The BA-10 was the heaviest armored car used by the Soviets in WWII. Designed in the early 1930, it was of fairly conventional layout for the period, being little more than an armored body on a truck chassis. One unusual feature was that chains could be run around the tires on both rear axles, creating a makeshift halftrack. In 1938, an improved model, known as the BA-10M or BA-32, entered service. One shortcoming of the new model was that, with the turret facing forward ad the cannon level, the muzzle of the 45mm gun was only inches from the driver’s face. Some 1,200 of all types were built. Many were captured in 1941 by the Germans and Romanians, who used them for anti-partisan duties in the Balkans. After 1942, many of those still in Soviet service were converted to personnel carriers by removing the turret. The car continued to be used until lack of spare parts forced their abandonment.
The BA-32 had a crew of four, driver and co-driver/gunner in the body and gunner and loader in the turret. The turret was manually rotated at 7 degrees per second by the gunner and loader. The armored car used 2.8 gallons of fuel per hour at routine usage.
BA-32
Subassemblies: Small Wheeled chassis +3, Large Weapon turret
+2, ten off-road wheels +1.
Powertrain: 63-kW gas engine with 63-kW wheeled transmission
and 26-gallon standard fuel tank; 4,000-kWs batteries
Occupancy: 2 CS Body, 2 CS Both. Cargo: 3 Body.
Armor
Body: F 4/75, RL 4/30, B 4/30, T 4/20, U 4/20
Tur: F 4/50, RL 4/30, B 4/30, T 4/20, U 0/0
Weaponry
50mm Medium Tank Gun/45mmL46 [Turret:F] (50).
Ground LMG/ 7.62mm DT [Turret:F] (1,368).
Ground LMG/ 7.62mm DT [Body:F] (693).
Equipment
Body: Medium radio transmitter and transceiver.
Statistics
| Size: 15'x7'x8' | Payload : 0.7 tons | Lwt: 7.5 tons |
| Volume: 46 | Maint.: 106 hours | Price: $3,500 |
HT: 7
HP: 170 [body], 120 [turret], 18 [each wheel]
| gSpeed: 54 | aAccel: 2 | aDecel: 10 | aMR: 0.25 | aSR: 4 |
Design Notes
The design speed was 46 mph. The body HPs, cost and weight were doubled.
Frontal armor effectively had a mild slope; as wheeled vehicles in the
MVDS do not have sloping options, extra DR was purchased. Weight was increased
10%.
Technically, in the MVDS the Small Wheeled chassis can’t have 10 wheels,
but the BA-10 did in fact have 10 wheels.
Some may have had the DT in the hull removed.
With the tire chains were used, increase Off-Road Speed to 1/6.
Variants
The original BA-10 was manufactured in 1932. It used riveted armor
(p.W:MP12) and some had a 37mm gun (37mm Medium AT Gun) in place of the
45mm. Armor was thinner: on the body DR 40 front, DR 20 right, left and
back and DR 13 top and bottom and the turret DR 35 front, DR 20 left and
right and DR 13 top. Speed was 34 mph with a 37-kW engine and most lacked
radios. Weight was 5.67 tons.
The BA-10ZD has provisions to allow it to run on train rails.