The Real First Tank.

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Now most people think that the first tank was the Brittish Mark I in
1916, and few seem to know about the Lebedenko Tank of 1915. Here are
some pictures:

and basic info on it:

The Russian Lebedenko or �Tsar Tank�, is without doubt the most
strange Armoured Fighting vehicle ever constructed. It should, however,
not be dismissed purely as another hare-brained scheme, but must be
seen against the backdrop of the early tank development that was taking
place at this time, and that in all countries was very experimental,
and leading to many curious and non-functional designs.

The history of the Lebedenko starts in 1914 with the engineer N.
Lebedenko, who was at that point employed in a private firm, that
worked for the Russian War Department, designing artillery devices.
Lebedenko himself, with the aid of N. Zhukovskiy and his nephews, B.
Stechkin and A. Mikulin, came up with the idea (originally thought as a
sort of enlarged gun-carriage) of a motordriven battle machine,
weighing some 40 tons, running on one small double-wheel, and two very
large spoked wheels, almost 9 meter in diameter, in a tri-cycle
arrangement. The big wheels were attached to the hull, shaped like a
tuning-fork, which tapered down to the double wheel, mounted in the
rear, which provided the means for steering the vehicle. The designers
hoped that this original configuration would make it possible for the
vehicle to cross practically all obstacles. They initially called the
vehicle Nepotir, but came to be known as the Lebedenko, after the
designer. (Sometimes it was nicknamed "The Tsar ", after the financier.)

But who would finance this project? A small working wooden model of the
Nepotir was made, driven by a spring motor taken from a gramophone.
Then the model was demonstrated to Tsar Nikolaj, who was much impressed
when the toy made it across some scale obstacles, i.e. a number of
thick books. He promptly ordered the designers to go ahead with the
project, and allocated the needed funds himself.

Construction of the full-scale Lebedenko started.

The drive assembly consisted of two 240 hp Maybach engines, one for
each big wheel. The wheels themselves (designed by Zhukovskiy) had a
T-shaped metal mid-section. A wooden overlay was then fastened to the
shelf of the T-beam. The drive itself was very simple. Each engine
drove an automobile wheels, who was in it�s turn pressed down (by means
of a railway carriage spring) until it touched the wooden overlay of
the big wheel, and by counterrotating, the automobile wheel transferred
the energy from the engine to the big running wheel. (In case of
over-heating, the driving wheels disengaged and protected the engine
from seizing.) It was thought that the Nepotir should be able to reach
a top speed of some 17 km/h � which was pretty impressive compared to
other WW1 AFV.

The hull of the vehicle would have one top-mounted centrally placed
turret, equipped with MG and/or light cannons, giving the Lebedenko a
total height of some 12 meters. In addition to this, at the outer
flanks of the hull, small MG sponsons was to be placed. There was also
a small weapons turret placed underneath the belly of the beast.

The construction progressed pretty quick and at the end of July 1915,
the Nepotir was ready for it�s first trials. Because of it�s weight and
size, it was designed to be transported in sub-assemblies, to be
assembled again before action at the front (like it was later
envisioned for the huge German K-Wagen). This procedure was followed,
and the sub-assemblies were transported to the testing ground, some 60
km from Moscow. At the re-assembly it was found out that the weight of
the machine exceeded calculations with some 50%, due to the use of
thicker metal. In August the test began in front of a high commission.
It started well. The vehicle moved well over some firm ground, crashed
a tree, but then went into a soft patch, where the small double wheel
got stuck in a ditch. Soon it was obvious that the engines were to
small, as they were unable to free the rear double wheel.

After this fiasco, two of the designers, Mikulin and Stechkin, worked
on equipping the vehicle with more powerful engines, but this plan was
never fulfilled. The military had decided against the project. It was
simply too expensive, it had thus far cost some 250.000 roubles. Also
the vehicle (and then primarily it�s wheels) was deemed to be too
vulnerable to artillery fire, which probably was quite true. (And by
this time both France and Britain were near to completing new types of
all-terrain armoured fighting vehicles, running on caterpillar tracks.)

The Lebedenko stood there, bogged down, for the rest of the war, but was finally scrapped in 1923.

As much of a failrue as it was Russia still ahd the first tank.

Also those smilies obviously don't belong htere.

Edited by dark_one