The fastest tank BT-7 was not created for defense

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

“And our tanks are fast…” This line of a well-known song from the movie “Tractor Drivers”, popular in the thirties, perfectly expresses the essence of the Soviet military doctrine of the pre-war years. Not powerful and not impenetrable, in the first place - speed.

BT series tanks in their very name contain information about the main advantage of this technique. The letter "B" means "high-speed", and for good reason. 62, and even more so 86 kilometers per hour, is a good indicator even for armored vehicles of the 21st century, and in the first third of the 20th century it seemed fantastic. The BT-7 tank is the fastest tank of its time, that's a fact. It remains only to understand why it was created, to find out how it happened, and to figure out why our fellow citizens know so little about this masterpiece.

The main structural elements that allow to develop high speed in any car are the chassis and the engine. Of course, weight also matters, in relation to a tank - the mass of armor. But the task of the engineer is to find the optimal ratio of these parameters in order to fulfill the technical task as fully as possible. The fastest tank in the world was equippedChristie's suspension, which is used today by the creators of armored vehicles around the world, then, in the early thirties, only Soviet engineers could appreciate its simple genius. Moreover, it took Western designers at least two decades to come to this decision.

The first in the model range was the BT-2 tank, wheeled and caterpillar. At its core, it already possessed all the signs of a modern aggressive machine, capable of covering long distances in a short time, rushing into breakthroughs, covering enemy military formations and cities. A feature of the design is its ability to move both on caterpillar and on wheels, that is, a combination of speed with cross-country ability. Based on this specific feature, we can conclude about the purpose of the vehicle: on Soviet territory, which has always been distinguished by difficult road terrain, the fastest tank had to move on tracks, and when crossing the border, it had only to drop them as an extra burden, and rush further along highways and autobahns. The engine was carbureted, which made it possible to use the gasoline captured during the offensive. BT-2 became experimental, produced in 1933, when Hitler's aggressive plans were just beginning to mature in his inflamed brain. Already in 1934, new BT-5 machines were already leaving the Soviet conveyors. Armament consisted of a 45mm cannon and a machine gun.

1935 became the date of birth of BT-7. None of the countries in the world had anything like it at that time,it was the fastest tank, but in other respects it became the best. Turret gun caliber - 45 or 76 mm (depending on modification), frontal inclined armor 22 mm, diesel engine B 2, 400 hp. Crew - “three tankmen, three cheerful friends.”

Combat "baptism" of the fastest tank took in Mongolia, when a brilliant offensive operation was carried out to defeat the Japanese troops. At the same time, the “European orientation” of this car also affected, narrow tracks got stuck in the sand, and there was no question of wheeled movement. The same shortcomings appeared during the Finnish campaign, but for some reason they were in no hurry to change the design.

The reason why the fastest tank did not prove itself during the Great Patriotic War is the same. The BT was created for the European theater of operations, and its capabilities and advantages in off-road conditions remained unrealized.

Produced high-speed tanks were quite a few, more than 5 thousand. Those of them that were saved after the catastrophic outbreak of the war found their use in 1945, during a swift offensive operation, as a result of which the Kwantung grouping of 1,400,000 Japanese soldiers and officers was destroyed. Soviet losses amounted to about 12,000 people.