The American front-line M-1 tank, for example, can do a top speed of 45 mph (72 kph). On tracks, a Christie tank could move at 47 mph (nearly 76 kph), but on bogies, it could hit 69 mph (111 kph). He added to the suspension system rubber-road-bogie wheels that could take over for the tracks on good roads. To achieve that goal, Christie’s tank featured a unique undercarriage suspension where each road wheel operates independently on long coil springs. Light or medium tanks could travel rapidly across fields and roadways to rapidly smash the enemy by breaking up his main forces. It was his front-wheel-drive and other technologies he pioneered that Christie used to design an innovative battle tank – the mother of all modern battle tanks.Ĭhristie’s idea was radically different. To compliment his front-wheel-drive system, Christie developed the first front-wheel independent suspension – now common on nearly all automobiles, replacing clumsy leaf springs which poorly absorbed shock caused by bad roads. Among his inventions was what is now called “front-wheel drive”, a system that propels a vehicle where its power wheels were in the front and not in the rear, eliminating chain drives that early cars used to power rear wheels. Trained as an engineer, Christie got involved with automobiles in the early 20th century. Christie was born in May 1865 just after the close of the US Civil War in New Milford, New Jersey.

But the part of the story not being told is that the T-34 was possible thanks to an American inventor and two innovative Russian military leaders liquidated by Stalin as part of the Great Purge that nearly destroyed the Russian Army.

More than 58,000 were manufactured between 19. The T-34 is the most successful tank ever built. The new Russian blockbuster film “ T-34” celebrates not only fictional Russian heroes who fight their way out of a Nazi concentration camp, but also a partially reconstructed tank.

Battle of tank t-34 movie download