T-54 - a tank with a long history

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The new realities of the emerging bipolar world in the second half of the 1940s and the confrontation between East and West, which led to the Cold War, forced us to rethink the military experience just gained. As a result, new models of weapons and military equipment appeared. The T-54, one of the best tanks in the world created in the post-war years, occupies a special place in their ranks.

This medium tank is the direct successor of the legendary T-34 and T-34-85 models. Initially, it was created back in the war years as a means of combating heavily armored enemy vehicles at long distances. The long-range gun D-10S, mounted on a self-propelled artillery mount SU-100, showed itself perfectly on the battlefield, but the transmission of the 34th turned out to be weak for it. The development of a reinforced T-44-100 tank, also not without flaws, was underway. The refinement of the new version was delayed, but as a result resulted in the creation of a new model. Under the designation T-54, the tank was adopted by the armored forces in April 1946 - a little over a month after Churchill's speech in Fulton, which is considered the endcold war countdown.

The designers have ensured that the new combat vehicle has maximum reliability and at the same time is quite easy to maintain. In addition to a hundred-millimeter gun, two 7.62 mm machine guns and a DShKM, an anti-aircraft machine gun, were installed on the tank. The hull, borrowed from the T-44, was basically left unchanged. This design used two innovations, which later spread to all armored vehicles: replacing the driver’s viewing slot with prism periscopes and the presence of a preheater in the undercarriage, which helped to start the tank engine faster in the cold. The V-54 engine with a capacity of 520 "horses" gave out a speed of 50 km / h on the highway and half as much - on rough terrain, having, however, a cruising range on it.

By the sum of combat characteristics, the T-54 in for 12 years it remained the most powerful medium tank in the world. The T-55, created in response to the introduction of nuclear weapons into the US Army, became its most famous modification. The main difference between the T-55 was the anti-nuclear defense system. In general, during the production of the tank (mostly before 1967, partially before 1979), many modifications and upgrades were carried out, including those outside the USSR. Based on a more than successful design, the following variations were developed: a command tank, a flamethrower tank, an anti-aircraft self-propelled gun, a minesweeper, an armored tractor, a fire truck, a bridge layer and others.

The first real baptism of fire tank T-54 took place in the Six Day War(1967) as part of the Egyptian and Syrian forces. A large number of tanks, knocked out or abandoned by the crews, were captured by the Israeli army, and after modernization they were put into service. It is characteristic that the USSR, being the ideological antagonist of Israel, in 1981-1982. sold him 50 T-54 tanks.

The most active period of combat use of the T-54 falls on 1979-1991: the conflict between China and Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan (one of the main tanks, along with the T-62, in the Southern Group of Forces of the USSR), Operation "Peace of Galilee" in Lebanon (in the Syrian and Israeli armies), in the Iran-Iraq war and the war in the Persian Gulf (in the Iraqi army).

T-54 and T-tanks 55 were actively supplied and sold by the USSR to its allies in the socialist camp, friendly countries and some others. For example, Finland. T-54 tanks made in Poland and Czechoslovakia were also delivered. Industry produced T-54/55 for more than 30 years. This is a record figure for a modern tank.