The SMK was an armored vehicle prototype developed by the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
prior to the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. It was named after
Sergei Mironovich Kirov, a Communist Party official assassinated in 1934. The SMK was discovered and classified by German intelligence as the T-35C, leading to the misunderstanding that the
T-35 took part in the Winter War.
Only one was built and after a trial showing the downsides of its weight and size against the
KV tank and brief use in the war with Finland, the project was dropped.
Design and development
The SMK was among the designs competing to replace the unreliable and expensive
T-35 multi-turreted heavy tank. A design team under
Josef Kotin at the
Kirovski Works (formerly the
Putilov Works) at Leningrad designed the tank. Competition came from the former
OKMO designer N. Barykov at the
''Bolshevik'' Plant with their
T-100 tank.
In spite of the lessons that could have been learned during the Spanish Civil War, the specification drawn up for the "Anti-Tank Gun Destroyer" in 1937 required the ability to withstand 45 mm anti-tank guns at point-blank range and 75 mm artillery fire at .
[Zaloga p6]
Meetings in 1938 resulted in a reduction in the number of turrets in the specification and changes in suspension design (going from spring-based to
torsion bar). Kotin and his assistant independently designed a single-turret version of the SMK, which gained Stalin's approval and was named the
Kliment Voroshilov tank (KV). Production of two prototypes was ordered.
The SMK's armament was a short 76.2 mm gun in the upper, centrally placed turret and a 45 mm weapon in the forward turret.
Service history
The SMK, the two
KV-1 prototypes and the two
T-100 prototypes were put through proving trials before being tested operationally in combat at the
Battle of Summa during 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 ...
against Finland. The vehicles formed a company of the 91st Tank Battalion of the 20th Heavy Tank Brigade. The unit was under the command of the son of the Defence Commissar. While the SMK had thick enough armor to protect the crew from Finnish cannons and machine guns, its extremely long hull made turning difficult, especially in the dense forests where the Winter War took place. After being immobilized by a mine, the SMK had to be abandoned and was not recovered for two months.
The
KV-1 and
KV-2 designs proved superior in both trials in Finland and were accepted.
Armor
See also
*
List of tanks of the Soviet Union
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*Zaloga & Gransden ''Soviet Heavy Tanks'' Osprey Publishing
on battlefield.ru.
WWII Vehicles - Soviet Union's SMK
External links
{{WWIISovietAFVs
Heavy tanks of the Soviet Union
Multi-turreted tanks
World War II tanks of the Soviet Union
Abandoned military projects of the Soviet Union
Trial and research tanks of the Soviet Union
Military vehicles introduced in the 1930s