Katyushas – Stalin's Organs

July 14, 1941, at 15:15, a fiery wave struck the Orsha railway station, engulfing nearly all German echelons stationed there. That was the first time a new formidable weapon announced itself—the Soviet multiple rocket launcher system, which Soviet fighters affectionately called “Katyusha,” and the Germans with hatred dubbed the “Stalin organ.” During the war, Soviet troops received more than 11,000 RSZO installations of different modifications. From the first experimental battery of Captain Flerov, which shelled Orsha in 1941, to 1945, 570 divisions of “Guards mortars” grew—reserve of the Supreme High Command Headquarters—fighting on all fronts of the Great Patriotic War. The new book of the project “I Remember” (http://iremember.ru) is a story told by those who fought on these fearsome machines.