• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

The Soviet Union Learned Why Flying Tanks Are A Terrible Idea The Hard Way

November 27, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

In our quest to obliterate fellow humans, humans have attempted some pretty whacky and ghoulish ideas, from the pain ray and Greek Fire to firing the corpses of plague victims at the enemy using a catapult. One suitably stupid (and short-lived) invention was the flying tank, dreamed up by the Soviet Union during World War II. 

Tanks, even the small ones, are pretty hefty, making transporting them to battlefields a bit of an issue. Driving them the whole way leaves them exposed to enemy fire, and so the Soviet Union began experimenting with ways to airlift them to their destinations. For a time, they tried strapping T-27 tankettes to the underside of bombers and landing them on airfields, but the tanks were not capable of doing enough damage to justify risking their expensive aircraft. Other methods involved simply dropping tanks from aircraft into water, or from a very low height, while the crew parachuted down before climbing in and hoping the enemy had not got there first.

Advertisement

But then, during the Second World War, the Soviets came up with another idea; attaching a tank to a glider and allowing it to swoop into battle. The result was the Antonov A-40 Krylya Tanka, roughly translating to “tank wings”. 



In 1940, designer Oleg Antonov attempted to create the gliding tank, essentially bolting biplane wings and a long tail boom onto a small, lighter tank. The idea was that the tank plane would be towed by a larger aircraft and released, and simply glide down to the battlefield before ditching its wings and tail. 

It took several years before a prototype of the flying tank was built and taken for a spin.

Advertisement

“To test fly it, they have to leave the ammunition out and most of the fuel to save weight,” aviation journalist Jim Winchester explained to BBC Future. “The concept was that as the tank’s turret turned, you moved the controls on the wings. You just move the gun left or right.”

In 1942, test pilot Sergei Anokhin had the honor of riding in the tank as it was towed by a Tupolev TB-3 bomber into the air. Quickly, it became apparent that the idea was not a great one, as the drag of the tank plane was too much for the bomber to handle. The tank was released early, but Anokhin was able to glide it down and land safely in a field, before driving it back to the base. 

Though Japan and the UK both attempted to make their own versions of flying tanks, they too failed to make it aerodynamical, and like the Soviets, they quickly abandoned the idea.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. No ‘magic wand’ to fix Lebanon crisis, new prime minister says
  2. Vietnam’s biggest city to start lifting COVID-19 curbs to revive business
  3. Light Trapped Inside A Metamaterial Makes It 10 Times More Magnetic
  4. Mysterious “Skyquake” Noises Heard Around The World, And Nobody Knows What They Are

Source Link: The Soviet Union Learned Why Flying Tanks Are A Terrible Idea The Hard Way

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • The Bizarre 1997 Experiment That Made A Frog Levitate
  • There’s A Very Good Reason Why October 1582 On Your Phone Is Missing 10 Days
  • Skynet-1A: Military Spacecraft Launched 56 Years Ago Has Been Moved By Persons Unknown
  • There’s A Simple Solution To Helping Avoid Erectile Dysfunction (But You’re Not Going To Like It)
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS May Be 10 Billion Years Old, This Rare Spider Is Half-Female, Half-Male Split Down The Middle, And Much More This Week
  • Why Do Trains Not Have Seatbelts? It’s Probably Not What You Think
  • World’s Driest Hot Desert Just Burst Into A Rare And Fleeting Desert Bloom
  • Theoretical Dark Matter Infernos Could Melt The Earth’s Core, Turning It Liquid
  • North America’s Largest Mammal Once Numbered 60 Million – Then Humans Nearly Drove It To Extinction
  • North America’s Largest Ever Land Animal Was A 21-Meter-Long Titan
  • A Two-Headed Fossil, 50/50 Spider, And World-First Butt Drag
  • Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Losing Buckets Of Water Every Second – And It’s Got Cyanide
  • “A Historic Shift”: Renewables Generated More Power Than Coal Globally For First Time
  • The World’s Oldest Known Snake In Captivity Became A Mom At 62 – No Dad Required
  • Biggest Ocean Current On Earth Is Set To Shift, Spelling Huge Changes For Ecosystems
  • Why Are The Continents All Bunched Up On One Side Of The Planet?
  • Why Can’t We Reach Absolute Zero?
  • “We Were Onto Something”: Highest Resolution Radio Arc Shows The Lowest Mass Dark Object Yet
  • How Headsets Made For Cyclists Are Giving Hearing And Hope To Kids With Glue Ear
  • It Was Thought Only One Mammal On Earth Had Iridescent Fur – Turns Out There’s More
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version