T-60
Encyclopedia : T : T6 : T60 : T-60
| T-60 at the Finnish Tank Museum in Parola | |
| T-60 scout tank | |
|---|---|
| General characteristics | |
| Crew | 2 |
| Length | 4.10 m |
| Width | 2.30 m |
| Height | 1.75 m |
| Weight | 5.8 tonnes |
| Armour and armament | |
| Armour | 7 mm-20 mm |
| Main armament | 20 mm TNSh cannon |
| Secondary armament | 7.62 mm coaxial DT |
| Mobility | |
| Power plant | 2×GAZ-202 70+70 hp (52+52 kW) |
| Suspension | torsion bar |
| Road speed | 44 km/h |
| Power/weight | 24 hp/tonne |
| Range | 450 km |
N.A. Astrov's design team at Moscow Factory No. 37 was assigned the task of designing amphibious and non-amphibious scout tanks in 1938. They produced the T-30A and T-30B prototypes. The former was to be manufactured as the T-40 amphibious tank starting in 1940. It also led to the T-40S (sukhoputniy, "dry-land" version), a heavier tank prototype which was considered too complex to manufacture. The T-30B prototype, sharing the T-40's chassis but simpler in construction and with heavier armour, was accepted as the T-60 scout tank, and began production in July 1941, just after the German invasion.
Although at first intended to carry a 12.7 mm machine gun like the T-40 the armament was later upgraded to the 20 mm TNSh cannon, a tank version of the ShVAK, on the advisement of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, V.A. Malyshev. This weapon had the same armour-piercing capability as the German 37 mm due to its high muzzle velocity (15 mm of perpendicular armour at 500 m range).
The T-60 was also used in the design of the experimental T-90 antiaircraft tank. This project switched to the T-70 light tank, and was finally cancelled without any production.
Gliding tank
One T-60 was converted into a glider in 1942 and was designed to be towed by a Petlyakov Pe-8 or Tupolev TB-3 bomber and was to be used to provide partisan forces with light armour. The tank was lightened for air use by removing armament, ammunition, headlights and leaving a very limited amount of fuel. Even with the modifications the TB-3 bomber had to ditch the glider due to the T-60's poor aerodynamics during its only flight to avoid crashing. The T-60 landed on a field near the airdrome and after dropping the glider wings and tail returned to its base. Due to lack of sufficiently powerful aircraft to tow it the project was cancelled and never resumed.
References
External links
| Soviet Armored fighting vehicles of World War II | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Light tanks | Fast tanks | Amphibious tanks | |
| T-26 | T-50 | T-60 | T-70 | T-80 | BT-5 | BT-7 | BT-8 | T-37 | T-38 | T-40 | |
| Tankettes | Medium tanks | Heavy tanks | |
| T-27 | T-28 | T-34 | T-44 | T-35 | KV-1 | KV-2 | IS-2 | IS-3 | |
| Self-propelled guns | Anti-aircraft | ||
| ZiS-30 | SU-5 | SU-76 | SU-85 | SU-100 | SU-122 | SU-152 | ISU-122 | ISU-152 | T-60Z | T-70Z | T-90 | ||
| Armored tractors | Improvised AFVs | Experimental | |
| T-26T | Komsomolets | KhTZ-16 | IZ | NI | SU-14 | A-40 flying tank | SU-100Y | PPG | |
| Armored cars | |||
| D-8 | D-12 | D-13 | FAI | BA-10 | BA-11 | BA-20 | BA-21 | BA-3 | BA-6 | BA-27 | BA-64 | BA-I | LB-62 | LB-23 | |||
| Amphibious AC | Half-tracked AC | Aerosans
| |
| PB-4 | PB-7 | BAD-2 | BA-30 | ANT-IV | NKL-16 | NKL-26 | RF-8 | ASD-400 | |
| Soviet armored fighting vehicle production during World War II | |||
| List of armoured fighting vehicles of World War II | |||
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.