The feat of the artillerymen of the 30th coastal battery. Thirtieth battery in Sevastopol. Participation of the battery in hostilities

07.08.2015 07.08.2015

The legendary armored turret battery of the coast guard was built in 1913, back in tsarist times, before the revolution. She held the defense even during the First World War.

Another name is Fort Maxim Gorky. The battery is a unique artillery fortress, a kind of “underground battleship”. Its block mass of concrete is poured into the ground to a depth of 19 meters, and giant guns with a caliber of 12 inches (30.5 cm) are located on towers removed from the lost battleship "Empress Maria", each of the towers weighs 1360 tons and is capable of withstand a direct hit from a medium bomb.

Now the battery is armed with two turret gun mounts (6 barrels, previously 4 barrels). Their shells weigh 471 kg each, and the firing range is 44 kilometers. This coastal battery has no analogues in Ukraine. It is the largest fortification structure in Sevastopol.

In the turret room there was a railway with manual trolleys in which ammunition was delivered.

During the defense of Sevastopol in 1941-1942, the battery was surrounded by the Nazis, and almost all of its personnel died. Despite this, the battery played an important role in the defense of the city.

German generals and fortifiers repeatedly recognized that the Maxim Gorky fort was “a true masterpiece of engineering art,” and that it was the Maxim Gorky fort that “due to its exceptional qualities was able to delay the fall of Sevastopol for more than six months.” On the walls of the battery that died in an unequal battle, enemy soldiers wrote “... the strongest fortress in the world.” After the war, the battery was restored and its armament was strengthened - the turrets became three-barrel.

The 30th battery is still among the active military units of the Russian Federation and provides coastal defense of the city.

The last time the battery fired was in 1958 during the filming of The Sea on Fire. As a result, windows in many houses in nearby villages were blown out, and the roofs of some houses were even torn off.

Map

Where is the 30th coastal tower battery located? It’s simple, look at the mark on the map, write down the address or coordinates for your navigator or smartphone 44°39.804′, 33°33.423′, read the directions under the map. You should definitely visit this place!

How to get to the 30th coastal tower battery

Russia, Republic of Crimea, .
in the north of the city, Lyubimovka village

Photo

305-mm turret battery No. 30. Firing position and turrets of MB-3-12 FM
I shot these photographs in 2005 and they were left in storage for almost nine years. Now that the Internet is filled with photographs from this still active military facility of the Russian Ministry of Defense, I think it’s time to publish them, collecting them into thematic reports that echo the story about the Voroshilov Battery. The benefits of this will be undoubted, because practice tells us that even a unique military heritage very quickly becomes a disappearing heritage. I think that visitors to the 30th battery in recent years will be interested in comparing it with how it looked before.

The 30th artillery battery began construction in 1913 and initially bore the number 26. In 1917, construction was stopped, the pouring of the concrete mass was only 70% completed. Construction resumed only in 1928 and the battery received its new number 30. The battery went into operation in 1934, although various deficiencies were corrected until 1940. The battery was armed with two two-gun MB-2-12 artillery mounts with 305 mm guns. Similar installations were located on Russian batteries in the Gulf of Finland and on the 35th battery on Cape Chersonesos.
During the defense of Sevastopol in 1941-1942, the battery served as the backbone of its defense and fought to the last.
In 1947, a decision was made to restore the battery. Due to the impossibility of restoring the MB-2-12 installations, it was decided to use the first and fourth turrets from the battleship Poltava. Due to the larger dimensions of the now three-gun turrets, the battery underwent significant modifications.
The battery entered service in 1954 as the 459th tower artillery battalion; subsequently it changed its name several times.
In the summer of 1997, in accordance with the agreement between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on the division of the Black Sea Fleet, the personnel of the 632nd regiment and the 459th tower division that was part of it left for the Caucasian coast. The territory of the former battery town and the technical position of the regiment were transferred to the Ukrainian Naval Forces. Now completely plundered. To maintain the weapons and fortifications of the former 30th battery, which remained part of the Black Sea Fleet, the 267th Conservation Platoon of the Black Sea Fleet Coastal Troops was formed in the same year.
In the summer of 2004, the 30th battery celebrated the 70th anniversary of its presence in the Black Sea Fleet.
Unfortunately, the future fate of the battery remains uncertain, since its transfer to the jurisdiction of Ukraine could lead to the looting of the battery and the subsequent cutting of unique 305-mm tower installations for scrap metal, as has already happened in Sevastopol with the 180-mm tower and 130-mm open ones transferred to Ukraine batteries.
Source: N.V. Gavrilkin (Moscow), D.Yu. Stogniy (Sevastopol). Battery No. 30. 70 years in service. Citadel Nos. 12 and 13. In the future I will use it in one form or another. Quote from: http://www.bellabs.ru/30-35/30.html


The battery is located on an elongated, tongue-shaped hill on the southern bank of the Belbek River valley. The position is open. Two turret installations are located in one gun block. The command post is located at a height to the east, on the site of an unfinished fort from the early 20th century. The command post and the gun block are connected by a 650-meter-long hole punched at a depth of up to 38 meters. A little to the west of the gun block, in a former shelter for roll-out guns, there is a transformer substation.
You can get to the 30th battery from Sevastopol by any minibus going to Lyubimovka. Coming out at the lapel of the state farm named after. Sofia Perovskaya we begin to climb through the residential area on the road up the mountain, passing by the house-museum of the revolutionary. If you take a little to the left, then, passing by the dining room, on the other edge of the vacant lot you can see one of the anti-sabotage defense bunkers of the 30th battery with a water tank installed on it. Of course it looks ugly, but it’s better this way than demolishing it.
The ground defense of the 30th battery in 1941 consisted of six reinforced concrete, five-embrasure, two-story machine gun bunkers. In the upper casemate, a 7.62-mm Maxim machine gun was installed on a turntable; in the lower casemate there was a chemical shelter and an ammunition depot. In addition, rifle trenches and wire barriers were built around the battery positions. In the area of ​​the command post, concrete parapets with niches covering the unbuilt fort were used as trenches.

From the bunker with the tank we will go out onto the road to the 30th battery. On the approach to the territory of the military unit there is a monument to the mass grave of the defenders of the 30th battery....

A few more photos

30th tower coastal battery - one of the most powerful fortifications of the coastal defense of the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet. Construction began in 1913 on the Alkadar hill (near the present village of Lyubimovka) according to a military design. engineer general N.A. Buynitsky. Initially it was number 26. Construction was stopped in 1915. Completed in 1928-1934 according to the military project. engineer A.I. Vasilkov.

Intended to defend the sea approaches to Sevastopol from the western and northwestern directions. It was armed with two 305-mm twin-gun turrets "MB-2-12", designed and manufactured by the Leningrad Metal Plant (it is widely believed that turrets or battleship guns were installed on the 30 B.B. "Empress Maria", wrong). The weight of the projectile is 471 kg, the firing range is up to 42 km. In terms of its design, the battery consisted of a gun block (a reinforced concrete block 130 m long and 50 m wide, in which gun turrets were installed; inside the block on two floors there were ammunition cellars, a power station, residential and service premises with a total area of ​​over 3000 mg) and a command post with armored combat and rangefinder cabins and a central post with fire control devices located at a depth of 37 m underground. The gun block and the command post were connected to each other by a 600-meter underground corridor (loss).

A special town was built to accommodate battery personnel in peacetime. Since 1937 30 B.B. commanded Art. Lieutenant (from 1939 - cap., from 1942 - major) G.A. Alexander. Back to top Great Patriotic War was part of the 1st separate coastal defense artillery division of the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet, being the most modern and well-trained battery. First live firing of 30 B.B. V defense of Sevastopol 1941-1942 was carried out on November 1, 1941 in parts of the German mobile group of Ziegler in the area of ​​the Alma station (now Pochtovoye).

During two months of hostilities, 30 B.B. fired 1238 rounds, which led to complete wear of the guns. In Jan.-Feb. 1942 by specialists from the Leningrad plant "Bolshevik", Artillery Repair Plant No. 1127 of the Black Sea Fleet (foremen S.I. Prokuda and I. Sechko), together with the battery personnel, for 16 days, work that had no analogue in world practice was carried out to replace gun barrels weighing more than 50 tons each, without special crane equipment and only 1.5 km from the front line. Preparing in the spring of 1942 for the decisive assault on Sevastopol and understanding the importance "Fort Maxim Gorky - I"(German name of the battery) in its defense system, the enemy concentrated to fight 30 B.B. a powerful group of heavy artillery, including 600-mm mortars specially delivered from Germany "Thor" And " One" and 800 mm railway gun "Dora". On June 7, 1942, the 1st battery tower was disabled by a direct hit from several heavy shells. The remaining 2nd turret fired about 600 rounds over the next 10 days.

Only after it failed on the morning of June 17 did the German troops (213th Infantry Regiment of the 132nd Infantry Division, two battalions of the 132nd Engineer Regiment and the 1st Battalion of the 173rd Engineer Regiment) leave days were able to surround the battery. Its personnel, along with some of the fighters and commanders of the 95th SD defending in the Lyubimovka region, fought in underground structures for more than a week, repeatedly making attempts to break out of the encirclement. Trying to break the resistance of the battery defenders, German sappers fired several powerful explosions inside the already destroyed towers. A fire started in the gun block. Most of the people in it died. Battery Commissar Art., wounded during an unsuccessful breakout attempt. Political instructor E.K. Soloviev shot himself. A group of personnel led by G.A. Alexander managed to cross the turna to the central post, from where on the night of June 26, through the drainage gallery, they came to the surface and tried to break through to the partisans, but the next day, in the region of the village of Duvankoy ( now Verkhnesadovoe) was discovered and captured by the enemy. On June 26, German assault groups broke through into the gun block and captured its last 40 defenders.

In 1949-1954 the battery was restored (instead of the old two-gun turrets, three-gun turrets were installed" MB-3-12-FM"taken from a battleship" Frunze" (formerly " Poltava") BF, power equipment was replaced, a new, most advanced for that time, fire control system was installed" Shore"with a radar station and heat direction finders) and was reorganized into the 459th separate tower artillery division. Until the mid-1990s, as part of the 778th artillery, and then the 51st missile and 632nd missile and artillery regiments, the division provided coastal defense of the Main Base Black Sea Fleet In 1997, the division's personnel were transferred to the Caucasian coast, and the fortifications were transferred to the 267th conservation platoon.

Many thanks to the battery commander and the people who devote all their efforts to preserving the legendary thirty, often spending personal funds on it! May God grant more such people in the ranks of the military!

There is a temple near the territory of the military unit...

There is a temple near the territory of the military unit...

The territory is closed, but you can get close to the gun turrets and admire them from behind the barbed wire.

The territory is closed, but you can get close to the gun turrets and admire them from behind the barbed wire.

250-day defense of Sevastopol 1941-1942. became one of the most striking pages in the history of World War II. The defenders of the main base of the Black Sea Fleet thwarted the plans of the German command to attack the Caucasus, influencing the entire course of the war. The 30th and 35th tower coastal batteries played a significant role in the defense of Sevastopol, becoming the basis of the artillery power of the city’s defenders, inflicting significant losses on the Germans and pinning down enormous enemy forces.
The 30th battery fought until June 27, 1942, when it was completely blocked and captured by the Germans. After the war, the battery was restored (unlike the 35th battery, which remained abandoned for many years, and only in recent years, through the efforts of patrons, it was turned into a museum), its armament was strengthened, and new fire control and life support systems were installed. To rearm the battery, they used two three-gun turrets of the battleship Poltava (two other turrets of this battleship were installed on the Voroshilov battery on Russky Island near Vladivostok in the 1930s). The 30th battery is still among the active military units of the Russian Federation.
On the eve of Victory Day, thanks to the invitation of the press service of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, I was able to visit the battery, where 70 years ago it was not so quiet and calm, but huge 600-mm shells were exploding and people were dying...
Original post

2. One of the results of the analysis of the defense of the Port Arthur fortress during the Russian-Japanese War of 1905 was the decision to build on the dominant heights of the flanks of the Sevastopol defensive region the two most powerful coastal batteries on the Black Sea: No. 30 - in the area of ​​​​the village of Lyubimovka, at the mouth of the Belbek River , No. 35 - in the area of ​​​​Cape Chersonesus. Each battery had 4 305 mm caliber guns mounted in two rotating armored turrets (battery No. 30 had one gun pod for two armored turrets, and battery No. 35 had two gun pods with one armored turret each).

3. The construction of an armored turret battery at the mouth of the Belbek River began in 1912, taking into account the recommendations of Cui, who, having studied the features of the defense of this city in 1854 - 1855 in a special work, proposed the most advantageous position for it. It was a hill, somewhat curved and one side facing the sea. By 1914, they managed to dig pits for the towers and several underground cellars, after which the construction of the battery was mothballed, because The Russian fleet dominated the Black Sea in 1914 - 1917, and enemy ships did not dare to appear near its base.
At the end of the 20s, the command of the naval forces of the Black and Azov Seas decided to complete construction and turned to the People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov for support. The People's Commissar approved the project, and work began immediately. Specialists saved every ruble - during construction they used many mechanisms and parts left over from the heavy warships of the tsarist fleet.

4. In 1933, a coastal defense battery, equal in salvo power to a battleship, came into operation. She was assigned number 30, a graduate of the Moscow Artillery School, Captain Georgy Alexander, was appointed commander, and senior political instructor Ermil Solovyov was appointed military commissar.
Dominance over the surrounding terrain provided the armored turrets, which rotated 360 degrees, with all-round fire. The maximum firing range is up to 30 km.

5. Both batteries - the 30th and the 35th - were initially built as coastal ones, that is, they were intended to fight enemy ships. But when German troops broke into Crimea in October 1941, coastal batteries, designed to protect Sevastopol from the sea, became the main caliber of the city’s defense from land.
In German documents, the Sevastopol coastal batteries were called “forts”: “Maxim Gorky-I” (battery No. 30) and “Maxim Gorky-II” (battery No. 35). The 35th battery was located further from the German offensive area, so the most prominent role in the defense of the city was destined to be played by the “thirty” under the command of Major Alexander. German generals and fortifiers stated that “Fort Maxim Gorky-I,” which was “a true masterpiece of engineering art,” “due to its exceptional qualities, was able to delay the fall of Sevastopol for more than six months.” The batteries were subjected to continuous bombardment from the air and shelling from heavy and super-heavy guns.

6. According to the memoirs of the commander of the German army in Crimea, Manstein, “in general, in the Second World War, the Germans never achieved such a massive use of artillery as in the attack on Sevastopol.” According to his testimony, the city was shelled by artillery forces, in which “among the high-power batteries there were cannon batteries with caliber systems up to 190 mm, as well as several batteries of howitzers and mortars of 305, 350 and 420 mm caliber. In addition, there were two special guns of 600 mm caliber (Karl-type mortars) and the famous Dora cannon of 800 mm caliber" (cited).
When the defenders of the battery reported to the High Command Headquarters that the Germans were hitting the battery with 610-mm shells, the hits of which were cracking the concrete, they were not believed at first. I had to provide evidence by taking this photograph near an unexploded shell from the Karl mortar that hit the battery.

7. Today, the museum of the 30th battery displays one of the fragments of the very shells with which the Germans tried to destroy the battery.

10. The battery fought until the last shell. On June 17, 1942, it was finally blocked by the enemy, on June 18, the last shells were fired, and on June 21, the citadel’s equipment was blown up by personnel. About 200 people remained in the encircled battery - artillerymen, soldiers of the 95th Infantry Division and marines. For 9 days they fought in casemates and underground structures...

11. German and Romanian generals inspect the captured battery. By the way, it’s interesting to compare the builds of the enemy generals with the Soviet military leaders in the adjacent photo...

12. After the war, the battery was restored, its armament was strengthened, and new fire control and life support systems were installed. Today it is among the active military units of Russia.

13. Entrance to the battery casemates - turret rooms. At the entrance there is a memorial sign to its defenders.

14. Alarms and memorial plaques that do not allow today’s soldiers to forget the immortal names of people who gave their lives in that war

15. Long corridors-porterns pass under both gun towers. The casemates housed the full crew of the battery.

16. Each room is protected by an armored door, allowing to protect personnel and equipment from explosions. The design of the turns and the placement of rooms in them allowed the defenders to conduct corridor battles, using the doors as cover

17. Post of energy and vitality. Heart and battery power.

18. Control systems

19. Command bridge

20. Spare fire control post

22. Strategic map of the defense of the waters of Sevastopol from the sea

23. During the war, Sevastopol was much smaller than today...

26. Entrance to the gun room. Shells are stored there and feeding mechanisms for them are installed.

27. Feeding mechanisms of projectiles. Shells and powder charges are stored separately. During the defense of Sevastopol, these racks contained high-explosive, fragmentation, high-explosive, armor-piercing, concrete-piercing, high-explosive armor-piercing, shrapnel, incendiary, smoke, lighting shells and... shells with leaflets

28. The mechanisms are equipped with electric and manual drives, allowing the projectile to be fed even in the event of interruptions in the battery power supply. Special probes grab a huge blank from the rack and transfer it to the feed belt

29. Along this belt the projectile is fed into the turret room

30. In the bowels of the tower.

31. Communications

32. The flickering light of a light bulb and the hum of metal...

33. Entrance to the tower itself. Or rather, in its lower part

35. Electrical cables and intercom

36. Tray for supplying powder charge

36. Handle for locking and feeding device

37. Intercom

38. Charging chutes

39. Turning platforms transfer the projectile from the feed belt to the chutes

How does the process of feeding shells take place?

40. Kubrick of personnel.

41. Telephone for operational communication

42. Water tank. In the event of a siege, personnel could be on autonomous support for quite a long time

43. Armored door to the living quarters

44. Guides are fixed throughout the walls, which are used to feed shells and powder charges from the outside to the storage area.

45. This is what they look like assembled

46. ​​Breech of guns from the battleship "Poltava", installed today on the battery

47. Control toggle switches

48. Breech

49. Base of the trunk

50. During the battle you cannot hear commands here. Therefore they are presented visually

51. The barrel weighs 50 tons. It is worth noting here that by the beginning of 1942, the accuracy and firing range began to fall. The wear of the barrels had an effect - the rifling in their channels was worn out, so the shells remained unstable on their trajectory after departure. Spare 50-ton barrels were stored in a strictly secret place in one of the bays. According to the instructions, replacing barrels required working with special cranes for 60 days. On long winter nights, the batteries, using the “burlatsk team” method, almost manually, using a small crane and jacks, replaced the barrels on the “thirtieth” in just 16 days. The distance to the enemy these days was only 1.5-2 km...

52. All mechanisms are greased and in working order

53. All three barrels in each turret can fire independently of each other and are separated by separate charging chambers

54. Gunner's "eye", located on the top of the turret

55. Stairs from the tower to the ground

56. In one of the premises there is a small museum where traces of those battles found on the territory of the 30th battery are collected

57. According to the military, everything here was simply strewn with fragments and parts of shells, mines and landmines.

58. German plates, released in 1941..

59. The Germans carefully studied Soviet weapons. Memo to the platoon commander with a German stamp on the cover

61. German military book

62. Decayed submachine gun and grenades

66. Spring 2012. 70 years have passed since those days. Coming out into the fresh air from the dungeons soaked in war, there remains a feeling of some kind of aching pain inside...

The report was prepared with the assistance of the command of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation.

No. 12 and No. 13.

In the summer of 2004, the legendary 30th battery celebrated 70 years since its inclusion in the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet - Sevastopol. Construction began before the First World War and was completed under Soviet rule during the entire heroic defense of Sevastopol in 1941–1942, together with tower battery No. 35, it was a kind of “backbone” of the artillery defense system of the fortress and inflicted serious damage on the enemy in manpower and equipment.

Part I
Design, construction and battery installation

Design and construction

The experience of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, one of the central episodes of which was the struggle for the Russian seaside fortress and the naval base of Port Arthur, showed the need to equip naval fortresses with modern long-range artillery to protect naval bases from shelling from seas.

After the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Empire had 11 sea fortresses - 5 on the Baltic coast (Kronstadt, Libau, Ust-Dvinsk, Sveaborg and Vyborg), 4 on the Black Sea (Sevastopol, Kerch, Batumi and Nikolaev) and 2 on the Pacific coast (Vladivostok) and Nikolaevsk-on-Amur). The strategic purpose of the fortresses was to provide freedom of action for one’s army and navy and to make it difficult for the enemy to do the same, while the fortresses had to carry out their task with possible savings in the expenditure of manpower.

The largest and most common shortcoming of domestic naval fortresses was the imperfection of their design and the obsolescence of weapons. In addition, due to the insufficiently remote location of coastal batteries, due to the superior firing range of the artillery weapons of the enemy fleet, there was insecurity from bombardment from the sea of ​​raids and port facilities.

The most powerful artillery installations of the Sevastopol fortress by 1906 were 11-inch guns of 35 calibers, model 1887 in length. In terms of projectile weight - 344 kg and firing range - 13.8 km, they were only slightly inferior to the 12-inch Mk IX guns (Model. 1898) of British battleships (projectile weight - 386 kg, firing range - 14.2 km), but they lost very much in terms of rate of fire (1 shot in 2 minutes versus 4 shots in the same time for British guns). However, there were only 8 such guns in Sevastopol. The rest were completely obsolete 11-inch and 9-inch guns and mortars of the 1867 and 1877 models.

In addition, unlike battleships, where large-caliber guns were placed in armored turrets with electric or hydraulic guidance drives, the guns of coastal batteries were located openly (at best, with light anti-fragmentation shields to protect servants), and all operations for their loading and guidance were made by hand. As a result, the rate of fire of large-caliber coastal cannons was several times inferior to naval ones. True, this shortcoming was somewhat compensated for by the use of rangefinders on coastal batteries with an external base of the Petrushevsky and Launitz system and group fire control systems of the De-Charière system, allowing the fire of several batteries to be concentrated simultaneously on one target.

The disadvantage in the location of the coastal batteries of Sevastopol was that they were all grouped in a rather narrow area from Tolstoy Cape to Karantinnaya Bay. This created a high density of fire in the outer roadstead and before the entrance to Sevastopol Bay, but allowed enemy ships to freely fire at the fortress and the city with fire from Cape Fiolent and Balaklava.

In April 1906, a special meeting chaired by the Minister of Naval Admiral A.A. Birilev decided that the main caliber armament of the new battleships planned for construction should consist of 12-inch guns with a barrel length of at least 50 calibers. By 1908, the Obukhov Steel Plant (OSZ) had developed and tested such a 52-caliber gun. She fired a projectile mod. 1911 weighing 470.9 kg with an initial speed of 762 m/s at a range of 28.5 km and in its caliber was one of the most powerful artillery pieces in the world. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU) of the Military Ministry, when choosing a new large-caliber artillery system for coastal defense, chose the Obukhov twelve-inch gun.

In 1911, the head of the GAU, General D.D. Kuzmin-Karavaev ordered the order of the NEO for coastal defense, 12-inch 52-caliber Naval Drawing guns with an elongated chamber and a rifling of constant steepness. Compared to the cannons of the Naval Department (designated by the letters “MA”), the guns of the Military Department (designated by the letters “SA”) had a 9-inch (229 mm) elongated charging chamber, which, according to the GAU Artillery Committee, should have contributed to less wear on the rifled rifle. parts of barrels when shooting.

By the resolution of the meeting of military and naval ministers and chiefs of the General Staff on August 15, 1909, Sevastopol retained the significance of an operational base for an active battle fleet, and the only one on the Black Sea, since Nikolaev was recognized only as a rear base and refuge for fleet vessels.

In the “Report of the General Staff of the Military Department on the release of 715 million rubles for the implementation of certain measures in the Military Department to strengthen the defense of the state,” compiled in March 1910 and approved by the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Gerngros, it was noted:

“In the Black Sea, the program for the development of naval armed forces provides for the reconstruction of the main operational base of the Sevastopol fleet. The improvement of Sevastopol includes the development of artillery weapons with powerful types of guns to protect the port from fire from the sea, supplying the fortress with some equipment and protecting it from land from mastering open force. Security against fire from a dry route should be achieved with good artillery and the assistance of ground forces.

In this case, first of all, it is planned to strengthen the coastal front by installing strong batteries on the flanks, armed with the largest modern cannons, as well as installing batteries designed to use their fire to remove the enemy who would try to bombard the ports from the sea through the heights south of the city. This work will require an amount of 8,000,000 rubles. The second priority is the creation of close-in ground defense, and some of this work had to be carried out in the second decade.”

The Fortress Commission under the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GUGSH), chaired by Major General Danilov, at meetings in early 1911, first of all put forward the demand for strengthening coastal defense, which was planned to be brought to a significant degree of readiness in the next five years.

The main coastal position of the fortress was supposed to be expanded to the north - to the mouth of the Belbek River and to the southwest - to Streletskaya Bay, installing four 12-inch guns in armored turrets and twelve 10-inch guns on its flanks. In addition, to prevent the enemy from bombarding the fortress from the south, through the heights of the Chersonesos (Heraclea) peninsula, it was planned to create and arm an Additional coastal front between Cape Chersonesus and Balaklava Bay, using for this forty 9-inch mortars, which, due to their short range, were removed from the weapons of the Main Primorsky Front front.

The basis for the development of ground defense was the decision to limit ourselves to only urgently necessary structures, providing protection against long-range bombardment from the dry route and against gradual attack by field forces located on the peninsula.

The group of ground fortifications, in addition to protecting coastal batteries from attack from the rear by closing their ridges and organizing anti-assault defense, was given the task of securing the flanks of the Primorsky Front, because in the event of a surprise attack by an enemy ship landing, it is difficult to expect that the enemy, armed with light field artillery, will significantly break away from the sea route and the fire support of the ships.

On June 18, 1910, the draft ideas of the Main Directorate of the General Staff were transferred to the Commander of the Odessa Military District for the formation of a local commission for the detailed and complete development of the initial design of the fortress within the specified allocations.

Based on these considerations, the local Sevastopol commission developed an appropriate project for arming the fortress, which was submitted to the Main Directorate of the General Staff on October 14, 1910.

For the new 12-inch guns, open mountings were proposed as cheaper. The armament of the Additional Front was to consist of twelve 152-mm Kane guns and sixteen (instead of forty) 9-inch mortars.

The GUGSH Fortress Commission noted that “Under modern conditions, it is difficult to imagine that more than 24 warships could appear on the Black Sea. Most likely, the appearance of the Austro-Turkish fleet would amount to 19 battleships with a force of artillery fire on one side of about 150 guns with a caliber of at least 152 mm. Assuming the reinforcement of these fleets with ships from the fleets of other states, the commission recognized the possibility of action against Sevastopol by 24 ships. 24 battleships can simultaneously operate 180-200 guns.

But with such assumptions, the armament of the coastal batteries of the Sevastopol fortress appears to be sufficient, significantly exceeding the ratio of guns on the shore and in the fleet, which is obtained with various methods of calculating the number of guns on the shore.

However, not all coastal defense guns have sufficient range and power, and the batteries are not far from the port, so the enemy fleet, having guns with a greater reach than coastal weapons, can bombard port facilities with impunity. Therefore, for the success of the fight, as well as the removal of the bombarding fleet position, it is absolutely necessary to assign 12-inch guns to the Main position, placing them on the flanks of the existing batteries. Considering it sufficient to have four 12-inch guns in service with the Sevastopol fortress, the commission spoke in favor of 8 guns, because “Two-gun batteries present certain difficulties for firing, and the 11-inch guns that predominate in the Sevastopol fortress do not have a very long combat range.”

The GUGSH Fortress Commission decided to “assign eight 12-inch guns to the Main Combat Position; to remove the position of the bombing fleet and simultaneously replenish the power of the existing weapons, place them in two batteries, with the first four guns installed on the South side, where the firing sector is larger.”

The cost of supplying the Sevastopol fortress for the artillery unit was determined at 11,322,000 rubles and was divided into two stages, with the funds of the first stage allocated for the first five years amounting to 3,280,000 rubles.

The location of the 12-inch batteries was determined by the southern flank of the Main Combat Position in the area of ​​Streletskaya Bay (a group of batteries based on battery No. 15 for four 12-inch, eight 10-inch, four 48-linear (122 mm) and four 3-inch guns ) and the northern flank of the Primorsky position at the mouth of the Belbek River (a group of batteries based on battery No. 16 for four 12-inch, four 10-inch, four 6-inch and four 3-inch guns), where the greater range could be most advantageously used firing to push back the bombarding enemy fleet.

In view of the location of the three batteries of the Northern group on the open flank of the Primorsky fortress front, the commission proposed combining the batteries into one fortification with the construction of a common gorge. Land fortifications should be built on the heights of Belbek with a front to the north in the form of several long-term strongholds, which, together with battery No. 16 and the already built semi-long-term redoubt, constitute one common defensive area. (In the final version of the project, it was decided to build the 12-inch battery of the Southern Group not near Streletskaya Bay, but on Cape Khersones, which provided a larger firing range at sea targets.)

On all three batteries of one group, it was planned to build casematized ammunition cellars (for one ammunition for each gun), rooms for gun servants, fire control devices and power plants (dynamos). The thickness of the vaults of the casemates for protection against medium-caliber naval shells should have been 6-7 feet of concrete.

The journal of the meeting of the Fortress Commission of the GUGSH was approved by the Tsar on May 21, 1911, where the 48-line guns were replaced with 120-mm Vickers systems, which were ordered from the Obukhov Steel Plant.

In 1913, when the 10-inch (No. 16) and 120-mm (No. 24) batteries of the Northern group were already completed, on the Alkadar hill (one of the western spurs of the Mekenzi Mountains), approximately 1.5 km east of the river mouth Belbek, construction of the 12-inch tower battery No. 26 has begun.

The battery project was developed under the leadership of the battery builder, military engineer Colonel Smirnov. The project was considered at a meeting of the Engineering Committee of the Main Military Technical Directorate (GVTU) on August 28, 1914 and again, taking into account the comments of the GVTU, on June 26, 1915. The advisory member of the Technical Committee of the GVTU, Major General Malkov-Panin, reported. The cost of building the battery was estimated at 850 thousand rubles.

The location of the battery on a narrow, tongue-shaped hill (about 60 m above sea level) with a steep slope of up to 45 degrees determined the architecture of its structures. Unlike the 12-inch battery No. 25 of the Southern group, which had two separate concrete blocks (one for each tower) connected by a rubble, on the 26th they decided to place both towers in a common block elongated along the front (as on the Kronstadt forts “Krasnaya Gorka” " and "Ino"). For close defense purposes, a separate casematized building was built 50 m southwest of the gun block - a concrete shelter for 3-inch roll-out anti-assault guns and their servants, and 600 m northeast - an infantry fortification with concrete rifle trenches and casemated shelters.

The design of the concrete block (battery array) was designed on the basis of the “Temporary Instructions for the Construction of Floors and Walls of Casematized Fortress Premises.” The instructions were developed in 1912 based on experiments in testing new casemate covering structures on Berezan Island by shelling and revised based on the Warsaw experiments in the direction of strengthening the structures in 1913 and 1914.

The floor walls of the block were designed to withstand two hits in one place by 12-inch naval artillery shells at impact angles of 20 degrees and had a layered structure - 2.4 m of concrete, 2.1 m of sand layer and 2.1 m of concrete. The vaulted coverings of the casemates with anti-splintering metal clothing designed by Colonel Savrimovich (a continuous layer of bent steel channels No. 30 and a 30-cm layer of asphalt concrete above it) were designed from monolithic unreinforced concrete with a thickness of 2.4 m. Such a covering was designed to be hit by one 12-inch projectile.

The construction of the battery proceeded at a rapid pace, but in 1915, work on the construction of the battery was suspended, since the tower installations and equipment manufactured for it in Petrograd were used to urgently strengthen the coastal defense in the Baltic (the sea fortress of Emperor Peter the Great).

However, work on the construction of the battery was not completely stopped, and by the fall of 1917, the construction of the concrete mass was 70% completed. The front part of the floor walls of the layered structure was made up to the top plane of the covering, and the side, back and interior walls were made up to the toes of the vaults. No. 30 steel channels were laid over all casemates and a layer of asphalt concrete was filled. The rigid drums of the towers were installed and concreted around the perimeter, 40% of the armored doors were hung, the remaining doors were available at the construction site in full. To deliver heavy parts of tower installations from the Mekenzievy Gory station, a normal gauge railway line was built. The battery's water supply was provided by two artesian wells. To store water under the floor of the gun block, concrete tanks with a total capacity of 500 m 3 were installed. The Petrograd Metal Plant was finishing the production of a 100-ton electric crane. Work continued there on the production of new tower installations.

At tower battery No. 25 of the Southern Group, by this time all concrete work had been completed and the installation of metal structures of the first tower had begun.

The October Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent foreign intervention and Civil War interrupted the construction of the 26th and 25th batteries for 11 years.

In 1925, the Armament Commission of the Main Artillery Directorate of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet (GAU RKKF) recognized the need to “install a 4-gun, 2-turret battery with 12-inch / 52 cal. cannons on battery 26 of the Sevastopol fortress." However, it was impossible to immediately begin to implement this decision. At this time, in Sevastopol, work was in full swing on the completion of tower battery No. 8 (formerly 25th), the tower installations of which were 95% ready at the Leningrad Metal Plant. We had to wait another three years, especially since the tower installations intended for the 26th battery were in a low degree of readiness. The military-industrial complex of the USSR, which was just beginning to emerge from the post-revolutionary devastation, was not yet able to complete the completion of two more tower installations.

On March 9, 1928, at a meeting of the Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) of the USSR, chaired by K.E. Voroshilov, the decision was made:
“Recognize it necessary to complete the construction of a 305 mm tower battery in Sevastopol
1. Construction should begin this year within the limits of funds earmarked for coastal defense in 1927-28.
2. Approve the estimate for completion in the total amount of RUB 3,843,000.
3. Complete the construction within 3 years.”

By order of August 21, 1928, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Black Sea Naval Forces (MSFM) created a Permanent Meeting on the construction of the battery (by that time it had received a new number - 30) chaired by the commander of the Black Sea Coastal Defense I.M. Ludri and among the members: Head of the Coastal Construction Department of the Main Military Port I.M. Tsalkovich, head of the artillery of the Black Sea Coastal Defense G. Chetverukhin and head of the Surveillance and Communications Service of MSChM Ermakov.

Despite the fact that the concrete mass of the battery was very far from completion, the installation of gun turrets, internal equipment and utilities had not begun at all, and the command post did not even exist in the project, the RVS set the date for putting the facility into operation on January 1, 1932.

The project for completing the battery was developed by the defensive construction department of the Coastal Construction Directorate of the Sevastopol Main Military Port under the leadership of military engineer A.I. Vasilkova. Unlike the 35th battery, where the coatings of gun blocks built before the revolution were made of unreinforced concrete (with the exception of anti-splinter clothing), the coating of a single gun block of the 30th battery was designed from reinforced concrete with a reinforcement consumption of up to 100 kg/m 3 . The lack of vibrators and the high saturation of reinforcement did not allow the use of rigid concrete, so it was proposed to use semi-plastic concrete using grade “250” cement (consumption - 400 kg/m3) and a filler of diorite crushed stone with the addition of up to 30% local gravel. It was planned to build a stone crushing and concrete plant, a Bremsberg for supplying sand and gravel from Lyubimovsky beach and the restoration of a railway line from the Mekenzievy Gory station to deliver cement, diorite crushed stone from the Kurtsevsky quarry near Simferopol, metal structures of anchors, beams of anti-splinter coatings, and later - to the construction site. guns and parts of turrets, combat and rangefinder rooms of the command post.

By September 1, 1930, the restoration of the railway and crane tracks was completed. All armored doors were installed in the battery gun block and the sand layer of the floor wall was filled in. We began construction of a concrete plant for concreting the block's surface. The readiness of tower artillery installations at the Leningrad Metal Plant by that time was 30%. The Izhora plant manufactured the roofs of the towers and the conning tower of the command post.

By December 24, 1930, the head of the Coastal Construction Department of the Main Military Port of MSChM I.M. Tsalkovich gave the order to form the “Office of a Separate Manufacturer of Work on the Construction of Battery No. 30 (Lyubimovskaya KOPR BS MSChM).” Engineer Mitrofanov was appointed its head, and military engineer Kolokoltsev was appointed technical assistant.

In the fall of 1931, the construction of the battery was visited by the Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs S.S. Kamenev.

During the preparatory period of construction (1929-1930), in addition to restoring the railway track, they designed and built a battery barracks town for 500 people with command apartments and private barracks, a club, a bathhouse, etc., a highway to the construction sites of the firing position and command post , as well as workshops. To supply the construction with electricity, a transformer substation was equipped that received current from the power plant of the Northern Dock of Sevastopol.

An exceptional difficulty was caused by concreting the coating of the gun block, located on a hill, the small area of ​​which did not allow placing a conventional type concrete plant and the necessary reserves of cement, sand and crushed stone. In this regard, they accepted the proposal of military engineer A.I. Vasilkova feeds concrete from below using a concrete mast. Using this system, several thousand cubic meters of concrete were poured to enable the installation of rigid drums and fixed armor (cuirass) for gun turrets. At the same time, under the leadership of military engineer B.K. Sokolov was designing and building a powerful concrete plant of the original vertical type.

Built in 1931, the plant was a complex multi-story structure, the foundation of which was a concrete shelter for anti-assault guns built by 1917 next to the gun block (it was equipped with an electrical substation). On the top floor of the plant, in special bunkers, there was a four-hour supply of cement, sand, and gravel, supplied along an inclined 60-meter overpass using electric winches. Below, in six-meter shafts, four Smith-type concrete mixers with a capacity of 1 m 3 each were installed. The supply of materials inside the plant was carried out by elevators into the upper bunkers, and from there by gravity through pipes to concrete mixers. From each concrete mixer, concrete was transported using a vertical shaft lift to a height of 15 m into loading bins, from where it was transported in trolleys with a capacity of 0.5 m 3 along a ring trestle laid around the battery gun block to the laying sites. The plant's productivity reached 45 m3 per hour.

To ensure the solidity of the erected walls and ceilings, they were divided into separate blocks (stones) with a volume of 800 to 2200 m 3, each of which was concreted in layers 20 cm thick with an interval of no more than two hours. The first covering block was concreted by February 27, 1932, and by May 1 of the same year, concreting of the main battery mass was completed. In total, about 22,000 m 3 of concrete and 2,000 tons of steel reinforcement were laid.

Simultaneously with the laying of new concrete, new doorways, channels for ventilation pipelines, electrical cables, etc. were made in the existing walls and ceilings of the casemates.

In parallel with the completion of the gun block, work was carried out on the construction of a command post (CP). Initially it was supposed to be equipped in the gun block itself, on its left flank. This was the cheapest option, since a ready-made structure was used, on which only a conning tower needed to be installed. In addition, there was no need for a connecting line for laying fire control and communication cables. However, the rangefinder room and radio communication antennas would have to be moved to the side, since placing them directly on the combat surface of the block was impossible due to the risk of damage from muzzle gases when firing their own guns. The work of observers in the conning tower of the command post would also be difficult due to the flashes of shots and the dust they raise. In addition, combining a command post with a firing position in a common array reduced the survivability of the battery as a whole, and such a solution no longer met the requirements of the time.

Therefore, in the final version (March 1930), they decided to place the command post at the top of height 39.8, approximately 650 m northeast of the gun block (where the construction of a ground defense stronghold was carried out before 1917). At the same time, on the surface of the mountain there was only a block with an observation armored cap and a rangefinder tower, and all other premises of the command post were arranged in a tunnel type at a depth of 37 m. The cost of the work increased by 600 thousand rubles. (due to the need to rebuild all fortifications, as well as the large length of the porch connecting the command post with the firing position), however, the survivability of the command post increased and visibility improved.

Resolution of the Council of Labor and Defense (STO) of the USSR No. 128/55 of February 22, 1932 “On the construction of the Red Army Navy for 1932” it was supposed to “Complete the construction of battery No. 30 (305 mm x 4) in Sevastopol by 12/01/1933,” but already by the resolution of STO No. 34 of May 27, 1933 “On the state and development of the country’s coastal defense” the date for entry into operation of the 30th The battery was moved to July 1 of the same year.

By that time, work had progressed significantly, although with a large lag behind schedule. In the gun block, the installation of turret installations and ammunition cellar equipment was underway, but it was delayed due to untimely and incomplete deliveries of parts and components by manufacturers.

On June 26, 1933, the Chief of Engineers of the Red Army N.N. visited the construction site. Petin issued the following order:

“The inspection of the progress of work on battery No. 30, carried out by me, together with a group of workers from the UNI RKKA, established:

The work plan for the battery, which was supposed to go into operation last year, was only 22.8% completed as of June 1, 1933. I attribute such a pace of work, which is completely unacceptable on a military construction site, not only to the delay in receiving combat and technical equipment for the battery from the Center, but also to the completely unsatisfactory management of the work on the part of the Fortress UPR and the insufficiency and pressure from the UNI MSChF.

Work schedules were violated repeatedly at all levels of management, starting with UNIMS, UNR, the site and ending with the work team. The command did not mobilize forces to carry out, at any cost, the work plan within the time period established by the Government; There were insufficient efforts on the part of party and professional organizations to ensure the successful completion of this task.

The delay in sending equipment from the Center (sanitary, technical, electromechanical, artillery and projects for the electrification post and control station) cannot justify the completely insufficient pace of work, since even work that did not depend on the receipt of equipment was not accelerated, drainage work, finishing the openings of the casemates, laying the walls, building the compost [command post] - all this could be completed by July 1.

What is striking is the extremely disdainful attitude of the technical management of the site towards the mechanization of the most labor-intensive work: for example, out of 7 available rotary hammers, only 2 are in operation, the rest are inactive awaiting repairs and spare parts, 2 concrete mixers in the warehouse have been lying unused and unrepaired for more than a year.

Maintenance of equipment is poor. Machines and units are not lubricated, and scheduled preventive maintenance of tractors is not carried out.

Technical management of the work is completely insufficient. The work is being carried out without proper technical inspection. Night shifts are very often not provided with technical management at all, because... In most cases, engineering and technical personnel are not present at night work. Technical acceptance of completed work is not carried out, reports are not drawn up, technical staff and workers are not instructed.

There is no work organization plan. The layout of the concrete compost plant is not well thought out; the rail track was laid in such a way that moving trolleys with crushed stone, sand and cement, colliding, delayed the pace of concrete work.

The quality of work is not given due attention. Due to untimely clearing of expansion joints, water leaks inside the array. Work in the pit is carried out without a movable template, which causes unnecessary excavation of rock and laying of excess concrete. The reinforcement mesh, instead of the lower part, is sometimes placed in the upper part of the arch. The crushed stone prepared for concreting the compost is contaminated; washing and screening were not organized in advance. Errors were made in the reinforcement of the compost walls: the clamps are not connected to each other, the external vertical mesh in some places lies on the formwork, the ends are not left in the vertical rods for connection with the coating reinforcement.

Due to careless development of working drawings for the foundation for transformers, there were major alterations in casemate No. 12.

The command, party-political and trade union leadership does not use all the levers of mass political work and has not yet mobilized the activity of the working masses to fight for the implementation of the plan on time; Socialist competition and shock movement were not adequately developed around the main issues of the struggle for real cost accounting, for high quality and productivity of labor, for the Bolshevik pace of work.

The shortcomings revealed by the inspection indicate a deep breakthrough in the production, economic and financial work of the fortress section of HP, the almost complete absence of live specific instructions at the sites from HP, to which I draw the attention of the Chief of Engineers of the Black Sea, Comrade. Weinger and put it in front of the former Head of the Department, Comrade. Tsigurov, as well as the Head of the Department, comrade. Kosovich.

In view of the obvious impossibility of completing the construction of Battery No. 30 within the period specified by the Government - July 1, 1933, I am forced to urgently file a petition with the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs - to establish new, in my opinion, very realistic deadlines for completing the work, namely:

1. Along the tower array: finish by
A) Main construction work - 07/20/1933
B) Installation work LMZ – 08/15/1933
B) EMC installation work – 08/15/1933
D) Installation work of STS - 01.11.1933
D) Improvements to the massif and commissioning - 09/15/1933

2. By compost (aerial part).
A) Main construction work - 09/10/1933 B) EMC installation work - 10/01/1933
B) Installation work of STS - 01.10.1933
D) Compost completions and commissioning – 10/01/1933

3. Poterns and underground part of the compost.
A) Main construction work - 10/15/1933
B) Equipment – ​​10/01/1933
B) Compost completions and commissioning - 11/10/1933

At the same time, I am taking measures to speed up the delivery of the missing artillery and technical equipment from the Center...”

By mid-1934, the installation of internal equipment and utilities was completed and test firing of both gun turrets and the first stage of the Barricade fire control system was carried out. The battery was nominally operational, although various improvements and corrections were carried out on it for another six years.

In 1936, installation of the second stage of the fire control system began at the battery command post. Its main element was a horizontal-base rangefinder - an electromechanical plotting tablet designed to determine the coordinates of a target. The difficulty of installation was that the central post room was located at a depth of 37 meters underground, and the dimensions of the existing shaft and the ground entrance to the control center block were too small. To lower the instruments, it was necessary to punch an additional vertical hole in the rocky ground and connect it to the premises of the underground part of the control center with a horizontal excavation. After installation was completed, the excavation was filled with concrete blocks, and the pit was filled with soil. The battery was fully commissioned in 1940.

Battery device

Tower coastal battery No. 30 consisted of the following main structures:
– gun block with two turrets;
– a command post with a conning tower, an armored rangefinder cabin, a central post and a radio room;
– a separate block of electrical transformer substation.

The battery was armed with four 305-mm cannons, 52 calibers long. Of these, three (No. 142, 145 and 158) had an extended chamber of the Military Department (gun brand “SA”). The fourth gun (No. 149), despite being marked “SA,” had a chamber shortened by 220 mm, like the guns of the Naval Department (brand “MA”). The last misunderstanding was revealed only during test firing in 1934. Due to the fact that the variety of guns did not have a particular effect on dispersion during salvo firing, the battery acceptance committee decided to leave the gun in place, but use charges specially selected for its weight.

The information repeatedly indicated in the works of various authors that the 30th battery was allegedly armed with guns from the battleship Empress Maria that sank in 1916 does not correspond to reality.

The tower artillery installations of the 30th battery "MB-2-12" were almost identical in design to the tower artillery installations of the forts "Krasnaya Gorka" and "Ino" of the Kronstadt Fortress and the towers of the 35th battery, with the exception of the system for supplying ammunition from the cellars to the reloading stations departments. At the 35th battery, shells and charges were pushed out of the cellars through special pipes, and at the 30th battery they were rolled out along a roller conveyor (roller conveyor). In addition, in the transfer compartments themselves, instead of manually moving charging carts, a rotating platform driven by an electric motor was installed.

The shells were stored in the cellars in stacks, and they were supplied to the conveyors of the reloading compartments using ratchet trolleys on monorails. Half-charges were stored in cellars in standard metal cases on honeycomb-type racks.

To carry out work on replacing gun barrels and repairing turrets, the battery had a standard 75-ton railway crane. To provide camouflage and protection for the crane during shelling from the sea, a special shelter was built for it in the area of ​​the battery town.

The battery's one-story gun block, about 130 m long and 50 m wide, had two entrances in the rear with armored doors and airlocks protected by cranked drafts. For communication between the 72 rooms of the block, a longitudinal corridor about 100 m long and 3 m wide ran inside it. The block contained wells for gun mounts, shell and charging magazines, a local central post with a reserve group of fire control devices, a power station, a boiler room, compressor and pumping station, filter-ventilation equipment, residential and office premises for personnel. Under the floor of the premises there were containers for storing fuel, oil and water and utility lines. The total area of ​​the battery's gun block was about 3000 m2.

All casemates of the gun block had vaulted coverings made of monolithic reinforced concrete with a thickness of 3 to 4 m with a rigid anti-spalling layer of steel channels No. 30 and an insulating layer of asphalt concrete.

The battery command post, located on a hill 650 m northeast of the gun block, was connected to the last deep loss hole punched in the rocky ground at a depth of up to 38 m. The ground part of the command post was a reinforced concrete block measuring 15x16 m with a thickness of walls and ceilings of up to 3. 5 m. Inside the block there was a radio room with a room for batteries and a personnel quarters. The entrance to the block was equipped with a vestibule-gateway, closed with an armored door and a cranked draft. An armored cabin "KB-16" (wall armor thickness - 406 mm, roof - 305 mm) with four viewing slots and an optical sight of the battery commander of the "PKB" type (later replaced by "VBK-1") was built into the reinforced concrete covering of the block.

50 m from the block, connected to it by a covered communication passage, on a concrete base there was a rotating rangefinder cabin “B-19” with a 10-meter stereoscopic rangefinder from Zeiss and a stereo tube “ST-5” with a 5-meter base, protected by 30- mm armor.

In the underground part of the command post, located at a depth of 37 m in the form of a concrete-lined tunnel 53 m long and 5.5 m wide, there were: the main central battery post, an autonomous power plant and a boiler room with fuel reserves, a filter-ventilation unit and premises for personnel.

The main central post housed the main group of the fire control system (FCS) of the “Barricade” system, consisting of a horizontal base range finder (HBD), an azimuth and distance transformer (TAD), a direct course automatic machine (APK) and a number of other devices.

The builder of the GBD received target designation from six remote observation posts located on Cape Kermenchik, near the village of Mamasai, on the former coastal battery No. 7 (North side of Sevastopol), on the former fort "Liter-A" (area of ​​Streletskaya Bay), Cape Fiolent and Mount Kaya -Bash. Each post was a lightweight reinforced concrete structure that housed an optical stereo rangefinder of a 6-meter “DM-6” base and a sighting device at the end of the “GO” type base. Night shooting was provided by two mobile searchlight stations of the “3-15-4” type, for which reinforced concrete shelters were built on the shore.

The above-ground and underground parts of the control center were connected to each other by a vertical shaft with an electric elevator and stairs.

The 650-meter deep trench connecting the command post with the gun block had a slight slope towards the middle, from where there was a perpendicular branch that served as a drain. Sewage and drainage pipes, laid under the floor, went into it. In the area between the drain and the gun block, the turna had another branch that went out onto the daylight surface, which served as an emergency exit. The shelter of the guardhouse located nearby was added to it.

The transformer substation, designed to supply the battery with electricity from the city high-voltage network, was located in a separate concrete block located 50 m southwest of the gun block (former shelter for guns). The substation had an entrance with an elbow through and five rooms connected by a corridor. They contained: a step-down transformer with a power of 180 kVA to convert three-phase alternating current with a voltage of 6000 V into a current with a voltage of 400 V, an electrical machine converter of alternating current with a voltage of 400 V into a direct voltage of 220 V, and a diesel generator with a power of 50 kW. Some of the rooms had windows for natural light and ventilation. The substation block was made similarly to the gun block (vaulted coverings 2-2.5 m thick on bent steel channels). At the top of the block there was an input for a high-voltage overhead power line connected to the battery on the northern side of Sevastopol.

Inside the gun block there was another transformer substation with two transformers with a capacity of 320 kVA. It received power from the city high-voltage network via two independent underground cable lines.

To autonomously provide electricity to battery consumers, a power station was equipped in its gun block, consisting of two 6BK-43 diesel generators with a power of 370 kW each and two electric machine converters. The command post had its own diesel generator. Supplies of fuel and oil for diesel engines were stored in underground tanks. Emergency power supply for lighting, communication and alarm networks was provided by a high-capacity battery.

The battery was supplied with water from two independent sources - an unprotected mine well in the valley of the Belbek River and a protected artesian well in the gun block. Due to the great depth of the latter (120 m), water was lifted from it using an airlift. To store water supplies, there were three reservoirs under the premises of the block. To provide water for the irrigation system of the charging cellars, pneumatic tanks (hydrophores) were installed.

To provide battery consumers (tower installations, power station, airlift) with compressed air, two compressor stations were equipped in the gun block.

Collective anti-chemical protection of the battery (including gun turrets, combat and rangefinder rooms) was provided by filter-ventilation units with 8 groups of carbon filters of the “FP-100” type located in the gun block and command post. Air was supplied to each group of filters from the surface through two independent lines. To protect them from the blast wave, so-called “labyrinths” were installed, consisting of packages of staggered steel I-beams.

To maintain temperature and humidity conditions in the premises, there was a steam-air heater heating system (steam was produced by two underground boiler houses). The power station of the gun block had an air-cooling unit.

The battery's air defense consisted of four anti-aircraft machine gun installations (one DShK and three M-4). In the rear of the gun block, two stationary positions (reinforced concrete casemates with winches) were built for lifting barrage balloons.

The ground defense consisted of six reinforced concrete, five-embrasure, two-story machine gun firing points (MT) (a 7.62-mm Maxim machine gun was installed on a rotary machine on the top floor, a shelter and an ammunition depot were located on the bottom floor), rifle trenches and wire barriers. The highway running in the hilly part of the battery had a stone retaining wall, which also served as a rifle parapet.

Turret installations, entrances to the gun block and command post did not have special devices or embrasures for self-defense. The gun turrets also did not have external doors. They were entered only from the turret compartments.

To communicate with other batteries of the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet and higher command, the battery had a transmitting and receiving radio station (with Shkval, Bukhta, Raid, 5AK-1 and 6PK radio equipment) and a telephone exchange with three switchboards. Internal communications were provided by a ship-type telephone network. Electric howlers were used for signaling. Communication between combat posts inside the tower installations was carried out using speaking pipes.

In peacetime, the battery's personnel were housed in its town, where they built residential buildings for the command staff and barracks for the rank and file. In a combat situation, to ensure long-term presence of personnel in the gun block and in the command post, cabins and crew quarters, latrines, washbasins, and showers were equipped. For cooking there was a galley with a provision pantry. A wardroom was equipped for the command staff. Medical care for the wounded and those affected by toxic substances could be provided in a medical center, which consisted of an operating room, an examination room with an X-ray machine, an isolation ward and a pharmacy.

When the battery came into operation in 1934, naval marine D. Pannikov was appointed its commander. Then the battery was commanded by E.P. Donets (later - colonel, deputy head of the Artillery Department of the Black Sea Fleet). In November 1937, Senior Lieutenant G.A. took command of the battery. Alexander.

Thus, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on June 22, 1941, battery No. 30 was a powerful fortification structure with high survivability and impressive combat power.

Part II
DEFENSE OF SEVASTOPOL AND POST-WAR RECOVERY

Participation of the battery in hostilities

As of June 22, 1941, battery No. 30 was part of the 1st separate artillery division of the Coastal Defense of the Main Naval Base of the Black Sea Fleet "Sevastopol". The division also included 305-mm tower battery No. 35, 203-mm open battery No. 10, and 102-mm battery No. 54 built upon mobilization. The battery was commanded by Captain G.A. Alexander and senior political instructor E.K. Soloviev. Organizationally, it was part of the 4th sector of the Sevastopol Defense Region (SOR), created on November 4, 1941 and which included units of the Coastal Defense, as well as units of the Separate Maritime Army moving towards the city.

The ground defense of coastal batteries was equipped in the form of rifle trenches and wire barriers in three rows. There was no defensive depth. On the tower batteries, in addition to the trenches, 6–8 light-type reinforced concrete bunkers were built.

By the end of October 1941, the mobile units of the 11th German Army reached the approaches to Sevastopol and began its assault. When repelling the first assault (from October 30 to November 21, 1941) before the main units of the Primorsky Army arrived, the main burden of the fight against the enemy fell on the coastal batteries and the few units of the Sevastopol garrison. Already on November 1, at 12:40 a.m., battery No. 30 opened fire on a concentration of motorized mechanized units of the enemy’s 132nd Infantry Division in the area of ​​Alma station and the village of Bazarchik to support the 8th Marine Brigade. Five firings were carried out and 68 shells were fired. The enemy suffered heavy losses.

On November 2, battery No. 30 fired at enemy motorized units in the Bakhchisarai area and at a concentration of troops in the area of ​​the village of Alma-Tarkhan. The fire was adjusted by Lieutenant S.A. Adamov. Although the shooting was carried out at extreme distances, it was very effective. The enemy column of vehicles, tanks and armored vehicles stopped in the ravine. The enemy did not imagine that our artillery could reach it. The first two heavy shells exploded in the thick of the column. Cars caught fire and tankers began to explode. The flames engulfed dozens of cars. The battery intensified the fire, and shells began to explode more and more often. According to the calculations of the correction post, up to 100 vehicles, about 30 guns, six tanks, about 15 armored vehicles and several hundred Nazis were destroyed.

On the same day, the enemy, with the support of tanks and intense artillery and aviation fire, launched an offensive in the Duvankoy area with the goal of breaking through the highway into the Belbek Valley. The Marine battalions (17th, remnants of the 16th and the Coastal Defense School battalion) were supported by fire from Battery No. 30, which was corrected by Major Cherenok. As a result, an enemy battery in the Bakhchisarai area and several tanks were destroyed, the remaining tanks turned back. Six firings were carried out, 42 shells were fired.

From November 1, enemy aviation sharply increased its activity in the Sevastopol direction. It struck military targets of the Main Base, including coastal batteries No. 30, 10 and others, as well as ships located in the base. To cover the Soviet troops in the Kach-Belbek area, 76-mm 214, 215, 218 and 219 anti-aircraft batteries operated.

On November 4, enemy troops carried out several attacks in the area between the village of Mamashai and the village of Aranchi. In the sector of the 8th Marine Brigade, the enemy tried to capture height 158.7. All attacks were repulsed with the support of batteries No. 10, 30 and 724 and two anti-aircraft batteries.

At 14:30, the enemy, with a force of up to a regiment, attacked in the sector of the 3rd Marine Regiment, the Air Force battalion, the 19th Marine Battalion, as well as the right flank of the 8th Brigade, trying to break into the Duvankoy stronghold. At 14:36, battery No. 30 opened fire on the attacking enemy. The fire was adjusted by Lieutenant L.G. Repkov. The fire from large-caliber shrapnel shells was extremely effective and accurate. The Nazis lost two guns with vehicles, a mortar battery, about 15 machine guns and up to two infantry battalions. On this day, the battery carried out nine firings and fired the largest number of shells during the first assault - 75.

On November 6, the Local Rifle Regiment of the Coastal Defense, with fire support from batteries No. 10, 30 and others, repelled the Nazis’ attempt to go on the offensive in the Northern sector in the Aranci-Mamashai area.

On November 8, it was decided to support the counterattack of the 7th Marine Brigade on the Mekenzi Mountains with fire from Battery No. 30, and to use powerful shrapnel fire, despite the danger of hitting our own. Coastal batteries No. 2 and 35 were also involved in artillery preparation. Management and control over the provision of artillery preparation by coastal batteries during the brigade’s attack were entrusted to the chief of coastal defense artillery, Lieutenant Colonel B.E. Faina. Lieutenant Colonel B.E. Fine personally went to Battery No. 30 to instruct its commander, Alexander, that only his battery was to fire shrapnel. The calculations were made in such a way that the first salvo was a migratory salvo.

Over three days of fighting, battery No. 30 destroyed the enemy's three-gun battery, several mortar batteries, and up to twelve machine-gun emplacements, a military echelon was broken, up to two battalions were destroyed and scattered, and direct hits were recorded on a column of enemy armored vehicles and tanks.

In the period from November 1 to November 7, 1941, battery No. 30 fired very intensively, conducting from five to eleven firings per day and firing from 20 to 75 shells. Between November 11 and November 16, the intensity of shootings decreased to one to four.

The use of coastal artillery during the first enemy assault was not entirely rational, which was caused by the special circumstances of the initial period of the defense of Sevastopol. Coastal artillery had to be used against targets that field artillery could fire well at, only because of its almost complete absence before the artillery of the Primorsky Army arrived, and then because of its lack of ammunition.

In total, the Coastal Defense artillerymen had 20 correction posts located at the forefront in all defense sectors. Each post could adjust the fire of any battery, which ensured, if necessary, the concentration of fire in any sector. The correction posts had radio and linear communications. Sometimes it was practiced to drop correction posts behind enemy lines, which ensured greater fire efficiency. In total, during the first assault, battery No. 30 fired 77 rounds and fired 517 shells.

After the end of the first Nazi offensive, all coastal defense artillery was consolidated into a separate independent group led by the chief of coastal defense artillery, Lieutenant Colonel B.E. Fine. This made it possible to use it more rationally and centrally. In the order on the use of artillery, a reservation was made: “Due to the low survivability of the guns, coastal and naval artillery should be used for firing each time with the special permission of the artillery headquarters of the Sevastopol defensive region at the request of the sector artillery chiefs.”

On November 16, during live firing in the first turret on the left gun, the gun ring at the receiver mounting point was torn out and the receiver rod was torn off. With the help of Artremzavod, the accident was eliminated within seven days, the gun ring and receiver rod were replaced with new ones, taken from the training class of the Sevastopol Coastal Defense School named after LKSMU.

On December 8, 1941, the Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet awarded a number of soldiers and commanders of battery No. 30: battery commander Captain Alexander Georgy Alexandrovich with the Order of the Red Banner, Lieutenant Adamov Sarkis Oganezovich with the medal “For Courage”; medal "For Military Merit"; senior sergeant Lysenko Ivan Sergeevich and Red Navy man Tsapodoy Onufriy Nikiforovich.

On December 17, the second assault on Sevastopol began. During the second assault, battery No. 30 fired as intensely as during the first. From four to fourteen firings were carried out per day and from 8 to 96 shells were fired.

The main blow of the German troops was delivered by the 22nd and 132nd infantry divisions along the Belbek River valley and on Kamyshly. The 22nd Infantry Division and the Romanian motorized rifle regiment acted against the 4th sector. The 4th sector and battery No. 30 were defended by the 90th Infantry Regiment and the 8th Marine Brigade. On this day, December 17, the battery conducted 14 firing sessions and fired 96 shells. As a result of the withdrawal of the 8th Marine Brigade and the left flank units of the 3rd sector, there was a threat of enemy units breaking through along the Belbek River valley, including to battery No. 30. The counterattack organized on December 18 by the command of the Sevastopol defensive region did not produce results. To support the counterattack on December 18 and 19, Battery No. 30 conducted twelve firing sessions and fired 68 shells. In two days, the enemy fired more than 200 shells at battery No. 30, only with a caliber of 203 mm and above.

To eliminate the enemy breakthrough, on December 19, an order was signed to allocate personnel to strengthen the front and create a reserve, according to which, by 6 o'clock on December 20, two companies of 150 people each were to be formed from coastal batteries No. 10 and 30, which were sent to the command Maritime Army.

On December 22, a difficult situation developed for the units of the 4th sector located north of the Belbek River: the 90th Infantry Regiment, the 40th Cavalry Division and the 8th Marine Brigade fought off persistent enemy attacks all day and by the evening of December 22nd they could hardly hold their own. positions. The enemy, having brought up reserves, threatened to cut the road to Kacha with a strike along the Belbek valley. The weakened units of the 151st Cavalry Regiment, under attacks from tanks, were forced to retreat to the area of ​​the Sofia Perovskaya state farm, and the remnants of the 773rd Infantry Regiment to Lyubimovka. In view of the obvious threat of an enemy breakthrough along the valley of the Belbek River and the Kara-Tau hill to the sea, which could lead to the encirclement of Soviet troops, it was decided to withdraw troops to the line of the Belbek River and take up defense in a section 1 km east of the village of Belbek - Lyubimovka, and battery No. 10 and blow up all artillery bunkers. By 10 o'clock on December 23, parts of the 4th sector were withdrawn. This defense line was very close to Sevastopol and ran at a distance of only 7–8 km from the Northern Bay on the same line as the command post of battery No. 30. At 15:40 the enemy, with the strength of a regiment, went on the offensive in the direction of battery No. 30 and the state farm named after. Sofia Perovskaya. The offensive was carried out from the village of Belbek to the sea by the 22nd German Infantry Division and the Romanian motorized regiment.

On the morning of December 26, the enemy, with a force of up to one and a half regiments brought in from the reserve of the 132nd Infantry Division, resumed the offensive with tanks. Parts of the Sevastopol defensive region, occupying the defense from the Mekenziev Gory station to the seashore, found themselves in a difficult situation. The 90th Infantry Regiment had difficulty holding back the onslaught of the enemy, who came close to battery No. 30. The enemy was stopped and failed to cut the railway line from the Mekenzievy Gory station to battery No. 30. Our infantry was greatly assisted by the armored train "Zheleznyakov", which reached the Mekenzievy Gory station, the 265th, 905th and 397th artillery regiments and coastal batteries No. 2 (4x100/50), 12 (4x152/45), 14 (3x13/50), 704 (2x130/55), 705 (2x130/55), as well as the 365th (4x76) anti-aircraft battery. It is interesting that, giving conventional names to the defensive objects of Sevastopol, the Germans called the firing position of the 30th battery “Fort Maxim Gorky I”, and its command post was named “Schutzpunkt Bastion”.

On the morning of December 28, the enemy opened fire along the entire front of the 4th sector, especially intense in the area from Kamyshly to battery No. 30 and the state farm named after Sofia Perovskaya. At 8 hours 25 minutes, four enemy battalions, supported by 12 tanks, attacked in the direction of cordon No. 1 - Mekenzievy Gory station and the state farm named after Sofia Perovskaya in the area of ​​battery No. 30. By the end of the day, Soviet troops were unable to hold the line and were forced to retreat.

The 30th battery found itself in a very difficult situation, since its right flank was not covered, and the enemy created a real possibility of blowing it up. The battery commander allocated up to two companies from the battery personnel to defend his right flank. The dire situation of the battery was reported to the sector commander, who immediately formed a battalion from special units and sent it into the gap that had formed. Despite the difficult situation, the artillerymen continued to fire at the enemy, firing 61 shells.

By 12 o'clock on December 29, a difficult situation had again arisen in the battery area; the enemy, having captured the battery town, began to advance to the command post. To eliminate the threat of destruction to the battery, the battery commander, Captain Alexander, was ordered to turn the turrets towards the enemy and use one turret to fire shrapnel. At 13:30, fire was opened on the enemy, who was in the area of ​​the battery town and command post, from other Coastal Defense batteries and an air assault was carried out. With a subsequent strike from the Marine Corps, the enemy was driven back, and the threat of destruction of Battery No. 30 passed.

With the start of the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation, the command of the 11th German Army was forced to transfer the 170th, 132nd and part of the 50th infantry divisions to the Kerch direction and withdraw the remaining troops near Sevastopol 1 - 2 km from the Soviet defensive line.

During January 6–8, the troops of the 4th sector went on the offensive in order to improve their positions around battery No. 30 in the area of ​​the Belbek River valley and the village of Lyubimovka.

During the fighting, battery No. 30 fired at the enemy, according to various sources, from 1034 (Journal of combat operations of the 1st OAD) to 1234 shells and completely fired its barrels. There was an urgent need to replace the barrels, and to do it secretly from the enemy. The difficulty of replacing the barrels was that the battery was located only 1.5 km from the front edge and was clearly visible from the enemy. A detailed work plan was developed, which was based on the idea of ​​BC-5 commander of the 35th battery, military technician 2nd rank Lobanov, to change barrels without using a crane manually using jacks and hoists. Master S.I. provided great assistance in the development of this plan. Prokuda, and military engineer 3rd rank Mendeleev, who proposed to replace the guns without removing the horizontal armor from the turret, but only by lifting it and inserting new gun bodies, which made it possible to significantly reduce the work time. This proposal was supported by representatives of the Artillery Department of the Black Sea Fleet, military engineer 1st rank A.A. Alekseev and Colonel E.P. Donets, and also approved by the Coastal Defense Command. It was decided that the work in one tower would be supervised by master S.I. Prokuda with his team (Bolshevik plant), and in the other - master I. Sechko with his team (Leningrad Metal Plant). A huge amount of work was carried out by the tower personnel, headed by tower commanders V.M. Pol and A.V. Telechko, where there were many good specialists among the fighters and junior commanders.

Work began on January 25. It was impossible to use the 100-ton crane available on the battery, because firstly, it was badly damaged, and secondly, its use would lead to a violation of the secrecy of the work. It was decided to change barrels only at night or in poor visibility conditions. On the night of January 30, the first gun was pulled up to the towers by a steam locomotive. When the locomotive, pushing the platform with the body of the gun in front of itself, reached a hill where the towers were located, visible to the enemy, the locomotive's tender drove onto a filled shell crater, derailed and began to sink into the soil, soaked from the rains. The battery personnel manually pulled the platform with the gun to the turret and unloaded it. At this time, under enemy fire, a brigade led by division engineer I.V. By dawn, Andrienko put the tender on the rails and restored the track. In the morning, still in the dark, the locomotive went to Sevastopol for another gun, which was never discovered by the enemy. On February 11, the battery was in full combat readiness.

After the commissioning of battery No. 30, a meeting was held, at which speeches were made by the commander of the Black Sea Fleet and the Sevastopol defensive region, Vice Admiral Oktyabrsky, a member of the Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet, divisional commissar Kulakov, and the commander of the Primorsky Army, Lieutenant General Petrov. The personnel were awarded orders and medals. The Order of the Red Banner was received by the battery commander, Captain G.A. Alexander.

In the document compiled by the Combat Training Department of the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters, “Brief results of combat firing of coastal batteries of the BO GB Black Sea Fleet for 7 months of the defense of Sevastopol 10/30/1941 – 05/31/1942.” It was noted: “Battery No. 30 conducted 161 shootings, of which: 18 against tanks, 12 against vehicles, 34 against batteries, 22 against infantry, 16 against populated areas, 59 against other targets. 1034 rounds were expended, the maximum ammunition consumption per firing was 41 (for firing at Bakhchisarai), the minimum was 1.

Most shootings were carried out at a distance of 60–80 kb, 22% at a distance of more than 100 kb. Direct fire carried out 3 shootings, with adjustments 71 shootings, without adjustments 87 shootings or 54%.

Results of the fire: 17 tanks, 1 locomotive, 2 wagons, about 300 vehicles with troops and cargo were destroyed and damaged, 8 mortar and artillery batteries, up to 15 individual guns, 7 firing points, and up to 3,000 infantry were destroyed. In addition, the fire of such a battery had a huge moral effect on the enemy.

The big drawback is that 54% of all shootings were carried out without adjustment, their result is unknown. (Certainly not very effective).”

By the beginning of the third assault, the 305-mm batteries of Sevastopol were provided with an average of 1.35 rounds of ammunition, or 270 rounds per gun. As of May 20, there were 1,695 shells for the eight 305-mm guns of batteries No. 30 and 35 in Sevastopol. For batteries, this number of shells was the limit, since after the specified number of shells was used up, the gun bodies wore out and required replacement.

As of May 30, 1942, the personnel of the 30th battery consisted of 22 commanders and 342 Red Navy men.

On the afternoon of June 6, 1942, the enemy used heavy-duty artillery to fire at battery No. 30—two 600-mm Karl mortars. He managed to disable the second turret, in which the armor was pierced and the gun was damaged. In addition, enemy aircraft dropped a 1000 kg bomb on the battery position. On the night of June 7, the tower, through the efforts of a team of workers under the leadership of foreman S.I. Prokuda and battery personnel, was put into operation, but could only operate with one gun.

On June 7, a 600-mm shell hit the first turret. The second hit was on the concrete mass of the battery; the shell pierced three-meter reinforced concrete and damaged the battery's chemical filter compartment.

During June 9 and 10, the artillery of the Primorsky Army and Coastal Defense fired at the battle formations of the advancing infantry, tanks and artillery positions of the enemy, who had penetrated the battle formations of the defending Soviet troops in the 4th sector and created the threat of a breakthrough in the area of ​​​​battery No. 30. The fire from battery No. 30 and the batteries of the 18th Guards Artillery Regiment was especially effective.

By June 10, Battery No. 30 could fire only two guns, one gun in each turret. The engineering structures of the ground defense were completely destroyed and littered. The parapet was a shapeless mass of stones, metal fragments and craters, the bunkers were destroyed.

During June 11, troops of the Sevastopol defensive region fought battles aimed at improving the position of battery No. 30 and eliminating the enemy breakthrough.

The commander of the Primorsky Army, General Petrov, proposed counterattacking the wedged enemy from two directions: from the 3rd sector and the area of ​​​​battery No. 30. To support the actions of the infantry, the head of the Coastal Defense, General Morgunov, ordered the allocation of the required ammunition and at the same time indicated that battery No. 30, which was constantly under air strikes and shelling from 600-mm mortars, and under the constant threat of encirclement, should spend more ammunition.

In total, during the third assault the battery expended 656 shells.

The enemy tried with all his might to destroy the 30th battery and fired at it every day from heavy guns. On June 14 alone, the enemy fired over 700 shells at the battery. German aviation bombed it with ferocity, but had no success; on June 15, up to 600 air raids were carried out on the battery.

On June 15–17, 1942, the enemy, with forces from two to four regiments with tanks of the 132nd Infantry Division, carried out an offensive (the forces of the opposing Soviet troops amounted to no more than one and a half to two regiments) hoping to capture the village of Budenovka and surround battery No. 30. At the same time, a group of German machine gunners infiltrated into the area of ​​Sofia Perovskaya’s state farm on June 15 and cut the air and underground communication lines of battery No. 30 with the city. On June 16, radio communications also ceased to function, as all antennas were destroyed, and attempts to communicate using an underground antenna were unsuccessful.

On June 17, battery No. 30 was finally blocked by the enemy. About 250 personnel and soldiers of the 95th Infantry Division and Marines remained in the premises of the encircled battery. In accordance with the instructions of the coastal defense command, in the event of a blockade of the battery by the enemy, the battery personnel were to break out of the encirclement in three groups, and the last group was to blow up the battery. The first group of 76 soldiers, led by Kalinkin, instructor of the political department of the coastal defense, left, but part of it was killed by the Germans; part of the group managed to break through and report to the Coastal Defense command about the situation at the battery. The rest of the personnel delayed the exit, while the enemy, having discovered the exit of the first group, intensified their fire at the exits from the battery array and made a further breakthrough impossible.

At a meeting with Vice Admiral Oktyabrsky, a proposal was made to try to break through the blockade line of the battery, liberate its garrison and blow up the battery. On June 18, an attempt to break through to the positions of battery No. 30 with the support of Coastal Defense artillery was unsuccessful due to intense opposition from enemy aviation and artillery, and at the same time the enemy resumed the offensive.

The siege and assault on the battery began.

Translated from the German edition of “Additions to the memorandum on foreign fortifications,” published in 1943 in Berlin by the Naval Engineering Directorate in the chapter “The Fight for Sevastopol,” it was said:

“Batteries of medium, large and super-large calibers took part in preparing the assault, firing about 750 shots from June 6 to June 17, 1942 (the day of the assault), half of them before noon on June 17. At half past one, 17.06, 20 bombs were dropped on field structures by dive bombers.

Concentrated artillery fire broke through the barbed wire barriers and filled the minefields.

The craters created by bombs and mines made it easier for the attacking troops to advance. The garrison of the outer defensive belt was mostly destroyed, and the light defensive structures included in it were destroyed.

The western armored turret received a side hit, due to which one gun was completely disabled and the other partially disabled, the eastern turret received a direct hit in the embrasure, which disabled both guns. The underground passage to the rangefinder installation was filled in, all entrances and the reinforced concrete covering of the casemate remained almost untouched. The shelling (according to their testimony) did not make any impression on the battery defenders.

The 213th Regiment, the 1st and 2nd Battalions, the 132nd Engineer Regiment and the 1st Battalion of the 173rd Engineer Regiment were assigned to storm the battery.

Early in the morning and before noon on June 17, 1942, an assault was launched in the direction of the anti-tank ditch, opened east of the battery across the watershed. The enemy put up stubborn resistance. The firing points firing along the front and flanks were silenced by infantry and artillery fire.

The 1st and 2nd battalions of the 132nd Engineer Regiment attacked the fortifications located in front of the battery. The 122nd Infantry Regiment attacked structures located on the southern and western slopes of the mountain. The advance of the attacking units was greatly hampered by heavy enemy artillery and mortar fire from the Belbek River valley and the slopes to the south, as well as sniper fire and counterattacks.

At about half past two in the afternoon, as a result of a repeated attack, the western slope of the mountain was occupied. The approach to the command post at the eastern end of the underground passage was also busy.

At 2 hours 45 minutes the second battalion of the 213th regiment began an attack on the eastern slope and at 3 hours 15 minutes reached the destroyed fortification at +400 m, east of the first armored tower installation, and the first battalion of the 173rd engineer regiment under the protection of infantry fire attacked the tower installation. At 3 hours 45 minutes, six sappers entered the installation with bundles of hand grenades and destroyed its garrison. The garrison of the second installation was furiously fired back with rifle fire from embrasure holes pierced by artillery shells in the armor plates of the tower. The sappers' attack was successful only due to flanking fire on the installation by infantry units. The enemy was destroyed by hand grenades. At this time, the infantry advancing along the northern slope was able to establish control over the western slope. At 4:30 a.m., the sappers, after several repeated attempts, reached the heavily defended main entrances; machine guns were installed to block the entrances. As a result of these actions, the garrison was locked in blocks."

In the following days, the enemy tried to smoke the battery defenders out of the premises using demolition charges, gasoline and flammable oils. As a result of the explosions, severe fires occurred in the towers and the premises were filled with smoke. On June 22, the 6th Battalion, 173rd Engineer Regiment, was replaced by the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Engineer Regiment.

June 25, 1942 battery commander Major G.A. Alexander left through the drain and the next day was captured and then shot. On June 26, an enemy strike group broke into the block and captured 40 prisoners. Most of the garrison died from explosions or suffocated in smoke.

The 30th battery played an important role in the heroic defense of Sevastopol in 1941–1942. In total, during the war, battery No. 30 fired about 2,000 shells; a more precise number cannot be calculated due to lack of documents. As part of the 1st separate artillery division of the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet, together with tower battery No. 35, it was a kind of “backbone” of the artillery defense system of the fortress and inflicted serious damage on the enemy in manpower and equipment. On June 18, 1942, by order of the People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR No. 136, the 1st OAD was transformed into a guards unit.

Recovery and post-war service

After the liberation of Sevastopol in 1944, the restoration of the coastal defense facilities of the Main Black Sea Fleet base began. On the railway line leading to the position of battery No. 30, permanent positions were equipped for railway battery No. 16. This battery was armed with four 180-mm TM-1-180 railway artillery mounts. However, for a more reliable defense of the sea approaches to Sevastopol, the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy adopted on January 13, 1947 decision No. 0010 to restore tower battery No. 30 using existing fortifications.

The project for the restoration and reconstruction of the battery was developed by the Mosvoenmorproekt of the Main Engineering Directorate of the Navy under the leadership of engineer majors Maev and Nazarenko and approved by the Minister of the Navy on June 16, 1950.

Due to the impossibility of restoring the MB-2-12 305-mm two-gun turret mounts, which were severely damaged in 1942, it was decided to dismantle them and replace them with two three-gun turret mounts of the same caliber taken from the battleship Frunze (formerly Poltava).

Two turrets (second and third) from this ship back in the early 1930s. were installed on battery No. 981 named after. Voroshilov in Vladivostok. The remaining towers (the first and fourth) were planned to be installed on the island of Russare (the Hanko naval base of the Baltic Fleet) in 1940, but the outbreak of war prevented this from happening. In 1941, the rotating armor of one of the towers lying dismantled on the territory of the Leningrad Metal Plant named after. Stalin, was used in the construction of firing points for the ground defense of Leningrad.

On July 3, 1948, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted Resolution No. 2417-1009ss on the completion of the manufacture of these tower installations at the Leningrad Metal Plant.

The towers have been significantly modernized. By changing the design of the loading mechanisms and moving to a constant loading angle of 6 degrees (the hammers were removed from the swinging parts of the guns and installed permanently on the turret combat table), it was possible to increase the rate of fire to 2.25 rounds per minute. By increasing the lifting sectors, the elevation angle of the guns was increased from 25 to 40 degrees, which made it possible to increase the firing range of these artillery installations from 127 to 156 cables (with a 1911 model projectile).

Recoil devices have also been modernized. Instead of a non-vacuum type recoil brake, vacuum type recoil brakes and an independent pneumatic knurler with a floating piston were installed. At the end of 1952 - beginning of 1953. The swinging parts have been factory tested and tested by shooting at the firing range.

Six more guns were brought to Sevastopol and deposited in the artillery arsenal of the Black Sea Fleet as spare ones.

The armor of the towers has also undergone some changes. In 1952, the Izhora plant manufactured the rotating armor of the 2nd installation, which was lost during the war. For the 1st, new horizontal armor (turret roof) was made, the thickness of which was increased from the previous 76 to 175 mm. The vertical armor on it remained the same - “Poltava”. In connection with the installation of lined guns in the turret, hatches were made in the rear walls of the turrets, closed with armored covers, to quickly change liners. The thickness of the fixed armor (cuirass) was increased from 254 to 330 mm.

The relatively small depth of the wells in the concrete mass of the battery, designed for coastal tower installations "MB-2-12" (with the location of shell and charging magazines on the same level), did not allow the installation of former ship installations in them without radical alterations of their lower parts, which significantly changed the design of the mechanisms for supplying ammunition to the guns. The conical part of the supply pipes of the ship's turret installations had to be cut off along with the equipment for lifting the lower chargers, and the former reloading compartment had to be redone so that ammunition could be loaded directly into the upper chargers.

The shells of each tower were stored in two shell magazines, stacked in five rows on the shelves of mechanized racks. The left cellar “fed” the left gun of the turret, and the right cellar fed the middle and right ones. Each cellar contained six such racks, each of which had its own manually operated lifting tray. Using these trays, the shells were lowered from the shelves and then fed through a conveyor system into the reloading compartment onto a circular rotating chute. The chute was a rigid steel ring rotating inside the transfer compartment (independently of it) around three charger shafts. Half-charges were fed from the powder magazines through three special gates (fire-proof turnstiles) and placed on the chute manually. From the chute, the shells were fed to the receiving tables of the reloading compartment and then, using a system of rotary and longitudinal trays, they were moved to the charger feeders and dumped into them. To load half-charges into the charger, there were rotating two-tier trays and mechanical rammers. All mechanisms worked both electrically (17 engines per tower) and manually.

The ship's artillery installations thus became lower by two whole "floors", corresponding to the location of the ship's charging and shell magazines. Such radically redesigned artillery systems received a new designation MB-3-12FM.

Since the new artillery installations had three guns each, instead of the previous two, for the convenience of supplying ammunition, it was necessary to equip additional lines for transporting shells and charges. To do this, we carried out a redevelopment of the internal premises inside the concrete mass, taking advantage of the presence of two casemates adjacent to the right and left of each tower well and which initially could only be accessed from the gallery that goes around the rigid drum (initially, these casemates contained storerooms for tower spare parts and tools) . In one of these casemates, a passage to the powder magazine was cut to transport charges, and a gateway with a fire-resistant turnstile was installed in place of the previous entrance. To speed up the supply, an additional rack was also placed in this casemate, where a certain amount of charges was stored. In another casemate, they cut an opening into the shell magazine and expanded the original entrance, and then installed two horizontal conveyors connected by a rotary tray, forming a transport line along which the shell fell into the reloading compartment. To accommodate the increased amount of ammunition (1080 rounds per battery instead of the previous 800) in the shell magazines, it was necessary to change the storage system (install racks instead of the previous stacks), and increase the number of charging magazines by equipping three additional magazines from former personnel quarters and other auxiliary casemates ( one for the 1st tower and two for the 2nd). The passage connecting one of the original cellars with the shell magazine had to be walled up and a doorway cut nearby into the former cockpits, which became powder magazines. You can imagine how much hard work such a redevelopment took.

The battery command post has undergone significant reconstruction. The installation of a gun guidance radar station on it required the construction of a special reinforced concrete cabin to accommodate a rotating antenna device, covered on top with a radio-transparent fiberglass cap. In the premises of the ground part of the command post, it was additionally necessary to place the hardware and modular radar posts, which entailed a reworking of the entrance (part of the previous cranked through was used to install equipment, and a new straight through with a light well was attached to the remaining one).

Construction and installation work for the restoration and reconstruction of the gun block and the battery command post was carried out by Construction No. 74 of the Sevastopol Military Sea Station of the Black Sea Fleet (headed by engineer-colonel Baburin).

Instead of the previous fire control system of the “Barricade” type (the devices and cable routes of which were dismantled by the Germans during the occupation of Sevastopol), the battery received a prototype of the newest “Bereg-30” system. Its main differences were the absence of a horizontal-base rangefinder operating from a network of target designation posts (after the advent of radar equipment, the need for it disappeared) and the presence of a more advanced central firing machine (device “1-B”) and an azimuth and distance transformer (device “77”). In addition, there was a reserve automatic firing machine (device “1-P”). Target designation to the system came from the "VBK-2" sighting device (experimental sample) located in the conning tower with three independent optical systems for the battery commander and gunners in target and splash azimuth, the "RD-2-8" armored rangefinder tower with two 8-meter stereo rangefinders "DMS-8" and radar gun guidance stations "Zalp-B" and detection stations "Shkot". For night shooting, two heat direction finding stations were used, located north and south of the battery firing position in special reinforced concrete casemates, operating in conjunction with searchlights located nearby. To remotely control the spotlights, a special device was installed in the central battery post - a “searchlight azimuth transformer” (device “98”). It was also possible to use target designation from a spotter aircraft (for this purpose, there was a special indicator in the central firing machine) and command posts of neighboring batteries. The capabilities of the fire control system allowed the battery to confidently hit visible and invisible targets moving at speeds of up to 60 knots.

The increased energy consumption of the battery compared to pre-war forced the reconstruction of its power equipment. Three new diesel engines “6Ch23/30” from the Gorky plant “Engine of the Revolution” with a power of 450 hp each were installed in the power station of the gun block. with three-phase alternating current generators with a capacity of 320 kW. (ship-type machine telegraphs were even provided to control diesel engines). Tower electric drives operating on direct current were supplied with energy from three electric machine converters with a power of 160 kW each. Separate converters generated energy for fire control devices and communications equipment.

The battery conducted its first firing after restoration in November 1954 and went into operation as the 459th tower artillery division and by order of the General Staff of the USSR Navy No. 00747 dated November 13, 1954. By the same order, the battery was included in the 291st separate artillery brigade of the Black Sea Fleet. The first commander of the division was Colonel I.K. Bobukh. In addition to two 305 mm turrets, the division included an 8-gun anti-aircraft battery (57 mm S-60 type guns) and four anti-aircraft machine gun installations.

On June 27, 1956, the division was included in the 1st line of combat. Over the next two years, he carried out practical and competitive shooting with the main caliber. Later, firing was carried out only from 45-mm training barrels.

On April 10, 1960, the division was transferred to the 778th separate artillery regiment. On July 1, 1961, this regiment was disbanded, and the division was reorganized into the 459th separate artillery battery (cadre staff) and reassigned to the head of the fleet missile units.

On September 8, 1961, the battery was transferred to peacetime status and returned to the restored 778th separate artillery regiment. On December 20 of the same year, the battery was again transferred to the personnel staff. Subsequently, it was again reorganized into a division, maintaining the same number.

On January 15, 1966, in connection with the second and now final disbandment of the 778th artillery regiment, the 459th tower artillery division was transferred to the 51st separate coastal missile regiment of the Coastal Missile and Artillery Forces of the Black Sea Fleet.

Since April 1974, the division was part of the 417th separate coastal missile and artillery regiment. In June 1991, this regiment was reorganized into the 521st separate missile and artillery brigade of the Black Sea Fleet Coastal Forces, and in November - into the 632nd separate missile and artillery regiment.

In the summer of 1997, in accordance with the agreement between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on the division of the Black Sea Fleet, the personnel of the 632nd regiment and the 459th tower division that was part of it left for the Caucasian coast. The territory of the former battery town and the technical position of the regiment were transferred to the Ukrainian Naval Forces. To maintain the weapons and fortifications of the former 30th battery, which remained part of the Black Sea Fleet, the 267th Conservation Platoon of the Black Sea Fleet Coastal Troops was formed in the same year.

In the summer of 2004, the 30th battery celebrated the 70th anniversary of its presence in the Black Sea Fleet.

Unfortunately, the future fate of the battery remains uncertain, since its transfer to the jurisdiction of Ukraine could lead to the looting of the battery and the subsequent cutting of unique 305-mm tower installations for scrap metal, as has already happened in Sevastopol with the 180-mm tower and 130-mm open ones transferred to Ukraine batteries.

APPLICATIONS

Comparative characteristics
tower artillery installations MB-2-12 and MB-3-12FM
305-mm tower coastal artillery battery No. 30, Sevastopol

Comparative characteristics tower artillery installations		MB-2-12 1934	MB-3-12FM 1954
Caliber	mm	305	305
Number of guns in the turret		2	3
Projectile weight arr. 1911	kg	471	471
Weight of combat charge	kg	132	132
Initial projectile speed	m/s	762	762
Maximum range firing a projectile arr. 1911	cab. m	153 27980	156 28528
Shells for 1 gun	PC.	200	180
Shells in the cellar of the tower	PC.	400	540
Half-charged in the cellar of the tower	PC.	1200	1125
Elevation angle	hail	35	40
Descent Angle	hail	1	3
Horizontal firing angle	hail	360	±185
Loading angle	hail	0 – 14,5	6
Front plate thickness	mm	305	203
Side plate thickness	mm	305	203
Back plate and door thickness	mm	305	305
Roof thickness	mm	203	175
Thickness of longitudinal bulkheads	mm	25	18
Cuirass thickness	mm	front – 254 rear – 102	330
Maximum rate of fire	v/min	2,1	2,25
Vertical guidance speed by electrical action	deg/s	0,012 – 5	1 – 6
– with manual action	deg/s	0,8 – 1	0,4
Horizontal guidance speed by electrical action	deg/s	0,012 – 5	0,5 – 3
– with manual action	deg/s	0,375 – 0,43	0,3
Lock opening time	With	7,2	7,34
Maintenance staff in the tower when working on electricity	people	54	71
Sighting devices		LMZ	PMA

Firing table for Russian 305 mm cannons, 52 calibers long

Projectile	Initial speed	Charge	Corner elevations, hail and min	Range shooting, cab.	Range shooting, m
Arr. 1928 high explosive, long-range 314 kg	950 m/s	combat 140 kg	15,05	137	25057
			20,05	163	29813
			24,59	187	34202
			29,55	207	37494
			40,09	241	44079
			50	251,4	45981
Arr. 1911 high explosive 470.9 kg	762 m/s	combat 132 kg	19,52	112	20485
			25	127	23228
			27	132	24143
			30	139	25423
			47,59	160,4	29338
			50,1	160,2	29301
	655 m/s	reduced- combat 100 kg	20,13	91	16644
			25,09	103	18839
			27,03	107	19570
			30,03	113	20668
			39,59	130	23777

Explication of the premises to the 1932 drawing.

A. Left tower, B. Right tower, 1. Filter chamber, 2. Filter chamber, 3. Nachkhim post, 4. Passage to the power station, 5. Galley, 6. Latrine, 7. Airlock, 8. Passage, 9. Battery commander's quarters, 10. Exhaust fans, 11. Boiler room, 12. Transformers, 13. Red Navy quarters, 14. Power station, 15. Exhaust casemate fans, 16. Passage, 17. 1st vestibule, 18. 2nd vestibule , 19. Latrine, 20. Command quarters for 8 people, 21. Entrance to the porta to the command post, 22. Dressing station, 23. Pharmacy, 24. Room for 22 Red Navy men, 25. Water station, 26. Blower fans, 27. Local PUAO central post, 28. Room for the duty commander, 29. Blower fans, 30. Telephone exchange, 31. Battery room, 32. Workshop, 33. Tool storeroom, 34. Red Navy personnel room, 35. Storeroom, 36. Communications and equipment storeroom, 37. Electrical storeroom, 38. Blower fans, 39. Latrine for command personnel, 40. Washbasin, 41. Blower fans, 42. Room for command personnel for 6 people, 43. Room for 22 Red Navy men, 44. Room for 38 Red Navy men, 45. [?]. pantry, 55. Passage, 56. Battery telephone exchange, 57. Room for 34 Red Navy men, 58. Room for 34 Red Navy men, 59. Wardroom, 60. Shell cellar, 61. Shell cellar, 62. Charging cellar, 63. Charging cellar, 64. Tower storage room, 65. Tower storage room, 66. Tower storage room, 67. Tower storage room, 68. Passage, 69. Draft, 70. Draft, 71. Main corridor, 72. Central corridor, 73. Smoke chamber

Sources and literature

1. RGVIA. f. 504. op. 9. d. 1014
2. RGVIA. f. 2000. op. 1. d. 170.
3. RGVIA. f. 802. op. 2. d. 855.
4. RGAVMF. f. 609. op. 3. d. 72.
5. CVMA. f. 155. no. 9332.
6. CVMA. f. 136. d. 5091.
7. CVMA. f. 24.dd. 22630, 22631, 22620, 22621, 22622.
8. CVMA. f. 109. no. 24009.
9. Russian State Administration of the Navy. f. R-910. op. 1. d. 78.
10. Russian State Administration of the Navy. f. R-891. op. 3. d. 5394.
11. Khmelkov S.A., Ungerman N.I. Fundamentals and forms of long-term fortification, M., 1931.
12. Handbook of artillery of the USSR Navy. M.–L., 1944.
13. Morgunov P.A. Heroic Sevastopol. M., 1979.
14. Dukelsky A.G. Historical sketch of the development of design and manufacture of tower installations in Russia 1886–1917. M., 1931.