The history of the creation of heavy-duty artillery combat weapons is full of embarrassment and curiosity. The Moscow Kremlin presents our historical landmark - Tsar Cannon, a work of art and the pride of Russian casters. Everyone knows that, despite the artistic perfection of the performance, this gigantic device never fired. There are other examples of weapons that were huge, but of dubious practical value. One of them can serve as an atomic mortar 2B1 "Oka". Unlike the Tsar Cannon, it was used for its intended purpose, however, only at the training ground.
Artillery and Giant Mania
Huge artillery guns have traditionally been the "fix idea" of German imperialism. In March 1917, the Wehrmacht bombarded Paris using long-range large-caliber guns. Residents of the Eternal City did not expect such attacks, the front line was far away. The French, in turn, built their huge cannons, and in the 30s installed them on the Maginot defensive line. The Germans captured them at the beginning of World War II and for a long time (until they were completely worn out) experienced trophies. Work on the creation of guns capable of delivering heavy ammunition for 100 kilometers or more was also carried out in Britain and the USSR. The effect of using these monsters turned out to be not so significant in practice. A colossal charge 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 explode, otherwise how to prove the effectiveness of a new weapon? But in the Nevada desert, the first “mushroom” rose above the ground, and the question arose of how to bring down the full power of a nuclear chain reaction on the enemy’s head. The first samples were quite heavy, and it took a long time to reduce their mass to acceptable values. The “Fat Man” or “Baby” could be carried by the B-29 strategic bomber of the Boeing company. In the 1950s, the USSR already had powerful missile delivery vehicles, 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-ballistic missiles at that time. But the invasion of the aggressor could be prepared in Western Europe, and strategic ballistic missiles have a minimum radius limit. And military theorists turned their eyes to the outdated artillery, which seemed to many.
American Initiative and Soviet Response
The Soviet country was not the initiator of the artillery nuclear race, the Americans began it. In the spring of 1953, in Nevada, on the French Plateau range, the first shot of the T-131 gun was fired, which sent 280 mm caliber nuclear munitions into the distance. The projectile flight 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 decree (secret), according to which the Kirov Plant and the Kolomenskoye Machine Building Design Bureau were entrusted with the creation of two types of artillery weapons: a gun (codenamed Condenser-2P) and a 2B1 Oka mortar. The lag had to be overcome.
Specification of special difficulty
The weight of the nuclear charge remained large. The design team of SKB under the leadership of B.I. Shavyrin had a difficult task: to create a mortar capable of throwing a physical body weighing 750 kg over a distance of 45 kilometers. There were accuracy parameters, although not as strict as for firing high-explosive shells. The gun was supposed 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, the enemy will almost certainly destroy the stationary gun after the outbreak of war. The running gear became the concern of the Kirov factory workers from Leningrad. The fact that the Oka mortar 2B1 will be huge was immediately clear, even before its design began.
Chassis
The Kirov plant had extensive experience in building unique tracked chassis, but the design parameters of the installation, which was to be created this time, went beyond all hitherto conceivable frames. Nevertheless, the designers coped with the task, by and large. The most powerful tank at that time, 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 750-liter V-12-6B turbocharged diesel engine. from. 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, almost 12 “horses” were set in motion every ton of the machine, which made it possible to keep a quite acceptable move, although not for long. For 2B1 Oka and Condenser-2P, the undercarriage was designed unified, which was due not only to the benefits of standardization, but also to the fact that it was simply impossible to create anything more powerful at that time. Track rollers were equipped with individual torsion-beam shock absorbers.
420-mm mortar 2B1 "Oka" and its barrel
The trunk had an impressive size. Charging was carried out from the breech side, with a twenty-meter length, another method was unacceptable. All devices designed to extinguish recoil energy, previously used even for super-heavy guns, in this case had very limited suitability. The atomic 420-mm mortar 2B1 "Oka" did not have a barrel cut, its rate of fire reached 12 rounds per hour, which is a very good indicator for a gun of this caliber. The machine’s main body, sloths, and other parts of the chassis served as the main damper.
Demonstration
On the march in the whole huge car there was only one person - the driver. Six more, including the crew commander, followed the 2B1 Oka mortar in an armored personnel carrier or other vehicle. At the festive parade in honor of the anniversary of the October Revolution in 1957, the car arrived after all the tests had passed. In the course of them, numerous design flaws were identified, which were mostly systemic in nature. Self-propelled mortar 2B1 “Oka” grated majestically before the amazed correspondents of foreign newspapers and magazines, and the announcer in a peppy voice publicly announced the military designation of this cyclopic monster. Not all military experts believed in the reality of the presented specimen; even opinions were voiced that it was a props. Other analysts believed in the formidable essence of this weapon and eagerly picked up the usual song about the Soviet military threat. Both of them were right in their own way. 420-mm self-propelled mortar 2B1 "Oka" existed quite real and even fired a lot of test shots. Another question concerned its longevity and actual combat readiness.
Total
The 55-ton truck, 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 nodes of the chassis could not withstand the monstrous loads that occurred during the rollback, pushing the whole car five meters back, and all measures to strengthen them did not give results. The ultimate strength of the precision alloy itself still exists. Secondly, at that moment tactical missile launchers appeared, possessing much better characteristics and excellent cross-country ability. 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 refinement had very vague prospects. All this contributed to the fact that the car from the category of promising military assets fell into a number of museum exhibits, adding to the list of military curiosities.