In the summer of 1941, armored hordes of Nazi invaders were rushing to the vital areas of our country. Infantry rifle fire could not stop enemy tanks and armored vehicles, and rifle and submachine gun fire caused damage only to the enemy's manpower.

In this difficult time of a fierce battle with the enemy, a new type of small arms designed to defeat enemy armored vehicles is being adopted by the active army. It was an anti-tank rifle, whose armor-piercing incendiary bullets penetrated the armor of enemy tanks.

In infantry units, units are created that determine the nature of combat activities for the use of the damaging properties of this type of rifle fire: a squad of anti-tank rifles, a platoon of anti-tank rifles, a company of anti-tank rifles.

There is a system of designations that determine the specialization of military personnel in relation to this type of small arms: calculation of anti-tank guns - a group of military personnel who service these weapons. Moreover, in the calculation of an anti-tank gun, the first number is allocated (the one who directs the weapon at the target) and the second number.

In the speech of front-line soldiers, reflected in the periodicals of that time, the designations of this type of small arms are widely used: "All the fighters were armed with anti-tank guns "(Komsomolskaya Pravda. 1941, November 5); " Antitank rifle in skillful hands - a formidable weapon "(Vech. Moscow. 1941. 10 Dec.).

The name antitank rifle fits into the system of concepts of military affairs: the defining component of a separately formed nomination indicates the means used in the fight against tanks: antitank (grenade, mine, bomb, cannon, artillery, defense, ambush), antitank (area, node, line, shaft), antitank (gun, obstacle, barrier).

The terminological designation of an effective means of combating tanks when giving commands, orders is shortened, which also covers other categories, determining what is designated by the name of the corresponding letters of the full name of the Pe TeeR-proti-

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anti-tank rifle: anti-tank squad, anti-tank crew, anti-tank platoon, anti-tank company; for example: ".. Junior Lieutenant Kandakov from PeTeeR shot down two German tanks" (Komsomolskaya Pravda. 1942. December 9).

On the basis of the abbreviated naming of small arms (PeTeeR), colloquial designations of fighters arise in relation to this weapon and to the unit that is armed with PeTeeR. I remember the words of a popular song sung by soldiers of anti-tank rifle units:

I was born a peterovite,

In the calculation of fire increased.

I was baptized with an armor-piercing bullet

And the battle with the tank suffered.

The anti-tank gun itself was unusual, so it gave rise to a lot of parallel designations in the soldier's (front-line) environment, in which the attitude of fighters to this weapon was expressed. In fact, these weapons were not individual, but group (they were served by calculation: first and second numbers); in addition, the combat purpose of the weapon was different (against armored targets). Moreover, its appearance was the same as that of the usual rifles and submachine guns.

The striking properties of an anti-tank weapon (it penetrates, hits armor) contribute to the formation of a parallel designation-an armor-piercing rifle: "The unit bristled with armor-piercing rifles "(Izvestia. 1943. March 19). The appearance of a non-terminological, colloquial name may have been determined by the transparency of the internal form of the defining component (armor-piercing), as well as the pressure of phrases that included the same adjective: armor-piercing cannon, armor-piercing projectile, armor-piercing bomb.

In the communication of front-line soldiers, the secondary designation (armor-piercing rifle) is tightened, transforming the separately issued nomination into the colloquial equivalent of armor-piercing: "The soldiers met the approaching tanks with a hurricane of armor-piercing fire "(Pravda. 1944. 25 Aug.). An anti-tank gun in the soldier's environment was called the Degtyarevsky gun (after its designer), as well as degtyarevka.

Colloquial and everyday names have gained popularity in fiction and memoir literature:

Where the armor plate is placed,

The tank can't get through

(Songs of the Southern Front. Rostov-on-Don, 1979).

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You have - in the rear or on the flank, -

You don't know how strong you are, -

Armor-piercing weapons, cannons, and tanks, -

You, brother, are a battalion.

(A. Tvardovsky. Vasily Terkin).

From the armor-piercing device, a derivative of the armor-piercing device appears:

"Armor-breakers are effective... the second shot from an armor-piercing rifle brought down a spotter " (Vech. Moscow. 1943. July 9).

In the colloquial speech of front-line soldiers, joking names of anti-tank guns also appear. In them - the idea of small arms of previous eras as a symbol of military glory. In fact, the anti-tank gun was long-barreled and heavy (the gun designed by V. A. Degtyarev had a weight of 17.3 kg, and the design of S. G. Simonov -21 kg). Such a gun was jokingly called a musket, a squeaker, a poker, and even a Peter the Great gun. The attitude of the fighters to the new type of small arms is evident in the originality of the designation: "The shooters came up, looked at an anti-tank rifle - a huge, very clumsy-looking one, with a funny air brake knob at the end of the barrel. One wag immediately put it: "Oh, that's right! The gun of Peter the Great". Since then, everyone began to call this gun everything-the gun of Peter the Great "(Pravda. 1942. 30 Apr.).

A soldier who was armed with an anti-tank rifle was called an anti-tankist: "We decided to assign you to the anti - tank school," the commander told me. I was assigned to the school of anti-tank rifle shooters." truth. 1942. May 16). This word is drawn into a number of colloquial names of soldiers dealing with an anti-tank rifle (armored carer, peterovets) and it cedes its role to a separate nomination with the word shooter: "Heavy tanks were hit by anti-tank gunners" (Coma. truth. 1943. July 31). The word anti-tankman, although it indicated that the person was related to the name of the weapon (compare: submachine gunner-submachine gun, machine gunner-machine gun, mortar - mortar), but still it was not subject-oriented, since the combat activity of the fighter was directed not against the tankman, but against the tank that has a combination of means of destruction: machine gun, cannon fire, bullet resistance, and the power of tracks.

Names with the reference word strelok (antitank rifle shooter, antitank rifle shooter) were found to be unstable when interacting with the word armor-piercing gunner.

A chain of parallel designations in the field of colloquial speech (armor - piercing gun - armor-piercing, degtyarevskoe gun-degtyarevka) contributed to the formation of a bundle of designations for military personnel by type of weapon (peterovets, anti-tank, armor-piercing, shooter

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from an anti-tank gun). At the same time, the word armor-breaker is drawn into a competing relationship with the descriptive designation of a fighter by type of weapon {shooter + dependent form of the name with or without the preposition from): "Armor-piercing is a new word, he is only a few weeks old... The word was just being born, and the laconic telegraph continued to call the tank crushers anti-tank rifle shooters for a long time. But the gun itself was a novelty" (Vech. Moscow. 1942. June 14).

The military terminological designation anti-tank rifle in the same text corresponds to the colloquial word armor-breaker: "Heroes are armor-breakers... German plane shot down by anti-tank gun fire "(Izvestia. 1942. September 4).

The word armor-breaker strengthens its position in contexts that define the specialization of military personnel: "Infantrymen, gunners and armor-breakers repel enemy tank attacks "(Izvestia. 1945. 5 Jan.). There are designations of units with the reference word armor-breaker (department of armor-breakers, platoon of armor-breakers): "Enemy vehicles were boldly met by the calculation of armor-breakers "(Coma. truth. 1942. July 7).

In colloquial speech and journalistic texts of the time of the Great Patriotic War, compound names interact with colloquial equivalents; at the same time, a kind of separation of lexical units drawn into the field of nomination is outlined.

The word armor-breaker expands the scope of application and becomes the main designation of an anti-tank rifle shooter. In the Dictionary of S. I. Ozhegov, this word qualifies as common and is defined as "shooter from an armor-piercing rifle".

The compound name anti-tank rifle remains in the sphere of military terminology: "rifled firearms for hitting armored targets at a distance of up to 500 meters" (Military Encyclopedia, Moscow, 1984). The designation armor-piercing rifle is presented in the "Dictionary of Modern Russian Literary Language" as a parallel, accompanying military term naming: "anti-tank, armor-piercing rifle". The word armor-piercing is classified as colloquial in the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the USSR Academy of Sciences: "Armor-piercing anti-tank rifle".

The very same reality-hand-held weapons for shooting at armored targets-has become the property of history: anti-tank guns are being withdrawn from production and have recently been replaced by grenade launchers (Military Encyclopedia).

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