The T-10 (also known as Object 730 or, IS-8) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

heavy

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...

of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, the final development of the IS tank series. During development, it was called IS-8 and IS-9. It was accepted into production in 1952 as the IS-10 (''Iosif Stalin'', Russian form of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

), but due to the political climate in the wake of Stalin's death in 1953, it was renamed T-10. The biggest differences from its direct ancestor, the IS-3, were a longer hull, seven pairs of road wheels instead of six, a larger turret mounting a new gun with

fume extractor A bore evacuator or fume extractor is a device which removes lingering gases and airborne residues from the barrel of an armored fighting vehicle's gun after firing, particularly in tanks and self-propelled guns. By creating a pressure differe ...

, an improved diesel engine, and increased armour. General performance was similar, although the T-10 could carry more ammunition, from 28 rounds to 30 rounds. T-10s (like the IS tanks they replaced) were deployed in independent tank regiments belonging to armies, and independent tank battalions belonging to divisions. These independent tank units could be attached to

mechanized unit Armoured warfare or armored warfare (mechanized forces, armoured forces or armored forces) (American English; see spelling differences), is the use of armored fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a major component of modern methods of ...

s, to support infantry operations and perform breakthroughs.

Demise of Soviet heavy tanks

The mobile nature of armoured warfare in World War II had demonstrated the drawbacks of the slow heavy tanks. In the final push towards Berlin, mechanized divisions had become widely split up as heavy tanks lagged behind the more mobile

T-34 The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank introduced in 1940. When introduced its 76.2 mm (3 in) tank gun was less powerful than its contemporaries while its 60-degree sloped armour provided good protection against Anti-tank warfare, anti-tan ...

s. The Soviets continued to produce heavy tanks for a few years as part of the

arms race (compare the heavier U.S. M103 and British Conqueror), but the more flexible

T-62 The T-62 is a Soviet Union, Soviet main battle tank that was first introduced in 1961. As a further development of the T-54/T-55, T-55 series, the T-62 retained many similar design elements of its predecessor including low profile and thick ...

and

T-64 The T-64 is a Soviet tank manufactured in Kharkiv, and designed by Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau. The tank was introduced in the early 1960s. It was a more advanced counterpart to the T-62: the T-64 served in tank divisions, while ...

tanks already had armour and armament comparable to the T-10's. In the 1960s, the Soviets embraced the

main battle tank A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank, is a tank that fills the role of armor-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more powerful engines, better suspension sys ...

(MBT) concept, by replacing heavy tanks with mobile medium tanks. In the late 1960s, the independent tank battalions with heavy tanks were re-equipped with the higher-technology

s, and later, the very fast

T-80 The T-80 is a main battle tank (MBT) that was designed and manufactured in the former Soviet Union and manufactured in Russia. The T-80 is based on the T-64, while incorporating features from the later T-72. The chief designer of the T-80 was So ...

, while regular tank and mechanized units fielded the more basic

T-55 The T-54 and T-55 tanks are a series of Soviet main battle tanks introduced in the years following the Second World War. The first T-54 prototype was completed at Nizhny Tagil by the end of 1945.Steven Zaloga, T-54 and T-55 Main Battle Tanks ...

s and

T-72 The T-72 is a family of Soviet/Russian main battle tanks that entered production in 1969. The T-72 was a development of the T-64, which was troubled by high costs and its reliance on immature developmental technology. About 25,000 T-72 tanks ha ...

s. T-10 production was stopped in 1966, and heavy tank projects were cancelled, such as the auto-loaded, 130 mm-armed

Object 770 The Object 770 (Объект 770), was a prototype Soviet heavy tank designed in 1956, and was one of the last heavy tanks ever produced. It was developed alongside the Object 277 and the Object 279 following the Decree of the Council of Minister ...

. Antitank guided missiles (ATGMs) started to be deployed widely during this period, and would become an effective replacement for the heavy tanks' long-range firepower. The Soviets made use of them first on

BMP-1 The BMP-1 is a Soviet amphibious tracked infantry fighting vehicle, in service 1966–present. BMP stands for ''Boyevaya Mashina Pyekhoty 1'' (russian: link=no, Боевая Машина Пехоты 1; БМП-1), meaning "infantry fighting ...

infantry fighting vehicles, and later on the

and other MBTs. Eventually, lighter and more modern

reactive Reactive may refer to: *Generally, capable of having a reaction (disambiguation) *An adjective abbreviation denoting a bowling ball coverstock made of reactive resin *Reactivity (chemistry) *Reactive mind *Reactive programming See also *Reactanc ...

composite armor Composite armour is a type of vehicle armour consisting of layers of different material such as metals, plastics, ceramics or air. Most composite armours are lighter than their all-metal equivalent, but instead occupy a larger volume for the sam ...

was used to give the MBTs a further edge in protection without slowing them down.

Name changes

The T-10 underwent a number of designation changes during its design process starting in 1944 and ending its acceptance into service as the T-10.

Production history

The T-10 served with 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 ...

but was not known to have been provided to

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...

nations, though Soviet heavy tank regiments stationed in those countries may have been equipped with them. Prior to 1962, T-10Ms were in simultaneous production by two factories (Kirov as ''Object'' 272 and Chelyabinsk as ''Object'' 734) whose parts were incompatible with those of the other; Kirov's version was standardized in 1962.Sewell 1998, p. 27. Some Western sources claim that the T-10M was exported to countries such as China, Egypt, and Syria, with Syria and Egypt using it in the

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...

to provide long-range support to the

and

, with said sources claiming that the T-10s knocked out several M48 Pattons with none lost, indicating that the T-10 was used to some degree of combat success. However, the T-10 could have been mistaken for its near-identical counterpart, the IS-3. Heavy tanks were withdrawn from Soviet front-line service by 1967, and entirely removed from reserve service by 1996.Haskew 2014, p. 17. It is estimated that some 6,000 Soviet heavy tanks were built after the end of World War II, of which 1,439 were T-10s.

Variants

* T-10 (1952) * T-10A (1956): T-10 with an added single-plane

gun stabilizer A gun stabilizer is a device that facilitates aiming an artillery piece by compensating for the motion of the platform on which it is mounted. For naval applications see ship gun fire-control system. Moving land-based systems tend to require more s ...

. * T-10B (1957): T-10 with an added 2-plane gun stabilizer. * T-10M (1957): Modernized version with longer

M-62-T2 M6, M06, M.6, or M-6 may refer to: Military * M6 bayonet, a bayonet for the M14 rifle * M6 Bomb Truck, a truck used to move bombs during World War II * M6 Gun Motor Carriage, a United States wheeled Tank Destroyer of the Second World War * 75 m ...

L/46 gun with five-baffle

muzzle brake A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to, or a feature integral to the construction of, the muzzle or barrel of a firearm or cannon that is intended to redirect a portion of propellant gases to counter recoil and unwanted ...

, 2-plane gun stabilizer, machine guns replaced with 14.5 mm

KPVT The KPV-14.5 heavy machine gun (KPV is an initialism for Krupnokaliberniy Pulemyot Vladimirova (Large-caliber Machine gun Vladimirov), in Russian as Крупнокалиберный Пулемёт Владимирова, or КПВ) is a Soviet ...

(a better ballistic match for the new main gun), infrared night vision equipment,

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

protection. Overall length is 10.29 m. ** 1963 - T-10M is equipped with OPVT deep-wading snorkel. ** 1967 - T-10M is supplied with APDS and

HEAT In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...

ammunition. *Object 266 (1950): Variant of the early IS-8 with a hydromechanical transmission. 1 built. *

Object 268 The Object 268 was a prototype Soviet tank destroyer developed from 1952 to 1956 by the Kirov factory, Leningrad, on the basis of the T-10 heavy tank. This tank destroyer was heavily armoured, and featured a 152mm M64 gun, derived from the ...

(1956): Proposed

self-propelled gun Self-propelled artillery (also called locomotive artillery) is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mo ...

on a T-10M hull. One prototype was produced, but never entered production. * Object 282: A missile-tank armed with

9M14 Malyutka The 9M14 Malyutka (russian: Малютка, links=no; "Little one", NATO reporting name: AT-3 Sagger) is a manual command to line of sight (MCLOS) wire-guided anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system developed in the Soviet Union. It was the first ...

rockets. * Object 821: A

launch platform A transporter erector launcher (TEL) is a missile vehicle with an integrated tractor unit that can carry, elevate to firing position and launch one or more missiles. History Such vehicles exist for both surface-to-air missiles and surface-to-s ...

for the

RT-20P The RT-20P was an experimental intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed but not deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The control system for it was designed at NPO "Electropribor" (Kharkiv, Ukraine). It was assigned the NAT ...

ICBM. * TES-3: A mobile nuclear power plant based on aN elongated T-10 chassis. Prototype only.

Operators

Former operators * - Retired in 1996. * - Withdrawn from service in 1995. *

References

Sources

*Miller, David, ''The Illustrated Directory of Tanks of the World'' (Zenith Imprint Press, 2000) *Perret, Bryan, ''Soviet Armour Since 1945'', London:Blandford Press (1987), *(English) M. V. Pavlov; I. V. Pavlov, "Domestic Armored Vehicles of the 1945-1965 biennium", Table 4 "Production of tanks in the 1945-1965 biennium", ''Equipment and Armament'', n.6 2008 (June 2008) **(Original Russian) М. В. Павлов; И.В. Павлов, "Отечественные бронированные машины в 1945–1965 гг", Таблица 4 "Производство танков в 1945–1965 гг", ''Техника и вооружение'', n.6 2008 (June 2008) *Sewell, Stephen ‘Cookie’, ''Why Three Tanks?'', Armor, vol. 108, n 4 (July–August 1998), Fort Knox, KY: US Army Armor Center *Sewell, Stephen ‘Cookie’ (2002). “Red Star – White Elephant?” in ''Armor'' (July–August 2002), pp 26–32. Fort Knox, KY: US Army Armor Center *Kinnear, James; Sewell, Stephen 'Cookie' ''Soviet T-10 Heavy Tank and Variants'' (Osprey Publishing, 2017) *Tucker, Spencer, ''Tanks: An Illustrated History of Their Impact'', ABC-CLIO (2004), , *Magnuski, Janusz. “Czołg Ciężki T-10” in ''Nowa Technika Wojskowa'' (August 1955). *Haskew, Michael. "Modern Tanks and Artillery (1945–Present): The World's Greatest Weapons (Amber Books, September 19, 2014)

External links

Last Heavy Tanks of the USSR
- Heavy tanks and prototypes from IS-4 through T-10, at battlefield.ru. {{Cold War tanks, style=wide Cold War tanks of the Soviet Union Heavy tanks of the Cold War Heavy tanks of the Soviet Union Military vehicles introduced in the 1950s