

The large main turret housing the 76.2 mm gun was nearly identical, but those used on the T-28 had an additional, rear-firing machine gun.

The small machine-gun turrets were identical on the two tanks.

The decision was also made to standardise the turrets used on the T-35 with those employed on the T-28, a triple-turreted medium tank. This new prototype received a new engine, new gearbox and improved transmission. Work on it was therefore stopped and a new simpler prototype was built. This first prototype had severe defects in its transmission and was considered too complex and expensive for mass production. The first prototype was further enhanced with four smaller turrets, two with 37 mm guns and two with machine guns. Tsiets, worked on a tank similar to the British Vickers A1E1 Independent.īy July 1932, a prototype of a 35-ton tank with a 76.2 mm tank gun was completed. Designs existed in Britain, France, and Germany for such vehicles. The concept of large, multi-turreted breakthrough tanks was favoured by several European armies in the 1920s and 1930s. The team headed by German engineer Grotte worked on the 100-ton four-turreted TG-5 tank, armed with a 107 mm naval gun, using pneumatic servo-controls and pneumatic suspension. The T-35 was developed by the OKMO design bureau of the Bolshevik Factory, which began work on a heavy tank in 1930. Some of the turrets obscured the entrance hatches. Outwardly, it was large but internally, the spaces were cramped with the fighting compartments separated from each other. It was designed to complement the contemporary T-28 medium tank however, very few were built. Most of the T-35 tanks still operational at the time of Operation Barbarossa were lost due to mechanical failure rather than enemy action. Often called a land battleship, it was the only five-turreted heavy tank in the world to reach production, but proved to be slow and mechanically unreliable. The T-35 was a Soviet multi- turreted heavy tank of the interwar period and early Second World War that saw limited production and service with the Red Army.
