How to drive a Turán tank / Zrínyi assault gun
The Turán and Zrínyi designs shared the same driving mechanism.
The vehicles had 2 pairs of driving levers, a total number of 4. With this the Turán/Zrínyi could either turn around in an arc or in one place. To turn around in a 12m radius the driver had to use the longer, inner levers (26&27), with this the desired side's driving wheel rotated in a slower speed compared to the other side's. When the driver used the shorter, outer levers (28&29) the track on the desired side stopped and the tank could turn around in one place - 4m radius.
The brake pedal (24) slowed down - and eventually stopped - both driving wheels at once. The vehicle had hand-brake levers (21&22) for each side, these levers didn't just held the driving wheels in one place but the idler wheels as well - thanks to this the vehicle could stop on a 45° slope without sliding down.
The most problematic part was the gear, many vehciles needed gear repairs because the drivers either were inexperienced or negligent. The vehicle had 2x3 gears with two epicyclic gearings. For Gear 1 the clutch (23) was needed. Gear 2 and Gear 3 didn't need the clutch, but to get the vehicle from Gear 3 to Gear 4 the clutch was needed again - not using the clutch pedal caused the vehicle to get back into Gear 1 again, the revved engine would cause malfunction or break in the transmission. Changing to Gear 5 and Gear 6 didn’t need the clutch. However when the driver changed back from Gear 4 to Gear 3 the clutch had to be used again otherwise the engine stalled.
There was a reversing lever (31), if the driver used that the driver wheels changed their rotating direction and the vehicle started to go reverse, it also had 6 gears in reverse mode.
The vehicle also had a jackshaft shifter (30) which had an „on” and and „off” position. The jackshaft is used as an intermediary transmitting power from a driving shaft to a driven shaft.
There was a hand-wheel right next to the driver (33). If the gear switch had problems it was still possible to get the vehicle into Gear 1 – and only into that – by using this hand-wheel.
The steering-gear and the brake system of the Turán was pneumatic at first but just as much as it was one of the vehicle’s strong points it also hid many sources of errors. It also needed experienced and well trained drivers – 4-6 months were needed to properly train one. The pneumatic system was later changed to a mechanical one.