Saturday night is always a good time for tanks. Back in 2011, I went to the Marco Polo Bridge and the adjacent museum in the faraway suburbs of Beijing. The museum had lots of cool stuff, including a T-34 tank and a T-34 recovery vehicle.
T-34 tank
Both vehicles were shipped to China by the Soviet Union and fought on the Chinese side in the 1950-1953 Korean War. The Chinese army donated the tanks to the museum in 2005.
The Soviet Union T-34 debuted in 1940 and is often credited with saving the country from the German invasion in 1941 and the subsequent defeat of Nazi Germany. During the Korean War, the Soviet Union gave T-34s to both North Korea and China.
The T-34 tank weighed 32 tons. It had a crew of five and a 55 km/h top speed. Maximum gradeability was 30 degrees, and it could cross rivers 1.3 meters deep. Armament consisted of an 85 mm main gun and a 7.62 mm machine gun. Some T-34s were also equipped with a 12.7 mm anti-aircraft gun. The main gun had a max range of 13.8 kilometers.
T-34 recovery vehicle
On the battlefield, recovery vehicles are used to pull out stranded tanks and other fighting vehicles, and bring them back into safety so they can fight another day. The T-34 recovery vehicle is based on the same chassis as the T-34 tank. The construction on top is basically a crane, able to pull other vehicles using a steel rope spun around the winch.
Power of the T-34 came from a 38.8 liter (!) V12 diesel engine with an output of 500 hp. The operational range for the tank was 250 kilometers. The range for the recovery vehicle was likely a bit more, as it didn’t have to carry the heavy main gun.
The museum’s main building is on the left side.
The Marco Polo Bridge
The Marco Polo Bridge over the Yongding River. The bridge was first built in 1189 and rebuilt in 1698. On each side, it has hundreds of different lion statures. The bridge is most famous for the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, which marked the beginning of the escalation of the Chinese-Japanese War. It is still a revered place in China, and nowadays, a fast subway ride away from the city center. In 2011, it was an hour’s drive by car.