Colorized photos of Soviet WWII weaponry

[Art]

on June 10, the 27th heavy tank regiment advanced 14 km along the Vyborg highway

Formally speaking neither 26 nor 27 Guards HTR took part in combat on 10.06.44. The first engagement of the 27 GHTR was a "friendly" firefight with Soviet T-34 tanks on the morning of 11.06.44.

[Interbellum]

on June 10, the 27th heavy tank regiment advanced 14 km along the Vyborg highway

Formally speaking neither 26 nor 27 Guards HTR took part in combat on 10.06.44. The first engagement of the 27 GHTR was a "friendly" firefight with Soviet T-34 tanks on the morning of 11.06.44.

There was no combat on 10.06.1944 (but better to check original regiment's report for that day), but 27 OGvTTP started the advance.

[Juha Tompuri]

Hi!

130-mm naval gun model 1935 (B-13) in battle position, Soviet coastal battery on the Karelian Isthmus, Vyborg, 1944.

viewtopic.php?f=79&t=246915&start=15#p2250179

Vyborg?
Or somewhere else at Karelian Isthmus?

Regards, Juha

[Juha Tompuri]

Soviet 180-mm railway gun TM-1-180, captured by Finns on the Hanko Peninsula in December 1941, in battery position, Finland.

In 1945, taken back from Finns and repaired railway guns TM-1-180 of the former 17th battery from the Hanko Peninsula entered service with the newly formed 292nd battery.

Finns sold the five captured (from Hanko and Karelian isthmus) 1800 railway guns (31.12.1944?) with price of 136 122 000 Finnish Marks.
Also the (from Hanko) captured three 305mm raiway guns were sold for 161 425 000 Marks.
Guns were complete, in working order and with some ammo.

Page 132:

https://www.sshs.fi/pdf/Suomi%20valvonn ... 4-1947.pdf

Regards, Juha

[Interbellum]

Thank you very much for the photos and info.
Please keep on going.

Thanks, Juha, I will try to continue if I have time
Here are two more photos of SU-76M self-propelled gun I've discussed shortly above - viewtopic.php?f=79&t=246915

SU-76M light self-propelled gun with the infantry assault party on its armour, Poland, July 1944.

In contrast to the first SU-76 which had two engines mounted in parallel and suffered from failures of gear boxes and main shaft because of resonance vibrations in transmission during heavy off-road movement, improved SU-76M with two GAZ-202 engines mounted in tandem (similar to T-70 light tank) were much more reliable, fast (45 km/h on road) and quite maneuverable vehicles which were often included into vanguards to pursue the retreating enemy.

[Interbellum]

The crew of SU-76M under the command of guards senior lieutenant A.R. Lalak (1729th self-propelled artillery regiment, 3rd Shock Army, 1st Belorussian Front) fires at the enemy on the outskirts of Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany, April 1945.

Note 76.2-mm divisional field gun ZIS-3 in the armoured gun compartment without roof and the rear armoured plate with a door (SU-76M produced in 1945 had higher rear armoured plate with two firing ports and a larger door, also a hand-rail was welded to the left and right sides of the gun compartment for mounting DT machine gun). ZIS-3 divisional gun had elevation from -5 to +15 degrees, traverse 30 degrees and rate of fire up to 20 rounds per min. The production serial number 412145 is visible on the rear armoured plate of this SU-76M.

P.S. Guards senior lieutenant Alexey Lalak (Ukrainian, born in 1920), commander of SU-76M battery, was awarded with the Order of Alexander Nevsky for the combats in Brandenburg state in April 1945. According to the regimental award documents - near Letschin, his SPG battery successfully supported infantry units and destroyed 4 mortars, 5 machine guns, 3 artillery guns and about 80 enemy soldiers. In Berlin Pankow borough, his SU-76М destroyed 8 Panzerfaust and 2 machine gun nests. On April 21st, senior lieutenant A.R. Lalak was wounded in combat of Pankow, but continued to fire and destroyed 2 artillery guns before being sent to the hospital.
http://podvignaroda.ru/?#id=39279641&ta ... ilDocument (page 2)

[Interbellum]

I've mentioned Yak-9 fighter here - viewtopic.php?p=2247412#p2247412
Here is the good photo of its predecessor - Yak-1 fighter.

Yak-1 fighter serial number 3560 built at Saratov Aviation Plant in March 1942 and reequipped with a bubble canopy and a lowered rear fuselage at Plant No. 115 (belonged to A.S. Yakovlev Experimental Design Bureau) as the new production standard, test flights in the Research Institute of Air Forces, Koltsovo airfield near Sverdlovsk, July 1942.

Also note changed upper cowl panel and experimental grey-blue painting of this Yak-1. The armament was also changed - instead of two 7.62 mm ShKAS machine guns, one 12.7 mm UBS machine gun was installed; the mechanical trigger of 20 mm ShVAK gun was replaced with electric trigger.
Yak-1 fighters were produced in 1940-1944, mainly at Saratov Aviation Plant (Plant No. 292).

[Interbellum]

Direct predecessor of Yak-9 fighter - Yak-7.

Yak-7B fighter (serial number 2203, built at Plant No. 153 in Novosibirsk) with M-105PF engine during tests of armament in the Research Institute of Air Forces, June 1942.

Yak-7B was armed with 20 mm ShVAK cannon (firing through the propeller spinner) and two 12.7 mm UBS machine guns (firing above the engine), also two 25-100 kg bombs or six RS-82 unguided rockets could be carried under the wing. Note the rear cockpit with opaque canopy allowing to transport a passenger (usually an airplane mechanic) if necessary, for instance, during relocating to another airfield.

Yak-9 fighter from an engineer point of view was a further development of Yak-7 fighter, but it was more perfect. Duralumin was widely used in its design, in which the USSR was no longer in such great difficulty as at the beginning of the war. The use of duralumin instead of wood for wing longerons allowed to significantly reduce the empty weight of the aircraft, and use this gain to increase the fuel load or to equip the fighter with more powerful armament and different equipment. Yak-9 retained all advantages of A.S. Yakovlev's fighters - stability in various flight modes and ease of piloting. At the same time, Yak-9 gained higher speed, maneuverability and rate of climb in comparison with Yak-1 and Yak-7 fighters, also Yak-9 had lowered rear fuselage for all-around vision.

[Interbellum]

An interesting post-WWII photo of Dodge WC-51 in Soviet service - viewtopic.php?p=2247416#p2247416

Dodge WC-51 (Dodge 3/4) military off-road cars tow 57-mm anti-tank guns ZIS-2 during parade on the Red Square, Moscow, 1 May 1947.

25202 Dodge WC series (24902 WC-51 & WC-52 + 200 WC-53 command cars + 100 WC-54 ambulances) were sent to USSR according to lend-lease in 1942-1945, about 19600 of them reached the place of destination.

[Interbellum]

I’ve already mentioned that Soviet drivers liked Dodge 3/4 military utility vehicles. They were really multipurpose (cargo, reconnaissance, escort/patrol, HQ/commander cars), and used mainly in artillery units to tow 57-mm ZIS-2 anti-tank or 76.2-mm ZIS-3 divisional guns and to transport gun’s crew with part of ammunition load. Dodges were quite reliable, with good cross-country ability, speed and stability on bad roads (4WD car with wide axle track, high ground clearance, soft suspension with hydraulic shock absorbers and low pressure tires with substantial ribs), powerful (92 hp Dodge T-214 gasoline engine) vehicles. Soviet drivers said: “Not a single car could leave the Dodge on a dirt road - neither GAZ nor Opel or Mercedes...”
The main disadvantage of Dodge-three quarters was the high demands on the quality of gasoline: the vehicle’s engine worked very poorly on Soviet automobile gasoline with low octane value and, as a result, the piston group wore out. The most suitable fuel for Dodges in Soviet service was the expensive B-70 and KB-70 aviation gasoline.

[karolwatcher]

Thank you so much.
But these are staged photos?

[Interbellum]

Thank you so much.
But these are staged photos?

It depends on the corresponding photo like in every world's army. Quite many were made exactly and directly during WWII combats by Soviet army reporters and photographers (about 1500 of them were killed in action during their very dangerous work, and their last photos were published post mortem...). But some photos, obviously, were made after combats or between them in a high quality and necessary environment (which is very hard to find and to photograph momentary during the chaos of the combat...) specially for newspapers, like to ask artillerymen after a battle to make a good “combat” photo with their gun and enemy tanks, destroyed by the same artillerymen but several hours earlier... Some photos of AFVs and aircraft were made in the rear, during parades or tests, but this was made exactly to show parade or to photograph a vehicle for a test report. I prefer to find an original photo description directly in digitized photo archives than in the following newspapers which sometimes are not very correct because of propaganda or war secret (the exact designation of army unit, for instance, is hard to find in WWII newspapers...) purposes that time. I am interested here much more in weaponry and vehicles than in combat situations or acts of bravery on the battlefield, but it is good if all these can combine together and you can see on the photo a corresponding vehicle in a real combat
The good example of reality of the combat situation is one of the most famous WWII photo “Battalion commander”, that unknown junior officer (junior politleader A.G. Yeremenko as it was discovered much later, in 1970s...) was killed just in a minute after the photo was taken under strong enemy fire and army photographer (Max Alpert) made this excellent photo absolutely by chance, when he just saw for a second the corresponding moment during the counter-attack of Soviet infantrymen. Also the Alpert’s photocamera was damaged by shell fragment the same moment and he thought that a film was broken also, but fortunately the film inside photocamera survived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political ... mander.jpg

[Interbellum]

One more photo of the 76-mm regimental gun model 1927 - viewtopic.php?p=2248264#p2248264

Crew of the 76-mm regimental gun model 1927 at the firing position, 205th Rifle Division, 31st Rifle Corps, 26th Army, Karelian Front, Medvezhyegorsk (Karhumäki) direction, end of 1943.

Note the clearly visible gun breech. Usually the crew of regimental gun mod. 1927 consisted of 7 artillerymen: commander, gun-layer, loader, lock operator, handspike traverse aimer and two ammunition box bearers. The gun had an elevation from -5.6° to +24.5° and traverse 4.5°, rate of fire was 10 rounds per min and maximum firing range 8550 m (but practically the Soviet regimental guns were used almost always to destroy enemy firing points like field guns, mortars or machine gun nests in the line-of-sight of the crew).

[Interbellum]

Hi!

130-mm naval gun model 1935 (B-13) in battle position, Soviet coastal battery on the Karelian Isthmus, Vyborg, 1944.

viewtopic.php?f=79&t=246915&start=15#p2250179

Vyborg?
Or somewhere else at Karelian Isthmus?

Regards, Juha

Hi!
In the wartime description of the original photo, it was written: Karelian Isthmus, Vyborg. 1944. 101st guards naval railway artillery brigade. Press photographer - Georgy Petrusov. There is another photo by G. Petrusov of exactly the same 130-mm naval gun, I guess made the same day - https://russiainphoto.ru/photos/32342/ The city with damaged buildings (Vyborg?) is visible. In June 1944, some batteries of 101st guards naval railway artillery brigade approached Vyborg, took positions along the line Koivisto-Vyborg and supported army units and marines to take islands in the Vyborg Bay. As far as I know 36 130-mm naval guns B-13 mounted on four-axle railway platforms were in 403rd-406th divizions (artillery battalions) of the brigade in 1944.

P.S. It was very hard for me to find WWII photos of B-13 naval guns in coastal defense service. But there are many photos of them, mounted on Soviet destroyer leaders and destroyers, as they were their main artillery weapon...

[Interbellum]

viewtopic.php?p=2247410#p2247410
viewtopic.php?p=2276644#p2276644
viewtopic.php?p=2276638#p2276638

One more photo of light self-propelled gun SU-76M, in a good quality.

Self-propelled guns SU-76M of guards lieutenant colonel V.S. Shonichev (commander of 1513th self-propelled artillery regiment, the first to enter Austria) pass through the streets of Vienna, 37th Guards Rifle Corps, 9th Guards Army, 3rd Ukrainian Front, April 1945.
Photo by Ye. Khaldei (1917-1997) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Khaldei