Koshkin, Mikhail Ilyich. Hitler's personal enemy is the Russian T34 tank designer Mikhail Koshkin Who was the chief designer of the T 34 tank
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The performance requirements for the BT-20 wheeled-tracked tank were issued by the ABTU of the Red Army to Plant No. 183 on October 13, 1937. Even work on the BT-7IS tank, which served as the basis for the development of TTT for the BT-20, began only in the spring of 1937. But it is the BT-20 that is considered the starting point of history - in fact, it all began with it. So, A. O. Firsov could not have had anything to do with the initial stage of work on the immediate predecessors of the “thirty-four”. These works were already carried out under the guidance of the new chief designer - M. I. Koshkin.
Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin was born on November 21, 1898 in the village of Brynchagi, Yaroslavl province, into a large peasant family. At the age of 14, he went to work in Moscow, where he got a job in the caramel shop of a confectionery factory (later - the Krasny Oktyabr factory). In September 1917, Koshkin was drafted into the army.
In 1918, he already volunteered to join the Red Army, participated in the battles near Arkhangelsk and Tsaritsyn, and was wounded. In 1919, M. I. Koshkin joined the ranks of the CPSU (b). In 1921, straight from the army, he was sent to study in Moscow at the Communist University. Sverdlov. Upon graduation in 1924, he worked as the director of a confectionery factory in the city of Vyatka. Since 1927 - a member of the Vyatka Provincial Committee of the CPSU (b) and head of the department of agitation and propaganda. In the fall of 1929, among the "party thousand" he was sent to study at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. This program was carried out with the aim of strengthening the party cadres of the technical intelligentsia. M. I. Koshkin was enrolled as a student at the Department of Automobiles and Tractors.
At that time, a very strong teaching staff worked at the department. Among them are well-known scientists professors V. Yu. Gittis (head of the department), LV Klimenko (future head) and others. The department had close ties with industrial enterprises and took part in the development of factory products. So, Professor Klimenko simultaneously worked at the Krasny Putilovets plant, where he supervised the development of designs and the organization of production of L-1 passenger cars and row-crop tractors of the U-1 and U-2 types. On the other hand, leading factory specialists were involved in teaching at the department.
In the 1930s, the scientific and industrial base of tank building was formed in Leningrad, and the Department of Automobiles and Tractors became the main link in the training of qualified personnel for this industry. In those years, such outstanding later designers of tanks and their systems as N. L. Dukhov, S. P. Izotov, L. E. Sychev, and many others studied at the department.
After graduating from the institute in 1934, M. I. Koshkin was sent to work at the Leningrad Experimental Machine Building Plant No. 185 (OKMO of the Bolshevik plant) as a designer. From that moment on, moments appear in Koshkin's biography that can be interpreted in different ways.
On the one hand, numerous sources note a thirst for knowledge and a desire for independent work, which, in general, fully corresponded to Koshkin's character. In addition, we must not forget that Mikhail Ilyich was a family man, had children, and the need to earn money to feed his family forced him to work until late at night, performing economic contractual calculation and experimental research on orders from industry. Hard work has not been in vain. A qualified specialist has been formed with good design training, extensive theoretical and computational practice, organizational skills, the ability to analyze complex issues and the determination to take responsibility for the decisions made. Koshkin's closed graduation project was dedicated to the original tank transmission and was carried out for a real experimental facility on the instructions of an industrial enterprise.
On the other hand, Koshkin began working in the Design Bureau of Plant No. 185, while still a student, and not without the patronage of S. M. Kirov, who directly advised the head of the design bureau, S. A. Ginzburg, to “take a closer look at the young specialist.” By the way, the participation of Kirov in the fate of M.I. Koshkin is not accidental. The latter worked for several years in Vyatka, and Kirov was from the town of Urzhum in the Vyatka province - almost countrymen.
In the design bureau, Koshkin took part in the design of the T-29-5 three-turret wheeled-tracked tank and the T-46-5 tracked tank with anti-cannon armor. A year after starting his career as an engineer, he was appointed deputy chief designer, and in 1936 he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. Both seem to fit into the version of “Koshkin is Kirov’s protégé”, if not for one “but” ... The fact is that on December 1, 1934, S. M. Kirov was killed, which means that the appointment to the post of deputy and the awarding took place after his death. However, there is another version that M. I. Koshkin became the deputy for political affairs - that is, the secretary of the party organization and received his order, so to speak, "for the company."
M. Baryatinsky. T-34 in combat.
The biography of Koshkin, the designer of the T-34 tank, is full of amazing stories, incredible accidents, amazing achievements and true heroism. This man, with his legendary invention, was able to change the course of military history. The T-34 tank is not just a combat vehicle that gave our army an advantage during World War II, it is a symbol that embodies faith in victory and the heroism of an entire nation.
Biography
Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin was born in the Yaroslavl region, in a village called Brynchagi, on November 21, 1898. His family was very poor, his father worked hard in logging, when Mikhail turned 7, his father died - he overworked and died. The widow was left with three small children in her arms. Mikhail and his brother helped their mother as much as they could, tending pigs after school, but this was still not enough. After graduating from only 3 classes of a parochial school, ten-year-old Mikhail, like another Mikhail, Lomonosov, sets off on foot to Moscow in the hope of earning money for his family. In the capital, he had maternal relatives, and he went to them. His mother provided him with a note with an address, but this important piece of paper was lost by Mikhail before he reached his destination. And this happened because on the way he came across a fight: several adult boys beat one younger boy, the hero of our article could not pass by, he stood up for the weak. In the heat of the fight, the cherished note disappeared. And it is not known how the further fate of Mikhail could have developed if it were not for a random passerby. It turned out to be a worker of the Moscow confectionery factory. He not only went out to our hero, but also helped to get a job at the factory.
At the beginning of the revolutionary year of 1917, Mikhail was drafted into the army. He fought on the Western Front, was wounded and sent to Moscow to a hospital, from where he was demobilized. But already in 1918 he returned to the army voluntarily, joining the ranks of the railway detachment of the Red Army. He took part in the fighting near Tsaritsyn.
In 1919 he received a transfer to the Northern Front, where he fought in the battles for Arkhangelsk. On the way to Poland, Mikhail Ilyich fell ill with typhus. After recovery, he returns to the army, this time he fights on the Southern Front.
When the Civil War ended, he was sent to study at the Communist University. Ya. V. Sverdlov. After graduating from university in 1924, he was sent to a confectionery factory in Vyatka. Here, as director, he proved himself to be a competent, sensitive and responsible leader.
Family
Mikhail Koshkin met his future wife while working in Vyatka. Vera Nikolaevna Kataeva was an employee of the Gubpotrebsoyuz. Here, in Vyatka, the eldest daughter Elizabeth is born. The family of Mikhail Koshkin lived on the territory of the Trifonov Monastery. About this time, Lisa will later tell many interesting details. For example, how my father was involved in the organization of educational program courses, where he himself studied and taught others. Or about how he gave salaries to his employees: on the day of pay, Mikhail Ilyich invited the wives and children of his employees to his office, the children received sweets, and the wives were given a salary. This was done to ensure that the workers did not have the opportunity to drink the money the family needed.
In total, Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin had three children in the marriage - these are daughters Elizabeth, Tamara and Tatyana. The eldest became a geography teacher, Tamara chose the profession of a geologist, and Tatyana taught at Kharkov University.
Design career
In 1929, at the personal request of S. M. Kirov, Mikhail Ilyich was sent to the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, where he studied at the Department of Automobiles and Tractors. Having successfully graduated from the institution in 1934, Koshkin goes to work in the tank design bureau of the Leningrad plant named after. S. M. Kirov. This is where the story of the legendary invention of the Soviet design engineer begins. At this plant, under the leadership of Koshkin, the T-29 and T-46-5 tanks were created.
Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin was sent to Kharkov in 1936, he took the post of head of the design bureau of plant No. 183. The first achievement of our hero was the modernization of the BT-7 tank, which consisted in installing the V-2 engine. This is how the world's first diesel tank appeared.
The first fully tracked tank was also developed by the Design Bureau, led by Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin. Despite the skepticism of many respected colleagues, Koshkin was able to prove the advantage of caterpillar over wheeled and mixed. The new tracked tank was called the A-32. He showed excellent maneuverability in combat in rough terrain.
Birth of a legend
The use of a diesel engine, as well as a five-wheel caterpillar, opened up new opportunities for improving tanks. To prove this, in late 1939 - early 1940 Koshkin built two prototypes of the tank, which was assigned the A-34 index. Compared to previous models, this tank had several significant advantages, including a significant increase in combat weight (by 10 tons) and a double increase in armor thickness. A-34 became the prototype for the T-34.
While working on the drawings of the “thirty-four”, Mikhail Ilyich devoted himself entirely to this process, practically settling at the plant. In relation to work, he was always very demanding of himself and others, assertive, purposeful and principled. It was this ability to work to complete self-forgetfulness that made him a top-class specialist.
The first prototypes of the T-34 tank were created by Mikhail Koshkin in the spring of 1940. By March, two copies had been released. Despite the fact that the tanks were already on the move, their total mileage did not yet allow them to proceed to public trials. On the speedometer of each tank, according to the regulations, there should have been indicators over 2000 km. Meanwhile, already on March 17, a demonstration of new technology was to take place in the Kremlin.
The entire biography of the designer of the T-34 Koshkin testifies that this man was not afraid to make difficult decisions and never ran away from responsibility. The current acute situation with a public demonstration for the highest echelons of power was no exception. Mikhail Ilyich found the only possible, but extremely risky, way out - he decides to overtake the tanks to Moscow on his own. This simultaneously allowed both to conduct field tests and gain the required mileage.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that at that time the T-34 was a classified product, it was impossible to openly demonstrate it, which means that the route was built around roads and settlements in order to prevent the disclosure of state secrets. Besides, there was still snow. And in Moscow, at the appointed hour, Stalin was waiting. The conditions are truly extreme.
Now, it is probably difficult to imagine what a monstrous responsibility lay on Koshkin, not only as a designer, but also as a person who decided to make a run. Without exaggeration, he risked not only his freedom, but, possibly, his life. In the event that something went wrong, he would have to answer to Stalin.
On the night of March 6, a column with two camouflaged tanks set off. Mikhail Koshkin himself often sat down on the levers of the T-34 tanks on the way. All design flaws, which manifested themselves in multiple minor breakdowns, were eliminated in the field.
Almost a week later, on March 12, the tanks were in Moscow, and on the 17th a triumphant demonstration took place in the Kremlin. Iosif Vissarionovich was pleased.
Death
Unfortunately, the nightmarish conditions for the transfer of tanks from Kharkov to the capital did not leave Mikhail Ilyich without a trace. Koshkin caught a bad cold. The situation worsened during the return run, when one of the tanks fell into the water and he participated in the extraction of the vehicle. The disease worsened, turning into pneumonia, which caused the death of Mikhail Koshkin.
He did not stop working, despite the acute course of the disease and hospitalization. Soon it was necessary to remove the lung, which ceased to function, but this could no longer save the life of Mikhail Ilyich.
Koshkin died on September 26, 1940 in a sanatorium near Kharkov. He was buried at the Kharkov First City Cemetery.
Awards
Mikhail Koshkin was awarded the Order of Lenin, for the T-111 tank he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. Posthumously awarded the Stalin Prize for the T-34. In 1990, he was also posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
Memory
In Kharkov in 1985 a monument to Mikhail Koshkin was erected. Also one of the streets of the city bears his name.
There is a monument to the designer in the Yaroslavl region, in the center of the village of Brynchagi, where he was born.
In Kirov (formerly Vyatka), at house number 31 on Spasskaya Street, there is a memorial plaque. Mikhail Ilyich lived and worked in this house. A memorial plaque was also installed on the building of the St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University, since he studied here. And another memorial plaque is located in Kharkov, it is installed on the house where the designer lived with his family, at the address: Pushkinskaya street, 54/2.
And there is also a monument to the legendary T-34 tank, it is located on the federal highway M-8, not far from the direction indicator to the village of Brynchaghi.
In addition to architectural structures, the achievements of design engineer M.I. Koshkin are captured on the pages of books - this is the “Creation of Armor” by Y.L. Reznik, the brochure “Mikhail Koshkin: unique documents, photographs, facts, memories” issued for the 110th anniversary of our hero, “ Tank ahead of time "and" Constructors "authored by V. A. Vishnyakov.
Also in 1998, a postage stamp was issued depicting Koshkin himself and his main invention.
War and tanks
M. I. Koshkin died nine months before the start of the war, he never had a chance to witness the triumph of his most perfect development.
By the time the war began, the Soviet Union had 1225 T-34 units. The tank, although it was in the middle class, was equipped with excellent armor and a powerful gun, which allowed it to confront heavy class vehicles such as the German Tigers and Panthers. The latter were many times longer-range, but could not penetrate the armor of the "thirty-four", and he, in turn, although from a shorter distance, but confidently hit enemy equipment. At that time, the Germans did not have a tank in service that could withstand a direct hit from the T-34.
And that was not its only advantage. Unprecedented maneuverability made it possible to fight in any, even the most difficult, conditions. The T-34 passed where, according to the enemy, it was simply impossible to pass.
Our machine was not only superior to German tanks, it was the best in the world. Even having captured the T-34 model that survived the battle, the Germans could not create a copy of it, although many ideas were adopted in further developments. We can say that the German "Panthers" and "Tigers" were created precisely as a response to the Russian T-34.
This tank on the battlefield terrified the enemy tank crews and delighted their designers. Müller-Hillebrandt, a German major general, even talked about the development of “tank fear” in the ranks of the German troops.
Some structural elements remained a mystery to them with seven seals, for example, a special method of hardening steel for the manufacture of tanks - submerged arc welding, developed by the Soviet academician E. O. Paton.
Until the end of the war, the T-34 did not give up its leadership position in the global tank building market. Technological features and possibilities of mass production led to the fact that he went down in history as the most massive tank of the Great Patriotic War.
"Chief Designer"
The biography of the designer of the T-34 tank Koshkin M. I. was the basis of the book "The Creation of Armor" by Y. Reznik. The film "Chief Designer" is based on this work.
The plot is based on the real story of the transfer of the first prototypes of the T-34 from Kharkov to Moscow for demonstration in the Kremlin and back to the factory in Kharkov.
The role of Koshkin in the film was played by Boris Nevzorov. The film was released in October 1980.
"Tanks" and "T-34"
There are many stories about the legendary Soviet car that went through the entire war. They are preserved in archives and memoirs, embodied in literature and cinema.
In April 2018, the film "Tanks" was released. It was directed by Kim druzhizhin. The role of Koshkin was played by Andrey Merzlikin. The film offers the viewer an alternative, far from real historical facts story in the adventure genre about how Mikhail Koshkin made a secret forced march to Moscow on prototypes of the T-34. The biography of the designer of the T-34 tank Koshkin M.I. is interpreted in this work of cinematic art very freely. According to the plot of the film, its goal is to obtain permission for the mass production of new types of tanks. Those "thirty-fours" that helped win the Great Patriotic War.
The picture was accepted by Russian critics rather coolly. Among the audience there are conflicting reviews, but most of those who spoke are in solidarity with the fact that this is an entertainment movie.
In December 2018, another Russian film about a tank awaits us. It is called, like the combat vehicle itself, "T-34". The plot is based on the story of cadet Ivushkin, who is captured by the Germans. The hero plans to escape with the help of a T-34 tank captured by the Nazis. He manages to collect the crew of the car among other prisoners of war. He challenges the German Ass tankers, among them Jaeger himself. The main male role in the film is played by Alexander Petrov.
You can have different attitudes towards the films about the “victory tank” that are released on wide screens, but their undoubted advantage is that after watching every viewer will know that Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin was the chief designer of the victorious T-34 tank. The man who always smiled, never raised his voice, was as unpretentious in everyday life as he was demanding in work. A man who gave his life to give his homeland the T-34, the importance of which for the Soviet army cannot be overestimated.
When World War II ended, W. Churchill called the Soviet "wonder tank" T-34 one of the three decisive weapons of the war that had died down.
Koshkin Mikhail Ilyich lived in the world for 41 years, and for a significant part of these years he worked as a confectioner. He was a good family man and a promising party worker. However, the tank became the truly great work of his life. It cost the designer his life. His name was never widely known, but everyone knew and knows the brainchild.
There is no one more famous than the T-34. He was equally admired on both sides of the front. And every flattering review of the tank involuntarily turned into praise for its creator. Few engineers are remembered so often for a single development.
Confectioner from near Yaroslavl
For a long time, the biography of the future designer did not give grounds to see him as a technical genius. Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin was born in 1898 in the village of Brynchagi (Yaroslavl province) into a family of a small-land peasant. The main source of family income was crafts, but they also became the cause of misfortune. Mikhail was only 7 years old when his father died, having overstrained himself while logging.
The son had to help his mother, who was left a widow with three small children. Work was found in the capital at a confectionery factory (now Red October), where he entered at the age of 14. At first he was an apprentice, but soon became an operator in a caramel shop.
The "confectionery" biography continued after serving in the army and participating in the civil war.
In 1921-24. the future creator of the T-34 studied at the Communist University in Moscow (as a promising young party leader), and then was sent to Vyatka, where he ran a confectionery factory until 1929.
The surviving documents testify that Koshkin was a good leader, his subordinates respected him and noted his merits in raising production indicators.
Koshkin and the country's need for tanks
The military biography of Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin is quite short. He was drafted into the army just before the February Revolution, served under Kerensky, then joined the Red Army. The Red Army soldier Koshkin participated in the battles near Arkhangelsk and Tsaritsyn, in the defeat of Wrangel. He was wounded, fell ill with typhus, which is why he was demobilized. During his service, he became a Bolshevik and got acquainted with the military railway business.
But the circumstances of Koshkin's interest in tanks are not entirely clear. He probably became interested in them near Arkhangelsk - there the British interventionists had tanks.
The most important goal of industrialization
In 1929, the USSR announced a course towards industrialization. One of his main tasks was to ensure the country's defense capability, which could not be done without the development of heavy industry.
At that time, the USSR actually did not have its own production of tanks. Propaganda began to work by declaring the creation of armored forces a matter of honor for all conscious Soviet citizens. But this did not mean that it was easy to implement the plan.
It was required not only to create production facilities from scratch, but also to train personnel.
Some sources claim that 30-year-old Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin (a family man, a successful leader) himself asked his friend, a prominent party leader S.M. Kirov, to send him to study as an engineer. At that time, there was not always enough knowledge and desire to enter the chosen specialty, it was necessary that the direction was considered “politically correct”.
According to another version, he became a student "on mobilization", falling into the number of party "five-thousanders" sent for targeted training. One thing is clear: in 1929, Koshkin began to study first at the Leningrad Technological Institute, and then at the Polytechnic Institute. Studying the device of cars and tractors.
Kharkov tank designer
A tank and a tractor in the USSR are related concepts. The diploma work of the "motorist" Koshkin was devoted to the gearbox for a medium tank. After graduation, he was invited to work by the plant. Molotov (now known as GAZ), where he did his internship.
But the graduate insisted on his assignment to the tank design bureau. People's Commissar of Heavy Industry S.K. Ordzhonikidze listened to the opinion of his friend Koshkin, and not the plant management. With Ordzhonikidze (as well as with Kirov), the future designer met and became friends while studying at a communist university.
Ordzhonikidze in 1936 and sent him to Kharkov. There, in the tank department at KhPZ (Kharkov Locomotive Plant), problems arose with the modernization of the BT-7, a mass production tank. Koshkin, who already had experience working in a bureau in Leningrad (he participated in the creation of the T-29 and T-46-1), agreed to head a department, essentially his own tank design bureau.
Human qualities matter
It is worth noting that Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin always put business in the first place, as was customary in his time. But this does not mean that he was only an engineer, and nothing more.
In Vyatka, Mikhail Ilyich married V.N. Kataeva. They had three daughters: Elizabeth, Tamara, Tatyana. The wife was not happy about the need to move from Leningrad to Kharkov, but did not argue. The family put up with the constant employment of her husband and his frequent absences.
Colleagues also paid tribute to Koshkin's human qualities. He was characterized as a person who can easily get along with people, an excellent organizer. Employees could argue with him, and he was always ready to change his mind under the influence of arguments.
Due to the difficult situation in the country, when Koshkin's career was developing, much later, already during the perestroika years, he was accused of intrigue and almost plagiarism. But it is unlikely that the "critics" themselves would be able to argue with the marshals in the name of a higher goal, violate their direct orders and drag tanks out of the swamp on themselves. But Koshkin could.
The complex biography of the "thirty-four"
Koshkin arrived in the tank department at the Design Bureau of the Kharkov Locomotive Plant in early 1937. In this organization, he worked until his death (first - the head of the department, then - the chief designer). Kharkov became the cradle of the "thirty-four". But the biography of the tank was not easy.
The year 1937 in Soviet history is notorious for the start of repressions. He touched Koshkin's colleagues as well. His predecessor A. Firsov was arrested, barely having time to hand over the cases. The reason was the constant malfunction of the BT-7. One of the best designers of the bureau, A. Dik, was also repressed. Because of this, ill-wishers accuse Koshkin of having appropriated their ideas, and his personal contribution to the creation of the T-34 is insignificant.
But the period was generally difficult for domestic tank building. The idea of forming armored forces was actively "punched" at one time by such "enemies of the people" as Uborevich and Yakir. Yes, and Koshkin's friend S.K. Ordzhonikidze "fell under the distribution" of the repressive system. Therefore, one should not be surprised at the arrests of designers.
And Koshkin, of course, was not the only one who worked on the tank and used some of the achievements of his predecessors. But it was he who managed to "push" their common brainchild into production, sacrificing his life for this.
"Fast-speed samovars" and "galoshes"
For a year of work, Koshkin managed to eliminate some of the shortcomings of the BT-7 tank, but then a new task was set for the design bureau - to create a wheeled-tracked medium tank, sufficiently protected from enemy fire, but at the same time mobile and fast.
And on this issue, Koshkin decisively did not agree with the leadership of the army. He saw this tracked vehicle. Then the Soviet design cunning prompted Koshkin a way out - he began to develop two projects at once. The A-20 was a wheeled-tracked tank, while the A-32 was a tracked tank. In terms of weight and booking, they were comparable.
From that moment on, the history of the creation of the T-34 turned into an adventure novel. Before the report of the creator of tanks at the Supreme Military Council, Deputy People's Commissar Marshal Kulik directly forbade Koshkin to talk about the caterpillar project. But it turned out that it was easier to move a tank than a stubborn Koshkin.
The designer of the T-34 did not tell the marshal that the potential enemy (Germans) disrespectfully refers to wheeled vehicles as "high-speed samovars." He simply illegally dragged a model of a caterpillar tank to the report, and the speech began with its characteristics.
Kulik called the tracks "galoshes" and insisted on the introduction of a wheeled tank. Most of the military supported him. But the greatest power of the country suddenly appeared on the side of Koshkin. I.V. Stalin personally ordered the designer to make prototypes of both machines in Kharkov.
Soon (in 1939), they showed approximately the same results in tests, but the A-34s showed better cross-country ability. Tests in the conditions of the war with the Finns confirmed: in battle, "galoshes" are more reliable. Both machines entered the series, with the A-32 receiving the T-34 code.
On your way to history
For the final entry of the T-34 into the series, there was very little left - to pass a review in Moscow, scheduled for March 17, 1940. The tank was improved and modified (in particular, armor was increased to 45 mm). But for the admission of the car to the review, it was necessary that it had a mileage determined by the technical conditions.
Koshkin on the right The first attempts to recruit it were unsuccessful - one of the experimental tanks had a broken engine. There wasn't enough time to wrap up. The solution was found by Koshkin himself: T-34s would gain mileage, getting to the review on their own.
Kilometer Kharkiv - Moscow was suitable for this purpose. But there were other difficulties. It was necessary not only to meet the deadline, but also to observe strict secrecy. Detractors prophesied an inglorious death in the snow.
Off-road tanks are not afraid. Outside the main highways, avoiding undue attention, Koshkin drove a caravan of 2 tanks, a mobile workshop and a change house tractor. The designer himself was sitting at the levers, replacing the driver-mechanics.
It was cold, and Koshkin had a bad cold. There were often minor breakdowns along the way, but the tanks moved on. The final test turned out to be a success - the tanks went through ravines and copses, swamps and streams of Kharkov, Belgorod, Tulshchina.
They made it on time, gaining mileage and remaining fully on track. On March 17, 1940, 2 "thirty-fours" for the first time performed something similar to the modern "tank waltz" on Red Square. Stalin shook hands with the crew and called the tanks "swallows". Their fate was sealed.
hard way home
The top leadership of the country thanked the designer and advised him to urgently be treated - a terrible cough could not but attract attention. Diagnosed with pneumonia.
Mikhail Koshkin on the right Instead of the hospital, Koshkin again got into the tank and set off on the return route.
In the Orel area, one of the tanks accidentally fell into the lake. Chest-deep in water, a cold designer helped to pull her out, from which pneumonia intensified.
Kharkov doctors called for help from Moscow specialists. The designer cut out one lung. But nothing helped - he died at the age of 42. The cause of death was not particularly spread, they wrote - thrombosis.
But the whole plant brought flowers to their "Misha", who died at his post. His grave was at the First Cemetery of Kharkov. It was not preserved - it was destroyed either by bombs or purposefully by the Nazis.
Tank formation legend
The T-34 did not differ in any unique technical characteristics. The tank was easy to manufacture, maintain and repair. The main thing in it was a well-arranged simple and reliable equipment. Here are some of its characteristics.
- Hull dimensions: width - 3 m, length - 5.92 m, height - 2.405 m.
- The total mass is 25.6 tons (later it was allowed to increase to 27.3 tons).
- Armor: 45 mm (forehead, bottom sides, turret); 40 mm (upper side, gun mantlet); on the bottom and roof of the hull and turret, the thickness of the armor was 15-20 mm. The main feature was the angles of inclination of the armor plates relative to the vertical (40-60 degrees) on the sides, forehead and stern, which contributed to the ricochet of shells.
- Armament: 76 mm cannon (first L-11, then F-34, in 1940-41 tanks with both types of guns were produced simultaneously), 2 DT machine guns, caliber 7.62; an anti-aircraft machine gun could also be installed.
- Firing range - up to 6 km.
- Ammunition, shells - up to 100 (with F-34 gun).
- Maximum speed: on the highway - 54 km / h; off-road -36 km / h.
- Power reserve - 380 km (on the highway).
- Engine - diesel V-2 power 500 hp. During the war, M-17 gasoline aircraft engines were often installed on tanks. The choice of the engine turned out to be a special success of the designer.
- Crew - 4 people.
The tank could overcome a rise of 36 degrees and a ford more than a meter deep. It exerted a slight pressure on the ground (0.62 kg / sq. cm), which ensured high permeability. Not that he was invulnerable - German guns often pierced his armor and easily knocked down tracks. But getting into it because of the speed, maneuverability and "mundane" silhouette was not easy, and the tank was easily repaired.
Standing on the right (in dark overalls) at the test site in 1938 Even before the war, work began on improving the tank (for example, changing the gun), many modifications appeared during the war years. Employees of Koshkin's bureau also took part in the case.
The T-34 tank was designed for production in the USSR, and nowhere else.
Ural tank builders said that the Germans repeatedly tried to copy the "thirty-fours", but the result of their work invariably weighed several tons more and lost all the advantages at once.
The reason is in automated welding.
She gave thicker seams on the armor plates. And the Kharkov, Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Tagil masters welded the seams by hand ...
The whole world unanimously recognized the T-34 as the best tank of World War II. Hitler's designers doomedly declared that he had no weak points. His designer was even honored by the increased attention of the Fuhrer personally.
Pre-war tanks manufactured by plant No. 183. From left to right: A-8 (BT-7M), A-20, T-34 mod 1940 with gun L-11, T-34 mod. 1941 with F-34 gun. After hearing stories about the fear of his soldiers before the T-34, Hitler declared its creator his personal enemy (such a posthumous award turned out). Perhaps for this reason, the grave of Mikhail Koshkin in Kharkov was destroyed by the invaders (although this could have happened by accident).
We didn't expect posthumous fame
But it is unlikely that Mikhail Koshkin was worried about his own posthumous reputation. The biography of the tank obviously meant more to him - otherwise he would never have lived the way he lived.
During his lifetime, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star for his work at the Design Bureau in Leningrad. Posthumously, in 1942, he was awarded the Stalin Prize. In 1990, the designer became the Hero of Socialist Labor. About Koshkin and his legendary "run to Moscow" they shot the film "Chief Designer".
He doesn't have a grave. But in terms of the number of monuments to himself, this person can safely argue with Mao Zedong. For in Kharkov and Ufa, Berlin and Bryansk, Kyiv and Donetsk, Lugansk and Koenigsberg, and many other cities and villages, the “thirty-four” froze on pedestals - the worst nightmare of any Nazi.
The Soviet bard Mikhail Ancharov, in a poignant ballad, called them "love frozen for centuries." And the best monument to the designer is not needed ...
Video
The picture is based on a real event: Stalin really examined the new tanks and was pleased with them. Frame from the film "Tanks". 2018
On the eve of the 73rd anniversary of the Victory, the full-length feature film "Tanks" was released on the screens of the country - from the director of "28 Panfilov's Men" Kim Druzhinin. Three weeks before the official premiere, some members of the film crew had a chance to visit the Russian Khmeimim airbase in Syria and scroll the tape to military personnel performing combat missions far from their native borders. The Zvezda TV channel cited an enthusiastic review of the musician of the military band, Sergeant Alexei Zinoviev: “I liked the acting very much. Andrey Merzlikin, of course, well done, as always ... Of course, I advise everyone to watch this film. Andrey Nazarov, scriptwriter for "Tanks", immediately posted this video on his Twitter resource, accompanied by the following entry: "How will the moviegoer meet "Tanks"? We are worried. But the opinion of Sergeant Zinoviev from our air base in Syria will always remain the most important.”
With all due respect to all four persons mentioned above, we cannot agree with both the extremely non-self-critical assessment of the screenwriter and individual private praises of the film. For if the performance of the actors as a whole can really be assessed with a solid "four" (or even with a plus), then the one depicted by them "on the white sheet of the screen" - with a "one" with a minus. Not in terms of entertainment (this is somewhat impressive), but in terms of handling historical material and a specific person. Namely, with the creator of the legendary T-34 tank, Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin.
CROSSED UZHA WITH HEDGEHOG
The Russian audience has long been forced to come to terms with the fact that domestic figures of the “most massive of the arts” periodically confuse the public with other historical and military “movie masterpieces”. But "Tanks", obviously, raised the bar of extreme bewilderment even higher. The director and producers, intending to tell about the episode that really took place in the pre-front 1940 episode in the creation of the T-34 and its chief designer Mikhail Koshkin, as they say, crossed the grass snake with a hedgehog. They did not just frivolously beat the topic, but stunningly treacherously distorted the history of the appearance of the “Victory Tank”. More than an hour and a half tape, in fact, does not talk about tanks as such, nor about their creator. They only loom in the film in the background, while in the first place the “exciting” action movie rumbles. Designer Koshkin is presented not as a generator of innovative engineering ideas and the embodiment of advanced technical ideas that he personally verified in practice, but as an adventurous cowboy on an armored horse.
Nazarov and Druzhinin were not at all touched by the fact that Koshkin, while working on his combat model, which was destined to become one of the best tanks of the Second World War, mortally undermined his health, lost one lung, and died on September 26, 1940 - only 41- summer. And so to distort the memory of him is beyond the understanding of the audience, who “slightly differently” relate to domestic true stories and outstanding personalities of past eras.
It turns out, however, that this is by no means a "miscalculation" of the creators of "Tanks". "Cowboy" was laid into the picture even before the start of work on the script. And during the filming, they didn’t just go along with what was fantasized, but did everything to make it a reckless western with an almost complete absence of at least elementary logic in it. According to one of the producers, Dmitry Shcherbanov, the film was conceived "not as a military drama, not as a historical film, and by no means jingoistic." But as a family adventure thriller in the spirit of the famous Soviet "Elusive Avengers" of 1966 - in order to please the modern audience, especially the young one. Who, "raised on Hollywood blockbusters and film comics," allegedly "is unlikely to be interested in historical drama."
It is, to put it mildly, categorically incorrect to assess “the current audience” in such a one-sided and purely unambiguous way. For this is a clear disrespect for those numerous film lovers who expect from our directors and producers not screen crafts “under” “Hollywood blockbusters and film comics”, but high-quality, meaningful, watchable and at the same time instructive cinema. After all, the same “Elusive Avengers” became a classic of the film genre for this very reason, which convincingly combined the historical truth about the Civil War in Russia with the participation of the real commander Semyon Budyonny in it and the exciting combat adventures of a handful of fictional teenagers (who, however, had certain prototypes) . And it is completely incomprehensible why even long before the first command “Attention! Motor! Started!” Is it “shameful” to deprive the film being created of even a small fraction of “cheers-patriotism”, especially when a specific historical person appears in it throughout the development of the whole action, who made an enduring contribution to the Victory?!
At the same time, it is especially depressing that, according to the official press release, this became possible with the personal filing of the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, who is also the chairman of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO). Andrey Nazarov, scriptwriter of Tanks, is his adviser in this organization, and he is not as young as the 33-year-old Kim Druzhinin, but deeply "comes from the Soviet Union." But the RVIO, according to a presidential decree, is designed to "promote the study of national military history and counteract attempts to distort it, ensure the popularization of the achievements of military history, instill patriotism and raise the prestige of military service." In "Tanks", everything is done exactly the opposite, in fact, the entire presidential installation has been trampled.
They would shoot an ordinary remake of "The Elusive Avengers" - what's stopping ?! But no, without Koshkin in any way. Explanation: it was in the language of a tough militant that the goal was to "tell about the feat of the chief designer Mikhail Koshkin, whose name is undeservedly forgotten today." Strange vision. Usually, with such an "irrepressible fantasy", the name of a real-life historical figure is changed. Even - in a tightly knit patriotic movie. In the film Taming the Fire (1972), based on the biography of the creator of space technology, Sergei Korolev, the latter is depicted under the name Andrey Bashkirtsev. Even if the authors of "Tanks" Koshkin were named, say, Kashkin (as Boris Polevoy in his time in "The Tale of a Real Man" turned the real hero-pilot Maresyev into a literary Meresyev), and "principled questions" would disappear.
By the way, the statement about the "undeserved oblivion" of Mikhail Koshkin also does not hold water. The creator of the T-34 in the USSR and Russia was more or less always remembered. In the 1970s and 1980s, several books were published about him, one of which was used to make a two-part feature film "Chief Designer" with Boris Nevzorov in the title role; a monument was unveiled to him in Kharkov (the designer was buried in Kharkov, but his resting place was lost during the bombing and occupation of the city by the Nazis). For the 100th anniversary of Koshkin, a postage stamp was issued; and in his small homeland, in the village of Brynchagi (Yaroslavl region), a monument (a modest bust) to the Hero of Socialist Labor M.I. Koshkin, in the opening of which, with a large congestion of the military, two (out of three) daughters of Mikhail Ilyich also took part. At the same time, at the turn to Brynchagy from the federal highway M8 Moscow-Yaroslavl, a memorial dedicated to the designer was erected - his brainchild T-34 on a high pedestal. By the 110th anniversary, a collection of documents and memoirs about the creator of the “Victory Tank” was published ... It’s only a pity that so far not a single historian has bothered to write a biography of Koshkin (and the current domestic tank builders have not ordered one) - in the popular book series ZhZL. And it is a pity that in vast Moscow there is not even a small street named after him; but already in the years of perestroika, in 1987, a 700-meter street of Koshkin (Semyon Pavlovich) arose - a Bolshevik underground worker who actively harmed the tsarist regime in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917; and many are mistaken that it is dedicated to that Koshkin, who in the 20th century created the best battle tank in the world ...
This year, December 3 is the 120th anniversary of the outstanding designer, for which we now have a "worthy" feature film "about him and his tanks."
'MAD MAX' HAS INTO THE TANKS
The film begins, in general, aptly, from the first frames setting the viewer to a fascinating historical truth (and the stronger the disappointment from what follows). The “Prokhorovka field” of Khalkhin-Gol is shown after the battle for Mount Bain-Tsagan on July 3-5, 1939, where the future Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who commanded the Red Army group there, burned an unmeasured number of tanks thrown by him at the Japanese without infantry support. These even then imperfect "armored kerosene stoves" flared up from hitting them with torches, for which commander Zhukov blames commander 1st rank Grigory Kulik, who arrived here "to take action." And we are imbued with anticipation that in the future we will be shown how the Soviet defense industry and the Red Army from "kerosene" in just a year or two reached the powerful, "ahead of its time" T-34.
The guess seems to be justified. In the following shots - the workshop of the Kharkov plant No. 183 in the summer of 1940, in which a couple of prototypes of the T-34 were made. Tanks cannot participate in the government-scheduled exhibition of new weapons in the Kremlin because they have low mileage. And Koshkin, contrary to the risk he understands and the categorical objections of the plant director and the representative of the NKVD, makes a strong-willed decision to “run” to Moscow on his own in order to gain the mileage established by the test regulations. This aspiration of him is approved by telephone from Moscow, General of the Army Zhukov. And a convoy of two armored vehicles and a truck with fuel sets off on a 750-kilometer journey.
The fact that in reality the march took place not in the summer, but in the early spring, and Zhukov could not unanimously approve such an initiative of the chief designer, as well as the fact that the "Marshal of Victory" in fact did not participate in any way in the fate of the T-34 - these are quite acceptable "shifts" in time and "twisting" of facts in film versions of this kind. Let's explain. In fact, the campaign of two “thirty-fours” from Kharkov to Moscow took place from March 6 to March 12, 1940, and five days later both vehicles were demonstrated to Stalin. And Zhukov at that time had not yet returned from Mongolia; later he commanded the Kyiv Special Military District, and was appointed to the post of Chief of the General Staff in Moscow in mid-January 1941, more than three months after Koshkin's death. And in fact, from the military (in addition to civilian defense workers) from Moscow, the movement of the column was supervised by the head of the Armored Directorate of the Red Army commander Dmitry Pavlov (the future general of the army, commander of the Western Front, who was shot in July 1941).
But these are “little things”. But what “truth” the viewer is shown next cannot but shock.
HEROIC RUN AND CINEMA FANTASIES
However, first, let us briefly highlight that truly unparalleled mileage of two newly-made (in January and February 1940) samples of armored vehicles in Kharkov, which at that time bore the factory index A-34. The route, due to their super secrecy, passed at a decent distance from settlements along truly “unknown paths” of the Kharkov, Belgorod, Tula and Moscow regions. Therefore, all the acuteness of the risk of the enterprise is understandable - technical and in the conditions of the then ubiquitous pressure of the NKVD - and the degree of courage of the initiator of the run. (By the way, the director himself, during filming on location near Moscow, according to him, also experienced "a lot of emergency situations.") its Western component, we are never shown this). The designer, despite the "dampness" of the samples, was nevertheless confident in the predominant reliability of the mechanisms and assemblies embedded in them - and there were no serious breakdowns during the days of the journey to Moscow (and then back on their own) did not happen.
On the way, Mikhail Ilyich caught a cold and coughed heavily at the show on Ivanovskaya Square in the Kremlin (on the way back, having landed in a swamp on a tank, he further aggravated his ill health). Stalin and other members of the government watched with admiration the running "pirouettes" of a pair of future T-34s, demonstrated on the paving stones between the Troitsky and Borovitsky gates. According to eyewitnesses, the leader allegedly expressed his emotions by saying that these vehicles are the “first signs” of our tank troops (the episode was reflected in the finale of the film). Knowing all this, Kim Druzhinin turned his tongue to say that “there was nothing particularly exciting in the real race, which took place in March, in snow and cold.” And the creators of the tape filled it with this "exciting" in full and beyond the edges ...
First, someone knocks off the threads of an oxygen tank that is being transported in a truck, and the explosion deprives the tanks of fuel. In turn, German intelligence, as if looking several years ahead, from the reports of an agent from the Kharkov defense plant and the T-34 schemes stolen by him, immediately realized that "this new development of the Russians could bring Germany great trouble in future campaigns." By order from Berlin, a well-equipped and heavily armed sabotage group is sent to intercept the departed experimental armored vehicles in order to carry out their "disappearance". She had been based near Kharkov for a long time and was only waiting for the “green whistle” from the Reich. They follow not on foot, but on horseback. How did they not yet guess to put at the head of it the Nazi "saboteur of all times and peoples" Otto Skorzeny? And as soon as these "mishandled Cossack women" prepared to carry out the order, a certain kulak-Makhnovo-White Guard gang attacked the column led by Koshkin from nowhere.
That is, the NKVD, headed by Beria, are either asleep or so carried away by the "enemies of the people of the 37th year" that they missed a dozen fascist thugs a thousand kilometers from the state border, and a huge illegal armed formation freely living in a forest near a certain village. Again, horse. By the way, Kim Druzhinin was asked about this at a meeting with journalists after the press screening of "Tanks", but the director could not explain the logic of such a decision of the script and its implementation. But let's keep looking. A la Pugachev manages to capture Koshkin and his entire team. However, the leader of the gang is indignant: what should he do with these tanks now? But then a profitable option turns up: the commander of the Nazi special forces comes to him and offers to sell the tanks to him. Yes, little fuss. "Old Man Makhno" sends him away slurping for more banknotes.
The Germans, apparently overspent in the pursuit of the T-34, "have no choice" how to crumble the intractable Russian robbers "in okroshka." From a machine gun. Under the guise of battle, when bullets crush the lair of the "forest brothers" to pieces and everyone falls dead, the chief designer and his comrades, deftly maneuvering between the horizontal jets of a lead shower, run to the tanks. In one of them there is a shell, which the mechanic grabbed at the factory just in case (“The salute would have been given somewhere,” he explains to the taken aback chief designer). Immediately transforming into a dashing loader and gunner, he crushes the entire German attack with this single shot. And after the leader of the gang, who involuntarily already wants to immediately get rid of the troublesome acquisition, there is his “piano in the bushes” - a whole tank with diesel fuel, which he hid in the shed since the Civil War. The fuel, to the delight of Koshkin, exactly approached, the fuel barrels punched on the tanks were tightly plugged with sticks, and the column continued to move with acceleration.
Hitler's intelligence tears and mosques. In the picture, she is represented by a colonel with the face of Chikatilo and a blond "true Aryan" trembling with fear under his anger. It never occurs to this “sweet” couple to report anything to someone, she herself manages things for the glory of the Reich. Such a reduction of the Germans to the level of fools has not been shown to us since the first post-war years, even in The Feat of a Scout (1947) they look like geniuses compared to what we are shown now.
An order is given to immediately activate the second group of deeply conspiratorial "otto skorzeny". And in the next second they, as if from under the ground, appear at night on motorcycles behind the tanks driving at full steam. It’s as if they turned onto the sandy Russian highway from the African desert of the Western fantasy thriller-chase “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015) - Druzhinin clearly borrowed them from there (as earlier for his “28 Panfilov’s” he partly projected individual frames from the Norwegian comedy horror film about Nazi zombies "Operation Dead Snow"). The impression is that all the saboteurs are deaf and dumb, but they perfectly understand their commander only by the movement of the hand with the gaiter pulled over it. One of them deftly jumps on the tank and ... cuts through its armor with a gas burner (a gas cylinder ends up in one of the cradles). In this way, the Nazis want to poison the crew - by launching a certain gas into the tank through a burnt hole from a hose (a cylinder with which is in the same cradle). The film was filmed in the summer of 2017, but all the same, the British intelligence services, which, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, poisoned the father and daughter of the Skripals in March 2018, are resting so clumsily, unlike the German jewelry squads, they performed a provocation.
However, the Nazis-"bikers" failed again, because the Red Army artillery was set up towards the "unidentified moving objects". Their own beat on their own, but "the armor is strong, and our tanks are fast." One of them, having successfully escaped from the artillery strike, later falls off the wooden bridge onto the steep bank of the river. There is no way to release him. Koshkin drives to Moscow on one tank. The same saboteurs-poisoners roll up to the victim of the crash and - here the fantasy of the authors of "Tanks" has surpassed all conceivable and unimaginable realities! - literally with the help of the "most powerful" clotheslines, motorcycles pull the combat vehicle out of the trap. (Why?! And what were they going to do with him next?!! - another question.) Being inside the T-34 and at first lurking "Koshkins" start the engine, the tank begins to "toss and turn" and crush the taken aback Germans and flatten their motorcycles. In a minute, the entire enemy special group perishes with the death of crushed frogs - one boot from its commander remains.
Meanwhile, the driver of the tank Koshkin is driving turns out to be a traitor and offers the designer to turn from Moscow to the West in order to receive a “non-beggarly” salary for his intelligence and talent there. Of course, Koshkin will angrily retort: “I do not work for the authorities, but for my people!” (nevertheless, a piece of "cheers-patriotism" is still included in the film). He manages to disable his mechanical offspring. The scoundrel wants to smash the engineer’s head with a sledgehammer, but at the last second he himself gets a shovel in the skull from a 20-year-old female team member who arrived in time earlier, who had arbitrarily joined her back in Kharkov as a major specialist in the smelting of armor and in an unquenchable desire to see “Comrade Stalin ".
In the finale, Koshkin and his savior appear at the Kremlin before the eyes of the leader. Without the T-34, they escaped ("elusive" ones!) Not only from bandits and enemy scouts-thugs, but also from their own offspring. "Where are your tanks?" – the celestial is interested. The chief designer has already collapsed from shame and, not finding any explanation for the absence of machines, coughs (that is, from extreme embarrassment, and by no means from a cold, as it really was). And then both tanks one after another, like devils from a snuffbox, suddenly appear and take their places at the exhibition ... they did it! Everyone is delighted, Stalin calls the armored cars "swallows" ...
WAITING FOR A WESTERN ABOUT… GAGARIN?!
Everything was filmed, but I don’t remember anything like that. We repeat, it is unthinkable to understand why, for the sake of "greater popularization" of the name of the one who created the "Victory Tank", it was necessary to pile up such nonsense. What will a young viewer take out about Mikhail Koshkin, besides the fact that the creator of the T-34 almost got hit on the head with a sledgehammer and left his own tanks on the way, while others famously coped with the task of driving them?
In general, the film "Tanks" sets a precedent. In the sense that now anyone can consider it possible to exploit someone's famous name on the screen for some "good" purposes. Imagine in an adventure reading, say, a film about the first manned flight into space. And what, after all, the fact is that not all Russian schoolchildren know who Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin is. So let's popularize his name through "the most massive of the arts"! Armed American "fur seals" (or commandos with the faces of all the "undaunted" - Stallone, Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Jason Statham ...) are climbing to the Vostok rocket to disrupt its launch. And Korolev cannot give the command “Key to start”, because the terminator Schwarzenegger captured him, stunned him and tied him up. A Yankee special forces officer throws a "cat" through the ship's porthole, which pierces Gagarin's shoulder. The pilot-cosmonaut at the last second pulls out the "claw", by an effort of will he turns on the ignition of the rocket and, as it soars into space, pronounces his famous "Let's go!". Stallone and others like him burn in flames from the nozzles of a Soviet spacecraft...
If you think, you can twist it even more abruptly: for example, in the cockpit of the Vostok, a space pioneer who has taken off suddenly discovers a certain girl in love with him (in Tanks, a similar storyline is visibly written through the entire film, although in reality there is no “woman on the ship” in that there was no unprecedented march on caterpillars from Kharkov to Moscow) ...
We ask you not to consider the above-described "synopsis" of the script for the future film. And God forbid that such a movie "Tanks" no longer appear! However, it is encouraging that at a meeting with journalists after the press screening of the tape on April 14, actor Andrei Merzlikin, who played the role of Koshkin, listening to critical reviews, expressed his participation in this film in a certain way, not without regret. It was clear that the director and producers did not like this very veiled self-criticism in their presence...
115 years ago, on December 3, 1898, Mikhail Koshkin, chief designer of the T-34, was born. Everyone knows the best medium tank of the Second World War, but in the homeland of its creator, alas, devastation and desolation.
They burned down their home
153rd kilometer of the Yaroslavl highway, on a high pedestal - "T-34-85". There is also a road sign: “Brynchagi, the birthplace of M.I. Koshkin, the designer of the T-34 tank.” To the left, and - an amazing coincidence - exactly 34 kilometers. At the turn there are dilapidated houses surrounded by woodpile. And here is a local resident - I notice a bent figure in a padded jacket and a gray scarf.
Baba Tatyana remembers how the “thirty-four” appeared here. “It was under Yeltsin. The tank was being taken to Brynchaghi, but abandoned here, at the turn. Either their car broke down, or maybe they were too lazy to drag further. He lay here for several years, then they made him a monument. But only after the veterans began to write to Moscow,” the old woman said. And she clarified that you can not go to the homeland of Mikhail Koshkin - "there is nothing there."
In the direction of the village of Brynchagi, from the asphalt road of regional significance, there is an excellent primer on a capital embankment, clearly built according to the Soviet program “Roads of the Non-Black Earth Region”. A modest bust of the designer, installed in 1998, is located right at the entrance to the village. There really is no house-museum here.
The place where the Koshkins' hut was located was shown to me. Snow-covered wasteland. No one - "so far no one has grabbed it." They looked at the Moscow numbers of the car with apprehension. And when they found out that I was from the newspaper, they immediately advised me: “Get out of here…”
The reason for such a negative attitude of local residents to the media became clear on the way back. He drove a man from the village of Rakhmanovo to Lychentsy, and he explained everything. “Koshkin’s house stood in the early 80s, they wanted to make a museum in it. Just led the way there. The USSR was destroyed, and then, in the 90s, the hut was taken away for firewood. But this is a taboo subject for us. A year ago, television came to Brynchaga and filmed a story about Koshkin. The people talked. That the village is dying, the authorities don’t care, and they don’t give a damn about the memory of the designer. So our regional authorities got angry, ”the peasant broadcasted. However, he quickly fell silent and did not utter a word for the rest of the journey. Apparently, he understood - he blurted out too much.
The story about Brynchags was found on the Internet, a year ago it really went on the air. Very sharp report, honest. It is not surprising that someone was tapped on the hat so as not to chatter. The head of the Pereslavl district, Vladimir Denisyuk, refused to discuss the topic of the memory of Mikhail Koshkin with a Kultura correspondent, sending it to Vera Markova, his deputy for social policy. Vera Vyacheslavovna, unfortunately, turned out to be elusive. In general, it is customary to remember the hero here only in his native village.
Thin armor came
It's about the hero. Designer Koshkin did not fight in the Great Patriotic War, but he accomplished a feat. And in order to realize this, you need to have an idea of the situation in the Soviet tank industry in the 30s.
The basis of the park were light cars. The licensed English Vickers Mk E, after a radical modernization, became known as the T-26, the American prototype of engineer Christie was brought to serial BTs. The completely domestic three-tower T-28 did not fit into the theories of Tukhachevsky and his associates. And they no longer demanded thousands, but tens of thousands of light, high-speed vehicles with bulletproof armor, completely ignoring the appearance of anti-tank artillery. And the factories riveted them regularly.
However, not very well. Reading the documents of that time, one is amazed at what "order" was going on in the shops and design bureaus. It was a cocktail of incompetence, outright sloppiness, wrecking and... self-interest. Factories received money for each unit of production. And these are bonuses to management, cars, apartments and other blessings of life. It is not necessary to idealize the Stalin era, they stole even then. “The plan of Spetsmashtrest ordered KhPZ to produce 510 tanks during the first half of 1936. Over the past six months, only 425 tanks have been manufactured and tested. The Armored Directorate of the Red Army out of the indicated quantity was recognized as fit and only 271 tanks were accepted ... The main reason for the failure of the tank building program is the poor quality of a number of decisive components of the BT-7 tank, - this is a brief excerpt from the document, which indicates the situation at the Kharkov Locomotive Plant (KhPZ ). Is it any wonder that by the end of the decade, someone retrained as a lumberjack, and someone was put up against the wall.
There was also espionage. “In 1938, the director of the KhPZ, Ivan Bondarenko, was arrested. He immediately admitted that back in the 18th he was recruited by the Germans and regularly passed them secret information about the state of affairs in Soviet tank building. This is confirmed by the memoirs of the German General Guderian. Until 1938, he knew how many cars the USSR produced per day. After that, he no longer had such data. And information about the work on the T-34, too, the appearance of this tank was a surprise for the Germans. By the way, Bondarenko, who was sentenced to capital punishment, was not shot, as is often said, he died in prison in 1941,” explained the deputy director for scientific work of the Museum and Memorial Complex “History of the T-34 Tank”, the author numerous books on armored vehicles, Colonel Igor Zheltov.
During the investigation, the security officers found out that, in general, there was nothing to meet the war of the USSR. By that time, Lieutenant Colonel Charles de Gaulle had already published the revolutionary work The Professional Army, in which the idea of using large mechanized formations first appeared. His German colleague Heinz Guderian was inspired by the Frenchman's theory and began to develop it in every possible way. First, the Panzerwaffe trained with plywood tanks, then with real ones. Vehicles with anti-shell armor were built, the caliber of guns in the turrets grew. Against such a background, the "26s" and "batashki" with their protection of 10-15 mm had little chance. And the resource for the modernization of these devices was already exhausted.
From what was
War is not far off - everyone understood this. Accordingly, there was no time, no effort, no money left to develop a new tank from scratch. It was necessary to make the most of the already produced components and assemblies. The genius of Mikhail Koshkin lies precisely in the fact that in the most difficult conditions he managed to put together an excellent car “from what was”. And this is not only the talent of an engineer, but also the ability of an extraordinary organizer.
Suspension according to the Christie principle, tracks with ridge gearing, rollers with rubber tires from BT-7M, diesel V-2 already tested on it. They tried to apply armor with rational angles of inclination before (an experimental tank "BT-"turtle"), but it was no longer possible to increase the thickness of the steel sheets - the tank would not have gone. Koshkin solved the problem.
"T-34" model 1940 came out beautiful and ... completely "raw". “In fact, at first it turned out to be a kind of completion of the BT series, with all the ensuing flaws. Hence the problems with ergonomics, observation devices, transmission, engine. The country lacked qualified personnel, rethinking the world experience in tank building and creating new domestic designs was very difficult, ”says Maxim Kolomiets, a historian of armored vehicles.
According to the results of the famous Kharkov-Moscow-Kharkov run in 1940, the list of necessary improvements exceeded 400 positions. The welded turret of the “pie” type was cramped and difficult to manufacture, the gun needed to be replaced with a more powerful one, and the diesels had a monstrously small engine life. Mikhail Ilyich knew this, far from everything was subject to him (for example, armament and engine building is another diocese), but he did what he could.
A vision for the future
"T-34" is an excellent blank for a tank," this is how German tankers characterized the Soviet vehicles of the first series at the beginning of the war. And they were actively used, previously modernized. The same was done in Soviet factories. Each new version of the "thirty-four" became more perfect. Mikhail Koshkin left his team with a huge reserve for the future. It was he who determined the direction in which to move.
First, technology. If the first T-34s cost 430 thousand rubles, then by 1942 their price had fallen to 166 thousand, and by the 45th - to 130 thousand. Considering that, in fact, a completely different car was produced at the end of the war, this is an amazing result.
Secondly, increase the efficiency of the crew. Improved a lot - and drastically. The turret of the "nut" type became much more spacious, soon a commander's "panorama" and a powerful ventilation system appeared in it. The gearbox was made five-speed.
It is believed that the fundamental modernization of the tank - the T-34M project - Mikhail Ilyich began shortly before his death. But it's not. “In the spring of 1940, when they started working on the emka, Koshkin was already in the hospital. On the way from Moscow to Kharkov, the tank fell into the river, the designer fell into icy water and thus thoroughly undermined his health. Until that moment, he worked for wear and tear, and the cold finally knocked him down, ”says Igor Zheltov.
By June 1941, the T-34M was 60 percent ready. With the same hull forms, armor increased greatly, a spacious turret appeared and, most importantly, a fundamentally different suspension - torsion bar. It not only provided a comfortable ride, but also freed up a lot of space inside. Due to this, the fuel supply and ammunition load increased.
But the T-34M was not accepted into service - the war began. No doubt, an excellent device, but it was impossible to put it on the conveyor without stopping the factories for re-equipment. They took the most successful nodes from the emka and began to install them on production tanks. The fate of the T-43 project turned out to be similar. It was even adopted, and several of these machines managed to make war. But the industry did not pull a new tank. They borrowed from him a tower with a shoulder strap of increased diameter and a powerful gun, all this was adapted to the usual "thirty-four". So the Victory tank appeared - "T-34-85".
It is he who stands on the Yaroslavl highway, indicating to those passing by the place where the museum should be. The great Soviet designer deserves to be remembered.