BT-IS Ioseph Stalin
In order to increase the survivability and throughput of the BT-2 serial machine , on a rough terrain, on the instructions of the commander of the UVO troops I.E. Yakir, a group of enthusiasts headed by the inventor of the second rank military engineer N.F.Tsyganov began to create wheels - tracked tank BT-2-IS. To improve the ride quality of the tank while driving on wheels, three pairs of road wheels were made leading. To supply power to the rollers inside the car, along the sides of the hull, propeller shafts passed, from which rotation was transmitted to the support rollers along vertical shafts.
For four months, working 16-18 hours a day, a group of enthusiastic designers, which included N.F.Tsyganov, MFBerezkin, V.G. Matyukhin, A.L. Bessonov, A.V. Kurkin, A.Podsolihin, G.A. Fedchenko, S.Latmanizov, L.I. Orel, P.T. Shinaev, A.V. Danchenko, V.Krasnikov and V.Z.Itkin, in one of the designated Kharkov Command the military district of the premises of the tank repair plant, led the design and experimental work to improve the wheel-track propulsion BT-2 .
On April 23, 1935, the commander of the UVO troops, I.E. Yakir, in a letter to People’s Commissar of Defense, KE Voroshilov, reported that "After the May Day parade of 1934, Comrade Stalin indicated the need for further constructive improvement of the BT tank, in particular the need to change the propulsion of the tank and turning all its wheels into leading and controlled, while maintaining all the units of the tank, which should significantly increase the combat value of the machine. You then pointed out to me the need to think over and implement this instruction of Comrade Stalin. talented inventors is the platoon commander of the 4th Panzer Regiment comrade. Tsyganov ...."
In 4 months 635 drawings and 2932 parts of the designed machine were manufactured. The task set by Comrade Stalin was completed.
The first invention of Comrade. Tsyganov - "BT-IS". BT tank with a modified wheel propulsion II, III and IV pairs of wheels and I, II and IV pairs - driven. Patency on a wheel track on arable land increased by 4 - 5 times. The tank is able to overcome rises up to 25 °. Turning radius on the wheel was reduced in two (up to 5 - 6 meters).
The propeller consisted of a series of rollers interconnected by an articulated Gall chain. The tank is supported on skating rinks with the help of skis, which, to limit their flexibility, are made of individual links on hinges. This type of propulsion gives the car a speed twice as large as it has a BT tank with ordinary tracks with the same M-5 engine.
Estimated speed on tracks - 105 km / h. The machine had a quiet course and excellent maneuverability, making a full turn on the spot around the center of one of its roller chains. Both the first and second inventions, at relatively low costs, can be applied on all already existing types of BT machines and, of course, on all machines that are in production. Designer inventor Comrade. Tsyganov gave the first invention the brand BT-IS / Joseph Stalin /.
Having received this letter, on the same day, April 25, 1935, KE Voroshilov gave the go-ahead "for the manufacture of three sets of each tank." And if the work on the manufacture of the BT tank in the first version was organized at the Kharkov tank repair plant No. 48, then Leningrad Experimental Plant No. 185 refused to manufacture the roller track for BT. Having received the full support of the top leadership of the Red Army, a group of enthusiasts in the HVO armored workshops with a vengeance began to create a prototype.
Taking into account the importance of the invention of N.F.Tsyganov, head of workshops, friend and comrade Nikolai Ostrovsky for the civil war, the hero of his once famous novel, commander N.N. Lisitsin took over the general direction for making the machine BT-2- Ip. Both the morning and late at night, the chief engineer of the workshops, Srybnis, and the tank technician Aronson, and the designer Vasiliev worked selflessly. Three assembly brigades under the leadership of Orel, Boguslavsky and Danchenko in a short time carried out by June 1935, the installation of an experienced tank.
In contrast to the BT-2 serial tank, the prototype differed primarily in the lack of armament, a modified hull design and the installation of a new additional drive on the second, third and fourth pairs of road wheels, which were leading when the tank was moving on a wheel drive. The first pair of road wheels, as well as on the serial machine, was manageable.
The supply of torque to the three pairs of drive wheels of the wheel travel was carried out from the onboard gearboxes through a semi-rigid gear coupling to the shaft of the corner box and through the coupling to the intermediate roller and the second coupling to the shaft of the first upper box. From the top box, the torque was transmitted successively to the second and third top boxes. From the upper boxes through the telescopic drive shafts, the torque was transmitted to the wheel gears of the road wheels.
As a result of the installation of an additional drive in the inter-air space, as well as an additional fuel tank in the stern of the tank, the body of the car has undergone some changes. In addition, an additional drive reservation was introduced. In addition to the additional drive in the inter-sided space, additional fuel tanks were installed (one on each side). In the undercarriage of the machine, the balancers of the road wheels, suspension elements and drive wheels of the tracked propulsion unit were changed.
All summer and autumn went to the test and refinement of the experimental machine. The positive results obtained during the BT-2-IS tests on November 15, 1935 were reported to the People's Commissar of Defense.
Soon K.Ye. Voroshilov and G.K.Ordzhonikidze signed a joint order obliging KhPZ management to render all-round assistance to the Tsyganov group in the further work on the improvement of the wheel-track of the BT tank. And if the "conservative" military strongly supported the idea of N.F.Tsyganov, then, as the course of further events showed, the KhPZ leadership remained, to put it mildly, indifferent to it. After all, who needed "someone else's headache."
Now it remains only to state that the BT-2-IS tank compared with the base tanks had higher maneuverability when driving on wheels and increased survivability on the battlefield when the chassis was damaged, but the reliability of the drive to the wheels was still low. The tank BT-2-IS was made in a single copy.
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