Russo-Turkish War of Liberation 1877-1878

Introduction

Firearms making in Russia

The first firearms in Russia date back to the 15 th century. Until the middle of 19 th century, the Russian army was equipped with smooth barrel rifles and pistols. The first attempts to introduce etched firearms, which were of better fighting qualities, date back to the time of Peter the Great (1721).

Until the end of the 18 th century, some new flintlock rifling firearms of better quality were produced for the infantry, dragoons, Hussars, and Cossacks. Despite the efforts of Emperor Alexander II, the Russian army remained primarily armed with smooth barrel firearms. At the time of the Civil War of 1812, only few thousand soldiers were armed with etched rifles. The history of the weaponry sheds light on the system of the French gunsmith Samuel Polit. At the time of Napoleon in 1812, he created the cartridge-system arms being ahead of his time with 50 years. His gun appeared at a time when European armies were still equipped with flintlock firearms, while the percussion system had been only experimented. The Polit system was brought to Russia by an unknown Russian officer after the capture of Paris. After some minor changes, it was transferred to the production of sporting guns.

In the thirties of the 19 th century, the Russian army began to re-equip itself with percussion-system smooth-barrel and etched firearms. On the eve of the Crimean War, the army storages housed 574,000 smooth-barrel and only 6,000 etched guns.1 These were infantry percussion rifle mod 1845, cavalry carbine mod 1849, Cossack carbine mod 1846, and rifle mod 1852. All of them had 7-inch calibre (17,78 mm).2 Thus the Russian troops on the Crimean peninsula, defending Sevastopol in the battle of Balaklava, were equipped with 109,000 smooth-barrel percussion arms, 9,000 flintlock arms and a small number of etched firearms. Therefore, the re-equipment with percussion arms had not been completed.

Russia was defeated in the Crimean War in 1853-1856. Military specialists consider the outdated firearms of the Russian army as the main reason for the defeat. The armies of England, France, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia when arriving on the Crimean peninsula had etched firearms outnumbering those of the Russian army. Half of the English corps was equipped with Enfield mod 1852, Tuvenen and Minie constituted 40 percent of the French equipment, while the Russian army had only 4 percent.

In the wake of the Crimean war, the upper military circles in Russia had changed their thinking with regard to firearms. General Milyutin became Military Minister. It was the time when Alexander II reigning over Russia.3

In 1856, the calibre of the Russian firearms was reduced to 6 inches, or 15.24 mm. The process of re-equipping the Russian army with rifle mod 1856, using expanding Minie bullets, was launched. This rifle demonstrated that the percussion systems had reached the limit of the capacity to get improved. Nothing else could be improved as regards its firing speed. Despite the resistance of the conservative military circles, the Military Minister Milyutin stood up on the side of new inventions and the 60s were the period of experimentation with firearms. Some new cartridge systems were introduced. The high-quality percussion rifle mod 1856 had not been destined to take part in war times, but the Russian army had been fully equipped with it for a short period of time. Almost all systems of the 60s had drawn on this rifle. Over 10 systems of firearms with internal needle fuse were proposed to the weapons commission. In 1866, the Englishman Karle proposed his own system with internal needle fuse. Krnka, Berdan I, and Berdan II came next.

At the end of the 80s of the 19 th century, the armies of the European countries began to introduce magazine firearms. Their main advantage was the quicker firing speed. Berdan II, with which the Russian army was equipped, lagged behind the other rifles. The Lebel system mod 1886 was introduced in France, Mauser mod 1888 was introduced in Germany, and Mannlicher mod 1889 – in Austro-Hungarian Emprire. All of them had a cartridge clip for five bullets and had a calibre of 7,92 and 8 mm. These newly introduced firearms forced Petersburg to look for a suitable cartridge system for the Russian army. A competition was organized and over 100 systems were proposed. The committee singled out three systems – a magazine firearm and a single-loader firearm, both invented by the Russian gunsmith Captain Mosin, and a magazine firearm by the Belgian gunsmith Leon Nagant.4

300 magazine firearms of Mosin, 100 of Nagant, and 150 single-loader firearms were sent for testing at the Pavlov regiment, the Izmail regiment, the 147 th Samar regiment, and the First Guards rifle battalion. The testing took place from December 1890 until March 1891. The Guards battalion was in favour of the single-loader, while the other three regiments had preference for the Nagant construction. On March 19, 1891, the Arms Committee voted with 14 in favour of Nagant and 10 in favour of Mosin. In the meantime, however, new testing took place from 13 to 18 March, when the Mosin system failed 217 times and the Nagant system – 557. On the basis of these results, the prominent Professor V. Chebishev from the Michailovska Military Academy drew attention to some advantages of the Mosin system, namely the simplicity in its construction and the high technological suitability for production in Russian arms factories. As a result of discussion, a compromise was reached to combine the Mosin system and the Nagant system. On April 16, 1891, the infantry rifle with 3-inch calibre (7,62 mm) was introduced in the Russian army under the name Mosin-Nagant mod 1891. It is referred to as Mosin-Nagant in some publication. This is the rifle used by Russian soldiers in the Russian-Japanese War and in the World War I. With some improvements done in 1930 and 1944, the rifle and the carbine were used in World War II.5

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