The development of the last promising Soviet tank "Boxer" has always been of interest to many, since in Soviet times this work was seriously classified. Little is known about her. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, everything remained in Ukraine. The groundwork for the tank was not passed on anywhere, while there are many legends and speculations about its continuation, the joint work of Russia and Ukraine on this project, the creation of the Hammer tank and the even more mythical Nota tank.
The project of the "Boxer" tank was developed in Kharkov. I was one of the project leaders from the beginning of the tank concept in 1979 until the work was stopped in the early 1990s. Considering that after more than thirty years this work continues to arouse genuine interest, I decided to tell you about the stages of development, the layout of the tank, the main technical characteristics, about its advantages, disadvantages and reasons for the termination of work.
The work was carried out in several stages: in 1979-1982, there was a search work on the concept of a promising tank, in 1983-1985 - research work "Rebel", development of proposals for a new generation tank, in 1986-1991 - development work " Boxer "(object 477), development, manufacture and testing of prototypes of the tank.
Work on this tank began as an initiative search development of the concept of a promising next-generation tank and was not asked for any documents; the T-34 and T-64 were also created in Kharkov, which became the basis for their generations of tanks.
Search work subsequently, in 1980, by order of the ministry received the code "Topol", R&D "Rebel" in 1983 was set by the decision of the military-industrial complex, and the ROC "Boxer" in 1986 - by the decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
In the process of performing the design and development work, the layout of the tank was repeatedly changed, and the documentation began to bear the index "object 477A". In the late 80s, in one of the organizations, the subcontractors lost a top secret minutes of a meeting in the ministry in which I took part (apparently, the document was accidentally or deliberately destroyed). As a result, the development code had to be changed, and the tank became known as the Hammer. This work did not have any other ciphers and indexes, object 477A1, "Nota" - these are all speculations that have nothing to do with this tank.
There are many legends about this tank on the Internet. Some argue that due to an unsuccessful project, it was closed, others - on the contrary, that in the 90s this work was continued, up to a dozen tanks were manufactured in different cities, tests were carried out, there were joint works between Russia and Ukraine, and in Ukraine it was developed tank "Nota". All this is speculation, nothing of the kind happened, I worked at the design bureau until 1996, and as one of the project leaders, I knew everything that was being done about this tank.
In fact, this tank was attracted too close attention of the leadership of the defense industry and the military. Over the years of the development of the tank, the state of work and its characteristics were repeatedly considered at scientific and technical councils of various levels, collegia of ministries, at meetings of the military-industrial complex, the Military-Technical Council of the Ministry of Defense was held specifically for this tank.
With all the problems that arose during the development and missed deadlines, the project was not only not going to be closed, on the contrary, without starting serious tests, in 1989 it was ordered to start preparing the production of an initial batch of fifty tanks.
Secretaries of the Central Committee, ministers, leaders of the military-industrial complex, high-ranking military personnel up to the ministers of defense Sokolov and Yazov came to Kharkov to review the state of work and samples of the tank. I repeatedly had to report to these commissions on the state of work on the tank control complex, and I saw what interest and importance they attached to this development.
Dozens of organizations of various ministries and departments were involved in the work on the tank to develop new weapons, ammunition, materials, electronics, communications and navigation equipment, instrument complexes, and complex cooperation was organized throughout the country. Unfortunately, the development of the tank took place during the "perestroika" period. Glaring irresponsibility at all levels did not allow the completion of the work.
At the stage of R&D "Rebel" to test technical solutions, a full-scale wooden mock-up and a chassis mock-up of the tank were made. At the stage of the "Boxer" design and development work, two prototypes were made and tested, the assembly of the third sample, which fundamentally differed in layout and ammunition, had not been completed by the time the work was terminated.
No other mock-ups and tanks at KMDB and at allied companies, including at VNIITransmash, were not manufactured and were not transferred anywhere. The photographs and drawings of the “Boxer” tank models presented on the Internet, for some reason based on the T-64 chassis, have nothing to do with this tank. The work on the tank was seriously classified, the samples were never photographed, only under the "SS" stamp for senior management, therefore there are no reliable photographs.
I managed to find on the Internet only one not entirely successful photo of this tank (the gun is turned back), which, apparently, was taken much later years later at the KMDB training ground in Bashkirovka, where this tank was under a canopy. The tank has recognizable features, a high hull, a small angle of inclination of the front armor plate and an armored "canister" above the turret, which covers the semi-extended gun.
Photo of the tank "Boxer"
Joint work between Russia and Ukraine was out of the question, they became competitors, and Ukraine categorically refused to transfer the groundwork for this tank. In addition, in 1996-1998, the KMDB was implementing a Pakistani contract for the supply of T-80UD, and there was no time for promising tanks. Perhaps in the early 2000s, on the basis of the groundwork for the "Boxer" tank, studies were carried out on the so-called "Nota" tank, but these are nothing more than drafts on paper with the impossibility of realizing them due to the lack of the necessary cooperation of subcontractors.
The widespread opinion that the development of a promising tank was also assigned to Nizhny Tagil and Leningrad does not correspond to reality. Out of three tank design bureaus, work on this tank was carried out only in Kharkov, in Leningrad they tried to promote the T-80U, and Nizhny Tagil somehow completely dropped out of all promising works.
For all the years of the development of the tank, I do not remember a single case when on any issues we were in contact with Leningrad and Nizhny Tagil. At the beginning of the ROC "Boxer" they presented their versions of promising tanks at the Ministry's NTS, but these were projects for the further development of the T-80 and T-72, which did not in any way meet the specified requirements. The leaders of the ministry and the military did not even consider them seriously.
Search work in these design bureaus, of course, was carried out, but without the involvement of the developers of weapons, ammunition and other components, they could not lead to success. Attempts were repeatedly made to justify the participation of these design bureaus in the development of a promising tank by the parallel carrying out of their work on the topics of "Improvement". Such work was really carried out, but they had nothing to do with the development of a promising tank, since it was a cycle of work to improve the efficiency of the existing generation of tanks.
Tank layout
At the stage of developing the concept of the tank, up to two dozen different layouts of the tank were considered. At first, the VNIITM options were considered, but nothing acceptable was found there. The developed layout options were considered and discussed at meetings of scientific and technical councils with the invitation of specialists from VNIITM, GBTU, GRAU and Kubinka.
After detailed studies, two variants of the tank emerged: with crews of two and three people and a 125 mm cannon. The first option was a continuation of work on the "Swan" (object 490), which in the early 70s one of the creators of the T-34 AA Morozov was looking for a new generation tank concept, and now it was continued by his son, Evgeny Morozov.
The crew of two people was housed in the turret, traffic control was carried out through a television system on the hull of the tank. The main ammunition load was located in the tank hull in the compartment between the fighting compartment and the MTO, consumable in the turret aft niche. The main and consumable ammunition was isolated from the crew by armored partitions and "knockout plates" triggered when the ammunition detonated.
The second option was with a crew of three, the driver in the hull to the left of the cannon, the commander and the gunner were located next to each other in the tower under the semi-extended cannon. There was one hatch in the tower on the left, the ammunition load was located to the right of the cannon. In this version, the commander and gunner were in the turret below the roof of the hull and were well protected. When switching to a 130 mm gun caliber, it was not possible to place the ammunition in the allocated volume, and there was not enough volume to accommodate the equipment. The layout was changed in 1983, the gunner and commander were placed on the left, one above the other, the entire volume on the right was given over to ammunition.
Variants of isolating the crew from ammunition or creating an armored capsule, as well as the use of "ejection plates" at the beginning of development were considered, but they led to a failure to fulfill other characteristics of the tank, and in the end it was abandoned. When considering these options, the question arose whether it was possible to save the crew during the detonation of ammunition, when the tank turns into a pile of metal, which has not yet been proven.
In choosing the option of a crew of two or three people, the fundamental issue was the workload of the crew members when performing the tasks assigned to them. In the study of this issue, it was proved that the combination of the functions of searching for targets and firing by one crew member is impossible. It also turned out to be impossible to assign the control functions of own and subordinate tanks to the gunner or driver, these functions were by their nature incompatible. After repeated consideration of this issue at the councils of chief designers and in the NTK GBTU in 1982, it was decided to develop a tank with a crew of three.
In this layout, serious questions arose with a semi-extended gun, which was located in a box on the roof of the tower. When loading the cannon, it descended into the tower, which led to everything that was on the tank hitting the tower: water, mud, branches. As a result, I had to book a cannon, so a "pencil case" appeared on the tower. This configuration of the tank required a large periscope of the gunner's sight and especially the commander's panorama, the field of view of which was blocked by the protection of the gun.
With the further development of the concept of the tank in 1984, it was decided to install a more powerful 152 mm cannon without reducing the ammunition in the automated ammunition rack. With the adopted layout, this was impossible to implement.
The layout of the tank was changed, the main ammunition was placed in the armored compartment in the hull between the fighting compartment and the MTO, and the consumable in the recess of the turret stern. A commander's hatch appeared on the turret, the placement of the crew in the turret was changed, the gunner was to the left of the cannon, and the commander was to the right.
With this arrangement of the machine, development work began and prototypes were made. In the process of fine-tuning and testing the tanks, serious shortcomings of the automatic loader were revealed, the customer set stricter requirements for ammunition, which again led to the re-arrangement of the tank.
On the basis of unitary ammunition, a new design of a drum-type automatic loader was adopted with the placement of the main ammunition in the hull and the consumable in the turret. This version of the layout of the tank on prototypes was never implemented due to the cessation of work, and the drum-type automatic loader was tested only at the stand.
In the process of performing the work, the layout of the tank was repeatedly changed both for the additional requirements of the customer, and due to the impossibility of implementing the adopted technical solutions. How much it meets today's requirements, it is difficult to say, at least then it was ensured that the specified requirements for separation from the existing generation of tanks and their means of destruction were ensured.
