MOSCOW, July 20 Erich Langemak, the creator of the BM-13 Katyusha rocket launcher, stood at the origins of the domestic rocket industry and could have made a breakthrough in space science if not for execution on false charges of espionage, said the scientific director of the Russian military Historical Society (RVIO) Mikhail Myagkov.
Exactly 125 years ago, on July 20, 1898, Erich Langemak (1898-1938) was born — one of the developers of the RS-82 and RS-132 shells, which became the main ones for the legendary Katyusha (BM-13 rocket launcher) — the «progenitor» of all Soviet and Russian rocket artillery. In total, 11 thousand of these installations were manufactured during the war years.
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«The fate of Langemak, unfortunately, was tragic. In early 1938, he was arrested on a false denunciation, at the same time when his famous fellow designers Valentin Glushko, Sergei Korolev and many others were arrested. Only because of his nationality he was slandered as an alleged «German spy» and sentenced to death. If not for his early death at only 39 years old, he could have made a breakthrough in Soviet space technology x,» Myagkov said.
The historian emphasized that Langemak, while working at the jet research institute (known as NII-3), was interested not only in military shells, but also thought about creating rocket engines that could be used for peaceful purposes, primarily space exploration.
“It is noteworthy that it was Langemak who, for the first time in Russian science, used the word “cosmonautics.” He believed that rocket technologies should also be adapted for peaceful purposes — to launch rockets into space with a person on board,” Myagkov emphasized.
Speaking about the contribution of the creator of «Katyusha» to domestic science, the interlocutor of the agency recalled that, in collaboration with one of the founders of the Soviet rocket and space industry, Valentin Glushko, Langemak wrote the first book in the USSR, which summarized the experience of designing both liquid and solid rockets «Rockets: Their Design and Application» (1935).
«Stalin's organ»
For the first time, rockets developed by the engineer were used not from Katyushas, but from I-16 fighters during the battle at Khalkhin Gol in 1939. Then, in one of the battles, these missiles destroyed three Japanese aircraft, which was the first victory that the RS-82 and RS-132 brought to the Red Army.
Fate turned out so that the inventor was not destined to see the work of his «main brainchild»: for the first time, «Katyusha» was used by the battery of Captain Ivan Flerov on July 14, 1941 on the accumulation of German equipment in Orsha (now the Vitebsk region of Belarus). This blow made a «shocking» impression on the Nazis.
«When I was working with German documents, I had a chance to read the impressions of the Nazis from working on them with Katyushas. In their letters from the time of the Battle of Moscow, some German soldiers wrote that they «are lying motionless and the Stalinist organ» inflicts huge losses on us,» the historian said.
Myagkov stressed that the Soviet military leadership made a special bet on the use of rocket artillery — it was directly subordinate to the Supreme High Command. The low accuracy of rocket-propelled mortars was compensated by heavy fire — the Katyusha division plowed the enemy positions on an area comparable to several football fields.
«By order of the People's Commissariat of Defense,» Katyusha «had to be used as part of a division, that is, 12 BM-13 installations, then 14 guides were placed at each installation, that is, within a few seconds one machine fires 14 rockets. If you multiply this number by 12, then you get such striking power that could level enemy objects on an area of two or three football fields, «explained the scientific director of the RVIO.
In attack and defense
Since the end of 1941, not a single major offensive operation of the Red Army was complete without the use of BM-13s, while they were also effective in suppressing the enemy offensive.
«During the Battle of Stalingrad, the command post of the then commander of the 62nd Army, General Vasily Chuikov, was only 300 meters from the enemy positions, but the enemy could not get close to him, because the space between the opposing sides was» shot down «by our rocket artillery. As soon as the enemy went into battle, the Katyushas fired at this area, and he rolled back with huge losses,» the historian said.< br />