Tula Arsenal
Encyclopedia
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
"Тульский оружейный завод") is a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n weapons manufacturer founded by Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
Peter I of Russia
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
in 1712 in Tula, Russia
Tula, Russia
Tula is an industrial city and the administrative center of Tula Oblast, Russia. It is located south of Moscow, on the Upa River. Population: -History:...
as Tula Arsenal. Throughout its history, it has produced weapons for whoever controlled the Russian state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
. Its name was changed from Tula Arsenal to Tula Arms Plant during the Soviet era
History of the Soviet Union
The history of the Soviet Union has roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, emerged as the main political force in the capital of the former Russian Empire, though they had to fight a long and brutal civil war against the Mensheviks, or Whites...
.
Tula
Tula, Russia
Tula is an industrial city and the administrative center of Tula Oblast, Russia. It is located south of Moscow, on the Upa River. Population: -History:...
was strategically important to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. Significant ore
Ore
An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....
deposits were situated relatively close to it and it had access to ample transportation routes like the Upa River
Upa River
Upa is a river in Tula Oblast, Russia, one of the main tributaries of the Oka River.The river is 345 km long; the city of Tula is on its banks. The name of the river is of Baltic origin....
and many rail lines coming into and out of the city.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
army invaded Russia as part of Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. By December 5, the German 2nd Panzer Division had advanced to within a few kilometers of Tula, forcing the Soviets to evacuate Tula Arms Plant. As a result, far fewer weapons were produced there than at other Soviet factories such as Izhevsk Mechanical Plant
Izhevsk Mechanical Plant
Izhevsk Mechanical Plant or IZHMEKH is a major firearms manufacturer founded in Izhevsk in 1942 for manufacturing small arms. After the end of World War II it continued producing firearms, both for military and hunting applications, and later high-tech weapons and civilian machinery...
. Consequently, Tula weapons of World War II are considered more valuable by collectors.
Tula Arms Plant is best known for manufacturing the VSS Vintorez
VSS Vintorez
The VSS , also called the Vintorez , is a silent sniper rifle developed in the late 1980s by TsNIITochMash and manufactured by the Tula Arsenal...
, AS Val
AS Val
The AS "Val" is a Soviet designed assault rifle featuring an integrated suppressor....
, OTs-14 Groza, and TOZ rifle
TOZ rifle
TOZ rifles, manufactured by the Tula Arms Plant , include*TOZ-194*TOZ-123* Soviet cal. .22 rifles, TOZ-16, TOZ-17, TOZ-18, TOZ-21 and TOZ-78...
weapons designed by TsNIITochMash
TsNIITochMash
TsNIITochMash is an initialism for the Central Research Institute for Precision Machine Building , a Russian industrial design bureau...
. During the Soviet era, Tula Arms Plant produced other military rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
s, including the Mosin-Nagant
Mosin-Nagant
The Mosin–Nagant is a bolt-action, internal magazine-fed, military rifle invented under the government commission by Russian and Belgian inventors, and used by the armed forces of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and various other nations....
, SVT-40, AK-47
AK-47
The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...
, and SKS
SKS
The SKS is a Soviet semi-automatic rifle chambered for the 7.62x39mm round, designed in 1943 by Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov. SKS-45 is an acronym for Samozaryadnyj Karabin sistemy Simonova, 1945 Simonov system, 1945), or SKS 45. The Sks is a scaled down version of the PTRS-41 anti-tank rifle also...
. It was also a major producer of the M1895 revolver
Nagant M1895
The Nagant M1895 Revolver is a seven-shot, gas-seal revolver designed and produced by Belgian industrialist Léon Nagant for the Russian Empire. The Nagant M1895 was chambered for a proprietary cartridge, 7.62x38R, and featured an unusual "gas-seal" system in which the cylinder moved forward when...
.