Page 65 - June

HISTORY

There, Obukhov's invention was in full triumph. The cannons proved to be surprisingly
durable and, as the gunners say, tenacious. The jets of red-hot powder gases, usually rather
quickly disfiguring the bore, from which the weapon lost the accuracy of the battle, this time, it
seemed, were powerless to cause any damage to the metal.
... 500, 1,000, 2,000 shots, and the cannonballs fly in the same way as in the first shot.
... 3,000 shots! The cannonballs are still flying accurately.
No one expected such a stunning test result.
On the barrel of one of these amazing Obukhov cannons, which fired over 4,000 shots, the
inscription was minted: "Cast in 1860 at the Knyaz-Mikhailovskaya factory from Obukhov steel,
withstood more than 4,000 shots." This eloquent document of the glory of Russian metallurgy
was deposited in the Artillery Museum.
In 1862, this gun visited the World Exhibition in London, where it caused a lot of enthusiastic
reviews and envious glances from prominent experts. Obukhov himself was awarded a high
PRIZE by the exhibition jury.

The sluggish tsarist government, convinced
by the worldwide recognition of Obukhov's
successes and spurred on by the memories of the
Paris peace conference, where it was necessary
to pay for the Crimean failures, finally decided
to expand the production of steel cannons. Two
new steel cannon factories were organized - one
in Perm, the other in St. Petersburg.

* * *

Thus, Obukhov's remarkable invention,
though after long delays, was put to the
service of the country. The invention of another
metallurgist, the Zlatoust master Vasily
Stepanovich Pyatov, dating back to the same
time and extremely important for the Russian
fleet, was treacherously transferred to foreign capitalists.
In 1859, Pyatov developed a method for rolling armor plates. Until that time, such slabs
were made by forging with steam hammers, which was a long and troublesome business.
The Pyatovsky project appeared in a hot season. Work was in full swing at all the shipyards
of the world - an armored fleet was born. Every breeder who supplied shipyards with ship armor
would pay a huge amount of money for the design of a machine that quickly, like dough, rolls
out red-hot steel billets into thick slabs.
Pyatov was a patriot. Having tested his idea by building a mill for rolling thick plates, he
turned to the Ministry of the Navy. In a petition, he wrote: “Realizing the enormous significance

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