Projects of automatic weapons designed by B.E. Sosinsky in Russia in the early 20th century.

Timofeeva Rimma Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0000-0002-9051-0391 PhD in Art History Associate Professor; Department of History and Theory of Art; St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design 29 Politechnicheskaya str., building 2, sq. 32, Saint Petersburg, 194064, Russia rimma.a.timofeeva@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Chumak Ruslan Nikolaevich PhD in Technical Science Head of the Funds Department; Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering and Communications Troops 7 Alexandrovsky Park str., Saint Petersburg, 197046, Russia rimmaa@gmail.com Other publications by this author

1. Introduction

In a number of previous publications, including those prepared by the authors of this article, the issue of the history of the development in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century of various variants of automatic rifles (remade and "original") was highlighted ^{[1; 2]}. These publications dealt with rifle designs that were brought to the production of experimental and prototype models and formed the basis for the initial design stage of automatic weapons in our country. However, there are examples of other, less successful developments by Russian gunsmith inventors, which, although they have remained outside the scope of historiography, are of great interest to the history of Russian weapons. These projects often demonstrate a high degree of originality and expressiveness of engineering thought and a rather serious potential of domestic inventors-gunsmiths. These include projects for a redesigned automatic rifle and a machine gun, developed by engineer B.E. Sosinsky, which were considered by the Military Department in the 1900s.

An important aspect of the topic is the issue of terminology, which was in the formative stages at the beginning of the 20th century. Samples of automatic weapons of this time are named and grouped in the documentation, as if by random principle. So, among the synonyms there are the names "machine gun", "automatic rifle", "mitralleuse", "machine gun", "automatic rifle", "self-loading rifle", "salvo rifle". Often, in one document and even on one page, there are several variants of the name of the same product – "shotgun", "machine gun" and "machine gun". Therefore, the original author's name of the developed samples has been preserved in the text below and an explanation corresponding to the preceding narrative has been made.

2. Sosinsky's redesigned 1906 automatic rifle

First of all, it is necessary to consider the project of a redesigned Sosinsky 1906 automatic rifle. Acquaintance of the Russian Military Department with the author of the project, who lives in the village. The purchase of the Plotsk province (the family estate was located here) by Baron Bronislav Eduardovich Sosinsky took place on March 6, 1906. On that day, he turned to the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU) with a proposal for his own 3-line conversion system. Mosin magazine rifle, model 1891, into an automatic rifle. In relation to the proposed model of weapon (automatic rifle), its author used the term "shotgun-machine gun", which, of course, is incorrect even from the standpoint of modern weapons terminology described by the events.

Speaking about the advantages of his automatic rifle, B.E. Sosinsky pointed to the rate of fire (300 rounds per minute), noted a "particularly important secret" – the original system of "artificial" (in modern terminology – forced – auth.) barrel cooling, as well as the simplicity and convenience of assembly and disassembly, the possibility of using the barrel and cartridges from the serial 3-line. rifles mod. 1891, almost identical to its weight and low cost – only twice as expensive. Sosinsky offered to deliver drawings and a detailed description of his "shotgun-machine gun" to the State Agrarian University, however, due to the lack of privileges for military inventions in the Russian Empire, he asked for "guarantees" in case his design was recognized as promising and gross production of a weapon model based on it would begin – a monetary reward of 250,000 rubles. Sosinsky's proposal was considered in 1906, the results are reflected in the magazine of the Artillery Committee (Artcom) No. 59 dated March 28, 1906 ^{[3, l. 35]}. The general idea of the Art Committee's decision on Sosinsky's proposal was that without reviewing the drawings and descriptions of the rifle, no conclusion could be drawn on it. The Art Committee decided to request these documents from Sosinsky and promised not to use the novelties contained in them without the consent of the inventor.

In May-June 1906, Sosinsky sent an additional application to the State Agrarian University with a description and drawings of a "self-loading rifle" (alterations of 3-lin. automatic rifles) ^{[3, l. 130-141]}. It should be noted that in this statement Sosinsky indicated that he had been engaged in these developments even before the war with Japan ^{[3, l. 132]}. An analysis of the proposal conducted by Artcom showed that the idea of redesigning the 1891 model rifle is based on the principle of giving its mechanisms energy from the powder gases removed from the barrel according to the type implemented in the Hotchkiss, Odkolek machine guns and the Chey-Rigotti automatic rifle. The bolt is longitudinally sliding with locking by turning on two combat stops, similar in shape to the bolt of a rifle mod. 1891. The firing mechanism of the firing type of the original design with a separate mainspring located in the bolt is equipped with a fuse combined with a non-automatic bolt delay. The separation of the sear from the trigger after the shot is carried out by breaking the trigger hook from the sear immediately after the firing pin is released.

The functioning of Sosinsky rifle automation is organized as follows. When fired, the powder gases discharged from the barrel enter the annular chamber at the breech of the barrel, and from there they are directed through a cylindrical gas pipeline to the gas piston. Due to the interaction of the leading protrusion, thrown back by the gases of the piston with the screw groove on the gate, the gate is rotated when unlocked, and at the end of the automation cycle, it is rotated when locked.

Sosinsky's project was reviewed by the Art Committee and its shortcomings were noted in the conclusion dated July 18, 1906: a potentially large number of delays inherent in exhaust systems with a close location of the exhaust port to the bolt, the need to redesign the trigger mechanism and receiver parts. Nevertheless, the project looked feasible and workable, so Artcom decided to ask the inventor on what terms he would agree to modify two rifles according to his system in a private workshop ^{[3, l. 42]}. In October 1906, Sosinsky informed the State Agrarian University that the conversion would be carried out at Maximilian Doerr's private factory in Suhl, Germany ^{[3, l. 219-220]}. At the same time, he has already proposed three new designs for a redesigned rifle: the first with automatic exhaust, the second with a movable barrel ("reverse") and the third with a movable barrel with its rotation.

Sosinsky's appeal to the production capabilities of a foreign enterprise was explained by the fact that "... with the exception of state-owned factories in Russia, it was not possible to find such workshops, with all the desire. Nevertheless, wanting to bring the matter to an end and give the Fatherland an advantage over other powers in terms of handguns, I did not stop at any expense and labor, and a suitable factory has now been found for me. To do this, I had to go abroad..." ^{[3, l. 219-219 vol.]}. The GAU did not object to this development, but presented a number of requirements for the redesigned automatic rifle designed by Sosinsky: the possibility of using a Russian cartridge, the maximum number of unchangeable parts, the automatic principle of operation, and the presence of cooling with "compressed or liquid gases." Moreover, the last point was of key importance – it was for its implementation that the inventor, if successful, was supposed to increase the amount of remuneration to 3,000 rubles ^{[3, l. 287]}.

In response to a request from the State Agrarian University dated December 29, 1906, B.E. Sosinsky, in a letter dated January 10, 1907, reported that two samples of remade rifles would be submitted to the State Agrarian University for consideration, one of which would be gas-cooled barrel ^{[3, L. 313]}. The last mention of Sosinsky rifles in the documents of the State Agrarian University dates back to 1908. In the magazine of the Artillery Committee No. 128, it was noted that Sosinsky had requested an advance of 1,500 rubles for reworking, but "without any guarantees from the inventor" no one was going to give him an advance, especially since Sosinsky's automatic rifle, "as far as could be judged from the drawings presented, although it was interesting in its design, but nevertheless She didn't represent anything particularly outstanding." It was not possible to find out the fate of Sosinsky's redesigned automatic rifles project, but, apparently, they were never implemented.

An analysis of the constructive side of the Sosinsky 1906 redesigned automatic rifle project shows that only the barrel, magazine box and stock (with some alterations) remained unchanged from the 1891 model rifle. All other parts, including the most important ones – the receiver and the bolt, as well as the trigger mechanism, have been redesigned. In fact, it was about creating a new type of weapon that was loosely related to the basic product. But this feature of Sosinsky's project cannot be considered its disadvantage. Later developed in Russia by various inventors (Tokarev, Fedorov, Roshchepey, Konovalov, Frolov, etc.), redesigned automatic rifles went through the same improvement path – from using the design base of the 1891 model rifle with minimal modification of its parts, to samples of weapons of a completely original design. The experience of all gunsmiths who worked on automatic weapons at the beginning of the twentieth century, both in Russia and in other countries of the world, showed that its development required the creation of a new design of the main parts and mechanisms, and it is impossible to circumvent this consideration and design a reliable working model of an automatic rifle with only minimal modification of the parts of a magazine rifle.

It should also be noted that the Sosinsky rifle project was developed quite competently. Automation is organized functionally, its operability is beyond doubt. Original solutions include an annular gas chamber of considerable volume, which provides a significant reduction in the pressure of the powder gases discharged from the breech of the barrel, as well as a long gas pipeline providing a power connection between the powder gases discharged from the barrel and the leading element of automation (gas piston) without the use of intermediate transfer devices such as a pusher, etc., This solution helps simplify the design of the weapon and reduce its weight. In addition, the placement of the gas chamber on the receiver of the rifle contributes to the good accuracy of the rifle's combat, since when the automation engine is running, the lateral effect of the piston system on the barrel is practically eliminated, which occurs in all types of weapons with a piston in the side vent chamber mounted on the barrel.

The disadvantages of the automation proposed by Sosinsky include the guaranteed significant contamination of the powder combustion products of the gas chamber and the gas pipeline, as well as the exhaust gas inside the receiver at the shutter, which will both pollute the reloading mechanisms and dangerously affect the shooter's face. Firing the firing pin when the bolt is closed also reduces the reliability of the rifle's automation, since the mobile system will need to use up a significant portion of the rolling energy before the bolt is locked.

Evaluating the Sosinsky automatic rifle project described above from the perspective of modern knowledge about the history of the creation of this type of automatic small arms in Russia, we can conclude that as of the date of submission of the proposal (1906) It was, perhaps, the most advanced design of a weapon of this type, significantly surpassing all modern projects of other inventors in Russia in terms of the quality of working out the main issues of automation. Based on Sosinsky's project, it was possible to create a sample of a military automatic rifle with a fixed barrel with satisfactory properties. However, this did not happen – for some reason, Baron Sosinsky could not cope with the implementation of the automatic rifle project, switching to the development and promotion of his other invention, this time a full-fledged "machine gun" (light machine gun).

3. The project of the Boris Sosinsky machine gun in 1906

The second type of automatic weapon proposed by Baron Sosinsky to the Russian Military was also, as he himself called it, an "automatically acting rifle" and a "machine gun", but in the sense in which this term was understood in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, i.e. a light machine gun. The description and drawings of this machine gun are dated April 1906, the project was considered by the GAU Art Committee in July of the same year ^{[3, l. 151]}.

Given that the Sosinsky 1906 light machine gun project is perhaps the only one developed in detail by a domestic inventor in the pre-revolutionary period of Russian history, its analysis is appropriate to assess the potential of domestic gunsmiths in developing automatic weapons in the early twentieth century.

A study of the drawings and descriptions of the Sosinsky machine gun model 1906 revealed the following main features. The trunk was supposed to be borrowed from the 3-line. rifles mod. 1891, unchanged. The principle of operation of automation is the use of the energy of powder gases discharged from the bore, directed to the gas piston of the leading link of automation.

The barrel bore is locked with a longitudinally sliding bolt with a twist when locked with two combat stops. The spent cartridges are extracted by a spring extractor mounted on the right side of the bolt, the spent cartridges are reflected by a swinging reflector mounted in the receiver.

The movable system consists of three parts – the bolt, the bolt frame and the gas piston and is located in the longitudinal channel of the receiver. The bolt is rotated during unlocking and locking by a special protrusion of the firing pin, which enters the screw groove on the bolt tube, while the firing pin moves under the action of a gas piston. Cocking of the mobile system (its cocking in the rear position) is carried out by moving back the fire control handle of the machine gun, which must then be returned to its original position.

An impact mechanism of the firing pin type driven by a reciprocating mainspring. The trigger mechanism is lever-operated and has two firing modes – continuous bursts and single shots, which are switched by an interpreter in its design.

The reciprocating mainspring consists of two parts connected through an adapter sleeve in such a way that its parts fit into each other.

The cartridge belt feeding mechanism is made in the form of a gear driven by the movement of a movable system. An interesting feature of this mechanism is the buffering of the feed gear, which is realized by connecting the lever and the gear through a cylindrical torsion spring. According to the project, a metal link belt should be used in the machine gun, but its type and design are not given.

The cooling of the barrel of the machine gun was conceived by Sosinsky in two versions: liquid with water poured into the casing surrounding the barrel and forced gas. The second cooling method was a special concern of the inventor. He reasonably believed that water cooling of the barrel was inconvenient for a light machine gun and suggested cooling the barrel by blowing compressed air or other compressed gas into it. He did not display the design of the air cooling device in the drawings, but described it in the text. Its essence consisted in the fact that the gas was pre-injected into a special metal tube equipped with automatic valves and placed under the barrel of a machine gun. When the barrel is heated above a certain temperature, the valves must open and release compressed gas into the bore, thereby cooling it. After firing 1000-5000 rounds, the tube in which the cooling gas will be used up must be replaced with a new one. The empty tubes were supposed to be taken to the rear to be sent to the compressor station for subsequent filling with compressed gas and then returned to the position. The machine gun was supposed to be equipped with cartridge belts of two sizes – for 50 and for 300 rounds, while the belts for 300 rounds should fit two into a special suitcase, and in total, with the machine gun, the author assumed to have at least 6 such suitcases with tapes (3600 rounds).

An analysis of the constructive side of the Sosinsky 1906 submachine gun project shows that the project was developed in great detail for its time, down to the smallest detail. The description of the design and functioning of the weapon is compiled in the competent language of its time, although with certain terminological costs. The drawings are of good quality and detailed enough to understand the design features of all the details of the project. The automation of the designed machine gun is functionally organized, its operability is beyond doubt. The machine gun has a compact layout, which is now called "linear recoil" (the butt plug is located on the continuation of the longitudinal axis of the barrel bore), in which the butt space is used to accommodate some automation mechanisms. This solution allows you to place automation mechanisms inside the weapon without unnecessarily reducing their size and movement, reducing the length of the barrel or increasing the total length of the weapon. Most likely, Sosinsky was trying to achieve just such an effect – as an advantage of his machine gun, he named a length not exceeding the length of an infantry rifle mod. 1891 – 1253 mm versus 1280 mm. An interesting solution is contained in the proposed design of a reciprocating mainspring consisting of two parts included in one another. This ensures the compactness of the mechanism and significantly increases the survivability of the springs. The firing stops are made separately from the receiver and can be replaced if necessary. For the manufacture of a tubular stock and a water-cooled barrel casing, the inventor proposed using aluminum, which was an unusual phenomenon for the early twentieth century.

The disadvantages of the machine gun automation proposed by Sosinsky include the open location of the belt feeding mechanism, which will be prone to clogging, as well as the location of the cartridge belt feeding from top to bottom to the receiver, which is very inconvenient in terms of operation. Cocking a mobile system by moving the fire control handle causes more problems than convenience and is dangerous for the shooter's hands without taking special constructive measures.

To implement the machine gun project, Sosinsky set conditions to be able to manufacture it at one of the state-owned weapons factories at the state expense for 6 months and receive a salary of 720 rubles per month at that time ^{[3, l. 180]}. But despite the fact that the machine gun project was developed competently, it did not interest the GAU and was rejected, and one of the motives was that by that time the Madsen machine gun model 1902 was already in service with the Russian Army.

The only thing that aroused Artcom's interest was the system of forced gas cooling of the barrel contained in Sosinsky's proposal. It was supposed to request additional information from the author about this cooling system ^{[3, l. 180 vol.]}, but no response was received – obviously, the author could not bring his experiments to an acceptable degree of readiness.

4. Conclusions

Evaluating the Sosinsky light machine gun project described above from the perspective of modern knowledge of automatic small arms, we can conclude that despite the shortcomings, as of the filing date (1906) It was one of the most thoughtful and appropriate-looking proposals. In terms of the quality of the technical solutions incorporated in the project, it was two orders of magnitude superior to the primitive designs of automatic weapons developed at the same time by other Russian inventors-gunsmiths. This consideration makes it possible to put forward the thesis that at the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia there were talented inventors with great creative potential who, with proper organization of the process of designing and refining weapons, were able to create modern designs. But there was no such creative leadership and organization on the part of the State Agrarian University, and there was no market for automatic weapons development free from state participation, which could create a need for such weapons in Russia and, accordingly, create a sought-after and competitive environment for gunsmith inventors.

As mentioned above, the Sosinsky machine gun project was rejected, and the recent adoption of the Madsen machine gun by the Russian army played an important role in this decision. The obvious motive of the Russian military is clear – a new weapon of good quality has been adopted, it arrives in Russia ready–made, there is no need to finance a complex and lengthy project to upgrade weapons of its own design to a reliable state - all this work was done by a foreign company, whose time and effort are paid for when ordering products (in this case, Madsen machine guns). However, as it soon turned out, Russia's dependence on Western technologies and supplies of high-tech products (at the beginning of the twentieth century, the machine gun was one of them) led to the fact that on the fronts of the First World War, the Russian army found itself virtually without light machine guns and relied solely on foreign supplies from the allies, and an attempt to "transplant" a factory from Denmark The production of Madsen machine guns cost Russia a very impressive amount, but it was never implemented. The tragedy of pre-revolutionary and early post-revolutionary gunsmiths in Russia also lies in the fact that Russian gunsmiths at that time had practically nothing to offer industry to produce instead of the available in the army and in great demand for foreign models of machine guns, both machine–tool and manual. Even before the outbreak of the First World War, they concentrated their very limited intellectual forces only on creating an automatic rifle, practically ignoring all other areas of weapons development. It is this poverty of proposals that explains the intention, already during the Civil War, to organize the production of French Shosh light machine guns in Kovrov, to maximize the use and organization of maintaining the resource available in the Red Army and the heavily worn fleet of British Lewis and French Shosh light machine guns ^{[4, l. 24]}, including with the conversion of Lewis machine guns to the Russian cartridge ^{[5, l. 432-444 vol.]}, an attempt to create a unified complex of machine-gun weapons (manual, machine-gun, aviation, tank machine guns ^{[6, l. 1-25 vol.]}) on the unsuitable design basis of the Fedorov submachine gun ^{[7, p. 38]} and the development of a "surrogate" Maxim-Tokarev MT light machine gun. Only the creation in the USSR of its own school for the design of automatic small arms and cannon weapons allowed the country to get out of dependence on the need to acquire relevant developments abroad.

Concluding the narrative, we should focus on the personality of the inventor of the studied machine gun project, Baron Bronislav Eduardovich Sosinsky (1863-1937). Who was he – an undoubted bright talent who, due to various circumstances, could not prove himself in practice? Judging by the set of terms contained in the description of the machine gun project ("groove", "hole", "cylinder", "foot", "release latch", "transport mechanism", "cartridge chain", etc.), B.E. Sosinsky was far from professional weapons business. The authors managed to establish that he was a civil engineer (at the same time, the activities of B.E. Sosinsky seem to be very diverse, so a number of his works of a reference nature have been preserved: "Description of the estate of S. A. Horvitz (born. Rubinstein) The "Sketch" of the Black Sea province, compiled by engineer B. E. Sosinsky, with drawings and types of estates attached" (1913).) ^[8], a native of Hungary. Judging by indirect data, Sosinsky's field of activity was related to railways and steam locomotive construction, in particular, at the Lugansk Locomotive Plant. In the family of B.E. Sosinsky's grandson, A.B. Sosinsky, there is a legend that Bronislav Eduardovich received from the hands of Nicholas II a model of a steam locomotive developed with his participation. There is no doubt that B.E. Sosinsky was a competent and talented engineer who knew and loved the weapons industry well, and had great potential as a weapons designer. But these properties of his personality, due to the peculiarities of the weapons era in Russia, remained unused to the proper extent.

During his life, B.E. Sosinsky was married twice: the first wife was Anna Schoenborg, the second was Emma Augustovna Semihat (1873-1947). The family often moved from one city to another (biographical information is provided based on the memoirs of Bronislav Eduardovich's son, Bronislav Reinhold Vladimir Sosinsky-Semihat, and grandson, Alexey Bronislavovich Sosinsky, as well as on based on a personal conversation with Alexey Bronislavovich on February 28, 2025) ^{[9, p. 167; 10]}: in 1900, they lived in Lugansk, then in Borovichi (Novgorod region), Venev (Tula region), in 1917 – in Berdyansk. According to his grandson, after the February revolution of 1917, Bronislav Eduardovich switched to teaching, but it has not yet been possible to document this. B.E. Sosinsky died in 1937.