, 6 October 1942 , January 1945 Katyusha rocket launchers, which were built in
Voronezh, were mounted on many platforms during World War II, including on trucks,
artillery tractors, tanks, and
armoured trains, as well as on naval and riverine vessels as assault support weapons. Soviet engineers also mounted single Katyusha rockets on lengths of
railway track to serve in urban combat. The design was relatively simple, consisting of racks of parallel rails on which
rockets were mounted, with a folding frame to raise the rails to launch position. Each truck had 14 to 48 launchers. The
M-13 rocket of the BM-13 system was long, in diameter and weighed .making its salvo roughly equivalent to that of 72 conventional artillery howitzers (18 batteries). With an efficient crew, the launchers could
redeploy to a new location immediately after firing, denying the enemy the opportunity for
counterbattery fire. Katyusha batteries were often massed in very large numbers to create a
shock effect on enemy forces. The weapon's disadvantage was the long time it took to reload a launcher, in contrast to conventional artillery guns which could sustain a continuous, albeit low, rate of fire.
Development Studebaker US6 -ton 6×6 truck, at the
UMMC Museum Complex,
Verkhnyaya Pyshma ) on Sapun Mountain,
Sevastopol truck . Initial development of
solid propellant rockets was carried out by
Nikolai Tikhomirov at the Soviet
Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL), with the first test-firing of a solid fuel rocket carried out in March 1928, which flew for about 1,300 meters The rockets were used to assist
take-off of aircraft and were later developed into the
RS-82 and RS-132 (RS for , 'rocket-powered shell') in the early 1930s led by
Georgy Langemak, including firing rockets from aircraft and the ground. In June 1938, GDL's successor
Reactive Scientific Research Institute (RNII) began building several
prototype launchers for the modified 132 mm M-132 rockets. Firing over the sides of
ZIS-5 trucks proved unstable, and V.N. Galkovskiy proposed mounting the launch rails longitudinally. In August 1939, the result was the BM-13 (BM stands for
боевая машина (translit.
boyevaya mashina), 'combat vehicle' for M-13 rockets). The first large-scale testing of the rocket launchers took place at the end of 1938, when 233 rounds of various types were used. A salvo of rockets could completely straddle a target at a range of . But the artillery branch was not fond of the Katyusha, because it took up to 50 minutes to load and fire 24 rounds, while a conventional howitzer could fire 95 to 150 rounds in the same time. Testing with various rockets was conducted through 1940, and the BM-13-16 with launch rails for sixteen rockets was authorized for production. Only forty launchers were built before
Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. After their success in the first month of the war, mass production was ordered and the development of other models proceeded. The Katyusha was inexpensive and could be manufactured in light industrial installations which did not have the heavy equipment to build conventional artillery gun barrels. By the end of 1942, 3,237 Katyusha launchers of all types had been built, and by the end of the war total production reached about 10,000. The truck-mounted Katyushas were installed on
ZIS-6 6×4 trucks, as well as the two-axle
ZIS-5 and
ZIS-5V. In 1941, a small number of BM-13 launchers were mounted on
STZ-5 artillery tractors. A few were also tried on
KV tank chassis as the KV-1K, but this was a needless waste of heavy armour. Starting in 1942, they were also mounted on various British, Canadian and U.S.
Lend-Lease trucks, in which case they were sometimes referred to as BM-13S. The
cross-country performance of the
Studebaker US6 2½-ton 6×6 truck was so good that it became the GAU's standard mounting in 1943, designated BM-13N (
normalizovanniy, 'standardized'), and more than 1,800 of this model were manufactured by the end of World War II. After World War II, BM-13s were based on Soviet-built
ZIS-151 trucks. The 82 mm BM-8 was approved in August 1941, and deployed as the BM-8-36 on truck beds and BM-8-24 on
T-40 and
T-60 light tank chassis. Later these were also installed on
GAZ-67 jeeps as the BM-8-8, and on the larger
Studebaker trucks as the BM-8-48. In 1942, the team of scientists Leonid Shvarts, Moisei Komissarchik and engineer Yakov Shor received the
Stalin Prize for the development of the BM-8-48 Based on the M-13, the M-30 rocket was developed in 1942. Its bulbous warhead required it to be fired from a grounded frame, called the M-30 (single frame, four round; later double frame, 8 round), instead of a launch rail mounted on a truck. In 1944 it became the basis for the BM-31-12 truck-mounted launcher. A battery of BM-13-16 launchers included four firing vehicles, two reload trucks and two technical support trucks, with each firing vehicle having a crew of six. Reloading was executed in 3–4 minutes, although the standard procedure was to
switch to a new position some 10 km away due to the ease with which the battery could be identified by the enemy. Three batteries were combined into a division (company), and three divisions into a separate mine-firing regiment of rocket artillery.
Variants Soviet World War II rocket systems were named according to set patterns: • Ground vehicles were designated BM-
x-
y, where
x referred to the rocket model and
y the number of launch rails or tubes. • towed trailers and sledges used the format M-
x-
y • In navy use, the order of the elements was different, taking the form
y-M-
x For example, the BM-8-16 was a vehicle with 16 rails for M-8 rockets while the BM-31-12 fired the M-31 rockets from 12 launch tubes. Short names such as BM-8 or BM-13 were used as well. The chassis carrying the launcher was not defined in the name e.g. BM-8-24 referred to a truck mounted launcher (ZIS-5) as well as on the T-40 tank and on the STZ-3
artillery tractor. Chassis for the launchers included: • Soviet-built
ZIS-5,
ZIS-6,
GAZ-AA trucks, and post war the
ZIS-151 •
STZ-5 tracked artillery tractor •
T-40 tank • Lend-lease provided
Studebaker US6 truck • Armored train car • River boat • Towed sledge • Towed trailer • Backpack (portable variant, so called "mountain Katyusha") The M-8 and M-13 rocket could also be fitted with smoke warheads, although this was not common.
Foreign variants The
Axis powers had captured Katyushas during the war. Germany considered producing a local copy, but instead created the
8 cm Raketen-Vielfachwerfer, which was based on the Katyusha. Romania had started developing its
Mareșal tank destroyer in late 1942. One of the first experimental models was equipped with a Katyusha rocket launcher and tested in the summer of 1943. The project was not continued.
Combat history The multiple rocket launchers were top secret at the beginning of World War II and a special unit of
NKVD troops was raised to operate them. On July 14, 1941, an experimental artillery battery of seven launchers was first used in battle at
Rudnya,
Smolensk Oblast under the command of Captain
Ivan Flyorov, destroying a concentration of German troops with tanks, armored vehicles and trucks in the marketplace, causing massive
German Army casualties and panicked retreat from the town. This was the first time the Katyusha was ever used in combat. Following the success, the
Red Army organized new
Guards mortar batteries for the support of infantry divisions. A battery's complement was standardized at four launchers. They remained under NKVD control until German
Nebelwerfer rocket launchers became common later in the war. On August 8, 1941, Stalin ordered the formation of eight special Guards mortar
regiments under the direct control of the
Reserve of the Supreme High Command (RVGK). Each regiment comprised three
battalions of three batteries, totalling 36 BM-13 or BM-8 launchers. Independent Guards mortar battalions were also formed of 12 launchers in three batteries of four. By the end of 1941, there were eight regiments, 35 independent battalions, and two independent batteries in service, a total of 554 launchers. In June 1942 heavy Guards mortar battalions were formed around the new M-30 static rocket launch frames, consisting of 96 launchers in three batteries. In July, a battalion of BM-13s was added to the establishment of a tank corps. In 1944, the BM-31 was used in motorized heavy Guards mortar battalions of 48 launchers. In 1943, Guards mortar brigades, and later divisions, were formed equipped with static launchers. At dawn on September 5, the preparatory artillery and air bombardment began all along the front of the 24th, 1st Guards and 66th armies. But even on the main lines of advance the density of the artillery fire was not great and did not yield the necessary results. The attack began after Katyusha volleys. By the end of 1942, 57 regiments were in service—together with the smaller independent battalions, this was the equivalent of 216 batteries: 21% BM-8 light launchers, 56% BM-13, and 23% M-30 heavy launchers. By the end of the war, the equivalent of 518 batteries were in service. == Post-war development ==