Tuesday 30 April 2013

Artillery T-34 and KV

I talked about mortars on a T-34 before, but this is an even more ambitious project. A 400 mm mortar was to be installed on a T-34.

CAMD RF 38-11355-693

The mortar would be transported facing forwards, but could only fire facing to the side, with spades deployed. Otherwise, the massive recoil would destroy the T-34 chassis.

CAMD RF 38-11355-693

The T-34 plan was, technically, just a backup. The main bearer of the 400 mm mortar was to be the KV-1S. The chassis weighed 37 tons. The mortar would weigh 50 tons. Just as with the T-34, the spades are present, since even the more robust KV chassis could not take that kind of recoil.

Neither project progressed past the blueprint stage.

There was another failed plan to make a KV-1 into an artillery platform, this one using Katyusha rockets. 

CAMD RF 38-11355-693

While the rockets were traditionally used for indirect fire, there were several situations where the rockets had to be aimed directly at enemy tanks, with great effect. This project was also never built.

6 comments:

  1. A 400 mm mortar on a tank chassis was a little bit too ambitious, I think they should instead propose some smaller guns, like 280 mm or 305 mm howitzer.

    KV-1 with Katyusha was a pretty nice proposal. But I wonder what kind of rockets they were going to use, BM-13?

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  2. Im sorry for being off topic, but do you have any german testing results of soviet antitank guns?

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    1. Unfortunately, I do not.

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    2. An off-topic question Peter, but do you have any information about SU-7? I've read about on Russian Wikipedia and it says that the SU-7 was supposed to be mounted with 305 mm howitzer.

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    3. The SU-7 "Heavy triplex" had 3 gun options:
      254 mm gun: 35 km range
      305 mm howitzer: 21 km range
      400 mm mortar: 13 km range

      The project was also planned to mount a 220 mm gun, that has not yet been developed, and ended up never being developed. The SPG itself made it as far as a wooden model before it was deemed that it no longer met the demands of the RKKA.

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    4. Thanks for the information, Peter. If Wargaming decide to add Tier 9 and 10 artillery, SU-7 will be a very good choice.

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