In 1935 the Skoda Works in Czechoslovakia introduced a new tank with a weight of eleven tons. The vehicle was designated Skoda LTM 35 and offered a number of progressive design features, which were later taken up by many manufacturers of armored vehicles. One of these features was the installation of the drive wheel at the rear of the vehicle instead of the front. This was decided in order to keep the fighting compartment free of the driveshaft and other moving parts. The drive train thus ran directly from the motor via the transmission and side shafts to the drive wheels. Pressure brakes, gears and steering were operated by compressed air. These were innovations that did much to ease the physical demands on the driver. An additional feature was the system of wheel suspension, which distributed the weight evenly among the small road wheels. This increased the life span of the tracks to an average of 6500 kilometers, while other tanks of the time attained a life span of only 1600 km for their tracks. The primary armament of the LTM 35 was a 3.7 cm Skoda A-3 tank gun, which offered not only a good rate of fire, but also a high initial velocity with good ballistic characteristics, especially for armor-piercing shells. In addition, it had two machine guns, one installed in the turret, the other in the nose.
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