Weapons

The BT: Russia's 'Hot-Rod' Super-Fast Tanks (Made in America?)

...The two model 1928s were received at the Kharkov Locomotive Factory in Ukraine. There the Soviets wasted no time in creating a reverse-engineered vehicle from the Model 1928 Bystrokhodny (“Fast”) Tank or BT-1, resulting in the domestic BT-2. Three turretless prortotypes in 1931 were followed by production models in 1932 with a turret 37-millimeter gun and a coaxial turret Degtyaryov machinegun. (Some were delivered with an additional two machineguns in the turret instead of the cannon.)

They 10-ton BT-2 was powered by a Mikulin M5-400 petrol engine reverse-engineered from the American 400 horsepower Liberty V12 engine. For comparison, the 18-ton British Valentine infantry tank which entered service in 1940 had only a 131 horsepower engine!

That BT-2’s remarkable power-to-weight ratio resulted in a genuine hotrod. With their tracks removed, the BTs could attain speeds of 62 miles per hour on roads, and around 40 cross-country. A famous recording shows a BT tank leaping a remarkable 40 meters off a ramp. Ironically, however, the neat chain-driving mode appears not to have been used operationally.