Tsar-gun: weapon masterpiece or toy?

The king-gun and the next tsar-bell surprise the sizes, but they have never been used for their intended purpose.
Some consider them the creations of a national genius, the other personification of the bhavalism, showing and impracticality, remembering the well-known lines: "I don't understand Russia with my mind."

The caliber tsar-gun is 890 mm, the length of the barrel is 5.345 m, the weight of 39,312 tons (2400 poods), the weight of the stone kernel is 819 kg (50 pounds). The cast-iron core would have weighed 120 pounds. To pushing it, the powder charge would be required, which the trunk would not stand.

From place to place a giant gun moved 200 horses on wooden rims, so it was practically non-transportable.

The main characteristic of the artillery gun is the caliber of the barrel. According to this indicator, the king-gun is in fourth place in the world. The first three divide two Mallet Mallet and Mortira Little David, made respectively in Britain and the United States in 1857 and 1945. All of them had a 914 mm caliber (36 inches), like the king gun, they were never used in battle and are museum exhibits.

But is it? We learn the opinion of the expert at the end of the post.

The largest artillery weapon used in practice (in the siege of Sevastopol in 1942) - the German gun of the "Dora" Calibrom 800 mm. She also owns records along the length of the trunk (32 m) and the weight of the projectile (7,088 tons).

The tsar-gun was cast on the third year the reign of the son of Ivan the Grozny Fedor, known to the meek temper, extreme piousness and lack of interest in state affairs. The actual initiator of the creation of "super-bearing" was his shurin and the actual regent Boris Godunov.

It was intended to protect against the Crimean Tatars, which in 1571 burned Moscow and threatened to repeat the raid. In 1591, Han Kaza-Girey approached Moscow again and retired without an assault attempt. Whether there was some role in this role, the presence of Russian tsar guns is unknown. In the future, the military need to use it did not arise.

Experts of the Artillery Academy, who examined the weapon in 1980, established that they were shooting at least once - probably for the sake of testing.

Constructively, the king-gun was a classic bombard - a medieval tool with a thick short barrel, widespread in Europe, Ottoman Turkey and India of the Great Mughal. The bombard was laughed in a state part of the land, charged from the blurred and produced up to six shots a day, mainly to destroy the enemy fortifications. Near the trench for the calculation, because the bombarded often ruined.

In Turkey, the vintage bombards stood on the villages who defended Dardanelles, until 1868. The last case of their successful application refers to 1807. A 244-kilogram stone core was pleased with the powder cellar of the British linear ship "Windsor Castle", which as a result of the explosion sank.

Since the king gun was to fire not on the walls, but according to the cream of infantry and Connection, she could shoot both stone nuclei and cast-iron shrapnel or small stones ("rubing"), and therefore referred to in many sources "Russian shotgun" .

Her creator Andrei Chokhov won the honor to put his name on the trunk next to the name of the monarch. He entered the Moscow cannon yard on the street in 1568 by the 23-year-old young men, quickly advanced, and for 40 years, the work was cast more than twenty large guns. The master worriedly survived terror Ivan the Terrible and troubled time and died in 84 years, becoming a witness to six reigns.

The king-gun was located at the frontal place and covered the Spare Gate of the Kremlin. At first she lay on Earth, in 1626 it was hoarse on the ground-filled log log house ("Roll"), after 10 years they built a stone ruscat, inside of which there was a wine shop.

In 1701, the king-gun survived the miracle. After the loss of most of the artillery under Narva Petr I commanded the old Kremlin gun in modern. Only at the last moment he spared the king gun for uniqueness.

At the beginning of the XVIII century, it was moved to the Kremlin to the gate of Arsenal (demolished due to the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses), and in 1960 at the current place in Ivanovo Square.

Decorating tsar-gun art casting is a work of art

The cast iron boat, on which the king gun is now, and four hollow cast iron kernels, cast in 1835 at the St. Petersburg Plant of Charles Bird, are decorative. The waters of the gun on the faucet was a technically difficult operation for which the Contractor Mikhail Vasilyev won the contractor received a huge amount of 1400 rubles at the time.

At the time of creation, the king-gun was, using the expression, "weapons that do not have analogues in the world." At the same time, for the same money it was possible to cast 20 guns of fewer caliber, which would bring much more benefit. The main goal of the government was, speaking in modern, PR.

When a serious monument to Alexander III was installed in St. Petersburg in 1909 in St. Petersburg, Poet Alexander Roslavlav responded to the epigram: "The third wild toy for the Russian Hall: there was a king bell, the king gun, and now there is still a king ... A."

However, I will remind you of this opinion of artillery specialist A. Shrocorad

He argues that masty historians and dissidents-anecdotchiks are not right. First, the king gun shot, and secondly, this to the gun is not a gun at all.
Currently, the king cannon is located on a cast-iron decorative boat, and there are decorative cast iron kernels, which were cast in 1834 in St. Petersburg at the Chugan-Round Bird Plant. It is clear that it is physically impossible to shoot from this cast-iron bootheet, nor use cast iron nuclei - the tsar-gun will smash! Documents on testing tsar-guns or its use in combat conditions are not preserved, which gave the basis for long-term disputes on its purpose. Most of the historians and the military in the 19th and early twentieth centuries believed that the king-gun was a shotgun, that is, a tool designed to shoot a fraction, which in the XVI-XVII centuries consisted of small stones. A smaller part of the specialists generally excludes the possibility of combat use of the gun, believing that it is made specifically in order to scare foreigners, especially the ambassadors of the Crimean Tatars. Recall that in 1571, Khan Devlet Garyu burned Moscow.

In the XVIII - early twentieth centuries, the king-gun was called in all official documents by a shotgun. And only the Bolsheviks in the 1930s decided to increase her rank in propaganda and began to be magnificent a gun.

The mystery of the king gun was revealed only in the 1980s, when a large car crane took her away from the boiler and placed on a huge trailer. Then the powerful KRAZ was taking a tsar-gun in Serpukhov, where at the plant in / h No. 42708 was repaired cannon. At the same time, a number of specialists of the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky produced its inspection and measurement. The report for some reason was not published, but from the preserved draft materials it becomes clear that the king gun ... was not a gun!

Raisin guns - his channel. At a distance of 3190 mm, it has a cone type, the initial diameter of which is 900 mm, and the final is 825 mm. Then there is a charging chamber with reverse taper - with an initial diameter of 447 mm and a finite (in the treasury part) 467 mm. The length of the cameras is 1730 mm, and the bottom is flat.

So this is a classic bombard!

For the first time, bombards appeared at the end of the XIV century. The name "Bombard" originated from the Latin words of Bombus (thunder sound) and Arder (burn). The first bombards were made from iron and had a fusion camcor. So, for example, in 1382 in the city of Ghent (Belgium), the Bombard "Fucking Margarita" was made, named so in memory of the FLAND CHAIRS MARGARIET. Caliber Bombard - 559 mm, Stem length - 7.75 caliber (CLB), and channel length - 5 bb. The weight of the guns is 11 tons. "Mad Margarita" shot stone cores weighing 320 kg. The bombard consists of two layers: the internal, consisting of longitudinal bands cooked with each other, and the outer - of 41 iron hoops, cooked with each other and with the inner layer. Separate valve cameras consists of one layer of disks cooked with each other and is equipped with the nests where the lever is inserted when it is screwed and disinfect.

For charging and aiming of large bombard spent about a day. Therefore, in the siege of the city of Pisa in 1370, whether the precipitating was preparing to make a shot, the deposited went to the opposite end of the city. The precipitating, using this, rushed to the attack.

The charge of the bombard was not more than 10% of the core weight. Tsazf and flaws were not. The guns were laid on wooden decks and logs, and the piles were clogged behind or brick walls were erected. Original elevation angle has not changed. In the XV century, primitive lifting mechanisms began to use and cast copper bombards.

We will pay attention - the king cannon has no Herf, with the help of which the angle of elevation is given to the tool. In addition, she has an absolutely smooth rear section of a stateless part, which she, like other bombards, rested in a stone wall or a log house.

Defender Dardanwell

By the middle of the XV century, the most powerful siege artillery was at ... Turkish Sultan. Thus, during the siege of Constantinople in 1453, the Hungarian urban founder was cast by the Turks copper bombardment with a 24-inch caliber (610 mm), which arrived by stone cores weighing about 20 pounds (328 kg). It took 60 bulls and 100 people for its transportation to position. To eliminate rollback, behind the weapon of the Turks built a stone wall. The rapidity of this bombard was 4 shots per day. By the way, the rapidity of large-caliber Western European bombard was about the same order. Before taking Constantinople, a 24-inch bombard ripped. At the same time, her designer Urban was killed. Turks appreciated large-caliber bombards. Already in 1480, during the battles on the island of Rhodes, they used a bombard of 24-35-inch caliber (610-890 mm). The casting of such giant bombard was required, as indicated in the ancient documents, 18 days.

It is curious that the bombards of the XV-XVI centuries in Turkey were in service until the middle of the XIX century. So, on March 1, 1807, during the forcing Dardanelle, the English squadron of Dukworth admiral, the marble core of a 25-inch caliber (635 mm) weighing 800 pounds (244 kg) hit the bottom Dec of the ship "Windsor Castle" and ignored several cards with gunpowder, resulting in There was a terrible explosion. 46 people were killed and injured. In addition, many sailors with fright rushed overboard and drowned. The same kernel fell into the Active ship and struck a huge hole in board above the Waterlinia. In this hole, several people could knock out their heads.

In 1868, over 20 huge Bombard still stood on the forts defended Dardanelles. There is information that during the Dardanelle operation of 1915 in the English armadiole "Agamemenon" fell a 400-kilogram stone core. Of course, it was not possible to break through the armor and only rushing the team.

Let's compare the Turkish 25-inch (630-mm) copper bombard, cast in 1464, which is currently kept in the museum in Vulvich (London), with our king gun. The weight of the Turkish bombard is 19 tons, and the full length is 5232 mm. The outer diameter of the trunk is 894 mm. The length of the cylindrical part of the channel is 2819 mm. Camora length - 2006 mm. Bottom cameras rounded. Bombard shot stone nuclei weighing 309 kg, the charge of gunpowders weighed 22 kg.

The bombard at one time defended Dardanelles. As you can see, externally and on the channel of the channel it is very similar to the king gun. The main thing and the fundamental difference is that the Turkish bombard has a wobble state part. Apparently, according to the sample of such a bombard and a king gun was made.

Tsar-shotgun.

So, the king cannon is a bombard designed for firing by stone nuclei. The weight of the stone kernel of the king gun amounted to about 50 pounds (819 kg), and the cast-iron core of such a caliber weighs 120 pounds (1.97 tons). As a shotgun, the king gun was extremely ineffective. At the cost of costs, 20 small shotguns could be made instead of it, for the charging of which you need much less time - not a day, but only 1-2 minutes. I note that in the official inventory "at the Moscow Arsenal of Artillery" # for 1730, 40 copper and 15 cast-iron shotguns were listed. Pay attention to their calibers: 1500 pounds - 1 (this is the king gun), and then follow the calibers: 25 pounds - 2, 22 pounds - 1, 21 pound - 3, etc. The largest number of shotguns, 11, falls on a 2-pound caliber.

And nevertheless she shot

Who and why did you write the tsar gun in the shotgun? The fact is that in Russia all the old guns who were in the fortresses, with the exception of the Mortira, eventually listed in shotguns, that is, in the case of the siege of the fortress, they had to shoot a fraction (stony), and later - a cast-iron case on infantry coming At the assault. Use old tools for firing with nuclei or bombs was inappropriate: And suddenly the trunk will separate, and the new guns have ballistic data much better. So the king gun was recorded in shotguns, at the end of the XIX - the beginning of the twentieth centuries about the orders in the smooth-born fortress artillery, the military forgot, and civilians did not know at all and by the name "shotgun" decided that the king cannon was supposed to be used exclusively as an antspecturous Tools for firing "stone fraction".

Point in the dispute, whether the king gun shot, put specialists from the Academy in 1980. Dzerzhinsky. They explored the canal tools and for a number of signs, including the presence of burnt powder particles concluded that the tsar gun was shot at least once. After the tsar was cast and separated on the gun yard, they dragged her to the Spassky Bridge and put it on the ground next to the Pavlin gun. # To move the gun, to eight brackets on his trunk tied ropes, these ropes were injected at the same time. Horses, and those rolled the gun lying on huge logs - rinks.

Initially, the instruments of the "king" and "peacock" lay on Earth at the bridge leading to the Spasskaya Tower, and Kashpirov cannon - at the Zemsky order, located where the historical museum is now located. In 1626 they were raised from the ground and installed on log fires, tightly stuffed grounds. These platforms were called Roskati. One of them, with a king-gun and "Pavlin", set as a frontal place, the other, with a cospica gun, - at the Nikolsky gate. In 1636, wooden roskats were replaced by stone, inside which warehouses and shops were arranged.

After the "Narva Conclusion", when the royal army lost all the siege and regimental artillery, Peter I ordered urgently pouring new guns. The king, the necessary for this, I decided to get the swallowing of bells and old cannons. According to the "registered decree" it was "ordered to pour into the cannon and mortar casting the gun" Peacock ", which in China has a frontal place in Roskat; Punny Kashpirov, which has a new cash yard, where there was a Zemskaya order; the gun "Echidna", which is under the village of Voskresensky; The gun "Grades" the core of the pound of ten pounds; The gun "Solovna" is a core of 6 pounds, which in China on the square. "

Peter, due to its uneducation, did not spare the most ancient instruments of the Moscow casting and made an exception only for the largest guns. Among them, naturally, the king cannon, as well as two Mortira casting Andrei Chokhov, who are currently being in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg.