BA-I

BA-I (joskus BAI) Neuvostoliitossa valmistettu kolmiakselinen panssaroitujen auto.
Vain 82 näitä ajoneuvoja rakennettiin vuosien 1932-1934 aikana. 
Tästä huolimatta suunnittelu aloitti raskaan sarjan panssaroitujen autojen Izhorskij tehtaassa.
Joitakin ajoneuvoja käytettiin toissa maailmansodassa, vaikka se oli vanhentunut jo tuohon aikaan. Tämä käynnisti välittömästi panssaroitujen autojen kehittämisen.


Vuoden loppuun vuoden kokoonpano aloitettiin "Gudok Oktyabrya" tehtaassa joka on lähellä Nižni Novgorodia.

BA-I
Type	Armoured car
Place of origin	Soviet Union
Specifications
Weight	5 tonnes
Length	4.8 m
Width	2.0 m
Height	2.4 m
Crew	3
Armor	8 mm
Main armament	37mm 7K gun
Secondary armament	2x7.62mm DT
Engine	GAZ-AA 40 hp (30 kW)
Power/weight	8 hp/ton
Suspension	wheeled
Operational range	150 km
Speed	63 km/h

The BA-I (sometimes BAI) is a Soviet three-axle armoured car. 
Only 82 vehicles of this type were built in 1932-1934, nevertheless the design initiated a series of heavy armoured cars of Izhorskij plant.
Some vehicles were used in World War II, despite being obsolete at the time.

In 1931, the first Soviet 6x4 chassis was created, a design based on adding Timken tandem rear axles to the American Ford AA chassis, and because of that called Ford-Timken. This immediately initiated the development of armoured cars. By the end of the year assembly was taking place at the plant "Gudok Oktyabrya" in Kanavin, near Nizhniy Novgorod.

In 1932, at the Izhorskij plant, the armoured car BA-I (I stands for Izhorskij) was developed by A. D. Kuzmin. In some publications the name of this machine is written together - BAI. It used the same triaxial Ford-Timken chassis as it predecessors.

The hull was welded together - an advanced technology for the time. Due to the "stepped" form of the roof on the hull it was possible to place turret lower, substantially reducing the overall height of combat vehicle. In the cylindrical welded turret, there was a 37 mm gun with 34 rounds (similarly to earlier BA-27 armored car), and a DT machine gun on a separate ball mount. The second DT was placed in the frontal sheet to the right of the driver. There were doors in the hull and in the rear for crew evacuation.

An interesting idea that was borrowed from the earlier D-13 armoured car was mounting of spare wheels just next to the front wheels and only slightly higher. These helped when crossing trenches and rugged terrain. An innovation was the possibility to convert vehicle to a half-track by fitting auxiliary ("Overall") tracks to the rear pair of dual tandem wheels. Additionally some vehicles were equipped with radio. All three of these ideas were subsequently used in all succeeding designs, including the BA-10.

A version has been developed using an improved GAZ-AAA chassis. Also a prototype railway BA-IZD variant was created, but was not accepted for production.