The history of the creation of heavy-duty artillery combat weapons is full of embarrassment and curiosities. The Moscow Kremlin presents our historical landmark - Tsar Cannon, a work of art and the pride of Russian foundry workers. Everyone knows that, despite the artistic perfection of execution, this gigantic device never fired. There are other examples of weapons that were striking in their huge size, but which had a dubious practical value. One of them can be the atomic mortar 2B1 "Oka". Unlike the Tsar Cannon, it was used for its intended purpose, however, only at the training ground.
Artillery and gigantomania
Huge artillery cannons have traditionally been the "fix" idea of German imperialism. In March 1917, the Wehrmacht bombed Paris using long-range heavy-caliber guns. The inhabitants of the Eternal City did not expect such blows, the front line was far away. The French, in turn, built their huge guns, and in the 30s they installed them on the Maginot defensive line. The Germans captured them at the beginning of the Secondworld and for a long time (until complete wear) experienced trophies. Work on the creation of guns capable of delivering heavy ammunition over 100 kilometers or more was also carried out in Britain and the USSR. The effect of the use of these monsters turned out to be not so significant in practice. A colossal charge was buried when it hit the ground and exploded under its thickness, without causing much harm. The situation changed after the advent of nuclear weapons.
Why do we need atomic mortars in the space age?
Scientists who worked on the creation of the atomic bomb, at the initial stage of research, solved the main problem. The charge had to be blown up, otherwise how to prove the effectiveness of a new weapon? But in the Nevada desert, the first "mushroom" rose above the earth, and the question arose of how to unleash the full power of a nuclear chain reaction on the enemy's head. The first samples turned out to be quite heavy, and it took a long time to reduce their mass to acceptable values. "Fat Man" or "Kid" could carry a strategic bomber company "Boeing" B-29. In the 1950s, the USSR already had powerful missile delivery systems, which, however, had a serious drawback. ICBMs guaranteed the destruction of targets on the territory of the most powerful and main enemy, the United States, especially given the complete absence of anti-missile defense means at that time. But an aggressor invasion could be prepared in Western Europe, and strategic ballistic missiles have a minimum radius limit. And the theorists of military affairs turned their attention to what seemed to many outdatedartillery.
American initiative and Soviet response
The Soviet country was not the initiator of the nuclear artillery race, it was started by the Americans. In the spring of 1953, in Nevada, at the French Plateau training ground, the first shot of the T-131 cannon was fired, sending a 280 mm nuclear munition into the distance. The flight of the projectile lasted 25 seconds. Work on this miracle of technology has been going on for several years, and thus the Soviet response to the American initiative can be considered belated. In November 1955, the Council of Ministers of the USSR developed a (secret) resolution, according to which the Kirov Plant and the Kolomna Engineering Design Bureau were entrusted with the creation of two types of artillery weapons: a cannon (which received the code name "Condenser-2P") and a mortar 2B1 "Oka". The backlog had to be overcome.
Technical task of particular complexity
The weight of the nuclear charge remained large. The SKB design team led by B. I. Shavyrin faced a difficult task: to create a mortar capable of throwing a physical body weighing 750 kg over a distance of up to 45 kilometers. There were also accuracy parameters, although not as strict as for firing high-explosive projectiles. The gun had to have a certain reliability, guaranteeing a certain number of shots, although in a nuclear war (albeit limited), it certainly could not exceed a single-digit number. Mobility is a prerequisite, a stationary enemy cannon after the startwar is almost guaranteed to destroy. The undercarriage became the concern of the Kirov factory workers from Leningrad. The fact that the 2B1 Oka mortar would be huge was immediately clear, even before its design began.
Chassis
The Kirov Plant had rich experience in building unique tracked chassis, but the design parameters of the installation that was to be created this time went beyond all the hitherto conceivable limits. Nevertheless, the designers, in general, coped with the task. The most powerful at that time tank IS-5 (aka IS-10 and T-10) served as a "donor", giving the "Object-273" a power plant, the heart of which was a V-12-6B turbocharged diesel engine with a capacity of 750 hp. with. With such a load, even this heavy-duty engine was limited in motor resources, providing a range of only 200 km (on the highway). Nevertheless, the specific power was considerable, each ton of the car was driven by almost 12 "horses", which made it possible to keep a quite acceptable course, although not for long. For 2B1 "Oka" and "Condenser-2P", the running gears were designed unified, which was due not only to the advantages of standardization, but also to the fact that it was simply impossible to create anything more powerful at that time. The track rollers were equipped with individual torsion beam shock absorbers.
420-mm mortar 2B1 "Oka" and its barrel
The trunk had impressive dimensions. Loading was carried out from the side of the breech, with a twenty-meter length, a different method was unacceptable. All devices designed to extinguish the recoil energy usedpreviously, even for super-heavy guns, in this case they had very limited suitability. The atomic 420-mm mortar 2B1 "Oka" did not have a barrel cutting, its rate of fire reached 12 rounds per hour, which is a very good indicator for a gun of this caliber. The body of the machine itself, sloths and other components of the chassis served as the main damper of the rollback.
Demo
On the march in the whole huge car there was only one person - the driver. Another six, including the crew commander, followed the 2B1 Oka mortar in an armored personnel carrier or other vehicle. The car arrived at the festive parade in honor of the anniversary of the October Revolution in 1957 after it had passed all the tests. In the course of them, numerous design flaws were identified, which for the most part had a systemic character. Before the astonished correspondents of foreign newspapers and magazines, the self-propelled mortar 2B1 "Oka" majestically grinded, and the announcer in a cheerful voice announced publicly about the combat mission of this cyclopean monster. Not all military experts believed in the reality of the presented instance, there were even opinions that it was a props. Other analysts believed in the formidable nature of this weapon and willingly picked up the familiar song about the Soviet military threat. Both of them were right in their own way. The 420-mm self-propelled mortar 2B1 "Oka" existed quite realistically and even fired many test shots. Another question concerned its durability and actual combat readiness.
Result
55-ton machine, which not every bridge could withstand, was withdrawn from service three years after the demonstration on Red Square. Attempts to refine the four prototypes of the 2B1 Oka mortar were discontinued in 1960 for two main reasons. Firstly, the chassis nodes could not withstand the monstrous loads that occurred during the rollback, which pushed the entire car five meters back, and all measures to strengthen them did not work. The ultimate strength of the most precision alloy still exists. Secondly, at that time tactical missile carriers appeared, which had much better characteristics and excellent maneuverability. As you know, a rocket takes off without recoil, therefore, the requirements for its launcher are much more modest. There was another factor that influenced the fate of this unique weapon. The atomic 420-mm mortar 2B1 "Oka" was very expensive for the budget, and its development had very vague prospects. All this contributed to the fact that the vehicle from the category of promising military equipment ended up in a number of museum exhibits, adding to the list of military curiosities.
