T28 Super Heavy Tank - Wikipedia

32°22′31.8″N 84°50′45.4″W / 32.375500°N 84.845944°W / 32.375500; -84.845944

Super-heavy tank, assault gun

Super-heavy tank T28105 mm gun motor carriage T95
Type	Super-heavy tank, assault gun
Place of origin	United States
Service history
Used by	United States
Production history
Manufacturer	Pacific Car and Foundry
Produced	1945
No. built	2
Specifications
Mass	95 short tons (85 long tons; 86 t)
Length	36 ft 6 in (11.1 m)
Width	14 ft 10 in (4.52 m)
Height	9 ft 4 in (2.84 m)
Crew	4[1][2]
Armor	12 in (305 mm)
Mainarmament	105 mm T5E1 gun, with 62 rounds
Secondaryarmament	.50 cal (12.7 mm) Browning heavy machine gun, with 660 rounds
Engine	Ford GAF V-8 gasoline500 hp (372 kW)[1]
Power/weight	5.8 hp/tonne
Suspension	double tracks, horizontal volute spring
Operationalrange	100 miles (160 km)
Maximum speed	8 mph (13 km/h)[2]

The T28 super-heavy tank was an American super-heavy tank/assault gun designed for the United States Army during World War II. It was originally designed to break through German defenses of the Siegfried Line and was later considered as a possible participant in the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland.

The near 100-ton vehicle was initially designated a heavy tank. It was re-designated as the 105 mm gun motor carriage T95 in 1945, and then renamed in 1946 as the super heavy tank T28.

Only two prototypes were built before the project was terminated.[3]

Name

[edit]

Initially named Heavy Tank T28 when construction was authorized in 1944, the design did not fit in the usual categories of vehicles, leading to reclassification.[4] As it did not have its armament in a revolving turret, the Ordnance Department requested a name change to 105 mm Gun Motor Carriage T95, the change becoming official in March 1945.[5] However, due to its heavy armor and armament—while self-propelled guns in United States service were lightly armored—it was renamed Super Heavy Tank T28 in June 1946 by OCM 37058.[6]

Development

[edit]

The T28/T95 was designed to be used for attacking the heavy defenses expected of the Siegfried Line along the western borders of Germany.[3] The 105 mm T5E1 gun selected was known to have very good performance against concrete and "expected to be extremely effective at reducing heavy fortifications".[4] By the time the vehicle passed trials, the German Siegfried Line had already been infiltrated and overwhelmed by the Allied forces. As a result, the T28 never left the United States, with the vehicle instead serving as an engineering study and load test vehicle at Aberdeen Proving Ground.[7]

The need for an assault tank was first identified in 1943, with the Ordnance Department proposing that 25 vehicles could be ready for operations. A conference in March 1944 between the Ordnance Department and Army Ground Forces resulted in agreement to build five. The Pacific Car and Foundry Company were supplied with the design in March 1945, completed final design and had the first hull welded by August.[8] By the time the first tank was completed and ready for combat, the war was over.[1] The plan for five was reduced to two.

As it did not have a turret, but a fixed casemate mount instead for its main armament (as German Jagdpanzers and Soviet Samokhodnaya Ustanovka-designation combat vehicles did), and the 105 mm gun fitted could only elevate from 19.5° to −5° and traverse from 10° right to 11° left of the centerline, the T28 more closely resembled an assault gun, and was redesignated as "T95 gun motor carriage" in 1945, but in June 1946, the vehicle was redesignated again as "super heavy tank T28".[3]

Two prototypes of the T28 were built. They underwent evaluation at the Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Knox facilities until 1947. In 1947, one of the T28s was heavily damaged by an engine fire during trials at Yuma Proving Ground and was broken up and sold for scrap. The T28 never went into service due to the obsolete design, high maintenance costs, and the heavy weight, which made transportation overseas difficult, but was retained to test the "durability of components on such a heavy vehicle". Work on it ended before completion as the War Department decided to stop the development of vehicles of that sort of weight[9] and the T28 program terminated in October 1947. By that point, the T29 and T30 turreted heavy tank designs had been built.[3] The T29 mounted the same gun as the T28 in a conventional rotating turret. The T30 was developed with a larger-caliber gun and more powerful engine.[3] The T29 program was used to test mechanical components for future tank designs.[10]

Design

[edit]

The original plan was to build five prototype vehicles, with a production total of 25. Its total weight when fully equipped would have reached 95 tons (86 tonnes).[1] To lower ground pressure, instead of two tracks, it used four tracks that projected forward of the hull, each 20 inches (495 mm) wide.[3] The outer tracks could be detached within two hours for rail transport: After removal, they could be fixed together to make a unit that could be towed behind the tank.[6] Due to its extreme weight and low engine power, the T28 had extremely limited obstacle-crossing ability and could not cross any of the portable bridges available at the time, and so was considered impractical in the field and not suitable for production.

The T28 had no conventional turret, with a casemate style hull instead, giving it a comparatively low profile, as the later examples of the fully enclosed Jagdpanzer-family of German tank destroyers, not entirely dissimilar to the 50 short-ton weight German Jagdpanther. Its main armament was a 105 mm T5E1 gun, in a ball-shaped gun mantlet set into the vertical hull front.[1][2] The traverse was limited to 10° right and 11° left, and elevation from 19.5° to −5°. When traveling, the gun was locked at the maximum elevation.[3] The only other armament was a .50 cal. (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine gun on a ring mount above the commander's hatch for anti-aircraft use.[1][11] The main gun—65 calibres long—had a muzzle velocity of 3,700 feet per second (1,130 m/s), with a range of up to 12 miles (19 km).[1][12]

The armor was very thick compared to other tanks of the time, up to 12 inches (305 mm) thick on the front. This was considered heavy enough to provide protection from the German 88 mm gun used as tank and anti-tank guns.[3] The lower hull front had 5.25 in (130 mm) of armor, and the sides 2.5 in (64 mm).The suspension system and lower hull were covered with 4-in (100 mm) thick steel skirts.[3] The engine was a gasoline-powered Ford GAF V-8, delivering 500 hp,[1] at 2600 rpm through the Torqmatic transmission; which left the vehicle underpowered, geared down to a top speed of about 8 mph (13 km/h) and greatly limited its obstacle-climbing capability.[3][13] Although the vehicle was originally to feature the electric transmission of the Medium Tank T23, this was later changed to the mechanical transmission of the Medium Tank T26 due to the unreliability of the system.

Surviving vehicle

[edit]

In 1974, the last prototype was discovered abandoned in a field at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Camouflaged in the middle of some bushes, it is unknown where it spent the intervening 27 years. It is the sole remaining example of these tanks and was exhibited at the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor in Kentucky.[1][14] In 2011, it was shipped to its new home at U.S. Army Armor & Cavalry Collection, Fort Moore, Georgia. It was placed in the new Patton Park, which is a plot of 30 acres where nine of the tanks being stored at Fort Moore are now displayed.[15] The vehicle was damaged in January 2017 during transit to another facility for external refurbishment when it broke loose from the M1070 HET carrying it. The transporter failed to negotiate a downhill slope and subsequent turn at a safe speed, causing the securing chains to break and allowing the T28 to slide off the trailer. Despite then rolling into a ditch, only minor repairable damage was sustained to two bogies. The outer track units had been removed.[16]

Photos

[edit]

• Closeup showing the double tracks
• Gun mantlet
• Closeup showing the double tracks

See also

[edit]

• List of U.S. military vehicles by model number
• Tank classification
• Jagdtiger – a comparable German vehicle for anti-tank use. Entered limited production.
• Tortoise heavy assault tank – a comparable British vehicle for attacking fortifications; only six built.
• SU-100Y Self-Propelled Gun - a comparable Soviet vehicle for attacking fortified bunkers; only one built.

Notes

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "United States — Heavy Tanks". Retrieved 1 October 2008.
2. ^ a b c Foss, Christopher (2002). The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armoured Fighting Vehicles. Spellmount. ISBN 1-86227-188-7. Retrieved 2 October 2008.[page needed]
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thomas M. Tencza (2000). "Article 1: Americas's Super Heavy Tank". Battle Tanks. Retrieved 2 October 2008.
4. ^ a b Hunnicutt 1988, p. 61.
5. ^ Hunnicutt 1988, p. 62.
6. ^ a b Hunnicutt 1988, p. 65.
7. ^ Hunnicutt 1988, p. 63.
8. ^ Hunnicutt 1988, p. 61-62.
9. ^ Hunnicutt 1988, p. 65-66.
10. ^ Hunnicutt 1988, p. 74.
11. ^ Hunnicutt 1988, p. 196.
12. ^ Hunnicutt 1988, p. 69.
13. ^ Hunnicutt 1988, p. 64.
14. ^ "Patton Museum List of Exhibits". Archived from the original on 26 January 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2007.
15. ^ "Pattons' Park to display 9 vehicles | Article | The United States Army". www.army.mil.
16. ^ "National Armor and Cavalry Museum". www.facebook.com. Archived from the original on 26 February 2022. Retrieved 7 April 2017.

Bibliography

[edit]

• Hunnicutt, Richard Pearce (1988). Firepower: A History of the American Heavy Tank. Novato, California: Presidio Press. ISBN 0-89141-304-9.

External links

[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to T28 Super Heavy Tank.

• "This Lumbering Monster Is Newest Antique", January 1946, Popular Science
• Reassembling the Last U.S. T28 Super Heavy Tank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0a5oMl2fX8

v t e American armored fighting vehicles of World War II
Tanks	Light M1 combat car M2 light tank M3 Stuart M22 Locust M24 Chaffee Marmon-Herrington CTLS Medium M2 medium tank M3 Lee M4 Sherman Heavy M26 Pershing
Self-propelled artillery	T19 howitzer motor carriage T30 howitzer motor carriage T34 rocket launcher M4 mortar carrier M3 gun motor carriage M7 howitzer motor carriage (Priest) M8 howitzer motor carriage (Scott) M12 gun motor carriage M21 mortar motor carriage M40 gun motor carriage M43 howitzer motor carriage
Tank destroyers	T48 gun motor carriage M3 gun motor carriage M6 gun motor carriage M10 3-inch gun motor carriage M18 gun motor carriage (Hellcat) M36 gun motor carriage
Armored carriers	M2 half-track car M3 half-track M5 half-track M9 half-track M39 armored utility vehicle
Amphibious vehicles	Landing Vehicle Tracked
Armored cars	M3 scout car M8 light armored car M20 armored utility car
Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns	M13/M14 multiple gun motor carriage M15 combination gun motor carriage M16/M17 multiple gun motor carriage M19 multiple gun motor carriage
Experimental and short production run vehicles	Tanks M6 heavy tank Light tank T7/medium tank M7 T14 heavy tank T20 medium tank T25 medium tank T28 super-heavy tank T29 heavy tank T30 heavy tank T32 heavy tank T34 heavy tank Self-propelled artillery T24/T40/M9 tank destroyer T18 howitzer motor carriage T54/T59 gun motor carriage T55E1 motor carriage 8-inch howitzer motor carriage T84 T92/T93 gun motor carriage T88 gun motor carriage Armoured cars T17 Deerhound T18 Boarhound T27 armored car M38 Wolfhound S1 scout car
Lend-Lease	T16 universal carrier T17E1 Staghound
American armored fighting vehicle production during World War II