City military glory- this is how most people perceive Sevastopol. 30 battery is one of the components of its appearance. It is important that even now it is ready for battle - this is not a museum, but an active military facility, albeit mothballed. If necessary, it can again become a formidable fort in three days.
Where is the 30th coastal battery located on the map?
The complex is located in the northern part of Sevastopol, near the Kachinsky highway. Nearby you can discover the Church of St. Nicholas, Memorial of the Great Patriotic War and the House-Museum of the Perovsky family, flows.
History of two wars
The 30th battery in Sevastopol owes its fame to two world wars. The first contributed to its construction, the second became the arena of its glory. Now let's try to figure out why this happened.
The negative experience of the Russian-Japanese conflict back in 1905 prompted the Russian command to think that an armored coastal battery was needed. General and composer Ts.A. Cui developed a project and picked up a place near the village of Lyubimovka, based on the times. Construction began in 1912, when the powder fumes of the First World War were already in the air.
However, the defensive complex was not completed. It turned out that on the Black Sea it is not so necessary. The Russian fleet absolutely dominated its waters and there were no such "reckless" enemy naval commanders that they would dare to poke their nose at the formidable Sevastopol. As a result, 305 mm cannons intended for the Lyubimovka battery were sent to Petrograd in 1915.
For its time, the battery was technically perfect - fully electrified, protected by reinforced concrete, with the ability to rotate the towers 360 degrees. In 1928, it was decided to finish building it. Work continued until 1934, resulting in a powerful fort capable of controlling not only coastal waters, but also land. It was built at the same time - almost a complete analogue of the 30th.
The ability of large-caliber ship guns to fire on land played a big role during the Great Patriotic War. The second defense of Sevastopol required battles not so much on the water as on solid ground.
Justification for Manstein
Hitler was very dissatisfied with the duration of the defense of Sevastopol. Commander Erich Manstein, in his defense, gave the Fuhrer data on the combat capability of the 30th battery, called by the Germans "Fort Maxim Gorky I." The excuses were considered convincing - Manstein remained one of the top commanders of the Nazi Wehrmacht. The 35th battery was located inconveniently for firing at the advancing German units, so the "thirty" took the brunt of it. It became the main caliber of artillery for the defenders.
In December 1941, Manstein's tankers were positively horrified, admiring the fact that 
what 305 mm shells did with their machines. In January 1942, the battery garrison manually, without special cranes, replaced the 50-ton cannon barrels worn out from intensive use. Soviet soldiers spent 16 days on this procedure instead of 60, set by the standard. At the end of May of the same year, the Germans put up against the “thirty” two heavy 600-mm mortars “Karl” and a grandiose “Dora” with a caliber of 800 mm. On June 5, these monsters opened fire. From the hits of the shells of "Karl" ("Dora" turned out to be that warrior), the concrete cracked, but the bastion held on.
June 17, 1942 "thirty" was completely blocked, on the same day it went out of ammunition. Then the crews opened fire with metal ingots for practice shooting. When such a "fool" German tank was torn off the tower, the offensive again slowed down. Then the battery fought off the advancing enemy infantry with blank charges - jets of powder gases with a temperature of +300 degrees worked perfectly.
When the enemy broke through into position, the last defenders destroyed the power stops and the latest guidance devices. Behind them was a real hunt in the passages of underground fortifications with flamethrowers, explosives and toxic substances. The 30th battery of Sevastopol was completely captured by the enemy only on June 26, a few days before the fall of the city. It is noteworthy that all this time it was commanded by a German. Major Grigory Alexander came from a family of German settlers. He was captured and shot in .
What is interesting about the armored turret battery today?
There are photos from the Second World War, depicting the degree of destruction on the 30th battery. She was almost wiped off the face of the earth. But after the war, it was restored, having already installed six guns (instead of the previous four), appeared latest systems guidance, radar station. 
But gradually, coastal artillery lost its significance - other types of weapons appeared. The post-war history of the present ended in 1997, when an agreement was signed on its conservation.
Now there is a museum of its history on the territory, but tourists do not leave reviews about it - you need a special invitation to visit. Unlike the 35th, the 30th coastal battery in Sevastopol is still active today. military unit. Its armament has been mothballed, but can be put back into service.
The military, representatives of the press and the public are allowed in here. Ordinary people more often get acquainted with its exposition on reports. Among other things, there are huge fragments of Karl shells and numerous fragments of other ammunition - according to employees, after the war, the battery territory was literally littered with them.
There are other interesting items here, including - topographic maps and household items, both Soviet defenders and German soldiers. The battery management especially notes the Soviet instructions for officers, marked with the German "eagle" - the fascist command tried to use instructions for high-quality Russian weapons to train their people. Parts of the guns are also museum samples, on some you can see the factory stamp of 1914-1917, it all works!
How to get (get) from the center of Sevastopol?
On public transport you can get here only from the Northern bus station or. Choose minibuses No. 36, 42, 45, 47 and 51. Get off either at the stops "Vodokanal" or "Sovkhoz im. Perovskaya.
By car, you can get to the battery by car yourself like this:
Contacts and excursions
- Address: Battery Street, North Side, Sevastopol, Crimea, Russia.
- GPS coordinates: 44.663792, 33.559225.
- Excursions: in agreement with the administration.
Crimea has always been an important point on the map of Russia and the Black Sea. The heavy ship guns of the 30th battery are still watching the shore near Lyubimovka, discouraging uninvited guests from visiting Sevastopol. In conclusion, we offer a video tour of this glorious place - Fort Maxim Gorky, enjoy your viewing!
Sevastopol citadel
What is the secret of the durability of the 30th armored turret battery
Andrey Kots
In the autumn of 1941, this Sevastopol battery was the first to take on a powerful blow from General Manstein's 11th Army. And kept in a complete environment for almost ten months. She was fired upon with super-heavy artillery, stormed, gas was used against the Red Navy, and two-ton bombs were dropped. They bled, but continued to destroy the enemy. The easily recognizable profile of its gun turrets became one of the main symbols of the heroic defense of Sevastopol.
Armored turret battery No. 30, the construction of which began 105 years ago, is still guarding the city of Russian sailors. If needed, her weapons are ready to speak again. RIA Novosti correspondent visited the "thirty" and tried to unravel military secret her longevity and legendary resilience.
underground fortress
The central corridor of the combat block of the 30th battery, connecting underground the first and second gun turrets, stretched for 120 meters. To the left and to the right are one and a half ton armored doors on massive hinges, cutting off the main bunker curtain from other rooms. Overhead - a ten-meter "layer cake" of asphalt concrete, reinforced concrete, sand and compacted soil.
It seems like a second - and the vault will tremble from powerful explosions of German shells, the silence of the underground city will be broken by the piercing roar of a combat alarm, and the boots of gun crews will rumble again on the concrete floor.
Today, armored tower battery No. 30 on the outskirts of the village of Lyubimovka is an active military unit of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Personnel - seven people: head of the service department and regulations of special fortifications lieutenant commander Sergey Voronkov, his deputy foreman and five contractors.
Daily - morning construction and divorce for work.
There are 72 premises in the block with a total area of more than three thousand square meters(half of the football field): boiler room, pump room, personnel quarters, power station, powder and shell cellars, basement tanks for water, oil and fuel. All operating mechanisms and units must be maintained in perfect working condition.
The battery is being mothballed, but "if there is war tomorrow" - the magnificent seven batterymen will return it to service in less than a week.
“After the division of the Black Sea Fleet between Russia and Ukraine, the territory of the battery was also divided,” explains Lieutenant Commander Sergei Voronkov.
“Russia got an underground block and two gun turrets. The remote observation post and the surrounding territories were ceded to Ukraine. The place here is very attractive. Beautiful view, clean air, ten minutes walk to the beach. On the Ukrainian part, cottages began to grow like mushrooms. If not for the well-known events of 2014, the entire skyscraper would have been built up. Now the situation has improved. Construction has stopped, we are given more funds to keep the battery afloat. With the permission of the command, we organize lectures for schoolchildren and students. Last year alone, more than seven thousand of them visited us,” he says.
Lessons from Tsushima
"Thirty" covered the Sevastopol Bay from the sea threat from the north. Her twin sister - armored tower battery No. 35 (today - a functioning museum) - from the south. The decision to build such coastal fortifications at naval bases was made shortly after the Tsushima defeat.
In terms of firing range, the guns of the Japanese ships were significantly superior to the guns of Port Arthur. The defenders of the city had nothing to respond to the hail of shells flying from the sea.
The conclusion of the Russian command was unequivocal: coastal artillery should more than cover the ship's in terms of power.
In the middle of the 19th century, the famous Russian fortifier General Caesar Cui noticed the Alkadar hill in the north of Sevastopol in the middle of the 19th century - in his opinion, it was ideally suited for a fortified artillery position. Entrusted to a military engineer, Lieutenant General Nestor Buinitsky, the project of the 30th armored turret battery was ready by 1912.
Construction began a year later, but the First World War and the revolution almost put an end to it. Work was resumed only in 1928, and the battery was handed over to the customer just before the start of the Great Patriotic War.
No small things
At the "thirty" and today everything is extremely functional. Any, even the smallest detail - is not accidental. The floor of the central corridor has a slight slope - this is done so that the water used during the fire flows into the drainage holes.
In the event of an assault, the massive armored doors of the main curtain swing open in a checkerboard pattern, forming a labyrinth of one and a half ton bulletproof barricades that is impenetrable for the enemy.
Vital cables are protected by a fusible lead braid, under which a special substance with a pungent odor is pumped - so that in the event of a short circuit you can literally smell the place of damage.
The transitions between the powder magazines are at an angle of 45 degrees, so that in case of fire the blast wave goes into the concrete wall. I just can't believe that all this could have been foreseen.
"What do you want? Give free rein to the military - they generally regulate everything, - the lieutenant commander grins, when we, bending over, crawl into the cramped closet of the reserve command post. Sergey Voronkov, a native of Sevastopol, is fluent in underground labyrinths and easily explains the purpose of each screw. Do you see this wooden board? If the connection was lost, the orders were transmitted through messengers. They wrote with a pencil on the boards. Paper can be wrinkled and wet, but nothing will happen to such a “notebook.”
"Thirty" was built fully electrified. All operations for aiming and loading guns were provided by electric motors. The projectile supply system was also automated as much as possible. However, all mechanisms are duplicated by manual drives - in case the enemy manages to de-energize the battery. A complex system of levers, belt conveyors, guide rails, and even gravity itself came to the aid of the Red Navy.
Voronkov presses his foot on a barely noticeable pedal - and from a shelf located at an inclination of two degrees, a mock-up of a 471-kilogram projectile rolls heavily into the conveyor tray.
Two movements of the lever - and the ammunition is hidden in the turret room.
In addition, the underground casemates for servicing both towers are identical in terms of their internal structure and are mirrored. So it was easier for the calculations to navigate in the dark or in smoke. And this is also one of the non-obvious secrets of the “thirty” stamina shown during the defense of Sevastopol.
Centennial guns
The main caliber of the battery is two towers taken from the battleship "Poltava" (after the revolution - "Frunze") after the Great Patriotic War. Each has three twelve-inch naval guns (304.8 millimeters). Barrel length - 52 caliber, maximum firing range - 45 kilometers.
These cannons are more than a hundred years old, but they are serviceable.
Captain-Lieutenant Voronkov demonstrates the operation of the bolt lock, the procedure for sending a projectile and a powder cap into the barrel. Offers me to point the gun vertically. The massive steering wheel is surprisingly easy to twist counterclockwise. The fifty-ton barrel, balanced by special weights, smoothly rises.
Similarly, on a de-energized battery, horizontal aiming is also carried out. The tower weighing 868 tons is mounted on a special horizontal bearing.
To deploy it, the efforts of eight people and a long lever are enough.
“Everything is in order and combat-ready,” explains Voronkov. - Give me a projectile, a powder charge and an igniter powder tube - I will aim at the barrel and shoot. Here you can make absolutely everything work, but this does not make much practical sense now. Generators, for example, are uneconomical by today's standards. Our battery keeps the memory of the battle for Sevastopol. Whether it should be modernized or not is a big question.”
Under fire
During the Great Patriotic War, other towers, two-gun, were installed on the "thirty". In the autumn of 1941, the Germans broke through at Perekop and marched to Sevastopol. Intelligence reported to Manstein that the city was almost unprotected from land and there was every chance of taking it on the move. But the Germans underestimated the capabilities of powerful coastal batteries, which turned around and hit the land.
“The battery entered the battle on November 1, 1941. At 12:39, two high-explosive shells hit the enemy column near Bakhchisaray, - Voronkov points to the northeast. - Hit successfully: managed to destroy 80 units of equipment and more than two infantry battalions at once. The fragments at the impact sites scattered in an ellipse 300 meters wide and a kilometer long. After such a "hello" the Germans were confused. Having come to their senses, they attacked the battery. But the tank guns were powerless against the 300 mm armor of the turret caps. But the guns of the battery with return fire smashed the armored vehicles literally to pieces.
Then the Germans covered the "thirty" from the air.
However, even two-ton bombs could not penetrate the array of the underground block. In addition, the Luftwaffe aircraft were actively opposed by Soviet fighters and air defense batteries. The first assault failed to take the fortification. The second attack also failed. The failures near Sevastopol Manstein explained to Hitler precisely by the impregnability of the 30th and 35th batteries. The Fuhrer ordered to send super-heavy artillery to the Crimea - an 800-mm Dora railway gun and two 600-mm Karl self-propelled mortars. The mortars opened fire on June 5, 1942, and inflicted colossal damage on the T-30 towers.
2. EIGHT YEARS LATER
3. FROM WAR
4. "BUNKS"
5. FIRST volleys against the enemy
6. AT CORRECTION POSTS
7. POLITICAL WORK WAS FLEXIBLE AND PURPOSE
9. COCA AND BARKERS FIGHTED...
10. HOSPITAL BATTERY
11. INTELLIGENCE AND HEROISM
12. BEFORE THE THIRD OFFENSIVE
13. MORTAR "CARL" AND THE GUN "DORA"
14. ON THE EVE OF THE LAST BATTLE
15. IN THE BLOCKADE
16. LAST BREAKTHROUGH
17. TO THE LAST BUTTON
18. CAPTURED
19. FRIENDS AND ENEMIES ON THE DEFENSE OF SEVASTOPOL
20. THEIR MEMORY WILL NEVER DIE
21. WAYS-ROADS
Edition: Musyakov P.I. The feat of the Thirtieth Battery. - M., Military Publishing House, 1961. 168 p.
Publisher's abstract: The book about the 30th Coastal Defense Battery of the Black Sea Fleet tells how the heroic garrison of this battery fought the enemy during the defense of Sevastopol in 1941-1942.
By the nature of his official activity, the author, Major General Pavel Ilyich Mus-yakov, happened to be on the Thirtieth Battery during its construction, to be present at the first shooting. The non-fictional heroes of this book, Ivan Andrienko and Ivan Podorozhny, the author knew back in those days when they were Red Navy sailors. For about ten years, the author had to meet G. A. Alexander more than once. He also knew the young unit commanders, lieutenants Paul, Adamov, Telichko, Repkov, signalman Puzin, and many other officers, foremen, sergeants, and sailors.
During the battles for Sevastopol, P. I. Musyakov edited the Krasny Chernomorets newspaper, which was published in the besieged city.
After the publication of the first edition of the book on the Thirtieth Battery, the author received a number of interesting letters from the participants in the heroic events. They helped him complete the book, but even now we still do not know everything about the fate of the besieged garrison, especially about its last days. The military publishing house and the author hope that after the publication of the second edition, new responses will be received from the soldiers of the heroic garrison, which remained faithful to the Motherland to the end.
P. S. Although the circulation is large, and the second edition, but the book did not come across before - thanks kind people, helped. A number of myths and ideological cliches are present, but this is understandable: the book is a reflection of the era in which it was created, and how can a political worker not perpetuate another rally on the topic “Let's hit the enemy assault groups with a new slogan!” ???
1. THE BIRTH OF THE BATTERY
With whom, Sevastopol,
Compare you?
With the heroes of Greece?
Ancient Rome?
Your glory - which cannot be cut into granite - Cannot be compared with anything in history.
S. Alymov.
1. THE BIRTH OF THE BATTERY
The green hill unanimously threw four fiery swords obliquely into the sky, shrouded in red smoke, and the heavy sound of the volley echoed through the mountains and ravines. Dozens of people raised binoculars to their eyes, pointing them towards the sea, where, far, far away, almost on the very horizon, a destroyer was slowly walking, dragging an oblong linen shield. The shells flew for a long time. But here in the area of \u200b\u200bthe shield, four white pillars grew.
Undershoot!..
And what a bunch! It's like he put it in a hat...
While battery guests and members admission committee exchanged impressions, the towers hidden in the green hill burst out with a new volley. Two high bursts went up to the shield, two behind it.
Cover! From the second salvo. Well done Don! - said the commander of the fleet Kozhanov.
All well done! - Gugin, a member of the Military Council, corrected the commander of the fleet.
The third and fourth salvos are direct hits. The fifth demolished the shield stand, and the gray
the cloth, which from afar looked like a box of matches, suddenly became triangular. And the shells flew to the shield every half a minute, and the third group of observers, who were on the destroyer, each time noted the hits. With the ninth salvo, two more racks were demolished, and the canvas, pierced by shells, slowly slid to the base of the shield. The tenth volley was already fired in the direction where only the split logs of the base of the shield were crawling through the disheveled water.
The chief of coastal defense artillery, tearing his sweaty, smiling face from the eyepieces of the panorama, said:
Comrade commander, people deserve a reward, especially the commander.
Kozhanov slowly removed the binoculars from his eyes and, looking at the chief of artillery,
And you Thanks a lot, your students on the battery.
The division commander Pyotr Alekseevich Morgunov, who had not yet calmed down from the excitement he had experienced, approached Kozhanov and reported:
The shooting is over, the third group reports: nine direct hits, three of them in the base of the shield.
The Command Fleet, tall, slender and dark-faced, moved ahead of the group of staff and selection officers into the array of gun turrets and power packs. Chairman state commission on acceptance of the battery, A. A. Rull, with a soft accent of a native of the Baltic states, calmly and efficiently reported to Kozhanov the preliminary results of the acceptance of the battery. It is necessary to reward, first of all, the battery commander. It would be nice to have a personalized gold watch.
We don't have much money, August Andreevich, but we'll see. The guys deserve encouragement.
The commander and commissar of the battery appeared from under the concrete. They walked holding gas masks dangling at their sides. The commander of the battery, Emelyan Petrovich Donets, having filled his lungs with more air and suppressing a momentary excitement, blurted out:
Comrade Commander, the 30th Battery has finished firing. Ten volleys, no misses, misfires or breakdowns of mechanisms, forty shots were used up. Detailed data will be reported after receiving images from the third observation group.
Battery commissar M. I. Bakaev reported that the political and moral state of the personnel was high, there had been no violations of discipline over the past two months.
At ease! - Kozhanov said joyfully, abruptly stepped towards him and kissed the slightly bewildered Donets. - Command "Release", take people out from under the array, we will hold a rally.
Kozhanov loved rallies. In his youth, he commanded sailor detachments on the Volga and the Caspian coast. The sailors loved their commander for his courage and dashing in battle. Even enemy snipers called him "bewitched". Before a battle or after it, Kozhanov knew how to say a fiery word, firmly taking a sailor's heart. So today he spoke first. He started from afar, remembering the raid by the German battlecruiser Geben on the fleet base during the First World War.
The German battlecruiser "Geben", handed over to Turkey on the eve of the First World War, appeared near Sevastopol in the early autumn morning of 1914. The commander of the ship, knowing that the Russian fortress artillery was outdated, approached a distance favorable to him and opened fire from eleven-inch guns. Shells fell in the city and in the roadstead, among the ships. The range of fire of the "Goeben" exceeded the range of fire of most Russian fortress batteries. The armadillos, anchored, also practically could not shoot at the enemy ship: some - because of the obsolescence of their artillery, others - because they did not see the target hidden from them by the shore. So the enemy's high-speed cruiser went unpunished. True, his fire did not cause significant damage, but it made a lot of noise.
The tsarist government finally realized that Sevastopol needed new long-range large-caliber batteries, and released a certain amount of money for the construction of two tower batteries twelve inch caliber. One was planned to be created south of Sevastopol, the other - to the north.
The engineering service, after long squabbles with the artillery department, in 1915 began digging pits and laying access roads. But soon, due to lack of funds, construction was stopped. For the 30th battery, they only managed to dig tower pits and lay the foundations.
The 256-day defense of Sevastopol in 1941-1942 will remain one of the brightest pages. According to Hitler's plan, his troops were to capture the city in a matter of days. However, the Fuhrer's dreams of a swift victory were shattered against the walls of the Russian fortress. The legendary "thirty" - the 30th armored battery of the coastal defense of the Black Sea Fleet - played its role in the defense of Sevastopol. How the defenders of Sevastopol managed to hold the city for so long, Ararat Keshchyan found out in the program on the Zvezda TV channel. For six months, from October 30, 1941 to June 26, 1942, the 30th battery did not allow the Wehrmacht troops to take Sevastopol. To break through this line of defense, Hitler deployed the elite forces of the Third Reich to the Crimea. But even this was not enough. Even with all the might of the 11th German army, which amounted to more than 200 thousand soldiers, 1060 aircraft, 150 tanks, 670 field and siege guns, the Nazis could not quickly break into the Crimean peninsula. 
With the loss of the Crimea, Soviet aviation would have lost the possibility of raids on the oil fields of Hitler's allied Romania. The leadership of the USSR understood the importance of holding the peninsula and concentrated all efforts on this. The "buried battleship" - this is how the defenders of Sevastopol called the 30th armored turret battery. Indeed, only two gun turrets are visible from the outside. The battery itself is hidden deep underground. In fact, this is a concrete bag, up to 40 meters deep. Its construction took three thousand tons of reinforced steel and 22 thousand cubic meters of concrete. The legendary "thirty" is not without reason called the most powerful defensive structure Europe. Wehrmacht marshals admitted that if it were not for the 30th battery, the Nazis would have captured the Crimean peninsula in a matter of days. The legendary “Obukhov twelve-inch guns” played their role - ship guns cast in Leningrad at the Obukhov plant weighed 50 tons each. Firing range - 44 kilometers. On the morning of November 1, 1941, the advanced units of the 20th division of the Wehrmacht concentrated in the area of \u200b\u200bAlma station. According to German intelligence, there were no Red Army forces in the area, suddenly, one after the other, two powerful explosions thundered. It was the 30th coastal battery that opened fire on the Nazis. shock wave after the fall of only one 305-mm projectile, destroyed manpower within a kilometer radius. The enemy was defeated and confused. Competent camouflage made the 30th coastal battery practically invulnerable. The location of the battery could only be visually determined from the air. But even from above, the German pilots did not see anything, because a whole grove of metal trees was planted around the towers. The metal grove hid the real underground city. The battery was a monolithic reinforced concrete block 130 meters long, 50 meters wide and 40 meters deep. On a vast territory of three thousand square meters, there are conning towers, utility and storage rooms, living rooms for personnel, kitchens, power stations and much more. 
Under the surface there was half a meter of soil, then two and a half meters of reinforced concrete, another two meters of sand, again two and a half meters of reinforced concrete, then 30 centimeters of asphalt concrete, and at the very bottom the whole structure was reinforced with arched steel channels. For six months of defense, not a single German shell penetrated such protection, and the battery was built at the very beginning of the 20th century. The decision to build the battery was taken by Emperor Nicholas II after the Russo-Japanese War. On May 21, 1911, a gigantic amount of eight million rubles was allocated for the development and implementation of a defensive facility. The emperor entrusted the design of the building to the famous professor of fortification Caesar Cui. He was the first military engineer to propose the use of armored turrets in land fortresses. According to his idea, the battery had to equally successfully bombard both the sea and the land. Most people know Caesar Cui thanks to his operas and romances. A successful composer and music critic, he was also a talented general engineer. Caesar Cui was able to look far into the future and actually predicted the appearance of modern weapons. Indeed, at the time of the construction of the battery, no one could have imagined that bombs weighing over a ton would fall on it from above. Even colleagues in the fortification business urged Cui not to waste time and money, but he firmly stood his ground. And the puff-pie principle used in the construction of the battery helped it withstand the impact of even two-ton shells. The 30th battery was built last in a row in the coastal defensive line Sevastopol. Therefore, by the start of construction, all the mistakes and shortcomings made during the construction of other coastal batteries were taken into account. In the mini-command post, the required power was calculated, the trajectory was calculated, and the wind was corrected. Then they moved on to the next stage - they passed the commands upstairs by phone. If the telephones failed, they resorted to the help of the ship's telegraph. Already at the development stage, the "thirty" was designed to be fully electrified. Nevertheless, absolutely all the work of the 30th battery could, if necessary, be transferred to manual mode in a few minutes. Each projectile weighed 471 kilograms. Flight speed - 762 meters per second. When it hit the tank, it shattered into pieces. The arsenal of the 30th battery consisted of 200 shells for each barrel and three powder semi-charges of different capacities for firing at different distances. During the 16 days of the first German assault, the 30th battery fired 517 shells. These shells cost the Nazis 60% of the personnel. General Manstein's hopes for a quick capture of Sevastopol did not come true. "Thirty" in the literal sense, tightly froze the offensive of the Germans. 
On December 17, 1941, the Nazis began a powerful artillery preparation. Over 200 enemy batteries were deployed against the fortress city. The second assault on Sevastopol began. Enormous forces were sent to destroy the 30th battery - five enemy divisions went on the attack at once. Aviation processed the position of the "thirty" with super-heavy bombs. But the Buried Battleship resisted. On the morning of December 28, a dozen German tanks with the support of the infantry, approached dangerously close to command post distance. The tanks lined up and prepared for a swift attack, then a large-caliber coastal battery opened direct fire on armored vehicles for the first time. Looking out of the trench, I saw that there was nothing left where the tank had just stood! Only clods of earth and some debris fell, "- this is how one of the defenders of Sevastopol described those events. 
Giant tanks literally disappeared from direct hits. The Germans were so shocked that they retreated in panic. Moreover, since then they have not even tried to go to the battery in a frontal tank attack. 
The 30th battery was worn out. According to technical standards, only 250 shots could be fired from one barrel. However, the norm was exceeded five times. Large-caliber guns have reached the limit of survivability. The guns had to be urgently changed. In peacetime, the barrels on armored turret guns had to be changed using a 75-ton crane. According to the instructions, two months were allotted for this. But during the war there was nowhere to take such a crane. Moreover, it was necessary to install new barrels under the bombing. On January 30, 1942, spare 50-ton barrels were removed from the secret storage in Sevastopol. They were taken to the battery and carefully disguised. With the onset of darkness, they began to dismantle the failed guns. At the same time, the removed trunks were replaced with logs of the required size. The Germans were not allowed to get close, and from afar these logs were no different from real trunks. The battery defenders were able to replace the trunks in just 12 days with virtually no tools. All they had at their disposal was a small crane and a couple of jacks. And this is under the very nose of the enemy. The front line at that time passed one and a half kilometers from the positions of the battery. And already on February 11, 1942, the Buried Battleship was again in full combat readiness. During the third operation to storm Sevastopol, the Germans made the main calculation for a super-heavy railway artillery gun called Dora. The barrel diameter is 800 millimeters. The weight of the projectile is seven tons. "Dora" could penetrate one meter of steel armor, or seven meters of concrete, or 30 meters of dense soil from a distance of 40 kilometers. The colossal dimensions of the "Dora" seemed to the Fuhrer a guarantee of an early victory. To install this fifty-meter monster in the Bakhchisarai region, it was even necessary to cut down the rocks and lay railway . And on June 5, 1942, at 5.35 am, the Dora gun fired the first concrete-piercing projectile. The explosion thundered in the northern part of Sevastopol. The column of smoke rose more than 160 meters. The next eight shells were fired at the area of the 30th coastal battery. It turned out that the super-gun of the Third Reich was not very accurate. Of the 48 rounds, only one hit the target. Perhaps the point was that for the "Dora" Sevastopol was the first battle. The Germans did not really have time to test the miracle unit. In Sevastopol, the gun did not justify itself, and the Germans had to hastily evacuate the most formidable barrel of the Second World War. Hitler was angry. Five months after the start of the assault, Sevastopol did not give up. The Fuhrer chastised his generals for the fact that just one Russian city lasts longer than half of Europe. Germany occupied Norway in 63 days, France in 44, Poland in 35, Belgium in 19, Holland in five, and Denmark in one day. To replace the Dore, the Nazis brought Thor and Odin - self-propelled mortars with a gun diameter of 600 millimeters. June 7, 1942 at 5 o'clock in the morning, together with enemy aircraft, "Thor" and "Odin" began to strike at Sevastopol and the 30th battery. Three infantry regiments of the Germans moved to a new assault on the fortress city. Soviet troops fought off attack after attack. In just four days, the army of General Manstein lost almost 20 thousand soldiers. However, the forces were still unequal. On June 17, the Buried Battleship was surrounded. The shells in the battery are over. It seemed that the defenders had no more chances. German sappers got close to the towers, hoping to blow them up. But at that moment another shot rang out - the gunners fired a blank powder charge. For three days, the Red Navy did not let the enemy near the battery, but by June 20 there were not even powder charges left. Soon both towers were blown up by the Germans, and the war went underground. When the Germans crouched inside the Buried Battleship, the battery soldiers opened the doors in a hundred-meter corridor that stretches along the entire structure, in a checkerboard pattern. This technique did not allow them to shoot through the corridor. The defenders of the Buried Battleship had no food or water left. To smoke exhausted fighters, the Nazis used poison gas. However, the fighters fought for another nine days in underground casemates. Many of them died a terrible death - suffocated or burned alive. Only the commander of the 30th battery, Georgy Alexander, and three sailors managed to escape. They dug a tunnel with bayonets and climbed to the surface. During the day they hid in the ravines. At night they crawled towards the forest. But the fugitives were discovered by a German patrol. The commander was immediately taken to Simferopol to the Gestapo department. Three Red Navy men who were caught that night miraculously managed to escape. One of them, named Sharinov, spoke about the last heroic days of the 30th battery. In June 1942, Sevastopol was practically wiped off the face of the earth. . Sevastopol was recaptured from the enemy in May 1944, and the 30th battery became the only coast guard structure that they decided to return to service. During the fighting, only the ground part of the Buried Battleship was seriously damaged. The interiors were amenable to reconstruction and modernization. As a result, the new towers were already equipped with three guns, reinforced armor, and, according to the specification, today the 30th battery can even withstand a nuclear air strike.
250-day defense of Sevastopol 1941-1942 became one of the brightest pages in the history of the Second World War. The defenders of the main base of the Black Sea Fleet thwarted the plans of the German command to attack the Caucasus, influencing the entire course of the war. A significant role in the defense of Sevastopol was played by the 30th and 35th tower coastal batteries, which became the basis of the artillery power of the defenders of the city, inflicting significant losses on the Germans and fettering the huge enemy forces.
The 30th battery fought until June 27, 1942, until the Germans captured it, completely blocked. After the war, the battery was restored (unlike the 35th battery, which long years remained abandoned, and only in last years thanks to the efforts of patrons, she succeeded), her armament was strengthened, new fire control and life support systems were installed. To re-equip the batteries, they used two three-gun turret mounts of the battleship Poltava (two other turrets of this battleship were installed on the Voroshilov battery on Russky Island near Vladivostok in the 1930s). The 30th battery is still among the active military units RF.
On the eve of Victory Day, thanks to the invitation of the press service Black Sea Fleet Russian Federation, I managed to visit the battery, where 70 years ago it was not so quiet and calm, but huge 600-mm shells were exploding and people were dying ...
3. One of the results of the analysis of the defense of the fortress of Port Arthur during the Russian-Japanese war of 1905 was the decision to build two of the most powerful coastal batteries on the Black Sea on the commanding heights of the flanks of the Sevastopol defensive region: No. 30 - in the area of the village of Lyubimovka, at the mouth of the Belbek River , No. 35 - in the area of Cape Khersones. Each battery had 4 guns of 305 mm caliber installed in two rotating armored turrets (battery No. 30 had one gun block for two armored towers, and battery No. 35 had two gun blocks with one armored tower in each).
4. The armored tower battery at the mouth of the Belbek River began to be built in 1912, taking into account the recommendations of Cui, who, having studied the features of the defense of this city in 1854-1855 in a special work, proposed the most advantageous position for it. It was a hill, somewhat curved and one side facing the sea. By 1914, they managed to dig pits for the towers and several underground cellars, after which the construction of the battery was mothballed, because. Russian fleet dominated the Black Sea in 1914-1917, and enemy ships did not dare to show up near his base.
At the end of the 1920s, the command of the naval forces of the Black and Azov Seas decided to complete the construction and turned to the People's Commissar of Defense K. E. Voroshilov for support. The People's Commissar approved the project, and work began immediately. Specialists saved every ruble - during the construction they used many mechanisms and parts left over from the heavy warships of the tsarist fleet.
5. In 1933, a coastal defense battery, equal in salvo power to a battleship, went into operation. She was assigned No. 30, a graduate of the Moscow Artillery School, Captain Georgy Alexander, was appointed commander, and senior political officer Ermil Solovyov was appointed military commissar.
Dominance over the surrounding area provided armored turrets, turning 360 degrees, circular fire. The maximum firing range is up to 30 km.
6. Both batteries - both the 30th and the 35th - were originally built as coastal ones, that is, they were intended to fight enemy ships. But when in October 1941 German troops broke into the Crimea, coastal batteries, designed to protect Sevastopol from the sea, became the main caliber of the city's defense from land.
In German documents, the Sevastopol coastal batteries were called "forts": " Maxim Gorky-I"(Battery No. 30) and" Maxim Gorky-II "(Battery No. 35). The 35-battery was located farther from the German offensive area, so the “thirty” under the command of Major Alexander was destined to play the most striking role in the defense of the city. German generals and fortifiers stated that "Fort Maxim Gorky-I", which was "a true masterpiece of engineering", "because of its exceptional qualities, was able to delay the fall of Sevastopol for more than six months." The batteries were subjected to continuous air bombardment and shelling from heavy and super-heavy guns.
7. According to the memoirs of the commander by the German army in the Crimea of Manstein, "on the whole, in the Second World War, the Germans never achieved such a massive use of artillery as in the attack on Sevastopol." According to him, the city was shelled by artillery forces, in which “among the batteries of high power there were cannon batteries with systems of caliber up to 190 mm, as well as several batteries of howitzers and mortars of 305, 350 and 420 mm caliber. In addition, there were two special guns of 600 mm caliber (mortars of the "Karl" type) and the famous "Dora" gun of 800 mm caliber "(cit.).
When the defenders of the battery reported to the Headquarters of the High Command that the Germans were hitting the battery with 610-mm shells, from the hits of which concrete was cracking, at first they were not believed. I had to provide evidence by taking this photograph near an unexploded shell from a Karl mortar that hit the battery.
9. Today, one of the fragments of the very shells with which the Germans tried to destroy the battery is exhibited in the museum of the 30th battery.
10. The battery fought to the last shell. On June 17, 1942, it was finally blocked by the enemy, on June 18, the last shells were fired, on June 21, the equipment of the citadel was blown up by personnel. About 200 people remained in the surrounded battery - artillerymen, soldiers of the 95th Infantry Division and marines. For 9 days they fought in casemates and underground structures...
11. German and Romanian generals inspect the captured battery. By the way, it is interesting to compare the physiques of enemy generals with Soviet military leaders in the next photo...
12. After the war, the battery was restored, its armament was strengthened, new fire control and life support systems were installed. Today it is among the active military units of Russia.
13. Entrance to the battery casemates - turret rooms. At the entrance there is a memorial sign to its defenders.
14. Alarm and commemorative plaques that do not allow today's soldiers to forget the immortal names of people who gave their lives in that war
15. Long tunnel corridors pass under both gun turrets. The casemates housed the full calculation of the battery.
16. Each room is protected by an armored door, allowing you to save personnel and equipment from explosions. The arrangement of potterns and the placement of premises in them allowed the defenders to conduct corridor battles, using doors as shelter
17. Post energy and survivability. Heart and battery power.
18. Control systems
19. Command bridge
20. Spare fire control post
22. Strategic map of the defense of the waters of Sevastopol from the sea
23. During the war, Sevastopol was much smaller than today ...
26. Entrance to the weapon room. Shells are stored there and feeding mechanisms for them are installed.
27. Feeding mechanisms of shells. Shells and powder charges are stored separately. During the defense of Sevastopol, these racks contained high-explosive, fragmentation, high-explosive fragmentation, armor-piercing, concrete-piercing, high-explosive-armor-piercing, shrapnel, incendiary, smoke, lighting shells and ... shells with leaflets
28. The mechanisms are equipped with electric and manual drives, allowing you to feed the projectile even in the event of interruptions in the battery power supply. Special probes grab a huge disc from the rack and transfer it to the feed belt
29. On this tape, the projectile is fed into the turret room
30. In the bowels of the tower.
31. Communications
32. The flickering light of a light bulb and the rumble of metal ...
33. Entrance to the tower itself. Or rather, in its lower part
35. Electric cables and intercom
36. Powder charge tray
36. The handle of the shut-off device
37. Intercom
38. Charging chutes
39. Turntables transfer the projectile from the feed belt to the chute.
How does the process of feeding shells
40. Kubrick personnel.
41. Telephone set for operational communication
42. Water tank. In the event of a siege, the personnel could be on autonomous support for quite some time.
43. Armored door to a residential cockpit
44. Guides are fixed everywhere on the walls, which are used to supply shells and powder charges from the outside to the storage place.
45. This is how they look assembled
46. The breech of the guns from the battleship "Poltava", installed today on the battery
47. Control toggle switches
48. Treasury
49. The base of the trunk
50. During the battle, no commands can be heard here. Therefore, they are served visually
51. The barrel weighs 50 tons. It is worth noting here that by the beginning of 1942, the accuracy and range of fire began to fall. The wear of the barrels had an effect - the rifling in their channels was erased, so the shells after departure were unstable on the trajectory. Spare 50-ton barrels were stored in a strictly classified place in one of the bays. According to the instructions, the replacement of barrels required work with special cranes for 60 days. On long winter nights, the batterymen, using the "burlak artel" method, almost manually, using a small crane and jacks, in just 16 days replaced the barrels with the "thirtieth". The distance to the enemy these days was only 1.5-2 km ...
52. All mechanisms in grease and in working condition
53. All three barrels in each turret can fire autonomously from each other and are separated by separate charging chambers
54. "Eye" of the gunner, located on the top of the tower
55. Ladder from the tower to the ground
56. In one of the rooms there is a small museum, which contains traces of those battles found on the territory of the 30th battery.
57. According to the military, everything here was simply littered with fragments and parts of shells, mines and land mines.
58. German plates, released in 1941..
59. The Germans carefully studied Soviet weapons. Memo to the platoon commander, issued in the USSR, but with a German stamp on the cover
61. German military book
62. Decayed submachine gun and grenades
66. Spring 2012. 70 years have passed since those days. Coming out into the fresh air from the casemates soaked in war, there is a feeling of some kind of nagging pain inside...
The report was prepared with the assistance of the command of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation.
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