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Plate 016 · Cannon · World War II

BM-13 Katyusha

A multiple-launch rocket system that became the voice of the Red Army.

BM-13 Katyusha — Photograph by George Chernilevsky
Photograph by George Chernilevsky · Public DomainView on Wikimedia Commons →

Historical Record

Provenance & Service

First used at the Battle of Smolensk in July 1941, the BM-13 launched a salvo of sixteen 132 mm M-13 rockets in seconds, saturating an area with high-explosive fire. Soviet soldiers nicknamed her 'Katyusha' after a popular wartime song; German troops called her 'Stalin's organ' for the howl her rockets made in flight. Mounted on ZIS-6 trucks, she defined area-suppression doctrine for decades.