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[MILITARY CONSTRUCTION pre-WWII] Tekhnicheskie usloviya i normy na proektirovanie voinskikh zdaniy [i.e. The technical conditions and norms for projecting military buildings]

Item #2088

Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe voennoe izdatelstvo narkomata soyuza SSR, 1939. 144 p., 3 folding tables. 15,5x13,5 cm.

To be distributed according to the special lists, our copy being number 1644. The print-run is not stated. Original cloth binding. Two ink stains on the front cover, from the top and the bottom of the cover. Pencil marks and marginalia in the first half of the book. The contemporary signature of the first owner on the title page of the book. Otherwise good.

An interesting work, that gives the overview of the Soviet readiness for the military construction prior to the war. It has been prepared by team of architects and engineers of Apartment and operational management of the Red Army. As the unknown author states in the preface, the norms and regulations have been printed in haste (the reason is not stated), despite the fact, that the previous collection of the same kind was produced in 1929. He also adds that the current work should be seen as a temporary collection of norms, but the next edition would be produced only after the war in late 1940s.
Despite the urgency to produce the norms, they did not included the correlation of construction projects with air defence standards, which authors recommended to take into separate consideration in case-by-case basis.
The book includes detailed norms for all kinds of military constructions, that were different from the civil ones. The chapters include the information on barracks, headquarters and administrations, kitchens, canteens, commanding staff's houses, medical institutions, baths, laundries, bakeries, storage facilities and ice rooms, fire stations, stables, veterinary stations, forges, clubs, guardhouses, airfields, hangars, testing stations for aircraft engines and so on.
The separate chapters are dedicated to stone and wooden constructions. The first part of the book is marked and annotated, presumably by a person, who was overlooking the construction on the ground. In some cases, he has written next to the whole sections ‘no need’ [i.e. ne nuzhno], namely barber rooms and hospitals, sections, dedicated to the kitchens, vegetable storages, and barracks.
Most of the military infrastructure of the Red Army, built in the West of the country, was conquered in the first weeks of plan ‘Barbarossa’ and in many
cases the construction had to be started anew, often in improvised fashion as the fighting went on. In those circumstances this book likely served as the only guidance for the military engineers in the first years of the full-scale war in 1940s.

Rare. Not in the Worldcat.

Price: $950.00