Czar tank

Czar's tank. The Tsar Tank, also known as Netopyr, was an unusual Russian armored vehicle developed between 1914 and 1915 by Nikolai Lebedenko, Nikolai Zhukovsky, Boris Stechkin, and Alexander Mikulin. It was a "land battleship", since it reached 40 t and reached 17 km / h. The project was scrapped after initial tests showed that the vehicle needed a more powerful engine and was vulnerable to heavy artillery fire. Unfortunately its cost was high (250,000 rubles), so its production was canceled in series.

The tank differed from modern tanks because it did not use caterpillars, but a tricycle design. The two front spoke wheels were almost 9 meters (27 feet) in diameter; the rear wheel was smaller, only 1.5 meters high and composed of three units to ensure maneuverability. The upper turret almost reached a height of 8 meters. The body was 12 meters wide and two more cannons, mounted on bars. It was planned to mount additional armament under it. Each wheel was powered by a 250 hp (190 kW) Sunbeam engine.

The vehicle received that nickname because when it was transported its model to scale retained of the rear wheel, it looked like a bat that sleeps hanging.

The huge front wheels had to cross significant obstacles. But due to errors in weight calculation, the rear wheel easily clogged on soft ground and trenches, making the front wheels sometimes insufficient to unclog it. This led to a series of failed tests before the High Commission in August 1915. The tank was abandoned at the test site, about 60 kilometers from Moscow, until it was dismantled as scrap in 1923. Notes

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