Pages

Tuesday 13 August 2013

I have been to ... the Artillery Museum, St Petersburg: Post-war Weaponry

Rockets have formed a major part of the Soviet and Russian arsenals since the end of the Second World War, and the Artillery Museum has an extensive collection of them.

2P26 anti-tank weapon system (AT-1 Snapper anti-tank missile mounted on a modified UAZ-69 light truck)



2P27 anti-tank weapon system (AT-1 Snapper anti-tank missiles mounted on a BRDM-1 chassis)


2P32 anti-tank weapon system (AT-2 Swatter ant-tank missiles mounted on a BRDM-1 chassis)


9K11 Malyutka (AT-3 Sagger) anti-tank missile


3R2 Mars (FROG-2) tactical missile mounted on a tracked chassis based on that of the PT-76 light tank
FROG = Free Rocket Over Ground



3R1 Filin (FROG-1) tactical missile mounted on a tracked chassis based on that of the JS heavy tank
FROG = Free Rocket Over Ground



BM-25 rocket launcher mounted on a KrAZ-214 truck



BM-24 rocket launcher mounted on a truck


BM-14 rocket launcher mounted on a truck


BM-21 Grad rocket launcher mounted on a Ural-375D truck


2A11 Krug (SA-4 Ganef) anti-aircraft missile (background)
2K12 Kub (SA-6 Gainful) anti-aircraft missile (foreground)



9K31 Strela-1 (SA-9 Gaskin) anti-aircraft missile


9K35 Strela-10 (SA-10 Gopher) anti-aircraft missile


Early Russian ballistic missile engines
These were designed by Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, the leading Russian rocket engineer and bear a very close resemblance to the rocket engines fitted to the German V2 rocket.


The Museum also has a very large collection of conventional artillery, much of which is displayed outside the Museum.

2S3 Akatsiya 152mm self-propelled howitzer





2S7 Pion 203mm self-propelled gun



2S1 Gvozdika 122mm self-propelled howitzer


M1955 (D-74) 122mm howitzer


2A36 Giatsint-B 152mm gun



6 comments:

  1. Thanks Bob. Curious how unadorned the paint job are, no bridging weights, ID marks, divisional flashes at all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Conrad Kinch,

    The vehicles were totally bare of any markings, and I suspect that this is a hang-over from the Cold War era.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great series on the museum Bob.

    Those BM21s give me the willies. As young infantry radio operators we were told a battery of them was posted to each the Soviet radio detection unit. Hold the talk switch down a bit too long and it would be like your 100m grid square was lifted up, turned over and dropped from 1000 feet.

    Probably just a bogeyman story to keep us in line but it worked. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pat G,

    Thanks for your very kind comment.

    Even if it is not true, it is certainly a scary story!

    With a six-vehicle battery where each vehicle fires 40(!) rockets, the thought of being on the receiving end of that salvo would scare anyone witless ... and it would move a lot a real estate around as well!

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  5. More fantastic stuff. The 2S7 Pion is a monster.

    Cheers,

    Pete.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Pete,

    It looked even bigger close up!

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for leaving a comment. Please note that any comments that are spam or contain phishing messages or that come from Google Accounts that are 'Unknown' will be deleted.