Tsar Tank

The Tsar was an armored car of the Russian army, developed during World War II.

The concept of the Tsar was fundamentally different from the designs for the construction of armored vehicles that originated in other countries. Instead of caterpillars or ordinary wheels possessed the combat vehicle via a pair of nine -meter high front wheels, each individually each powered by a separate 240 -horsepower engine. The oversized wheels should allow the overcoming of ditches and other obstacles. The three rear wheels were about one and a half meters high, much smaller. The steering device and part of the armament were in an elongated, transversely mounted nacelle of twelve meters in width at the level of the front axle. On this car there was also a 2.5 -meter high turret.

A prototype of the Tsar was completed in 1915 and subjected to testing. It turned out that the vehicle could not meet the expectations of the off-road capability. The small tail wheel tended to get stuck in soft ground and driven large front wheels were not enough to free the stuck tank again. In addition, the vehicle was difficult to maneuver and the high front wheels would have been susceptible to attack in combat.

The results of the practical tests meant that the project was discontinued in 1916. Additional copies of the type of Czar were not built. The damaged and immobilized during the testing prototype was not repaired and scrapped in 1923.