The ‘tachanka’ was formally accepted for service with the Red Army almost a decade after the civil war period, with which it is usually historically associated
One of the most symbolic, if not entirely practical early Sovietera military combat vehicles was the ‘tachanka’, a horsedrawn machine gun cart. With the era of diesel and petrol engines coming to an end, an article on horse-drawn machine gun carriages is perhapsnot so un-topical in a magazine dedicated to fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
The tachanka (plural ‘tachanki’) horsedrawn machine gun cart ostensibly dated from the beginning of the 20th century and is well known in old Soviet movies and photographs as a Russian Revolution-era vehicle. The tachanka was however used in large numbers by the Imperial Russian Army before seeing service on both sides during the Russian Civil War that followed the Russian Revolution of 1917. The tachanka was only much belatedly adopted for service by the newly formed Red Army in 1928.
The tachanka entered service known as the ‘Boevaya Konno-Pulemetnaya Tachanka’ (horse-drawn machine gun cart) M-1926. It was formally adopted for service a year after the first entirely Soviet-designed BA-27 armoured car and MS-1 (T…
