Once again to the question of the "Porokhovshchikov tank"
Turns out to be a happy birthday tank in Russia should be considered May 18, 1915. It was then that Russia allegedly began testing the first tank of A. Porokhovshchikov under the name "All-Terrain Vehicle". And he, it turns out, successfully passed the test. The team of creators was ready to soon “bring” the car to mind and even make it floating. But the inertness of the tsarist military experts led to the fact that the support project never received, as well as a number of other projects of our nugget designers, which were being developed in Russia at the same time as the All-Terrain Vehicle.
We will not specify who wrote all this, although this statement itself is best of all illustrated by an old proverb: “An old dog cannot learn new tricks.” That is, the one who studied in youth from one book, does not always accept everything new. But then it is worth seeing whether the tank was born 18 on May 1915 of the year, and were the experts from the GVTU really short-sighted? That is, are all the attributes of the tank present in the “Rover” by A. Porokhovshchikov?
I hardly need to describe in detail this “successful tank”, the images of which bypassed, probably, all the Soviet and post-Soviet publications “on tanks”. But let us remember that the track there was one there, that he was driving with wheels, that it couldn’t have been sealed in any case due to the design features (and how would he then float?) And that there was no weapon on it. The tower with the machine gun was added to it later. But how could one man lead this “tank” and shoot him? And finally, the most important thing: a tank must overcome (and tear!) Wire obstacles! Could this do "Rover"? No, I could not! Small mass, small size and the caterpillar itself - canvas or rubber tape. Consequently, this is not a tank, but ... it was an all-terrain vehicle, and a bad all-terrain vehicle, which is why it was rejected! And it is sad that people whose professional competence enters all this to know, for some reason, even now they are holding onto the “traditions of the Ochakov times and the subjugation of the Crimea”. But even in the textbook on the design of tanks for the 1943 year said: "The tank is a combat vehicle that combines armor protection, fire and maneuver." In this case, even if the armor on the "Rover" was, then there was no weapon. And even if he was driving in the snow at a decent speed, then ... he couldn’t precisely tear the wire obstacles. What kind of tank is it then?
And, by the way, that's why it is believed that the British did the first tank. With all the shortcomings of the Mk.I, he could do it all, and all these three incarnations were present in his design! And they also built experienced designs and models, but they never considered tanks for tanks. For example, they built a reduced wooden layout of the Hetterington “cruiser”, looked at it, weighed it all, and decided to turn out to be what they did in June 1915 of the year. But it was a layout, not a tank!
At the same time, in July 1915, Colonel Evelen Bell Crompton presented the draft, too, a composite, but already four-track tank with weapons in four towers, located on both of its hulls in a linearly elevated pattern, like towers on a warship! The car received the designation Mk.III (the first two were rejected before), but although it turned out to be better than the previous ones, it still didn’t recommend it for building the “Committee of Land Ships” created by Winston Churchill’s concerns, considering it too cumbersome and challenging!
Nor did the projects of designer Robert Francis MacFay, a Canadian engineer, have a grumpy and quarrelsome character. Interestingly, the very first of his project provided for a propeller, which allows us to say that he thought of them as floating! He was also on his other project. Moreover, it was supposed to raise and lower it in order to protect it from damage when it strikes the ground. Interestingly, the main feature of the last two of his cars was a tracked chassis of three caterpillars located in a triangle: one in front, two in the rear.
In this case, the front caterpillar was supposed to play the role of a steering device, i.e. rotate in different directions, as well as change their position relative to the body in a vertical plane. The designer has provided a front and a special cutter for barbed wire and a “nose” of armor plates that flips up at the top to protect this steering track and its driving wheel.
His second project was a tank on four tracks, but the two front ones were located one after the other. At the same time, a high-lying front caterpillar should have made it easier to overcome vertical obstacles, and all the others - to provide a relatively low pressure of the heavy machine on the ground.
Accordingly, the weapons on it could be installed both in the case itself and in the two sponsons on both sides of it. But the project seemed too sophisticated to the military, so that it was also abandoned. Although it would be interesting to get a car, in any case, probably not worse than the serial English tank Mk.I, and all the other tanks from the same series.
Yes, but how did Porokhovshchikov react to the remarks made to him, namely that his “Rover” is small, has no armament, does the caterpillar often fly off the drums? And he took them! As evidenced by his other project, fortunately, has survived to this day. In August of the same 1915 of the year, he proposed the GVTU project of the Earth Armadillo in two versions - field and serf.
One could just call his invention a technical nonsense, but his nonsense turned out to be very interesting and even instructive. To begin with, the armor of the field battleship had to withstand the fire of field artillery, the second - the serf! Well, and his car itself looked not so unusual, but simply monstrous. She had no corps as such. Instead, there was a steel riveting truss with a length of 35 and a width of 3 m, which had a chassis of 10 motor-wheels in the form of armored rollers with a diameter of 2,3 each. The 160-200 hp petrol engines were located directly in the skating rinks, and the transmission and fuel tank were also located there. Here, according to the plan of the “talented” inventor, there were also three people serving both the engine, and two machine guns and a bomb! That is, the "battleship" would have a whole arsenal of 20 machine guns and 10 bombers on each side, that is, two machine guns and one bomb inside each wheel! But engineer Porokhovshchikov and this was not enough. Therefore, he placed two armored towers in front and behind, with one 4 — 6-inch caliber gun (101,6 — 152,4 mm) and a smaller caliber gun coupled with it. In the center of the farm, an armored cabin was supposed for the commander of the “battleship” and his assistants, and a searchlight was at the top. The entire crew of the Field Armadillo was supposed to be 72 people. Armor - 101,6 mm. The declared speed should be from 4,4 to 21 km / h. The length of the “battleship” basically allowed it to force ditches and ravines up to 11 m in width. But the inventor clearly did not think about the bending loads with which his platform would have been subjected. As about how such a machine will turn. Of course, theoretically, she could do it, like any tank, slowing down rollers on one side. But ... for this it would be necessary to synchronize the rotation of all these rollers, and to achieve this it would be almost impossible. But he proposed to put the "battleship" on the railway course, so that he could move by rail.
“The fortress battleship”, apart from booking, was distinguished by the presence of an armored casemate for the landing party in 500 people. It turned out some kind of "assault machines" of antiquity and the Middle Ages, and even the Japanese ninjas, who also seemed to have something similar (in fact, pure fantasy!), But Porokhovshchikov’s fantasy left him far behind. Now imagine yourself in the place of the members of the GVTU, think about how this “miracle” should have shaken on the go, and most importantly, remember the strength of materials and twisting tensions in such farms, and you would then fully support the decision from 13 August 1915 on the meeting Technical Committee: “... even without detailed calculations, we can confidently say that the proposal is impracticable. It would be advisable for use in a combat situation to distribute the armadillo’s armament to separate mobile units not connected to one rigid system. ”
Typically, such inventors do not accept any criticism and go "to the end." But Porokhovshchikov agreed with the proposal on “distribution among the links”, and by the end of 1915, he presented the project “The Earth Battleship” from “articulated links” or armored platforms “able to deviate from each other in all directions”.
That is, it was an “articulated tank” with armored gun turrets and with logging for the landing - an unattainable dream of designers and today. Each "platform" consisted of two pairs of rollers and an armored platform with weapons. It is clear that this project was not considered. But the most surprising thing is that he did not offer all this to any drop-in student, but an engineer with a completed technical education who was supposed to understand how stupid and inefficient everything that he offers.
Speaking of "other projects", you can recall the idea of a wheel-drum of a certain S. Podolsky, who in October of the same 1915 of the year offered a car already on six-meter rollers, but a company of soldiers was supposed to push it! At the same time, according to the inventor, it was necessary to install turrets with machine guns for shooting at a running enemy;
And what other real-life tank projects were in Russia at that time? That is, projects were, yes, but are they being implemented? And finally, the conclusion from the foregoing can be made as follows: it seems to me that we have a rather nice and rich history that there is no point in improving by writing down projects of not very competent engineers and designers in positive, dubious quality.
- Vyacheslav Shpakovsky, Ph.D., associate professor
- Fig. A. Shepsa
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