BT-5 Odd Road Wheel System

Just as a curiosity we have a photo of a model of a proposed BT-5 tank with a caterpillar-roller drive, designed by engineer N. Tsyganov. 1935.

The track drive (rearmost sprocket) is normal Russian practice of a roller sprocket driving the track center guides. Forward of that is another sprocket with drive pockets in its circumference. This appears to pick up and drive the ends of the road wheel axles. The road wheel axles look to be linked together into a chain with the road wheels forming the chain rollers. The track is tensioned at the front with an eccentric mounted wheel that supports the ends of the road wheel pins. The top run is guided by a channel and the working bottom run has a channel with extra guide plates for the ends of the wheel pins. It didn’t see service, I wonder why.

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This is a photo as it saw service with Christie suspension.

BT_-_5

Source WoT Leaks and Wikipedia.

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BT-5 Odd Road Wheel System

10 thoughts on “BT-5 Odd Road Wheel System

    1. wolvenworks says:

      that seems rather optimistic. i assume this is on flat tarmac right? since a Christie tank can go up to above 100km/h on the same surface (and this time with video footage. Pathe has a video of it going thru trials including a full speed run on a road)

  1. wolvenworks says:

    these tracks doesn’t look very durable. like, if anything hits the tracks and knocks a wheel out, bet it’s gonna be a bitch to fix, like the Tiger

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