Here's how, for example, it was with this armored car, which was noted for participation in the White Bohemian rebellion and the capture of Penza by the White Whales. Actually, this is the Austin, and we know that two-tower armored cars were produced on the basis of the Austins. In England, with a pair of towers, in Russia, with their diagonal arrangement, there are Austin-Putilov cars. But where did this single-tower model come from? True, there were two machine guns anyway. One in the tower and the other in the frontal armor plate of the hull
About tanks with love. Today we will visit our virtual museum of armored vehicles again and admire its wonders. Well, and, of course, let's think about how strange creatures people are. That they feel sorry for the money for what is necessary, for what directly affects the lives of other people, then they seem to go crazy and throw a lot of money for something that they don’t have any particular benefit from. People usually never spared money for showing off money ... But, on the other hand, what a dodgy mind they sometimes showed! Let's just say that with respect to armored vehicles, a principle only often worked very much: if there were wheels (or tracks), we would armor something and build a machine gun without fail!
The second exhibit is an armored car, the mighty Garford Putilov. He was also sent to Penza to pacify the rebellious Czechs, but for some reason, under the command ... of the Chinese
And as they got to a station full of Czech legionnaires, they did not begin to shoot at them, but immediately surrendered. Well, the Czechs didn’t even remove it from the platform, but they fired at the Penza Soviet of Deputies from the turret gun, and then again they sent it to the platform in Serdobsk, where some of them were surrounded and where the Soviet armored train approached. There, this BA dispersed everyone with several shots, forced the enemy’s armored train to retreat, and ... eventually led the encirclement to Penza. What is surprising in its design is that for some reason they didn’t put at least one machine gun on it to shoot straight ahead. Still, forward firing from sponsored machine guns was not very convenient.
At the end of World War I, the most modern and powerful a tank Allies turned out to be British Mk VIII. Eight cars the British handed over to the United States, where it was planned to expand its production, and here the war was over. But now Spielberg and Lucas decided to shoot the film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and wanted to insert a tank into it. I liked the MkVIII, taken as a basis
But two tanks were made. One steel, heavy, on the move, albeit without suspension, which made him shake terribly. And the other - with tracks made of polyurethane, which did not touch the ground when moving, but pulled it by a cable tied to a truck. By the way, the tank turned out to be very stylish and quite believable. Three guns, one of which in the tower is an excellent move. That is why only the British themselves during the First World War did not think of him ?!
In the 30s of the twentieth century, Czechoslovakia did not supply anyone with its tanks! And Sweden, and Switzerland, and Peru, and even Afghanistan! Here we have the Afghan model of the TNH tank. Well why, one wonders at that time, the rulers of this country needed tanks? They were without tanks ... no one would have decided to fight at that time. But if you want to, then here’s your tank! And not one. Only 15 cars were sold
For the first time I saw this Swedish armored car on the pages of the Heigl handbook, and I really liked it for some reason. It was thought that it would be easy to produce it in the “cuts the whale” version, that is, resin crafts. The whole body is one solid blank, empty inside to save material. The wheels are cast in the form of "halves", and all the other small ones were made - casting from "white metal"
Yes, but where to get the blueprints? He wrote to the Ministry of Defense of Sweden, and they not only sent me drawings, they also connected BTT modellers with their company, and they also sent a magazine where it was written about him. It is a pity that at that time there was no Google translator and all the text in the article about him had to be taken from Heigl. I always look at this car with bewilderment. Well, who invented this? By the way, spare wheels under the side armor plates rotate. This is in order to better overcome obstacles ...
Another ... armored car. It was produced from October 1942 to December 1943, and a total of 2844 armored vehicles of this type were produced. The T17E1 was adopted by the US Army as the M6, but “did not go” and was delivered to England under the name “Staghound”
It had a reservation of 22-32 mm, and the forehead of the tower (it was cast) was completely 45 mm. Armament - a 37-mm cannon and three machine guns, with a maximum speed of 89 km / h on the highway. Power density - 14 hp per ton of weight is a very good indicator for wheeled and such heavy BA (weight 13,92 tons). After the war, to whom only the British did not raft it, so these BA served until the 80s of the last century.
SAU "Deacon"
"Deacon" is generally something. It was built on the chassis of the AES Matador truck and was used in North Africa. Thin bulletproof armor, 57 mm caliber gun, which had a limited radius of fire due to the driver’s cab. And how to fight on it? And it’s very simple: they covered it with a body model with an awning and let it out on the roads of Tunisia and Egypt, they say, a truck in the sand got lost. Naturally, upon seeing such enviable prey, Italians and Germans did not shoot at him, but ... they caught up with their own BA or tank and offered to stop. And the car stopped right there, the driver got out of the cab, after which the props all fell from her and a shot was fired at point-blank range. At a close distance, the 57-mm shell of the English anti-tank gun that stood on the Deacon pierced the armor of any enemy tank. Well, if help came to him, then the Deacon turned around and scuttled off at full speed.
When the Americans needed a tank to fight German tanks in Europe, they simply modified their Sherman and turned it into a Jumbo
The tank received a 63-mm main and 38-mm patch armor, that is, more than a hundred millimeters, and even at an angle. Well, to shoot him in the tower, even from the "Royal Tiger" did not make sense. The armor on it had a thickness of 152 mm and another 177 mm was the thickness of the cannon mask, covering almost its entire frontal projection. The tank was armed with either a 105-mm howitzer to destroy obstacles, or a 76-mm gun, which, although badly, still hit German tanks.
Well, this car existed only in the drawings, or rather, in the scheme, corrected by its creator, Colonel-Engineer P. Osokin to Comrade Stalin in 1942
He called the car "Tank Cruiser." According to the designer, his task was to "escort the advanced units of the victorious Red Army in a march to the enemy’s capitals: Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Bucharest and further to the West - for the liberation of the peoples oppressed by fascism." But other colonel and general engineers did not approve of his project. It’s interesting, did the science fiction writer A. Kazantsev know about this project when he wrote his novel “The Burning Island” or did he himself invent the “land cruiser” operating in it, crushing entire hills and groves?
Vijayanta
And here the tanks of our Indian friends went, who somehow didn’t say so very long ago: “Hindi Russ Bhai Gang” (“Indians and Russians are children of the same breath”), “Gangs” - yes, but only weapon they often buy in completely different places. For example, "Vijayanta". Actually - the English tank of the Vickers company, it was produced at the factories of Great Britain in 1965-1967 and in India from 1966 to 1983. In total, more than 1400 units were manufactured. They agreed in 1961 and failed to prevent us from this “deal of the century”. In 1962, the Indo-Chinese border war broke out in Tibet. The USSR then did not support the PRC, took a position of neutrality contrary to the hopes of Mao Zedong for Soviet help, but refused to help capitalist India against socialist China either. But the United Kingdom and the United States helped her and began to supply arms to India. Later, however, we began to sell T-55 and T-72M tanks to India, but it was at that time that our positions in Hindustan were seriously weakened.
Tank "Arjun". Your own indian tank. Launched in mass production in 2006. The first tanks entered the Indian army in September 2007. In 2011, it was announced the release of 45 tanks of this type. Currently, there are two modifications of this tank - the "first and second series"
In an interview in January 2020, Army Commander Manoj Mukund Naravane said that the “second series” tank was finally meeting all the requirements, and its commissioning was planned for 2026-2027.
The "Tunguska" is here only because there is a beautiful drawing on it, and the car itself is good
But this projection of the hypothetical self-propelled guns “Coalition” appeared several years ago, when all our mass media enthusiastically wrote that she would have two barrels and that she would fire ... “a bunch of trajectories”. And I wrote everywhere that this is nonsense and that this will never happen. And here she is, today's SPG “Coalition”, and where is the second barrel from it?
As usual, in our panopticon there will be "creativity of the poor." Here is the BTR-60, and the tower on it is from the Panar AML-90 with a 90-mm gun. They riveted this miracle not somewhere, but in Djibouti!
Well, this "miracle" was not done by the poor. It is made in the USA. Machine based on M113, simulating our BMP-2. On maneuvers, such “models” are used as armored vehicles of the opposite side
PS The site administration and the author personally express sincere gratitude to A. Sheps, the author of the Panopticon illustrations, for the BTT drawings provided to him.
To be continued ...