• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Rybinsk Tractor Factory Tank

The Rybinsk tank was the project of a medium tank developed in the Russian Empire in 1915-1917. One of the most obscure armored projects created in Russia during the First World War - the information about it is very limited and sketchy. According to the most common version, the tank was created using a Holt tractor. There is also reason to believe that the the basis of the Rybinsk tank design was an un-adopted project of the French Colonel Etienne in 1915.

The initial draft of a tank was proposed to the military department at the end of 1916, but the events of 1917 put an end to further work in this direction. The tank have unusual layout. It have driver and machine gunner at front of a vehicle but 75mm naval gun at REAR of a vehicle. Tank was intended to be used as infantry support vehicle. Tanks should move at front of advancing infantry lines and use their machine guns to fight the enemy infantry. If they encounter enemy fortifications, tanks should steer and use their rear guns.

According to the first draft, the tank had a mass of 20 tons, a crew of 4 people and a reservation of 10-12 mm. The layout of the tank was a bit non-standard. In front of the hull, exactly on the central axis, there was a driver. To his right was set machine gun (type not specified, but it could be a 20-mm automatic gun), served by one machine gunner. The engine compartment was located in the middle of the hull, where the 200 hp engine was installed. The stern was equipped with a gun compartment with a 107-mm gun.

The tank of the second project was much lighter and weighed 12 tons. The chassis, engine and overall layout are likely to remain unchanged. Estimated speed was estimated at 12 km / h. The composition of weapons has changed - instead of 107 mm, the use of a faster 75-mm gun was supposed.

In early 1917, the Russian military department began to “test the soil” from its allies in order to purchase new armored vehicles. As regards tanks in the spring of the same year, an agreement was reached on the supply of 390 Schneider CA-1, but after a more detailed assessment of their combat capabilities in September, the choice was made in favor of the FT-17 light. Of course, these plans were not implemented in 1917 because of the general disorganization of power, but some time before, representatives of the Russian Renault company made a very attractive offer.

A preliminary draft of the tank on the tractor chassis was submitted to the Main Higher Technical School in the autumn of 1916. In many respects, it corresponded to the second project described by Mostovenko, although the company did not even present a sketch. There is also information that in Rybinsk they were going to build tanks, the basis for which could be the project of Colonel Etienne from 1915, rejected by Louis Renault, with whom active negotiations were then conducted. The second draft of the tank, apparently, was the very project of Etienne, somewhat reworked by Louis Renault. This tank had a much smaller mass and weighed 12 tons. It is not necessary to exclude the possibility that it is this development that is easily the basis of the “Rybinsk tank”, but it has not reached its practical realization. GVTU refused to allocate funds for the construction of at least one prototype, because the project “Russian Renault” did not have a detailed description and is presented only in general terms.

The first mention of him is found in the book by T. Tolski, published in 1956. In it, the author gave the calculated technical characteristics of the two tanks, and the cuts of one of them, which was called “armored tractor of high power”. As can be seen from the submitted sketches, both projects were well developed, but there is no mention of them in the archives (!). , in the wake of the struggle against cosmopolitanism and the dissemination of ideas about the “invention of the tank in Russia,” the story of the Rybinsk tank turned out to be very popular. In particular, on the basis of the drawings, the artist M. I. Petrovsky created an artistic reconstruction of the tank. In addition, researchers and local historiansattempted to find information on which particular Rybinsk plant and who drafted the project, however, these searches did not produce results. Due to the lack of any data in the archives, a number of researchers generally questioned the existence of this project.

Now the version is circulated that the “Rybinsk tanks” were an April Fool's joke of officers of the Academy of Armored Forces who published these projects in an academic newspaper. Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe that the tank of the Rybinsk plant existed.