T-54 - a tank with a long history

The new realities of the bipolar world emerging in the second half of the 1940s and the East-West confrontation that led to the Cold War prompted a rethinking of the newly acquired military experience. As a result, new models of weapons and military equipment appeared. In their system, a special place is occupied by the T-54 - one of the best tanks in the world, created in the post-war years.
This medium tank is the direct heir of the legendary T-34 and T-34-85 models. Initially, it was created during the war as a means of fighting heavily armored enemy equipment at long distances. Long-range gun D-10S, installed on the self-propelled artillery mount SU-100, showed itself perfectly on the battlefield, but the transmission of the 34th was weak for him. The development of the reinforced T-44-100 tank was also carried out, also not devoid of shortcomings. The development of the new version was delayed, but as a result it resulted in the creation of a new model.

Under the designation T-54, the tank was adopted by armored troops in April 1946 - a month after the speech of Churchill in Fulton, which is considered a reference point of the Cold War.

Designers have ensured that the new combat vehicle has maximum reliability and at the same time was easy enough to maintain. In addition to a hundred-millimeter gun, two 7.62 mm machine guns were mounted on the tank and an anti - aircraft machine gun was mounted on the tank . The body, borrowed from the T-44, basically left unchanged. In this design, two innovations were applied, later spread to all armored vehicles: replacement of the driver's observation slot with prismatic periscopes and the presence in the running gear of the pre-heater, which helped to quickly start the tank's engine in the cold. The B-54 engine, with a capacity of 520 "horses", produced a speed of 50 km / h on the highway and half the speed on the rough terrain, having, however, a power reserve along it.

On the basis of the sum total of combat characteristics, the T-54 remained the strongest medium tank in the world for 12 years.

The most famous modification was the T-55, created in response to the receipt of the US Army nuclear weapons. The main difference between the T-55 was the anti-atomic protection system. In general, during the time of the tank (mostly before 1967, in part until 1979), many modifications and upgrades were made, including outside the USSR. On the basis of a more than successful design, such variations were developed: a commander's tank, a flamethrower tank, an anti-aircraft self-propelled unit, a mine trawler, an armored tractor, a fire truck, a bridge-laying machine and others.
The first true baptism of fire the T-54 tank took place in the Six-Day War (1967) as part of Egyptian and Syrian troops. A large number of tanks, killed or abandoned by crews, was captured by the Israeli army, and after modernization it was adopted. It is characteristic that the USSR, being an ideological antagonist of Israel, in 1981-1982. Sold him 50 T-54 tanks.

The most active period of combat use of the T-54 is in 1979-1991: the conflict between China and Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan (one of the main tanks, along with the T-62, in the Southern Group of Forces of the USSR), Operation Mir Galilee in Lebanon (in the Syrian and Israeli armies), in the Iran-Iraq war and the Persian Gulf War (in the Iraqi army).

The T-54 and T-55 tanks were actively supplied and sold to the USSR by their allies in the socialist camp, friendly countries and some others. For example, Finland. T-54 tanks produced in Poland and Czechoslovakia were also delivered.

The industry produced T-54/55 for more than 30 years. This is a record figure for a modern tank.