The city of military glory is how most people perceive Sevastopol. 30 battery is one of the components of its appearance. It is important that even now it is ready for battle - it is not a museum, but an active military facility, albeit mothballed. If necessary, it can again become a formidable fort in three days.

Where is the 30th coastal battery located on the map?

The complex is located in the northern part of Sevastopol, near the Kachinsky highway. Nearby you can find the Church of St. Nicholas, the Great Patriotic War Memorial and the Perovsky family house-museum.

A tale of two wars

The 30th battery in Sevastopol owes its fame to two world wars. The first contributed to its construction, the second became the arena of its glory. Now let's try to figure out why this happened.

The negative experience of the Russian-Japanese conflict back in 1905 prompted the Russian command to the idea that an armored turret coastal battery was needed. General and composer Ts.A. Cui developed the project and selected a location near the village of Lyubimovka, based on the times. Construction began in 1912, when the gunpowder fumes of the First World War were already in the air.

However, the defensive complex was not completed. It turned out that it was not so needed on the Black Sea. The Russian fleet absolutely dominated its waters and there were no enemy naval commanders so “crazy” that they would risk approaching the formidable Sevastopol. As a result, 305 mm cannons intended for the battery in Lyubimovka were sent to Petrograd in 1915.

For its time, the battery was technically advanced - fully electrified, protected by reinforced concrete, with the ability to rotate the towers 360 degrees. In 1928, it was decided to complete its construction. Work continued until 1934, resulting in a powerful fort capable of controlling not only coastal waters, but also land. At the same time, an almost complete analogue of the 30th was built.

The ability of large-caliber ship guns to fire at land played a big role during the Great Patriotic War. The second defense of Sevastopol required battles not so much on water as on solid ground.

Excuse for Manstein

Hitler was very dissatisfied with the duration of the defense of Sevastopol. Commander Erich Manstein, in his justification, provided the Fuhrer with data on the combat effectiveness of the 30th battery, called by the Germans “Fort Maxim Gorky I”. The excuses were considered convincing - Manstein remained one of the top commanders of Hitler's Wehrmacht. The 35th battery was located inconveniently for firing at the advancing German units, so the “thirty” took the brunt of the attack. It became the main caliber of artillery for the defenders.

In December 1941, Manstein’s tank crews were positively horrified, admiring the fact that
what 305 mm shells did to their vehicles. In January 1942, the battery garrison manually, without special cranes, replaced 50-ton gun barrels, worn out from intensive use. Soviet soldiers spent 16 days on this procedure instead of the standard 60. At the end of May of the same year, the Germans deployed two heavy 600-mm Karl mortars and a grandiose 800-mm Dora against the “thirty.” On June 5, these monsters opened fire. The concrete cracked from hits from Karl's shells (Dora turned out to be such a warrior), but the bastion held.

On June 17, 1942, the “thirty” was completely blocked, and on the same day it ran out of ammunition. Then the crews opened fire with metal blanks for practice shooting. When such a “fool” tore off the turret of a German tank, the offensive slowed down again. Then the battery fought off the advancing enemy infantry with blank charges - jets of powder gases with a temperature of +300 degrees worked perfectly.

When the enemy broke through to the position, the last defenders destroyed the power stops and the latest guidance devices. There was a real hunt for them in the passages of underground fortifications with flamethrowers, explosives and toxic substances. The entire 30th battery of Sevastopol was captured by the enemy only on June 26, a few days before the fall of the city. It is noteworthy that all this time it was commanded by a German. Major Grigory Alexander came from a family of German settlers. He was captured and shot in .

What is interesting about an armored turret battery today?

There are photos from the Second World War depicting the degree of destruction at the 30th battery. She was almost wiped off the face of the earth. But after the war it was restored, installing six guns (instead of the previous four), the latest guidance systems and a radar station appeared.
But gradually coastal artillery lost its importance - other types of weapons appeared. The current post-war history ended in 1997, when an agreement was concluded on its conservation.

Now there is a museum of its history on the territory, but tourists do not leave reviews about it - you need a special invitation to visit. Unlike the 35th, the 30th coastal battery in Sevastopol is still an active military unit today. Its weapons have been mothballed, but may be brought back into service.

Military personnel, representatives of the press and the public are allowed here. Ordinary people are more likely to become acquainted with his exhibition through reports. Among other things, there are huge fragments of Karl shells and numerous fragments of other ammunition - according to employees, after the war the battery area was literally littered with them.

There are other interesting items here, including topographic maps and household items, both of Soviet defenders and German soldiers. The battery management especially notes the Soviet instructions for officers, marked with the German “eagle” - the fascist command tried to use instructions for high-quality Russian weapons to train their people. Parts of the guns are also museum samples, on some you can see the factory mark of 1914-1917, it all works!

How to get (get there) from the center of Sevastopol?

By public transport you can only get here from the Northern Bus Station or. Choose minibuses No. 36, 42, 45, 47 and 51. Get off either at the “Vodokanal” or “Sovkhoz im. Perovskaya".

By car, you can get to the battery by car yourself like this:

Contacts and excursions

• Address: Batareynaya street, North Side, Sevastopol, Crimea, Russia.
• GPS coordinates: 44.663792, 33.559225.
• Excursions: by agreement with the administration.

Crimea has always been an important point on the map of Russia and the Black Sea. The heavy naval guns of the 30th battery are still monitoring the shore near Lyubimovka, discouraging uninvited guests from visiting Sevastopol. In conclusion, we offer a video tour of this glorious place - Fort Maxim Gorky, enjoy watching!

Sevastopol citadel

What is the secret of the durability of the 30th armored turret battery

Andrey Kots

In the fall of 1941, this Sevastopol battery was the first to take on a powerful blow from the 11th Army of General Manstein. And she remained completely surrounded for almost ten months. It was shelled with super-heavy artillery, stormed, gas was used against the Red Navy, and two-ton bombs were dropped. They bled, but continued to destroy the enemy. The easily recognizable profile of its gun turrets became one of the main symbols of the heroic defense of Sevastopol.

Armored turret battery No. 30, the construction of which began 105 years ago, still guards the city of Russian sailors today. If necessary, her weapons are ready to speak again. A RIA Novosti correspondent visited the "thirty" and tried to unravel the military secret of its longevity and legendary durability.

Underground fortress

The central corridor of the combat unit of the 30th battery, connecting the first and second gun turrets underground, stretched for 120 meters. To the left and right are one and a half ton armored doors on massive hinges, cutting off the main wall of the bunker from other rooms. Overhead is a ten-meter “layer cake” of asphalt concrete, reinforced concrete, sand and compacted soil.

It seems like a second - and the vault will tremble from the powerful explosions of German shells, the silence of the underground city will be broken by the piercing roar of the combat alarm signal, and the boots of the gun crews will rumble on the concrete floor again.

Today, armored turret battery No. 30 on the outskirts of the village of Lyubimovka is an active military unit of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

The personnel is seven people: the head of the department for maintenance and regulation of special fortifications, captain-lieutenant Sergei Voronkov, his deputy foreman and five contract soldiers.

Every day - morning formation and departure for work.

The block contains 72 rooms with a total area of ​​more than three thousand square meters (half a football field): a boiler room, a pump room, personnel quarters, a power station, powder and shell magazines, basement tanks for water, oil and fuel. All operating mechanisms and assemblies must be maintained in perfect working order.

The battery is being mothballed, but “if there’s war tomorrow,” the magnificent seven batteries will return it to service in less than a week.

“After the division of the Black Sea Fleet between Russia and Ukraine, the territory of the battery was also divided,” explains Lieutenant Commander Sergei Voronkov.

“Russia got an underground block and two gun turrets. The removed observation post and surrounding territories were transferred to Ukraine. The place here is very attractive. Beautiful view, clean air, ten minutes walk to the beach. In the Ukrainian part, cottages began to sprout like mushrooms. If not for the well-known events of 2014, the entire high-rise would have been built up. Now the situation has improved. Construction has stopped and we are being given more funds to keep the battery afloat. With the permission of the command, we organize lectures for schoolchildren and students. Last year alone, more than seven thousand of them visited us,” he says.

Lessons from Tsushima

"Thirty" covered the Sevastopol Bay from the sea threat from the north. Its twin sister - armored turret battery No. 35 (today an active museum) - is from the south. The decision to build such coastal fortifications at naval bases was made shortly after the Tsushima defeat.

In terms of firing range, the guns of Japanese ships were significantly superior to the guns of Port Arthur. The city’s defenders had nothing to respond to the hail of shells flying from the sea.

The conclusion of the Russian command was unequivocal: the power of coastal artillery should more than exceed that of naval artillery.

The Alkadar hill in the north of Sevastopol was noticed by the famous Russian fortifier General Caesar Cui back in the middle of the 19th century - in his opinion, it was ideal for a fortified artillery position. Entrusted to the military engineer, Lieutenant General Nestor Buinitsky, the project of the 30th armored turret battery was ready by 1912.

Construction began a year later, but the First World War and the revolution almost put an end to it. Work resumed only in 1928, and the battery was handed over to the customer just before the start of the Great Patriotic War.

No trifles

On the “thirty” even today everything is extremely functional. Any, even the smallest detail is not accidental. The floor of the central corridor has a slight slope - this is done so that waste water during a fire flows into the drainage holes.

In the event of an assault, the massive armored doors of the main porch swing open in a checkerboard pattern, forming an impenetrable labyrinth of one and a half ton bulletproof barricades for the enemy.

Vital cables are protected by a low-melting lead braid, under which a special substance with a pungent odor is pumped - so that in the event of a short circuit you can literally smell the location of the damage.

The transitions between powder magazines are at an angle of 45 degrees, so that in the event of a fire the blast wave goes into the concrete wall. I just can’t believe that all this could have been foreseen.

"What do you want? Give the military free rein - they generally regulate everything,” the lieutenant commander grins as we, bent over, crawl into the cramped closet of the reserve command post. A native Sevastopol resident, Sergei Voronkov, can navigate the underground labyrinths fluently and easily explains the purpose of each screw. - Do you see this wooden plank? If communication was lost, orders were transmitted through messengers. They wrote with pencil on tablets. The paper can be crumpled and wet, but nothing will happen to such a “notepad.”

The Thirty was built fully electrified. All operations for pointing and loading guns were provided by electric motors. The projectile supply system was also automated as much as possible. However, all mechanisms are duplicated by manual drives - in case the enemy manages to cut off the power to the battery. A complex system of levers, conveyor belts, guide rails, and even gravity itself came to the aid of the Red Navy.

Voronkov presses his foot on a barely noticeable pedal - and from a shelf located at an inclination of two degrees, a model of a 471-kilogram projectile rolls heavily into the conveyor tray.

Two movements of the lever - and the ammunition is hidden in the turret room.

And the underground casemates for servicing both towers are identical in internal structure and are located mirrored. This made it easier for crews to navigate in the dark or in smoke. And this is also one of the unobvious secrets of the tenacity of the “thirty” shown during the defense of Sevastopol.

Centennial guns

The main caliber of the battery is two turrets removed from the battleship Poltava (after the revolution - Frunze) after the Great Patriotic War. Each has three twelve-inch naval guns (304.8 millimeters). The barrel length is 52 calibers, the maximum firing range is 45 kilometers.

These guns are over a hundred years old, but they are in good working order.

Lieutenant Commander Voronkov demonstrates the operation of the bolt lock, the procedure for chambering a projectile and a powder cap into the barrel. He invites me to aim the gun vertically myself. The massive steering wheel is surprisingly easy to twist counterclockwise. Balanced with special weights, the fifty-ton barrel smoothly rises upward.

In a similar way, horizontal aiming is carried out on a de-energized battery. The tower weighing 868 tons is mounted on a special horizontal bearing.

To deploy it, the effort of eight people and a long lever is enough.

“Everything is in good working order and combat-ready,” explains Voronkov. - Give me a shell, a powder charge and an ignition powder tube - I will aim at the barrel and shoot. Here you can make absolutely everything work, but there is no particular practical sense in this now. Generators, for example, are not economical by today's standards. Our battery preserves the memory of the battle for Sevastopol. Whether it should be modernized or not is a big question.”

Under fire

During the Great Patriotic War, other two-gun turrets were installed on the "thirty". In the fall of 1941, the Germans broke through at Perekop and marched to Sevastopol. Intelligence reported to Manstein that the city was almost unprotected from land and there was every chance of taking it on the move. But the Germans underestimated the capabilities of powerful coastal batteries, which turned around and struck on land.

“The battery entered battle on November 1, 1941. At 12:39, two high-explosive shells hit the enemy column near Bakhchisarai,” Voronkov points to the northeast. - We hit it successfully: we managed to destroy 80 units of equipment and more than two infantry battalions at once. The fragments at the impact sites scattered in an ellipse 300 meters wide and a kilometer long. After such a “hello” the Germans were confused. Having come to their senses, they attacked the battery. But tank guns were powerless against the 300-mm armor of the turret caps. But the battery’s guns, with return fire, literally smashed the armored vehicles to pieces.”

Then the Germans attacked the “thirty” from the air.

However, even two-ton bombs could not penetrate the massive underground block. In addition, the Luftwaffe aircraft were actively opposed by Soviet fighters and air defense batteries. The first assault failed to take the fortification. The second offensive also failed. Manstein explained the failures near Sevastopol to Hitler precisely by the inaccessibility of the 30th and 35th batteries. The Fuhrer ordered the sending of super-heavy artillery to the Crimea - an 800-mm Dora railway gun and two 600-mm Karl self-propelled mortars. The mortars opened fire on June 5, 1942 and caused colossal damage to the “thirty” towers.

No. 12 and No. 13.

In the summer of 2004, the legendary 30th battery celebrated 70 years since its inclusion in the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet - Sevastopol. Construction began before the First World War and was completed under Soviet rule during the entire heroic defense of Sevastopol in 1941–1942, together with tower battery No. 35, it was a kind of “backbone” of the artillery defense system of the fortress and inflicted serious damage on the enemy in manpower and equipment.

Part I
Design, construction and battery installation

Design and construction

The experience of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, one of the central episodes of which was the struggle for the Russian seaside fortress and the naval base of Port Arthur, showed the need to have modern long-range artillery in the arsenal of naval fortresses to protect naval bases from shelling from seas.

After the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Empire had 11 sea fortresses - 5 on the Baltic coast (Kronstadt, Libau, Ust-Dvinsk, Sveaborg and Vyborg), 4 on the Black Sea (Sevastopol, Kerch, Batumi and Nikolaev) and 2 on the Pacific coast (Vladivostok) and Nikolaevsk-on-Amur). The strategic purpose of the fortresses was to provide freedom of action for one’s army and navy and to make it difficult for the enemy to do the same, while the fortresses had to carry out their task with possible savings in the expenditure of manpower.

The largest and most common shortcoming of domestic naval fortresses was the imperfection of their design and the obsolescence of weapons. In addition, due to the insufficiently remote location of coastal batteries, due to the superior firing range of the artillery weapons of the enemy fleet, there was insecurity from bombardment from the sea of ​​raids and port facilities.

The most powerful artillery installations of the Sevastopol fortress by 1906 were 11-inch guns of 35 calibers, model 1887 in length. In terms of projectile weight - 344 kg and firing range - 13.8 km, they were only slightly inferior to the 12-inch Mk IX guns (Model. 1898) of British battleships (projectile weight - 386 kg, firing range - 14.2 km), but they lost very much in terms of rate of fire (1 shot in 2 minutes versus 4 shots in the same time for British guns). However, there were only 8 such guns in Sevastopol. The rest were completely obsolete 11-inch and 9-inch guns and mortars of the 1867 and 1877 models.

In addition, unlike battleships, where large-caliber guns were placed in armored turrets with electric or hydraulic guidance drives, the guns of coastal batteries were located openly (at best, with light anti-fragmentation shields to protect servants), and all operations for their loading and guidance were made by hand. As a result, the rate of fire of large-caliber coastal cannons was several times inferior to naval ones. True, this shortcoming was somewhat compensated for by the use of rangefinders on coastal batteries with an external base of the Petrushevsky and Launitz system and group fire control systems of the De-Charière system, allowing the fire of several batteries to be concentrated simultaneously on one target.

The disadvantage in the location of the coastal batteries of Sevastopol was that they were all grouped in a rather narrow area from Tolstoy Cape to Karantinnaya Bay. This created a high density of fire in the outer roadstead and before the entrance to Sevastopol Bay, but allowed enemy ships to freely fire at the fortress and the city with fire from Cape Fiolent and Balaklava.

In April 1906, a special meeting chaired by the Minister of Naval Admiral A.A. Birilev decided that the main caliber armament of the new battleships planned for construction should consist of 12-inch guns with a barrel length of at least 50 calibers. By 1908, the Obukhov Steel Plant (OSZ) had developed and tested such a 52-caliber gun. She fired a projectile mod. 1911 weighing 470.9 kg with an initial speed of 762 m/s at a range of 28.5 km and in its caliber was one of the most powerful artillery pieces in the world. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU) of the Military Ministry, when choosing a new large-caliber artillery system for coastal defense, chose the Obukhov twelve-inch gun.

In 1911, the head of the GAU, General D.D. Kuzmin-Karavaev ordered the order of the NEO for coastal defense, 12-inch 52-caliber Naval Drawing guns with an elongated chamber and a rifling of constant steepness. Compared to the cannons of the Naval Department (designated by the letters “MA”), the guns of the Military Department (designated by the letters “SA”) had a 9-inch (229 mm) elongated charging chamber, which, according to the GAU Artillery Committee, should have contributed to less wear on the rifled rifle. parts of barrels when shooting.

By the resolution of the meeting of military and naval ministers and chiefs of the General Staff on August 15, 1909, Sevastopol retained the significance of an operational base for an active battle fleet, and the only one on the Black Sea, since Nikolaev was recognized only as a rear base and refuge for fleet vessels.

In the “Report of the General Staff of the Military Department on the release of 715 million rubles for the implementation of certain measures in the Military Department to strengthen the defense of the state,” compiled in March 1910 and approved by the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Gerngros, it was noted:

“In the Black Sea, the program for the development of naval armed forces provides for the reconstruction of the main operational base of the Sevastopol fleet. The improvement of Sevastopol includes the development of artillery weapons with powerful types of guns to protect the port from fire from the sea, supplying the fortress with some equipment and protecting it from land from mastering open force. Security against fire from a dry route should be achieved with good artillery and the assistance of ground forces.

In this case, first of all, it is planned to strengthen the coastal front by installing strong batteries on the flanks, armed with the largest modern cannons, as well as installing batteries designed to use their fire to remove the enemy who would try to bombard the ports from the sea through the heights south of the city. This work will require an amount of 8,000,000 rubles. The second priority is the creation of close-in ground defense, and some of this work had to be carried out in the second decade.”

The Fortress Commission under the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GUGSH), chaired by Major General Danilov, at meetings in early 1911, first of all put forward the demand for strengthening coastal defense, which was planned to be brought to a significant degree of readiness in the next five years.

The main coastal position of the fortress was supposed to be expanded to the north - to the mouth of the Belbek River and to the southwest - to Streletskaya Bay, installing four 12-inch guns in armored turrets and twelve 10-inch guns on its flanks. In addition, to prevent the enemy from bombarding the fortress from the south, through the heights of the Chersonesos (Heraclea) peninsula, it was planned to create and arm an Additional coastal front between Cape Chersonesos and Balaklava Bay, using for this purpose forty 9-inch mortars, which, due to their short range, were removed from the weapons of the Main Primorsky Front front.

The basis for the development of ground defense was the decision to limit ourselves to only urgently necessary structures, providing protection against long-range bombardment from the dry route and against gradual attack by field forces located on the peninsula.

The group of ground fortifications, in addition to protecting coastal batteries from attack from the rear by closing their ridges and organizing anti-assault defense, was given the task of securing the flanks of the Primorsky Front, because in the event of a surprise attack by an enemy ship landing, it is difficult to expect that the enemy, armed with light field artillery, will significantly break away from the sea route and the fire support of the ships.

On June 18, 1910, the draft ideas of the Main Directorate of the General Staff were transferred to the Commander of the Odessa Military District for the formation of a local commission for the detailed and complete development of the initial design of the fortress within the specified allocations.

Based on these considerations, the local Sevastopol commission developed an appropriate project for arming the fortress, which was submitted to the Main Directorate of the General Staff on October 14, 1910.

For the new 12-inch guns, open mountings were proposed as cheaper. The armament of the Additional Front was to consist of twelve 152-mm Kane guns and sixteen (instead of forty) 9-inch mortars.

The GUGSH Fortress Commission noted that “Under modern conditions, it is difficult to imagine that more than 24 warships could appear on the Black Sea. Most likely, the appearance of the Austro-Turkish fleet would amount to 19 battleships with a force of artillery fire on one side of about 150 guns with a caliber of at least 152 mm. Assuming the reinforcement of these fleets with ships from the fleets of other states, the commission recognized the possibility of action against Sevastopol by 24 ships. 24 battleships can simultaneously operate 180-200 guns.

But with such assumptions, the armament of the coastal batteries of the Sevastopol fortress seems to be sufficient, significantly exceeding the ratio of guns on the shore and in the fleet, which is obtained with various methods of calculating the number of guns on the shore.

However, not all coastal defense guns have sufficient range and power, and the batteries are not far from the port, so the enemy fleet, having guns with a greater reach than coastal weapons, can bombard port facilities with impunity. Therefore, for the success of the fight, as well as the removal of the bombarding fleet position, it is absolutely necessary to assign 12-inch guns to the Main position, placing them on the flanks of the existing batteries. Considering it sufficient to have four 12-inch guns in service with the Sevastopol fortress, the commission spoke in favor of 8 guns, because “Two-gun batteries present certain difficulties for firing, and the 11-inch guns that predominate in the Sevastopol fortress do not have a very long combat range.”

The GUGSH Fortress Commission decided “to assign eight 12-inch guns to the Main Combat Position, to remove the position of the bombing fleet and at the same time replenish the power of the existing weapons, place them in two batteries, and install the first four guns on the South side, where the firing sector is larger.”

The cost of supplying the Sevastopol fortress for the artillery unit was determined at 11,322,000 rubles and was divided into two stages, with the funds of the first stage allocated for the first five years amounting to 3,280,000 rubles.

The location of the 12-inch batteries was determined by the southern flank of the Main Combat Position in the area of ​​Streletskaya Bay (a group of batteries based on battery No. 15 for four 12-inch, eight 10-inch, four 48-linear (122 mm) and four 3-inch guns ) and the northern flank of the Primorsky position at the mouth of the Belbek River (a group of batteries based on battery No. 16 for four 12-inch, four 10-inch, four 6-inch and four 3-inch guns), where the greater range could be most advantageously used firing to push back the bombarding enemy fleet.

In view of the location of the three batteries of the Northern group on the open flank of the Primorsky fortress front, the commission proposed combining the batteries into one fortification with the construction of a common gorge. Land fortifications should be built on the heights of Belbek with a front to the north in the form of several long-term strongholds, which, together with battery No. 16 and the already built semi-long-term redoubt, constitute one common defensive area. (In the final version of the project, it was decided to build the 12-inch battery of the Southern Group not near Streletskaya Bay, but on Cape Khersones, which provided a larger firing range at sea targets.)

On all three batteries of one group, it was planned to build casematized ammunition cellars (for one ammunition for each gun), rooms for gun servants, fire control devices and power plants (dynamos). The thickness of the vaults of the casemates for protection against medium-caliber naval shells should have been 6-7 feet of concrete.

The journal of the meeting of the Fortress Commission of the GUGSH was approved by the Tsar on May 21, 1911, where the 48-line guns were replaced with 120-mm Vickers systems, which were ordered from the Obukhov Steel Foundry.

In 1913, when the 10-inch (No. 16) and 120-mm (No. 24) batteries of the Northern group were already completed, on the Alkadar hill (one of the western spurs of the Mekenzi Mountains), approximately 1.5 km east of the river mouth Belbek, construction of the 12-inch tower battery No. 26 has begun.

The battery project was developed under the leadership of the battery builder, military engineer Colonel Smirnov. The project was considered at a meeting of the Engineering Committee of the Main Military Technical Directorate (GVTU) on August 28, 1914 and again, taking into account the comments of the GVTU, on June 26, 1915. The advisory member of the Technical Committee of the GVTU, Major General Malkov-Panin, reported. The cost of building the battery was estimated at 850 thousand rubles.

The location of the battery on a narrow, tongue-shaped hill (about 60 m above sea level) with a steep slope of up to 45 degrees determined the architecture of its structures. Unlike the 12-inch battery No. 25 of the Southern group, which had two separate concrete blocks (one for each tower) connected by a rubble, on the 26th they decided to place both towers in a common block elongated along the front (as on the Kronstadt forts “Krasnaya Gorka” " and "Ino"). For close defense purposes, a separate casematized building was built 50 m southwest of the gun block - a concrete shelter for 3-inch roll-out anti-assault guns and their servants, and 600 m northeast - an infantry fortification with concrete rifle trenches and casemated shelters.

The design of the concrete block (battery array) was designed on the basis of the “Temporary Instructions for the Construction of Floors and Walls of Casematized Fortress Premises.” The instructions were developed in 1912 based on experiments in testing new casemate covering structures on Berezan Island by shelling and revised based on the Warsaw experiments in the direction of strengthening the structures in 1913 and 1914.

The floor walls of the block were designed to withstand two hits in one place by 12-inch naval artillery shells at impact angles of 20 degrees and had a layered structure - 2.4 m of concrete, 2.1 m of sand layer and 2.1 m of concrete. The vaulted coverings of the casemates with anti-splintering metal clothing designed by Colonel Savrimovich (a continuous layer of bent steel channels No. 30 and a 30-cm layer of asphalt concrete above it) were designed from monolithic unreinforced concrete with a thickness of 2.4 m. Such a covering was designed to be hit by one 12-inch projectile.

The construction of the battery proceeded at a rapid pace, but in 1915, work on the construction of the battery was suspended, since the tower installations and equipment manufactured for it in Petrograd were used to urgently strengthen the coastal defense in the Baltic (the sea fortress of Emperor Peter the Great).

However, work on the construction of the battery was not completely stopped, and by the fall of 1917, the construction of the concrete mass was 70% completed. The front part of the floor walls of the layered structure was made up to the top plane of the covering, and the side, back and interior walls were made up to the toes of the vaults. No. 30 steel channels were laid over all casemates and a layer of asphalt concrete was filled. The rigid drums of the towers were installed and concreted around the perimeter, 40% of the armored doors were hung, the remaining doors were available at the construction site in full. To deliver heavy parts of tower installations from the Mekenzievy Gory station, a normal gauge railway line was built. The battery's water supply was provided by two artesian wells. To store water under the floor of the gun block, concrete tanks with a total capacity of 500 m 3 were installed. The Petrograd Metal Plant was finishing the production of a 100-ton electric crane. Work continued there on the manufacture of new tower installations.

At tower battery No. 25 of the Southern Group, by this time all concrete work had been completed and the installation of metal structures of the first tower had begun.

The October Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent foreign intervention and Civil War interrupted the construction of the 26th and 25th batteries for 11 years.

In 1925, the Armament Commission of the Main Artillery Directorate of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet (GAU RKKF) recognized the need to “install a 4-gun, 2-turret battery with 12-inch / 52 cal. cannons on battery 26 of the Sevastopol fortress." However, it was impossible to immediately begin to implement this decision. At this time, in Sevastopol, work was in full swing on the completion of tower battery No. 8 (formerly 25th), the tower installations of which were 95% ready at the Leningrad Metal Plant. We had to wait another three years, especially since the tower installations intended for the 26th battery were in a low degree of readiness. The military-industrial complex of the USSR, which was just beginning to emerge from the post-revolutionary devastation, was not yet able to complete the completion of two more tower installations.

On March 9, 1928, at a meeting of the Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) of the USSR, chaired by K.E. Voroshilov, the decision was made:
“Recognize it necessary to complete the construction of a 305 mm tower battery in Sevastopol
1. Construction should begin this year within the limits of funds earmarked for coastal defense in 1927-28.
2. Approve the estimate for completion in the total amount of RUB 3,843,000.
3. Complete the construction within 3 years.”

By order of August 21, 1928, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Black Sea Naval Forces (MSFM) created a Permanent Meeting on the construction of the battery (by that time it had received a new number - 30) chaired by the commander of the Black Sea Coastal Defense I.M. Ludri and among the members: Head of the Coastal Construction Department of the Main Military Port I.M. Tsalkovich, head of the artillery of the Black Sea Coastal Defense G. Chetverukhin and head of the Surveillance and Communications Service of MSChM Ermakov.

Despite the fact that the concrete mass of the battery was very far from completion, the installation of gun turrets, internal equipment and utilities had not begun at all, and the command post did not even exist in the project, the RVS set the date for putting the facility into operation on January 1, 1932.

The project for completing the battery was developed by the defensive construction department of the Coastal Construction Directorate of the Sevastopol Main Military Port under the leadership of military engineer A.I. Vasilkova. Unlike the 35th battery, where the coatings of gun blocks built before the revolution were made of unreinforced concrete (with the exception of anti-splinter clothing), the coating of a single gun block of the 30th battery was designed from reinforced concrete with a reinforcement consumption of up to 100 kg/m 3 . The lack of vibrators and the high saturation of reinforcement did not allow the use of rigid concrete, so it was proposed to use semi-plastic concrete using grade “250” cement (consumption - 400 kg/m3) and a filler of diorite crushed stone with the addition of up to 30% local gravel. It was planned to build a stone crushing and concrete plant, a Bremsberg for supplying sand and gravel from Lyubimovsky beach and the restoration of a railway line from the Mekenzievy Gory station to deliver cement, diorite crushed stone from the Kurtsevsky quarry near Simferopol, metal structures of anchors, beams of anti-splinter coatings, and later - to the construction site. guns and parts of turrets, combat and rangefinder rooms of the command post.

By September 1, 1930, the restoration of the railway and crane tracks was completed. All armored doors were installed in the battery gun block and the sand layer of the floor wall was filled in. We began construction of a concrete plant for concreting the block's surface. The readiness of tower artillery installations at the Leningrad Metal Plant by that time was 30%. The Izhora plant manufactured the roofs of the towers and the conning tower of the command post.

By December 24, 1930, the head of the Coastal Construction Department of the Main Military Port of MSChM I.M. Tsalkovich gave the order to form the “Office of a Separate Manufacturer of Work on the Construction of Battery No. 30 (Lyubimovskaya KOPR BS MSChM).” Engineer Mitrofanov was appointed its head, and military engineer Kolokoltsev was appointed technical assistant.

In the fall of 1931, the construction of the battery was visited by the Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs S.S. Kamenev.

During the preparatory period of construction (1929-1930), in addition to restoring the railway track, they designed and built a battery barracks town for 500 people with command apartments and private barracks, a club, a bathhouse, etc., a highway to the construction sites of the firing position and command post , as well as workshops. To supply the construction with electricity, a transformer substation was equipped that received current from the power plant of the Northern Dock of Sevastopol.

An exceptional difficulty was caused by concreting the coating of the gun block, located on a hill, the small area of ​​which did not allow placing a conventional type concrete plant and the necessary reserves of cement, sand and crushed stone. In this regard, they accepted the proposal of military engineer A.I. Vasilkova feeds concrete from below using a concrete mast. Using this system, several thousand cubic meters of concrete were poured to enable the installation of rigid drums and fixed armor (cuirass) for gun turrets. At the same time, under the leadership of military engineer B.K. Sokolov was designing and building a powerful concrete plant of the original vertical type.

Built in 1931, the plant was a complex multi-story structure, the foundation of which was a concrete shelter for anti-assault guns built by 1917 next to the gun block (it was equipped with an electrical substation). On the top floor of the plant, in special bunkers, there was a four-hour supply of cement, sand, and gravel, supplied along an inclined 60-meter overpass using electric winches. Below, in six-meter shafts, four Smith-type concrete mixers with a capacity of 1 m 3 each were installed. The supply of materials inside the plant was carried out by elevators into the upper bunkers, and from there by gravity through pipes to concrete mixers. From each concrete mixer, concrete was transported using a vertical shaft lift to a height of 15 m into loading bins, from where it was transported in trolleys with a capacity of 0.5 m 3 along a ring trestle laid around the battery gun block to the laying sites. The plant's productivity reached 45 m3 per hour.

To ensure the solidity of the erected walls and ceilings, they were divided into separate blocks (stones) with a volume of 800 to 2200 m 3, each of which was concreted in layers 20 cm thick with an interval of no more than two hours. The first covering block was concreted by February 27, 1932, and by May 1 of the same year, concreting of the main battery mass was completed. In total, about 22,000 m 3 of concrete and 2,000 tons of steel reinforcement were laid.

Simultaneously with the laying of new concrete, new doorways, channels for ventilation pipelines, electrical cables, etc. were made in the existing walls and ceilings of the casemates.

In parallel with the completion of the gun block, work was carried out on the construction of a command post (CP). Initially it was supposed to be equipped in the gun block itself, on its left flank. This was the cheapest option, since a ready-made structure was used, on which only a conning tower needed to be installed. In addition, there was no need for a connecting line for laying fire control and communication cables. However, the rangefinder room and radio communication antennas would have to be moved to the side, since placing them directly on the combat surface of the block was impossible due to the risk of damage from muzzle gases when firing their own guns. The work of observers in the conning tower of the command post would also be difficult due to the flashes of shots and the dust they raise. In addition, combining a command post with a firing position in a common array reduced the survivability of the battery as a whole, and such a solution no longer met the requirements of the time.

Therefore, in the final version (March 1930), they decided to place the command post at the top of height 39.8, approximately 650 m northeast of the gun block (where the construction of a ground defense stronghold was carried out before 1917). At the same time, on the surface of the mountain there was only a block with an observation armored cap and a rangefinder tower, and all other premises of the command post were arranged in a tunnel type at a depth of 37 m. The cost of the work increased by 600 thousand rubles. (due to the need to rebuild all fortifications, as well as the large length of the porch connecting the command post with the firing position), however, the survivability of the command post increased and visibility improved.

Resolution of the Council of Labor and Defense (STO) of the USSR No. 128/55 of February 22, 1932 “On the construction of the Red Army Navy for 1932” it was supposed to “Complete the construction of battery No. 30 (305 mm x 4) in Sevastopol by 12/01/1933,” but already by the resolution of STO No. 34 of May 27, 1933 “On the state and development of the country’s coastal defense” the date for entry into operation of the 30th The battery was moved to July 1 of the same year.

By that time, work had progressed significantly, although with a large lag behind schedule. In the gun block, the installation of turret installations and ammunition cellar equipment was underway, but it was delayed due to untimely and incomplete deliveries of parts and components by manufacturers.

On June 26, 1933, the Chief of Engineers of the Red Army N.N. visited the construction site. Petin issued the following order:

“The inspection of the progress of work on battery No. 30, carried out by me, together with a group of workers from the UNI RKKA, established:

The work plan for the battery, which was supposed to go into operation last year, was only 22.8% completed as of June 1, 1933. I attribute such a pace of work, which is completely unacceptable on a military construction site, not only to the delay in receiving combat and technical equipment for the battery from the Center, but also to the completely unsatisfactory management of the work on the part of the Fortress UPR and the insufficiency and pressure from the UNI MSChF.

Work schedules were violated repeatedly at all levels of management, starting with UNIMS, UNR, the site and ending with the work team. The command did not mobilize forces to carry out, at any cost, the work plan within the time period established by the Government; There were insufficient efforts on the part of party and professional organizations to ensure the successful completion of this task.

The delay in sending equipment from the Center (sanitary, technical, electromechanical, artillery and projects for the electrification post and control station) cannot justify the completely insufficient pace of work, since even work that did not depend on the receipt of equipment was not accelerated, drainage work, finishing the openings of the casemates, laying the walls, building the compost [command post] - all this could be completed by July 1.

What is striking is the extremely disdainful attitude of the technical management of the site towards the mechanization of the most labor-intensive work: for example, out of 7 available rotary hammers, only 2 are in operation, the rest are inactive awaiting repairs and spare parts, 2 concrete mixers in the warehouse have been lying unused and unrepaired for more than a year.

Maintenance of equipment is poor. Machines and units are not lubricated, and scheduled preventive maintenance of tractors is not carried out.

Technical management of the work is completely insufficient. The work is being carried out without proper technical inspection. Night shifts are very often not provided with technical management at all, because... In most cases, engineering and technical personnel are not present at night work. Technical acceptance of completed work is not carried out, reports are not drawn up, technical staff and workers are not instructed.

There is no work organization plan. The layout of the concrete compost plant is not well thought out; the rail track was laid in such a way that moving trolleys with crushed stone, sand and cement, colliding, delayed the pace of concrete work.

The quality of work is not given due attention. Due to untimely clearing of expansion joints, water leaks inside the array. Work in the pit is carried out without a movable template, which causes unnecessary excavation of rock and laying of excess concrete. The reinforcement mesh, instead of the lower part, is sometimes placed in the upper part of the arch. The crushed stone prepared for concreting the compost is contaminated; washing and screening were not organized in advance. Errors were made in the reinforcement of the compost walls: the clamps are not connected to each other, the external vertical mesh in some places lies on the formwork, the ends are not left in the vertical rods for connection with the coating reinforcement.

Due to careless development of working drawings for the foundation for transformers, there were major alterations in casemate No. 12.

The command, party-political and trade union leadership does not use all the levers of mass political work and has not yet mobilized the activity of the working masses to fight for the implementation of the plan on time; Socialist competition and shock movement were not adequately developed around the main issues of the struggle for real cost accounting, for high quality and productivity of labor, for the Bolshevik pace of work.

The shortcomings revealed by the inspection indicate a deep breakthrough in the production, economic and financial work of the fortress section of HP, the almost complete absence of live specific instructions at the sites from HP, to which I draw the attention of the Chief of Engineers of the Black Sea, Comrade. Weinger and put it in front of the former Head of the Department, Comrade. Tsigurov, as well as the Head of the Department, comrade. Kosovich.

In view of the obvious impossibility of completing the construction of Battery No. 30 within the period specified by the Government - July 1, 1933, I am forced to urgently file a petition with the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs - to establish new, in my opinion, very realistic deadlines for completing the work, namely:

1. Along the tower array: finish by
A) Main construction work - 07/20/1933
B) Installation work LMZ – 08/15/1933
B) EMC installation work – 08/15/1933
D) Installation work of STS - 01.11.1933
D) Improvements to the massif and commissioning - 09/15/1933

2. By compost (aerial part).
A) Main construction work - 09/10/1933 B) EMC installation work - 10/01/1933
B) Installation work of STS - 01.10.1933
D) Compost completions and commissioning – 10/01/1933

3. Poterns and underground part of the compost.
A) Main construction work - 10/15/1933
B) Equipment – ​​10/01/1933
B) Compost completions and commissioning - 11/10/1933

At the same time, I am taking measures to speed up the delivery of the missing artillery and technical equipment from the Center...”

By mid-1934, the installation of internal equipment and utilities was completed and test firing of both gun turrets and the first stage of the Barricade fire control system was carried out. The battery was nominally operational, although various improvements and corrections were carried out on it for another six years.

In 1936, installation of the second stage of the fire control system began at the battery command post. Its main element was a horizontal-base rangefinder - an electromechanical plotting tablet designed to determine the coordinates of a target. The difficulty of installation was that the central post room was located at a depth of 37 meters underground, and the dimensions of the existing shaft and the ground entrance to the control center block were too small. To lower the instruments, it was necessary to punch an additional vertical hole in the rocky ground and connect it to the premises of the underground part of the control center with a horizontal excavation. After installation was completed, the excavation was filled with concrete blocks, and the pit was filled with soil. The battery was fully commissioned in 1940.

Battery device

Tower coastal battery No. 30 consisted of the following main structures:
– gun block with two turrets;
– a command post with a conning tower, an armored rangefinder cabin, a central post and a radio room;
– a separate block of electrical transformer substation.

The battery was armed with four 305-mm cannons, 52 calibers long. Of these, three (No. 142, 145 and 158) had an extended chamber of the Military Department (gun brand “SA”). The fourth gun (No. 149), despite being marked “SA,” had a chamber shortened by 220 mm, like the guns of the Naval Department (brand “MA”). The last misunderstanding was revealed only during test firing in 1934. Due to the fact that the variety of guns did not have a particular effect on dispersion during salvo firing, the battery acceptance committee decided to leave the gun in place, but use charges specially selected for its weight.

The information repeatedly indicated in the works of various authors that the 30th battery was allegedly armed with guns from the battleship Empress Maria that sank in 1916 does not correspond to reality.

The tower artillery installations of the 30th battery "MB-2-12" were almost identical in design to the tower artillery installations of the forts "Krasnaya Gorka" and "Ino" of the Kronstadt Fortress and the towers of the 35th battery, with the exception of the system for supplying ammunition from the cellars to the reloading stations departments. At the 35th battery, shells and charges were pushed out of the cellars through special pipes, and at the 30th battery they were rolled out along a roller conveyor (roller conveyor). In addition, in the transfer compartments themselves, instead of manually moving charging carts, a rotating platform driven by an electric motor was installed.

The shells were stored in the cellars in stacks, and they were supplied to the conveyors of the reloading compartments using ratchet trolleys on monorails. Half-charges were stored in cellars in standard metal cases on honeycomb-type racks.

To carry out work on replacing gun barrels and repairing turrets, the battery had a standard 75-ton railway crane. To provide camouflage and protection for the crane during shelling from the sea, a special shelter was built for it in the area of ​​the battery town.

The battery's one-story gun block, about 130 m long and 50 m wide, had two entrances in the rear with armored doors and airlocks protected by cranked drafts. For communication between the 72 rooms of the block, a longitudinal corridor about 100 m long and 3 m wide ran inside it. The block contained wells for gun mounts, shell and charging magazines, a local central post with a reserve group of fire control devices, a power station, a boiler room, compressor and pumping station, filter-ventilation equipment, residential and office premises for personnel. Under the floor of the premises there were containers for storing fuel, oil and water and utility lines. The total area of ​​the battery's gun block was about 3000 m2.

All casemates of the gun block had vaulted coverings made of monolithic reinforced concrete with a thickness of 3 to 4 m with a rigid anti-spalling layer of steel channels No. 30 and an insulating layer of asphalt concrete.

The battery command post, located on a hill 650 m northeast of the gun block, was connected to the last deep loss hole punched in the rocky ground at a depth of up to 38 m. The ground part of the command post was a reinforced concrete block measuring 15x16 m with a thickness of walls and ceilings of up to 3. 5 m. Inside the block there was a radio room with a room for batteries and a personnel quarters. The entrance to the block was equipped with a vestibule-gateway, closed with an armored door and a cranked draft. An armored cabin "KB-16" (wall armor thickness - 406 mm, roof - 305 mm) with four viewing slots and an optical sight of the battery commander of the "PKB" type (later replaced by "VBK-1") was built into the reinforced concrete covering of the block.

50 m from the block, connected to it by a covered communication passage, on a concrete base there was a rotating rangefinder cabin “B-19” with a 10-meter stereoscopic rangefinder from Zeiss and a stereo tube “ST-5” with a 5-meter base, protected by 30- mm armor.

In the underground part of the command post, located at a depth of 37 m in the form of a concrete-lined tunnel 53 m long and 5.5 m wide, there were: the main central battery post, an autonomous power plant and a boiler room with fuel reserves, a filter-ventilation unit and premises for personnel.

The main central post housed the main group of the fire control system (FCS) of the “Barricade” system, consisting of a horizontal base range finder (HBD), an azimuth and distance transformer (TAD), a direct course automatic machine (APK) and a number of other devices.

The builder of the GBD received target designation from six remote observation posts located on Cape Kermenchik, near the village of Mamasai, on the former coastal battery No. 7 (North side of Sevastopol), on the former fort "Liter-A" (area of ​​Streletskaya Bay), Cape Fiolent and Mount Kaya -Bash. Each post was a lightweight reinforced concrete structure that housed an optical stereo rangefinder of a 6-meter “DM-6” base and a sighting device at the end of the “GO” type base. Night shooting was provided by two mobile searchlight stations of the “3-15-4” type, for which reinforced concrete shelters were built on the shore.

The above-ground and underground parts of the control center were connected to each other by a vertical shaft with an electric elevator and stairs.

The 650-meter deep trench connecting the command post with the gun block had a slight slope towards the middle, from where there was a perpendicular branch that served as a drain. Sewage and drainage pipes, laid under the floor, went into it. In the area between the drain and the gun block, the turna had another branch that went out onto the daylight surface, which served as an emergency exit. The shelter of the guardhouse located nearby was added to it.

The transformer substation, designed to supply the battery with electricity from the city high-voltage network, was located in a separate concrete block located 50 m southwest of the gun block (former shelter for guns). The substation had an entrance with an elbow through and five rooms connected by a corridor. They contained: a step-down transformer with a power of 180 kVA to convert three-phase alternating current with a voltage of 6000 V into a current with a voltage of 400 V, an electrical machine converter of alternating current with a voltage of 400 V into a direct voltage of 220 V, and a diesel generator with a power of 50 kW. Some of the rooms had windows for natural light and ventilation. The substation block was made similarly to the gun block (vaulted coverings 2-2.5 m thick on bent steel channels). At the top of the block there was an input for a high-voltage overhead power line connected to the battery on the northern side of Sevastopol.

Inside the gun block there was another transformer substation with two transformers with a capacity of 320 kVA. It received power from the city high-voltage network via two independent underground cable lines.

To autonomously provide electricity to battery consumers, a power station was equipped in its gun block, consisting of two 6BK-43 diesel generators with a power of 370 kW each and two electric machine converters. The command post had its own diesel generator. Supplies of fuel and oil for diesel engines were stored in underground tanks. Emergency power supply for lighting, communication and alarm networks was provided by a high-capacity battery.

The battery was supplied with water from two independent sources - an unprotected mine well in the valley of the Belbek River and a protected artesian well in the gun block. Due to the great depth of the latter (120 m), water was lifted from it using an airlift. To store water supplies, there were three reservoirs under the premises of the block. To provide water for the irrigation system of the charging cellars, pneumatic tanks (hydrophores) were installed.

To provide battery consumers (tower installations, power station, airlift) with compressed air, two compressor stations were equipped in the gun block.

Collective anti-chemical protection of the battery (including gun turrets, combat and rangefinder rooms) was provided by filter-ventilation units with 8 groups of carbon filters of the “FP-100” type located in the gun block and command post. Air was supplied to each group of filters from the surface through two independent lines. To protect them from the blast wave, so-called “labyrinths” were installed, consisting of packages of staggered steel I-beams.

To maintain temperature and humidity conditions in the premises, there was a steam-air heater heating system (steam was produced by two underground boiler houses). The power station of the gun block had an air-cooling unit.

The battery's air defense consisted of four anti-aircraft machine gun installations (one DShK and three M-4). In the rear of the gun block, two stationary positions (reinforced concrete casemates with winches) were built for lifting barrage balloons.

The ground defense consisted of six reinforced concrete, five-embrasure, two-story machine gun firing points (MT) (a 7.62-mm Maxim machine gun was installed on a rotary machine on the top floor, a shelter and an ammunition depot were located on the bottom floor), rifle trenches and wire barriers. The highway running in the hilly part of the battery had a stone retaining wall, which also served as a rifle parapet.

Turret installations, entrances to the gun block and command post did not have special devices or embrasures for self-defense. The gun turrets also did not have external doors. They were entered only from the turret compartments.

To communicate with other batteries of the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet and higher command, the battery had a transmitting and receiving radio station (with Shkval, Bukhta, Raid, 5AK-1 and 6PK radio equipment) and a telephone exchange with three switchboards. Internal communications were provided by a ship-type telephone network. Electric howlers were used for signaling. Communication between combat posts inside the tower installations was carried out using speaking pipes.

In peacetime, the battery's personnel were housed in its town, where they built residential buildings for the command staff and barracks for the rank and file. In a combat situation, to ensure long-term presence of personnel in the gun block and in the command post, cabins and crew quarters, latrines, washbasins, and showers were equipped. For cooking there was a galley with a provision pantry. A wardroom was equipped for the command staff. Medical care for the wounded and those affected by toxic substances could be provided in a medical center, which consisted of an operating room, an examination room with an X-ray machine, an isolation ward and a pharmacy.

When the battery came into operation in 1934, naval marine D. Pannikov was appointed its commander. Then the battery was commanded by E.P. Donets (later - colonel, deputy head of the Artillery Department of the Black Sea Fleet). In November 1937, Senior Lieutenant G.A. took command of the battery. Alexander.

Thus, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on June 22, 1941, battery No. 30 was a powerful fortification structure with high survivability and impressive combat power.

Part II
DEFENSE OF SEVASTOPOL AND POST-WAR RECOVERY

Participation of the battery in hostilities

As of June 22, 1941, battery No. 30 was part of the 1st separate artillery division of the Coastal Defense of the Main Naval Base of the Black Sea Fleet "Sevastopol". The division also included 305-mm tower battery No. 35, 203-mm open battery No. 10, and 102-mm battery No. 54 built upon mobilization. The battery was commanded by Captain G.A. Alexander and senior political instructor E.K. Soloviev. Organizationally, it was part of the 4th sector of the Sevastopol Defense Region (SOR), created on November 4, 1941 and which included units of the Coastal Defense, as well as units of the Separate Maritime Army moving towards the city.

The ground defense of coastal batteries was equipped in the form of rifle trenches and wire barriers in three rows. There was no defensive depth. On the tower batteries, in addition to the trenches, 6–8 light-type reinforced concrete bunkers were built.

By the end of October 1941, the mobile units of the 11th German Army reached the approaches to Sevastopol and began its assault. When repelling the first assault (from October 30 to November 21, 1941) before the main units of the Primorsky Army arrived, the main burden of the fight against the enemy fell on the coastal batteries and the few units of the Sevastopol garrison. Already on November 1, at 12:40 a.m., battery No. 30 opened fire on a concentration of motorized mechanized units of the enemy’s 132nd Infantry Division in the area of ​​Alma station and the village of Bazarchik to support the 8th Marine Brigade. Five firings were carried out and 68 shells were fired. The enemy suffered heavy losses.

On November 2, battery No. 30 fired at enemy motorized units in the Bakhchisarai area and at a concentration of troops in the area of ​​the village of Alma-Tarkhan. The fire was adjusted by Lieutenant S.A. Adamov. Although the shooting was carried out at extreme distances, it was very effective. The enemy column of vehicles, tanks and armored vehicles stopped in the ravine. The enemy did not imagine that our artillery could reach it. The first two heavy shells exploded in the thick of the column. Cars caught fire and tankers began to explode. The flames engulfed dozens of cars. The battery intensified the fire, and shells began to explode more and more often. According to the calculations of the correction post, up to 100 vehicles, about 30 guns, six tanks, about 15 armored vehicles and several hundred Nazis were destroyed.

On the same day, the enemy, with the support of tanks and intense artillery and aviation fire, launched an offensive in the Duvankoy area with the goal of breaking through the highway into the Belbek Valley. The Marine battalions (17th, remnants of the 16th and the Coastal Defense School battalion) were supported by fire from Battery No. 30, which was corrected by Major Cherenok. As a result, an enemy battery in the Bakhchisarai area and several tanks were destroyed, the remaining tanks turned back. Six firings were carried out, 42 shells were fired.

From November 1, enemy aviation sharply increased its activity in the Sevastopol direction. It struck military targets of the Main Base, including coastal batteries No. 30, 10 and others, as well as ships located in the base. To cover the Soviet troops in the Kach-Belbek area, 76-mm 214, 215, 218 and 219 anti-aircraft batteries operated.

On November 4, enemy troops carried out several attacks in the area between the village of Mamashai and the village of Aranchi. In the sector of the 8th Marine Brigade, the enemy tried to capture height 158.7. All attacks were repulsed with the support of batteries No. 10, 30 and 724 and two anti-aircraft batteries.

At 14:30, the enemy, with a force of up to a regiment, attacked in the sector of the 3rd Marine Regiment, the Air Force battalion, the 19th Marine Battalion, as well as the right flank of the 8th Brigade, trying to break into the Duvankoy stronghold. At 14:36, battery No. 30 opened fire on the attacking enemy. The fire was adjusted by Lieutenant L.G. Repkov. The fire from large-caliber shrapnel shells was extremely effective and accurate. The Nazis lost two guns with vehicles, a mortar battery, about 15 machine guns and up to two infantry battalions. On this day, the battery carried out nine firings and fired the largest number of shells during the first assault - 75.

On November 6, the Local Rifle Regiment of the Coastal Defense, with fire support from batteries No. 10, 30 and others, repelled the Nazis’ attempt to go on the offensive in the Northern sector in the Aranci-Mamashai area.

On November 8, it was decided to support the counterattack of the 7th Marine Brigade on the Mekenzi Mountains with fire from Battery No. 30, and to use powerful shrapnel fire, despite the danger of hitting our own. Coastal batteries No. 2 and 35 were also involved in artillery preparation. Management and control over the provision of artillery preparation by coastal batteries during the brigade’s attack were entrusted to the chief of coastal defense artillery, Lieutenant Colonel B.E. Faina. Lieutenant Colonel B.E. Fine personally went to Battery No. 30 to instruct its commander, Alexander, that only his battery was to fire shrapnel. The calculations were made in such a way that the first salvo was a migratory salvo.

Over three days of fighting, battery No. 30 destroyed the enemy's three-gun battery, several mortar batteries, and up to twelve machine-gun emplacements, a military echelon was broken, up to two battalions were destroyed and scattered, and direct hits were recorded on a column of enemy armored vehicles and tanks.

In the period from November 1 to November 7, 1941, battery No. 30 fired very intensively, conducting from five to eleven firings per day and firing from 20 to 75 shells. Between November 11 and November 16, the intensity of shootings decreased to one to four.

The use of coastal artillery during the first enemy assault was not entirely rational, which was caused by the special circumstances of the initial period of the defense of Sevastopol. Coastal artillery had to be used against targets that field artillery could fire well at, only because of its almost complete absence before the artillery of the Primorsky Army arrived, and then because of its lack of ammunition.

In total, the Coastal Defense artillerymen had 20 correction posts located at the forefront in all defense sectors. Each post could adjust the fire of any battery, which ensured, if necessary, the concentration of fire in any sector. The correction posts had radio and linear communications. Sometimes it was practiced to drop correction posts behind enemy lines, which ensured greater fire efficiency. In total, during the first assault, battery No. 30 fired 77 rounds and fired 517 shells.

After the end of the first Nazi offensive, all coastal defense artillery was consolidated into a separate independent group led by the chief of coastal defense artillery, Lieutenant Colonel B.E. Fine. This made it possible to use it more rationally and centrally. In the order on the use of artillery, a reservation was made: “Due to the low survivability of the guns, coastal and naval artillery should be used for firing each time with the special permission of the artillery headquarters of the Sevastopol defensive region at the request of the sector artillery chiefs.”

On November 16, during live firing in the first turret on the left gun, the gun ring at the receiver mounting point was torn out and the receiver rod was torn off. With the help of Artremzavod, the accident was eliminated within seven days, the gun ring and receiver rod were replaced with new ones, taken from the training class of the Sevastopol Coastal Defense School named after LKSMU.

On December 8, 1941, the Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet awarded a number of soldiers and commanders of battery No. 30: battery commander Captain Alexander Georgy Aleksandrovich with the Order of the Red Banner, Lieutenant Adamov Sarkis Oganezovich with the medal “For Courage”; medal "For Military Merit"; senior sergeant Lysenko Ivan Sergeevich and Red Navy man Tsapodoy Onufriy Nikiforovich.

On December 17, the second assault on Sevastopol began. During the second assault, battery No. 30 fired as intensely as during the first. From four to fourteen firings were carried out per day and from 8 to 96 shells were fired.

The main blow of the German troops was delivered by the 22nd and 132nd infantry divisions along the Belbek River valley and on Kamyshly. The 22nd Infantry Division and the Romanian motorized rifle regiment acted against the 4th sector. The 4th sector and battery No. 30 were defended by the 90th Infantry Regiment and the 8th Marine Brigade. On this day, December 17, the battery conducted 14 firing sessions and fired 96 shells. As a result of the withdrawal of the 8th Marine Brigade and the left flank units of the 3rd sector, there was a threat of enemy units breaking through along the Belbek River valley, including to battery No. 30. The counterattack organized on December 18 by the command of the Sevastopol defensive region did not produce results. To support the counterattack on December 18 and 19, Battery No. 30 conducted twelve firing sessions and fired 68 shells. In two days, the enemy fired more than 200 shells at battery No. 30, only with a caliber of 203 mm and above.

To eliminate the enemy breakthrough, on December 19, an order was signed to allocate personnel to strengthen the front and create a reserve, according to which, by 6 o'clock on December 20, two companies of 150 people each were to be formed from coastal batteries No. 10 and 30, which were sent to the command Maritime Army.

On December 22, a difficult situation developed for the units of the 4th sector located north of the Belbek River: the 90th Infantry Regiment, the 40th Cavalry Division and the 8th Marine Brigade fought off persistent enemy attacks all day and by the evening of December 22nd they could hardly hold their own. positions. The enemy, having brought up reserves, threatened to cut the road to Kacha with a strike along the Belbek valley. The weakened units of the 151st Cavalry Regiment, under attacks from tanks, were forced to retreat to the area of ​​the Sofia Perovskaya State Farm, and the remnants of the 773rd Infantry Regiment to Lyubimovka. In view of the obvious threat of an enemy breakthrough along the valley of the Belbek River and the Kara-Tau hill to the sea, which could lead to the encirclement of Soviet troops, it was decided to withdraw troops to the line of the Belbek River and take up defense in a section 1 km east of the village of Belbek - Lyubimovka, and battery No. 10 and blow up all artillery bunkers. By 10 o'clock on December 23, parts of the 4th sector were withdrawn. This defense line was very close to Sevastopol and ran at a distance of only 7–8 km from the Northern Bay on the same line as the command post of battery No. 30. At 15:40 the enemy, with the strength of a regiment, went on the offensive in the direction of battery No. 30 and the state farm named after. Sofia Perovskaya. The offensive was carried out from the village of Belbek to the sea by the 22nd German Infantry Division and the Romanian motorized regiment.

On the morning of December 26, the enemy, with a force of up to one and a half regiments brought in from the reserve of the 132nd Infantry Division, resumed the offensive with tanks. Parts of the Sevastopol defensive region, occupying the defense from the Mekenziev Gory station to the seashore, found themselves in a difficult situation. The 90th Infantry Regiment had difficulty holding back the onslaught of the enemy, who came close to battery No. 30. The enemy was stopped and failed to cut the railway line from the Mekenzievy Gory station to battery No. 30. Our infantry was greatly assisted by the armored train "Zheleznyakov", which reached the Mekenzievy Gory station, the 265th, 905th and 397th artillery regiments and coastal batteries No. 2 (4x100/50), 12 (4x152/45), 14 (3x13/50), 704 (2x130/55), 705 (2x130/55), as well as the 365th (4x76) anti-aircraft battery. It is interesting that, giving conventional names to the defensive objects of Sevastopol, the Germans called the firing position of the 30th battery “Fort Maxim Gorky I”, and its command post was named “Schutzpunkt Bastion”.

On the morning of December 28, the enemy opened fire along the entire front of the 4th sector, especially intense in the area from Kamyshly to battery No. 30 and the state farm named after Sofia Perovskaya. At 8 hours 25 minutes, four enemy battalions, supported by 12 tanks, attacked in the direction of cordon No. 1 - Mekenzievy Gory station and the state farm named after Sofia Perovskaya in the area of ​​battery No. 30. By the end of the day, Soviet troops were unable to hold the line and were forced to retreat.

The 30th battery found itself in a very difficult situation, since its right flank was not covered, and the enemy created a real possibility of blowing it up. The battery commander allocated up to two companies from the battery personnel to defend his right flank. The dire situation of the battery was reported to the sector commander, who immediately formed a battalion from special units and sent it into the gap that had formed. Despite the difficult situation, the artillerymen continued to fire at the enemy, firing 61 shells.

By 12 o'clock on December 29, a difficult situation had again arisen in the battery area; the enemy, having captured the battery town, began to advance to the command post. To eliminate the threat of destruction to the battery, the battery commander, Captain Alexander, was ordered to turn the turrets towards the enemy and use one turret to fire shrapnel. At 13:30, fire was opened on the enemy, who was in the area of ​​the battery town and command post, from other Coastal Defense batteries and an air assault was carried out. With a subsequent strike from the Marine Corps, the enemy was driven back, and the threat of destruction of Battery No. 30 passed.

With the start of the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation, the command of the 11th German Army was forced to transfer the 170th, 132nd and part of the 50th infantry divisions to the Kerch direction and withdraw the remaining troops near Sevastopol 1 - 2 km from the Soviet defensive line.

During January 6–8, the troops of the 4th sector went on the offensive in order to improve their positions around battery No. 30 in the area of ​​the Belbek River valley and the village of Lyubimovka.

During the fighting, battery No. 30 fired at the enemy, according to various sources, from 1034 (Journal of combat operations of the 1st OAD) to 1234 shells and completely fired its barrels. There was an urgent need to replace the barrels, and to do it secretly from the enemy. The difficulty of replacing the barrels was that the battery was located only 1.5 km from the front edge and was clearly visible from the enemy. A detailed work plan was developed, which was based on the idea of ​​BC-5 commander of the 35th battery, military technician 2nd rank Lobanov, to change barrels without using a crane manually using jacks and hoists. Master S.I. provided great assistance in the development of this plan. Prokuda, and military engineer 3rd rank Mendeleev, who proposed to replace the guns without removing the horizontal armor from the turret, but only by lifting it and inserting new gun bodies, which made it possible to significantly reduce the work time. This proposal was supported by representatives of the Artillery Department of the Black Sea Fleet, military engineer 1st rank A.A. Alekseev and Colonel E.P. Donets, and also approved by the Coastal Defense Command. It was decided that the work in one tower would be supervised by master S.I. Prokuda with his team (Bolshevik plant), and in the other - master I. Sechko with his team (Leningrad Metal Plant). A huge amount of work was carried out by the tower personnel, headed by tower commanders V.M. Pol and A.V. Telechko, where there were many good specialists among the fighters and junior commanders.

Work began on January 25. It was impossible to use the 100-ton crane available on the battery, because firstly, it was badly damaged, and secondly, its use would lead to a violation of the secrecy of the work. It was decided to change barrels only at night or in poor visibility conditions. On the night of January 30, the first gun was pulled up to the towers by a steam locomotive. When the locomotive, pushing the platform with the body of the gun in front of itself, reached a hill where the towers were located, visible to the enemy, the locomotive's tender drove onto a filled shell crater, derailed and began to sink into the soil, soaked from the rains. The battery personnel manually pulled the platform with the gun to the turret and unloaded it. At this time, under enemy fire, a brigade led by division engineer I.V. By dawn, Andrienko put the tender on the rails and restored the track. In the morning, still in the dark, the locomotive went to Sevastopol for another gun, which was never discovered by the enemy. On February 11, the battery was in full combat readiness.

After the commissioning of battery No. 30, a meeting was held, at which speeches were made by the commander of the Black Sea Fleet and the Sevastopol defensive region, Vice Admiral Oktyabrsky, a member of the Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet, divisional commissar Kulakov, and the commander of the Primorsky Army, Lieutenant General Petrov. The personnel were awarded orders and medals. The Order of the Red Banner was received by the battery commander, Captain G.A. Alexander.

In the document compiled by the Combat Training Department of the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters, “Brief results of combat firing of coastal batteries of the BO GB Black Sea Fleet for 7 months of the defense of Sevastopol 10/30/1941 – 05/31/1942.” It was noted: “Battery No. 30 conducted 161 shootings, of which: 18 against tanks, 12 against vehicles, 34 against batteries, 22 against infantry, 16 against populated areas, 59 against other targets. 1034 rounds were expended, the maximum ammunition consumption per firing was 41 (for firing at Bakhchisarai), the minimum was 1.

Most shootings were carried out at a distance of 60–80 kb, 22% at a distance of more than 100 kb. Direct fire carried out 3 shootings, with adjustments 71 shootings, without adjustments 87 shootings or 54%.

Results of the fire: 17 tanks, 1 locomotive, 2 wagons, about 300 vehicles with troops and cargo were destroyed and damaged, 8 mortar and artillery batteries, up to 15 individual guns, 7 firing points, and up to 3,000 infantry were destroyed. In addition, the fire of such a battery had a huge moral effect on the enemy.

The big drawback is that 54% of all shootings were carried out without adjustment, their result is unknown. (Certainly not very effective).”

By the beginning of the third assault, the 305-mm batteries of Sevastopol were provided with an average of 1.35 rounds of ammunition, or 270 rounds per gun. As of May 20, there were 1,695 shells for the eight 305-mm guns of batteries No. 30 and 35 in Sevastopol. For batteries, this number of shells was the limit, since after the specified number of shells was used up, the gun bodies wore out and required replacement.

As of May 30, 1942, the personnel of the 30th battery consisted of 22 commanders and 342 Red Navy men.

On the afternoon of June 6, 1942, the enemy used heavy-duty artillery to fire at battery No. 30—two 600-mm Karl mortars. He managed to disable the second turret, in which the armor was pierced and the gun was damaged. In addition, enemy aircraft dropped a 1000 kg bomb on the battery position. On the night of June 7, the tower, through the efforts of a team of workers under the leadership of foreman S.I. Prokuda and battery personnel, was put into operation, but could only operate with one gun.

On June 7, a 600-mm shell hit the first turret. The second hit was on the concrete mass of the battery; the shell pierced three-meter reinforced concrete and damaged the battery's chemical filter compartment.

During June 9 and 10, the artillery of the Primorsky Army and Coastal Defense fired at the battle formations of the advancing infantry, tanks and artillery positions of the enemy, who had penetrated the battle formations of the defending Soviet troops in the 4th sector and created the threat of a breakthrough in the area of ​​​​battery No. 30. The fire from battery No. 30 and the batteries of the 18th Guards Artillery Regiment was especially effective.

By June 10, Battery No. 30 could fire only two guns, one gun in each turret. The engineering structures of the ground defense were completely destroyed and littered. The parapet was a shapeless mass of stones, metal fragments and craters, the bunkers were destroyed.

During June 11, troops of the Sevastopol defensive region fought battles aimed at improving the position of battery No. 30 and eliminating the enemy breakthrough.

The commander of the Primorsky Army, General Petrov, proposed counterattacking the wedged enemy from two directions: from the 3rd sector and the area of ​​​​battery No. 30. To support the actions of the infantry, the head of the Coastal Defense, General Morgunov, ordered the allocation of the required ammunition and at the same time indicated that battery No. 30, which was constantly under air strikes and shelling from 600-mm mortars, and under the constant threat of encirclement, should spend more ammunition.

In total, during the third assault the battery expended 656 shells.

The enemy tried with all his might to destroy the 30th battery and fired at it every day from heavy guns. On June 14 alone, the enemy fired over 700 shells at the battery. German aviation bombed it with ferocity, but had no success; on June 15, up to 600 air raids were carried out on the battery.

On June 15–17, 1942, the enemy, with forces from two to four regiments with tanks of the 132nd Infantry Division, carried out an offensive (the forces of the opposing Soviet troops amounted to no more than one and a half to two regiments) hoping to capture the village of Budenovka and surround battery No. 30. At the same time, a group of German machine gunners infiltrated into the area of ​​Sofia Perovskaya’s state farm on June 15 and cut the air and underground communication lines of battery No. 30 with the city. On June 16, radio communications also ceased to function, as all antennas were destroyed, and attempts to communicate using an underground antenna were unsuccessful.

On June 17, battery No. 30 was finally blocked by the enemy. About 250 personnel and soldiers of the 95th Infantry Division and Marines remained in the premises of the encircled battery. In accordance with the instructions of the coastal defense command, in the event of a blockade of the battery by the enemy, the battery personnel were to break out of the encirclement in three groups, and the last group was to blow up the battery. The first group of 76 soldiers, led by Kalinkin, instructor of the political department of the coastal defense, left, but part of it was killed by the Germans; part of the group managed to break through and report to the Coastal Defense command about the situation at the battery. The rest of the personnel delayed the exit, while the enemy, having discovered the exit of the first group, intensified their fire at the exits from the battery array and made a further breakthrough impossible.

At a meeting with Vice Admiral Oktyabrsky, a proposal was made to try to break through the blockade line of the battery, liberate its garrison and blow up the battery. On June 18, an attempt to break through to the positions of battery No. 30 with the support of Coastal Defense artillery was unsuccessful due to intense opposition from enemy aviation and artillery, and at the same time the enemy resumed the offensive.

The siege and assault on the battery began.

Translated from the German edition of “Additions to the memorandum on foreign fortifications,” published in 1943 in Berlin by the Naval Engineering Directorate in the chapter “The Fight for Sevastopol,” it was said:

“Batteries of medium, large and super-large calibers took part in preparing the assault, firing about 750 shots from June 6 to June 17, 1942 (the day of the assault), half of them before noon on June 17. At half past one, 17.06, 20 bombs were dropped on field structures by dive bombers.

Concentrated artillery fire broke through the barbed wire barriers and filled the minefields.

The craters created by bombs and mines made it easier for the attacking troops to advance. The garrison of the outer defensive belt was mostly destroyed, and the light defensive structures included in it were destroyed.

The western armored turret received a side hit, due to which one gun was completely disabled and the other partially disabled, the eastern turret received a direct hit in the embrasure, which disabled both guns. The underground passage to the rangefinder installation was filled in, all entrances and the reinforced concrete covering of the casemate remained almost untouched. The shelling (according to their testimony) did not make any impression on the battery defenders.

The 213th Regiment, the 1st and 2nd Battalions, the 132nd Engineer Regiment and the 1st Battalion of the 173rd Engineer Regiment were assigned to storm the battery.

Early in the morning and before noon on June 17, 1942, an assault was launched in the direction of the anti-tank ditch, opened east of the battery across the watershed. The enemy put up stubborn resistance. The firing points firing along the front and flanks were silenced by infantry and artillery fire.

The 1st and 2nd battalions of the 132nd Engineer Regiment attacked the fortifications located in front of the battery. The 122nd Infantry Regiment attacked structures located on the southern and western slopes of the mountain. The advance of the attacking units was greatly hampered by heavy enemy artillery and mortar fire from the Belbek River valley and the slopes to the south, as well as sniper fire and counterattacks.

At about half past two in the afternoon, as a result of a repeated attack, the western slope of the mountain was occupied. The approach to the command post at the eastern end of the underground passage was also busy.

At 2 hours 45 minutes the second battalion of the 213th regiment began an attack on the eastern slope and at 3 hours 15 minutes reached the destroyed fortification at +400 m, east of the first armored tower installation, and the first battalion of the 173rd engineer regiment under the protection of infantry fire attacked the tower installation. At 3 hours 45 minutes, six sappers entered the installation with bundles of hand grenades and destroyed its garrison. The garrison of the second installation was furiously fired back with rifle fire from embrasure holes pierced by artillery shells in the armor plates of the tower. The sappers' attack was successful only due to flanking fire on the installation by infantry units. The enemy was destroyed by hand grenades. At this time, the infantry advancing along the northern slope was able to establish control over the western slope. At 4:30 a.m., the sappers, after several repeated attempts, reached the heavily defended main entrances; machine guns were installed to block the entrances. As a result of these actions, the garrison was locked in blocks."

In the following days, the enemy tried to smoke the battery defenders out of the premises using demolition charges, gasoline and flammable oils. As a result of the explosions, severe fires occurred in the towers and the premises were filled with smoke. On June 22, the 6th Battalion, 173rd Engineer Regiment, was replaced by the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Engineer Regiment.

June 25, 1942 battery commander Major G.A. Alexander left through the drain and the next day was captured and then shot. On June 26, an enemy strike group broke into the block and captured 40 prisoners. Most of the garrison died from explosions or suffocated in smoke.

The 30th battery played an important role in the heroic defense of Sevastopol in 1941–1942. In total, during the war, battery No. 30 fired about 2,000 shells; a more precise number cannot be calculated due to lack of documents. As part of the 1st separate artillery division of the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet, together with tower battery No. 35, it was a kind of “backbone” of the artillery defense system of the fortress and inflicted serious damage on the enemy in manpower and equipment. On June 18, 1942, by order of the People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR No. 136, the 1st OAD was transformed into a guards unit.

Recovery and post-war service

After the liberation of Sevastopol in 1944, the restoration of the coastal defense facilities of the Main Black Sea Fleet base began. On the railway line leading to the position of battery No. 30, permanent positions were equipped for railway battery No. 16. This battery was armed with four 180-mm TM-1-180 railway artillery mounts. However, for a more reliable defense of the sea approaches to Sevastopol, the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy adopted on January 13, 1947 decision No. 0010 to restore tower battery No. 30 using existing fortifications.

The project for the restoration and reconstruction of the battery was developed by the Mosvoenmorproekt of the Main Engineering Directorate of the Navy under the leadership of engineer majors Maev and Nazarenko and approved by the Minister of the Navy on June 16, 1950.

Due to the impossibility of restoring the MB-2-12 305-mm two-gun turret mounts, which were severely damaged in 1942, it was decided to dismantle them and replace them with two three-gun turret mounts of the same caliber taken from the battleship Frunze (formerly Poltava).

Two turrets (second and third) from this ship back in the early 1930s. were installed on battery No. 981 named after. Voroshilov in Vladivostok. The remaining towers (the first and fourth) were planned to be installed on the island of Russare (the Hanko naval base of the Baltic Fleet) in 1940, but the outbreak of war prevented this from happening. In 1941, the rotating armor of one of the towers lying dismantled on the territory of the Leningrad Metal Plant named after. Stalin, was used in the construction of firing points for the ground defense of Leningrad.

On July 3, 1948, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted Resolution No. 2417-1009ss on the completion of the manufacture of these tower installations at the Leningrad Metal Plant.

The towers have been significantly modernized. By changing the design of the loading mechanisms and moving to a constant loading angle of 6 degrees (the hammers were removed from the swinging parts of the guns and installed permanently on the turret combat table), it was possible to increase the rate of fire to 2.25 rounds per minute. By increasing the lifting sectors, the elevation angle of the guns was increased from 25 to 40 degrees, which made it possible to increase the firing range of these artillery installations from 127 to 156 cables (with a 1911 model projectile).

Recoil devices have also been modernized. Instead of a non-vacuum type recoil brake, vacuum type recoil brakes and an independent pneumatic knurler with a floating piston were installed. At the end of 1952 - beginning of 1953. The swinging parts have been factory tested and tested by shooting at the firing range.

Six more guns were brought to Sevastopol and deposited in the artillery arsenal of the Black Sea Fleet as spare ones.

The armor of the towers has also undergone some changes. In 1952, the Izhora plant manufactured the rotating armor of the 2nd installation, which was lost during the war. For the 1st, new horizontal armor (turret roof) was made, the thickness of which was increased from the previous 76 to 175 mm. The vertical armor on it remained the same - “Poltava”. In connection with the installation of lined guns in the turret, hatches were made in the rear walls of the turrets, closed with armored covers, to quickly change liners. The thickness of the fixed armor (cuirass) was increased from 254 to 330 mm.

The relatively small depth of the wells in the concrete mass of the battery, designed for coastal tower installations "MB-2-12" (with the location of shell and charging magazines on the same level), did not allow the installation of former ship installations in them without radical alterations of their lower parts, which significantly changed the design of the mechanisms for supplying ammunition to the guns. The conical part of the supply pipes of the ship's turret installations had to be cut off along with the equipment for lifting the lower chargers, and the former reloading compartment had to be redone so that ammunition could be loaded directly into the upper chargers.

The shells of each tower were stored in two shell magazines, stacked in five rows on the shelves of mechanized racks. The left cellar “fed” the left gun of the turret, and the right cellar fed the middle and right ones. Each cellar contained six such racks, each of which had its own manually operated lifting tray. Using these trays, the shells were lowered from the shelves and then fed through a conveyor system into the reloading compartment onto a circular rotating chute. The chute was a rigid steel ring rotating inside the transfer compartment (independently of it) around three charger shafts. Half-charges were fed from the powder magazines through three special gates (fire-proof turnstiles) and placed on the chute manually. From the chute, the shells were fed to the receiving tables of the reloading compartment and then, using a system of rotary and longitudinal trays, they were moved to the charger feeders and dumped into them. To load half-charges into the charger, there were rotating two-tier trays and mechanical rammers. All mechanisms worked both electrically (17 engines per tower) and manually.

The ship's artillery installations thus became lower by two whole "floors", corresponding to the location of the ship's charging and shell magazines. Such radically redesigned artillery systems received a new designation MB-3-12FM.

Since the new artillery installations had three guns each, instead of the previous two, for the convenience of supplying ammunition, it was necessary to equip additional lines for transporting shells and charges. To do this, we carried out a redevelopment of the internal premises inside the concrete mass, taking advantage of the presence of two casemates adjacent to the right and left of each tower well and which initially could only be accessed from the gallery that goes around the rigid drum (initially, these casemates contained storerooms for tower spare parts and tools) . In one of these casemates, a passage to the powder magazine was cut to transport charges, and a gateway with a fire-resistant turnstile was installed in place of the previous entrance. To speed up the supply, an additional rack was also placed in this casemate, where a certain amount of charges was stored. In another casemate, they cut an opening into the shell magazine and expanded the original entrance, and then installed two horizontal conveyors connected by a rotary tray, forming a transport line along which the shell fell into the reloading compartment. To accommodate the increased amount of ammunition (1080 rounds per battery instead of the previous 800) in the shell magazines, it was necessary to change the storage system (install racks instead of the previous stacks), and increase the number of charging magazines by equipping three additional magazines from former personnel quarters and other auxiliary casemates ( one for the 1st tower and two for the 2nd). The passage connecting one of the original cellars with the shell magazine had to be walled up and a doorway cut nearby into the former cockpits, which became powder magazines. You can imagine how much hard work such a redevelopment took.

The battery command post has undergone significant reconstruction. The installation of a gun guidance radar station on it required the construction of a special reinforced concrete cabin to accommodate a rotating antenna device, covered on top with a radio-transparent fiberglass cap. In the premises of the ground part of the command post, it was additionally necessary to place the hardware and modular radar posts, which entailed a reworking of the entrance (part of the previous cranked through was used to install equipment, and a new straight through with a light well was attached to the remaining one).

Construction and installation work for the restoration and reconstruction of the gun block and the battery command post was carried out by Construction No. 74 of the Sevastopol Military Sea Station of the Black Sea Fleet (headed by engineer-colonel Baburin).

Instead of the previous fire control system of the “Barricade” type (the devices and cable routes of which were dismantled by the Germans during the occupation of Sevastopol), the battery received a prototype of the newest “Bereg-30” system. Its main differences were the absence of a horizontal-base rangefinder operating from a network of target designation posts (after the advent of radar equipment, the need for it disappeared) and the presence of a more advanced central firing machine (device “1-B”) and an azimuth and distance transformer (device “77”). In addition, there was a reserve automatic firing machine (device “1-P”). Target designation to the system came from the "VBK-2" sighting device (experimental sample) located in the conning tower with three independent optical systems for the battery commander and gunners in target and splash azimuth, the "RD-2-8" armored rangefinder tower with two 8-meter stereo rangefinders "DMS-8" and radar gun guidance stations "Zalp-B" and detection stations "Shkot". For night shooting, two heat direction finding stations were used, located north and south of the battery firing position in special reinforced concrete casemates, operating in conjunction with searchlights located nearby. To remotely control the spotlights, a special device was installed in the central battery post - a “searchlight azimuth transformer” (device “98”). It was also possible to use target designation from a spotter aircraft (for this purpose, there was a special indicator in the central firing machine) and command posts of neighboring batteries. The capabilities of the fire control system allowed the battery to confidently hit visible and invisible targets moving at speeds of up to 60 knots.

The increased energy consumption of the battery compared to pre-war forced the reconstruction of its power equipment. Three new diesel engines “6Ch23/30” from the Gorky plant “Engine of the Revolution” with a power of 450 hp each were installed in the power station of the gun block. with three-phase alternating current generators with a capacity of 320 kW. (ship-type machine telegraphs were even provided to control diesel engines). Tower electric drives operating on direct current were supplied with energy from three electric machine converters with a power of 160 kW each. Separate converters generated energy for fire control devices and communications equipment.

The battery conducted its first firing after restoration in November 1954 and went into operation as the 459th tower artillery division and by order of the General Staff of the USSR Navy No. 00747 dated November 13, 1954. By the same order, the battery was included in the 291st separate artillery brigade of the Black Sea Fleet. The first commander of the division was Colonel I.K. Bobukh. In addition to two 305 mm turrets, the division included an 8-gun anti-aircraft battery (57 mm S-60 type guns) and four anti-aircraft machine gun installations.

On June 27, 1956, the division was included in the 1st line of combat. Over the next two years, he carried out practical and competitive shooting with the main caliber. Later, firing was carried out only from 45-mm training barrels.

On April 10, 1960, the division was transferred to the 778th separate artillery regiment. On July 1, 1961, this regiment was disbanded, and the division was reorganized into the 459th separate artillery battery (cadre staff) and reassigned to the head of the fleet missile units.

On September 8, 1961, the battery was transferred to peacetime status and returned to the restored 778th separate artillery regiment. On December 20 of the same year, the battery was again transferred to the personnel staff. Subsequently, it was again reorganized into a division, maintaining the same number.

On January 15, 1966, in connection with the second and now final disbandment of the 778th artillery regiment, the 459th tower artillery division was transferred to the 51st separate coastal missile regiment of the Coastal Missile and Artillery Forces of the Black Sea Fleet.

Since April 1974, the division was part of the 417th separate coastal missile and artillery regiment. In June 1991, this regiment was reorganized into the 521st separate missile and artillery brigade of the Black Sea Fleet Coastal Forces, and in November - into the 632nd separate missile and artillery regiment.

In the summer of 1997, in accordance with the agreement between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on the division of the Black Sea Fleet, the personnel of the 632nd regiment and the 459th tower division that was part of it left for the Caucasian coast. The territory of the former battery town and the technical position of the regiment were transferred to the Ukrainian Naval Forces. To maintain the weapons and fortifications of the former 30th battery, which remained part of the Black Sea Fleet, the 267th Conservation Platoon of the Black Sea Fleet Coastal Troops was formed in the same year.

In the summer of 2004, the 30th battery celebrated the 70th anniversary of its presence in the Black Sea Fleet.

Unfortunately, the future fate of the battery remains uncertain, since its transfer to the jurisdiction of Ukraine could lead to the looting of the battery and the subsequent cutting of unique 305-mm tower installations for scrap metal, as has already happened in Sevastopol with the 180-mm tower and 130-mm open ones transferred to Ukraine batteries.

APPLICATIONS

Comparative characteristics
tower artillery installations MB-2-12 and MB-3-12FM
305-mm tower coastal artillery battery No. 30, Sevastopol

Comparative characteristics tower artillery installations		MB-2-12 1934	MB-3-12FM 1954
Caliber	mm	305	305
Number of guns in the turret		2	3
Projectile weight arr. 1911	kg	471	471
Weight of combat charge	kg	132	132
Initial projectile speed	m/s	762	762
Maximum range firing a projectile arr. 1911	cab. m	153 27980	156 28528
Shells for 1 gun	PC.	200	180
Shells in the cellar of the tower	PC.	400	540
Half-charged in the cellar of the tower	PC.	1200	1125
Elevation angle	hail	35	40
Descent Angle	hail	1	3
Horizontal firing angle	hail	360	±185
Loading angle	hail	0 – 14,5	6
Front plate thickness	mm	305	203
Side plate thickness	mm	305	203
Back plate and door thickness	mm	305	305
Roof thickness	mm	203	175
Thickness of longitudinal bulkheads	mm	25	18
Cuirass thickness	mm	front – 254 rear – 102	330
Maximum rate of fire	v/min	2,1	2,25
Vertical guidance speed by electrical action	deg/s	0,012 – 5	1 – 6
– with manual action	deg/s	0,8 – 1	0,4
Horizontal guidance speed by electrical action	deg/s	0,012 – 5	0,5 – 3
– with manual action	deg/s	0,375 – 0,43	0,3
Lock opening time	With	7,2	7,34
Maintenance staff in the tower when working on electricity	people	54	71
Sighting devices		LMZ	PMA

Firing table for Russian 305 mm cannons, 52 calibers long

Projectile	Initial speed	Charge	Corner elevations, hail and min	Range shooting, cab.	Range shooting, m
Arr. 1928 high explosive, long-range 314 kg	950 m/s	combat 140 kg	15,05	137	25057
			20,05	163	29813
			24,59	187	34202
			29,55	207	37494
			40,09	241	44079
			50	251,4	45981
Arr. 1911 high explosive 470.9 kg	762 m/s	combat 132 kg	19,52	112	20485
			25	127	23228
			27	132	24143
			30	139	25423
			47,59	160,4	29338
			50,1	160,2	29301
	655 m/s	reduced- combat 100 kg	20,13	91	16644
			25,09	103	18839
			27,03	107	19570
			30,03	113	20668
			39,59	130	23777

Explication of the premises to the 1932 drawing.

A. Left tower, B. Right tower, 1. Filter chamber, 2. Filter chamber, 3. Nachkhim post, 4. Passage to the power station, 5. Galley, 6. Latrine, 7. Airlock, 8. Passage, 9. Battery commander's quarters, 10. Exhaust fans, 11. Boiler room, 12. Transformers, 13. Red Navy quarters, 14. Power station, 15. Exhaust casemate fans, 16. Passage, 17. 1st vestibule, 18. 2nd vestibule , 19. Latrine, 20. Command staff quarters for 8 people, 21. Entrance to the porta to the command post, 22. Dressing station, 23. Pharmacy, 24. Room for 22 Red Navy men, 25. Water station, 26. Blower fans, 27. Local PUAO central post, 28. Room for the duty commander, 29. Blower fans, 30. Telephone exchange, 31. Battery room, 32. Workshop, 33. Tool storeroom, 34. Red Navy personnel room, 35. Storeroom, 36. Communications and equipment storeroom, 37. Electrical storeroom, 38. Blower fans, 39. Latrine for command personnel, 40. Washbasin, 41. Blower fans, 42. Room for command personnel for 6 people, 43. Room for 22 Red Navy men, 44. Room for 38 Red Navy men, 45. [?]. pantry, 55. Passage, 56. Battery telephone exchange, 57. Room for 34 Red Navy men, 58. Room for 34 Red Navy men, 59. Wardroom, 60. Shell cellar, 61. Shell cellar, 62. Charging cellar, 63. Charging cellar, 64. Tower storage room, 65. Tower storage room, 66. Tower storage room, 67. Tower storage room, 68. Passage, 69. Draft, 70. Draft, 71. Main corridor, 72. Central corridor, 73. Smoke chamber

Sources and literature

1. RGVIA. f. 504. op. 9. d. 1014
2. RGVIA. f. 2000. op. 1. d. 170.
3. RGVIA. f. 802. op. 2. d. 855.
4. RGAVMF. f. 609. op. 3. d. 72.
5. CVMA. f. 155. no. 9332.
6. CVMA. f. 136. d. 5091.
7. CVMA. f. 24.dd. 22630, 22631, 22620, 22621, 22622.
8. CVMA. f. 109. no. 24009.
9. Russian State Administration of the Navy. f. R-910. op. 1. d. 78.
10. Russian State Administration of the Navy. f. R-891. op. 3. d. 5394.
11. Khmelkov S.A., Ungerman N.I. Fundamentals and forms of long-term fortification, M., 1931.
12. Handbook of artillery of the USSR Navy. M.–L., 1944.
13. Morgunov P.A. Heroic Sevastopol. M., 1979.
14. Dukelsky A.G. Historical sketch of the development of design and manufacture of tower installations in Russia 1886–1917. M., 1931.

The defense of Sevastopol, which lasted 250 days, from October 30, 1941 to July 4, 1942, became one of the brightest pages of the entire Second World War. A significant contribution to the defense of the city was made by the 30th and 35th armored turret coastal batteries, which became the basis of the artillery power of the defenders of the main base of the Black Sea Fleet, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy advancing on the city and chaining huge enemy forces to themselves. The 30th armored turret battery continued to fight until June 26, 1942, when the Germans were able to capture it, completely blocked.

The armored turret battery was a long-term defensive structure armed with tower artillery. Similar batteries were used from the end of the 19th to the end of the 20th century, acting as an element of coastal defense or fortifications. In the Soviet Union, armored turret batteries were part of the defense system of the Sevastopol fortified region and the coastal defense system of Vladivostok.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, this battery was restored, unlike the 35th battery, which was abandoned for many years and only in the 21st century, through the efforts of philanthropists, was turned into a museum. The armament of the 30th battery was strengthened after the war, and new life support and fire control systems were installed. To re-equip this battery in the USSR, they used two 305-mm three-gun turrets on the battleship Frunze (formerly the battleship Poltava). Two other towers from this battleship were installed on Russky Island near Vladivostok in the Voroshilov battery back in the 1930s. Currently, the 30th armored turret battery is mothballed, but can be put into combat readiness within 72 hours.

30th coastal battery today

History of battery construction

Back in 1905, immediately after the end of the war with Japan, the Russian government decided to strengthen the defense of its naval base in Sevastopol. It was planned to build two large-caliber coastal batteries on the approaches to the city. In 1913, construction of a coastal defense battery began on the Alkadar hill (in the area of ​​today's village of Lyubimovka). The design of the armored turret battery was developed by military engineer General N.A. Buinitsky, who took into account the recommendations of the famous Russian fortifier (as well as the famous composer) General Caesar Antonovich Cui. It is worth noting that Cui, in his special work, studied the features of the defense of Sevastopol in 1854-1855 and proposed the most advantageous position for equipping the battery. Without any exaggeration, it was a brilliant project, which was proven during the Great Patriotic War. The battery's dominance over the surrounding area provided two two-gun 305-mm turrets, rotating 360 degrees, with all-round fire.

More than 100 years ago, the coastal battery was already planned to be built completely electrified. All operations for pointing and loading guns were to be powered by 17 electric motors. Only gun turrets with 200-300 mm of armor were placed on the surface. The remaining premises were located in a reinforced concrete block 130 meters long and 50 meters wide. Inside this block there was a power station, residential and office premises, and ammunition cellars. In the turret room there was a railway with hand-held trolleys in which ammunition was to be delivered to the charger. It was planned to connect the battery with the command post using an underground corridor 600 meters long.

Construction work on the battery proceeded quite quickly, but in 1915 the towers, guns and mechanisms that were intended to equip the Sevastopol battery were sent to Petrograd, where a new coastal battery was being built in the sea fortress of Peter the Great. In 1918, at the height of the Civil War, construction at the facility was completely stopped; by that time, the battery was already 70% ready. They returned to the construction of a coastal armored turret battery only in 1928. For this purpose, a 6.5 km railway line was laid from the Mekenzievy Gory station to the construction site. Massive battery parts were unloaded from railway platforms and mounted in place using a special crane.

Tower MB-2-12 under construction

In 1934, interior work was completed and the gun turrets were installed in place. Test firing of the guns was carried out, and a new fire control system was also tested. In 1936, the main command post of the battery was completely completed, and the system of fire control posts was also ready. They were located on Cape Lucullus, at the mouths of the Alma and Kachi rivers, as well as on Capes Fiolent and Chersonesus and above the western shore of Balaklava Bay. Such an extensive network of observation posts was necessary due to the long firing range of the battery - the maximum firing range of a 305-mm projectile of the 1911 model was 27,980 meters. Minor modifications to the 30th battery were carried out until 1940.

Shore battery device

Coastal armored turret battery No. 30 consisted of the following objects:

A monolithic reinforced concrete block with two towers, which contained almost all the conning towers, utility and storage rooms, communication rooms, corridors, etc.;

Two MB-2-12 turrets (4x305 mm guns in total);

Command and rangefinder station (KDP) with a conning tower, a central post, an armored rangefinder cabin with a 10-meter Zeiss rangefinder and a radio room;

Electrical transformer substation block.

The main armament of the 30th battery were two MB-2-12 two-gun turret installations, which were produced by the Leningrad Metallurgical Plant. The turrets contained 305 mm guns with a 52-caliber barrel length. The maximum firing range was 27,980 meters. The maximum elevation angle of the guns is 35 degrees. The maximum rate of fire is 2.1 rounds per minute. Four such guns of the 30th armored turret coastal battery (from the north) and its twin - the 35th battery (from the south) were supposed to reliably cover the Black Sea Fleet base from shelling from the sea by large-caliber artillery of enemy battleships. The weight of 305-mm shells ranged from 314 to 470 kg, the weight of the powder cartridge was 71 kg.

MB-2-12 tower in section

When making a full shot, two caps were used, and for a half-shot, one cap. The caps were placed in special metal cases and stored in honeycomb-shaped racks. In the cellars, shells were stored in stacks. Unlike the 35th battery, in which charges and shells were pushed out of the cellars through special pipes, on the 30th battery they were rolled out along a special roller conveyor (roller conveyor). In the reloading compartments, in which shells and charges were prepared for loading, a rotating electric drive platform was mounted

The BM-2-12 towers had the following parameters: diameter - 10.8 m; height - 2.25 m; gun barrel length - 16 m; gun barrel weight - 50 tons; weight of the entire turret (without guns) - 300 tons; total weight - 1000 t; the thickness of the front and side plates, as well as the rear plate and door is 305 mm, the thickness of the roof is 203 mm. The turret cellar contained 400 shells (200 per barrel) and 1,200 half-charges. To replace gun barrels and repair turrets, a special 75-ton railway crane was provided on the battery. A special shelter was even erected for him to camouflage him and protect him from possible shelling from the sea.

The one-story gun block of the 30th coastal battery with a total length of about 130 meters and a width of 50 meters had two entrances in the rear with armored doors and airlocks. To communicate with each other, the 72 rooms of the gun block had a longitudinal corridor inside, approximately 100 meters long and 3 meters wide. This block housed wells for gun mounts, charging and shell magazines, a local central post with a reserve group of fire control devices, a boiler room, a power station, pumping and compressor stations, filter-ventilation equipment, service and living quarters for battery personnel. Under the floor of the premises there were containers for storing water, oil and fuel, and utility lines were also located there. All casemates of the gun block had a vaulted covering made of monolithic reinforced concrete with a thickness of 3 to 4 meters with a rigid anti-splinter layer made of steel channels No. 30, as well as an insulating layer of asphalt concrete. The total area of ​​various rooms in the one-story gun block exceeded 3 thousand square meters.

Diagram of the gun block premises

Concrete tanks holding 500 cubic meters of water were installed specifically for storing water reserves under the floor of the gun block. To maintain the required humidity and temperature conditions in the premises, a steam-air heater heating system was installed (steam was produced by two underground boiler houses). The power station of the gun block received an air cooling unit.

The battery's underground command post was a concrete tunnel 53 meters long and 5.5 meters wide. It was located on a hill northeast of the gun block. It housed the central post of the coastal battery, a filter-ventilation unit, a boiler room, a power plant, a fuel tank and a barracks. In the direction of the command post, located at a depth of 37 meters, a deep concrete turn with a length of 650 meters led from the artillery block. To the side of the posterna there was a branch, which was used to take in air and remove wastewater from the casemates (the drains were discharged through pipes that were laid directly under the floor of the posterna). At the junction of the drainage and the terna, another emergency underground passage with a small room - a barracks - was dug.

A shaft equipped with an elevator led from the underground part of the command post to the surface and into the ground part. The ground part of the command post was a reinforced concrete block measuring 15x16 meters, into which an armored cabin was mounted. The thickness of the vertical armor was 406 mm, the horizontal armor - 305 mm. Inside this block there was a room for personnel with four viewing slits and an optical sight, as well as a radio station.

305 mm coastal battery shells

To protect the 30th coastal battery from the air, it was armed with 4 anti-aircraft machine gun installations. At the rear of the gun block, 2 casemates with winches were built, which were designed to lift barrage balloons. From land, the battery was covered by 6 reinforced concrete, five-embrasure, two-story machine gun bunkers with walls up to half a meter thick. These bunkers were armed with 7.62 mm Maxim machine guns. A system of wire fences and trenches was organized directly around the battery. The road that approached the battery positions had a special stone retaining wall, which also served as a rifle parapet for its defenders.

Powder half charge and banner

Defense of Sevastopol

As of June 22, 1941, both the 30th and 35th armored turret coastal batteries were part of the 1st separate coastal defense artillery division of the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet, along with the open 203-mm battery No. 10 and 102-mm battery No. 54 . The 30th battery was directly commanded by Grigory Aleksandrovich Alexander, a hereditary military man who came from a family of Russified German settlers. Both batteries (the 30th and 35th) were built as coastal batteries, but fate had a different role in store for them. Instead of ships, they fought against advancing enemy infantry and armor while defending the fleet's base from land. They became the main artillery caliber of the city's defenders. It is necessary to emphasize that the 35th coastal battery was located at a distance from the area of ​​​​the advance of German units and reached with its fire only as far as the Mekenziev Mountains station. For this reason, it was the “thirty” that was destined to play the most prominent role in the defense of the city.

The German 11th Army began its attack on Sevastopol on October 30, 1941. The first to enter the battle were the artillerymen of the 54th coastal battery, which was located 40 kilometers from Sevastopol near the village of Nikolaevka. The 30th battery opened fire on enemy motorized infantry on November 1, 1941. She conducted her first live firing at parts of Ziegler's mobile group, which were concentrated in the area of ​​Alma station (today Pochtovoye). The significance of the “thirty” is evidenced by the fact that the Germans delivered one of the main blows of their December offensive on the city in the area of ​​the Mekenzi Mountains station and the Belbek River precisely with the goal of completely destroying the 30th armored turret coastal battery.

It got to the point that on the morning of December 28, 12 German tanks, with the support of infantry units, were able to break through almost to the ground part of the battery command post. The tanks lined up and opened fire on the command post. It was on that day that, for the first time in history, a large-caliber coastal battery fired directly at advancing armored vehicles. The sight of tanks literally disappearing from direct hits from 305-mm shells shocked the Germans so much that they retreated in panic and no longer tried to send tanks into a frontal attack on the battery. The German command gave the 30th battery its designation - Fort "Maxim Gorky I" (35th battery - "Maxim Gorky II"). At the same time, Erich Manstein, who commanded the 11th German Army, used the fighting qualities of the 30th battery to justify his failures during the assault on Sevastopol to Hitler.

During two months of active fighting, the "thirty" fired 1,238 shells at the Germans. When using a full charge, the gun barrels were supposed to last for 300 rounds, after which they had to be replaced. For this reason, the battery command fired with half charges. However, by the beginning of 1942, the gun barrels were completely worn out. In this regard, spare 50-ton barrels were removed from a secret storage facility in Sevastopol. On a January night they were taken to the battery and carefully camouflaged. According to the instructions, in peacetime, gun barrels had to be changed in 60 days using a 75-ton crane. However, the battery personnel, together with specialists from the Artillery Repair Plant of the Black Sea Fleet No. 1127 and the Leningrad Bolshevik plant, were able to replace the barrels in 16 days almost manually using a small crane and jacks. And this despite the fact that the front line at that time already passed 1.5 kilometers from the battery positions.

According to the document “Brief results of combat firing of coastal batteries of the GB GB Black Sea Fleet for 7 months of the defense of Sevastopol 10.30.1941 - 05.31.1942,” which was compiled by the Combat Training Department of the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters. As a result of the fire of the 30th coastal battery, 17 tanks, 1 locomotive, 2 wagons, approximately 300 different vehicles with troops and cargo were destroyed and damaged, 8 artillery and mortar batteries, up to 15 separate guns, 7 firing points, up to 3 thousand enemy soldiers and officers. It was also noted that the battery’s fire had a huge moral effect on the enemy.

Taking into account the failures during the assault on the city in 1941, the German command planned a new offensive on Sevastopol, which was called “Störfang” (Sturgeon Fishing). Understanding the importance of the “thirty” in the defense system of the fleet base, the Germans transferred a huge amount of heavy artillery here. However, the matter was not limited to 240-mm and 280-mm heavy howitzers and 305-mm mortars. The Germans deployed two special 600-mm self-propelled mortars "Karl" and an 810-mm supercannon "Dora" near Sevastopol. The concrete-piercing shells of the Karl mortar weighed more than two tons, and the weight of the Dora concrete-piercing shell exceeded seven tons.

On June 5, 1942, at 5:35 am, the first concrete-piercing shell from the Dora cannon was fired at the northern part of the city of Sevastopol. The next 8 shells were fired into the area of ​​coastal battery No. 30. Columns of smoke from the explosions rose to a height of more than 160 meters, but not a single hit was made in the towers; the accuracy of the supergun's fire from a distance of almost 30 kilometers turned out to be very low. It was not the Dora, but precisely the two Karl mortars that turned out to be the most dangerous enemy for the 30th armored turret battery.

From June 5 to June 14, 1942, “Karl” mortars fired a total of 172 concrete-piercing and another 25 high-explosive 600-mm shells at the “thirty”, severely damaging the battery’s fortifications. The Germans managed to score direct hits on both battery turrets. Already on June 6, the armor of the second gun turret was pierced and the gun was damaged. Also on June 6, German aircraft bombed the battery positions with 1000 kg bombs. The damage to the second turret was repaired on the night of June 7, but now the turret could only fire one gun. However, already on June 7, a 600-mm shell hit the first turret of the battery. The second hit occurred in the concrete mass of the battery; a powerful projectile pierced a three-meter layer of reinforced concrete, disabling the chemical filter department.

By June 10, 1942, the battery could fire only two guns (one in each turret). At the same time, “Thirty” was under constant enemy artillery fire and bombing. The approach of the Germans is evidenced by dry statistics: from June 6 to June 17 alone, the enemy fired about 750 medium, large and super-large caliber shells at the battery. German aircraft also fiercely bombed the battery positions, but had no success. At the same time, by June 12, less than a company remained in service from the Marine battalion that covered the battery. By June 16, the Germans managed to cut off all external telephone communications of the Thirty and knock down all installed radio antennas - communication between the coastal battery and the city defense command was interrupted. By this time, up to 250 people remained on the battery, including artillerymen, marines and soldiers of the 95th Infantry Division.

Positions of the destroyed 30th battery, aerial view

By June 17, the battery was finally blocked by enemy forces; at that time, all available machine-gun pillboxes had already been destroyed. Defensive positions turned into a continuous pile of rubble. Well aware of the importance of the 30th coastal battery in the defense of the city, the Germans did not stop their attacks on its position with infantry and tanks. By June 17, the battery also ran out of live shells. While repelling one of the attacks, the batteries fought back with training metal blanks. One of these blanks hit a German tank, which was trying to fire at battery positions from the area of ​​the Sofia Perovskaya state farm plant estate, and tore off the tower. Despite the fact that the Germans surrounded the battery on all sides, its defenders did not surrender. When German infantrymen and sappers infiltrated close to the gun turrets, the defenders opened fire on them with blank shots, using only powder charges - a stream of powder gases with a temperature of about 3000 ° C literally wiped out the enemy infantry from the face of the earth.

But the forces were too unequal. The Germans broke into the battery position. Enemy sappers used flamethrowers, demolition charges, and poured gasoline into the cracks that formed in the fortifications. Alexander decided to blow up the gun turrets, the power plant and all diesel engines, and destroy the latest firing devices, which was done by June 21. By that time, the battery had run out of water and food, and the wounded defenders were dying from the smoke being pumped into the premises. Trying to break the resistance of Soviet soldiers, German sappers carried out several powerful explosions inside the already destroyed towers. After this, a fire started in the gun block. The last decision of the battery command was the decision to break through, but not towards the city, but into the mountains to the partisans. On June 25, the battery commander, Major G. A. Alexander, with several sailors escaped from the concrete block using a drain. However, the next day the group was discovered near the village of Duvankoy (now Verkhnesadovoe) and captured. Then, on June 26, a German strike group broke into the gun block, where they captured 40 prisoners, many of whom were wounded and exhausted. By that time, most of the garrison had already died, suffocating in smoke or from explosions.

The Germans sent Alexander to a prison located in Simferopol, where he was then shot. Possibly for refusing to disclose in detail information about the 30th coastal battery. The enemy also did not get the battery banner. Most likely, it was destroyed by the defenders of the battery themselves, but there is a legend that the banner was walled up in one of the walls of the underground complex. But, on the other hand, the absence of a banner may have been the reason that battery commander Alexander was never posthumously nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Information sources:
http://flot2017.com/item/history/19376
http://warspot.ru/1805-geroicheskaya-30-ya
http://www.bellabs.ru/30-35/30.html
http://wiki.wargaming.net/ru/Navy:305-mm_gun_of the Obukhov_plant_model_1907_of the year
Open source materials