T-26 (China)

␗T-26

␗Chi-Ha

␗T-26

␗Chi-Ha

China

I Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
1.0	1.0	1.0

Class:

Light tank

Research:Free

Purchase:Free

This page is about the Soviet light tank T-26 (China). For other uses, see T-26 (Family).

Description

The ␗T-26 mod. 1939 is a rank I Chinese light tank with a battle rating of 1.0 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.91 "Night Vision". It is identical to the Soviet T-26.

General info

Survivability and armour

This is definitively the worst characteristic of this vehicle; armour is flat and thin on all sides. Do not expose yourself to enemy fire. Crew placement is not lined up from the front, meaning shells without HE filler can take up to 3 shots before being destroyed. Beware of HMGs and autocannons, since they will be able to penetrate your armour.

Armour type:

• Rolled homogeneous armour

Armour	Front	Sides	Rear	Roof
Hull	15 mm (22°) Front plate 7 mm (64-80°) Front glacis 15 mm (6-52°) Lower glacis	15 mm (21-23°) Top 15 mm (0°) Bottom	15 mm (0°) Top 15 mm (12°) Bottom	10 mm Hull 6 mm Rear
Turret	15 mm (13-15°) Turret front 15 mm (5-44°) Gun mantlet	15 mm (17-19°)	15 mm (17°)	10 mm

Notes

• Suspension wheel is 10 mm thick while tracks are 15 mm thick.
• Belly armour is 6 mm thick.

Mobility

Game Mode	Max Speed (km/h)		Weight (tons)	Engine power (horsepower)		Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
	Forward	Reverse		Stock	Upgraded	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	34	4	9.8	141	174	14.39	17.76
Realistic	31	4		80	91	8.16	9.29

While being a light tank, its mobility is one of a medium. It will take you where you want to be, provided you choose your route well and avoid tricky manoeuvres. Reverse speed, while not great (-3 km/h), can save you from some bad situations, provided cover is not too far behind.

Armaments

Main armament

The 20-K is the typical Soviet rank 1 gun. Players should get used to it since it will be your main armament up until rank 2. The APHEBC round has a good amount of HE filler, meaning penetrating shells will do good damage, sometimes even one-shotting enemies. In longer ranges, shells begin to lose penetration and accuracy; it is not made for sniping. Try to bring ~10-15 BR-240SP (pure AP shells) for heavier targets. This gun is very forgiving to beginners, with its very fast reload speed and turret traverse.

45 mm 20-K
Capacity			Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance	Stabilizer
205			-5°/+28°	±180°	N/A
Turret rotation speed (°/s)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
Arcade	15.23	21.08	25.60	28.31	30.12
Realistic	9.50	11.20	13.60	15.04	16.00
Reloading rate (seconds)
Stock	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
3.80	3.34	3.07	2.90

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration in mm @ 90°
		10m	100m	500m	1000m	1500m	2000m
BR-240	APHEBC	69	68	59	50	42	35
BR-240SP	AP	73	71	62	52	44	37

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity in m/s	Projectile Mass in kg	Fuse delay in m:	Fuse sensitivity in mm:	Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent):	Normalization At 30° from horizontal:	Ricochet:
								0%	50%	100%
BR-240	APHEBC	760	1.4	1.2	15	32.3	+4°	48°	63°	71°
BR-240SP	AP	757	1.4	N/A	N/A	N/A	-1°	47°	60°	65°

Ammo racks

Full ammo	1st rack empty	2nd rack empty	3rd rack empty	4th rack empty	5th rack empty	6th rack empty	7th rack empty	8th rack empty	9th rack empty	10th rack empty	11th rack empty	12th rack empty	13th rack empty	Visual discrepancy
205	202 (+3)	197 (+8)	187 (+18)	177 (+28)	167 (+38)	157 (+48)	139 (+66)	121 (+84)	103 (+102)	79 (+126)	61 (+144)	29 (+176)	1 (+204)	No

Ammo racks of the T-26 (China)

Turret empty: 157 (+48)

Machine guns

7.62 mm DT
Coaxial mount
Capacity (Belt capacity)				Fire rate (shots/minute)	Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance
1,890 (63)				600	N/A	N/A

Usage in battles

The T-26 is definitely best suited to a more support role, flanking the battlefield and finding a good position to support your teammates from, the 45mm cannon has very good characteristics with its rounds (APHEBC, AP) being able to deal fair damage to enemy vehicles from short and long-range and the fast reload allowing for quick adjustment of aim between shots, this allows the T-26 to be a highly effective flanking vehicle if a good camping spot is found, however, the limited gun depression (-6°) will affect which positions are usable, keeping long-range is certainly an effective way to avoid taking damage. The T-26 is also usable at closer ranges for brawling with enemy vehicles, but it should be kept in mind that the thin armour on the T-26 (≤15mm) will leave the vital modules of your vehicle such as your crew, gun & powerplant (engine & transmission) at risk of taking damage, the mobility of the T-26 is also lesser than many of its counterparts which could potentially put it at risk in a brawling scenario, on the other hand, the T-26's good reload (3.77 - 2.9s) will usually give it an upper hand if you can survive the first shots against an enemy vehicle.

Due to the top speed of the T-26 being less than many other vehicles at its BR (30 km/h), it will usually arrive in the battlefield after the fighting has already begun, this has the advantage of arriving after your team has already identified many targets, and also meaning that you will not be in the front line of attack, this will usually allow for you to last a bit longer than players who rushed the centre of the battlefield, alternatively, it is also less likely that you will reach capture points before they are capped by your faster teammates although there are cases where you can help capture a contested point.

The lack of armour is really something to be kept in mind, even some machine guns (8 mm, 12.7 mm) will be able to go through you thickest pieces of armour (15mm), due to this you want to be trying your best to avoid enemy vehicles getting the first shot, driving undercover is advisable to avoid being spotted and if you spot an enemy vehicle it would be best to engage and destroy them as soon as possible to avoid them becoming a threat, due to the lack of effective armour, aircraft can also be a risk, again, staying in cover will make it more difficult for enemy vehicles to spot and engage your T-26.

In terms of the T-26's gun, there are 2 round options, the APHEBC round has 70mm best effective penetration as well as 29.26g of TNT equivalent explosive, this will allow for this round to penetrate most armour at this BR and also have good post pen damage if the fuse is set off. Second round type is an AP round, this has 73mm best effective penetration but lacks any explosive filler, this makes its post pen damage less effective than the APHEBC round. More information on these two ammunition options can be found in the "ammunition" section above.

It is also worth keeping in mind that the T-26 only has a reverse speed of 3km/h, this is something to remember when driving into potential enemy fire.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Great firepower; the stock shell has 69 mm maximum penetration and 32g TNT which can frontally penetrate and one-shot many tanks it will face
• During an up-tier situation it can still effectively penetrate tanks like the B1
• Massive ammo capacity and fast reload time is good for new players learning to manoeuvre and fire

Cons:

• Very low survivability; the armour is thin, not angled and is only 15 mm max
• Easily frontally penetrated by anything like the Pz.II, Pz.III and even heavy machine gun
• Three crew members packed tightly together significantly reduces survivability
• Poor mobility overall; low top speed limits its manoeuvrability around the battlefield, a weak engine doesn't allow it to climb hills
• Narrow tracks slows it even more in desert maps like Sinai or snowy maps like Frozen Pass
• An extremely slow reverse speed of only -3 km/h is typically fatal as it cannot back away from danger in time
• Average turret rotation combined with the sluggish hull traverse makes extremely difficult to respond to flankers quickly
• Average -5° gun depression limits its potential in hilly terrains
• Some ammo is stored inside turret which tends to explode when hit

History

Development

The T-26 light tank design is derived from the British Vickers 6-ton tank. In the early 1930s, a Soviet buying committee travelled to Britain and purchased tanks, tractors, and cars for use in the Soviet Union, of which the Vickers tank was chosen. Fifteen twin-turreted Vickers tank arrived into the Soviet Union in May 1930, equipped with only machine guns. Four more Vickers were delivered at the end of 1930, these being the single-turret variants with a 47 mm gun, and the deliveries were finished by 1932. The Vickers-produced tanks were designated as the V-26.

The Vickers 6-ton tank competed with several Soviet designs for the "most suitable" tank design for Soviet use. One such competitor was the Soviet T-19 light tank, which had advantages over the Vickers design, but also disadvantages. The T-19 designer, S. Ginzburg, suggested for a "hybrid" tank to be built off the features of the T-19 and the Vickers tank. But in January 1931, intelligence picked up that Poland bought up many foreign tanks from Britain and France with a license to mass-produce them. This information pressured the Soviet military council to adopt the foreign tanks into Soviet usage; thus, the Vickers 6-ton tank, under the designation T-26, was accepted into service on February 13, 1931 as a mainstay of the Red Army's armoured forces.

Although outclassed later in the war, it was considered one of the more successful and widely produced tank models in the 1930s. It, along with the BT light tanks, composed of the majority of Russia's armoured forces in the late 1930s. It weighed just a little under 10 tons, had 15 mm thick armour in front, with a 45 mm 20-K gun, and had a crew of three people. The Bolshevik Factory in Leningrad was the first factory to start producing the T-26 from June 1931, and production of the tank lasted from then until 1941.

Variants

During its production life, many variants were made for different purposes, up to 53 different ones to fit different roles, though only 23 would see service in production. Such designs included changes like a twin-turreted version (some with only machine guns and some with cannons), command tanks, added armour, artillery tanks (such as the T-26-4), flamethrower tanks, remote-controlled tanks, or just armoured carriers to tow artillery and such. Others were simply modified variants of the normal variants such as the T-26E, which was the base single-turreted T-26 design with 30-40 mm appliqué armour made during the Winter War to make them more resilient against the Finnish anti-tank weapons.

All these tanks produced from 1931 to 1941 made up a total of 10,300 tanks, and 1,701 other variants of it, for a total of 12,001 units produced.

Combat usage

In 1937-39, a period of high tensions between the USSR and Japan, the Soviets provided 88 T-26 M33 tanks to China. The T-26, which along with the BT tanks, would constitute three-quarters of the Soviet tank force at the start of its war with Germany in 1941, had been developed from and was very similar to the Vickers 6-ton tank, a model which China had previously bought from Britain. With 20 of those tanks, mostly the Vickers Mark E armed with a short 47 mm gun, fighting with the 1st and 2nd Tank Battalions around Shanghai in 1937, is where most had been lost to the Japanese. The T-26s that came after appear to have been radio-equipped. They were assigned to the 1st Tank Regiment, which had elements attached to the new 200th (Motorised) Division, the first such division in the Chinese army. The 200th division, with at least nine T-26s, was deployed to Burma in the spring of 1942. Most of its tanks were believed lost in that campaign, although they acquitted themselves well. Other T-26 elements saw action in China proper throughout the war.

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

• Standard Russian T-26: T-26
• Premium T-26 No.531: T-26 No.531

External links

Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:

• topic on the official game forum;
• encyclopedia page on the tank;
• other literature.