T-26 obr 1933 - Light Tank Company

The T-26 obr 1933 light tank started life as a copy of a British tank design, but by 1939 it was one of the most common tanks in the Red Army. It is fitted with a cylindrical turret armed with a powerful 45mm gun. Its main role was to support the infantry where its dual purpose gun was equally effective against tanks, guns, and infantry.

The Red Army bought some samples from Vickers and then proceeded to produce an unlicensed copy called the T-26. The first production model of 1932 (obr 1932) was a twin-turreted design with two side-by-side machine-gun turrets. While this seemed like a good idea at the time as it appeared to give the tank twice as much firepower, it quickly became obvious that the difficulties in coordinating two turrets and a driver actually reduced its effectiveness.

The second model (obr 1933) was more conventional with just a single turret mounting a 45mm gun and a coaxial machine-gun. Typical of Soviet tank design, the 45mm gun was one of the most powerful tank guns in the world at the time. The original Vickers design mounted a low-velocity 47mm gun. While this was as effective against machine-gun nests, its anti-tank performance was woeful, especially compared with the Soviet gun.

The Kht-130 Flame Tank

As well as a conventional gun-armed tank, the Soviet Union also created large numbers of flame-thrower tanks, nearly 10% of the entire production run. These KhT-26 and KhT-130 ‘chemical’ (hence ‘Kh’) tanks were fielded in full battalions to add even more punch to assaults on critical positions.

As befitted its infantry support role, the T-26 wasn’t much faster than an infantryman and its armor was bulletproof, but not much else. While not exactly desirable attributes, they did make it cheaper and easier to produce allowing the Soviet Union to manufacture over 10,000 of them — more than the total of all other armies’ tank production up to that point.

Contents:

five T-25 obr 1933 Light Tanks with Kht-130 Flame Tank option