Katyusha Dev & Deployment--ViZh Dec. '76

[John Kettler]

Got this from a Russian History link Cantonese posted on HW:LG Forum and thought many here might be interested.

http://home.comcast.net/~markconrad/ROCKARTY.html

Happy groggery!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Bannon DC]

Good read... thanks

[JasonC]

Noteworthy for its complete silence on anything about the tactical employment or details of effects. They simply set up a battalion or regiment of them and let fly in the general direction of some German troop concentration.

The larger ones to defeat dug in positions are mentioned, and mention of the improvement in weapon mix lets slip that the 82mm versions were not very effective.

The most sustained use it mentions is one battalion firing 3 successive salvos in a 30 minute period in support of an attack. That is actually an outlier - the standard practice was to fire a single salvo and then move to a new location.

The reason was 5 km range and huge firing signature. These were always in range of enemy counterbattery. So it was shoot and scoot.

Just underscores that the realistic use of them in CM is prep fire.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

Fire positions for rocket artillery were occupied only at the last minute, too, unlike tube artillery. The usual drill was somewhat akin to a helo FAARP, with the MRLs going from firing position, to reload site, firing from there, and so forth. I hunted like mad through Red Army Studies (VIZh) and the RKKA Forum Archives trying to answer your questions, but came up basically empty. What you seek may be in the battle/campaign specific (Kursk, Visla-Oder, Berlin) issues of VIZh, but if so, I suspect it's covered in the articles covering artillery support.

What I think you really need, though, are memoirs from Katyusha unit commanders and crewmen, plus development and deployment histories. I know they exist (have seen some of the citations), but I have neither the books nor their translations. Google was pretty much a bust, too.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

See the second sentence of my first paragraph. My conclusion is that they neither knew nor cared. They just fired lots of big rockets in the general direction of an enemy occupied area. Coordination was not the point. The point was simply to inflict material damage from beyond range of immediate, effective reply, and then get out of Dodge. They don't discuss tactics beyond that because there weren't any - that was the tactic - all there is.

[Steve McClaire]

One quote I found of interest, regarding the organization of the early M-30 (300mm) regiments:

"There were also problems in bringing up ammunition, since a battalion only had enough vehicles to carry half of a battalion salvo at a time."

This helps confirm a vague bit from Zaloga's "Red Army Handbook" where he talks about how M-30 rockets were basically only used for one salvo, and only before a set piece attack, though he ascribes it to the weight of the rockets (which he lists as 72kg each) and short range (2800m). But if the unit can only haul half a salvo then it would pretty have to be used as he describes.

[JasonC]

Doesn't really follow. The minor premise is missing.

No conventional artillery battery has the vehicles to move all its ammo at once. The ammo goes in dumps, the battery brings some portion to a position, sets up a regular ammo supply operation and regularly goes and gets more.

The missing minor here is that the rocket battalion cannot remain in position after firing. It has revealed itself to enemy counterbattery and it is within range. This is a consequence of short range and large firing signature. Not of anything to do with how many rounds they can carry at once.

Carrying limits hardly apply *after* the salvo. The ammo is gone.

What is really means is it took longer to set up a shoot. Instead of pulling up to a few km and instantly letting fly, then instantly getting out, they had to prep the shoot.

Since it was seen as a problem, the implication is the standard M-13 launchers that didn't have such a problem were indeed used in that way.

What is driving the issue is that enemy conventional artillery outranges the rockets. It fires as a "raid" rather than being continually in position, because it can't linger within the range of enemy counterbattery.

[John Kettler]

Steve McClaire,

This isn't particularly surprising, seeing as how we're talking about launch frames placed on the ground, not mobile launchers. Until the Germans got around to fielding the Stuka zu Fuss, all the German 28 and 30 cm rockets were fired pretty much the same way. Theirs were called packiste. Only an idiot would attempt, save under the most benign artillery and air threat conditions, to refire static rocket launchers. Talk about a flaming datum as an aimpoint for counterfire!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Guest Mike]

I have a photo of M-30's being fired from ground based frames - a whole field of them going off at all angles. The frames appear to be wooden, although it is a low quality photo.

Not all "Katyusahs" were mounted on trucks.

I have no doubt the Russians did just a smidgen more than point them in the directoin of hte Germans and hope they hit something - I suspect they would have a rough idea of how far they would fly and would put them at a range where they expected some Germans might be underneath them when they came to earth!!