Fighting tub
The idea of a self-propelled armored vehicle carrying artillery weapons has been in the air since the days of Leonardo da Vinci. Engineers approached its creation directly at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. First, the military received armored trains and armored cars at their disposal, the next step was the appearance in the First World War of caterpillar tanks, first used during the Battle of the Somme near the town of Fleur-Courslett on September 15, 1916. These were British "Mark-I", and the appearance of the name "tank" is indirectly connected with Russia.
The British hoped that they had created a superweapon that would break through the defensive lines of the Germans on the Western Front, which had risen tightly. The debut of tanks was prepared in the strictest secrecy. To protect these never-before-seen vehicles from German intelligence, when they were sent from the factory, according to the documents, they were designated as "tanks" (tank) sent to the allies in Russia. For greater persuasiveness, on the hulls of some tanks transported without sponsors and weapons, “Caution” and “Petrograd” were displayed in large letters in Russian, as evidenced by archival photographs.
The precautions worked, and the name, which did not reflect the essence of the machine, suddenly stuck. The Russian media initially even translated the English word "tank" almost literally. This is how the Niva magazine told its readers about tanks in 1917: “Fearless and invulnerable, it rushes with all its bulk into the very boil of battle, under shells and bullets, freely takes enemy trenches, like an empty, insignificant obstacle, and, having sowed around himself destruction and death, calmly returns to his regiment. The English soldiers called this new comrade of theirs "tub".
Mastodon Mendeleev and the sold drawings of Porohovshchikov
The Russian contribution to the appearance of the first tanks was not limited to etymology. In 1911, the revolutionary idea of creating a super-heavy combat vehicle called the Bronekhod was nurtured by the son of a famous Russian chemist, shipbuilder Vasily Mendeleev. For four years of hard work, he brought his project to a detailed drawing. The inventor planned to equip his offspring with a powerful 120-mm gun of the Frenchman Gustave Canet, which at that time was in service with the ships of the Russian Imperial Navy and coastal defense batteries. Looking ahead: guns of a similar caliber will appear in active armies on self-propelled artillery mounts only by 1943.
The design weight of Mendeleev's tank exceeded 170 tons, almost half of which was only armor. Once built, this colossus would have been tied to the railroad, since not a single highway bridge in the Russian Empire could withstand it. It is not surprising that Mendeleev did not find supporters of this idea.
In 1914-1915, the design of the wheeled-caterpillar "All-terrain vehicle" by the master of the Riga Russian-Baltic Machine-Building Plant Alexander Porokhovshchikov made a noise. He assembled a prototype, which performed well in field trials, although he did not have any weapons or armor. In technical correspondence, it was simply called "self-propelled". After the tests, Porohovshchikov began to develop the "All-terrain vehicle No. 2", which already carried a gun turret and was armed with four machine guns maxim. The designer largely anticipated the tank layout that had become traditional, but there were also oddities: for example, it had only one wide caterpillar, on which the hull was “mounted”. "All-terrain vehicle No. 2" did not receive the approval of the authorities, and according to one of the conspiracy theories, Porohovshchikov's drawings were sold to the French and formed the basis of the best tank of the First World War - Renault FT-17.
“Porohovshchikov’s drawings were sold to the French and formed the basis of the best tank of the First World War - Renault FT-17”
The legend of the Dmitrov forests
The past knows many cases when the military department put an end to promising projects of designers, but the story of Nikolai Lebedenko is not one of them. In his quest to build a self-propelled military vehicle, the ambitious inventor reached Nicholas II in 1915.
The Lebedenko tank looked like a huge artillery carriage from the Napoleonic Wars, mounted on two nine-meter spoked wheels. At the maximum height between the wheels there was a tower, bristling on all four sides with two 76.2 mm caliber guns and machine guns. The engine compartment protected by armor was located below, additional sponsons with weapons could be attached to the sides and even closer to the ground. The hull length was almost 18 meters, width - 12 meters, design speed - 17 kilometers per hour. The steel giant, as if descended from the pages of the "War of the Worlds" by HG Wells, was controlled by a one and a half meter rotary roller mounted on the tail frame.
They say that Lebedenko appeared at the audience with the emperor with a clockwork wooden model of his self-propelled gun, driven by a gramophone spring. From the fact that he carried it, holding it by the tail wheel, the design resembled a hanging bat, so one of the names attached to the invention appeared - “Bat”.
“With such machines, the entire German front will be broken through in one night, and Russia will win the war,” the arrogant inventor claimed. Just a few minutes after the beginning of the audience, the autocrat and the designer enthusiastically plaited themselves on the floor, watching how the car moved over the wide volumes from the royal library, which they lined up in its path. The fate of the Tsar Tank was decided, Nicholas II ordered to allocate funds for financing.
Lebedenko captivated not only the emperor with his idea. Part of the calculations was performed by the "father of Russian aviation" Nikolai Zhukovsky. His nephews - Alexander Mikulin and Boris Stechkin, then students of the Moscow Higher Technical School, and in the future academicians, well-known Soviet engine builders, were engaged in the power plant.
The total cost of the project amounted to 210 thousand rubles. Two 240-horsepower Maybach engines, taken from the crashed German Zeppellin, were adapted to rotate both drive wheels. The corps was assembled in the arena near the Khamovniki barracks, the final assembly was organized at a secret training ground guarded by the Cossacks, specially built in the forests near the Orudyevo railway station near Moscow.
The Tsar Tank was ready for field trials by August 1917, but, as the famous saying goes, it was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines. The engines roared, the 60-ton colossus moved, broke a birch and, after driving a few meters, got stuck in the mud forever. The design proved to be unviable.
A few months later, Lebedenko emigrated to America, where his trail was lost, and the iron monster he created became the legend of the Dmitrov forests. To this day, local residents pick mushrooms “to the tank”, but even the old-timers cannot indicate where this tank is. Some say that in the 1920s it was cut up for scrap metal or taken away by a piece of iron for household needs, others claim that it was completely immersed in a swamp. But there are those who believe that somewhere in the thicket of the forest, the Russian Tsar Tank, covered with the patina of time, stands in all its enormous growth.
Museum of the history of the T-34 tank, located not too far from the test site of Lebedenko's invention, in the summer of 2002 sent out a search party in the hope of finding traces of it. We managed to find the remains of the caponier foundation, an overgrown well and small fragments of some kind of mechanism, which in time could relate to this project. The finds are exhibited in the museum, and a replica of the Tsar Tank rises on the street nearby, made by enthusiasts in January 2018 according to the original designer's drawings.
But the most unexpected return to the idea of Nikolai Lebedenko happened in a fantastic future - in the second episode of Star Wars. In Attack of the Clones, director George Lucas armed the Confederate army with an IG-227 Hailfire-class droid tank on two huge wheels, inspired by the Russian inventor Tsar Tank. XX century.
Sergey Averyanov
In the spring of 1915, the inhabitants of the village of Orudyevo, Dmitrovsky district, were in for an unpleasant surprise. The forest, which began literally beyond the outskirts, was declared a restricted area. Armed patrols, barbed wire, and signs reading "Stop, I'm shooting!" But this did not stop the brave and curious. What they saw in the forest was impressive for a long time. About six months before these events, a letter lay on the table of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II. A certain engineer Lebedenko proposed to build a combat vehicle, which, (according to him), would change the situation on the Russian-German front. Drawings and calculations were attached to the letter.
It was something. A hitherto unknown designer proposed to create the world's largest tank. His tactical and technical characteristics were ahead of their time.
The hull length is almost 18 meters (17,800 mm). Width - 12 meters. Armor type - rolled steel. Engine type - "Maybach": aviation, carburetor, high-speed. Armament - two 76.2-caliber caponier guns with sixty rounds of ammunition, plus several 7.92-caliber Maxim machine guns with eight to ten thousand rounds of ammunition. Crew - 15 people. The sovereign liked the bold project. Nikolai Lebedenko was invited to the Winter Palace. The engineer came with a gift - a wooden model of the future tank. A three-wheeled cart with a spring engine from an ordinary gramophone ran briskly across the carpet, overcoming various obstacles. The emperor was delighted. Together with engineer Lebedenko, for more than half an hour, like a baby, he literally crawled "on all fours" around his residence, rolling an eccentric car on the floor. As a result, the project received the highest approval, and at the same time an unusual nickname - "Bat". When the toy model of the tank was held by the rear wheel, it really looked like a bat sleeping upside down on the wall of the cave. giant.” A few months later the car was ready. The weight and dimensions of the tank were really amazing. The steel monster, as high as a three-story house, weighed sixty tons. Its undercarriage resembled a huge cannon carriage: Two wheels on a transverse beam, an iron platform, and a massive shank with a small swivel roller. Machine gun turrets were installed on the platform. One in the middle and two on the sides. The design speed of the new combat vehicle on the highway was 17 kilometers per hour. In August 1915, the first tests took place. The Tsar Tank started off, slid off the log flooring, and suddenly stopped. The rear roller hit a deep hole. The driver pressed on the gas, but it was all in vain. The tank is stuck. There was an error in the calculations. Most of the machine's weight is on the shank. The front wheels dug the ground, but could not pull the roller out of the hole. The commission gave a conclusion - Lebedenko's tank is not suitable for driving over rough terrain. There was a war, there was no money in the treasury to finalize the project, and they decided to curtail it. For eight years, the Tsar Tank stood in the forest. There was no way to move him. Although desperate attempts have been repeatedly made. And in 1923, already under the new government, it was dismantled for scrap. And yet, the story of the world's largest tank did not end there. In the 20th century, the famous American director, creator of the cult science fiction saga "Star Wars" George Lucas was so inspired by the project of the Russian Tsar Tank that he came up with an interplanetary droid tank "IG-227 Hailfire" of the "Fire Hail" type based on it. True, at the same time, the American counterpart did not have a rear roller, and the huge wheels of the tank were at an angle to each other.
Alas, during the First World War, our country was not part of the elite club of the great tank powers. The fact that Germany, our main enemy, was also not a member of this club is little consolation (the Germans produced 21 (twenty-one) serial tanks of their own construction during the entire war).
But, on the other hand, no one will dispute the fact that it was in Russia during the First World War that the world's largest tank was created - 17 meters in length, 9 meters in height, 60 tons of weight!
True, this monster can be called a tank purely conditionally, it did not have tracks and a rotating turret, but it had giant wheels. In general, the car resembled a huge cannon carriage.
The idea of building such an unusual machine came from the captain of the Russian army, Nikolai Nikolaevich Lebedenko, while serving in the Caucasus, even before the war. He appreciated the arba - the vehicle of local residents. There were no roads in the usual sense of the word in the Caucasus at that time, but a cart with two wheels with high rims easily overcame all bumps and potholes on what were considered roads there.
And then there was the war. The war that all the participants planned was almost like a blitzkrieg. The term itself and the theory of blitzkrieg itself appeared later. And then there was no term, no theory, no ... blitzkrieg itself. Maneuvering combat operations quickly gave way to the so-called "positional stalemate". Simple trenches on the Western Front quickly turned into real underground cities, from logs, sandbags and earth. Infantry attacks in close formation and dashing cavalry attacks became the property of history - His Majesty the Machine Gun dominated the battlefield. The concentration of artillery fire in the breakthrough area helped to mix the first line of defense with the ground, but behind the first was a second line with unsuppressed firing points, and behind it was a third. Breaking through the front a little deeper was considered an incredible success. The battles were called "meat grinders". There have never been such one-time losses in the history of wars.
The means of overcoming the accursed positional impasse was self-evident - an armored fighting vehicle armed with cannons and machine guns, with sufficient maneuverability so as not to get stuck on a battlefield pitted with craters. The idea of a tank was in the air. The history of the first British and French tanks, alas, is beyond the scope of this article. We will devote a separate publication to the Porokhovshchikov all-terrain vehicle, a Russian high-speed single-track tank. In the meantime, let's talk about the most original means of overcoming the positional impasse - the Lebedenko tank, which went down in the history of world tank building under the name "Tsar Tank".
In 1914, Captain Lebedenko headed the Private Laboratory for Military Inventions and was engaged in the development of bomb-releasing devices for the world's first heavy strategic bomber, the Ilya Muromets. With the outbreak of hostilities, he remembered his idea to create a combat vehicle built on the principle of a two-wheeled cart - an arba. A kind of new generation war chariot. Only a very large one.
Nikolai Lebedenko began to "knock down the thresholds", go to the authorities. In the end, he managed to enlist the support of the influential Prince Lvov, the head of the All-Russian Zemsky Union, a charitable organization created to help wounded soldiers. Lebedenko could not cope with all the calculations and preparation of project documentation on his own. Therefore, having a letter of recommendation from Lvov in his hands, he turned to Nikolai Zhukovsky, a professor at the Moscow Higher Technical School (now Bauman Moscow State University). Zhukovsky, who went down in history as the creator of aerodynamics, recommended using the services of his nephews, students of Moscow Higher Technical School, B. Stechkin and A. Mikulin. With their help, the project was completed. The result was a machine weighing 40-44 tons, 9 meters high, 17 meters long, armed with two 76.2 mm caliber guns and ten machine guns. The monster (or mastodon, as the developers themselves called it) could crush huts, move through trenches and trenches of any width and depth, and any of the tanks of the very first generation could envy its firepower. In addition, the estimated maximum speed of this hulk was to be 17 kilometers per hour! The exclamation point is quite appropriate here - for comparison, the maximum speed of the British Mark I, the world's first production tank, on flat terrain was only 6.4 kilometers per hour (and on rough terrain it fell to the speed of an infantryman crawling in a plastunsky way).
Now the matter was small - all that was needed was to find somewhere funds for the construction of a prototype. Approximately, a couple of hundred thousand rubles (for comparison, the annual income of a wealthy peasant at that time did not exceed 40 (forty) rubles).
A clockwork wooden tank model with nickel-plated wheels 30 centimeters in diameter was made. An elegant mahogany casket was made for the model. And Lebedenko again began to "knock the thresholds." But now he had an influential patron - Prince Lvov. So, the inventor managed to get an audience with the Minister of War, and then the Sovereign Emperor himself received Lebedenko. The clockwork toy made an indelible impression on the autocrat - according to eyewitnesses, the tsar and Lebedneko drove the toy tank along the parquet for an hour, watching how it overcomes obstacles in the form of thick volumes of the “Code of Laws of the Russian Empire”, taken from the cabinet especially for sea trials "Experimental model" of a combat vehicle. Of course, Lebedenko convinced Nicholas II that his combat vehicle would easily break through the front in any area. The shocked tsar immediately gave the order to open an account to finance the project, and left the clockwork model of the tank as a gift (the further fate of this model, alas, is unknown).
Lebedenko managed to quickly raise the necessary 210 thousand rubles. Under the highest auspices, work on the production of a prototype super-tank went at a record pace. The body was made in the Khamovniki barracks in Moscow, the giant wheels were made on a site near Dmitrov (60 kilometers from Moscow) fenced with barbed wire. The whole tank was assembled there. By the way, it was planned to deliver the tank to the front line in a disassembled state, and to assemble it not far from the front line.
The project had to be amended. For example, the design thickness of the armor was supposed to be 7 millimeters, but there were no armor plates of this thickness. I had to use what was - sheets 10 millimeters thick. An increase in the thickness of the armor by only 3 millimeters led to an increase in the mass of the tank by one and a half times against the calculated one - up to 60 tons. Engines of the required power, in order to set such a colossus in motion, were not produced in Russia. Therefore, two captured Maybach engines with a capacity of 250 hp were installed on the Tsar-Tank. s., taken from the German zeppelin.
On August 27, 1915, the first sea trials of the giant tank took place near Dmitrov. First and last. The car easily passed ten meters along the gati, but instantly got stuck tightly on soft ground - the rear guide truck got stuck in a ditch, and the engine power was not enough to rescue the huge car from captivity. It became clear that the diameter of the wheels of the guide trolley should be increased, and the engine power should be increased to at least 300 hp. With.
Stechkin and Mikulin undertook the development of such an engine, which turned out to be the AMBS index. Alas, the students had no experience in developing an engine of such (and any other) power. Their product turned out to be completely unviable - at the first start, the engine worked for no more than one and a half minutes.
On this story "Tsar-Tank" ended. The Russian state was no longer up to giant tanks, and even more so, not up to engines for them. The monumental steel structure rusted in a forest near Moscow until 1923, when it was sent for smelting.
The lack of viability of this monster on the battlefield is obvious at first sight. The combat debut of the Lebedenko tank, quite possibly, would have been successful - due to the psychological effect. And then the enemy would quickly figure out that an ordinary shrapnel shot at the wheel hubs would be enough and the steel monster would turn into a stationary target. Yes, and a large-scale production of such tanks in tsarist Russia can be imagined by a person with a very rich imagination.
But, every cloud has a silver lining - the engine for the "Tsar-Tank" was the first engine of the work of Alexander Mikulin, the designer who created aircraft engines that flew the famous Il-2 - "flying tanks" of the Red Army.
Modern battle tanks of Russia and the world photos, videos, pictures to watch online. This article gives an idea of the modern tank fleet. It is based on the classification principle used in the most authoritative reference book to date, but in a slightly modified and improved form. And if the latter in its original form can still be found in the armies of a number of countries, then others have already become a museum exhibit. And all for 10 years! To follow in the footsteps of the Jane's guide and not consider this combat vehicle (quite by the way, curious in design and fiercely discussed at the time), which formed the basis of the tank fleet of the last quarter of the 20th century, the authors considered it unfair.
Films about tanks where there is still no alternative to this type of armament of the ground forces. The tank was and probably will remain a modern weapon for a long time due to the ability to combine such seemingly contradictory qualities as high mobility, powerful weapons and reliable crew protection. These unique qualities of tanks continue to be constantly improved, and the experience and technologies accumulated over decades predetermine new frontiers of combat properties and military-technical achievements. In the age-old confrontation "projectile - armor", as practice shows, protection from a projectile is being improved more and more, acquiring new qualities: activity, multi-layeredness, self-defense. At the same time, the projectile becomes more accurate and powerful.
Russian tanks are specific in that they allow you to destroy the enemy from a safe distance, have the ability to perform quick maneuvers on impassable roads, contaminated terrain, can “walk” through the territory occupied by the enemy, seize a decisive bridgehead, induce panic in the rear and suppress the enemy with fire and caterpillars . The war of 1939-1945 became the most difficult test for all mankind, since almost all countries of the world were involved in it. It was the battle of the titans - the most unique period that theorists argued about in the early 1930s and during which tanks were used in large numbers by almost all the warring parties. At this time, a "check for lice" and a deep reform of the first theories of the use of tank troops took place. And it is the Soviet tank troops that are most affected by all this.
Tanks in battle that became a symbol of the past war, the backbone of the Soviet armored forces? Who created them and under what conditions? How did the USSR, having lost most of its European territories and having difficulty recruiting tanks for the defense of Moscow, be able to launch powerful tank formations on the battlefield already in 1943? This book, which tells about the development of Soviet tanks "in the days of testing ", from 1937 to the beginning of 1943. When writing the book, materials from the archives of Russia and private collections of tank builders were used. There was a period in our history that was deposited in my memory with some depressing feeling. It began with the return of our first military advisers from Spain, and stopped only at the beginning of forty-third, - said the former general designer of self-propelled guns L. Gorlitsky, - there was some kind of pre-stormy state.
Tanks of the Second World War, it was M. Koshkin, almost underground (but, of course, with the support of "the wisest of the wise leader of all peoples"), who was able to create that tank that, a few years later, would shock German tank generals. And what’s more, he didn’t just create it, the designer managed to prove to these stupid military men that it was his T-34 that they needed, and not just another wheeled-tracked “highway”. The author is in slightly different positions that he formed after meeting with the pre-war documents of the RGVA and RGAE. Therefore, working on this segment of the history of the Soviet tank, the author will inevitably contradict something "generally accepted". This work describes the history of Soviet tank building in the most difficult years - from the beginning of a radical restructuring of all the activities of design bureaus and people's commissariats in general, during a frantic race to equip new tank formations of the Red Army, the transfer of industry to wartime rails and evacuation.
Tanks Wikipedia the author wants to express his special gratitude for the help in the selection and processing of materials to M. Kolomiyets, and also to thank A. Solyankin, I. Zheltov and M. Pavlov, the authors of the reference publication "Domestic armored vehicles. XX century. 1905 - 1941" because this book helped to understand the fate of some projects, unclear before. I would also like to recall with gratitude those conversations with Lev Izraelevich Gorlitsky, the former Chief Designer of UZTM, which helped to take a fresh look at the entire history of the Soviet tank during the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. Today, for some reason, it is customary to talk about 1937-1938 in our country. only from the point of view of repressions, but few people remember that it was during this period that those tanks were born that became legends of the wartime ... "From the memoirs of L.I. Gorlinkogo.
Soviet tanks, a detailed assessment of them at that time sounded from many lips. Many old people recalled that it was from the events in Spain that it became clear to everyone that the war was getting closer to the threshold and it was Hitler who would have to fight. In 1937, mass purges and repressions began in the USSR, and against the backdrop of these difficult events, the Soviet tank began to turn from a "mechanized cavalry" (in which one of its combat qualities protruded by reducing others) into a balanced combat vehicle, which simultaneously had powerful weapons, sufficient to suppress most targets, good cross-country ability and mobility with armor protection, capable of maintaining its combat capability when shelling a potential enemy with the most massive anti-tank weapons.
It was recommended that large tanks be introduced into the composition in addition only special tanks - floating, chemical. The brigade now had 4 separate battalions of 54 tanks each and was reinforced by the transition from three-tank platoons to five-tank ones. In addition, D. Pavlov justified the refusal to form in 1938 to the four existing mechanized corps three more, believing that these formations are immobile and difficult to control, and most importantly, they require a different rear organization. The tactical and technical requirements for promising tanks, as expected, have been adjusted. In particular, in a letter dated December 23 to the head of the design bureau of plant No. 185 named after. CM. Kirov, the new chief demanded to strengthen the armor of new tanks so that at a distance of 600-800 meters (effective range).
The latest tanks in the world when designing new tanks, it is necessary to provide for the possibility of increasing the level of armor protection during modernization by at least one step ... "This problem could be solved in two ways: First, by increasing the thickness of the armor plates and, secondly," by using increased armor resistance". It is easy to guess that the second way was considered more promising, since the use of specially hardened armor plates, or even two-layer armor, could, while maintaining the same thickness (and the mass of the tank as a whole), increase its resistance by 1.2-1.5 It was this path (the use of specially hardened armor) that was chosen at that moment to create new types of tanks.
Tanks of the USSR at the dawn of tank production, armor was most massively used, the properties of which were identical in all directions. Such armor was called homogeneous (homogeneous), and from the very beginning of the armor business, the craftsmen strove to create just such armor, because uniformity ensured stability of characteristics and simplified processing. However, at the end of the 19th century, it was noticed that when the surface of the armor plate was saturated (to a depth of several tenths to several millimeters) with carbon and silicon, its surface strength increased sharply, while the rest of the plate remained viscous. So heterogeneous (heterogeneous) armor came into use.
In military tanks, the use of heterogeneous armor was very important, since an increase in the hardness of the entire thickness of the armor plate led to a decrease in its elasticity and (as a result) to an increase in brittleness. Thus, the most durable armor, other things being equal, turned out to be very fragile and often pricked even from bursts of high-explosive fragmentation shells. Therefore, at the dawn of armor production in the manufacture of homogeneous sheets, the task of the metallurgist was to achieve the highest possible hardness of the armor, but at the same time not to lose its elasticity. Surface-hardened by saturation with carbon and silicon armor was called cemented (cemented) and was considered at that time a panacea for many ills. But cementation is a complex, harmful process (for example, processing a hot plate with a jet of lighting gas) and relatively expensive, and therefore its development in a series required high costs and an increase in production culture.
Tank of the war years, even in operation, these hulls were less successful than homogeneous ones, since for no apparent reason cracks formed in them (mainly in loaded seams), and it was very difficult to put patches on holes in cemented slabs during repairs. But still, it was expected that a tank protected by 15-20 mm cemented armor would be equivalent in terms of protection to the same, but covered with 22-30 mm sheets, without a significant increase in mass.
Also, by the mid-1930s, in tank building, they learned how to harden the surface of relatively thin armor plates by uneven hardening, known since the end of the 19th century in shipbuilding as the "Krupp method". Surface hardening led to a significant increase in the hardness of the front side of the sheet, leaving the main thickness of the armor viscous.
How tanks shoot videos up to half the thickness of the slab, which was, of course, worse than carburizing, since despite the fact that the hardness of the surface layer was higher than during carburizing, the elasticity of the hull sheets was significantly reduced. So the "Krupp method" in tank building made it possible to increase the strength of armor even somewhat more than carburizing. But the hardening technology that was used for sea armor of large thicknesses was no longer suitable for relatively thin tank armor. Before the war, this method was almost never used in our serial tank building due to technological difficulties and relatively high cost.
Combat use of tanks The most developed for tanks was the 45-mm tank gun mod 1932/34. (20K), and before the event in Spain, it was believed that its power was enough to perform most tank tasks. But the battles in Spain showed that the 45-mm gun could only satisfy the task of fighting enemy tanks, since even the shelling of manpower in the mountains and forests turned out to be ineffective, and it was possible to disable a dug-in enemy firing point only in the event of a direct hit . Shooting at shelters and bunkers was ineffective due to the small high-explosive action of a projectile weighing only about two kg.
Types of tanks photo so that even one hit of a projectile reliably disables an anti-tank gun or machine gun; and thirdly, in order to increase the penetrating effect of a tank gun on the armor of a potential enemy, since, using the example of French tanks (already having an armor thickness of the order of 40-42 mm), it became clear that the armor protection of foreign combat vehicles tends to be significantly increased. There was a right way to do this - increasing the caliber of tank guns and simultaneously increasing the length of their barrel, since a long gun of a larger caliber fires heavier projectiles at a higher muzzle velocity over a greater distance without correcting the pickup.
The best tanks in the world had a large caliber cannon, also had a large breech, significantly more weight and increased recoil reaction. And this required an increase in the mass of the entire tank as a whole. In addition, the placement of large shots in the closed volume of the tank led to a decrease in the ammunition load.
The situation was aggravated by the fact that at the beginning of 1938 it suddenly turned out that there was simply no one to give an order for the design of a new, more powerful tank gun. P. Syachintov and his entire design team were repressed, as well as the core of the Bolshevik Design Bureau under the leadership of G. Magdesiev. Only the group of S. Makhanov remained at liberty, who from the beginning of 1935 tried to bring his new 76.2-mm semi-automatic single gun L-10, and the team of plant No. 8 slowly brought the "forty-five".
Photos of tanks with names The number of developments is large, but in mass production in the period 1933-1937. not a single one was accepted ... "In fact, none of the five air-cooled tank diesel engines, which were worked on in 1933-1937 in the engine department of plant No. 185, was brought to the series. Moreover, despite the decisions on the highest levels of the transition in tank building exclusively to diesel engines, this process was held back by a number of factors.Of course, diesel had significant efficiency.It consumed less fuel per unit of power per hour.Diesel fuel is less prone to ignition, since the flash point of its vapors was very high.
Even the most advanced of them, the MT-5 tank engine, required reorganization of engine production for serial production, which was expressed in the construction of new workshops, the supply of advanced foreign equipment (there were no machine tools of the required accuracy yet), financial investments and strengthening personnel. It was planned that in 1939 this diesel engine with a capacity of 180 hp. will go to mass-produced tanks and artillery tractors, but due to investigative work to find out the causes of tank engine accidents, which lasted from April to November 1938, these plans were not fulfilled. The development of a slightly increased six-cylinder gasoline engine No. 745 with a power of 130-150 hp was also started.
Brands of tanks with specific indicators that suited the tank builders quite well. Tank tests were carried out according to a new methodology, specially developed at the insistence of the new head of the ABTU D. Pavlov in relation to combat service in wartime. The basis of the tests was a run of 3-4 days (at least 10-12 hours of daily non-stop traffic) with a one-day break for technical inspection and restoration work. Moreover, repairs were allowed to be carried out only by field workshops without the involvement of factory specialists. This was followed by a "platform" with obstacles, "bathing" in the water with an additional load, simulating an infantry landing, after which the tank was sent for examination.
Super tanks online after the improvement work seemed to remove all claims from the tanks. And the general course of the tests confirmed the fundamental correctness of the main design changes - an increase in displacement by 450-600 kg, the use of the GAZ-M1 engine, as well as the Komsomolets transmission and suspension. But during the tests, numerous minor defects again appeared in the tanks. The chief designer N. Astrov was suspended from work and was under arrest and investigation for several months. In addition, the tank received a new improved protection turret. The modified layout made it possible to place on the tank a larger ammunition load for a machine gun and two small fire extinguishers (before there were no fire extinguishers on small tanks of the Red Army).
US tanks as part of modernization work, on one serial model of the tank in 1938-1939. the torsion bar suspension developed by the designer of the Design Bureau of Plant No. 185 V. Kulikov was tested. It was distinguished by the design of a composite short coaxial torsion bar (long monotorsion bars could not be used coaxially). However, such a short torsion bar did not show good enough results in tests, and therefore the torsion bar suspension did not immediately pave its way in the course of further work. Obstacles to be overcome: rises not less than 40 degrees, vertical wall 0.7 m, overlapping ditch 2-2.5 m.
YouTube about tanks work on the production of prototypes of D-180 and D-200 engines for reconnaissance tanks is not being carried out, jeopardizing the production of prototypes. "Justifying his choice, N. Astrov said that a wheeled-tracked non-floating reconnaissance aircraft (factory designation 101 10-1), as well as the amphibious tank version (factory designation 102 or 10-2), are a compromise solution, since it is not possible to fully meet the requirements of the ABTU.Variant 101 was a tank weighing 7.5 tons with a hull according to the type of hull, but with vertical side sheets of case-hardened armor 10-13 mm thick, because: "Sloped sides, causing serious weighting of the suspension and hull, require a significant (up to 300 mm) broadening of the hull, not to mention the complication of the tank.
Video reviews of tanks in which the power unit of the tank was planned to be based on the 250-horsepower MG-31F aircraft engine, which was mastered by the industry for agricultural aircraft and gyroplanes. Gasoline of the 1st grade was placed in a tank under the floor of the fighting compartment and in additional onboard gas tanks. The armament fully met the task and consisted of coaxial machine guns DK caliber 12.7 mm and DT (in the second version of the project even ShKAS appears) caliber 7.62 mm. The combat weight of a tank with a torsion bar suspension was 5.2 tons, with a spring suspension - 5.26 tons. The tests were carried out from July 9 to August 21 according to the methodology approved in 1938, with special attention paid to tanks.
"Bat" - this strange word 100 years ago in Russia was called the concept of the Tsar Tank, which became the largest armored land vehicle ever built. The name of the project, which won the heart of the Russian monarch, was due to the fact that when carrying the model, it resembled a bat sleeping upside down.
In the spring of 2015, one of the most interesting Russian projects of the beginning of the last century, the world's largest armored land vehicle, celebrates its centenary. The developer of the Tsar Tank, engineer Lebedenko, after the project was approved in a number of instances, presented a clockwork wooden model with an engine based on a gramophone spring to Emperor Nicholas II. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the emperor and the engineer “like little children” drove the model around the room for half an hour, forcing the car to overcome obstacles from 2-3 volumes of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire. The audience of the engineer Lebedenko with the emperor ended with the fact that 210 thousand rubles were allocated from the treasury for the creation of the tsar tank "Bat".
The project was very unusual in appearance: huge front wheels with a diameter of about 9 meters and a 1.5-meter rear roller. At a height of about 8 meters there was a fixed machine-gun cabin. The width of the T-shaped hull was 12 meters, at the extreme points of the hull, which protruded somewhat onto the plane of the wheels, it was planned to install sponsons with machine guns (one on each side). An additional machine gun turret was installed under the hull. The cruising speed of the Tsar Tank was to be 17 km/h.
The use of such huge wheels in the project suggested that the car would have increased cross-country ability. Sea trials confirmed this: the Bat broke birch trees on its way, like matches.
But the project also had serious shortcomings. So, the controlled rear roller, due to the incorrect distribution of the weight of the machine and because of its disproportionately small size, got stuck in marshy ground after testing. Even the huge front wheels could not pull it out, although 2 captured engines from a wrecked German airship of 240 hp were installed on the Tsar Tank. With. each. Another drawback was revealed - the vulnerability of the wheels during shelling.
This state of affairs led to the closure of the project. The tank stood forgotten until 1928, and then it was dismantled for scrap. All the equipment that was used to manufacture the tank at the Khamovniki plant was transferred to the Dmitrovsky excavator plant.
To judge what a breakthrough Russian military equipment has made in 100 years, just look. And although the secret car is still covered with a tarpaulin, some of the technological features of this modern armored vehicle can already be judged.
