Military glory of Odessa. To date, the exact number of tanks built by the citizens of Odessa is unknown. Many Internet sources refer to the memoirs of N. G. Lutsenko. According to some reports, he was in charge of the project and was "the secretary of the Lenin District Party Committee." However, Lutsenko was never mentioned by Krylov in his memoirs on the defense of Odessa. In any case, he was not in charge of this project. And, according to Krylov, this was done by Kogan and Romanov.
How many were there
There is information that from August 20 to October 15, 55 tanks were made, converted from STZ-5 tractors.
At the same time, there is also such data that by September 14, 31 tanks had been released. But today this figure is also being questioned.
Stephen Zaloga gives two numbers: 69 and 70.
Others suggest that the figure will be closer to 55. Since Odessa did not have enough resources or time to make more "NI" tanks.
According to the Romanian source "Armata Romana 1941-1945" by Cornel I. Skafes, Odessa produced 70-120 "tankettes converted from caterpillar tractors", but here their number is clearly overestimated.
What is known? That three prototypes were made. Another 70 have been ordered. It is possible that the four factories set aside for the production of these Odessa tanks were in fact part of the production chain. And not all of them produced entire tanks.
The tram workshop was probably used to make the towers. At another enterprise, sheets of armor steel were cut. Then there was a third company, where they made internal equipment for "NI". Well, the Yanvarsky Vosstaniya plant was already engaged in the final assembly.
Thus, it may well turn out that the number of tanks produced was really quite small. And the bombing of the tram shop at the end of the siege, by the way, can also be the reason for the appearance of some Odessa tanks without towers.
In total, according to limited combat data, we can talk about about 33-40 tanks "NI". Moreover, only 6-8 of them were photographed. Be that as it may, even such a number of cars assembled in the besieged city speaks of the talent of its defenders and their truly selfless work!
Judging by the photographs, after the evacuation and fall of Odessa on October 16, all the remaining "NI" tanks were either abandoned or destroyed.
According to the Romanian side, the Romanian units that entered the city managed to capture at least two Odessa tanks (14 are mentioned in Wikipedia), but their fate is unknown.
Design
What was the design of the NI tanks? Judging from the photographs, various towers may have been used on them.
For the first modification, the turret of the T-26 M1932 tank, with a DT machine gun (instead of the 37-mm cannon).
It is also known that some "NI" had improvised towers made at Odessa factories. And these were the majority.
But some "NI" tanks had no turrets at all, which is also confirmed by photographs.
The Yanvarsky Vosstaniya plant was the main repair base in Odessa. And, according to reports, tank turrets taken from wrecked or damaged vehicles were brought here.
Most often, "NI" was photographed with a turret from a T-26 M1932, with a ball mount of a DT machine gun instead of a 37-mm cannon.
It is believed that this particular tank was the first in the history of Odessa. Although many of these towers, it is quite possible, were not removed from the damaged vehicles, but were stored here after the modernization of the T-26 in 1935.
It is known that there were about 1,316 T-26 tanks (of various variants) on the Southwestern Front (approximately 35% of all Soviet tanks on this front). In any case, it is unclear how many two-turret T-26s could have been among them. It is reported that there were about 2,037 of them in total (T-26 M1931), but many of them were produced at the Izhora plant in Leningrad from low-quality low-carbon steel. And therefore, they could well fail long before 1941.
In any case, a certain number of "NI" had just such towers, and some were home-made, but there were also completely crazy machines.
Judging by the footage from Roman Karmen's 1965 documentary "The Great Patriotic War", at least one Odessa tank had a turret from a T-37A or T-38. Due to their small size, there is no reason to believe that there could be no "NI" with a T-37A / T-38 turret.
On the other hand, if we take the lowest number of "NI" equal to 55, then it turns out that in any case, most of these tanks should have had homemade turrets, since where could you get so many turrets from destroyed tanks?
The existence of improvised turrets is also based on the conclusion of Zalog, Krylov and at least two well-known photographs that recorded the presence of such an improvised tower.
There are also three photographs of the NI tanks (all taken after the capture of Odessa) without turrets. The first one without a turret, perhaps - maybe the same tank without a turret, which was seen at the entrance to the port. There are two possible explanations for this, but both are based on pure assumptions. First, that the towers were shot down during the battle. Secondly, that they initially did not have towers, and they went into battle only with a machine gun in the hull. Both of these explanations are plausible. Although it is known that the tram shop was bombed, and there was a lathe that was used to make the towers.
Armament
The weapons on the "NI" were very different: two DT machine guns, a 37-mm cannon, Maxim machine guns, DShK, even a trench flamethrower. In any case, there has always been a variant with a hull diesel fuel. In various sources there is written evidence that the "NI" could have a 37-mm cannon. Candidates for the 37mm cannon are the PS-1, the M1930 1K and the M1915 trench gun.
Only a few T-26s had a 37-mm PS-1 cannon, and in 1933, a three-man turret with a 45-mm cannon (the most common version of the T-26) was already put into production, which put an end to the short life path of the 37-mm cannon. variant of this tank.
There is no photographic evidence that NI ever had a 37mm M1932 turret cannon. But there are reports that a 37-mm mountain gun was installed on the third prototype of the NI tank. There are at least two candidates for this weapon. The first is the M1930 1k cannon, which is known to have been in service during World War II, although probably in small numbers. The second candidate is mentioned in "Soviet tanks and combat vehicles of the Second World War," where S. Zaloga suggests that the 37-mm gun used was a 15R model mountain gun. Although it is also possible that he was referring to the 37mm M1915 trench gun, which was compact enough to fit in a small armored turret. So the fact that the 37-mm gun was installed in the makeshift turret is not a mistake, although it still remains unknown what kind of 37-mm gun it was.
But there is no photographic evidence of a 45mm gun mounted on the NI. Claims about the 45mm gun are widespread on the internet. Perhaps this is due to the fact that people simply confuse the KhTZ-16 (which was another makeshift tank) and "NI". However, how do you fit such a weapon into a makeshift turret? So most likely those who write about this are simply wishful thinking.
Krylov, in his memoirs, speaks of trench flamethrowers made from carbonated water cylinders. But he does not claim that they were also used on NI tanks. Of course, if they were installed on these tanks, they would become an ideal psychological weapon. It is possible that the idea of using trench flamethrowers on the "NI" came from the film "The Feat of Odessa, the second series" in 1986, which seems to depict an Odessa tank firing from a flamethrower (although it is also likely that the film simply shows the flash of a shot from its guns).
The document "Report on the Defense of Odessa" contains the following phrase:
“In mid-August, the factory of the January Uprising and the October Revolution organized the production of tanks and armored vehicles (made) of tractors and trucks. Installed 45-mm cannon and two Maxim machine guns."
But again, there are no photographs to confirm the presence of such weapons.
Krylov does not talk about the DShK, and also about the ShVAK cannon (12, 7-mm and 20-mm). It is possible that they could fit in a single tower, but there are no reliable sources to suggest that such weapons ever took place.
Armor
As for the armor, it was completely improvised on the NI tanks. Thin naval armor steel was supplied from shipyards and from the naval base.
The armor consisted of several layers of wood and rubber sandwiched between its sheets. The total thickness was approximately 10-20 mm. Factory tests have shown that such armor can withstand bullets and shrapnel, but does not protect against artillery shells.
From the inside, the superstructure was supported by wooden beams. There were two compartments - the engine in the front and the fighting compartment in the back, the driver sat in the middle to the right. The second shooter could sit on the left side of the car in a compartment similar to the driver's cabin, from where he could fire from a machine gun.
How effective the NI tanks were in battle can be judged on the basis of (Ion's) Antonescu's order from the 4th Army, which said:
“I demand all moral fortitude and energy … Are you afraid of tanks? Our entire (front) ran 4-5 km only when 4-5 tanks appeared. Shame on such an army."
In fact, Krylov's account confirms this message:
“After the first battle, the tanks thundered through the city streets again and returned to the factory for inspection. As verified, (shrapnel) and bullets only crumpled them. A 45-mm shell hitting one of the tanks pierced the multi-layer armor, and fortunately, neither the crew nor the engine was damaged. In general, the tanks have been tested."
Other sources commenting on this battle agree that the success of the NI tanks was based on the psychological effect of surprise. After all, the tanks, without artillery support, moved into the Romanian trenches. However, the Romanians could well have retreated also because they did not have effective anti-tank weapons, and they did not expect to see tanks in this sector.
At some point between August 30 and September 2, several NI tanks were handed over to Major General Vorobyov. Krylov recalls:
“Coming back from the 95th division, I thought about the people I met there, in particular about Vorobyov. It was not easy for him. Much had to be done differently than he saw it from his academic department or at the staff games. … The war taught him to pay attention to everything that could strengthen our attacks on the enemy. One could imagine his reaction to tractors covered with sheets of iron if they were shown to him in peacetime. But now he was happy that his division had received several of these vehicles, and continued to ask for more, convinced that the Nazis were afraid even of such tanks."
By September, all conventional tanks in Odessa had been overhauled, and the rest were NI tanks. Krylov even states:
"Wherever there were several tanks, people confidently went to the counterattack."
Krylov also recalls:
“On that day, the tankers especially distinguished themselves. The battalion of senior lieutenant N. I. Yudin, consisting mainly of armored tractors, actually acted independently, because the infantry could not keep up with him. Crushing the enemies with caterpillars and mowing them down with fire, the groups of tanks reached N of the item. Lenintal.
Later, Yudin reported that his battalion had killed about 1,000 enemy soldiers. Even if this figure was not very accurate, there can be no doubt that on October 2, the "NI" tanks inflicted the greatest losses on the enemy since their first entry into battle.
Seeing that the infantry could not catch up with them, the tanks turned back. But they did not return empty-handed.
It turns out that the tankers sent their vehicles directly to the positions of the enemy artillery, smashing the gun crews. (Note that none of the Romanian soldiers rushed under the tanks with grenades, like our people, naturally). Therefore, the undamaged guns were then attached to armored tractors and delivered to Odessa. In total, the tankers brought with them 24 guns of various calibers and the same number of mortars and machine guns, since they were able to attach them to their vehicles and cannons.
But the tank battalion also suffered losses. Six or seven NIs were damaged by artillery fire or stopped due to technical malfunctions. But most of their crews were rescued by tankers from other vehicles. Although the battalion commissar, senior political instructor Mozolevsky, has gone missing.
