Voennyi Sbornik

11-21

Authors: Roman V. Lapshin

The defensive battles of the Red Army of 1941 are traditionally divided into many operations. In one of them, the Tikhvin defensive operation, which had already grown in 1941 into the Tikhvin offensive operation, the presence on the river Volkhov and Lake Ilmen armed flotilla was of great importancer. Unfortunately, only encyclopedic articles are devoted to the Volkhov’s rivermen and their participation in the war. Based on scattered information, the combat route of the Ilmen Flotilla that existed during the defensive battles of 1941 was restored. The ship’s composition of the flotilla was established, and the biography of the vessels was traced. It was shown that the tasks of the flotilla were mainly to evacuate people and property, as well as repel attacks by German aircraft. In connection with the retreat of the Soviet army, individual flotilla vessels entered the Ladoga flotilla and other formations.

32-39

Authors: Alexander F. Mitrofanov

The paper considers the history of the creation and operation of gunboats of the «Cánovas del Castillo» class in the Spanish Navy. Ships of this class became an important stage in the Spanish military shipbuilding; they eliminated the flaws inherent in the gunboats of the previous «Recalde» class, having received a generally quite successful type, well suited for service in Spain and military operations in Morocco. Subsequently, this successful class after a small upgrade resulted in gunboats built for Mexico «Guanajuato» class. Gunboats of the «Cánovas del Castillo» class took an active part in the Spanish Civil war of 1936–39, all of which ended up in the Nationalist Navy. One of the gunboats, the «Dato», was sunk by Republican Naval forces. After her rise, gunboat repair was combined in a modernization that turned out to be so successful that the rest of the gunboats also underwent a similar alteration. However, created for the colonial service, gunboats of the «Cánovas del Castillo» class could not fit into the Spanish post-war doctrines and already in the 1950s they were all scrapped.

45-67

Authors: Valery P. Kalinitchenko, George S. Larin

The global humanitarian problem of mine clearance is unsatisfactorily resolving by the world community. The intra-soil system is proposed for mine clearing by compulsory blasting. The system consists of a group of demining devices. The grouping of demining devices is based on transportation unit. The demining device consists of the flat vertical frame of two segments, is supplied with reducer, drive with power block, control unit, transport hitch with pins, electro-mechanical sensor of transportation unit manipulator position. Segments of a frame are connected among themselves by spigot connection. On the forward segment of a frame are installed rotor gear chisel which contains a disk of chisel, ring chisel, basic and aligning gear wheels. On a back segment of a frame is mounted the vertical positioning wheel of a drive. Ring chisel is supplied with the cutting bodies directed to an external surface of a ring chisel. Transport unit comprises a manipulator for every demining device. Manipulator is equipped with seizure. With the help of the manipulator a device is brought into the operating position, and returned to the transport position. The transport unit is provided with stops that fix the device in the transport position. The device in the operating position is almost completely submerged in the soil and moves through a minefield, cutting the gap in the soil. When on the course of device there is a mine, the teeth of ring chisel pull the mine out from an installation site, eject forward and mechanically trigger the detonator of mine. According to the operation time of detonator the mine blasts. After the blow form the ring chisel the mine flies away forward and up till blasting. The explosion center is at a distance from the device, weakens the impact of a shock wave on the device and reduces a probability of its damage in result of mine blasting. The metal and energy consumption of device is low, the factor of mine clearing high, the system is reliable. Technology has a triple purpose – a) robotics, b) deserted mine clearance, c) favorable prerequisites for further humanitarian use of the area for recreational and agricultural purposes.

83-94

Authors: Dmitry W. Matveev

The Aral military flotilla has had a significant impact on the military-political history of the Aral Sea basin almost from its inception. In the future, the flotilla significantly increased ship structure, actually creating a base for the capture of the Khiva khanate. In total, there were 6 steamboats, a dock, 10 self-propelled barges and 50 other watercrafts in the Aral military flotilla. A steamship, six non-self-propelled barges and 34 watercrafts were built at the Votkinsk plant, which is about two-thirds of the total, and testifies to the significant contribution of the plant to the creation of the Aral Flotilla. At the same time, it failed to fully realize its tasks due to the extremely difficult, difficult and opposite conditions of navigation of the Aral Sea, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers. The technical unpreparedness of the vessels affected, essentially new watercrafts were required. Such a question as the technical component of the Aral flotilla is not sufficiently consecrated.

100-104

Authors: Ермачков И.А.

Алехандро Анка Аламильо родился в Мадриде 17 февраля 1968 года, и в настоящее время он делопроизводитель в юридической фирме. Но намного большую известность в Испании и за ее пределами А. Анка получил как военно-морской историк. Два обстоятельства способствовали этому. Во-первых, Алехандро происходит из семьи, чьи представители служили на флоте: его дед и прадед дослужились до унтер-офицерских должностей, первый как электрик, второй – боцманом. А во-вторых, он сам в 1987-88 гг. проходил срочную службу в качестве оператора сонара на фрегате «Каталунья» (F-73).

4-9

Authors: Yuri F. Katorin

This article explores the second stage of the Anglo-Zulu war of 1878-1879 years, while the preparation for the expedition to the lands of the Zulus of Lord Chelmsford is described, the data on the strength and armament of the British army are given, describes in detail the progress of the main battles of the campaign Gingindlovu and Ulundi, the losses of the parties are given, the reasons for the defeat of the Zulu and the consequences of the defeat of the Kechvayo army are analyzed.

18-24

Authors: Nicholas W. Mitiukov, Dmitry Matveev

To the beginning of the First World War, the Volga-Caspian Canal has acquired a strategic importance, especially for the Baku’s oil transit. Due to the specific hydrological conditions, the great importance for its operation had annual dredging. The article shows that a significant share of military shipbuilding orders of Votkinsk plant had a dredgers and soil-carry barges for the Volga-Caspian canal. During the war’s years, the factory has passed three dredgers and 18 soil-carry barges. Thus, the Votkinsk plant played an important role in providing military and economic transportations on Volga-Caspian Canal during the First World War.

45-52

Authors: Sergei S. Belousov

This article examines the activities of the authorities for the protection of the civilian population to the Caucasian fortified frontier line of the territories from the raids of the highlanders during the Caucasian war. These raids became frequent in the late 1840s, therefore, the Astrakhan administration had to take urgent additional measures to strengthen administrative border with the Stavropol province. The author analyzes the activities of the authorities to strengthen the cordons, to assist the local population in the organization of self-defense from the highlanders, evaluation of the results of the efforts of the authorities on building the protection system, Gorsky raids. The article notes that there was no plan to counter the raids of the highlanders and the measures taken against them were a response and were not proactive in nature.

61-67

Authors: Maxim V. Medvedev

The beginning of 1943 was marked by considerable progress of the Red Army. Counterattack of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad has given the chance to strike new blow to the opponent on the southern and southwest directions of the Soviet-German front. The southern front created for the second time on the basis of the Stalingrad front and which is filled up with two armies of North Caucasus Front in January, 1943 came to the Rostov direction. After heavy fights in the mouth of the Seversky Donets and Manycha in January-February, 1943, troops of the Southern front have begun prosecutions of the receding German troops on the Rostov and Shakhty directions on purpose not to allow them to be fixed at a boundary of the Mius River. During the Rostov offensive operation (on January 1 – on February 17, 1943) armies of the Southern front have suffered heavy losses in staff and military equipment, have come off on hundreds of kilometers bases of supply. Troops of the Southern front were in great need in replenishment by staff, ammunition, tanks, in cover of land troops by aircraft, but the Rate of General headquarters demanded approach continuation. By the end of February, 1943 the personal and fighting structure of troops of the Southern front, despite mid-flight replenishments, was considerably reduced, operation on liberation of the Rostov region hasn't been complete.

95-101

Authors: Vladimir I. Afanasenko

In the course of conducting offensive and defensive operations, the warring parties are fighting losses. The ratio of losses of the attacking side, as a rule, is significantly more than the loss side of the defenders. This rule in the first period of the Great Patriotic War did not work. The Wehrmacht and its allies during the offensives in 1941-1942 suffered losses much smaller than the defending soviet troops. In January-February, 1943, in the course of Millero-Voroshilovgrad offensive operations of troops of the southwestern front, the loss ratio has changed. This testified to the growing fighting experience of command of formations and associations and the result of the use of tank and mechanized corps of the red army massively, as in breaking the enemy's defense, and the action behind the enemy lines.

4-10

Authors: Artem A. Gonchar, Vitaly V. Korotkov, Oleg M. Alimov

In this article are described the consequences, to which it can lead uncontrolled performing of separately dangerous work in the populated locality. As the illustration is given the catastrophe, which occurred in the German city Оppau 21 of September 1921 of year, with conducting of blasting at the chemical plant, its reasons are analyzed, the value of the substituted damage is evaluated.

20-41

Authors: Artyom Y. Peretyatko

The article is reconstructed the organization of the Militärgrenze in 1860 on the basis of the russian-speaking materials. Special attention is paid the administrative-territorial system of Grenz regiments and principles of their mobilization. The author shows that the Austrian government initiated a serious military reform only in 1867, and attempted reform of the taxation of granichar, with was taken in 1864, was failed. The result of the study is conclusion that the Militärgrenze came into unstable for the Austrian Empire period in 1860 unprepared. Besides, the author concludes that at the beginning of 1870 problems of Grenz regiments began to lose actuality for the Russian military writers who have written about it before. Therefore, the process of demilitarization of the Militärgrenze was described by other officers and journalists.