Hello everyone,
today, we are going to have a detailed look at the Soviet heavy tank, Object 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”).
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).
