Multi-barreled guns. Bloodthirsty twentieth century
Multi-barreled machine guns and automatic cannons, which became widespread in the second half of the 20th century, had an interesting backstory. One of its little-known pages was the weapon of the Soviet designer Ivan Ilyich Slostin - a striking example of an invention that was ahead of its time.
From pepper shaker to meat grinder
Firearms with a rotating block of barrels appeared at the end of the 18th century, when pepperboxes, muzzle-loading multi-barreled pistols, became widespread in Great Britain. The first models with a flintlock located above a common seed flange had six barrels screwed into a common base. For each next shot, it was necessary to rotate the block by hand, placing the priming hole of the next barrel under the lock - approximately the same way as you need to rotate a manual pepper mill. The flintlock turned out to be quite unsuccessful for such a design, and pepperboxes became widespread only in the 30s of the 19th century, after the advent of the cap lock. In the United States, Ethan Allen received a patent for capsule pepperboxes in 1834. The rotation of the barrel block and cocking of the hammer in his models were carried out by a trigger, in the manner of a revolver.
Allen's Pepperboxes were equipped with several barrels (up to six) with a length of 6 to 14 cm and a caliber from 21 to 36 (7.8–9.1 mm in the metric system). In addition to the USA, multi-barreled pistols of the American designer have become widespread in the UK.
In 1839, the Belgian designer J. Mariette patented his pepperbox design. His pistols, ranging in caliber from 7.62 to 12.7 mm, had from 4 to 18 barrels and were produced in continental Europe, primarily in Belgium itself and in France. A distinctive feature of Pepperboxes was their high rate of fire, but this advantage was negated by the lengthy process of loading through the barrels (however, there were also Pepperbox models that were loaded through the breech). The tight trigger mechanism caused poor accuracy, and they were used for shooting at short distances, mainly for self-defense - although in the American Civil War, volunteers used such pistols during combat operations. Pepperboxes, which had many trunks, were quite heavy. After several decades of existence, they finally disappeared from the scene after revolvers chambered for centerfire became widespread. Pepperboxes ceased production in the 1870s.
The next generation of multi-barreled weapons with a rotating block of barrels was the famous “Uncle Gatling’s meat grinder.” Richard Gatling, the son of a farmer from Connecticut, received a patent for his most famous (but not the only one - he had patents for a rice seeder, a steamboat propeller, etc.) invention in November 1862. A doctor by profession, Gatling was distinguished by his rare love of humanity. He wrote about the motives that prompted him to invent weapons of mass destruction in the 19th century:
“If I could create a mechanical firing system that, thanks to its rate of fire, would allow one man to replace a hundred marksmen on the battlefield, the need for large armies would disappear, which would lead to a significant reduction in human losses.”.
British-made Model 1865 Gatling gun
Tellingly, the new miracle weapon received its slang name (“meat grinder”) not because of its destructive effect on the flesh, but, like the Pepperbox, because of its reloading method. The block of barrels and the trigger mechanism were driven by a handle that the shooter had to rotate. This action had an obvious resemblance to the preparation of minced meat using an ordinary manual meat grinder, which is quite widespread in our time.
The invention of the American humanist doctor spread widely across the planet. This was facilitated by the pace of possible destruction of their own kind, proposed by Gatling and pleasant for the military, unprecedented at that time. If the first model Gatling gun had a rate of fire of about 200 rounds per minute, numerous improvements in the design by 1876 increased it to a fantastic theoretically possible 1200 rounds per minute (although in battle a rate of about 400–800 rounds per minute was achievable). The production of the “meat grinder” and variations on its theme was mastered in other countries. In Russia, for example, a “4.2-line automatic cannon” of the Gatling-Gorlov system under the “Berdanov” cartridge was adopted.
The design of a 4.2-line machine gun of the Gatling-Gorlov system. The name “cardbox” in modern terminology for the Gatling system is not entirely correct
The rotating block of barrels itself, as we remember, was not Gatling’s invention. His merit was in creating a mechanism for feeding cartridges from the tray into the barrel and subsequent extraction of the cartridge case from the barrel. Each of the barrels had its own bolt and firing pin, which were driven by a spring at the top of the barrel's trajectory after a cartridge from the tray entered the chamber. Despite the lack of real automation, the rate of fire of the multi-barrel Gatling design was many times greater than the rate of fire of single-barreled machine guns. Several barrels (in the most common samples from – 4 to 10), firing one after another, did not have time to overheat and did not become dirty from soot so quickly.
“Classic” Gatling machine guns barely made their way into the American army, but then became quite widespread around the world and managed to take part in several wars at the end of the 19th century. Multi-barreled rapid-fire small-caliber guns were also adopted, for example the five-barreled 37-mm Hotchkiss gun.
Five-barreled 37-mm Hotchkiss gun on the deck of a Russian ship
Chemistry put an end to the multi-barreled machine gun with a rotating block of barrels. Developed by Hiram Maxim, the single-barrel machine gun with true automaticity used cartridges with smokeless gunpowder invented in 1884. Now the barrel was not so dirty - and the water cooling system allowed Maxim’s invention to successfully combat overheating. Yes, a single-barrel machine gun, in theory, had a slower rate of fire - but at the same time it was much less bulky. In addition, the absence of the need to rotate the handle when firing had a very beneficial effect on both the accuracy of the fire (aiming the barrel while simultaneously rotating the handle is another pleasure) and the degree of fatigue of the machine gunner.
By the beginning of World War I, the victory of single-barrel automatic machine guns became obvious. True, in 1916 in Germany, the Fokker Werke GmbH company developed a 12-barrel Fokker-Leimberger machine gun with a caliber of 7.92 mm with an external automatic drive and a declared rate of fire of 7200 rounds per minute for arming aircraft. But by the end of the war, only one prototype was created, which did not take part in hostilities.
Second coming
For about half a century, the single-barrel machine gun reigned supreme. As a rule, its rate of fire suited the military quite well. If it was necessary to increase the density of fire, for example, to hit fast-moving air targets, the machine guns were simply connected into bulky batteries. And the planes themselves were armed with many barrels of various calibers - in an air battle, an enemy plane was in the sights literally for an instant, and increasing the second salvo for the designers was a very important task.
By the end of World War II, single-barreled cannons and machine guns had practically reached the “structural” rate of fire limit, which was primarily due to overheating of the barrel. Meanwhile, aircraft speeds, and, as a result, the dynamics of air combat, grew rapidly as a result of the advent of jet aircraft. It turned out that hitting a jet plane from the ground and hitting a small target on the ground from a jet plane using traditional single-barreled automatic weapons is very problematic.
In the late 1940s, specialists from the American corporation General Electric began experiments on museum exhibits, installing electric motors on samples of Gatling weapons. However, there is information that such experiments were carried out at the end of the 19th century, but at that time their super-rate of fire simply did not find application. The replacement of muscular power with electrical power on the move pleasantly surprised the designers, allowing for a rate of fire of more than 2000 rounds per minute. And after improving the design using technologies available in the mid-20th century, the new six-barreled automatic 20-mm cannon M61A1 Vulcan fired 6000 rounds per minute.
20-mm automatic cannon M61А1 Vulcan from the armament of the Hornet F18 fighter
The return of the multi-barrel rotating design was triumphant. Of course, cannons and machine guns made according to this design occupy a special niche - as a light or single machine gun, for example, they cannot be used due to their large mass. And this is true even for the most “miniature” 5.56 mm machine guns - a Terminator and Tony Stark in an exoskeleton can conduct aimed fire from such weapons, but not an ordinary infantryman. But as weapons for aviation and air defense forces, such systems have become indispensable and are still used by all advanced armies to this day. Although, of course, they have certain disadvantages, such as the inertia of the heavy barrel block, due to which the maximum rate of fire does not occur immediately, and some of the ammunition is wasted when the burst ends.
Slostin machine gun
The widely known multi-barrel designs of Soviet gunsmiths appeared after General Electric's experiments on museum exhibits and had a significant difference in terms of the operation of the automation. Domestic designers decided to abandon the use of an electric motor, which requires an external energy supply, and used the energy of powder gases. A gas engine powered by exhaust gases rotates the block of barrels, and the initial spin-up is carried out by a spring starter device that stores energy when the block is braked at the end of each burst. It should be noted that in addition to electric and gas, pneumatic and hydraulic drives can also be used in various multi-barrel systems.
Despite the later adoption of domestic models, the opinion that Soviet designers lagged behind their American colleagues in the matter of reviving the concept of cannons and machine guns of a multi-barreled design is fundamentally incorrect.
Slostin machine gun on a Sokolov wheeled machine
Weapon designer Ivan Ilyich Slostin, unfortunately, is little known. It was he who, back in 1939, presented for field testing the first model of his 7.62-mm eight-barreled machine gun with a rotating block of barrels, the automation of which worked using the removal of powder gases. For testing, the machine gun was mounted on a wheeled machine. The rate of fire of 3300 rounds per minute, the instantly (in 4.5 seconds!) empty belt of 250 rounds of ammunition and a small crater at the site of the stand with the target amazed military officials - no one expected this from a 7.62 mm machine gun. However, the design turned out to be “crude” - after 250 shots, the barrels overheated and the machine gun refused to work. The accuracy of fire was also unsatisfactory.
After the war, in August-September 1946, Ivan Ilyich presented his new heavy machine gun for testing. The operation of its automation was also based on the removal of powder gases. By means of two couplings, eight barrels were connected to each other into a single drum, which could move longitudinally. Each barrel had a gas piston placed in the gas chamber of the adjacent barrel in such a way that a closed circuit was formed between all the barrels. The transfer of the impulse of pore gases through the piston to the chamber of the next barrel set the automatic machine gun in motion.
Slostin machine gun
Despite the fact that the rate of fire of 3000–3100 rounds per minute declared by the designer was not achieved during the tests (in reality it was 1760–2100 rounds per minute), and the accuracy of fire of the eight-barreled machine gun was 6–7 times inferior to this indicator of the Goryunov heavy machine gun model 1943, the commission highly appreciated Slostin’s brainchild, as evidenced by the opinions of test participants:
Engineer Lieutenant Colonel Lysenko:
“Designer Slostin managed to solve the idea of creating a multi-barreled machine gun well: a high rate of fire, the possibility of long-term firing, and a compact system. Modify this machine gun and use it as a means of reinforcement in the infantry. Try to make such a 14.5 mm machine gun. You can create a good zen under it. installation."
Engineer-Captain Slutsky:
“The high rate of fire has a depressing effect on the enemy... The weight of 28 kg, when compared with the Maxim machine gun, is not very large. You can get decent survivability. Reliability can also be improved. The machine gun allows 1500 shots without cooling the barrels. This gives him a colossal combat rate of fire. Modify the machine gun<…>There will be a place for its use immediately. As a means of strengthening for infantry, it is indispensable, as evidenced by the experience of war. The infantry loved to use Maxim's fours, and this would be better than fours. Make this machine gun chambered for 14.5 mm.”
Engineer-Captain Kutsenko:
“I agree with Comrade Comrade’s opinion. Lysenko and Slutsky. For a 14.5 mm caliber it is unlikely to achieve good survivability. Stopping the drum suddenly will have a detrimental effect on its strength. But getting such a machine gun is very tempting - it has a purpose. The rate of fire for the 14.5mm needs to be kept the same as for this 7.62mm caliber. Belt – 250 rounds is not enough, you need at least 500 (coupling).”
Engineer Lieutenant Colonel Tsvetkov:
“It is impossible to use the Slostin machine gun in infantry units (platoon, company) - it is too heavy. As a means of enhancement it deserves attention. Increase tape capacity. The machine gun has no small parts. You can get good survivability. It is premature to judge how this machine gun will behave with a caliber of 14.5 mm.”
The commission's report stated:
“Under acceptable firing modes with a cutoff of 1,500 rounds, a machine gun designed by Slostin, in addition to high fire efficiency and continuous barrage fire, will also provide a demoralizing effect on the enemy. He will almost certainly put the advancing infantry units to flight. The noise created by a machine gun has a depressing effect on the nervous system.”
Slostin machine gun on an anti-aircraft stand
Main characteristics of the 7.62 mm Slostin machine gun
Already in 1946, the reports of the commission members expressed the opinion that it would be possible to increase the caliber of the system. The colossal power of a large-caliber machine gun with an ultra-high rate of fire looked like an interesting way to qualitatively increase firepower. In May 1949, a prototype of a Slostin heavy machine gun chambered for 14.5 mm was tested at the Research Site for Small and Mortar Weapons of the Main Artillery Directorate. In case of successful tests, it was planned to be used, among other things, as an anti-aircraft weapon on the IS-7 heavy tank being developed. Another option for using a machine gun was a project to install it on the chassis of a ZIS-151 truck to combat enemy aircraft and manpower. In a large-caliber machine gun, the barrels were assembled into a rigid structure and did not move longitudinally, and the automation was activated by rolling back the slide with the gas piston of the firing barrel.
Slostin's large-caliber machine gun, unfortunately, had two significant drawbacks that could not be eliminated without a radical redesign of the entire design. Difficulties in braking a massive block of eight barrels led to an off-central puncture of the primer, and the locking unit for the barrel bore without a bolt was unreliable and caused transverse breaks in the cartridge cases of the powerful 14.5 mm cartridge.
With this test, the history of the original Slostin multi-barreled machine guns ended. Soviet designers returned to multi-barreled machine gun and artillery systems later, at the height of the Cold War. It is possible that, while creating the next high-speed machine gun, one of them looked at the drawings of the Kovrov gunsmith Ivan Ilyich Slostin, a designer who was ahead of his time.
Literature:
- Yu. Ponomarev. Heavy machine guns I. I. Slostin - Kalashnikov. Weapons, ammunition, equipment 1/2008
- Yu. Shokarev. Pepperbox - Weapons
- D. Yurov. A barrage of lead: a Soviet multi-barreled machine gun that was ahead of its time tvzvezda.ru
GSh-6-23 (AO-19, TKB-613, Air Force UV Index - 9-A-620) - six-barreled aviation 23-mm automatic gun with Gatling design.
In the USSR, work on the creation of multi-barrel aircraft guns was going on even before the Great Patriotic War. True, they ended in vain. Soviet gunsmiths came to the idea of a system with barrels combined into one block, which would be rotated by an electric motor, at the same time as American designers, but here we failed.
In 1959, Arkady Shipunov and Vasily Gryazev, who worked at the Klimovsky Research Institute-61, joined the work. As it turned out, the work had to start virtually from scratch. The designers had information that the Vulcan was being created in the United States, but not only the technical solutions used by the Americans, but also the tactical and technical characteristics of the new Western system remained secret.
True, Arkady Shipunov himself later admitted that even if he and Vasily Gryazev had become aware of American technical solutions, they would still hardly have been able to apply them in the USSR. As already mentioned, the designers of General Electric connected an external electric drive with a power of 26 kW to the Vulcan, while Soviet aircraft manufacturers could only offer, as Vasily Gryazev himself put it, “24 volts and not a gram more.” Therefore, it was necessary to create a system that would not operate from an external source, but using the internal energy of the shot.
It is noteworthy that similar schemes were proposed at one time by other American companies participating in the competition to create a promising aircraft gun. True, Western designers were unable to implement such a solution. In contrast, Arkady Shipunov and Vasily Gryazev created a so-called gas exhaust engine, which, according to the second member of the tandem, worked like an internal combustion engine - it took part of the powder gas from the barrels when fired.
But, despite the elegant solution, another problem arose: how to fire the first shot, because the gas exhaust engine, and therefore the gun mechanism itself, is not yet working. For the initial impulse, a starter was required, after which, from the first shot, the gun would operate on its own gas. Subsequently, two starter options were proposed: pneumatic and pyrotechnic (with a special squib).
In his memoirs, Arkady Shipunov recalls that even at the beginning of work on a new aircraft gun, he was able to see one of the few photographs of the American Vulcan being prepared for testing, where he was struck by the fact that a belt loaded with ammunition was spreading along the floor, ceiling and walls of the compartment, but was not consolidated into a single cartridge box.
Later it became clear that with a rate of fire of 6000 rounds/min, a void forms in the cartridge box in a matter of seconds and the tape begins to “walk.” In this case, the ammunition falls out, and the tape itself breaks. Shipunov and Gryazev developed a special pneumatic tape pull-up that does not allow the tape to move. Unlike the American solution, this idea provided a much more compact placement of the gun and ammunition, which is especially important for aircraft, where designers fight for every centimeter.
Despite the fact that the product, which received the AO-19 index, was practically ready, there was no place for it in the Soviet Air Force, since the military themselves believed that small arms were a relic of the past, and missiles were the future. Shortly before the Air Force rejected the new gun, Vasily Gryazev was transferred to another enterprise. It would seem that the AO-19, despite all the unique technical solutions, will remain unclaimed.
But in 1966, after summarizing the experience of the North Vietnamese and American Air Forces in the USSR, it was decided to resume work on the creation of promising aircraft guns. True, by that time almost all enterprises and design bureaus that had previously worked on this topic had already reoriented themselves to other areas. Moreover, there were no people willing to return to this line of work in the military-industrial sector!
Surprisingly, despite all the difficulties, Arkady Shipunov, who by this time headed TsKB-14, decided to revive the cannon theme at his enterprise. After the Military-Industrial Commission approved this decision, its management agreed to return Vasily Gryazev, as well as several other specialists who took part in the work on the “AO-19 product,” to the Tula enterprise.
As Arkady Shipunov recalled, the problem of resuming work on cannon aircraft weapons arose not only in the USSR, but also in the West. In fact, at that time, the only multi-barreled gun in the world was the American one - the Vulcan.
It is worth noting that, despite the rejection of the “AO-19 object” by the Air Force, the product was of interest to the Navy, for which several gun systems were developed.
By the beginning of the 70s, KBP offered two six-barreled guns: the 30-mm AO-18, which used the AO-18 cartridge, and the AO-19, chambered for 23-mm AM-23 ammunition. It is noteworthy that the products differed not only in the projectiles used, but also in the starters for preliminary acceleration of the barrel block. The AO-18 had a pneumatic one, and the AO-19 had a pyrotechnic one with 10 squibs.
Initially, representatives of the Air Force, who considered the new gun as armament for promising fighters and fighter-bombers, placed increased demands on the AO-19 for firing ammunition - at least 500 shells in one burst. I had to seriously work on the survivability of the gun. The most loaded part, the gas rod, was made of special heat-resistant materials. The design has been changed. The gas engine was modified, where so-called floating pistons were installed.
Preliminary tests have shown that the modified AO-19 can show much better performance than originally stated. As a result of the work carried out at the KBP, the 23-mm cannon was able to fire at a rate of fire of 10–12 thousand rounds per minute. And the mass of the AO-19 after all the adjustments was just over 70 kg.
For comparison: the American Vulcan, which had been modified by this time, received the index M61A1, weighed 136 kg, fired 6000 rounds per minute, the salvo was almost 2.5 times smaller than that of the AO-19, while American aircraft designers also needed to place on board The aircraft also has a 25-kilowatt external electric drive.
And even on the M61A2, which is on board the fifth-generation fighter F-22, American designers, with the smaller caliber and rate of fire of their guns, were unable to achieve the unique indicators in weight and compactness, like the gun developed by Vasily Gryazev and Arkady Shipunov.
The first customer of the new AO-19 gun was the Sukhoi Experimental Design Bureau, which at that time was headed by Pavel Osipovich himself. Sukhoi planned that the new gun would become armament for the T-6, a promising front-line bomber with variable wing geometry, which they were then developing, which later became the legendary Su-24.
The time frame for work on the new vehicle was quite tight: the T-6, which made its first flight on January 17, 1970, in the summer of 1973, was already ready for transfer to military testers. When fine-tuning the AO-19 to the requirements of aircraft manufacturers, certain difficulties arose. The gun, which fired well on the test bench, could not fire more than 150 shots - the barrels overheated and needed to be cooled, which often took about 10–15 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature.
Another problem was that the gun did not want, as the designers of the Tula Instrument Engineering Design Bureau joked, “to stop shooting.” After releasing the launch button, the AO-19 managed to spontaneously fire three or four projectiles. But within the allotted time, all the shortcomings and technical problems were eliminated, and the T-6 was presented to the Air Force GLITs for testing with a gun fully integrated into the new front-line bomber.
During the tests that began in Akhtubinsk, the product, which by that time had received the GSh index (Gryazev - Shipunov) -6-23, was shot at various targets. During the test use of the newest system, in less than one second, the pilot was able to completely cover all targets, firing about 200 shells!
Pavel Sukhoi was so satisfied with the GSh-6-23 that, along with the standard Su-24 ammunition, the so-called SPPU-6 suspended gun containers with movable GSh-6-23M gun mounts, capable of deflecting horizontally and vertically by 45 degrees, were included . It was assumed that with such weapons, and in total it was planned to place two such installations on the front-line bomber, it would be able to completely disable the runway in one pass, as well as destroy a column of motorized infantry in combat vehicles up to one kilometer long.
Developed at the Dzerzhinets plant, SPPU-6 became one of the largest mobile cannon installations. Its length exceeded five meters, and its mass with ammunition of 400 shells was 525 kg. The tests showed that when firing with the new installation, there was at least one projectile hit per linear meter.
It is noteworthy that immediately after Sukhoi, the Mikoyan Design Bureau became interested in the cannon, which intended to use the GSh-6-23 on the latest supersonic interceptor MiG-31. Despite its large size, aircraft manufacturers required a fairly small-sized gun with a high rate of fire, since the MiG-31 was supposed to destroy supersonic targets. KBP helped Mikoyan by developing a unique lightweight conveyor-free linkless feeding system, thanks to which the weight of the gun was reduced by several more kilograms and gained additional centimeters of space on board the interceptor.
Developed by outstanding gunsmiths Arkady Shipunov and Vasily Gryazev, the GSh-6-23 automatic aircraft gun still remains in service with the Russian Air Force. Moreover, in many ways its characteristics, despite its more than 40-year service life, remain unique.
But the monopoly on rate of fire did not last long - soon the name “machine gun” was assigned to automatic weapons that worked on the principles of using powder gases and recoil for reloading. The first such weapon was the Hiram Maxim machine gun, which used smokeless powder. This invention pushed the Gatlings into the background, and then completely forced them out of the armies. The new single-barrel machine guns had a significantly higher rate of fire, were easier to manufacture and less bulky.
Gatling guns in the air The pilot can change the rate of fire of the GAU-8 gun depending on the task. In the “low” rate of fire mode it is 2000 rounds/min, when switching to the “high” mode it is 4200. The optimal conditions for using the GAU-8 are 10 two-second bursts with minute breaks to cool the barrels.
Eruption"
Ironically, the revenge of the Gatlings over single-barreled automatic guns took place more than half a century later, after the Korean War, which became a real testing ground for jet aircraft. Despite their fierceness, the battles between the F-86 and MiG-15 showed the low effectiveness of the artillery weapons of the new jet fighters, which migrated from their piston ancestors. Aircraft of that time were armed with entire batteries of several barrels with calibers ranging from 12.7 to 37 mm. All this was done in order to increase the second salvo: after all, a continuously maneuvering enemy aircraft was kept in sight for only a fraction of a second, and to defeat it it was necessary to create a huge density of fire in a short time. At the same time, single-barrel guns almost reached the “design” limit of rate of fire - the barrel overheated too quickly. An unexpected solution came naturally: in the late 1940s, the American corporation General Electric began experiments with... old Gatling guns taken from museums. The block of barrels was spun by an electric motor, and the 70-year-old gun immediately produced a rate of fire of more than 2000 rounds per minute (interestingly, there is evidence of the installation of an electric drive on Gatling guns back in the late 19th century; this made it possible to achieve a rate of fire of several thousand rounds per minute - but in At that time, such an indicator was not in demand). The development of the idea was the creation of a gun that opened an entire era in the arms industry - the M61A1 Vulcan.
When recharging, the GAU-8 module is completely removed from the aircraft. This significantly increases the ease of maintenance of the gun. The rotation of the barrel block is carried out by two hydraulic motors operating from the general hydraulic system of the aircraft.
The Vulcan is a six-barreled gun weighing 190 kg (without ammunition), 1800 mm long, 20 mm caliber and 6000 rounds per minute. The Vulcan automation is powered by an external electric drive with a power of 26 kW. Ammunition supply is linkless, carried out from a drum magazine with a capacity of 1000 shells along a special sleeve. Spent cartridges are returned to the magazine. This decision was made after an incident with the F-104 Starfighter, when spent cartridges ejected by the cannon were thrown back by the air flow and severely damaged the fuselage of the aircraft. The enormous rate of fire of the gun also led to unforeseen consequences: the vibrations that arose during firing forced a change in the rate of fire in order to eliminate resonance of the entire structure. The recoil of the gun also brought a surprise: in one of the test flights of the ill-fated F-104, during firing, the Vulcan fell off the carriage and, continuing to shoot, turned the entire nose of the aircraft with shells, while the pilot miraculously managed to eject. However, after correcting these shortcomings, the US military received a light and reliable weapon that has served faithfully for decades. M61 cannons are used on many aircraft and in the Mk.15 Phalanx anti-aircraft system, designed to destroy low-flying aircraft and cruise missiles. Based on the M61A1, a six-barreled rapid-fire machine gun M134 Minigun with a caliber of 7.62 mm was developed, which, thanks to computer games and filming in numerous films, became the most famous among all Gatlings. The machine gun is designed for installation on helicopters and ships.
The most powerful gun with a rotating barrel block was the American GAU-8 Avenger, designed for installation on the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft. The 30-mm seven-barreled cannon is designed to fire primarily at ground targets. It uses two types of ammunition: PGU-13/B high-explosive fragmentation shells and PGU-14/B armor-piercing shells with an increased initial velocity with a depleted uranium core. Since the gun and the aircraft were originally designed specifically for each other, firing from the GAU-8 does not lead to severe disruption of the A-10's controllability. When designing the aircraft, it was also taken into account that powder gases from the gun should not enter the engines of the aircraft (this could lead to them stopping) - special reflectors were installed for this purpose. But during the operation of the A-10, it was noticed that unburned powder particles settle on the blades of engine turbochargers and reduce thrust, and also lead to increased corrosion. To prevent this effect, electric afterburners are built into the aircraft's engines. The ignition devices are switched on automatically when the fire is opened. At the same time, according to the instructions, after each ammunition fired, the A-10 engines must be washed to remove soot. Although the gun did not show high efficiency during combat use, the psychological effect of use was great - when a stream of fire literally pours from the sky, it is very, very scary...
The AK-630 automatic cannon turret is uninhabited. The gun is aimed remotely using electric hydraulic drives. The AK-630 is a universal and effective “means of self-defense” for our warships, allowing us to defend ourselves against a variety of misfortunes, be it an anti-ship missile, Somali pirates or a surfaced sea mine (as in the film “Peculiarities of National Fishing”)...
In the USSR, work on rapid-fire guns began with the development of shipborne short-range air defense systems. The result was the creation of a family of anti-aircraft guns designed at the Tula Precision Instrumentation Design Bureau. 30-mm AK-630 cannons still form the basis of the air defense of our ships, and the modernized machine gun is part of the Kortik naval anti-aircraft missile and gun system.
Our country realized late the need to have an analogue of the Vulcan in service, so almost ten years passed between the tests of the GSh-6−23 cannon and the decision to adopt it for service. The rate of fire of the GSh-6−23, which is installed on the Su-24 and MiG-31 aircraft, is 9000 rounds per minute, and the initial rotation of the barrels is carried out by standard PPL squibs (and not electric or hydraulic drives, as in American analogues), which made it possible significantly increase the reliability of the system and simplify its design. After the squib is fired and the first projectile is fired, the barrel block spins up using the energy of the powder gases removed from the barrel channels. The cannon can be fed with shells either linkless or link-based.
The reader remembers the story of the Polish nobleman Samuil Maskevich, who visited Moscow in 1609–1612, about the Tsar Cannon of Andrei Chokhov. The same Maskevich, speaking about the “countless multitude of siege and other firearms on the towers, on the walls, at the gates” of the Moscow Kremlin, recalls: “There, by the way, I saw one weapon that was loaded with a hundred bullets and fired the same number of shots; it is so high that it will be up to my shoulder, and its bullets are the size of goose eggs. It stands opposite the gate leading to the Living Bridge."
Nothing was known about this truly mysterious weapon until 1949, when A.P. Lebedyanskaya found a most interesting document - a report-“fairy tale” of cannon liters Alexei Yakimov, Mikhail Ivanov and Nikifor Baranov. The work of A. A. Lebedyanskaya, unfortunately, remained unpublished. The author of these lines, independently of the Leningrad researcher, discovered the mentioned document in the Department of Written Sources of the State Historical Museum and in 1954 published it, although not in its entirety, but in separate excerpts. Let us quote it in full: “September 149 (1640), on the 6th day of the inspection of the cannon litts of Oleksei Yakimov, Mikhail Ivanov, Mikifor Boranov, under a canopy there was a copper arquebus that a hundred charges in it were damaged. And that arquebus was made by cannon and bell maker Ondrei Chokhov in 1953. And in that one they squeaked again, as Ondrei Chokhov did, and 35 cores were filled. And master de Ondrei himself could not help her. And even during the Moscow devastation (that is, during the years of the Polish-Swedish intervention. - E.N.) the same squeak was clogged with stones and dirt and 25 charges were pumped in with cannonballs, and they don’t know how to help with that charge. And now she’s laughing enough. But she has as many as 40 charges left, and those charges are hard to shoot. Oleksei Ekimov had a hand in this story. Instead of the cannon litts Mikhail Ivanov, at his behest, the Moscow gunner Grishka Savelyev had a hand in this cap. (7) 149 (1640) September 28 reported to the sovereign.”
Document on the hundred-barreled gun.
Thus, it is indisputably established that the hundred-barreled gun was designed and manufactured by Andrei Chokhov.
Multi-barrel guns appeared in the second half of the 14th century - historians date the first mention of them to 1387. These were the years of artillery’s infancy, and the creation of guns with several barrels was caused by the imperfection of artillery technology. The first breech-loading guns had a rate of fire that was sufficient for those times. However, firing from them was dangerous not so much for the enemy as for the gun servants. The limited technical means available to gunsmiths at that time did not make it possible to completely eliminate the breakthrough of powder gases during a shot. The gunners received burns and wounds. Therefore, they are being replaced by clumsy bombards, sometimes reaching impressive sizes, which were loaded from the muzzle. Fire was imparted to the charge through a fuse with a hot rod or a sliver of wood, which was soaked in saltpeter and then lit. The rate of fire of the bombards was low.
In order to somehow compensate for the lack of rate of fire, we decided to connect several small-caliber barrels on one machine. The seeds of each barrel were ignited separately. This is how the first multi-barreled guns appeared, called ribodeckens. Over time, it was possible to achieve a simultaneous salvo from all barrels. To do this, their seeds were connected by a common trench into which gunpowder was poured. Such improved ribodecenes were called organs. Sometimes they had up to 40 small barrels, designed for a rifle bullet.
The organs are also known in Russian practice.
The Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering Troops and Signal Corps houses a multi-barreled gun made up of seven rifle barrels with a caliber of 17.8 mm. The trunks are placed on a wide board mounted on a two-wheeled cart. The seeds of all trunks are connected by an iron groove. The organ was brought to the museum from Siberia. According to legend, this gun took part in the campaign of the Cossack ataman Ermak Timofeevich against the Siberian Khan Kuchum, which is why it received the name “Ermak gun”.
In the Moscow state of the 16th–17th centuries, organs made up of gun barrels were called “magpies”, “fortieth arquebuses”. Inventories of the outfit of various cities, preserved in the archives, indicate that this type of weapon was very common and, together with regimental, one-and-a-half and zatina arquebuses, formed the basis of fortress artillery. So, for example, according to the inventory of 1637 in Suzdal there were “2 forties copper arquebuses with 37 iron cores for half a hryvnia each”, in Kaluga - “a fortieth copper arquebus in a camp on wheels with 25 iron cores for it.” The description book, “made during the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich,” indicates the forties arquebuses that stood in Suzdal, Borovsk, Mozhaisk, Tver, Uglich, Livny, Vylsk, Putivl, Kolomna, Lereslavl, Mikhailov, Gremyachev, Tula.
There are other “magpies” in the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering Troops and Signal Corps. One of them has 61 gun barrels arranged in five rows on a rotating shaft, which is mounted on a two-wheeled machine with shafts. The seeds of each row are connected by an iron groove covered with a lid on top. The other “magpie” is a box bound with iron sheets, inside of which there are 105 pistol barrels with a common gun lock. The battery is placed on a two-wheeled cart and equipped with a sight with a front sight.
In 1583, a multi-barrel cannon with interchangeable replaceable barrels was made by pioneer printer Ivan Fedorov. He demonstrated it in Vienna to Emperor Rudolf II. According to Ivan Fedorov, his gun “can be disassembled into separate, strictly defined components, namely: fifty, one hundred and even, if necessary, two hundred parts, depending on the established size and caliber of each gun.” The pioneer printer himself determined the essence of his invention; as the art of “composing cannons from separate parts, which destroy and destroy the largest fortresses and well-fortified settlements, while smaller objects are blown into the air, blown away in all directions and leveled to the ground.”
The barreled gun was manufactured by Andrei Chekhov five years after the demonstration of Ivan Fedorov's gun in Vienna. Both of these guns are a significant step in the development of artillery materiel. "Magpies" were designed for rifle bullets. The guns of Andrei Chokhov and Ivan Fedorov are artillery pieces in the full sense of the word.
During the time of Samuil Maskevich, Chokhov’s hundred-barreled cannon stood “opposite the gate leading to the Living Bridge.” “Living” - a wooden bridge lying directly on the water was built during the reign of Ivan Kalita approximately at the place where the single-arch Moskvoretsky Bridge now spans the river. The gun was installed not far from the bridge, about a hundred meters from the water, near the Morkvoretsky (also called Vodyany, or Smolensky) gates of China Town.
Then the gun was transported to the Cannon Yard, where it was stored until the beginning of the 18th century. The further fate of the hundred-barreled gun is unknown. Apparently, it was melted down during the reign of Peter I.
We find some additional information about the weapon in the archives of the Leningrad branch of the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Here, in the collection of Academician I. X. Gamel, copies and extracts made by him from some unknown to us in the original census books of Moscow guns have been preserved.
The first entry reads: “At the Cannon Yard. There is a signature on it: This cannon was poured under the rule of the sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovich of All Great Russia in the summer of 7096 by Andrei Chokhov. On it, under those words, there is an inscription: a cannon with one hundred charges, it weighs 330 poods and 8 hryvnias.”
Another entry mentions a cannon with “one hundred charges per half-kopeck core.”
In the archives of I. X. Gamel there is also the following entry: “The cannon yard in the Armory hangar. A copper cannon with 6 cannonball charges of half a hryvnia weighing 330 poods, 8 hryvnias lit in the summer of 7096 by Andrei Chokhov.” There are other similar entries. A.P. Lebedyanskaya, to whom they were known, believed that Andrei Chokhov made three multi-barreled guns - one hundred-barreled and two six-barreled. It is impossible to agree with this, because a six-barreled gun, of course, should have weighed less than a hundred-barreled one. Meanwhile, the records indicate for both one and the other the same weight - 330 poods 8 hryvnias. The information about the weight of the core (200 g) and the year of casting also coincide. Hence the conclusion: the indication of “6 charges” is an error in the inventories or I. X. Hamel.
We know of another entry about a hundred-barreled cannon - in “Estimate of various cannon reserves in Moscow according to the book of the head of Konon Vladychkin signed by clerks S. Ugotsky and S. Samsonov”; the estimate was compiled in 1635–1636. Mentioned here is “a gun with one hundred charges weighing 330 poods and 80 hryvnias.” Compared to the previous entries, the weight has been increased by 72 hryvnia. There is no need to assume a typo here - the scribe added an extra "0" to "8" - because the numbers are given in Cyrillic numerals: in one case "i" - "8", and in the other - "p" - "80".
Let us now try, as far as possible, to restore the design of Andrei Chokhov’s hundred-barreled gun. This weapon, obviously, was cast, and not forged, like the “magpies”. Chokhov cast all 100 barrels entirely, simultaneously with the body. This is evidenced by the message of the Litzes who examined the cannon in 1641 that during the casting process “35 cores were filled.” If each barrel was cast separately, then the failed barrels could easily be replaced when assembling a hundred-barreled gun. Hence another conclusion: the barrels were not interchangeable, as in Ivan Fedorov’s gun.
Casting such a complex design required great professional skill and enormous labor from the craftsman. Andrei Chokhov had to develop some of his own, completely new methods of molding and casting, because the usual technological process for manufacturing an artillery gun in this case turned out to be completely unacceptable.
The body of the gun was cast, as evidenced by the mention in the inventories of a long cast inscription, which cannot be placed on the surface of one of the short barrels.
The gun fired cannonballs “the size of goose eggs,” weighing about 200 g. The weight of the entire gun was 5283 kg. If you do not take into account the gun body, each barrel will account for a little more than 50 kg.
It seems that we will not be mistaken if we assume that Andrei Chokhov’s hundred-round gun was composed not of cannons, but of small mortars. Such multi-barreled mortars were subsequently manufactured in Rus'.
Let’s not judge Andrei Chokhov harshly that his hundred-barreled gun did not turn out the way he intended it - “in that squeak again, as Ondrei Chokhov made it, 35 cores were filled. And master de Ondrei himself could not help her.” There was no strictly regulated technology at that time, and such cases were not uncommon. When in the middle of the 17th century. The cannon littser Davyd Kondratyev was reproached for the fact that his cannons “didn’t pour out in one casting,” he justified himself as follows: “... He, Davyd, pours the outfit of the large and middle and small and mounted cannons himself and puts the herbs and words on the arquebuses such are Ivan Falk, and the squeak de Yunak did not spill out due to the will of God. And he’s not the only one who happens that the bell and the cannon don’t flow out and are poured into another row. And among the previous masters, Ondrei Chokhov and... Ivan Falk, the bells and squeaks did not pour out in one cast, that is God’s will.”
It is important for us that in the middle of the 17th century. the memory of Andrei Chokhov was alive.
Ivan Falk, mentioned in the “fairy tale” of Davyd Kondratiev, is the Nuremberg master Hans Falk, invited to the Moscow Cannon Yard after the death of Andrei Chokhov. In the 30-40s of the 17th century. Falk cast a three-barreled gun weighing 952 kg, firing 800 g cannonballs.
In the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering Troops and Signal Corps you can see several multi-barreled mortars made in Russia at the end of the 17th century. One of them consists of three-inch mortars arranged in three rows with 8 barrels in each row. The mortar seeds are connected tiered by a common trench. The gun is mounted on a two-wheeled machine and equipped with a device for giving each row of barrels its own elevation angle. Another weapon contains 24 cast-iron mortars, placed on a four-wheeled drawbar cart in two separate groups - three rows each.
The history of multi-barreled guns did not end with the 17th century. The famous Russian inventor, creator of a lathe with a movable support, Andrei Konstantinovich Nartov (1680–1756), in 1741 built a weapon consisting of 44 mortars placed around the circumference of a wooden disk. The mortars are connected by arc-shaped seed trenches and divided into several groups in order to receive divergent salvo fire.
“The usefulness of it,” wrote A.K. Nartov about his cannon, “will consist of the fact that it can throw grenades into the width of the line against the enemy front.”
Nowadays, the principle of multi-barrel, which was so successfully developed by Andrei Chokhov, lives in multi-barrel mortars, as well as in the Katyusha rocket launchers, which became famous during the Great Patriotic War.
There is information in the literature that in the same year of 1588, when the hundred-barreled cannon was made, Andrei Chokhov made the Persian arquebus. The primary source of information is an erroneous quotation from an article by N. N. Murzakevich, given by N. N. Rubtsov in the following edition: “A cannon named “Persian” weighing 357 pounds with the inscription: “Persian arquebus of the summer of 7094 (1588) in the month of September at 12 day, length 7 arshins, core 40 hryvnia - made by Ondrei Chokhov"
In machine gun mode With the advent and constant modernization of aviation weapons, including missiles, part of the range of which today belongs to a full-fledged class of high-precision weapons, the need for traditional small arms and cannon weapons on aircraft has not disappeared. Moreover, this weapon also has its advantages. These include the ability to be used from the air against all types of targets, constant readiness to fire, and immunity to electronic countermeasures. Modern types of aircraft guns are actually machine guns in terms of rate of fire and at the same time artillery pieces in caliber. The principle of automatic firing is also similar to the machine gun. At the same time, the rate of fire of some models of domestic aviation weapons is a record even for machine guns. For example, the GSh-6-23M aircraft gun developed at TsKB-14 (the predecessor of the Tula Instrument Design Bureau) is still considered the fastest-firing weapon in military aviation. This six-barreled gun has a rate of fire of 10 thousand rounds per minute! They say that during comparative tests of the GSh-6-23 and the American M-61 “Vulcan”, the domestic gun, without requiring a powerful external energy source for its operation, showed almost twice as much rate of fire, while having half the own mass. By the way, in the six-barreled gun GSh-6-23, an autonomous automatic gas exhaust drive was used for the first time, which made it possible to use this weapon not only on an aircraft, but also, for example, on ground firing installations. A modernized version of the GSh-23-6 with Su-24 front-line bombers are still equipped with 500 rounds of ammunition: this weapon is installed here in a suspended movable cannon container. In addition, the MiG-31 supersonic all-weather long-range fighter-interceptor is armed with the GSh-23-6M cannon. The six-barreled version of the GSh cannon was also used for the cannon armament of the MiG-27 fighter-bomber. True, a 30-mm cannon is already installed here, and for a weapon of this caliber it is also considered the fastest-firing in the world - six thousand rounds per minute. A barrage of fire from the sky It would not be an exaggeration to say that aviation weapons bearing the “GS” brand have essentially become the basis of this type of weapon for domestic combat aviation. In single-barrel and multi-barrel versions with the use of innovative technologies for ammunition of various calibers and purposes - in any case, the Gryazev-Shipunov guns have earned their recognition among pilots of many generations. The development of aviation small arms and cannon weapons in our country has become 30 mm caliber guns. Thus, the famous GSh-30 (in a double-barreled version) is equipped with the no less famous Su-25 attack aircraft. These are machines that have proven their effectiveness in all wars and local conflicts since the 70-80s of the last century. One of the most acute disadvantages of such weapons - the problem with the “survivability” of the barrels - has been solved here by distributing the burst length between the two barrels and reducing the rate of fire per barrel. At the same time, all the main operations for preparing fire - feeding the tape, chambering the cartridge, preparing the shot - occur evenly, which provides the gun with a high rate of fire: the rate of fire of the Su-25 reaches 3500 rounds per minute. Another project of the Tula aviation gunsmiths is the GSh-30- gun 1. It is recognized as the lightest 30 mm gun in the world. The weight of the weapon is 50 kilograms (for comparison, a “six-wolf” of the same caliber weighs more than three times more). A unique feature of this gun is the presence of an autonomous water evaporative cooling system for the barrel. There is water in the casing here, which turns into steam during the firing process when the barrel is heated. Passing along the screw groove on the barrel, it cools it and then comes out. The GSh-30-1 gun is equipped with the MiG-29, Su-27, Su-30, Su-33, Su-35 aircraft. There is information that this caliber will also be the main one for the small arms and cannon armament of the fifth generation fighter T-50 (PAK FA). In particular, as the KBP press service recently reported, flight tests of the modernized rapid-fire aircraft gun 9A1-4071 (this is the name this gun received) with testing of the entire ammunition load in various modes were carried out on the Su-27SM aircraft. After completion of the tests, development work is planned to test this gun on the T-50. "Flying" BMP Tula KBP (TsKB-14) became the “Homeland” of aviation weapons for domestic rotary-wing combat vehicles. It was here that the GSh-30 cannon appeared in a double-barreled version for Mi-24 helicopters. The main feature of this weapon is the presence of elongated barrels, due to which the initial speed of the projectile is increased, which is 940 meters per second. But on the new Russian combat helicopters - Mi-28 and Ka-52 - a different cannon armament scheme is used. The basis was the well-proven 30 mm caliber 2A42 gun, mounted on infantry fighting vehicles. On the Mi-28, this gun is mounted in a fixed movable gun mount NPPU-28, which significantly increases maneuverability when firing. Shells are fired from two sides and in two versions - armor-piercing and high-explosive fragmentation. Lightly armored targets on the ground can be hit from the air at a distance of 1500 meters, air targets (helicopters) - two and a half kilometers, and manpower - four kilometers. The NPPU-28 installation is located on the Mi-28 under the fuselage in the bow of the helicopter and operates synchronously with the sight (including the helmet-mounted one) of the pilot operator. The ammunition is located in two boxes on the rotating part of the turret. The 30-mm BMP-2 gun, also placed in a movable cannon mount, is also adopted for service on the Ka-52. But on the Mi-35M and Mi-35P, which essentially became a continuation of the legendary Mi-24 series of helicopters, they again returned to the GSh cannon and the 23rd caliber. On the Mi-35P the number of firing points can reach three. This happens if the main guns are placed in two universal cannon containers (placed on pylons on the sides of the vehicle), and another gun is installed in a non-removable bow movable cannon mount. The total ammunition load of aircraft cannon armament for 35-series helicopters in this version reaches 950 rounds. Shooting...with a break for lunch They do not abandon cannon weapons when creating combat vehicles in the West. Including ultra-modern fifth generation aircraft. Thus, the F-22 fighter is equipped with the above-mentioned 20-mm M61A2 Vulcan with 480 rounds of ammunition. This rapid-firing six-barreled gun with a rotating block of barrels differs from the Russian gun in a more primitive cooling system - air rather than water, as well as pneumatic or hydraulic drives. Despite all the shortcomings, including, first of all, a small caliber, as well as an archaic link feed system shells and limited ammunition at a very high rate of fire (four to six thousand rounds per minute), the Vulcan has been the standard armament of US combat aircraft since the 50s. True, the American military press has reported that delays in the ammunition supply system have now been dealt with: a linkless ammunition supply system seems to have been developed for the M61A1 cannon. The AH-64 Apache, the main attack helicopter of the US Army, is also equipped with an automatic cannon. . Some analysts call it the most common rotorcraft of its class in the world, without, however, citing any statistical data. On board the Apache is an M230 automatic cannon with a caliber of 30 millimeters and a rate of fire of 650 rounds per minute. A significant drawback of this weapon is the need to cool its barrel after every 300 shots, and the time of such a break can be 10 minutes or more. For this weapon, the helicopter can carry 1200 shells, but only if the vehicle does not have an additional fuel tank installed. If it is available, the volume of ammunition will not exceed the same 300 rounds that the Apache can fire without the need for a “break” for mandatory cooling of the barrel. The only advantage of this weapon can be considered the presence in its ammunition of shells with an armor-piercing cumulative element. It is stated that with such ammunition the Apache can hit ground targets equipped with 300 mm of homogeneous armor. Author: Dmitry Sergeev Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense/Russian Helicopters/
Instrument Design Bureau named after. Academician A. G. Shipunov
