The Soviet Union's Rocket Tank Was an Explosively Bad Idea
The Soviet Union experimented with rocket-assisted tanks and armored vehicles.
The rockets would give a push to vehicles in difficult terrain, ensuring the ground forces advance.
The system was never made operational, in part to the difficulty in controlling the rockets.
New footage has come to light showing that the ever-ingenious Soviet Union once considered adding rockets to its tanks, allowing the vehicles to cross difficult terrain. The rocket engines provided a huge boost of forward momentum, sending a tank weighing 40 or more tons flying through mud. Although definitely bold, the system was dangerous and likely too expensive to be made operational.
The video, shared on Reddit, shows three different vehicles that were adapted to use rocket or aircraft engines. The first segment shows what appear to be rockets loaded onto the back of what seems to be a T-55 main battle tank. The T-55 was the main tank of the Soviet Union in the 1950s. The T-55 in the video spouts huge gouts of flame from its flanks as the 40-ton tank roars forward.
The second vehicle is, according to one Redditor who tracked down an explanation on Russia’s Yandex.ru web site, a modified BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle. The vehicle’s tracks were divided into two different sets and the rear of the vehicle, which usually carries a squad of dismounted infantry, was equipped with two jet engines. The BMP is also adorned with a clunky, mock turret. The third vehicle combines the hull of a PT-76 amphibious light tank with two engines from a Yak-40 commercial passenger jet.
Why would a tank use rockets? Tanks are used to conduct cross-country travel, going off-road to attack enemy positions. Depending on the time of year, normal hard-packed ground may transform into a muddy quagmire, particularly in the rainy spring season. Tanks try to offset this by using tracks instead of wheels, lowering their overall ground pressure per square inch. Still, mud can really give tanks a hard time and bog down attacks, as the German panzers learned when invading the USSR in World War II.
Rockets can give tanks a big push, allowing them to cross the worst terrain. It’s similar to the Jet Assisted Take Off (JATO) concept, which uses rockets to quickly accelerate airplanes to takeoff speed—or bring them to a quick stop. In 1980, the military’s Credible Sport program prepared a C-130 transport that could land in a soccer stadium, using rockets to bring the big cargo plane to a screeching halt.
Still, rocket engines are inherently more dangerous to a tank crew, especially one in combat. A shot of enemy tracer could penetrate the skin of the rocket and set off all of them at once. Also the T-55 test tank was apparently unable to throttle its speed or steer—the crew seemingly just aimed the tank down an empty field and triggered the rockets. In rock-strewn or wooden terrain, the rockets would have been too dangerous to use. The tank also couldn't cross bodies of water.
Another likely problem with the rocket-powered tank was cost. The Red Army maintained an arsenal of tens of thousands of tanks, and outfitting them with rocket engines would have been prohibitively expensive. The rocket engine is also only useful in the attack, with no real benefit when the tanks are dug in and awaiting an enemy assault.
The second and third vehicles in the video tested turbine engines as a means of armored vehicle propulsion, on the theory that turbine-powered tanks could accelerate more quickly than diesel engine-equipped tanks. This was validated by the American M1 Abrams tank, the first modern tank to use a turbine engine. The Soviet Union’s turbine tank however, the T-80, suffered from reliability problems and Russia today still finds it difficult to maintain them in service.
The rocket-powered tank is a weird idea whose time never came.
Source: Reddit
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