GAZ LB-62

The GAZ LB-62, the letters standing for light armoured car, was an experimental Soviet light armoured car of the Second World War. After a specification was approved in November 1939, its development was given to the special design bureau of the Gorky Automobile Plant, which turned to the DRO plant at Vyksa for most of the hull design. It used the four-wheel-drive chassis of the GAZ-62, with a six-cylinder GAZ-202 engine of 85 horsepower giving up to 80 km/h on roads and a range of 500 km. The welded hull used plates 6 to 13 mm thick set at 25 to 42 degrees, the crew of three were the driver, the gunner-radio operator and the commander, and the turret from the T-40 light tank carried a 12.7 mm DShK machine gun paired with a 7.62 mm DT. GAZ built two prototypes, numbered 713 and 714, which were tested from February 1941 and each ran about 10,000 km. Series production as the LB-30 was proposed but never started, partly because the plant was loaded with aircraft engine orders, and an industry commissariat told the plant to stop work. Ideas from it were used later in the BA-64.