Translated by Vlad.
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Even before they appeared on the field of battle, tanks were called land ships. The metaphora wasn’t only lively, but contagious: in the years of WWII many tank projects were developed, equaling warships in size and firepower. The historian Yuri Pasholok invented the term “land cruiser” for this kind of tank. The topic will be on two such projects.
Davletovs’ “land cruiser”
On the 13th April 1941, the people’s commisariat of Defense received a letter from the village of Gorniy Bakliy in the Stalingrad region. Its author was the student of Azov-Black Sea insitute of mechanical engineers G.A. Davletov. The envelope contained the description and sketch of a battle machine affecting one’s imagination. Its creation was based on the analysis of previous wars: from WWI to the Northern War. The author aimed to create a vehicle which was capable of breaking through the “Mannerheim line” without losses.
The result was a tank project with overall mass of 2.5 thousand tonnes and a length of some 40 metres (the width was half of that). In spite of calling the vehicle land-based, Davletov provided two propellers enabling the land cruiser to travel over water. The giant used collosal engines with 15.000HP to move forward. The author considered the vehicle to be capable of going 40km/h on land and 13.5kn (25km/h) on water. Fuel usage should consist neither of gasoline nor of mazut (low quality oil), but simply crude oil.
The armament of the land cruiser was fitting for its’ dimensions. Fitted into the turret of 5m height, there were three 500mm mortars which fired over a distance of 30km, two long-range 150mm cannons (range 35km) and ten 75mm guns. But this was not it: Davetov also insisted on installing four AA guns and 20 heavy machine guns. The ammunition carried was also no joke – 100 rounds for each mortar alone. Moreover, due to the huge deck space the “land cruiser” should carry 16 battle-readied tanks on it.
The author proposed the following usage: “…at the distance of 250-300km from the frontline, 100 land cruisers should be stationed… these 100 carry 1800 tanks (200 of which are amphibious). Moreover, on board of the ships are up to 4 divisions of armed infantry”.
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After nightfall, the armada should begin its’ movement toward the frontline to arrive there by dawn. A few hours before that, support bombers should cripple the enemies’ fortifications. This had to be caught up by the firepower of the cruisers. After that, some two thousand tanks are unloaded and roll into battle. Davletov assumed that the suppression of enemy defense in this scenario should take two hours at most. “With the tank’s breakthrough, the cruisers direct fire on the surviving centers of resistance, crushing them with their mass, widening the breach… Their next goal is to contact the aviation, the paratroopers to capture the enemy capital.”
Continue reading “Bizarre armor projects of the '40s. Land cruisers” →

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What is left for a man who had taken everything from him by the war, and has no possibility of revenge? The inventor in this story embodied his grief and anger in a project of an unbeliavable revenge machine.
His name was Michail Vasilyevich Bojko, occupation: repairman. His parents, sisters and children died in Kharkov captured by the Germans. Bojko was located at an evacuation hospital in Sochi, being cured from a heart disease. There, he began the work on his creation: “I fixed on the idea of creating powerful armament for the Red Army, to destroy the fascist pack with the sharpest weapons possible” – Bojko wrote to the people’s commissariat of Defense in the beginning of 1944. His’ furious minds’ creation was called the “Armor flame carrier” with the mysterious index “AN”.
In steel scales
The short description of the project read as: “In the shape of a flaming tornado, the armored flame carrier “AN” burns everything in its’ way – destroys, explodes, kills, does moral damage, causes trauma and affects the psyche. “AN” destroys everything in its’ path – living or dead”. Bojko’s letter kept such tone from the first to the last line.
The author didn’t invent just any flame throwing tank. It’s chassis should consist of three pairs of tracked movement parts. Bojko’s idea was that the vehicle could move from the spot in any direction, however he did not state how exactly this should happen.
Furthermore, Bojko proposed to install a “minecatching air-compressed electronet”. This name described an early attempt at dynamic tank protection. It should prevent minefields from doing damage to the tank.
But even in the case of failure of the “electronet”, the crew needn’t worry, since after that came the vehicle’s armor. Bojko seemed to have the image of some kind of dragon in his head: the machine’s protection didn’t consist of armor screens or plates, but of movable “armor scales”. It should be covered with a special fire-resistant coating, not specified by the author, and have up to 490mm of thickness. The author’s focus was on such kind of a composite armor. Overall, the “carrier”s protection seemed ideal. It could probably withstand shells and even aviation bombs up to 860kg and also external fires.
Carrying the flames
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Continuing the dragon analogy: the vehicle did not only had scales, but also flame breath.
Continue reading “Bizarre armor projects of the '40s. Armored flamethrower” →

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Stationary firing points are stationary because they cover a specific land area. And if the enemy suddenly attacks in another area, you can’t move this point to another location. Or do you? The problem of moving pillboxes was approached in different ways. The easiest way would be to install a wheeled drive. A first attempt at this was made by German engineer Maximillian Schumann in the end of the 19th century. His armored carriages were widely used by the Germans in the years of WWI. The disadvantages of the invention were inability to move in combat circumstances and their need of tractive force.
From an inventors point of view the optimal solution would be a driving force for the pillbox so it could move by itself. In the years of WWII many projects on this topic were regarded, among which some were quite exotic and strange. However, they were nevertheless regarded at even the highest levels.
Alekseenkos “Walking pillbox”
In June 1942 one such proposal arrived from Magnitogorsk. The range of persons partaking in the discussion shows how seriously this was regarded: firstly, the project came into the hands of the chief of the Leningrad’s armored courses of commander improvement general-major A.V. Borsikov. He gave the project to the chief of the Main Tank-Automotive Management, general-lieutenant Y.N. Fedorenko. It was even accompanied by a letter from Borsikov, which stated that he communicated with the people’s commisar of ferrous metallurgy I.F. Tevosyan, who agreed on construction of a prototype, if Fedorenko approves of this project. What was this wonderous vehicle which was spotted on such a high level of command?
The author of the “walking pillbox” project was engineer Alekseenko who worked on the Megnitogorsk’ steel mill. The construction, in which the office staff of the arms section of the mill actively took part, represented a streamlined design with the length of 5m, width of 3.8m and height of 1.7m. The mass of the apparatus reached ca. 45 tonnes. Such an impressive weight was explained by the fact that the armor of the “walking pillbox” reached up to 200mm and as such couldn’t be penetrated by any field artillery systems at that time. Inside was an 76mm gun with an ammo capacity of 100 rounds and 3 DT machineguns.
The machine should be moved only by an GAZ M-11 engine with 76HP. It seems that the authors clearly made a mistake in assigning such a weak motor. However, this was still not a tank, but a pillbox which wasn’t quite in a hurry. The maximum speed was expected to be about 2 km/h. As the name of the project implies, the movement should be provided by “legs” on the principle of a walking excavator.
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One step moved the apparatus by 1.3m. In combat mode, the “legs” were lifted and the machine laid on a flat surface. In this position, the upper part of it could rotate fully, providing firepower in all directions.
The “walking pillbox” project was executed on a high technical level and appealed by using parts of other vehicles, which simplified production. This was the reason why such high ranks became interested in this project.
However, Fedorenko did not approve of this construction, so as a result it found its way to the archives.
Vierts’ vibrating and crawling monster
An even more original proposal arrived in august 1943 at the address of Joseph Stalin. The author, design engineer of the aviation factory No. 89 I.V. Viert, proposed a machine which he called “Crawling vibrating pillbox”. The name itself is strange and intriguing, but the concept did not look like an offspring of madness. As Alekseenko’s “walking pillbox”, Vierts’ construction was based on solutions which were already implemented. However, in contrast to the walking excavators, which were produced serially, bristlebots were in the stage of working models.
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Vierts’ construction represented a kind of a puck with a streamlined upper half. The principle of the machine’s operation was quite easy: inside of the hull were special flywheels whose rotation caused vibration movements in a specific direction. In other words, the flywheels’ operation caused the machine to make small jumps. To compensate the impacts during landings, the author provided a system of spring suspensions. Due to the vibrating propulsion system, Viert assumed that his apparatus could even dig itself in. To do so, the machine should just jump on the same spot for a while.
Because this was only a concept, the inventor did not regard the questions of armor and armament. It is known however that he thought of fighting “Tigers” using his invention.
In contrast to the “walking pillbox”, which was declined on the highest level and soon forgotten, Vierts’ vibrating pillbox had a longer and more dramatic life. The first developments on this kind of machine were presented by him as early as in September 1941. The author was declined multiple times, but Vierts’ persistance did its thing. In addition to diagrams, the inventor produced working models of his machine which showed the possibility of production of such an apparatus.
Viert showed his machine to professor Christie and professor Grudzev at the War academy of mechanization and motorization. His last try in achieving rightness was a letter to Stalin himself. This did not had any special effect however, because the matter was handed over to the people who rejected his proposal multiple times already. And as such this project, too, got lost in the archives for a long time.
 
Author – Yuri Pasholok
Sources: Central archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (ZAMO RF)

Thanks a lot to Vlad for translating this glorious historical article.
Author: Jurij Bachurin
Sources: Central archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (ZAMO RF)

An image of a tank without tracks and rolls looks absurd. Even weirder are the looks of a combat vehicle which is moved by something like gigantic screws attached below the vehicle’s floor. In fact, among many others, the idea of a worm (or snail) drive was one of the more sane and viable ones.
Grigorenko’s “Driven worm”
On the 9th May 1944, one year prior to the Victory Day, first technical lieutenant Boris Grigorenko submitted the results of painstalking work via mail. The address was a short one: “Moscow – Kremlin”. The author proposed a new concept of movement parts which could easily handle “the crossing of muddy and boggy terrain, marshes with thickets, rivers, seas, sand, snow etc.”. He asked for help constructing and testing a prototype to fight against the Germans.
The invention was called “Driven worm”. Grigorenko named his variant of movement system based on the ancient Archimedes’ screw. He proposed to put a combat vehicle on steel rods with continuous screw surface. “The Driven worm represents a replacement for tracks, wheels and such. The rotation of the worm drives the vehicle forward” – the inventor reasoned. And with that, everything was said, because, according to the inventor, a tank with worm drive should have ideal terrain passability. Grigorenko even accounted for amortization on hard terrain, adding rubber rollers to the construction.
He did realize he was an amateur: “I’m not a technician or draftsman and do not have the capabilities to lay out everything in detail on paper”. The author hoped that Moscow would assign the revision of the drafts to specialists under his supervision and clearly hoped to be transferred to the capital.

The details of the idea were laid out by Grigorenko in a few words and accompanied by undetailed drafts. He proposed several variants of the installation of his “Driven worm”. The first was a cross-country vehicle of a “boat-like” build. The engine-transmission compartment of the vehicle was to be installed in the front. In the same place should be the bow deck and the driver’s cabin – judjing from the draft, a glassed one. The platform, covered by a tent, should be able to handle cargo of up to 2 tons. The second idea was a proposal of a GAZ-AA truck, where the rear wheels should be replaced with screws. And finally the last one was a draft of a screw-driven tank, which was quite abstract and not even commented.
Beketov’s screw tank
Even further were the thoughts and ideas of technical engineer V. Beketov. In august of 1942 he sent his project of a “screw tank” to the GABTU (department of inventions of the Main Tank-Automotive Management).
The description of the tank was in the sense of the author’s depiction of a perfect tank. Great firepower, speed, maneuvrability, stability, but first and foremost – the lack of vulnerable spots. A common weakness of all tanks was the chassis, and Beketov decided that he found a method to secure it: “The main idea for a positive solution of this question would be one where the tanks chassis would at the same time be part of the armored compartment”. Basically, the tank the author was proposing a tank consisting of one huge chassis, which was to be changed from a tracked drive to a worm one.

Beketov’s tank looked like a hollow armored cylinder which contained engine-transmission compartment and the driver’s seat. Quickly rotating, the cylinder should provide a forward movement. But this was not enough from the authors point of view: “Such an proposal is only realistic if two armored cylinders are connected by a solid link and rotate in different directions”. As such, the depiction was of a tank consisting of steel pipes of different thickness and diameter.
Continue reading “Bizarre Armor Projects of the ’40s. Worm Tanks” →

Thanks to Mr. Tretiak. Visit his blog here.
In this part of my series on games and how they don’t always (or sometimes outright ignore) how AFVs actually operate, we’ll be covering how games don’t really cover how a tank crew keeps stock of their surroundings.
While I figure it’s usually safe to assume people are aware of this, I’ll just touch on a few basics about how this was and is currently done, both in a modern and historical context.
What we need to keep in mind, starting out, is that a tank is essentially a giant steel bunker with tracks, turret, and a main gun. It is designed to repel all sorts of external threats and damage, from small infantry weapons like pistols and rifles, to shrugging off shrapnel and large bore artillery explosions (in their general area, at least). To do so, even today, tanks limit number of holes or other openings that are readily accessible or exposed, to ensure the strongest possible protection against these various external threats. This means that tanks are relatively isolated, internally, from their external surroundings, especially when it comes to your normal senses, such as sight, hearing, and smell. It may help some to consider that being in a tank is similar to being in a submarine (ok, not really, but bear with me). You are at the mercy of what you can see or detect, but you have a limited amount of tools at your disposal to detect the threats around you or to select targets offensively. This is an issue that has been a long standing issue with armored fighting vehicles since they first started showing up.
Early tanks and vehicles essentially had little vision slits that provided some view of the area directly overlooked by the slit. So drivers could see a narrow little band of space before them, gunners could see little strips of what was directly before their guns, etc. To overcome this, many early tanks would have multiple crew members with multiple gun sponsons (essentially a hull mounted gun turret) laid out around the periphery of the tank to cover multiple angles with fire. They also would have the vehicle commander try to keep an eye out on their surroundings, by using either an armored cupola or similar construct with vision slits to permit them a better sense of their surroundings. These early vehicles, like the British Mk V, were slow, extremely ungainly, and had difficulty maneuvering, though they still made a difference with crossing trenches and helping break some of the stalemate of the war. During the war and afterwards, it was noted that these crude vision slits were very limited in several ways. One, that they were rarely ‘covered’, letting in bullets, snow, rain, ash, smoke and the like into crew compartment. Those that could be closed, were still a weakness in the armor of the vehicle. Long range vision in an early tank was generally accomplished via a man with binoculars, either looking out of an opened hatch, door, or large observation position on the vehicle. Gunnery sights were crude.
 

 
 

As time progressed, leading up to the Second World War, various nations experimented with new technologies and manufacturing techniques to try to provide both good visibility from inside the tank, while improving the protection and security of the crew. The vision slit still remained, early in the war, but was gradually replaced by periscopes and sight prisms that allowed for better protection and fewer points of compromise in the armor layout.

 

 
 
 
 

The gun sight on a Panzer III. I am uncertain of either the source of the image or the model of the Panzer III, but one can see through the open hatch, the conventional layout of the vehicle, in accordance with the Heer’s standards during the war.
 
 

Guns got better long range performance and sights were improved to increase the effective accuracy of these better weapons. While the Germans produced very accurate and easy to use gunnery sights, they were very expensive and complex, and had a limited field of view. German gunners rarely had any sort of back up sight or wide-view periscope to assist in target acquisition, which limited their effectiveness, relying on the vehicle commander in particular to help guide them on to a target. Other crew generally had very limited options for seeing, though in some cases (such as the hull MG/radioman and the loader) this was not strictly speaking needed for them to do their basic jobs. It was shown, however, that (surprise surprise) more eyes scanning the surrounding area made for much more effective operation of the vehicle, either while it was moving or when it was trying to identify targets.The Allies produced their own gunnery sights that, while generally not as sophisticated, were perfectly functional and also had begun to provide gunners with secondary sights for better situational awareness.

 

The turret of a ‘Königstiger’ aka Tiger II (H). Position of the various sights and vision systems: bottom right is the driver, seated unbuttoned from his position in the hull. Directly above him, on the turret, is the hole in the turret front where the gunners sight is located. Directly behind that, on the top right of the turret is the commander’s cupola, with the distinctive late-war dome and multiple vision prisms. To the left, located above the gun on the forward turret roof plate, is the loader’s forward vision periscope.
 
 

Near the end of the war, multiple sides had nearly finished or started to put out crude night-vision technology, allowing for a limited improvement in night combat abilities.

 

A late-World War II German infrared night-vision device with an illuminator spotlight. It seems to be mounted on a Panther’s commander’s cupola. While limited in range and offering a poor image, it represents some of the first steps towards improving tank crew’s ability to operate with extended sensory equipment.
 
 

Even with the advances and improvements made, it was found that situational awareness, especially for near or around the vehicle, was incredibly poor, leaving tanks extremely vulnerable to flanking and and infantry. The most reliable means for a tank crew to ascertain the nearby conditions and environment is to open their hatches and look around ‘unbuttoned’. This gives excellent situational awareness, though perhaps for obvious reasons, it has major drawbacks. The most cynical among us could successfully argue, for instance, that having a tank commander taken out by a sniper certainly would increase the vehicle crew’s general situational awareness to the threat of nearby infantry. That said, it is not the best course of action when one suspects nearby infantry or enemies, forcing crews to either rely on friendly troops or vehicles to overlap their vision or otherwise protect them from such situations. However, even today, it is easier and most effective to drive a tank or check the local situation by popping your head out of the hatch to have a look around, provided you’re not suicidal or otherwise engaged in combat.

More recent improvements to tanks include a wide range of sensors and devices that allow for better vision during the day and night, full thermal vision, and even devices that can assist in detecting the direction where gun fire has come from. Other improvements, either being developed or tested, including direct feeds from local UAVs, remote cameras mounted to cover various angles of the vehicle, GPS navigation, and military data networking that allows for real-time information being transmitted to various vehicle crews across the field of battle. Yet all of this still doesn’t change that you are still in a giant metal bunker with limited options for viewing or observing your immediate vicinity. It only mitigates this reality and help improve the function and efficiency of the vehicle crew.

 

 
 

So, how do video games usually stack up to this reality? Generally, not very well on average (with some notable stand outs). Let’s see what some of the contenders are!

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The Battlefield Series

Perhaps surprisingly, the Battlefield Series has made some efforts to reflect the fact that you can only see a limited amount of space when you’re in a tank, and should be generally commended for that. Are they the most accurate or well-thought out presentations? Ehhh, not perfect. They still do a better job than some other games I’ll mention, however.

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World of Tanks

World of Tanks does rather poorly, all told, in how it handles tank visibility and situational awareness, though this can perhaps be written off a little as the game isn’t trying to simulate real tank combat. Rather, it uses game mechanics (vehicle sight vision, making tanks invisible, etc) to ‘simulate’ the limited vision and awareness a tank crew might experience. However, with a third person view and tank gunnery sights that are limited at best, and outright fanciful at worst, it’s not really the paragon of realism (nor does it try to be in most cases). Armored Warfare falls into the same general category, though it gets a special shout-out for it looking into, at least, night vision and thermal devices in the future, which would be pretty neat and allow for night fights in the game.

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War Thunder

War Thunder is fairly similar to World of Tanks in some cases, where in others, it can be significantly better. It really depends on what type of game mode and game experience you are looking for as a gamer. Arcade matches feel very similar to World of Tanks in a lot of ways, though there are clear differences in approach (for instance, game balance does not really exist in the same way that it does in World of Tanks). With Simulator battles, however, tanking becomes much more about your own situational awareness and using the tools they provide to make the maximum use of your vehicle and its armor in combat. They incorporate various real-world analogs that would be shared across virtually all tanks of the era. Here’s a basic list of this vision characteristics: the gun sight is adjustable, you can simulate viewing things through a tank commander’s binoculars, seeing through the driver’s periscope/prism, or even being unbuttoned from the commander’s hatch (kinda). The game still has some major issues, though, for the hardcore tank simulation crowd, as the gunnery sights are not unique to the country (they varied in sophistication and operating method for different models and countries in real life) and still feel more tacked on, than as fine-tuned mechanics. Still, the experience is a bit more ‘authentic’ to what it might be like to be in an actual tank and try to take stock of your surroundings than either Battlefield or World of Tanks.

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The Red Orchestra Series

Ah, Red Orchestra: Ostrfront, Mare Nostrum, and Darkest Hour. These were, for the longest time, my personal staples for World War II tank combat. I loved how you had to manually dial in the range of a target and sight it, how you were always in danger if you poked your head out for a quick look around at your surroundings. They tried, very, very hard to replicate the sense of isolation a tank crew might feel and the dilemma of exposing yourself to enemy fire in order to gain a better sense of the situation around you. Was it perfect? No, not really. But they did a great job, especially for what were all fairly advanced gameplay concepts for their era and if someone is looking for a cheap tanking simulation thrill, it’s a good place to go if you don’t mind the inaccuracies and more game-y elements you might encounter (or bad armor simulation).  Not just that, but you can run most of a full tank crew, depending on the vehicle, with driver, commander, gunner, and hull gunner all being playable by other players (and a positive blast when you have friends who want to join you in running a tank).

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad and Rising Storm do an even better job, albeit with a much, much smaller pool of vehicles and tanks. The internal models of their vehicles (The Panzer IV and T-34, along with a recent expansion that includes additional vehicles) and how they work, the vision slots and your limited options for looking around, all of these can really bring home the isolated world inside of a tank. I frankly adore that they have tried to do this, though I lament their continued lack of additional vehicles, such as the IS, KV-2, or Tiger (to name a few of the, many, many vehicles they’re lacking). However, it’s clear that each one would represent a significant and very time consuming and expensive investment to produce, despite how absolutely gaga I would be for Tripwire Interactive to create them. I can only hope and look forward towards the future and the modding community.

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The ArmA Series

I love ArmA. I truly do. But when it comes to vehicles and vehicle combat, it has some major weaknesses and lets armor-orientated players down a fair bit. Yes, it’s mostly infantry focused, yes its not a full on combat simulator. But one had hoped, given that they have done a great job with modeling the interiors of helicopters, trucks, airplanes, and even the transportation compartments of an APC or IFV, they might also model the interior of a tank or other AFVs with the same vigor. Sadly, they have not and probably will not in the foreseeable future, much to my disappointment. That said, the ArmA modding community has made significant efforts to rectify this terrible tragedy, and various mods and efforts have made or are making mods that replicate the interior of these vehicles and how they might or do operate. My only current qualm is third person views, which I think breaks immersion for me and others, though its simple enough to find a server or group that limits vision to first-person only.

All told, games have made efforts to help replicate, if not directly simulate this aspect of operating an armored vehicle. In any game where multiple crew positions are available in a first person mode, it really can immerse players in the unique challenges faced when one is in a tank and it really is quite unlike anything else when its done well.

Finally, a proper historical article!

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In the 30s of the 20th century Hungary took it’s time choosing tanks for its army. At first, Italy was supplying the kingdom with light tankettes L3/L5. Afterwards, the Hungarians started thinking about producing an ideal vehicle for production in their own country, as the industrial capacity of the country would allow such a project. Like many European countries, Hungary at first wanted to build an “convertible tank” (TN: tracks can be taken off to continue driving on wheels), but after trials in 1936 the Swedish light tank Landsverk L-60 was chosen.

At the moment of the trials the L-60 was one of the best tanks in the world. Quite fast, comfortable for the crew, technologically advanced, this tank, designed by German engineer Otto Merker, was ahead of its contestants. The easiest example of its technical superiority was the first use of a torsion bar suspension. The L-60 was at first armed with the 20-mm automatic Madsen cannon.

In Hungary, the L-60 recieved the designation 38M. Toldi I or Toldi A20. At the beginning of serial production in 1940 its configuration was changed: the Swedish engine was replaced for an German “Büssing” and the autocannon was replaced by the 36M anti-tank rifle. Later on, after being trialed, the 37-mm Bofors cannon was installed. The first contract of 80 tanks was split between Ganz and MAVAG. The second series consisted of 110 tanks, recieving the index 38M. Toldi II, also known as Toldi B20. They had thicker armor, wider usage of Hungarian modules and a new radio station.

But the times were changing fast, and with them the requirements for tanks and tank combat. In the summer of 1941 the Hungarians were already met with significant problems.

The L-60 was created to fight light tanks from the late 30s, which had an armor thickness of about 20mm. The automatic cannon could handle these. Meeting the Soviet tanks however, which consisted of T-34 and KV-1, the 20-mm anti-tank round of the Toldi became powerless. Moreover, it couldn’t even handle the light T-60 and T-70, whereas the 45-mm gun of the T-70 knocked out the Toldi easily.

The military started to think about the armament in the beginning of 1942. This task was faciliated by the release of the new 40M. Turan medium tank. Its 40mm cannon was redesigned, shortening it and installing a muzzle brake. Thus, the 38M. Toldi IIA was born. It was not released separately, but applied as an upgrade to already existing tanks. A total of 80 vehicles were upgraded to this modification.

But this was a half-measure, not a solution. More so because the Hungarian army was losing many tanks on the Eastern front – not only a modification, but a replacement was needed.

In 1943 the Hungarian engineers developed a tank which should take the place of the new standard light tank. Its designation was 43M. Toldi III (Toldi C40). The armor remained at the same level as the previous model, but could potentially be upgraded with armor screens which were tested on the Toldi IIA, providing protection against anti-tank rifle fire.

43M. Toldi III was to be produced by the Ganz factories. Production started in 1944, but only 12 tanks of this series ever left the factory halls. On the 2nd July 1944, Budapest was struck by massive aerial bombardement, destroying all industrial capacities of Ganz, which ended the story of the Hungarian light armor.

But even if the bombs wouldn’t have interrupted the story of the Toldi III, it would not have been effective against any Soviet armor at the time it was released. The engineers developing the Toldi III were just 2 years too late with their creation.

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Sources:

1. A Magyar Királyi Honvédség fegyverzete, Bonhardt Attila, Winkler László, Sárhidai Gyula, Zrínyi Katonai Könyv- és Lapkiadó, 1992.
2. Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defence

 

 

Author: Yuri Pasholok