It could swim for hours if necessary and even fire its main gun while afloat. A crew of three needed only to lower a trim vane over the hull and turn on the bilge pumps, and the tank could swim at six miles per hour on river or seawater, using panels to block the hydrojets on one side or the other for steering. Shashmurin’s vehicle employed two innovative side-mounted hydro jets for propulsion in water. However, the Soviet military returned to the concept after World War II, and in 1949, approved for production the Object 740 prototype designed by Nikolay Sashmurin at the Kirov factory in Leningrad. Within the first six months of the invasion, most were lost and replaced by heavier vehicles. However, these lightly armored two-man vehicles, which were all armed with a single machine gun, were poorly matched against German Panzers that invaded in 1941. Just prior to World War II, the Soviet Union developed a series of amphibious light tanks, the T-37, T-38 and T-40. forces in Vietnam, and the historic countermeasure used against it. The first article in this two-part series will look at the origin and characteristics of the PT-76, the nasty shock it gave U.S. Patton tanks in Vietnam, and launching amphibious surprise attacks on both sides of the same Middle Eastern war. Certainly it seemed bound for rough treatment on modern battlefields full of heavy weapons and heavier tanks.īut the floating PT-76 chalked up a remarkable record, carrying knife-wielding Himalayan soldiers into battle, sinking gunboats on the Ganges Delta, dueling powerful U.S. The PT-76 seems like a minor oddity of the Cold War - a Soviet amphibious light tank with thin armor and an unimpressive gun. Special Forces a nasty shock in the Vietnam War Janusz Magnuski photo A lightly armored Cold War tank gave U.S.
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