Hello everyone,
recently, a picture was published (or, rather, re-published) in the Russian “shushpanzery” community and, subsequently reposted to EU forums, displaying an alleged “derp version” of the SU-122-54, called Object 610. Here’s the picture in question. At first glance, it really might resemble some sort of short gun, but I’ll have to disappoint you, it’s not a gun.
This is indeed the Object 610 “Buyvol” (“Buffalo”). This vehicle is an armored artillery observation post, developed in 1955 by Plant No.174, based on the SU-122 chassis, which in turn was built on the T-54 chassis. The task recieved the code name “buyvol” and in July 1955, the vehicle recieved an official factory designation “Object 610″. By the end of 1955, two prototypes were built and they went through the series of army tests, but they were never accepted in service and thus, the vehicle was never mass-produced.
The “gun” is in fact a mock-up, designed for this vehicle to resemble a real gun. Inside the metal cover, there was a 14,5mm KPVT heavy machine gun with 400 rounds of ammunition for it. The vehicle had a crew of six and used the components of the T-54 tank (including the 520hp engine, allowing it to go as fast as 48 km/h). It weighed 33 tons. The main weapon of this vehicle was not a gun, but its set of special equipment:
- special “Yantar-Trassa” navigation equipment
- tank commander’s range finder TKD
- recon theodolite RT-2
- periscope range finder PND-2
- tank commander’s periscope TPKU
- stereoscopic rangefinder DS-09
- artillery compass PAB-2
The vehicle was also equipped with 10RT and R-108 radio devices.
The decision to turn a self-propelled gun into a recon vehicle is actually not unique, the Czechoslovaks for example thought about it in two cases:
- in one case, there was an idea to turn the Jagdpanzer 38t into a recon vehicle in 1955 by giving it a very powerful engine (while keeping the gun), it was never properly developed
- a solution with optics and without a gun was later adopted in the case of SD-100 (license-produced SU-100) – a gun was removed and replaced by optics system (can’t find any details atm)
What a shame, I would have loved an idea of a derp SU-122-54 :)
SU-122-54 AVRE :D
That would be hilarious in so many ways.
Actually semi-possible too, through reverse-lend-lease.
so this is a scout?
Yes. All good scouts don’t have weapons.
All good scouting vehicles have plenty of weapons.
A turretless, T-54 based scout, with a machinegun for primary gun. Probably can damage only arty/td superstructure and asses of papertanks. Good mobility, camo and maybe tier-relevant frontal armor + godly viewrange. GIEF PREMIUM TENK NAO
Let’s count vehicles it can damage:
1. Borsig
2. WTF Pz4
3. WTF E100
4…?
So, we can skip the damage part and go straight into spotting…
Maybe it can detrack a heavy tank, but not sure if that 400 bullets is enough for that…
maybe the asses of some poor Panthers as well as the AMX 13 and 50 series as well :)
I said asses of paper tanks. Not sure how much pen it could have but the MG on PZ1C can do 43mm with prem ammo and this is larger calibre so with some sort of premium ammo it could be enough to shoot the ass of f.e. AMX 50B (should be 30mm) etc. Though it would be really hard to do that without a turret.
@Milan Štěpánek
“Though it would be really hard to do that without a turret.”
Now, there is a man who has not driven the ELC like he should have.
I have a decent amount of battles on ELC, thats why I’m saying this. With ELC you got decent dmg per shot, longish reload so I usually charge the side/rear of some tank, shoot him at near point blank so I wont miss and turn away at the last moment and gtfo or you have to outturn somebody, quickly turn the gun on him and then hope he wont catch up to you and gtfo. Works if you need to get off one shot. Not sure how long it would take to empty an MG clip, but probably even a ferdinand would be able to turn before you do significant dmg. Pz1c on the other hand.. :)
I guess detracking could help, but that is never reliable especially with an MG and ramming for a detrack usually results in both tanks getting detracked.
It is actually a battering ram.
Ah, an artillery observation tank, much like the Panzerbeobachtungswagen…
And dummy guns! <:D
I think it would be a lot of fun to play a heavily armoured scout tank like this. Get some maps where scouting can really help, make the maps bigger (yeah I know the issues here) and have great fun
I don’t see how’s this PROTOTYPE of an MG-armed observation vehicle is interesting for WoT or actually of ANY significant interest.
You’ve been promising quite more interesting articles.
Haha!
Retard…
Dude, you’re a jerk for no reason. I found this quite interesting. The door is right there. kindly get out pardner.