On the eve of World War II, the parties predicted military operations not only on the battlefields. Of great importance was the development of the military-industrial complex, the development of which the Soviet Union attached great importance. One of the main areas of development of the military-industrial complex was the development of self-propelled guns, abbreviated as SU.
Necessity
The beginning of the Soviet-Finnish war showed a lag in the reservation and arming of Soviet equipment. There was a need for military vehicles with improved armor. By the end of 1939, by a special decree of the Military Council of the North-Western Front, engineers of the Leningrad Experimental Mechanical Engineering Plant were entrusted with a secret task: to design an engineering tank of increased reservation. One of the final developments of engineers was the SU-100Y.
Development
Initially, it was planned to create a tank based on the existing T-100 machine. The new armed vehicle was designed to transport sappers and explosives, to build bridges and to evacuate damaged military equipment from the battlefield. However, during the development process, new instructions were received from the head of ABTU RKKA D. Pavlov. The future tank should be successful in combating static defensive structures - pillboxes and bunkers. In light of the new requirements for the designed machine, the director of the Leningrad Plant N. Barykov found it necessary to contact the headquarters of the North-Western Front with a request to cancel the previous decree and make a decision on the creation of a new military machine. This request was considered and agreed upon, and already at the beginning of 1940 the drawings of the self-propelled gun were transferred to the military plant in Izhorsk.
T-100-X
The new development was listed in projects called the T-100-X. The final machine was significantly different from its initial prototype. The new military machine was equipped with an armored cabin in the form of a wedge, reinforced with armor and a torsion engine, which was manufactured at the plant. Kirova (Leningrad). The manufacture of armored parts significantly delayed the process of creating a prototype of a self-propelled gun, so it was decided to change the cutting form to a simpler one. She was given the name SU-100Y. A photo of the new car is presented below.
The car body was released from the conveyors of the Izhora plant on February 24, and on March 1, 1940, the assembly of the new machine began. On March 14, she completed her first departure of the SU-100Y.
Specifications
The self-propelled gun was intended for a crew of six people: a commander, two gunners, two loaders and a mechanical driver. The total mass of the car was 64 tons. Such a solid weight was concentrated in relatively small overall dimensions: the SU-100Y was 10.9 m long and 3.4 m wide. Armor sheets 60 mm thick covered the forehead and sides of the self-propelled guns, the roof and feed were less protected. The gasoline engine allowed the SU-100Y to move pretty quickly through the terrain - the highway speed of the car reached 32 km / h, on the ground - 12 km / h. For one refueling the car could drive about 120 km.
Armament SU-100Y
An overview of self-propelled guns can be started with a description of its design settings. At the initial design stage, it was decided that the military vehicle would carry a 76 mm L-11 cannon. As an auxiliary weapon on the SU-100Y were installed three 7.62 DT machine guns. A powerful, fast and well-armored car was to become a worthy adversary on the battlefield.
Participation in hostilities
By the time the design of the SU-100Y was completed, the Soviet-Finnish War had already ended, and the new self-propelled gun never took part in it. To enhance its combat qualities, it was decided to strengthen the armament of the self-propelled gun by installing the M-10 howitzer as the main weapon. But this concept was never implemented - the famous KV1 and KV2 were being prepared for release, the light SU-76-M was in full swing, and the new self-propelled gun was out of work.
In the summer of 1940, it was transferred to the Moscow region, to Kubinka, where a museum of armored vehicles was later formed.
Unlike other combat vehicles, which for one reason or another were not sent to mass production, the SU-100Y was more fortunate. At the end of 1941, when the Nazi troops approached the capital of our country, it was decided to mobilize all armored vehicles to protect the capital. In the most difficult battles near Moscow, the SU-100Y was equipped with a platoon with two experimental self-propelled guns - SU-14 and Su-14-1. But neither information about the crew, nor about direct participation in the battles was preserved.
Currently, the only copy of this anti-tank self-propelled gun is available in Kubinka. But the revival of interest in armored vehicles gave this half-forgotten self-propelled gun a second wind. She appears in the famous computer games World of Tanks, Ground War, and others. Of course, computer graphics can not convey all the features of the behavior of the SU-100Y, but it already gives a good idea of its combat characteristics.