Reading materials on VO, every time I catch myself thinking about how far the business of informing our citizens has progressed lately, and, of course, “people from planet Earth” in general. And the point is not even that information arrives very quickly, that it is accompanied by a colorful video sequence, but in what form it is presented to people. Up-to-date information … informative! That is, it contains a lot more information than it contained them, well, let's say, just some 40 years ago. And if we look even deeper, then it will become quite obvious.
The Red Army armored division with a captured French FT-17 tank, which was captured near Odessa. Kharkov, April 1919.
I remember that in the 80s, when I was broadcasting TV programs for children on local television, I needed a color picture of a T-72 tank. And where to find it such that it is from the front, and from above, and from the side? Of course, in the German magazine Modelbauchöyte. I went to the foreign department of the regional library, took a magazine with the desired picture, and there was not only a color image, but also a tab of drawings, and in them … the projection of the tower with sections, that is, with all angles of inclination of the armor. “This is what the GDR people are giving! - I thought then. "Even the angles of inclination are not afraid to spread, if only they are real, of course!"
I remember that such a level of information content seemed to me then prohibitive, especially in comparison with the images from the TM tank series. However, it was also higher than even those pictures that were in the book of V. D. Mostovenko "Tanks", published in 1958. Well, how did you write about tanks even earlier? A very interesting book "Land Cruisers" by O. Drozhzhin was published for children by Detgiz in 1942. Well, the earliest message about tanks in the Russian, namely the Russian, and not the Soviet press, appeared in 1917 in the Niva magazine. Moreover, with a photograph showing … an English steam tractor! Therefore, in this case, it is more correct to count from the second material in the same edition.
The second report about tanks in the magazine "Niva": "The Niva recently contained images of a giant armored vehicle invented by British military engineers. Fearless and invulnerable, he rushes with all his bulk into the very heat of battle, under shells and bullets, freely takes the enemy's trenches, like an empty, insignificant obstacle, and, having sowed destruction and death around him, calmly returns to his regiment. British soldiers called this new comrade of theirs "lohanya" ("tank" - "tank") "(" Niva "magazine. 1917. No. 4).
But …, perhaps, the earliest message about foreign tanks as vehicles posing a threat to the young state of workers and peasants, and in some way consonant with today's similar materials, I managed to find in the newspaper Trudovaya Pravda in 1927. Then it was newspapers that performed the functions of modern information portals, literally everything was reported in them: where Churchill went to rest, and about "lighthouse poles on the streets of American cities" - "at every intersection there is a concrete pillar, and a lighthouse flashing on it" and about our tanks neighbors and potential opponents. And pay attention to the manner of presentation of the material and the title: "The devil is not so terrible as he is painted." They say, sleep well, the children of the Land of Soviets - "the country's defense is in good hands," and the armor business of our potential opponents is very poorly developed, and in some places it does not develop at all! Since the text was of very poor quality, it was necessary not only to re-photograph it, but also to rewrite it, but you can be sure of the authenticity of the text.
So, we read …
Trudovaya Pravda, July 23, 1927, No. 165, p. 2 Heading "Defense of the Country"
The devil is not so terrible as he is painted.
Tanks in the armies of our neighbors.
What tanks does the Polish army have?
In total, the Polish army currently has up to 200 tanks and is considered the strongest of our neighbors in terms of tanking. These tanks are mainly French, such as Renault, and German (heavy), transferred to Poland by the Allies after the division of the military property of defeated Germany. Renault tanks are of two types, both light, one cannon type, armed with a 37 mm cannon, the other - machine gun, with one Hotchkiss machine gun. These tanks are intended to accompany the infantry. The tank takes with it 225 shells and 12 boxes of buckshot or 4,800 machine-gun rounds into battle. The fuel reserve is designed for 8 hours of engine operation.
Cannon FT -17 at the Army Museum in Brussels.
The Renault tank, although it is in service with most states, is currently not perfect.
Heavy German tank A.7. V. intended to break through heavily fortified positions, it is armed with a 57mm cannon and 5 machine guns. The tank was not widely used in the imperialist war.
Late replica of the A7V Wotan tank at the Munster Tank Museum, Germany.
Polish tanks have been consolidated into one tank regiment of 3 battalions, the battalion includes: headquarters, 2 battle tank companies, a repair department and personnel of the third company.
Romanian tanks are no different from Polish ones. The Romanian army is also armed with light French Renault tanks and a small number of German heavy tanks by Schneider. The former are the same as in the Polish army, the latter are outdated systems, and are not in service with any army. All tanks are organized into battalions and are part of an armored regiment.
Tank Schneider SA-1 at the BTT Museum in Samur, France.
Romanian tanks are located in Bessarabia, their total number reaches 80 pieces.
In Finland, the tank business is not developing. The Finnish army is armed with only one light tanks of the Renault type (there are only up to 30 of them, they are combined into one tank battalion, consisting of 2 companies). The development of the tank business in Finland is hampered by the natural character of the country and the theaters (scenes) of a future war - hilly terrain.
Latvia and Estonia. The armies of these neighbors are armed with light tanks of the Renault type and heavy tanks of the British design "Mark V", the last British consider it an obsolete type, and they have removed these tanks from service. The Latvian army has 18 light and 7 heavy, 25 tanks in total, combined into a tank platoon, which is part of the armored company of the auto-tank division. The Estonian army has 12 light tanks and 4 heavy tanks, a total of 16, they are combined into two companies and are part of the armored division.
Why aren't we afraid of our neighbors' tanks? First of all, our soldiers know what a tank is and how to deal with it, and this is included in the training program. Excellent work of a grenade launcher, shooter, machine gunner, artilleryman, courage, ingenuity and dexterity will always give success in the fight against the tanks of our future opponents. The tank is armed with artillery and machine guns in no way more destructive than artillery and machine guns of other types of troops, and, in addition, it is impossible to accurately aim from the tank's cannon, since it sways on the move.
Padded Polish Renault. Photo from the Bundesarchiv.
The actions of the tank can be tied up and neutralized by artificial obstacles: ryazh from logs like the bulls of a river bridge, large pits with steep walls, mining of fields. This is what our special units are learning in peacetime. Finally, we also have a good air fleet, our own tanks, armored cars and armored trains, which, under appropriate conditions, can also successfully fight enemy tanks, helping their infantry.
All this, taken together, plus the obsolescence of the tanks listed above, and the lack of tank workshops in most of our neighbors, makes their tanks fearless for us. Examples of civil war, when the red fighters took enemy tanks, and the tanks are not worse than our neighbors now have, for example, British ones, are known to each of us and our future enemies.
For obvious reasons, this was not reported in the article, but in France, work on the creation of new, more advanced models of tanks was already underway in 1927. For example, the Renault NC-27 tank, just a sample of this year. It was not in service with the French army, but was sold to Sweden and Japan.
The authors of the material in the newspaper did not know that in France at that very time they were trying to put the FT-17 tanks on a more advanced chassis. Moreover, such tanks were even produced and delivered to Yugoslavia, but only they did not possess high combat qualities, and they were all knocked out in battles with German tanks in 1941. Padded modernized Renault. Photo from the Bundesarchiv.
Please note that our tanks are not mentioned in detail in a single word. Neither types, brands, nor weapons are named at all. We have them, not worse than those of our neighbors, and that should be enough for you, and everything else is a military secret, which is permissible for military people, but not civilians. Also the spirit of the era, so to speak. There is also a mistake - "German tanks by Schneider", but no one in the newspaper paid attention to this either then or later.
But this is information from a specialized section in the journal Science and Technology. The first in the USSR (!) Message about the tank of Walter Christie, just from which it all started, all our BT tanks, and as a result, the legendary T-34. And now let's see how the material was presented about this tank. No author's "ad-libbing", own reflections, as we very often allow ourselves today, but only purely naked facts free from even the slightest subjectivism.
There was no photograph in the magazine. Then there were only black and white drawings of very poor quality. So this text also had a picture just awful, which is intended to be replaced by this photo, which, like the picture in the magazine "Science and Technology" for 1929, shows a Christie tank model 1928.
Science and Technology magazine; No. 42, October 19, 1929, section "Military equipment": "A new tank-walker was created in America, which, when moving on tracks on freshly plowed land, developed a speed of 67 km / h, that is, almost did not lag behind the courier train, and on wheels on a concrete highway could drive at a speed of 120 km / h. The transition from wheels to tracks took only 14 minutes, although all other details of the design of this tank are kept in strict confidence."
Further it was written that at high speed the tank would break down rather quickly, although, in view of the fact that “very perfect devices for absorbing them were used against shocks at high speed, such breakdowns are unlikely. The designer himself named his new model "Model 1940", hoping, apparently, that by this time his tank would spread everywhere."
But today such messages, even concerning the most modern and secret machines, no longer "pass", eh? We know more, and we need more interesting and varied information, right?
