Post war repurposing of tanks

[Mikel2]

This one spent most of its life dragging lumber through the mountains.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

I read an article from a world war one newsletter suggesting deturreted FT17's were being used as canal tugs in Belgium in 1919. I guess there was a distinct shortage of horses by that point.

[DougRichards]

There were various Matilda IIs, M3 Mediums etc used on Australian farms as tractors after when peace broke out.  I don't know about Universal Carriers though, as they would have been the obvious choice for any spears into ploughshares efforts, having a simple to maintain and access engine and spare parts being abundantly available.

[TrustMe]

Not strictly on topic but, in the Soviet Union in the 1970's the Russians used ex-tanks for farming purposes as due to economic mismanagement they built ten's of thousands of tanks but no farm tractors.

Edited October 4, 2021 by TrustMe

[bojan]

1 hour ago, TrustMe said:

Not strictly on topic but, in the Soviet Union in the 1970's the Russians used ex-tanks for farming purposes as due to economic mismanagement they built ten's of thousands of tanks but no farm tractors.

Up the early '50s they have used written off SU-76 and T-70 light tanks, but nothing really in mass use after that.

What did happen is that on "army owned farms" occasionally written off combat equipment was used, but that should not be confused with general practice.

Edited October 4, 2021 by bojan

[TrustMe]

I got the above story from my dad. Back in the 1970's, his cousin - who was a committed ultra left winger, went to the Soviet Union for a holiday. When he came back he told my dad that 'There never going to win'. The economic was in such a bad way even then. 

I'll bow to you're knowledge Bojan but I do remember the above story when my dad told me in the late 1980's.

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by TrustMe

[bojan]

There is lot of common myths that originated in SSSR itself. This is one of such. It is not to say there was not a lack of agricultural machinery (in fact even in the '80s they lacked something like 20%), but using turetless tanks because there was not enough tractors is one of those stories. Except maybe some military owned land where they might have actually used "tank" as a tractor for plowing* (you can not really use it for harvesting, it is going to destroy too much of the crop).

That Soviets are not going to win was obvious in the '60s already to those that have paid attention. What people did not realize was that Soviets could collapse, which is entirely different thing from "not winning".

*IIRC locally last use of M3 halftracks was on military owned farms.

Edited October 4, 2021 by bojan

[TrustMe]

I wonder then if my cousin lied to my dad. Oh well. He was a committed Communist though.

 

I think that after the Great Patriotic war, with 20 million dead and large parts of the country devastated. Having a rivalry with the US whose GDP had increased during the war. It was an uphill struggle to remain parity with it's enemies. 

Edited October 4, 2021 by TrustMe

[bojan]

22 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

I wonder then if my cousin lied to my dad.

Did not have to invent it, it was a common myth in USSR itself.

[Markus Becker]

6 hours ago, bojan said:

Up the early '50s they have used written off SU-76 and T-70 light tanks, but nothing really in mass use after that.

That makes some sense. When I read the headline "what about the fuel economy" immediately came to my mind. 

[Allan W]

My ex-brother in law and his father owned a Sherman (M4A2 with HVSS suspension IIRC) that they used as a yarder in their logging operations in Oregon.

[Coldsteel]

18 hours ago, DougRichards said:

There were various Matilda IIs, M3 Mediums etc used on Australian farms as tractors after when peace broke out.  I don't know about Universal Carriers though, as they would have been the obvious choice for any spears into ploughshares efforts, having a simple to maintain and access engine and spare parts being abundantly available.

Some of the carriers were turned into tractors. If you have a look for "Strickland Carrier" you should find some.Usually cut down armour, reduced diameter drive sprockets, and converted to run on power kerosene.

[Gavin-Phillips]

I've certainly seen a few pictures of M3 or M5 Stuart light tank hulls with exploratory drill rigs mounted on them.  

Certainly Soviet DT75 crawler tractors and similar do indeed have a tank-like look to them but I am unsure if that's just chance or if there is anything more to it than that?  Perhaps the same tooling was used for their fabrication as was used for light tanks during WW2?  I'd like to know more about that one myself.

I suppose one of the most "famous" of repurposed tanks would be the T-34 tank hull with the BS-3 100mm gun; a weird looking hybrid vehicle created by the Egyptians with a number of these being captured by the IDF in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

There was (or perhaps still is) a T-34 tank hull with jet engines from a MiG installed to clear runways of snow and apparently also used to put out chemical fires as well?  That's a curious one and still being developed from what I understand.  How the vehicle doesn't become airborne itself I'll never know. 😲

[Stuart Galbraith]

There was a T55 hull in Afghanistan equipped with Jet engines to clear mines. Still there apparently.

[KV7]

[Mikel2]

66 T54s used for testing new bridge in CZ.

[bojan]

55s.

[sunday]

That says military fuel was cheap, and heavy trucks were difficult to find. One of the better examples ever of putting guns before butter.

[bojan]

Easier to use tanks than to find enough trucks, load them and drive them on the bridge.

[sunday]

10 minutes ago, bojan said:

Easier to use tanks than to find enough trucks, load them and drive them on the bridge.

Only if there are lots of tanks at hand. Trucks are used in most other places.

[Stefan Kotsch]

Converted tanks were used in surface mining in the GDR.  Because of the extremely difficult terrain. As a basis for cranes and excavators.  And for moving the railroad tracks of the very-big bucket excavators - but that has not proven itself, the power transmission was not designed for this, and the wear and tear was excessive.

https://www.bauforum24.biz/forums/topic/22593-militartechnik-im-tagebau/

 

T-34 with rolers, idler and sprocket from T-54/55

 

T-54/55  ( for moving the railroad tracks of the very-big bucket excavators)

Edited October 6, 2021 by Stefan Kotsch

[sunday]

2 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

But that has not proven itself.  The power transmission was not designed for this, and the wear and tear was excessive

Indeed. Tracked earth moving vehicles are designed to maximize torque in sprocket/force in the tracks, so they tend to be quite slow. Speed is more important in AFVs, so the final drive parts are not engineered to handle those greater torque values.

[Ken Estes]

French Normandy prospered from the various military mechanicals left in place when the armies moved on, raising it from truly primitive oxen powered agriculture to fully mechanized farming within the decade. Today it still ranks in the forefront. This included using jeep engines and chassis to run the pumps taking water out of the canals and rivers, etc and irrigating their fields. Trucks and tracked vehicles were pressed into all kinds of uses, and a very strong scrap iron business emerged from the battlefield and base leftovers.

[Stuart Galbraith]

17 hours ago, Mikel2 said:

66 T54s used for testing new bridge in CZ.

Ive got a nagging feeling I have seen on abandoned engineering or that Railway Architectuer programme. Did it say what Bridge this was?

[Stuart Galbraith]

As for machinery used in farming, there is a TV programme called Combat Dealers. Guy in it was perusing a farmyard in the Ardenne for stuff that might be left behind. Went in a milding parlour and the column holding the roof up is an 88mm gun barrel from a King Tiger. He told the farmer if they ever knocked it down, he wanted ot buy it.

At a military show about 20 years ago, I saw a caravan hauled behind a steam traction engine using what appeared to be Cromwell or possibly Crusader wheels. Id love to know where he found them. Im annoyed I dont have a photo.