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WWII Russian 122mm HEAT Projectile BR-460A

Thanks Neil,
I can see from Your posts that You are well versed in the grau indexes. I was hoping You would have some "backround" information on this change.
But I guess that in 1941 the Soviet Union had better things to do than writing up the reasoning for some ammo nerds 80 years later :)

Bob


Bob,

There's a bit about it in a 2017 book that covers the history of the Model 1938 (M-30) howitzer (Советская Гаубица М-30 - «Молотовский Единорог»), which I'll summarise below.

The steel 53-OF-462 projectile was developed by ANII (АНИИ = Артиллерийском Научно-Исследова-тельском Институте = Artillery Scientific Research-Institute) in the mid 1930s. It is a low-drag design with a boat tail and two bearing surfaces. The former gives longer range and the later better in-bore concentricity and hence accuracy. Its thin sidewalls, their material properties and the large high explosive charge (originally 3,675 g of TNT) results in numerous, irregularly-shaped high-velocity fragments. At least 500 of these are effective against armoured vehicles when in the closed-down state. (I presume this means the armour of tanks of the era when it was developed, so the mid-1930s, so a lot thinner than in the 1940s and after.) The projectile is suitable for use against most battlefield targets and for use with all fuze types or settings (timed, instantaneous impact action, delayed action). It can be used for air-burst, ricochet, fragmentation effect, and against harder targets (brick and stone building, bunkers, tanks) when its fuze is set to the short delay action fuze setting. Cratering effect is good due to its high HE mass and ability to use delay fuze settings.

The steel cast iron 53-OF-462A was developed by ANII between 1930-1935 as a more technically advanced and cheaper version of the steel 53-OF-462. (As previously mentioned.) It has thicker walls and hence a lower mass high explosive filling. The lower mass of HE, and the material properties and thickness of its sidewalls result in more numerous, different shaped, and smaller fragments. Due to this is is a more effective fragmentation projectile. The lower strength material used in its construction means it is not suitable, ricochet, tough target penetration (brick or stone buildings), or soil penetration as the projectile is likely to break up before the fuze operates. It so should only be used for air-burst, or instantaneous impact action.

It does mention the name change in 1941, but doesn't mention why. We can presume it's because the 53-OF-462A/53-O-462A had better fragmentation properties and was later found to be unsuitable for explosive effects due to the weaker properties of the material used in its construction. That or the definition of an OF projectile changed in the period between its development and adoption in the mid-1930s and 1941.

If I find anything else out, I'll let you know.

Neil
 
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