Some experimental tank projects in the Soviet Union went in bizarre directions once there was no longer wartime pragmatism to consider. One such example is the SU-100M, a compact, solid, yet lightweight tank destroyer. It had nearly twice the armour protection of the T-34, but weighed only 24 tonnes compared to the 27-tonne T-34-76. All four crew members sat inside the turret, two on each side of the 100mm gun, but this meant that the turret could not rotate more that 74 degrees in either direction while the vehicle was moving. One must wonder if this would not have been a problem if the tiny tank destroyer was built later than 1950 and had drive-by-wire technology. Regardless of the advantages this design had, the difficulties of its operation and its lack of gun depression meant that it never left the prototyping phase, with only one vehicle having been built.
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