Thursday 17 May 2018

Replacement Engines

"Order of the People's Commissar of Medium Machinebuilding of the USSR #319ss
Moscow
July 11th, 1941

To carry out State Committee of Defense Decree issued on July 9th, 1941, "On the facilitation of production of T-34 tanks at the Krasnoye Sormovo factory, I order that:
  1. The director of the Molotov Gorkiy Automotive Factory must provide Krasnoye Sormovo with M-17 engines for the T-34 tank in the following amounts:
    1. August 1941: 15
    2. September 1941: 80
    3. October 1941: 160
    4. November 1941: 230
    5. December 1941: 260
      supply them evenly throughout the month.
  2. The director of factory #183, comrade Maksarev, must deliver to the Krasnoye Sormovo factory 5 sets of all T-34 parts in their completed state and 5 sets of rough stock.
Deputy People's Commissar of Medium Machinebuilding, S. Akopov."

13 comments:

  1. Is there or has there been a study on variants of the T34's engine?

    I know there are variations on hull and turret based on what factory made it, but is there similar for components of this tank?

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    1. Engines did go through minor modifications, mostly related to making production easier and increasing quality thus improving engine reliability and lifetime, but nothing substantial enough to warrant rebranding the engine, except maybe the significant upgrade of hp between the T-34/76 and /85 (from 450 to 550 hp)

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    2. The engine used by either the T-34-76 or T-34-85 was capable of 500 hp @ 1800 RPM. You might be confusing it with the output at "everyday" service, which was 450 hp @ 1750 RPM.

      As for any kind of complete study of the engine's evolution and variants, I never saw any such thing, unfortunately.

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    3. Peter Samsonov. It's unfortunate that more books aren't written about tank engines. Considering the impact the M-17 had on tank warfare one would think that books would give detailed descriptions of the engines spec's, along with photos of the engine and various transmissions taken apart and assembled. But I guess regular folks think this would be boring. But thanks for giving us what you can.

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    4. It's a very narrow topic that doesn't get much traction. There's a fantastic article on German tank transmissions that was submitted to Warspot and rejected because no one would read it. Most people want to read about cool stuff that blows up (see the top 5 of my top 10 posts) and not technical minutia.

      I do have a Soviet tank design book from the 60s that just goes through a list of tank design solutions from the 30s and up: transmissions, suspensions, etc. It's very dry and apolitical, they don't even mention what tank the piece came from most of the time, just how it worked. It's not a thrilling read, and it would be an absolute monster to try and translate.

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    5. The M17 was capable of 500bhp on the testbench. However, the losses caused by feed air and exhoust design as well as air filter losses were recorded to significantly degrade installed vs potential full power, at least when tested in Aberdeen.

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    6. Net horsepower is less than brake horsepower, critical mass has smashed this case wide open!

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    7. Actualy this is a topic i am also very interrested in. I still wonder why many nations started so late with good real tank engine designs. If you read about developpement of tanks, it is surprisingly how oftem they ran into problems connected with unavailability of high power reliable engines in reasonable dimensions.

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    8. Combustion engine technology was still feeling its way forward those days and the spiraling performance requirements of both armoured vehicles and combat aircraft were seriously pushing the envelope.

      Add the need to push costs down and it's no wonder they kinda struggled.

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  2. IS there a good book about the technical developemnt of the different models of T 34 available ? I'm not looking for a oprational history, purely from the technological side of things ? (if possible not in Russian :-) )

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    1. In English you're probably going to have to wait for Francis Pulham's book. Judging by his work on the T-35 it will definitely be worth a look.

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    2. Thanks, i have the T-35 book. Is there already a (vague) release date ?

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