Object 777 – Soviet Heavy Tank

Posted on by

Hello everyone,

today, we are going to have a detailed look at the Soviet heavy tank, Object 777.

777

In the first half of the 50′s, Soviet tank design bureaus were working on creating a new generation of heavy tanks, the best known of which would later become the T-10 (IS-8). There were however other projects as well – better and more powerful. The boom of the heavy tank design in the early 50′s was heavily influenced by the fact, that (according to Soviet data, anyway) the Americans were building armored vehicles en masse and were preparing new very powerful projects of both medium and heavy tanks (here, the Soviet sources list the “T43 heavy tank” as “matching the T-10 in power”).

7773

The first proposals for the new tank were sent to the Ministry of Transport and Heavy Machinery in June 1953, describing project variants of several heavy tanks, weighing from 46 to 50 tons. During the drawing creation, these recieved the designation of Object 752 and Object 777 (the latter being the object of this article). These drawings included more powerful guns (the 122mm M62-T2 for example), new hull and turret designs, as well as suspension (using hydraulics or individual torsion bars).

777

These vehicles were designed by ChKZ (Chelyabinsk Kirov Plant), which also designed new powerplant for the heavy vehicles: the 850-900hp V-7 diesel. The armor was designed specifically to protect the vehicle from new types of weapons. One interesting feature of the Object 777 was the remote-controlled AA 14,5mm machinegun KVP, another was the commander’s stabilized optics (TKNS) and the design of the hull and turret, both of which were made by casting with welded bottom.

At the same time (June 1953), a 1:10 mock-up of the vehicle was created and the assembled materials were sent to the abovementioned ministry in December 1953. Despite the fact that the development continued into 1954 however, the vehicle project was rejected. The vehicle was however in the ministry report rated higher than the T-10.

Characteristics

Weight: 49,8 tons (decreased to 49 tons in 1954)
Crew: 4
Width: 3400mm
Heighth: 2100mm (not counting the AA MG)
Length: 9800mm
Clearance: 425mm

Gun: 122mm M62-T2 (capable of 5 rounds per minute and accurate fire on the move)
Secondary weapons: coax 7,62mm SG-43, AAMG 14,5mm KPV
Ammunition carried: 15 AP shells, 25 HE shells, 3000 7,62mm MG rounds

Powerplant: 850hp V-7 diesel, 17 hp/t
Maximum speed: 50 km/h (later increased to 54,7)
Average speed: 30 km/h
Transmission: Planetary (7 gears) or mechanical (6 gears)
Suspension: hydraulic (later individual torsion bars)
Range (including external fuel tanks): 250 km

Radio: RTU “Yasen”
Comms: TPU-5 “Biser”

Armor

Armor – cast, both turret and hull

Hull – upper plate: 132mm at 70 degrees (later changed to 140mm at 60 degrees)
Hull – lower plate: 175mm at 40 degrees (later changed to 200mm at 30 degrees)
Hull – nose: 250mm
Hull – upper side armor: 115 at 62 degrees (later changed to 92 at 60 degrees)
Hull – lower side armor: 105mm (0 deg)
Hull – rear armor: 45 (60 deg)
Hull – bottom: 116mm

Turret – front: 195mm (52 deg)
Turret – side: 215mm (33 deg)
Turret – rear: 90mm (40 deg)

Hull schematics:

7771

Turret schematics:

7772

Source:
M.V.Pavlov, I.V.Pavlov – Soviet armored vehicles 1945-1965 (Отечественные бронированные машины 1945-1965 гг.)

61 thoughts on “Object 777 – Soviet Heavy Tank”

      • No, it’s more powerful than 113 and IS-7, it has more universal protection than IS-7 and will require much less skill than 113 to make use of this super-angled armor.

        • Explain how this tank has “more universal protection” than IS-7 ? 140mm@60deg is equivalent to 240-250mm versus AP/APCR and 280mm versus HEAT (not accounting enemy’s gun depression which negate even more the sloped angle).

          This Object 777, statically, doesn’t have better protection than IS-8.

          • 60 degrees means that the armor is twice as thick so 280 mm armor. And try to penetrate that with HEAT ammo that has no normalisation. You will simply not penetrate the armor with HEAT. With APCR you would tough if you have over 300 pen with it.

        • More powerfull? I beg to differ. Atleast in armor terms. IS7 has no significant weakspot on the turret, but this has. Also IS7s lower plate is significantly smaller then this tanks lower plate.

          That said in terms of armor, but that gun and mobility paired with “almost” is7 like armor might be too much indeed. It is a 113 with IS7 armor and thats defo to OP.

  8. I thought the developers said this is tier 11-12 and will not be included? Anyway, we’ve read that before, like “FV4005 will not be included in the game” and then 9.5 preliminary notes came…

    • Do remember this is the company that thinks that an IS-7 would be tier 12 and a Chieftain tier 10, despite the Chieftain being on a whole other level to the IS-7 that it’s not even comparable. :p

      • Current in game IS-7 is complete unhistorical bullshit in many ways.
        ( basically, it’s performance was nerfed to unhistorical bullshit )

        So yeah, if they implement the Chieftan III in the game without nerfing it to an unhistorical standard than it could actually be that way. Remember the chieftan was mass produced while the IS-7 wasn’t, I’d say reproducibility of the IS-7 in large numbers is dubious and allowed for being overdesigned/overproduced, probably.

        • It’s performance in reality would have been a shadow of what it can do in game. It was cancelled for a damn good reason. It’s just become one of these “mythical” tanks everyone likes to believe in because it looks cool and has a lot of mystery surrounding its “unstoppability” at the time.

          In reality, it was more like the IS-3. It looked mean and on paper had nasty stuff, but was just a massive “paper bear” you might say that could barely run without breaking, was designed without the knowledge that several men had to be able to work inside it and was made of crap steel that would snap, splinter and crack under fire or movement. Textbook example of “feature creep” on a project than ultimately turns it into a fancy looking failure, like all the later IS tanks were from IS-3 onwards in one way or another.

          One could argue that in “game” its fantasy values count for more than in reality, but thats not the way WG’s tried to state it in the past, so thats why I’m taking it as a whole. :p

        • This is SerB bullshit.

          IS-7s gun had IRL

          -225 mm pen at 100 m
          - worse depression
          - maximum of 210 mm turretfront
          - a RoF of 6-7
          and weak spots on top of its turret, they are simply not modeled ingame.

          You can find all that in books about it. Nothing more like T10 with historical stats, it would even be worse than it is right now.

  10. the last 2 drawings have some strange labelling…dont really see how they could be useful to anyone

    • What are you referring to? I have basic schematic drawing knowledge and its quite straightforward to read and understand both of those drawings.

      • well they show the angle of the armour but then there are numbers which are like “180…136″ sooo the thickness is between 180-136?

        • They show two sets of numbers eg. 45°-65° and 180-136

          One shows how angle changes from bottom to top and the other shows how thickness changes from bottom to top, its not uniform thickness all the way and you cant really draw that any better with hand. Its quiet clear.

  11. I want a tank, small as a luchs, fast as a hellcat, tough as a maus, with the gun of the isu, but with a french autoloader system. :)
    That would be a really nice international mix of my dreams. :)

    • Actually it is not that difficult.
      If you use the late version armor the upper front plate (140mm@60 degrees) is only 244mm effective with 5 degrees normalization.
      And the turret front is only 195mm thick, so kind of like the T-54 turret, bouncy but not impenetrable.
      Remember there are many high pen guns in tier 10.

  18. I doubt it can be OP with only -3 gun depression and a big copula “shoot me here”

  21. Looks american, and therefore, good :) I’d like to see it…just replace the useless IS-4 with this glorious tank!

    • That would be like having IS-8 as the tier 9 for that line, it doesn’t match the play style of any of the other units. All of the other tanks in the line are strongly armored and slow, while this one is extremely fast.