Manufacturer catalog

Soviet ordnance production

Soviet ordnance production refers to the state-run arsenals, armaments ministries, ammunition plants, design institutes, and numbered factories that produced Soviet artillery weapons, mortar bombs, artillery rockets, shells, and related ammunition before the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.

5 weapons

The Soviet ordnance base was not a single company. It operated inside a centrally planned defense-industrial system whose wartime and Cold War output was spread across commissariats, ministries, numbered factories, arsenals, and design organizations. Public records for individual Soviet munitions often identify the origin as Soviet state production, a plant number, or a ministry-level production system rather than one durable corporate name.

For artillery and mortar weapons, this production base combined design institutes with plant-level manufacturing. The connected 160mm PM-43 record, for example, traces wartime production to Plant No. 535 in Tula, while the 140 mm M-14 rocket and 53-F-864 mortar bomb records show how Soviet munitions families continued to circulate as legacy ammunition long after the Soviet state ceased to exist.

Mortar systemsMortar bombsArtillery rocketsArtillery shellsState arsenal and plant productionSoviet-era ammunition families

Notable Systems

160mm PM-43, 160 mm towed heavy mortar, Artillery

160mm PM-43

160 mm towed heavy mortar

Soviet breech-loading 160 mm heavy mortar developed during the Second World War, with open references tying production to Plant No. 535 in Tula and postwar continuation until 1947.

Sources: ndu-ukraine-m160, weaponsystems-160mm-pm43
140 mm M-14 rocket, 140 mm unguided artillery rocket, Munitions

140 mm M-14 rocket

140 mm unguided artillery rocket

Soviet 140 mm unguided artillery rocket family for BM-14 and RPU-14 launchers, represented here as ordnance production because the connected record is the munition rather than only the launcher.

Sources: weaponsystems-m14, fas-rpu14
53-F-864 / F-864 240 mm mortar bomb, 240 mm high-explosive fragmentation mortar bomb, Munitions

53-F-864 / F-864 240 mm mortar bomb

240 mm high-explosive fragmentation mortar bomb

Soviet 240 mm high-explosive fragmentation mortar bomb associated with the M-240 / 2S4 heavy-mortar family and documented in technical references under 53-F-864, F-864, and 3OF-864 designations.

Sources: army-recognition-2s4-tyulpan, aoav-m240

Manufacturer History

  1. Armaments administration separated

    Soviet defense-industry administration was organized through specialized commissariats before the Second World War, including armaments and ammunition authorities that oversaw factories and design work rather than operating as private firms.

    Sources: springer-soviet-defense-industry, cia-soviet-weapons-industry

  2. Wartime munitions output studied

    Mark Harrison's Journal of Economic History study treats Soviet wartime munitions output as a large physical-production problem across ground, air, and naval munitions, underscoring the scale of state-managed ordnance manufacture during the war.

    Sources: cambridge-soviet-munitions-output

  3. 160 mm mortar production begins

    The National Defence University of Ukraine account of the 160 mm mortar M1943 places production at Plant No. 535 in Tula, a concrete plant-level example of Soviet heavy-mortar production.

    Sources: ndu-ukraine-m160, weaponsystems-160mm-pm43

  4. Postwar rocket and armaments work reorganized

    RussianSpaceWeb describes the postwar renaming of the People's Commissariat of Armaments as the Ministry of Armaments and shows Plant No. 88 receiving rocket and rocket-propelled artillery-shell tasks in 1946.

    Sources: soviet-rocket-industry

  5. Soviet state framework ends

    The Soviet Union's dissolution ended the state structure under which Soviet ordnance production had been organized; surviving plants, stockpiles, and design lineages passed into post-Soviet national and corporate settings.

    Sources: state-collapse-ussr

Predecessors
Russian imperial and early Soviet state arsenals
Successors
Russian defense industryPost-Soviet ammunition and ordnance producers in former Soviet republics
Website links
Soviet defense-industry scholarshipSoviet munitions-output studySoviet rocket industry origins

This is a defunct state-run production base rather than a present company. Public sources often identify Soviet ordnance through state, ministry, plant-number, or weapon-family attributions, so narrower plant or design-bureau records should remain separate when reliable sources support them. No single sourced headquarters or headquarters coordinates are provided.

Manufacturer Sources

  • springer-soviet-defense-industryPublisher: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer Nature | Note: Supports background on the Soviet defence-industry complex as a historical state-industrial system with ministries, planning, mobilization, regulation, and postwar branches. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • cambridge-soviet-munitions-outputPublisher: Cambridge University Press / The Journal of Economic History | Note: Supports background on Soviet munitions output during 1937-1945 and the use of physical production data for ground, air, and naval munitions. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • cia-soviet-weapons-industryPublisher: Central Intelligence Agency Reading Room | Note: Supports background reference context on the late Soviet weapons industry and its large production-complex structure. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • soviet-rocket-industryPublisher: RussianSpaceWeb.com | Note: Supports postwar Ministry of Armaments context, Plant No. 88 rocket tasks, and early Soviet rocket-propelled artillery-shell production assignments. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • state-collapse-ussrPublisher: Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State | Note: Supports the 1991 dissolution context explaining why this is a historical state-production base with no current official company website. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • ndu-ukraine-m160Publisher: National Defence University of Ukraine | Note: Supports 160 mm mortar M1943 development, adoption, Plant No. 535 production at Tula, and production totals relevant to Soviet heavy-mortar production. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • weaponsystems-160mm-pm43Publisher: WeaponSystems.net | Note: Supports the 160-PM-43 / MT-13 identity, Soviet origin, production period, Tula production attribution, and heavy-mortar specifications. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • weaponsystems-m14Publisher: WeaponSystems.net | Note: Supports the 140 mm M-14 rocket family, Soviet origin, service-entry context, variant branches, and launcher-family relationship. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • fas-rpu14Publisher: Federation of American Scientists | Note: Supports RPU-14 and BM-14-family context for 140 mm spin-stabilized M-14 rounds, including high-explosive, smoke, and chemical round branches. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • army-recognition-2s4-tyulpanPublisher: Army Recognition | Note: Supports the 53-F-864 / 3OF-864 bomb as a conventional 240 mm high-explosive fragmentation round in the 2S4 Tyulpan ammunition set. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • aoav-m240Publisher: Action on Armed Violence | Note: Supports general 53-F-864 240 mm bomb and M-240 heavy-mortar system background without adding manufacturer-page conflict-use claims. | Accessed: 2026-07-11
  • commons-160mm-mortar-imagePublisher: Wikimedia Commons | Note: Supports image provenance and public-domain reuse terms for the 160 mm mortar M1943 photograph used as manufacturer-context imagery. | Accessed: 2026-07-11

Produced weapons

Category

Artillery

Tube artillery, rocket artillery, and long-range ground fires.

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Category

Munitions

Standalone missiles, bombs, rockets, torpedoes, and guided or unguided explosive payloads.

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140 mm M-14 rocket, 140 mm unguided artillery rocket, Munitions2011 Syrian Civil War140 mm M-14 rocket140 mm unguided artillery rocketBuilt in: Soviet Union / PolandThe 140 mm M-14 is a Soviet spin-stabilized artillery rocket family developed for BM-14 and RPU-14 multiple rocket launchers. Open references identify high-explosive fragmentation, smoke/incendiary, and chemical-warhead branches; conflict documentation places an M-14 rocket motor in the 2013 Western Ghouta attack during the Syrian Civil War, with attribution and payload evidence handled narrowly because public imagery and UN reporting identify the motor and attack context more clearly than a recovered intact M-14 warhead.
53-F-864 / F-864 240 mm mortar bomb, 240 mm high-explosive fragmentation mortar bomb, Munitions2011 Syrian Civil War53-F-864 / F-864 240 mm mortar bomb240 mm high-explosive fragmentation mortar bombBuilt in: Soviet UnionThe 53-F-864, commonly cited as F-864 and also rendered 3OF-864 in Tyulpan references, is a Soviet 240 mm high-explosive fragmentation mortar bomb for the M-240 / 2S4 Tyulpan heavy-mortar family. It is notable as a very heavy conventional mortar round: Human Rights Watch documented F-864 bombs in Syrian army shelling of Homs, and technical references report a projectile mass of about 130 kg and a maximum Tyulpan range of about 9.65 km.