Who invented the T 34 tank. History of creation

The T-34 tank was created on the basis of the experimental medium A-32 and entered service in December 1939. The design of the thirty-four marks a qualitative leap in domestic and global tank building. For the first time, the vehicle organically combines projectile-proof armor, powerful weapons and a reliable chassis. Projectile protection is ensured not only by the use of thick rolled armor plates, but also by their rational inclination. In this case, the sheets were joined by manual welding, which was replaced by automatic welding during production. The tank was armed with a 76.2 mm L-11 cannon, which was soon replaced by the more powerful F-32 cannon, and then the F-34. Thus, in terms of armament, it corresponded to the KV-1 heavy tank.

High mobility was ensured by a powerful diesel engine and wide tracks. The high manufacturability of the design made it possible to establish serial production of the T-34 at seven machine-building plants with different equipment. During the Great Patriotic War, along with an increase in the number of tanks produced, the task of improving their design and simplifying manufacturing technology was solved. The original welded and cast turret designs, which were difficult to manufacture, were replaced by a simpler cast hex turret. Increasing engine life was achieved by creating highly efficient air cleaners, improving the lubrication system and introducing an all-mode regulator. The replacement of the main clutch with a more advanced one and the introduction of a five-speed gearbox instead of a four-speed one contributed to an increase in the average speed. More durable tracks and cast road wheels improve the reliability of the undercarriage. Thus, the reliability of the tank as a whole was increased while the labor intensity of manufacturing was reduced. In total, more than 52 thousand T-34 tanks were produced during the war, which took part in all battles.

History of the creation of the T-34 tank

On October 13, 1937, the Kharkov Locomotive Plant named after the Comintern (plant No. 183) was issued tactical and technical requirements for the design and manufacture of a new wheeled-tracked tank BT-20. To accomplish this task, by decision of the 8th Main Directorate of the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry, a special design bureau was created at the plant, subordinate directly to the chief engineer. It received the factory designation A-20. During its design, another tank was developed, almost identical to the A-20 in terms of weight and size characteristics. Its main difference was the absence of a wheel drive.

As a result, on May 4, 1938, at a meeting of the USSR Defense Committee, two projects were presented: the A-20 wheeled-tracked tank and the A-32 tracked tank. In August, both of them were considered at a meeting of the Main Military Council, were approved and were made in metal in the first half of the next year.

In terms of its technical data and appearance, the A-32 tank differed slightly from the A-20. It turned out to be 1 ton heavier (combat weight - 19 tons), had the same overall dimensions and shape of the hull and turret. The power plant was similar - the V-2 diesel. The main differences were the absence of a wheel drive, armor thickness (30 mm instead of 25 mm for the A-20), a 76 mm cannon (a 45 mm was initially installed on the first model), and the presence of five road wheels on one side in the chassis.

Joint tests of both vehicles were carried out in July - August 1939 at a training ground in Kharkov and revealed the similarity of their tactical and technical characteristics, primarily dynamic ones. The maximum speed of combat vehicles on tracks was the same - 65 km/h; average speeds are also approximately equal, and the operational speeds of the A-20 tank on wheels and tracks did not differ significantly. Based on the test results, it was concluded that the A-32, which had a reserve for increasing mass, would be advisable to protect with more powerful armor, correspondingly increasing the strength of individual parts. The new tank received the designation A-34.

In October - November 1939, tests were carried out on two A-32 vehicles, loaded with 6830 kg (up to the weight of the A-34). Based on these tests, on December 19, the A-34 tank was adopted by the Red Army under the designation T-34. Officials of the People's Commissariat of Defense almost until the very beginning of the war did not have a strong opinion about the T-34 tank, which had already been put into service. The management of plant No. 183 did not agree with the customer’s opinion and appealed this decision to the headquarters and the People’s Commissariat, proposing to continue production and provide the army with T-34 tanks with corrections and a warranty mileage reduced to 1000 km (from 3000). K.E. Voroshilov put an end to the dispute by agreeing with the opinion of the plant. However, the main drawback noted in the report of the NIBT Polygon specialists - the crowded conditions - was never corrected.

In its original form, the T-34 tank produced in 1940 was distinguished by a very high quality of processing of armor surfaces. In wartime, they had to be sacrificed for the sake of mass production of a combat vehicle. The initial production plan for 1940 provided for the production of 150 serial T-34s, but already in June this number increased to 600. Moreover, production was supposed to be launched both at Plant No. 183 and at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant (STZ), which was supposed to produce 100 vehicles. However, this plan turned out to be far from reality: by September 15, 1940, only 3 production tanks were produced at KhPZ, and the Stalingrad T-34 tanks left the factory workshops only in 1941.

The first three production vehicles in November-December 1940 underwent intensive testing by shooting and running along the Kharkov-Kubinka-Smolensk-Kyiv-Kharkov route. The tests were carried out by officers of the NIBT Test Site. They identified so many design flaws that they doubted the combat effectiveness of the vehicles being tested. GABTU presented a negative report. In addition to the fact that the armor plates were installed at large angles of inclination, the thickness of the armor of the T-34 tank produced in 1940 was superior to most medium-sized vehicles of that time. One of the main shortcomings was the short-barreled L-11 cannon.

Second prototype A-34

Throwing bottles of burning gasoline onto the engine hatch of a tank.

Initially, the tank was equipped with a 76-mm L-11 cannon with a barrel length of 30.5 calibers, and starting in February 1941, along with the L-11, a 76-mm F-34 cannon with a barrel length of 41 calibers was installed. However, the changes affected only the armor mask of the swinging part of the gun. By the end of the summer of 1941, T-34 tanks were produced only with the F-34 cannon, which was produced at plant No. 92 in Gorky. After the start of the Great Patriotic War, by decree of the State Defense Committee No. 1, the Krasnoye Sormovo plant (plant No. 112 of the People's Commissariat of Sustainable Industry) was connected to the production of T-34 tanks. At the same time, the Sormovichi team was allowed to install aircraft parts brought from Kharkov on their tanks.

Thus, in the fall of 1941, STZ remained the only major manufacturer of T-34 tanks. At the same time, they tried to launch the production of the maximum possible number of components in Stalingrad. 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. Thus, an almost complete production cycle was organized in the city. The situation was the same in Gorky and Nizhny Tagil.

It should be noted that each manufacturer made some changes and additions to the design of the vehicle in accordance with its technological capabilities, so T-34 tanks from different factories had their own characteristic appearance.

In total, during this time, 35,312 T-34 tanks were manufactured, including 1,170 flamethrower tanks.

There is a table of T-34 production, which differs slightly in the number of tanks produced.

Tank building student

A student of the military-mechanical department of the Leningrad Mechanical Engineering Institute, Mikhail Koshkin, completed his practical training at the Gorky Automobile Plant, where work on creating their own tanks began at that time. And for pre-graduation practice I ended up in the experimental design engineering department - OKMO - Leningrad plant No. 174 named after K.E. Voroshilov, created on the basis of the tank production of the Bolshevik plant.

Self-confident and good with people, Koshkin was liked by the GAZ management, and the plant clearly did not have enough of its own design personnel for tank production. It is not surprising that even before Mikhail Ilyich went on pre-graduation practice, a personal call was received from Gorky to the office of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry for Koshkin. But, apparently, he himself perfectly understood that he did not have enough knowledge for independent design work, and there was simply no one to get it at GAZ. And therefore, when the distribution commission announced Gorky’s “order” for Koshkin, he decided to seek an appointment to OKMO.

Whose word can outweigh the request of the Gorky residents addressed to one of the most proactive people's commissars - Sergo Ordzhonikidze? Koshkin found such a person in the person who had already turned his fate around once. Mikhail Ilyich turned to Sergei Kirov with a request to leave him in Leningrad. And he respected the wishes of his “godson”: the all-powerful leader of Leningrad, who had only a few months to live, ensured that Koshkin was appointed to where he himself asked. And a few months later, already in 1935, the Leningrad Experimental Engineering Plant No. 185, where the future creator of the “thirty-four” came to work, was named after the deceased Kirov.

Leningrad graduate

It was here that Mikhail Koshkin, a graduate of the military-mechanical department of LMSI, learned the basics of tank design. Among its immediate leaders were legendary tank designers such as Semyon Ginzburg and Nikolai Barykov. And the fact that the design bureau of Plant No. 185 dealt primarily with medium tanks predetermined the further direction of its own work.

Mikhail Koshkin, who came to the position of designer, gained his first experience in creating medium tanks when the design bureau was developing the T-29 tank. Work in this area was led by another legendary Soviet tank builder - leading designer of the design bureau, Professor Nikolai Zeits. And although the experimental medium tank, built in five copies, never went into production, the developments on it were used in the next project - the T-46-5 medium tank, also known as T-111.

The basis for this armored vehicle was the T-46 light tank, which was supposed to replace the T-26 light tank, which had proven itself, but was no longer capable of withstanding anti-tank artillery. When, based on the experience of fighting in Spain, it became obvious that the battlefield of the coming war would belong to medium tanks, the design bureau of the 185th plant had already been developing its own vehicle with projectile-proof armor for a year. And most importantly - and this was a fundamentally important aspect of the project! - without the ability to move only on wheels: Semyon Ginzburg and most of his subordinates have already assessed the futility of the idea of ​​​​a wheeled-tracked tank. The designers understood well: a purely tracked vehicle has a much larger margin of modernization, it can be equipped with much thicker armor, and its design is more technologically advanced and simple.

All these ideas were incorporated into the design of the T-46-5 from the very beginning of work on it, in which Mikhail Koshkin also participated. But he was unable to develop a new tank for long: at the end of 1936, having worked his way up from an ordinary designer to deputy head of the design bureau in just two years, he was transferred to strengthen the design bureau of the Kharkov Locomotive Plant, the main manufacturer of wheeled-tracked tanks of the BT series. It was here, in Kharkov, that his finest hour awaited him, that same explosion, the echo of which can still be heard.

Kharkov appointee

...On December 28, 1936, People's Commissar of Heavy Industry Sergo Ordzhonikidze signed an order appointing Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin as head of the tank design bureau of plant No. 183 - the former Kharkov Locomotive Plant named after the Comintern. In the design bureau itself, the newcomer, who arrived in the city in early January, was looked at with doubt. An old party apparatchik, a recent university graduate, a man who managed to survive arrests and investigations against several of his bosses without loss... In short, Koshkin was received with caution in Kharkov. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the design bureau was seriously in a fever. Former director Afanasy Firsov, who paid for the unreliability of the gearbox of the new BT-7 tank, has been removed from his post and works as a simple designer. The bureau itself is actually divided in half: while some engineers are developing new tanks, others are working day and night in production to polish those already put into service.

It is no wonder that, first of all, Mikhail Koshkin, who was instructed and brought up to date by Firsov himself, decides to deal with the problems of the BT-7s on the assembly line. And pretty soon, with the help of lead designer Alexander Morozov and other colleagues, he manages to improve the reliability of the capricious BT gearbox. And soon a solution will be found for the problem of the gluttony of a high-speed tank. Under Koshkin’s leadership, instead of the exhausted and fuel-consuming gasoline engine on the BT-7, the factory workers install the “high-speed diesel” BD-2, developed here. It is he who will soon receive the B-2 index and will become the heart of the future “thirty-four”. It will also be installed on the latest modification of high-speed tanks - BT-7M.

But neither the modernization of the BT-7 already in service, nor the design work to create the next wheeled-tracked modification of the BT-9 was truly exciting work for Mikhail Koshkin. Understanding full well that the future belongs exclusively to tracked tanks, he was looking for an opportunity to prove his point in practice. And such a chance presented itself to Mikhail Ilyich and his like-minded people from KB-24 in the fall of 1937. It was at this time that the Automotive and Tank Directorate of the Red Army gave the Kharkovites the task of developing a new BT-20 tank. The document, which provided for the creation of a light tank with projectile-proof armor, a 45-mm cannon and sloped armor, was signed on October 13, 1937. In fact, it is from this day that the fate of the T-34 tank can be counted.

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"

Production of T-34 and T-34-85 in the USSR

Sections of this page:

1 . Including two prototypes

2. According to other sources, 2536 tanks. The table includes the most frequently occurring number

3. According to other sources, 354 tanks

4 . According to other sources, 3606 tanks

5 . According to other sources, 452 tanks. The number was taken from the plant’s report as the most reliable

6. According to other sources, 1198 tanks.

The production of medium tanks T-34 and T-34-85 deserves special mention. Too much contradictory information has been published so far, too many inconsistencies are found in the figures. During the war years, double accounting was carried out, in the full sense of the word - factories handed over tanks “for assembly”, the army accepted them “for battle”. Vehicles manufactured, for example, at the end of 1942, could be accepted by military acceptance at the beginning of 1943 and end up in two different annual reports. It is known that in 1940, 115 T-34 tanks were produced, but the army accepted only 97! And so on ad infinitum... However, let's turn to the numbers and try to analyze them. First, let's look at the T-34 tank, produced from 1940 to 1944.

It is enough to compare the data in the tables to understand that they contain obvious discrepancies both in the annual production of tanks and in the total number. Moreover, with the exception of 1940, all the numbers in table 2 are greater than in table 1. What's the matter? Apparently - in the compilers of these reports.

Table 1 is compiled on the basis of the “Certificate on the production of tanks by industrial plants from 1.01.41 to 1.01.44” (TsAMO, f. 38, d. 663) and the book “Operations of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”, that is, based on military calculations. Table 2 uses “Reference data from the People’s Commissariat of the Tank Industry of the USSR for 1941-1945 on the production of armored vehicles” and data from factories. At the same time, it is clear that certain results of military representatives’ calculations have clearly “crept” into Table 2, for example, the number of tanks produced by ChKZ in 1943. By the way, if instead of 3594 for ChKZ we put 3606, and for plant No. 174 we take 1198, then we get 15,696 tanks, which coincides with the data in Table 1!

This table shows data for 1944 and 1945 only. The T-34-85 commander and OT-34-85 tanks were not produced in 1946.

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 for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd quarters of 1945, that is, approximately until 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.

Speaking about the production of tanks, it was impossible to ignore their most important and complex components - the gun and the engine. It should be taken into account that the guns mentioned in Table 5, and diesel engines in Table 6, were installed not only on the T-34 and T-34-85, but also on other tanks.

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-fours” 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.

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 officials 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. It is necessary 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 Resolution 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 BT and MB, Lieutenant General of 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 No. 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 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 No. 112 and sort 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.

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, plants 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.

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 guns 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. 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 (Krasnoe 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 1945, field tests were carried out on prototypes of the T-34-100 medium tanks with a turret ring widened to 1700 mm, armed with 100 mm LB-1 and D-10T cannons. On these tanks, the mass of which reached 33 tons, the front-mounted machine gun was removed and the crew was reduced by one person; tower height reduced; the thickness of the bottom, the roof over the engine and the turret roof has been reduced; fuel tanks were moved to the control department; driver's seat lowered; the suspension of the 2nd and 3rd road wheels is made in the same way as the suspension of the first rollers; Five-roller drive wheels are installed. The T-34-100 tank was not accepted for service - the 100-mm gun turned out to be “too heavy” for the T-34. This work generally made little sense, since the new T-54 medium tank with the 100-mm D-10T cannon had already been put into service.

Another attempt to strengthen the armament of the T-34-85 was made in 1945, when the TsAKB developed a modification of the ZIS-S-53, equipped with a single-plane gyroscopic stabilizer - the 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.

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 two 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 T-34 units. Thus, back in August 1940, the project of an AT-42 artillery tractor weighing 17 tons, with a platform with a lifting capacity of 3 tons was approved. With a V-2 engine power 500 hp it was supposed to reach speeds of up to 33 km/h with a traction 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.

This table shows data for 1944 and 1945 only. The T-34-85 commander and OT-34-85 tanks were not produced in 1946.

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. On the right, in the front part of the hull, a boom crane with a lifting capacity of 3 tons was installed; 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.

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 laying vehicle, 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 Burnar 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.

T-34 is the first mass-produced Soviet medium tank. In the 30s, there were two extremes in domestic tank building. On the one hand - light tanks. They had speed, mobility and maneuverability, but on the other hand they had poor protection from projectiles and the low firepower of the installed weapons. At the opposite extreme were heavy tanks with strong armor and powerful weapons, but at the same time slow and slow. The T-34 combined the maneuverability of a light tank with a high level of armor protection and powerful weapons at the level of a heavy tank. The T-34 is also considered the most popular tank of World War II - from 1940 to 1947, seven factories in the USSR, and after the war, more than 60 thousand T-34 tanks of various modifications were produced in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The T-34 tank was designed at Design Bureau No. 183 at the Kharkov Locomotive Plant named after the Comintern under the leadership of chief designer Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin. In the production program of this plant and in service with the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, the T-34 replaced the popular BT light tanks of the 1930s. Their pedigree goes back to the American Christie tank, a sample of which was imported into the USSR in 1931 without a turret, documented according to documents as an “agricultural tractor.” Based on this imported vehicle, a whole family of high-speed tanks was developed in the Soviet Union. In the 30s, the machines of this series were modernized and improved; production models bore the indices BT-2, BT-5 and BT-7. Of course, BT-7 and T-34 are tanks of different classes. The difference in their combat weight is very large - 13.8 tons for the BT versus 30 tons for the T-34. However, firstly, for the first manufacturer of the T-34, the Kharkov Locomotive Plant named after the Comintern, the BT-7 was the previous “old”, and the T-34 the subsequent “new” basic model - the “thirty-four” replaced the BT at the same production capacities. Secondly, both the BT series before the war and the T-34 during the war were the most popular tanks of the USSR Armed Forces. Thirdly, the T-34 inherited the general layout from the BT. Finally, fourthly, it was on the later releases of the BT-7 that the V-2 diesel engine first appeared, which will be installed on all T-34s.

Tank BT

By 1937, extensive experience in operating BT tanks had accumulated, and the participation of Soviet tank crews in the Spanish Civil War made it possible to test these tanks in real combat conditions. As a result, three cardinal shortcomings were revealed. Firstly, the light armored vehicle turned out to be too vulnerable to enemy artillery, because its armor was designed primarily for bulletproof protection. Secondly, due to the wheeled-tracked propulsion, the tank's cross-country ability left much to be desired. Thirdly, a gasoline engine is more dangerous in combat than a diesel engine - when a projectile hits, a gasoline tank ignites much easier and stronger than a diesel tank.

The Armored Directorate (ABTU) of the Red Army issued a technical assignment to the Kharkov plant for the design of a medium tank, initially designated A-20 or BT-20 on October 13, 1937. Initially, it was planned that the new tank, with its combat weight increased from 13 to 19 tons and a new V-2 diesel engine, would retain the wheeled-track type of chassis, like the previous BT models. While working on the A-20, M.I. Koshkin came to the conclusion that in order to increase the thickness of the armor, the power of weapons, and improve off-road capability, it is necessary to abandon the wheel-tracked chassis design in favor of a tracked one. Koshkin had many influential opponents who advocated the preservation of the wheeled-tracked propulsion system. Several of Koshkin’s colleagues, tank designers, were arrested by the NKVD as enemies of the people. Nevertheless, despite the risk, in case of failure, of becoming a victim of accusations of sabotage, Mikhail Ilyich boldly, decisively and uncompromisingly advocated a new tracked propulsion unit.

To evaluate the advantages of this or that scheme in practice, it was necessary to design two prototype tanks - the wheeled-tracked A-20 and the tracked A-32 with a combat weight of 19 tons and an armor thickness of 20-25 mm. These two projects were discussed at a meeting of the Defense Committee on May 4, 1938, in which I.V. participated. Stalin, members of the Politburo, military personnel and designers. Tank engineer A.A., a participant in the battles in Spain. Vetrov, in his report, based on personal combat experience, spoke in favor of a tracked tank - the wheeled propulsion unit proved to be unreliable and difficult to repair. Vetrov was actively supported by Koshkin - he emphasized that the tracked design is less metal-intensive, simpler and cheaper to produce, and, therefore, the scale of serial production of tracked tanks at equal costs will be much greater than the production volume of wheeled-tracked tanks. At the same time, there were supporters of the wheeled version - the head of the ABTU, corps commander D.G. Pavlov and other speakers actively campaigned for the usual wheeled-tracked tank. The result was summed up by Stalin, who proposed building and testing tanks of both types.

So, in 1938, prototypes of two tanks were tested, differing in the type of propulsion - the wheeled-tracked A-20 and the tracked A-32. The dimensions of the hull, power unit and turret of these tanks were the same. But the A-32 chassis has already received five road wheels, like the future production T-34. At first, comparative tests of the A-20 and A-32 did not reveal any clear advantages of either design.

Koshkin was still looking for an opportunity to prove the advantage of the tracked undercarriage. He pointed out that even with the construction of two single prototypes, the manufacture and assembly of the wheeled-tracked undercarriage took much more time and effort than the manufacture of the tracked one. In addition, during sea trials, Mikhail Ilyich argued that by eliminating heavy wheel gearboxes, it was possible to increase the thickness and weight of the tank’s armor and the power of the installed weapons. The tracked propulsion system makes the tank better protected and armed. At the same time, on wheels the tank catastrophically loses cross-country ability in off-road conditions.

In September 1939, at a demonstration of new models of tank equipment to government members - K.E. Voroshilov, A.A. Zhdanov, A.I. Mikoyan, N.A. Voznesensky Design Bureau, headed by Koshkin, presented the second modified model of the tracked A-32. The light, elegant tank easily overcame all obstacles, forded the river, climbed a steep, steep bank, and easily knocked down a thick pine tree. The admiration of the audience knew no bounds, and the director of the Leningrad Kirov plant N.V. Barykov said: “Remember this day - the birthday of a unique tank.”

In the fall of 1939, construction began in Kharkov of two prototypes of the improved A-34 tracked tank, which differed from the A-32 in the armor thickness of 40-45 mm. This was the maximum possible for the existing engine and chassis. Such armor increased the weight to 26-30 tons and confidently protected the vehicle from anti-tank guns with a caliber of 37 and 45 mm. A significant improvement in the security of the new product became possible only thanks to the tracked drive.

An important role in the birth of the T-34 was played by the creation of a new generation engine. Kharkov designers K.F. Chelpan, I.Ya. Trashutin, Ya.E. Vickman, I.S. Behr and their comrades designed a new 12-cylinder V-shaped diesel engine V-2 with a power of 400-500 hp. The engine was distinguished by a gas distribution scheme that was progressive for its time. Each cylinder head had two camshafts (like modern cars). The drive was carried out not by a chain or belt, but by shafts - one for each head. The timing shaft transmitted torque to one of the camshafts, which, in turn, rotated the second camshaft of its head using a pair of gears. An interesting feature of the B-2 was the dry sump lubrication system, which required an additional oil reservoir. It should be added that the B-2 was an original development, and not a copy of any foreign model. Unless the designers could have borrowed a set of technical solutions from the then piston aircraft engines.

The layout of the T-34 turned out to be as follows. Ahead is the fighting compartment for the crew. The driver sat on the left, like a driver in a domestic car. Next to him was the place of the radio operator, in front of whom stood a machine gun in the inclined frontal plate of the turret. At the rear of the turret there were seats for the crew commander and the main caliber gun loader. Since communications did not always work well, the commander often gave orders to the driver in a peculiar way. He simply pushed him with his boots in the left or right shoulder, in the back. Everyone understood perfectly well that this meant that they had to turn right or left, accelerate, brake, and turn around.

The engine and transmission compartment was located behind the fighting compartment. The engine was mounted longitudinally, followed by the main clutch, which plays the same role in a tracked vehicle as the clutch in a car. Next was a four-speed manual transmission. From it, through the final drive gearboxes, torque was supplied to the side clutches and the driving rear sprockets of the tracks. Already during the war, by 1943, a 5-speed gearbox began to be gradually introduced into production instead of a 4-speed one.

The chassis consisted of five large double road wheels on each side, drive wheels at the rear and idler wheels (idlers) at the front. Four rollers on each side were equipped with individual spring suspension. The springs were installed obliquely in shafts along the sides of the armored hull. The suspensions of the first rollers in the bow were protected by steel casings. Over the years and at different factories, at least 7 types of road wheels were produced. At first they had rubber tires, then due to the wartime shortage of rubber they had to produce rollers without tires with internal shock absorption. The tank equipped with them rumbled louder. When rubber began to arrive through Lend-Lease, bandages appeared again. The caterpillar consisted of 37 flat and 37 ridge tracks. The vehicle was supplied with two spare tracks and two jacks.

On March 17, 1940, a demonstration of new models of tank equipment was scheduled in the Kremlin to the country's top leaders. The production of two T-34 prototypes had just been completed, the tanks were already moving under their own power, all their mechanisms were working. But the speedometers of the cars were just counting down the first hundreds of kilometers. According to the standards in force at that time, the mileage of tanks allowed for display and testing had to be more than two thousand kilometers. In order to have time to run-in and complete the required mileage, Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin decided to drive the prototype cars from Kharkov to Moscow under his own power. This was a risky decision: the tanks themselves were a secret product that could not be shown to the population. One fact of traveling on public roads could be regarded by the NKVD as a disclosure of state secrets. On a thousand-kilometer route, equipment that had not been tested and was not really familiar to the driver-mechanics and repairmen could break down due to any breakdowns and get into an accident. Besides, the beginning of March is still winter. But at the same time, the run provided a unique chance to test new vehicles in extreme conditions, check the correctness of the chosen technical solutions, and identify the advantages and disadvantages of the tank’s components and assemblies.

Koshkin personally took enormous responsibility for this run. On the night of March 5-6, 1940, a convoy left Kharkov - two camouflaged tanks, accompanied by Voroshilovets tractors, one of which was loaded with fuel, tools and spare parts, and on the second there was a passenger body like a “kung” for the participants to rest. Part of the way, Koshkin himself drove the new tanks, sitting at their levers alternately with the factory driver mechanics. For the sake of secrecy, the route ran off-road through snow-covered forests, fields and rough terrain in the Kharkov, Belgorod, Tula and Moscow regions. Off-road, in winter, the units worked to the limit; many minor breakdowns had to be repaired and the necessary adjustments made. But the future T-34s still reached Moscow on March 12. One vehicle’s main clutch failed. Its replacement was carried out at the tank repair plant in Cherkizovo.

On the appointed day, the 17th, both vehicles were transported from the tank repair plant to the Kremlin. During the run M.I. Koshkin caught a cold. At the show, he coughed heavily, which even members of the government noticed. However, the show itself was a triumph of the new product. Two tanks, led by testers N. Nosik and V. Dyukanov, drove around Ivanovskaya Square of the Kremlin - one to the Troitsky Gate, the other to the Borovitsky Gate. Before reaching the gate, they spectacularly turned around and rushed towards each other, striking sparks from the paving stones, stopped, turned around, made several circles at high speed, and braked in the same place. I.V. Stalin liked the sleek, fast car. His words are conveyed differently by different sources. Some eyewitnesses claim that Joseph Vissarionovich said: “This will be the swallow in the tank forces,” according to others, the phrase sounded different: “This is the first swallow of the tank forces.”

After the display, both tanks were tested at the Kubinka training ground, test fire from guns of different calibers, which showed the high level of security of the new product. In April there was a return trip to Kharkov. M.I. Koshkin proposed again to travel not on railway platforms, but under his own power through the spring thaw. Along the way, one tank fell into a swamp. The designer, who had barely recovered from his first cold, got very wet and cold. This time the disease turned into complications. In Kharkov, Mikhail Ilyich was hospitalized for a long time, his condition worsened, and he soon became disabled - doctors removed one of his lungs. On September 26, 1940, Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin died. The T-34 had to be mastered under the new chief designer A.A. Morozov.

The introduction of the new tank was faced with numerous difficulties; GABTU and the People's Commissariat of Medium Engineering twice tried to curtail the development of production. Only with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War was the final decision made to put the T-34 into mass production.

The first T-34 releases had different weapons. The main caliber gun, which is mounted on the turret and is an important visual detail of any tank, was initially a 76.2 mm L-11 gun with a 30.5-caliber barrel. Soon it was replaced by a more advanced F-32 gun with a length of 31.5. Later, in 1941, especially for the T-34, the design bureau of V.N. Grabina designed the F-34 cannon of the same 76.2 mm caliber, with a 41-caliber barrel, which was significantly superior to its predecessors. The standard machine gun was a 7.62 caliber DT. The telescopic sight for direct fire was called TOD-6. It is for the caliber of the main gun that tanks produced before December 1943 are called T-34-76.

In addition to the Kharkov Locomotive Plant, production of the T-34 was planned even before the war at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. In total, until June 22, 1941, 1225 T-34s entered service with the Red Army, of which 967 ended up in the western districts. With the beginning of the war, according to the decree of July 1, 1941, production was also launched at the shipbuilding plant No. 112 "Krasnoe Sormovo" in Gorky. The choice fell on this enterprise, since it had processing bases, crane facilities and workshop bays suitable for the production of T-34. It was in Sormovo that tank production continued continuously throughout the war. T-34s from different factories were noticeably different from each other - it was evident that in Kharkov, Stalingrad and Gorky there was a different machine park.

Production of the T-34 in Kharkov continued until October 19, 1941. With the approach of the front, under continuous bombing, the plant’s equipment had to be loaded onto railway platforms and evacuated to Nizhny Tagil to the Ural Carriage Works, while the plant retained its Kharkov number 183. At first, the new location did not even have enough workshop space. Sometimes it happened that a crane unloaded a machine from a platform onto a steel sheet, a tractor pulled the sheet with the machine from the railway track under the nearest pine trees, power was supplied from a nearby energy train, and workers began to manufacture tank parts right in the open air in frost and snow. True, we managed to bring a large supply of components from Kharkov.

But when production at Uralvagonzavod was put in order, it was there, in Nizhny Tagil in 1942, that a huge amount of work was carried out to optimize the tank’s production technology, which made it possible to make its production truly widespread. First of all, we are talking about a fundamentally new technology for welding armored hulls - automatic, under a layer of flux. It was designed by the Electric Welding Institute, which was evacuated to Nizhny Tagil. The work was headed by Academician E.O. Paton.

Academician E.O. Paton

With the introduction of automatic welding, productivity increased sharply - T-34 bodies came off the assembly line in a continuous stream. It turned out that the tank’s protection had also improved radically. For testing, a body of two halves was welded. One side panel was welded the old fashioned way by hand. The second and the nose are under a layer of gumboil. The corps was subjected to severe shelling with high-explosive and armor-piercing shells. The very first hits - and the hand-welded side cracked along the seam. The hull was deployed, and the submerged seam withstood seven direct hits in a row - it turned out to be stronger than the armor.

In 1942, for the creation of the T-34 tank, its three leading designers - Mikhail Koshkin (posthumously), Alexander Morozov and Nikolai Kucherenko were awarded the Stalin medal awards.

M.I. Koshkin A.A. Morozov N.A. Kucherenko

The T-34 used at least seven types of turrets - cast, welded, stamped. The earliest version is a small tower, commonly called a “pie”. In 1942, under the leadership of M.A. Nabutovsky developed a new hexagonal tower, the so-called “nut”. It was more technologically advanced in production. Both towers were considered cramped for the two crew members sitting in them.

In 1942, again due to the advance of enemy troops, the Stalingrad Tractor Plant failed. At the same time, production of the T-34 was also mastered at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and in Omsk at plant No. 174. The production of tanks at several factories further diversified the number of options. In combat conditions this created additional difficulties. Whenever possible, damaged tanks were evacuated from the battlefield, sometimes dismantled for spare parts right on the spot. They tried to assemble one from the surviving parts, components, and assemblies of several machines. But sometimes, to the horror of tankers and repairmen, identical spare parts for different vehicles did not fit together! It all ended with Stalin calling the Chief Designer of Plant No. 183 A.A. Morozov, and categorically demanded that parts of different plants be brought to a single standard. Therefore, in 1943, unified technical documentation for all factories was issued.

In 1941, a special modification was developed and mastered in 1942 - the OT-34 flamethrower tank. In December 1943, the T-34 was modernized, received a new turret, a new main caliber gun and, accordingly, was renamed T-34-85. This modification became the main one at the end of the war and in the early post-war years. Most of the tanks of this family that have survived today are either T-34-85 or former T-34-76 with the turret plate, turret and gun from the “eighty-five” installed during repairs.

After the war, the V-2 diesel not only became the basis for post-war tank engines. It has also found application in the automotive industry. 25-ton MAZ-525 dump trucks worked on the restoration of the national economy and the great construction projects of the five-year plan. To transport new types of weapons, primarily missiles, as well as the heaviest economic cargo, MAZ-535/537, then MAZ-543 tractors were developed. All of them were equipped with modernized diesel engines of the T-34 tank.

The T-34 tank is considered the most famous Soviet tank and one of the most recognizable symbols of the Great Patriotic War. Thanks to its combat qualities, the T-34 was recognized as the best medium tank of the Second World War and had a huge influence on the further development of world tank building. During its creation, Soviet designers managed to find the optimal balance between the main combat, operational and technological characteristics.