The T-100 was a Soviet twin-turreted

heavy tank A heavy tank is a tank classification produced from World War I to the end of the Cold War. These tanks generally sacrificed mobility and maneuverability for better armour protection and equal or greater firepower than tanks of lighter classes. ...

prototype, designed in 1938–39 as a possible replacement for the

T-35 The T-35 was a Soviet multi- turreted heavy tank of the interwar period and early Second World War that saw limited service with the Red Army. Often called a land battleship, it was the only five-turreted heavy tank in the world to reach product ...

heavy tank. The T-100 was designed by N. Barykov's

OKMO OKMO (''Opytniy Konstruktorsko-Mekhanicheskiy Otdel'', 'Experimental Design Mechanical Department') was the tank design team in the Soviet Union during the early 1930s. Located in Leningrad, it produced the design of the T-26 infantry tank, of whic ...

design team at S.M. Kirov Factory No. 185 in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. The T-100 was originally conceived with three turrets and was eventually built with two. It was in competition with a similar design, the SMK, but neither was adopted and instead a single turret version of the SMK was ordered as the

KV-1 The Kliment Voroshilov (KV; ) tanks are a series of Soviet heavy tanks named after the Soviet defence commissar and politician Kliment Voroshilov who operated with the Red Army during World War II. The KV tanks were known for their heavy armour ...

. All three prototypes were tested at the same time in the

Battle of Summa The Battle of Summa was fought between the Soviet Union and Finland, in two phases, first in December 1939 and then in February 1940. It was part of the Winter War and was fought near the village of Summa (now Sokolinskoe) along the main road le ...

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 ...

with Finland.

Development

The project was initiated by 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 ...

's need to replace the aging five-turreted T-35 tank based on combat experience in the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

. One of the lessons the Red Army drew from this conflict was the need for heavy 'shell-proof' armor on medium and heavy tanks. Although the T-35 was never used in Spain, its thin armor was vulnerable to the small towed antitank guns and gun-armed tanks encountered there by Soviet

T-26 The T-26 tank was a Soviet light tank used during many conflicts of the Interwar period and in World War II. It was a development of the British Vickers 6-Ton tank and was one of the most successful tank designs of the 1930s until its light ...

and BT tanks. The T-100 was in direct competition against the very similar SMK heavy tank, by Lt-Colonel

Josef Kotin Josef (also Joseph, Jozef, sometimes Zhozef) Yakovlevich Kotin (; 10 March 1908, Pavlohrad – 21 October 1979, Leningrad) was a Soviet armored vehicle design engineer, Head of all three Leningrad armor design bureaux (1937–39), Chief Designer ...

's team at the Leningrad Kirovsky Factory. The original specification was for a five-turreted "anti-tank gun destroyer" which would resist 37–45 mm guns at any range and 76.2 mm artillery at 1,200 m. Both design teams objected to the antiquated multi-turreted design and the requirement was reduced to two turrets before serious design work began. Both tanks had some modern features, including thick, welded armor, radios and

torsion bar suspension A torsion bar suspension, also known as a torsion spring suspension, is any vehicle suspension that uses a torsion bar as its main weight-bearing spring. One end of a long metal bar is attached firmly to the vehicle chassis; the opposite end ...

(another feature insisted upon by the design teams).

Description

The T-100 tank had two turrets one in front of the other requiring a long chassis. The front turret, mounting a 45 mm anti-tank gun had a limited area of fire due to the second turret behind. The second turret, mounting a 76.2 mm gun, was set higher on top of the superstructure than the first and so able to turn a full 360 degrees. The multi-turret concept, usually a mix of cannon and machine gun turrets, had been common in the 1920s, with the British one-off

Vickers A1E1 Independent The Independent A1E1 is a multi-turreted tank that was designed by the British armaments manufacturer Vickers between the First and Second World Wars. Although it only ever reached the prototype stage and only a single example was built, it infl ...

influencing the Soviet T-35.

Service history

The prototype T-100 tank was briefly tested alongside the other designs during the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, but without success. It was never put into production, due to the archaic design concept, poor mobility and the availability of a far superior alternative, the KV series.

Variants

SU-100Y The SU-100Y, initially designated T-100Y,Pasholok was a Soviet prototype self-propelled gun, developed from the chassis of the prototype T-100 tank. It was developed during the Winter War with Finland to include a 130 mm gun to destroy conc ...

– In an attempt to rush into use a mechanized large howitzer capable of dealing with Finnish bunkers, one of the T-100s was converted into the SU-100Y self-propelled gun. It did not go into production, although the prototype was used in the defence of Moscow in 1941.

References

* Zaloga, Steven J. and James Grandsen (1981). ''Soviet Heavy Tanks''. London: Osprey Publishing. . * Zaloga, Steven J. and James Grandsen (1984). ''Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War Two''. London: Arms and Armour Press. . * Zaloga, Steven J. and Peter Sarson (1996). ''KV-1 & 2 Heavy Tanks 1939–1945''. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. . {{DEFAULTSORT:T-100 Tank Interwar tanks of the Soviet Union Multi-turreted tanks Heavy tanks of the Soviet Union Abandoned military projects of the Soviet Union Trial and research tanks of the Soviet Union