Early-manufacture Soviet BA-27 armoured car.  This vehicle entered production in 1927.  It can be considered the "ancestor" of a number of later Soviet "heavy" (that is to say, heavily armed) armoured cars that played an important part in WW2.  Overall production was limited - something between 200 and 300 in the 1927-'31 period.  As many as 200 of several sub-models were still in service at the opening of Barbarossa.  Apart from anti-German actions, these cars were used against the Japanese in the Far East.  Best regards, JR.

BA-27 armoured car.

The crew of Junior Sergeant M.P. Andreev preparing their BA-6ZhD vehicle for conversion to travel on the railroad tracks Volkhov Front, August 1942

BA-6

The latest manifestation of the BA-27M Soviet armoured car.  The most obvious difference from other BA-27 models is the 6-wheel profile, as compared with the usual 4 wheels.  There appear to be two schools of thought as to why this change was made.  One is that this up-armoured version was too heavy for the intended (4 wheel) Ford Model AA truck chassis, so that the stronger (6 wheel) Ford Timkin chassis was substituted.  The other explanation offered is that it was imagined that the adoption of a triple-axle pattern would, of itself, improve the rather poor off-road performance of the vehicle (rather as in the case of Hitler's Daimler Mercedes Benz D 4 heavy staff car).  As with the D 4, the latter objective (if such it was) seems not to have been achieved; the cross-country performance of the "M" appears to have been little better than 4-wheeled BA-27s.  Best regards, JR.