Sometimes, even in a field as deadly serious
as war, there is an element of humor or weirdness. In the sphere of vehicles and war equipment,
this is very common, which is influenced by the fact that sometimes the technical possibilities
are far from the need of the moment, or military requirements force us to create something
quickly, just to plug the holes in the front. Sherman T10 Mine Clearer. Let's set ourselves the task of making a passage
through a minefield. What do we need? A heavy vehic
le or a device attached to it,
the pressure of which will detonate mines, and armor to withstand even larger charges
and hostile fire. If we add to this the requirement that it
should not be a unique vehicle, but adapted to the logistics requirements of other types
of armed forces, the matter becomes more complicated. But here comes American engineering to the
rescue. The T10 Mine Clearer met all these requirements
because it was a kit mounted to the hull of the M4 Sherman tank. It consisted of
two steel wheels mounted at
the front, of a specific design that facilitated surviving without major damage from numerous
explosions, and a cylinder of a similar construction. Flying tank A-40 KT. The genesis of one of the most peculiar ideas
in the history of armored weapons dates back to the early 1930s. At that time, the Soviet Union had not only
extensive airborne forces, but also a concept of their use that was ahead of the armies
of other countries. The problem that reduced the usefulness
of
paratroopers was that parachuted soldiers could easily find themselves in trouble if
they were not supported by heavy equipment. Various countries have tried to solve this
problem in later years, e.g. using gliders, but in the Soviet Union, where work on delivering
heavy equipment by air was the most advanced, it was decided to reach for a radical method. The solution was to be a flying tank, landed
together with the crew sitting inside and ready for action as soon as it touched the
ground th
anks to the wings being thrown back. Easy to say, harder to do - not all of the
soldiers came from Chelyabinsk, so simply dropping a tank from a plane was out of the
question. Wings and empennage were attached to the T-60
light tank, calling this bizarre structure A-40 KT, and the Soviet aircraft designer
Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov shouted to it: "Fly!". Relieved of everything superfluous, the machine
with one daredevil inside set off on its first flight, towed like a glider. Although the tank
rose into the air, its heavy
weight and the aerodynamics of the flying brick did not allow it to reach the speed
needed for safe flight. Despite the premature release of the tow bar,
the tanker managed to land safely, but it would not have been possible if the tank was
fully equipped and much heavier. Since the A-40 KT was not promising, and the
Russians trying to stop the German offensive had completely different priorities at the
time, the project was canceled. Zveno. The Russians decided to
approach the problem
differently and use the large Tupolev TB-3 bomber as a base for smaller aircraft (there
were also trials with the smaller TB-1). Several configurations were tested - in one
of them (Zveno Aviamatka) TB-3 was to take on board, or rather on the wings, five smaller
machines (one of them was to be attached under the fuselage after the launch of the set). However, a slightly more modest set called
SPB in the form of two I-16 fighters attached under the wings of the base plane was
chosen
as the most promising. The concept of using such a team assumed that
a heavy and long-range aircraft would deliver smaller machines armed with bombs in the vicinity
of the target. There they will detach from the TB-3 and do
what was impossible for a large bomber - they will perform precision bombing, compensating
for the small number of bombs carried with high accuracy. Interestingly, these unusual machines were
used in combat. In the summer of 1941, several Zveno SPB systems
made succes
sful attacks on targets in Romania, which was cooperating with Germany. Alkett-Räumgerät. Alkett-Räumgerät was constructed in 1942
in cooperation with Alkett, Krupp and Daimler-Benz. It was created in response to the losses suffered
by the Soviet mines by the German armored forces on the Eastern Front. The construction of the vehicle was based
on a combination of the hull with the engine and turret of the Panzer I light tank, mounted
on a gun carriage, with the wheels of a heavy artillery tracto
r. The vehicle was steered using the rear steering
wheel. The hull was armored with armor plates 20
to 40 mm thick, the turret 15 mm thick, the bottom of the vehicle, most exposed to mine
explosions, was 80 mm thick. The two-man crew had two 7.92 mm MG 34 machine
guns. The only example of the Alkett-Räumgerät
was captured in 1945 by Soviet soldiers at the training ground in Kummersdorf and transported
to the military base in Dresden, and in 1947 to the proving ground in Kubinka, where it
was tes
ted. It is currently exhibited in the Tank Museum
in Kubinka. Minenräumer III Mineclearing vehicle based on a Panzer III
chassis with a very highly raised suspension. (Prototype only.)
Is not known which firm developed this specializated mineclearer tank in mid 1941. Originally was tought that the extended suspenssion
was used to roll over the mines and the lengthened torsion bar arms would be capable of withstanding
the blast. However the average antitank mine would cut
off the track pins. Ins
tead the bar at the front was used as the
connection for two heavy steel rollers. BMW Schneekrad In 1936, an unusual prototype motorcycle with
track drive was built at the BMW factory - the BMW Schneekrad. The construction of the vehicle was based
on the components of the BMW R 12 motorcycle, which used a frame and a two-cylinder boxer
engine Little is known about the vehicle itself. There was probably only one prototype of which
only two photos remain. The design was distinguished by a caterpil
lar
drive, which at least according to the photos looks solid - the front wheel probably has
a tire, but the rear wheel and the two supporting it from below do not. BMW Schneekrad was presented with an attached
TR-500 sidecar. Unfortunately, this is all the available information
about him. The design probably didn't catch on due to
its complicated design, but it is possible that it influenced the creation of the SdKfz
2 vehicle (which used a front wheel from a motorcycle and a bogie with tracks)
. The BMW Schneekrad was not the only motorcycle
of its kind, but it is certainly one of the more mysterious.
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