The T-35 was a Soviet multi-turreted heavy tank of the interwar period and early Second World War that saw limited service with the Red Army.

Often called a land battleship, it was the only five-turreted heavy tank in the world to reach production, but proved to be slow and mechanically unreliable.

The T-35 was developed by the OKMO design bureau of the Bolshevik Factory, which began work on a heavy tank in 1930.

The second OKMO team, headed by N. Tsiets, worked on a tank similar to the British Vickers A1E1 Independent.

Originally, the main turret was equipped with a 76.2 mm KT-28 cannon (length of barrel 16.5 calibers), which was also used on the Т-28 medium tank.

As an auxiliary weapon in the main turret, to the right of the cannon, the 7.62 mm DT machine gun was placed autonomously in a ball setting.

The spare DT machine gun was fastened in a loop setting in the storage niche of the turret.

By 1937, an anti-aircraft DT machine gun was set in a P-40 mount on the foundation of the gunner's hatch on the main turret.

It is impossible to know the truth, but there is strong evidence to support Western claims, not least the failed Soviet attempts to purchase the A1E1.

At the same time, the influence of German engineers, who in the late 1920s were developing similar designs at their Kama base in the Soviet Union, cannot be discounted.

What is clear is that borrowing military technology and ideas from other nations was common to the majority of the armed forces in the inter-war years.

In June 1940, the question was raised as to whether to withdraw the T-35s from frontline service, with the option to either convert them to heavy self-propelled artillery, or to assign them to the various military academies.

The first known combat engagement of the T-35 tank took place sometime at the end of June 1941, in the broader fighting in the Lviv area known as the Battle of Brody.

The T-35 wrecks show evidence of hits by 37 mm cannon fire and the vehicles could have been engaged by towed German 8.8 cm Flak guns brought in to deal with heavily armored Soviet KV tanks also active in this sector.

The most common causes of breakdown were transmission-related; however, the T-35 proved to have a greater automotive reliability than both the T-34 and KV tanks deployed at the time, with most of the failures arising from running the tanks beyond their normal service intervals, very little in the way of field repair or vehicle workshops and almost no spare parts support.

Some T-35s involved in the long marches, delaying actions and retreat which characterized the beginning of the campaign, saw well over 500 km driven on unpaved roads and even off-road, before experiencing any significant failure.

In April 1945, this tank, now stripped of most of its armament and immobile, was assigned to Panzer Brigade 150 and towed into the town of Zossen where it was used as a fixed fortification and barricade.

The SMK tank was disabled by a Finnish land mine and all attempts to recover the 55-ton behemoth failed.