There were many original ideas in the history of domestic tank building. Some of them were embodied in full-fledged projects that reached large-scale serial production, and some remained at the level of the original idea. At the same time, some technical proposals applied by Soviet designers and the military did not find application in foreign designs. In the same way, a number of foreign developments did not interest our engineers and tankers. One example of the latter has recently become public knowledge. The news agency "Vestnik Mordovii" a few days ago published a small note about some unknown technical proposal, which theoretically could change the appearance of all subsequent tanks of the Soviet Union and Russia.
Unfortunately, very little is known about this proposal-project, called in the article "conning tank". In fact, all information about him is limited to a few lines of text (moreover, of the most general nature) and only one drawing with an axonometric image of a hypothetical tank. In addition, there is no information about the authors of the technical proposal. For these reasons, most of the information that can be reconstructed from the figure and other data is likely to have a rather indirect relationship to the actual appearance of the proposal. But nevertheless, we will consider all the available data and try to understand what this "conning tower" was and why it remained in the figure.
The history of the "conning tower" most likely began in the late sixties of the last century, when the Soviet military and tank builders learned about the Swedish Strv.103 tank. The main feature of this overseas project was the placement of weapons. A 105 mm rifled gun with a barrel length of 62 caliber was rigidly attached to the hull of the tank. Guidance was carried out by turning (in the horizontal plane) and tilting (in the vertical) of the body. For a vertical tilt of the entire structure, the tank had a specially designed suspension. Probably, the Soviet commanders were interested in such a scheme and they demanded that the engineers consider it for efficiency and prospects. However, other prerequisites for the emergence of the "conning tower" project are also possible: the Soviet military and tank builders could well have come up with the idea of a reckless tank with powerful weapons, independently of the Swedes.
Regardless of its "origin", the Soviet version of the tank with a wheelhouse instead of a turret turned out to be both similar and different from the Swedish Strv.103. The main point in common is the approximate layout. In front of the "conning tower" it was supposed to place the engine, transmission and control compartment. Judging by the figure, the engine should have been located to the right of the vehicle axis. The transmission units transmitted torque to the drive wheels located in the front of the body. For Soviet heavy armored vehicles of that time, this was an unusual decision. Most likely, the layout with the front side power-transmission compartment was also supposed to contribute to an increase in the level of protection. In any case, in modern projects with a front MTO location, a fairly powerful frontal projection booking is usually provided. It is quite possible that the "conning tower", having a combat weight of about forty tons, could withstand hits from cumulative and sub-caliber shells. However, such details of the project are not known to us.
From the only figure it follows that the chassis of the "conning tower" had four road wheels per side, driving and steering wheels. It should be noted that a small number of road wheels has a direct effect on the area of the supporting surface and, as a result, on the specific pressure of the machine on the ground. Since there is no exact data on the geometric dimensions of the tracked propeller, four road wheels per side can be recognized as a temporary solution or a preliminary version of the layout of the undercarriage of a new tank. In this context, it will be useful to recall the degree of elaboration of the "conning tower": in fact, the drawing is one of the earliest ideas.
Apparently, the crew of the new tank was supposed to consist of three people, as evidenced by the hatches in the roof of the hull. Two of them are on the left side of it (the driver and, possibly, the commander), the third (gunner or commander) is on the right, between the MTO and the fighting compartment. From this arrangement of the crew's workplaces, it follows that the new tank was supposed to be equipped with an uninhabited fighting compartment with appropriate automation. According to Vestnik Mordovii, the "conning tower" project implied the presence of an automatic loader for at least 40 shells. The main armament of the armored vehicle was to be a 130 mm long-barreled tank gun. At the end of the sixties, the power of such a weapon would be sufficient to destroy almost all tanks in the world.
The gun guidance system is interesting. Like self-propelled artillery mounts, in the horizontal plane, the gun had to be guided by turning the entire machine. Perhaps a fine aiming was planned using the suspension systems of the gun. Unlike the Swedish Strv.103, the Soviet "conning tower" had a simpler vertical guidance system, which, among other things, made it possible to increase the elevation and descent angles. To raise or lower the barrel, Soviet designers proposed not a complex suspension system, but a simple and familiar swinging suspension of the gun, as on other cannon armored vehicles. There is information about the rigid connection of the gun and the automatic loader. This approach, in theory, allows you to increase the maximum rate of fire due to the absence of the need to move the barrel to a horizontal position after each shot. The automatic loader associated with the cannon and its container for ammunition, swinging with it, slightly complicate the design, but simplify the process of sending the projectile and cartridge case.
In general, the "conning tower" looks more like a self-propelled gun mount, adapted to combat mobile armored targets. Nevertheless, this project, even at the level of the name, was called a tank. Let's try to figure out why the Soviet "conning tower" not only was not embodied in metal, but also did not reach the stage of a full-fledged project. Let's start with the benefits. The reckless layout of the tank has only three notable advantages. This is a low structure height and, as a consequence, a lower probability of being hit by the enemy; the possibility of installing serious protection of the frontal plane and certain prospects for improving weapons: for a stationary wheelhouse, the power of the gun is not as critical as for the turret turning mechanisms. As for the negative features of the "conning tower" design, here economic efficiency is in the first place. The launch of production of such a new and daring product for our tank industry would cost a very, very round sum. Moreover, due to the main features of the operation of the "conning tower", it would be necessary to significantly adjust all the standards and documents governing the combat use of armored vehicles. Breakdown of any of the units of an uninhabited fighting compartment could lead to a complete loss of combat effectiveness. Finally, "self-propelled" guidance hits very hard on the speed of the gun's turn and on the combat potential. For an armored vehicle, which mainly fires with direct fire, such a feature of weapons would be critical. Obviously, all these disadvantages were considered too serious to close our eyes to them and rely on the existing advantages. As a result, as everyone knows, and after a few decades, our tank forces have exclusively turret tanks, and the "conning tower" project has remained on paper in the form of initial technical sketches.
