Do Mileant found several projects, but he was not delighted with them. And said zolotopogonnym visitors. Nevertheless, the domestic tank building at this moment headway. In August 1914, General Headquarters brought the project inventor Alexander Porokhovshchikov. His armored vehicle called the "SUV" was easy enough (up to 4 tons), speed, and even liked the Commander in Chief himself. Mileant tried in vain to bring to the attention of Bids that "And this car, judging by the development, will be able to move salable only on flat and hard the road, in a loose snow will often get stuck and have trouble making turns, moreover, the only member of the crew will be difficult to one and the same time to operate the machine and to machine-gun fire. " Yet 9,960,000 rubles military department Porohovschikova allocated for the construction of a prototype, and the place of work identified Riga barracks went to the front of the Nizhny Novgorod Infantry Regiment.Meanwhile, around the same time very active in pushing through his invention began Lebedenco certain Captain. His name has sunk into the story, there were only initials - NN And the personality of Mr. Lebedenco interpreted in different ways: some officially call it experimental lab chief of the War Ministry, others call only agile and energetic businessman, conspired to encroach on the money from the state treasury for the principle of "to whom war and to whom mother is native." Once he served in the Caucasus and seeing carts local dzhigits carts with huge wheels, invented a fighting machine on wheels.Engineer and designer Lebedenco was small, but knew that in Russia many decisive communication and them useful, was to acquire in the first place. Chairman of the Regional Union Prince Lvov was a very influential person and reduced breakdown with Captain Nikolai Zhukovsky, a professor at the Imperial Technical School. It is not known how, but Lebedenco persuaded the same "father of Russian aviation" to help him in the future development of detailed technical armored colossus. Tank really conceived unprecedented dimensions: weighing about 45 tons, with the road wheels with a diameter of 9 meters and a height of himself with Khrushchev's five-storey building. Zhukovsky gave Lebedenco to help two of his nephews, students IUT Boris Stechkin, and Alexander Mikulin, and personally designed for strength with tangential wheel spokes. All other calculations made brave students at a private lab Mr. Lebedenco, and by early 1915 was ready and engineering design, and a wooden model of the tank, which Stechkin with Mikulin nicknamed the "Bat" because in its configuration, it looked like hanging upside down bat. Lebedenco went on and became their offspring dignify it as "Tsar Tank". With these achievements, the captain-inventor rushed to the assault on the Winter Palace, where the emperor sat emperor. Prince Lvov through the mediation of the Minister of War Lebedenco arranged for an audience with the king. Nicholas II was thrilled! He liked everything: the wooden version of the "King-tank" with a description of its huge size and unprecedented for the time performance characteristics, and the eloquence of the inventor, with the experienced advertiser categorically saying that with this kind of armored car "in one night will be broken all German front, and Russia will win the war ... ".
I must say that the engineering thought Captain Lebedenco hit the jet: the Russian army was necessary first of all position the tank, terrifying the enemy, sweeping away everything in its power defenses and for greater frighten postrelivat cannon and machine guns. "Tsar Tank", like, was capable of it, so in the woods near Dmitrov, near the village of Orudevo was urgently equipped with the first Russian tank range. high earthen wall, a wooden stockade and soldiers-hour provided Lebedenco and his team mode complete secrecy. Just secretly brought to the landfill separate sections "Tsar Tank" cast and riveted in Hamovnikah that subsequently they were bolted together into a coherent whole frightening proportions. The assembly took place in a fairly short period of time - all about all it took less than a month. And in August 1915, local villagers began earnestly to be baptized, seeing towering above the trees turret with two targeted seemingly straight at them 37-millimeter cannon and two machine guns Maxima 7.62. Just the fear of God, not a machine! So at first thought, and all the military gathered at the sea trials "Tsar Tank" or "Bat" as it was written all over his armor. Sasha Mikulin took the place of the driver, Boris Stechkin started the engines, and tank engines ryknuv trophy "Maybach", removed from the downed German airship, a slight movement broke just two birch. In response, applause thundered generals. Lebedenco satisfied smile, but then log deck on which was mounted a tank over, and nine-meter wheels touched the Russian soil. But she bronegiganta categorically not taken: the third, rear wheel immediately got bogged down in the soil, and the tank elementary stalled, unable to budge their 45 tons. Vain straining engines, their power was not enough to "Tsar Tank" in all its glory has demonstrated its indestructibility. His weight exceeded the estimated one and a half times as in the production was used thicker metal. Tank tests failed. The generals had given up on the captain and his brainchild hand and left back home, the soldiers were on duty, received the order to take care of "Tsar Tank", as the apple of your own eye, and Lebedenco went to St. Petersburg to beat the new provision for the establishment of more powerful engines.
And what Porokhovshchikov inventor and his "SUV"? He also did not get to the front and at the enemy volleys not scorched, because I was completely rejected by the Office of Lieutenant-General Mileant, despite the fact that the sea trials in December 1916, not stalled, and even has a top speed of 40 miles per hour, so fast Do not move a single tank of the First World War.Porokhovshchikov tried to knock the money for "SUV-2" already armored and armed with four machine guns, but the examination of the Main Military-technical management lasted until October 1917. And already there is a revolution broke out, and all was not up to the tanks.Incidentally, in 1911, the son of a prominent Russian chemist Mendeleyev Vasily elaborated a revolutionary at the time the project is a super-heavy tracked tank. He had to weigh a little more than 170 tons and with speeds of up to 25 km / h. The tank was supposed to equip a 120-mm naval gun, and installed on the roof of the machine-gun turret can rotate at Z60 °, climbed out and fell into a pneumatic actuator. And turn the gun was provided by an electric servo feed ammunition to the gun by means of a trolley with pneumatic lift and pneumatic servo same transmission units. Now the word "servo" and "air" sound quite ordinary, but then it was a real technical breakthrough. Unfortunately, in Russia such equipment was not in the case of the production of all the tank would have to buy abroad. Very expensive would have made a tank, too expensive!Therefore, a project Basil Mendeleev Russian Defense Ministry did not even have considered. In 1915, inventor Alexander Vasilyev offered to put on a crawler body heavy armored vehicles. But he was denied because of "non-applicability of the proposed Mr. Vasiliev tools (crawlers) to the War Department." In the morning, September 15, 1916 on the Somme first British tanks, diamond-shaped armored box on tracks, rammed the German defenses and routed the brave raked guys! Then Vasiliev write the Minister of War: "... please investigate this matter, please invention Russian remains without results, and exactly, foreigners, a sensation." As for the "Tsar Tank" Captain Lebedenco, then he, too, was English counterpart. In January 1915 the British Admiralty received a draft of a "land cruiser" Major Hetherington: weight 300 tons, length 30 meters, height - 14, wheel diameter - 12 meters! And if the "Tsar Tank" managed to at least build and test, the British did not even had the courage to materialize its mega-project. Anyway superheavy tanks at all times, never (!) in actual combat did not participate, while remaining a kind Engineering and design a training ground for future developments of the lighter cars.Majewski German magazine "Airport" # 7 (36) September 2007
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