The T-26 tank was a Soviet light infantry tank used during many conflicts of the 1930s as well as during World War II. It was a development of the BritishVickers 6-Ton tank and is widely considered one of the most successful tank designs of the 1930s.[3]
It was produced in greater numbers than any other tank of the period, with more than 11,000 manufactured.[4] During the 1930s, the USSR developed a record number of 53 variants of the T-26, including different combat vehicles based on its chassis (flame-throwing tanks, combat engineer vehicles, remotely controlled tanks, self-propelled guns, artillery tractors, armoured carriers). Twenty-three of these were series-produced, others were experimental models.[5]
The T-26 together with the BT was the main tank of the Red Army's armored forces during the interwar period. Though nearly obsolete by the beginning ofWorld War II, the T-26 was the most important tank of the Spanish Civil Warand played a significant role during the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 as well as in the Winter War in 1939–40. The T-26 was the most numerous tank in the Red Army's armored force during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.[6] The T-26 participated in combats with the Germans and their allies during the Battle of Moscow in winter 1941/1942, the Battle of Stalingradand the Battle of the Caucasus in 1942–1943; some tank units of theLeningrad Front used their T-26s until 1944. The Soviet T-26 light tanks last saw use in August 1945, during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.[7]
The T-26 was exported and used extensively in the armies of Spain, China and Turkey. In addition, captured T-26 light tanks were used by the Finnish, German, Romanian and Hungarian armies.[8]
The T-26 was reliable and simple to maintain, and its design was continually modernised between 1931 and 1941. However, no new models of the T-26 were developed after 1940.
| Type | Light infantry tank |
|---|---|
| Place of origin |  Soviet Union |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1931–1945 in USSR 1936–1953 in Spain 1940–1961 in Finland |
| Used by |  Soviet Union Spanish Republic Finland Republic of China Turkey Nazi Germany Kingdom of Romania Kingdom of Hungary Afghanistan |
| Wars | Spanish Civil War Second Sino-Japanese War Soviet–Japanese Border Wars World War II |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Vickers-Armstrongs, OKMO ofBolshevik Plant in Leningrad |
| Designed | 1928–1931 |
| Manufacturer | Factory No. 174 named after K.E. Voroshilov in Leningrad,Stalingrad Tractor Factory |
| Produced | 1931–41 |
| Number built | 10,300 tanks and 1,701 other vehicles[1] |
| Specifications (T-26 mod. 1933[2]) | |
| Weight | 9.6 tonnes (10.6 short tons) |
| Length | 4.65 m (15 ft 3 in) |
| Width | 2.44 m (8 ft) |
| Height | 2.24 m (7 ft 4 in) |
| Crew | 3 (commander, gunner, driver) |
| Armour | Bottom: 6 mm (0.24 in) Roof: 6–10 mm (0.24–0.39 in) Hull and Turret: 15 mm (0.59 in) (front, rear, sides) |
| Main armament | 45 mm 20K mod. 1932/34 tank gun (122 rds.) |
| Secondary armament | 7.62 mm DT tank machine gun(2,961 rds.) |
| Engine | 4-cylinder gasoline flat air-cooledT-26 (Armstrong Siddeley type); engine volume 6,600 cc 90 hp (67 kW) at 2,100 rpm |
| Power/weight | 9.38 hp/t |
| Transmission | single-disk main dry clutch, drive shaft, gearbox with five gears, steering clutches, final drives |
| Suspension | leaf quarter-elliptic springs |
| Ground clearance | 380 mm (1 ft 3 in) |
| Fuel capacity | 290 L (64 imp gal; 77 U.S. gal) [with additional 110-L fuel tank] |
| Operational range | Road: 220–240 km (140–150 mi) Off-road: 130–140 km (81–87 mi) |
| Speed | Paved: 31.1 km/h (19.3 mph) Gravel: 22 km/h (14 mph) Off-road: 16 km/h (9.9 mph) |
British origin
The T-26 was a Soviet development of the British Vickers 6-Ton (Vickers Mk.E) light tank, which was designed by the Vickers-Armstrongs company in 1928–1929. The simple and easy to maintain Vickers 6-Ton was intended especially for export to less technically advanced countries: the Soviet Union, Poland, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Thailand, China and many others. Vickers advertised the tank in military publications, and both the Soviet Union and Poland expressed interest in the Vickers design. In the spring ( Northern Hemisphere) of 1930, the Soviet buying committee, under the direction of Semyon Ginzburg, arrived in Great Britain to select tanks, tractors and cars for use in the Red Army. The Vickers 6-Ton was among four models of tanks selected by Soviet representatives during their visit to Vickers-Armstrongs. According to the contract signed on May 28, 1930, the company delivered to the USSR 15 twin-turreted Vickers Mk.E (Type A, armed with two .303 calibre (7.71 mm) water-cooled Vickers machine guns) tanks together with full technical documentation to enable series production of the tank in the USSR. The ability of the two turrets of the Type A to turn independently made it possible to fire to both the left and right at once, which was considered advantageous for breakthroughs of field entrenchments.[9] Several Soviet engineers participated in assembly of the tanks at the Vickers Factory in 1930.[10]
The first four Vickers 6-Ton tanks arrived in the USSR at the end of 1930. The last tanks did not arrive until 1932, when series production of the T-26 was already in progress. The British tanks were issued to Soviet factories for study in preparation for series production and to military educational institutions and training units. Later, some tanks were given to military supply depots and proving grounds.
The Vickers-built 6-Ton tanks had the designator V-26 in the USSR. Three British tanks were successfully tested for cross-country ability at the small proving ground near Moscow on Poklonnaya Hill in January 1931. Kliment Voroshilov ordered the creation of the "Special Commission for the Red Army (RKKA) new tanks" under the direction of S. Ginzburg to define the tank type suitable for the Red Army. The T-19 8-ton light infantry tank, developed by S. Ginzburg under that programme at theBolshevik Plant in Leningrad, was a competitor to the British Vickers 6-Ton. The first prototype of the complex and expensive T-19 was not finished until August 1931. Because both tanks had advantages and disadvantages, S. Ginzburg suggested developing a more powerful, hybrid tank (the so-called "improved" T-19) with the hull, home-developed engine and armament from the native T-19, and the transmission and chassis from the British Vickers 6-Ton.[9][11]
However, on January 26, 1931, I. Khalepsky (Head of the Department of Mechanisation and Motorisation of the RKKA) wrote a letter to S. Ginzburg with information obtained via the intelligence service that the Polish government had decided to purchase Vickers 6-Ton light infantry tanks as well as Christie M1931 cavalry tanks and to mass produce them with the assistance of both the British and French. Because Poland was then considered, in Soviet military doctrine, to be the USSR's main enemy, the Soviet Revolutionary Military Council took this erroneous information into consideration and decided to pass the aforementioned foreign tanks into Red Army service, starting their production immediately without waiting for completion of development works, in order to counter possible aggression. At that time, the RKKA had only several dozen outdated Mk.V, Mk.A and Renault FT-17 tanks, captured during theRussian Civil War, together with various armoured cars and obsolescent domestic MS-1 (T-18) light infantry tanks. On February 13, 1931, the Vickers 6-Ton light infantry tank, under the designator T-26, officially entered service in the Red Army as the "main tank for close support of combined arms units and tank units of High Command Reserve".[9][11]
One of the Vickers 6-Ton tanks (equipped with Soviet-made turrets for the pilot batch T-26 tanks) was tested for gunfire resistance in August 1931. The hull was subjected to rifle and Maxim machine gun fire with the use of normal and armour-piercing bullets at a range of 50 m (160 ft). It was found that the armour withstood gunfire with minimal damage (only some rivets were damaged). Chemical analysis showed that the front armour plates were made from high-quality cemented armour (S.t.a Plat according to Vickers-Armstrongs classification), whereas the homogeneous roof and bottom armour plates were made from mediocre steel. Nevertheless, the British armour was better than armour produced by Izhora Factory for the first T-26s due to a shortage of modern metallurgical equipment in the USSR that time.[12]
At the same time, the Faculty of Mechanisation and Motorisation of the Military Technical Academy named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky developed two tank models (TMM-1 and TMM-2) based on the purchased Vickers 6-Ton tank design but with an American Hercules 95 hp (71 kW) six-cylinder water-cooled engine, improved front armour (to 15–20 mm), and a driver's position on the left side. TMM stands for tank maloy moshchnosti or "tank of low power". The TMM-1 was equipped with transmission details from the native Ya-5 truck and a ball mount for the DT tank machine gun in front of the hull, whereas the TMM-2 was equipped with an improved gear box, a steering device without clutches and a 37 mm Hotchkiss gun in the right turret. However, representatives from the main Soviet tank manufacturers together with officials from the RKKA Mobilization Department considered the Hercules engine to be too difficult to produce, and the engine tended to overheat inside the engine compartment. Tests of TMM-1 and TMM-2 prototypes performed in the beginning of 1932 demonstrated no advantage over the Vickers 6-Ton and the T-26 (the TMM-2's maneuverability was found to be even worse).[13][14]
The T-26 entered active service for the Red Army (RKKA) in 1932; it was used in many conflicts of 1930s as well as during World War II. The T-26 together with the BT was the main tank of the RKKA armored forces during the interwar period.
The T-26 light tank first saw action in the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union provided Republican Spain with a total of 281 T-26 mod. 1933 tanks starting in October 1936. T-26s were used in almost all military operations of the Spanish Civil War in 1936–1939 against Nationalists and demonstrated there a superiority over the German Panzer I light tanks and Italian CV-33 tankettes armed only with machine guns. During the battle of Guadalajara T-26s outclassed the Italian tankettes, strongly inspiring the design of the first Italian medium tank the Fiat M13/40 tank.
The first military operation of the RKKA in which T-26 light tanks participated was the Soviet-Japanese border conflict, the Battle of Lake Khasan, in July 1938. The 2nd Mechanised Brigade, the 32nd and the 40th Separate Tank Battalions had 257 T-26s, from which 76 tanks were damaged and 9 burnt towards the end of battle action. A small number of T-26 tanks and flame-throwing tanks based on the T-26 chassis participated in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol against Japanese forces in 1939.
On the eve of World War II, T-26s served mainly in separate light tank brigades (each brigade had 256–267 T-26s) and in separate tank battalions of rifle divisions (one company of T-26s consisted of 10-15 tanks). This was the type of tank units that participated in the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 and in the Winter War of December 1939-March 1940. The Winter War proved that the T-26 was obsolete and its design reserve was totally depleted. Finnish anti-tank guns easily penetrated the T-26's thin anti-bullet armour, and tank units equipped with the T-26 suffered significant losses during the breakthrough of theMannerheim Line, in which the flame-throwing tanks based on the T-26 chassis played a significant role. On June 1st 1941 the Red Army had 10,268 T-26 light tanks of all models, including armoured combat vehicles based on the T-26 chassis. T-26s composed a majority of the fighting vehicles in Soviet mechanised corps of border military districts. For instance, the Western Special Military District had 1,136 T-26 tanks on June 22nd 1941 (52% of all tanks in the district). The T-26 (mod. 1938/39, especially) could withstand German tanks (except the Panzer III and Panzer IV) participating in Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. The majority of the Red Army's T-26s were lost in the first months of the German-Soviet War, mainly to enemy artillery and air strikes. Many tanks broke down for technical reasons and lack of spare parts.
Nevertheless, the remaining T-26s participated in combats with the Germans and their allies during the Battle of Moscow in winter 1941/1942, the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of the Caucasus in 1942–1943. Some tank units of the Leningrad Front used their T-26 tanks until 1944.
The defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria in August 1945 was the last military operation in which Soviet T-26s were used.
In the 1930s, T-26 light tanks were delivered to Spain (281), China (82) and Turkey (60). They were used in the Second Sino-Japanese War by the Chinese in 1938–1944,exspecially in the Battle of Kunlun Pass. A number of captured T-26s of different models were used by the Finnish Army during the Continuation War, some tanks served in Finland until 1961. Captured T-26s were also used by the German, Romanian and Hungarian armies.
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