About tanks with love. The readers of VO liked the first material of the new cycle about tanks, and they expressed many wishes that it would be continued, and as soon as possible. Here, however, not only everything depends on me, but also on the wonderful artist A. Sheps, but fortunately both he and I have enough materials for our "freak show". You just have to choose … But this is where the problem arises: from what principle should we proceed? Take beautifully drawn serial tanks? Armored curiosities? "Terrible monsters" or, on the contrary, go through countries and continents, as it was, for example, in the cycle about rifles by the firm "Mauser" ("About Mauser with love")? Let's do this: today we will consider the heaviest tanks that have ever been created, both in metal and in blueprints. Again, we will not be able to consider all of them - there simply will not be enough volume, and not all of them have been drawn. But there is something, and today we are going to consider them. And believe me, this will indeed be a real "goblin sanctuary".
Well, we will start with the tanks of Germany, which appeared during the First World War in opposition to British vehicles. Moreover, everyone knows that the tactical and technical specifications for any new type of weapons are issued to engineers by the military. What they want, they order. Only occasionally do engineers manage to show initiative in this matter. And even less often this initiative is approved by the superiors in uniform. And here, in relation to the development of tanks in Germany, the question immediately arises: why did the Germans need them at all?
With the British, everything is simple. Their military needed a "machine gun destroyer" and a barbed wire breaker. Hence the high caterpillar rim, armament in sponsons, low speed. But why did the Germans need a tank? To crush the wire? Its design did not allow it! Destroy British tanks? But then why was the cannon placed in the very nose? Indeed, with such a placement, any, even the smallest turn of the tank's hull led to the fact that the gunner from the gun lost the target. And again … the 57-mm Nordenfeld cannon with a cut-off barrel is not serious. Well, a lot of machine guns - to mow down the British. So, because of its insignificant cross-country ability, the A7V could not do this successfully either. But he represented a good target for the enemy gunners.
There was a project to install a very good German 77-mm infantry gun on this tank instead of a 57-mm cannon. The barrel was shortened, but he did not need a long barrel. But it could fire all kinds of army grenades and shrapnel, so this tank would have no problems with ammunition. Moreover, any English tank could be destroyed by the very first hit of this cannon's shell. And it could be a high-explosive projectile, and even shrapnel, put "on strike." But the army categorically refused to give these guns to the needs of the tankers, so the useless 57-mm fortress (caponier) guns fell on German tanks.
Let's move now to the beginning of the 30s. IN USSR. And let's look at this top secret (at one time) development of the T-39 tank. It is made in the form of a reduced wooden model. This is where the imagination of the designers was played out in earnest: the first option (1) - four turrets, four cannons, two 107-mm and two 45-mm, and four more caterpillar belts; the second option (2) - four turrets, three 45-mm cannons, one 152-mm howitzer and one flamethrower; the third version (3) is similar to the second, but a 152-mm cannon mod. 1910/1930There was also an option in which two 107-mm guns were installed in the rear large turret at once! The tank came out even according to the first estimates so expensive (three million rubles) that they decided to abandon it in favor of a larger number of cheaper tanks. For example, this money could buy nine BT-5s! The weight of the monster reached 90 tons, the armor had to be 50-75 mm thick.
But now in our "reserve" we have come to the true "goblins" - German experimental tanks of the end of the war. In general, they were strange, these Germans. As if grabbed by a sack from around the corner. There is no other way to explain this: there is a total war, the Russians and allies are throwing real tank armada against the Wehrmacht, and instead of opposing their armadas with their armada, that is, riveting them day and night with the forces of everyone who can be strained, they created a mass prototypes, spent working time, raw materials, money on them, forced draftsmen to draw, and joiners to make their wooden models … But it was necessary to improve only what was required, and use it as quickly as possible, and throw all the energy into it! And they? So they lost, moreover, back in 1939, when they produced 200 tanks a month, and the USSR - 2000. And they themselves came out in 2000 only by 1944, so it is not surprising that they were gouged like a tortoise god.
Although no one argues: they came up with very good tanks by the end of the war. This is especially true of the "E" series - a series of tanks and self-propelled guns developed by several cooperating little-known enterprises. Their weight was supposed to be from 10 to 70 tons with the most advanced weapons.
Interesting developments, including in metal, were created by our Soviet designers. For example, for a long time they had a strange dream to unify our heavy and medium tanks, that is, to make a kind of hybrid out of them. And they even created it - KV-13, but only it turned out to be unsuccessful. There was an attempt to put the IS-1 tank on a five-roll chassis from the T-34. The book of the Kirov plant "Without secrets and secrets" tells about all these developments in a very interesting way. In the end, however, they led nowhere. Heavy tanks remained heavy, while medium tanks remained medium!
Well, at the end of the day - the IF tank (the If tank), the shortened and "crazy" Kirov SMK. Everyone knows, everyone remembers and, on occasion, cites how Zh. Ya. Kotin presented to Stalin a model of the SMK tank, on which there were three towers, which corresponded to the task, but they were made filming. And so Stalin took off the rear turret, asked how much he took off, and suggested using this weight to strengthen the armor. And this is exactly what Kotin wanted, and so he "played" Stalin. But why then did Stalin remove only one tower? Why not two? Couldn't dare to take too radical a step? And Kotin managed to do it all the same. He also took off the second turret, and that's how the KV tank turned out! This is the legend. But how was it really? And most importantly, what could have happened if Stalin had removed not one, but two towers, and at the same time ordered to shorten the QMS, which is quite logical. As a result, such a tank could have turned out, and not bad at all!
Today our visit to our "tank freak show" is over. But there will be new ones ahead!
