T-26 variants

Many Soviet tank engineers were declared "enemies of the nation" and repressed during Stalin's Great Purge from the middle of the 1930s.

The delay was attributed to the manufacture of the metal bridges, carried out by the Gipstalmost Factory and several workshops using semi-handicraft techniques.

Specifications: weight - 9.5–10 tonnes (10.5–11.0 short tons); crew - 2 men (commander and driver); speed - 28 km/h (17 mph); range - 120 km (75 mi).

The bridge could be laid in 45 sec and the raise operation took 1.5 min (both processes did not require crew exit).

A decision was made in 1939 to produce a batch of engineer tanks with the lever hydraulic system, but the Podolsk Machine Factory could assemble only one.

Fourteen more with a high-powered engine and improved towing device were produced in 1936 (including 10 with an armoured cabin).

Voroshilov in Leningrad (a plan to produce 200 T-26T with a canvas cover and 150 T-26T with an armoured cabin annually was not carried out due to increases in tank production).

Tests and army service showed that T-26T artillery tractors were underpowered for cross-country towing of trailers weighing more than 5 tonnes (5.5 short tons), so these vehicles had no further development.

Tank and mechanized infantry units of the Red Army had 211 artillery tractors based on the T-26 chassis on June 1, 1941.

Almost all T-26T artillery tractors of border and some inner military districts were lost during the first weeks of the Great Patriotic War.

A few remained in front-line service until 1942 at least (for example, the 150th Tank Brigade of the Bryansk Front had a T-26T with an armoured cabin on May 15, 1942, which was used as a command vehicle).

No less than 50 old twin-turreted T-26 tanks of the Transbaikal Military District were converted into artillery tractors from 1941; these vehicles participated in combat with the Japanese Kwantung Army in August 1945.

[10] Specifications: full weight - 9.445 tonnes (10.411 short tons); crew - 2 (driver and commander) + 14 men (landing party); armour - 4–10 mm (0.16–0.39 in).

Among these were mine sweeps, equipment for swimming, snorkels for deep fording, wooden and brushwood fascines for trench crossing, special extra-wide swamp tracks and mats, wire cutters, dozer blades and many others.