The BA-I (sometimes BAI) is a Soviet three-axle armoured car. Only 82 vehicles of this type were built in 1932-1934, nevertheless the design initiated a series of heavy armoured cars of Izhorskij plant: BA-3,

BA-6 The BA-3 (russian: Broneavtomobil 3) was a heavy armored car developed in the Soviet Union in 1933, followed by a slightly changed model BA-6 in 1936. Both were based mostly on BA-I, the most important development being the new turret, same as in ...

, BA-9, and

BA-10 The BA-10 ( ru , Broneavtomobil 10, italic=yes) was an armored car developed in the Soviet Union in 1938 and produced through 1941. It was the most produced Soviet pre-1941 heavy armored car – 3311 were built in three versions. These versio ...

. Some vehicles were used in World War II, despite being obsolete at the time.

Background

In 1931, the first Soviet 6x4

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

was created, a design based on adding Timken tandem rear

axle An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearing ...

s to the American

Ford AA Ford Model AA is a truck from Ford Motor Company, Ford. As the Model T and Ford Model TT, TT became obsolete and needed to be replaced, Henry Ford began initial designs on the Ford Model A (1927-1931), Model A and Model AA in 1926. Basic chas ...

chassis, and because of that called ''Ford-Timken''. This immediately initiated the development of armoured cars. By the end of the year assembly was taking place at the plant "Gudok Oktyabrya" in Kanavin, near Nizhniy Novgorod. In autumn of the same year at the Repair Base of Nº2 in Moscow hull from the BA-27 armoured car was first attached to the new chassis. About 20 such cars were built, having the designation BA-27M.The Russian Battlefield - BA-3, BA-6, and BA-9 armoured car
/ref> At the same time, and with the same chassis, but at the Izhorskij plant, several dozen D-13 armoured cars were built, developed by N. I. Dyrenkov. In 1932, engineer P. N. Syachentov, known for his development of the artillery, designed the universal armoured car

BAD-2 BAD-2 was a Soviet experimental amphibious armored car, that could be also converted to run on railroad tracks (see ''draisine''). The changing for rail mode took 30 minutes. Only one prototype was built in 1932, designed by engineer P. N. Syac ...

, which was both amphibious and capable of driving the railroad track. A single copy was built, but not accepted for manufacturing.

Design

In 1932, at the Izhorskij plant, the armoured car ''BA-I'' (''I'' stands for ''Izhorskij'') was developed by A. D. Kuzmin. In some publications the name of this machine is written together - ''BAI''. It used the same triaxial Ford-Timken chassis as its predecessors. The hull was welded together - an advanced technology for the time. Due to the "stepped" form of the roof on the hull it was possible to place turret lower, substantially reducing the overall height of combat vehicle. In the

cylindrical A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infini ...

welded turret, there was a 37 mm gun with 34 rounds (similarly to earlier BA-27 armored car), and a DT machine gun on a separate ball mount. The second DT was placed in the frontal sheet to the right of the driver. There were doors in the hull and in the rear for crew evacuation. An interesting idea that was borrowed from the earlier D-13 armoured car was mounting of spare wheels just next to the front wheels and only slightly higher. These helped when crossing trenches and rugged terrain. An innovation was the possibility to convert vehicle to a half-track by fitting auxiliary ("Overall") tracks to the rear pair of dual tandem wheels. Additionally some vehicles were equipped with radio. All three of these ideas were subsequently used in all succeeding designs, including the

. A version has been developed using an improved GAZ-AAA chassis. Also a prototype railway BA-IZD variant was created, but was not accepted for production.

References

{{WWIISovietAFVs Armoured cars of the interwar period Armoured fighting vehicles of the Soviet Union Military vehicles introduced in the 1930s