USSR artillery shell production

[Art]

Table 48:
1. Type of ammunition
2. Total lost
including:
1941
3. Quantity
4. Percentage of total losses
1942
5. Quantity
6. Percentage of total losses
Average monhtly loses:
7. 1941
8. 1942

Table 49
1. Type of ammunition
Resources in 1941
2. Available on 22.06.41
3. Industrial deliveries in the 2nd half 1941
4. Total (sum)
Decrease:
5. Expenditure
6. Including combat expenditure by fronts and PVO
7. Remainder as of 01.01.42
8. Percantage realtive to quantity as of 22.06.41

Apparently "expenditure" here means a sum of losses, combat and training expenditure.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Table 48:
1. Type of ammunition
2. Total lost
including:
1941
3. Quantity
4. Percentage of total losses
1942
5. Quantity
6. Percentage of total losses
Average monhtly loses:
7. 1941
8. 1942

Table 49
1. Type of ammunition
Resources in 1941
2. Available on 22.06.41
3. Industrial deliveries in the 2nd half 1941
4. Total (sum)
Decrease:
5. Expenditure
6. Including combat expenditure by fronts and PVO
7. Remainder as of 01.01.42
8. Percantage realtive to quantity as of 22.06.41

Apparently "expenditure" here means a sum of losses, combat and training expenditure.

Thanks Art.

I agree that the "expenditure" encompasses all forms of loss, even though the chart isn't explicit. The narrative specifically states that commanders who lost artillery shells to the enemy - or who were forced to destroy them - often reported them as expended because of the harsh consequences expected otherwise (the book was written in 1977 so has more freedom to acknowledge Stalin/Beria lurking in the background).

[Vasilyev]

rusarchives.ru has the GKO's approval of monthly ammo production plans. October and December are especially granular. They go into detail about the plans for different parts of the supply chain (Metals, explosives, etc.) and list where they're produced. Overall ~370 pages of material.

July and 2nd half 1941 (31 pages): http://sovdoc.rusarchives.ru/sections/war/cards/368299

August/September (36 pages): http://sovdoc.rusarchives.ru/sections/war/cards/368566

October (162 pages): http://sovdoc.rusarchives.ru/sections/war/cards/368830

November (38 pages): http://sovdoc.rusarchives.ru/sections/war//cards/368940

December (103 pages): http://sovdoc.rusarchives.ru/sections/war/cards/369099

[Der Alte Fritz]

If someone is interested, here is data on Soviet ammunition expenditure in 1943. Format - type vs. expenditure in thousands rounds:
Taken from the Russian forum
http://vif2ne.ru/nvk/forum/0/co/1813574.htm

Art
I seem to remember that Vif2ne.ru moved somewhere else a few years ago. Do you have the current link to the article?

Also I am looking for a copy of
Sovetskaja Artilleryija v Velikoy Otechestvennoy vojne 1941-1945 godov [Soviet Artillery in the Great Patriotic War]. Moskva: Voenizdat, 1960.
if anyone has seen a copy

[Art]

just replace .ru in the address line for .org.

I've got a paper copy of this book, it doesn't address production and supply of ammunition in much detail IIRC.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Art
Thank you, have found it again.

I wanted to have alook at Sovetskaja Artilleryija v Velikoy Otechestvennoy vojne 1941-1945 godov for examples of artillery use, rather than this subject. Do you have the extra volume with the 108 schemes? I cannot find a copy in British Libraries. The archeologists with whom I am working at present wanted details of the Berlin operation. Good fire plan and artillery groupings in Peredelʹskiĭ, Georgiĭ Efimovich, Afanasiĭ Ivanovich Tokmakov, and Georgiĭ Trifonovich Khoroshilov. Артиллерия в бою и операции. Moskva: Voenizdat. 1980. But I wondered if there was additional detail in SAVOv. There is no production stuff in Peredelsky either

[Art]

Do you have the extra volume with the 108 schemes? I cannot find a copy in British Libraries.

No. This maps volume was actually downloadable somewhere, but I can't rememember were exactly. I will try to find it, but I need to raise my old hard drive from dead for that. Anyway, all schemes in Peredelskiy were actually reprinted from this volume.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Couple of artillery terms that I cannot translate:

1) выстрелов картузного заряжания

2) военно-разрядная база

3) (их броня)
as in "Из общего количества артиллерийских боеприпасов, хранившихся к началу войны на центральных базах и складах (14601 тыс. снарядов и мин), около 24 процентов (3480 тыс.) составляли мобзапасы округов (их броня), принадлежавшие в основном трем западным приграничным военным округам — Прибалтийскому, Западному и Киевскому."

and I have collected a 1933 Manual on Handling Munitions which I shall post when I have processed the images.

[Art]

1) выстрелов картузного заряжания

Units of separate loading ammunition (bagged charge)

3) (их броня)

Reserved stocks of military districts

2) военно-разрядная база

Doesn't make sense to me without a context.

[Vasilyev]

Volume 5 of "History of the creation and development of the military-industrial complex of Russia and the USSR, 1900-1963" (Part 1 covers 1941-42) has a bunch of documents on ammunition production.

One memorandum from Beria and B.L. Vannikov (People's Commissar for Ammunition) on March 23, 1942 discussed the urgent need to important additional explosives, propellants, etc. due to shortages of raw materials. Ending up getting approved as GKO Resolution 1489ss.

Here's the list of the minimum quantities to be imported:

1. Pyroxylin powder - 7000 t
including: rifle - 4000 t
Tubular 30/50 for a speed of 870 m/s - 1000 t
Tubular 21/1 - 1000 t
Granulated 9/7 - 1000 t
2. Nitroglycerin powder пластинчатые (?) - 1000 t
3. Centralit - 300 t
4. Diphenylamine - 300 t
5. Potassium nitrate - 2000 t
6. Potassium sulfate - 800 t
7. Ammonium powder - 5000 t
8. Anthracene - 2000 t
9. Dimethylaniline - 800 t
10. Ammonium thiocyanate 3 t
11. Resorcinol 6t
12. Barium peroxide 25 t
13. Strontium oxalate 8t
14. Rhodamine 0.5 t

Full document: http://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/ ... rta-1942-g

[Der Alte Fritz]

Balysh, A. N., and Балыш Андрей Николаевич. ‘Развитие производства взрывчатых веществ в СССР в 30-е гг. ХХ в. и поставки по ленд-лизу в годы Великой Отечественной войны [Explosives Production in USSR in 1930s and Its Lend-Lease Supplies During Great Patriotic War]’. RUDN Journal of Russian History, no. 4 (15 December 2012): 5–15.
https://journals.rudn.ru/russian-histor ... /3781/3235

makes the extraordinary claim that over half of the Soviet Unions explosives came from Lend Lease in some form or other

[Vasilyev]

Balysh, A. N., and Балыш Андрей Николаевич. ‘Развитие производства взрывчатых веществ в СССР в 30-е гг. ХХ в. и поставки по ленд-лизу в годы Великой Отечественной войны [Explosives Production in USSR in 1930s and Its Lend-Lease Supplies During Great Patriotic War]’. RUDN Journal of Russian History, no. 4 (15 December 2012): 5–15.
https://journals.rudn.ru/russian-histor ... /3781/3235

makes the extraordinary claim that over half of the Soviet Unions explosives came from Lend Lease in some form or other

The explosion at NKB Plant No. 15 was a huge problem for the production of TNT in the first half of 1944. The GKO plan for Q1 1944 was that nearly half the production of TNT would come from Plant No. 15 - 15,500 tons out of 32,000. See page 179 of the below:

http://sovdoc.rusarchives.ru/sections/w ... 246/images

For Q2 1944, the explosion reduced it to 3,000 tons of TNT out of 27,800 planned. See page 204:

http://sovdoc.rusarchives.ru/sections/w ... 518/images