In late 1931, the Soviet government put the new technological task: to design two projects of the river armored boats: large and small ones. Accordingly, they had to be equipped with two and one tank turrets with 76-mm cannons and 7.62-mm machine-guns. Also, these boats had to fit the railroad size as it was planned to transfer them by trains. Designer Yuliy Benoit was responsible for the projects of the “river tanks”.
The armored boats were used to support the ground troops by fire, to transfer loads and landing forces, to conduct reconnaissance and masking. During the 1941 Kyiv defense the armored boats of the Dnipro group, the part of the Pinsk flotilla, effectively supported the defenders who fought on the ground.
The model of the small river boat of the Project 1125 reconstructs the look of the most common type of the Soviet river armored boats - more than two hundred boats were constructed. During World War II the model was seriously modified. The T-34 turret replaced the turret of the T-28 tank. The 7.62 mm machine-guns were replaced by the heavy ones. Sometimes boats were covered with planks to make movement through ice-covered waters easier. Initially they had the Soviet GAZ-34 engine with 800-850 horsepower. Since 1942 the new, more powerful engines began to be installed on the boats. Those were the American engines received under Lend-Lease - the Hall-Scott with 900 horsepower and Packard with 1200 horsepower. Surely, the armor of the “river tanks” was not so strong as the ground tanks had. It protected only from bullets: the thickness of armor on the side was 7 mm, on the deck - 4 mm, on the cockpit - 8 mm and its roof - 4 mm.
The service of the armored boats of the Project 1125 lasted until early 1950s. After their withdrawal, some boats were turned into monuments reminding of the fierce battles of the past. In Ukraine, except this model in Kyiv, you can see such river armored boats in Kherson, Kaniv, Mariupol and Izmail.
