NI Tank (Odessa Tank)

History of NI Tanks (Odessa Tanks)

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941. As the Axis powers advanced to capture the strategic Black Sea port of Odessa, the Soviets waged a struggle to make the invaders pay dearly for the city's final fall.

More than 90,000 Axis powers were killed after a 73-day siege and four offensives by the Allied Forces of Dro. The siege lasted from August 8 to October 16, 1941.

While Soviet troops fought to the end in Odessa, the city's January Uprising Machinery Factory retained some manufacturing facilities, which allowed factory workers to at least repair damaged Red Army tanks that returned. It also means that there are enough facilities to assemble an makeshift armored fighting vehicle (AFV) to bolster defenses and compensate for casualties to some extent.

In the latter case, this led to the "NI" tank - better known as the "Odessa tank" - a small light tank system created out of desperation.

The 7 ton design is based on the currently available STZ-5 series agricultural tractors, providing the required track and wheel arrangement. There are four road wheels on each side of the car body, the drive sprocket is at the rear, and the track idler is at the front. Two track pulleys are guided along the upper track section.

To this established foundation was added a simple metal/wood/rubber hybrid box structure that provided the crew with basic small arms fire protection. The operator will be in third place. To complete the design, a movable turret was placed on top of the armored hull superstructure. Power comes from a single 1MA 4-cylinder petrol engine producing 44 hp and a top speed of just under 5 mph.

Armament is variable and depends mainly on available stocks around town: this means that machine guns (7.62mm DT series) are usually mounted - one on the turret, the other on the bow frame. Alternative known weapons include 37mm mountain guns and 45mm anti-tank (AT) guns - entire turrets taken from other destroyed tanks are sometimes simply remounted on NI hulls.

The first vehicles arrived in August 1941 and conducted their first combat missions the following month. The NI proved slow and noisy due to their hasty improvised formations, but they provided the Germans and Romanians with a baffling initial surprise, forcing them to temporarily withdraw.

As many as 70 Odessa tanks were completed during the siege, but this was only a temporary measure - the city fell over time, and the legacy of the tanks themselves went down in history.

Until 1944, Odessa, which was part of Transnistria, was under Romanian rule. Thousands of Odessa were killed by their new overseers, and it wasn't until April 10, 1944, that the city was again occupied by the Soviets.

Specification

Basic

Roles

Dimensions

Performance

Performance

for everyone else in our database)

Armor

Very variable. Depends on the weapon.

Changes