Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Venator77]

Hi everyone,

  I requested this just for the heck of it.

The Antonov A-40 Krylya Tanka (Russian: ?????? ?????, meaning "tank wings") was a Soviet attempt to allow a tank to glide into a battlefield after being towed aloft by an airplane, to support airborne forces or partisans. A prototype was built and tested in 1942, but was found to be unworkable. This vehicle is sometimes called the A-40T or KT.

Instead of loading light tanks onto gliders, as other nations had done, Soviet airborne forces had strapped T-27 tankettes underneath heavy bombers and landed them on airfields. In the 1930s there were experimental efforts to parachute tanks or simply drop them into water. During the 1940 occupation of Bessarabia, light tanks may have been dropped from a few meters by TB-3 bombers, allowing them to roll to a stop with the gearbox in neutral.
The biggest problem with air-dropping vehicles is that their crews drop separately, and may be delayed or prevented from bringing them into action. Gliders allow crews to arrive at the drop zone along with their vehicles. They also minimize exposure of the valuable towing aircraft, which needn't appear over the battlefield. So the Soviet Air Force ordered Oleg Antonov to design a glider for landing tanks.


Antonov was more ambitious and instead of building a glider, he added a detachable cradle to a T-60 light tank bearing large wood and fabric biplane wings and twin tail. Such a tank could glide into the battlefield, drop its wings, and be ready to fight within minutes.
One T-60 was converted into a glider in 1942, intended to be towed by a Petlyakov Pe-8 or Tupolev TB-3. The tank was lightened for air use by removing armament, ammunition and headlights, and leaving a very limited amount of fuel. Even with the modifications, the TB-3 bomber had to ditch the glider during its only flight, on September 2, 1942, to avoid crashing, due to the T-60's extreme drag (although the tank reportedly glided smoothly). The A-40 was piloted by the famous Soviet experimental glider pilot Sergei Anokhin. The T-60 landed on a field near the airdrome, and after dropping the glider wings and tail, the driver returned it to its base. Due to the lack of sufficiently-powerful aircraft to tow it at the required 160 km/h (99 mph), the project was abandoned.
The Soviet Union continued to develop methods to efficiently deploy airborne vehicles. By the mid-1970s they were able to para-drop BMD-1 fighting vehicles with crew members aboard.

Code: [Select]

General characteristics
Crew: Two
Capacity: 1 × T-60 tank
Length: 12.06 m (39 ft 6¾ in)
Wingspan: 18.00 m (59 ft 0¾ in)
Wing area: 85.8 m2 (923.5 ft2)
Empty weight: 2,004 kg (4,418 lb)
Gross weight: 7,804 kg (17,205 lb)
The weapons I've read in a book was a single 12.7mm machine gun






I hope you like it!

[HotelAlpha]

HELL YEAH that I wanted to make a request for. I thought it was a good thing!

I have read about the tank detaching on land and doing it's trouble. But that means a drivable tank for Il-2, which would be fantastic! +1! 

I could launch a good attack on an airbase in QMB with this one! 

[Venator77]

BUMP

I'd like to see this. Such nostalgia.

[Cally18]

Well it's a glider, so it can't take off. You can't 'scramble", so you would have to start in the air. If someone took this on, would they have to design a carrier like we already do with the HE-111Z, just to be fnctional, and the cockpit would be..... interesting hahah

[Koty]

Well, I could understand how you drive the tank on ground.
I get that Pe-8 would be needed for towing.
...
but where do you pilot this thing from?!

[P51vsFw190]

Sources claim that the pilot was in fact the commander or the driver of the tank. It was reported that raising and lowering the barrel controlled pitch and moving the turret from side to side controlled both yaw and roll.

Sincerely,

PvF

[max_thehitman]

That thing will never fly good.
It actually just flew One Time    I wonder why they dropped the project ?

Well, anything is possible in the IL2-1946+mods. There was a time when no one thought helicopters or jets
could fly, but now they can.
So why not a tank?! LOL

Personally, I prefer "JETMAN" ! It´s much more fun with him.

[Ivan-le-Rouge]

I cant imagine the face of the pilot in charge of testing this thing...

[Venator77]

That thing will never fly good.
It actually just flew One Time    I wonder why they dropped the project ?

Well, anything is possible in the IL2-1946+mods. There was a time when no one thought helicopters or jets
could fly, but now they can.
So why not a tank?! LOL

Personally, I prefer "JETMAN" ! It´s much more fun with him.

They dropped the project because there wasn't a tow plane with enough engine power to lift it off.

[OberstDanjeje]

I'm sure our guys here could be able to make to fly even a Tiger panzer

[P51vsFw190]

First we just have to make an ANT-20bis. That would be the most obvious choice for a tow plane/transport anyway.



Only then will we be able make the flying tank fly.

Hmm, sounds like a new request is knocking. Let me answer the door.

Sincerely,

James

[FK7]

Ive heard alot about this aswell.

Although it was never implemented properly, it would make an excellent addition to the prototype line.