The T-35 was a
Soviet
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 nation ...
multi-
turreted heavy tank of the
interwar period and early
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 opposi ...
that saw limited production and service with the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
. Often called a land battleship, it was the only five-turreted heavy tank in the world to reach production, but proved to be slow and mechanically unreliable. Most of the T-35 tanks still operational at the time of
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
were lost due to mechanical failure rather than enemy action. It was designed to complement the contemporary
T-28
The T-28 was a Soviet multi-turreted medium tank. The prototype was completed in 1931, and production began in late 1932. It was an infantry support tank intended to break through fortified defences. The T-28 was designed to complement the hea ...
medium tank; however, very few were built.
Outwardly, it was large; but internally, the spaces were cramped with the fighting compartments separated from each other. Some of the turrets obscured the entrance hatches.
Production history
The T-35 was developed by the OKMO design bureau of the
Bolshevik Factory
Obukhov State Plant (also known Obukhovski Plant, russian: Государственный Обуховский Завод, Gosudarstvennyy Obukhovskiy Zavod) is a major Russian metallurgy and heavy machine-building Factory, plant in St. Petersbur ...
, which began work on a heavy tank in 1930. Two teams developed separate designs. The team headed by German engineer Grotte worked on the 100-ton four-turreted
TG-5 tank, armed with a 107 mm naval gun, using pneumatic servo-controls and pneumatic suspension. This project was later cancelled.
The concept of large, multi-turreted breakthrough tanks was favoured by several European armies in the 1920s and 1930s. Designs existed in Britain, France, and Germany for such vehicles. The second OKMO team, headed by N. Tsiets, worked on a tank similar to the British
Vickers A1E1 Independent
The Independent A1E1 is a multi- turreted tank that was designed by the British armaments manufacturer Vickers between the First and Second World Wars. Although it only ever reached the prototype stage and only a single example was built, it i ...
.
By July 1932, a prototype of a 35-ton tank with a 76.2 mm tank gun was completed. The first prototype was further enhanced with four smaller turrets, two with 37 mm guns and two with
machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...
s. This first prototype had severe defects in its transmission and was considered too complex and expensive for mass production. Work on it was therefore stopped and a new simpler prototype was built.
This new prototype received a new engine, new gearbox and improved transmission. The decision was also made to standardise the turrets used on the T-35 with those employed on the
T-28
The T-28 was a Soviet multi-turreted medium tank. The prototype was completed in 1931, and production began in late 1932. It was an infantry support tank intended to break through fortified defences. The T-28 was designed to complement the hea ...
, a triple-turreted medium tank. The small machine-gun turrets were identical on the two tanks. The large main turret housing the 76.2 mm gun was nearly identical, but those used on the T-28 had an additional, rear-firing machine gun.
On 11 August 1933, the T-35 was accepted for production. Engineering was shifted to the
Kharkov Locomotive Factory
The Malyshev Factory ( uk , Завод імені В.О. Малишева, translit=Zavod imeni V.O. Malysheva; abbreviated ), formerly the Kharkov Locomotive Factory (, ), is a state-owned manufacturer of heavy equipment in Kharkiv, Ukraine. It ...
, and two batches of ten vehicles were completed.
The experiences gained with the two prototypes were used for the main production T-35, which was again improved from the second prototype, with eight-wheel suspension, improved hull and 45-mm guns in place of the 37s. It started production in 1934, and 59 (including ones with conical turrets) were built by 1939. In general, throughout its production run small improvements were made to the individual tanks. Production tanks had medium turrets similar to the ones on the
BT-5
The BT tanks (russian: Быстроходный танк/БТ, translit=Bystrokhodnyy tank, lit. "fast moving tank" or "high-speed tank") were a series of Soviet light tanks produced in large numbers between 1932 and 1941. They were lightly arm ...
, but without the rear overhang. The final batch was a run of ten T-35 that had new turrets with
sloped armour
Sloped armour is armour that is neither in a vertical nor a horizontal position. Such angled armour is typically mounted on tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs), as well as naval vessels such as battleships and cruisers. Sloping an ...
all around, as well as modified side skirts with suspension service hatches and new driver's hatch. Four of them had original fully vertical pedestal for the main turret, while the latter six had sloped pedestal.
Originally, the main turret was equipped with a 76.2 mm KT-28 cannon (length of barrel 16.5 calibers), which was also used on the Т-28 medium tank. The mounting allowed for vertical training (aiming) with upper and lower limits of −7° and +23°, respectively. As an auxiliary weapon in the main turret, to the right of the cannon, the 7.62 mm DT machine gun was placed autonomously in a ball setting. The cannon and machine gun had complete 360° horizontal sector of fire and independent fire control systems. The spare DT machine gun was fastened in a loop setting in the storage niche of the turret. The mechanism to turn the turret employed an electromechanical three-speed drive; an auxiliary hand drive was also provided for emergency use. By 1937, an anti-aircraft DT machine gun was set in a P-40 mount on the foundation of the gunner's hatch on the main turret.
[Solyankin, M.Pavlov, I.Pavlov, I.Zheltov (2002). Otechestvennye Bronirovannye Mashiny (Homeland Armored Machines) 20th Century, Vol. I, 1905-1941 (1st Edition (Russian) ed.). Moscow: Publishing Center "Eksprint". pp. 343. .]
In 1938, the L-10 tank cannon was proposed for the main turret weapon, but the representatives of the ABTU (the "Auto-Tank Directorate") abandoned this idea, considering the power of the KT-28 enough for the purpose of defeating enemy armored vehicles, and the accompaniment of attacking infantry was provided for by the two 45-mm cannons.
In each of the two diagonally-mounted (i.e., one in the right forward quarter and another in the diagonally-opposite left rear quarter, as viewed from behind) two-seater turrets was placed one
45 mm tank cannon obr.1932 and a
coaxially-mounted 7.62 mm DT machine gun. Later, this cannon was replaced with a
45 mm gun of the 20k Model 1934 with a semi-automatic breech-block. The coupled setting had vertical training (aiming) limits of −8° to +23°. The front turret weapon had a horizontal field of fire from 19° (left of the turret's centerline) to −184° (rearwards). The two smaller turrets were single-seat and had one 7.62 mm DT machine gun apiece. The horizontal training (aiming) of these weapons was carried out through the turning of a hand mechanism.
The main and the two small machine gun turrets of the Т-35 and Т-28 had a high level of standardization. Main-weapon sighting utilized the telescopic breech-sight TOP obr.1930 and the periscope breech-sight PT-1 обр.1932. The 76.2 mm cannon had 96 rounds, the 45 mm guns had 226 rounds, and the DT machine guns had 10,080 cartridges. The 50-ton tank was designed with the maximum thickness of the body's armoured plates being 30 mm and that of the turret 20 mm. The armoured plates were coupled together by welding and riveting. In 1936, the thickness of the frontal, sloping body plate and the front plate protecting the driver-mechanic was increased to 50 mm. Armored side skirts also added 10 mm to the side armor covering the tracks.
In 1938, a conical turret with a maximum thickness of 25 mm (at the front) for strengthening the armoured defence of the tank was introduced; the thickness of the frontal armoured plates was also increased, to 70 mm. The battle weight of the machine grew to 54 tons (the first-series machines weighed 42.5 tons). Overall, from October 1938 to the end of Т-35 production, ten machines with the increased armoured defence were produced. On two of the machines of the 1938 issue, a 7.62-mm DT machine gun was mounted in the storage portion of the main conical turret back, for rear defence, while the other six had plain rear plate.
Western and Russian historians disagree about the inspiration for the T-35's design. The former argue that it was inspired by the British
Vickers A1E1 Independent
The Independent A1E1 is a multi- turreted tank that was designed by the British armaments manufacturer Vickers between the First and Second World Wars. Although it only ever reached the prototype stage and only a single example was built, it i ...
tank, but this is rejected by many Russian specialists. It is impossible to know the truth, but there is strong evidence to support Western claims, not least the failed Soviet attempts to purchase the A1E1. At the same time, the influence of German engineers, who in the late 1920s were developing similar designs at their Kama base in the Soviet Union, cannot be discounted. What is clear is that borrowing military technology and ideas from other nations was common to the majority of the armed forces in the inter-war years. The Red Army, with its purchase of the British Vickers
Carden Loyd tankette, Vickers
E-Light and
Cruiser Mk II
The Tank, Cruiser, Mk II (A10), was a cruiser tank developed alongside the A9 cruiser tank, and was intended to be a heavier, infantry tank version of that type. In practice, it was not deemed suitable for the infantry tank role and was classi ...
Medium tanks, and of the American
Christie suspension for production use in its own vehicles, was clearly one of the leading exponents of this practice.
Due to its high cost, the production run of the T-35 ended at just 61 tanks (including two prototypes).
The T-35 prototypes had a crew of 9 (commander, gunner and loader of the 76 mm turret, two gunners of the 37 mm turrets, two gunners of the machine gun turrets, the driver and his assistant) with two mechanics "attached" to a particular tank, but not participating in battles, thus making the official crew number 11. The serial tanks had a crew of 10 (commander, gunner and loader of the 76 mm turret, two gunners and loaders of the 45 mm turrets, two gunners of the machine gun turrets and the driver), still with two attached mechanics, making the total crew 12.
Combat history
The T-35 served with the 5th Separate Heavy Tank Brigade in Moscow, primarily for parade duties, from 1935 until 1940. In June 1940, the question was raised as to whether to withdraw the T-35s from frontline service, with the option to either convert them to heavy
self-propelled artillery
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 ...
, or to assign them to the various military academies. The choice was made to use them up in combat instead and the surviving vehicles were collected together into the 67th and 68th Tank Regiments of the
34th Tank Division, which served with the
8th Mechanized Corps in the
Kiev Special Military District
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.
Kyi ...
.
The first known combat engagement of the T-35 tank took place sometime at the end of June 1941, in the broader fighting in the
Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...
area known as the
Battle of Brody. T-35 tanks belonging to the 34th Tank Division and trailing their unit lead elements due to poor tactical mobility, encountered advancing German armor on the unpaved road between the towns of Verba and Ptycha. The battle is documented only on photographs taken in the aftermath, and shows seven destroyed Soviet tanks including four T-35s (two of these vehicles having suffered catastrophic ammunition explosions) and three German tanks destroyed. The T-35 wrecks show evidence of hits by 37 mm cannon fire and the vehicles could have been engaged by towed German
8.8 cm Flak guns brought in to deal with heavily armored Soviet KV tanks also active in this sector. A Soviet report from the period identifies four T-35s lost on 30 June in this area with the loss of 15 crew.
On 1 June 1941, the Red Army possessed only 58 vehicles of this type, of those 48 were in combat ready condition. During
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
, the majority of the T-35s lost by the 67th and 68th Tank Regiments were lost not to enemy action but through either mechanical failure or immobilization, which resulted in these vehicles being abandoned and destroyed by their crews. The most common causes of breakdown were transmission-related, however the T-35 proved to have a greater automotive reliability than both the T-34 and KV tanks deployed at the time, with most of the failures arising from running the tanks beyond their normal service intervals, very little in the way of field repair or vehicle workshops and almost no spare parts support. Some T-35s involved in the long marches, delaying actions and retreat which characterized the beginning of the campaign, saw well over 500 km driven on unpaved roads and even off-road, before experiencing any significant failure.
The last recorded action of the T-35 took place during the
First Battle of Kharkov
The First Battle of Kharkov, so named by Wilhelm Keitel, was the 1941 battle for the city of Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR, during the final phase of Operation Barbarossa between the German 6th Army of Army Group South and the Soviet Southwestern F ...
, where four tanks undergoing repairs at their home factory (renamed
Factory No. 183) were made roadworthy, re-armed and hastily pressed into service in the defense of the city. At least one captured T-35 was shipped to Germany for evaluation at the
Kummersdorf military proving ground. This tank (serial number 715-62) was meticulously inspected and showed widely divergent armor thickness values used in its construction, likely the result of poor quality control of armor plate supplied by the steel mills. In April 1945, this tank, now stripped of most of its armament and immobile, was assigned to
Panzer Brigade 150
Panzer Brigade 150 or SS Panzer Brigade 150 (german: 150. SS-Panzer-Brigade) was a formation of the German Army during World War II that was formed to take part in the Ardennes offensive. It was unusual in that it was formed from all parts of the ...
and towed into the town of
Zossen
Zossen (; hsb, Sosny) is a German town in the district of Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg, about south of Berlin, and next to the Bundesstraße 96, B96 highway. Zossen consists of several smaller municipalities, which were grouped together in 200 ...
where it was used as a fixed fortification and barricade.
The T-35 is sometimes cited as having participated in 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, but according to Soviet sources it did not. In fact, two other prototypes of multi-turreted heavy tanks had been sent to the front for testing: the
T-100 and
SMK. Single turret
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 ...
s also took part in the same test 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 ...
. The SMK tank was disabled by a Finnish
land mine
A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...
and all attempts to recover the 55-ton behemoth failed. Finnish photographs of the previously unknown tank were mistakenly designated ''T-35C'' by German intelligence.
Survivors
![T-35-Kub](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/T-35-Kub.gif)
One tank survives and is preserved in running condition at the
Patriot Park
Patriot Park (russian: Парк «Патриот») is a theme park in Kubinka, Russia that is themed around equipment of the Russian military. The park, which officially opened in 2016, is designed around a military theme, and includes interacti ...
near
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
. It was one of four T-35 machines that were used at training facilities in the Soviet rear. The Kubinka collection also includes a prototype
SU-14, a self-propelled gun based on the T-35 chassis.
In January 2016 the Russian metallurgical company
Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company
Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC or UGMK russian: Открытое акционерное общество «Уральская горно-металлургическая компания») is a Russian metallurgical company based in ...
(UMMC) announced the re-creation of a complete replica T-35 tank using Soviet drawings. The tank is to be placed in the
Museum of Military Equipment of the UMMC.
Variants
* T-35-1: First prototype
* T-35-2: Second prototype
* T-35A: Production model.
* T-35B: New engine, never built.
*
SU-14: Self-propelled gun mounting a 152 mm cannon or 203 mm howitzer. Two prototypes produced.
See also
*
Char 2C
The Char 2C, also known as the FCM 2C, was a French heavy tank, later also seen as a super-heavy tank. It was developed during World War I but not deployed until after the war. It was, in total volume or physical dimensions, the largest operat ...
: tank with similar design
*
Neubaufahrzeug
*
T-28
The T-28 was a Soviet multi-turreted medium tank. The prototype was completed in 1931, and production began in late 1932. It was an infantry support tank intended to break through fortified defences. The T-28 was designed to complement the hea ...
, a medium tank that shared several design features with the T-35
*
List of tanks
*
List of Soviet tanks
Below is a list of tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles of the Russian empire, Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine.
Imperial Russia, World War I
Armored tractors
*Gulkevich's armored tractor
*F. Blinov armored tractor
*Wa ...
References
;Citations
;Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
Zvezda TV news videoshowing engine startup and T-35 moving under its own power.
(grayknight.narod.ru)
U.S. WWII Newsmap, "Russian Armored Vehicles" hosted by th
UNT Libraries Digital Collections
{{Authority control
Heavy tanks of the Soviet Union
Multi-turreted tanks
Interwar tanks of the Soviet Union
World War II tanks of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union–United Kingdom relations
Malyshev Factory products
Military vehicles introduced in the 1930s