In the interests of the military medical service
As you know, in the Soviet Union, all car factories were involved in one way or another in the defense order. The subcompact class was no exception. The pioneers in this direction were engineers from the Moscow Small Car Plant (MZMA), who in the early 1950s developed a transporter based on the 26-horsepower Moskvich-401/420. It was a front-engined vehicle with flat outer panels and a body designed for a pair of stretchers with the wounded. The canvas top covered, if necessary, only passengers, and the driver was open to all winds and precipitation. It was here that the slightly utopian concept of escape from small arms fire first appeared, when the driver jumps off on the move and controls the car by crawling. For this, the steering column was previously reclined to the left to the side. Apparently, the engineers did not think about what to do to the soldier when the fire is fired from the left. In 1958, MZMA had a new version of the leading edge transporter, developed on the basis of a promising family of military off-road vehicles of a wagon layout. Neither the unnamed Moscow TPK with the knots of the experimental Moskvich-415 jeep, nor the family of cabover SUVs eventually entered the series. The Ministry of Defense was not satisfied with the relatively high height of the vehicle, its dimensions and the discrepancy between the parameters of stealth on the battlefield.
It must be said separately that the development of such machines was not exclusively an initiative of the Soviet Army. In the United States, the self-propelled M274 trolley with a 15-horsepower engine and a reclining steering column had already been created by that time, and in Austria in 1959 a larger Steyr Haflinger was put into operation. However, this technique cannot even be called the prototypes of Soviet transporters, primarily due to the fact that domestic vehicles could swim and had a much smaller profile.
After the unsuccessful experiments of the MZMA in the development of military equipment, the order for the development of the TPK was transferred to the Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Institute of NAMI in the laboratory of passenger cars of the famous designer Yuri Aronovich Dolmatovsky. The engine was supposed to be supplied with a 23-horsepower M-72 from the Irbit Motorcycle Plant, and the body was supposed to accommodate a couple of stretchers with wounded or six seated fighters. But Dolmatovsky, one of the most original domestic engineers, obviously played too much and presented the military with something different from what they asked for: the funny "Belka" NAMI A50.
She did not have all-wheel drive, the engine was located in the back, and it was impossible to talk about any combat prospects of the vehicle. As a result, the TPK project was given to Boris Mikhailovich Fitterman, the Stalin Prize laureate, the former chief designer of the ZIS, a design engineer who had just left the Vorkuta camp.
Under his leadership, in 1957, NAMI-032G ("off-road utility vehicle for use in rural areas") appeared. Fitterman categorically rejected the idea of Dolmatovsky with a rear-mounted engine: he rightly decided that this would seriously impair the vehicle's passability. With a loaded TPK, the weight will shift back, the front wheels will remain underloaded and lose traction. In addition, the heavy sirloin of the car afloat will cause a serious trim aft. For the novelty, the chief designer chose a progressive independent suspension of all wheels with plate torsion bars as elastic elements, which were borrowed from the SZA wheelchair for a wheelchair.
Air cooled engine with a capacity of 21 hp. with. and a working volume of 0.764 liters for NAMI-032G was developed at the Irbit Motor Plant. Most of the experimental work on the program until 1957 was also going on in Irbit. Realizing that the car still carries experimental status, Fitterman did not equip it with a roof or doors. It was a kind of boat with wheels, capable of developing afloat up to 4.5 km / h. But NAMI-032G was actually the first domestic front-wheel drive car - the rear-wheel drive was connected forcibly. This car by Fitterman had no military appearance at all, the car looked more like a frivolous walking beach jeep. The truly first military TPK (and secret, of course) was the NAMI-032M with a low-sided displacement body, an inclined steering column located on top of the hood, and characteristic steel bridges attached to the sides. With the help of these ramps or ramps, a miniature SUV with not the greatest angles of entry and exit overcame deep pits and ravines. Since the car was primarily intended for the needs of military doctors, a capstan winch was placed in the front of the body on a belt drive from an engine to evacuate the wounded from the battlefield. To do this, the orderly neatly shifted the soldier to a drag boat, hooked him to a 100-meter cable and pulled the evacuee to the car.
The driver was located in the center of the body and no longer had the opportunity to jump off and crawl in the event of enemy fire hit: by that time, an understanding of the absurdity of this idea had come. When there was a danger of shelling, the soldier simply lay down between the stretcher (having previously thrown back the seat and steering column) and, hoping for good luck, left under the fire in a car.
NAMI-032M had an impressive 262 mm ground clearance for a small car, which was provided, among other things, by wheel reducers with a gear ratio of 1, 39. The maximum carrying capacity of NAMI-032M with a curb weight of 650 kilograms was limited to half a ton, but at the same time it was possible to tow a trailer similar mass.
The first tests in the presence of the military showed that constructively the NAMI-032M should still be thoroughly refined. In the memoirs of the testers, there are the following lines:
“The leading edge transporter went through the snow, but then ran into something and skidded. The chief designer stamped his feet in a rage. He was hysterical. The people rushed to the stuck car and pulled it back, after which the call was repeated again. And trouble must happen - the car again ran into some kind of obstacle and stopped in the snow. The marshals waved their hands, got into their cars and drove away …"
TPK goes to Zaporozhye
NAMI-032M did not show itself very well not only on virgin snow, but also on the water surface - as it turned out, the amphibian could confidently swim only in absolutely calm weather. Even a small ripple on the water was a problem for the TPK, and in such a situation it could well be at the bottom. This was largely a consequence of the heavy weight of the car - the military ordered no more than 550 kilograms in running order. The tests also showed the low reliability of most of the TPK units, which in this case cannot be called a critical drawback: the machine was still fundamentally new in design. For example, a low-power low-torque motor had to be constantly cranked up to its maximum speed, which reduced its resource, and also revealed problems with the lubrication and cooling system. There were also constructive miscalculations. So, the independent suspension was supposed to provide better cross-country ability, but its rigidity was excessive, which provoked earlier hanging of the wheels on bumps. Further, the military was not satisfied with the lack of protection of the crew from precipitation - it was required to build a canvas top and a windshield, protecting from branches in the forest. There was not enough NAMI-032M and motor power. True, at this time, at the Melitopol Motor Plant, they began to prepare for production a four-cylinder V-shaped air-cooled engine, which was planned for a promising TPK.
Be that as it may, the results of the test were rather positive for both the Ministry of Defense and the developers - the general concept of a completely new amphibian was approved.
After improvements in 1961, the third generation of the transporter appeared, which received the name NAMI-032C. The letter "C" in this case meant "fiberglass" - it was Fitterman's desire to reduce the weight of the amphibian. The general layout of the car was unchanged, but the steering shaft was now horizontally located above the high hood, and for moving on the snow, the chief designer suggested replacing the wheels with skis. This was a reaction to the above-described failure of NAMI-032M on virgin snow. But even with such modifications, the car did not satisfy the military. Fitterman stubbornly did not install the windshield and tarpaulin roof on the TPK, and the fiberglass body was not strong enough, although it was much lighter.
The result of many years of work by engineers from Irbit and NAMI has become a clearly developed concept of a floating front-line transporter, designed to evacuate wounded soldiers, as well as deliver weapons and ammunition to combat units. The idea, which has no direct analogues in the world, was further developed at the Kommunar automobile plant in Zaporozhye, the ancestor of the legendary series of Soviet small cars Zaporozhets. First of all, a MeMZ-967 with a capacity of 22 liters was installed under the hood. with., and also deprived of headlights in the front of the body. Now, according to the idea, the road was illuminated by one headlight located at the driver's side, which did not need to be sealed. High cross-country ability was provided by an advanced transmission, devoid of cardan joints between the gearbox of the front and the rear differential. The fact is that the gearbox was rigidly connected to the rear axle gearboxes by a pipe in which the drive shaft was located. And the swinging of the semi-axles (the suspension, as we remember, was independent) was carried out by sliding crackers on the side of the differential and cardan joints on the side of the wheel gears. The Zaporozhye TPK prototype was named ZAZ-967 and in 1965 it prepared for difficult state tests.
