Leonid Vasilyevich Kurchevsky (russian: Леонид Васильевич Курчевский) (September 22, 1890,

Pereslavl-Zalessky Pereslavl-Zalessky ( rus, Переславль-Залесский, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈslavlʲ zɐˈlʲɛskʲɪj, lit. ''Pereslavl beyond the woods''), also known as Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located on the main Mosc ...

– November 26, 1937 (January 12, 1939?)) was a

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

weapons designer. Kurchevsky was born into a family of a drawing teacher in Pereslavl-Zalessky. He was a student at the Department of Physics and Mathematics of the

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

for two years. In 1916-1918, Kurchevsky headed the

design bureau OKB is a transliteration of the Russian initials of "" – , meaning 'experiment and design bureau'. During the Soviet era, OKBs were closed institutions working on design and prototyping of advanced technology, usually for military applications. ...

of the Moscow Defense Industry Committee (''Конструкторское бюро Московского военно-промышленного комитета'' (Konstruktórskoye bureau Moskóvskava vóyenna-pramíshlyennava comityéta). In 1918-20, he was put in charge of a laboratory of the

VSNKh Supreme Board of the National Economy, Superior Board of the People's Economy, (Высший совет народного хозяйства, ВСНХ, ''Vysshiy sovet narodnogo khozyaystva'', VSNKh) was the superior state institution for managem ...

Inventions Committee. In 1921-22, Kurchevsky served at the

Acoustical Intelligence Acoustical intelligence (ACOUSTINT, sometimes ACINT) is an intelligence gathering discipline that collects and processes acoustic phenomena. It is a subdiscipline of MASINT (Measurement and Signature Intelligence). This uses broadband and narrow ...

Commission. In 1922-24, he headed the workshop/motor vehicle lab of the same Inventions Committee. Kurchevsky is known for his work in the field of

recoilless gun A recoilless rifle, recoilless launcher or recoilless gun, sometimes abbreviated "RR" or "RCL" (for ReCoilLess) is a type of lightweight artillery system or man-portable launcher that is designed to eject some form of countermass such as propel ...

s, which he began in 1923. In 1924, he was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for an alleged

embezzlement Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...

of state property and funds, used to construct a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

. Kurchevsky served half of his term at the

Solovki prison camp The Solovki special camp (later the Solovki special prison), was set up in 1923 on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea as a remote and inaccessible place of detention, primarily intended for socialist opponents of Soviet Russia's new Bolshev ...

. While imprisoned, Leonid Kurchevsky continued his inventive work and designed a development model of his recoilless gun. He was released from prison in the early 1929. In January 1930, Kurchevsky was appointed chief designer at the Experimental Design Bureau #1 of the Chief Directorate of Artillery (''Опытно-конструкторское бюро - 1 Главного Артиллерийского Управления'', ''ОКБ-1 ГАУ'', Apítna-Konstruktórskoye Bureau-1 Glávnava Artillyerískava Upravlyénniya, OKB-1-GAY). In early 1934, they organized Special Projects Commissary Directorate (''Управление уполномоченного по специальным работам'', Upravlyéniye upolnamachyénnava pa spyestsiyál'nim rabótam) especially for Kurchevsky. Leonid Kurchevsky and his team designed a score of recoilless guns (''динамореактивная пушка'', ''ДPП'', dinámoreaktívnaya púshka, DRP) with

caliber In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel Gauge (firearms) , bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the f ...

s ranging from 37mm to 420mm, including the so-called 76mm

battalion gun Infantry support guns or battalion guns are artillery weapons designed and used to increase the firepower of the infantry units they are intrinsic to, offering immediate tactical response to the needs of the unit's commanding officer. They typical ...

(''батальонная пушка'', ''БПК'', batalyónnaya pushka, BLK), aircraft recoilless gun (''авиационная пушка'', ''АПК'', aviatsiyónnaya pushka, APK), etc. The 76.2 mm APK was fitted to the

Grigorovich I-Z The Grigorovich I-Z was a fighter aircraft developed in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Advances in aircraft survivability thanks to all-metal construction and self-sealing and inert gas-filled fuel tanks led to experimentation with large-cali ...

fighter. In his experiments with recoilless guns, Leonid Kurchevsky strived to cover a wide range of artillery weapons. Besides their work on

field artillery Field artillery is a category of mobile artillery used to support armies in the field. These weapons are specialized for mobility, tactical proficiency, short range, long range, and extremely long range target engagement. Until the early 20t ...

, his team also mounted DRPs on a

fighter armed with 2x APK recoilless guns (1935), mounted a 305mm

howitzer A howitzer () is a long- ranged weapon, falling between a cannon (also known as an artillery gun in the United States), which fires shells at flat trajectories, and a mortar, which fires at high angles of ascent and descent. Howitzers, like ot ...

on an automobile, a 305mm recoilless gun on a

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

, a 152mm recoilless gun on a

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of se ...

, etc. Kurchevsky enjoyed the support of

Mikhail Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj; – 12 June 1937) nicknamed the Red Napoleon by foreign newspapers, was a Sovie ...

and

Sergo Ordzhonikidze Sergo Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze,, ; russian: Серго Константинович Орджоникидзе, Sergo Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze) born Grigol Konstantines dze Orjonikidze, russian: Григорий Константино ...

in promoting his projects. Among his other inventions were a prototype of a

grenade launcher A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially-designed large-caliber projectile, often with an explosive, smoke or gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firearms firing unitary grenade cartridges. The mos ...

, an all-terrain motor boat for polar conditions, a three-axis all-terrain wheeled and tracked vehicle, a winged torpedo, and a special hydroplane. Most of Kurchevsky’s experimental guns had too many irreparable defects and their technical specifications did not correspond to those declared. In 1937, Kurchevsky was arrested, charged with designing poor weapons systems at the Tukhachevsky Case, and sentenced to death on November 25, 1937. The exact date of his execution is still uncertain: various sources claim it to be either November 26, 1937 or January 12, 1939. In the late 1930s, Kurchevsky’s recoilless guns were removed from operational status and almost all were destroyed. His gun systems were never used in the

Great Patriotic War The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...

and all work on recoilless artillery in the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

was stalled for a long time to come. Leonid Kurchevsky was rehabilitated posthumously in 1956.

Gallery

External links

305mm recoilless gun on a destroyer

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurchevsky, Leonid 1890 births 1930s deaths Soviet engineers 20th-century Russian engineers Russian inventors Weapons scientists and engineers Great Purge victims from Russia Soviet rehabilitations People from Pereslavl-Zalessky