Craziest Soviet Machines You Won't Believe Exist - Part 2

from 1922 to 1991 the soviet union ruled vast swathes of the eastern world and was unmatched when it came to designing massive unconventional constructs in part one of this series we took a look at their laser tanks their mechanical sea monsters even their flying fortresses but that was just the tip of this red iceberg from hovercraft tanks and flying submarines to triangular helicopters it's time to buckle up comrades as we take a look at even more mind-bending machines designed by the soviet union [Music] the hover tank in 1959 british engineer christopher cockerell traveled from dover to calais on his experimental hovercraft with many assuming him to be the founding father of hovercraft technology but actually the concept of the hovercraft was first launched in the soviet union way back in 1935 by engineer vladimir levkov after multiple trials of mechanized air cushion technology proved triumphant over difficult terrain like marshlands and waterlogged areas levkov realized the true potential of this tech and so in 1937 the prototype of the l5 was created this torpedo craft was made of a full metal duralumen hull with a glazed cabin a turret machine gun mount and large tail fins following its success in trials levkov decided to take his tech one step further beyond the idea of an assault vehicle he went on to propose the idea of a fully functioning hovercraft tank a quarter-scale version of this was mocked up and even though it was tiny it looked terrifying its proposed specifications indicated it would eventually be 33 feet long could hover up to 10 inches and hosted a turret that housed a machine gun two m25 engines would provide it with 1400 horsepower and weighing in at a little over nine tons this would allow it to reach speeds of up to 74 miles per hour considering most modern tanks can only move at a top speed of 45 to 50 miles per hour this was a monumental breakthrough while being fast would have made it a speedy all-terrain asset there was one huge con in order to hover the weight it carried needed to be reduced meaning its armor was just over half an inch thick making it an easy target for anti-tank artillery so sadly it was never developed into a proper prototype however in the 1960s this research helped inspire the development of object 760. this running mock-up was everything the original hover tank had hoped to be only more badass instead of a machine gun this thing hosted a 73 millimeter 2a 2a28 cannon as its main armament and could hover high enough to avoid anti-tank landmines making it perfect for reconnaissance missions unfortunately the soviet union collapsed in 1991 before it could be put into full production man if only they'd had a fleet of these things to help cushion the fall men to leave tank tank designs have really evolved over the years and nothing makes that clearer than looking at one of the early russian shoeboxes sorry i mean tanks in 1911 a little over a decade before the soviet union was established the mendeleev rabinsk tank was designed and you can kind of see why i confused it with a shoe box right albeit a 42 foot long 32 foot wide shoe box this rectangular unit with 100 millimeter thick armor was designed to carry eight crew who would operate the 120 millimeter cannon gun attached to its front alongside the light machine gun in the turret on its top the cannon would be able to swivel left and right as well as up and down and feature a specialized recoil system instead of a fixed mount making it incredibly sophisticated for the time but the most sophisticated part of this design was its propulsion system alongside the use of continuous tracks it would employ pneumatic piston suspension allowing individual wheels to be lowered and elevated to whatever height the terrain required it also meant the tank could bunker down when necessary transforming it into a mobile fortress what's more it was also supposed to combine with a device that would allow the entire machine to use railway tracks so it could move on its own or be towed by a train i mean for a big metal box with a gun attached to the front this all sounds incredible except when you look at the weight of it it was a staggering 173 tons considering most modern tanks weigh roughly 60 tons this behemoth was almost three times as heavy making it super slow and difficult to maneuver because of that the project quite literally never got off the ground it failed to secure financial support from backers and the government leaving it as a series of plans on paper well if you want to make a smaller lighter prototype might i suggest a shoebox a straw and some crazy glue t-42 in 1951 the usa produced a prototype tank called the t-42 weighing in at 36 tons this medium tank was designed to be a more heavily armored version of the popular m46 patent tank but interestingly the t42 actually shared its name with a soviet tank designed back in 1930 but there was nothing medium about this bad boy feast your eyes on the schematics for what would have been a 112-ton monster of a machine the t-42 super heavy tank weighing so much it's estimated the running length of the tank would have been about 60 feet while the beam across would have been about 12 feet aside from being more than twice the size and weight of standard tanks of the time the standout feature of this bizarre behemoth was the sheer number of turrets attached to the front various armament schemes show some designs boasted three turrets others had up to five and almost all of them contained a 107 millimeter 1910-30 field gun as the main armament smaller turrets housed 45 millimeter anti-tank guns and up to five dtm machine guns while the armor of the thing itself at least up at the front was some three and a half inches thick this thing was practically a rolling fortress powered by multiple diesel-fueled engines that would output some 2000 horsepower considering the majority of modern tanks output 1200 to 1500 horsepower that's massive for a tank designed almost 100 years ago the only problem was this wasn't enough to make the tank practical while it was estimated these engines would let it run at around 17 miles per hour this was likely optimistic with a more realistic top speed hitting just 12 miles per hour on a good day so while it had firepower it was severely lacking in the mobility department which is a tactical quality that tanks of the world war ii period relied on i mean imagine this thing trying to get over a bridge considering how impractical and expensive it would have been to construct this beast never made it into the prototype phase even so it certainly took the usa's t42 down a few pegs maz 2000 and while the most insane soviet designs were made for military purposes there's at least one which was made with more commercial applications in mind the mass 2000. wait didn't we cover mass trucks in part one of this series remember the 100 foot long 24 by 24 trucks turns out that wasn't all that minsky automobile nissan aka maz was making during its time during the soviet union in 1985 the company started developing the mass 2000 also known as the perestroika a semi-trailer tractor truck that caused a stir when it was first unveiled at the 1988 paris motor show unlike other trucks of the time the maz 2000 was based on a modular design this meant its engine gearbox even its axles were all mounted on detachable trolleys that could be swapped out and reconfigured to suit the job at hand the body of the truck was made of fiberglass and thanks to the low air resistance of the design the truck could achieve top speeds of just over 80 miles per hour after its success at the paris motor show the maz 2000 was set to revolutionize truck design the world over but then just three years later in 1991 the soviet union collapsed funding suddenly dried up and maz simply couldn't get the cash together to put the truck into production the two prototypes that were built for that motor show have been preserved in minsk where they remain to this day well in my humble opinion the design of these trucks is still amazing mill v12 when it comes to historic helicopters the soviet union was the undisputed king of the skies in the 60s and 70s bigger was definitely better for example the mil-me 26 is the largest production helicopter in the world with a payload capacity of more than 55 000 pounds the mill me 10 held several world records for the heaviest payload carried to the highest altitude but neither of these behemoths could compare to the mill v12 this is quite literally the largest helicopter that has ever been built and i mean ever consisting of a 121 foot fuselage and a 219 foot wingspan across the two rotor blades on each wing this monster weighed in at more than 76 tons and that was when it was empty despite its immense weight the dual rotors powered by two sol aviv d25f turboshaft engines gave it a top speed of 160 miles per hour with a range of 310 miles it was designed to be the heavy lift helicopter of the future capable of transporting intercontinental ballistic missiles to remote regions in order to hide them but the v12 came with some pretty serious limitations for a start it needed a six-man crew to fly and a double-decker cockpit for operation this crew consisted of a pilot co-pilot flight engineer and electrical engineer in the lower cockpit while a navigator and radio operator were located in the upper cockpit where they had improved visibility while its development was green lit in 1962 testing of this new dual rotor feature would take six years to perfect and by that time the purpose it had originally been designed for no longer existed newly launched u.s satellites could spot missile storage sites from space rendering the long-ranged hiding tactic kind of useless as such the jetliner sized helicopter was never placed into production and only two prototypes were ever built and guess you could say it really failed to take off mill me 32 while designing a helicopter with two main rotors was a pretty innovative push for the 1960s the idea of having three main rotors even today is downright insane although this was nearly a reality for the soviet union when they came forward with the conceptual designs of the mil-me 32 back in 1982 yep that is an isosceles triangle with rotor blades attached to each point apparently this insane looking chopper was designed for military purposes acting as a super heavy transporter sort of like a sky crane the cargo weighing up to 60 tons would be carried on an external sling attached to each of the three gondolas which were in turn connected to one another by beams the two beams attached to the cockpit would be 131 feet while the third would be 118 feet long each capable of housing fuel tanks and equipment the rotors themselves were designed to be powered by two d-136 turboshaft engines each together with the six units working simultaneously the me32 would be working with some 60 000 horsepower giving it a range of over 745 miles and a top speed of 140 miles per hour for something that looks like it was designed in minecraft that ain't bad it was submitted to the soviet council of ministers and central committee for approval but despite promising feedback an official decision never followed and so sadly the m32 never even saw a prototype phase and was instead destined for the archives as yet another crazy mechanical soviet concept but if you ask me the craziest part about this was calling it the mill me 32 and not the fly angle vvp six okay so three rotors was considered pretty insane surely no one in the soviet union was crazy enough to design an aircraft with even more rotors were they obviously they were started by the yakovlev bureau in the mid-1960s project gdp-6 proposed the construction of a heavy multi-rotor helicopter designed to carry special payloads the result the vvp-6 a 160-foot long 20-foot wide fuselage about as long and as wide as a boeing 777 with six rotor blades attached to it these rotors would be powered by 24 turbofan engines with 12 on each side and four motors each powering the six contra rotors these rotors would be able to rotate in different directions to steady the craft or slowed it to allow it to steer supposedly negating the need for a tail even so its elongated shape and unaerodynamic design would have meant it flew like a brick all the thrust the rotors generated would have allowed it to carry somewhere up to 50 tons of cargo perfect for six nuclear-tipped surface-to-air missiles which could be housed comfortably alongside apparatus built to launch them from the vehicle itself even while it was flying but that's not the only thing it could carry the platform attached to this could be changed out allowing it to carry troops supplies even aircraft depending on the task at hand that meant this thing could be transformed into a real-life helicarrier like something out of a marvel movie unfortunately for the wannabe soviet nick fury this went the way of the me 32 and me me-12 as the original need to quickly transport missiles like this was overcome in different ways so sadly the vvp-6 was only ever brought to life on paper and later in the avengers films antonov an 14sh in part one of this series you might remember we looked at the m15 belfagore which was designed to replace the old reliable an2 biplane while the belfagore failed to take off for many reasons it wasn't the only suggested replacement for the an2 meet the an-14 a utility craft reliant on twin engines that was produced back in 1966 it was designed to be simple to build maintain and fly the only problem was the an2 was just too good at its job selling more than 18 000 units in its time some of which are still in use today but it was obsolete and the soviets were determined to improve on excellence so to give the new an-14 an edge they added a few modifications and that's where the an-14sh comes in why yes that is a giant air cushion attached to the bottom of it instead of an undercarriage this thing basically had a hovercraft mounted beneath it and this certainly improved its landing capabilities in contrast to the an2 allowing it to land on water swamps ice just about anywhere but there was a major trade-off simplicity for novelty test pilots complained that you needed to know how to handle the aircraft while it was on the ground and the hovercraft system itself took up a lot of the aircraft's capacity reducing its maximum payload and messing with the aerodynamics testing continued until 1986 but the an2 won out and the project was dropped hopefully not out of the sky [Music] typhoon class submarine the soviet union's mechanical might holds world records over the skies having built the largest helicopter and the largest planes in existence but they also hold dominion under the waves thanks to the creation of this unfathomably huge nuclear-powered typhoon class of submarine back in the 1970s the typhoons are the largest submarines to have ever been built i mean just look how tiny the crew are in comparison to it stretching some 574 feet long these submarines are longer than the washington monument is tall when underwater this super-sized sea monster can displace around 48 000 tons of water for contrast the u.s

ohio-class subs the largest ever built for the u.s navy can only displace around 19 000 tons at this size the sub is able to comfortably accommodate up to 160 crew members submerged for months on end and when i say comfortably i mean comfortably this submarine is so huge it has its own arcade gym sauna and there's even a small indoor pool yep a swimming pool inside a submarine no the irony is not lost on me but that's not all there's also a room for a few animals on board like birds and even a small aquarium even the mess hall looks reliably roomy when you look at other submarine designs of the time which barely seem to have enough room for sailors to sleep in the typhoon is an underwater hotel in comparison but why would the soviet union build a sub so big surely it wasn't for the benefit of the crew well if you consider the almost 40 foot long 40 ton intercontinental nuclear missiles that the sub also carried yes it was costing more than 30 million dollars each up to 20 nuclear missiles were also loaded on board along with their launchers considering that six of these mega subs were built together they were carrying about 3.6 billion dollars worth of nuclear doom at any given time pretty horrifying to think they were lurking at the bottom of the ocean for months on end luckily once the cold war fizzled out no more were commissioned or made the majority of them have now been decommissioned with only one remaining in active service though it's due to be decommissioned in 2026. until then who knows where it may be lurking ushakov's flying submarine now the concept of a flying submarine has been explored in fiction since 1912 with the aptly named flying submarine book by percy westerman although it was more about a submarine that flew via a tiny propeller attached to its front not exactly how the rules of aerodynamics work but in 1934 the idea was explored further and brought to life by soviet engineering student boris uzhikov but instead of designing a submarine that could fly he brought forward designs for a plane that could submerge carrying all the equipment of a regular sub if it worked this plane would theoretically be able to scout for enemy ships before submerging itself and ambushing them doing the jobs of two war machines in one it would be powered by three engines it would fire torpedoes and would even include a conning tower and periscope to adhere to traditional submarine design the machine would fly out to sea land on its pontoons like a normal seaplane then flood the spaces within its wings and hull to sink below the waves on paper it looked like a weirdly perfect machine but there were a lot of technical loose ends for a start ushikov never detailed how he'd seal the three radial engines from saltwater plus the weight added to the craft to turn it into a sub would have made it cumbersome and slow this meant its missions may have been cut short with enemies more likely to spot it struggling to get across the sky while plenty of models and mock-ups of the plane exist it was never actually built in real life man that's sort of pressing it's giving me a sinking feeling n-i-a-i-r-k [Music] of all the things a plane needs to fly there's one pretty essential feature they can't really do without can you guess what it might be it's wings planes need wings no matter how small or big they are standard planes need wings to generate lift which is what makes the soviet niai rk1 something of a deviant because on this prototype plane constructed in 1940 the wings were designed to be retractable yep the 28 long fuselage had two sets of small thin tandem wings with guide tracks attached onto their side with a hydraulically controlled telescopic sliding wing that extended over them when fully extended this more than doubled the wing area increasing it from 128 to 301 square feet now you might be asking yourself why on god's green earth would a plane need retractable wings after all literally every other plane gets along just fine without treating the things that are essential to staying up in the air like the top of a convertible car but there's a little method in this madness in the piloting world landings and takeoffs are much easier at lower speeds and for that you might need large wings which create more lift at low speed but once you're aloft pilots want to minimize lift because lift also increases drag the force that opposes an aircraft's movement through the air so by making parts of the wings retractable you can reduce the lift and adjust the wing for higher speeds when flying and lower speeds when taking off or landing in places with more difficult terrain when you put it like that it doesn't seem all that crazy in fact joseph stalin the then de facto leader of the soviet union was so interested in the project he insisted that the plane be given the most powerful engine available the m106 but the m106 was an experimental engine that had a lot of cooling problems this meant that even though the plane was completed in 1940 it sat in a workshop unflown because the engine was dangerously unreliable now i know stalin was responsible for a lot of atrocities but robbing the world of this wonderfully weird machine was just evil wig aircraft carrier robert bartini was a soviet aircraft designer and scientist who became notorious for some of the envelope-pushing designs his aircraft took on in part one of this series we covered the bartini berryev vva 14 a wing in ground effect vehicle which looked suspiciously like the daddy of the star wars millennium falcon as futuristic as this thing seemed this was just bartini getting started seeing the potential of this design bartini went one step further and proposed this utterly immense monstrosity of a model this is the wing in ground effect aircraft carrier now the wing and ground effect is utilized by aircraft with specially designed wings and fuselages to generate lift when close to water allowing them to rise on a sort of cushion of air below this gives the vehicles the speed of a plane which can be combined with the weight of a ship and the ship bartini had in mind here was a full-scale aircraft carrier at its largest this thing would have weighed in at 5 000 tons but could still operate at speeds of up to 310 miles per hour considering modern aircraft carriers travel at top speeds averaging around 35 miles per hour and this sort of speed would have given the soviet union a huge advantage over the enemy unfortunately bartini passed away in 1974 shortly after proposing these designs and then in 1991 the dissolution of the soviet union meant these designs were relegated to the history books well who knows maybe we'll see something similar feature in the next star wars sequel well comrades that's the end of another crazy soviet vehicle video which design did you think was the most out of this world and which ones would you love to see in real life let me know down in the comments below and thanks for watching you

2022-08-31 10:17

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