Hammer and sickle"
World War II clearly showed that in the field of tank building, almost no one could compare with the USSR, including the gloomy genius of the Third Reich. This status had to be maintained, and in addition, at a given X hour, the Soviet Army had to be ready to make a throw to the English Channel. The USSR brought to light such monsters as "Object 279". Recall, he had a mass of 60 tons (a lot, by the standards of the 50s) and, most interestingly, four tracks for better cross-country ability.
However, as we know, the development of the Soviet school of tank building was largely predetermined by relatively simple, not very expensive and powerful enough for their time MBT, mainly T-72 and T-64. Unfortunately, already in the 80s, their designs largely ran into a dead end due to the difficulties of increasing the protection of the crew in an extremely dense layout. This is how the now famous Object 477 "Hammer", T-95 (aka "Object 195") and many other developments appeared. The task was simple - to make the most tenacious combat vehicle, which will give the crew the opportunity to survive getting into the vital spaces of the MBT. They did not forget about weapons: now they considered a formidable, promising 152-mm cannon instead of the usual 125-mm guns as the main caliber. This solution made it possible to dramatically increase firepower, but made the car potentially heavier, and also more difficult to maintain.
Later, the famous experimental "Black Eagle" will appear in Russia, which, in fact, became a very deep modernization of the T-80, but with fundamentally new possibilities for protecting the crew and a very good power density, which surpassed even the indicators of the best western MBTs. It must be assumed that readers already know very well about "Armata".
Two towers and four tracks
It would seem that there is nothing to surprise the sophisticated public: in the memory of many, both monstrous German projects and the Swedish "IKEA on tracks" represented by Strv 103. As well as the aforementioned failed successors of the 72nd. However, more recently, the site btvt.info published materials about the absolutely amazing "Object 490", which was immediately nicknamed "the last Soviet project of a promising tank." But it is interesting not only by the time of appearance: the car, by the way, was developed in the late 80s - early 90s.
The concept itself is unusual, which, as far as can be judged, has never been implemented in practice before. Here is the story of the appearance of the MBT set out in the source.
The new version of Object 490 has become a completely different tank. The fuel compartment, the engine and power plant systems compartment, and the main armament compartment were located in the front of the tank. Further, the compartment for the automatic loader was located, and the crew was placed in the rear of the tank. There were only two tankers, by the way: the driver and the commander. The crew would have survived even in the event of a total “shooting” of the car from the front hemisphere.
The tank received four tracks: it could move when two caterpillar drives were damaged (from opposite sides). In the aft compartment there were two crew hatches, the driver's hatch was equipped with a porthole for driving. The car received two engines, giving out a total of a very immodest 2000 horsepower. This is significantly more than that of the T-14: recall, according to available data, it has a 12N360 engine of variable power: from 1200 to 1800 horsepower. A promising machine, in theory, could continue to move even if one of the engines was disabled.
Perhaps the main difference between the combat vehicle and almost all tanks of that time was simply fantastic firepower. MBT received two towers at once. In the front was a 152-mm 2A73 cannon, and in the rear, a 30-mm grenade launcher. It also had a panoramic sight with a visual channel and a day / night television sight. In addition, the tank received two 7.62 mm TKB-666 machine guns. Of course, all this gave him great opportunities to defeat a wide variety of targets, including all existing and promising NATO tanks. In total, the vehicle carried 32 unitary rounds in an automated stacking system. A very curious feature is the use of the gun barrel as an OPVT air intake pipe with a lift height of 4, 6 meters, which gave the tank good opportunities to overcome water obstacles.
According to reports, the tank received reliable protection against armor-piercing sub-caliber (approximately 2000 mm) and HEAT shells (approximately 4500 mm). In any case, these data without specifying specifics are given in the source. In any case, in terms of security, the tank surpassed all existing and even promising counterparts. Increased survivability of the Shtandart active defense complex, as well as Tucha mortars. Of the potential shortcomings, one can single out the very limited capabilities of the USSR military-industrial complex for the production of modern thermal imagers. In terms of night combat, it was hard to compare with the best NATO tanks by default, but this also applied to all other Soviet tanks.
Innovation versus modernization
The T-64, T-72 and T-80 went through several serious stages of modernization at once, even if we talk specifically about the Soviet years. Obviously, the USSR did not plan to abandon these tanks, especially given the huge number of vehicles produced. This allows us to confidently say two things. First, the promising tank was supposed to be as similar as possible to the previous generations. After all, the use of such a motley fleet of MBT would be not so much technically difficult, but also incredibly expensive "pleasure". Secondly, a promising tank had to be relatively cheap in itself in order to comply with the Soviet doctrine of the use of military equipment.
Object 490 could not fit into these requirements. Of the more specific shortcomings, it is worth highlighting the very limited angles of inclination of the gun on the side and stern, which was almost impossible to fix without completely remaking the combat vehicle. In practice, this meant that it was very difficult to hit the target behind the MBT: the 152-mm gun was difficult to use, and the firepower of the 30-mm grenade launcher installed in the second turret was clearly not enough.
The analogy with the aforementioned Swedish Strv 103, which is sometimes called a "tank destroyer", is not very correct. The latter was never conceived as a "full-fledged" tank and was created taking into account the very limited (in comparison with the United States and the Soviet Union) financial capabilities of the Scandinavian country. In the 1980s, the USSR did not need to create a "semi-self-propelled gun": it needed the most multipurpose MBT. It is desirable, not more expensive than the T-72, but this is, of course, ideally.
The voiced factors did not increase the chances for the embodiment of the machine in hardware (in all the photos presented - the layout). But most of all, the destiny of both "Object 490" and its other promising brothers was influenced by the collapse of the USSR. There is almost no doubt: had it not happened, the army in the 1990-2000s would have received a new tank, created on the basis of one of the advanced developments of the 80s. What kind of development they were is another question. We hope we'll come back to it later.
