The Nudelman-Suranov NS-45 was an enlarged version of the Soviet Nudelman-Suranov NS-37 aircraft autocannon . It was evaluated for service on 44 Yakovlev Yak-9 K aircraft during World War II , but proved to stress the airframes too much. The NS-45 was also mounted on the prototype Tupolev Tu-1 night fighter after the end of World War II.
27-487: The NS-45 was created as a result of a July 1943 decision of the State Defense Committee to arm Soviet fighters with 45 mm autocannons. As with the 37 mm autocannons already installed in some Soviet and lend-lease single-engine fighters, the intended method of installation of the 45 mm gun was to have its barrel pass through the engine block and the empty propeller shaft, in this case that of
54-574: A heavy fighter , using it for surprise attacks on bombers, and providing it with an escort by nimbler Yak-3s flying top cover. Ultimately, it was decided that the Yak-9K would not go into mass production. Besides the reliability and airframe performance issues, another contributory reason was that the German bombers still active on the Eastern front at this point in the war were mainly Fw 190 Jabo , and
81-593: A muzzle brake —a first in Soviet aircraft-gun design. Concomitantly with the gun design, a new cartridge was developed using the standard 45 mm fragmentation shell of the 21-K anti-aircraft gun. (This projectile had a tracer that burned for eleven seconds and was fitted with the MG-8 contact fuse.) The total length of the new cartridge was limited to the same value as for the NS-37 ammunition—328mm. In order to accommodate
108-587: A considerable advantage in this department relative to most single-engine German aircraft of the time except the "flying gun-batteries" such as the Fw 190 A-6/R1 or the Bf 109 G-6/R6. Compared to these, the Yak-9K maintained however good horizontal maneuverability because its wings were not loaded with armament. Developed in late 1943, the Yak-9K prototype was tested at the Central Research Institute of
135-503: A prototype that passed factory tests in a LaGG-3 , their 45 mm gun was not accepted for state trials because of the known issues with the Sh-37 design. OKB-16 presented an enlarged version of their successful NS-37. The recoil force of the NS-45 peaked at seven tons , a force roughly 40% greater than that experienced with the NS-37 (about 5.5 tons). Consequently, the NS-45 was fitted with
162-509: The 3rd Belorussian Front , and from 15 January 1945 to 15 February 1945 at the 2nd Belorussian Front . The Soviet Air Forces units involved were the 274th Fighter Aviation Regiment (IAP) of the 278th Fighter Aviation Division (IAD) and the 812nd IAP of the 65th IAD. Twelve German aircraft were claimed by Yak-9K fighters, with an average expenditure of ten rounds per target. Of these twelve German aircraft claimed by Yak-9K pilots, eight were Fw 190 and four were Bf 109G. Combat experience with
189-542: The Night Witches were also formed, from the summer of 1941, using Polikarpov Po-2 trainer aircraft and night reconnaissance squadrons using the Polikarpov R-5 aircraft. The Rifle and Tank Corps air squadron had 12 reconnaissance aircraft with 18 crews. The squadrons of Front aviation consisted of flights, while those of the long-range bombers from detachments of 3 aircraft each. The number of crews in
216-668: The Russian Air Force and the Russian Naval Aviation . Aviation regiments were constituent units of the aviation divisions and aviation corps, and, the separate aviation regiment, as part of the Air Armies . Aviation regiments were homogeneously equipped with aircraft designed for specific operations, usually bomber , assault , fighter or reconnaissance types. The strength of aviation regiments varied significantly during Soviet-German fighting on
243-516: The Yak-9 . Consequently, the main difficulty in designing the 45 mm autocannon was the limitation imposed by the engine blocks available for this aircraft. Accounting for the diameter of the 45 mm shell, the Yak-9 engine blocks only allowed a wall thickness of 4 mm for the new gun's barrel, which was almost half the thickness of the barrel wall of the NS-37. (Another source gives 55 mm as
270-560: The 45 mm shell was overkill for these. A total of 53 Yak-9Ks had been built by then. The NS-45 was also tried on an Ilyushin Il-2 , with one gun mounted in each wing, but the design was not put into series production. On August 20, 1943, the People's Commissariat of Aviation Industry of the USSR ordered that an Il-2 be tested with the new 45 mm aircraft guns. An Il-2 exemplar fitted with
297-660: The Eastern Front . Initially Fighter and assault air regiments consisted of four aviation squadrons of 15 aircraft each, for a total of 63 aircraft on their flight log. In the fighter regiment there were 78 pilots, in assault regiments, 82. But heavy losses during initial stage of war and difficulties in operating such unit lead to formation of new type of regiment in the fall of 1941 - with two 10-aircraft squadrons and one aircraft for commander - 21 aircraft total. Increasing aircraft production and tendency of concentrating forces in one's hand led to increasing size of regiment in
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#1732782428048324-462: The NS-45 made the Yak-9K some 20 cm longer than the Yak-9T. The NS-45 was supplied with 29 rounds of ammunition in the Yak-9K, which were fed using a belt. The only other armament installed on the Yak-9K was a UBS (a propeller-synchronized 12.7 mm machine gun) supplied with 200 rounds of ammunition. The theoretical weight of fire of the Yak-9K was 5.53 kg/s (12.2 lb/s), which gave it
351-600: The Soviet Air Force (VVS NII) between January 12 and April 8, 1944. Between April and June 1944 a limited production run of the aircraft, with the cockpit pushed further to the back to improve the center of gravity, was manufactured at a plant in Novosibirsk and delivered for military trials to the 3rd Fighter Air Corps. For military (combat) trials 44 Yak-9Ks of this limited production run were used. These trials took place between 13 August and 18 September 1944 at
378-652: The Soviet Union , however, continued unsuspended. On 18 June 1942, over a thousand members attended the 9th session of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow . Geoffrey Roberts sees the GKO as "a sort of war cabinet ". The initial composition of the committee was such: On 3 February 1942, Nikolai Voznesensky and Anastas Mikoyan were added as additional members of the committee. On 20 February 1942, Lazar Kaganovich
405-416: The Yak-9K showed that although the NS-45 cannon proved deadly to enemy aircraft, realistically only its first shot could be aimed. A three-round burst, even when fired near the maximum airspeed of the Yak-9K, resulted in a noticeable loss of both airspeed and stability of the aircraft. Sometimes oil and water lines sprung leaks after the gun was fired. Firing the NS-45 at airspeeds below 350 km/h even shook
432-407: The Yak-9K was about 40 km/h at 5,000 m, and climbing to this altitude took about a minute longer with the Yak-9K. In an attempt to address this problem, some of the Yak-9K already in service were retrofitted with smaller 480-liter tanks. To compensate for the Yak-9K's poor maneuverability in the vertical plane, pilots of the 812th IAP developed tactics that essentially employed the aircraft as
459-748: The country. The Soviets set up the GKO on 30 June 1941, a week after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, by a joint decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , the Council of People's Commissars ( Sovnarkom ), and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . The war situation at the front lines required a more centralized form of government. The Supreme Soviet of
486-551: The diameter of opening in the engine reducer shaft, resulting in a wall thickness of 3.75 mm for the NS-45 barrel relative to 7.1 mm for the NS-37 barrel, both measured at this spot which was approximately 61 cm away from the muzzle.) The decision of the Defense Committee was followed by a short design competition between Soviet designs bureaus OKB -15 and OKB-16. The former proposed an enlarged version of their unreliable Shpitalny Sh-37 ; although they made
513-559: The heavy (bombardment) regiments had 40 aircraft. A reconnaissance aviation regiment was organised into four squadrons of 12 aircraft, 49 in all, while the divisional signals squadron (integral to an aviation division ) had 12 aircraft and one aircraft in the regiment HQ. Reconnaissance regiments had an establishment of 74 crews. For some specialised long-term operations, mixed aviation regiments were created with two bomber or assault aviation squadrons and one or two fighter aviation squadrons. Light night bomber squadrons, such as
540-428: The larger shell, the case body (brass) was necked up and also slightly reduced in length from 195 mm of the NS-37 ammunition to 185 mm. The resulting 45 mm cartridge weighted 1.93 kg, of which 1.065 kg was the weight of its shell. The muzzle velocity of the NS-45 was 780 m/s and its rate of fire was around 260–280 rounds per minute. The NS-45 was built in small numbers at Factory Number 74 in
567-404: The last two years of the war; 75 exemplars were made in 1944 and 120 were made in 1945. In fighters, the NS-45 gun was first installed on a modified Yak-9T, which was normally armed with a NS-37 gun. This aircraft, with constructor number 0121, effectively became the first Yak-9K prototype. The "K" suffix stood for "Krupnokalibernyi", meaning large caliber. The protruding barrel and muzzle brake of
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#1732782428048594-533: The middle of 1942 - three 10-aircraft squadrons and pair for commander - 32 aircraft total. Next year saw final reorganisation - polks consists of three 12-aircraft squadrons and command flights (and additional training and liaison aircraft) - 40-42 aircraft total, all at one airfield, similar to luftwaffe gruppe. In fast bomber/light bomber regiments there were five squadrons of 12 aircraft each, which in all accounted for 61 aircraft and 77 crews. Long-range bomber regiments were approximately same in composition, and
621-567: The new guns had been manufactured by September 10, 1943, when it was sent to the VVS NII for trials. Due to various issues which arose integrating the NS-45 gun with this aircraft, testing was delayed until February 8, 1944. The results were disappointing; the Il-2-mounted NS-45s exhibited poor accuracy hitting tank-size targets and their recoil was almost twice what the Il-2's wings could safely handle (about 4000 tons-force). One of
648-506: The pilot back and forth as if in an automobile suddenly decelerating and accelerating. Another issue affecting the effectiveness of the Yak-9K was that it had a poorer power to weight ratio compared to its proximate predecessor, although this was mostly due to its larger fuel tanks rather than the weight of the armament; its fuel tanks had been enlarged from the 440-liter tanks of Yak-9T to 650-liter tanks, allowing it to carry an additional 153 kg of gasoline. The loss of airspeed relative to
675-479: The three versions of the prototype ground attack (shturmovik) Tu-2 Sh was equipped with two NS-37s and two NS-45s as frontal armament. This variant was tested sometime in 1946. A more substantial test program took place between 30 December 1946 and 3 October 1947 with the Tupolev Tu-1 night fighter prototype, which was fitted with two NS-45s in the nose—each one supplied with 50 rounds—and with two NS-23s in
702-558: The wing roots. The Tu-1 was abandoned because of its unreliable engines. State Defense Committee The State Defense Committee ( Russian : Государственный комитет обороны (ГКО) , romanized : Gosudarstvennyĭ komitet oborony (GKO) ) was an extraordinary organ of state power in the Soviet Union during the German-Soviet War , also called the Great Patriotic War, with complete state power in
729-730: Was added. On 16 May 1944, Beria replaced Molotov as deputy chairman. On 22 November 1944, Nikolai Bulganin replaced Voroshilov as a member. Russian Aviation Regiment An Aviation Regiment ( Russian : авиационный полк , aviaciónnyj polk ) was a type of unit employed to organise aircraft and their crews in air combat in the Red Army Air Force during the Second World War , the Soviet Air Forces , Soviet Air Defence Forces (PVO) and Soviet Naval Aviation . Since 1991 they remain major formations within
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