David Herbert Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 I understand that there is an English language version of at least one of the T-55 tank manuals. Most Soviet AFVs have a description & operators instructions, a user maintainence manual, an overhaul manual and a parts list, all of which were updated from time to time. I have no idea which of these were available in English or if they were British / American translations or supplied with Soviet exports in the same way that the radios of export vehicles were labled in English. Does anyone know who published them or if they are avaiable to download from the net possibly ? I would certainly be interested in a copy if anyone has a spare one. Thanks David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texas pete Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 Have you got T-55 manuals in other languages? I've found translating sections of them helpfull when I've been working on my BRDM-2. The pharses can be interesting afterwards, but you get the point... I had a hard copy manual for my BRDM which I scanned with an OCR and then cut and paste the sections I wanted into yahoo Bable fish. I also found this useful when I came across Czech and Polish online manuals. - I'll see if I can find the links to these sites, maybe they have something on the T-55 too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Herbert Posted January 16, 2014 Author Share Posted January 16, 2014 Pete, Thanks for your reply, PM sent. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woa2 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 I seem to remember reading somewhere that Soviet manuals issued with vehicles supplied to Middle Eastern countries were in English as it was a common language. I could be wrong, but it could be worth investigating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antar Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 We have one in the collection I help look after. But we also have no English language manuals for it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biffj Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 I've heard of US Military manuals for a number of russian tanks. We got one for the T62 and the BMP-1 but haven't found the one for the T55 yet. We recently heard from another tank owner here in the US that he had an english manual for the T55 but haven't seen anything yet.... One problem with the US manuals is that the writers were frequently not the operators and they are full of minor mistakes. One that makes me laugh is the US BMP-1 manual where it suggests opening the valve directly in front and to the right of the drivers seat to clear the water from the air system prior to starting. Only problem is that the valve is actually the drain for the coolant system. If the floor drain is open when you open the valve they're speaking of you can drain all the coolant in about 10 minutes or enough to ruin the engine in about 1. The manuals need to be checked over pretty carefully with an eye on the real vehicle prior to depending on them.... Frank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FW200 Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 I would recommend getting the German (DDR) manuals as well for that reason.. They are a bit tricky to read because it's offcourse technical German as opposed to normal, but you could more easily translate that or have a native speaker translate it for you. Crosscheck it with an English one and you should be golden :-D A bonus is that the DDR ones are very easy to find and come with diagrams etc.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Herbert Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 Thank you Frank, good point. I have now established that Soviet vehicles which went new to Iraq, Syria, Africa etc did have manuals and labeling in English, regardless of the country that they were going to. Enough were obtained by the British military for their own use and it seems that we hardly bothered to do our own translations. However the US military did do their own and if you have the right connections these can be found. Czechoslovakian production for export to non Soviet but sympathetic countries had KS added to their designations, which stood for capitalist state! They had less NBC protection and other simplifications. I eventually got a manual from Bosnia via Ebay (what would we do without it?). It is in Serbian but written in latin text (same as we use) so is much more accessable. It seems that Serbians traditionaly write in Cyrillic but were made to use latin text when part of Yugoslavia, adding to the resentment that boiled over when Yugoslavia broke up. Its a shame that Ebay is not big in Iraq. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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