T-10 Heavy Tank

T-10 Heavy Tank
Country	Soviet Union
Role	Heavy Tank
In service	1953–1996
Built	Unknow

The T-10 (also known as Object 730 or, IS-8) was a Soviet heavy tank of the Cold War, the final development of the IS tank series. During development, it was called IS-8 and IS-9. It was accepted into production in 1952 as the IS-10 (Iosif Stalin, Russian form of Joseph Stalin), but due to the political climate in the wake of Stalin’s death in 1953, it was renamed T-10.

Source: T-10 on Wikipedia

T-10 Heavy Tank
Photographer	Unknow
Localisation	Unknow
Photos	141

T-10 001

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T-10M Walk Around
Photographer	Timur
Photos	53

Т-10М Walk Around
Photographer	Unknow
Localisation
Photos	18

T-10M Moscou

Т-10М Walk Around
Photographer	Vladimir Yakubov
Localisation	Unknow
Photos	141

Role and History

The T-10 (originally designated the IS-8 and briefly the IS-9) was the final heavy tank in the line of Soviet IS (“Iosif Stalin”) tanks. It entered service in 1953 and was later renamed T-10 after Stalin’s death in the de-Stalinization period.

It was designed as a heavy breakthrough tank intended to punch through enemy defensive lines, operating in specialized heavy tank regiments. Although superseded by the development of the Main Battle Tank (MBT) concept (like the T-62 and T-64) in the 1960s, the T-10 series remained in Soviet service for decades, only being officially withdrawn from Russian reserves in 1997.

Key Design Features

The T-10 inherited several core design elements from its IS-series predecessors but featured notable improvements in size, armor, and power:

Hull Shape: It retained the distinctive steeply sloped “pike nose” frontal armor configuration from the IS-3, which provided excellent ballistic protection against contemporary anti-tank weapons.
Suspension and Mobility: The hull was lengthened, resulting in a seventh pair of road wheels (unlike the six on the IS-3), which improved weight distribution. It used a torsion-bar suspension.
Powerplant: It was powered by a supercharged V12 diesel engine (initially 700 hp, later 750 hp in the T-10M), giving it a combat weight of around 50 tonnes and a maximum road speed of 42–50 km/h.
Crew: The tank was operated by a crew of four (Commander, Gunner, Loader, Driver).

Armament and Variants

The T-10’s formidable firepower came from its large-caliber main gun, a hallmark of Soviet heavy tank design.

Variant	Main Gun	Key Fire Control / Armament Feature
T-10 (Original)	122 mm D-25TA rifled gun	Equipped with an electromechanical loading rammer.
T-10A	122 mm D-25TS gun	Added a vertical-plane stabilizer (“Uragan”).
T-10M (Final)	Longer 122 mm M-62-T2S gun	Two-plane stabilization, 14.5 mm KPVT heavy machine guns (replacing 12.7 mm DShK), and infrared night vision.

A persistent limitation of the 122 mm main gun was its use of separate loading ammunition (shell and charge), which restricted the rate of fire to around 2–4 rounds per minute, a common trade-off for such massive firepower.