Armored trains of the OB-3 type are Soviet armored trains (bepo [sn 1] ) from the Great Patriotic War . The most massive Soviet armored trains of the Great Patriotic War - 65 armored trains were built in 1941-1942 .
| Armored trains like OB-3 | |
|---|---|
 One of the OB-3 armored trains "The Fighter of the German Invaders" (without three armored sites ) | |
| Affiliation |  the USSR |
| Subordination | Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army |
| Exploitation | April 1942 - 1946 |
| Participation in | The Great Patriotic War |
| Technical details | |
| Power point | Type O armored locomotive with 1 DShK anti-aircraft machine gun |
| Power | 600 h.p. |
| Reservation | 12-50 mm |
| The number of armored cars | four artillery and anti-aircraft |
| Armament | |
| Light weapons | 20 7.62 mm machine guns DT and / or Maxim and / or 7.92 mm Browning |
| Artillery weapons | 4 76 mm samples 1902 , 1927 , 1927/32 , 76 mm 1915 , 76 mm L-10 or 75 mm guns |
| Anti-aircraft weapons | 2 37 mm and / or 25 mm guns or 2 DShK or 1 gun and 1 DShK |
| Commanders | |
Content
History
On June 22, 1941, the Red Army had 47 armored trains - 34 light and 13 heavy. In addition to the Red Army , the NKVD troops for the protection of railway structures and the NKVD operational armies also had armored trains, on June 22, 1941 they had 25 armored locomotives , 32 artillery armored vehicles and 33 motorized armored vehicles [1] [2] .
In 1941, 42 armored trains were lost: 21 - listed in the lists of the Main Armored Directorate, 21 - other (naval, local built, captured Baltic); NKVD train losses were not identified [3] .
On October 29, 1941, the USSR People’s Commissar of Defense, Directive No. 22cc, signed by the People’s Commissar of Defense I.V. Stalin , ordered the formation of 32 armored train divisions of two armored trains by the end of 1942. The industry exceeded the plans and built 85 armored trains, of which 65 were of the OB-3 type [4] .
The experience of the war showed that two-tower armored cars are impractical: firstly, they are excessively heavy (which creates an overload of the track and makes it difficult to lift the platform in case of derailment), and secondly, when they are damaged, the train loses half of the artillery. At the end of 1941, they proposed in exchange for an OB-3 type armored platform (lightweight - the third option) - two-axle and with one tower - actually half of the pre-war armored car (designed for semi-handicraft production in railway workshops [5] [2] .
The manufacture of armored trains of the OB-3 type was carried out simultaneously in 36 steam train depots and at 10 steam train and car repair plants [6] . The rolling stock and materials necessary for their construction, with the exception of armor and weapons, were taken locally. Armor was supplied from the nearest metallurgical and tank factories. On most OB-3 type armored trains, armored protection is made of non-hardened steel, and where construction was carried out near factories capable of hardening, or received substandard armor from the production of tanks, armored protection was made of hardened steel or armor [5] .
In total, 65 armored trains were built [4] , including 10 in 1941 ( Kovrovsky Bolshevik , Yuzhnouralsky railwayman and others), in January 1942 - 12 (Vasily Chapaev, Forward, to the West! “Kzyl Tatarstan” and others), in February - 17 (“Railwayman of Kuzbass”, “For the Motherland!”, “ Fighter of the German invaders ”, “Victory”, “Sverdlovsk railwayman”, “Sibiryak-Barabinets”, “Soviet Siberia”, “Stalin Urals”, “Chelyabinsk Railway Worker” and others) and in March - 26 (“Komsomol of Chuvashia”, “Luninets”, “Metallurg Kuzbass”, “ Moskvich ”, “Severok” Azakhstani "," Siberian "," Stalinist "and others) [5] .
Device
The armored train OB-3 consisted of four biaxial armored sites and an armored locomotive , which was located in the middle of the train, 2-4 control platforms front and rear for transporting materials for repairing the railway bed (rails, sleepers, and so on) and for protection against mine explosive barriers [ 5] .
For armament of armored trains of the OB-3 type, the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army during that difficult - the first period of the Great Patriotic War allocated only guns of morally obsolete domestic or foreign systems: 76-mm models 1902 ], 1927 , 1927/32 , 76-mm anti-aircraft Lenders , 76-mm tank L-10 , 75-mm French and captured Polish . Machine guns were allocated three types: 7.62 mm DT or Maxim or 7.92 mm Polish Browning model 1930 [5] .
For external communication, a radio station was installed - 71-TK -1, 71-TK-Z or English No.-9. For communication between wagons and a steam locomotive, the entire train was equipped with a telephone and ship-type intercom pipes. Electricity for lighting was generated by a turbo-generator mounted on a steam locomotive, and for heating the composition in cold weather there was a pipe system with steam supply from the boiler. Armored locomotive - NKPS-42; artillery sites - 4 OB-3; anti-aircraft anti-aircraft armor PVO-4 or with two 37-mm anti-aircraft guns 61-K or 25-mm anti-aircraft guns 72-K , or with two large 12.7-mm anti-aircraft machine guns DShK , or with one 37-mm or 25- mm cannon and one DShK (in addition, one DShK was placed at a tender for an armored locomotive in an anti-aircraft tower, protected from the sides by armor) [5] .
Combat use
The OB-3 was especially actively used during battles in the summer of 1942 on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front and in the North Caucasus in the summer and autumn of 1942. In 1942, the crews of Soviet armored trains and the OB-3 type showed many examples of self-sacrifice. On June 28, 1942, west of Voronezh in battle with German aircraft and tanks, both armored trains of the 38th separate division of armored trains were killed - No. 1 “Chelyabinsk Railway” and No. 2 “South Ural Railway” [9] . On October 30 and 31, north-west of Ordzhonikidze , both armored trains of the 36th separate division of armored trains were killed in battles with German tanks - No. 717 "Orenburg Railway" and No. 731 "Forward, to the West!" In total, in 1942, about 20 armored trains of the OB-3 type were lost. Most armored trains were lost from German aircraft. Therefore, starting in 1941, anti-aircraft weapons of armored trains (of all types, not only of the OB-3 type) were constantly strengthened. In 1942, the Stalmost plant manufactured 65 anti-aircraft armored vehicles of the PVO-4 type with two 37-mm anti-aircraft guns 61-K or 25-mm anti-aircraft guns 72-K, or with two 12.7 mm anti-aircraft machine guns DShK, or with one 37-mm or 25-mm gun and one DShK (in addition, one DShK at the tender of an armored locomotive in the anti-aircraft turret), the crews of the armored trains removed 12.7 mm UB machine guns and 20 mm ShVAK guns from downed planes, and installed them and captured German 20-mm anti-aircraft guns on control platforms with protection from sleepers and rails. In 1943, the Stalmost plant manufactured 12 anti-aircraft armored vehicles air defense-4 and 24 - in July – November 1944 [10] .
In 1943-1945, the OB-3 armored trains were used mainly as a means of counter-battery combat , for artillery support of troops and for air defense [5] .
Notes
- ↑ Kolomiets, 2004 , p. 60.
- ↑ 1 2 Chapter 4. Amirkhanov L.I. Armadillos of the railways
- ↑ Kolomiets, 2010 , p. 243.
- ↑ 1 2 Kolomiets, 2010 , p. 196.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 M. Kolomiyets. "Third" enters the fray. "Model Designer" No. 8 1995
- ↑ Kolomiets, 2010 , p. 132.
- ↑ Kolomiets, 2010 , p. 90.
- ↑ Kolomiets, 2010 , p. 89.
- ↑ p. 79 Armored trains in the battle “Steel Fortresses of the Red Army”. M. Kolomiets. 2010
- ↑ Kolomiets, 2010 , p. 160-164.
Footnotes
- ↑ The reduction has been affirmed since the time of the Civil War in Russia, as it is best betrayed by telephone with noise - shots, explosions and so on
- ↑ In the board of the nearest armored area behind the open door there is a vertical embrasure of the 7.92-mm Polish Browning machine gun , it is also clear that the relative position of the engine and the last cars are not strictly in one line - that is, the tracks are deformed by bomb blasts, and perhaps the cars went off the rails
- ↑ Beneath “paper-torn” steel sheets 10 mm thick are visible to protect the chassis , deformations and numerous fragmentation holes from German high-explosive fragmentation bombs in the same 10 mm steel sheets (for comparison, the thickness of the metal doors of apartments is usually 1.5-4 mm - 2.5-7 times less). Also on board the nearest armored area of the hole in the upper inclined sheet with a thickness of 12-16 mm
Literature
- Amirkhanov L.I. Armadillos of the railways - St. Petersburg. : Island, 2005 .-- 212 p. - ISBN 5-94500-001-9 [short run book]
- Drogovoz I.G. Fortresses on wheels. History of armored trains. - Mn. : Harvest, 2002 .-- 352 p. - ISBN 985-13-0744-0 .
- Efimiev A.V., Manzhosov A.N., Sidorov P.F. Armored trains in the Great Patriotic War 1941−1945. - M .: Transport , 1992 .-- 248 p. - ISBN 5-277-01631-7 .
- Kolomiyets M.V. Armored trains of the Red Army 1930−1941. - M .: Yauza, 2004 .-- 75 p.
- Kolomiyets M.V. Armored trains of the Great Patriotic War "Ground battleships" of the Red Army. - M .: Yauza, 2010 .-- 306 p. - ISBN 978-5-699-40943-3 .
- Kisses V.A. Armadillos of the railways. - M .: Young Guard, 1982.
Links
- Armored trains of the Red Army . (List of armored train divisions, articles on 76 separate armored train divisions and a list of individual armored trains).
- Kolomiyets M.V. Armored trains of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Part 2
- Drogovoz I.G. Fortresses on wheels: History of armored trains 2002. 352 p.