Multi-barreled guns. Deadly blows of the organ
I wonder if Mr. Rogozin only recently saw the film “Predator”?
A six-barreled Kalashnikov machine gun is being made in Izhevsk
A prototype of a smaller remote-controlled anti-aircraft gun will be created by the end of 2014
The Kalashnikov concern, created in July on the basis of several Izhevsk arms factories, decided to develop a six-barrel man-portable machine gun for special forces. With the light hand of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, the machine gun was named “Autogen” for its ability to cut metal with dense fire.
As Kalashnikov chief designer Yuri Shirobokov told Izvestia, the machine gun will be made on the basis of a six-barreled anti-aircraft gun. However, it will fire conventional 7.62 mm rifle cartridges and is intended for shooting from cover.
“The idea is to make a portable remote-controlled machine gun that can be quickly installed and ready. It will be designed to solve special problems, when it is necessary not so much to hit a target, but to ensure fire suppression of a given square in order to prevent fire from coming from there,” Shirobokov explained.
The designer added that now the machine gun exists only in drawings and in the form of a model. At the same time, many key design decisions have not yet been determined - the mechanism for reloading and feeding cartridges has not been approved, and there is no understanding of what the mounting will be like. In addition, the created model is so heavy that it cannot be carried in hands.
“What is now defined is six rotating barrels, like a cannon. Based on this design, it is possible to create a lighter structure. And then there are several options, now we are looking for ways to increase the efficiency of this installation, searching for directions for development,” said Yuri Shirobokov.
According to him, the gunsmiths plan to decide on the appearance of the six-barreled machine gun by the end of 2014, and to create and test prototypes in 2015-2016. Now designers have to think through the technology of electronic fire control - starting fire, switching fire and other operations.
The editor-in-chief of the Kalashnikov industry magazine, Mikhail Degtyarev, explained to Izvestia that the creation of a multi-barreled machine gun does not correspond to global trends.
— The effectiveness of weapons today is determined not by the number of barrels, but by the high accuracy of destruction with specialized ammunition. And here sighting systems and guidance systems come into first place. Multi-barrel installations are very energy-intensive and require strengthening of the barrel structure. Not only the speed of fire increases, but also the recoil, which cannot be completely eliminated,” Degtyarev explained.
He also explained that 7.62 caliber cartridges will never show the range and penetration qualities of a 14.5 caliber cartridge, like the Vladimirov heavy machine gun (KPV), which means that the new six-barreled machine gun will not be able to solve the problems that the KPV solves.
In addition, Degtyarev explained that the six-barreled machine gun will be “definitely portable” and will have to be mounted on the vehicle. Also, according to the expert, the new machine gun cannot be called “Kalashnikov,” meaning the designer Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, but as a product of the Kalashnikov concern, it can be.
(from here)
I still don't understand - For what Is this a copy of the M134 Minigun for special forces? As I understand it, Mr. Rogozin not only never served in the special forces, but also in the army at all? Otherwise, he would have vividly imagined carrying a six-barreled machine gun on his hump. Not to mention the ammunition for it... But the designers still have to think about it? Strange...
Six barrels of one machine gun
The idea of distributed shooting as a way to increase the rate of fire came and returned
The principle, created by Gatling in the middle of the 19th century, is now actively used to develop new weapons. The 30mm GAU-8 anti-tank machine gun, in service with the US Air Force since the 1970s, is often rightly called the “Gatling gun.” Photo: Ssgt Aaron D. Allmon II, USAF
Hundreds of famous gunsmiths have puzzled over the problem of increasing the rate of fire for centuries. However, the modest American doctor Richard Jordan Gatling ( Richard Jordan Gatling, 1818-1903). Dr. Gatling had the most harmless medical specialty - he was a homeopath and tried to treat soldiers of the North American Union with herbal infusions, who were decimated en masse by colds, pneumonia, dysentery and tuberculosis. His treatment did little to help the sick, and, quickly becoming disillusioned with the capabilities of medicine, Gatling decided to help the unfortunate people in a different way...
“I think that if I could create a gun-machine, which, thanks to its rapidity of fire, would enable one man to do the work of a hundred, it would largely eliminate the need for recruiting large armies, and, consequently, greatly reduce losses in battle, and especially from illnesses,”- wrote the good doctor.
Perhaps he was haunted by the fame of his French colleague Dr. Guillotin (Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, 1738-1814), who invented the most effective treatment for headaches - the guillotine.
Reproduction of Richard Jordan Gatling's patent, 1865: National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Patent and Trademark Office
Gatling succeeded much more in the design of various equipment than in medicine. As a young man, he invented several agricultural machines, and in 1862 he patented a type of propeller. In the same year, he presented the federations with his famous machine gun, which, as the doctor hoped, could replace an entire company of riflemen.
For some time, revolvers and repeating rifles became the fastest-firing weapons. Some virtuosos could make one shot per second out of them. However, reloading magazines, drums or barrels (there were multi-barreled revolvers) took a lot of time, which might not have happened in battle.
Therefore, Dr. Gatling set about creating a simple and reliable fast recharging system. His invention was striking in its simultaneous originality and simplicity. Six barrels (of the first model) were attached to a special rotor block, in the grooves of which there were six bolts. When this block began to rotate, each of the barrels (with its own bolt) went through six stages in a circle: opening the bolt, removing the spent cartridge case, chambering a new cartridge, closing the bolt, preparation and the actual shot.
It was possible to shoot from this machine gun indefinitely, until the cartridges ran out or until... the shooter, who set this hellish carousel in motion with the help of an ordinary handle, got tired. By the way, the system received the nickname “meat grinder” for this design feature and rate of fire.
The system clearly resembled a modern household meat grinder. In this way, a rate of fire of up to 600 rounds per minute was achieved. The shooter simply physically could not turn faster.
But it very rarely ran out of cartridges. In the first model, they came into the breech from a very simple bunker magazine, in which they lay freely, like cigars in a box. As needed, they were added there by another assistant shooter. If suddenly the cartridges got stuck and stopped pouring into the receiver, it was enough to just hit the hopper with your fist. For the following, capacious multi-sector stores were created in the form of cylinders or tall boxes.
1895 Gatling gun
The Gatling gun was not afraid of misfires - and this was its second advantage after the unprecedented rate of fire for that time (200-250 rounds per minute).
Gatling guns were constantly improved, their reliability and rate of fire increased. For example, in 1876, a mechanical five-barreled model of a 0.45-inch caliber machine gun allowed firing at a rate of fire of 700 rounds per minute, and when firing in short bursts, the machine gun was capable of reaching an unimaginable for that time 1000 rounds per minute. At the same time, the barrels did not overheat at all - no more than 200 rounds per minute per barrel, and the air flow created during rotation, blowing the barrels, also played a significant role.
Gatling gun, model 1876. Fort Laramie, Wyoming, USA.
The Gatling system was adopted by the powers of the New and Old Worlds. Both its author himself and other designers created many modifications based on it, differing in caliber, number of barrels and magazine design.
The 1898 model was in service with the US Army.
A special training center was created in Florida to teach calculations.
Photo: US Army
However, human effort was only enough to spin up the Gatling system to a maximum of 500 rounds per minute.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Gatling guns began to be equipped with an electric drive. Such modernization made it possible to increase the gun's rate of fire to 3,000 rounds per minute, but the electric drive system made the machine gun even more cumbersome.
With the advent of the Hiram Maxim machine gun ( Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, 1840-1916) and other single-barrel self-loading systems, recharged by the power of powder gases, the Gatling system, being less rapid-fire, bulky, and most importantly manual, was withdrawn from service and forgotten for several decades.
Until the end of World War II, the military got along just fine with single-barreled machine guns. However, with the advent of high-speed aviation, including jet aircraft, at the end of the war, anti-aircraft gunners needed faster-firing weapons than traditional single-barreled cannons and machine guns, which, at a higher rate of fire, either overheated or their automation failed.
And then they remembered the multi-barreled Gatling machine guns, still stored in spare military warehouses. Gatling's brainchild suddenly discovered two new advantages.
Firstly, with the total rate of fire of the system, say, 600 shots, each of its barrels actually fired only 100 - which means it heated up 6 times slower than the barrel of a conventional machine gun with the same rate of fire. At the same time, the barrels rotated, simultaneously being cooled by air. Secondly, the rate of fire of the Gatling system depended only on... its rotation speed.
The Americans solved this problem simply - they replaced the soldier turning the handle with a powerful electric motor. Such an experiment was carried out at the beginning of the 20th century. The result was amazing: machine guns from the Civil War fired up to 3000 rounds per minute! However, then it was regarded as just an exciting experience - and they did not attach any importance to it.
Multi-barreled machine guns of standard 7.62 mm caliber
installed on military helicopters. Photo: Tsgt David W. Richards, USAF
When in 1946 the American company General Electric received a contract to develop high-rate-of-fire aircraft guns, codenamed Project Vulcan, it remembered this experiment.
By 1950, the company presented the first prototypes, and in 1956, the 20-mm six-barreled M61 Vulcan gun appeared, firing 100 rounds per second! The Vulcan was immediately installed on airplanes, helicopters and ships as the main anti-aircraft weapon.
At the end of the 1960s, the Pentagon, which was waging war in the jungles of Vietnam, received a 7.62 mm six-barreled M134 Minigun machine gun, which had an electric drive and a switchable rate of fire (2000/4000 rounds per minute). Ammunition of 10,000 rounds was enough to turn any suspicious grove into silage!
M134 Minigun (eng. M134 Minigun) is the name of a family of multi-barreled rapid-fire machine guns built according to the Gatling scheme. The designation in the US Army is M134.
In connection with the introduction of helicopters into service with the US Army, in the 60s there arose a need for light but fast-firing weapons. The new aircraft machine gun, designated M134, was produced by General Electric. It was first used during the Vietnam War and showed its effectiveness.
The rotation drive of the barrel block is electric. The rate of fire is controlled by the rheostat of the electric drive and varies from 3000 to 6000 rounds per minute. Installation weight - 22.7 kg excluding ammunition systems.
The ammunition used is 7.62 NATO cartridge. The cartridges can be fed from a standard loose belt or using a linkless cartridge feeding mechanism. In the first case, a special “delinker” mechanism is installed on the machine gun, which removes cartridges from the belt before feeding them into the machine gun. The tape is fed to the machine gun through a special metal flexible hose from boxes with a typical capacity of 1500 (total weight 58 kg) to 4500 (total weight 134 kg) rounds. On heavy helicopters (CH-53, CH-47), the capacity of the cartridge boxes to power one machine gun can reach 10,000 or even more rounds.
But the powerful 30-mm GAU-8/A, which is armed with attack aircraft, hits armored targets at a distance of up to 2000 meters.
GAU-8/A
GAU-8/A next to a Volkswagen
One of the latest American developments is the XM-214 machine gun, chambered for 5.56 mm.
XM214 Microgun / 6-pak on an M122 infantry machine with a container for 1000 rounds
(from a General Electric Co. advertising brochure, early 1980s)
XM214 Microgun on a helicopter mount. Caliber 5.56x45
It was intended to be used as a hand-held small weapon. However, this was prevented by the high recoil, which knocked down the strongest shooters, as well as the large mass of ammunition (almost 25 kg), the battery for the electric motor and the machine gun itself. Therefore, now they have decided to use it as an easel to protect especially important objects from terrorist attacks.
Still from the film "Terminator 2: Judgment Day".
The filmmakers believed that the Gatling system was in the hands of the Terminator
will look even more impressive than on board a military helicopter
By the way, the XM-214, which was used hand-held in the films Predator and Terminator 2, was equipped with special low-power blank cartridges. Electricity was supplied to it through a camouflaged cable, and the actors were dressed in body armor so that they would not be disfigured by flying cartridges - and even propped up from behind with special hidden stands!
Domestic designers began resuscitating multi-barreled systems before the Americans - back in 1936, Kovrov gunsmith Ivan Slostin created an eight-barreled 7.62 mm machine gun that fired 5,000 rounds per minute. At the same time, Tula designer Mikhail Nikolaevich Blum (1907-1970) developed a machine gun with a twelve-barrel block of barrels. At the same time, the domestic system had a fundamental difference from the future American one - it was rotated not by an electric motor, but by gases removed from the barrels, which significantly reduced the total weight of the installation. And this difference remained in the future.
Domestic-made multi-barreled guns began to be used by the Soviet army in the 1970s. The Tarantula class patrol ship, built in the USSR, bore the name of Rudolf Egelhofer until 1991. Under this name he “served” in the GDR. Now “serving” in the USA under the name “Hiddensee”. Photo: Don S. Montgomery, US Navy
Unfortunately, the adoption of multi-barrel systems in the USSR was delayed until a potential enemy acquired them. Only in the 1960s did designer Vasily Petrovich Gryazev and scientist Arkady Grigorievich Shipunov create the GSh-6-23M air cannon with a rotating block of six 23-mm barrels, firing up to 10,000 rounds per minute.
GSh-6-23M
Then the 30mm AK-630 shipborne mounts were created, recognized as one of the best in the world! And only Evgeniy Glagolev’s four-barreled GShG-7.62 machine gun, created for helicopters, had an American-style electric drive.
GShG-7.62
And Tula designer Yuri Zhuravlev created an aircraft cannon that set a rate of fire record: 16,000 rounds per minute! Apparently, this is the limit of the rate of fire: during tests, unable to withstand the high rotation speed, its barrels scattered in different directions. And now the Gatling system is being replaced by new ones - with even more barrels and a truly fantastic rate of fire.
However, the design idea not only develops the Gatling idea. A system of grenade launchers and machine guns appeared in the West Metal Storm- a rifled barrel with an electronic firing control circuit that has no moving parts. Ignition of charges is electric pulse. Depending on the type of ammunition, the barrel can contain from 3 to 6 shells.
Multi-barreled machine guns and guns look very impressive, so filmmakers did not ignore them.
Outwardly it looks very impressive, so the filmmakers did not ignore it. For example, the M134 Minigun was used by the Terminator to capture and destroy the Cyberdyne Systems building in the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The weapon was also used by Neo in the scene of rescuing Morpheus from agents (“The Matrix”).
In "Predator", where at first the hero Blaine Cooper (actor Jesse Ventura) walks with a minigun, and after his death, Sergeant McC Ferguson (actor Bill Duke) unloaded the entire cartridge pack. By the way, despite the main role, Schwarzenegger does not touch the minigun in Predator. Wow, how impressive the jungle shooting scene in the film looks!
But a movie is a movie, and in real life neither the M134 nor the XM214 were ever used as an infantry handgun (although, according to some rumors, the XM214 was tested in such a role) for the following reasons:
1. The need for external power supply - the M134 electric motor has a power of up to 4 liters. With. and consumes up to 400 amperes at a voltage of 27 volts, which requires impressive batteries that must be carried on yourself.
2. Excessive rate of fire - a portable ammunition load of 2000 rounds of 5.56mm NATO caliber will weigh 24.6 kg (only cartridges, excluding the magazine and the machine gun's cartridge feeder!), and it will only last for a minute of fire, or even less.
3. The excessive recoil resulting from point 2 is up to 110 kgf for the XM214 at the maximum rate of fire!
4. Significant dispersion of bullets when shooting from hand due to vibration and rotation of the barrel block.
From the above it follows that using the XM214 as a manual one is physically possible only when firing from it at a low (no more than 1500 rounds/min) rate of fire, and at this rate the XM-214 is inferior in all respects to conventional machine guns: for example, the German MG- 3 with a rate of fire of 1200 rounds/min and a 7.62mm NATO caliber, it weighs only 11.5 kg, does not require external batteries, is easier to maintain and is reliable.
As for the film "Predator", a special version of the XM-214 was made for it, firing only blank cartridges. The “Minigun” featured in the film, due to its massiveness, was never an individual small arms weapon. Power was supplied to it through an electrical cable hidden in the actor’s trouser leg, and the actor himself had to wear a mask and body armor so as not to be disfigured by spent cartridges flying out at high speed. A support was placed behind the actor so that he would not suffer from recoil
And in Terminator 2, Schwarzenegger himself picked up a minigun (134 models). True, the tape was loaded with lightweight blank cartridges, and power was supplied to the machine gun via a hidden cable. The actor himself was supported by a special stand and wearing a special bulletproof vest. Recoil up to 110 kgf, after all. And most importantly, the cartridges fly out at such great speed that they can hurt no worse than an enemy bullet! But how beautiful!
Just a story: (lots of photos)
PREFACE
In previous reviews, we introduced some confusion into the classification of multi-barrel systems. Our mistake became most fully visible when considering the main technical solutions of the post-war Soviet weapons school. After conducting additional research, we can classify multi-barrel systems as follows:
1. Impact single-channel circuit(the historical analogue "Mitraleuse-Palmkranz" belongs to it);
2. Double-barreled and multi-barrel scheme Tula series GSh designed by V.P. Gryazev and A.G. Shipunov (or "Gasta-Gatling").
A sign of a weapon model manufactured according to the first scheme is the presence of a striking mechanism/feeder-receiver for each barrel of a multi-barrel system. See the device of the Mitraleza and the Nordenfelt multi-barreled machine gun (Palmkrantz diagram). And also the possibility of autonomous operation of one “channel” while the others are inactive.
Samples of weapons manufactured according to the second scheme have a single mechanism for servicing all barrels (feed mechanism, reflection mechanism, trigger, impact mechanism, pyro-reloading, shock absorber).
There is no need to be too picky about this classification. Yes, there are “stretches”, but we cannot offer another one yet.
PART 1. SINGLE-CHANNEL MULTI-BARREL TURRET SYSTEMS.
HISTORY OF PAST CENTURIES
In the West.
Deadly blows of the organ.
Hearing the word “organ”, many imagined the high vaults of the church, stained glass windows and loud soul-piercing music. But this instrument has a namesake - a military weapon, the threat of medieval battles.
Organ - Like its musical namesake, it also consists of pipes, only from them come not melodies, but bullets and shells.
The Middle Ages were an era of constant conflict. Judge for yourself, because at that time the police, the system of laws, the “vertical of power”, after all, had not yet been invented. Each count or baron was the master of his own small estate and administered court. If he didn’t have enough money, he plundered neighboring properties, took grain from peasants, and burned forests. This provoked endless “feuds” – civil strife. Therefore, even the most insignificant vassal must be ready for war, have his own small army with good weapons in order to protect the people loyal to you. A useful device on the battlefield was the organ - a special type of small arms, now little known.
This name is due to its resemblance to the musical instrument organ. This device had from 3 to 24 trunks (and sometimes more), fastened in several rows. The barrel primers in each row were connected by a common groove, which made it possible to fire a simultaneous or sequential salvo. It was enough to set fire to the organ at one end, and the fire would spread from one trunk to the other.
Depending on the caliber of the barrels, they were stationary (fortress) or mobile field on a wheeled carriage.
There were also more complex organ designs. For example, the trunks were arranged crosswise (each on its own bed) and rotated on a vertical axis. There were also guns with 4 or more barrels, connected into a single block, rotating on a longitudinal axis. Both of the latter options required igniting the gunpowder separately at each barrel, and therefore had a slower rate of fire.
The organs were quite bulky and inconvenient: loading 12 barrels required much more time than preparing a cannon for firing.
During the era of the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), a type of organ called the ribadekin was common. This is a weapon of six cannons cast from metal and loaded from the breech. The appearance of these types of weapons was due to the low rate of fire and low reliability of the first firearms. At the same time, it was not yet possible to solve these problems technologically at a qualitative level. Medieval artillerymen could only rely on the number of firing barrels, especially since point-blank shots perfectly pierced the armor of a knight. From a tactical point of view, of course, organs were needed, since they had great destructive power and could injure a rider or his horse. The use of multi-barreled cannons brought victory to the army of the city of Ghent in the Battle of Beveruzfeld on May 3, 1382.
With the advent of artillery caps, which speeded up shooting, organs were abandoned and it was easier to load the cannon. But the name has survived for centuries. It is known that German soldiers called the legendary Soviet Katyusha field rocket artillery system the “Stalinist organ” for some external resemblance to a less advanced model from the Middle Ages.
Ribadekin.
One of the most interesting medieval artillery systems was a multi-barreled cannon or, as it is also called, ribaudequin. The term was first mentioned around 1340.
The gun itself consisted of several barrels mounted on a wheeled carriage or trolley, from which salvo fire could be fired.
The appearance of the ribadekin was due to the low rate of fire and low reliability of the first guns. At the same time, it was not yet possible to solve these problems technologically at a qualitative level. Medieval artillerymen could only rely on the number of firing barrels, especially since the mediocre ballistic characteristics of ribadekins did not play a significant role when firing at point-blank range. The use of multi-barreled cannons in precisely this tactical role brought victory to the army of the city of Ghent at the Battle of Beverhudsveld (May 3, 1382).
Multi-barreled guns fought quite actively throughout the fifteenth century, and the very idea of a multi-charged gun no less actively excited the imagination of various kinds of inventors and engineers over the following centuries until Hiram Maxim successfully tested the first example of a machine gun. But this happened already in the second half of the 19th century.
In Russia.
Russian multi-barreled guns 16-18 centuries.
The history of domestic multi-barreled artillery dates back to the 16th century. Then the first multi-barreled gun, called the “magpie,” appeared in the ranks of the Russian army. It consisted of several pistol, squeak or rifle barrels mounted on one carriage or drum. To conduct salvo fire, the ignition holes of the barrels of each row were connected by a common groove. This was done in order to increase the density of fire and rate of fire. A similar weapon, consisting of seven barrels mounted on one carriage, was used, in particular, by the squad of Ermak Timofeevich in the Siberian campaign. And the famous Russian gunsmith Andrei Chokhov made a hundred-barreled gun designed to protect the gates of Kitay-Gorod in Moscow.
However, experience in the combat use of such weapons revealed serious shortcomings of this system. First of all, a light round nucleus loses energy much faster than a heavy one. That is, small-caliber cannonballs already after 200-300 m or 1-2 killed lose their killing ability, and a heavy cannonball can jump, ricocheting off the ground, for a kilometer, killing and maiming more and more opponents.
Further, it is much easier to achieve accurate shooting with a single medium caliber barrel than with many small caliber ones. At the same time, the density of fire from the “organ” (as such a weapon was called in the West) is still insufficient (there are not so many barrels).
Finally, this magpie fire density is largely undermined by the long reload time.
That is, the magpie in firing cannonballs has a slight advantage over a single-barreled cannon only at close range. However, at close range it is even more effective to use buckshot. Therefore, at close range a conventional gun is better.
In the middle of the 18th century, several types of multi-barreled guns (they can be called batteries) were created. In 1754, at the St. Petersburg Arsenal under the leadership of A.K. Nartov, a 44-barreled installation of 3-pound (76 mm) copper mortars was created. The barrel length of each mortar is 230 mm, the charging chamber is conical. The mortars are mounted on a horizontal wooden circle with a diameter of 1.85 mm. Mortars are divided into eight sectors of 5 or 6 mortars. In the battle, while some groups of mortars were firing volleys of scattering fire, others were charging. In the trunk part of the Nartov battery there was a metal screw that served to give the gun the required elevation angle. Later, the inventor created a 24-barrel installation using the same principle.
In 1756, a 25-barreled installation of 1.5-pound (58 mm) mortars (Captain Chelokaev’s system) was manufactured. The length of each mortar is 500 mm. The charging chambers are cylindrical. Unlike the Nartov installation, in the Chelokaev system the mortars rotated not in a horizontal, but in a vertical plane. The rotating part consisted of a wooden drum bound with iron sheets, on which there were 5 rows of forged iron trunks, 5 in each row. In the breech, the barrels for salvo firing are connected by a common powder shelf with a lid.
The drum is mounted on a wooden two-wheeled carriage and rotates easily on an iron axis. Gears with pawls are mounted on the sides of the drum to give the trunks elevation angles.
Around the same time, two more multi-barrel 3-pound (76 mm) caliber mounts were manufactured. The 24-barrel installation had barrels 300 mm long. The charging chamber is cylindrical. The swinging part of the installation consisted of three tiers of bronze mortars mounted on wooden beams with eight mortars in each tier.
Each tier has a lifting mechanism, thanks to which the mortars were given the required elevation angle. In the breech, the mortars are connected by a common powder shelf for salvo firing.
The battery is mounted on a special two-wheeled carriage. It was transported by horse-drawn vehicles. The 36-barrel installation had barrels 290 mm long. The chambers are cylindrical. The swinging part consisted of six sections arranged in three tiers. Each section contains six 3-pound bronze mortars, connected by a common powder flange.
On the side of each section there is a special device for giving the mortars an elevation angle. The sections are mounted on a four-wheeled wooden cart bound with iron strips.
Another example of Russian multi-barreled guns is the “twins” - an invention of Feldzeichmeister General Count Shuvalov (in the middle of the 18th century) and also called the “newly inventoried regimental cannon”; it consisted of two light howitzers located on one common carriage; Of these, Count Shuvalov at one time intended to make up the entire regimental artillery.
Each regiment was assigned 4 similar guns, which were supposed to operate with 6-pound grenades, grapeshot and incendiary frames. The advantage of the “twins” over the 3-pound regimental guns was the incomparably stronger effect of grenades and grapeshot.
NOWADAYS.
They have it.
The largest caliber double-barreled shotgun.
Protecting its airspace was more than important for the Third Reich. American and British bombers bombarded industrial and military facilities, as well as “peaceful” cities. The Luftwaffe failed to cope with its responsibilities. And the longer the war went on, the more damage the enemy bombing caused.
One of their attempts to change the situation was the creation of large-caliber anti-aircraft guns capable of reaching bombers flying at high altitudes.
The largest serial anti-aircraft gun was the Flak 40 with a caliber of 128 mm.
However, the air defense command considered the power of even these guns to be insufficient. Therefore, to increase the density of anti-aircraft fire based on the 12.8 cm Flak 40, a twin anti-aircraft gun 12.8 cm FlaK 42 Zwilling (“Twins”) was developed. These overwhelmingly large artillery systems consisted of two standard 128 mm cannons mounted on a common carriage. Only stationary installation of such guns was envisaged in anti-aircraft artillery towers on a pedestal rotating platform, providing all-round fire.
The combat weight of the system reached 27 tons. Each barrel had an individual loading system, which, in combination with the use of an automatic charger with an electric drive, made it possible to achieve a total rate of fire of 24~28 rounds per minute even for such large-caliber guns. Calculation – 22 people. The horizontal range was 20,900 m, vertically up to 14,800 m (with a remote fuse - up to 12,800 m). Ammunition weight – 26 kg.
Multi-barreled gun of the Spanish Navy.
In the anti-aircraft weapons system of ships, artillery systems are entrusted with the task of destroying air targets that have managed to break through other echelons of defense. This fact has a great influence on the design of such artillery systems: in order to reliably hit a high-speed target at a relatively short distance, they must have a high rate of fire. In this case, a large number of projectiles are fired towards the anti-ship missile or other similar weapon, which in its effect resembles the action of a shotgun firing shotgun.
Systems with rotating barrel blocks (another name is the Gatling system) have the highest rate of fire. However, they are not without drawbacks. One of the most important is the relatively long time required to reach the required rate of fire. Because of this, in the first fractions of a second the gun fires with insufficient efficiency, which reduces the likelihood of hitting the target.
In the first half of the seventies, the Spanish company FABA (Fábrica de Artillería Bazán) proposed its own way to solve this problem. The new concept of the anti-aircraft artillery complex (ZAK) to some extent repeated the designs of previous years, but at the same time included several original solutions. Spanish engineers came to the conclusion that it was necessary to abandon the rotating block of barrels. In their opinion, the promising anti-aircraft gun should have been equipped with several single-barreled guns with their own automation. Using a single ammunition system and guidance mechanisms, such an anti-aircraft complex could have efficiency at the level of Gatling guns. At the same time, it would be deprived of the inherent disadvantages of artillery with a rotating block of barrels.
The multi-barrel system was called Meroka, an abbreviation for the term Mehrrohrkanone (German: “Multi-barrel gun”). Automatic Oerlikon 20mm guns with a 120-caliber barrel were chosen as the main element of the artillery installation. The guns were assembled into a single block, in two rows of six. In this case, the receivers were located literally side by side with each other. Thanks to this, it was possible to significantly reduce the dimensions of the entire ZAK, and in addition, facilitate guidance, since the dense placement of the guns helped reduce the dispersion of shells in flight. It is worth noting that to improve shooting accuracy, FABA employees used another interesting solution: immediately behind the muzzle brakes of the guns there is a special sliding band that holds the barrels in a stable position. It can be moved closer or further from the breech, which slightly changes the spread of the projectiles.
The specific relative position of the guns required the creation of an original ammunition supply system. Below the level of the gun block inside the turret of the Meroka installation there is a ring-shaped magazine, in several sections of which 720 shells can fit. Ammunition is supplied to the guns using split-link metal belts. It is easy to calculate that one magazine is enough for only 60 shots from each gun.
Any available projectiles that are compatible with them can be used to fire from the guns of the Meroka complex, but sub-caliber tracer ammunition with a detachable tray is recommended.
The theoretical rate of fire of this anti-aircraft system is 9000 rounds per minute, but in practice the fire is fired at a much lower rate. To avoid barrel tossing and inaccurate shooting, 12 guns fire in turns. The recommended firing mode is an alternating salvo from several barrels simultaneously. At the same time, the automatic guns operate with a difference of some part of the cycle: when half of the guns are already reloading after firing, the other fires. Thus, the real rate of fire does not exceed 1450-1500 rounds per minute or 2-3 salvoes of 12 rounds per second.
At first glance, due to the lower rate of fire, the Meroka anti-aircraft artillery system is inferior to other systems of similar purposes. However, the original arrangement of the barrels and their minimal possible deflection when firing ensure a fairly high accuracy. According to calculations, to destroy one subsonic anti-ship missile, the Meroka complex should fire no more than 10-12 short bursts. With this method of firing, one magazine with 720 shells is enough to defeat five or six enemy missiles.
Despite the original appearance and non-standard approach to providing characteristics, the Meroka ZAK completely satisfied the customer and was put into service in the mid-seventies. Currently, such systems protect a large number of large ships of the Spanish Navy. These are the light aircraft carrier Príncipe de Asturias (four ZACs), five Santa Maria-class frigates (one each) and five Álvaro de Bazán-class frigates (one each). It is likely that Meroka will be installed on new ships that are currently only planned for construction.
In the early eighties, the ground forces became interested in the latest anti-aircraft artillery system. During development for use on land, the Meroka system underwent several major changes. The modified and smaller turret was placed on a towed wheeled chassis, an operator's cabin was added to the rear and some electronic systems were updated. However, the land version of the Meroka ZAK, due to restrictions on size and weight, lost its radar station. It was assumed that the operator would receive the necessary information from the outside, from other radars. In addition to the towed version, a self-propelled one was also developed, but it was not even embodied in metal.
Towed artillery systems, in turn, existed and successfully hit training targets in the conditions of the training ground. But by the end of the tests, their main disadvantage emerged. On ships, the Meroka complex played the role of the last argument - it was supposed to destroy only those anti-ship ammunition that managed to break through the affected area of anti-aircraft missiles. Air defense of ground forces turned out to be much more difficult, because aircraft, unlike missiles, try not to enter the danger zone and can attack from a long distance. As a result, FABA designers and the military had to admit that the land version of the Meroka does not have any practical advantages over the existing barreled anti-aircraft systems.
As for the original ship version, it is still in service with the Spanish Navy and demonstrates its capabilities at regular exercises. Even almost four decades after its development, the Meroka ZAK looks promising and interesting. Several years ago, fragmentary information appeared according to which Spain continued research in this area and is trying to create a similar anti-aircraft system with larger caliber guns. But so far there is no information about this project, which is why Meroka remains the only embodiment of the original idea.
We have.
Soviet single-channel rapid-fire assault rifles N.M. Afanasyev and installations based on them.
The main problem of a rapid-fire system is the survivability of the barrel and automation. It was to solve these problems that the research of the leading design bureaus B. G. Shpitalny (OKB-15), A. E. Nudelman (OKB-16) and Tula TsKB-14, headed by I. F. Dmitriev, was aimed. New requirements for rate of fire and a comprehensive solution to all problems can only be based on a fundamentally new scheme that allows reducing the cycle time of the automation without increasing the level of its kinetic energy. It was precisely this kind of automation scheme for gas-type weapons that N. M. Afanasyev proposed in 1949.
The main feature of the proposed scheme was the presence of a lever accelerating impact-type ramming mechanism, which ensures that the next cartridge is fed from the belt into the chamber and the spent cartridge is removed with a stroke of the leading link significantly less than the length of the cartridge (0.8 of the length of the cartridge) due to the larger stroke of the relatively light rammer. This made it possible to increase the rate of fire by 1.5-1.8 times without increasing the speed of the leading automation link.
Lever accelerating mechanism of impact type, double-acting, designed by Afanasyev
Velogram of the functioning of the Afanasyev automation circuit: 1 – movement of the receiver, 2 – movement of the bolt frame (full, taking into account compression of the buffer springs), 3 – movement of the rammer (compression of the buffer springs), 4 – automation cycle time
In September 1953, the 12.7-mm TKB-481 aircraft machine gun designed by N. M. Afanasyev was adopted by the Air Force. The achieved rate of fire is 1500 rounds/min. was forcibly reduced to 1000 rounds/min. by introducing a special retarder circuit into the electric trigger. The reduction in speed was a necessary measure and was taken for operational reasons. The fact is that the machine gun provided a rate of fire that exceeded the capabilities of metallurgy of those years in ensuring the survivability of barrels. An attempt to use a liner made of high-alloy refractory steel in the barrel design did not lead to success.
Aviation systems according to Afanasyev’s scheme.
Aviation systems based on NS-23 (AM-23) ammunition
The use of the “Afanasyev scheme” in the gun required an extraordinary solution that could reduce the recoil force of the system. Well-known highly qualified gunsmith designers P. G. Yakushev, A. A. Volkov, S. A. Yartsev, G. I. Nikitin, A. A. Bulkin were involved in the work. The role of the leading designer along with N.M. Afanasyev also performed N.F. Makarova (author of the PM pistol). Makarov proposed, instead of the traditional spring one, a gas buffer gun with high energy characteristics. The gas for its operation was removed from the gas chamber of the weapon through a special gas pipeline, which did not affect the internal ballistics of the shot.
In May 1954, the TKB-495 aircraft gun, designed by N. M. Afanasyev and N. F. Makarov, chambered for the AM-23 cartridge with a barrel length of 1100 mm and a rate of fire of 1250-1350 rounds/min. was adopted by aviation under the name AM-23.
AM-23 cannons in the remote-controlled turret of the 3MD long-range bomber
Defensive installation Tu-95
The Tu-16 (PV-23) cannon defensive armament system consists of seven AM-23 type guns of 23 mm caliber, mounted on one fixed and three twin movable gun mounts with remote control.
The Tu-95A was equipped with six twin 23-mm AM-23 cannons, located in 3 defensive installations: the upper DT-B12, the lower DT-N12, and the aft DK-12. Total ammunition - 2500 rounds.
Systems for ground forces based on VYA-23 ammunition
In the early 50s, tactical and technical requirements were finally formulated for the development of a 23-mm anti-aircraft machine gun chambered for the VYa (Volkov-Yartsev) cannon in single, twin and quad installations. TTT were issued by the GAU in 1954.
In 1953, TsKB-14 began work on the creation of two anti-aircraft automatic guns (anti-aircraft guns) TKB-507 and TKB-507Zh - for a light towed twin anti-aircraft gun (ZU) and for an anti-aircraft self-propelled gun (ZSU).
The development of anti-aircraft guns TKB-507 and TKB-507Zh was carried out under the technical guidance of N. M. Afanasyev. The leader in their development was Pyotr Gerasimovich Yakushev. A distinctive feature of the TKB-507 assault rifle was the presence of two quick-detachable interchangeable barrels with flame arresters, a mechanical trigger mechanism with a special locking device, due to which the last live cartridge in the belt sent into the chamber did not fire, which made it possible to open fire without prior reloading. A distinctive feature of the TKB-507Zh assault rifle was the presence of a liquid-cooled barrel to ensure intensive firing; the presence of an electric trigger with pyro-recharge sensors for remote fire control
ZU-23(-2), (GRAU index 2A13) based on the 2A14 assault rifle
The twin 23mm mount was designed and tested in three versions:
1) ZU-14 of the same E.K. Rachinsky and R.Ya. Purtsen had a two-wheel drive and, accordingly, minimal weight. The 23-mm 2A14 assault rifle for this anti-aircraft gun was created by Tula designers TsKB-14 (later Instrument Design Bureau) N. M. Afanasyev and P. G. Yakushev in 1957.
2) ZU-40 E.V. Vodopyanova had a separable four-wheel drive. When the ZU-40 was transferred to the combat position, the front end with two front wheels was separated, the rear wheels were hung at an angle to the side, and the base was placed on the ground with four jacks. The ammunition was placed on the front end in magazine boxes, and on the battlefield the ZU-40 could move without a front end.
3) ZU-575 by S. N. Zhdanov, E. K. Rachinsky and R. Ya. Purtsen was installed on a four-wheel drive with closed torsion bar suspension. It was intended to cover moving columns on the march and could provide all-round fire while moving, but in the normal combat position the wheels were hanging out.
Competitive field tests of the ZU-14, ZU-40 and ZU-575 installations took place in 1957. According to their results, preference was given to the simplest and lightest ZU-14. Tests and improvements since the production of the first prototype (October 1955) took more than three years, and finally, in the spring of 1959, the installation series ZU-14 passed military tests in the Belarusian and Turkestan military districts.
The long-awaited installation 2A13 (GRAU index) was put into service on March 22, 1960 by resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers No. 313-125 under the name ZU-23.
Serial production of 2A14 automatic cannons for the ZU-23 was mastered at plant No. 535 in Tula, but for more than 10 years the company continued to refine them and eliminate certain design deficiencies based on operating experience. Over the years of production, about 58,500 units were produced. machine gun 2A14.
Unpainted model, good detail
Characteristics of ZU-23:
2x23-mm anti-aircraft machine gun 2A14
Barrel length: 87.3 calibers
Gun weight: 0.95 tons
Projectile weight: 0.190 kg
Horizontal aiming angle: 360°
Vertical pointing angles: -0° to 90°
Rate of fire: 1600-2000 rounds per minute (800-1000 for each barrel)
Firing range in height: up to 1.5 km
Firing range at anti-aircraft targets: up to 2.5 km
Firing range at ground targets: up to 2 km
Calculation: 6 people
Ammunition: 200 shots
ZSU-23-4 "Shilka", (GRAU index 2A7) based on the 2A7 assault rifle
In September 1962, the 23 mm TK-507Zh anti-aircraft machine gun with the index 2A7, designed by N. M. Afanasyev and P. G. Yakushev, was adopted by the Soviet Army.
The turret of the self-propelled anti-aircraft gun contains a 23-mm quad gun AZP-23 “Amur” consisting of four 2A7 assault rifles. The APZ-23, together with the turret, is assigned the index 2A10, and the power drives - 2E2. The automatic operation of the gun is based on the removal of powder gases through a side hole in the barrel wall. The barrel consists of a pipe, cooling system casings, a gas chamber and a flame arrester. The valve is wedge, with the wedge lowering down. This design is the “Afanasyev system” described above.
23-mm quad gun AZP-23 “Amur” (liquid cooling system tubes are visible)
In October 1967, a resolution of the Council of Ministers was issued on a more serious modernization of Shilka. Its most important part was the redesign of the 2A7 assault rifles and the 2A10 gun in order to increase the reliability and stability of the complex, increase the survivability of gun parts and reduce maintenance time. During the modernization process, the pneumatic charging of the 2A7 assault rifles was replaced by pyrocharging, which made it possible to exclude an unreliably operating compressor and a number of other components from the design. The welded coolant drain pipe was replaced with a flexible pipeline - this increased the barrel life from 3500 to 4500 shots. In 1973, the modernized ZSU-23-4M was put into service along with the 2A7M assault rifle and the 2A10M cannon. ZSU-23-4M received the designation “Biryusa”, but in the army units it was still called “Shilka”.
2A7 anti-aircraft guns were produced at the Tula Machine-Building Plant named after. Ryabikov from 1957 to 1985. The production volumes of these anti-aircraft guns of the N. M. Afanasyev system are amazingly huge. About 28,000 pcs. in two modifications.
Automatic anti-aircraft gun AZP-23M:
Four 23-mm machine guns (2A7) mounted on a swinging cradle;
Guidance in azimuth 360°, elevation angle -4° - + 85° using a hydraulic drive (2Є2) or manually.
Aiming speeds: manually - 1 degree/rev. flywheel; hydraulic drives - up to 70 (60) degrees/sec (in azimuth/elevation angle); Ground PAH - up to 20 deg/sec.
Tape power supply, for each machine separately;
Ammunition 2000 shells - 520 pieces for the upper machine guns and 480 pieces for the lower ones;
The total rate of fire is 3400 rounds per minute;
Initial projectile speed - 950-1000 m/s;
Firing mode: short bursts - up to 10, long bursts - up to 20 shots per machine gun; continuous fire - up to 50;
Liquid cooling, forced (water, antifreeze - 200 l.);
Reloading of machine guns is manual, air (ZSU-23-4 V), squib cartridges (ZSU-23-4 MZ).
Ammunition - armor-piercing incendiary tracer (BZT), high-explosive fragmentation incendiary tracer (OFZT) and high-explosive fragmentation incendiary (HEF).
Conclusions on the concept of rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns described above
Thus, the automation scheme proposed by N. M. Afanasyev provided a revolutionary breakthrough in solving the problem of significantly increasing the rate of fire of aviation and anti-aircraft weapons at the beginning of the post-war years. Further research in the field of increasing the rate of fire of aircraft guns showed that the automation scheme proposed by N. M. Afanasyev became the crown of the classical single-channel strike weapon design. Subsequently, in order to comprehensively solve the problem of increasing the rate of fire, the need was substantiated and a transition was made from a single-channel scheme to double-barreled and multi-barrel weapon schemes of the Tula series GSh designed by V. P. Gryazev and A. G. Shipunov - the creators of the modern domestic rifle-cannon system weapons.
Afterword
If anyone thinks that by installing four machine guns (five, six, eight...) he will get an effective anti-aircraft system, then he is mistaken. If anyone thinks that the transition from a single-channel system to double-barreled and multi-barrel circuits is nonsense, then he is also mistaken. If everything were so simple, then such products
there wouldn't be.
And systems with a caliber above 30 mm are not a trivial task.
For example, the 45-mm quad anti-aircraft gun SM-20-ZIF of destroyers pr.41 and pr.56. was adopted by order of the USSR Ministry of Defense No. 0086 dated October 9, 1957, and its design began at the MATSKB back in 1946-1947 (10 years).
In the SM-20, the operation of the machine guns is asynchronous - when the two upper machine guns go into rollback, the two lower ones go into retraction, which caused significant dispersion of the projectiles (beyond the technical specifications). But despite this, the installation was put into service.
Previous articles
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
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.
Rapid-fire weapons with a rotating block of barrels are an essential element of science fiction action films and computer games. Movies often feature beefy Rambos with six-barreled machine guns spraying lead on villains. Thanks to Hollywood, these “lawn mowers” have firmly established themselves as superweapons.
At the same time, cannons and machine guns, working according to the scheme of the American inventor Richard Gatling, have long been in service with a number of countries. The destructive power of multi-barreled guns is truly amazing. RIA Novosti publishes a selection of the most formidable weapons with a rotating barrel block.
Artillery firing of an AK-630 installation © RIA Novosti / Ildus Gilyazutdinov
The most famous
The American M134 Minigun rapid-fire machine gun is perhaps the most famous Gatling gun in existence. Action films about brave US Marines or military footage from the Middle East rarely do without this six-barreled machine of 7.62 mm caliber. Since the 1960s, American gunsmiths have managed to introduce it wherever possible. M134s are installed in the hatches of army Hummers, on guard towers, patrol boats, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and fortifications. Still, six thousand rounds per minute is a serious argument in any critical situation.
Multi-barreled machine gun M134 Minigun © Photo: Lance Cpl. Randall A. Clinton
Contrary to stereotypes, Gatling weapons do not fire all barrels at the same time. In the M134, the cartridge is sent into the lower, cooled barrel, the shot is fired from above, and the cartridge case is ejected from the right. Thus, the barrels fire one at a time and have time to reload and cool down while the remaining five are “working.” Such a scheme eliminates the main obstacle to an ultra-high rate of fire - overheating of the weapon. Most other machine guns with a rotating barrel block work in a similar way.
The M134's "big brother" is the M61 Vulcan 20mm six-barreled aircraft gun. For almost 60 years it has been installed on American combat aircraft, attack helicopters and ground landing gear. This system is capable of hitting both air and ground targets quite effectively. But, like the M134, today it is considered obsolete.
The fastest
Russian AK-630 M-2 “Duet” installations are a modern modification of the Soviet six-barrel shipborne AK-630 systems. The new system differs from its predecessor primarily in the presence of two guns and complex electronic “stuffing”, which makes it possible to largely automate the process of targeting and tracking targets. One "Duet" is capable of unleashing a record ten thousand 30-mm shells per minute on the enemy. This is sufficient to destroy any air target at a distance of up to four kilometers and at altitudes of up to five kilometers - be it a supersonic aircraft, a drone or a cruise missile. And at close ranges, naval “six-barreled guns” are capable of severely damaging or even destroying a small warship. The AK-630 family complexes are the last and strongest line of defense of the naval squadron.
Automatic shipborne artillery mount AK-630 on the guards missile cruiser "Moskva", which arrived off the coast of Latakia for air defense of the area © RIA Novosti / Press service of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
To date, the AK-630 M-2 is installed in the stern of five small missile ships of the Buyan-M project, as well as on the large landing ship Ivan Gren, which is due to enter service with the Northern Fleet in November this year. In addition, the Ministry of Defense plans to re-equip a number of other ships carrying older AK-630s with Duets.
The most armor-piercing
The pinnacle of development of weapons with a rotating barrel block can perhaps be called the American GAU-8 Avenger aircraft cannon - the main weapon of the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft. The mass of the entire cannon installation with a cartridge supply system and a full drum of 30-mm shells is almost two tons, and the A-10, fueled and prepared for takeoff, weighs ten tons. The plane is actually built around this three-meter, seven-barreled monster. In fact, the cannon is the only reason why Thunderbolt II attack aircraft remain in service with the US Air Force - in terms of their flight performance and on-board equipment, they are significantly inferior to machines of the same class in other countries.
Seven-barreled automatic cannon GAU-8 Avenger on an A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft CC BY 3.0 / Mrkoww or Matthew Zalewski
The GAU-8 fires up to 4,200 armor-piercing sub-caliber projectiles with a depleted uranium core at a target per minute. Due to the colossal recoil and the danger of powder gases entering the air intakes, pilots usually fire short bursts of two to three seconds. This is enough to completely cover a column of a dozen heavy combat vehicles. The A-10 was conceived as an anti-tank aircraft; the specifics of its combat use involve attacking a target in the upper hemisphere, which is least protected by armor. In Afghanistan and Iraq, attack aircraft armed with GAU-8 showed good results. However, in a war with an enemy with advanced air defense, the chances of these subsonic aircraft to survive are rapidly decreasing.
American attack aircraft A-10 Thunderbolt II (A-10 Thunderbolt II) © Flickr / Samuel King Jr
The most heaped
The YakB four-barrel aircraft machine gun of 12.7 mm caliber was created in the late 70s specifically for the Mi-24 attack helicopters, the latest at that time. Large-caliber Soviet Gatling guns underwent their baptism of fire in Afghanistan. Army aviation pilots immediately fell in love with the new machine guns for their exceptionally high density of fire and nicknamed the YakB-12.7 “metal cutter.” This weapon justified its nickname more than once: in August 1982, near Kandahar, one helicopter “cut” in half with a burst from a machine gun a bus leading a caravan of dushmans. The Afghan militants were lucky that the Mi-24 fired across the column, and not along it - with a maximum rate of fire of 5,500 rounds per minute, it could riddled the entire caravan in one go.
YakB-12.7 machine gun on the Mi-24 in the National Historical Museum of Bulgaria CC BY-SA 4.0 / Benjamín Núñez González /
It is this machine gun that holds a unique and still unbroken record. On October 27, 1982, during an air battle, an Iraqi Mi-24 was able to shoot down an Iranian F-4 Phantom II fighter from a YakB-12.7. This is the only documented case in the history of world aviation when a helicopter was able to destroy a supersonic jet using an onboard machine gun. This was largely achieved thanks to the excellent accuracy of the weapon. However, the YakB-12.7 had some problems with reliability. The experience of Afghanistan has shown that the machine gun is quite capricious and susceptible to contamination. This drawback was eliminated in the modification YaBKYu-12.7, which was put into service in 1988.
Andrey Kots
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