Soviet Missile Tanks

[Vespers War]

Rather than clutter the Best That Never Was thread with all of these, I'm starting a new thread instead. These are the weird and wacky world of 1950s-60s Soviet technology trying to replace large-caliber gun tanks with guided (mostly) missiles.

The first vehicle is Object 757, which was built in 1958 or 1959 on a modified T-10M (IS-10) chassis with a launcher for the KL-8 Sprut missile. The Sprut was a 1.7-meter long, 130mm diameter missile that used radio guidance to get within range of its infrared seeker, at which point the seeker took over terminal guidance. In addition to the missile launcher, it had a 14.5mm PKVT and 7.62mm SMGT. The Sprut missile was incredibly slow, not terribly effective, and the guidance system never really worked well. The DIFF targeting difficulty should probably be closer to IMP, but this is a "what if it worked as planned" design. Also note the vehicle cannot shoot-and-scoot, because infrared light from the tank's spotlight reflecting off the target is what the missile (hopefully) homes in on. And finally, because the missile uses radio and IR guidance in series, it's vulnerable to jamming, smoke, and flares.

Object 757
Fire Control: 0
Armament: KL-8 Sprut ATGM, PKVT, SGMT
Ammunition: 18 missiles, 700x14.5mm, 1500x7.62mm
Fuel Type: D, A
Veh Wt: 44 tonnes
Crew: 3 (commander, gunner, driver)
Mnt: 15
Night Vision: Active IR (G)
Tr Mov: 182/127
Com Mov: 30/21
Fuel Cap: 600
Fuel Cons: 300
Config: Veh
Susp: T:6
TF: 120, TS: 25, TR: 20
HF: 90, HS: 22, HR: 19

KL-8 Sprut
Missile caliber: 130mm
Guidance: Radio MCLOS initial, IR terminal
Missile speed: 180
Reload 2, HEAT warhead, Min Range 500, Max Range 5000, Damage C14 B26, Pen 71C, Difficulty DIFF

Within a few years of the missile's development, a more effective warhead would likely have been developed with Damage C17 B29 and Pen 97C.

[Tegyrius]

This is gonna be a good ride.

Were the Soviet missile tank projects influences on the American thinking that led to the M60A2 and M551?

- C.

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

This is gonna be a good ride.

Were the Soviet missile tank projects influences on the American thinking that led to the M60A2 and M551?

- C.

I don't think so, because the development of the Shillelagh started at pretty much the same time as Object 757 was being developed, with the original designs being submitted to the US Army in June 1959. Both sides seem to have been driven by the development of shaped-charge technology in the 1940s and the realization that armor was developing to the point where KE penetrators would need very large, heavy guns in order to be effective at any range beyond a knife fight. Shaped charges needed a large diameter but not a high velocity to penetrate armor, so a low velocity launch was acceptable. However, since that made it inaccurate at long range, guidance became a priority, hence guided missiles being looked at in lieu of simpler unguided rockets.

[Vespers War]

Our next vehicle is Object 282, another late-1950s tank destroyer, where a decent bit is known about the vehicle but the missile is rather more speculative because NII-48 never actually finished making one. The Salamandra (Salamander) was intended to be a 1.55 meter long missile with a 170mm warhead diameter, with a SACLOS guidance system that used radio signals and a small radar system to maneuver the missile to the gunner's aiming point, rather than the manual guidance with automatic terminal attack of the Sprut.

Like Object 757, Object 282 is said to have been built onto a lightened T-10M chassis. This is almost certainly not the same chassis, since Object 757 will reappear in a few years. It mounted a 1000 horsepower engine, which gave it a quite high power to weight ratio. A pair of pop-up launchers were fitted in the rear corners where the original tank had fuel containers. The right-hand launcher was a rail, while the left-hand launcher was a tube, as part of the test was seeing which launch system performed better. I haven't found any mention of secondary armament, which is plausible if this was solely a technology test bed with no intent to enter serial production.

Road speed was claimed to be 55 km/h, which was used with the P/W ratio to estimate off-road speed. Fuel capacity and consumption are estimates (I used the base fuel number for the T-10M from Paul's site, excluding the additional fuel). The missile's maximum range is the program goal and damage is based on a TL-6 HEAT warhead of 170mm, with everything else being a guess.

Object 282
Fire Control: 0
Armament: Salamandra ATGM
Ammunition: 16 missiles (some sources say 20-24)
Fuel Type: D, A
Veh Wt: 44 tonnes
Crew: 2 (commander/gunner, driver)
Mnt: 15
Night Vision: Active IR (G)
Tr Mov: 154/123
Com Mov: 25/20
Fuel Cap: 600
Fuel Cons: 400
Config: Veh
Susp: T:6
HF: 90, HS: 22, HR: 19

Salamandra
Missile caliber: 170mm
Guidance: Radio SACLOS
Missile speed: 300 (? - estimate because missile was never completed)
Reload 2, HEAT warhead, Min Range 500, Max Range 3000, Damage C24 B34, Pen 95C, Difficulty DIFF

[LoneCollector1987]

Where they able to fire more than one missile at a time?

(I ask because last night I rewatched an episode of Robotech and then its missile time, you know 1.000 missiles - and at least one will hit.)

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by LoneCollector1987

Where they able to fire more than one missile at a time?

(I ask because last night I rewatched an episode of Robotech and then its missile time, you know 1.000 missiles - and at least one will hit.)

I haven't seen anything about that, but I suspect the answer is no. Since it was a SACLOS system using radar to detect the missile and radio commands to steer it to the target, having two missiles in the air at the same time would mean sending the same command to both missiles and I'm not sure how good the sensors were, so it might not be able to tell the missiles apart. The only reason it had two launchers was because the Soviets wanted to test a rail system against a tube system, and the T-10M chassis had enough space to fit both on one vehicle.