LENINGRAD METAL WORKS: 140-YEAR LONG ROAD FROM NAVAL GUNS TO ROCKET LAUNCHERS

This is why the Metal Works management sets high demands on their quality and reliability. The strict fulfillment of these demands is the tradition of the Metal Works, started way back in the 19th century.

On August 17 (Old Style), 1857, a St. Petersburg merchant, S. Rasteryayev, filed the following application with the Ministry of Railroads: "I propose building a metal works on my plot of land on the Vyborg side of Quarter #1 at Bldg. 25 on the embankment of the Bolshaya Neva River. I have a permit for the establishment of the works from the Military Governor General of St. Petersburg."

At first, Rasteryayev's plant produced wire, but his business lasted for only a few months as it proved very difficult for him to run it on his own. In December 1857, the St. Petersburg Metal Works joint stock company was set up.
 

MK-5 artillery system for the Sverdlov class light cruisers (1948)

 
On December 20, Emperor Alexander II was acquainted with the new company's rules, and on December 31, 1857, the Emperor's decree was announced to the Senate.

The joint stock company's initial capital stood at 150,000 silver rubles. Apart from wire, the plant began to produce copper frying-pans. Production developed fast, and by May 1858 the company had already built a screw-cutting shop, a smithy, a shop to produce carriage axles and springs, a house for foreign foremen, and an administrative office.

In 1861, the Metal Works took part in the 9th Russian Exhibition of Manufactured Goods for the first time. Apart from its major products, the plant put on display a gunpowder box for naval artillery, which it later produced on a large scale.

The plant owed its achievements in various fields in the second half of the 19th century largely to engineer Otto Krel. Krel came to St. Petersburg in 1860 and joined the City Illumination Society, where his good engineering and organizational capacities manifested themselves. Europe's largest gas-holder, designed by Krel, was built in those years. In 1866, Krel was offered a job at the Metal Works, and a year later he became its technical director. Krel was the father of a new line in the plant's work – the construction of heating and ventilation systems for buildings. In July 1867, the plant fulfilled one of its first major orders – five furnaces for the St. Vladimir Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Gradually the Metal Works gained a monopoly in this field and was appointed a supplier to the Emperor's court. The plant's engineers installed heating systems at the Emperor's Winter Palace, Anichkov Palace and Mikhailovsky Palace in St. Petersburg, and at the Alexandrovsky Palace at Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg.

In those years the plant developed production of large metal structures, above all bridges and ceilings for buildings. Between the early 1870s and the end of the 19th century, the plant built about 1,350 railroad and other bridges, among them the movable span of the Peter the Great (Okhtinsky) drawbridge, the most beautiful in 
St. Petersburg.

Also, the plant produced various hydraulic mechanisms and carriages for naval and fortress guns. Some of them were designed by Krel.

In 1886, the Metal Works won a contract for the construction of 305mm barbette mounts for the Chesma armored cruiser. Mounts designed by Otto Krel and V. Alexeyev turned out better than those presented by many famous companies, among them Krupp, Armstrong and Kane. In those years, Russia was intensively building warships for the Black Sea and Baltic Fleets, as well as for "the needs of the Far East." Orders for primary and medium guns were distributed only on a competitive bidding basis. The Metal Works won most of the contests (12 out of 14). Many of the armored cruisers built at the end of the 19th century were armed with barbette and turret mounts designed and made at the Metal Works. In 1886, the Artillery Design Bureau was established. It was headed by Otto Krel.

After Russia's defeat in the war with Japan, engineers of the plant, led by A. Dukelsky, began to design basically new artillery systems. Their efforts resulted in victories in contests for the construction of 305mm turret mounts for Sevastopol-class battleships (1909) and 356mm turret mounts for Izmail-class battle cruisers (1911).

The turrets for Sevastopol-class ships served as the prototype for shore turret mounts of the Peter the Great naval fortress as well as  Krasnaya Gorka (Alexeyevsky) and Ino (Nikolayevsky) forts.

After the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, the mounts of the Peter the Great fortress and the Ino fort were blown up, but the Krasnaya Gorka fort was preserved. After modernization, its artillery played a great role in Russia's defense, especially in defending Leningrad during World War II. The famous 30th Shore Battery (MB-3-12), which defended Sevastopol during the war, was built following the Metal Works' design. In the mid-1930s, the plant's engineers completely reconstructed it.

In 1910, on order from the Ministry of the Navy, the plant built 13 steam boilers for the Knyaz Pozharsky cruiser, and in the next year it built seven more steam boilers. Simultaneously, the Metal Works launched the production of ship steam turbines: at first, following the design of the French Rateau company and then turbines of its own design: M-3 and, in 1912, Vulkan and Vulkan-Yarrow for Novik-class destroyers. It was from that time that the Metal Works' turbine manufacturing dates.

On October 12, 1911, an emergency meeting of the plant's shareholders decided to buy 121.5 acres of land on the bank of the Neva River to build the Ust-Izhora Shipyard. Now the plant was capable of building not just individual ship mechanisms, but an entire ship.

In February 1912, the plant concluded a contract with the Ministry of the Navy for the construction of two destroyers, Pylky and Bystry, for the Black Sea Fleet. The ships were built at the Vadon Shipyard in Kherson jointly with the Putilovsky Plant.
 

Launching complex for the Proton LVs

 
In late 1913, four destroyers (Pobeditel, Zabiyaka, Grom and Orfei) were laid down at the Ust-Izhora Shipyard. After the construction of the hulls they were towed to the fitting-out berth, built way back by merchant Rasteryayev, where all equipment and armaments were installed in them. In the spring of 1915, the destroyers were ready and turned over to the fleet, and in the fall of the same year the plant built another four destroyers: Letun, Desna, Azart and Samson. Another series of destroyers, of the Gogland class, laid down at the Mulgraben Shipyard in Riga, was to be completed at the Ust-Izhora Shipyard, but the 1917 revolution thwarted the plans.

Other projects that were not completed included 356mm turret mounts. In the late 1920s, A. Dukelsky designed on their basis a 356mm artillery railroad carrier. In 1932, the Metal Works built six TM-1-14 carriers. Three of them were sent to the Far East, and the others were installed in the Izhora Fortified Area. After that, 305mm artillery railroad carriers were made, types TM-2-12 and TM-3-12. They used guns and carriages of Andrei Pervozvanny and Imperatritsa Maria-class battleships.

In 1934, the plant built a unique 180mm artillery railroad carrier, TM-1-180, capable of conducting all-round fire, as distinct from previous carriers which could fire only along the railroad or from a special concrete position.

Artillery railroad carriers were actively used during World War II. On the Leningrad Front they were the most powerful mobile artillery unit of the Baltic Fleet.

In 1975, two carriers, TM-1-180 and TM-3-12, were installed at the Krasnaya Gorka fort as part of a memorial complex.

In the 1930s, the Metal Works developed a large number of shipboard and shore artillery mounts of large and medium calibers, thus regaining its leadership in this field and following the traditions started by Otto Krel. Those projects included the MB-2-180, MK-3-180, MK-2-4, MU-1, MU-2, MK-1, MK-4, MK-5 and MK-15. Most of them were translated into metal. The unique 406mm MK-1 turret mount, intended for Project 23 battleships, held a special place among them. Before World War II, the plant produced only a firing range variant of the mount, designated as MP-10, but even that mount efficiently defended Leningrad during its blockade by Nazi troops. During the difficult war years, the plant continued its work, repairing tanks and shipboard and coastal artillery.

After the war, specialists of the plant's Artillery Design Bureau (KO-40), who returned from evacuation, were transferred to various design organizations in Leningrad, which worked on naval artillery and missile systems. For example, Dukelsky was appointed a consultant of the Naval Artillery Central Design Bureau, and A. Arefyev became one of the leading specialists at the Arsenal Plant.

In the late 1950s, the construction of large gunnery ships was halted, and the plant had to stop all work on turret mounts and switch to the construction of basically new armaments, i.e. missiles. The plant was the first in the USSR to design and build a coastal missile complex, designated LMZ-43. The complex marked a new era in the history of the Metal Works.

In the 1960s, the plant produced the first shipboard missile launcher,  intended for Project 58 missile cruisers of the Grozny class. The successful implementation of the order put the plant into the lead again, this time in the construction of shipboard missile launchers. After that, the Metal Works built armaments for the first heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Kiev (Project 1143). It received eight canister-type launchers with sixteen P-500 missiles. All subsequently made aircraft-carrying cruisers were equipped with launchers made by the Leningrad Metal Works.

Apart from armaments for aircraft carriers, the plant also built launchers for Project 1144 – the guided-missile cruisers Admiral Nakhimov, Admiral Ushakov, Admiral Lazarev and Pyotr Veliky, which received twenty launchers each, and for the Project 1164 – guided-missile cruisers Slava, Varyag, Marshal Ustinov and Admiral Flota Lobov, which received sixteen launchers each.

In 1972, the Leningrad Metal Works began to take part in the construction of missile complexes for the Strategic Missile Forces. It built and assembled unique gas-hydraulic engines for opening the protective roofs of silos, antenna-mast devices and other complex systems. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Metal Works began to produce units that had previously been supplied by enterprises in other former Soviet republics, in particular, sophisticated complex operation support systems.

A special place in the plant's production programs belongs to launching complexes for Proton launch vehicles. The first such complex was built in the mid-1960s for the Baikonur cosmodrome. Since then, the plant has ensured the launch of more than 200 Proton LVs under Russian and international space programs, modernizing or replacing outdated equipment and manufacturing new launch complexes.

In the past few years, the research and production facilities of the Metal Works, the successor to the Artillery Design Bureau set up by Otto Krel in 1886, has considerably broadened the range of its products. Now they include transporter/launcher barrels and launchers for testing prototypes and erecting/ mounting devices for the Proton LV, the Topol-M project, and other sophisticated systems. Since 1996, the plant's new product – the sealed transport/ launch canister for shipboard missile systems – has been exported to several countries.
All these products, which will be used in the 21st century too, are unique. This is why the Metal Works management sets high demands on their quality and reliability. The strict fulfillment of these demands is the tradition of the Metal Works, started way back in the 19th century.