Even after the end of the war, the Thirty-Four remained in service with the Soviet Army and the armies of friendly countries for a long time, as a completely reliable combat vehicle that more or less met the requirements. Those of them that remained in service were modernized and received the designation T-34-85 model 1960. At the same time, changes were made to the design of the engine, designated B-34-M11. Two air cleaners with ejection dust extraction were installed, a heater was introduced into the engine cooling and lubrication system, and a more powerful electric generator was installed. The driver received a BVN infrared surveillance device with an infrared headlight to drive the car at night. The 9R radio station was replaced with 10-RT-26E. Two BDS smoke bombs were installed at the rear of the tank. The speed increased to 60 km/h. Other characteristics, including combat weight and engine power, remained the same.
In 1969, the T-34s were once again modernized: they received more modern night vision devices and a new R-123 radio station. This ends the history of the development of the T-34 tank in our country, but it did not end there at all.
Let's summarize some results. First of all, a short summary of the number of cars produced:
1940 - 110 (+2 prototypes),
1941 - 2996, 1942 - 12527,
1943 - 15821,
1944 - 14648,
1945 - 12551,
1946 - 2707.
This is Maksarev's data. There are others:
1942 - 12520,
1943 - 15696.
In general, an accurate calculation is very difficult, and perhaps makes no sense. Information about the number of vehicles was provided by factories, military acceptance and other authorities. Be that as it may, arithmetic calculation gives us more than 61 thousand T-34 tanks produced in our country over the course of six and a half years. This puts the T-34 in first place in the world in terms of mass production (the American Sherman tank is second, produced in the amount of 48,071 units). But these are not all thirty-fours ever built. But more on that later.
As we have already said, the T-34 was improved during its production; many changes were made to its design. However, the main things: the body, engine, transmission (except for the gearbox), and suspension have remained virtually unchanged. Other details were changed several times. So, we know that the L-11, F-32, F-34, D-5T, and ZIS-S-53 guns were installed on the tank as the main armament. Some experts count up to 7 different types of towers: welded from rolled sheets, cast or even stamped, 45 mm thick, created at ChKZ. The towers differed not only in the shape and number of hatches on the roof, the number and location of fan “mushrooms”, the presence or absence of pistol embrasures, observation devices in the sides, but, most importantly, in their shape. There are also four types of rollers: with rubber, with internal shock absorption, with solid rims, and with developed fins. There were at least three types of tracks. The additional fuel tanks also differed in shape, quantity and location. There were other differences: antennas, handrails, exhaust pipe covers, driver's hatches, etc. Apparently it’s not worth listing everything. And often at the front, one vehicle, especially after repair, had several different rollers, fortunately their standard sizes were almost the same (outer diameter 634 or 650 mm).
Experts noted the following weaknesses of the armored hull:
- Weakening of the upper frontal armor plate, the presence of a driver's hatch and a large cutout for a machine gun ball mount.
- The same top sheet showed a tendency to form cracks, because was made of homogeneous armor of high hardness; this was caused by fire cutting and welding of a sheet of complex configuration with a large volume of welding work.
- A large number of welded small parts (tow hooks, bullet-reflective strips) led to local weakening of the armor plate and contributed to the biting of armor-piercing shells.
It would be interesting to present the opinion of a highly qualified specialist, namely our outstanding designer of light tanks and self-propelled guns N.A. Astrov (1906 - 1992):
“The general layout of the T-34, which basically repeated the Christie and BT, although now called classic, is by no means optimal, since the coefficient of utilization of the armor volume for such a design is not high. However, the Kharkovites who chose this particular one for the T-34 scheme, they undoubtedly did the right thing, because changing the overall layout in the conditions of an impending war could lead to unexpected, very difficult, and perhaps irreparable troubles.
A general conclusion arises: the “winning” machine does not always have the opportunity to be based on optimal (according to science) decisions.”
It is necessary to say a few words about what were the organizational forms of using our tanks in the Second World War, that is, in which units and formations the T-34s fought.
The tank divisions of the mechanized corps at the beginning of the war were very strong formations. For comparison: the German tank division of 1941 had 147 or 300 tanks (depending on the number of tank battalions in it, two or three). In the battles in June and July 1941, the mechanized corps suffered heavy losses. But the industry was not then able to quickly make up for the losses in tanks. This required changing and simplifying the structure of tank formations. On July 15, the Supreme High Command headquarters ordered the abolition of the mechanized corps, and at the end of August the NKO approved the staff of a new tank brigade, the tank regiment of which consisted of 93 tanks. But already in September it was necessary to transfer the brigades to a battalion basis. Its two tank battalions totaled 46 tanks. Of these, 16 are thirty-four, 10 are KB, the rest are T-60. Separate tank battalions of 29 tanks each were also formed, consisting of three tank companies, of which only one had seven T-34s. The remaining tanks of this battalion, numbering only 130 people, were T-60s.
We will not consider here other small formations of that difficult period of the war. But already in the winter of 1941-42. our industry has gained strength. The monthly production exceeded 1,500 vehicles, and therefore in March 1942 the formation of four tank corps began. The corps consisted first of two, then of three tank and one motorized rifle brigades and was supposed to have 110 tanks, including 40 thirty-fours. Already in May of the same year, tank armies of non-permanent composition began to be created, but they necessarily had two tank corps. A total of four such armies were formed then, with the 5th Tank Army being formed twice.
In September 1942, the formation of mechanized corps began. As combat experience accumulated and a sufficient amount of equipment became available, the tank armies received a more homogeneous organization. As a rule, they consisted of two tank and one mechanized corps. The tank corps consisted of three tank and one motorized rifle brigade and in 1944 numbered 207 medium tanks (all T-34) and 63 SU. Self-propelled artillery brigades were also introduced into the tank armies. Now all tank brigades were of a homogeneous composition, that is, they consisted only of T-34 tanks. Organization of a tank brigade by state in 1943 (remaining virtually unchanged until the end of the war). By the end of the war, the tank army (there were six of them), numbering more than 50 thousand people, consisted of 900 tanks and control systems. True, not all of them and did not always have a full composition.
T-34s went through the entire war from the first to the last day. They also took part in the defeat of the armed forces of militaristic Japan. They went into battle in the tundra, and in the forests of Karelia and Belarus, along the steppes of Ukraine and in the foothills of the Caucasus, that is, along the entire length of the many thousand-kilometer Soviet-German front. And they fought not only as part of the Red Army. They fought in the ranks of the Polish People's Army. From July 1943 to June 1945, the Polish Armed Forces received 578 tanks, of which 446 were T-34s.
At the final stage of the war, a considerable number of our tanks were also transferred to the armies of Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, which fought shoulder to shoulder with the Red Army.
Note that a number of captured T-34 tanks were also in the service of the Wehrmacht.
Typically, captured T-34s were left in the units that captured them. For example, in the “Panzergrenadier” SS division “Reich” shortly before the Battle of Kursk there were 25 Pz tanks. Kpfw. T34 747(r). It was not possible to establish how many of them went on the attack on the positions of the Soviet troops.
In total, as of May 31, 1943, the Germans had no more than a hundred captured tanks, including 59 T-34s (it should be noted that unit commanders, to put it mildly, were “in no hurry” to report on the captured vehicles they had in service). Of the latter, only 19 units were combat-ready. And as of December 30, their total number was reduced by half. Mostly these were the same "thirty-fours"; of these, 29 were in the 100th Jaeger Division on the Eastern Front.
The Germans also had self-propelled guns SU-122 and SU-85, designated StuG SU122(r) and JgdPz SU85(r), respectively. Finland also had T-34 tanks in World War II. Nine captured T-34-76 and nine T-34-85 tanks were in the Finnish army as of 12/31/44. They took part in battles both with Soviet troops and acted against the Germans after the conclusion of a peace treaty with the Soviet Union.
Device T-34-85
"The T-34-85 medium tank is a tracked combat vehicle with a rotating turret that provides all-round fire from a cannon and a coaxial machine gun" ("Manual on the equipment and operation of the T-34 tank").
The T-34 tank is designed in accordance with the so-called classic layout, that is, the fighting compartment with a turret in front, the engine and transmission compartment with drive wheels in the rear. This arrangement was first used on the French Renault tank in 1917, but perhaps it was most clearly embodied in the BT and T-34 series tanks. The latter, to a certain extent, inherited from the BT the general layout, chassis and suspension parts.
The main parts of the tank are: hull and turret, weapons, power plant, power train (transmission), chassis, electrical equipment and communications. The tank hull is welded from rolled armor plates. Only the upper stern plate was bolted to the corners of the side and lower stern armor plates and, with the bolts removed, could be folded back on two hinges, thereby providing access to the power plant. The roof over the power plant is also removable. In the upper frontal hull plate, installed at an angle of 60" to the vertical, there is a driver's hatch on the left and a machine gun ball mount on the right. The upper side hull sheets are installed at an angle of 41". The lower side sheets are vertical. Each has 4 holes for the passage of the balancer axes of the track rollers, one hole for the bracket for the balancer axes of the front track roller and 4 cutouts for the trunnion of the balancers of the second to fifth rollers.
The bottom of the body consists of two or four (depending on factory differences) sheets, butt welded with overlays. On the front right in the bottom in front of the machine gunner's seat there is an emergency exit hatch through which the crew can leave the vehicle in an emergency. There are also hatches and hatches cut into the bottom for draining fuel from the onboard tanks, draining oil from the engine and gearbox, etc.
Inside the tank body has 4 compartments. In front is the control compartment, which houses the driver and machine gunner, levers and pedals of control drives, and instrumentation. Behind the control compartment is the fighting compartment with a turret, which houses the remaining crew members - the commander, gunner and loader. A removable steel partition separates the fighting compartment from the power unit compartment (PS), in the middle of which the engine is mounted on a pedestal. On the sides of the engine there are water radiators, two oil tanks and four batteries. There is a hatch cut out in the roof above the control unit with an armored cover for access to the engine, and on its sides there are elongated air inlets covered with armored shutters.
In the stern behind the bulkhead there is a power transmission compartment, which houses the main clutch, gearbox, final clutches with brakes and final drives, as well as an electric starter, two fuel tanks and two air cleaners. In the roof above the power transmission compartment there is a rectangular air vent, closed with a metal mesh, under which there are adjustable armored blinds. The upper stern plate is equipped with a round hatch with an armored cover, hinged, usually bolted to the armor plate flange. The same sheet contains two armored caps covering the exhaust pipes, as well as two brackets for attaching smoke bombs.
The main armament of the tank was initially a 76-mm semi-automatic L-11 cannon of the 1939 model with a vertical wedge breech. In 1941, it was replaced by guns of the same caliber F-32 and F-34 model 1940. Later, the T-34-85 received an 85-mm gun, first the D-5T model, and then the ZIS-S-53. Thanks to the rotation of the turret, the cannon and coaxial machine gun had a circular fire. In the vertical plane, the elevation angle of the cannon and machine gun is 22". With a descent angle of 5", the unhittable (dead) space on the ground for the cannon and coaxial machine gun is 23 m. The height of the gun's line of fire is 202 cm. The frontal machine gun had a horizontal firing angle of 12" to the left and to the right, descent angle 6" (dead space 13 m), elevation angle 16". An experienced crew, when firing from a standstill, is able to fire 7-8 aimed shots from a cannon per minute. Using the TSh-16 telescopic sight it was possible to fire straight aiming at a distance of up to 3800 m, and with the help of a side level and a goniometer circle, indirect aiming (for example, from closed positions) at a distance of 13600 m. The range of a direct shot at a target height of 2 m with an armor-piercing projectile is 900 m. The rotation of the turret is carried out by a turning mechanism with manual and electric drive. It is located to the left of the gun on the wall of the turret. The maximum rotation speed of the turret from the electric motor is 25-30 g/sec. When operated manually, the turret rotates by 0.9" per turn of the flywheel. Vertical aiming is carried out manually using a sector lifting mechanism, which is also located to the left of the gun. The cannon can be fired using a mechanical or electric trigger.
The gun's ammunition consists of 55-60 unitary shots, depending on the production series of the vehicles. For 60 shots, there were usually 39 with a high-explosive fragmentation grenade, 15 with armor-piercing tracer and 6 with sub-caliber shells. The ammunition is placed as follows: the main stowage of 16 (in some vehicles - 12) shots is located in the aft niche of the turret and on the racks. On the right side of the turret there are 4 shots in clamps, and 5 on the walls of the fighting compartment, standing up. The remaining shots are stored in six boxes located on the bottom of the fighting compartment. The machine guns had 31 magazines of 63 rounds each. In addition to the main ammunition, tankers often took ammunition in boxes. The tankers' armament was supplemented by pistols, PPSh and 20 F-1 grenades.
There are 3 MK-4 mirror periscopic observation devices installed on the roof of the turret: at the commander (on the non-retractable part of the roof of the commander's cupola), gunner and loader. This device, developed by the Polish captain R. Gundlyach, was adopted under the mentioned designation in the British army at the beginning of the war. It allows observation both forward and backward without changing the position of the observer's head, but only by moving the prism. The device is mounted and rotated in a cage protected by an armored cap. It can also swing around a horizontal axis, which allows you to increase the vertical viewing angle. The commander's cupola was cast and had a rotating roof on ball bearings with a hinged hatch. There are 5 horizontal viewing slots cut into the walls of the turret, protected by glass blocks. The tower itself is also cast, hexagonal in plan with inclined side walls. In its front wall there is an embrasure cut out for installing a cannon, covered with swinging armor.
There are seven holes in the turret roof: on the right is a round hatch for landing the loader, two ventilation holes (on some vehicles - one) covered with armored caps, a cutout for the antenna socket, a hatch for the commander's cupola and two hatches for the heads of the gun commander's and loader's periscopes.
A power transmission (PT) is a set of units designed to transmit torque from the engine crankshaft to the drive wheels to change the tank's speed and traction forces over a larger range than the engine allows. The main clutch (MF) smoothly transfers the load to the engine when the tank starts from a standstill, with sudden changes in the number of revolutions of the engine crankshaft and the speed of the tank. It also disconnects the engine from the gearbox when changing gears. GF is a multi-disk (11 driving and driven disks each) engaging dry friction clutch of steel on steel. The GF is turned on or off by the control drive, for which the driver needs to apply a force of up to 25 kg on the levers.
The GF is connected to the gearbox by a gear coupling. It is designed to change the traction force on the drive wheels and change the speed of movement, as well as to move in reverse at a constant number of revolutions and a constant direction of rotation of the engine crankshaft and, finally, to disconnect the engine from the joint venture when starting it and idling. The gearbox is mechanical, three-chord, five-speed, has five forward gears and one reverse gear. Gears are switched by a control drive consisting of a rocker link, longitudinal rods and vertical rollers with levers. In order for the tank to turn, it is necessary to brake the track towards which the turn is being made. To disconnect the driving wheels of the tracks from the main shaft of the gearbox, dry friction side clutches (BF) are used (also steel on steel), having from 17 to 21 driving and from 18 to 22 driven disks, depending on the thickness. BFs are installed at the ends of the gearbox main shaft. Switching off is carried out by a drive from the control compartment, for which the driver needs to apply a force of up to 20 kg to the handle of the corresponding lever. Floating band brakes are installed on the driven drums of the BF. They are also driven by drives from the control compartment, for which there are left and right control levers on the sides of the driver's seat. Foot drives are also connected to the brakes for simultaneous tightening of both brake bands without turning off the brake fan. Before this, however, the GF is turned off or the gearbox is switched to the neutral position. And finally, between the final clutches and the drive wheels there are final drives, consisting of a pair of spur gears. Gearboxes increase the traction force on the drive wheels, allowing you to reduce the speed of rotation of the drive wheel and thereby increase the torque on it. In fact, the final drive is a single-stage reduction gearbox.
The chassis of the tank includes the tracked propulsion system and suspension. It is this propulsion unit that provides the tank with high cross-country ability. It consists of two caterpillar chains, two drive wheels, two idler wheels and 10 road wheels. The caterpillar chain is small-linked. consists of 72 tracks, half of which have guide ridges, the track pitch is 172, and the width is 500 mm. The tracks are connected with fingers through eyelets. One such caterpillar weighs 1070 kg. Double-disc drive wheels (cast or with stamped disks) are installed on the driven shafts of the final drives and are used to rewind the caterpillar. Between the disks on the axles there are 6 rollers, which drag the ridges of the tracks, and, consequently, the entire caterpillar. Cast front idler wheels serve not only to guide the track, but also to tension it. Tension is carried out by moving the guide wheel on the crank. The fact is that with use, the total length of the caterpillar increases. The guide wheel serves to ensure its constant tension. In case of significant wear of the caterpillar, it is allowed to reduce the number of tracks in it by two.
The suspension of the T-34 tank is independent with cylindrical coil springs, and the suspension of the front roller - a double spring - is located vertically inside the bow of the hull and is protected by shields. The suspensions of the remaining rollers are located obliquely inside the tank hull in special shafts. The track rollers are mounted on bearings on axles pressed into the balancers. Double roller with rubber tire. Between the disks of the rollers are the ridges of the tracks. During the production of the T-34, several types of road wheels with external rubber were used. Since the spring of 1942, in order to save scarce rubber, rollers with internal shock absorption were used (however, this did not last long). The rubber shock absorber was placed on bearings on the balancer axles. The savings, however, were “false” - the internal shock absorbers very quickly failed.
The tank's electrical equipment included sources and consumers of electricity. The latter include: an electric starter, an electric turret rotation motor, fans, an electric trigger for a cannon and a coaxial machine gun, electric motors for a heater (installed after the war) and an oil pump, lighting and alarm devices, a sight heater, a radio station, a tank intercom, etc. The sources of electricity are: a DC generator mounted to the right of the engine, and four batteries installed in pairs on both sides of the engine. The total battery voltage is 24 V, the same voltage is provided by the generator. Its power is 1000 W.
The 9RS radio station is designed for two-way radio communication between tanks or other objects. The station is a telephone and telegraph station, its range depends on the time of day and time of year. It is greatest when using a telephone on a four-meter whip antenna during the winter day: 15 km while moving and up to 20 km when parked. At night, especially in summer, the level of interference increases and the communication range drops to 7 and 9 km, respectively. When working with telegraph, the range increases by 1.5-2 times. When using a shortened antenna, it is naturally smaller. The 9RS radio station works for transmission only by telephone, and for reception by telephone and telegraph. The transceiver with power supply is attached with brackets to the left and rear sheets of the turret to the left and behind the commander’s seat. Since 1952, during a major overhaul, instead of the 9RS radio station, the 10RT-26E radio station was installed, which also works as a telegraph for transmission.
The TPU-Z-BIS-F tank intercom (since 1952 replaced by the TPU-47) consisted of three devices - for the gunner, tank commander and driver.
It is intended for communication between them, and for the commander and gunner through a radio station and with external correspondents.
Two manual carbon dioxide fire extinguishers are mounted inside the tank. A set of spare parts, tools and accessories are located both inside and outside. This includes a tarpaulin, a tow rope, a box with gun spare parts, two spare tracks each - with and without a comb, track track fingers, entrenching tools, etc. After the war, two BDSh smoke bombs were installed at the rear of the tank.
A few words about the work of the crew members. The driver sits on a height-adjustable seat. In front of it in the upper frontal plate there is a hatch closed by an armored cover. The lid contains two fixed periscopes. In order to have a larger horizontal viewing angle, the periscope prisms are located at an angle to the longitudinal axis of the tank. The bottom of the prism is covered with protective glass - thanks to it, fragments of a damaged prism will not injure the driver’s eyes. After the war, soft forehead protectors were placed above the protective glass and on the inner surface of the armor above the periscopes, protecting the driver’s head from bruises.
In front of the driver there are the following mechanisms and instruments: left and right control levers, to the right of the right lever is the gearbox rocker, a little to the left, below is the manual fuel supply handle. Further to the left there is a fuel pedal, a brake pedal with a latch. Under the driver's left foot is the GF pedal. On the inside of the frontal armor plate below the hatch there is a panel with control devices. And even lower are two compressed air cylinders for air starting the engine. On the left side wall there is an electrical instrument panel, a starter button, a tachometer (shows engine speed) and a speedometer. Below them is a fire extinguisher, etc.
To the right of the driver is a machine gunner. He fires from a front-mounted machine gun of the DT brand (changed to the DTM after the war). The machine gun is inserted into a ball, which is mounted in a special socket in the upper frontal plate of the hull. The machine gunner uses the PPU-X-T telescopic sight. Firing is carried out in short bursts (2-7 shots) at a distance of 600-800 m only at group live targets. The machine gun is automatic using the energy of exhaust powder gases. To prevent gas contamination inside the tank, the machine gun is installed so that the hole of the gas piston is moved outside under the movable armor shield. The machine gun has no stock. Shooting is carried out by pressing the trigger.
In the turret to the left of the gun there is a height-adjustable gunner's seat. The gunner’s task is quite specific: having received target designation from the commander or choosing a target independently, ensure that the cannon and coaxial machine gun are aimed at the target, and fire a shot using either the trigger mechanism or the electric trigger. He has at his disposal a TSh-16 periscope sight with fourfold magnification and a field of view of 16°. The sight also serves to determine the distance to the target and monitor the battlefield. In the field of view of the sight there are four distance scales (for different types of cannon shells and for a coaxial machine gun) and a lateral correction scale. The latter is used for aiming at a frontally moving target. To fire from closed positions with indirect fire, the gunner uses a side level, which is mounted on the left shield of the gun fence. He points the cannon and coaxial machine gun at the target using the turret rotation mechanism and the cannon lifting mechanism. The flywheel of the lifting mechanism is located in front of the gunner. On the flywheel handle there is an electric trigger lever for the cannon and coaxial machine gun. The manual trigger is mounted on the gun fence shield in front of the side level.
The commander in his seat is located behind the gunner, to the left of the gun. For the convenience of observation, he is served by the commander's cupola and the observation devices described above. The commander's tasks: observation of the battlefield, target designation to the gunner, work at the radio station and management of the crew's actions.
To the right of the gun is the loader. His responsibilities include: choosing the type of shot as directed by the commander, loading the cannon, reloading the coaxial machine gun, and observing the battlefield. The seat he uses outside of combat is suspended by three straps. Two of them are attached to the turret ring, and the third to the gun cradle. By changing the position of the belts, you can adjust the seat height. In combat, the loader works by standing on the lids of the ammunition boxes on the bottom of the tank. When transferring a cannon from one side to another, he must deftly follow or in front of the breech, while he is hampered by spent cartridges lying on the bottom. The absence of a rotating pole (at least the one that was on our T-28) is a significant drawback of the T-34. Next to the loader's seat, a stopper is mounted in one of the grips of the turret's ball support to secure the turret in the stowed position. If the turret is not fixed, then the shaking and jolting of the vehicle on the march would lead to rapid wear of the support mechanism, and, consequently, to an increase in the play of the turret rotation mechanism.
Production and service of the T-34 in other countries after the end of World War II
After World War II, the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia (PLAU) was armed with tanks that were predominantly foreign-made, mostly American. But there were also our T-34s (130 units), transferred to the NOAI back in 1945. Two tank brigades were formed from them in our states.
After the war, the leadership of NOAU decided to try to establish the production of tanks at home. The T-34-85 was chosen as the sample. The emphasis was on increasing the service life of the machine. Many changes were made to the design of the T-34. We installed our own diesel engine and an improved transmission. The gun was probably installed the same as our ZIS-S-53, but with a muzzle brake. The chassis and suspension system remained unchanged. The hull and turret underwent the most significant alterations. Thanks to the bevels in the front part of the body, the area of its frontal surface has been reduced. This was supposed to reduce the likelihood of being hit from the front, but it complicated production and weakened the hull. True, the designers took into account that Yugoslav factories would be better able to weld armor parts than cast them. In the same way, the cylindrical hatch bases welded into the side walls of the tower weakened its strength. The tower itself had a convex roof. A significant aft niche apparently made it possible to increase the ammunition load. The ventilation of the tower has been improved (fan hood on the niche). The commander's cupola was missing and it is unlikely that the 4 periscopic devices in the roof of the tower could compensate for this deficiency.
However, the expected gain in tactical and technical characteristics did not happen. And in the early 50s, further work was considered inappropriate. A total of 7 copies of the Yugoslav thirty-four were produced. They took part in the May 1950 parade and subsequently served as training ones. One such vehicle is on display at the military museum in Kalemegdan (Belgrade). We were unable to obtain any technical specifications about her.
At the end of the 40s, the Polish, and after it the Czechoslovak government, decided to organize the production of the T-34 tank at home. Technical documentation and technology were received from the Soviet Union. Specialists arrived to provide assistance. The first serial Polish-made tanks left the factory floors in 1951. But these were not one-to-one our T-34s. Their design was improved in accordance with the changing requirements of the time. In 1953 they were modernized again. The designations T-34-85M1 or T-34-85M2 corresponded to the first and second modernization. Their release lasted five years.
Polish-made tanks received a modified turret. The engine, adapted to run on various types of fuel, had a heater to facilitate starting in winter. Mechanisms have been introduced to make the tank easier to control. The range has been increased to 650 km on additional tanks. New 10RT-26E radio station, TPU-47 tank intercom, TPK-1 or TPK-U25 commander's observation devices, and driver's night vision devices were installed. The turret rotation speed has been increased to 25-30° per second. Ammunition - 55 rounds - was placed differently. The crew, thanks to the new system for aiming and loading the frontal machine gun, was reduced to four people. The tank received equipment to overcome water obstacles along the bottom.
Some differences in the shape of the tower, additional tanks, etc. had T-34s made in Czechoslovakia. The ČKD plant in Prague received a license to build this tank in 1949, along with a license to produce the SU-100. The production of tanks began in 1951 and continued for several years.
After the war, T-34 tanks entered service with the DPRK army and the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA). As part of them, they successfully fought on the fronts of the Korean War (1950-53), where they demonstrated their superiority over the American Shermans.
In subsequent years, T-34s, mainly of Polish and Czechoslovak production, entered service with the armies of many states, including countries participating in the Warsaw Pact, as well as Albania, Angola, Congo, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, China, North Korea, Mongolia, Egypt, Guinea , Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Mali, Syria, Finland, Yugoslavia. They took part in numerous military conflicts of the 50s - 60s and even the 70s: in the Middle East in 1956, 1967 and 1973, in the Indo-Pakistan conflicts of 1965 and 1971, in Vietnam in 1965- 75 etc.
Allied tanks
As always, truth is learned through comparison. Our thirty-four also needs it. Comparison with contemporary tanks of the enemy and allies allows us to more clearly emphasize the advantages of our tank, and, perhaps, highlight some of its shortcomings.
We have already talked about German tanks. And what did the tank crews of our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition fight on: the British, the Americans, the French?
In the minds of the British military in the mid-30s, the idea of two types of tanks dominated - infantry (slow, but heavily armored) and cruising (fast, but weakly armored). The latter was intended for large mechanized formations operating in the so-called deep operation.
Let's consider only cruising tanks as being more suitable for the tactical purpose of the T-34. In the summer of 1939, the A 15 Crusader tank began to arrive in the British troops. The latest modification of the Crusader III was produced until 1943. Technically unreliable, the Crusaders were also poorly armed. But these were the main tanks of the British tank forces of the first half of the war.
Taking into account the shortcomings of the Crusaders, the British began producing MK cruiser tanks from the end of 1942. VIII "Cromwell". Its armor was solid at that time, but its maneuverability was low. In battles with the German Panthers, the Cromwells were not successful: neither thick armor nor high speed helped. "Cromwell" did not even reach the level of the main combat and technical characteristics of the T-34-85.
At the very end of the war, the British army received the Comet cruiser tanks, which were essentially a development of the Cromwell, with more powerful weapons (77 mm gun - actual caliber 76.2 mm). The cruising tank, the basis of the British armored forces, was never brought to the level of the contemporary Soviet and German medium tanks.
As for the Americans, the pride of their military tank building was the M4 Sherman medium tank. The development of this vehicle began in March 1941. In February 1942, a prototype was built, and two months later mass production of this most massive American tank began.
It took only 13 months from the moment the decision was made to the start of production. The tank was built until the end of the war, supplied in large quantities to the British army, under Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union (4102 units), as well as to all armies of the anti-Hitler coalition. After the war, Shermans were supplied to all of the United States' allies. Even now in some armies they, although significantly modernized, are in service. This fact itself indicates how reliable the Sherman was and that it had a large reserve for modernization.
The tank was produced by different factories in several modifications, differing in the method of manufacturing the hull and turret, engines, chassis, and weapons. The tank hull was welded. The nose piece first consisted of three bolted pieces, then one cast piece, and finally a cast and rolled piece. The Shermans basically retained the chassis of the M3 medium tank that preceded it. It was only in March 1944 that the new horizontal volute spring suspension (HVSS) was introduced, which was used on almost all M4 models.
The M4A2 modification was equipped with a diesel engine. The most common modification of the M4AZ in the American army (from June 1942 to May 1945, 11,324 vehicles were produced) was equipped with a special Ford GAA-8 tank carburetor engine. These tanks had a welded hull. The hull of the M4A4 modification tanks was modified to accommodate the Chrysler A75 power unit, consisting of five engines. The M4A6 modification had the same body, but it was equipped with a Caterpillar RD-1829 radial diesel engine. Tanks of the M4A5 modification were produced by Canadian factories under the designation RAM. All M4 tanks had engines located in the rear, and the transmission and drive wheel were located in the front.
Depending on the modification and production time, the Shermans were equipped with 75- and 76.2-mm cannons of various types, as well as 105-mm howitzers (on some vehicles of the M4 and M4AZ modifications). The 75 mm gun was soon recognized as not powerful enough to fight German tanks. In August 1942, an attempt was made to install a 76.2 mm gun in the M4A1 tank. However, the old tower turned out to be unsuitable for her. In 1943, an experimental T23 tank was developed - a prototype of the future M26, armed with a 90-mm cannon. Its turret, but with a 76.2 mm cannon and a coaxial 7.62 mm machine gun, was installed unchanged on the M4. The production of tanks with this turret began in March 1944. The armor-piercing projectile of the new gun had an initial speed of 810 m/s (instead of 620 for the previous 75 mm guns) and penetrated 100 mm armor at a distance of 900 m. On the right side of the turret, a 12.7 mm anti-aircraft machine gun was mounted on a bracket. The third 7.62 mm machine gun was located in a ball mount in the frontal part of the hull. The tower had a floor that rotated along with it. Placing the ammunition rack at the bottom of the fighting compartment required raising the floor, which increased the overall height of the tank. Some tanks used “wet” ammunition stowage: shots for the gun were placed in tubes passing through a tank with ethylene glycol or water. When a shell hit the stowage, the liquid extinguished the ignited ammunition. A gun stabilizer in the vertical plane and a hydroelectric turret rotation mechanism, which had a duplicate drive to the commander and gunner, were also used. The combat weight of Sherman tanks ranged from 30.2 to 35 tons.
The M4 tank, which received the name "General Sherman" in England, was built in 1943-45. turned out to be the main and best tank of the British army. The first Shermans arrived in North Africa in October 1942 (270 units) and on October 24 received their baptism of fire in the battle of El Alamein. Together with the M3 medium tanks, they made up more than half of all the tanks of the British 8th Army. Later, the British installed their 76.2 mm cannon on the Shermans (which required changing the turret), and in this way received the most powerful tank of the British army during the war. These tanks were called "Sherman Firefly" and began to enter service in February 1944. They were the only Allied tanks that were capable of fighting the German "Tigers" and "Panthers", and even then at close ranges.
The M4 turned out to be a good tank, easy to manufacture. This facilitated its mass production in non-specialized factories that had no experience in mechanical engineering. "Sherman" was distinguished by its operational reliability, structural strength, and maintainability. But it was relatively weakly armed and armored. They tried to eliminate these shortcomings. In particular, on the modification M4A3E2, the thickness of the frontal armor of the hull was increased to 100 mm by shielding. The M4s were more or less equivalent to the German PZ tanks. IV, but could not (except for the Sherman Firefly) conduct an open battle with the Tigers and Panthers. In Korea (1950-53), hopes for the M4A3E8, which was inferior to the T-34-85 in terms of armament and maneuverability, were not realized.
On the basis of the M4 tank, several control systems, sapper and auxiliary vehicles were created, in particular, tank destroyers M10 and M36, a self-propelled 155 mm M40 gun and a 203 mm howitzer M-43. Many tanks were equipped with installations for launching missiles.
This was the second most popular tank in the world after the T-34 (48,071 units were produced). It was inferior to our tank in many characteristics, but superior to it in reliability and ease of operation for the crew.
In other countries - Italy, Japan, France - there were no tanks that were at least to some extent close in tactical and technical data to those described above.
Beginning in 1931, the Red Army received wheeled-tracked high-speed tanks of the BT type (BT-2, BT-5, BT-7, etc.), created on the basis of the experimental American M1931 tank designed by Walter Christie. These tanks were intended to equip independent tank and mechanized formations. Taking into account the experience accumulated in the operation and combat operations of serial and experimental tanks of the BT series, the Main Armored Directorate (GABTU) in 1937, the tank design bureau of the Kharkov Locomotive Plant (KhPZ) named after. The Comintern (plant No. 183) issued the task of designing a new wheeled-tracked tank capable of replacing BT tanks in the future, which later received the index A-20. Detailed design began at the end of 1937 in the design department headed by M.I. Koshkin, preliminary work was carried out under the leadership of A. Firsov, who was repressed in 1937. The new tank was supposed to be armed with a 45 mm tank gun and 30 mm armor protection. The tank was to use a V-2 diesel engine as a power plant, which was supposed to reduce the tank's vulnerability to enemy fire and reduce the fire hazard of the vehicle. Unlike the BT-7, which had one drive wheel on each side, the A-20 tank had to have three drive wheels on each side due to the vehicle’s weight increasing to 18 tons. This complicated and made the design of the machine heavier.
Experienced tank A-20. Future prototype of the T-34 medium tank
Work on tank diesel in the Soviet Union began in the early 30s on the basis of aviation in the oil engines department of the Central Institute of Aviation Engines, headed by A.D. Charomsky, and at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Internal Combustion Engines, headed by Ya. M. Mayer. Subsequently, the Kharkov plant was involved in work on the engine. As a result of work at plant No. 75 in 1934, the high-speed diesel engine BD-2 was created, the main design solutions of the engine were laid down by designer Ya.E. Vikhman, the department was headed by K.F. Chelpan. Tank diesel differed from aviation diesel in the ability to operate mainly in variable modes, with an unsteady load and frequent access to certain rotation speeds, in the presence of dust, and increased resistance to the air inlet and exhaust gases. In March 1935, two BT-5 tanks with BD-2 diesel engines were demonstrated to the top leadership of the Soviet Union in the Kremlin, where they received a positive assessment. Subsequently, with the assistance of CIAN employees G.P. Chupakhin and M.P. Poddubny, the design of BD-2 diesel engines was finalized at plant No. 183 and in December 1936 they were installed on the BT-7 tank and passed field tests. In 1937, in connection with the introduction of letter designations for military products, the BD-2 engine was assigned the index B-2.
The design of this engine included many progressive solutions - direct fuel injection, stamped aluminum piston, 4 valves in each cylinder, load-bearing power studs, cast aluminum head, etc. In 1939, the new B-2 diesel engine passed 100-hour state tests and in December it was accepted for serial production. In 1939, diesel production was separated into an independent plant No. 75, which was headed by D.E. Kochetkov and T.P. Chupakhin, I.Ya. Trashutin was appointed head of the design bureau. The first production tank equipped with a V-2 diesel engine was the BT-7M, which went into production in 1939. Due to the complexity of the design of the A-20 wheeled-tracked tank, the design bureau of the N183 plant began developing an initiative version of a purely tracked tank with projectile-proof armor . At the same time, the design of the vehicle was sharply simplified, its weight was significantly reduced, which made it possible to further increase the armor protection of the tank and strengthen the armament. Initially, this was not done to ensure that both cars had the same weight and were tested under equal conditions.
On May 4, 1938, at a meeting of the USSR Defense Committee, the project of the A-20 wheeled-tracked tank was considered. The hull of this tank was given a rational shape; it was welded from rolled armor plates, the turret was welded in a conical shape. Based on the results of the consideration of the project, a desire was expressed to develop and manufacture a similar, but better armored tank on the “purely” tracked A-32, the development of which was carried out at plant N 183 on an initiative basis, taking into account the experience of the combat use of tanks in the Spanish Civil War and design tanks with anti-ballistic armor.
Experimental tank A-32
In connection with the strengthening of anti-tank artillery in 1936, work began on the creation of the world's first tanks with shell-resistant armor. The first domestic tank with shell-resistant armor was the T-46-5 (object 11), created in 1938 at the Leningrad Experimental Engineering Plant named after Kirov (plant No. 185). The tank, with a combat weight of 22 tons, had 60 mm armor protection and a cast turret.
In the summer of 1938, the technical projects of both tanks - the ordered A-20 and the initiative A-32 - were completed. Their consideration took place in August at the Main Military Council. Most of the military leaders present strongly defended the wheeled-tracked tank, and the general opinion of the council was clearly in favor of the A-20. At this time, according to the memoirs of Ya.I. Baran, I.V. Stalin intervened and proposed, along with the development of the A-20 tank, to develop and build an initiative version of the A-32 in order to conduct comparative tests of both vehicles.
At the end of 1938, both projects were approved by the Main Military Council. The urgent development of drawings for both tanks required the involvement of hundreds of specialists; therefore, at the beginning of 1939, all tank bureaus of the N183 plant were united into a single design bureau, creating, as M.I. Koshkin put it, “a powerful design fist.” At the same time, all experimental workshops were merged into one. M.I. Koshkin was appointed chief designer of the united design bureau, his deputies were A.A. Morozov, N.A. Kucherenko, A.V. Kolesnikov and V.M. Doroshenko. In May 1939, prototypes of the A-20 and A-32 were manufactured and presented for testing. V.N. Chernyaev was appointed Chairman of the State Testing Commission.
With a similar weight and maintaining the main technical solutions adopted in the A-20 project, this version had enhanced armor protection (30 mm instead of 25 mm for the A-20). Later, the 45-mm cannon on the A-32 was replaced by a 76-mm L-10 cannon with a 26-caliber barrel, which began to be installed on T-28 tanks in 1938. The tests carried out confirmed the high performance of the new tanks. At the same time, the lack of advantages of the wheeled-tracked A-20 in terms of speed was revealed (the maximum speed of both vehicles was 65 km/h), and the superiority of the A-32 in armor protection and armament was supported not only by the significantly lower labor intensity of production, but also by the presence of a reserve to increase the mass of the tank. The commission found it difficult to name any one sample for further work. The commission found it difficult to name any one option for further work. As a result, the conclusion stated that both tanks had successfully passed the tests and the question of choosing one was up in the air. Even M.I. Koshkin’s attempt to resolve it with the command of the Automotive Tank Directorate was unsuccessful. In September 1939, a general display of tank equipment was organized for the command of the Red Army at a training ground near Moscow, which became a turning point in the fate of the A-32 tank. Preference was given to the A-32, which, after modifications to further enhance armor protection and structural strength, was successfully tested in the fall of 1939.
The A-32 high-speed tank had a welded hull made of rolled armor plates, which had rational angles of inclination, and a welded turret with inclined side plates. The tank was equipped with a 45mm tank gun of the 1934 model and a coaxial DT machine gun; the DT machine gun was installed in the front plate of the hull. For observation from the tank, two periscopes and three slits with glass blocks were installed. The A-32 tank, like the A-20, was equipped with a four-stroke twelve-cylinder V-shaped diesel engine B-2 liquid cooled. The mechanical power transmission of the tank consisted of a multi-disc main dry friction clutch (steel on steel), a four-speed gearbox with spur gears and movable gear shift carriages, multi-disc dry friction side clutches (steel on steel) and single-row final drives. The caterpillar mover had 5 large-diameter road wheels per side with rubber tires, the drive wheel was rear-mounted, with six rollers for securing to the ridges of the tracks. The A-32 tank used a worm mechanism for tensioning the track chains and a large-link chain consisting of ridge and smooth tracks, which were arranged in series. The tank had an individual suspension with coil springs, which were located in the side niches of the hull. The electrical equipment of the A-32 was made according to a single-wire circuit with a rated supply voltage of 12 and 24 V. For internal communication, a TPU-2 tank intercom was used.
In the fall of 1939, the experimental A-32 tank was modernized, its weight was increased to 24 tons, reinforcement of armor protection was simulated by hanging additional cargo, and it was equipped with a 76.2 mm L-10 tank gun created at the Leningrad Kirov Plant.
On December 19, 1939, the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR issued a Resolution on the production of two prototypes of a tracked tank based on the A-32 with an armor thickness of 45 mm and a 76 mm tank gun. This tank later received the index T-34 (A-34). The thickness of the T-34 armor was increased to 45 mm, a 76-mm L-11 cannon with a 30.5-caliber barrel was installed, and the weight increased to 26 tons. When releasing drawings of the vehicle, special attention was paid to further simplifying the design of the vehicles. In this, the design bureau was greatly assisted by specialists from the technological bureau headed by S.V. Ratinov and the Stalingrad Tractor Plant; the joint interaction of designers and technologists made it possible to create a technologically advanced design suitable for mass production. The production of two experimental T-34s began at plant N 183 in January 1940. On March 5, 1940, two experimental T-34s left the plant for the first time and made a run along the route Kharkov - Moscow, M.I. Koshkin took part in the run. On March 17, the cars were demonstrated in the Kremlin to the country's top leadership. After the vehicles were shown on Ivanovskaya Square in the Kremlin, their field tests began. The T-34 tank was subjected to tests for armor resistance; it was fired at directly with high-explosive and armor-piercing shells. In June 1940, both tanks were sent to the destroyed Mannerheim Line to overcome real anti-tank obstacles, and then through Minsk and Kyiv to their home plant in Kharkov. On March 31, a decision was signed by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on serial production of the tank at the N183 plant. By the end of the year it was planned to produce 200 T-34 tanks. In July, the plan was increased to 600 units: KhPZ was supposed to produce 500, and the Stalingrad Tractor Plant (STZ) - 100 T-34 tanks. But serial production of the T-34 tank proceeded with glitches, in particular because the test site specialists gave a negative review of the vehicle, which was included in the GABTU test report. Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Marshal G. Kulik, who approved the GABTU report, practically suspended the production and acceptance of T-34 tanks. As a result, by September 15, 1940, only three production copies were produced. After the tank was modified based on the test site's comments, the T-34 went into production and by January 1, 1940, KhPZ produced 115 vehicles.
In September 1940, KhPZ produced the first production tank. However, the results of ground tests of the T-34 were considered unsatisfactory by the GABTU, and production and acceptance of the tank was stopped. Only with great difficulty did the People's Commissariat of Medium Engineering, which by that time was in charge of tank production, manage to resume acceptance of the T-34, reducing the warranty mileage to 1000 km. The production plan for T-34 tanks in 1940 was not fulfilled: KhPZ delivered only 115 vehicles, and STZ - none.
A.A. Morozov, who took over the leadership of the KhPZ Design Bureau after the death of M.I. Koshkin (died September 26, 1940), managed not only to overcome the problems that arose, but also to increase its firepower by equipping the tank with the F-34 cannon, which was significantly superior to the L-34 cannon. eleven. The production of the T-34 also increased significantly - in the first half of 1941, two factories produced 1,110 vehicles.
The T-34 tank became an outstanding achievement of domestic tank building. It was distinguished by its reliable design, high technology, strong weapons, powerful armor and good mobility. For the creation of the tank, M.I. Koshkin (posthumously), A.A. Morozov and N.A. Kucherenko were awarded the USSR State Prize.
Apparently, it is in the extreme simplicity of the design that lies the secret of the popularity of this combat vehicle among both tankers and production workers. It was a Russian tank, for the Russian army and Russian industry, maximally adapted to our conditions of production and operation. And only Russians could fight on it! It is not for nothing that they say: “What is good for a Russian is death for a German.” The Thirty-Four forgave what was not forgiven, for example, for all their merits, Lend-Lease combat vehicles. It was impossible to approach them with a sledgehammer and a crowbar, or to straighten any part with a blow of a boot.
One more circumstance should be taken into account. In the minds of most people, the T-34 and T-34-85 tanks are not separated. With the latter we broke into Berlin and Prague; it was produced even after the end of the war, was in service until the mid-1970s, and was supplied to dozens of countries around the world. In the vast majority of cases, it is the T-34-85 that stands on pedestals. The halo of his fame spread to his much less successful predecessor.
Supplement to the magazine "MODEL CONSTRUCTION"
Sections of this page:
"Thirty-fours" of the 4th Guards Tank Kantemirovskaya Division on the street. Gorky before the parade. Moscow, November 7, 1945
On May 4, 1938, an extended meeting of the Defense Committee took place in Moscow. The meeting was chaired by V.I. Molotov, and was attended by I.V. Stalin, K.E. Voroshilov, other state and military leaders, representatives of the defense industry, as well as tank commanders who had recently returned from Spain. The participants were presented with a draft design of a light wheeled-tracked tank BT-20, developed at the Kharkov Comintern Locomotive Plant (KhPZ). During the discussion of the project, a discussion ensued about the advisability of using a wheeled-tracked propulsion system on tanks.
Participants in the battles in Spain who spoke in the debate, in particular A.A. Vetrov and D.G. Pavlov (at that time the head of ABTU), expressed diametrically opposed points of view on the issue under discussion. At the same time, opponents of the wheeled-tracked propulsion system, who found themselves in the minority, referred to the allegedly sad experience of using BT-5 tanks in Spain, which is not entirely clear, since this experience was very limited - only 50 BT-5 tanks were sent to Spain. References to the very low reliability of the chassis also seemed untenable: in September 1937, “beteshki”, for example, moving to the Aragonese front, made a 500-km march along the highway on wheels without significant breakdowns. By the way, a year and a half later, already in Mongolia, BT-7s of the 6th Tank Brigade made an 800-km march to Khalkhin Gol on tracks, and also with almost no breakdowns.
The essence of the contradictions, most likely, was something else: how much does a battle tank need a chassis in two forms? After all, the wheeled propulsion device was used mainly for marching at high speeds on good roads, and such an opportunity arose quite rarely. Was it worth complicating the design of the tank's chassis for this? And if for the BT-7 such a complication was still relatively small, then for the BT-20, which had a drive for three pairs of road wheels, it was already quite significant. There were probably other reasons: production, operational and political - if the authorities are in favor of a wheeled-tracked propulsion system, then why bother?
Here it is appropriate to make a brief excursion into the past and remind the reader of some facts related to the design of the BT-20, since it was with this vehicle that the history of the tank, later called the T-34, began.
So, in 1937, plant No. 183 (KhPZ received this number in the second half of 1936), in accordance with the tactical and technical requirements of the ABTU, was supposed to design wheeled-tracked tanks BT-7IS and BT-9, and in the same year it was planned to produce 100 BT-7IS units. The design bureau KB-190 of department "100" (tank production), which was headed by M.I. Koshkin from January 1937, this work was disrupted. In addition, Koshkin in every possible way hindered the work of the group led by an adjunct of the Stalin VAMM, military engineer of the 3rd rank A.Ya. Dik, who was specially sent to the KhPZ to develop several versions of the preliminary design of the BT-IS tank.
On September 28, 1937, the director of plant No. 183, I.P. Bondarenko, received from the Main Directorate the following order [* The style, spelling and punctuation of all cited documents are given without changes. - Ed.]:
"The director of plant No. 183. By Government Decision No. 94ss of August 15, 1937, the Main Directorate was asked to design and manufacture prototypes and prepare production for serial production of high-speed wheeled-tracked tanks with synchronized movement by 1939. Due to the extreme seriousness of this work and the extreme Given the short deadlines set by the Government, the 8th Main Directorate (People's Commissariat of Defense Industry - Author's note) considers it necessary to carry out the following activities.
A-20
A-32
1. To design a machine, create a separate design bureau (OKB) at KhPZ, subordinate directly to the chief engineer of the plant.
2. By agreement with VAMM and ABTU, appoint 3rd rank military engineer Dick Adolf Yakovlevich as the head of this bureau and assign 30 VAMM graduates to work in the bureau from October 5 and an additional 20 people from December 1.
3. By agreement with the ABTU of the Red Army, appoint Captain Evgeniy Anatolyevich Kulchitsky as the main consultant on the vehicle.
4. No later than September 30, allocate 8 of the best tank designers of the plant to work in the OKB to appoint them as heads of individual groups, one standardizer, a secretary and an archivist.
5. Create a mock-up and model workshop at the OKB and ensure priority execution of work related to new design in all workshops of the plant.
As a result, a design bureau was created at the plant, stronger than the main one.
To develop a new tank, ABTU sent captain E.A. Kulchitsky, military engineer 3rd rank A.Ya. Dik, engineers P.P. Vasilyev, V.G. Matyukhin, Vodopyanov, as well as 41 VAMM graduate students to Kharkov.
In turn, the plant allocated designers: A.A. Morozov, N.S. Korotchenko, Shura, A. A. Moloshtanov, M. M. Lurie, Berkovsky, Dikon, P. N. Goryun, M. I. Tarshinov , A.S. Bondarenko, Y.I.Barana, V.Ya.Kurasova, V.M.Doroshenko, Gorbenko, Efimova, Efremenko, Radoichina, P.S.Senturina, Dolgonogova, Pomochaibenko, V.S.Kalendin, Gross.
A.Ya.Dik was appointed head of the OKB, engineer P.N.Goryun as assistant chief, ABTU consultant E.A.Kulchitsky, section heads V.M.Doroshenko (control), M.I.Tarshinov (hull), Gorbenko (motor ), A.A.Morozov (transmission), P.P.Vasiliev (chassis).
On October 13, 1937, ABTU issued the plant and technical specifications, developed by the head of the 2nd department of ABTU Ya.L. Skvirsky, for the design of a new combat vehicle - the BT-20 wheeled-tracked tank.
"Tactical and technical requirements for the design and manufacture of a new wheeled-tracked tank BT-20
1. Type - wheeled-tracked, with 6-wheel drive Christie type.
2. Combat weight - 13-14 tons.
3. Armament - 1x45 mm, 3 diesel engines, flamethrower for self-defense or 1x76 mm, 3 diesel fuel, flamethrower. Every 5th tank must have an anti-aircraft gun.
4. Ammunition - 130-150x45 mm or 50x76 mm, 2500-3000 rounds.
5. Reservations: front - 25, conical turret - 20, side, stern - 16, roof and bottom - 10 mm. The armor is all inclined, with a minimum angle of inclination of the armor plates of the hull and turret of 18°.
6. Speed - the same on tracks and wheels: max. 70 km/h, min. 7 km/h.
7. Crew - 3 people.
8. Power reserve - 300-400 km.
9. Engine-BD-2 with a power of 400-600 hp.
10. Transmission - similar to the wheeled-tracked tank BT-IS (power take-off for wheel drive after side clutches).
11. Suspension is individual; it is advisable to use torsion springs as springs.
12. Install the “Orion” shot stabilizer and the horizontal stabilizer of the turret system of engineer Povalov, install headlights for night shooting with a range of up to 1000 m.”
Information about the activities of the design team led by A.Ya. Dik, which has so far been discovered, ends at the beginning of November 1937. However, it is reliably known that the technical specifications for the BT-20 tank were largely based on its developments made in the summer of 1937. First of all, this concerns the design of the guitar, the angles of inclination of the upper part of the sides, the longitudinal arrangement of the drive shafts of the wheel drive, the inclined arrangement of the springs, etc. Even Dick’s proposal to use five pairs of road wheels in the chassis for better load distribution has found its application, if not on BT -20, then on subsequent machines.
It’s amazing, but in almost all publications on the history of the creation of the T-34, the OKB does not appear, and there are only references to a section or bureau of advanced design headed by A.A. Morozov and practically the same team. In the album "Kharkov Mechanical Engineering Design Bureau named after A.A. Morozov", published in Kharkov for the 70th anniversary of the design bureau, it is reported that in order to fulfill the task of the ABTU to develop a new wheeled-tracked tank, M.I. Koshkin organized a new division - KB- 24. He selected the designers personally, on a voluntary basis, from among the employees of KB-190 and KB-35 (the latter was engaged in servicing the serial production of the T-35 heavy tank. - Author's note). This team included 21 people: M.I. Koshkin, A.A. Morozov, A.A. Moloshtanov, M.I. Tarshinov, V.G. Matyukhin, P.P. Vasilyev, S.M. Braginsky, Ya I. Baran, M. I. Kotov, Y. S. Mironov, V. S. Kalendin, V. E. Moiseenko, A. I. Shpeichler, P. S. Sentyurin, N. S. Korotchenko, E. S. .Rubinovich, M.M.Lurie, G.P.Fomenko, A.I.Astakhova, A.I.Guzeeva, L.A.Bleishmidt.
Apparently, the fate of the OKB was sad; in the fall of 1937 and spring of 1938, a wave of arrests swept through the plant. The director of the plant, I.P. Bondarenko, was arrested and then shot. Many Kharkov designers and production workers shared his fate.
Largely for this reason, the technical design of the BT-20 was ready only by mid-March 1938, one and a half months late. The preliminary design was approved by ABTU only on March 25. This is exactly what was demonstrated at the above-mentioned meeting of the Defense Committee. Since no specific decision in favor of this or that type of propulsion was made at this meeting, on May 13, 1938, the ABTU leadership approved the updated tactical and technical characteristics of the BT-20 wheeled-tracked tank. To provide protection from 12.7 mm armor-piercing bullets, the thickness of the armor plates of the hull and turret was increased, and the plates themselves were located at greater angles than before. The weight was determined to be 16.5 tons, and the vehicle actually moved into the category of medium tanks. The crew was increased to 4 people. The composition of the weapons remained the same, only the flamethrower installation was removed.
In August 1938, the USSR Defense Committee adopted a resolution “On the Tank Weapon System.” This document contained a requirement - in less than a year, by July 1939, to develop new models of tanks whose armament, armor and mobility would fully meet the conditions of a future war.
At the beginning of September 1938, the design and layout of the BT-20 tank were reviewed by a commission of the ABTU of the Red Army, chaired by military engineer 1st rank Ya.L. Skvirsky. The commission approved the project, but at the same time obliged the design bureau and plant No. 183 to develop and manufacture one wheeled-tracked tank with a 45-mm cannon and two tracked tanks with 76-mm cannons.
In October 1938, the plant presented drawings and models of two options developed in accordance with the decision of the ABTU commission: the wheeled-tracked A-20 and the tracked A-20G, which were reviewed by the Main Military Council of the Red Army on December 9 and 10, 1938. Their consideration by the USSR Defense Committee took place on February 27, 1939. Both projects were approved, and the plant was offered to manufacture and test prototypes of the A-20 and A-32 tanks (the A-20G had received this designation by that time).
In connection with the urgent development of drawings, the question arose about attracting additional design forces. At the beginning of 1939, the three tank design bureaus available at Plant No. 183 (KB-190, KB-35 and KB-24) were merged into one unit, which was assigned the code - department 520. At the same time, all experimental workshops were merged into one. The chief designer of department 520 was M.I. Koshkin, the head of the design bureau and deputy chief designer was A.A. Morozov, and the deputy head was N.A. Kucherenko.
By May 1939, prototypes of the new tanks were made in metal. Until July, both vehicles underwent factory testing in Kharkov, and from July 17 to August 23 - testing grounds. However, the test report indicated that neither vehicle was fully equipped. This concerned the A-32 to the greatest extent. It did not have the OPVT equipment provided for by the project and the stowage of spare parts; 6 out of 10 road wheels were borrowed from the BT-7 (they were already “original”), and the ammunition rack was not fully equipped.
Comparative tactical and technical characteristics of the A-20 and A-32 tanks
| A-20 | A-32 | |
| Combat weight, kg | 18,000±200 | 19,000±200 |
| Crew, people | 4 | 4 |
| Length, mm | 5760 | 5760 |
| Width, mm | 2650 | 2730 |
| Height on wheels, mm | 241 | 2411 |
| Height on tracks, mm | 2435 | 2435 |
| Height without turret on tracks, mm | 1538 | 1538 |
| Stroke width, mm | 2250 | 2300 |
| Distance between the axes of the caterpillar drive wheel and the idler, mm | 5060 | 5060 |
| Track base (distance between the axes of the outer support rollers), mm | 3511 | 3590 |
| Ground clearance, mm | 400-410 | 385-400 |
| Booking, mm: | ||
| forehead of the body | 20/56° | 20/56° |
| board | 25/90° | 30/90° |
| stern | 6/45° | 16/45° |
| roof and bottom | 10 | 10 |
| tower sides | 25/25° | 25/25° |
| tower roof | 10 | 10 |
| Armament | 1x45 mm, 2 diesel engines 1x76 mm, 2 diesel engines | |
| Ammunition: | ||
| shells | 152 | 72 |
| machine gun discs | 43 | 26 |
| Engine | B-2, installation series | |
| Max. power, hp | 500 at 1800 rpm | |
| Nom. power, hp | 450 at 1750 rpm | |
| Max. speed obtained when tested on tracks, km/h: | ||
| along the highway | 74,7 | 4,7 |
| along a dirt road | 57 | 65 |
As for the differences between the A-32 and the A-20, the commission that conducted the tests noted the following: the first does not have a wheel drive; the thickness of its side armor is 30 mm (instead of 25 mm); armed with a 76 mm L-10 cannon instead of a 45 mm one; has a mass of 19 tons. The ammunition stowage both in the nose and on the sides of the A-32 was adapted for 76-mm shells. Due to the lack of a wheel drive, as well as the presence of 5 road wheels, the interior of the A-32 hull was somewhat different from the interior of the A-20. In terms of other mechanisms, the A-32 did not have any significant differences from the A-20.
During the tests, the performance characteristics of both tanks were clarified.
During factory tests, the A-20 covered 872 km (on tracks - 655, on wheels - 217), A-32 - 235 km. During field testing, the A-20 traveled 3,267 km (2,176 of them on tracks), the A-32 - 2,886 km.
The chairman of the commission, Colonel V.N. Chernyaev, not daring to give preference to one of the vehicles, wrote in the conclusion that both tanks successfully passed the tests, after which the question again hung in the air.
On September 23, 1939, a demonstration of tank equipment to the leadership of the Red Army took place, which was attended by K.E. Voroshilov, A.A. Zhdanov, A.I. Mikoyan, N.A. Voznesensky, D.G. Pavlov and others, as well as the main designers of the tanks being presented. In addition to the A-20 and A-32, heavy KV, SMK and T-100 tanks, as well as light BT-7M and T-26 tanks were delivered to the Kubinka training ground near Moscow.
The A-32 “performed” very impressively. Easily, even gracefully and at a good pace, the tank crossed a ditch, a scarp, a counter-scarp, a rutted bridge, forded a river, climbed a slope with a rise of more than 30° and finally knocked down a large pine tree with the bow of the armored hull, causing the admiration of the spectators.
Based on the results of tests and demonstrations, the opinion was expressed that the A-32 tank, which had a reserve for increasing mass, would be advisable to protect with more powerful 45-mm armor, correspondingly increasing the strength of individual parts.
However, at this time, in the experimental workshop of plant No. 183, the assembly of two such tanks was already underway, receiving the factory index A-34. At the same time, during October - November 1939, tests were carried out on the A-32 tank, loaded with 6830 kg. The weight of the vehicle was increased to 24 tons by placing metal blanks on the hull and turret. The test report on this tank, signed by plant director Yu.E. Maksarev on December 18, 1939, noted: “Tests of the loaded A-32 tank were satisfactory.”
The plant was in a hurry to assemble new tanks by November 7, putting all its efforts into it. However, technical difficulties that arose, mainly with power plants and power transmissions, slowed down the assembly. The units and components were carefully adjusted, all threaded connections were treated with hot oil, and the rubbing surfaces were impregnated with purified grease. Ignoring the protests of military representatives, only imported bearings were installed in the gearboxes. The external surfaces of the buildings and towers were also subjected to unprecedented finishing.
The very complex technology for manufacturing armor parts for these two tanks did not help speed up production either. In particular, the frontal part of the hull was made of a single armor plate, bent “hot” on a 10,000-ton press. The armor plate was first tempered, then bent, straightened and again submitted for heat treatment. The workpieces warped during tempering and hardening, became cracked during bending, and their large sizes made the straightening process difficult. The turret was also welded from large bent armor plates. Holes (for example, a gun embrasure) were cut out after bending, which caused great difficulties in machining.
Meanwhile, on December 19, 1939, Resolution No. 443ss of the Defense Committee of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was adopted "On the adoption of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery tractors and their production in 1940 by the Red Army", which, in particular, said: "Based on review and test results of new models of tanks, armored vehicles and tractors manufactured in accordance with the resolutions of the Defense Committee No. 198ss of July 7, 1938 and No. 118ss of May 15, 1939, the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decides:
1. Adopt the Red Army: ...
Tank T-32 - tracked, with a V-2 diesel engine, manufactured by plant No. 183 of Narkomsredmash, with the following changes:
a) increase the thickness of the main armor plates to 45 mm;
b) improve visibility from the tank;
c) install the following weapons on the T-32 tank:
1) F-32 cannon of 76 mm caliber, coaxial with a machine gun of 7.62 mm caliber;
2) a separate machine gun for the radio operator of 7.62 mm caliber;
3) separate 7.62 mm machine gun;
4) anti-aircraft machine gun of 7.62 mm caliber.
Assign the name to the specified tank - T-34".
Assembly of the first A-34 was completed in January 1940, the second in February. And immediately military trials began, the progress of which was reflected in the reports.
“The first [vehicle] A-34 passed 200 km of testing. The maneuverability is good. The accompanying BT often gets stuck and we have to pull [it] out with the 34th.
Visibility in traffic is terrible. The glass sweats and becomes clogged with snow within 7-10 minutes. Further movement is impossible; the glass needs to be cleaned from the outside.
The tower is cramped with this system.
On February 15, 1940 we returned from the run. The machine was set to install the mask.
A-34 second - we ran it in, the mechanisms are working normally."
After 250 km of travel, the engine of the first A-34 tank failed, having worked for only 25 hours. It had to be replaced with a new one. By February 26, this car had covered only 650 km, and the second – 350 km. It became obvious that it would not be possible to complete the entire scope of testing with a mileage of 2000 km before the government show scheduled for March. And without this, the tanks could not be allowed to demonstrate. It was then that the idea arose to transport both A-34s from Kharkov to Moscow under their own power and thus “increase” the required mileage. At a special meeting of the plant’s party committee, M.I. Koshkin was appointed responsible for the run.
On the morning of March 5 (according to other sources, on the night from the 5th to the 6th), a convoy of two A-34s and two Voroshilovets tractors, one of which was equipped for housing, and the other was packed to capacity with spare parts, set course to Moscow. For reasons of secrecy, the route of the run was laid out bypassing large settlements and main roads. Bridges were allowed to be used if it was impossible to cross the river on ice and only at night. The mileage schedule took into account not only travel and rest times, but also the train schedule on the intersecting railway lines and the weather forecast along the route. The average speed of the column should not exceed 30 km/h.
Troubles began not far from Belgorod. While moving through the virgin snow, one of the tanks had its main clutch broken off. In a number of publications, this is attributed to the lack of experience of one of the drivers, which seems unlikely, since the tanks were driven by the best test drivers of the plant, who drove hundreds of kilometers on them. Yu.E. Maksarev in his memoirs gives a different interpretation of this fact. According to him, “a representative of the GABTU, sitting at the levers, forced the car to turn around in the snow at full speed and disabled the main clutch.” M.I. Koshkin decided to continue moving with one tank, and a repair team was called from the factory to repair the one that was out of order.
In Serpukhov, the column was met by the Deputy People's Commissar of Medium Engineering (in 1939, all tank factories were transferred from the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry to the People's Commissar of Medium Machine Building) A. A. Goreglyad. A serviceable tank arrived in Moscow, or more precisely at plant No. 37, located in Cherkizovo, then near Moscow. For several days, while they were waiting for the lagging car, a real pilgrimage continued to the plant: representatives of the Scientific and Technical Committee of the GABTU, VAMM named after Stalin, the General Staff of the Red Army - everyone was interested in looking at the new product. During these days, M.I. Koshkin felt ill, his temperature rose - during the run he caught a serious cold.
On the night of March 17, both "thirty-fours" arrived at Ivanovo Square in the Kremlin. In addition to M.I. Koshkin, only two drivers of plant No. 183 were allowed into the Kremlin. Tank No. 1 was driven by N.F. Nosik, and No. 2 by I.G. Bitensky (according to other sources - V. Dyukanov). Next to them, in the place of the shooter, were NKVD officers.
In the morning, a large group of party and government figures approached the tanks - I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov, M.I. Kalinin, L.P. Beria, K.E. Voroshilov and others. The head of the GABTU D.G. Pavlov gave a report. Then the floor was given to M.I. Koshkin. Despite the medications he had taken, he could not control the cough that was choking him, which caused dissatisfied glances from I.V. Stalin and L.P. Beria. After the report and inspection, the tanks drove off: one to Spassky, the other to the Trinity Gate. Before reaching the gate, they turned sharply and rushed towards each other, effectively striking sparks from the paving stones. After making several circles with turns in different directions, the tanks stopped at the same place on command. The leader liked the new cars, and he ordered that plant No. 183 be provided with the necessary assistance to eliminate the shortcomings of the A-34, which were persistently pointed out to him by Deputy People's Commissar of Defense G.I. Kulik and D.G. Pavlov. Moreover, the latter boldly told Stalin: “We will pay dearly for the production of insufficiently combat-ready vehicles.”
After the Kremlin show, the tanks headed to the NIBT Test Site in Kubinka, where, in particular, they were tested by firing from a 45-mm cannon. After two shells hit the turret from a distance of 100 m, the glass and mirrors of the viewing devices were destroyed, the forehead of the sight came off, and the welds along the contours of the armor of the viewing devices and at the bottom of the turret niche were broken. As a result of the deformation of the shoulder strap, the tower jammed. True, the dummy in the tank remained intact, and the engine, which had been started before the shelling, continued to run. It was decided to increase the thickness of the turret niche bottom from 15 to 20 mm and strengthen the aft hatch mounting bolts.
In addition to shelling tests, sea trials were also carried out. The tanks overcame inclines of 15-16° with snow cover of up to 1.5 m. At the same time, low adhesion qualities of the tracks were noted. The impact force of the tanks broke free-standing pine trees with a diameter of up to 700 mm. When testing the tightness of the tank hull against the penetration of burning liquid, better results were obtained compared to other tanks.
In conclusion, it was noted that both A-34 vehicles meet the requirements and are superior to the tanks in service with the Red Army. But without eliminating the noted shortcomings (a list of 86 points), the A-34 tank could not be put into mass production.
On March 31, 1940, the first prototype of the A-34 tank was inspected and a meeting was held, which was attended by People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov, his deputy G.I. Kulik, head of ABTU D.G. Pavlov, People's Commissar of Medium Engineering I. A. Likhachev, his deputy A. A. Goreglyad and chief designer M. I. Koshkin. As a result, Protocol No. 848 was signed on putting the T-34 (A-34) tank into mass production at plant No. 183 and STZ. At the same time, it was pointed out that during serial production it was necessary to provide for an increase in the reserved volume of the turret in order to more conveniently accommodate crew members. The turret should have been enlarged without changing the angles of the armor plates or increasing the diameter of the shoulder straps. The radio needed to be moved from the tower to the building. The State Commission for Tank Testing was tasked with approving the T-34 drawings for production in 1940 within five days.
The final stage of testing was their return to the plant under their own power in April 1940. Upon arrival of the cars in Kharkov after 3,000 km of run, a number of defects were discovered during disassembly: the brakes and ferrodo on the main clutch discs were burnt, cracks appeared on the fans, and chips were found on the gear teeth of the gearboxes. The design bureau worked on a number of options to eliminate defects. However, it was clear to everyone that the A-34 would not pass the warranty of 3,000 km without defects (even after corrections).
Meanwhile, the plant adopted a production program for 1940, which provided for the production of one and a half hundred A-34 tanks.
Tentative production plan for the A-34 in 1940
| Month | Brand | ||||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | Total | |
| A-34 | 15 | 60 | 75 | 152 |
However, this plan was soon significantly adjusted. On June 5, 1940, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the production of T-34 tanks in 1940,” which stated:
"Attaching particular importance to equipping the Red Army with T-34 tanks, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decide:
1. Oblige the People's Commissar of Medium Engineering, Comrade. Likhacheva I.A.: a) produce 600 T-34 tanks in 1940, of which:
at plant No. 183 (named after Comintern) - 500 pcs.,
at the Stalingrad Tractor - 100 units, with the following breakdown by month:
| June | July | August | September | October | November | December | |
| Plant No. 183 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 80 | 115 | 120 | 125 |
| STZ | - | - | - | - | 20 | 30 | 50 |
b) fully provide the 1940 program for the production of T-34 tanks with diesel engines, for which purpose increase the production of V-2 engines at plant No. 75 and produce 2000 units by the end of 1940, with the following breakdown by month.
| June | July | August | September |
| 210 | 230 | 260 | 300 |
| October | November | December | |
| 320 | 330 | 350 |
Warn the heads of enterprises fulfilling orders for the T-34 tank that they are personally responsible for their execution both in terms of quality and on time."
Despite the dire warning, this plan was not implemented; moreover, in the summer of 1940, clouds began to gather over the T-34. The fact is that two Pz.III tanks, purchased from Germany after the signing of the non-aggression pact, arrived at the Kubinka training ground. The results of comparative tests of the German tank and the T-34 were disappointing for the Soviet combat vehicle.
The T-34 was superior to the "troika" in armament and armor protection, inferior in a number of other indicators, the Pz.III had a three-man turret, which provided quite comfortable conditions for the combat work of the crew members. The commander had a comfortable turret, which provided him with excellent visibility, and all crew members had their own intercom devices.
The T-34 turret could hardly accommodate two tankers, one of whom served not only as a gunner, but also as a tank commander, and in some cases, as a unit commander. Only two of the four crew members were provided with internal communications - the tank commander and the driver.
The German car surpassed the T-34 in terms of smoothness, it also turned out to be less noisy - at maximum speed the Pz.III could be heard from 150-200 m away, and the T-34 from 450 m.
The superiority of the “German” in speed was also a complete surprise for our military. On the gravel highway Kubinka-Repische, the Pz.III accelerated at a measured kilometer to a speed of 69.7 km/h, while the best figure for the T-34 was 48.2 km/h. The BT-7 on wheels, singled out as a standard, reached only 68.1 km/h!
The test report also noted the more successful suspension of the German tank, high quality optical instruments, convenient placement of ammunition and a radio station, and a reliable engine and transmission.
These results had the effect of a bomb exploding. GABTU (since July 1940, the Auto-Armoured Directorate of the Red Army became known as the Main Auto-Armoured Directorate) provided the test site report to Marshal G.I. Kulik, who approved it and thereby suspended the production and acceptance of the T-34, demanding that all shortcomings be eliminated. The management of plant No. 183 did not agree with the customer’s opinion and appealed it to the headquarters and the People’s Commissariat, proposing to continue producing the T-34 with corrections, reducing the warranty mileage to 1000 km. People's Commissar of Medium Engineering V.A. Malyshev (who replaced I.A. Likhachev in this post) together with the head of the 8th Main Directorate of the People's Commissariat of Medium Machine Building A.A. Goreglyad, the director of plant No. 183 Yu.E. Maksarev and the head of the scientific and technical complex of the GABTU I.A. The Lebedevs turned directly to K.E. Voroshilov, who, like V.A. Malyshev, was deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. The Marshal got acquainted with the results of the 3000 km run, tests at the training ground and on the former “Mannerheim Line”, listened to the opinion of I.A. Lebedev, who advocated continuing the production of the T-34, and announced his decision: “Continue to make cars; hand them over to the army, having established a 1000-km warranty mileage. The plant began to develop a new car - the T-34M, introducing not only strength changes into it, but also a five-speed gearbox."
By that time, the health of M.I. Koshkin, who fell ill with pneumonia in March, had deteriorated significantly. Despite the removal of the affected lung, M.I. Koshkin died on September 26, 1940. A.A. Morozov was appointed chief designer of the tank design bureau.
Under his leadership, the design of two options for modernizing the T-34 began. In the first - A-41 - an attempt was made to correct most of the shortcomings without making a new body and replacing the power unit. The vehicle received a new three-seat turret with a shoulder diameter of 1700 mm (versus 1420 mm for the T-34) and a new F-34 cannon from factory No. 92. This project did not go beyond the “paper” stage.
The second variant, the A-43, better known as the T-34M, was longer, narrower and taller than the T-34. The ground clearance was increased by 50 mm. A new V-5 engine with a power of 600 hp was designed for the A-43. They did not develop a new gearbox, but installed a range multiplier in tandem with the old 4-speed one. As a result, the A-43 had the ability to move at eight speeds forward and two in reverse. The Christie-type spark plug suspension, which migrated to the T-34 with VT, gave way to a torsion bar.
The A-43 received a turret previously designed for the A-41, with a commander's cupola and two round landing hatches. The radio station was moved to the hull, which made it possible to increase the cannon's ammunition from 77 to 100 rounds, and the machine gun's ammunition from 46 to 72 discs.
As a result, the new vehicle turned out to be 987 kg lighter than the T-34, but the specific ground pressure increased slightly, since the width of the tracks was reduced by 100 mm.
Simultaneously with the development of the A-43, Plant No. 183 continued production of the T-34, which was difficult. Thus, in June 1940, only 4 of the 10 planned vehicles were assembled. The assembly of the rest was delayed because the welders were busy producing BT-7M tanks, and the director of the plant, Yu.E. Maksarev, despite repeated demands from military acceptance representatives, prohibited their use in the assembly of the T-34 until the end of June. As a result, out of 16 sets of hull and turret parts received from the Mariupol plant, only five hulls were welded in June.
Subcontractors also slowly mastered the production of components for the T-34. The worst situation was at STZ. By July 1, 1940, this plant had not produced a single blank of 90 items. As of June 25, only 200 of the planned 11,100 tracked vehicles had been shipped from Stalingrad to Kharkov. The armor parts supplied by the Mariupol Metallurgical Plant named after Ilyich (previously in publications this enterprise, for purposes of secrecy, was called the “Southern Armor Plant”) required modification, since their geometry was not maintained. Despite the simplification of the tank assembly technology (the frontal part, for example, was now assembled from three parts - the upper and lower frontal plates and the connecting beam), it remained quite complex and more labor-intensive than that of the BT-7M, the production of which ceased only in July 1940 .
1 - L-11 gun; 2 - hatch for ventilation; 3 - all-round viewing device; 4 - eye; 5 - hole plug for firing from a revolver; 6 engine; 7 air purifier; 8 - main clutch; 9 - starter; 10-side clutch; 11-gearbox; 12 - sub-engine frame; 13 - batteries; 14 motor partition, 15 vertical cassettes with shells; 16 - commander's seat; 17 - stacking of shells on the right wall of the fighting compartment; 18 - driver's seat; 19 - control levers; 20 main clutch pedal; 21 - compressed air cylinders; 22 - towing eye; 23 - radio station; 24 - mirror observation devices for the driver
At plant No. 75, with great difficulty, they managed to ensure that the V-2 diesel engine operated without failure for 150 hours on the stand. There were a lot of problems! For correct and uniform atomization and uniform fuel supply, special stands were made on which the entire set of 12 injectors with all pipelines and pumps was tested. The valves, nozzles and needles were ground by hand by students of the FZO school: the girls were especially good at this; sensitive girlish fingers coped better with this delicate work. There was also a lot of trouble with the holes in the injectors. Using a drill with a diameter of 0.3 mm, it was necessary to drill six holes in the nozzle head at high speeds. This truly jewelry instrument was stored in matchboxes. One box was enough for a shift.
The issue of arming the new tank also became a particular problem. According to Resolution No. 443 of December 19, 1939, the T-34 was supposed to be armed with the 76-mm F-32 tank gun, developed at the Design Bureau of Plant No. 92 under the leadership of V.G. Grabin. By Decree of the Defense Committee No. 45 of January 26, 1940, the F-32 cannon was adopted by the Red Army and the Kirov Plant was ordered to organize its mass production in 1940 to replace the 76-mm L-11 cannon, the production of which was discontinued in 1939. In the first half of 1940, the LKZ was ordered to produce an initial batch of 30 F-32 guns, and from August 1 to launch their mass production. However, the Kirov Plant strongly opposed the production of a “foreign” artillery system, continuing to push its own L-11. In this matter, the directorate even managed to enlist the support of V.A. Malyshev. However, this did not help - comparative tests of both guns, carried out in May 1940, revealed that the F-32 has a number of advantages over the L-11, therefore, according to plans adjusted in August 1940, the Kirov plant was supposed to produce 130 F-32 guns, but managed to produce only 50 of these artillery systems, which began to be installed in heavy KV tanks in January 1941.
Thus, in 1940, the only 76 mm gun suitable for installation in the T-34 tank was the L-11. Despite the fact that their production had already been completed and they arrived in Kharkov not from the manufacturing plant, but from an artillery warehouse, there were still not enough guns. The fact was that, in addition to the T-34, the L-11 cannon was installed in the KV heavy tank, as well as on a number of prototypes of armored vehicles. A total of 453 "thirty-fours" with this gun were produced.
Starting in the summer of 1940, the design bureau of plant No. 92 began the development of the 76-mm F-34 cannon. It was intended to arm the A-41 and A-43 tanks. To ensure the design, at the request of the director of plant No. 183, Yu.E. Maksarev, a model of the gun was sent from Gorky, which differed from the combat model in the absence of a rifled barrel tube. Meanwhile, the F-34 factory testing program came to an end, and on October 21, the gun was presented to the NPO acceptance committee. True, they presented the A-41 without a turret, but mounted in a BT-7A tank. As a result, the commission did not make any decisions, but expressed an opinion on the advisability of installing the F-34 in the turret of the serial T-34 tank without increasing the diameter of the shoulder strap. It should be noted that for production reasons, it was recommended to shorten the gun barrel to 40 calibers. But even in this form, the F-34 was much more powerful than the F-32 and L-11, which had a barrel length of 30.5 calibers.
At the beginning of December 1940, at a meeting of the Defense Committee, a decision was made to begin mass production of the F-34 cannon, although the resolution on its adoption was not adopted at this meeting. When working on the F-34 at Plant No. 92, the so-called “high-speed method” mentioned in the memoirs of V.G. Grabin was tested in full for the first time, which made it possible to begin production of guns 13 days after the decision was made on their serial production. In February 1941, Plant No. 92 shipped 82 F-34 guns to Kharkov, and in March it reached its planned capacity. The resolution on the adoption of the gun for service was adopted only in July 1941.
However, let's go back to 1940. In July, in the experimental workshop of plant No. 183, instead of the planned 20, only one tank was assembled in full, in August - two more, and only in September the plant delivered 37 tanks to the customer. In October, due to the lack of L-11 cannons, military representatives accepted only one combat vehicle, and 55 assembled tanks stood unarmed. In November 1940, Plant No. 183 not only handed over 35 tanks to the army, but was also able to send hulls, turrets, guns and sights to the STZ for the assembly of 12 T-34 tanks.
Meanwhile, the first three production T-34 vehicles, in accordance with the directive of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense No. 76791 of October 25, 1940, underwent intensive testing at the NIBT Test Site during November and December, and also made a long (38 days) circular run along the route Kharkov - Moscow - Smolensk - Gomel - Kyiv - Poltava - Kharkov. In addition, shooting was carried out from the spot, during which 249 shells and 1,423 cartridges were expended. As a result of the tests, the test site employees identified so many design flaws in the new vehicles that they doubted their combat effectiveness. The question of removing the T-34 from production was again raised, and besides, a number of leaders of the GABTU and the People's Commissariat of Defense had a strong opinion - the most popular tank of the Red Army was supposed to be a light T-50.
| Total for 1941 | Up to 1.V | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | |
| Plant No. 183 | 1800 | 525 | 140 | 150 | 160 | 175 | 175 | 150 | 160 | 165 |
| STZ | 1000 | 130 | 60 | 80 | 100 | 110 | 110 | 130 | 130 | 150 |
The head of the GABTU Y.N. Fedorenko and the head of the GAU G.I. Kulik, supported by the commander of the Western Special Military District D.G. Pavlov, took the initiative to stop production of the T-34 and restore production of the BT-7M until work on the T was completed -34M. However, this proposal was rejected.
As for the T-34M (A-43), its project was approved by the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in January 1941.
In March, production of two reference samples of the tank began. At the same time, related companies mastered the production of components and assemblies for this machine.
A stamped tower with a wall thickness of 45 mm was developed at the Mariupol Metallurgical Plant under the leadership of V.S. Nitsenko. In May 1941, the plant not only produced the first 5 turrets for the T-34M, but also prepared their mass production (during the evacuation in the fall of 1941, 50 almost completed turrets were taken out of Mariupol). Around the same time, they began producing cast turrets for the T-34 tank with a wall thickness of 52 mm.
A reflection of all the ordeals and disputes regarding the T-34 and T-34M was the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On the production of T-34 tanks in 1941", adopted on May 5, 1941. It said, in particular:
"1. To approve the production plan for the People's Commissariat for 1941:
a) T-34 tanks in the amount of 2800 pieces, including 1800 pieces from plant No. 183 and 1000 pieces from STZ, ensuring the delivery of these vehicles to NPOs according to the following schedule:
2. Oblige the People's Commissariat of Medium Machinery, Comrade Malyshev, and the director of plant No. 183, Comrade Maksarev, to make the following improvements to the T-34 tanks:
a) increase the thickness of the armor of the turret and the front frontal plate of the hull to 60 mm;
b) install torsion bar suspension;
c) expand the turret ring to a size of at least 1600 mm and install a commander’s cupola with all-round visibility;
d) install the side plates of the tank hull vertically, with an armor thickness equal to 40 mm armor at an angle of 45°.
3. Set the full combat weight of the improved T-34 tank to 27.5 tons.
4. To oblige the People’s Commissariat of Medium Machinery, Comrade Malyshev, and the director of plant No. 183, Comrade Maksarev, to ensure the production of 500 improved T-34 tanks in 1941 to meet the program established by this resolution.”
This document refers to both the T-34 and the T-34M, for which almost everything was ready for serial production. By April 17, three armored hulls were manufactured at KhPZ; by the end of the month, torsion bars, rollers and other chassis elements were received from KhTZ for assembly. However, the V-5 engine, intended for this tank, was never ready either by May 1 or by the start of the war...
As for the T-34, its production program was quite strict and required every effort from the plant. Non-standard progressive solutions were needed, which included the introduction of automatic welding of armored hulls and turrets. This type of welding was first tested in Kharkov in May 1941. Yu.E. Maksarev described how this happened in his memoirs.
“Calculations of the plan showed that we do not have enough electric welders, transformers and stands for assembling and welding buildings and towers. By decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)U and the People's Commissariat, to our happiness, a prominent scientist from Kyiv, Evgeniy Oskarovich Paton, came to the plant.
When I was at the XII Congress of the Party of Ukraine, they told me about this wonderful scientist and showed me an experimental bridge on Vladimir Hill - this was his graduation project. But the conversation continued to be about bridges and iron structures. Now at the plant I met Yevgeny Oskarovich, returning from the regional party committee, at the door of the director’s entrance, very irritated. Having found out what was the matter, I asked him to return to my office, and there a long conversation took place with all the performers called. I was amazed by the tenacity of our welders, quality control departments, military representatives and technologists - armor specialists who denied the possibility of "Paton welding" (automatically under a layer of flux).
At the end of the conversation, I made the final decision - to agree with Evgeniy Oskarovich’s proposal! First it was necessary to conduct an experiment. We had to build a "Glagol" (like a radial drilling machine), moving on rails along a device on which two armor parts 45 mm thick would be welded at an angle of 90°. The institute undertook to manufacture a welding head and tell us how many ST-32 welding transformers needed to be prepared. Military representative comrade Zuher - he was the senior military representative for all armored structures - said that without shelling for destruction, i.e. limit of rear strength, he will not agree to accept the seam.
After the agreed time, our chief mechanic, Comrade Kutsykovich, and designer, Comrade Voloshin, reported that the designs of the “Glagoli” and the stand were ready for testing. We called Evgeniy Oskarovich from Kyiv and set a time for the test. The test brought together an idle shift of welders certified in welding armored parts, all armored hull production technologists, quality control department management, designers, S.N. Makhonin and me. We laid and secured the prepared armor plates, the length of which was the width of the nose part of the T-34 tank, and secured it with screws so that a corner cavity was formed between the plates.
The operator, without glasses, which immediately surprised us, poured flux into the resulting groove, leveled it, moved the welding head, lowered the welding wire into the flux and turned on the current from the transformers. Something hissed, a crackling sound was heard, and the flux began to bulge. The operator started moving along the rails of the installation, and one could see how the wire unwinds from the reel and disappears under the flux; behind the wire, the flux continued to bulge. Our welders prepared dark glasses. The head of the armored hull department, Comrade Savostin, kept thrusting dark glass in a wooden frame into my hand (the kind they use in open-hearth furnaces to watch the boiling of steel), and kept repeating in my ear: “Don’t catch the arc!” I looked at the operator, who worked freely without glasses. Finally, the seam was ready: it took five to six times less time than with manual welding. The operator brushed the remaining flux from the seam into a bucket, and we saw not a seam, but some kind of bubble snake filling the space between the parts. There were very unpleasant remarks from the “aces” of welding, especially from the quality control department and military representatives. Comrade Savostin stated that he, as the person in charge of welding the hulls, would not even allow such work!
Evgeniy Oskarovich and the cameraman were completely calm. At this time, the operator hit the surface of the seam in several places with a pick, which is usually used to trim scale, and a real seam was revealed to our surprised eyes - smooth, shiny, evenly, densely filling the gap between the parts. Everyone fell silent.
We welded two more slabs, then welded them together with the first unit, and Comrade Zucher took them to his training ground to shoot the structure. On the phone, he said that he smashed the armor to pieces, and the seams did not give way.
This was a victory for the idea of the scientist and his institute!
We agreed to build installations for welding the bow assembly, and the technologists were given the task of reviewing all the assemblies that could be welded with “Paton,” as these installations were called for short. In mobilization terms, this reduced the need for highly qualified welders by five to six times. At that time, we had not yet thought about welding the entire body, especially on an assembly line. So far we have been working on the hulls by hand welding."
During the first half of 1941, military acceptance at plant No. 183 accepted 816 T-34 tanks, at STZ - 294. Thus, by July 1, 1941, both plants delivered 1,225 tanks to the army, and 58 of them were still on the plant grounds in June. waiting to be sent to the troops.
The newly assembled T-34 leaves the workshop of plant No. 112 "Krasnoe Sormovo". Spring 1942
On June 25, 1941, a decree was issued by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On increasing the production of KV, T-34 and T-50 tanks, artillery tractors and tank diesel engines for the 3rd and 4th quarters of 1941," which formulated the task of creation of a comprehensive tank-building industry. Plants No. 183 and STZ were ordered to curtail the production of all civilian products, begin to implement the mobilization plan and be ready to provide assistance to those enterprises that would be involved in the production of the T-34. On July 1, 1941, another decree appeared, already of the State Defense Committee No. GKO-1 ss, according to which the Gorky plant "Krasnoe Sormovo" (plant No. 112 of the People's Commissariat of Sustainable Industry) was involved in the production of T-34 tanks. The Kharkov Tractor Plant was involved in the production of tank components and assemblies, in particular, gearboxes, final clutches, final drives, drive wheels and road wheels.
Meanwhile, Plant No. 183 increased the production of tanks. People worked in two 11-hour shifts, not leaving the workshops even during the bombing of the city. In July, 225 tanks left the factory gates, in August - 250, in September - 250, and in October the last 30 vehicles were assembled. Based on Resolution No. 667/SGKO dated September 12, 1941, Yu.E. Maksarev gave the order for the immediate evacuation of the plant to the rear. The first echelon left Kharkov on September 19 and headed to the Urals, to Nizhny Tagil, to the territory of the Ural Carriage Works. The Moscow Machine Tool Plant named after S. Ordzhonikidze, part of the equipment and employees of the Moscow factories "Red Proletary", "Stankolit" and others arrived at the same site. On the basis of these enterprises, the Ural Tank Plant No. 183 was formed. The first 25 tanks at the new location were already assembled at the end of December from components and parts brought from Kharkov.
In the fall of 1941, STZ remained the only major manufacturer of the T-34. At the same time, they tried to launch the production of the maximum possible number of components in Stalingrad itself. The armored steel came from the Red October plant, the armored hulls were welded at the Stalingrad Shipyard (plant No. 264), and the guns were supplied by the Barrikady plant. In short, the city organized an almost complete production cycle for the tank and its parts. The production of tanks increased steadily. If in June and July STZ delivered 86 and 93 tanks, respectively, then in August -155! Production reached its maximum in September 1941 - 165 combat vehicles. In October, only 124 tanks were handed over to military representatives. The drop in production was caused by a decrease in supplies of hulls and turrets from the evacuated plant No. 183.
The production of V-2 diesel engines also fell sharply. In mid-1941, the only manufacturer of these engines remained Kharkov plant No. 75. In the very first days of the war, an order was received to expand their production at KhTZ. However, the rapidly changing situation at the front forced these plans to change. KhTZ engine production was relocated to Seversky Plant, where the production of diesel engines began in November 1941. Plant No. 75 at that time was “on wheels” - it was being evacuated to the Urals. Thus, for some time the B-2 engines were not produced at all. Their absence had to be compensated for by installing M-17 carburetor engines.
This issue began to be studied at plant No. 183 back in June 1941. The work was accelerated after the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated September 16, 1941 "On the installation of the M-17 engine in the T-34 tank." Five days later, all the documentation was transferred to STZ and plant No. 112.
At STZ in 1941, 209 vehicles were equipped with M-17 engines, in January - March 1942 - 364. However, on 95 tanks produced in March, M-17 engines were replaced with B-2 produced by STZ in the first ten days of April.
The T-34 production program at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant in 1941 included 700-750 units, but by the end of the year the plant was able to produce only 173 vehicles, 156 of them with M-17 engines. In 1942, another 540 T-34s with carburetor engines left the factory floors.
Engine Plant No. 75 arrived in Chelyabinsk, where it became part of the Chelyabinsk Kirov Plant. In November 1941, the first 18 diesel engines were assembled in Chelyabinsk from blanks and parts brought from Kharkov. In December, ChKZ launched serial production of V-2 diesel engines entirely from parts of its own production and delivered 155 engines in a month. In January 1942, production amounted to 240 diesel engines, and by March 1942, production reached 10 engines per day. But even this pace lagged behind the needs of tank factories.
1 F-34 gun; 2 gun lifting mechanism; 3 - periscope trailer PT-4-7; 4 - turret hatch cover; 5 - placement of machine gun magazines in the turret niche; 6 - hole plug for firing from a revolver; 7- air purifier; 8 - engine; 9 - fan; 10 - main clutch; 11 - aft fuel tank; 12 - starter; 13 - gearbox; 14 side clutch; 15 batteries; 16 - suspension spring; 17 - cassettes with shells; 18 - commander's seat; 19 - stacking of shells on the wall of the fighting compartment, 20 electric trigger pedal for the gun; 21 stowage of magazines for the forward machine gun; 22 - driver's seat; 23 - gear shift lever; 24 - side clutch control lever; 25 air fuel pump; 26 - compressed air cylinders; 27 - towing eye; 28 - machine gun armored mask; 29-radio station; 30 - driver's hatch; 31 - balancing mechanism of the driver's hatch cover
Anticipating this situation, SNK decided to expand diesel production at two more plants. The LKZ engine production was evacuated to Sverdlovsk, to the site of the Ural Turbine Plant (on December 13 it was renamed plant No. 76 NKTP). The first diesel engine was assembled here on October 12, 1941.
Another plant appeared in Altai. On October 13, 1941, the State Defense Committee decided to build two factories in Barnaul: one for the production of T-50 light tanks, the other for the production of 6-cylinder V-4 diesel engines for these tanks. At the end of January 1942, these two enterprises were merged into one plant (from September 17, 1942 - No. 77 NKTP) for the production of V-2 diesel engines, which was designed on the basis of the engine production of KhTZ and the Moscow ZIS. The first engine was assembled here on November 6 of the same year.
Thus, at the end of 1941 and the first half of 1942, the production of T-34 tanks was carried out at three factories: No. 183 in Nizhny Tagil, STZ and No. 112 "Krasnoe Sormovo". Plant No. 183 was considered the head plant, as was its design bureau - department 520 (in some sources - GKB-34). It was assumed that all changes made to the design of the T-34 by other factories would be approved here. In reality, everything looked somewhat different. Only the performance characteristics of the tank remained unshakable, but the details of the tanks from different manufacturers differed significantly.
So, for example, from October 25, 1941, plant No. 112 began manufacturing prototypes of simplified armored hulls, without machining the edges of the sheets after gas cutting, with the parts connected in a “quarter” and a tenon connection of the front sheet with the sides and fender liners.
According to the drawings of the head plant, received by Krasnoye Sormovo, there was a hatch in the rear wall of the turret, closed by a removable armor plate fastened with six bolts. The hatch was intended for dismantling a damaged gun in the field. The metallurgists of the plant, using their technology, cast the rear wall of the tower as solid, and the hole for the hatch was cut out on a milling machine. It soon became clear that in the removable sheet, when it is fired from a machine gun, vibration occurs, leading to the bolts coming off and being torn from its place. Attempts to abandon the hatch were made several times, but each time representatives of the customer objected. Then the head of the weapons sector, A.S. Okunev, proposed using two tank jacks to raise the rear part of the turret. At the same time, in the hole formed between the turret ring and the roof of the hull, the gun, removed from the trunnions, freely rolled out onto the roof of the tank hull. During testing, a stop was welded to the leading edge of the hull roof, which protected the turret from sliding during lifting. The production of such towers began at plant No. 112 on March 1, 1942. Military representative A.A. Afanasyev proposed, instead of a thrust bar across the entire width of the hull roof, to weld an armored visor, which would simultaneously serve as a stop and protect the gap between the end of the turret and the hull roof from bullets and shrapnel. Later, this visor and the absence of a hatch in the rear wall of the turret became distinctive features of Sormovo tanks.
Due to the loss of many subcontractors, tank builders had to show miracles of ingenuity. Thus, due to the cessation of supplies from Dnepropetrovsk of air cylinders for emergency engine starting at Krasny Sormovo, they began to use artillery shell casings rejected by machining for their production!
They wriggled out as best they could at STZ: many of the tank’s welded and stamped parts were replaced with cast ones, fortunately the plant’s foundry was at that time the second most powerful in the world. Since August 1941, there were interruptions in the supply of rubber from Yaroslavl, so from October 29, all T-34 tanks at STZ began to be equipped with cast road wheels with internal shock absorption. As a result, a characteristic external feature of the Stalingrad tanks was the absence of rubber tires on all road wheels. A new track design with a straightened treadmill was also developed, which made it possible to reduce noise when the machine was moving. The “rubber” on both the drive and guide wheels was eliminated.
Another characteristic feature of STZ tanks was the hull and turret, which were manufactured using simplified technology developed by Plant No. 264 following the example of Krasny Sormovo. The armor parts were connected to each other into a “spike”. The traditional “lock” and “quarter” connections were preserved only in the connection of the upper frontal sheet of the hull with the roof and the bottom with the lower sheets of the bow and stern. As a result of a significant reduction in the volume of machining of parts, the housing assembly cycle was reduced from nine days to two.
The Stalingrad Tractor Plant produced and repaired tanks until the moment when the front line approached the factory workshops. The conditions under which this work took place can be judged from the report of factory building No. 5 for the period from August 23 to September 12, 1942:
“Since the approach of the fascist gangs to the plant, the bombing and shelling of the factory territory, Corps No. 5 has done the following work: production of new tanks - 68 units, repaired tanks - 23. In addition, assistance was provided to the Red Army in repairs by sending highly qualified workers to repair teams, as well as the issuance of spare parts and various equipment.
During the specified time period, the hull was hit by six high-explosive bombs, 154 incendiary bombs and one shell. The gas oil storage facility burned down and the roof was destroyed in two places.”
On October 5, 1942, in accordance with the order of the NKTP, all work at STP was stopped, and the remaining workers were evacuated.
A damaged "thirty-four" produced by STZ in the spring-summer of 1942. This is the final Stalingrad model, as evidenced by a lot of details: a simplified cannon mask from the Barrikady factory; tenon connection of all body sheets; additional armor protection on the front plate and, finally, a characteristic bevel on the front cheekbone of the welded turret
Factory No. 183 remained the main manufacturer of T-34 tanks in 1942, although after the evacuation it was not immediately able to reach planned production levels. In particular, the plan for the first three months of 1942 was not fulfilled. The subsequent increase in tank production was based, on the one hand, on a clear and rational organization of production, and on the other, on reducing the labor intensity of tank production. A detailed revision of the tank design was carried out, as a result of which the production of 770 was simplified and the production of 5,641 parts was completely eliminated. 206 purchased items were also cancelled. The labor intensity of machining the body decreased from 260 to 80 standard hours.
The chassis has undergone significant changes. In Nizhny Tagil, they began to cast road wheels similar to those in Stalingrad - without rubber bands. Starting from January 1942, three or four such rollers were installed on one side of the tank. The scarce rubber was removed from both the guide and drive wheels. The latter, in addition, began to be manufactured in one piece - without rollers.
The oil cooler was removed from the engine lubrication system and the oil tank capacity was increased to 50 liters. In the power supply system, the gear pump was replaced with a rotary-type pump. Due to a shortage of electrical components, until the spring of 1942, most tanks were not equipped with some instrumentation, headlights, tail lights, electric fan motors, signals and TPUs.
It should be especially emphasized that in a number of cases, changes aimed at simplifying the design and reducing the labor intensity of manufacturing combat vehicles were not justified. Some of them subsequently resulted in a decrease in the performance characteristics of the T-34.
In some publications you can find information that since 1942, “thirty-fours” were produced with 60 mm frontal hull armor. Actually this is not true. Indeed, at a meeting of the State Defense Committee on December 25, 1941, Resolution No. 1062 was adopted, which ordered, starting February 15, 1942, the production of T-34s with frontal armor 60 mm thick. This decision, apparently, can be explained by the use by the Germans of an ever-increasing number of 50-mm anti-tank guns Pak 38 with a barrel length of 60 calibers, the armor-piercing and armor-piercing projectiles of which penetrated the frontal armor of the T-34 at a distance of up to 1000 m, as well as using sub-caliber shells for 50-mm L/42 tank guns of Pz.lll tanks, which achieved a similar result from a distance of 500 m.
Since metallurgical plants could not quickly produce the required amount of 60-mm armored steel, tank factories were ordered to shield the frontal parts of the hull and turret with 15-mm armor plates. However, already on February 23, 1942, the State Defense Committee reversed its decision, partly due to difficulties in manufacturing 60-mm armor plates, partly due to the extremely rare use of sub-caliber shells by the Germans. However, tanks with shielded hulls and turrets were produced by all factories until the beginning of March 1942, until their stock was used up. At the Krasnoye Sormovo plant, eight turrets with 75 mm armor were cast and installed on tanks.
The same plant, in addition, in the fall of 1942 produced 68 T-34 tanks, the hulls and turret of which were equipped with bulwarks. It was assumed that they would protect the tanks from German cumulative shells. However, it was not possible to verify this - in the very first battle, almost all combat vehicles shielded in this way were hit by conventional armor-piercing shells from enemy 75-mm anti-tank guns. Soon, work on protecting tanks from cumulative ammunition was stopped, since the Germans used them extremely rarely.
The increase in production of the T-34 in 1942 was facilitated by the introduction, first at plant No. 183, and then at others, of automatic submerged arc welding, developed by academician E.O. Paton. It was not by chance that the 183rd plant turned out to be the leader in this matter; by decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Institute of Electric Welding of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR was evacuated to Nizhny Tagil, and to the territory of the Ural Tank Plant.
In January 1942, as an experiment, a hull was made, one side of which was welded by hand, and the other side and nose were under a layer of flux. The hull was sent to a firing range to determine the strength of the seams. To do this, shelling was carried out from a short distance at the limit of rear strength, when all the kinetic energy of the projectile was absorbed by the armor plate. As E.O. Paton said in his memoirs, “the tank was subjected to severe fire from a very short distance with armor-piercing and high-explosive shells. The first hits on the hand-welded side caused significant destruction of the seam. After that, the tank was turned and the second side came under fire, welded by an automatic machine... Seven hits in a row! Our seams withstood and did not give way! They turned out to be stronger than the armor itself. The seams of the bow also withstood the test of fire. This was a complete victory for automatic high-speed welding."
At the factory, welding was put on a conveyor belt. Several carriages left over from pre-war production were rolled into the workshop and bevels were cut out in their frames according to the configuration of the sides of the tank hull. A tent of beams was placed over the line of carts, so that the welding heads could move along the beams along and across the body and, by connecting all the carts together, we got a conveyor. At the first position, the transverse seams were welded, at the next - the longitudinal ones, then the body was rearranged on the edge, first on one side, then on the other.
"Thirty-fours" equipped with additional frontal armor consisting of three parts. Kalinin Front, 1942
T-34 tank of the 1st Polish Tank Regiment during the parade in honor of the taking of the oath of the 1st Polish Infantry Division named after T. Kosciuszko. July 1943. A vehicle produced by the Krasnoye Sormovo plant with additional armor protection for the frontal part of the hull, made of a single armor plate
We completed the welding by turning the body upside down. Some places that could not be cooked automatically were cooked manually. Thanks to the use of automatic welding, the labor intensity of manufacturing the body has decreased by five times. By the end of 1942, only six automatic welding machines were operating at plant No. 183. By the end of 1943, their number in tank factories reached 15, and a year later - 30.
Along with welding problems, a bottleneck remained in the production of cast towers that were molded into the ground. This technology required a greater amount of work on cutting and gas trimming of sprues and fills into the seams between the mold blocks. The chief metallurgist of the plant, P.P. Malyarov, and the head of the steel foundry, I.I. Atopov, proposed introducing machine molding. But this required a completely new tower design. Its project in the spring of 1942 was developed by M.A. Nabutovsky. It went down in history as a tower of the so-called “hexagonal” or “improved” shape. Both names are very arbitrary, since the previous tower also had a hexagonal shape, albeit more elongated and plastic. As for “improved,” this definition relates entirely to manufacturing technology, since the new turret still remained very cramped and uncomfortable for the crew. Among tankers, for its shape, which is close to a regular hexagon, it received the nickname “nut”.
The more technologically advanced shape of the towers made it possible to mold them into three molds on three machines at once. And the form was assembled from only four parts. As a result, plant No. 183 was able to sharply increase the production of towers and not only refuse the help of Uralmash in this matter, but also begin supplying towers to other plants.
Uralmashzavod was connected to armored hull production for the T-34 and KV in accordance with the GKO decree of October 31, 1941. However, until March 1942, he only produced hull cuttings, which he supplied to Krasnoye Sormovo and Nizhny Tagil. In April 1942, the complete assembly of hulls and the production of turrets of the T-34 tank for plant No. 183 began here. And on July 28, 1942, by decree of the State Defense Committee No. 2120 UZTM [*As soon as some publications do not decipher this abbreviation: “Ural Transport Engineering Plant” and even the “Ural Precision Engineering Plant” (which apparently includes the production of turbines for power plants or rolling mills). The authors of such “names” just need to look into the encyclopedia and find out that UZTM is the “Ural Heavy Engineering Plant.”] they were instructed to organize the production of the entire T-34 tank and double the production of turrets for it, due to the shutdown of plant No. 264. Serial production of the T-34 34 began at Uralmash in September 1942. When mastering the mass production of the tank, many problems arose, for example with the turrets - due to the increase in the program, the foundries could not ensure the implementation of the plan. By decision of the plant director B.G. Muzurukov, the free capacity of the 10,000-ton Shleman press was used (on the same press - there were two of them in the USSR - turrets for the T-34M were stamped in Mariupol on the eve of the war). Designer I.F. Varkhrushev and technologist V.S. Ananyev developed the design of a stamped turret, and from October 1942 to March 1944, 2050 units were produced. At the same time, the plant not only fully provided for its program, but also supplied a significant number of such towers to ChKZ. UZTM did not produce tanks for long - until August 1943. Then this enterprise became the main one for the production of self-propelled guns based on the T-34.
In an effort to compensate for the inevitable loss of STZ, in July 1942, the State Defense Committee gave the order to the Chelyabinsk Kirov Plant to begin production of the T-34. On August 22, the first "thirty-fours" left the ChKZ workshops. In March 1944, their production at this enterprise was stopped in order to increase the production of heavy IS-2 tanks.
In 1942, plant No. 174 named after K.E. Voroshilov, evacuated from Leningrad to Omsk, also joined the production of the T-34. The design and technological documentation was handed over to him by plant No. 183 and UZTM.
Speaking about the production of T-34s in 1942-1943, it should be noted that by the fall of 1942, a crisis in their quality began. This was led to a constant quantitative increase in the production of tanks and the attraction of more and more factories to it. From September 11 to 13, 1942, a conference of NKTP factories was held at UTZ in Nizhny Tagil, dedicated to the quality of the T-34. It was led by Deputy People's Commissar of the Tank Industry Zh.Ya. Kotin. In his speeches and the chief inspector of the NKTP G.O. Gutman, harsh criticism was voiced against the factory teams. Moreover, many of the listed shortcomings strangely coincided with those indicated in the report of the NIBT Test Site after testing three production T-34 tanks in the fall of 1940.
The criticism had an effect - during the second half of 1942 - the first half of 1943, many changes and improvements were introduced to the T-34. In the fall of 1942, they began to install aft external fuel tanks of rectangular or onboard cylindrical (on ChKZ tanks) shape. Since the end of November, the drive wheel with rollers was returned to the tank, and stamped road wheels with rubber tires were introduced. Air cleaners "Cyclone" began to be installed in January, and a five-speed gearbox - from March-June 1943. In addition, the ammunition load was increased to 100 artillery rounds, a turret exhaust fan was introduced, in 1943 the PT-4-7 periscope sight was replaced with a PTK-5 commander's panorama, and many other smaller improvements were introduced, such as landing rails on the turret. Serial production of T-34 tanks of the 1942 model (as they are unofficially, but most often referred to in the literature) was carried out at factories No. 183 in Nizhny Tagil, No. 174 in Omsk, UZTM in Sverdlovsk and ChKZ in Chelyabinsk. Until July 1943, 11,461 tanks of this modification were produced.
In the summer of 1943, they began installing a commander's cupola on the T-34. An interesting detail: three plants - No. 183, Uralmash and Krasnoye Sormovo - defend their priority in this matter in factory reports on tank building during the Great Patriotic War. In fact, the Tagil residents proposed installing a turret at the rear of the turret behind the hatches and placing a third tanker in the turret, as on the experimental T-43 tank. But even two crew members were cramped in the “nut”, what a third! Although the Uralmash turret was located above the left commander's turret hatch, it was of a stamped design, and it was also rejected. And only the cast Sormovo “registered” on the “thirty-four”.
In this form, the T-34 tank was in mass production until the middle of 1944, and the longest was produced by plant No. 174 in Omsk.
Ironically, one of the greatest victories of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War, at Kursk, was won at a time when Soviet armored and mechanized troops were qualitatively inferior to German ones. By the summer of 1943, when the most painful design flaws of the T-34 were eliminated, the Germans had new Tiger and Panther tanks, which were noticeably superior to ours in terms of the power of their weapons and the thickness of their armor. Therefore, during the Battle of Kursk, Soviet tank units, as before, had to rely on their numerical superiority over the enemy. Only in isolated cases, when the "thirty-four" managed to get close to the German tanks, did the fire of their guns become effective. The issue of a radical modernization of the T-34 tank was urgently on the agenda.
T-34 tank with an “improved” turret. Summer 1942. Apparently, the turret was installed on an earlier hull during repairs. This is evidenced by the additional armor protection of the front plate, the 1941 model tracks, as well as the road wheels with rubber tires, which was uncharacteristic of tanks produced in 1942.
1 - embrasure of a cannon and machine gun; 2 - hatch cover lock; 3 - viewing slot; 4 - hole for installing the PT-4-7 sight; 5 - hatch cover; 6 - fan cap; 7 - eye; 8 - landing handrail
T-34 tank with an “improved” turret from the 106th Tank Brigade. September 1942
It cannot be said that by this time attempts had not been made to develop more advanced tanks. This work, suspended at the outbreak of war, resumed in 1942, as the ongoing modernization was completed and the shortcomings of the T-34 were eliminated. Here, first of all, the T-43 medium tank project should be mentioned.
This combat vehicle was created taking into account the requirements for the T-34 - strengthening its armor protection, improving the suspension and increasing the volume of the fighting compartment. Moreover, the design basis for the pre-war T-34M tank was actively used.
The new combat vehicle was 78.5% unified with the serial T-34. The T-43's hull shape remained largely the same, as did the engine, transmission, chassis components, and gun. The main difference was the strengthening of the armor of the front, side and rear hull plates to 75 mm, and the turret to 90 mm. In addition, the driver's seat and his hatch were moved to the right side of the hull, and the radio operator's position and the installation of the DT machine gun were eliminated. In the bow of the hull on the left, a fuel tank was placed in an armored enclosure; the side tanks were seized. The tank received a torsion bar suspension. The most significant innovation, which sharply distinguished the T-43 from the T-34 in appearance, was the three-man cast turret with an extended shoulder strap and a low-profile commander's cupola.
Since March 1943, two prototypes of the T-43 tank (they were preceded by the T-43-1, built at the end of 1942, which had a driver's hatch and a commander's cupola shifted to the rear of the turret) were tested, including front-line tests , as part of a separate tank company named after NKSM.
They found that the T-43, due to its increased weight to 34.1 tons, is somewhat inferior to the T-34 in terms of dynamic characteristics (maximum speed decreased to 48 km/h), although it is significantly superior to the latter in terms of smoothness. After replacing eight onboard fuel tanks (the T-34 had the same number) with one smaller capacity bow tank, the T-43's cruising range was correspondingly reduced by almost 100 km. Tankers noted the spaciousness of the fighting compartment and greater ease of maintenance of weapons.
After testing, at the end of the summer of 1943, the T-43 tank was adopted by the Red Army. Preparations for its serial production have begun. However, the results of the Battle of Kursk made significant adjustments to these plans.
At the end of August, a meeting was held at plant No. 112, which was attended by the People's Commissar of the Tank Industry V.A. Malyshev, the commander of the armored and mechanized forces of the Red Army Y.N. Fedorenko and senior employees of the People's Commissariat of Armaments. In his speech, V.A. Malyshev noted that victory in the Battle of Kursk came at a high price to the Red Army. Enemy tanks fired at ours from a distance of 1500 m, but our 76-mm tank guns could hit “tigers” and “panthers” only from a distance of 500-600 m. “Figuratively speaking,” said the People’s Commissar, “the enemy has arms one and a half kilometers long.” ", and we are only half a kilometer away. We need to immediately install a more powerful gun in the T-34."
In fact, the situation was much worse than V.A. Malyshev described it. But attempts to correct the situation have been made since the beginning of 1943.
The State Defense Committee, in response to the appearance of new German tanks on the Soviet-German front, on April 15 issued decree No. 3187ss "On measures to strengthen anti-tank defense", which obliged the GAU to subject anti-tank and tank guns that were in mass production to field tests, and in 10 -day period to submit your conclusion. In accordance with this document, the deputy commander of the BT and MV, Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces V.M. Korobkov, ordered the use of a captured Tiger during these tests, which took place from April 25 to 30, 1943 at the NIIBT Test Site in Kubinka. The test results were disappointing. Thus, the 76-mm armor-piercing tracer shell of the F-34 cannon did not penetrate the side armor of a German tank even from a distance of 200 m! The most effective means of combating the enemy’s new heavy vehicle turned out to be the 85-mm 52K anti-aircraft gun of the 1939 model, which penetrated its 100-mm frontal armor from a distance of up to 1000 m.
On May 5, 1943, the State Defense Committee adopted Resolution No. 3289ss “On strengthening the artillery armament of tanks and self-propelled guns.” In it, the NKTP and NKV were given specific tasks to create tank guns with anti-aircraft ballistics.
Back in January 1943, the design bureau of plant No. 9, headed by F.F. Petrov, began developing such a gun. By May 27, 1943, working drawings of the D-5T-85 gun, designed according to the type of German self-propelled tank guns and characterized by low weight and short recoil length, were released. In June, the first D-5Ts were manufactured in metal. This gun was successfully assembled into the KV-85 and IS-85 heavy tanks, and in the D-5S version into the SU-85 artillery self-propelled gun.
However, to install it in the T-34 medium tank it was necessary to increase the diameter of the turret ring and install a new turret. The design bureau of the Krasnoye Sormovo plant, headed by V.V. Krylov, and the tower group of plant No. 183, led by A.A. Moloshtanov and M.A. Nabutovsky, worked on this problem.
As a result, two cast towers with a clear ring diameter of 1600 mm appeared, very similar to each other. Both of them resembled (but did not copy!) the turret of the experimental T-43 tank, which was taken as the basis for the design.
Installing the D-5T cannon in the new turret was supposed to solve all the problems, but... The excellent weight and dimensions of this gun were achieved due to the great complexity of the design. In addition, a feature of the D-5T was the location of the recoil brake and knurler above the barrel, similar to the German Stuk 40 assault gun, but, unlike the latter, behind the main turret armor. For better balance, its trunnions were moved forward, and the breech, on the contrary, turned out to be moved quite far towards the rear plate of the tower. This practically eliminated the possibility of loading the gun while the tank was moving. Even when moving at low speed, trained loaders, trying to load, hit the breech of the gun several times with the head of the projectile. As a result, the D-5T cannon was not accepted for service on the T-34 tank, and immediately after its testing was completed - in October 1943 - an order was given to the TsAKB (chief designer V.G. Grabin) to develop a special 85-mm cannon for the T-tank. 34. Serial production of the new gun was supposed to begin at plant No. 92 on March 1, 1944, and until then, as a temporary measure, the Krasnoye Sormovo plant was allowed to install a D-5T cannon in the turret of its design.
At the same time, the plant was asked to ensure the production of the tank in the following quantities: in January 1944 - 25 units, in February - 75 units, in March - 150 units, and from April, completely switch to the production of T-34-85 instead of T-34.
Tanks armed with the D-5T cannon were noticeably different from later vehicles in appearance and internal design. The tank's turret was double, and the crew consisted of four people. On the roof of the tower there was a commander's cupola, strongly shifted forward, with a double-leaf lid that rotated on a ball bearing. An MK-4 periscope viewing device was installed in the lid, allowing for all-round visibility. For firing from a cannon and a coaxial machine gun, a telescopic articulated sight TSh-15 and a panorama PTK-5 were installed. On both sides of the tower there were viewing slots with triplex glass blocks and loopholes for firing from personal weapons. The radio station was located in the hull, and its antenna input was on the starboard side, just like the T-34 tank with a 76-mm cannon. The power plant, transmission and chassis have undergone virtually no changes. These tanks differed somewhat depending on the time of production. For example, the first production vehicles had one tower fan, and subsequent ones had two. The tanks of the latest releases had MK-4 surveillance devices and a later commander's cupola. The radio station was located in the turret, but the hulls of these tanks still retained the antenna input on the right side plate or its plugged hole.
It should be noted that the modification discussed above does not appear to appear in statistical reporting as T-34-85. In any case, today there are significant discrepancies in the estimates of the number of vehicles produced given in the literature. In Western publications, figures fluctuate in the range of 500-700 tanks. In fact, much less! From January to April 1944, 255 T-34 tanks with the D-5T gun, including five command vehicles with RSB-F radio stations, left the factory workshops.
Fulfilling the NKV order to create an 85-mm cannon for the T-34 in October - November 1943, TsAKB and Plant No. 92 produced three prototypes of the new guns. TsAKB presented the S-53 guns (leading designers G.I. Sergeev and G.I. Shabarov) and S-50 (leading designers V.D. Meshchaninov, A.M. Boglevsky and V.A. Tyurin), and the artillery plant No. 92 - LB-1 (LB-85) cannon designed by A.I. Savin.
During the tests, which continued until the end of 1943, preference was given to the S-53 cannon, which on January 1, 1944 was adopted by the T-34 tank, both with standard (1420 mm) and extended shoulder straps. The S-53 differed favorably from its analogues in its simplicity of design and reliability. The recoil brake and knurl were located under the base of the bolt, which made it possible to reduce the height of the line of fire and increase the distance between the breech and the rear wall of the turret. In addition, the cost of the gun turned out to be lower than that of the 76-mm F-34 gun, not to mention the D-5T.
The T-34-85 tank with the S-53 cannon was adopted by the Red Army by GKO decree No. 5020ss of January 23, 1944.
Starting in February, plant No. 112 "Krasnoe Sormovo" began a gradual transition to the production of tanks with the S-53 cannon. At the same time, the first tanks had many features from the T-34 with the D-5T in their appearance: the early Sormovo turret, U-shaped eyes, the location of the fuel tanks, etc. On March 15, 1944, plant No. 183 began production of the T-34-85, and from June, plant No. 174 in Omsk.
Field tests, which continued despite the start of production, revealed significant defects in the recoil devices of the S-53 gun. Plant No. 92 in Gorky was instructed to carry out its modification on its own. During the summer of 1944, a number of activities were carried out there to improve the design of the gun. The thickness of the barrel walls was increased, which caused the strengthening of the slide and cradle. To improve the balance of the gun trunnion, the gun was moved forward slightly. In the recoil brake, the spindle profile was changed, the copier was simplified, and a new electric release button was introduced. The gun's armored mask has also changed. The gun received the designation ZIS-S-53 (“ZIS” is the index of Artillery Plant No. 92 named after Stalin, “S” is the index of TsAKB) and was put into service on October 28, 1944.
The "thirty-four" with the S-53 and ZIS-S-53 cannons had a three-seater turret, and the commander's cupola was moved closer to its stern. The radio station was moved from the building to the tower. Viewing devices were installed only of a new type - MK-4, both in the early - open and late - closed versions. During 1944, the mount of five spare tracks on the upper frontal hull plate, box-shaped front mud flaps that folded on hinges, and the installation of small MDS smoke bombs on the rear hull plate were introduced. As production progressed, the shape and dimensions of the beam of the bow of the hull, which connected the upper and lower frontal plates, changed. It was reduced in size, and on later production machines it was removed - the top and bottom sheets were butt welded.
In an effort to strengthen the armor protection of the serial tank, plant No. 183 in the spring of 1944 developed two samples of the modernized T-34-85M tank.
Turret of the Krasnoye Sormovo plant with a D-5T cannon. The first vehicles produced had only one tower fan
T-34-85 of the Krasnoye Sormovo plant. An intermediate model that retained some of the characteristic details of the early Sormovo vehicles - an external fuel tank shifted forward and eyelets made of rod
The first sample was equipped with a 75-mm front hull plate, a driver's hatch thickened to 100 mm, and an armored mask for the DT machine gun that was thickened to 90 mm. To compensate for the increase in the mass of the tank, it was necessary to reduce the thickness of the parts of the bottom and roof of the hull above the engine, the bottom of the wing liners and the lower stern plate. The gearbox and individual components of the chassis also underwent design changes. On the second sample, in addition, the fuel tanks were removed from the fighting compartment. Instead, two fuel tanks with a capacity of 190 liters each were mounted in the stern, and therefore the configuration of the stern changed somewhat.
Both tanks successfully passed tests, but, despite the urgent need to strengthen the frontal armor of the T-34-85, they were not accepted for service, since Plant No. 183 was in full swing developing the promising T-44 medium tank.
In December 1944, Plant No. 112, in turn, submitted a number of improvements to the turret design of the T-34-85 tank for consideration by the GBTU, including: replacing the double-leaf commander's hatch with a single-leaf one, introducing a frameless ammunition rack for 16 rounds in the turret niche, duplicated control turning the turret and, finally, improving the ventilation of the fighting compartment by installing spaced fans. Of the listed proposals, only a single-leaf hatch cover for the commander's cupola was introduced in January 1945.
As for improving ventilation, the Sormovichi team proposed moving one of the two fans installed in the rear part of the tower roof to its front part. In this case, the front fan was an exhaust fan, and the rear one was a discharge one. Apparently, for unknown reasons, GBTU decided to postpone the implementation of this very sensible proposal. In any case, in photographs of combat operations in the spring of 1945, T-34-85s with spaced fans are not found. Such tanks did not participate in the Victory Parade, but on November 7, 1945, units of the Kantemirovskaya Tank Division that participated in the parade on Red Square were equipped with just such tanks. All this suggests that machines with spaced-apart fans began to be produced after the Great Patriotic War and, apparently, only at plant No. 112. These machines had another characteristic detail - there was no inspection slot in the right side of the hull.
History of creation
T-34-85 with D-5T cannon. 38th separate tank regiment. The tank column "Dimitri Donskoy" was built with funds from the Russian Orthodox Church.
Ironically, one of the greatest victories of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War, near Kursk, was won at a time when Soviet armored and mechanized troops were qualitatively inferior to the German ones (see “Armor Collection” No. 3, 1999). By the summer of 1943, when the most painful design flaws of the T-34 were eliminated, the Germans had new Tiger and Panther tanks, which were noticeably superior to ours in terms of the power of their weapons and the thickness of their armor. Therefore, during the Battle of Kursk, Soviet tank units, as before, had to rely on their numerical superiority over the enemy. Only in isolated cases, when the "thirty-four" managed to get close to the German tanks, did the fire of their guns become effective. The issue of a radical modernization of the T-34 tank was urgently on the agenda.
It cannot be said that by this time attempts had not been made to develop more advanced tanks. This work, suspended at the outbreak of war, resumed in 1942, as the ongoing modernization was completed and the shortcomings of the T-34 were eliminated. Here, first of all, the T-43 medium tank project should be mentioned.
This combat vehicle was created taking into account the requirements for the T-34 - strengthening its armor protection, improving the suspension and increasing the volume of the fighting compartment. Moreover, the design basis for the pre-war T-34M tank was actively used.
The new combat vehicle was 78.5% unified with the serial T-34. The T-43's hull shape remained largely the same, as did the engine, transmission, chassis components, and gun. The main difference was the strengthening of the armor of the front, side and rear hull plates to 75 mm, the turret to 90 mm. In addition, the driver's seat and his hatch were moved to the right side of the hull, and the radio operator's position and the installation of the DT machine gun were eliminated. In the bow of the hull on the left, a fuel tank was placed in an armored enclosure; the side tanks were seized. The tank received a torsion bar suspension. The most significant innovation, which sharply distinguished the T-43 from the T-34 in appearance, was the three-man cast turret with an extended shoulder strap and a low-profile commander's cupola.
Since March 1943, two prototypes of the T-43 tank (they were preceded by the T-43-1, built at the end of 1942, which had a driver's hatch and a commander's cupola shifted to the rear of the turret) were tested, including front-line tests , as part of a separate tank company named after NKSM. They found that the T-43, due to its increased weight to 34.1 tons, is somewhat inferior to the T-34 in terms of dynamic characteristics (maximum speed decreased to 48 km/h), although it is significantly superior to the latter in terms of smoothness. After replacing eight onboard fuel tanks (in the T-34) with one smaller capacity in the bow, the T-43's cruising range was correspondingly reduced by almost 100 km. Tankers noted the spaciousness of the fighting compartment and greater ease of maintenance of weapons.
After testing, at the end of the summer of 1943, the T-43 tank was adopted by the Red Army. Preparations for its serial production have begun. However, the results of the Battle of Kursk made significant adjustments to these plans.
Experimental tank T-43-1. Noteworthy is the high commander's cupola with viewing slots along the perimeter, located in the rear part of the tower.
Experimental tank T-43. Its characteristic details are the driver's hatch, borrowed from the T-34, and the low-profile commander's cupola.
At the end of August, a meeting was held at plant No. 112, which was attended by the People's Commissar of the Tank Industry V.A. Malyshev, the commander of the armored and mechanized forces of the Red Army Y.N. Fedorenko and senior employees of the People's Commissariat of Armaments. In his speech, V.A. Malyshev noted that victory in the Battle of Kursk came at a high price to the Red Army. Enemy tanks fired at ours from a distance of 1500 m, but our 76-mm tank guns could hit “tigers” and “panthers” only from a distance of 500 - 600 m. “Figuratively speaking,” said the People’s Commissar, “the enemy has arms one and a half kilometers long.” ", and we are only half a kilometer away. We need to immediately install a more powerful gun in the T-34."
In fact, the situation was much worse than V.A. Malyshev described it. But attempts to correct the situation have been made since the beginning of 1943.
Back on April 15, the State Defense Committee, in response to the appearance of new German tanks on the Soviet-German front, issued decree No. 3187ss "On measures to strengthen anti-tank defense", which obliged the GAU to subject anti-tank and tank guns that were in mass production to field tests, and in 10 -day period to submit your conclusion. In accordance with this document, the deputy commander of the BT and MV, Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces V.M. Korobkov, ordered the use of a captured Tiger during these tests, which took place from April 25 to 30, 1943 at the NIIBT Test Site in Kubinka. The test results were disappointing. Thus, the 76-mm armor-piercing tracer shell of the F-34 cannon did not penetrate the side armor of a German tank even from a distance of 200 m! The most effective means of combating the enemy’s new heavy vehicle turned out to be the 85-mm 52K anti-aircraft gun of the 1939 model, which penetrated its 100-mm frontal armor from a distance of up to 1000 m.
On May 5, 1943, the State Defense Committee adopted Resolution No. 3289ss “On strengthening the artillery armament of tanks and self-propelled guns.” In it, the NKTP and NKV were given specific tasks to create tank guns with anti-aircraft ballistics.
Back in January 1943, the design bureau of plant No. 9, headed by F.F. Petrov, began developing such a gun. By May 27, 1943, working drawings of the D-5T-85 gun, designed according to the type of German self-propelled tank guns and characterized by low weight and short recoil length, were released. In June, the first D-5Ts were manufactured in metal. Around the same time, prototypes of other 85-mm tank guns were ready: TsAKB (chief designer V.G. Grabin) presented the S-53 guns (lead designers T.I. Sergeev and G.I. Shabarov) and S-50 (leading designers V.D. Meshchaninov, A.M. Volgevsky and V.A. Tyurin), and artillery plant No. 92 - the LB-85 cannon by A.I. Savin. Thus, by mid-1943, four versions of the 85-mm gun, intended to arm a medium tank, were ready for testing. But which one?
The T-43 fell away quite quickly - this vehicle, even with a 76-mm cannon, weighed 34.1 tons. Installing a more powerful, and therefore heavier, gun would have entailed a further increase in weight, with all the ensuing negative consequences. In addition, the transition of factories to the production of a new tank, although it had much in common with the T-34, would inevitably cause a decrease in production volumes. And it was holy! As a result, serial production of the T-43 never began. In 1944, an 85-mm cannon was installed on it on a trial basis, and that was the end of it.
Meanwhile, the D-5T cannon was quite successfully arranged in the promising IS heavy tank. To install the D-5T in the T-34 medium tank, it was necessary to increase the diameter of the turret ring and install a new turret. The design bureau of the Krasnoye Sormovo plant, headed by V.V. Krylov, and the tower group of plant No. 183, led by A.A. Moloshtanov and M.A. Nabutovsky, worked on this problem. As a result, two cast towers with a clear ring diameter of 1600 mm appeared, very similar to each other. Both of them resembled (but did not copy!) the turret of the experimental T-43 tank, which was taken as the basis for the design.
The progress of work was negatively affected by the promise of the TsAKB management to install an 85-mm S-53 cannon in the standard turret of the T-34 tank with a shoulder strap diameter of 1420 mm. V.G. Grabin ensured that plant N°112 allocated him a serial tank, on which the TsAKB redesigned the front part of the turret, in particular, the gun trunnions were moved forward by 200 mm. Grabin tried to approve this project from V.A. Malyshev. However, the latter had serious doubts about the feasibility of such a decision, especially since the tests of the new gun in the old turret, carried out at the Gorokhovets training ground, ended in failure. Two people, who were in the now even more cramped tower, could not properly operate the gun. The ammunition load was also sharply reduced. Malyshev ordered M.A. Nabutovsky to fly to plant N9 112 and figure everything out. At a special meeting, in the presence of D.F. Ustinov and Y.N. Fedorenko, Nabutovsky completely criticized the Grabin project. It became obvious that there was no alternative to a tower with an extended shoulder strap.
At the same time, it turned out that the S-53 cannon, which won the competitive tests, could not be installed in the turret designed by the Sormovichi team. When installed in this turret, the gun's vertical aiming angle was limited. It was necessary to either change the design of the turret, or install another gun, for example the D-5T, which would be freely assembled into the Sormovo turret.
According to the plan, the Krasnoye Sormovo plant was supposed to produce 100 T-34 tanks with the D-5T cannon by the end of 1943, but the first combat vehicles of this type left its workshops only at the beginning of January 1944, that is, in fact, before the official adoption of the new tank for service. GKO Resolution No. 5020ss, in accordance with which the T-34-85 was adopted by the Red Army, was published only on January 23, 1944.
One of the first T-34-85 tanks with a D-5T cannon at the Kubinka training ground. The gun mantlet, antenna input on the right side of the hull, handrails on the frontal armor, etc., which are typical only for this modification, are clearly visible.
The same car, view from the left side. Note the location of the commander's cupola and the additional fuel tank, which are strongly shifted forward, as well as the eyelets made of rods for dismantling the turret. The viewing slot in the left side of the turret is typical only for Sormovo vehicles with the D-5T cannon.
Tanks armed with the D-5T cannon were noticeably different from later vehicles in appearance and internal design. The tank's turret was double, and the crew consisted of four people. On the roof of the tower there was a commander's cupola, strongly shifted forward, with a double-leaf lid that rotated on a ball bearing. The MK-4 periscope viewing device was fixed in the lid, allowing for all-round visibility. For firing from a cannon and a coaxial machine gun, a telescopic articulated sight TSh-15 and a panorama PTK-5 were installed. Both sides of the tower had viewing slots with triplex glass blocks. The radio station was located in the hull, and its antenna input was on the starboard side, just like the T-34 tank. The ammunition consisted of 56 rounds and 1953 rounds of ammunition. The power plant, transmission and chassis have undergone virtually no changes. These tanks differed somewhat depending on the time of production. For example, early production machines had one tower fan, and most subsequent ones had two.
It should be noted that the modification discussed above does not appear to appear in statistical reporting as T-34-85. In any case, today there are significant discrepancies in the estimates of the number of vehicles produced given in the literature. Basically, the numbers fluctuate in the range of 500 - 700 tanks. In fact, much less! The fact is that in 1943, 283 D-5T guns were produced, in 1944 - 260, and in total - 543. Of this number, 107 guns were installed on IS-1 tanks, 130 (according to other sources, no more than 100) -on KV-85 tanks, several guns were used on prototypes of combat vehicles. Thus, the number of T-34 tanks produced with the D-5T cannon is close to 300 units.
As for the S-53 gun, its installation in the Nizhny Tagil turret did not cause any difficulties. By decree of the State Defense Committee of January 1, 1944, the S-53 was adopted by the Red Army. The production of these guns began in commissioning mode in March, and in production in May. Accordingly, in March, the first T-34-85 tanks armed with S-53 left the workshops of plant No. 183 in Nizhny Tagil. Following the lead plant, plant No. 174 in Omsk and No. 112 "Krasnoe Sormovo" began production of such machines. At the same time, the Sormovichi people still installed D-5T cannons on some of their tanks.
Turret of the Krasnoye Sormovo plant with a D-5T cannon. The first vehicles produced had only one tower fan.
T-34-85 of the Krasnoye Sormovo plant. An intermediate model that retained the characteristic details of the early Sormovo machines - an external fuel tank shifted forward and eyelets made of rod.
Field tests, which continued despite the start of production, revealed significant defects in the S-53 recoil devices. Artillery Plant No. 92 in Gorky was instructed to carry out its modification on its own. In November - December 1944, production of this gun began under the designation ZIS-S-53 ("ZIS" is the index of Artillery Plant No. 92 named after Stalin, "S" is the index of TsAKB). In total, 11,518 S-53 guns and 14,265 ZIS-S-53 guns were manufactured in 1944-1945. The latter were installed on both T-34-85 and T-44 tanks.
The "thirty-four" with S-53 or ZIS-S-53 cannons had a three-local turret, and the commander's cupola was moved closer to its stern. The radio station was moved from the building to the tower. Viewing devices were installed only of a new type - MK-4. The commander's panorama of PTK-5 was confiscated. The engine was also taken care of: the Cyclone air cleaners were replaced with more efficient Multicyclone types. The remaining units and systems of the tank have undergone virtually no changes.
As was the case with the T-34, the T-34-85 tanks had some differences from each other due to manufacturing technology at different factories. The towers differed in the number and location of casting seams, and the shape of the commander's cupola.
The chassis used both stamped road wheels and cast ones with developed fins.
In January 1945, the double-leaf hatch cover of the commander's cupola was replaced with a single-leaf one. On post-war tanks (Krasnoye Sormovo plant), one of the two fans installed in the rear of the turret was moved to its central part, which contributed to better ventilation of the fighting compartment.
At the end of the war, an attempt was made to strengthen the tank's armament. IN
T-34-85 with D-5T cannon. Main production version.
In 1945, field tests of prototypes of medium tanks T-34-100 with a turret ring widened to 1700 mm, armed with 100-micron guns, were carried out.< пушками Л Б-1 и Д-10Т. На этих танках, масса которых достигла 33 т, был изъят курсовой пулемет и на одного человека сокращен экипаж; снижена высота башни; уменьшена толщина днища, крыши над двигателем и крыши башни; перенесены в отделение управления топливные баки; опущено сиденье механика-водителя; подвеска 2-го и 3-го опорных катков выполнена так же, как и подвеска первых катков; поставлены пятироликовые ведущие колеса. Танк Т-34-100 на вооружение принят не был - 100-мм пушка оказалась "неподъемной" для "тридцатьчетверки". Работа эта вообще имела мало смысла, поскольку на вооружение уже был принят новый средний танк Т-54 со 100-мм~ пушкой Д-10Т.
Another attempt to strengthen the armament of the T-34-85 was made in 1945, when TsAKB developed a modification - ZIS-S-53, equipped with a single-plane gyroscopic stabilizer - ZIS-S-54. However, this artillery system did not go into production.
But another version of the T-34-85 with weapons different from the base tank was mass-produced. We are talking about the OT-34-85 flamethrower tank. Like its predecessor, the OT-34, this vehicle was equipped with an automatic piston tank flamethrower ATO-42 from factory No. 222 instead of a frontal machine gun.
T-34-85 slippers before the parade. Leningrad, November 7, 1945. The characteristic armored mask of the S-53 cannon is clearly visible on the left of the vehicle.
Shape of armored masks
Left: S-53 gun
Right: ZIS-S-53 gun
Flamethrower tanks OT-34-85 on the street. Gorky in Moscow before the May Day parade in 1946.
In the spring of 1944, at the former plant No. 183, restored after the liberation of Kharkov, which was assigned No. 75, prototypes of the AT-45 heavy tractor were produced, intended for towing guns weighing up to 22 tons. The AT-45 was designed on the basis of units of the T-34-85 tank . It was equipped with the same V-2 diesel engine, but with power reduced to 350 hp. at 1400 rpm. In 1944, the plant produced 6 AT-45 tractors, two of which were sent to the troops for testing in combat conditions. The production of tractors was stopped in August 1944 due to preparations at plant No. 75 for the production of a new model of the T-44 medium tank. It would not be superfluous to remember that this tractor was not the first built on the basis of the Thirty-Four units. So, back in August 1940, they approved the project of an AT-42 artillery tractor weighing 17 tons, with a platform with a lifting capacity of 3 tons. With a V-2 engine with a power of 500 hp. it was supposed to reach speeds of up to 33 km/h with a towing force on the hook of 15 tons. Prototypes of the AT-42 tractor were produced in 1941, but further work on their testing and production had to be curtailed due to the evacuation of the plant from Kharkov.
Serial production of the T-34-85 in the Soviet Union ceased in 1946 (according to some sources, it continued in small batches at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant until 1950). As for the number of T-34-85 tanks produced by one plant or another, then, as in the case of the T-34, there are noticeable discrepancies in the figures given in different sources.
Experimental tank T-34-100.
| General production of T-34-85 tanks | |||
| 1944 | 1945 | Total | |
| T-34-85 | 10 499 | 12 VP | 22 609 |
| T-34-85 com. | 134 | 140 | 274 |
| OT-34-85 | 30 | 301 | 331 |
| Total | 10 663 | 12 551 | 23 214 |
This table shows data for 1944 and 1945 only. The T-34-85 commander and OT-34-85 tanks were not produced in 1946.
| Production of T-34-85 tanks by NKTP plants | ||||
| Factory | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | Total |
| № 183 | 6585 | 7356 | 493 | 14 434 |
| № 112 | 3062 | 3255 | 1154 | 7471 |
| № 174 | 1000 | 1940 | 1054 | 3994 |
| Total | 10 647 | 12 551 | 2701 | 25 899 |
T-34-85 tank modernized in the post-war years. On the right side of the hull the IR illuminator FG-100 of the night vision device is clearly visible.
When comparing the data from the two tables, a discrepancy in the number of tanks produced in 1944 is visible. And this despite the fact that the tables are compiled according to the most frequently occurring and most reliable data. In a number of sources you can find other figures for 1945: 6208, 2655 and 1540 tanks, respectively. However, these numbers reflect the production of tanks in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd quarters of 1945, that is, around the end of World War II. Discrepancies in the numbers do not make it possible to absolutely accurately indicate the number of T-34 and T-34-85 tanks produced from 1940 to 1946. This number ranges from 61,293 to 61,382 units.
Foreign sources provide the following figures for the production of T-34-85 in the USSR in the post-war years: 1946 - 5500, 1947 - 4600, 1948 - 3700, 1949-900, 1950 - 300 units. Judging by the number of zeros, these figures are most likely very approximate. If we take as a basis the number of vehicles produced in 1946, which is doubled in these sources, and assume that all other figures are also inflated, it turns out that 4,750 T-34-85 tanks were produced in 1947 - 1950. This really seems to be true. In fact, one cannot seriously assume that our tank industry has been idle for almost five years? Production of the T-44 medium tank ceased in 1947, and factories began mass production of the new T-54 tank almost only in 1951. As a result, the number of T-34 and T-34-85 tanks manufactured in the USSR exceeds 65 thousand.
Despite the arrival of new T-44 and T-54 tanks into the army, the T-34s made up a significant part of the tank fleet of the Soviet Army in the post-war years. Therefore, these combat vehicles were modernized during major repairs in the 50s. First of all, the changes affected the engine, which as a result received the name B-34-M11. Two VTI-3 air cleaners with ejection dust extraction were installed; a nozzle heater was built into the cooling and lubrication systems; the GT-4563A generator with a power of 1000 W was replaced by the G-731 generator with a power of 1500 W.
To drive the car at night, the driver received a BVN night vision device. At the same time, an FG-100 IR illuminator appeared on the right side of the hull. The MK-4 observation device in the commander's cupola was replaced by the TPK-1 or TPKU-2B commander's observation device.
Instead of the DT machine gun, a modernized DTM machine gun was installed, equipped with a PPU-8T telescopic sight. Instead of the PPSh submachine gun, an AK-47 assault rifle was introduced into the personal weapons of the crew members.
Since 1952, the 9-R radio station was replaced by the 10-RT-26E radio station, and the TPU-Zbis-F intercom was replaced by the TPU-47.
Other systems and units of the tank have not undergone any changes.
The vehicles modernized in this way became known as T-34-85 model 1960.
In the 60s, tanks were equipped with more advanced TVN-2 night vision devices and R-123 radio stations. The chassis was equipped with road wheels borrowed from the T-55 tank.
Some of the tanks in the late 50s were converted into T-34T evacuation tractors, which differed from each other in the presence or absence of a winch or rigging equipment. The tower was dismantled in all cases. Instead, a loading platform was installed in the maximum configuration version. Tool boxes were mounted on the fender liners. Platforms for pushing tanks using logs were welded to the bow sheets of the hull. A crane boom with a lifting capacity of 3 tons was installed on the right in the front part of the hull; in the middle part of the hull there is a winch driven by an engine. Only the front-mounted machine gun was retained as an armament.
Some T-34T tractors, as well as linear tanks, were equipped with BTU bulldozers and STU snowplows.
To ensure the repair of tanks in the field, the SPK-5 self-propelled crane was developed and mass-produced (or rather, converted from linear tanks), then SPK-5/10M. Crane equipment with a lifting capacity of up to 10 tons made it possible to remove and install tank turrets. The vehicle was equipped with a V-2-34Kr engine, which differed from the standard one in the presence of a power take-off mechanism.
In the 60s - 70s, a significant number of tanks, after the dismantling of weapons, were converted into chemical reconnaissance vehicles.
T-34-85, which went through the final stage of modernization in the 60s. Noteworthy are the new road wheels, the shape of the antenna input for the R-123 radio station, as well as the second external fuel tank and a box for an individual refueling pump on the left side of the hull. Moscow, May 9, 1985.
T-34T tractor with a set of rigging equipment, a loading platform, a jib crane and a set of accessories for repair work.
Self-propelled crane SPK-5. Kyiv, Museum of the Great Patriotic War, 1985.
T-34-85 manufactured in 1944.
In 1949, Czechoslovakia acquired a license to produce the T-34-85 medium tank. Design and technological documentation was transferred to her, and technical assistance was provided by Soviet specialists. In the winter of 1952, the first Czechoslovak-made T-34-85 left the workshops of the CKD Praha Sokolovo plant (according to other sources, the Stalin plant in the city of Rudy Martin). Thirty-fours were produced in Czechoslovakia until 1958. A total of 3,185 units were produced, a significant part of which were exported. On the basis of these tanks, Czechoslovak designers developed the MT-34 bridge layer, the CW-34 evacuation tractor and a number of other vehicles.
The Polish People's Republic acquired a similar license in 1951. The production of T-34-85 tanks was launched at the Bumar Labedy plant. The first four vehicles were assembled by May 1, 1951, and some of the components and assemblies were brought from the USSR. In 1953 - 1955, the Polish Army received 1,185 tanks of its own production, and a total of 1,380 T-34-85 were produced in Poland.
Polish "thirty-fours" were modernized twice under the T-34-85M1 and T-34-85M2 programs. During these upgrades, they received a pre-heater, the engine was adapted to run on different types of fuel, mechanisms were introduced to make it easier to control the tank, and ammunition was placed differently. Thanks to the introduction of a remote control system for the forward machine gun, the tank crew was reduced to 4 people. Finally, the Polish "thirty-fours" were equipped with underwater driving equipment.
On the basis of the T-34-85 tanks in Poland, several samples of engineering and repair and recovery vehicles were developed and produced.
In total, over 35 thousand units of T-34-85 tanks (including those produced in Czechoslovakia and Poland) were produced, and if we add in the T-34 tanks - 70 thousand, which makes the "thirty-four" the most mass-produced combat vehicle in the world.
Polish-made T-34-85M2 tank with a sealed mask installation. An OPVT pipe is mounted on the left side of the hull in a stowed position.
Characteristic differences of Polish-made tanks: flanging around the mantlet installation of the front-line machine gun for attaching the sealing cover - at the top; the figured casting of the armor protection of the exhaust pipe and the pipe itself with a flange are at the bottom.
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The spirit of a tanker is stronger than steel!
The rest is all bullshit!
Comrade Stalin taught us
Why, our armor is strong!
Armored tracked vehicles have always occupied a special place in Soviet society. The USSR knew how to make tanks, and they were proud of them. Nimble and nimble “high-speed carts” BT, which chased the samurai at Khalkhin Gol, mobile fortresses KV and IS, “hunters” SU/ISU-152, endless arsenals of post-war T-54/55, one of the best tanks of the twentieth century T-72 “ Ural”... They wrote songs and made films about tanks, they stood on pedestals in every Russian city, and every citizen of the Land of the Soviets knew that “the armor is strong, and our tanks are fast.” Among the many designs created by Soviet tank builders, the T-34 “Victory tank” occupies a special place, whose priority was unconditionally recognized even by foreign experts:
“Exceptionally high fighting qualities. We had nothing like this,” wrote Major General von Melenthin after the first meetings with the T-34. “The best tank in the world,” Field Marshal von Kleist voiced his opinion. “Alarming reports have been received about the quality of Russian tanks. The superiority of the material part of our tank forces, which had existed until now, was lost and passed on to the enemy,” this is how the creator of tank forces, Colonel General Heinz Guderian, spoke about the results of tank battles on the Eastern Front.
An equally high assessment was given to the T-34 by British experts: “The design of the tank demonstrates a clear understanding of the most important combat qualities of armored vehicles and the requirements of war... The creation and mass production of such advanced tanks in such huge quantities represents an engineering and technical achievement of the highest level...”
Constructors' Championship
After comprehensive tests of the T-34 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, the American military was in no hurry to shower compliments and made quite predictable conclusions, which formed the basis for the enchanting report of the head of the 2nd Directorate of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, Major General V. Khlopov:
The T-34 medium tank, after a run of 343 km, is completely out of order, its further repair is impossible...
Chemical analysis of the armor showed that the armor plates of the Soviet tank are surface hardened; the bulk of the armor plate is mild steel. The Americans believe that the quality of armor can be improved by increasing the depth of hardening...
An unpleasant discovery for them [the Americans] was the water permeability of the T-34 hull. During heavy rains, a lot of water flows into the tank through the cracks, which leads to failure of electrical equipment...
Tight fighting compartment. The turret rotation mechanism has caused a lot of complaints: the electric motor is weak, overloaded and sparks terribly. The Americans recommend replacing the turret rotation mechanism with a hydraulic system or even a manual drive...
The Christie pendant was considered a failure. The spark plug type suspension was tested in the USA back in the 30s, and the American army abandoned it...
The tank, from an American point of view, is recognized as slow-moving (!) - the T-34 overcomes obstacles worse than any of the American tanks. It's all due to a suboptimal transmission. Despite the tank's high thrust-to-weight ratio, the chassis does not allow it to realize its full potential.
The welding of the T-34 hull armor plates is rough and sloppy. The machining of parts, with rare exceptions, is very poor. The Americans were especially outraged by the ugly design of the gearbox - after much torment, they replaced the original design with their own part. It was noted that all the mechanisms of the tank require too many settings and adjustments.
Racing through impassable mud. Sherman and Pershing with more advanced transmissions took the lead.
At the same time, the Yankees meticulously noted all the positive aspects of the T-34 tank, among which there were several unexpected moments:
The choice of angles of inclination of the armor plates of the hull and turret indicates excellent projectile resistance...
Wonderful sights. The viewing instruments are unfinished but very satisfactory. Overall visibility is good.
I really liked the F-34 gun, it is reliable, has a very simple design, is easy to install and easy to maintain.
The aluminum diesel B-2 is very light for its size [of course! The B-2 was developed as an aircraft engine]. There is a desire for compactness. The only problem with the engine was the criminally poor air cleaner - the Americans called the designer a saboteur.
A vehicle from a “special series” was sent to the USA - one of five specially assembled “reference” T-34s, but the Americans were horrified by the low quality of the tank’s parts, the abundance of “childhood diseases” and completely ridiculous, at first glance, design errors.
Well, it was a high-volume production product. In difficult times of war, in conditions of evacuation and general chaos, shortage of labor, equipment and materials. The real achievement was not the quality of the armor, but its quantity. Fifty thousand T-34s - approximately the same number of tanks produced by USSR factories by the end of the Great Patriotic War.
Tanks are waiting at the front!
All the advantages and disadvantages of the T-34 were well known in the USSR long before the tests in the USA. That is why the state acceptance department refused to accept the “raw” tank for service for so long, and throughout the war, detailed designs for a new medium tank were developed: T-34M, T-43, T-44, in which the shortcomings of the original “thirty-four” were corrected step by step. The T-34 itself was also continuously modernized during the production process - in 1943, a new three-seat “nut” turret appeared, the four-speed gearbox was replaced with a five-speed one - the tank began to reach speeds of more than 50 km/h on the highway.
Alas, the turret moved forward did not allow strengthening the frontal armor; the front rollers were already overloaded. As a result, the T-34-85 continued to run until the end of the war with a 45 mm forehead. The deficiency was corrected only in the post-war T-44: the engine was turned across the hull, the fighting compartment was moved closer to the center, and the thickness of the frontal armor immediately increased to 100 mm.
At the same time, for 1941 the T-34 was a revolutionary machine:
- long-barreled 76 mm gun (compared to foreign models of tank weapons)
- rational armor angles
- high-torque diesel engine with a power of 500 hp.
- wide tracks and excellent maneuverability
No army in the world at that time had such advanced combat vehicles in its arsenal.
Combat classification
Medium tank T-III. 5000 units produced.
Medium tank T-IV, the most popular tank of the Wehrmacht. 8600 units produced.
Medium tank Pz.Kpfw.38(t) made in Czechoslovakia. 1,400 units entered service with the Wehrmacht.
Tank "Panther". 6000 units produced.
The Great and Terrible Tiger. 1350 units produced.
The number of “Royal Tigers” was in the hundreds: the Germans managed to produce only 492 vehicles.
From an arithmetic point of view, the Wehrmacht had about 23,000 “real” tanks (I deliberately did not take into account the T-I wedge, the light T-II tank with bulletproof armor and a 20 mm gun, and the super-heavy Maus tank).
And in war, as in war...
From the point of view of the average person, a steel avalanche of 50,000 of the world's best T-34 tanks was supposed to sweep away all this German rubbish and victoriously end the war on May 9, 1942 (by the way, in 1942 alone, Soviet industry produced 15 thousand T-34s for the front ). Alas, the reality turned out to be discouraging - the war lasted for four long years and claimed millions of lives of Soviet citizens. As for the losses of our armored vehicles, historians cite figures from 70 to 95 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns.
It turns out...the T-34 was undeservedly awarded the title of “best tank”? The facts eloquently demonstrate that the T-34 was not the “workhorse” of the Red Army, the T-34 was “cannon fodder”...
What's going on, comrades?
Error in calculations
Tanks rarely fight tanks. Despite the colorful descriptions of the duels “T-34 vs Panther” or “Tiger vs IS-2”, half of the losses of armored vehicles were the result of anti-tank artillery. Legendary Soviet “forty-fives”, 37 mm German “mallets”, formidable 88 mm anti-aircraft guns, with the inscription on the carriage “Shoot only at the KV!” - these are the real tank destroyers. It is from this position that one must look at the use of the T-34.
Shots fired at the Soviet 57 mm anti-tank gun ZIS-2. For all occasions.
By the end of the war, the situation for tankers became catastrophic - the Germans managed to create a simple and cheap anti-tank weapon, ideal for combat in urban conditions. The rate of production of “Faustpatrons” reached 1 million per month!
The Faustpatron was not so formidable for our unsurpassed T-34 tank. During the offensive, I talked very seriously with the personnel and found out that the Faustpatron was a bogeyman that some tanks were afraid of, but I repeat that in the Berlin operation the Faustpatron was not such a terrible weapon as some imagine.”
At the cost of the boastful words of the commander of the 2nd Guards Tank Army, Marshal of the Armored Forces S.I. Bogdanov became thousands of burnt tank crews who did not live to see Victory for only a few days. In our time, the anti-tank rocket launcher continues to remain one of the most terrible opponents of armored vehicles - an extremely secretive, mobile and elusive weapon, which, as practice shows, is capable of destroying any tank, despite the ingenious multi-layered protection.
The second worst enemy of tanks is mines. 25% of armored tracked vehicles were blown up on them. Some of the vehicles were destroyed by fire from the air. When you get acquainted with the statistics, it becomes clear that the tank battle near Prokhorovka is just a rare coincidence of circumstances.
Ferdinand
Discussions about the number of German armored vehicles often bypass self-propelled artillery mounts on German tank chassis. In fact, the Germans managed to create a number of effective anti-tank weapons in this area. For example, the Nashorn (German rhinoceros), little known to the general public, had an 88 mm Nashorn cannon that penetrated any Soviet tank at a distance of 1.5 kilometers. 500 self-propelled guns of this type caused a lot of trouble for the Red Army - there are known cases when a Rhinoceros burned a T-34 company.
Here the odious “Ferdinand” is crawling out of cover - a miracle of German genius, a heavy tank destroyer weighing 70 tons. A huge armored box with a crew of six people could not turn around on difficult off-road conditions and crawled towards the enemy in a straight line. Despite the mocking attitude towards “Ferdinand”, the issue with its 200 mm forehead was not resolved until the end of the war - “Fedya” did not break through by any conventional means. 90 vehicles turned into a real scarecrow, each destroyed German self-propelled gun was reflected in the reports as “Ferdinand”.
Everyone knows about the 1,400 Czech Pz.Kpfw.38(t) tanks. How many people know about the Hetzer fighter on the chassis of this tank? After all, more than 2000 of them were produced! A light, agile vehicle, with a mass of 15 tons, it had acceptable security, mobility and firepower. The Hetzer was so cool that its production continued after the war, and it remained in service with the Swiss Army until 1972.
Among the numerous designs of German self-propelled guns, the most advanced and balanced was the Jagdpanther. Despite the small number - only 415 vehicles - the Jagdpanthers set the heat on both the Red Army and the allies.
As a result, we see that the Germans also required a huge amount of armored vehicles to conduct combat operations; the losses of our tankers no longer seem so incredible. On both sides there were enough tasks for tanks and self-propelled guns: fortifications, equipment, artillery positions, defensive lines, manpower... All this had to be destroyed, crushed, destroyed, overcome, defended, counterattacked and covered.
Medium tanks were an extremely popular type of military equipment - they were distinguished by their moderate weight and rational combination of combat qualities. The German T-IV and T-V Panther tanks, as well as the American M4 Sherman, are most often called analogues of the T-34. Perhaps we’ll start with that.
Universal Soldier
In terms of characteristics, the Sherman is very close to the T-34-85 - heated debates about who was better are still raging. The silhouette of the T-34-85 is 23 centimeters lower. But the Sherman has an upper frontal part of the hull that is 6 mm thicker... Stop! We won’t achieve anything this way; we need to approach things analytically.
Serious studies say that the 76 mm Sherman gun, thanks to the use of BPS, had greater armor penetration, but was inferior to the 85 mm T-34 gun in terms of high-explosive impact. Parity!
The T-34 has thicker side armor, and the armor plates have a rational angle of inclination. On the other hand, the slope of the armor plates makes sense when the caliber of the projectile is equal to the thickness of the armor. Therefore, the 75 mm cannon of the Panther penetrated like foil both the inclined 45 mm side of our tank and the 38 mm straight side of the American. I'm not even talking about “faust cartridges”...
The combat capabilities of the Shermans are most clearly demonstrated by the fact that Lend-Lease “foreign cars” entered service only with the Guards divisions. In addition to a comfortable fighting compartment, the Sherman had lesser-known advantages: for example, unlike other medium tanks, it was armed with a heavy machine gun. Tankers liked the accurate and convenient hydraulic drive of the turret - their shot was always the first. And the Sherman was also quieter (the T-34 thundered so much that it could be heard for kilometers).
In addition to 49 thousand tanks, produced in many modifications (each for a specific task), 2 types of multiple launch rocket systems, 6 self-propelled artillery mounts and 7 types of bridge laying vehicles, tractors and repair and recovery vehicles were created on the basis of the Shermans.
The T-34 is also not simple: the killer SU-100 tank destroyer, the powerful SU-122 assault gun, three types of tractors, the TM-34 bridge layer and the SPK-5 self-propelled crane were created on the chassis of the Soviet tank. Parity!
As we can see, the differences are minimal, each tank is good in its own way. The only thing that the Sherman lacks is that bright and tragic combat: the African sandbox, winter fun in the Ardennes and a limited appearance on the Eastern Front cannot compare with the four-year bloody mess that befell the harsh T-34.
Private Panzerwaffe
In the summer of 1941, everything went badly for the German T-IV - Soviet shells pierced its 30-mm sides like a piece of cardboard. At the same time, the “stump” of its short-barreled 75 mm KwK.37 gun could not penetrate a Soviet tank even at point-blank range.
The radio station and Carl Zeiss optics are of course good, but what will happen if, for example, the transmission on the T-IV crashes? Oh, this will be the second part of the Marlezon ballet! The gearbox will be pulled out through the shoulder strap of the removed turret. And you say you have problems at work...
The T-34 did not have such tricks - the rear part of the tank was disassembled, opening access to the MTO.
It is fair to say that by 1942 technical superiority had returned to the Germans. With the new 75 mm KwK.40 cannon and reinforced armor, the T-IV became a formidable opponent.
Alas, T-IV is not at all suitable for the title of best. What is the best tank without a victorious history?! And they collected too few of them: the super-industry of the Third Reich somehow mastered 8686 tanks in 7 years of mass production. Maybe they did the right thing... Suvorov also taught that you need to fight not with numbers, but with skill.
Project disaster
And finally, the legendary “Panther”. Let's face it: the German attempt to create a new medium tank at the height of the war was a complete failure. The “Panther” turned out to be bulky and complex, as a result of which it lost the main quality of a Medium Tank – its mass appeal. 5976 vehicles turned out to be too few for a war on two fronts.
From a technical point of view, the Panther was head and shoulders above the T-34, but it was bought at too high a price - 45 tons of rest weight and eternal operational problems. At the same time, by a strange coincidence, the Panther turned out to be under-armed: the skinny barrel of the 75 mm gun seems to be a clear dissonance against the backdrop of the tank’s massive hull. (They promised to correct the shortcoming on the Panther II by installing a normal 88 mm cannon).
Yes, the Panther was strong and dangerous, but its cost and labor intensity of production were close to those of the Tiger tank. At the same time, the capabilities remained at the level of a conventional medium tank.
Results
The best tank, as you already understand, does not exist. There are too many parameters and conditions in this task. The design of the T-34 certainly carried novelty, at the same time, another Designers' Cup should be awarded to the workers of the Ural factories - they accomplished a feat by starting mass (more correctly, super-mass) production of tanks in the most difficult times for our Motherland. As for combat effectiveness, the T-34 is unlikely to even make it into the top ten. Any “Nashorn” will put the “thirty-four” in the belt in terms of the amount of damage caused per tank. Here the undisputed leader is the invincible “Tiger”.
T-34, Serbia, 1996.
However, there is one more, most important one - strategic offset. According to this competition, each tank should be considered as an element of contributing to the success of the army on a geopolitical scale. And here the T-34 rapidly rises to the top - thanks to its tanks, the Soviet Union defeated fascism, which determined the further history of the whole world.
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