There are several theories why our city was named Pushkino. One of them, according to local historians, the most reasonable, is associated with the name of the boyar Grigory Morkhinin, nicknamed Pushka. The history of his family has been studied quite well, since he laid the foundation for the boyar, and later the noble family of the Pushkins. So, "The Sun of Russian Poetry" Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was a direct descendant of Grigory Morkhinin in the 13th generation.

Many researchers - historians, philologists, literary critics - were engaged in the study of their genealogy. They managed to find the roots of the poet and, accordingly, the boyar Pushka back in the 13th century. According to Academician S.B. Veselovsky, the first of the family was an associate of Alexander Nevsky Ratsha or Racha (it is assumed that this is the Novgorod version of the names Ratmir or Ratibor). A descendant of Ratsha distinguished himself in the Battle of the Neva, and his sons continued to serve the prince's family. One of them received the nickname Morkhinya, which was preserved by the next generations as a surname. It turns out that Grigory Morhinin is a descendant of Ratsha in the seventh generation.
He was a very wealthy man who owned large estates, including in the territory of the modern Moscow region. In the 15th century, the settlement, which later became the city of Pushkino, also belonged to them. The first exact date of mention of it corresponds to 1499.

It remains unclear for researchers why Grigory Morhinin received the nickname Pushka. This was usually associated with a striking feature of appearance or behavior, so it can be assumed that the boyar had a loud voice. Another version belongs to philologists who have found a connection between the words "morkh" and "cannon". Moreover, their significance has nothing to do with weapons. Both words are associated with patches of matter, fur, but morkh is from the Novgorod dialect, and the cannon is from Moscow. It is not known for sure whether the boyar wore clothes with fur and fringe or had a lush hairdo, but this version also has a right to exist. Philologists also note the figurative meaning of the word "morkh" - a weak-willed person. Since there are no written psychological portraits, one can only guess why Gregory's grandfather, Ivan, received such a nickname, but it was passed down through generations and was changed along with the place of residence - to the Moscow version.

When creating any monument, portrait resemblance is important, but historians and local historians do not have a description of the appearance of a boyar who lived in the 15th century. Therefore, the sculptors had to be creative in creating the "face of the city". This gave rise to one of the local newspapers a year ago to declare that Grigory Pushka would look like the former head of the district, but everyone who saw the model strongly doubts this. The city administration presented our portal with a reduced copy of the monument, which has already been cast in bronze and will be installed in the center of the roundabout at the intersection of the Old Yaroslavl Highway and Dzerzhinsky Street. The sculpture will stand half-turned on the pedestal, so that the face of the founder can be seen both from the road and from the city. There were proposals to install ancient cannons at the foot of the monument, aimed at the four cardinal points, but then they decided to abandon these militaristic plans. The adjacent territory will be ennobled: I will lay out flower beds, make an approach to the monument. The administration hopes that the newlyweds will like the sculpture and they will begin their wedding walk by laying flowers at the feet of the founder of their native city.

Time will tell if the new tradition will take root, but one thing is clear - Pushkino will acquire its historical "face" and original sculpture, which other cities will not be able to boast of.

Such a question is often heard from fellow Pushkin residents and tourists when it comes to the origin of the name of the village of Pushkino.
Grigory Alexandrovich Morkhinin, nicknamed Pushka, was a distant ancestor of the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and the ancestor of the family, widely spreading Pushkin tree. He - from the Tver boyars, lived at the end of the XIV-beginning of the XV centuries.

In 1338, the princes of Tver were defeated in the struggle with the Moscow princes for the throne. By this time, the reports of the annals about the departure of the Tver service people (boyars) to Moscow date back. Among them were Ramshichi - the grandchildren of the hero of the Battle of the Neva in 1240, Gavrila Aleksich, an ally of Prince Alexander Nevsky: Alexander Ivanovich Morkhinin and Fyodor Akinfovich Sviblo. They left "all sorts" and occupied a high position among the Moscow boyars, were governors of the Moscow prince Ivan I Kalita and acquired estates.

Alexander Ivanovich Morkhinin had five sons: Alexander, Fedor, Vladimir Kholopashche, David Kazarin and Grigory Pushka. The latter became the founder of the Pushkin family family.
Academician S.B. Veselovsky, researching the poet's family, wrote that Grigory Aleksandrovich Morkhinin received the nickname Pushka in Moscow. What he did at the court of the Moscow prince is unknown. As for his offspring, it should be noted that they were distinguished by high fecundity. Grigory Pushka had seven sons and 15 grandchildren. Some of them had the nicknames Ulita, Tovarka, Rojon, Musa, Bujar, Kologriv, Kurcha, Bobryshche, etc.
The question may arise why, having a completely official name and patronymic, these people also had nicknames. This is a tribute to the ancient Slavic tradition of two names, which required the concealment of the main main name and the use in everyday life of the name of another, “not real”, in order to protect oneself from “evil forces” that should not have known the true name of a person.
Nicknames varied. They were given by the names of animals and birds, by natural phenomena, by the properties and qualities of people. For example, the nickname "rozhon" meant "sharp pole", and "snail" - "full". Regarding Grigory Pushka, some scientists, researchers of surnames and nicknames tend to argue that the nickname "cannon" is based on the fact that this person had some kind of characteristic feature in appearance or clothing associated with something soft, fluffy. But this is only an assumption, since the word "gun" had other meanings.
The direct ancestor of the poet A.S. Pushkin was the son of Grigory Pushka - Pushkin Konstantin Grigorievich. There were more than 30 people in the subsequent tribe of the Pushkins, and more than 40 in the fifth. Some of them remained in the names of the villages that they owned in the late XIV - early XV centuries. These are villages near Moscow: Tovarkovo, Rozhnovo, Buzharovo, Ulitino, Pushkino, including Pushkino on the Ucha River (now the Pushkin District), known in written sources since 1499, but already as a metropolitan estate, which moved from the Pushkins to the metropolitan Moscow and All Russia, probably at the end of the XIV century. (S.B. Veselovsky. "Feudal land tenure in North-Eastern Russia. Private land tenure of the metropolitan house"), volume I, M, 1947., p. 355).
The reader can learn more about the village of Pushkino and the Pushkins from the book "The Village of Pushkino. 500 Years" (authors N. Lepeshkin, S. Dolzhkov, 1999), which is available in almost all libraries of the Pushkin region.

The first firearms? - Mattresses? - Were made of iron. Only two Russian small iron tools of the late XIV - early XV centuries have survived. One mattress was until the winter of 1941 in the museum of Kalinin (Tver) and mysteriously disappeared after the capture of the city by the Germans. The second mattress was kept in the Ivanovo Historical Museum, but it also mysteriously disappeared during the years of “perestroika”.

The Italian Aristotle Fioravanti, who arrived in 1473 from Venice with a Russian embassy, ​​taught the Moscow craftsmen how to cast copper cannons. In 1475, not far from the Frolovskaya (now Spasskaya) tower of the Kremlin, Fioravanti built a cannon-casting factory? - A cannon hut.

In 1488, during a great Moscow fire, the Cannon hut burned down, but a few months later on the left bank of the river. Neglinnaya built a new Cannon hut, which already consisted of a number of wooden buildings.

Aristotle Fioravanti is usually remembered by our historians as the builder of the Assumption Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. However, in the 70s? - 80s of the XV century, he was better known as the destroyer of cities. It was he who controlled the fire of the Moscow artillery during the siege of Tver and Novgorod.

The exact date of the death of Aristotle Fioravanti is unknown, but most historians believe that he died in Moscow in 1486.

Not a single gun cast by Fioravanti has come down to us. There is evidence that one of the cannons was cast by him and his assistant Yakov in 1483. Its length was 2.5 arshins (179 cm), and its weight? - 16 pounds (262 kg). This cannon defended Smolensk in 1667, and then disappeared somewhere.

The oldest surviving copper tool (pischal) was cast in 1491 by the same craftsman Yakov. Now it is stored in the Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps in St. Petersburg. Its caliber is 66 mm, length 1370 mm, weight 76 kg. The gun has no trunnions, no dolphins, no brackets. The breech ends with a flat bottom. This tool was sent to Siberia at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries, thanks to which it survived. In 1756 he was discovered in the fortress of Orenburg.

In 1488, in Moscow, the Italian master Pavel Debosis cast a huge tool from copper, which was called the Tsar Cannon. Unfortunately, we do not know either the structure of the first Tsar Cannon or its fate.

From 1550 to 1565, Kishpir Ganusov (Ganus), apparently a German by nationality, led the work at the Moscow Cannon Yard. In the annals there are references to eleven guns cast by him, but not a single one has come down to us. The largest copper tool, cast by Ganusov in 1555, was called the Kashpirova Cannon. Its weight was 19.65 tons.

In the same 1555, the Moscow master Stepan Petrov cast a Peacock cannon weighing 16.7 tons. The Peacock's caliber was determined at 13 pounds. But it is quite difficult to calculate the caliber in millimeters, since both the Peacock and the Kashpirova cannon fired only stone cannonballs with a density of 2.8–3.4 t / m 3, and cast-iron cannonballs with a density of 7.4–7.8 t / m 3 at the end of the 16th century only "came into fashion" in Western Europe.

It is curious that Ivan the Terrible ordered both huge cannons to be delivered to Polotsk, besieged by the Russians. On February 13, 1563, the tsar ordered the voivode, Prince Mikhail Petrovich Repnin, “to place large cannons for Kashpirov and Stepanov, Pavlin, Eagle, and Medved, and the entire wall and upper outfit close to the city gates” and shoot “without resting, day and night.” Did the earth tremble from this firing? - "The cores of large cannons are twenty pounds each, and other cannons are a little easier." The next day the gate was destroyed and several breaches were made in the wall. On February 15, Polotsk surrendered to the mercy of the victors.

In 1568, a young student of Kashpir, Andrei Chokhov (before 1917, he was written by Chekhov) cast his first gun - a copper pischel of 5 hryvnia caliber and weighing 43 pounds (704 kg).

To date, 14 guns of Andrey Chokhov have been preserved, of which 5 are in the Moscow Kremlin, 7? - in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg and 2? - in Sweden in the Gripsholm castle.

The most famous weapon of Andrei Chokhov was the Tsar Cannon. It was cast by order of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. A giant gun weighing 2,400 pounds (39,312 kg) was cast in 1586 at the Moscow Cannon Yard. The length of the Tsar Cannon is 5345 mm, the outer diameter of the barrel is 1210 mm, and the diameter of the thickening at the muzzle is 1350 mm.

Currently, the Tsar Cannon is on a decorative cast-iron carriage, and nearby are decorative cast-iron cannonballs, which were cast in 1834 in St. Petersburg at the Byrd iron foundry. It is clear that it is physically impossible to shoot from this cast-iron gun carriage or use cast-iron cannon balls? - It will blow the Tsar Cannon to smithereens!

Documents about the testing of the Tsar Cannon or its use in combat conditions have not been preserved, which gave rise to later historians for lengthy disputes about its purpose. Most historians and the military believed that the Tsar Cannon? was a shotgun, that is, a weapon designed to shoot shot, which in the 16th-17th centuries consisted of small stones. A minority of experts generally exclude the possibility of combat use of the gun, and it was made to frighten foreigners, especially the ambassadors of the Crimean Tatars. Let us recall that in 1571 Khan Devlet Giray burned down Moscow.

In the 18th - early 20th centuries, the Tsar Cannon was called a shotgun in all official documents. And only the Bolsheviks in the 1930s decided to raise her rank for propaganda purposes and began to call her a cannon.

The secret of the Tsar Cannon was revealed only in 1980, when a large automobile crane removed it from the carriage and placed it on a huge trailer. Then the powerful KrAZ took the Tsar Cannon to Serpukhov, where the cannon was repaired at the factory of military unit No. 42 708. At the same time, a number of specialists from the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky was inspected and measured guns. For some reason, the report was not published, but from the surviving draft materials it becomes clear that the Tsar Cannon ... was not a cannon!

The highlight of the gun is its channel. At a distance of 3190 mm, it has the form of a cone, the initial diameter of which is 900 mm, and the final diameter is 825 mm. Then comes the charging chamber with a reverse taper? - with an initial diameter of 447 mm and a final (at the breech) 467 mm. The length of the chamber is 1730 mm, and the bottom is flat.

So this is a classic bombard!

Bombards first appeared at the end of the 14th century. The name "bombard" comes from the Latin words bombus (thunder sound) and arder (burn). The first bombards were made of iron and had screw-on chambers. So, for example, in 1382 in the city of Gate (Belgium) the bombard "Mad Margaret" was made, named so in memory of the Countess of Flanders Margaret the Cruel. The caliber of the bombard is 559 mm, the barrel length is 7.75 calibers (klb), and the channel length is 5 klb. The weight of the gun is 11 tons. The Mad Margarita fired stone cannonballs weighing 320 kg. The bombarda consists of two layers: the inner one, consisting of longitudinal strips welded together, and the outer one, consisting of 41 iron hoops, also welded to each other and to the inner layer. A separate screw chamber consists of a single layer of discs welded together and is equipped with sockets for inserting a lever when screwing it in and for unscrewing it.

It took about a day to load and aim large bombards. Therefore, during the siege of Pisa in 1370, whenever the besiegers were preparing to fire, the besieged went to the opposite end of the city. The besiegers, taking advantage of this, rushed to the attack.

The charge of the bombard was no more than 10% of the weight of the core. There were no trunnions and carriages. The guns were stacked on wooden decks and log cabins, and piles were driven in behind or brick walls were erected to stop. Initially, the elevation angle did not change. In the 15th century, primitive lifting mechanisms began to be used and bombards were cast from copper.

Pay attention? - The Tsar Cannon does not have trunnions, with the help of which the gun is given an elevation angle. In addition, she has an absolutely smooth rear section of the breech, with which she, like other bombards, rested against a stone wall or log house. (Sch. 1).

Scheme 1. Typical installation of a heavy bombard of the 15th-16th centuries. (In some cases, masonry was made between wooden piles and beams)

By the middle of the 15th century, the Turkish Sultan had the most powerful siege artillery. So, during the siege of Constantinople in 1453, the Hungarian foundry worker Urban cast for the Turks a copper bombard with a caliber of 24 inches (610 mm), which fired stone balls weighing about 20 pounds (328 kg). It took 60 bulls and 100 men to transport it to the position. To eliminate the rollback, the Turks built a stone wall behind the gun. The rate of fire of this bombard was 4 shots per day. By the way, the rate of fire of large-caliber Western European bombards was of the same order. Just before the capture of Constantinople, a 24-inch bombard exploded. At the same time, its designer Urban himself died (Sch. 2).

Scheme 2. Transportation of a bombard in a combat position. (There were actually much more servants, but the medieval artist removed the people, otherwise the very body of the gun would not have been visible behind them)

The Turks appreciated the large-caliber bombards. Already in 1480, during the fighting on the island of Rhodes, they used bombards of 24-35-inch (610-890 mm) caliber. The casting of such giant bombards required, as indicated in ancient documents, 18 days.

It is curious that the bombards of the 15th-16th centuries were in service in Turkey until the middle of the 19th century. So, on March 1, 1807, when the English squadron of Admiral Duckworth crossed the Dardanelles, a 25-inch (635 mm) marble ball weighing 800 pounds (244 kg) hit the lower deck of the Windsor Castle ship and ignited several caps with gunpowder, resulting in a terrible explosion. 46 people were killed and wounded. In addition, many sailors, frightened, threw themselves overboard and drowned. The ship "Active" got the same core and punched a huge hole in the side above the waterline. In this hole, several people could stick their heads out.

In 1868 over 20 huge bombards were still on the forts defending the Dardanelles. There is evidence that during the Dardanelles operation in 1915, a 400-kilogram stone core hit the English battleship Agamemnon. Of course, it could not penetrate the armor and only amused the team.

Let's compare the Turkish 25-inch (630-mm) copper bombard, cast in 1464, which is currently kept in the museum at Woolwich (London), with our Tsar Cannon.

The weight of the Turkish bombard is 19 tons, and the total length is 5232 mm. The outer diameter of the barrel is 894 mm. The length of the cylindrical part of the channel is 2819 mm. Chamber length 2006 mm. The bottom of the chamber is rounded. The bombard fired stone cannonballs weighing 309 kg, and a charge of gunpowder weighed 22 kg.

The bombard once defended the Dardanelles. As you can see, outwardly and in terms of the channel structure, it is very similar to the Tsar Cannon. The main and fundamental difference is that the Turkish bombard has a screw breech. Apparently, the Tsar Cannon was made according to the model of such bombards. (Skh. 3, 4).

Scheme 3. 25-inch copper Turkish bombard, cast in 1464.

Scheme 4. The Tsar Cannon, cast in Moscow in 1586. As you can see, outwardly this and the Turkish bombards are very close

So, the Tsar Cannon? Is a bombard designed to fire stone cannonballs. The weight of the stone core of the Tsar Cannon was about 50 pounds (819 kg), and the iron core of this caliber weighs 120 pounds (1.97 tons). As a shotgun, the Tsar Cannon was extremely ineffective. At the cost of expenses, instead of it, it was possible to make 20 small shotguns, which take not a day to load, but only 1-2 minutes. I note that in the official inventory "At the Moscow arsenal of artillery" for 1730, there were 40 copper and 15 cast-iron shotguns. Let's pay attention to their calibers: 1500 pounds? - 1 (this is the Tsar Cannon), and then calibers follow: 25 pounds? - 2, 22 pounds? - 1, 21 pounds? - 3, etc. The largest number of shotguns , 11, falls on a 2-pound caliber. A rhetorical question? - what place did our military think, who wrote the Tsar Cannon into shotguns?

An interesting detail, in 1980, specialists from the Academy named after V.I. Dzerzhinsky concluded that the Tsar Cannons fired at least 1 time.

After the Tsar Cannon was cast and finished at the Cannon Yard, it was dragged to the Spassky Bridge and laid on the ground next to the Peacock Cannon. To move the gun, ropes were tied to eight brackets on its trunk, 200 horses were harnessed to these ropes at the same time, and they rolled a cannon lying on huge logs - rollers.

Initially, the Tsar and Peacock guns lay on the ground near the bridge leading to the Spasskaya Tower, and the Kashpir Cannon? In 1626, they were lifted from the ground and installed on log cabins, densely packed with earth. These platforms were called roskats. One of them, with the Tsar Cannon and the Peacock, was placed at the Execution Ground, the other, with the Kashpir Cannon, at the Nikolsky Gate. In 1636, wooden roskats were replaced with stone ones, inside which warehouses and shops selling wine were arranged.

After the "Narva embarrassment", when the tsarist army lost all siege and regimental artillery, Peter I ordered that new guns be poured urgently. The king decided to get the copper necessary for this by melting down bells and ancient cannons. According to the “nominal decree”, it was “ordered to pour the Peacock cannon into cannon and mortar casting, which is in China near the Execution Ground on a roll; a cannon to Kashpirov, near the new Money Yard, where the Zemsky order was; the cannon "Echidna", which is near the village of Voskresensky; the Krechet cannon with a ten-pound cannonball; cannon "Nightingale" with a core of 6 pounds, which is in China on the square.

Peter, due to his lack of education, did not spare the most ancient Moscow casting tools and made an exception only for the largest tools. Among them, of course, was the Tsar Cannon, as well as two mortars cast by Andrei Chokhov, which are currently in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg.

We are talking about a 15-pood mortar, cast in 1587. Its caliber is 470 mm, length 1190 mm, weight 1265 kg. The mortar fired stone cannonballs weighing 6 poods 25 pounds (109 kg). The mortar was called 15-pood in weight of the cast-iron core of its caliber. It is clear that she could not shoot with a cast-iron core weighing 246 kg.

The second mortar was called the “Mortar of the Pretender,” since it was cast in 1606 by order of Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich (aka Monk Gregory, in the world Yushka Otrepyev). Mortar caliber 30 pounds (I repeat, according to the weight of the iron core) and, accordingly, 534 mm, barrel length 1310 mm, weight 1913 kg.

Both giant mortars have cylindrical charging chambers, but, unlike the Tsar Cannon, are equipped with trunnions.

It is curious that the “Imposter Mortar” has trunnions in the middle of the barrel, and the rear cut of the breech is smooth.

I would venture to suggest that this mortar was intended to be used for flat shooting, and it is a hybrid of a mortar and a bombard.

In addition, Peter kept Andrey Chokhov's cannons "Troilus" and "Aspid", cast in 1590. Both guns are currently standing near the walls of the Arsenal in the Kremlin.

The Troilus cannon is named after the king of Troy. On its torel, an image of this king was made in a rather caricature form, as best they could ... The trunk is equipped with trunnions and dolphins. Gun caliber 195 mm, length 4350 mm, weight about 7 tons.

The Aspid cannon is named after a fantastic creature, a cross between Zmey Gorynych and a crocodile. On the muzzle of the cannon, a relief image of a beast with a wriggling tail is visible from above. The inscription reads: "Aspid". On the middle part of the trunk? - dolphins and trunnions. There is a cast inscription on the treasury: “By the grace of God, by the command of the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovich of All Russia, this squeaker Aspid of the summer of 1590 was made. Ondrey Chokhov did it.” Caliber "Aspida" 190 mm, length 5150 mm, weight about 6 tons.

Guns "Troil" and "Aspid" in 1843 were installed on cast-iron fake gun carriages.

The tools cast at the end of the 17th century by the Moscow master Martyan Osipov are also curious. His first gun - a regimental squeaker? - was made in 1666, and the last? - in 1704. Osipov's largest gun was the Unicorn cannon, named after the fabulous beast.

The image of a unicorn? - a monster with the body of a bull (and later? - a horse) and one horn is found in Indian chronicles of the 3rd millennium BC. e. Later, unicorns entered ancient Greek and Christian mythology. It was believed that unicorns bring victory to the knights, and the Virgin Mary patronizes the beast itself. In the Middle Ages, the unicorn appeared on the coats of arms of many dukes and earls, and even English kings.

In Russia in the XV-XVII centuries, a unicorn was called an inrog. It is curious that back in the 16th century, we liked to call heavy guns "Inrogs". The oldest tool with this name. that has come down to our time and is stored in the Artillery Museum is a 68-hryvnia (caliber 216 mm) pischal "Inrog", cast from copper in 1577 in Moscow by master Andrey Chokhov. Gun body weight 7435 kg, length 5160 mm. The cannon has no grapes, and a flat torel is decorated with cast images of a unicorn.

The history of this weapon is very interesting. "Inrog" participated in the Livonian War, and in 1633-1634. was part of the Russian siege artillery near Smolensk. There he was captured by the Poles and sent to the fortress of Elbing. On December 3, 1703, Elbing was taken by the Swedish king Charles XII, and the Inrog was sent to Stockholm as a trophy. In 1723, the Swedish merchant Yagan Prim sawed the piskal into three parts and delivered it to Russia by sea. By order of Peter I, master Semyon Leontiev skillfully soldered the barrel, after which the Inrog was sent to the St. Petersburg Arsenal.

The caliber of the “Unicorn” cannon cast by Martyan Osipov is 225 mm, length 7.56 m, and weight 12.76 tons. The cannon is decorated with lush ornaments of leaves and herbs, including figures of people and bears. On the muzzle on the right is a relief image of a unicorn. The barrel rests on a decorative cast-iron carriage, cast in 1835 at the Byrd factory.

The Gamayun cannon, cast by Osipov in 1670, is much smaller. Its caliber is 6 pounds (95 mm), barrel length 4380 mm, weight 1670 kg. But its highlight is the faceted barrel. The muzzle of the gun is round, and the middle and breech parts are fourteen-sided. The faceted part of the barrel is very similar to the available images of Western European cannons of the early 16th century, and the stripes of floral ornament completely coincide with the decor of the Polish cannon, cast in 1521 (we will talk about it later). I note that among Russian guns a faceted barrel is a rather rare occurrence. The image on the official section of ice with a hole for the ring in the mouth is completely uncharacteristic of Moscow casting.

Interestingly, the name of the gun was not taken by chance. The fabulous bird Gamayun came to us from Aryan mythology at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. e. In the Middle Ages in the East, it was revered as a royal bird. And in the western Russian lands in the XIV century, the Gamayun bird was considered the patroness of artillery. At the end of the 16th century, the bird Gamayun, sitting on the breech of a cannon, became the coat of arms of the Smolensk principality. (Sch. 5, 6).

Scheme 5. Smolensk pool at the end of the 14th century.

Scheme 6. Coat of arms of Smolensk from a charter

During the war with Poland 1653-1667. many Polish siege weapons were captured. Several of them are exhibited in the Kremlin. Among them is the Persian cannon, cast in 1619 by Master Leonard Rotenberg. Its characteristic external feature? - a cast barrel. In 1685, Martyan Osipov made a "remake" from her? - the New Persian cannon. Gun caliber 43 pounds (180 mm), length 4.98 m, weight 5782 kg. The muzzle of the barrel is twisted, and the middle part is scaly. On the flat rear section of the breech instead of vineyard? - a cast bas-relief with a bust of a Persian in a turban.

In 1693, by order of Peter I, Martyan cast a 45-pound (185-mm) cannon "Eagle" according to the "Dutch manner". The length of the cannon is 3556 mm, and the weight is 3.6 tons. Like all Kremlin cannons, it is placed on a cast-iron sham gun carriage.

The Onager cannon, cast in Moscow in 1581 by master Kuzmin the First, is curious. Its caliber is 190 mm, length 4.18 m, weight 5.12 tons. On the muzzle of the cannon, a figurine of a wild donkey is glued, as it were? - an onager. The historian K. Ya. Tromonik believed that the image of the animal was soldered to the barrel, but in fact it was cast together with the barrel, which is evidence of the high level of skill of Moscow casters.

A remake of the Chokhov Troil cannon was the New Troil cannon, cast in 1685 in Moscow by master Yakov Dubina. Its caliber is 43 pounds (180 mm), length 4935 mm, weight 6584 kg.

Of the ancient foreign cannons that are on sham cast-rubber carriages in Moscow, the Bizon cannon, cast in 1629 in Danzig by master Ludwig Wichtendal, is interesting. I note that in our literature the Bison cannon is called the Buffalo. Its caliber is 25 pounds (150 mm), length 2947 mm, weight 1523 kg.

Among the Polish trophies of the war of 1653-1667, located in the Kremlin, in addition to the already mentioned "Persus", there is a "Basilisk" cannon, cast in 1581 by the master Jeronic Vitoli.

But the most ancient Polish cannon, cast in 1547 (its name and master are unknown), entered the new millennium with a sign: “70-mm copper cannon. Cast in 1547 Moscow. Weight 1 ton. Length 2.5 m.

Although I was used to blunders in the plates for guns in our museums, I succumbed to a provocation and included in my Encyclopedia of Russian Artillery a photo of this gun with the indicated signature.

Another question is that this is clearly not a “blunder”, since the Kremlin guns have been studied by serious experts for more than 200 years, but most likely politics. Now few people know that in 1921 Poland imposed a shameful and predatory peace on the young Soviet Republic, taking advantage of the temporary weakness of our country.

So, Russia was supposed to transfer only railway property worth 18,245 thousand rubles in gold in 1913 prices, including 555 steam locomotives, 17 thousand wagons, etc. Moreover, the Polish government demanded that all valuables be transferred to him, ever taken out during the time that has passed since the first partition of Poland. The Poles made demands on many monuments kept in the Artillery Historical and Suvorov Museums. They were given 57 cannons of the 16th-18th centuries, 67 banners and standards. With a careful comparison of coats of arms, mottos and other heraldic symbols on the banners and standards, the historian P. I. Belavenets established that they were all not Polish, but Swedish, and presented such convincing evidence to the Polish side that the Poles abandoned their claims. But in 1932 the demand was renewed, and the Russian side, "in order not to spoil relations", nevertheless unfairly gave what was demanded.

From the collection of the Suvorov Museum, which was kept at that time in the Artillery Historical Museum, the Poles took the keys to Warsaw and the silver timpani presented to A.V. Suvorov by the Warsaw magistrate in 1794, many Polish banners, weapons and other items of those times. By the way, the "Inrog" pischal, taken by the Poles from us near Smolensk, was later redeemed by Russian merchants with gold.

By the way, all these valuables, pulled out of Russian museums by force, did not go to the benefit of the Poles. In 1939, they became the trophies of the Germans, and were mostly privatized by the German command. So the keys and timpani of Suvorov got to the new winners of Warsaw.

For obvious reasons, the Poles were not allowed into the Kremlin and, apparently, they lied that there were no Polish guns there. Cannons "Pers" and "Basilisk" are on the eastern side of the Arsenal, where our "tramplers" do not let anyone even during the day with a lantern. But people walked past the cannon of 1547 in the 1960s? - 1990s, and they stuck a fake tablet to it.

The last cannon of the Kremlin worth mentioning is the Lion. It was cast in 1705 by master Karl Balashevich in the city of Glukhov in Ukraine. The gun itself is not a masterpiece of artillery of that time, although I note that in Ukraine from the 16th to the middle of the 18th centuries, local craftsmen poured excellent guns for the Hetman's troops, which were not inferior, and often surpassed the Polish and Moscow models.

Special attention of historians "Lion" did not attract, but in 1980 the staff of the Academy. Dzerzhinsky, they found out that it was ... charged, and this was done at the very beginning of the 18th century. The cannon defended some Ukrainian fortress either from the troops of Charles XII, or from the troops of Peter I, and it was loaded with a special charge to repel the assault.

Caliber gun "Lion" about 125 mm. There is no charging chamber, as it should be with a gun. The bottom of the channel is rounded. Initially, a powder charge was poured into the channel, then? - a wooden wad 163 mm long, then? - an iron core with a diameter of 91 mm, then? - again a wooden wad 166 mm long. And then a charge of large buckshot was sent, and the bullets were spherical cast iron with a diameter of 23 mm and 30 mm. There were obviously not enough bullets, and several stones were added with a maximum size of 70 to 40 mm. To prevent stones and bullets from flying out, the last wooden wad 183 mm long was hammered into the muzzle. (Sch. 7).

Scheme 7. Scheme of the location of the charge extracted from the bore of the gun "Lev". 1? - ​​wad with a diameter of 119 x 183 mm, wood; 2-fraction approx. 70x60x40 mm, stone; 3? - buckshot with a diameter of 23 mm and 30 mm, cast iron; 4? - wad with a diameter of 93 x 166 mm, wood; 5? - core with a diameter of 91 mm, cast iron; 6? - wad with a diameter of 124 x 163 mm, wood; 7? - the remains of gunpowder

After the end of hostilities, they forgot to unload the cannon, and it stood loaded for 271 years. Almost all of the old guns were stored in our open air, stuffed with cigarette butts. Let's imagine a funny picture? - some "treadmill" in the 1930s? - 1940s would put an outstanding cigarette in the Lion's fuse hole. A shot would have slammed ... That would have added worries to the NKVD!

Chapter 2

What came first? - a gun or a cannon? Can you safely answer? - Fortress gun. In any case, the first known pyroballic devices? - Arab madfaas of the 13th century, in appearance, dimensions and ballistic data, are more suitable for fortress guns than, say, cannons or muskets.

In Russia, fortress guns were called squeakers. The squeakers have become widespread. They were made not only in Moscow, but also in Tver, Veliky Novgorod, and even in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. Unfortunately, the squeaky squeaks of the 15th century have not come down to us.

The oldest pishchal is kept in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg. Its caliber is 37 mm, barrel length 1250 mm, total length 1760 mm, weight 40.6 kg. The pishchal was made at the beginning of the 16th century and until 1876 was in the Tikhvin Monastery.

Most of the squeakers of the 15th-16th centuries were forged iron, but occasionally there were also cast copper (bronze) ones. So, in 1864, in the ancient settlement on the banks of the Sukhona River, a piskal of the second half of the 16th century with a copper barrel of 23 mm caliber was found. Its barrel length is 1088 mm, weight is 20 kg.

From the beginning of the 18th century, fortress muskets with a flintlock were made at the Moscow Cannon Yard. Their design differed little from infantry muskets, but the length and weight were 1.5–2 times greater.

The surviving fortress muskets have a caliber of 16.2–16.3 mm, a barrel length of 720–735 mm, a total length of 1145–1153 mm, and a weight of 8.5–8.7 kg.

The most powerful fortress guns were dubelgaks, introduced by decree of Peter I on November 11, 1724. The name dubelgak comes from the German word Doppelhaken. The historian Saint-Remy wrote that dubelgak is a cross between a musket and a cannon. Dubelgaks were smooth-bore and fired with lead bullets weighing from 50 to 100 g. In the 20-30s of the 18th century, there was no single sample of dubelgaks, and their caliber ranged from 20 to 30 mm. According to the weight of the barrel, the dubelgak was close to the falconet, but the accuracy of the dubelgak was significantly higher.

In 1747, the production of a standard dubelgak sample of 1747 began in Tula. Its caliber was 25 mm, the barrel length was 1490–1500 mm, the length of the entire system was about 2 m. The weight of the dubelgak was 18–19 kg. The weight of the lead bullet is 64 g, the weight of the propellant charge is 34 g.

In the 20s of the 18th century, rolling fuzei were adopted (rolling? - from the old Russian word "roskat"? - a platform in the fortress where guns were installed). Rolling fuzeya? - a type of long-barreled fortress gun of small caliber. Its caliber of 16–16.5 mm was significantly smaller than the caliber of an infantry (19.8 mm) and even a dragoon (17.3 mm) gun, but the length of the fusee reached 2140 mm.

In 1730, blunderbusses were introduced into the states of serf weapons. Each fortress was supposed to consist of 60 to 70 blunderbusses, and in all fortresses? - 4950. Initially, the fortresses were supplied with ordinary infantry blunderbusses. In the second half of the 18th century, several types of fortress blunderbusses were adopted. As an example, consider a 28-mm fortress blunderbuss made in 1787 in Tula.

The barrel of the blunderbuss is iron, round. Blunderbuss length 1230 mm, weight about 6 kg. Lead bullet weighing 38 g, charge weight 17 g.

In 1790, a 25-mm smooth-bore fortress gun and an 18.7-mm fortress fitting were simultaneously created. Both systems were manufactured at the Tula gun factory.

The barrel of a fortress gun is round with one upper edge, the length of the barrel is 1150–1170 mm. Flint lock with trigger safety? - hook-dog. The length of the gun is about 1.6 m. The weight of the gun is 28–30 kg. Rate of fire? - 1 shot in 60-90 seconds. The smooth-bore fortress gun of the 1790 model was in service with the St. Petersburg fortress until the mid-20s of the 19th century, and in the Siberian and Orenburg fortresses? - until the 50s-60s of the 19th century.

The fitting of the 1790 model had an 8-sided barrel 1251 mm long. The channel is rifled with eight semicircular grooves. The lock is the same type as that of a shotgun. Fitting length 1665 mm, weight 7.5 kg. The bullets were sent using an iron ramrod with a brass head. A significant drawback of the fitting was the low rate of fire? - one shot for 4-5 minutes.

Then came a 50-year intermission in the design of fortress guns. This was partly due to the maneuverable nature of the Napoleonic Wars. And in general, Alexander I paid little attention to the construction and armament of fortresses. His brother Nicholas I, being a crown prince, received an engineering education, and, having become emperor, he began to modernize the old and build new fortresses.

In 1837–1838 a system of fortress guns of the 1838 model was designed. And in 1839, the fortress gun of the 1839 model was adopted. The gun was a modification of the French Rampar fortress gun, created by the famous gunsmith Falis in 1831.

Shotgun model 1839 was the first domestic primer rifled gun. The caliber of the gun is 8.33 lines, that is, 21.16 mm. The length of the barrel is 1274 mm, and the entire gun? - 1811 mm. The weight of the gun is 10.94 kg (Sch. 8).

Scheme 8. Fortress gun arr. 1839

The barrel has 8 grooves of constant steepness, 0.84 mm deep and 3.15 mm wide. The sighting device consisted of a copper retractable front sight and a sight consisting of one fixed (100 steps) and two hinged shields (200 and 300 steps). The maximum sighting range is 747 m. The gun was loaded from the breech.

The barrel, which has a quadrangular shape from the breech, was equipped with trunnions, with which it was inserted into an open iron box, which was also quadrangular on top, attached with its rear end to the gun stock. An iron chamber is enclosed in the box, which could rotate around pins attached to it. In this chamber, a recess was made to place gunpowder and a bullet. The chamber had a cone in front, which fit tightly into the corresponding recess at the end of the gun barrel.

To load the gun, it was necessary to turn the chamber vertically, insert the charge and the bullet, give the chamber its former position, move it forward so that the cone entered the recess of the barrel. Then close the shutter, which prevents the chamber from moving back when fired.

Shooting from a gun was carried out with lead bullets of round (weighing 57.5 g) and conical (weighing 73.2 g) shapes. The charge consisted of 14.3 g of musket gunpowder. Rate of fire? - 1 shot per minute.

The first batch of guns of the 1839 model was sent to the Caucasian Corps to arm the fortifications, which were subjected to continuous attacks by the highlanders. Now it is fashionable to say that "the peoples of the Caucasus fought for freedom against Russian imperialism." In fact, the Russian troops fought against the bandit mountain tribes, who for centuries plundered their neighbors - the inhabitants of the valleys. At the same time, the highlanders had, in the full sense of the word, ultra-modern weapons. So, a significant part of the highlanders had rifled guns (fittings) of English and French production, the maximum range of which significantly exceeded the firing range of smooth-bore guns of the Russian infantry. I'm not talking about the appearance in 1818-1821. in the Caucasus, English mountain guns on iron carriages. In the Russian army, iron carriages were adopted only at the end of the 60s of the XIX century.

Fortress guns of the 1839 model were to some extent compensate for the superiority of the highlanders in rifled weapons. However, the guns of the 1839 model did not justify themselves. The shutters broke, when fired, there was a breakthrough of gases through the shutter. In this regard, Colonel Kulikovsky, on the basis of a rifle of the 1839 model, created a muzzle-loading fortification of the rod system. In 1851, the Kulikovsky fitting was put into service and received the name "fortress fitting of the 1851 model." Fitting caliber 8.5 lines (21.59 mm). The barrel length was reduced to 800 mm. The dimensions of the rifling and their steepness have not changed compared to the 1839 model gun. The aiming range of the fitting? - 1000 steps, that is, 711 m. The walnut tree bed reached half the trunk. Under the forearm, a thick handle was attached slightly in front of the lock, for which the shooter, while aiming, was taken with his left hand, firmly resting the butt on his shoulder, and, to reduce recoil, a leather case with a felt pillow was put on the butt. The muzzle part, when aiming, was placed on the parapet. A steel ramrod with a copper head (Skh. 9).

Scheme 9. Fortress rod fitting arr. 1851

Shooting from the fitting was carried out with pointed cylindrical lead bullets with two protrusions ("ears") and a cast-iron peg in the head, which prevents the bullet from flattening when struck with a ramrod. The weight of the bullet is 77 g, the weight of the propellant charge is 6 g. The design of the bullet also belonged to Colonel Kulikovsky.

The fortress fitting of the 1851 model turned out to be generally successful. The accuracy of the battle was twice as high as that of the Falis guns and the 1839 model, and the loading time was even a little less. But the rod system was still complicated, inconvenient to clean, and hitting the bullet with a ramrod did not expand it so much that it filled the deep grooves of the barrel.

Fortress fittings of the 1851 model were relatively widespread in fortresses. So, according to the state, in the Sevastopol fortress it was supposed to have 199 fortress fittings, but by the beginning of the defense of Sevastopol they were not brought there, and the fittings had to be delivered from the Bendery fortress.

With the entry into service of the infantry with breech-loading rifles, fortress fittings in the 60s of the XIX century remained only in the Caucasian, Orenburg and Siberian fortresses.

The reason for the start of the design of a new Russian fortress gun was the successful use of the Prussian needle fortress gun of the 1865 model during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–1871. So, during the siege of the French fortress of Strasbourg, the Prussian and Baden troops formed special teams from the best rifle infantry units, armed with fortress guns of the 1865 model. The servants of the French fortress guns suffered significant losses from the fire of these teams.

In this regard, at the end of 1870, the Arms Department of the Artillery Committee of the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU), with the participation of the Engineering Committee, developed the tactical and technical requirements for a new fortress gun. Fortress guns were supposed to be used both in defense and in the siege of fortresses. The range of effective fire must be at least 500 fathoms (1067 m). Fortress gun bullets must penetrate a sap round or three earthen bags.

In 1873, Colonel Baron T. F. Gan, a member of the GAU Art Committee, designed an 8-linear (20.3 mm) fortress gun. The barrel length of the gun was 914 mm. The barrel had 8 grooves with a depth of 0.38 mm of constant steepness in 50 calibers. The weight of the gun is 20.5 kg.

The shutter of the folding Krnka system did not differ in anything, except for the size, from the shutter of the 6-linear (15.24-mm) infantry rifle of the Krnka system, adopted by the Russian army in 1869. The forearm of the stock only reached the middle of the barrel. A feature of the device of the lodge was the presence of devices for weakening the effect of recoil. A bronze hook is screwed onto the middle part of the barrel, which, when fired, caught on an earthen bag that served as a support for the gun. A bronze nape, which looked like a lid, is put on the butt.

Two recesses are drilled in the back wall of the butt. In each of them is embedded a spiral spring, resting with one end against the bottom of the recess, and with the other? - against the back of the head. In the center of the back of the head, a bolt is screwed into the corresponding recess in the butt. At the end of the bolt, a longitudinal slot was made through which the end of a rifled screw passed, screwed into the butt from the side. With such a device, the back of the head did not touch the rear surface of the butt, and therefore the impact of the butt when fired was softened by the elasticity of the coil springs.

Shooting was carried out with a unitary cartridge with a composite sleeve. A compound sleeve made of brass tape with an inner cup was designed by the same Hahn. Cartridge weight 204 g, propellant weight 23.4 g. Bullet weight 128 g, muzzle velocity 427 m/s. Two types of bullets were used? - lead to destroy openly located manpower and steel to break through shelters. A lead sheath was soldered to the steel bullet.

Accuracy testing of the Gan 8-line gun gave good results. When firing at 600 steps (427 m), the average dispersion radius turned out to be 335 mm, and at 1200 steps; (853 m)? - 860 mm, for 1500 steps (1067 m)? - 1045 mm.

A steel bullet with 1000 steps pierced 2.5 bags of earth, and with 1500 steps - one bag. When firing at a 7.62-mm armor plate from a distance of 1200 steps, all the bullets pierced it through, and from 1500 steps only half of the bullets pierced the plate, and half of the bullets got stuck in it.

At the end of the tests of the Gan gun on February 9, 1876, the GAU submitted it for adoption. In the same year, it was put into service under the name "8-line fortress gun of the 1876 model." (Sch. 10)

Scheme 10. 8-line fortress gun Ghana arr. 1876

Gun Gan was the last Russian serf gun. On the one hand, this was due to the appearance of magazine 3-line Mosin rifles and Maxim machine guns, which, it was believed, could replace fortress guns, and on the other hand, due to the fact that during the reign of Nicholas II, our generals were very carried away by the ideas of mobile warfare and were convinced that the war could only be won with a 3-line rifle and a 3-inch gun.

For this "French fashion" the Russian army paid with great blood in 1914-1918. During the war, new types of weapons were required. And, by the way, they remembered the already forgotten Gan gun. At the beginning of 1915, a proposal was made to use the Gan 8-line gun for firing at armored vehicles. Indeed, the gun effectively pierced the armor of German and Austrian armored vehicles. So, by right, the Ghana gun can be called the grandmother of domestic anti-tank guns.

At the end of 1914, on the basis of the Gan gun, Captain Rdultovsky created ... a mortar. The gun barrel was shortened to 305 mm. Shooting was carried out with over-caliber ball and cylindrical-conical mines. Ball mine weighed 2.56 kg and contained 256 g of gunpowder. Cylindrical-conical mine weighed 2.46 kg and contained 170 g of TNT. A shank (mines rod) was inserted into the barrel. A sleeve from a 3-linear cartridge and an additional bag of gunpowder were inserted from the breech. The initial speed of the mine? - about 61 m / s. Firing range? - up to 350 steps (250 m).

In January 1915, the GAU Artkom tested Rdultovsky's mortar. Soon, the Rdultovsky mortar was put into service under the name "Rdultovsky's 20-mm mortar." These mortars were successfully used during the war. However, Rdultovsky's mortars were not widely used due to the fact that by 1915 Gan's guns were available in small quantities only in remote warehouses, for example, in Tiflis.

The last mention of Rdultovsky's mortars was found by the author in the order of the Artillery Directorate of February 2, 1923. By this order, all mortars available in the Red Army were divided into three categories: left in service, subject to issue to the troops with special permission and subject to withdrawal. The 20-mm Rdultovsky mortar was in the second category.

No wonder they say that history moves in a spiral. In the 20s - 40s of the XX century, fortress guns were revived in the form of anti-tank rifles, and in the 1980s - in the form of large-caliber sniper rifles.

Chapter 3. Russian self-propelled guns ... near Austerlitz

November 20, 1805, the village of Austerlitz Guards Semyonovsky and Preobrazhensky regiments retreat, having upset the ranks. The guards cavalry was thrown to their aid? - The Horse Regiment and the Life Guards Hussar Regiment. At the sight of the cavalry, the advancing mustachioed giants in bear hats quickly reorganize in squares. Should they be afraid of the cavalry, more than once they beat the Austrian cuirassiers and the ferocious Mamelukes.

But here ahead of the heavy cuirassiers, overtaking the hussars, ... guns rushed at a furious gait. No, this is not a typo. Rumbling on the potholes, guns were flying, harnessed to six horses. It was the Guards Cavalry Artillery Company of Colonel Kostenetsky. Already 50 m left to the square, the faces of the French are clearly visible. Stop! In a matter of seconds, the servants dismount, the guns are removed from the limbers and deployed. 1Sartechyu? - fire! Card shots at point-blank range wash out the gaps in the square. A few more seconds, and in these gaps a forest of broadswords of Russian cuirassiers takes off. The French flee in confusion, But, alas, this brilliant attack did not decide the outcome of the battle. The Russian cavalry, carried away by the pursuit, itself came under fire from the French horse artillery and was attacked by the French horse grenadiers and cavalry.

Battle of Austerlitz? - the battle of the three emperors was lost. In honor of the victory, Napoleon ordered a huge Vendôme column to be cast from the barrels of captured guns and installed on the square of the same name in Paris. But in this column there was not a gram of bronze from Kostenetsky's cannons. His company made its way through the ranks of the French with buckshot and broadswords, or even just banniks. After 2 years in Tilsit, Napoleon asked Alexander I about the fate of Kostenetsky. And after 5 years, the horse guns of Major General Kostenetsky met the enemy on the Borodino field.

How could cannons overtake cavalry? And not only could, but were obliged to do it according to the charter. “Horse batteries should, with the beginning of the reorganization of their cavalry for a horse attack from a reserve order to a combat one, jump out dashingly, at a full career, forestalling their cavalry, quickly withdraw from their limbers and, not paying attention to the artillery and machine guns of the enemy, open rapid fire on the enemy cavalry” , - so it was said in dry language "Instructions for the operation of field artillery in battle" 1912.

And here is how the novelist described the movement of horse artillery: “Is this some kind of incomprehensible hurricane of screaming horsemen and gun carriages reared on bumps, horses bared in neighing teeth and the sparkle of copper helmets? saddles, immediately trampled and crushed in the onslaught of wheels, drawbars, hooves and axles of charging boxes. No matter what happens, still do not linger? - forward!

Horse artillery? - march-march!

How could such a speed be achieved, and even off-road? Firstly, the lightest field guns were chosen, sometimes they were even specially designed for horse artillery. The number of shots carried in the limber was reduced, and most importantly, the servants, who rode on horseback next to the gun, were permanently removed from the limber and gun carriage. Of course, the most enduring horses, both in the harness of the gun and the charging box, and for the servants, were selected. Usually, compared to a gun of the same caliber in foot artillery, a horse gun had a couple more horses in harness.

For the first time in our country, servants were put on horses by Peter the Great. His bombardment company in the battles of Hummelshof (1702) and near Lesnoy (1707) rode horses.

In those days, if necessary, the servants of the regimental artillery used to go on horseback. But it was still not horse artillery, but forced improvisation. What could we talk about when neither the Petrovsky bombardment company, nor the regimental artillery even had their own regular horses, and they were recruited with the outbreak of hostilities, usually bought or requisitioned from the population.

In pre-revolutionary literature, the idea of ​​equipping an independent permanent cavalry artillery unit was attributed to Platon Zubov. Formally, there is some truth in this. Indeed, in September 1794, Zubov submitted to Catherine II the idea of ​​establishing five cavalry artillery companies. In fact, Plato occupied two dozen of the most important positions of the state, including the position of Feldzeugmeister General (chief) of artillery. It was complete fiction. Platon Zubov was constantly in the apartments of the Empress. When Catherine wanted to relax a little, she pulled the cord, the bell rang in Zubov's room, and Platosha ran to fulfill his main state duty.

One way or another, but in early February 1796, the formation of five cavalry artillery companies was completed.

But on November 5, 1796, Catherine dies, and Paul I takes the throne. He immediately disbanded the horse companies and re-created horse artillery on the basis of the "Gatchina artillery".

Thus, Count Alexei Andreevich Arakcheev can rightly be considered the creator of the domestic horse artillery. Yes! Yes! That same Arakcheev? - a reactionary and organizer of military settlements. Our reader is accustomed to dividing historical figures only into positive or negative ones and cannot imagine that one and the same person can have enormous services to the fatherland in one area and be a complete scoundrel in another. The example of Arakcheev is not unique. The same star of Russian ballet Matilda Kshesinskaya from 1894 to 1917 extorted millions of rubles from the Military Department with the help of her lover, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, who was in charge of ballet and, concurrently, artillery.

Returning to Arakcheev, it should be said that he played a decisive role in the radical reorganization of Russian artillery, carried out from 1796 to 1805. Artillery control improved significantly, its maneuverability increased, and the number increased sharply. Arakcheev created a system of artillery guns of the 1805 model, which in its firepower significantly exceeded the guns of the Catherine era. The system of guns of the 1805 model, with minor changes made in 1838, was in service until 1867.

According to the state of 1798, the horse artillery included one guards horse company and a horse battalion, which consisted of four companies. Each company had 12 guns. By the beginning of 1812, the troops already had 272 mounted guns. Their share in the field artillery was small (17%). But their effectiveness on the battlefield from 1805 to 1815 was significantly higher than that of foot field artillery. There was not a single battle where our horse artillery did not distinguish itself.

Horse artillery fought from Maloyaroslavets to Paris, where they carried out a brilliant operation on March 25, 1814.

In the battle of Fer-Champenoise, the Russian cavalry, supported by horse artillery, utterly defeated two French infantry corps of Marmont and Mortier. By the way, on this day, the 23rd horse artillery company under the command of Markov saved Alexander I and the Prussian king from captivity, whose headquarters was attacked by the French from the rear.

Horse artillery also distinguished itself in the Russian-Turkish war of 1828–1829. Here is just one episode of the battle on May 30, 1829 near Kulevcha. The 45,000-strong army of the Turkish vizier moved against the 18,000-strong Russian army under the command of General Dibich. Under the onslaught of superior Turkish forces, the Murom regiment completely perished, the 11th and 12th chasseur regiments suffered heavy losses and retreated. The 2nd hussar division rushed to the counterattack, along with it rode the 19th cavalry artillery company of Major General Arnoldi. His company suddenly appeared from behind the mountain, famously turned around and met the Turks with grapeshot. The Turks attacked three times and were repulsed three times. Then the Russians went on the offensive along the entire front. Cavalry company No. 19 crossed a deep ravine and, leaving it, set up cannons on a hill under Turkish cannonballs. A well-aimed shot from the guns of the 19th company blew up several Turkish charging boxes at once. "Fear and confusion instantly spread among the Turkish troops, and the vizier, who was watching the course of the battle, was the first to give a sign to retreat."

Since the time of Paul I, horse artillery has been armed with 6-pound cannons and 1/4-pood unicorns.

6-pounder (95.5 mm) guns fired cannonballs and buckshot. They were preferred over long distances and when destroying vertical obstacles: ramparts, fences, house walls, etc. 1/4-pood (123-mm) unicorns fired fragmentation, buckshot and incendiary spherical grenades, as well as buckshot.

In 1833, cavalry companies were renamed into batteries. Since 1833, horse light batteries and horse batteries were introduced in horse artillery. I apologize to the reader, but this is not a tautology, but the terminology of that time. Each baharei had 8 guns, but in the light one there were four 6-pounder guns and four 1/4-pood unicorns, and in the battery? - eight 1/2-pood (155-mm) unicorns.

In 1860, rifled guns were introduced for the first time in Russian artillery. And the first battery to receive rifled guns was the Guards Cavalry Light Battery No. 1.

The first rifled 4-pounder copper guns had 6 rifling and fired oblong projectiles whose zinc lugs cut into the rifling of the bore. Loading was still carried out from the muzzle, the old wooden carriages remained. Outwardly, muzzle-loading rifled guns did not differ in any way from the old smooth-bore guns (Sx. 11).

Scheme 11. 4-foot horse gun mod. 1867

In 1867, the rifling system of the 1867 model was introduced in the Russian artillery. The shells of the 1867 model had a lead sheath, which was cut into the rifling of the channel. Loading was carried out from the breech using wedge gates. In horse artillery, a 4-pounder field gun of the 1867 model was adopted.

In 1877, a rifling system of the 1877 model was introduced. The shells already had copper belts cut into the rifling of the channel. The rifling system of the 1877 model, with some changes, has been preserved to this day in rifled guns. The horse artillery received a model 1877 horse cannon specially designed for it. This is a relatively rare case when there is no caliber in the name of the gun. The caliber of the gun was 4 pounds, that is, 87 mm, but in order not to confuse it with the old 4-pound gun of the 1867 model, the new gun was simply called a horse gun. The horse gun was in service for about 30 years, while in 1902-1907. was not replaced in the army by 3-inch (76-mm) guns of the 1900 and 1902 models - the famous three-inch guns.

Mounted 3-inch guns were almost indistinguishable from conventional 3-inch field guns on foot. The 3-inch horse gun model 1902 turned out to be heavier in the stowed position (over 1.7 tons), and a special 3-inch horse gun model 1913 was created to replace it. The new gun was put into service by the Highest order of June 24 1913, but its production was delayed due to the scams of the private Putilov plant, and then, with the outbreak of the First World War, it was completely disrupted. Thus, the 3-inch gun of the 1902 model remained in service for almost 50 more years? - until the horse artillery batteries were disbanded after the Great Patriotic War.

By August 1914, the troops consisted of 65 horse batteries of 6 guns, that is, a total of 390 horse guns. In 1914–1917 42 horse batteries were formed, of which 30 were Cossack.

Contrary to the expectations of the Russian generals, the mobile war quickly turned into a positional one, where the role of the cavalry was reduced to a minimum. There were practically no oncoming battles of cavalry divisions, which were an integral element of the Napoleonic wars, and which the Russian cavalry worked out so carefully in exercises before the war. If Russian cavalry appeared against the German or Austro-Hungarian cavalry, the Germans and Hungarians usually dismounted and took up defensive positions. Therefore, Russian horse artillery acted like ordinary field artillery.

Of course, there were some exceptions. So, for example, on August 21, 1914 in Galicia, near the village of Yaroslavitse, the 4th Austrian cavalry division with an attached infantry regiment attacked the 10th Russian cavalry division. Immediately, two Don Cossack horse batteries "jumped" to the heights near the Berimovsky forest and opened fire on the Austrians. The first shrapnel burst over the middle of the 13th Lancers, which rushed towards Yaroslavitsa in complete disarray, and the other regiments turned after them. It was possible to put them in order only on the outskirts of Yaroslavitsa under the cover of Austrian horse batteries, which opened fire on Russian batteries.

The commander of the 10th Cavalry Division, General Keller, decided to attack the Austrians. Russian squadrons, openly making reorganizations, were a good target for enemy horse batteries, which could easily shoot them. But by that time they were suppressed by the fire of our horse batteries. During the Russian attack, the hussar squadron captured 8 Austrian horse cannons, and the blow of the hussars from the flank and the Cossacks from the rear led to the final defeat of the dragoon and lancer regiments of the 4th Austrian division. It is interesting that at the climax of the battle, the Russian artillery violated its charter and brought down fire on the enemy's batteries, and not on the cavalry, as was supposed by the pre-war charters and instructions.

After the end of the maneuverable period of the war, Russian horse artillery in the vast majority of cases was used as light field artillery. Wouldn't it be happiness, but misfortune helped? - the minuses of the 3-inch horse gun turned out to be pluses. The weight of the gun no longer played a significant role, and the unification of equipment, ammunition and firing tables with field guns increased the effectiveness of the use of field horse artillery in positional warfare.

Once again, horse artillery began to be used for its intended purpose already during the years of the Civil War. For example, during the defeat of Denikin's troops. So, as part of the cavalry corps, there were two horse-artillery battalions of a three-battery composition. The divisions were full-time 4th and 6th cavalry divisions and wore their numbers. Horse artillery was usually assigned to cavalry brigades and regiments by division and by battery. In battles, the batteries were in the battle formations of the cavalry and, if necessary, acted in platoons and even in guns. Several times horse artillery fought artillery duels with white armored trains. During the battle near Lgov, three batteries of the 8th Cavalry Division forced the surrender of 5 armored trains, "locked" by sappers on a limited section of the railway track.

For the first time, units of the 1st Cavalry Army met with enemy tanks in January 1920 in the Sultan Sady area, 25 km northwest of Rostov. The advancing 3rd brigade of the 6th cavalry division was counterattacked by white infantry supported by three tanks. D. Z. Kompaneets' horse battery was advanced towards the tanks, which opened fire with direct fire with high-explosive grenades and knocked out two tanks, and the infantry accompanying the tanks was scattered by shrapnel fire.

After the Civil War, horse artillery was still considered a fairly effective means of warfare. So, according to the states that existed on June 22, 1941, in each cavalry division it was supposed to have a horse artillery division consisting of 32 3-inch guns of the 1902 model and 16- and 45-mm anti-tank guns.

The last cavalry cannon in world history was the 76.2 mm 7-5 cavalry cannon. It was designed in 1937 in KV-3 under the guidance of designer L. I. Gorlitsky, and a prototype began to be manufactured at plant No. 7 (the former St. Petersburg Arsenal).

The 7-5 gun had significant advantages over both divisional and regimental guns that were in service with the Red Army by 1941. According to ballistic data, it occupied an intermediate position between the 76-mm regimental gun of the 1927 model and divisional guns 76- mm sample 1902/30, F-22 and USV (the last three guns had the same ballistics). The barrel length of the horse gun was 19 calibers versus 16.5 klb for the regimental and 40 klb for the divisional guns. For the 7–5 cannon, the initial velocity of a 6.23 kg projectile was 500 m/s, and the maximum range was 10,250 m. For comparison, for a regimental gun with the same projectile, these figures were 387 m/s and 6,000 m , and for divisional guns? - 635 m / s and 11,000 m, respectively. As you can see, in terms of range, the new horse gun was almost as good as the divisional ones, especially since the task of the divisional guns never included firing at a distance of more than 10 km.

The new equestrian gun favorably differed from regimental and divisional guns by a large elevation angle (-7°; + 60°), which made it possible to conduct mounted fire, especially in the presence of separate-sleeve loading. I note that our regimental guns had a maximum elevation angle of + 25 °, and for the German 7.5-cm and 15-cm infantry guns - + 75 °, which allowed them to fire almost like a mortar - along very steep trajectories. The horizontal pointing angle of the 7–5 gun was limited to 8°.

The height of the line of fire was 750 mm, the rollback length was 700 mm, and the travel width was 1250 mm. The weight of the system in combat position is 800 kg. Accordingly, for regimental guns of the 1927 model with metal wheels? - 903–920 kg; the divisional cannon of the 1902/30 model has 1350 kg, and the F-22 has 1620 kg.

The 7-5 gun had a semi-automatic wedge breech, which allowed a rate of fire of up to 25 rounds per minute. The gun could be transported at a maximum speed of up to 25 km / h, and more was not required for horse traction.

Unfortunately, the war interrupted work on the 76-mm 7-5 horse gun, and after 1945 no one thought about horse guns.

Naturally, by 1941, both cavalry and horse artillery were significantly inferior in efficiency to tank and mechanized units. Nevertheless, Soviet horse artillery during the Great Patriotic War honestly fulfilled their duty to the Motherland.

Notes:

1 The flourishing state of the All-Russian state. Moscow: Nauka, 1977, pp. 115–116.

It is known for sure that in 1509 a Vologda resident, cannon master Ivan Moskvitin cast an 8-pound copper cannon "Wolf".
Russian artillery (end of the 15th - first half of the 17th centuries)
The first firearms (mattresses and cannons) appeared in Russia at the end of the 14th century. Determining a more precise date for this event, the historians of pre-revolutionary Russia attached exceptional importance to the record of the Tver Chronicle, in which, under 1389, it was noted: "The same summer, the Germans carried out cannons." In Soviet times, there was a tradition linking the beginning of Russian artillery with an earlier date. Its adherents point to the presence of some firearms in Moscow during the siege by Tokhtamysh (1382). However, this does not take into account not only the fact of the subsequent capture of Moscow, and hence these guns by the Tatars, but also the fact that the first guns in Russia were most likely trophy ones - captured during the 1376 campaign of the Moscow army of Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Bobrok Volynsky to the Volga Bulgaria. In this regard, the message about the appearance of cannons in Tver in 1389 is really of paramount importance. This is indicated by the following fact - in 1408, Emir Edigey, who besieged Moscow, knowing that Tver had first-class artillery, sent Tsarevich Bulat for it. Only the frank sabotage of the Tver prince Ivan Mikhailovich, who was extremely slowly preparing the “outfit” for the campaign, forced Edigey to change his plans: taking a ransom money from the Muscovites (3 thousand rubles), he went to the Horde.
The first Russian guns were made of iron. They were forged from strips of metal 7-10 mm thick, bent, giving the shape of a trunk, and welded. The next curved sheet of iron was put on such a trunk and welded again. Then the procedure was repeated. Fragments of the barrel were obtained from three layers of iron with a length of 200 to 230 mm. The sections were welded to each other, getting the barrel of the desired length. Another way to manufacture cannon barrels involved winding a seamless iron wire rod with its subsequent forging. In this case, the breech was made by hammering a cone-shaped metal plug into the future barrel in a heated state.
Several forged cannons have survived, so we know that 7 sections of pipe were used to make a medium-sized squeak of 50 mm caliber and 1590 mm long. Interestingly, the transverse and longitudinal seams obtained by welding gun barrels were of very good quality, which indicates the high skill of Russian gunsmiths. Russian iron cannons are known, forged from a single billet. In this way, a mortar (mounted cannon) was made, which is stored in the Tver Historical Museum.
Forged tools were in service with the Russian army throughout the 15th century. They were made with a caliber of 24 - 110 mm, weighing 60 - 170 kg. The first mattresses, cannons and squeaks did not have sights, but the need to adjust the shooting very soon caused the appearance of the simplest sights - front sights and slots, and then tubular and frame sights. To give an elevation angle to the gun, which was in an oak log, a system of wedge-shaped inserts was used, with the help of which the cannon barrel was raised to the required height.

A new stage in the development of Russian artillery was associated with the start of casting copper guns. The introduction of new technology has improved the quality of the "outfit" and made it possible to move on to the manufacture of squeaker guns and large-caliber mortars. Cast guns were more expensive, but fired farther and more accurately than forged ones. To cast them in 1475, a Cannon hut was founded at the Spassky Gate, which was later transferred to the Neglinnaya shore. In this "hut" master Yakov and his students Vanya and Vasyuta, and later with a certain Fedka, made guns. The first cast copper cannon in Russia (a sixteen-pound squeaker) was made by craftsman Yakov in April 1483. In 1492, he also cast the oldest cast cannon that has survived to this day. The length of the squeaker is 137.6 cm (54.2 inches), the weight is 76.12 kg (4 pounds. 26 pounds), the caliber is 6.6 cm (2.6 inches). Currently, master Yakov's pishal is stored in the Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps in St. Petersburg.
A certain role in improving the quality of Russian artillery pieces was played by Italian and German craftsmen who worked in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. in the Moscow Cannon hut. The well-known builder of the Assumption Cathedral "murol" (architect) Aristotle Fioravanti became famous for the art of pouring cannons and firing them. The recognition of the artillery abilities of the famous Bolognese is evidenced by his participation in the 1485 campaign against Tver, during which the old master was with the regimental "outfit". In 1488, the cannon hut burned down, but soon after the fire that destroyed it, several new cannon huts appeared in the old place, in which the production of artillery pieces resumed. In the XVI century. The Moscow Cannon Yard turned into a large foundry, where copper and iron guns of various types and shells for them were manufactured. Cannons and cannonballs were also made in other cities: Vladimir, Ustyuzhna, Veliky Novgorod, Pskov. The traditions of cannon production were not forgotten in these cities even in the 17th century. In 1632, in Novgorod, "on the orders of the boyar and voivode Prince Yury Yansheevich Suleshev, with his comrades," an "iron squeaker from a German sample was cast, weighing 2 pounds 2 hryvnias, a shot around a circle of a quarter of a hryvnia, a machine upholstered in iron for the German case."
In addition to Aristotle Fioravanti, who created the first large foundry cannon factory in Moscow, other cannon masters are mentioned in the documents of that era: Peter, who arrived in Russia in 1494 with the architect Aleviz Fryazin, Johann Jordan, who commanded the Ryazan artillery during the Tatar invasion of 1521 BC, even earlier Pavlin Debosis, who in 1488 cast the first large-caliber gun in Moscow. At the beginning of the XVI century. under Vasily III, cannon foundry craftsmen from Germany, Italy and Scotland worked in Moscow. In the 1550s-1560s, in the Russian capital, the foreign master Kaspar ("Kashpir Ganusov") poured cannons, about whom it is known that he was the teacher of Andrei Chokhov. He made at least 10 artillery pieces, including the Sharp Panna, an analogue of the German gun Sharfe Metse. Russian masters worked side by side with foreigners: Bulgak Naugorodov, Kondraty Mikhailov, Bogdan Pyatoy, Ignatiy, Doroga Bolotov, Stepan Petrov, Semyon Dubinin, Pervaya Kuzmin, Login Zhikharev and other predecessors and contemporaries
Chokhov. For the first time, the name of this brilliant master is found in cast inscriptions on gun barrels of the 1570s. with an explanation: "Kashpirov's student Ondrey Chokhov did it." He cast several dozen cannons and mortars, some of which (nominal "Fox", "Troilus", "Inrog", "Aspid", "Tsar Achilles", forty-ton "Tsar Cannon", "fiery" squeaker "Egun", " Hundred-barreled cannon, wall-beating cannon "Nightingale", Mortar series "Wolf"", etc.) became masterpieces of foundry. It is known that about 60 people worked on the manufacture of the Tsar Achilles squeak under the direction of Chokhov. cast by Andrei Chokhov turned out to be very durable, a number of them were used even during the Northern War of 1700-1721.
Chokhov and other masters, among whom were 6 of his students (V. Andreev, D. Bogdanov, B. Molchanov, N. Pavlov, N. Provotvorov, D. Romanov) worked at the new Cannon Foundry, built in 1547 in Moscow . It was here that the production of "great" guns began, which glorified the names of their creators. Artillery guns were also created in Ustyuzhna Zheleznopolskaya, Novgorod, Pskov, Vologda, Veliky Ustyug, from the 17th century. in Tula. In the 17th century, according to incomplete data, 126 craftsmen were engaged in casting cannons.
According to their characteristics, Russian tools of the XV-XVII centuries. can be divided into 5 main types. Pishchali - a generalized name for artillery pieces designed for flat firing at enemy manpower and defensive fortifications. As shells for them, not only solid cores (weighing up to 40 kg.), but also stone and metal "shots" were used. Among the squeakers were large guns and small-caliber "volkonei" (falconets). Riding cannons (mortars) are short-barreled large-caliber artillery guns with a hinged firing trajectory, intended for the destruction of fortifications and buildings located outside the city wall. Stone cannonballs were used as projectiles for them. Mattresses are small artillery pieces designed to fire metal and stone shot at enemy manpower. Information about their manufacture dates back even to the beginning of the 17th century. During this period, mattresses on carriages were found in the arsenals of Russian cities. So, in Staritsa in 1678 there was a "cannon an iron mattress in a machine tool is bound with iron on wheels. "In some fortresses, all artillery consisted of guns of this type and squeakers. In the description of Borisov Gorodok in 1666, copper shotguns standing "at the gates of 3 mattresses" are mentioned. "Magpies" and "organs" - small-caliber multi-barreled salvo fire guns. Squeakers are small-caliber guns designed for flat, aimed firing with large lead bullets. There were two types of squeakers, differing in the way the barrel was attached. In the first case, the squeaker was placed in a special machine. Guns arranged in this way are mentioned in description of the Pskov and Toropetsk "outfit" in 1678 (in Pskov there were "147 squeakers in machine tools", and in Toropets - 20 such guns). In the second case, the barrel was fixed in a stock, like a gun. A distinctive feature of the squeakers of the second type was the presence "hook" - an emphasis that clung to the fortress wall or any ledge when shooting to reduce recoil. the second name of the squeaky squeak is "gakovnitsa".
At the beginning of the XVII century. in our country, an attempt is being made to introduce the first classification of artillery pieces according to their weight and the weight of the projectile. Its creator was Onisim Mikhailov, who proposed in his "Charter" to divide Russian squeaks and mounted cannons into several main types. The compiler of the "Charter", who recommended the introduction of 18 types of guns, certainly used the experience of European artillery. In Spain, under Charles V, 7 models of guns were introduced, in France - 6 (until 1650 there were no mortars in this country), in the Netherlands - 4 main calibers. However, in Europe, the trend towards a reduction in the main types of guns was not always maintained. In the 17th century in Spain there were already 50 of them, with 20 different calibers.
In Russia, the first step towards the unification of artillery pieces and their ammunition was taken in the middle of the 16th century, when certain patterns (“circles”) began to be used in their manufacture.
An interesting list of cannons and squeakers that were in the army of Ivan the Terrible during his campaign in Livonia in 1577 has been preserved. the same 1577, apparently, especially for the Livonian campaign), "Aspid" and "Fox". In the bit entry, not only all guns and mortars are named, but also their main characteristics (weight of the core) are reported. Thanks to this, it can be established that for some types of guns - the "upper guns of the Jacobovs", "one-and-a-half" and "quick-firing" shells of uniform weight were used. Here's the entire list:
“Yes, on the same campaign, the sovereign marked along with: the Eagle squeaker - the core of the third pood (2.5 poods - V.V.) and the Inrog squeaker - the core of seventy hryvnias (28.6 kg.), the Bear squeaker - the core of a pood, the squeaker "Wolf" - the core of a pood, the squeaker "The Nightingale of Moscow" - the core of a pood, the squeaker "Aspid" - the core of 30 hryvnias (12.3 kg), two squeakers "Girls" - the core of 20 hryvnias (8.2 kg.), two squeaks "Cheglik" and "Yastrobets" - a core of 15 hryvnias (6.1 kg), two squeaks "Kobets" and "Dermblik" a core of 12 hryvnias (4.9 kg.), two squeaks "Dog "yes" Fox "- a core of 10 hryvnias (4 kg.), nineteen one-and-a-half squeakers - a core of 6 hryvnias each (2.4 kg.), two rapid-fire squeaks with copper cores for a hryvnia each (409 g.), Peacock cannon" - core 13 pounds, cannon "Ringed" - core 7 pounds, cannon "Ushataya", which is intact, core 6 pounds, cannon "Ringed" new - core 6 pounds, cannon "Ringed" old - core 6 pounds, cannon "ringed" another old one - a cannonball of 6 pounds, four cannons of the upper "Jacobovs" - a cannonball of 6 pounds each, a cannon "Vilyanskaya" a cannonball of 4 pounds, eight cannons of "Oleksandrovsky "- the core of a pud with a quarter."
To serve this great "outfit", in addition to artillerymen (gunners and pishchalnikov), 8,600 foot and 4,124 cavalry field people were allocated (a total of 12,724 people). During the years of the Smolensk War of 1632-1634, 64 carts were needed to deliver one Inrog squeaker, and another 10 carts were required for the "wheel camp" of this great cannon.
It is not surprising that the campaign of 1577 became one of the most successful Russian campaigns, when almost all the cities and castles of Livonia were captured, except for Riga and Revel.
In the middle of the XVI century. Russian masters created the first samples of artillery systems of volley fire - multi-barreled guns, known from the documents of that time under the name "forty" and "organs". The first "magpies" appeared in the first half of the 16th century. - the existence of such guns in the Moscow army is reported in a Lithuanian document of 1534. In Russian sources, "fortieth" gunpowder is mentioned starting from 1555. Among the guns of Ermak in his famous campaign in Siberia there was one such gun, which had seven barrels, caliber 18 mm (0.7 d). The barrels were connected by a common iron groove, into which gunpowder was poured to ignite the charges and produce simultaneous shots. Ermak's "magpie" was transported on a two-wheeled small camp. From the description of the "forty" that have not come down to us, it is clear that their characteristics varied greatly. From three to ten trunks were installed on them, as much as the master wanted. Another sample of multi-barreled weapons - "organ" - was made by fixing 4-6 rows of mortars on a rotating drum, caliber approx. 61 mm, 4-5, and sometimes 13 trunks in each row. Apparently, the volley fire weapon was the “Hundred-barrelled cannon” that has not survived to this day, made in 1588 by Andrei Chokhov. The description of the "Hundred-barrelled cannon" was made by a participant in the Polish intervention in the Muscovite state at the beginning of the 17th century. S. Maskevich. He saw her "against the gate leading to a living (arranged on floating supports. - V.V.) bridge" across the Moscow River. The cannon struck the author, and he described it in detail, highlighting from the "countless multitude" of guns that stood "on the towers, on the walls, at the gates and on the ground" along the entire length of Kitay-gorod: "There, by the way, I saw one gun, which is loaded with a hundred bullets and fires 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. A.P. Lebedyanskaya found a mention of the inspection of the gun in 1640 by Moscow gunners, who noted that the gun had serious damage. From the middle of the XVI century. the technique of making artillery pieces changes somewhat. In Moscow, the first cast-iron tools began to be cast, some of which reached enormous sizes. So, in 1554, a cast-iron cannon was made with a caliber of approx. 66 cm (26 inches) and weighing 19.6 tons (1200 pounds), and in 1555 - another, caliber approx. 60.96 cm (24 inches) and weighing 18 tons (1020 pounds). The Russian artillery of that time was highly appreciated by many contemporaries, one of the most notable was D. Fletcher's review: a good supply of military shells, like the Russian tsar, this can partly be confirmed by the Armory in Moscow, where there are a huge number of all kinds of guns, all cast from copper and very beautiful. Eric Palmqvist, who visited Russia in 1674, was surprised by the good condition of the Russian artillery, especially the presence of large guns, which had no analogues in Sweden.
The presence of its own skilled craftsmen capable of manufacturing guns of various types and calibers, as well as the actions of a number of border states (Lithuania, Livonia), which sought to limit the penetration of European military technology into Russia, forced the Moscow government to rely on its own forces when creating new types of artillery weapons. However, the conclusion of A.V. Muravyov and A.M. Sakharov's statement that since 1505 "foreign masters of cannon making have not come to Moscow" sounds too categorical. It is known that in the 1550-1560s. in the Russian capital, a foreign master Kashpir Ganusov, the teacher of Andrei Chokhov, worked. During the Russian-Swedish war of 1554-1556. and the Livonian War, all artillerymen and craftsmen who showed such a desire from among the captured Swedes and Germans were enrolled in the Russian service. Finally, in 1630, on the eve of the Smolensk War of 1632-1634, the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf sent the Dutch cannon maker Julis Koet to Moscow with other specialists who knew the secret of casting light field guns - a fundamentally new type of artillery weapons, thanks to which the Swedes won many great victories. Another envoy of Gustav II Adolf Andreas Vinnius (Elisei Ulyanov) began to build Tula and Kashira arms factories.
In the middle of the XVII century. in 100 cities and 4 monasteries, which were under the jurisdiction of the Pushkarsky order, 2637 guns were in service. 2/3 of them were bronze, the rest were iron. If necessary, "snatches" were also used - cannons and squeaks, the barrels of which were damaged (bursted during firing), but from which it was still possible to fire at the enemy. Of the total number of guns in 2637 units, only 62 were unsuitable for combat.
An important technical innovation was the use of calibration and measuring compasses - "circled", which were widely used in the casting of guns and cannonballs. These devices were first mentioned in a letter sent to
Novgorod November 27, 1555, probably used before. With the help of circles, the diameters of the barrels and cores intended for a particular type of gun were checked so that the gap between the core and the barrel bore ensured the loading speed and the proper shot force. For the same purpose, canvas, cardboard and linen, and other sealing materials were used to wrap the nuclei, and the finished nuclei were stored in special "boxes" - the prototype of future charging boxes. Documents that have come down to us testify to the use of this kind of improvised materials in artillery. So, during the Russian-Swedish war of 1554-1557, on the eve of the Vyborg campaign, Moscow gunners were sent to Novgorod, who were supposed to teach Novgorod blacksmiths how to make "firearms", perhaps a prototype of future incendiary shells. To make them, it was required: "ten canvases, and three hundred sheets of good large paper, which is thick, and twenty-two five-fives of a soft small one, and eight linen hulls, twenty fathoms each, which the gunners will choose, and eight boxes for shots and sacks, Yes, osmers are littered, and twenty hryvnias for lead, and eight sheepskins. Apparently, the shells were made by wrapping iron cores in several layers of thick paper and fabric, possibly impregnated with a combustible composition (resin and sulfur), then braiding them with strong linen "skins".
Despite the appearance in the middle of the XVI century. wheeled carriages, in the 16th and 17th centuries. "great cannons" and mortars, their "carts" and "camps from the wheel" were delivered to the battlefield by wagons or river boats. So, in the early spring of 1552, before the start of preparations for the Kazan campaign to Sviyazhsk, from Nizhny Novgorod down the Volga, the siege artillery of the Russian army was delivered on plows. During the winter Polotsk campaign of 1563, large wall-beating cannons, according to an eyewitness, were dragged, apparently on sledges. "The first wall-beater was dragged by 1040 peasants. The second - by 1000 peasants. The third - by 900 peasants. The last - by 800 peasants." As a rule, cannon carriages were made in Moscow. The sources only once mention the manufacture of 8 "mills" for guns in Belgorod.
The first gunpowder factory ("green mill") was built in Moscow in 1494, but for many decades the manufacture of gunpowder was the responsibility of the taxable population. The official order of the authorities has been preserved, according to which in 1545, before the next campaign against Kazan, the Novgorodians had to produce for the upcoming war and bring to the treasury a pood of gunpowder from 20 yards, "from all the yards of whose yard you may be." As a result, they collected the necessary 232 poods of gunpowder and about three hundred rubles in money from those who preferred to pay off this duty.
In the first half of the XVI century. the Moscow Powder Yard was located not far from the Cannon Yard on the Neglinnaya River near the Uspensky ravine, in the "Alevizovsky Yard". At that time, it was the country's largest center for "green" production, with a large number of employees. The evidence is the chronicle story about the fire that took place here in 1531, during which "more than two hundred people" of craftsmen and workers died. In the second half of the XVI century. large "green yards" worked in Pskov, Voronoch, Ostrov, Kostroma, Kolomna, Serpukhov, Murom, Borovsk, Tula, Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky. The increased scale of gunpowder production required an increase in saltpeter production. The development of soils containing potassium nitrate was established at Beloozero, in Uglich, Bezhetsk, Kostroma, Poshekhonye, ​​Dmitrov, Klin, Vologda, in the possessions of the Stroganovs in the Urals and other areas.
Russian gunners used stone, iron, lead, copper, later cast-iron cannonballs as live ammunition, as well as their combinations - sources mention stone cannonballs "drenched" in lead, iron "truncations" also doused with lead or tin. Shot was widely used - chopped pieces of metal ("cut iron shot"), stones, but most often - blacksmith's slag. Such shells were used to destroy enemy manpower. Iron cores were forged by blacksmiths on anvils, and then turned. "17 thin iron ones, on which iron balls are stroked" are mentioned in the painting of tools and stocks stored in Novgorod even in 1649. During the Livonian War of 1558-1583. Russian gunners began to use "fiery coolies", "fiery cores" (incendiary projectiles), and later - red-hot cores. Mass production of "fiery cores" was established by Russian craftsmen in the middle of the 16th century. on the eve of the Livonian War. Various methods of manufacturing incendiary projectiles were studied in detail by N.E. Brandenburg. The first method is quite simple: before the shot, the stone core was covered with a combustible composition made from resin and sulfur, and then fired from the gun. Subsequently, the technology for manufacturing such shells became more complicated: a hollow metal core filled with combustible substances was placed in a bag braided with ropes, then it was tarred, immersed in melted sulfur, braided again and tarred again, and then used for incendiary shooting. Sometimes pieces of rifle barrels loaded with bullets were inserted into such a core to intimidate the enemy, who decided to put out the fire that had begun. More simple, but quite effective was firing with red-hot cannonballs.
When preparing the shot, the powder charge was closed with a wooden wad coated with a layer of clay a finger thick, and then with special tongs an iron core heated on a brazier was lowered into the bore. In 1579, the artillery of the Polish king Stefan Batory fired at the Russian fortresses of Polotsk and Sokol, in 1580 at Velikiye Luki, and in 1581 at Pskov. The use of incendiary projectiles of this type by the enemy provoked angry protests from Ivan the Terrible, who called the use of red-hot cannonballs "fierce atrocity." However, the novelty took root in Russia and soon the Moscow masters began to pour "fiery squeaks" for firing exactly the same cores. At the same time, it is necessary to recognize as erroneous the mention by some Russian researchers of cases of the use of "incendiary bombs" by Russian artillerymen during the years of the Livonian War.
In our country, explosive shells (cannon grenades) became widespread no earlier than the middle of the 17th century. Their production became possible thanks to the further development of Russian metallurgy. Since that time, stone cores have fallen out of use. The sources preserved mention of chain projectiles - the "double-shelled" cannonballs, which were stored among other ammunition in April 1649 in Novgorod, apparently for quite a long time, since the "fiery cannonballs" that were with them fell into complete disrepair.
Volkov V. A.

Miracle weapon of the Russian Empire [with illustrations] Shirokorad Alexander Borisovich

Chapter 1. Secrets of the Kremlin guns

What are the most secret guns in Russia now? I bet you can't guess. All guns in service are well described in domestic and foreign literature, including the "Encyclopedia of Artillery" written by me. The latest developments, sometimes not reaching the stage of military trials, are famously exhibited at foreign arms exhibitions. On the other hand, the ancient Russian cannons installed near the walls of the Arsenal in the Kremlin remain completely inaccessible to independent historians. Back in the Brezhnev era, the children of the Kremlin visitors could climb on the cannons near the southern wall of the Arsenal, but no one was ever allowed to climb the other wall.

With the advent of democracy and glasnost, previously free admission to the Kremlin began to cost a pretty penny, and with each new president, the public is further pushed away from the arsenal guns. It's good that the Tsar Cannon remains available!

High-ranking politicians and well-known journalists have been “pushing water in a mortar” for 15 years already? - Is it necessary to take Ilyich out of the Mausoleum and liquidate the necropolis near the Kremlin wall? I would like to ask these demagogues only two questions. Firstly, how much will the demolition of the Mausoleum and the reburial of all those buried near the Kremlin wall cost? And secondly, wouldn't it be better to solve another question instead of this scholastic one? - to allow Muscovites and guests of the capital to walk around the entire Kremlin at least once a year, without even going into top-secret rooms. I note that from the time of Ivan Kalita until 1918, Muscovites moved freely around the Kremlin, even when it was the residence of the head of state.

In the meantime, let's take a virtual walk past the Kremlin cannons.

The first guns appeared in Moscow in 1382. Who brought them? - It is not known for certain. Firearms could have come to Moscow from the Germans, Lithuanians and Tatars. The reader can read more about this in my book Secrets of Russian Artillery.

The first firearms? - Mattresses? - Were made of iron. Only two Russian small iron tools of the late XIV - early XV centuries have survived. One mattress was until the winter of 1941 in the museum of Kalinin (Tver) and mysteriously disappeared after the capture of the city by the Germans. The second mattress was kept in the Ivanovo Historical Museum, but it also mysteriously disappeared during the years of “perestroika”.

The Italian Aristotle Fioravanti, who arrived in 1473 from Venice with a Russian embassy, ​​taught the Moscow craftsmen how to cast copper cannons. In 1475, not far from the Frolovskaya (now Spasskaya) tower of the Kremlin, Fioravanti built a cannon-casting factory? - A cannon hut.

In 1488, during a great Moscow fire, the Cannon hut burned down, but a few months later on the left bank of the river. Neglinnaya built a new Cannon hut, which already consisted of a number of wooden buildings.

Aristotle Fioravanti is usually remembered by our historians as the builder of the Assumption Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. However, in the 70s? - 80s of the XV century, he was better known as the destroyer of cities. It was he who controlled the fire of the Moscow artillery during the siege of Tver and Novgorod.

The exact date of the death of Aristotle Fioravanti is unknown, but most historians believe that he died in Moscow in 1486.

Not a single gun cast by Fioravanti has come down to us. There is evidence that one of the cannons was cast by him and his assistant Yakov in 1483. Its length was 2.5 arshins (179 cm), and its weight? - 16 pounds (262 kg). This cannon defended Smolensk in 1667, and then disappeared somewhere.

The oldest surviving copper tool (pischal) was cast in 1491 by the same craftsman Yakov. Now it is stored in the Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps in St. Petersburg. Its caliber is 66 mm, length 1370 mm, weight 76 kg. The gun has no trunnions, no dolphins, no brackets. The breech ends with a flat bottom. This tool was sent to Siberia at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries, thanks to which it survived. In 1756 he was discovered in the fortress of Orenburg.

In 1488, in Moscow, the Italian master Pavel Debosis cast a huge tool from copper, which was called the Tsar Cannon. Unfortunately, we do not know either the structure of the first Tsar Cannon or its fate.

From 1550 to 1565, Kishpir Ganusov (Ganus), apparently a German by nationality, led the work at the Moscow Cannon Yard. In the annals there are references to eleven guns cast by him, but not a single one has come down to us. The largest copper tool, cast by Ganusov in 1555, was called the Kashpirova Cannon. Its weight was 19.65 tons.

In the same 1555, the Moscow master Stepan Petrov cast a Peacock cannon weighing 16.7 tons. The Peacock's caliber was determined at 13 pounds. But it is quite difficult to calculate the caliber in millimeters, since both the Peacock and the Kashpirova cannon fired only stone cannonballs with a density of 2.8–3.4 t / m 3, and cast-iron cannonballs with a density of 7.4–7.8 t / m 3 at the end of the 16th century only "came into fashion" in Western Europe.

It is curious that Ivan the Terrible ordered both huge cannons to be delivered to Polotsk, besieged by the Russians. On February 13, 1563, the tsar ordered the voivode, Prince Mikhail Petrovich Repnin, “to place large cannons for Kashpirov and Stepanov, Pavlin, Eagle, and Medved, and the entire wall and upper outfit close to the city gates” and shoot “without resting, day and night.” Did the earth tremble from this firing? - "The cores of large cannons are twenty pounds each, and other cannons are a little easier." The next day the gate was destroyed and several breaches were made in the wall. On February 15, Polotsk surrendered to the mercy of the victors.

In 1568, a young student of Kashpir, Andrei Chokhov (before 1917, he was written by Chekhov) cast his first gun - a copper pischel of 5 hryvnia caliber and weighing 43 pounds (704 kg).

To date, 14 guns of Andrey Chokhov have been preserved, of which 5 are in the Moscow Kremlin, 7? - in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg and 2? - in Sweden in the Gripsholm castle.

The most famous weapon of Andrei Chokhov was the Tsar Cannon. It was cast by order of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. A giant gun weighing 2,400 pounds (39,312 kg) was cast in 1586 at the Moscow Cannon Yard. The length of the Tsar Cannon is 5345 mm, the outer diameter of the barrel is 1210 mm, and the diameter of the thickening at the muzzle is 1350 mm.

Currently, the Tsar Cannon is on a decorative cast-iron carriage, and nearby are decorative cast-iron cannonballs, which were cast in 1834 in St. Petersburg at the Byrd iron foundry. It is clear that it is physically impossible to shoot from this cast-iron gun carriage or use cast-iron cannon balls? - It will blow the Tsar Cannon to smithereens!

Documents about the testing of the Tsar Cannon or its use in combat conditions have not been preserved, which gave rise to later historians for lengthy disputes about its purpose. Most historians and the military believed that the Tsar Cannon? was a shotgun, that is, a weapon designed to shoot shot, which in the 16th-17th centuries consisted of small stones. A minority of experts generally exclude the possibility of combat use of the gun, and it was made to frighten foreigners, especially the ambassadors of the Crimean Tatars. Let us recall that in 1571 Khan Devlet Giray burned down Moscow.

In the 18th - early 20th centuries, the Tsar Cannon was called a shotgun in all official documents. And only the Bolsheviks in the 1930s decided to raise her rank for propaganda purposes and began to call her a cannon.

The secret of the Tsar Cannon was revealed only in 1980, when a large automobile crane removed it from the carriage and placed it on a huge trailer. Then the powerful KrAZ took the Tsar Cannon to Serpukhov, where the cannon was repaired at the factory of military unit No. 42 708. At the same time, a number of specialists from the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky was inspected and measured guns. For some reason, the report was not published, but from the surviving draft materials it becomes clear that the Tsar Cannon ... was not a cannon!

The highlight of the gun is its channel. At a distance of 3190 mm, it has the form of a cone, the initial diameter of which is 900 mm, and the final diameter is 825 mm. Then comes the charging chamber with a reverse taper? - with an initial diameter of 447 mm and a final (at the breech) 467 mm. The length of the chamber is 1730 mm, and the bottom is flat.

So this is a classic bombard!

Bombards first appeared at the end of the 14th century. The name "bombard" comes from the Latin words bombus (thunder sound) and arder (burn). The first bombards were made of iron and had screw-on chambers. So, for example, in 1382 in the city of Gate (Belgium) the bombard "Mad Margaret" was made, named so in memory of the Countess of Flanders Margaret the Cruel. The caliber of the bombard is 559 mm, the barrel length is 7.75 calibers (klb), and the channel length is 5 klb. The weight of the gun is 11 tons. The Mad Margarita fired stone cannonballs weighing 320 kg. The bombarda consists of two layers: the inner one, consisting of longitudinal strips welded together, and the outer one, consisting of 41 iron hoops, also welded to each other and to the inner layer. A separate screw chamber consists of a single layer of discs welded together and is equipped with sockets for inserting a lever when screwing it in and for unscrewing it.

It took about a day to load and aim large bombards. Therefore, during the siege of Pisa in 1370, whenever the besiegers were preparing to fire, the besieged went to the opposite end of the city. The besiegers, taking advantage of this, rushed to the attack.

The charge of the bombard was no more than 10% of the weight of the core. There were no trunnions and carriages. The guns were stacked on wooden decks and log cabins, and piles were driven in behind or brick walls were erected to stop. Initially, the elevation angle did not change. In the 15th century, primitive lifting mechanisms began to be used and bombards were cast from copper.

Pay attention? - The Tsar Cannon does not have trunnions, with the help of which the gun is given an elevation angle. In addition, she has an absolutely smooth rear section of the breech, with which she, like other bombards, rested against a stone wall or log house. (Sch. 1).

Scheme 1. Typical installation of a heavy bombard of the 15th-16th centuries. (In some cases, masonry was made between wooden piles and beams)

By the middle of the 15th century, the Turkish Sultan had the most powerful siege artillery. So, during the siege of Constantinople in 1453, the Hungarian foundry worker Urban cast for the Turks a copper bombard with a caliber of 24 inches (610 mm), which fired stone balls weighing about 20 pounds (328 kg). It took 60 bulls and 100 men to transport it to the position. To eliminate the rollback, the Turks built a stone wall behind the gun. The rate of fire of this bombard was 4 shots per day. By the way, the rate of fire of large-caliber Western European bombards was of the same order. Just before the capture of Constantinople, a 24-inch bombard exploded. At the same time, its designer Urban himself died (Sch. 2).

Scheme 2. Transportation of a bombard in a combat position. (There were actually much more servants, but the medieval artist removed the people, otherwise the very body of the gun would not have been visible behind them)

The Turks appreciated the large-caliber bombards. Already in 1480, during the fighting on the island of Rhodes, they used bombards of 24-35-inch (610-890 mm) caliber. The casting of such giant bombards required, as indicated in ancient documents, 18 days.

It is curious that the bombards of the 15th-16th centuries were in service in Turkey until the middle of the 19th century. So, on March 1, 1807, when the English squadron of Admiral Duckworth crossed the Dardanelles, a 25-inch (635 mm) marble ball weighing 800 pounds (244 kg) hit the lower deck of the Windsor Castle ship and ignited several caps with gunpowder, resulting in a terrible explosion. 46 people were killed and wounded. In addition, many sailors, frightened, threw themselves overboard and drowned. The ship "Active" got the same core and punched a huge hole in the side above the waterline. In this hole, several people could stick their heads out.

In 1868 over 20 huge bombards were still on the forts defending the Dardanelles. There is evidence that during the Dardanelles operation in 1915, a 400-kilogram stone core hit the English battleship Agamemnon. Of course, it could not penetrate the armor and only amused the team.

Let's compare the Turkish 25-inch (630-mm) copper bombard, cast in 1464, which is currently kept in the museum at Woolwich (London), with our Tsar Cannon.

The weight of the Turkish bombard is 19 tons, and the total length is 5232 mm. The outer diameter of the barrel is 894 mm. The length of the cylindrical part of the channel is 2819 mm. Chamber length 2006 mm. The bottom of the chamber is rounded. The bombard fired stone cannonballs weighing 309 kg, and a charge of gunpowder weighed 22 kg.

The bombard once defended the Dardanelles. As you can see, outwardly and in terms of the channel structure, it is very similar to the Tsar Cannon. The main and fundamental difference is that the Turkish bombard has a screw breech. Apparently, the Tsar Cannon was made according to the model of such bombards. (Skh. 3, 4).

Scheme 3. 25-inch copper Turkish bombard, cast in 1464.

Scheme 4. The Tsar Cannon, cast in Moscow in 1586. As you can see, outwardly this and the Turkish bombards are very close

So, the Tsar Cannon? Is a bombard designed to fire stone cannonballs. The weight of the stone core of the Tsar Cannon was about 50 pounds (819 kg), and the iron core of this caliber weighs 120 pounds (1.97 tons). As a shotgun, the Tsar Cannon was extremely ineffective. At the cost of expenses, instead of it, it was possible to make 20 small shotguns, which take not a day to load, but only 1-2 minutes. I note that in the official inventory "At the Moscow arsenal of artillery" for 1730, there were 40 copper and 15 cast-iron shotguns. Let's pay attention to their calibers: 1500 pounds? - 1 (this is the Tsar Cannon), and then calibers follow: 25 pounds? - 2, 22 pounds? - 1, 21 pounds? - 3, etc. The largest number of shotguns , 11, falls on a 2-pound caliber. A rhetorical question? - what place did our military think, who wrote the Tsar Cannon into shotguns?

An interesting detail, in 1980, specialists from the Academy named after V.I. Dzerzhinsky concluded that the Tsar Cannons fired at least 1 time.

After the Tsar Cannon was cast and finished at the Cannon Yard, it was dragged to the Spassky Bridge and laid on the ground next to the Peacock Cannon. To move the gun, ropes were tied to eight brackets on its trunk, 200 horses were harnessed to these ropes at the same time, and they rolled a cannon lying on huge logs - rollers.

Initially, the Tsar and Peacock guns lay on the ground near the bridge leading to the Spasskaya Tower, and the Kashpir Cannon? In 1626, they were lifted from the ground and installed on log cabins, densely packed with earth. These platforms were called roskats. One of them, with the Tsar Cannon and the Peacock, was placed at the Execution Ground, the other, with the Kashpir Cannon, at the Nikolsky Gate. In 1636, wooden roskats were replaced with stone ones, inside which warehouses and shops selling wine were arranged.

After the "Narva embarrassment", when the tsarist army lost all siege and regimental artillery, Peter I ordered that new guns be poured urgently. The king decided to get the copper necessary for this by melting down bells and ancient cannons. According to the “nominal decree”, it was “ordered to pour the Peacock cannon into cannon and mortar casting, which is in China near the Execution Ground on a roll; a cannon to Kashpirov, near the new Money Yard, where the Zemsky order was; the cannon "Echidna", which is near the village of Voskresensky; the Krechet cannon with a ten-pound cannonball; cannon "Nightingale" with a core of 6 pounds, which is in China on the square.

Peter, due to his lack of education, did not spare the most ancient Moscow casting tools and made an exception only for the largest tools. Among them, of course, was the Tsar Cannon, as well as two mortars cast by Andrei Chokhov, which are currently in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg.

We are talking about a 15-pood mortar, cast in 1587. Its caliber is 470 mm, length 1190 mm, weight 1265 kg. The mortar fired stone cannonballs weighing 6 poods 25 pounds (109 kg). The mortar was called 15-pood in weight of the cast-iron core of its caliber. It is clear that she could not shoot with a cast-iron core weighing 246 kg.

The second mortar was called the “Mortar of the Pretender,” since it was cast in 1606 by order of Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich (aka Monk Gregory, in the world Yushka Otrepyev). Mortar caliber 30 pounds (I repeat, according to the weight of the iron core) and, accordingly, 534 mm, barrel length 1310 mm, weight 1913 kg.

Both giant mortars have cylindrical charging chambers, but, unlike the Tsar Cannon, are equipped with trunnions.

It is curious that the “Imposter Mortar” has trunnions in the middle of the barrel, and the rear cut of the breech is smooth.

I would venture to suggest that this mortar was intended to be used for flat shooting, and it is a hybrid of a mortar and a bombard.

In addition, Peter kept Andrey Chokhov's cannons "Troilus" and "Aspid", cast in 1590. Both guns are currently standing near the walls of the Arsenal in the Kremlin.

The Troilus cannon is named after the king of Troy. On its torel, an image of this king was made in a rather caricature form, as best they could ... The trunk is equipped with trunnions and dolphins. Gun caliber 195 mm, length 4350 mm, weight about 7 tons.

The Aspid cannon is named after a fantastic creature, a cross between Zmey Gorynych and a crocodile. On the muzzle of the cannon, a relief image of a beast with a wriggling tail is visible from above. The inscription reads: "Aspid". On the middle part of the trunk? - dolphins and trunnions. There is a cast inscription on the treasury: “By the grace of God, by the command of the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovich of All Russia, this squeaker Aspid of the summer of 1590 was made. Ondrey Chokhov did it.” Caliber "Aspida" 190 mm, length 5150 mm, weight about 6 tons.

Guns "Troil" and "Aspid" in 1843 were installed on cast-iron fake gun carriages.

The tools cast at the end of the 17th century by the Moscow master Martyan Osipov are also curious. His first gun - a regimental squeaker? - was made in 1666, and the last? - in 1704. Osipov's largest gun was the Unicorn cannon, named after the fabulous beast.

The image of a unicorn? - a monster with the body of a bull (and later? - a horse) and one horn is found in Indian chronicles of the 3rd millennium BC. e. Later, unicorns entered ancient Greek and Christian mythology. It was believed that unicorns bring victory to the knights, and the Virgin Mary patronizes the beast itself. In the Middle Ages, the unicorn appeared on the coats of arms of many dukes and earls, and even English kings.

In Russia in the XV-XVII centuries, a unicorn was called an inrog. It is curious that back in the 16th century, we liked to call heavy guns "Inrogs". The oldest tool with this name. that has come down to our time and is stored in the Artillery Museum is a 68-hryvnia (caliber 216 mm) pischal "Inrog", cast from copper in 1577 in Moscow by master Andrey Chokhov. Gun body weight 7435 kg, length 5160 mm. The cannon has no grapes, and a flat torel is decorated with cast images of a unicorn.

The history of this weapon is very interesting. "Inrog" participated in the Livonian War, and in 1633-1634. was part of the Russian siege artillery near Smolensk. There he was captured by the Poles and sent to the fortress of Elbing. On December 3, 1703, Elbing was taken by the Swedish king Charles XII, and the Inrog was sent to Stockholm as a trophy. In 1723, the Swedish merchant Yagan Prim sawed the piskal into three parts and delivered it to Russia by sea. By order of Peter I, master Semyon Leontiev skillfully soldered the barrel, after which the Inrog was sent to the St. Petersburg Arsenal.

The caliber of the “Unicorn” cannon cast by Martyan Osipov is 225 mm, length 7.56 m, and weight 12.76 tons. The cannon is decorated with lush ornaments of leaves and herbs, including figures of people and bears. On the muzzle on the right is a relief image of a unicorn. The barrel rests on a decorative cast-iron carriage, cast in 1835 at the Byrd factory.

The Gamayun cannon, cast by Osipov in 1670, is much smaller. Its caliber is 6 pounds (95 mm), barrel length 4380 mm, weight 1670 kg. But its highlight is the faceted barrel. The muzzle of the gun is round, and the middle and breech parts are fourteen-sided. The faceted part of the barrel is very similar to the available images of Western European cannons of the early 16th century, and the stripes of floral ornament completely coincide with the decor of the Polish cannon, cast in 1521 (we will talk about it later). I note that among Russian guns a faceted barrel is a rather rare occurrence. The image on the official section of ice with a hole for the ring in the mouth is completely uncharacteristic of Moscow casting.

Interestingly, the name of the gun was not taken by chance. The fabulous bird Gamayun came to us from Aryan mythology at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. e. In the Middle Ages in the East, it was revered as a royal bird. And in the western Russian lands in the XIV century, the Gamayun bird was considered the patroness of artillery. At the end of the 16th century, the bird Gamayun, sitting on the breech of a cannon, became the coat of arms of the Smolensk principality. (Sch. 5, 6).

Scheme 5. Smolensk pool at the end of the 14th century.

Scheme 6. Coat of arms of Smolensk from a charter

During the war with Poland 1653-1667. many Polish siege weapons were captured. Several of them are exhibited in the Kremlin. Among them is the Persian cannon, cast in 1619 by Master Leonard Rotenberg. Its characteristic external feature? - a cast barrel. In 1685, Martyan Osipov made a "remake" from her? - the New Persian cannon. Gun caliber 43 pounds (180 mm), length 4.98 m, weight 5782 kg. The muzzle of the barrel is twisted, and the middle part is scaly. On the flat rear section of the breech instead of vineyard? - a cast bas-relief with a bust of a Persian in a turban.

In 1693, by order of Peter I, Martyan cast a 45-pound (185-mm) cannon "Eagle" according to the "Dutch manner". The length of the cannon is 3556 mm, and the weight is 3.6 tons. Like all Kremlin cannons, it is placed on a cast-iron sham gun carriage.

The Onager cannon, cast in Moscow in 1581 by master Kuzmin the First, is curious. Its caliber is 190 mm, length 4.18 m, weight 5.12 tons. On the muzzle of the cannon, a figurine of a wild donkey is glued, as it were? - an onager. The historian K. Ya. Tromonik believed that the image of the animal was soldered to the barrel, but in fact it was cast together with the barrel, which is evidence of the high level of skill of Moscow casters.

A remake of the Chokhov Troil cannon was the New Troil cannon, cast in 1685 in Moscow by master Yakov Dubina. Its caliber is 43 pounds (180 mm), length 4935 mm, weight 6584 kg.

Of the ancient foreign cannons that are on sham cast-rubber carriages in Moscow, the Bizon cannon, cast in 1629 in Danzig by master Ludwig Wichtendal, is interesting. I note that in our literature the Bison cannon is called the Buffalo. Its caliber is 25 pounds (150 mm), length 2947 mm, weight 1523 kg.

Among the Polish trophies of the war of 1653-1667, located in the Kremlin, in addition to the already mentioned "Persus", there is a "Basilisk" cannon, cast in 1581 by the master Jeronic Vitoli.

But the most ancient Polish cannon, cast in 1547 (its name and master are unknown), entered the new millennium with a sign: “70-mm copper cannon. Cast in 1547 Moscow. Weight 1 ton. Length 2.5 m.

Although I was used to blunders in the plates for guns in our museums, I succumbed to a provocation and included in my Encyclopedia of Russian Artillery a photo of this gun with the indicated signature.

Another question is that this is clearly not a “blunder”, since the Kremlin guns have been studied by serious experts for more than 200 years, but most likely politics. Now few people know that in 1921 Poland imposed a shameful and predatory peace on the young Soviet Republic, taking advantage of the temporary weakness of our country.

So, Russia was supposed to transfer only railway property worth 18,245 thousand rubles in gold in 1913 prices, including 555 steam locomotives, 17 thousand wagons, etc. Moreover, the Polish government demanded that all valuables be transferred to him, ever taken out during the time that has passed since the first partition of Poland. The Poles made demands on many monuments kept in the Artillery Historical and Suvorov Museums. They were given 57 cannons of the 16th-18th centuries, 67 banners and standards. With a careful comparison of coats of arms, mottos and other heraldic symbols on the banners and standards, the historian P. I. Belavenets established that they were all not Polish, but Swedish, and presented such convincing evidence to the Polish side that the Poles abandoned their claims. But in 1932 the demand was renewed, and the Russian side, "in order not to spoil relations", nevertheless unfairly gave what was demanded.

From the collection of the Suvorov Museum, which was kept at that time in the Artillery Historical Museum, the Poles took the keys to Warsaw and the silver timpani presented to A.V. Suvorov by the Warsaw magistrate in 1794, many Polish banners, weapons and other items of those times. By the way, the "Inrog" pischal, taken by the Poles from us near Smolensk, was later redeemed by Russian merchants with gold.

By the way, all these valuables, pulled out of Russian museums by force, did not go to the benefit of the Poles. In 1939, they became the trophies of the Germans, and were mostly privatized by the German command. So the keys and timpani of Suvorov got to the new winners of Warsaw.

For obvious reasons, the Poles were not allowed into the Kremlin and, apparently, they lied that there were no Polish guns there. Cannons "Pers" and "Basilisk" are on the eastern side of the Arsenal, where our "tramplers" do not let anyone even during the day with a lantern. But people walked past the cannon of 1547 in the 1960s? - 1990s, and they stuck a fake tablet to it.

The last cannon of the Kremlin worth mentioning is the Lion. It was cast in 1705 by master Karl Balashevich in the city of Glukhov in Ukraine. The gun itself is not a masterpiece of artillery of that time, although I note that in Ukraine from the 16th to the middle of the 18th centuries, local craftsmen poured excellent guns for the Hetman's troops, which were not inferior, and often surpassed the Polish and Moscow models.

Special attention of historians "Lion" did not attract, but in 1980 the staff of the Academy. Dzerzhinsky, they found out that it was ... charged, and this was done at the very beginning of the 18th century. The cannon defended some Ukrainian fortress either from the troops of Charles XII, or from the troops of Peter I, and it was loaded with a special charge to repel the assault.

Caliber gun "Lion" about 125 mm. There is no charging chamber, as it should be with a gun. The bottom of the channel is rounded. Initially, a powder charge was poured into the channel, then? - a wooden wad 163 mm long, then? - an iron core with a diameter of 91 mm, then? - again a wooden wad 166 mm long. And then a charge of large buckshot was sent, and the bullets were spherical cast iron with a diameter of 23 mm and 30 mm. There were obviously not enough bullets, and several stones were added with a maximum size of 70 to 40 mm. To prevent stones and bullets from flying out, the last wooden wad 183 mm long was hammered into the muzzle. (Sch. 7).

Scheme 7. Scheme of the location of the charge extracted from the bore of the gun "Lev". 1? - ​​wad with a diameter of 119 x 183 mm, wood; 2-fraction approx. 70x60x40 mm, stone; 3? - buckshot with a diameter of 23 mm and 30 mm, cast iron; 4? - wad with a diameter of 93 x 166 mm, wood; 5? - core with a diameter of 91 mm, cast iron; 6? - wad with a diameter of 124 x 163 mm, wood; 7? - the remains of gunpowder

After the end of hostilities, they forgot to unload the cannon, and it stood loaded for 271 years. Almost all of the old guns were stored in our open air, stuffed with cigarette butts. Let's imagine a funny picture? - some "treadmill" in the 1930s? - 1940s would put an outstanding cigarette in the Lion's fuse hole. A shot would have slammed ... That would have added worries to the NKVD!

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