Land Battleship: Russia's T-35 Heavy Tank Was a World War II Dud
Sebastien Roblin
Security, Europe
A true monster.
Key point: It was both a deadly land battleship and a total disaster.
Recently, a Russian military museum in Sverdlovsk unveiled a moving replica T-35 tank, recreating one of the largest tanks ever to see combat, though only very briefly. Indeed, a few dozen T-35s charged straight into the largest tank battle in history—and none came back. Overtaxed transmission and faulty clutches proved a greater nemesis than armor-piercing shells.
Soviet Land Ironclad
In his 1903 short story, science fiction writer H.G. Wells imagined that the wars of the future would be won by towering ‘Land Ironclads’—a term referencing nineteenth-century armored warships. Just thirteen years, the United Kingdom deployed the first Mark I tanks to battle, each bristling with multiple cannons and machineguns operated by a crew of eight.
By the end of World War I, however, it grew apparent that lighter, faster single-turret tanks with small crews were more practical. Still, armies continued to conceive of hulking multi-turret ‘land battleships’ such as the French Char 2C and German Neubaufahrzheug.
In 1930, the Red Army sketched plans for heavy ‘breakthrough tanks’ intended to penetrate fortified defensive lines, using their multiple gun turrets to blast foes from all sides. However, the Soviet Union lacked necessary design expertise, so it brought in German scientist Edward Grotte to brings its engineers up to speed. It is possible Soviet engineers were also inspired by the Vickers A1E1 Independent, a hulking British tank prototype with five turrets.
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