"Project 80" - you do not learn from the military technical manuals and historical books. Tanks overtaking on the water all fast boats...People who have created this a unique project and brought it to mind already died.
On the Structure of Marine speed boats for tanks "Project 80" we were told the staff "Vympel" (in those days - CB "Volgobaltsudoproekt") and Navashino shipyard - now a Distinguished Engineer, in the past - the young designers and mechanics. Technical data we got in once-secret archives of the "Vympel". Only one question remained unanswered: whom and for what purposes needed a tank on a hydrofoil that can outrun any moving object on the water?
Development of craft began in the late 1950's. Tank pontoon, equipped with its own motor and hydrofoil designed by CB "Volgobaltsudoproekt" under the leadership of Mikhail Shchukin.
Wings developed in factory "Red Sormovo" (now the Central Design Bureau) - on the same factory born speed ship "Rocket" and "Meteor." Apparatus and got the engine from "Rocket" - Diesel M-50, with a peak capacity of 1200 hp.
High-speed landing craft consisted set of two boats. Like usual, no motorized pontoons, they hang on the sides of the tank, equipped with special fixtures.
In the transport position hydrofoils is were raised and resembles the wings on car racing. Raised and pressed to the board were the wings front and behind the tank.
Propeller and the steering wheel boats were combined with a rear hydrofoil, so the immersion depth screw can be adjusted.
Landing on water craft could be ready for launch within 45 minutes and loading / unloading of tank - 3 minutes.
Watercraft on the water "Project 80" immediately exceeded the design speed, speeding up to 58 km / h. But during one test - broke connector mounting. Boats separated and the tank went under water.
Not quite everything was smooth with seaworthy. Yes, the unit could move on water with waves up to five Balls, but only in displacement mode, with a corresponding low rate.
If you attempt to storm the stormy water at full speed pontoons literally dived into a wave.
Water enters the air intakes of engines, and diesels stoped....
The task which originally impossible solve - it's firing from the water.
For Shooting from a moving ship on shore targets required a different guidance systems and stabilizing devices.
The shock waves produced when fired, has a huge dynamic loads on the nodes pontoons and the mechanisms and on of their attachment to the tank. Should I talk about the threat to the health of crews ...
Designers managed to bring the car to mind. At a shipyard in Navashino, Rybinsk, Astrakhan was built 13 sets of high-speed landing craft "Project 80".
Experimental winged tank battalion based in Sebastopol. It was rumored that some of the cars went to the Baltic. And in 1971 the project was closed.
The creators of "project-80" focus on solving one very narrow problem - creating craft capable of transporting a tank of water at high speed. They left out of sight of the many technical and tactical issues that ultimately led to the collapse of the project. Certainly, war has its own laws. And yet, "project 1980"is a stunningly elegant and perfect product of Soviet engineering, which, unfortunately, destined to be forgotten.
Together with people who have seen boats their own eyes and die this machines . Last "surviving" the pontoon 80, or rather his body, stored in a closed-ended fund of the Museum of Armored Forces in Kubinka. With every desire to restore the museum staff did not succeed: all attachments machines, including the wings and tie, irretrievably lost - all boats "Project 80"made of high quality and expensive aluminum.