T-54 / T-55 Medium tank USSR | Most popular tank in the history

T-54/55 is one of the most successful tank projects in the history of armored vehicle engineering. Started the service in 1947 in USSR, and even today, some countries are using T-55 tank variants as their main battle tank. Within the 75 years of T-54/55 history, more than 100,000 tanks entered the service.

T-54/55 first entered the service as a medium tank and served under many handlers including world superpowers Russia, China, and India. By the time of its first design T54 was the most advanced tank in the world. The capability to move and operate underwater, operate under nuclear and biological hazard environments, and night vision-like features were a new experience for the handlers in the late 1940’s.

History of T-54 and T-55 Tanks

In 1945 a prototype medium tank was completed in Nizhny Tagil city of Sverdlovsk Oblast state. The t-54 prototype was built as a successor to the T-34 and T-44 tanks. The t-34 tank was extremely successful during the world war II era.

It was known as the best tank in the world at the time. T-34 was a very balanced design with good firepower, good armor, and better mobility. Some versions of T-34 only cost 130,000 rubles. This amount is equal to 43,000 USD in today’s money.

 

The initial production of T54 tank began in 1947. After reaching the battle field, many issues were identified in the initial model. Even with a better armour and gunpowder, T-54 tank was not mush popular during 1950’s. T34-85 was very successful even during the 50’s and remained as the main battle tank for a long time.

Later in 1950’s T-54 tank was chosen as the main battle tank by USSR and Warsaw pact nations.

Why T54 was developed?

When T34-85 was extremely successful why did Soviet engineers decide to develop the T54 tank? The reason was that T34 was built purely with WWII-era technology. During the WW and right after the victory Soviet engineers uncovered many new technologies for tank development.

But, these technologies were not introduced to the T34 design during the world war because a new design may have slowed down the production process during war times.

As a result, the Soviet engineers completed the T-34M prototype design and released the newly developed tank as T-44. T-44 had the almost same performance as the T-34 but a better gun and heavier armor was provided to the new tank.

 

T-34 vs T-54

The main change is the gun. 76.2mm F-34 gun in the T34 was replaced with a 100mm D-10T rifled gun with a fume extractor.The 100mm gun was capable of firing BR-412 series armour piercing high explosive ammunition at a  1000 m/s muzzle velocity.

This APHE was highly effective against enemy armour and the penetration ability was very high. This is one of the main reasons to shift from T34 to T54.

T54 is heavier and larger than the T34 tank. But, both the tanks are equipped with same amount of power. A V12 38.8L engine was able to output 500hp. While the T34

T-44 in to T54

The soviet engineers tried to improve the T44 tank further. Many prototypes were built by combining better armament and armour. In 1945 a T44 was redesigned with a 100mm gun and slightly wider body and a large turret. This prototype later entered the service as T54.

A record 1,490 modifications were made to the T44 tank to develop the T54 tank. As a result new facilities were required for the manufacturing of new T54 tank.

T-54 Tank variants

It is difficult to define how many variants of T54/55 tank entered the service. For the last 75 years T54 served in all major battles in the world under many different armies. Many local improvements were made during the time and country specific variants were designed. This section of the article only mention the major serial production tanks variants.

T-54 is the initial prototype variant of the tank series. Next the second prototype was introduced as T-54-1. T-54-1 is the first serial production version.

T-44 was in service for more than 20 years but during the time period only 1,800 tanks were manufactured. The first T44 tanks had similar design as T34 and used a 85 mm anti tank gun as the main armament. In later versions a 100mm canon was installed in T-44 tanks.

T-54-1

T-54-1 was developed from the second T54 prototype in 1948. Comparing to the initial version it has a thicker hull armour.  However, some design failures were noticed during the production and the soviet army instructed to halt the production process.  As a result a improved version T-34-2 was designed.

T-54-2

T-54-2 or Ob’yekt 137R entered serial production in 1949. Most significant changes are made to the turret in the new design. The new turret had a dome shape and the sides of the turret are flat like what it is in IS-3 tank. This dome shaped design was continued to appear in the later T54 versions with slight changes.

Other notable improvements are,

• Fender machine guns replaced with Single bow mounted gun
• Improved transmission system was installed
• The track was replaced with a wider (0.58m) new track

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  T-54-2 Tank

T-54-3

Just two years after the development of T-54-2 tank, the second modernized variant T-54-3 was designed. It was designated by the soviet army as Ob’yekt 137Sh. The most noticeable improvements are,

• Newly designed turret
• New improved telescopic gunners sight

T-54A Tank

In 1953 the designer of T-54 tank was replaced by Lenoid N Kartsev. Kartsev was given new set of tasks to significantly improve modern capabilities of the T54 tank. As his first task a new 100mm D-10TG gun with STP-1 vertical stabilizer was installed to the T54 tank. This first design was designated as Ob’yekt 137G or T-54A. The initial version  had a muzzle counter weight installed in the barrel. This system was later replaced with modern fume extractor. Fume extractors are devices used to remove lingering gases and other airborne particles which are released when the gun is fired.

T-54A was installed with a IR flash light. This IR light provided night vision for the driver with telescopic view. A primary level flasher and a IR telescope was used in this variant. Other noticeable improvements are,

• TSh-2A-22 telescope
• New improved R-113 radio
• Multi-stage air filter for the engine
• Electric oil pump
• Automated fire extinguisher

T-54A is the first tank in the series to get underwater operation capabilities. The tank was installed with a OPVT wading snorkel. Diesel engines require air to breath. But, when the tank is submerged the engine does not have sufficient amount of air to complete internal combustion. The wading snorkel is carried in the rear wood logs carrying compartment. It was installed manually by the crew when the tank is about to reach underwater.

T54-B Tank

In 1955 T-54A was developed into T54B with the D-10T replaced with 100mm D-10T2S. The vertical stabilizer “Gorizont” used in T-54A was replaced with STP-2 2-plane stabilizer. The overall night vision capabilities of the tank crew was improved with a newly added L-2 Luna IR searchlight and a TPN-1 range gunners sight with IR scanning.

T54-B production was started in 1957 and was the last variant of T54 tank range.

The requirement of T55 Tank

With the global super powers developing nuclear weapons and the Germans using chemical weaponry in Russian territory during the WWII, the concern was increased to develop main battle tanks with the ability withstand such attacks.  T54 was a modern and highly capable tank. With a great mobility and underwater capabilities it was unbeatable in the battlefield.

But, T54 was no match for serious nuclear, biological and chemical hazards. T54 was actually checked in the Soviet nuclear testing grounds. It was able to survive 15 kilo ton nuclear bomb blast while staying in a distance of 300m from the epicenter of the blast. But, the crew did not survived at 300m distance.

So, development of better NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) response system was proposed for the T54 tank. The proposed system was expected to provide rapid response against NBC attacks with a response time less than 300 mill seconds.

What is new in T55 Tank?

• Protivoatomnaya Zashchita NBC protection system
• V-55 12-cylinder four stroke engine
• 38.88 liter engine capacity output 581 hp
• Electric fuel pumps increase the pressure of fuel delivery and provide a better power
• Ak-150S charger and Electric starter system
• New 300L additional fuel tanks

• T54/55 General specifications

• Since, many different variants were developed it is difficult to define a specific weight or power for T54/55 tank. But, let’s see in general what the specifications are.
• T55 tank weighted 36 metric tons. Considering the dimensions, the tank is 9m long, 3.4 m wide and 2.4 meters tall.The ground clearance of the tank was 0.425m.
• The tank was manned by four crew members which are tank commander, driver, gunner and loader.

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  African Union T55 Tank (CC License)

• T55 Power

•  T55 tanks were powered with model V-55 V-12 engine. A water cooling system was used in this engine. An electric fuel pumping system was used to increase the fuel pressure in order to increase maximum power output. The initial T55 versions had a maximum power output of 500 hp or 373 kW. In later versions the engine was improved to provide a maximum power output up to 800hp.
• In the initial version the power to weight ratio was 14.6 hp/t and it was increased up to 22.22 hp/t in the later versions. A manual, mechanical synchromesh power transmission system with five forward gears and one reverse gear was used.

• T55 fuel and range

• The T55 engine use diesel fuel. In the internal storage T55 can carry 580 L of diesel and in the external tanks it can carry 320 L of diesel. The rear drums can also carry another additional 400 L of diesel.
• With the 580 L of internal fuel T55 can operate in a 325 km range on unpaved roads. With the external tanks carrying additional fuel the range is extended to 610 km.
• The maximum movement speed on road is 51 km/h.

• T55 armament

• As the main armament a D-10T 100mm rifled gun was used in the T54/55 tanks. In T55 a fume extractor was used to filter airborne particles. T54 was only able to carry 34 ammo rounds. T55 can carry 43 rounds of ammunition which include high explosive fragmentation ammo and anti-tank armour piercing ammo. 18 out of 45 rounds were stored in wet containers which are located in the hull fuel tanks.

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  dhsk HMG used in t55

• The secondary armament was a 7.62 mm SGMT coaxial machine gun or a 1.7 mm DShK heavy machine gun.

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  SGMT Machine gun used in T55

• T55 Armour

• Turret front is the most vulnerable place to take damage from enemy rounds. So, the turret front was equipped with heavy metal sheets with a thickness of 205 mm. Turret sides has 130mm armour plates. Hull front is angled at 60 degrees and the armour thickness is 120mm. The lowest armour thickness can be seen in hull bottom and lower sides of the hull.

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  T54/55 Tank armour

• T54/55 Tank production history

• T54/55 tanks were designed by the original designers from 1945 to 1958. However, after 1958 up to today many modifications were done by third parties. Soviet union manufactured T54/55 tanks from 1946 to 1981 in Kharkov Locomotive Factory, Ukrain and Uralvagonzavod factory in Russia. In the same era T54/55’s were manufactured in Poland and Czechoslovakia (Modern Czech republic and Slovakia)
• The original designer of T54 tank was Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau. After the T54A UralVagonZavod started the design process.

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  T-90 Tanks in modern UralVagonZavod facility

• T54/55 in modern Gaming culture

• T54/55 tanks fought all the major battles which occurred after the WWII. So, these tanks appear in many games as playable vehicles and sometimes as AI controlled vehicles. World of tanks and War thunder like games allow the players to control the T54 and T55 tanks.
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  T54/55 Tank in games

  Summery – T54/55 Tanks

• T54/55 was the most popular tank in the history of war tanks. With more than 100,000 units produced T54/55 tanks served for many armies and many nations. Started the development in 1945, after 75 years, still some T55 tanks are in service with many advance modifications. T55 tank was equipped with modern military capabilities such as underwater operations, IR night vision, anti-aircraft capabilities and NBC response system.