Automotive Troops - Great Patriotic War
The Great Patriotic War is often called the war of motors, and this is the correct definition. The mechanization of the armed forces has become one of the key factors in the success of an army. When the young USSR began to acquire the automotive industry, half of the cars in the world in 1928 were produced by the Ford company (including 3 out of 5 in the US itself). Despite the fact that the US and the USSR did not yet have diplomatic relations and were not expected, commercial benefits dominated over politics, and the government of the USSR concluded with Henry Ford an agreement on the transfer to the Soviet side of production technologies and equipment for the production of trucks and cars, as well as on the training of Soviet specialists at Ford corporation factories (there were also attempts to conclude similar agreements with Chrysler and General Motors, alas, unsuccessful). Consequently, in 1929, construction began on a huge automobile plant in Nizhny Novgorod (renamed Gorky in 1932, and back to Nizhny Novgorod in 1991).
The main truck of the Red Army was the one and a half ton GAZ-AA. The prototype of the "one and a half" was the Ford AA American truck. A small, unsightly, in its own way beautiful truck, the legendary “one and a half” made up half of the car park of the Red Army during the war years. Not every car gets such a rich and interesting fate as this one. It went into production in 1932, and by the beginning of the war, there were already more than 150,000 GAZ-AA and MM trucks in the army. The latter was a modernized version of the AA model with a reinforced chassis, a more powerful 50-horsepower engine, new steering and some other changes. The plant mastered the mass production of GAZ-MM in 1940. To save scarce resources, since 1943, the Gorky Automobile Plant switched to the production of a truck in a simplified version with a wooden cab, angular fenders, brakes only on the rear axle and one headlight.
Structurally, those cars were a complete technical copy of the Ford-AA truck, they were assembled in the USSR at first by the screwdriver assembly method (in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod) from car kits delivered from the USA. Actually, the technical documentation and drawings of Ford products were received in the USSR only in 1932. Soviet engineers looked at them, shook their heads, and immediately began to upgrade the car, based on local realities. So, changes were made to the design of the clutch housing and steering mechanism, due to which these nodes were significantly strengthened. The suspension has changed a little, and it turned out to be a truck that was outwardly familiar to everyone from Soviet films of that era.
While pre-war cars, elegant and beautiful, were mobilized from the national economy to the army, GAZ urgently made up for the losses of military vehicles with lorries, the appearance of which can hardly be called anything other than “brutal”. So, almost immediately, the right headlight, rear-view mirror, bumper, silencer, as well as the horn and front brakes disappeared from the car. Graceful rounded deep wings were replaced by angular ones made of roofing iron. At the peak of simplification, the janitor disappeared from the car, often the doors (they were replaced by canvas rolls), and the cabin was a wooden frame covered with fabric. Such cars carry the symbol GAZ-MM-V (“V” means “Military”).
The total circulation of "one and a half", including pre-war production, exceeded one million copies. It was also the “lorry” that most often walked along the “road of life” in the first winter of the blockade of Leningrad. Overloaded beyond the norm, climbing hills exclusively in reverse (including due to the lack of a gas pump, the fuel was self-propelled) - this car delivered food to the city and evacuated sick and weakened Leningraders, mainly old people and children.
An interesting point: despite the fact that most of the "one and a half" that walked along the "Road of Life" consisted of pre-war cars, often the drivers themselves deliberately made "light versions" of them. For example, they turned off one headlight, for reasons of blackout. And the second headlight was equipped with a “stub”, an ordinary tin with a narrow horizontal slot in the middle. This was done for reasons of blackout at night. The doors were also removed, one or both; this was done in case the car starts to fall through the ice, so that nothing would prevent you from quickly jumping out of the cab.
ZIS-5 "three-ton" is the second largest truck of the Red Army. It had twice the carrying capacity compared to the GAZ-AA. It was produced by the Moscow Automobile Plant ZIS since 1933 [now ZIL OJSC, in 1931, the AMO was renamed the Stalin Plant]. It was more powerful and generally more reliable than a lorry. The ZIS-5 was equipped with a 73 hp lower valve engine. Like the truck from Gorky, various cars, as well as buses, were built on the ZIS-5 chassis. It is very often confused with the GAZ-MM lorry. Outwardly, they are quite similar, although the VMS is somewhat larger.
Actually, the “three-ton” (another popular name among the troops is “zakhar”) was called the ZIS-5V; (the letter "B" in the abbreviation also means "Military"). The car differed from the pre-war counterpart in an extremely lightweight (more than 120 kg) compared to the pre-war version of the cabin, wooden, and with a leatherette roof, as well as angular wings bent from sheet metal, the absence of brakes on the front wheels, and the presence of only one headlight (left, of course ).
In addition, unlike the "one and a half", the "three-ton" was produced at once at several enterprises; in addition to Moscow, this truck was also produced in Ulyanovsk and Miass; the enterprises were called UlZIS and UralZIS, respectively. The last two during the war years produced a little more and a little less than ten thousand cars, respectively, and the Moscow plant during the war years gave the front almost 70,000 "three-ton". Unlike the GAZ-MM, whose production was curtailed after the war (in 1947 - at GAZ, from where it was transferred to Ulyanovsk, and there curtailed in 1950), the ZIS-5 was produced until 1958, and individual copies were operated up to the 1970s.
Having mastered the production of trucks, Soviet car builders were puzzled by the issue of further improving their vehicles, including in terms of increasing their cross-country ability and carrying capacity. One of the most obvious solutions in this direction was the addition of an additional third axle. In 1934, GAZ mastered the production of the three-axle GAZ-AAA. A car with a 6x4 wheel formula received an increased load capacity of up to 2 tons, axles with worm gears and a reduction gear in a separate crankcase behind the gearbox.
The Moscow Automobile Plant was even quicker and in 1933 mastered the three-axle ZIS-6. According to the main units, it was unified with the ZIS-5, but unlike it, it received drive axles with worm main pairs and a demultiplier. The carrying capacity of the ZIS-6 has increased by a ton, but the main thing is now the truck confidently towed artillery pieces and trailers. In addition, for the first time, in the summer and autumn of 1941, the BM-8 and BM-13 Katyusha guards mortars were installed on the ZIS-6 chassis.
Just as the "one and a half" is constantly confused with the ZIS, so the ZIS is very often confused with another domestic three-ton; YAG, or "Yaroslavl Truck". By the way, YaG-10 was the first Soviet serial three-axle. YAGs differ from ZISs in less smooth forms. There were few of them, all modifications - several thousand pieces, and a significant part of them were mobilized for the front. The bulk was lost near Moscow. Not a single pre-war or at least military YAG has survived to this day.
The legendary "Katyusha" was initially mounted on a three-axle version of the ZIS, the ZIS-6, since the installation turned out to be too heavy and bulky for the "lorry". Yes, and for ZISov it was poorly suited; for a volley, the installation had to be rotated 90 degrees relative to the longitudinal axis of the truck, because of which the car swayed strongly, and the accuracy of the volley was lost
The cargo park of the Red Army was not limited to domestic cars. From the end of 1941, the USSR began to receive military assistance from the United States and Great Britain, and the first imported trucks poured into the country. But the main character of the automobile Lend-Lease - Studebaker-US6 came to the Soviet Union later in 1942. This is a four-wheel drive truck that has not gained much popularity in its homeland. But in the USSR, this car was truly loved. Simple and reliable, it was valued for its comfort and excellent cross-country ability. In total, the Soviet Union received 152,000 Studebakers.
With the start of Lend-Lease deliveries of Studebakers, Katyusha began to be placed mainly on them. And despite the seeming unpatriotism, this led to a significantly increased accuracy of the volley. This car is familiar even to people whose interests do not extend to automotive equipment and the Great Patriotic War. Warmly remembered by all front-line soldiers, convenient, comfortable, and passable no worse than domestic trucks, the Lend-Lease three-axle vehicle, which equally shared the hardships of the war with the GAZ-MM and ZIS-5, it forever remained in the memory of the Soviet people. For the first time, an exotic car from another world, on the other side of the ocean, appeared on our roads in the fall of 1941; so far in minimal quantities, but already in the summer of 1942 the car became recognizable on all fronts.
They were delivered to the USSR in a very unusual way, through Iran, and the route itself was called "trans-Iranian"; Germany also had its own interests in this region, so the territory of Iran was occupied by Soviet and British troops back in August 1941. Almost immediately, American dry cargo ships moved to the ports of Iran, whose journey from the US coast to the coast of Iran was equal to two and a half months. Especially for Lend-Lease deliveries, the Trans-Iranian railway was modernized, and many automobile roads were hastily built, and two car assembly plants were built there under the leadership of GM Corporation; a significant part of the vehicles was delivered in car kits. Trucks were already moving from Iran to the front under their own power, and already with loads.
In addition to the Studebaker U-Es 6 itself, the Soviet Union was supplied, albeit in much smaller volumes, with trucks of the Chevrolet (Chevrolet G7107) and Ford (Ford G8T) brands. A separate item on the list is the Dodge heavy military transport jeeps (Dodge WC-51), which bore the proper name “three-quarters” (since they were designed for three-quarters of a ton of cargo, 750 kilograms, and were also usually loaded with a double overload at least) .
If Studebaker became the main character in terms of cargo lend-lease, then Willys MB, aka Jeep, shone in the class of light all-wheel drive vehicles. The first Jeeps appeared in the USSR in October 1941. Moreover, these were not Willys at all, but the most original Bantam RC-40s. Without going into the complex vicissitudes of the birth of the Jeep into the world, it should be noted that it was Bantam that won the tender for the supply of a light army all-terrain vehicle to the American army. But fate decreed otherwise and the Willys MB became the main SUV of the US Army.
Quite a few Lend-Lease trucks remained in the USSR, and they traveled along dusty roads for a long time, making their contribution to the restoration of a peaceful economy. And among Muscovites, a legend has been preserved that somewhere in the near suburbs there are huge mobilization warehouses, where Lend-Lease Studebakers are still stored.
After the war, the main trucks of the Red Army - domestic and imported - continued their service, this time already in the national economy, where they worked properly for many more years. There are not so many of them, cars of that era; a considerable part of them deservedly took their places on the pedestals of monuments throughout the former USSR, and some were restored by enthusiasts, and are still on the move.
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