Rocket tank

A number of states have experimented with the development of prototype missile tanks .

In the 1930s, the Soviet Union tested the RBT-5 missile tank , in which the main armament was a turret missile turret, which was loaded with two 250-kg unguided missiles (TT Tank Torpedoes).

Despite numerous attempts to construct a purely rocket tank (with missile weapons instead of cannon), they did not receive wide distribution. The only tank with exclusively missile weapons today - the Soviet IT-1 - was put into service in 1968, but it did not go beyond the construction of a small series. Purely rocket subsequently began to make only more lightly armored vehicles.

In particular, in the Soviet Union during the tenure of Nikita Khrushchev as the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee , several missile tank projects were developed, such as Object 287 and Object 775 . In 1968, the USSR Armed Forces adopted the IT-1 tank fighter destroyer , built on the basis of the T-62 , however, it was not a strict missile tank because it did not have anti-personnel missile ammunition and was in the state of non- tank divisions , and individual battalions of tank destroyers as part of motorized rifle divisions. Conceptually, IT-1 was closer to modern self-propelled ATGMs of the Chrysanthemum type. Already in the early 1970s, it was withdrawn from service. Missile tank projects were also developed in West Germany.

But on some tanks, missile weapons are used as additional to cannon. Almost simultaneously in the USSR and the USA, missiles capable of being launched from a tank gun were created: in the USSR - 9M112 “Cobra” for T-64 , in the USA - ATGM “Shillela” for M60A2 and M551 Sheridan tanks. However, the Shillele ATGM did not have radical advantages in range over conventional tank shells and therefore the improvement of sighting systems made it unnecessary. Soviet engineers were able to almost double the range of "tank missiles", making them a formidable weapon against any modern technology. This system was further developed.

The term "missile tank" is sometimes more freely applied to conventional tanks, which have the ability to launch anti-tank guided missiles as the most long-range addition to the main tank gun. Examples of such tanks are the US-German prototype MBT-70 , decommissioned American M551 Sheridan and French AMX-13 , as well as Soviet, Russian and Ukrainian tanks T-64 , T-72 , T-80 , T-84 and T- 90 . Some of the T-55 tanks are currently used in the army of Peru and have missile racks mounted on towers.

The Polish engineering combat version of the Soviet T-55A was equipped with PW-LWD missiles. At the same time, this option cannot be considered as one of the current copies of the missile tank .

• BM-8-24

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