Tuesday 19 November 2013

Soviet Supertanks: Nilov's 4-Turreted Tank

Submitting ridiculous projects wasn't only an officer's job, anyone could have a go. Red Armyman N. N. Nilov decided to do his engineering duty for the Motherland with his invention that he called "4-turreted tank".

CAMD RF 38-11355-1317

The tank was developed between August 21st 1941 and April 18th 1942. In this time, Nilov envisioned a tank that looked like a T-100, but with two extra turrets...on the sides. Much like the T-100 (or at least the proposed T-100Z), the top turret had a big gun (140 mm, with 84 shells) along with machine guns (one coaxial, one collapsible on the roof), and the smaller turret had a 45 mm gun. The side turrets only had high caliber machine guns. The tank carried 10 crewmen. The armour wasn't particularly impressive, only 60 mm in the front hull, rear, and on the turrets, and 45 mm on the sides. However, the tank was supposed to accelerate to 120 kph using a 1200 hp engine. At 80 tons, that would have been doubtful.

Despite the infeasible design, the tank has some useful features, such as a protected ammunition rack at the bottom of the hull and armour screens that cover the tracks.

An interesting thing about the design is the pointed shape of the side turrets. It doesn't have a function, the designer just chose to make his creation look like domes in his home city of Bukhara.

6 comments:

  1. Are there any details about the 140mm gun?

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    1. I don't think there was one. It's doubtful that a Red Armyman would be well informed about the calibers of tank guns currently available. These designs usually just have some number on there that the designer feels is reasonably big enough.

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  2. I wonder how long before someone suggests they add this monstrosity to World of Tanks....

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  3. ...because sponson MGs weren't out of date by around 1920 or anything. And from what I've seen mentioned of lenght-width ratios this thing would've had pretty appalling turning characteristics.

    The weird "hourglass" profile of the main-turret base is kinda creative though, nevermind that it screams "shot trap".

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  4. could make a good T6 HT :D

    Gun:

    140 mm 4-TT stats:

    450/450/650 damage
    120/185/85 penetration in mm
    4,0 RoF
    3,6 aimtime

    That would make it something like a fast KV-2 with a little less alpha, the keypoint of this tank would be using a mixture of HE and AP shells.
    However, AP shells in close combat would make it a chainsaw gun. With the speed "nerfed" to 60 km/h that would still be an extremely funny tank :D

    gg!

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  5. Those side turrets remind me of the sponsons on the tsar tank.

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