FLOATING ARMORED VEHICLES FOR THE RED ARMY

 

Military manoeuvres, frequently carried out at that time the armies of different countries, ever more convinced of their command of the need to have floating combat means in divisions of advanced intelligence. Preference was given to the armored cars, knowing that they should be adapted to perform certain military tasks.

 

In our country, to a floating army armored vehicles came through the intelligence of the trolley. It was one of the two types of “train combat vehicles,” incorporated by Resolution of the Council of Labor and Defense (No. 71 SS/on August 13, 1933) for the second five years the system of armored worker-Peasant red Army. There he explained that a “reconnaissance vehicle – armored vehicle (standard vehicle)”, but slightly modified and put on steel wheels with flanges. Their purpose was reconnaissance and guarding of railway.

 

In fact, this Decision was Taken after the fact, as by this time, there were prepared samples. At the beginning of the 1930s, the country began work on the creation of such modern machines for armored troops. In 1931, in the technical Department economic Department of the OGPU of the Leningrad military district on the basis of the car “Ford-AA” was created duhsasana combat avtorezina BAD-1 armoured body with a total weight of 3.27 T. the arms were five 7.62 mm machine guns. The crew of the trolley is 4.

 

Machine with a 40-horsepower engine could on the rails to reach speeds of almost 100 km/h on the highway speed was more modest – up to 40 km.

 

Then here we have developed a draft design of more powerful armored vehicles on the chassis of a triaxial polnoprotochnogo truck “Ford Timken”. According to this project at the Leningrad plant “Bolshevik” in the spring of 1932 under the leadership of engineer N. Obukhov was the prototype of armored car BAD-2. The developers assumed that the machine can be used not only on the Railways, but the ordinary, even to use as a flotation device, which they had to solve the problem of tightness of the housing.

 

And that’s not all. It was necessary to find and implement into the design of not only optimal ratio of the functional properties and advantages inherent in and armored land vehicles, and floating, without prejudice of some at the expense of others. And securing basic characteristics tacticities tasks, e.g. machine weight, hull, armament, her mobility on land and, at the same time, the agility and speed of the movement afloat.

 

By the spring of 1933 many of the problems were solved, and armored car BAD-2 was presented at a military may day parade in Leningrad. In sight of the surprised inhabitants of the city wheel the car went into the river and successfully crossed the river.

 

 

 

Duhsasana armor avtorezina BAD 1. The weight of the car with 3.27 tons Armament – 5 machine guns 7.62 mm

 

 

BAD-1. Front view

 

 

View of the stern with the tailgate open

 

Of course, the case of the floating armored car – fully enclosed -had a boat shape. Its leaves rolled steel – thickness 4 – 6 mm were attached to the chassis with bolts, but places and welding; along the sides they were set vertically. On the roof housed the wheelhouse of the fighting compartment (turret box) with two towers: front hex conical tank armed with 37-mm cannon B-3 (5K) and behind her back with a 7.62 mm machine gun; the same gun Degtyarev DT was a ball bearing in the hull. The main tower had a circular attack, the rear – only limited sector equal to 300°.

 

Gun B-3 had a barrel length of 45 klb. Her armor-piercing shells B-160, which had a mass of 0.66 kg and initial speed of 820 m/s in a distance of 100 m at zero angle of meetings to penetrate the armor thickness up to 42 mm, 500 m – up to 35 mm and at 1000 m up to 28 mm. If the impact angle was 30°, the penetration at the same ranges were, respectively, 34 mm, 28 mm, 23 mm and 19 mm. Shrapnel shells could hit targets at a distance up to 5,700 m Rate of fire of the gun – 10 – 15 RDS./min. Shots, the number 60, were in canvas bags in the cockpit; the ammunition machine gun ammunition was 3000.

 

The same guns B-3 at the time, was also armed with T-26 tanks, armored BT-2.

 

The engine designers of the machine placed in front of it. It was a 4-cylinder inline petrol “Ford-A” four-stroke liquid-cooled volume 3285 SMZ, develops a power of 40 HP at 2200 rpm, Like the engine was then raised on the famous automobile “GAZ”.

 

BAD-2 had three-axis polnoprivodnyj suspension wheel formula 6×4. The nodes of the suspension consisted of semi-elliptic leaf springs with torque rods. In mechanical transmission were single-disc clutch, four-speed transmission with dual high transmission, drive axles – both rear worm with the main gear.

 

Car wheel – single wheel pneumatic tyres. When setting the rails, they were replaced by railway wheels.

 

 

 

Floating combat avtorezina BAD 2:

 

a – on land chassis with tracks on the rear wheels to improve cross; b – train chassis (front view and back view)

 

 

Armored BAD 1 and BAD 2 at the may day parade in Leningrad. 1933

 

 

Floating armored car PB-4. Armament 45 mm 20K tank gun, two 7.62-mm machine gun

 

 

 

To improve the cross-road at the back leading wheel could be put on metal tracks.

 

The movement on water was carried out using a three-bladed propeller mounted at the stern. He worked from an additional worm drive extending from the main transmission rear axle. However, it turned out that on land at the rear axles and spun the propeller and afloat when it is turned on and spun the rear wheels.

 

Two fuel tanks had a capacity of 40 liters of gasoline, which allowed them to have a power reserve of approximately 120 km. the speed on the highway was 60 km/h with worn treads of the lane – up to 50 km/h on rails – 90 km/h, afloat – 6 km/h.

 

Combat weight BAD 2 was 4.6 so was Calculated the armored car for a crew of 4 people.

 

At the same time the mechanization and motorization of the red army gave the job to the Leningrad machine-building plant “Zvezda” to them. K. E. Voroshilova (or Zavod No. 174, a former factory “Bolshevik”) on “design and fabrication of an improved prototype floating armored car BAD-3”. However, the factory at the appointed time did not meet. Then the military gave the BAD 3 in a plan Izhora plant in 1933 where to this time was created the Central Armor lab No. 1 (CBL-1), issue 25 BAD 2, but then their number was reduced to 15 units. But this number was not performed due to restart of the plant other military products, including the production of tanks T-26.

 

After receiving the order, the staff of factory KB for the design of technological maps of manufacturing cases encountered great difficulties because of its hydrodynamic shape. Having a change of machine configuration, they then decided to design a new floating armored car, which was later index PB-4. The designers of the “simplified” case, rejecting the pure boat Chine hull form. Now the car is in form more like the average cannon BA-3, developed here at the Izhora plant.