T-54 / T-55 Main Battle Tank - Overview

[Music] [Music] hello everyone its Maximus here with you today thank you for joining me I really do appreciate it so a lot of you have been asking for me to do some more actual tank review videos lately and I'm going to get round to more of them guys industry having a little bit of fun making fun of some videos here that you've seen recently on my channel so you know taken with a pinch of salt I like having a bit of comedy and humor in there too it's not always serious so today we are talking about the iconic t-54 t-55 and series of vehicles and my goodness guys are these vehicles steeped with history like there are just so many variants so much history so much passed on them it's really really impressive to talk about them today guys as always I would really appreciate if you could leave a like and a comment for today's video and also feel free to share on Facebook I also do have my patreon account so if you wish to make any kind donations feel free to do so on that account page so the teen 54:55 medium tank family is without a doubt one of the most iconic armored vehicles of all times throughout the Cold War even with the appearance of the much more modern vehicles its distinctive silhouette remained one of the symbols of Soviet armored might with according to some sources around a hundred thousands of these vehicles had actually been built the t54 55 series of vehicles is the most produced tank series of all time it was widely exported and used by dozens of countries the t-55 itself was developed as an upgrade from the aging t54 which was basically a late World War two design the early prototype was called object 155 it was designed at plant number 183 in novita Hill by a team led by LM kartsev in the summer of 1957 its main advantage over rival advanced medium tank projects in the Soviet Union was the relatively low cost for such an upgrade compared to starting production of an entirely new tank model surprise fry guys that's still happening today the upgrade was based on the t54 B with several important improvements specifically the amount of shells carried increased from 34 to 43 the 12.7 millimeter anti-aircraft dooshka machine gun was removed the new improved night-vision equipment was installed nuclear biological and chemical protection on the whole could be pressurized a new Rosa automatic fire extinguisher was installed a new smoke grenade system capable of laying around 200 to 400 meters of subscreen lasting for two to four minutes was installed and the engine was tuned to 520 horsepower up to 580 horsepower there was also an external fuel tank capacity which was increased and various other smaller improvements were made armor protection was not changed significantly compared to the t54 the rear hull armor thickness was reduced to 45 millimeters to 30 millimeters on the upper rear and from 30 millimetres to 20 millimetres on the engine deck to save weight and the engine deck thickness was reduced to 20 millimetres 15 millimeters the loaders hatch on the turret was redesigned as well in connection with the removal of the machine gun thanks to a v55 580 horsepower engine the tank was actually relatively quite fast reaching around 54 meters in our the armaments however remained the same the 100 millimetres d 10 t 2's rifle gun eventually was placed obsolete leading to the appearance of the t-62 medium tank two prototypes were built and tested from the winter of 1957 to the spring of 1958 the tests were generally quite successful the vehicle was accepted into service under the designation of t-55 in May 1958 by the late 1960s and 1970s the t-55 was becoming increasingly obsolete which was a problem for the Soviet Union and the entire Warsaw Pact which was operating them in extremely high numbers of the t54 and fifty-five series all the Warsaw Pact members realize this and work independently on various improvements the tanks with its own upgrades resulting in considerable amounts of both national and Soviet t54 fifty-five subtypes that look more like they're being worked on or more or less the same the improvements generally focused on Armour improvement often in the form of additional armour plating of the hull and the turret front or add additional installation of the explosive reactive armor kits firepower improvement by basically giving the gun a launch missile development system and the installation of a fire control system and finally mobility improvement included upto tuning the existing engine or replacing it with something more powerful and reliable the Soviet t-55 M was one of these improved variants the decision to develop it was taken in July 1981 and the goal quite an optimistic one was to improve the t-55 protection and firepower to the t-64 alpha and t-72 levels this was extremely difficult the development of the tank was finished in April 1983 as an upgrade kit to the earlier t-55 variants the t-55 improvement was called t-55 m and t-55 alpha improvement was called t-55 alpha m or alpha mike the armor of the tank was increased by adding applique bdd plates to the upper frontal hull an additional BDD armour plates nicknamed lilacs eyebrows by some Western publications - the most exposed frontal part of the turrets vdd arm is not just the simple applique kiss the steel plate on the outside is approximately about three centimeters thick six centimeters for the turret and inside it consists of a thin 5 millimeter angled steel plates with the rest filled with pol youth rain the hull BDD is approximately 15 centimeters thick and the curved turret armor is approximately around 20 centimeters thick this composition while space intensive adds increased protection value against heat rounds as a result the vehicle approximately had around four hundred and fifty to four hundred ninety millimeters of frontal armor protection versus heat and 322 381 liters versus armored piercing thin stabilized discarding Sabre the protection increase was comparable to the early variants of the trouble armor back in its day by itself the entire bdd armor kit weighs approximately two tons new anti heat rubber screens are installed on sides of some vehicles although this feature was optional and many vehicles lacked it last but not least the frontal part of the bottom from the lower front plate well to the second pair of road wheels received an additional 20 millimeters of armor as anti mine protection as for the protection measures the new 81 millimeter 902 Bravo Trischka smoke grenade launchers were installed on the turret and the vehicle received a soda anti napalm system the next big change concerned its firepower the vehicle kept its 100 millimeter and ts2 gun and the bow also receives a new thermal shroud but receives a new vulnerable troll system consisting of the KPD 5 laser rangefinder the BB 62 ballistics computer and the 32 BB gun site along with a citron m1 stabilizer the accuracy was significantly improved as a result but the vehicle received something else to add to its destructive capabilities the 1k one one six one Bastian system allowing it to launch guided missiles from its barrel the vaccean system uses special 3ub k10 one round firing the 9m double 1:7 missile which is capable of penetrating up to 750 millimetres of steel the minimum range was 100 meters and the maximum of 4000 meters and the average velocity of the missile was around 370 meters per second the problem with the Bastian missile system wasn't its efficiency it could destroy practically any contemporary enemy tank at its time but its price to of these missiles were expensive as the entire tank all these changes were of course extremely heavy the weight of the vehicle increased from 36 to 40 point nine tons to compensate for this increase the vehicle was given an upgraded variant of the classic V 55 engine called the V 55 you with his power increased from 580 horsepower to 620 horsepower as for the suspension there were some slight tweaks to it and the drive sprocket receives a welded cover that prevented the track from slipping from it the vehicle also received new track links and with different browsers for improved off-road capabilities there were four subtypes - the t-55 M the standard key 55 m is described as I've just mentioned the t-55 m1 is the same vehicle but without the bastian system the t-55 M - one is a t-55s em with a 690 horsepower v 46 5 m engine instead of VV 55 you and finally the t-55 m1 - 1 is a t 55 m without the bass TM missile system but with the V 46 5 and engine as you can see guys this vehicle has so many different variations and models it is extremely confusing as to tell where they come from what they have visually it's quite difficult to tell them apart from each other and other modernized variants indeed many of the t-55 and photographs available in the inset today are mislabeled as Czechoslovakian or polish tanks the Soviet t-55 M was further developed produced the t-55 M V equipped with the contact er a kit or explosive reactive Armour kit it's difficult to track how many t-55s were modified to the M and M a variants in the Soviet Union the best estimate is around several thousand which was then made their way across the globe and delivered distributed all over the place details about their combat performance are also quite equally sketchy although some were apparently used in Afghanistan but I never saw I need to be honest other than ones that completely annihilated a considerable number of t-55s including the t-55 MV model was sold to syria and sources of varying quality plays hundreds of t-55 m variants in angola cuba Finland Georgia Sudan Somalia Uganda and although given the normal chaos of it all at least some of them have likely have made it to both polish and Czechoslovakian origin which are not identical to the Soviet ones the t-55 was most effective against light to medium armored vehicles the basic ammunition load for the main gun was 43 rounds external fuel cells made the tank very vulnerable though as it does have very thin armor protection on those barrels the t-55 has limited ability to depressed its main gun hindering the tank as it fires in the death lead from high ground in addition the Gunners primary sight is slaved for the main gun which is not allow the gunner to acquire targets in the hold-down posture although the half egg-shaped terror of the t-55 has good Villisca qualities it provides extremely cramped working conditions for the crew resulting in a very slow rate of fire and the protection afforded by its low silhouette one litre lower than the m60 s back in the day it's counter balanced by its poor Armour protection really which is quite thin by Western standards by the same standards its gun control equipment was also very crude it shared the disadvantage of most Soviet tanks back in its day by having little limited ability to suppress that main gun and that's not being able to be effectively slow itself to engage targets ammunition and fuel also stores in quite banal positions with inside the vehicle the lack of turret baskets also prevented moving difficulties and there's also limited amount of ready ammunition in the turret the driver commander and gunner are all in line with one another the t-55 is also not air safe although crew members are protected from radioactive dust by the filtration system they must wear the individual protective masks and clothing to guard against chemical are logical and difficult nerve agents at the end of the day guys if they were going to use chemical weapons I think up something they were considering anyway and when too concerned with the tank normally should be able to pass through contaminated areas rapidly and then be fully decontaminated before it's fully operational again the tank can be made more decisive hoarding of stools up to one point four meters deep however it may take up to half an hour to an hour to prepare a median tank unit like this for a snorkelling operation and the entrance exit points may also need extreme preparation so guys there you have it a tank that is covered in history from head to toe there are so many variants of this vehicle guys which is just outstanding I mean it's very confusing at the same time I mean we've got so many different variants from the t-55 m and v MV one MV - 155 kt 55 alpha ad NVA just the list goes on and on and on but clearly this vehicle has done its time and it's still doing its time to this day is that a little concerning yes I would say so considering it's a vehicle that was designed a long time ago and still being utilized today but at the end of the day it is still a mobile gun platform being able to put a hundred millimeter round onto target quite well with its upgraded systems that being said it really has no match against modern main battle tanks that are out there today it's what I would say is what's called thin fodder ie armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding Sabo fodder and these things just get chewed up like that's it really it's a real unfortunate situation for those militaries who can't afford a more sophisticated weaponry to kind of rely on these kind of tanks but it is what it is you know some nations don't have the money the facilities of the resource to be able to host huge expensive main battle tank systems and this is still going to be able to be a quiet dependable vehicle depending on the situation being placed into tank on tank warfare absolutely not this vehicle would probably get hands-down wiped out depending on its variant if it's an older variant for sure against the modern armored anti-tank guided missiles are for sure going to knock this thing out and so there's a little concerning knowing that these vehicles are still being utilized today but that's the way the future is now guys we need to upgrade and make do with what we have instead of trying to procure all these new tanks but I think this is a little bit of an overstatement in terms of that you know upgrading a vehicle I really do think this vehicle needs to be phased out of most military applications but it is iconic tank and one of which I have a lot of respect for if you have seen the film the beast you should know about this tank quite a bit and if you haven't seen that film I would strongly strongly suggest you watch it it is an absolutely amazing tank film probably one of the greatest if not the greatest tank film out there in regards to Russian armor in Afghanistan very very interesting movie I'm actually not sure if it is a t-55 maybe a 62 pretty sure it's a 55 and but go check it out guys fantastic movie I really think you'll enjoy it I appreciate you stopping by today guys I hope you learned a little bit about the t-55 54 series if you find anything that is incorrect or not as to what the t-55 54 series specification should be or any information I've placed on that incorrectly I would love you could let me know in the comment section also guys if you enjoyed today's video I'd love it you could hit that like button leave me a comment once again feel free to share this video around on Facebook and such if you are new to my channel please subscribe plenty more vehicles coming up in the future if you have any requests for videos for vehicles that you want me to review or check out I can do that for you there's a whole long list of vehicles I'm going down the line of guys and other videos that people want me to do so just stand by for that I'm working really hard to try and get it out to you and I apologize for some of the comedic value videos I've placed out recently but guys so many people upset over them like come on it's just having a laugh but I guess some people just have a complete different sense of humor to me which is completely fine that my content is not always going to be liked and that's okay so guys once again thank you for joining me all the best from both myself and the t-55 54th series all the best bye bye [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Matsimus

Views: 286,713

Rating: 4.9418244 out of 5

Keywords: T-55, T-55 medium tank, T-54 MBT, T-55 T-54, T-54 tank, T-55 tank, russian T-55, Russian t-54, russian tank, T-55AM-1, T-55A, T-55M-1, Soviet Army, Medium tank, T-55 Main battle tank, russian main battle tank, Soviet main battle tanks, T-54/55 series, Soviet T-34, 100 mm D-10T tank gun, 100 mm gun, T-54B, T-55 upgrades, 12.7 mm DShK, USSR, Soviet Union, T-54 Main battle tank, M60 Tank, matsimus gaming, matsimus, T-55 tanks

Id: ZCEa4QthTZc

Length: 16min 19sec (979 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2017