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  • Tsar Bomba on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#1) Tsar Bomba

    On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the most powerful and destructive weapon ever created - the AN602 hydrogen bomb, nicknamed "Tsar Bomba" - in keeping with a variety of other large and unwieldy Russian weapons.

    Tsar Bomba exploded with a yield of 50 to 60 megatons. This was equivalent to 3,800 times the power of the device dropped on Hiroshima by the US during WWII. It produced a mushroom cloud 37 miles high and the light from the detonation was seen up to 620 miles away. It completely leveled an uninhabited village 34 miles from ground zero and reportedly caused damage to structures as far away as 100 miles. Heat from the blast would have caused third-degree burns up to 62 miles away. It was only tested once.

     

  • Object 279 on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#2) Object 279

    Soviet engineers were often asked to develop vehicles that might not be survivable by their crews. The pinnacle of this was Object 279, an experimental heavy tank designed to withstand the shockwave of an atomic blast - then fight in the fallout-drenched aftermath. It weighed 60 tons, carried a crew of four, could traverse just about any ground, and had protection for chemical and biological attacks.

    Two prototypes were built in 1959 and went through trials that proved the tank was too big and cumbersome for the modern battlefield. It was too heavy for Soviet roads, hugely expensive, hard to maintain, and could easily be picked off from the air. Nikita Khrushchev soon declared that the Soviet Union would produce tanks no heavier than 37 tons, and Object 279 headed to a museum.

  • T-42 Superheavy Tank on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#3) T-42 Superheavy Tank

    The interwar period saw a frantic race to build bigger and more powerful supertanks. The Soviet entry into this competition was the T-42. Designed in 1930 by German engineer Edward Grotte, this beast would have weighed 100 tons, carried a crew of 14, and had three turrets carrying a variety of heavy and light guns.

    The Soviet military wasn't impressed with the tank, which needed an engine so powerful that it hadn't been invented, causing the tank to be too slow and vulnerable to actually use. The design never got past a blueprint. Grotte went on to design the 1,000-ton behemoth "Ratte" tank for Germany - which was also canceled in the blueprint stage.

  • Anti-Tank Dogs on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#4) Anti-Tank Dogs

    Numerous countries have turned to the animal kingdom to help find an edge in warfare - and the results were usually pretty subpar. Starting as far back as the late 1300s, Mongolian chieftains used flaming camels to disperse their enemies. WWII was the height of attempting to weaponize animals, highlighted by the Soviet use of dog mines - dogs with explosives strapped to their backs, trained to run under German tanks to make them explode.

    Reportedly, these poor creatures destroyed over 300 German vehicles, though the program was stopped when it proved difficult to ensure the dogs would run in the right direction, as opposed to simply destroying the first tank they saw.

  • Tsar Tank on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#5) Tsar Tank

     

    A completely impractical tank design, the Tsar Tank was a huge armored vehicle designed like a giant reverse tricycle. It had huge front wheels measuring 30 feet in diameter and a small back wheel for balance.

    Designed to be bristling with weapons and able to traverse any kind of terrain, the machine turned out to be slow and prone to breakdowns, mostly due to its small rear wheel. It also would have been an easy target, as it had no ability to carry armor and its wheels were unprotected. A prototype was built in 1914, but never got past that stage.

     

  • Tupolev Tu-95LAL on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#6) Tupolev Tu-95LAL

    • Aircraft model

    The arms race between the US and the Soviet Union didn't end at missiles and ships - it extended to experimental planes with no practical application. So when the US started developing a nuclear-powered bomber, the Convair NB-36H Crusader, Russia jumped in with their own designs. Tupolev engineers took one of their existing Tu-95 bombers and fitted it with a small nuclear reactor and shielding to protect the crew.

    The LAL made over 40 test flights, but most with the reactor turned off. Concerns about the effectiveness of the shielding never went away. A second version, the Tu-119, was started, but the program was canceled due to cost and environmental concerns. These are the same reasons the US program was canceled.

  • Thumb of Corkscrew Tank video

    (#7) Corkscrew Tank

    Pondering a way to transport troops over inhospitable ground, Cold War engineers developed the idea of using giant corkscrews as treads. 

    The problem was that while the tank could move decently through muddy or snowy ground, it was useless on roads or on flat, hard ground. It also could only go forward or backwards, couldn't turn, and was both incredibly slow and prone to breakdowns. The Soviets did use some in Arctic areas, but found them to be highly impractical in most other environmental contexts. 

  • Zveno Flying Aircraft Carrier on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#8) Zveno Flying Aircraft Carrier

    The Zveno represented the Soviet experiment to attach smaller parasite fighters to a larger host plane. About 10 Zveno planes were built, typically using huge TB-3 bombers and a variety of smaller fighters. All were designed to have the fighter engines running, and the thrust of the bomber would give the initial push to the fighters, which would attack targets and fly back to their bases.

    The Zvenos flew about 30 missions in the early stages of WWII, often performing well. Three parasite fighters were shot down, but never one of the hosts. The planes were retired when the small fighters they carried became obsolete.

  • Antonov A-40 on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#9) Antonov A-40

    • Aircraft model

    Designed to be airlifted in support of airborne or partisan operations, the A-40 was a light tank with glider wings attached to it. It would be towed by a larger aircraft, then released over the desired landing area. One prototype was built, but the design was impossible to tow by the small aircraft of the day, and there was no assurance that the tank and the crew would land together - or that any of it would land without being destroyed or overtaken by the enemy.

    The project was scrapped - though it was a better idea than what the Soviets had previously tried, which was simply dropping a tank out of a cargo plane, and having the crew parachute down.

  • Kozlov PS Invisible Plane on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#10) Kozlov PS Invisible Plane

    Soviet Professor Sergei Kozlov was granted permission to use one Yakovlev AIR-4 plane for a very unusual - and prescient - experiment. He took the fabric covering on the fuselage and wings and replaced it with a transparent plastic material of his own invention. He then painted the opaque structure with a mix of white paint and aluminum dust to try to make the plane appear invisible.
     
    Kozlov's design did actually work, though the paint attracted dirt and dust, which diminished the effect of the stealth. There were also concerns that the material wasn't strong enough to hold the plane together, and about the glare given off by the aluminum. Further experiments were carried out, but the Kozlov invisible plane never saw action.

  • Fractional Orbital Bombardment System on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#11) Fractional Orbital Bombardment System

    Looking beyond traditional ballistic missiles, the Soviets developed a program called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System. These were missiles that would enter a low Earth orbit, then de-orbit for an attack. The missiles could theoretically hit anything at any time, and because they were already in orbit, their flight path couldn't be deduced until a nuclear attack had already begun.

    Because such weapons were banned by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the Soviets tested them without the warheads. Three designs were developed, and one, the 8K69, was actually put into service. Eighteen launchers stood ready to wipe out millions of people from 1969 through 1983, when they were retired.

  • L-1 Hovercraft Tank on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#12) L-1 Hovercraft Tank

    Engineer Vladimir Levkov developed the L-1 hovercraft in 1934. He worked with a team from Moscow Aircraft Plant #84 and built a 1:4 mockup in 1937. The machine would have been powered by two aircraft engines and armed with whatever could be positioned in its turret - in this case, just one machine gun.

    Levkov's design went nowhere, as the design failed to attract a high-ranking patron in the Soviet military.

  • Lun-class ekranoplan on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#13) Lun-class ekranoplan

    • Aircraft model

    Also called a "ground effect aircraft," the ekranoplan is neither aircraft nor hovercraft. They're technically classified as ships, despite having wings and a tail. The Lun class was the largest of many different Soviet ekranoplans - three were built for military service, armed with powerful anti-ship missiles.

    They served from 1987 through the late '90s, at which time two were scrapped. One still exists in situ, with new designs being worked on by Russian engineers.

  • Ushakov's Flying Submarine on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#14) Ushakov's Flying Submarine

    Soviet engineer Boris Ushakov developed a blueprint for a three-engine aircraft that could seal its outer hull with metal plates and dive, in order to fire its two torpedoes. It was a submarine with wings that could fly... or an airplane that could submerge, depending on how one looks at it. 

    The project was suspended in 1939, but then restarted in 1943 by order of the Soviet secret police. Engineers built the first prototype in 1947, but by then, the war was over and Soviet military research was directed elsewhere. The flying submarine never flew or dove.

  • Polyus on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#15) Polyus

    With the US developing the SDI missile defense system (AKA Star Wars), it fell to the Soviets to come up with a countermeasure. That turned out to be Polyus, a prototype orbital weapons platform designed to shoot down SDI satellites with a megawatt carbon-dioxide laser.

    Polyus was duly launched in 1987, just four years after Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech kicked off the US development of SDI. However, the satellite failed to reach orbit, burning up over the Pacific Ocean. Mikhail Gorbachev had prohibited Russian weaponizing of space. The program was canceled after the one launch, with the components being used for other Soviet/Russian space programs.

  • Thumb of Progvev-T Gasdynamic Trawler video

    (#16) Progvev-T Gasdynamic Trawler

    With a surplus of both T-54 tank hulls and MiG-15 jet engines, a Soviet engineer combined them together to create the Progvev-T gasdynamic trawler. In keeping with its component parts, it was a tank hull fitted with a jet engine, with the theory being that the exhaust from the engine could preemptively heat and detonate mines so fields could be cleared. 

    However, that theory was flawed. The trawler was slow (it weighed 37 tons), unarmed, and an easy target that would spectacularly explode if it was hit in battle. Also, it was so heavy that it ripped up the ground under the mines it was trying to clear.

  • 1K17 Szhatie Laser Tank on Random Unique Russian Military Inventions

    (#17) 1K17 Szhatie Laser Tank

    The 1K17 Szhatie was developed in the late '80s as a mobile laser - a battlefield-ready way to disable the optical-electrical equipment on planes, vehicles, and missiles. The Soviets got so into the possibilities of the program that its development was one of the best-kept secrets in the USSR, at least until defectors to the West smuggled drawings with them.

    The key to the tank was its laser, which depended on an astounding 30 kilograms of artificial rubies to focus. This would have made the tank so expensive that mass producing them would have been impossible. It also needed a clear line of sight, something virtually impossible to get in combat. Over a decade of development didn't amount to much, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, so too did the Szhatie. One was scrapped, the other went to a museum.

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About This Tool

Russian scientific achievements have made great contributions to the development of modern human civilization and therefore are appreciated by the world. Especially the modern military inventions in recent centuries. The military industry is very important to Russia, its domestic economy relies heavily on the munitions industry, and it also plays an important role in the world military market.

Many important Russian military inventions have made important contributions to the development of the country's military strength, and many of them have even changed history. The random tool lists 17 unique Russian military inventions in world history.

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