Katyusha multiple rocket launchers
Katyusha rockets on ZiS-6
The 82mm BM-8 and 132mm BM-13 (BM for Boyevaya Mashina - combat vehicle) Katyusha (Russian "Катюша") multiple rocket launchers were built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. These launchers acquired this name, unofficial but immediately recognized in the Red Army, from the title of a popular Russian wartime song, Katyusha. The song is about a girl longing for her beloved who is away from her while serving in the military. Katyusha is a tender Russian diminutive of a female name: Ekaterina (Katherine)→Katya→Katyusha.
The weapon was also known as "Stalin's Organ", so named by German troops due to the sound of its rockets. It was used on many platforms during World War II, mounted on trucks (including Studebaker US6s provided by the United States Lend Lease program), on tanks, and occasionally even on tracked artillery tractors, as well as on naval and riverine vessels as an assault support weapon. Modified versions were also mounted on airplanes and used as early as in the Soviet - Japanese border clashes at the Khalkhin Gol in late thirties, and then regularly during WWII.
The design was relatively simple, consisting of racks of parallel rails on which rockets were mounted, with a folding frame to raise the rails to launch position. Each truck had between 14 and 48 launchers. The rocket of the BM-13 system, designated RS-132 (RS for Raketnyi snaryad = rocket-propelled shell) was 1.8 m (5.9 ft) long, 132 mm (5.2 in) in diameter and weighed 42 kg (92 lb). It was propelled by a solid nitrocellulose-based propellant of tubular shape, arranged in a steel-case rocket engine with a single central nozzle at the bottom end. The rocket was stabilised by cruciform fins of pressed steel sheet. The explosive warhead, either fragmentation, high explosive or shaped-charge, weighed around 22 kg (48 lb). The range of the rocket was about 5 km (3 mi).
The weapon was not accurate but was extremely effective in saturation bombardment. Katyushas were often massed in very large numbers to create a shock effect on enemy forces.
A salvo of Katyushas
The development of the Katyusha rocket launcher was a response to Nazi Germany's development of the six-barreled Nebelwerfer rocket mortar in 1936. The Red Army began work on rocket artillery design in 1938, and deployment of the 82mm BM-8 was approved on June 21, 1941. On July 14, 1941, an experimental artillery battery of seven launchers was first used in battle against the German army at Orsha in Belarus, under the command of Captain I. Flerov. The first eight regiments of missile artillery (36 launchers in each unit) were then created on August 8, 1941. An improved BM-13N ("normalized") design was developed in 1943, and more than 1800 of this model were manufactured by the end of WWII.
The term is now often used to describe small artillery rockets in general, whether they are Soviet-derived or originally built. Such rockets are often used in guerrilla warfare, for example by the Viet Cong, Hezbollah, the Iraqi insurgency, and the Taliban.
BM-13 Katyusha on Soviet-built ZiS-6 /
Close-up view of BM-13 Katyusha rockets on their launch rails /
BM-13 Katyusha on Studebaker US6, front view /
BM-13 Katyusha on Studebaker US6, side view
RS-82 rockets mounted underneath the wing of LaGG-3 fighter /
Damage caused to a German tank PzKpfw 38(t) by direct hit of RS-132 /
BM-13 Katyusha on ZiS-151/ZiL-151 in Belgrade