The SMK was an armored vehicle prototype developed by the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

prior to the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It was named after Sergei Mironovich Kirov, a Communist Party official assassinated in 1934. The SMK was discovered and classified by German intelligence as the T-35C, leading to the misunderstanding that the

T-35 The T-35 was a Soviet multi- turreted heavy tank of the interwar period and early Second World War that saw limited production and service with the Red Army. Often called a land battleship, it was the only five-turreted heavy tank in the world ...

took part in the Winter War. Only one was built and after a trial showing the downsides of its weight and size against the

KV tank The Kliment Voroshilov (KV) tanks are a series of Soviet heavy tanks named after the Soviet defence commissar and politician Kliment Voroshilov who operated with the Red Army during World War II. The KV tanks were known for their heavy armour pro ...

and brief use in the war with Finland, the project was dropped.

Design and development

The SMK was among the designs competing to replace the unreliable and expensive

multi-turreted heavy tank. A design team under

Josef Kotin Josef (also Jozef, sometimes Zhozef) Yakovlevich Kotin (russian: Жозеф Яковлевич Котин; 10 March 1908, Pavlograd, Russian Empire - 21 October 1979, Moscow) was a Soviet armored vehicle design engineer, Head of all three Leningr ...

at the Kirovski Works (formerly the

Putilov Works The Kirov Plant, Kirov Factory or Leningrad Kirov Plant (LKZ) ( rus, Кировский завод, Kirovskiy zavod) is a major Russian mechanical engineering and agricultural machinery manufacturing plant in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was establ ...

) at Leningrad designed the tank. Competition came from the former

OKMO OKMO (''Opytniy Konstruktorsko-Mekhanicheskiy Otdel'', 'Experimental Design Mechanical Department') was the tank design team in the Soviet Union during the early 1930s. Located in Leningrad, it produced the design of the T-26 infantry tank, of whic ...

designer N. Barykov at the ''Bolshevik'' Plant with their T-100 tank. In spite of the lessons that could have been learned during the Spanish Civil War, the specification drawn up for the "Anti-Tank Gun Destroyer" in 1937 required the ability to withstand 45 mm anti-tank guns at point-blank range and 75 mm artillery fire at .Zaloga p6 Meetings in 1938 reduced the number of turrets in the specification and a move to

torsion bar A torsion bar suspension, also known as a torsion spring suspension, is any vehicle suspension that uses a torsion bar as its main weight-bearing spring. One end of a long metal bar is attached firmly to the vehicle chassis; the opposite end termi ...

from spring suspension. Kotin and his assistant independently designed a single-turret version of the SMK which received Stalin's approval and the name KV. Production of two prototypes was ordered. The SMK's armament was a short 76.2 mm gun in the upper centrally placed turret and a 45 mm weapon in the forward turret.

Service history

The SMK, the two

KV-1 The Kliment Voroshilov (KV) tanks are a series of Soviet heavy tanks named after the Soviet defence commissar and politician Kliment Voroshilov who operated with the Red Army during World War II. The KV tanks were known for their heavy armour pro ...

prototypes and the two T-100 prototypes were put through proving trials before being tested operationally in combat at the

Battle of Summa The Battle of Summa was fought between the Soviet Union and Finland, in two phases, first in December 1939 and then in February 1940. It was part of the Winter War and was fought near the village of Summa (now Soldatskoye) along the main road le ...

during the

Winter War The Winter War,, sv, Vinterkriget, rus, Зи́мняя война́, r=Zimnyaya voyna. The names Soviet–Finnish War 1939–1940 (russian: link=no, Сове́тско-финская война́ 1939–1940) and Soviet–Finland War 1 ...

against Finland. The vehicles formed a company of the 91st Tank Battalion of the 20th Heavy Tank Brigade. The unit was under the command of the son of the Defence Commissar. After being immobilized by a mine, the SMK had to be abandoned and was not recovered for 2 months. The KV design proved superior in both trials in Finland and was accepted.

Armor

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *Zaloga & Gransden ''Soviet Havy Tanks'' Osprey Publishing

on battlefield.ru.
WWII Vehicles - Soviet Union's SMK

External links

{{WWIISovietAFVs Heavy tanks of the Soviet Union Multi-turreted tanks World War II tanks of the Soviet Union Abandoned military projects of the Soviet Union Trial and research tanks of the Soviet Union Military vehicles introduced in the 1930s

Design and development

Service history

Armor

See also

References

External links