t-60

Hello, a little historical bonus for this week: the T-60. This Soviet light tank, which entered service in 1941, was mechanically closer to a car than a tank (I'm only half joking). It was equipped with a 6-cylinder GAZ-202 gasoline engine, directly derived from GAZ's cars. Its gearbox, controls, and bearings also came from the automotive industry. Why such a hybrid? In 1941, due to Stalin's disastrous policies, the Red Army suffered defeat after defeat and lost thousands of tanks in just a few months (20,500 armored vehicles in total in 1941), finding itself in a critical shortage. Faced with the German advance, the main production sites had to be transferred to the Urals, halting production. In this emergency situation, the T-60 was designed to be produced in ordinary automobile factories. More than 6,000 units were built to compensate for these catastrophic losses. On the front lines, its armament was very weak for a tank, limited to a single 20mm TNSh automatic cannon designed for aircraft. Useful for harassing infantry or destroying enemy trucks during the Moscow counter-offensive, it proved ineffective against Panzer III and IV tanks. Its armor remained so thin that Russian crews tragically nicknamed it "Bratskaya mogila na dvoikh" ("fraternal grave for two"). Despite these shortcomings, it performed its mission relatively well until the factories in the Urals flooded the front with T-34s… but its career didn't end there: • T-60A (1942): Version with reinforced 35mm frontal armor. • BM-8-24: 82mm Katyusha multiple rocket launcher mounted on a T-60 chassis. • T-60-3: Prototype anti-aircraft tank equipped with two 12.7 mm DShK machine guns. • Antonov A-40: Project for a flying tank with wooden wings mounted on a T-60 chassis (abandoned). • T-70: Direct successor light tank, equipped with a more powerful engine and a 45 mm gun. • TACAM T-60: Converted Romanian tank destroyer equipped with a 76.2 mm anti-tank gun. I hope you enjoyed this "little bonus".