T-55 in the Tropics
This series of articles about combat in the T-55 main battle tank with the Sri Lanka Army, takes place as a conversation between the author and a retired officer of the Armored Corps who prefers to remain unidentified. The narrator’s recollections are part of an oral history project aimed at preserving the memories of the combatants without regard to political considerations.
Some history of the type
The Soviet T-54 & 55 family has the distinction of being the most produced main battle tank (MBT) in history. Designed after the Second World War (WW2) by the OKB-520 design bureau of the Stalin Ural Tank Factory №183 (Uralvagonzavod) under the direction of Leonid N. Kartsev, it was the offspring of the tank battles fought by the Red Army against Nazi forces during the long battle that raged from Moscow to Berlin.
Incorporating lessons learned in that savage campaign, the T-55 formed the backbone of the Warsaw Pact nations’ armies for several decades. In the event of another war, armored columns with these behemoths in the vanguard would have poured through the Fulda Gap (in Germany) through to Western Europe.
