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The TOG 1 was quite archaic. A 75 mm cannon was located in the front and 2-pounder guns in sponsons. The turret was not required by the customer. |
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Landships Left In Port
Friday, 26 May 2023
German Tank Tactics, 1945
"April 9th, 1945
#0417
To the commander of the Armoured and Mechanized Forces of the 2nd Shock Army
RE: #08562 dated March 20th, 1945
Report of the 46th Independent Guards Order of the Red Banner Order of Suvorov Tank Breakthrough Regiment on the study of tactics and combat use of heavy tank regiments in the Red Army as well as enemy tank tactics and use of tanks in combat from January 1st to April 1st, 1945. Map scale 1:50,000
...
2. Tactics and use of enemy tanks in combat
Recently, enemy anti-tank defenses rely more and more on close combat weapons, especially Panzerfausts, which are continuously improved. This is explained by the growth of the Red Army tank fleet and heavy enemy losses in tanks and anti-tank artillery. Because of this, the enemy compensates for a shortage of anti-tank weapons (especially tanks and anti-tank guns) with mass use of Panzerfausts. As before, the enemy creates ambushes using tanks and SPGs, chiefly heavy ones, which combat our tanks and SPGs in most likely directions of advance. The proportion of heavy and superheavy King Tiger tanks compared to the overall number of tanks continues to increase.
In areas where the enemy could prepare anti-tank defenses, they include anti-tank ditches (Ciechanow, Mława, Graudenz, Danzig) minefields (bridgehead west of Narew), and anti-tank guns. Passive anti-tank obstacles were covered with direct fire artillery, tanks and SPGs, as well as small arms fire.
More recently, the enemy foregoes using tanks and SPGs in the front of their defenses and only uses them in the depth in order to avoid heavy losses.
During the mud season, the enemy expected our tanks to be bound to roads and constructed defenses around forks, crossroads, and major settlements, leaving anti-tank combat between these strongholds to Panzerfausts.
In the January operation, up to 12 enemy tanks and SPGs were spotted in front of the regiment, most of them Tiger and Ferdinand types.
In the operation near Danzig up to 10 tanks and SPGs were spotted, of them 6 were Ferdinand type SPGs.
The enemy clearly works on improvements and modernizations to the Panzerfaust to improve its effect and make it more convenient to use. Expect to see new Panzerfausts in action.
Commander of the 46th Independent Guards Order of the Red Banner Order of Suvorov Tank Breakthrough Regiment, Guards Lieutenant Colonel Parshev
Chief of Staff, Major Bannov"
Wednesday, 24 May 2023
The Last of Stalin's Robots
Unfortunately, museums frequently mislabel their own exhibits. The biggest problem with that is an incorrect information from a museum label is going to propagate. For example, Kubinka seriously thought that they had two BA-6 armoured cars, even though one was actually a BA-3M. The collection of the Patriot Park museum which used to be displayed at Kubinka has many downright unique exhibits, some of which were also misidentified. For example, this tank is called OT-130, but that is not the case.
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TT-26 tank as displayed today. |
Friday, 12 May 2023
Heavies in Action
"April 9th, 1945
#0417
To the commander of the Armoured and Mechanized Forces of the 2nd Shock Army
RE: #08562 dated March 20th, 1945
Report of the 46th Independent Guards Order of the Red Banner Order of Suvorov Tank Breakthrough Regiment on the study of tactics and combat use of heavy tank regiments in the Red Army as well as enemy tank tactics and use of tanks in combat from January 1st to April 1st, 1945. Map scale 1:50,000
1. Tactics and combat usage of heavy tank regiments
From January 1st to April 1st, 1945, the 46th regiment took part in three operations. From January 15th to January 23rd it penetrated the enemy defenses around the bridgehead on the river Narew jointly with other units of the 2nd Belorussian Front.
From March 2nd to March 5th, 1945, the regiment fought to destroy the enemy garrison in Graudenz and take the city.
From March 17th to March 31st, 1945, the regiment fought to liquidate the encircled Danzig group and capture Danzig.
Wednesday, 10 May 2023
SU-122 Requirements
Tactical-technical requirements of a 122 mm self propelled howitzer on the chassis of the T-34 tank
1. Purpose of the self propelled howitzer
The self propelled howitzer is designed to accompany infantry and tank units, destroying dugouts and fortified firing positions with direct fire from short range or with indirect fire.
2. Requirements for the artillery component
The artillery component of the SPG is provided by the stock rotating part of the M-30 122 mm model 1938 howitzer. The mounting must meet the following requirements:
- Practical rate of fire of no less than 10 RPM in a direct fire role.
- Elevation of 25-35 degrees.
- Depression of -3 degrees.
- Traverse of +/- 10 degrees.
- The recoil buffer must be armoured. The armour must be at least 12 mm thick.
- The oscillating part of the howitzer with the recoil buffer armour must be completely balanced. Increase in effort required to aim cannot surpass 10%.
- The height of the bore axis must be no more than 1500 mm. To achieve this, a cutout in the front of the SPG is permitted.
- The gun port must be completely covered at a gun elevation of up to 12 degrees.
- The gun mount must allow for comfortable loading at all angles of elevation and traverse.
- The sight is the stock sight from the 122 mm M-30 howitzer with a Hertz panoramic sight.
- The gunner's seat must rotate with the gun. The seat's rotation in relation to the panoramic sight and aiming flywheels must allow for comfortable operation.
- The crew consists of five men, including the driver. All crewmen must have comfortable seats.
- The gun must have the ability to be reliably fixed for travel, preventing horizontal and vertical movement.
- Two PPSh submachine guns must be carried as auxiliary armament.
Monday, 8 May 2023
Sherman's African Debut
The Medium Tank M4A1 that arrived in the UK in the summer of 1942 was much more promising than the Medium Tank M3 that had arrived shortly prior. The layout of the armament was much more conventional, the armour was tougher, and the crew's workspaces were more comfortable. Before too long, these tanks were on their way to North Africa, where they would have to fight against the harsh environment in addition to an experienced enemy. The Sherman's career was not going to be an easy one.
First blood on the sand
The tanks that arrived in North Africa were not prepared for desert warfare. They were modernized in field workshops, where British technicians added dust shields, brackets for the Sunshield camouflage tarps, racks for canisters with water and fuel, stowage bins, and other equipment necessary for life in the desert. Desert camouflage was applied over top of the olive drab paint. 252 Shermans were ready by the Second Battle of El Alamein: 92 in the 1st Armoured Division, 124 in the 10th Armoured Division, and 36 in the 9th Armoured Brigade.
The situation with the delivery was far from ideal. The tanks arrived only weeks before the planned offensive. The lack of time to train had an impact not only on the skills of the crews, but also on the cohesion with the forces fighting alongside the tanks. Since the Shermans were going to attack at night through minefields, cooperation with infantry and engineers was quite important.
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Shermans of the 9th Hussars, 9th Armoured Brigade, September 15th, 1942. The tank is likely already painted in desert yellow, but disruptive camouflage has not yet been applied. |
Tuesday, 2 May 2023
Long Living T-50
1941 was a year of great calamity for the Red Army and for the USSR. The war that broke out on June 22nd was not at all like the war that was predicted. The Germans and their allies tore deep into the USSR with the Red Army suffering defeat after defeat. However, through great effort, the flywheel of the Blitzkrieg lost momentum. The enemy continued to move forward, but not at the rate predicted by Plan Barbarossa. The Germans were supposed to have reached the Archangelsk-Astrakhan line by September-October of 1941 at the latest, but they were far from their goal at that point. They were so sure in their victory that they did not even prepare for the arrival of winter, which then turned into complaints about "General Frost". Soviet tank forces also played a big role in stopping the Germans. At the cost of heavy losses, they managed to stop the German divisions moving towards Moscow and allowed a counteroffensive to begin on December 5th, 1941. Tank brigades played a key role in these battles.
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One of the nine T-50 tanks delivered to Kubinka, fall 1941. It was used to test winter camouflage. |
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Production tanks looked like this. |
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The location of tools and observation devices changed compared to the prototypes. |
By sheer coincidence, 50 T-50 tanks were finished in Leningrad. Most of them fought to defend the city. Only one shipment was made to the outside world. Train #20096 departed towards the NIBT Proving Grounds on August 13th, 1941. It carried 9 T-50 tanks. Before that, on August 10th, 1941, 8 T-26 tanks departed to Kubinka. Factory #174 didn't send any more tanks after that and prepared for evacuation.
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The identity of the tank was established by the serial number of the gun. |
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Shipping manifest that includes T-50 tank K-11232. Almost all of them went to the 150th Tank Brigade. |
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One of the four tanks from the brigade that were lost in battle between September 29th and October 3rd. This tank was hit in the rear. |
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A brief report on the T-50's performance. This is one of the few known reports on the tank. |
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Location of the 22nd Tank Brigade's tanks as of November 28th, 1941. The camouflaged T-50 will be destroyed a few days later. |
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Half of the T-50 tanks from the 150th Tank Brigade survived Operation Typhoon. One of them ended up in Chelyabinsk. |
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K-11232 as of 1943. |
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The award order of the tank commander. He was born in the same city where factory #174 settled by 1942. |
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The tank was already quite worn, especially when it comes to the fenders. |
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The front and rear fenders were later replaced. |
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Application of a turret number, March 2007. |
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The tank looked like this until August of 2007. |
The serial number of the gun was found during inventory carried out in 2011. This allowed us to more precisely determine the tank's origins. The T-50 remained outdoors until its turn for restoration finally came. The author has many questions about its details, for instance the toolbox that looks nothing like the original and the steel step instead of a rubber one in front of the driver's hatch. Nevertheless, it's better than nothing, and none of the changes are irreversible.
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August came and the T-50 "ripened". The tank was primed right over the existing paint. And then the army wonders why its tanks start peeling so quickly... |
The T-50 was restored to running order in 2020 and took part in the Army-2020 international technical forum as a part of the "100 years of tank building" exhibition. After that, it was installed as an exhibit at pavillion #1 at Patriot Park in the Battle of Moscow sector. In August, a decision was made to liven it up a little bit.
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The tank as it stands today. |
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The interior of the T-50 tank. |
Wednesday, 26 April 2023
Canada's Valentines
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Facing a shortage of armoured vehicles of every kind, Canada purchased worn out and obsolete M1917 Light Tanks from the US at scrap value. These tanks were worth little more than scrap. |
Friday, 21 April 2023
First KV-1S
"To the Chief of the GBTU BTU, Major General of the Tank Forces, comrade Korobkov
I report that the Kirov factory presents two KV-1S tanks for trials.
First tank: #10279
- Engine: V-2KF #A-1401 650 hp at 2100 RPM
- Cooling system:
- Water radiators designed for the KV-3 tank
- Oil radiator from the RZT aircraft
- Gearbox: 8 speed with demultiplier, blueprint 21gr
- Main clutch: four disk, blueprint 110gr
- Fan with stamped blades and milled diffuser, blueprint 902gr
- Shifting gate blueprint 119gr and control rods blueprint 117gr
- Engine: V-2KF #4ML-1669 650 hp at 2100 RPM
- Cooling system:
- Water radiators: production with additional radiators - blueprint 903gr.sb.8
- Production oil radiator with extra radiator, blueprint 902gr. Air intake with deflectors.
- Gearbox: 8 speed with demultiplier, blueprint 212gr
- Main clutch: four disk, blueprint 210gr
- Fan blueprint 219gr
- Shifting gate blueprint 219gr and control rods blueprint 217gr
- Final drive blueprint 15gr (normal drive sprocket with 16 teeth)
Wednesday, 19 April 2023
45 mm APCR Penetration
"To the Chair of the State Committee of Defense, comrade I.V. Stalin
We present the main results of proving grounds trials of 45 mm subcaliber armour piercing shot designed by Military Engineer 1st Class comrade Burmistrov.
The shot with heavy and hard tungsten alloy shows the best results. This shot satisfies the requirement of penetrating at least 60 mm of armour with the resistance coefficient of at least 2400 at an angle of 30 degrees at a range of 300-500 meters. They considerably increase the power of the 45 mm model 1932/37 anti-tank gun.
Monday, 17 April 2023
Baby IS-3
The Second World War was a catalyst for the creation of many armoured vehicles, including heavy tanks. These vehicles were quite rare at the start of the war, but this changed radically in 1941-42. The Red Army was the most heavily invested in heavy tanks. At first, Soviet heavy tanks followed the classic path of gaining more and more weight, as a result of which the KV-1 became overloaded. The need for mobility led to the KV-13 and KV-1S. The result of this new branch of development was the IS-1 (IS-85) tank, which was quickly replaced with the IS-2 (IS-122). The tank combined powerful armament with sufficient mobility and high levels of protection. Nevertheless, work on modernizing the IS-2 began in the spring of 1944.
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Kirovets-1 at the NIBT Proving Grounds, December 1944. |
Friday, 14 April 2023
The Wehrmacht's Unplanned Workhorse
How the Pz.Kpfw.IV became Germany's most numerous and longest serving tank.
There are many cases in worldwide tank building where not everything went according to plan. Even the legendary T-34 was supposed to leave the stage in 1941 in favour of the T-34M. Only the start of the war saved it from replacement. A similar thing happened to the Medium Tank M4. It was supposed to be replaced in 1943, but the replacements didn't turn out well. This happened to every long-serving tank, and the Germans were no exception.
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The Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.C was the most common German medium tank at the start of the war. |
Monday, 10 April 2023
Second Fiddle
Friday, 7 April 2023
Heavy Trophies from Leningrad
There are plenty of armoured vehicles that had an impact on tank building worldwide. This list includes German vehicles, especially the Tiger tank. At the moment of its appearance, it was the best protected and most heavily armed tank in its weight class. Even though the effectiveness of Tiger crews is often exaggerated, this was indeed a very dangerous enemy, especially from 1943 to the spring of 1944. Tanks all over the world evolved to deal with Tigers.
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Tiger 121 before winter camouflage was applied. |
Monday, 3 April 2023
Heavy Without Alternatives
One can often encounter brainstorms about how individual vehicles or even entire tank building schools ought to have evolved. Most of these brainstorms are done by people that are far removed from the field of history, but sometimes even notorious historians take part in this exercise. Among Soviet tanks, the T-28 is a popular character in alternative history. Modern improvements to this tank know no bounds, but the fact that the T-28 was replaced by the KV-1 and not the T-34 is often ignored, as is the fact that a replacement for the T-28 by the name of T-29 already existed.
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Object 237 accepted into service with the Red Army as the IS-85 (IS-1). |
Saturday, 1 April 2023
Video: Is the KV-6 Real?
The KV-6 Behemoth is one of the most infamous fake tanks, but is there a kernel of truth inside the fiction? I take a look at the history of the KV-6 tank in my latest video.
Friday, 31 March 2023
American Generals in King George's Court
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Assembly of the Medium Tank M3. |
Wednesday, 29 March 2023
Pz.Kpfw.II Weaknesses
"To Chemistry Chiefs of the 29th and 65th Rifle Corps, 21st Mechanized Corps, 46 [cut off]
July 28th, 1941
The most vulnerable locations on the German light tank are:
1. The open vision port on the right side of the fighting compartment (driver's port). It is fairly wide, but there is no triplex glass in it. The port on the right (the commander's port) has triplex glass.
2. The hatch under the turret next to the commander (on the front left part of the tank's fighting compartment) does not seal well.
3. Slits between the engine deck and engine deck hatches on the engine deck (in the rear).
Give your instructors that organize the use of Molotov cocktails these instructions to ensure more effective combat against tanks.
Chemistry Chief of the 27th Army, Colonel Novoselov"
Friday, 24 March 2023
Panther's Ins and Outs
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Panther Ausf.D tank #443. The British received a tank from the USSR for testing long before they found one on their own. |
Thursday, 23 March 2023
Porsche and Militarism
It's no secret that the same people often build tanks and peaceful vehicles. For instance, the Kirovets K-700 tractor was designed by the same people who designed heavy tanks at the Kirov factory (including the IS-7). The same designers also produced the KT-12 skidder immediately after the war, and they were pulled off of military projects to do so. Harry Knox, the creator of American light and medium tank chassis, was a successful car designer before going into tanks. Even the famous John Walter Christie worked on (and drove) race cars as well as fire engines before building his tanks. There are plenty of examples where the same person created military and civilian vehicles.
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Ferdinand Porsche reaching to touch his Tiger tank. |
Monday, 20 March 2023
Prime Minister on the Front Lines
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A Churchill II tank used in a practice amphibious landing. |
Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Tanks Worth Their Weight in Gold
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Matilda tanks earmarked for the USSR. |
Monday, 13 March 2023
Anti-Aircraft Lizard
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Skink AA tank with an early cast turret. This tank still has Hispano-Suiza guns. |
Friday, 10 March 2023
How to Kill a T-34
“Another event hit us like a ton of bricks. The Russians showed up for the first time with their T-34s! The surprise was complete. How was it possible that those at the top hadn’t known about the existence of this superior tank?The T-34 with its good armour, ideal shape, and magnificent 76.2 mm long-barreled cannon was universally feared and a threat to every German tank up until the end of the war. What were we supposed to do to these monstrosities that were being committed in quantity against us? We could only knock at the door with our cannons, inside the Russians were able to play an undisturbed hand of cards. At that time, the 37 mm Pak was still our strongest armour defeating weapon. If lucky, we could hit the T-34 on the turret ring and jam it. With a whole lot more luck, it became combat ineffective. Certainly not a very positive situation!Our only salvation was the 88 mm Flak. Even this new Russian tank could be effectively engaged with it. We thus started paying the utmost respect to the Flak troops who previously had sometimes received a condescending smile from us.”
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Guide on dealing with a T-34 tank. Guns smaller than 88 mm in caliber could do little against its armour. |
Monday, 6 March 2023
Video: IS-2 vs Panther, Math and Reality
I've frequently seen the claim that the front of the Panther tank was nearly invulnerable to the IS-2's 122 mm D-25T gun if correctly angled. Indeed, penetration equations suggest that would be the case, but reality is a lot more complicated than that. In this video I go into detail about how line-of-sight armour thickness doesn't tell the whole story.
Friday, 3 March 2023
A Firefly with a Stinger
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A stowage sketch showing the tank’s official designation: Sherman V.C |
Thursday, 2 March 2023
Book Review: Surviving D-Day Tanks in Normandy
The scale of the D-Day landings was truly epic, with Allied forces landing on a front some 70 kilometers wide. This introduced a considerable problem for the Germans 79 years ago, but also for visitors today, as artefacts and battlefields are scattered across a large distance. Fortunately, a tourist armed with Surviving D-Day Tanks in Normandy by Craig Moore will be able to make the most of their trip.
Tuesday, 28 February 2023
Monday, 27 February 2023
Modernization in the British Style
17-pounder gun, The 17-pounder anti-tank gun was a powerful weapon, but vulnerable on the battlefield due to its size and weight. The muzzle brake on this gun is not original. |