The PPG tankette (; literally "mobile machine-gun nest"), also known by the prototype name ''Object 217'', was a Soviet

tankette A tankette is a tracked armoured fighting vehicle that resembles a small tank, roughly the size of a car. It is mainly intended for light infantry support and scouting.

produced for fighting in the

Winter War The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peac ...

Intended purpose

Soviet infantry took huge losses attacking Finnish fortifications in the Winter War. To compensate, they sometimes assaulted them in armoured sledges towed by tanks. The PPG tankette was an attempt to create an infantry carrier to fulfil this role. About a hundred were produced at the Kirov Factory in Leningrad in 1940 and rushed to the front, but did not make it to

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

in time to be used in combat. The fate of the remaining PPGs is largely unknown, but there are rumours they were used in auxiliary roles in the USSR.

Specifications

The PPG tankette had partial armoured cover of thickness protecting the front and sides, for two infantrymen riding in a prone position. It was armed with two 7.62mm DT machine guns with 1,575 rounds. The tankette was powered by a PMZ two-stroke, 2-cylinder liquid-cooled petrol engine of allowing it to reach a speed of about on roads and offroad, while it weighed 1.73 tonnes.

Tests and failure

The first PPG was manufactured in March 1940 and immediately entered factory testing. As a result of these tests, the military doubted the combat value of the new machine. For example, the machine guns had very limited angles of fire, and the dangerous location of the crew in the cabin was not the most comfortable position and negatively affected the combat capability of the machine. In addition, the vehicle was completely powerless against enemy tanks or anti-tank artillery. Although the low silhouette in principle contributed to the survival of the machine, its speed and mobility did not allow for a rapid retreat in case of threat as the tankette could only reach up to 18 km/h. Finally, by March 1940, the fighting had already ended and the need for a tankette was no longer necessary. As a result, the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

decided to cancel work on the project, recognizing it as unpromising. A preliminary order for a batch of five experimental tankettes was canceled, the PPG was not accepted and was not used in combat operations.

References

External links

The Russian Battlefield - PPG Tankette
* * {{WWIISovietAFVs World War II tankettes World War II armoured fighting vehicles of the Soviet Union Kirov Plant products