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Hi,

I'm currently looking for references on the interiors of some tanks used in WWII. I eventually stumbled upon AFV Interiors, but noticed that they closed down. A search for AFV Interiors led me to this website, so I'm hoping someone over here can help me gather the needed references.

I'm in need of everything I can get my hands on for the following tank interiors:

Russian - BT5
Russian - BT7
Russian - T-26
German - Pz35(t) (AKA the Czech LT vz.35)
German - Pz38(t) (AKA the Czech LT vz.38)

I need these references because my team and I are developing a mod for the game Red Orchestra: Ostfront '41-'45. Since most exteriors are done, we need to focus on interiors now, however decent references aren't really easy to stumble upon.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Steven 'DeV' Thewissen
Lead Developer
www.carpathiancrosses.com

Hi Devni,

Welcome to the AFV DG!

A lot of people saved pages from AFV Interiors (at Mike's urging) but I don't recall those vehicles being among the vehicles featured. For sure they're not among the ones I saved.

As your interest (well, the link, anyway) seems centered on the conflict as it involved/affected Romania, I presume you're familiar with and/or a member over here:

www.worldwar2.ro/forum...=1778&st=0

....those guys seem to have a wealth of information on tanks involved in the campaigns there. Never seen any interior views and none of the books I brought back from Romania on tanks in service there show interior views (who was thinking about this at the time?... and subsequent events and regimes were not interested in preserving some chapters of history, methinks).

"Dragos" seems to be "The Man" over there, maybe be can gets some doors opened for you...he seems to have access to some interesting archives. We'd sure love to know what you find.

Steven: contact me offsite. I have some Pz 38t interior photos and I'm a devoted Red Orchestra player!!!

roy.chow @ aya.yale.edu

You can find some inerior pictures of a BT-7 here
www.thetankmaster.com/...935_01.asp

HTH

Jeff Lewis

Hello from Forgotten Hope/Forgotten Hope 2 researcher!

So, BT-5/BT-7 is real big problem. Interior refs is low, and they are different inside. In thisspring i post parts of BT-5 manual, and some months ago also BT-7 Mod.1935/Mod.1937 manuals (also parts).

About R-2 - you need to seek this book, published by MBI:

www.kajacircle.com/kli..._skoda.htm

Info about LT vz.38 you can find in books from WWP:

And nice book from MBI:

www.kajacircle.com/kli..._praga.htm

Also, if you need info about R-1 tankette, you need MBI book:

www.kajacircle.com/kli...kettes.htm

BTW if you need some romanian stuff, i have some in my Prime Portal section
www.primeportal.net/ar...rita_smg_2
www.primeportal.net/ar...r_mod_1937
www.primeportal.net/ar...holok/zb37
www.primeportal.net/ar...olok/zb.30

Yeah, I recently stumbled upon PrimePortal, quite some nice information and decent references on there. As a matter of fact, I also e-mailed Charles Kliment asking for help and got some nice Pz35(t) and 38(t) references.

Problem still is and always has been the BT7 and 5, especially the turret. Since we would want to make them as close to reality as possible, we seem to be complicating matters. My best bet on getting BT7 references would be to contact someone with access to a BT7, but seeing as most of those museums etc. are in Russia, and they never returned my e-mails, I'm kind of becoming hopeless on ever finding decent BT interior refs.

Taranov, seeing as how FH is also including a BT7, would it be possible to see how you guys did your interior as a reference? Same for the T26 if possible?

- devnl

Problem still is and always has been the BT7 and 5, especially the turret. Since we would want to make them as close to reality as possible, we seem to be complicating matters. My best bet on getting BT7 references would be to contact someone with access to a BT7, but seeing as most of those museums etc. are in Russia, and they never returned my e-mails, I'm kind of becoming hopeless on ever finding decent BT interior refs.

Main problem - BT-7 mod.1937. He have new turret, and only two preserved. One in Victory park of Poklonnaya Hill, second in Khabarovsk, too far for me BT-5 and BT-7 mod.1935 have T-26 style turret.
Some refs of turret you can find here:
www.thetankmaster.com/...rola_3.asp
www.thetankmaster.com/...rola_4.asp

BT-7 manual
www.zshare.net/downloa...6927c744e5
www.zshare.net/downloa...913247cdaa
BT-7 Mod.1937 manual
www.zshare.net/downloa...41182b1290
BT-5 manual (right now link don't work, check later)
www.rapidshare.ru/400014

Taranov, seeing as how FH is also including a BT7, would it be possible to see how you guys did your interior as a reference? Same for the T26 if possible?

We haven't interiors in tanks, only sights. Interiors in BF42/BF2 engine not useful, in fact...

Taranov, thanks for the references, they'll help us, ofcourse, if anyone has more it's always welcome. About the sights in FH, where did you find the sights of the Pz38(t)? I know they used a sight called the TZF(t), which probably is a german modification of the original Czech sight, but I have yet to find any information on how it looks. Since the game we're developing has both interiors and sights, we can use any reference on them too.

- devnl

About the sights in FH, where did you find the sights of the Pz38(t)? I know they used a sight called the TZF(t), which probably is a german modification of the original Czech sight, but I have yet to find any information on how it looks.

In soviet operational manual for PzKpfw 38(t).

I'd love to get a copy of that if you have access to it

I do not pretend to know what the copyright status of old Soviet documents are but it is incumbant upon group members to ensure that they do not violate copyright laws when providing copies of documents to others.

I know that documents created by the U.S. Gov't may be freely copied. I do not know about those created by any other government

I don't think there are rights in the USSR.

Mark,
Bob is addressing a legitimate issue that has and might come up again in the future so we just want to make sure the site and forum's position is adequately known. While it's unlikely that there are any applicable restrictions on a document that old at this point, just in case it's in reprint and any copyrights are claimed, we want to make sure that members are in compliance, especially when there is an effort to share such material in the open forum. We don't want to appear complicit in any violations, however unlikely that might seem in the present case.

It's a mean, ol' world out there, and I just spent part of this morning fighting to get some of my material removed from another website where it was being used without permission. Kinda' need to be consistant, just in case copyrights apply in this case.

D.

Wydawnictwo Books have a couple of decent volumes on the T-26.

#193 T-26 volume 1
#197 T-26 voulume 2

IIRC, volume 2 includes excerpts from T-26 tm's. I have both books at home. I'll check further later on tonight.

In all seriousness Copyrights obtained during the Soviet era are still considered in force. (I did a little checking before my previous post) But I am not sure of its applicability to government produced documents. I believe the U.S. is a fairly unique case. U.S. law explicitly states that any document produced by the U.S. Gov't is considered Public Domain. In the article I found I could find no explicit statement for the Russian, Soviet or even the British gov't. If anyone has an authortative source about these or any other governments documents I would appreciate knowing. Wikopedia only counts if it can reference a true legal source)

Given recent events on this board I believe we need to be careful. Copying short passages may fall under the 'Fair Use' doctrine but making significant portions of a work available is wrong