Soviet Ammunition Industry
"So, everything comes down to the destruction of the target," Comrade Stalin emphasized, "and this remains with the ammunition. The strength of an ammunition explosion determines the power of all branches of the armed forces, including aviation, and serves as a measure of the military-economic expediency of spending on one or another military equipment."
The Soviet ammunition industry included those plants and shops which form, load, assemble, and pack the metal parts of ammunition. These installations receive metallic materials from mills and foundries in the shape of pigs, billets, bars, plates, sheets, rods, wire, tubing, and pipe. Scrap metal is considered an output of the ammunition industry but an input back to the mills and foundries or to the scrap metal industry, less the loss in re melting. Propellants and explosives are considered to be received, ready for use, from the explosives or the chemical industry.
The perfidious attack of the fascist bloc on the Soviet Union confronted the Soviet leadership with an extremely important and urgent task - to rebuild the economy of the USSR in a military way, turning the country into a single fighting camp. Even before the war, when the threat of a military attack by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union became a real danger, the Soviet government adopted a mobilization ammunition plan for the second half of 1941 and 1942, which provided for measures for the restructuring of the work of industry, especially engineering enterprises, in wartime conditions. The plan included specific tasks for enterprises:production of ammunition, development of technology for their production (based on the available equipment enterprises), the manufacture of fixtures, technological equipment and tools for the release of ammunition, the creation of mobilization stocks of materials and semi-finished products needed to ensure the production of ammunition.
On June 23, 1941, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution that determined the large production capacities of many of its important branches. The State Defense Committee (GKO), was created on June 30, 1941 under the chairmanship of I.V.Stalin. Members of the Politburo, who were at the same time members of the GKO, carried out the general leadership management of the main branches of the military economy. B. L. Vannikov (before the war People's Commissar for Armaments, and during the war People's Commissar for Ammunition) and N.A.Voznesensky dealt with issues related to the production of weapons and ammunition.
A difficult situation developed with the provision of the needs of the front with ammunition. This industry also saw a massive evacuation of enterprises: from August to November 1941. at least 303 ammunition enterprises retired. In addition, the production of ammunition was slowed down.due to an acute shortage of ferroalloys, nickel and non-ferrous metals. The need for copper, tin and aluminum increased several times compared to pre-war times, and theirproduction was significantly lower than on the eve of the war.
GKO carried out direct management of production by means of the most important weapons, ammunition and equipment, as well as transport. The People's Commissariat of Ammunition introduced mandatory overtime work and holidays were canceled, which made it possible to increase the utilization of production capacities by about a third, without attracting additional workers and employees.
The Soviet industry persistently worked on the development of new types of ammunition. Initially the domestic industry did not cope well with the production of heavy artillery and shells. During the first period of the war, stocks of ammunition created in peacetime quickly subsided. Soon a period came when the needs of the front in ammunition should have been provided through the current production of ammunition supply plants, but in the last months of 1941 they fulfilled the plan only by 50-60%. Artillery fleets formed in the rear, but they often arrived without the prescribed ammunition load.
The Volkhov Front (including the 2nd shock army) tried to unblock Leningrad in 1941-42, having only 1/4 of the required number of shells and many corpses were left on the ice and on the banks of the Volkhov. The lack of shells in the first half of 1942 prevented the defeat of the Army Group Center near Moscow, when the warehouses were empty, and the evacuated factories had not yet established the production of shells. Even infantry attacks were carried out at night without artillery preparation.
Hitler's military command sought to disrupt the industrial activities the USSR, to achieve a reduction in its deliveries to the front. Moreover, the implementation of this task meant no less than achieving decisive military-strategic successes in the theater of military actions. Preparing a new offensive in the summer of 1942, Hitler in a directive of 05 April 1942 defined the main task of the Nazi troops in this way: “... finally destroying to waste the forces still at the disposal of the Soviets and to deprive them as far as possible of the most important military and economic centers". According to Paulus, the strategic goal of the summer operation in 1942 was to seize the oil-rich regions of the North Caucasus.
This plan of the Hitlerite military command predetermined the deployment in 1942 of exceptionally difficult battles, the outcome of which depended primarily on the uninterrupted and steadily increasing supply of the front with military equipment, weapons and ammunition. The State Defense Committee set before the industry of the country a new task - in a short time to achieve such a level of industrial production as to surpass Nazi Germany both in quantity and quality of output of military products.
However, in the first half of 1942, the national economy as a whole was still on the level, when the ratio of the military-industrial potentials of the USSR and fascist Germany did not develop in favor of the Soviet Union. This was explained by the fact that the first half of the year 1942 was an exceptionally difficult year for the Soviet economy.
Great opportunities for specialization and cooperation were available in industrial ammo. The production of individual components and parts of ammunition involved many enterprises of various industries: heavy and medium mechanical engineering, machine tool building, ferrous metallurgy, non-ferrous metallurgy, paper, timber, food, textile and local industries, etc. Before the war, they made civilian products. If in 1941 382 enterprises produced ammunition for 34 people's commissariats and departments, then in 1942 already 1108 enterprises of 58 people's commissariats and departments produced ammunition. The weak point continued to be the production of aircraft and ammunition.
Involving peasant women in the public economy, taking care of their education and promotion,eradication of illiteracy changed the position of women in Soviet society. The new social position of women was the most important prerequisite for the decision of personnel problems during the war years. With the outbreak of war, women, along with young men of pre-conscription age (mostly 16 years old) turned into the main reserve recruitment of mass Mschine Tractor Station personnel. The experience of holding political days - a new form of communication between the party activists and the working people spread throughout the country. Everywhere work was strengthened on ideological and political education among those working in the countryside.
A regional feature of many regions of the USSR, primarily southern, was the difficulty of communication between scattered population points in off-road conditions, snowy winter or spring thaw. However, these reasons could only partially explain, but not justify, the decline in the level of agitational propaganda work, the lack of its systematic and wide coverage of the population.
The military economy of the Soviet Union by the beginning of 1944 was even stronger. Industry on an ever-growing scale continued to equip the Armed Forces with first-class military equipment. Outstanding victories over the enemy aroused patriotic enthusiasm in the country. It found its expression in the high labor and political activity of the masses. The Soviet people carried out the decisions and tasks of the party and government with enthusiasm. The production of ammunition also increased, and their quality has improved even more.
During the war years, the Soviet ammunition industry supplied the front with 333,3 million shells for field and naval artillery, 242,8 million mines, about 14,5 million Katyusha rockets, more than 200 million aviation cartridges, about 200 million hand and anti-tank grenades. 40,4 million aerial bombs, more than 66,7 million engineering mines, including about 26 million anti-tank mines, 40 thousand naval mines and torpedo combat charging compartments, 161,3 thousand depth charges, 21,4 billion sets of elements for rifle cartridges, hundreds of millions of various pyrotechnic ammunition, millions of tons of explosives, incendiary and pyrotechnic compositions.
After the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, the former chief of staff Hitler's Supreme High Command, Field Marshal Keitel during interrogation admitted that he and Hitler were deeply mistaken in assessing the military-economic possibilities of the Soviet Union.
CIA noted in 1956 that information from the USSR about the materials and services required to produce Soviet ammunition was practically nonexistent. Consequently, it was necessary to approach the problem through the utilization of the considerable body of information available on the types and quantities of ammunition required by the Soviet armed forces. The types and quantities of ammunition required, in the proper proportion to each other, constitute an ammunition mix which can be analyzed round by round to determine the component materials, both qualitatively and quantitatively. By the application of industrial factors for losses of scrap, for manpower, and for consumption of electric power and fuel to the ammunition mix, the materials and services required can be estimated. The industrial factors are taken from US practice but are considered to be applicable to the Soviet ammunition industry because of similarities in Soviet and US indus}rial practices in the ammunition industry. One important difference/between Soviet and US practices may occur when steel is substituted tor brass in the event of a shortage of copper.
The ammunition mix for the Soviet Army was based upon the unit of fire (U/F), a unit of measure for the supply of ammunition. This measure represents a specified number of rounds per weapon -- a nominal supply of ammunition for 1 day -- which varies with the type, caliber, and individual rate of consumption of a weapon. For example, the U/F for a Soviet 152-millimeter (mm) howitzer is 40 rounds, and the U/F for a 7.62-mm heavy machinegun is 2,500 rounds. A Soviet rifle division usually carries 0.5 U/F with each weapon, 0.5 U/F in the regimental combat train for the same weapons, and an additional 0.5 U/F in the divisional combat train -- a total of 1.5 U/F per weapon. In actual practice, consumption may run as high as 2 U/F per day in com bat and as low as 0.2 U/F per year in peacetime training.
Under Soviet rule, a huge mobilization reserve of shells was accumulated. It would seem that they should provide the Russian army for many decades. However, the widespread substandard storage and design flaws of certain types of projectiles (shots) led to a dangerous shortage of many types of ammunition. Here, for example, it was forbidden to use 122-mm projectiles manufactured before the 1987 year. The reason: copper belts “fly”, and the lateral deviation of shells reaches two kilometers or more. This was one of the reasons for abandoning the 122-mm caliber. True, it is worth noting that decisions are often made, but even before they begin to be implemented, management changes its mind and cancels them.
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