Source: Т-22ср (А-22)
T-22cp and A-22, with the related development projects, were medium tanks built by the Soviet Union, resembling many features with one of the well-known prototype tanks that appear in World of Tanks, the Object 907.
It’s basically because: The A-22 was the first batch model of the T-22cp -> and the T-22cp was actually a placeholder for further reserach of the Object 907. Starting from one of the most famous Soviet tanks in WWII, to the most produced Soviet tank in the Cold War, the development tree looks like this, quite arbitrarily: T-34 -> T-34-85 -> T-44 -> T-54 (T -55) -> A-22 -> T-22cp -> Object 907.
Design layout of the T-22cp
In 1949, a project was carried out to establish the armor layout design for the A-22, with the further development being based on the results of the work and calculations, and of course, it turned out with all the additional work. But for some reason, the final development went to the Object 907 for further examination. It should be noted that the hull layout of the A-22 was almost completely made of RHA plates, the hull layout of the Object 907 should have been made by cast armor parts.
Armor of the A-22 after being hit by 122 mm and 128 mm shells
As being said earlier that even though the work on the A-22 and T-22cp were merely a partial development of the Object 907, it’s necessary to understand that this was created from scratch using the data received from particular studies.
A joint cooperation between TSBL-1 (Central Armor Laboratory №1, before the CRI-48 from the Moscow branch) and CRI-48 (Central Research Institute of Structural Materials “Prometheus”) was started in 1953 to begin the Object 907 Medium Tank development. In 1954, an armor layout scheme for this tank was considered for maximum protection, especially on the turret area. They had prepared 3 drawing schemes with different armor types:
1. Weld of almost all the cast armor parts to the tank.
2. Recreate a complete armor scheme with varying thickness.
3. Secondary welded armor.
In the end, only the third option was used to collect all the calculations from the armor protection tests of the hull and turret.
The armor protection tests were conducted in early 1955. The result was very outstanding, especially with its turret, which was 30% better than the T-54’s turret. It’s worth mentioning that the T-54 was developed in 1945, 10 years earlier than the Object 907. Ironically, it took so much time, just to improve turret armor protection by 30%, while leaving the other aspects as usual (as before).
By the end of 1955 it was planned to cast a full-length body and conduct armor protection tests again in 1956. Unfortunately, at that time, it’s already known in general that the cumulative high velocity projectiles with average caliber of 85 mm in any manufacturing technology were able to punch through Object 907’s armor almost everywhere except in the turret.
Further developments were discontinued and the test result of the Object 907 was scrapped in favor of Object 279 Heavy Tank.
Also, as per Soviet’s standard tank weaponry at the time (late 1940 – early 1950), A-22, T-22cp, and Object 907 would use 100 mm – type guns, designed for medium tanks.
