Soviet T-54 Main Battle Tank

194 Pages·2018·206.295 MB·English

by  James Kinnear(Illustrations), Stephen Sewell, Andrey Aksenov(Illustrations)

SOVIET T‑54

MAIN BATTLE TANK
GNM_Soviet T-54 layouts.v10.indd 1 20/07/2018 12:54
2
GNM_Soviet T-54 layouts.v10.indd 2 20/07/2018 12:55
SOVIET T‑54
MAIN BATTLE TANK
James Kinnear and Stephen L. (Cookie) Sewell
GNM_Soviet T-54 layouts.v10.indd 3 20/07/2018 12:55
4
OSPREY PUBLISHING
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
PO Box 883, Oxford, OX1 9PL, UK
1385 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10018, USA
E‑mail: [email protected]
www.ospreypublishing.com
OSPREY is a trademark of Osprey Publishing Ltd
This electronic edition published in 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain in 2018
© James Kinnear and Stephen L. Sewell, 2018
James Kinnear and Stephen L. Sewell have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors
of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB 978 1 4728 3330 3
eBook 978 1 4728 3331 0
ePDF 978 1 4728 3332 7
XML 978 1 4728 3333 4
Index by Zoe Ross
Front cover: (Upper) Soviet T‑54B tanks on the march during winter exercises. (Lower) A column of Soviet T‑54B tanks during summer exercises
in the Soviet southern republics. Both author’s collection.
Osprey Publishing supports the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. Between 2014 and 2018 our donations are
being spent on their Centenary Woods project in the UK.
To find out more about our authors and books visit www.ospreypublishing.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of
forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletter.
PICTURE CREDITS
All pictures are from the authors’ collections unless otherwise noted. Artworks are by Andrey Aksenov and are credited where they appear.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of many people, primarily located within the Russian Federation and Ukraine, for
providing original Soviet and Russian source material and photographs for this book. In particular, thanks must go to Andrey Aksenov, Aleksandr
Koshavtsev, Yuri Pasholok, Igor Zheltov and Sergei Popsuevich, all of whom provided what material they had available to ensure completeness
of this work. With thanks also to Christopher Foss and Steven J. Zaloga for their assistance with material and advice on approaching the subject.
NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION AND PRONUNCIATION OF RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
The Russian alphabet has more characters than the Latin‑based English language, and the Russian language is also grammatically complex, and
subject to varying translation depending on context, gender, time period and nationality of the translator. Therefore, it is not always possible to
directly translate Russian terms or names into English, and the various means of doing so are contentious and often arbitrary. Translations of
some Russian terms have also been simplified in this book without the contentious pronunciation accents, as although perceived correct by those
with an academic but no practical experience of the language, use outside a dry academic environment makes the subsequent English translation
of a living Russian language difficult to read. An example is Ob’iekt (object) that has been simplified as Obiekt for consistency with previously
published books. As these books are technical histories rather than studies of Russian grammar, the authors trust that this simplification of
translation and terminology makes the books easier to read than would be the case if all the contentious accents were included.
GNM_Soviet T-54 layouts.v10.indd 4 20/07/2018 12:55
5
C O N T E N T S
Introduction 6
Chapter One: First there was Morozov… 8
Chapter Two: Development of the T‑54 Medium Tank 16
Chapter Three: Description of the T‑54 and its Variants 32
Chapter Four: Derivatives of the T‑54 Tank Family 104
Chapter Five: Soviet Army Service and Export 148
Appendices 170
GNM_Soviet T-54 layouts.v10.indd 5 20/07/2018 12:55
6
I N T R O D U C T I O N
One of the most iconic and enduring symbols of Soviet military power
during the early years of the Cold War was the silhouette of the T‑54 tank on
the streets of foreign capital cities during Soviet interventions in Europe, or
crossing open terrain during massive Soviet armoured exercises. The sleek
and unmistakable shape of the T‑54 tank was a symbolic warning to any
nation that wanted to stand against the Soviet empire.
But while the T‑54 was a technological marvel of its day and a breakthrough
in armoured vehicle design, the tank was essentially the perfect tank to fight
World War II, or the ‘Great Patriotic War’ as it was known in the Soviet
Union, and was not as technologically advanced as its initial appearance
would suggest. In essence, the T‑54 continued the Soviet wartime principle
of designing relatively simple tanks that could be operated by crews with
limited training. The post‑war Soviet Army remained a conscript army, and
as such the T‑54 fitted the requirements of the Soviet Army perfectly.
During the service life of the tank, the T‑54’s monolithic homogenous
armour became vulnerable to both the high explosive anti‑tank warheads
then being introduced on newly developed anti‑tank guided missiles, and
also the other major development used by NATO armies, armour‑piercing
discarding sabot (APDS) projectiles using dense core materials. When
Soviet‑built T‑54 tanks began to clash with Western armour in proxy wars in
South‑East Asia and the Middle East, they were found to be on the losing
end of many of the battles. This was in large part down to issues related to
the training and deployment of the crews, and the ammunition types the
Soviet Union chose to export, rather than an inherent problem with the
T‑54 tank design, which was a masterpiece of its time.
The T‑54 tank was developed as a result of the collaborative efforts of
several brilliant Soviet designers, as was typically the case with Soviet
armoured vehicle designs. The lightweight and powerful 100mm D‑10T
gun was developed under the supervision of the famous designer F. F. Petrov,
with the V‑2 derived engine arrangement used in the T‑54 was developed by
a team headed by I. Ya. Trashutin. The overall T‑54 concept was, however, in
principle the brainchild of one man: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Morozov.
One of the three principal designers of the legendary T‑34 tank, Morozov
GNM_Soviet T-54 layouts.v10.indd 6 20/07/2018 12:55
7
was personally motivated by the fact that the wartime tank was for historical
purposes the brainchild of Mikhail Koshkin, and Morozov wanted to put his
own stamp on the post‑war Soviet tank industry with his own unique
creation. Morozov would achieve this with the default Soviet Main Battle
Tank (MBT) of the early Cold War – the T‑54 – and would later go on to
‘push the envelope’ further, with the creation of the even more revolutionary
T‑64 series MBT.
The T‑54 series was produced in large numbers in the Soviet Union, with
the T‑54 also being assembled in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the People’s
Republic of China. The T‑54 would also be the basis for the later T‑55
re‑design undertaken at Nizhny Tagil, and for later modernizations of the
original Soviet T‑54 design undertaken in China. This book will, however,
address only the Soviet‑built tanks and their derivatives such as the ZSU‑57,
SU‑122‑54, BTS armoured recovery vehicles and MTU bridge‑layers.
Much of the credit for this book must be given to the research work
undertaken by the Russian armour historians whose works have reached the
West, analyzing much of the material from Soviet and Russian state archives
that is not accessible to Western researchers. They include private Russian
citizens as well as the official historians from both the Kharkov and Nizhny
Tagil tank plants. Most of them will be identifiable from the bibliography
used in the research for this book, but particular thanks must go to Andrey
Aksenov, Yuri Pasholok and Colonel (retired) Igor Zheltov. Credit must also
be given to acknowledged non‑Russian experts in the field such as Steve
Zaloga and Christopher Foss, who provided both information and advice on
approaching this subject. The artwork was undertaken by Andrey Aksenov.
GNM_Soviet T-54 layouts.v10.indd 7 20/07/2018 12:55
8
CHAPTER ONE
FIRST THERE WAS
MOROZOV…
GNM_Soviet T-54 layouts.v10.indd 8 20/07/2018 12:55