Soviet APC in WW2?

cortz#9

duckie said:
Looking back a the photo on page 2 (interiour), would it be possible to move the engine to the front (shorter drive shaft), move the radiator to the side / or above the engine and strech the hull a little bit. You would have the driver / machine gunner on the left side behind each other and mayby room for six/eight soldiers in the back.
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I considered that possibility but if the engine were moved up front, it would also have to be changed from front drive to rear drive and I'm not sure how difficult that would be so I just moved it to the left side of the tank.

On a some what related subject:
HALF-TRACK_TRUCK GAZ_AA_bp1.jpg


GAZ AA model 1940 supply truck converted into a half-track.
 
marathag

marathag

Banned
cortz#9 said:
2nd & 3rd attempt at a T-26 derived APC.
Take 1: took marathag suggestion about having the engine moved to the side leaving more room on the opposite side for about four to five infantrymen.
Added a plate of sheet metal to both sides for some extra protection.
View attachment 536175

Take 2: Stretched the T-26 to fit another bench on the opposite side for an extra four to five troops.
View attachment 536176
I wanted to add a machine-gun to the front left side of the roof but couldn't find a pic in the same scale.
I don't think the Soviets would've bothered converting factories to make the stretched T-26 but the non-stretched version would be doable if they felt a 4, 5 man APC was worth the effort.

I'm calling this AFV the Pulemyot Pekhotny Transportr "machine gun infantry transporter" or PPT-26 as suggested by longtimelurkerinMD
Click to expand...
Came across this uglier OTL way
1255_2_mir72607_4.jpg

1586097588346.png

T26AC-5.jpg
the T-26TB Ammunition Carrier/TP-26 Personnel Carrier
MRG72608.jpg


With the engine moved up front and retaining front drive
 
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ObssesedNuker

The Soviets had a couple of half-track APC designs in the pipe in 1941 that were either canned outright or only wound up seeing limited production runs due to the damage and dislocation Barbarossa imposed on Soviet industry. Strangle Barbarossa or delay it a year and they’d come to fruition.

Statements about tank riders being "human ablative armor" or a result of supposed Soviet incompetence, undertones of Nazi racism aside, rather ignore that the tank itself provided a degree of cover to the riders, particularly if the rider was lucky enough to be situated behind the turret. Plus, the tank riders weren't supposed to fight from the tank: at the first sign of enemy fire, the infantry were supposed to leap down off the tanks and move alongside them into battle on foot... no different then APC bound infantry are supposed to do. Only infantry mounted in IFV's (an entirely mid-Cold War development) are supposed to fight from them. The Soviets knew tank riders were not an ideal situation, but trucks were too vulnerable and they didn't have enough half-tracks to equip all, or even most, of their mechanized infantry. The Germans and Anglo-Americans also used tank riders when they faced the issue of keeping the infantry and armor together when moving operational distances in enemy controlled territory but didn’t happen to have APCs available, so it wasn’t as if tank riders were some uniquely Soviet thing either.

On the flip side, those Soviet mechanized infantry battalions which were lucky enough to get armored half-tracks (whether the few domestic models or the modestly more numerous American lend-lease imports) preferred to use them instead of tank riders, so claims that the tank riders were a perfect solution to the environment of the Eastern Front don't have much of a foundation there either.

Tank riders were neither a bad idea that was stuck with because of Soviet incompetence nor an ideal solution to combat conditions on the Eastern Front. It was merely the Soviets working with what they had.
 
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