Soviet T-55 Main Battle Tank

194 Pages·2019·190.409 MB·English

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

SOVIET T-55
MAIN BATTLE TANK
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SOVIET T-55
MAIN BATTLE TANK
James Kinnear and Stephen L. (Cookie) Sewell
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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
First published in Great Britain in 2019
This electronic edition published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
© James Kinnear and Stephen L. Sewell, 2019
James Kinnear and Stephen L. Sewell have asserted their right 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 3855 1; eBook 978 1 4728 3856 8; ePDF 978 1 4728 3853 7; XML 978 1 4728 3854 4
Index by Zoe Ross
Front cover: TOP: A T-55 M-1958 during Soviet Army manoeuvres. The glacis welding and lack of turret ventilator are distinguishing features
of the T-55 as compared with the very similar T-54B. BOTTOM: Soviet T-55 M-1959 tanks advancing during manoeuvres. These tanks have
a mix of wheel types, including the early T-44/T-54 ‘spiderweb’ pattern wheel rarely seen on the T-55.
PICTURE CREDITS
All pictures, including those on the cover, are from the author’s collections unless otherwise noted. Artworks are by Andrey Aksenov and are
credited where they appear.
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.
Osprey Publishing supports the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity.
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.
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C O N T E N T S
Introduction 6
Chapter One: Leonid Kartsev 8
Chapter Two: Development of the T‑55 Tank 20
Chapter Three: Description of the T‑55 and its Variants 52
Chapter Four: Derivatives of the T‑55 Tank Family 100
Chapter Five: Combat Use of the T‑55 Tank 134
Appendices 151
Bibliography 183
Index 188
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I N T R O D U C T I O N
While it was closely related to the previous T-44 and T-54 tank designs, the
T-55 is one of the most iconic weapons created by the Soviet Union during
the Cold War and also one of the most widely distributed major weapons in
history. Approximately 23,000 T-55 tanks of all versions were produced by
the Soviet Union beginning in 1958, with another approximately 15,000
built by Poland and Czechoslovakia, a small number of derivatives built in
Romania and thousands of other related variants produced by the People’s
Republic of China.
The T-55 tank was essentially what the Russians refer to as a ‘rationalized’
version of the T-54B tank. A ‘rationalizer’ was the term used for someone
who simplifies, improves, finds a better way to build, or cuts the cost of
making any sort of item they produced. While the tank suffered from the
emerging drawback of its direct forebear – monolithic homogeneous armour
A line-up of Soviet army
T-55 tanks during
manoeuvres. The T-55
was, from a distance,
almost indistinguishable
from the late T-54B, but
small details such as the
glacis plate welding
identified the type.
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– it was nevertheless simple to operate, easy to repair in the field, and
relatively dependable if normal maintenance was ensured. When compared
to its progenitor (the T-44), the T-55 encompassed a large number of
relatively sophisticated and compact systems in a tank not much larger than
the preceding T-44.
The T-55 tank evolved from the combination of previous work undertaken
by Soviet designers including F. F. Petrov, who created its lightweight and
powerful 100mm gun, and I. Ya. Trashutin, the designer of the V-2 series of
diesel engines, combined with the concepts of Aleksandr Morozov already
used in the proven T-54. But the man ultimately responsible for this tank
was Leonid Nikolayevich Kartsev, then the chief designer at the Ural Railway
Wagon Construction Plant (Ural’ny Vagonstroitel’sviy Zavod – UVZ). He
believed in the evolutionary system of tank development, which ran counter
to Aleksandr Morozov’s thinking about revolutionary designs. In later years,
after Kartsev was no longer responsible for its further development, the T-55
tank received massive upgrades with through-the-bore anti-tank missile
capability, laser rangefinders, increased engine power output and new
running gear, and, on differing models, either passive or active protective
measures. These upgrades maintained the currency of the T-55 tank infinitely
longer than its original planned Soviet service life.
This book is in large part based on existing research undertaken by Russian
armour historians and veterans of the Soviet tank industry, and now available
in the unclassified world. To this day Soviet and Russian post-World War II
state archives are essentially barred to Western researchers, so the efforts of
these individuals are greatly appreciated. Most of them will be identifiable
from the bibliography used in the research for this book. As with any such
work, the result is based on the collective efforts of many individuals who
A T-55AM modernized in
provided archive and photographic material, as well as correcting errors Ukraine on display.
and omissions. Thanks in
particular go to Andrey
Aksenov, Yuri Pasholok,
Sergei Popsuevich and Igor
Zheltov. Credit must also
be given to acknowledged
experts in the field such
as Steve Zaloga and
Christopher Foss. They have
provided both information
and advice on approaching
this subject.
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CHAPTER ONE
LEONID KARTSEV
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