MAIN MENU SOLDIERS AT WAR DOCUMENTS BATTLES TANKS ARTILLERY 
| The 76.2 mm Divisional Cannon Model 1902/30 |
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| MAIN MENU SOLDIERS AT WAR DOCUMENTS BATTLES TANKS ARTILLERY |
In the mid-1920's, the Red Army High Command decided to modernise the existing 76.2 mm Gun Model 1902 - the most famous and one of the best Russian three-inch field guns. The main goal was to increase the range of the gun, but the technical standards of the Soviet High Command were poor at that time. Poorly educated, M. Tukhachevsky was Deputy Minister (zam. narkoma) of Weapons; and I. Pavlunovsky, who had no education at all, was Deputy Minister of Heavy Machine Building. These two men proposed many weak and opposite schemes, and ordered that they be carried out. They knew nothing about artillery and its problems. Obviously, if the caliber of a gun is changed, not only will the range be increased, but also the charge must be raised by a great margin (up to a power of three!). Unfortunately, this was not obvious to Tukhachevsky and Pavlunovsky. They decided to increase the range of the 3-in gun without changing its caliber (and thus its projectile and cartridge). How was that to be accomplished? Of course, the cartridge of the original 3-inch gun was developed with some reserve capacity, thus the propellant charge could be increased from 0.9 kg to 1.08 kg. Furthermore, the projectile's aerodynamic properties were improved, and the maximum elevation angle of the gun was increased. A 6.5 kg round (muzzle velocity 588 m/s) fired from the gun at +16° elevation had a range of 6200 metres, and if fired at +30° elevation, it had a range of 8540 metres. Further increases of the elevation angle would have been pointless as the gun's accuracy would have decreased dramatically while its range increased little. The last scheme was to increase the barrel's length from 30 calibres to 40 or even 50 calibres. In fact, the range increased little while the gun's weight and length increased considerably and, as a result, the gun's maneuverability and acceptability decreased significantly. After all these changes, the maximum range of the gun reached 14,000 metres (elevation: +45°; barrel length: 50 calibres; ammunition: long-range high explosive round). At the same time, the accuracy of the gun was extremely low, and the explosive force of the long-range projectile was very small, which meant that there were difficulties with spotting the shell impacts and fire correction was almost impossible. Even from an airplane at 3-4 km altitude, it was impossible to spot the blast of the 76-mm projectile. Until the end of 1937, the modernised 76.2 mm Gun Model 1902/30 was in mass production. It is of importantance to note that in Factory #92, the gun is documented as the F-10. The 76.2 mm Gun Model 1902/30 used the same ammunition as the 76.2 mm Gun Model 1927. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Proof-reader:
Mark Jaremco Sources: "Artillery from Alpha to Omega" encyclopaedia. Encyclopaedia of the Weapons |
