Soviet "Teletanks"

[Lazarou]

Teletank
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A teletank is a remotely controlled unmanned tank used in combat to minimize human casualties. A teletank is controlled by radio from a control tank at a distance of 500–1,500 meters, the two constituting a telemechanical group. Teletanks were used by the Soviet Red Army in the Winter War and fielded at least two teletank battalions at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

Teletanks were equipped with DT machine guns, flamethrowers, smoke canisters, and sometimes a special 200–700 kg time bomb in an armored box, dropped by the tank near the enemy's fortifications and used to destroy bunkers up to four levels below ground. Teletanks were also designed to be capable of using chemical weapons, although they were not used in combat. Each teletank, depending on model was able to recognize sixteen to twenty-four different commands. Teletanks were built on the basis of T-18, T-26, T-38, BT-5 and BT-7 tanks.

Besides teletanks there were also remotely controlled telecutters and teleplanes in the Red Army.

Remote controlled TT-26 flamethrower tank (based on the T-26 light tank)


Finland, February 1940. A knocked-out ТТ-26 from the 217th separate flame thrower tank battalion. Notice the two remote control antennas on the top of the turret.


TT-26 remote controlled flame thrower tank (used together with TU-26 command tank)


TT-26 remote controlled flame thrower tank (used together with TU-26 command tank)


TU-26 command tank (armament removed).

[CyberSpec]

Pretty futuristic for that time.

I'm guessing they weren't very practicable though.

[KillerBD]

^Thats very intesesting

[Amerikosskiy_xyu]

so they had TVs inside? hmmm and I thought Russians never cared about comfort, only crude and durable designs.

[aartamen]

They have swimming pools and saunas inside some of their bigger tanks.


This does sound like utter bull****.

[devil99]

Thanks a lot! All of this is intresting and reminds me of what the Germans had.

[khukuri]

Ive been thinking about this for along time. When will we see Unmanned Armoured Land Vehicles. UALV:s

There are some out there already, like a deminer we have aín swedish army controlled by a playstation handset. But Im talking about longer range stuff...

[GazB]

I would expect a remote controlled tank would be tricky to operate during WWII due to the fact that they would have problems with getting a decent idea of what the vechile they were tele operating was actually doing.
The quality of WWII era TV was not particularly good, especially in the USSR.

Currently I believe they officially only have Anti mine vehicles that can be remotely operated, though from memory there are also anti tank missile vehicles like the BRDM-2 where the missiles can be launched away from the vehicle, and SAM vehicles that also offer remote control options incase the parent vehicle is hit.

Considering you knock out an armoured vehicle by killing its crew or making its ammo explode or destroying its engine taking the crew out and remotely operating the weapons would make even a weak tank harder to knock out. With a very high velocity anti tank round you now have to knock out the engine or remove a track to stop it, or to destroy its mounted weapons to defeat it... you can't just aim to kill the crew anymore.

[Doublethinker]

One of the many crazy projects of that era, like tanks on wheels, etc.

A waste of time and money.

[TheBelgian]

I was under the impression that the USSR military command didnt really care about casualties, who were replacable anyways. Hence sending in 4 guys for every one rifle etc... So the fact that they'd set up an incredibly futuristic, costly project like this to minimize casualties....hmm, smells like BS to me.

[Spitfire303]

Very interesting. Strange though, Russians didn`t care about their soldiers life and here you have a Teletank to avoid casualties.

[Canuck Farrier]

Very interesting. Strange though, Russians didn`t care about their soldiers life and here you have a Teletank to avoid casualties.

Stalin wanted to have some fun.

[CPL Trevoga]

I was under the impression that the USSR military command didnt really care about casualties, who were replacable anyways. Hence sending in 4 guys for every one rifle etc... So the fact that they'd set up an incredibly futuristic, costly project like this to minimize casualties....hmm, smells like BS to me.

Just because you played call of duty, doesn't make you a freakin' eastern front expert. Anyway this article is pure bull****, these are mostly OT tanks (Ogon'= Flame). TV technology was mainly US technology at thant time and was not available to Soviet Union, until later on.

[Kippari]

Could be BS, but then again these tanks were desinged before the war and before Operation Barbarossa when Soviets did not have such need for pure manpower. Maybe these were test beds for some new more practical designs. One must also remember that there were also Fedorov Avtomat rifles used in small quantities during the winter war. I'd say this is likely to be BS, but you never know.

[droopy]

Intresting this guided tank but not practical ...

I was under the impression that the USSR military command didnt really care about casualties, who were replacable anyways. Hence sending in 4 guys for every one rifle etc... So the fact that they'd set up an incredibly futuristic, costly project like this to minimize casualties....hmm, smells like BS to me.

Actualy the didn`t have guns at all they charged the germans with broomsticks painted to look like rifles.