The ballad about the T-55. Birth…
Penza T-55 among the pine trees near the church-chapel of the Archangel Michael
What modern tank can you put together a real ballad, moreover, impressive without any epic exaggeration? There can be only one answer: by the totality of all its characteristics, such a machine should be the Soviet T-55 tank!
Low-chested, flat-bottomed,
Weighed down by itself
With a gun aimed at the soul
Scary tank going into battle.
("Vasily Turkin". A.T. Tvardovsky)
Weighed down by itself
With a gun aimed at the soul
Scary tank going into battle.
("Vasily Turkin". A.T. Tvardovsky)
Monument tanks. We have two places in Penza where a fairly large number of military equipment has gathered, exhibited for public viewing. One is behind the mayor's office near the square with the monument to soldiers-internationalists ("Afghan Gates"), the other is next to the monument to the military and labor valor of Penza residents during the Great Patriotic War, among the pine trees of the church-chapel of the Archangel Michael. Among the various guns of the post-war years and self-propelled guns, the T-55 tank involuntarily attracts the eye (at the "Afghan Gate" there is a T-54). Than? Yes, that's just its appearance. He really is exactly like in Tvardovsky's poem - and low-chested, and flat-bottomed, and his cannon, although it looks into the sky, is impressive with the thickness of the barrel. In short, it really is a tank! Tank with a capital letter! However, the fact that this is not just the impression of an accidentally thrown glance at him, but that this is exactly the way it really is, allows us to make sure his truly unique story... And here we will tell you today. Well, maybe not all at once ...
So, it was in the USSR that an amazing tank was created during the Second World War, the name of which everyone knows - this is the T-34! And this is not just a tank - it is a tank paradox. The gun on it was worse than that of the German "Panther", the speed was lower than that of the British "Cromwell", it did not shine with its armor thickness either, it had an outdated suspension and, moreover, did not have the maintainability of the Sherman. But ... in terms of the totality of its combat properties and manufacturability, it surpassed all these tanks put together. Moreover, it turned out, although the military did not immediately realize it, that this is a tank of a completely new era - the era of total wars! No wonder he fought wherever he was, although he was already inferior to more modern machines. But not by much! Even better, although not so fundamentally, was its successor, the T-44, which nevertheless laid the foundation for the post-war Soviet school of tank design. Although, it would seem, what was it about him? A turret in the middle of the hull, massive wheels on torsion bars, a driver's hatch on the roof of the hull and an engine not along, but across it. All this also migrated to the next tank, the T-54, but its turret became different - like a cap from a boletus, and a 100-caliber cannon that surpassed all tank guns of our potential opponents in its power.
And then the Soviet Union had only two of them: the United States and Great Britain. Germany was just rebuilding its economy, while France was building only experimental tanks based on the German Panther. And then the Korean War began, where, again, our T-34s were operating, and it showed that the tanks of the Americans and the British were "not very good", that they would not go far in vehicles of the Second World War under the new conditions! The M47 "Patton II" (1951) and M48 "Patton III" (1953) tanks are urgently being put into service, and in the United Kingdom, several modifications of the "Centurion" tank are being introduced. However, they did not surpass the T-54 either in terms of their firepower, or in terms of armor protection, or in terms of maneuverability. Their 90-mm and 83,8-mm rifled guns, if they had to shoot at a distance of more than 1000 m, the frontal armor of our tank was not pierced. In addition, gasoline engines were still installed on them, the main drawback of which had been known for a long time and very well - high fire hazard.
Therefore, it is not even surprising that soon (namely in 1953) a tank with an air-cooled diesel engine appeared in the United States - the M60 main battle tank. It already had a 105 mm M68 cannon (licensed version of the British L7A1), and the designers managed to bring the thickness of the frontal armor on it to 200 mm. Accordingly, another "Centurion" Mk.10 appeared in England with an L7A1 cannon with thickened armor, but the British had not yet managed to create a replacement for the gasoline engine at that time.
T-55A Polish Troops
Our answer should have been the same. And ... he did! Under the leadership of Leonid Kartsev, to improve the characteristics of the T-54, which has been serially produced here since 1945, the T-55 tank was developed at the Uralvagonzavod design bureau in Nizhny Tagil, which was put into service in 1958. At the same armament (rifled gun 100 mm) and armor, the effectiveness of the gun was significantly increased due to the fact that it was stabilized, moreover, in two planes at once. That is, the T-55 received an almost XNUMX-fold advantage over its opponents in firepower, since it could now conduct effective fire on the move. The vehicle's mobility was also traditionally high.
However, perhaps the most important thing in which this machine surpassed all its Western opponents was its high operational characteristics, that is, indicators of reliability and maintainability.
In particular, the T-55 had a diesel engine with a liquid cooling system, which made it possible to operate this machine in various regions of the planet. And finally, let's look at the most important indicator of its high performance. So, according to the JANE'S Defense Equipment yearbook for June 1999, various modifications of the T-55 were in service in the armies of more than 60 countries of the world, and the total number of vehicles produced (including tanks released under license and the Chinese modification - the T-59 tank ) was a record - about 100 thousand cars! This is indeed a record figure, because throughout the entire history of world tank building, there are simply no other examples when a tank of the same type was produced in such quantities!
Egyptian T-55 tanks (1985)
Interestingly, our new tank was very similar in appearance to the T-54, which is why they were often confused in the West, but at the same time it was much more dangerous!
The diesel engine has become more powerful - not 520, but 580 hp. with., which is not superfluous for any tank. The stock of transported fuel began to be transported in storage tanks. At first glance, such a placement of fuel does not increase the survivability of the vehicle, rather the opposite. But tests at the proving ground have shown that diesel fuel tanks located on the fenders not only do not increase its fire hazard, but also serve as additional protection in the event of a cumulative projectile hit. In this case, the fuel simply flows out of the punctured tanks, but they themselves do not burn. If they were, of course, filled with gasoline, then the shaped-charge projectile would have set them on fire, but only heavy diesel fuel does not possess such flammability. The total capacity of the reserved fuel tanks, thanks to the dense layout, also increased to 680 liters, which now accounted for 50% of the total stock of transported fuel.
The T-55 did not seem to differ much from the T-54B (on which the gun was also stabilized in two planes) in armament, only the anti-aircraft machine gun was removed from it. First it was removed, but then in 1970 it was installed again. The number of shells in ammunition for the 100-mm rifled D-10T2S tank gun was increased from 34 to 43 shots. The shells for the gun had good armor penetration characteristics. So, a cumulative projectile pierced an armor plate with a thickness of 390 mm (installed vertically), and a sub-caliber feathered at a distance of 1000 m - a sheet with a thickness of 275 mm, that is, they hit all main NATO tanks.
T-55 28th Armored Brigade (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Installation of an air compressor, with the help of which it became possible to start the engine with compressed air, made it possible to save battery power and even start the engine in their absence. The crew also received collective protection from nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons: a filtering unit that purified the air supplied to the tank by its crew. The automatic fire extinguishing system also increased its survivability in the event of a hit. Well, the thermal smoke equipment installed on the tank, operating by injecting diesel fuel into the exhaust manifold, made it possible to repeatedly install a smoke screen, which could not have been achieved with disposable smoke bombs, which also ran out quickly.
The next response of our tank designers to the further improvement of the tanks of our potential adversaries was the T-55A model, which appeared already in 1961. This tank improved its security, and armor-piercing shells were created for the 100-mm tank gun, which have significantly higher armor penetration.
To be continued ...
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