And God saw everything that He had created, and, behold, it was very good.
Genesis 1:31
Tanks of alternative history. Of course, history does not know the subjunctive mood. But why not dream a little sometimes? Well, let's say, not to imagine that instead of a completely stupid "Tsar-tank" Russian engineers managed to create their own steam tank, and most importantly - to seduce it with the acting model of the "Tsar-Father" himself ?!
Birth of an idea
The news of the new armored vehicle, created in England, did not go unnoticed in Russia. Analysis of the information received showed that the British "tanks" really surpass all existing land vehicles. Even the Austin-Kegresse half-tracked armored vehicles, the pride of the Russian army, cannot so successfully overcome trenches and craters, and break barbed wire obstacles.
The officers of the General Staff analyzed the options for using such machines and came to the conclusion that the tanks are capable of providing a quick breakthrough of the enemy's first line of defense with minimal losses. According to calculations, it turned out that even a few dozen machines concentrated at the forefront of the main attack would guarantee the success of the operation. According to these calculations, it turned out that the "tank" should have a gun with a caliber of at least three inches, with a high rate of fire and good ballistics, as well as several machine guns. The frontal armor was supposed to withstand a German 75-mm grenade delivered "on strike" from a distance of half a mile, and the side projections - a 105-mm grenade burst at a distance of three sazhens. Due to the frequent defeat of the crews of armored vehicles by spray of lead through the viewing slots, it was decided to use periscopic devices for observation and sights.
From idea to metal
Having estimated this and that, the military decided that 50 copies of "Russian tanks" would be enough to break through the front. For the design and construction, a working group was organized from specialists from the Izhora, Putilov and Kolomna steam locomotive plants, who had extensive experience in creating armored vehicles and armored trains. The money, having chipped off, was given by industrialists and the "bread kings" of the Volga region.
The English Mk I was taken as a basis. True, the Russian Empire did not produce gasoline engines of the required characteristics. However, the Putilovites, using the project of a steam engine for a crew boat, with the help of engineers from the Kolomna steam locomotive plant, turned it into a compact high-speed steam engine with a capacity of 60 l / s. True, his water-tube steam boiler with a kerosene nozzle and forced blast had almost a kilometer of copper pipes. But it warmed up in just 15 minutes, after which it gave out high-temperature steam with a pressure of 12 atm.
It was decided to install two such steam engines and one boiler on the tank. This scheme made it possible to get rid of the gearbox, the turning mechanism and gave the tank the ability to turn in place, letting one track forward and the other back. The boiler was placed in the rear of the machine, and the steam engines were placed in caterpillar tracks, directly next to the drive wheels. The engineers had to tinker a lot with the steam condensers. As a result, they were placed in caterpillar tracks to the left and right of the boiler. To increase efficiency, they were equipped with fans driven by two steam turbines running on waste steam. However, this turned out to be insufficient, and when the boiler was operating at more than 60% of its capacity, the steam did not have time to condense. We solved the problem in a head-on way, placing two tanks for feed water in the front part, with a total volume of about 500 liters, where the residual steam was discharged!
Cannon cart
Many military experts considered the "tank" as a "carriage for machine guns" and suggested equipping it with a whole battery of machine guns. However, the prevailing opinion was that the main weapon of the tank should be cannons. And not two, like the British, but three! Two are sponsored, like on Mk I, and the third is upstairs in a rotating turret! True, the three-inch field gun did not fit because of the long recoil length and the piston lock, which reduced the rate of fire, and the mountain gun had low ballistics, so for the tower they took a shortened Lender anti-aircraft gun with a semi-automatic wedge breechblock, which had both good ballistics and a high rate of fire, and in sponsors supplied 47-mm Hotchkiss cannons taken from old destroyers.
“Shaking? Doesn't shake!"
From England it was reported that the British "tanks" because of the rigid attachment of the road wheels shakes violently on the move. However, due to its complexity, they did not dare to make an elastic suspension on the first Russian serial "tank". They converged on locked bogies, united by balancers, like the undercarriage of heavy portal cranes. Taking into account the design maximum speed on the highway, equal to eight miles per hour, such a chassis was considered quite sufficient.
Russian rhombus
Outwardly, the tanks strongly resembled British ones: the same rhombic tracked contour, the location of the weapons in sponsons, and low speed. The combat weight was kept at the level of 25 tons. The hull was made of armor plates with a thickness of 8, 3-12, 7 mm with additional overlays on the frontal parts, resulting in a total thickness of 33.7 mm. The driver had two periscopes with silvered mirrors. On both sides of it were water tanks. In the fighting compartment, the weapons were placed in two tiers: in the tower at the top and two sponsons at the bottom. An armored door was located on the hull just behind the sponson on the left. A steam boiler with a chimney and the mechanic's place were located behind the fighting compartment, and the mechanic had his own control drives and, if necessary, could take control when reversing. A fuel tank for 110 pounds of kerosene was also installed in the aft part of the hull, and there were also two oil tanks for eight pounds of castor oil each.
An encouraging result
Already at the first tests of the new vehicles it became clear that the "Russian tanks" are easy to operate, maneuverable enough, have a high tactical speed, and at speeds up to 5 versts per hour they make no more noise than a regular car, which allowed the crew to talk tolerably during the battle. … The reserves of fuel and water were enough for 30 versts in a straight line. And the well-thought-out placement of components and assemblies, a spacious fighting compartment and the presence of a suspension provided the crew with much more comfortable living conditions compared to the English "tanks". It was possible not to speak about superiority in armament, as well as about its successful location, which allowed a crew of eight people to easily create a high density of fire in all directions.
Russian tenki start and win
All 50 "tanks" did not have time to prepare for the offensive - only 32, but they considered that there would be enough of them. We agreed to use them simultaneously with the British, and with God's help they launched an offensive in the direction of Lutsk. Artillery preparation lasted from 3 a.m. on June 3 to 9 a.m. on June 5, which had not yet happened in the practice of the Russian army. The forward fortifications built by the Austrians were destroyed, after which "tanks" were thrown into action to break through the second line of defense. Tilting in craters and trenches, they, nevertheless, uncontrollably moved forward, shooting machine-gun nests from guns and crushing the dugouts with caterpillars. The front was broken through 25 versts in depth with minimal losses. Well, their psychological impact turned out to be so great that many Austrian (not to mention Czech and Slovak units) surrendered to a single "tenk", as soon as he approached their positions. True, it turned out that it was possible to deliver fuel to the "tanks" only by carts, however, during the night, both delivery and refueling of the cars were carried out, and in the morning the offensive resumed, and thanks to the presence of three guns, the "tanks" independently suppressed the German batteries put up against them. literally throwing them with a hail of shells.
On June 24, an artillery preparation of the Anglo-French armies began on the Somme River, which lasted seven days, after which on July 1 the Allies launched an offensive. Now the front was broken not only in the south, but also in the west. Austria-Hungary requested an armistice, then Turkey joined it, and thus the powers of the Triple Alliance were defeated! As a result, revolutions never broke out either in Russia, or in Germany, or in Austria-Hungary, although, yes, over time, the laws of economic development inexorably led them all to integrate into a single economic union - the United States of Europe!
