The works of Soviet scientists during the Great Patriotic War, who worked in all scientific areas - from mathematics to medicine, helped to solve a huge number of extremely difficult problems necessary for the front, and thus brought victory closer.
The war, from its very first days, determined the direction of the work of Soviet scientists. Already on June 23, 1941, at an extended extraordinary meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences, it was decided that all of its departments should switch to military topics and provide all the necessary teams that would work for the army and navy.
Among the main areas of work were identified the solution of problems of defense significance, the search and design of defense means, scientific assistance to industry, the mobilization of the country's raw materials.
Life-saving penicillin
The outstanding microbiologist Zinaida Ermolyeva made an invaluable contribution to saving the lives of Soviet soldiers. During the war, many soldiers did not die directly from wounds, but from the blood poisoning that followed.
Ermolyeva, who headed the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine, was tasked with obtaining the antibiotic penicillin from domestic raw materials as soon as possible and setting up its production.
Yermolyeva by that time already had successful experience of working for the front - she managed to stop the outbreak of cholera and typhoid fever among Soviet troops during the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942, which played an important role in the victory of the Red Army in that strategic battle.
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In the same year, Ermolyeva returned to Moscow, where she headed the work on obtaining penicillin. This antibiotic is produced by special molds. This precious mold was sought wherever it could grow, right down to the walls of Moscow bomb shelters. And success came to scientists. Already in 1943 in the USSR, under the leadership of Yermolyeva, the mass production of the first domestic antibiotic called "Krustozin" began.
The statistics spoke of the high efficiency of the new drug: the mortality rate of the wounded and sick with the beginning of its widespread use in the Red Army decreased by 80%. In addition, thanks to the introduction of a new drug, doctors were able to reduce the number of amputations by a quarter, which allowed a large number of soldiers to avoid disability and return to duty to continue their service.
It is curious under what circumstances Yermolyeva's work quickly gained international recognition. In 1944, one of the creators of penicillin, English professor Howard Flory, arrived in the USSR, who brought with him a strain of the drug. Having learned about the successful use of Soviet penicillin, the scientist suggested comparing it with his own development. As a result, the Soviet drug turned out to be almost one and a half times more effective than the foreign one obtained in calm conditions in laboratories equipped with everything necessary. After this experiment, the shocked Flory respectfully called Ermoliev "Madame Penicillin."
Degaussing ships and metallurgy
From the very beginning of the war, the Nazis began to mine the exits from the Soviet naval bases and the main sea routes that were used by the USSR Navy. This posed a very big threat to the Russian Navy. Already on June 24, 1941, at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, the destroyer Gnevny and the cruiser Maxim Gorky were blown up by German magnetic mines.
The Leningrad Physics and Technology Institute was entrusted with creating an effective mechanism for protecting Soviet ships from magnetic mines. These works were headed by renowned scientists Igor Kurchatov and Anatoly Aleksandrov, who, a few years later, had the privilege of becoming the organizers of the Soviet nuclear industry.
Thanks to the research of LPTI, effective methods of protecting ships were created in the shortest possible time. Already in August 1941, the bulk of the ships of the Soviet fleet was protected from magnetic mines. And as a result, not a single ship was blown up on these mines, which was demagnetized using the method invented by Leningrad scientists. This saved hundreds of ships and thousands of lives of their crew members. The Nazis' plans to lock the Soviet Navy in ports were thwarted.
The famous metallurgist Andrei Bochvar (also a future participant in the Soviet atomic project) has developed a new light alloy - zinc silumin, from which they made motors for military equipment. Bochvar also proposed a new principle for creating castings, which significantly reduced metal consumption. This method was widely used during the Great Patriotic War, especially in foundries of aircraft factories.
Electric welding played a fundamental role in increasing the number of machines produced. Evgeny Paton made a huge contribution to the creation of this method. Thanks to his work, it was possible to carry out submerged arc welding in a vacuum, which made it possible to increase the pace of tank production tenfold.
A group of scientists led by Isaak Kitaygorodsky solved a complex scientific and technical problem by creating armored glass, the strength of which was 25 times higher than that of ordinary glass. This development allowed the creation of transparent bulletproof armor for the cabins of Soviet combat aircraft.
Aviation and Artillery Mathematics
Mathematicians also deserve special services in achieving victory. Although mathematics is considered by many to be an abstract, abstract science, the history of the war years refutes this pattern. The results of the work of mathematicians helped to solve a huge number of problems that hindered the actions of the Red Army. The role of mathematics in the creation and improvement of new military equipment was especially important.
The outstanding mathematician Mstislav Keldysh made a great contribution to solving problems associated with vibrations of aircraft structures. In the 1930s, one such problem was a phenomenon called "flutter", in which when an aircraft's speed increased in a fraction of a second, its components, and sometimes the entire aircraft, were destroyed.
It was Keldysh who managed to create a mathematical description of this dangerous process, on the basis of which changes were made to the design of Soviet aircraft, which made it possible to avoid the occurrence of flutter. As a result, the barrier to the development of domestic high-speed aviation disappeared and the Soviet aircraft industry came to war without this problem, which could not be said about Germany.
Another, no less difficult problem, was associated with vibrations of the front wheel of an aircraft with a tricycle landing gear. Under certain conditions, during takeoff and landing, the front wheel of such aircraft began to rotate left and right, as a result, the aircraft could literally break, and the pilot died. This phenomenon was named "shimmy" in honor of the popular foxtrot in those years.
Keldysh was able to develop specific engineering recommendations to eliminate shimmy. During the war, not a single serious breakdown associated with this effect was recorded at the Soviet front-line airfields.
Another renowned scientist, mechanic Sergey Khristianovich helped to increase the efficiency of the operation of the legendary Katyusha multiple launch rocket systems. For the first samples of this weapon, the low accuracy of the hit was a big problem - only about four shells per hectare. Khristianovich in 1942 proposed an engineering solution associated with a change in the firing mechanism, thanks to which the Katyusha shells began to rotate. As a result, the accuracy of the hit increased tenfold.
Khristianovich also proposed a theoretical solution to the basic laws of changing the aerodynamic characteristics of an aircraft wing when flying at high speeds. The results he obtained were of great importance in calculating the strength of aircraft. Research into the aerodynamic theory of the wing of Academician Nikolai Kochin became a great contribution to the development of high-speed aviation. All these studies, combined with the achievements of scientists from other fields of science and technology, allowed Soviet aircraft designers to create formidable fighters, attack aircraft, powerful bombers, and significantly increase their speed.
Mathematicians also participated in the creation of new models of artillery pieces, developing the most effective ways to use the "god of war", as artillery was respectfully called. Thus, Nikolai Chetaev, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was able to determine the most advantageous steepness of rifling barrels. This ensured the optimal accuracy of the battle, the non-overturning of the projectile during flight, and other positive characteristics of the artillery systems. Outstanding scientist Academician Andrei Kolmogorov, using his work on the theory of probability, developed the theory of the most advantageous dispersion of artillery shells. The results he obtained helped to increase the accuracy of fire and increase the effectiveness of the action of artillery.
And a team of mathematicians under the leadership of Academician Sergei Bernstein created simple and original tables that had no analogues in the world for determining the location of a ship by radio bearings. These tables, which accelerated navigational calculations by about ten times, were widely used in long-range aviation combat operations, and significantly increased the driving accuracy of winged vehicles.
Oil and liquid oxygen
The contribution of geologists to the victory is invaluable. When the vast territories of the Soviet Union were occupied by German troops, it became necessary to urgently find new mineral deposits. Geologists have solved this most difficult problem. Thus, the future academician Andrei Trofimuk proposed a new concept of oil prospecting, contrary to the geological theories prevailing at that time.
Thanks to this, oil from the Kinzebulatovskoye oil field in Bashkiria was found, and fuels and lubricants were continuously sent to the front. In 1943 Trofimuk was the first geologist to be awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for these works.
During the war years, the need for the production of liquid oxygen from air on an industrial scale increased sharply - this was necessary, in particular, for the production of explosives. The solution to this problem is associated primarily with the name of the outstanding physicist Pyotr Kapitsa, who headed the work. In 1942, the turbo-oxygen plant he developed was manufactured, and at the beginning of 1943 it was put into operation.
In general, the list of outstanding achievements of Soviet scientists during the war years is huge. After the war, President of the USSR Academy of Sciences Sergei Vavilov noted that one of the many miscalculations that led to the failure of the fascist campaign against the USSR was the Nazis' underestimation of Soviet science.