Originally uploaded on 14 jul. 2018.
History video here
The T-26 tank was a Soviet light tank used during many
conflicts of the Interwar period and in WWII.
It was a development of the British Vickers 6-Ton tank
which was designed by the Vickers-Armstrongs
company in 1928–29.
This would be one of the most successful
tank designs of the 1930s until its light armour became
vulnerable to newer anti-tank guns.
The Soviets did not simply replicate the Vickers 6-Ton.
However, like its British counterpart,
the T-26 mod. 1931 had a twin-turreted configuration and
was designed to carry two machine guns,
mounting one in each turret.
A major difference was that the Soviet T-26 mod. 1
931 had higher turrets
than the British 6-Ton.
Beginning in 1937, there was an effort to equip many tanks
with a second machine gun in the rear of the turret
and an anti-aircraft machine gun on top of it,
as well as the addition of two searchlights above
the gun for night gunnery, a new VKU-3 command system,
and a TPU-3 intercom. Some tanks had a vertically
stabilised TOP-1 gun telescopic sight.
The T-26 was superior to anything in the
Spanish Civil War, they were also used in the
Second Sino-Japanese War, were they where less successful.
In the Winter War from December 1939 – March 1940.
the T-26 proved to be obsolete. In the beginning of WWII,
T-26s served mainly in separate light tank brigades
and in separate tank battalions of the rifle divisions.
most of the Red Army’s vast numbers of tanks were suffering from
serious wear and tear. Poor quality roads, the vulnerabilities of track
design in the early 1930s and inadequate maintenance, recovery
and repair services all took their toll.
But the T-26 could still withstand most German tanks in 1941
but were inferior to the Panzer III and Panzer IV
participating in Operation Barbarossa in June 1941.
The T-26 would be produced until February 1941,
but would see action until August 1945.
This T-26 probably participated in the
Leningrad Blockade in 1941-42
and was knocked out or abandoned standing on
the frozen Ladoga lake,
after the ice started to melt the tank disappeared into the lake.
It was found again in 1998 on the bottom of the Ladoga lake,
near the city of Pitkyaranta.
It was supposed to be used in a monument to the RKKA,
but a replica took it’s place and they sold this one,
to probably fund the build of the monument.
It was then sold again and ended up in the
MM Park, Museum in France.
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■ Information obtained from several sites.
■ Wikipedia
■ tanks-encyclopedia
■
■ preservedtanks
■
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■ Some music is from the YouTube Audio Library.
■ Music used:
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