Locked topic · 29 posts
Eastern Front
Archived poll
72 total votes
Lord wrote:
OSTHEER IS DONE WHEN IT'S DONE!
Last edited September 25, 2010 at 9:29 PM by Spieel
Lord wrote:
OSTHEER IS DONE WHEN IT'S DONE!
Quote"This thing is by far the weirdest and possibly most massive self-propelled land vehicle we’ve ever heard of. Built by a Russian engineer as the ultimate weapon for use in WWI, it ended up as a monument to failure as it was deemed unusable on its initial test voyage.
Engineer N. Lebedenko is the man credited with coming up with the idea of building this vehicle back in the early 1900s. It was physically constructed in 1914 and 1915 by a team of Russian craftsmen. Looking at the photos you really have no idea how large this thing is. For starters, it weighs 40 tons. Those big looking wheels, yeah, they are 27 feet in diameter.
The concept, as you have probably figured out by now, was to built a massive, self-propelled version of a gun carriage, similar to what cannons were towed around on.
The rear wheels provided the steering while the big front wheels were driven by car tires that were pressed down on them. The car tires rotated, forcing the big wheels to turn, providing forward movement. It was powered by two 240hp Maybach engines. Those engines at the time were the gold standard in power and reliability, there was not much else on Earth that could touch them. Despite all that, the thing was totally underpowered. The designers thought it would be able to go about 8 mph when completed, but it never really got the chance.
For armaments, the vehicle had a central turret that could hold machine guns or a small cannon and additional machine gunners could be placed on the outsides of the central frame. With the turret, the vehicle was nearly 40 feet tall.
In mid 1915, the vehicle was ready to be shown the military brass. It wowed the crowds by driving around, crashing down some trees, and looking mighty. It then moved to some soft ground, got stuck in a ditch and could not free itself. The engines did not have the guts to power the big wheels out of the ditch.
That was it. The monster sat in that same position for the rest of WWI, it literally did not move. It was cut up for scrap in 1923."
Akalonor wrote:
lol@ newbie.
Why is the Kv-1 on there ? its not ingame...is it ?
Dragon wrote:
What's your favourite - look wise (real life, not mod)?
Akalonor wrote:
it says "(that we use)" , not "(real life , not mod)"
that is what confused me.
Lord wrote:
All in all russian tanks are ugly! xD
U see that they were produced with primitive technologies. U can see that the steel was dumped in sandboxes.
Jagged wrote:Lord wrote:
All in all russian tanks are ugly! xD
U see that they were produced with primitive technologies. U can see that the steel was dumped in sandboxes.
That was better then riveted isn't it?
IS-2 just becuase the IS-3 wasn't an option :P
Red_Stinger wrote:
Hmmm. I wouldnt call "primitive technologies" some of the best tanks in the war. Btw, soviet models are always very reliable and somewhat efficient, even in hostile environment. I cant say the same for most of german tanks.
maxi1991 wrote:
But their weaknesses were very big in many points.
Red_Stinger wrote:maxi1991 wrote:
But their weaknesses were very big in many points.
As every tanks. Every tanks have their weaknesses. Anyway, thats not the best place to discuss that ;) .