Landships II

Vilkata · Brigadier

Russian T-17 One Man Tank.

eugene · Field Marshal

really neat stuff Vil

when was this design made?

and also what is the little Russian book that you have?

Vilkata · Brigadier

The image comes from this book. It is the same book that I scanned that image of the Vezdekhod out of ages ago, but it didn't help much, as it seems every single image in the book has had some sort of Iron Curtain doctoring to it, for some reason. So, which tracks were actually fitted to this thing can remain a mystery. Clearly some (or all?) of the photos have been doctored in some way.
http://s1.simpload.com/12074397df873565b.jpg

I know absolutely no Russian, but just being vaguely familiar with this tank, and with armor books in general, I believe the text for the T-17 listing reads:

Tank T-17 (1929)

Weight: 2.4 Tons
Crew: 1 man.
Armament: 1 machine gun, 7.62mm.
Armor: 14-10mm
[I have no idea what that second to the last thing is. Length & Width maybe? "12 kbr (16 n.c.)]
Speed: 16 km/h.

I know a 1929 Tank isn't a WWI tank, but Peter has been pretty interested in the T-18, so I thought people might find the one-man variation of that chassis pretty cool

Does anyone have any other pictures of this? It seems like if someon was interested they could take a regular T-18 kit (like the really nice one Peter built!) and kit bash it into a T-17 One Man, but these images give no impression of what the back of the hull looks like, or the front hull between the track horns. More photographs would definitely need to be found to make an accurate model of this little guy.

I was struggling to understand why after just a year of T-18 production Russia would decide to build an inferior one man tank. But, the answers are all in Peters splendid little article on the T-18.

Production of the T-18 was bottlenecked because of a severe lack of engines. I theorise that the T-17 was an attempt at making a tank that could be produced en masse much easier than the T-18, using a much more available engine, eliminating the turret, etc. By choosing the 2 Cylinder air-cooled engine, performance would have been greatly reduced if the vehicle weighed the same as the T-18. Presumably, they wanted the T-17 to be able to operate in unison with the T-18. To do so with an inferior engine, weight was dropped from 5.4 Tons to 2.4 Tons, the drastic decrease in size necessitating it being only a one-man tank. In this way, the far less powerful engine could get the T-17 up to within 1 km/h of the T-18. (17kmh Vs. 16kmh for the T-17).

As with all Tankette development, the reason was not sound combat logic, it was pure economic logic.

At least, that's what I can think of. For all I know I'm terribly wrong.

---Vil.

eugene · Field Marshal

the next to last thing is engine rating 16 h.p

other than that the translation is correct!

-- Edited by eugene at 22:28, 2006-07-03

Vilkata · Brigadier

Sort of off topic, but it's interesting that some Japanese are quite aware of their countrys forray into Tanks back when they bought some FT-17s (which in turn influenced basically every Japanese tank). For instance, the Japanese author Masamune Shirow has a comic book called Dominion Tank Police, and the main character drives a mini-tank called Bonaparte, that looks quite a lot like an FT-17. From driver up front, and gunner behind, to its stumpy cannon, and right down to the fact that it's called Bonaparte (probably a joke about its size, but also a reference to the French, knowing that Shirow is a history buff).
http://s2.simpload.com/070344a99e6e00210.jpg
http://s1.simpload.com/070344a99eab1e2c2.jpg
http://s1.simpload.com/070344a99edb9db79.jpg

And then the Metal Slug series of games based their one man tank (called the Metal Slug) on Bonaparte.
http://www.geocities.com/the_tea_monger/sony/psmsbc.jpg
http://kingoffighters.planets.gamespy.com/fanart/unsorted/mslug1.jpg

What can I say... I'm a sucker for mini-tanks, whether in real life or fictional.

---Vil.

Vilkata · Brigadier

Ok, back on topic.

Help me out here folks.

Some information sources tell me that only one T-17 was ever built.
Others say around 3 were built, that the first one had metal tracks, but the second two had rubber & metal tracks.

Now, we know in the pictures that one has metal tracks with 3 return rollers, while the other has rubber tracks with no return rollers - but this does this mean there actually was more than one ?

Secondly, check this out.

I found some better pics. First image shows a much higher quality, un-doctored version of an image I posted earlier, note the drivers head inside the cab!!. Second image is the original un-doctored (albeit low quality_ version of the other image I found. Third is new, showing a rear view.

1. I was wondering why the front view-port was an open square - it's not. Check out picture 1. You can clearly see something hanging down from the open frontal cabin plate - perhaps some sort of block of armored glass ?

2. How come it seems like I may actually be looking at two different vehicles here...? In Pic 1 the very top of the cab is around 4 small rivets long on the side. In pic 2 the top of the cab is around 7 rivets long on the side - and it seems noticeable to the eye that one side appears much longer than the other in the pictures. Could the frontal-cabin-plate have been angled in such a way that one side of the cabin was less long than the other ?? For instance, on the Port Side of the tankettes cabin, there is a square plate with a little pistol-port in it, you can see this in Pic 2 of this post. However, in Pic 1, the square plate is missing, only showing a pistol port. Overall the entire geometry of this tank completely confuses me. The cabin also looks offset to starboard... I would loveee to see full-view drawings of this tank, so far I can't really make sense of it.

---Vil.

-- Edited by Vilkata at 05:06, 2006-07-08

Tim R · Hero

Vilkata

I have drawings of the T-17 with both rubber and metal tracks, as well as the T-23 tankette project and the Drawings and photos of the T-23 tankette as built, I will scan them in and post Sunday.

All the best

Tim R

Vilkata · Brigadier

Thank you Tim!

At some point I would like to write a fairly definitive article on One Man Tanks, and actually understanding the geometry of this T-17 sucker would be great.

I'm sorry your sort of my Knight in Shining Armor Tim, haha. On one hand, you have heaps of answers to almost all of my questions, but on the other hand, it's a strain for you to reply to every single one. But I do very much appreciate it!!

Heck, all of us folks on the Landships forum need to start pooling money up... We need to start paying you to do this stuff!! :) :)

---Vil.

Tim R · Hero

Hello Vilkata

Here is the Drawings of the T-17 I promised.

All the Best

Tim R

Tim R · Hero

Here is the Drawings and photos of the T-23

All the Best

Tim R

Vilkata · Brigadier

So... After looking at the pics again and again.. I guess its just an optical illusion that one side of the cab looks longer than the other.

Thank you very very much Tim!! I really appreciate it. The front of the tank between the horns is still a mystery, but there will always be mysteries.

Awesome stuff - Thanks again!

---Vil.