For a long time, engineers dreamed of building a tank that could fly. The Red Army achieved this by installing a T-37A amphibious reconnaissance tank on a TB-3 bomber. The plan worked, but the plane still needed an easy runway to land. This severely limits the tactical application of airdrop tanks.
The solution was to install disposable wings on the tank chassis so that it could land on various surfaces, remove the wings and immediately enter combat. The project is called KT (Krylya Tanka). It consisted of a T-60 tank and a glider towed by TB-7 bombers. On September 2, 1942, a prototype was tested.
Since no TB-7 was available, a TB-3 with a supercharged engine was used. To save weight, the T-60 tanks used in the test had no turret and carried very little fuel. The whole process went smoothly until shortly after takeoff, when the engine began to overheat. The glider had to disengage. Although the landing was successful and the glider device was not dropped after landing, the project was eventually shelved. The T-60 is obsolete and there is no AFV of similar weight to replace. Contemporaneous British "lords" and American "locusts" were equally powerless. It wasn't until long after the end of that war that Soviet troops were able to effectively airdrop armored vehicles.
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