

Why were these cars made?

Usually, the T-60 is compared with its "colleague" in armament - the German light tank Pz.II. This is all the more interesting because these machines met in real combat. Analyzing the data of these tanks, we can say that the Soviet tank builders managed to achieve almost the same level of protection as the German machine, which, with a smaller mass and dimensions, significantly increased the invulnerability of the T-60. The dynamic characteristics of both machines are almost similar. Despite the high specific power, the Pz.II was not faster than the "sixties". Formally, the armament parameters were also the same: both tanks were equipped with 20-mm cannons with similar ballistic characteristics. The initial speed of the armor-piercing projectile of the Pz.II gun was 780 m/s, T-60 - 815 m/s, which theoretically allowed them to hit the same targets.

In fact, everything was not so simple: the Soviet TNSh-20 gun could not fire single shots, and the German KwK 30, as well as the KwK 38, could, which significantly increased the accuracy of shooting. Even when firing in short bursts, the T-60 cannon was recoiled to the side, which did not allow effective shelling of infantry or group targets (for example, a cluster of vehicles). The "Two" turned out to be more effective on the battlefield and due to the size of the crew, which consisted of three people and also had a much better view from the tank than the crew of the T-60. An important advantage was the presence of a radio station. As a result, the Pz.II as a cutting edge vehicle was significantly superior to the "sixty". This advantage was even more felt when using tanks for reconnaissance, where the inconspicuous, but "blind" and "dumb" T-60 was practically useless. The situation was no better when using the T-60 as an infantry escort tank: too weak armor of the "sixties" was easily hit by almost all anti-tank weapons and heavy weapons of the Wehrmacht infantry.

As a result, we can conclude that the T-60 tank was completely unnecessary for the Red Army, since it did not correspond to any TTT (if they were developed for it at all). These vehicles, rarely surviving a single attack, are often referred to as suicide tanks. Nearly six thousand T-60s literally burned down in the crucible of war. Moreover, they burned down almost without a trace: there are relatively few front-line photographs of these machines left, little is stored in the archives and documents about their combat use. Only a few tanks of this type have survived to this day.

The question naturally arises: why were they released at all? The motivation of Plant No. 37 is understandable, but why did the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command agree with this motivation? The latter circumstance can be explained by the desire to make up for the huge losses in tanks - on the one hand, and the greatly overestimated size of the German tank fleet - on the other. To imagine that the Germans, having five times fewer tanks than the Red Army, achieve success thanks to a well-thought-out organizational structure of tank formations, well-established interaction with other branches of the military, good controllability and advanced tactics for using them, apparently, it is simply not possible at Headquarters. could. Alas, at that time we could not oppose anything but a quantitative superiority to this.

Well, if not the T-60, then what? Yes, what the Red Army sorely lacked throughout the war - armored personnel carriers! Imagine something resembling a T-60 chassis, but without a turret, but, say, with a pivot or turret (which is better) installation of a DT or DShK machine gun and an anti-tank rifle in addition, capable of carrying at least four to five infantrymen. This is how the Lend-Lease tracked armored personnel carriers "Universal" were equipped, which were valued by fighters worth their weight in gold. And we received only two thousand of them. If instead of the T-60, as, indeed, the T-70 that followed them, 14 thousand tracked armored personnel carriers entered the troops, then really, they would be much more useful.

But history has no subjunctive mood. What was, was, and nothing can be changed. And do not resurrect the crews of mass graves for two. Eternal memory to them, eternal glory to them!

Sergey Ageev

There is no need to talk about how significant and holy May 9 Victory Day is for our country. And how great a role in the common cause of victory in the Great Patriotic War was played by the defense industry, which managed not only to resist technologically and in production, but also to surpass the seemingly inexhaustible defense and technical capabilities of the Nazi coalition. A special role in the creation of military equipment for the fronts of the Great Patriotic War was played by the famous "Uralmashzavod" - "plant of factories". Having carried out the transition from civilian to defense products in the shortest possible time, the enterprise became the country's main forge for the production of tank hulls and self-propelled guns, howitzers, etc. This year Uralmashzavod is celebrating its 80th anniversary, the heroic pages of the Great Patriotic War are one of the brightest in the biography of not only the enterprise itself, but the entire national industry. It is important that the great traditions of production victories are preserved in our time, and thanks to the main shareholder of the enterprise - Gazprombank - they act as a serious historical context for improving technologies and developing new products. The modernization being implemented at the enterprise with the participation of Gazprombank gives grounds to assert that Uralmashzavod, which has a great past, has no less significant opportunities in the present and future.

Very high importance
The significance of Uralmashzavod during the Great Patriotic War was so high that Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrenty Beria personally controlled its production activities, and the work plan was approved directly by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Joseph Stalin.
The popular notion that Uralmash produced tanks during the war years is a stable historical misconception. In fact, the role of the plant in the military-industrial complex during the Great Patriotic War was much broader and more significant.
Tanks ("thirty-fours") were produced by the plant from September 1942 to August 1943. During this time, 706 pieces were made. Then Uralmash produced only self-propelled artillery mounts based on the T-34 tank: SU-122, SU-85 and SU-100. 4846 of them were made, and no other plant in the USSR made such ones. But 5552 Uralmash combat vehicles are only 14% of all medium tanks and self-propelled guns manufactured by the Soviet military-industrial complex during the Great Patriotic War.
The merits of Uralmashzavod, and very large ones, are completely different. In the People's Commissariat of the Tank Building Industry, the plant was responsible for the production of armored hulls for tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts. Hulls for medium and heavy tanks and self-propelled guns were supplied to Krasnoye Sormovo, plant No. 183 (now Uralvagonzavod), Kirov Plant in Chelyabinsk (later Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant) and other enterprises. And it was really a large-scale production: during the war years, the plant produced 19225 armored hulls. That is, more than half of the medium and heavy Soviet tanks and self-propelled guns during the war had Uralmash armored hulls.
But it's not even the number of buildings, although this is very important. The main thing is that the plant had to master the production of new serial products every six months - armored hulls of T-34, KV-1, KV-1s, IS-2, IS-3 tanks, self-propelled guns SU-122, SU-85, SU-100, ISU -122, ISU-152. And often new buildings differed significantly from the previous ones both in design and in steel grades, which caused great difficulties in organizing the production of metallurgical blanks. No other enterprise of the People's Commissariat of the Tank Industry faced such problems. For example, plant No. 183 and Krasnoye Sormovo produced only thirty-fours, while the Kirov plant in Chelyabinsk specialized mainly in heavy vehicles.

Mastering new technologies
A special page in the labor feat of the Uralmash workers is the development of new technologies, which, in fact, ensured the implementation of colossal plans for the production of defense equipment. And, perhaps, the Uralmash metallurgists have achieved the most significant success in this area.
According to authoritative experts, during the four war years, the plant metallurgists advanced 20 years in terms of their technologies, outstripping not only Soviet, but also foreign casters. The company knew this for sure, including because, according to the order of the plant director, all designers and technologists carefully studied the new German armored vehicles that came from the battlefields to Uralmash for remelting. And this analysis showed that German technology was seriously lagging behind. So, for example, until the very end of the war, not a single cast part made of armor steel appeared on German tanks and self-propelled guns.
Now many historians are perplexed: “The Soviet Union produced many times more tanks than Germany with all the satellites, and Soviet tank building consumed less rolled armor! How so?". And it is not known to some that cast armor provided not only savings in very scarce rolled products, but also sharply reduced the labor intensity of manufacturing military vehicles, their cost. Which ensured the superiority of the Soviet tank industry in terms of the quantity and quality of military equipment produced.

Armor is strong!
At Uralmashzavod, the development of smelting armored steel grades for tank parts began in 1941 with grade 8C, the development was carried out jointly with specialists from NII-48 and the Izhora plant. This brand was created at the Izhora Plant even before the war, where armor plates were rolled from it at a rolling mill, from which the turrets and hulls of KV tanks were then welded.
The first experiments with the use of steel 8C for cast towers at Uralmash (by the way, the first in the world) were unsuccessful. The metal turned out to be dense with a good break, the towers had a good surface, without cracks, but did not withstand field tests (shelling from anti-tank guns). All efforts aimed at increasing the survivability of the tower, cast from acid steel, came to nothing. Sour steel, which, as the metallurgists say, is "dry", turned out to be unsuitable for the production of cast towers. Then experimental melting of armored steel in the main open-hearth furnaces began. Even in the prewar years, this technology was introduced at the Izhora plant. These towers began to meet all the requirements of military acceptance.
In 1942, Uralmashzavod was also entrusted with the production of armored hulls for T-34 tanks, and another grade of armor steel, 70L, was used in production. Both grades were not interchangeable, which hindered the production agility of the steelmaking and foundry shops. The need for 8C steel (for heavy tanks) was usually less than the charge in the furnace, and the remaining steel was poured into molds and made into ingots. At the same time, there was not enough liquid metal for shaped casting.
In addition, castings from 70L steel required a very complex heat treatment regime, and in order to fulfill the ever-increasing plans, new thermal furnaces had to be built. In addition, in castings from steel 70L more often than in castings from steel 8C, foundry and hardening cracks were formed. These reasons prompted the metallurgists of Uralmash to search for a new brand of armor steel, castings from which would not require such a complex heat treatment regime. This is how armored steel of high hardness 72L appeared, from which all the main tank parts were cast for the experiment. Laboratory tests showed that the rejection of casting and hardening cracks decreased. Field tests demonstrated a completely satisfactory quality of armored vehicles, and steel 72L was not only approved by the People's Commissariat of the Tank Industry and the Main Armored Directorate of the Red Army, but also recommended to other tank-building plants.
At the same time, one must understand that the Uralmash steelmakers then had a very difficult time, since they lacked the most necessary materials. But there was no case that the steel furnaces were stopped due to their shortage. Doctor of Technical Sciences Dmitry Butakov, who worked at Uralmash in those years, recalls: “There is no cast iron - they used the scrap-carburetor process, they replaced cast iron with electrode scrap, anthracite. The lack of ferromanganese was compensated for by manganese recovered from slag using manganese ore. When there was a shortage of fuel oil, open-hearth furnaces were heated with diesel fuel.
Interesting fact: Dmitry Badyagin, who had previously been the chief metallurgist of the Izhora Plant, worked as the chief metallurgist at Uralmash during the war years. He supported the experiments of the Uralmash team to create a cast turret, even despite the categorical ban of one of the leading employees of the People's Commissariat of the tank industry.
The objection seemed to be based on an obvious fact: cast armor is more “loose”, less projectile resistant. This means that the tower will be thicker, it will weigh more, which is unacceptable. But thanks to the new form of the cast tower, which was invented by the Uralmash workers, its weight characteristics did not go beyond the permissible parameters, and the quality of the cast towers turned out to be even higher than the welded ones. By the way: during the war years, Dmitry Badyagin became the winner of the Stalin Prize twice - moreover, both prizes were awarded to him by one resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR: for the foundry "breakthrough" and for the development of a new brand of armor steel. By the way, in September 1944, Dmitry Badyagin was sent back to Kolpino to restore the Izhora Plant. And this is just one of the facts showing the historical unity of the two leading enterprises in the country.
Another important task that Uralmash solved during the war years was to obtain castings with minimal allowances for machining. This was extremely important not only from the point of view of saving metal. The main and greatest savings for the plant were achieved by reducing the volume of machining, the consumption of scarce and expensive cutting tools and, consequently, by increasing the productivity of equipment and the throughput of machining shops.
The results were simply brilliant: some parts, despite tight dimensional tolerances, were cast with such accuracy that they were not machined at all.
“The part of the self-propelled gun “nose”, despite the large dimensions (1600x1200x750 mm), the complexity of the configuration and the strict requirements in terms of compliance with tolerances both for overall dimensions and body thickness, was cast completely without further machining. 17 hours were spent on machining the same part at another plant. 40 minutes,” the military representatives noted.
In the same way, the Uralmash workers refused to machine another basic part - the "cradle" of artillery pieces. Previously, they were obtained by machining from large press forgings. During the war, machines began to be used only to achieve the landing dimensions of these parts.

Duplex process and other tricks
And still, there was not enough metal, all the possibilities for increasing the production of liquid steel were exhausted, it was necessary to save it. The greatest contribution to this matter was made by the specialists of the central factory laboratory. Their research showed that for the production of artillery barrels it is possible to use steel of the OKHN1M grade instead of OKHN3M, and at the same time the metal meets all technical requirements. Further improvement of the technology made it possible to improve the quality of the metal from month to month. The melting control in the first half of 1944 recorded the yield of usable metal in the amount of 91.8%, and from July 1 to November 1, 1944 - 97%. At the same time, the cost of one ton of artillery steel, thanks to nickel savings, decreased by 40-50%.
Sometimes metallurgists made very risky decisions. For example, in 1944, the duplex process was canceled for the production of artillery steel, which made it possible to increase the output of basic steel sharply, by almost 40,000 tons. The quality of the artillery pieces did not deteriorate because of this, and this testifies to the unusually high skill of the Uralmash metallurgists.
Another important activity of Uralmashzavod during the Great Patriotic War was the production of blanks for artillery. Then the Artillery Plant No. 9 named after. Stalin (the former special production of Uralmashzavod) annually produced about 7.5 thousand field and tank guns. And Uralmash provided it with casting and forgings. Moreover, much more liquid steel was used for artillery blanks than for the armored hulls of tanks and self-propelled guns. However, already in 1941, the production of liquid steel at Uralmashzavod increased by a third compared to 1940 - up to 134 thousand tons. This was due to the commissioning of furnace No. 70 tons (later its capacity was increased to 100 tons). Then in 1942, 1943 and 1944. three electric furnaces for steel smelting were installed at the plant.

M-30 - the legendary howitzer of the Great Patriotic War
There were enough problems with solving the most complex military-industrial tasks ... So, it was very difficult for Uralmash to master the production of the M-30 howitzer, whose manufacturability and simplicity are noted by almost all gunners. At the first stage, the rejection of artillery castings reached 45%. There is nothing surprising in this: thin-walled steel casting, which was common at artillery factories, was only being mastered at Uralmash. No one then dared to dream that very little time would pass and thousands of M-30 howitzers would go from Uralmash, becoming a favorite weapon among the troops. During the war years, one of them reached a unique combat score - about 18 thousand shots! After a thorough examination, to everyone's amazement, it turned out that the gun had not lost its combat qualities and was quite suitable for further use.
And then - at the beginning of development - in 1940, Uralmash managed to produce only 200 guns, which was far from the plan. The production of the M-30 was then even temporarily assigned to another plant (Gorky Plant No. 92 produced 500 guns in 1940, which came in handy with the start of the war).
The main part of the problems in artillery production at Uralmash was already resolved in 1941, when the plant produced 2760 howitzers with a plan of 2000. Moreover, in the second half of the year they were produced at 300 units per month! Thus, the first serious "battle" with the designers of Germany was won: throughout the war, the Nazi troops were armed with a much less effective 105-mm divisional howitzer.
In October 1941, Uralmash was given an additional task: to produce 600 76-mm F-32 and F-34 tank guns per month without reducing the production of M-30. In addition, artillery plant No. 8 (later - ZIK) was evacuated from Podlipki near Moscow to Sverdlovsk. Its main production was located in unfinished shops, and the assembly of anti-aircraft guns was organized at Uralmash.
In February 1942, a decision was made by the State Defense Committee to separate the artillery production of Uralmashzavod into a separate enterprise with subordination to the People's Commissariat for Armaments. But it remained organically connected with Uralmash: the metallurgical workshops of Uralmashzavod provided factory No. 9 with blanks, and from the fall of 1942, it completed the Uralmash armored vehicles with powerful guns. All issues that arose were resolved clearly and promptly.

Fighter "Tigers"
It is clear that the few KB-9s at the beginning of the war were loaded beyond measure. But it was then that the designer F.F. Petrov had the idea of ​​equipping a medium tank with an M-30 howitzer. The idea seemed fantastic: a divisional howitzer... in a medium tank! But the calculations showed that the T-34 tank would survive, but the turret would have to be abandoned, replaced with a fixed wheelhouse. In parallel, another idea appeared: to install a 152-mm howitzer-gun on the KV tank.
In Moscow, at first they considered it premature to create a self-propelled gun with a powerful gun. The designers of the plant were offered to take up the detailed development of the project in their free time from their main work (and then free time was only at night). There were many volunteers. And soon the task was received from the People's Commissariat of Armaments to manufacture a prototype of a self-propelled artillery mount.
Interestingly, the very first SU-122 battery with an M-30 howitzer based on the T-34 tank (with a wheelhouse) collided with the first six Tigers near Leningrad in the late autumn of 1942, and all six were destroyed from an ambush. This fact alarmed the German command, and instead of mass production, the Tigers were modernized, which delayed their mass production until the summer of 1943.
The ML-20 howitzer gun also found application in combat vehicles: first on the KV-1S (SU-152) tanks, then on the IS-2 (ISU-152). These heavy self-propelled guns were produced in Chelyabinsk, but Uralmash made armored hulls for them. The SU-152s appeared on the battlefields just in time - German designers managed to create new models of powerful armored vehicles by the beginning of the Battle of Kursk. They were successfully opposed by the Uralmash SU-122 and the Chelyabinsk SU-152. The front-line soldiers called these vehicles "St. John's wolves": their power was such that the shells demolished the towers of enemy tanks.
But it was necessary to look ahead, to create even more powerful guns, because the duel with the best designers in Europe had not yet ended. And so the designers in a short time create 85-mm tank guns D5-85S (for self-propelled guns) and D5-85T (for T-34 and IS tanks). The state tests of the D5-85S gun passed brilliantly: its projectile pierced the frontal armor of the "tiger" (130 mm) and, having passed through the entire tank, tore out a sheet of rear armor.
Then the 122-mm gun D25T was developed. The power of the gun compared to the 76-mm gun increased by 5.3 times! It began to be installed on heavy tanks IS-2. Moreover, the refinement of the prototype was almost not required - only the muzzle brake was strengthened (the Uralmash metallurgists successfully coped with this task).
Fantastic terms (less than a month!) were given to factory #9 to create a new 152mm howitzer. It's hard to believe, but they met the deadline by creating the D-1 gun, the firepower of which was 80% higher than the M-30. The D-1 howitzer was launched into mass production even before the start of the Battle of Kursk, where it showed itself in the best possible way ..
At the beginning of 1944, another masterpiece was developed - the D10 gun with an initial projectile velocity of 900 m / s. The new product was maximally unified with the D25 guns and was put into service in July. This gun was installed on the Uralmash SU-100 self-propelled gun, the power of which increased by 2.1 times compared to the SU-85, and the distance at which the Tiger was hit increased from 850 m to 3 km. Experts consider the SU-100 the best self-propelled gun of World War II. In memory of the war, the last of them, made at Uralmash, was installed near the factory entrance.

TO THE HISTORY OF THE PRODUCTION OF TANK ARMOR IN THE USSR

I. V. Yurasov

The beginning of the development of the tank industry in the USSR should be considered 1931, when the Izhora plant, followed by the now Zhdanovsky plant of heavy engineering, began the production of rolled tank armor.

The first armor plates in Russia were obtained at the Izhora plant in February 1866 for sheathing ships of the Russian fleet.

In 1870 for international exhibition an armor plate weighing more than 27 tons, 6.6 m long, 1.65 m wide and 0.37 m thick was made. The Izhora plant was awarded a gold medal.

At that time, armor was made by two methods - forging under hammers and rolling in iron rolls.

In the early 90s, the search began for a new type of armor - steel and steel-nickel.

In 1894, the first three armor plates were made of nickel steel, but field tests of these plates were unsatisfactory.

Abroad at this time, the top layer of armor plates was cemented.

The Izhora plant was ordered to master the production of armor according to the Harvey method.

In November 1896, in the new armored hardening the first slab was processed by the workshop.

In Germany, at that time, another new type of armor became widespread - chrome-nickel.

In 1898, Russia acquired a patent for this armor from the German firm Krupp.

In 1910, a new armor factory was built next to the hardening workshop; the productivity of the Izhora plant increased to two thousand tons of armor per year.

It was decided to organize armor production and at the Obukhov plant.

In 1907-1909. An experimental bulk batch of deck armor for ships was produced at the Kulebaki Metallurgical Plant. In 1914-1918. the plant produced shrapnel blanks. In 1919-1920. produced armor plates for armored trains.

In 1914, the production of armor reached 18 thousand tons per year. In the same year, the Izhorok plant began to manufacture armored vehicles. These were passenger cars of the "Russian-Baltic Society in Riga".

At the end of 1916, several cars were booked with the design of the engineer Kegress, which were the prototype of the tanks that appeared soon.

From September 1918 to September 1919, armored vehicles, repair of armored trains, rental of armor plates for the needs of the front of the young Soviet state were widely developed at the plant.

In 1932, the gross production of tank armor began at the Zhdanov heavy engineering plant, at the Kulebak and Izhora metallurgical plants.

Domestic tanks, produced before 1938, were equipped mainly with bulletproof armor. The armored hulls of these tanks were made with riveting, so steel grades with a carbon content of 0.35-0.50%, developed by the pioneer of the domestic armor industry, the Izhorok plant, were used for their armor.

The leading specialists of the Soviet school that was created at that time - S. A. Baranov, A. S. Zavyalov, M. M. Zamyatin, L. A. Kanevsky, S. I. Sakhin and others developed several weldable brands of armor become.

In 1934, the steel grade IZ (Izhorkiy Zavod) was developed. The disadvantages of this steel were the complex hardening technology and stringent requirements for compliance with the welding technology in order to avoid the formation of welding cracks.

To make this steel suitable for mass production conditions, O. F. Danilevsky, Ya. I. Kulandin, V. G. Fridman, A. S. Zavyalov, L. A. Kanevsky and A. P. Goryachev corrected the chemical composition of steel was determined. Under the 2P brand, it is still used as the main steel for the manufacture of armored hulls of tanks with bulletproof protection.

The appearance of heavy machine guns (12.7 mm) and anti-tank guns with a caliber of 37 - 45 mm required the creation of more powerful armor; for this purpose in the period 1934-1939. the use of cemented armor began, the grades of which were developed by A. N. Ponimaschenko, V. A. Delle, A. S. Zavyalov, Ya. I. Kulandin, L. S. Levin, L. T. Schreiber.

However, the long and complex technology for manufacturing cemented armor prevented its widespread adoption.

In 1937-1938. the experience of the war in Spain showed the need to equip tanks with anti-ballistic protection. To protect against armor-piercing projectiles, high-hardness armor was developed that combined the required level of resistance with sufficient survivability, this is armor of the MZ-2 brand (Mariupolsky plant), the authors of which were G. F. Zasetsky, G. And Kapyrin, A. T. Larin, I. F. Timchenko, N. V. Schmidt.

This steel under the index 8C was used for armored hulls and turrets of the T-34 tank. In April 1940, a new design of the modernized T-34 machine with a stamped turret appeared.

As is known, the T-34 tanks were practically invulnerable to armor-piercing shells of 37 and 45-mm calibers and had satisfactory protection against armor-piercing shells of the short-barreled 75-mm gun of the German T-IV tank.

Before the start of World War II, a new type was developed highly released armor (instead of armor of high hardness), which has high resistance against the action of larger projectiles of 88, 90 and 100 mm caliber. This type of chromoly and chromium-nickel-molybdenum armor was used for the production of KB tank hulls and subsequently, during World War II, for IS tanks, in the form of grades 42C, 43PS, 49C and 52C.

During the Great Patriotic War vols. S. I. Smolensky and B. E. Sheinin modified the composition of grades 42C and 43PS; to improve the technological and protective characteristics, the molybdenum content was increased in them, after which they received the designation 42SM and 43PSM.

For the manufacture of armor with a thickness of over 100 mm, at the suggestion of S. I. Smolensky, steel grade 53C was adopted.

In 1938 A. S. Zavyalov, JI. A. Kanevsky and N. I. Perov received an author's certificate for the manufacture of tank turret hulls and other units of complex configuration by casting.

The transition to casting instead of welding from bent or stamped sheet parts made it possible to simplify the technology, create the optimal geometric shape of nodes with differentiated thicknesses and inclination angles, and increase the survivability of nodes by eliminating welds.

For the first time, work on a cast turret at the Zhdanov plant began in February 1940. The first turret was cast from 8C steel, the heat treatment of the turret was carried out according to the double hardening scheme with final low tempering.

Field tests have shown that such a turret, with a slight increase in thickness, in comparison with rolled armor, has great advantages over a welded turret made of stamped parts. Other grades of cast armor were also developed.

The experience of ZhZTM in the production of cast turrets and armor casting for tanks was widely used at a number of tank factories in the Soviet Union and played a huge role in the qualitative and quantitative equipping of the Soviet army with combat vehicles during the Great Patriotic War.

For the thicker turrets of the T-34-85 tank (with an 85 mm caliber cannon), a more alloyed steel of medium hardness grade 71L was developed (authors JI.AT. Butalov, N. I. Perov, S. I. Sakhin, R. G. Khmelevsky).

For turrets and other cast units of all other medium and heavy tanks, armor of medium hardness grades 66L was used for small parts, 74L and 75JI for heavy tank turrets.

Until the end of 1935, the armor industry of the Soviet Union was not organizationally united. Only at the beginning of 1936 did the main armor-producing the factories were united in one main department, headed by the outstanding industrial organizer I. T. Tevosyan.

From the first days of the creation of the Glavka, a prominent specialist in the field of high-quality metallurgy A. A. Khabakhpashev was attracted to work in it, who in the period 1936-1954. actively contributed to the development of the armored industry.

In the period 1938-1940. V. S. Emelyanov worked in senior positions in the armor industry, and Ya. V. Yushin in the period 1940-1941.

During the Patriotic War, leading specialists L. A. Kanevsky, V. A. Orlov, F. I. Pirsky, D. M. Polikarpov, S. I. Smolensky and others were recruited to work in the apparatus of the Glavka; F. I. Pirsky, A. F. Stogov, Η were involved to manage the production of armor at ferrous metallurgy plants. N. Timoshenko and N. I. Sheftel.

At present, armor for tanks is made from high-quality alloy steels subjected to special heat treatment.

With high strength, the armor must also be sufficiently viscous, capable of absorbing large dynamic loads and at the same time not being destroyed, not cracking or spalling from the inside.

The main alloying additives are nickel, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, silicon, etc. The combination of alloying elements and their percentage in armored steels is different and depends on the methods of steel production, purpose, thickness of armored parts. The table gives the approximate percentage of additives in armor steel.

The quality of armor is greatly affected by carbon. An increase in its content increases hardness, but sharply increases brittleness, reduces the toughness of the armor, and worsens its weldability.

Nickel increases the toughness and strength of armor, improves weldability, and increases hardening.

Manganese increases strength and improves hardenability armor. Molybdenum, manganese and silicon increase strength and hardness without reducing toughness. In addition, manganese gives good casting qualities, improves heat treatment, and molybdenum reduces the brittleness of armor during tempering, facilitates machining and increases hardenability armor.

Table

Typical chemical composition of armor steel

Heat treatment is a complex process, depending on the purpose of the armor, its thickness and chemical composition, usually includes hardening followed by tempering.

By quenching, the required hardness of the armor is achieved, and by tempering, the required toughness. The experience of foreign tank building is carefully studied.

Along with the continuous improvement in the quality of steel armor in foreign tank building, extensive work is underway to create tank armor from light alloys on a titanium, aluminum or magnesium basis. Thus, the foreign press reported on the creation of a light combat vehicle with magnesium alloy armor, three times lighter than a similar vehicle with steel armor. The new light American Sheridan tank has aluminum alloy armor. Much attention is paid to the co-building of plastic armor.

Rolled and cast armor is used.

According to the internal structure, armor can be homogeneous (homogeneous) and heterogeneous (heterogeneous).

Heterogeneous armor has somewhat better projectile resistance, but it is more expensive and more difficult to manufacture compared to homogeneous.

According to the design, monolithic, composite and shielded armor are distinguished.

Monolithic armor is made from one sheet; composite - from two or more sheets, folded close; shielded - from the screen and the main armor, placed at a certain distance from each other.

Such armor is used to combat cumulative projectiles.

The heavy tank KV ("Klim Voroshilov") by the beginning of World War II was, of course, the most advanced in design and the most powerful tank in the world. It was created specifically to break through fortified defense lines, had very strong weapons for its time, and none of the Wehrmacht anti-tank guns could penetrate its armor. German tanks in a duel with KV did not have any chance of winning at all, which forced the designers of the Reich to urgently start designing the Tiger and Panther.

In the Red Army, tanks of the KV family (KV-1, KV-1S, KV-2, KV-8 and KV-85) fought on all fronts from the first days of the war until 1944, when they were replaced by the famous IS-2. The latter, by the way, were a deep modernization of the same KV. However, all heavy tanks that appeared in different countries during the Second World War, one way or another created with an eye on the "Klim Voroshilov" - one of the most successful projects in the history of domestic tank building.

Back in the summer of 1940, in parallel with the deployment of serial production of KV at the Kirov Plant, the production of heavy tanks was also being established at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) and Plant No. technical documentation for KV with 76-mm and 152-mm guns, and by August 1 all technological documentation ... Send a designer to ChTZ, help the factory with blanks ... Organize the production of KV armored hulls at factory No. 78, provide the factory with technical documentation - by August 25 send 10 copies of drawings.

However, one copy of the tank and documentation arrived in Chelyabinsk only in late September - early October. As a result, until the end of 1940, the production of heavy tanks at ChTZ was never organized. Only in January 1941 was it possible to organize the assembly of the KV-1 in Chelyabinsk (the production of the KV-2 was never mastered here), and the construction of a special tank workshop began. In total, by July 1, 1941, ChTZ managed to produce only 25 tanks - the tank shop was not yet ready, and an increase in the production of heavy tanks in Chelyabinsk was planned from January 1942.

But the outbreak of war and the heavy losses of the Red Army in tanks required the adoption of urgent measures to increase their production at all factories, including Chelyabinsk. To accomplish this task at ChTZ, first of all, it was necessary to solve the problem with the manufacture of armored hulls and turrets, since plant No. 78 could not cope with this (ChTZ did not have its own armored production). Therefore, by the decision of the State Defense Committee (GKO), the Ural Heavy Engineering Plant named after. Sergo Ordzhonikidze (UZTM) was supposed to master the manufacture of hulls and turrets for KV tanks in July 1941. UZTM had necessary equipment to establish armored production, but the plant had no experience of such work. With great difficulty, in July-August, UZTM began shipping its first KV hulls and turrets to ChTZ.

At the beginning of July 1941, according to the order of the People's Commissar of Heavy Industry, a group of designers, technologists, craftsmen and workers were sent there by a special train from Leningrad to help organize tank production at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, bringing with them all the necessary technical documentation. In July and the first half of August, several echelons with machine tools and equipment were taken from the Kirov Plant to Chelyabinsk. From August 29, when the German troops closed the blockade ring, the evacuation continued by ships across Lake Ladoga, and from October - by air, by specially assigned aircraft. In just two months, more than 11 thousand workers of the Kirov Plant were airlifted from besieged Leningrad.

As a result, in September 1941, the production of heavy tanks was significantly reduced - the Kirov plant was evacuated, and the Chelyabinsk plant had not yet mastered the mass production of KV.

To correct the situation, GKO Decree No. 734 of October 4, 1941, as part of the People's Commissariat of the Tank Industry, created the Ural Plant for the production of heavy KV tanks as part of ChTZ, UZTM, the Ural Turbine Plant and Plant No. 75 for the production of diesel engines (the latter was evacuated from Kharkov and included in the CHTZ). By the same decree, ChTZ was renamed the Chelyabinsk Kirov Plant (ChKZ).

It should be noted that the name "Ural Combine for the Production of Heavy KV Tanks" did not stick. This powerful tank plant soon received the unofficial name "Tankograd". Under this name, he went down in history.

In parallel with the establishment of the production of heavy tanks in Chelyabinsk, the problem of their armament had to be solved. The fact is that the 76-mm F-32 guns, which were installed on the KV, were manufactured by the Kirov Plant in Leningrad, which significantly reduced their production in connection with the evacuation. The problem of KV artillery armament was solved quite quickly by putting the 76-mm ZIS-5 gun into production.

Work on its creation began in June 1940, when the design bureau of plant No. 92 under the leadership of V. Grabin received the task of designing a gun "with the ballistics of a 76-mm anti-aircraft gun ( starting speed projectile 813 m / s) for a new heavy tank. Factory testing of the first sample, which received the F-27 index, began in December 1940. However, representatives of the armored department did not accept the cannon, motivating their decision by the fact that the long barrel of the gun, which significantly protrudes beyond the size of the tank, would impair the maneuverability of the KV on rough terrain. Therefore, in February 1941, the design of the F-27 (which received the ZIS-5 index at the beginning of 1941) was redesigned for the ballistics of the 76.2-mm F-22 field gun. At the same time, by order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense G. Kulik, the 76.2-mm F-34 gun mounted on the KV tank was successfully tested at plant No. 92 in February - March. But due to the fact that in the spring of 1941 a ZIS-5 gun with increased ballistics was expected to arm the KV, arming a heavy tank with the F-34 system was recognized as unpromising.

The first sample of the ZIS-5 was manufactured in August and was tested until the end of September. Upon their completion, in accordance with the requirements of the armored control and production conditions, the design of the ZIS-5 was redesigned. In its final form, the ZIS-5 had the ballistics of the F-34 and differed from the latter in the design of the cradle elements and the armored mask. On September 30, 1941, the ZIS-5 gun was put into service, and on October 1, its gross production began at factories No. 92 and No. 9.

To increase the production of KV at ChKZ, from October 1941, tractor production at the plant was completely discontinued and all workshops switched to the production of tanks. In addition, new workshops and sections were created, new production buildings were erected, many premises were expanded due to all kinds of outbuildings and superstructures. Using high-speed methods, the construction of the former gas generator shop was completed and a large mechanical assembly building for tank production was built. The commissioning of these buildings made it possible to place plant No. 75 evacuated from Kharkov for the production of diesel engines, which was included in the ChKZ, on the factory premises. In addition, the factory premises were evacuated to Chelyabinsk machine-tool plant named after. Molotov from Kharkov, factories "Red Proletarian" and grinding machines from Moscow. Gradually, in place of tractor assembly production lines, tank assembly lines arose, and former tractor builders were retrained as tank builders.

Some factories and workshops located in the city of Chelyabinsk and the Chelyabinsk region were also involved in helping the tank production of ChKZ for the machining of tank parts.

As a result of the reorganization of production, by January 1942, the manufacture of tanks at ChKZ was organized as follows: the MX-1 and MX-2 workshops produced parts and assemblies of the KV undercarriage and gears for the gearbox, the MX-2 workshop (before the war it was planned to deploy tank production) - parts of the main clutch, final drives, fans and gearboxes, workshop MX-4 - turret swivel mechanisms, control drives, ball mounts for machine guns, etc., and Assembly shop SB-2 was the shop for the final assembly of tanks.

Wartime conditions dictated their own, more stringent requirements for production personnel. Leaders who did not believe in the success of the case or were unable to quickly reorganize were immediately removed from their posts and replaced by others who were more energetic. At the same time, they did not pay attention either to previous merits, or to work experience, or to a diploma. The designers evacuated from Leningrad headed by Zh. Kirov Plant in Leningrad N. Sinev, G. Mikhailov, hydraulic specialists headed by Professor N. V. Voznesensky from Leningrad, engine engineers from Kharkov Plant No. 75 I. Trashutin and Ya. Vikhman and many other specialists evacuated from different cities of the country .

To fulfill the program for the production of tanks set before ChKZ, it was necessary to drastically reduce the labor intensity of manufacturing the KV machine. The teams of designers and technologists have done big job in this direction, as a result of which the time spent on the production of one tank decreased from 11,647 hours (as of October 1) to 9,007 hours by January 15, 1942 (for comparison: as of May 1, 1941, the labor intensity of manufacturing a KV tank at ChTZ was 23,453 hours).

To expand the production of armored hulls for KV tanks, by the Decree of the State Defense Committee (GKO) of November 13, 1941 No. 892 ss on the basis of the workshops of plant No. 78 named after. Ordzhonikidze created "an armored plant with the assignment of number 200 to it and the inclusion of heavy tanks in the plant." M. Popov, who previously headed the Izhora plant in Leningrad, was appointed director of the new plant. All this made it possible to give the front 110 KV tanks in November, and 213 in December.

However, due to the rapid advance of the German army inland, the evacuation and loss of many industrial enterprises there were problems with obtaining various parts and materials.

So, in October 1941, it turned out that the stock of diesel engines was running out, and their production in Chelyabinsk had not yet begun due to the unfinished evacuation of the Kharkov Diesel Engine Plant. A. Shpitanov, senior military representative at ChKZ, suggested installing M-17 gasoline engines on the KV, which were previously installed on T-28 tanks (one hundred of these engines ended up in the warehouse of evacuated property). Hastily, under the guidance of engineer N. Khalkiopov, drawings were made for installing the M-17 in the KV tank (signed on October 31, 1941) and soon the first tank with a gasoline engine entered sea trials. It turned out that the engine was overheating, and the tank could only move in low gears. However, there was no other way out and the decision was reported to Moscow. A decision followed to equip 100 KV tanks with M-17 gasoline engines. When transferred to the troops, each machine with the M-17 was accompanied by a special instruction with recommendations for operating a gasoline engine on a HF.

The author does not have data on how many HF received gasoline engines. It is only known for certain that on April 8, 1942, the People's Commissar of the Tank Industry signed an order "on replacing the M-17 engines installed on KV tanks with V-2 engines."

Simultaneously with the installation of the M-17 on the KV, they began to install additional fuel tanks (five for each tank). The installation of tanks made it possible to increase the cruising range of tanks (both gasoline and diesel).

Since October 1941, ChKZ, as far as possible, began to replace especially labor-intensive operations with simpler ones, to change the production technology of many components and assemblies. For example, the balancers for the KV undercarriage were first forged, and then processed for machine tools. From November, they began to be made using hot stamping, after which it remained only to drill the necessary holes.

In October, due to the evacuation of the State Bearing Plant from Moscow, ChKZ stopped receiving bearings. Then, at the suggestion of N. Dukhov, they began to install steel cages on rollers cut from blanks of torsion shafts. Such a replacement of individual ball bearings with roller bearings turned out to be quite successful and made it possible to get out of a difficult situation.

However, the release of KV tanks became more and more complicated. There were not enough radio stations, non-ferrous metals, rubber and much more. We had to look for a replacement for each missing unit and material. So, due to the lack of aluminum, since October 1941, radiators on KV tanks began to be made from steel tubes. Steel radiators were designed under the guidance of designer-turbinist N. Sinev. In order to save rubber, track and support rollers began to be made of cast all-metal. Due to the lack of press equipment, one-piece forged tracks were also transferred to casting.

The technology for the production of armored hulls has also changed. Part of the connections of the armor plates were transferred from rivets and goujons to welding, in order to save time and machine park, gouging of the edges of the armor plates after cutting them with gas cutting was abandoned. From the beginning of 1942, on parts of armored hulls, the upper bent stern plate was made straight, and the engine compartment cover was made without stamping. In addition, in order to save expensive rolled products, they switched to the production of cast towers along with welded ones.

Another interesting work carried out in 1941 was experiments on the production of cast turrets and hulls of KV tanks. The initiative in this belonged to the deputy head of the armored department of the ABTU of the Red Army, military engineer 1st rank Alymov. The benefits in casting production were obvious - metal savings, unloading of scarce press and bending equipment, and the absence of welds. At the same time, cast parts had (compared to those made of rolled armor) a number of disadvantages - the possibility of hidden internal defects in the casting, its unevenness in thickness. The decision to manufacture cast towers was made in August 1940, and Izhora and Mariupol plants, as well as a special technical bureau (STB) under the leadership of Rudakov, were involved in their manufacture. In October - November 1940, six towers and one KV building were cast by these enterprises. From January 25 to February 5, 1941, the towers were fire tested and examined by a special commission. According to the test results, the people's commissar of heavy engineering, A. Efremov, reported to K. Voroshilov on March 13: “Based on the results of the work of the commission on cast towers, I consider it necessary to start serial production KV towers:

a) at plant No. 78 - for KV-1;

b) at the Izhora plant and the Hammer and Sickle plant - for the KV-3.

However, this initiative was not supported, and all work on the cast towers was curtailed, and the KV one-piece cast hull was scrapped.

The issue of the production of cast towers was returned only in December 1941, when an acute shortage of armored products began to be felt. Hastily, Plant No. 200 put into production a turret based on the cast turret of the Izhora Plant, which had been tested as early as the beginning of 1941. A little later, UZTM began production of similar towers.

It should be noted that along with the advantages of cast structures compared to welded structures (savings in rolled products, lack of welding, unloading of scarce press equipment), they also had a number of disadvantages - unevenness in thickness and the possibility of various hidden defects inside. As a result, the projectile resistance of cast armor was lower than that of katana. Therefore, the thickness of the cast turret of the KV tank was 110 mm (75 mm for the welded one). But, despite this, due to violations of the casting technology, lack of experience in such work, qualified personnel and the necessary materials for projectile resistance, cast towers, even of this thickness, were inferior to welded ones.

It should be noted that, despite the changes and simplifications made to the design of the KV, up to the cessation of production of the KV-1 in the summer of 1942, the factories manufactured parts according to both old and new drawings in a wide variety of configurations. Everything depended on the availability of the necessary raw materials, materials and equipment. This is well illustrated by the "Report of the commission on the technical and quantitative inventory of hulls and turrets for orders No. 3000 and 30001, created in accordance with the order for the plant No. 197 of April 2, 1942." According to this document, as of June 3, 1942, ChKZ had the following number of armored hulls and turrets:

"one. Buildings of the UZTM plant:

a) hulls with a flat top aft sheet and a flat engine roof hatch - 200 pcs.

b) hulls with a flat top aft sheet and a convex motor roof hatch - 80 pcs.

c) hulls with a convex upper aft sheet and a flat engine roof hatch - 109 pcs.

2. Buildings of plant No. 200:

a) hulls with a flat top aft sheet and a convex motor roof hatch - 64 pcs.

b) hulls with a flat top aft sheet and a flat engine roof hatch - 13 pcs.

c) hulls with a convex upper stern sheet and a convex motor roof hatch - 2 pcs.

d) hulls with a convex upper aft sheet and a flat engine roof hatch - 66 pcs.

3. Towers of the UZTM plant:

a) riveted-welded children. 57 (for object KV-8) available - 20 pcs.

b) welded for serial machines det. 157 - 25 pcs.

c) cast weighted children. 257 - 166 pcs.

d) cast lightweight children. 957 - 89 pcs.

4. Towers of plant No. 200:

a) welded for serial machines det. 157 - 4 pcs.

b) cast weighted children. 257 - 27 pcs.

c) cast lightweight children. 957 - 157 pieces.