The history of Soviet tank building includes complex and ambiguous processes with ups and downs. One of these pages is a very difficult history of the development and formation of the T-64 tank and the creation of the T-72 and T-80 tanks on its basis. There are a lot of speculations, opportunistic statements and distortions of facts and circumstances around this.
At that stage, a truly revolutionary tank was born, which determined the development of Soviet tank building for decades to come. Historical justice requires an objective consideration of the process of creating these tanks. Moreover, when out of three competing design bureaus in Russia there is only one left, objectivity is sometimes sacrificed for the sake of the conjuncture.
The history of the creation of these tanks covers a huge period in the Soviet tank building, it's scary to think - more than 50 years! From the approval of tactical and technical requirements in 1955 to the beginning of the development of the Armata tank. A whole era, through which thousands of designers, scientists, military, government and political figures of different levels have passed.
I had to be a participant in these events in the period from 1972 to 1996 and went through the path in the KMDB from a young specialist to one of the project leaders of the last Soviet tank "Boxer". Something passed through me directly, I learned something from my colleagues, from the stories and memoirs of designers, ministerial officials and the military, with whom I worked for almost a quarter of a century. And something I learned decades later from my memoirs.
The history of these tanks cannot be viewed in isolation from their developers and the struggle of different schools of tank building, where there was both fair competition and lobbying and the use of levers of power structures. Be that as it may, tanks were born, and people in each design bureau fought and defended not their personal interests, but ideas and concepts of tanks and sought to implement them.
When evaluating tanks, it is necessary to take into account the requirements of that time, and not look from the position of today. Moreover, not to consider as the ultimate truth the assessment of specialists such as Kartsev or Kostenko, which is far from always objective and taken out of context, but to objectively consider all the processes of creating these tanks, their advantages and disadvantages.
Soviet tank building originated in Leningrad. The first school of tank building appeared there before the war, at the Leningrad Kirovsky plant (LKZ). Then a second school was formed in Kharkov, in the Kharkov Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering (KMDB) and after the war - a third, at the Ural Carriage Works (UVZ). For simplicity of presentation, these names are retained below.
In Leningrad, they started with the T-26 light tank, then relied on the T-35 heavy tanks, the KV and IS series, and finished with the T-10 heavy tank. First, a line of light tanks of the BT series was launched in Kharkov, then Koshkin's initiative on the T-34 medium tank was implemented, and then, with the participation of UVZ, a line of T-44 and T-54 tanks.
Before the war, there was no tank school in Nizhniy Tagil. The Kharkov design bureau was evacuated there in 1941, and for almost 10 years (until 1951) the design bureau employees headed by Morozov had to work there. In the early 70s, I had to talk with some of them and they told how hard it was for them to live away from home. I still do not understand why they were kept in evacuation for so long.
The Kharkov design bureau on the territory of Nizhny Tagil continued to improve the T-34 and a modification of the T-34-85 appeared there. No one has ever denied this, but the tank itself was created in a different place and at a different time.
After the departure of Morozov and a group of leading designers to Kharkov, the design bureau in Nizhny Tagil remained, continued to improve the T-54 tank and developed the following modifications: T-55 and T-62. Thus, its own tank building school began to form in the Urals.
So there were three competing schools of tank building, each of which put forward its own version of the creation of the T-64, T-72 and T-80 tanks. One may ask a question: was it reasonable or not to maintain three powerful design bureaus in the country, developing practically the same machines? Probably, this was the point, they were formed in the process of the development of tank building. At the same time, there were costs and unreasonable expenses, but in the end this contributed to the creation of unique samples of military equipment.
Each design bureau defended its own point of view on the concept of the tank and sought to make the tank better and naturally bypass competitors. Now there is only one design bureau in Nizhny Tagil, which has no alternative. VNIITransmash, which we called the "anti-tank" institute, was also closed. He was an independent arbiter, although he did not always correspond to this. Still, there should be competition, it stimulates the design thought.
I went through the school of the KMDB and immediately want to note that I have never defended and am not going to defend "Ukrainian tank building". In support of my words, I will quote from my book, which I wrote in 2009: “For me, the Soviet Union and Russia have always been words with a capital letter, and Ukraine - so, meaningless to me, an empty sound … All my actions in subsequent years are directed were fighting for the restoration of historical justice, in which the history of tank building in my native design bureau is not the history of Ukraine, but belongs to all of us who worked in different republics under the leadership of Moscow."
In this regard, the history of tank building, no matter how we argue and find out the relationship between ourselves, is our common history, we created it and must objectively evaluate the facts and events that took place. Today, for many objective reasons, the KMDB cannot develop promising tanks, but its contribution to the common cause is undoubted.
Almost all tanks were born not by order from above, but from the initiative work of a specific design bureau. This was the case with the T-34, and the T-64 was also created. At the same time, a lot depended on the personality of the chief designer, it was he who determined what the future tank should be like. I had to work with three chief designers and I can compare and evaluate their performance. Morozov was a genius, the creation of tanks was the meaning of his life. The same genius was also Koshkin, who came, by the way, to Kharkov from Leningrad.
I can assume that if Morozov had not returned from the evacuation, the T-64 tank would have been born not in Kharkov, but in Nizhny Tagil. Such people knew and knew how to form teams capable of creating masterpieces of design thought. You can also cite the example of Korolev, thanks to whose genius and organizational talent the Soviet space was born.
The tank creates not only a tank design bureau, dozens of design, scientific and industrial organizations of various profiles and purposes are working on it under the leadership of the chief designer, without which it is impossible to create a vehicle. The engine, armor, weapons, ammunition, sighting systems, electronics and much more are being developed in specialized organizations. The head design bureau links all this into a single whole and ensures the fulfillment of the inherent characteristics.
In the mid-50s, the tendency to curtail work on light, medium and heavy tanks began to dominate in the Soviet Union, and the concept of creating a single tank was adopted. The military are developing tactical and technical requirements for such a tank and its development is entrusted to the KMDB.
One may ask the question: why did you choose this particular design bureau?
The Leningrad Design Bureau was engaged in heavy tanks, and this was not his profile. Morozov began the development of a new medium tank on his own initiative, while still in Nizhny Tagil. Returning to Kharkov in 1951, he continued this work (object 430). In Nizhny Tagil, the unfinished project was continued by the new chief designer Kartsev (object 140).
In two design bureaus, draft and technical designs were developed, which were considered by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers. Based on the results of consideration in June 55, TTTs were developed for a promising tank, prototypes of tanks were made and in 1958 tests were carried out at Kubinka.
Object 430 successfully passed the tests, but Object 140 failed. Work on this tank was curtailed and UVZ concentrated its efforts on the creation of the T-55 and T-62 tanks. Despite successful tests, object 430 was not accepted for service, since it did not give a significant increase in performance characteristics compared to the T-54 tank.
On its own initiative, object 430 is fundamentally reworked, a new smooth-bore 115-mm cannon with separate loading shots is installed. Based on the results of the consideration of this project, in February 1961, a decree was adopted by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers on the development of a new tank weighing 34 tons, with a 115 mm cannon, a loading mechanism and a crew of 3 people. So the development of the T-64 tank (object 432) was started, the implementation of the project is entrusted to the KMDB.
The T-64 tank was revolutionary at that time and became the ancestor of a new generation of Soviet tanks. There was a lot of new in it, but fundamental - an automatic loader and a crew of 3 people, a chassis and an engine that had never been used before. All these innovations became the problems of this tank and especially the engine, which led to the appearance of the T-72 and T-80 tanks.
To reduce the internal volume and weight of the tank, Morozov used a low opposed two-stroke diesel engine 5TDF with a horizontal arrangement of cylinders specially designed for this tank. The use of this engine made it possible to create a low engine compartment with an ejection cooling system. Work on this engine began back in 1946 based on the German Junkers Jumo 205 aircraft engine.
The use of this engine entailed serious problems associated with its development in production. Earlier it was already known that the attempts of England and Japan to master this engine in production ended in failure. Nevertheless, the decision was made, and the development of such an engine was entrusted to Charomsky, a well-known specialist in the creation of aircraft engines.
At the Malyshev plant in 1955, a special design bureau for diesel engine construction was created, Charomsky was appointed chief designer and subsequently a plant for the production of these engines was built.
