Source: http://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/2960202.html
Hello everyone,
I normally don’t repost Russian documents (that’s Ensign’s domain in general), but every now and then something quite interesting comes up. A lot of people actually ask “how much did a turret of tank XY weight” and the answer is usually not very obvious and not that easy to find. Yuri Pasholok however posted a Russian document, where these weights are written for Soviet purposes.
Please note that Yuri Pasholok states these numbers are just approximate. The table goes as such:
| Type of the vehicle | Weight without turret drive (kg) | Weight with turret drive (kg) |
| Soviet | ||
| KV-1 | 5300 | 5670 |
| T-34 | 2700 | 2890 |
| BT-7 | 600 | 645 |
| T-26 | 750 | 805 |
| T-80 | 1250 | 1340 |
| T-70 | 1000 | 1070 |
| T-60 | 550 | 590 |
| BA-10 | 450 | 485 |
| BA-20 | 150 | 165 |
| BA-64 | 110 | 120 |
| Captured | ||
| T-VI (Tiger) | 6000 | 6420 |
| T-V (Panther) | 4700 | 5050 |
| T-IV (Panzer IV) | 3000 | 3220 |
| T-III (Panzer III) | 2000 | 2140 |
| T-IIb (Panzer II) | 650 | 700 |
| Allied | ||
| M3 Stuart | 900 | 965 |
| Mk.IV | 3600 | 3850 |
| Mk.III | 1400 | 1500 |
| Mk.II | 3100 | 3320 |
| M3 Lee | 1900 | 2035 |
| M4A2 | 3500 | 3750 |
| M4A4 | 3500 | 3750 |
What’s the difference between having no and having a turret drive? (im still not very clear with that)
Turret drive is the engine rotating the turret. You can imagine it has to be quite powerfull to rotate 5t, therefor heavy, even when the turret is not perfectly balanced. (Standing on a slope) I think the Tiger had issues with that.
Btw. you can turn it without it but then manually aka. slooooow. ;-)
Well the turret ring is not the engine turning turret around but it’s kind of a circle which connects the turret with the hull of a tank. It’s basically a rail that enables turning the turret and holds the turret. Hope it makes sense a bit at least :D
Hm, drive translates more in sense of an engine to me. Maybe it is the hole mechanical mechanism to rotate the turret. Now I am not 100% certain of what I said before :D
Tanks aren’t going to have a separate engine just to turn the turret, that’s ridiculous. Most use a power take-off to transfer some of the engine’s power to a mechanism that automates rotation.
some of them do, not engines but just electrical motors
Ofcourse not. With engine I mean the electrical/hydraulic motor that turns the turret. I may have expressed my thougts poorly there.
But it is known that the turret rotation of some tanks suffer while running on battery power. The turret drive is a motor which uses quite some power.
It can’t be, the Panzer II had no motorised/electric turret drive. At least not the models I’m familiar with.
Perhaps it also covers some other turning mechanism?
Is this the complete rotating mass, i.e. does it include the turret basket and gun?
These values are approximate indeed. For example, Panther:
According to “Panther and its Variants”, turret weight with gun for Panther is 9500 kg, gun with mantlet – 2650 kg. So turret itself is 6850 kg. In this document turret weight is 4700 / 5050 kg.
Also, SS, “погон” is not a “turret drive”, it is a “turret race” or a “turret ring”.
God only knows what the Hell the Soviets were actually including in the numbers – they certainly had no shortage of specimens to weigh, that’s for sure. This document at least seems to be distinctly unhelpful regarding the relevant definitions.
>KV-1 5670kg
>Tiger 6420kg
WoT Type 5 Chi-Ri 13752kg!! how terrible….
Регулярно кто-нибудь натыкается на эту вот картинку и тащит ее в эту тему.
http://i.imgur.com/IAIu9wL.jpg
http://forum.worldoftanks.ru/index.php?/topic/705004-%D1%87%D1%82%D0%BE-%D0%BC%D1%8B-%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%BC-%D0%BE-%D1%8F%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BA%D0%B5/page__st__2520__pid__30158389#entry30158389