The Soviet Tank Thread: Transversely Mounted 1000hp Engines

[AndreyKryuchenko]

National Guard armored vehicle "Patrol", top view.

[AndreyKryuchenko]

 

National Guard armored vehicle Ural-432009-0020-73 "Ural-VV", top view.

 

[AndreyKryuchenko]

Military police armored car ASN 233115 "Tiger-M" SpN, top view.

 

[AndreyKryuchenko]

IFV BMP-3, top view.

 

[AndreyKryuchenko]

BTR-MDM "Rakushka", top view.

[AndreyKryuchenko]

Armoured Recovery Vehicle BREM-1, top view.

[T___A]

Object 770:

[That_Baka]

2 hours ago, T___A said:

Object 770:

@T___A Do you think that Khrushchev was right when cancelling heavy tank development?

[T___A]

3 hours ago, That_Baka said:

@T___A Do you think that Khrushchev was right when cancelling heavy tank development?

 

If Khrushchev was right it wasn't because of any foresight on his part. The man clearly had no aptitude and knowledge for both armored warfare and tank design. I'm not sure if you're familiar with why the T-62 has the 115 but he was involved and the whole affair was dumb.

 

If they weren't canceled either the Object 277/8 Object 770 or would've been produced*. Probably with the 140mm smoothbore. Maybe the Object 292 would also be produced as a hold over until 277/8 or 770 gets rolling. After that its impossible to say the if the later designs would be worthwhile. I think pure institutional inertia from the SA would keep heavy tanks going at least until the collapse of the USSR. Again I don't know if  the later designs would be good and therefore worthwhile. All the heavy tanks designers threw in the towel after the decision but I don't know what happened to their protégés after the infamous order. So I don't know if they were any good. I presume they kept working in the industry. 

 

 

*Probably with the name T-11 since it would've been the 11th heavy tank produced by the Soviet Union. 

[LoooSeR]

From RCforum.ru, stolen from otvaga

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

[LoooSeR]

Falcatus

 

Vikings on the background

[Lord_James]

11 hours ago, T___A said:

 

If they weren't canceled either the Object 277/8 Object 770 or would've been produced*. Probably with the 140mm smoothbore. Maybe the Object 292 would also be produced as a hold over until 277/8 or 770 gets rolling. After that its impossible to say the if the later designs would be worthwhile. I think pure institutional inertia from the SA would keep heavy tanks going at least until the collapse of the USSR. Again I don't know if  the later designs would be good and therefore worthwhile. All the heavy tanks designers threw in the towel after the decision but I don't know what happened to their protégés after the infamous order. So I don't know if they were any good. I presume they kept working in the industry. 

 

*Probably with the name T-11 since it would've been the 11th heavy tank produced by the Soviet Union. 

 

Would have been interesting to see what they did with their heavy tanks once composite armor made the scene. I wonder if they would have used the same steel / STEF / steel array in the hull and cast turret with insert like the T-64s. 

[T___A]

Just now, Lord_James said:

 

Would have been interesting to see what they did with their heavy tanks once composite armor made the scene. I wonder if they would have used the same steel / STEF / steel array in the hull and cast turret with insert like the T-64s. 

 

IIRC they actually already had paper designs using composite armor in '60. They're just buried in the archives somewhere; we'll see if Pavlov and Pavlov dig it up.

[skylancer-3441]

Pavlov-and-Pavlov's article about object 279 in Technika i Vooruzhenie 2015-06 does mention some studies of 1955-1958 on the subject of non-metallic filler for composite armor, and it also has this picture of what appears to be an proposition on use of composite armor in frontal part of 279's hull. 
Apparently it went no further than that, and remained a paper design. (Though maybe i'm misunderstanding what's been said in that article.)

In lower part of this image there is a spreadshit on the right, located  allmost inside cross-section #4, and it shows - for all 4 cross section variants - numbers for surface, and numbers for weight of 1cm thick slice of given composition. And also it shows which part of this area and weight refers to steel and which part of this weight refers to armor filler. 
I've divided numbers of given filler weight on given filler area, and got density of about 3.2 kg/cm3, same for compositions 2-4

...
Speaking of heavy tanks, one may remember Chelyabinsk's object 780 of early 70s, which was described in "Morozov's diary" as a 49,8 tonnes vehicle, 9-11 tonnes heavier that Leningrad's 225 and Kharkov's 450.

[TokyoMorose]

14 hours ago, T___A said:

 

If Khrushchev was right it wasn't because of any foresight on his part. The man clearly had no aptitude and knowledge for both armored warfare and tank design. I'm not sure if you're familiar with why the T-62 has the 115 but he was involved and the whole affair was dumb.

 

If they weren't canceled either the Object 277/8 Object 770 or would've been produced*. Probably with the 140mm smoothbore. Maybe the Object 292 would also be produced as a hold over until 277/8 or 770 gets rolling. After that its impossible to say the if the later designs would be worthwhile. I think pure institutional inertia from the SA would keep heavy tanks going at least until the collapse of the USSR. Again I don't know if  the later designs would be good and therefore worthwhile. All the heavy tanks designers threw in the towel after the decision but I don't know what happened to their protégés after the infamous order. So I don't know if they were any good. I presume they kept working in the industry. 

 

 

*Probably with the name T-11 since it would've been the 11th heavy tank produced by the Soviet Union. 

 

Do you have any idea why the Object 777 went nowhere despite development being largely done before the stupid bulk cancellation of Khrushchev? That seems to be IMHO, the best overall of the soviet heavy tank designs, and was worked on for quite some time.

[T___A]

4 minutes ago, TokyoMorose said:

 

Do you have any idea why the Object 777 went nowhere despite development being largely done before the stupid bulk cancellation of Khrushchev? That seems to be IMHO, the best overall of the soviet heavy tank designs, and was worked on for quite some time.

 

Politics mainly. The Object 277/8 and Object 770 were designed on the orders of the Sovet Ministrov so every other design was unsolicited and for some reason the Soviets had weird hangups about unsolicited designs. Also the Object 777 only had a manually loaded M-62 which was not gonna fly. The Soviets right after the war decided  that the next generation of heavy tanks was going to a use an auto-loaded 130mm. The only reason the IS-4 and T-10 didn't get the 130mm was they were meant to be quick and easy replacements for the disaster that was the IS-3

[AndreyKryuchenko]

National Guard special armored vehicle VPK-233136 "Tiger-M", top view.

[Scolopax]

1 hour ago, T___A said:

 

The only reason the IS-4 and T-10 didn't get the 130mm was they were meant to be quick and easy replacements for the disaster that was the IS-3

I'm curious why you think that way about the IS-3.  I'm used to it receiving (uneducated) acclaim at best and being called a pig at worst.  If anything, it's the IS-4 I see put down. I've not read too much into either one myself.

[T___A]

4 hours ago, Scolopax said:

I'm curious why you think that way about the IS-3.  I'm used to it receiving (uneducated) acclaim at best and being called a pig at worst.  If anything, it's the IS-4 I see put down. I've not read too much into either one myself. 

 

I get the impression that the sentiment you're echoing is mostly a western thing. Every contemporary source I've seen on the IS-3 has been negative. They just didn't like it. For good reason: There was just a lot of problems with it. At one point they had to return literally every IS-3 to the factory to fix the welding which was falling apart. Notice that their response  to the IS-3's problem wasn't "wait for the IS-7" it was "oh my god resurrect that heavy tank program we canceled years ago and get it ASAP". The IS-3 was that bad. The problem with the IS-4 was just weight, otherwise they were enthused with it. To the point that when the designing of the T-10 was ordered the government demanded IS-3 shape and size but with IS-4 technology. And I would say the result was pretty good.

[LoooSeR]

15 hours ago, T___A said:

 

I get the impression that the sentiment you're echoing is mostly a western thing. Every contemporary source I've seen on the IS-3 has been negative. They just didn't like it. For good reason: There was just a lot of problems with it. At one point they had to return literally every IS-3 to the factory to fix the welding which was falling apart. Notice that their response  to the IS-3's problem wasn't "wait for the IS-7" it was "oh my god resurrect that heavy tank program we canceled years ago and get it ASAP". The IS-3 was that bad. The problem with the IS-4 was just weight, otherwise they were enthused with it. To the point that when the designing of the T-10 was ordered the government demanded IS-3 shape and size but with IS-4 technology. And I would say the result was pretty good.

If my memory service me right, wasn't IS-3 just IS-2 parts in new body and with new turret? Why it would have more problems than IS-2s?

[Collimatrix]

3 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

If my memory service me right, wasn't IS-3 just IS-2 parts in new body and with new turret? Why it would have more problems than IS-2s?

 

As far as I know, yes, the suspension and running gear of IS-2 and IS-3 were basically the same.  However, IS-3 was heavier, so those parts would have been pushed harder.  Also, the pike nose was a bit of a problem.

I have read several sources that say the pike nose welds could fail, but I have also read that this was eventually fixed.  It makes sense though; welding armor steel as thick as the armor on the IS-3 is difficult.  Welding steel that thick without screwing up the microstructure of the steel and compromising the armor protection is even harder.

[Ramlaen]

According to that Red Star White Elephant article, hull flex would break welds and burn out road wheel bearings.

[TokyoMorose]

From my memory, T__A's comments on the IS-3 ring true. They did have serious welding issues, the mechanical systems tended to overheat, and some of the crew positions were ergonomically unacceptable. This is not so much due to any major weight gain, but was rather due to a number of design flaws caused by the extreme haste in which IS-3 was developed and put into production (under a year from the start of development to production starting).

[AndreyKryuchenko]

BTR-82A, top view.

[AndreyKryuchenko]

Tactical ballistic missile system 9K720 "Iskander-M", from above.