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BA-6: Ballad Of A Soldier

2024

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Video: BA-6: Ballad Of A Soldier

Video: BA-6: Ballad Of A Soldier
Video: Баллада о солдате (драма, реж. Григорий Чухрай, 1959 г.) 2024, March
BA-6: Ballad Of A Soldier
BA-6: Ballad Of A Soldier
Anonim

BA-6

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Finally, on the morning of January 12, 1943, what happened was what the hungry, frozen Leningrad had been waiting for since the fall of 1941 - the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts launched an offensive. Soviet units united, breaking through the blockade, on the 18th, near Shlisselburg. In these battles, 19 BA-10 armored cars also took part. It was on the Leningrad Front, back in 1943, there were a lot of such machines, because they were repaired by the very Izhora plant that had previously been manufactured. Well, part of the armored cars went even further - to the west …

WHEEL DESTINATION

The idea of an armored car is almost as old as the car itself. The first heyday of blanched, as they were often called then, machines fell on the First World War. Armored cars were made on the basis of not only trucks, but also many passenger models - from Ford T to Rolls-Royce Silver Guest. In Russia, armored cars were built on the Russo-Balta chassis and imported. Well, almost immediately after the start of production of the first Soviet truck AMO-F15, on the instructions of the artillery control of the Red Army, the BA-27 with a 37-mm gun and a 6.5 mm machine gun was developed.

Domestic armored cars developed along with the auto industry - slowly and hard. Of course, an armed machine needs a sufficiently powerful chassis and an appropriate engine. But neither one nor the other in the early 1930s, our industry did. At first, it was necessary to use a modified three-axle chassis of an imported Ford-Timken and a 40-horsepower Ford (aka Gorkovsky after the plant was launched on the Volga) engine.

BA-6

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Having built a number of experimental and small-scale vehicles at the Izhora plant, in 1933 they began to produce BA-3 with a 45-mm gun in the tower of the T-26 tank. After modernization and installation on a domestic GAZ-AAA chassis, the car received the designation BA-6. Its mass production began in 1936.

ACHIEVEMENT LIST

The fate of our armored cars of those years is amazing. Their heyday lasted only a decade, but what! They managed to participate in four wars. The battle path began in Spain, where the Republican army delivered 60 vehicles, including 37 BA-6. On relatively good (compared to ours) roads, they showed themselves well. Sometimes they were even more useful than less fast tanks. The francists got several cars as trophies and stood in their arsenal for quite some time. Moreover, the Soviet design was adapted to the Chevrolet triaxial chassis and made such machines in series.

In the summer of 1939, a lot of armored vehicles went to Khalkhin Gol. They proved to be very effective not only in skirmishes with the Japanese infantry and cavalry, but also against light tanks. True, many shortcomings were immediately apparent, which, however, had been spoken about before. The military recommended that before attacking on rough terrain, put on the drive wheels steel tracks "overoll", since an armored car stuck on impassable roads became an excellent target, and the armor could not withstand the fire of a Gochkiss machine gun of 13.2 mm caliber. There were also noted “sharp corners in the control compartment” and the generally inconvenient location of the crew members, especially the one who commanded the gun in the tower. The fire hazard of the car was also high, in which the soldiers were actually sitting in an embrace with a gas tank.

BA-6

Между моторным отсеком и ногами экипажа щель, через которую в кабину проходит теплый воздух вместе с выхлопными газами. Справа - место пулеметчика
Между моторным отсеком и ногами экипажа щель, через которую в кабину проходит теплый воздух вместе с выхлопными газами. Справа - место пулеметчика

There is a gap between the engine compartment and the crew’s legs, through which warm air and exhaust gases pass into the cabin. To the right is the place of the machine gunner. There is a gap between the engine compartment and the crew’s legs, through which warm air and exhaust gases pass into the cabin. To the right is the place of the machine gunner.

The Finnish War of 1940 added sad experience. Four-wheel drive cars with rear gable tires on winter terrain are often very helpless. The military wrote in reports that an engine of 90-100 hp was needed. instead of the 50-strong, which was put on the BA-10 - the modernized BA-6. A lot of captured vehicles served in the Finnish army until the beginning of the 1960s, having received what they lacked so much - the powerful Ford G8. Our BA-10, the most massive armored car in this class, was made until the fall of 1941, until the Germans came close to Izhora.

MAIN BUSINESS OF LIFE

On June 22, 1941, a group of armored vehicles of the 5th Panzer Division of the 3rd Mechanized Corps, skillfully disguised in the forest near the highway, under the command of Senior Lieutenant Surovtsev held off the German convoy of light tanks and motorcycles for several hours. A small episode of a huge war - a matter of hours "battle of local importance." It is unlikely that one of those fighters and those armored vehicles survived to victory. But they managed to contribute to it.

Many cars went out of order in the first months of the war; survivors continued to fight both near Moscow and near Leningrad. Even in 1944, several armored cars participated in the battles for Latvia - in particular, in the assault on Jelgava.

BA-6

Под бронелистом газоновский 40-сильный (позднее 50-сильный) двигатель
Под бронелистом газоновский 40-сильный (позднее 50-сильный) двигатель

Under the armored plate is a 40-horsepower (later 50-horsepower) lawn engine. Under the armored plate is a 40-horsepower (later 50-horsepower) lawn engine.

And in the last year of the war, cars were more often used as mobile checkpoints on front-line roads - today they would call it a checkpoint. The weather on the fields of the last battles of the Great Patriotic War was made exclusively by tanks, and on the intercept they had half-tracked and all-wheel drive American armored personnel carriers. It was these vehicles, which were much more advanced and practical, that caused the complete forgetfulness of the armored cars of the 1930s at the end of the war.

And how did they, our grandfathers, fight in this ?! Climbing into a low and narrow door, sitting on a small seat is already a problem! The frail 40-horsepower engine was buzzing, the transmission, the BA-6, strained howlingly, filling the cabin generously with exhaust gases (a kind of stove!), Drove off slowly. I remember reading in the reports of the military how the crews of armored cars got tired even on short marches. I believe! And if from the march - into battle? A machine gun is scribbled to the right, the “forty” crashes from above, sleeves fall to the floor, and enemy bullets hit the body. And the driver, meanwhile, maneuvers, saving the crew and the car and seeing the world in a narrow embrasure. And they fought!

This car is like an ordinary unknown soldier of the beginning of the war, in a gray dirty overcoat, windings instead of boots, with a three-line rifle. But out of the hard military work of such nameless, immoral privates and such imperfect, unpretentious machines, our Victory has developed.

To understand its price, it’s useful to at least ride in this, by the way, completely original BA-6. The difficulties of modern life after this appear in a slightly different light …

BA-6

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