There was a legend in the Soviet Union: supposedly the militarization of Soviet industry came to the point that even the equipment of pasta factories was designed so that in case of war it could be transferred to the production of cartridges. That is why the pasta was a diameter of the caliber of cartridges - 7.62 mm. We checked whether this is really so.

Here, for example, a fragment material The publication "Free Press". It is called "why even pasta in the USSR had a caliber of the Kalashnikov assault rifle":

“After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet government made appropriate conclusions not only from the defeat of 1941, but also from the experience of military-industrial mobilization. Many decisions were made, including those regarding, in particular, ammunition. For example, factories for the production of pasta and tobacco products (cigarettes and cigarettes) were built in such a way that their equipment could be rebuilt in the shortest possible time for the production of cartridges. For this, the holes in the pasta matrices were customary to produce 7.62 and 5.45 mm. That is, to unify this equipment for the production of cartridges. "

After the collapse of the USSR, the legend of the pasta from which the cartridges can be made was preserved and turned out to be very tenacious: stories about such pasta began to appear in Russian media.

At the same time, it is difficult to establish the exact date of birth of the story about the cartridges-macarons, but on paper it was the first to record the writer Boris Vasiliev in Story The “deaf -hakhoman” of 2001. Here is a fragment from this story:

“Is it possible to make cartridges in a pasta factory? I answer: you can if the macaron caliber is 7.62. The factory of just such a caliber was opened by comrade Mikoyan Anastas Ivanovich before the war in the village at the Glukhoman station. Macarones were packaged in the trade and vitrine workshops, and behind them, in the depths of the territory, for additional barbed wire and even more prickly protection, meanwhile, the cartridges of the most familiar sample were calmly stamped.

In the forty -first, echelons from Tula with tools of arms factories began to arrive at our station. And they quickly established the production of famous rifles of the Civil War of the 7.62 caliber, five -shot sample 1891/30. Then the war ended, and the production remained. For this, the village of Glukhoman received the status of the city and even became the district center of all -Union pasta. It was somehow not customary to talk about rifles with cartridges in those days ... The conveyor, throwing out zinc cartridge boxes, clanged the joints in one workshop, the rifles were released in another, the equipment and packaging in the third and fourth, and the rest, as they say, drilled holes in pasta. ”

The allegations of pasta-patrons were not only in works of art, but also in the media. In 2008, in the article "Quasimilitarism" on the website Gazeta.ru Julia Latynina She said: “Stalin produced either tanks or steel from which tanks made. Back in the 70s, pasta in the USSR was produced by a caliber of 7.62 mm, so that in the event of war the machines immediately switch to the production of cartridges. ”

Even some military experts believed in the legend of the macarone of the caliber of cartridges. For example, one of the lectures of the military observer Alexander Goltsa on the website of Novaya Gazeta Received Subban: "Papires, like pasta in the USSR, were 7.62 caliber." In the lecture, Golts repeated the legend that in the USSR, pasta had a size that allows to produce a sleeve on equipment for the production of pasta.

However, the statement of pasta the size of a cartridge, apparently, is still incorrect, and Vasiliev, Latynin and Golts fell victims of a beautiful legend.

Firstly, pasta and pasta factories appeared long before the 7.62 x 54R caliber (as well as the so-called intermediate cartridge 7.62 x 39, which was used in the Kalashnikov machine, and the cartridge of 5.45 x 39, with which Soviet pasta is also compared).

How Indicates In his LiveJournal and magazine “Bread & Salt”, the modern historian of cooking Pavel Syutkin, the production of pasta in Russia launched back in 1883, and in the USSR they could revive it only in the 1920s.

Secondly, the “caliber” of Soviet pasta did not at all correspond to the caliber of ammunition.

In wartime in the USSR, there were two standards for pasta: GOST 875–41 - pasta (the last numbers - the year of acceptance of the standard), GOST B-875–43 - Macaron products. In 1969, the first post-war GOST to the pasta (GOST 875–51) was replaced in 1969 to GOST 875–69. And then tubular pasta were produced on it, but the sizes were completely different. A straw with a diameter of 4 mm, special - 4.1–5.5 mm, ordinary - from 5.6 to 7 mm and amateur - from 7 mm or more.

The last pasta GOST of the time of the USSR - 875-92, also does not give reason to talk about the same size of Soviet paste and cartridges. In 1992, “ordinary pasta” were produced with a diameter of 5 to 7 mm, ordinary corrugated - from 5.6 to 7 mm, special - from 4 to 5.5 mm, and amateur and straws repeated the standards of GOST 1969.

By the way, the same can be said about cigarettes. They were exactly the same about them legend: supposedly the diameter of Soviet cigarettes was 7.62 mm. So, this is also not according to the Soviet GOST.

According to GOST 1505-48, in the USSR, three types of cigarettes with a sleeve diameter of 7.2, 8.2 and 8.8 mm were produced, and the standards of width of the cigarette paper prescribed dimensions of 25, 28 and 30 mm. The standard was adopted back in the 30s of the last century, was Repeated In the 1981 GOST and has not changed to the present day.

But the main argument, which refutes the myth of cartridge-Makarone factories in the USSR, lies in the technological differences in the production of these products. Starting from the 19th century, a round pasta, including thick pasta with a hole, was carried out by squeezing the dough in the press through the nozzle with holes.

Examples of these processes can be viewed, for example, Here And Here.

Unlike pasta, the cartridge sleeve, like the copper shell of the bullet, is not drilling (as the writer Vasiliev believed) and not twisting (as Alexander Golts, Julia Latynina and many Soviet citizens were sure).

When creating a sheet of brass, steel or bimetallic alloy, a cylindrical workpiece is thrown. Then it is extended several times with pressing, turning into a hollow cylinder. Then he stamps the bottom for the installation of a capsule, a slope and a groove of the Zaraina is performed, which serves to extract a shot sleeve from the weapon.

You can, for example,, for example, in this, in this plot Mosad Ayub Mossad Ayuber programs.

Thus, equipment and technological processes are very different. And the translation of the factory for the production of pasta into military rails, if possible, is very complicated and will require almost complete replacement of equipment and staff. And the story of Soviet pasta macarons is just a beautiful city legend.