Tag Archives: selfpropelled

This Unique Cold War-Era Soviet Tank Was The First Laser Tank

The 1K17 was one of many many prototypes the Soviet Union inbuilt its quest for a “Self-propelled Laser Complex” (SLK). The idea was initially proposed within the Seventies and early Eighties with the event of the 1K11 Stilet. The Luch Central Design Bureau, below the management of Gen. Dmitry Ustinov, engineered two prototypes to ship round 1982. The 1K11 advanced had a laser emitter atop a tracked chassis.

After the Stilet was the “Sangvin” (Sanguine). This prototype utilized the chassis of the ZSU-23-4 Shilka self-propelled anti-air gun. The weapons had been eliminated and changed with a single laser emitter to disable the sensors and optics of fight plane. While there may be restricted take a look at knowledge accessible right this moment, quite a few sources counsel that at ranges of 5 to 6 miles, the Sanguine might go away a helicopter inoperable.

The most superior SLK arrived in 1989, within the type of the 1K17 Szhatie, however so did the top of the Soviet Union. However, the Russian navy powered forward, Assembled in December 1990 and trialed till 1992, the Szhatie demonstrated promising outcomes throughout testing. However, regardless of the success of the trials, the 1K17 by no means entered full-scale manufacturing or service.

[Featured image by Vitaly V. Kuzmin via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]

Everything To Know About The T28 Super Heavy Tank

The National Interest notes that this automobile was nearer in construction to a “self-propelled gun.” Typical tanks typically characteristic a revolving turret, however on this case, the gun was mounted to the entrance hull and will solely fireplace ahead, leaving the T28 weak to assaults from the again.  So whereas it was initially designated merely because the T28 tank, the Army re-designated it because the 105 mm gun motor carriage T95 in 1945. However, in 1946 they switched it again and renamed it the T28 Super Heavy Tank. 

Unfortunately for the tank, the naming battle was the one one it noticed. By the time the automobile handed trials, the mission for which it was commissioned —  breaching the heavy fortifications of the German Siegfried Line — had already been completed by that time within the struggle. By the time the primary tank was delivered in December 1945, the struggle was three months over. So the tank remained within the U.S. as an engineering research, with solely two prototypes constructed, and neither went into service attributable to heavy weight and excessive upkeep prices.

But the streak of dangerous luck did not finish there. In 1947, one of many T28s was broken in an engine fireplace and finally bought for scrap. In 1974, the opposite was found deserted in a subject at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and now has a correct dwelling at Fort Moore, Georgia. There it retired, apart from a small accident in 2017 reported by the National Armor and Cavalry Museum, when the T28 slid off a trailer throughout transport and rolled right into a ditch.

[Featured image by Randen Pederson via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC SA 2.0 Generic]