«And our tanks are fast ..." This line from a famous song popular in the thirties film "Tractor" is the best expresses the essence of Soviet military doctrine of pre-war years.Not powerful and impenetrable in the first place - speed.
BT series tanks in their names contain information about the main advantages of this technique.The letter "B" stands for "high-speed", and for good reason.62, and even more than 86 kilometers per hour - a good indicator even for armored vehicles of the XXI century and the first third of the XX it seemed fantastic.Tank BT-7 - the fastest tank of his time, it is a fact.We can only understand why it was created, to find out how this happened, and understand why our fellow citizens know so little about this masterpiece.
main elements of the design, allows us to develop a high speed, in any car is the chassis and the engine.Of course, the importance and weight in relation to the tank - weight armor.But the task of the engineer is to find the optimal ratio of these parameters in order to fulfill the terms of reference as fully as possible.The fastest tank in the world was equipped with Christie suspension, which today is used by the creators of armored vehicles around the world at the same time, in the early thirties, its simple genius could only estimate the Soviet engineers.Moreover, Western designers took no less than two decades, to come to this decision.
first in the lineup was the tank BT-2, wheel-track.Basically, he already possessed all the attributes of a modern car aggressive, able at short notice to travel long distances, rushing into breakthroughs, encompassing the enemy military units and cities.Design feature - its ability to move both tracked and wheeled, that is a combination of rapidity with cross.On the basis of this specific features, it can be concluded on the appointment of the machine: on Soviet territory, always a sophisticated road terrain, the fastest tank had to be moved on the tracks and at the border crossing it was only their reset as an extra burden, and to race further alonghighways and motorways.The engine was carbureted, which allows the use upon the occurrence of trapped gas.BT-2 was the pilot, was made in 1933 when Hitler's aggressive plans were just beginning to ripen in his fevered brain.Already in 1934 from the Soviet pipelines already descended new machines BT-5.The armament consisted of a 45 mm cannon and machine gun.
1935 was the date of birth of the BT-7.Nothing of the sort at that time did not have any of the countries of the world, it was the fastest tank, but also on other indicators, he was the best.The caliber turret gun - 45 or 76 mm (depending on version), inclined to book a head of 22 mm, the diesel engine is a 2, 400 hpCrew - "Three tanker, three gay friend."
Battle 'baptism' took the fastest tank in Mongolia, when it was carried out a brilliant offensive to defeat the Japanese forces.Then he said, and "European orientation" of the machine, the narrow tracks sank into the sand, and the movement of the wheel is not out of the question.Those shortcomings emerged during the Finnish campaign, but to change the design for some reason not in a hurry.
reason that the fastest tank is not distinguished himself during the Great Patriotic War, all the same.BT created for the European theater of operations, and its features and advantages of off-road remained unfulfilled.
Produced fast tanks were a lot more than 5 thousand.Those who managed to save after the disastrous start of the war, have been applied in 1945, during the rapid offensive, which resulted in was destroyed by Kwantung grouping numbering 1 million. 400 thousand. Japanese soldiers and officers.Soviet losses amounted to about 12 000 people.
