Russo-Turkish War of Liberation 1877-1878

Chapter Three - Small arms of the warring states - Russia

"Karle"

On the eve of the war, it had become evident that the future of the hand firearms was contingent on the use of the unitary bullet. Therefore, it was necessary to speed up the improvement of the newly-invented needle systems.

Over a short period of time the Weaponry Commission of the Russian military establishment had received numerous proposals for the production of needle guns. One of those proposals meriting attention was related to the infantry gun with 6-inch caliber. The proposed version had a number of shortcomings but the commission had nevertheless assessed it in a long-term perspective. It was therefore improved by the gifted armourer N. Chagin. The new version was accepted by the commission in 1867 and was introduced for armament under the name “quick-firing needle gun” 1867 model. Thanks to the emerging tradition, the gun was later named Karle after its first constructor.

Russia's Military Minister Milyutin came to the conclusion that the new gun had to be recognized as the best needle system. His evaluation was higher even in comparison with the French Chassepot model 1866, which was the most popular gun at that time. Undoubtedly, the gun has a number of good qualities. The most important one is the possibility for the fighter to shoot 9-10 times in a minute without much effort. The gun is equipped with a breech-bolt, which glides lengthwise and holds the needle. The breech-bolt has a leather gasket, which prevents the leakage of gunpowder gases.

The gun was designed for a bullet created by Colonel Veltishev, chairman of the approving committee of the Sestrorecki arms factory. The caliber was 15.24 mm, the gunpowder – coarse-grained, with paper cartridge case lined with thick leather allowing obturation and preventing the leakage of burnt gunpowder gases. Although the Karle gun and its munitions were surpassed by the weapons of the Turkish army, the Cossack platoons and the rest of the infantry fighting on the Caucasian front in 1877-78 were armed with it. This gun was used in the attack and seizure of the strong Turkish fortresses Kars and Erzerum.1

All studies point to several shortcomings of the paper bullets, which are the frequent laceration of the cartridge case and spillover of the load when transporting or handling the gun, the poor obturation and the leakage of burnt gunpowder gases when shooting, difficulties when taking the bullet out of the cartridge chamber of the barrel after an unfinished shot, and the adverse effect of moisture which was enough to bring bullets completely out of order. Moisture was the greatest enemy to the paper bullets. Their wet resistance could not be improved despite their impregnation in animal fat, bee wax, and lacquer finish. N. Potockii, the famous Russian researcher, arms theoretician and lecturer at the Petersburg Military Academy, had described the bullet Veltishev for the infantry gun Karle in the chapter on munitions in his study on Contemporary Arms published in 1904. Alongside the good qualities, he pointed to moisture as the main destructor of these ammunitions.2

The production of the gun turned out to be more complicated than initially envisaged. It was commissioned to the Tuls, Inzh, and Sestrorecki arms factories. Some private enterprises from Petersburg, Kiev and Tula were also partly involved. A total of 213,000 needle guns of this system were produced in the period preceding the military activities. The units of the Orenburg, Sibir, Turkestan, and Caucasus military districts were armed with them.3

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