German tank. German tanks of World War II

Introduction

Usually when tanks are described, they talk about engine power, armor thickness, and fuel reserves. And the most important thing is the distance at which a tank gun can hit an enemy tank. This is of course important, but not as much as some imagine. And the reasons for making this or that decision are not always those that were written about in the youth technology magazine in the seventieth year. Is diesel the ideal engine for a tank? Absolutely yes. Was he ideal for 1941? Definitely not. The most obvious and most dangerous example of the T-34. They installed a diesel engine on it because it is more economical than gasoline and it is more difficult to set fire to diesel fuel. This is the official version. It seems to me that at that time there was simply nowhere to put diesel fuel in the country, so diesel was installed everywhere where it was possible and where it was impossible.
What did you get in the end? Indeed, the T-34 caught fire much less often than the BT tank, but more often than any German tank, and even more often than our gasoline T-70. And this is not enemy propaganda, but damned statistics. Our designers began assembling it in the summer of forty-one. Why did German tanks burn so rarely? And their gas tank was in one place, usually in the rear of the hull, and was very small. And the T-34 has a gas tank everywhere. True, the range of German tanks from one refueling was small. But they carried a barrel of gasoline with them.

They also refueled in our abandoned warehouses. But the T-34 could not refuel either in ours or in enemy warehouses. True, at the end of the war, competent tank crews learned to mix kerosene and oil and received fuel on which diesel could somehow work.
For those who don't know yet. We didn't know how to make diesel engines. Their diesel engines were the best in the world. But all their diesel fuel was consumed by the fleet.

The best tank of the German army

It was definitely a three. It was the most balanced (novelty + mobility + weapons + armor) German tank. The tank was the fastest; in testing it overtook both the T-34 and BT. It had a torsion bar suspension. Besides him, only our Klim Voroshilov had a torsion bar suspension at that time. The case was the easiest to manufacture, in the form of a shoe box.
A small technical digression about sloped armor. IN Once again I'll explain. Only PRIMITIVE PROJECTILES, which are an ordinary steel blank and are called pointed ones, slide off the inclined armor. Blunt ones with a ballistic tip slip less. And shells with an armor-piercing cap do not slide off at all. When hit, they rotate until they are perpendicular to the armor.
The troika had only two fundamental shortcomings. Firstly, this is the layout.

Gearbox in front, engine in rear. On one side, the gearbox protects the crew from enemy shells. On the other hand, the tower can be moved back. This makes it possible not to make a hatch for the driver in the windshield and the crew experiences less shaking.
But, there is always a damn but. The gearbox must be connected to the engine with a cardan. And this adds thirty centimeters to the height of the tank. Thirty centimeters of armor plate thirty millimeters thick. That is, the tank carries several tons of extra weight. That is, if there were no cardan, you could increase the thickness of the armor along the entire perimeter of the tank by thirty millimeters while maintaining the initial weight of the tank. This drawback was inherent in ALL German tanks, because they were crazy about this layout.
It had the correct (well, almost correct) layout, but the brilliant designer Koshkin managed to add the same thirty centimeters to the height of the tank by installing a fan on the engine output shaft, which went far beyond the dimensions of the engine. It's certainly easier that way. And the extra thirty centimeters? A brilliant designers That's why they're geniuses because they don't think about little things.
The second disadvantage of the triple is its small size. The tank was just small. It was impossible to mount a gun of a caliber greater than fifty millimeters on it.

Strong average

The German four was a high-quality tractor with a cannon mounted on it. The suspension was a primitive tractor type. The body was of a more complex shape than that of the troika, although it resembled a box. It was inferior in speed to the T-34, but due to its high quality workmanship, it was far superior to it in tactical mobility. Its short barrel did not prevent it from destroying our tanks, because this gun had a cumulative projectile. The projectile is primitive in modern concepts, but it penetrated seventy-five millimeters of armor at any distance. Later a cannon with a long barrel was installed on it. Very often the quartet was hung with additional armored screens. Then he became quite scary plus muzzle brake on the cannon. And now our fighters are absolutely sure that a tiger is crawling towards them. Therefore, ten times more tigers were destroyed on the battlefield than the factories produced.
If we compare the four and the T-34 in '43, then I would give preference to the four. The best optics and reliability with equal fire capabilities and armor protection. As for mobility, tanks do not fly over the battlefield. And they crawl sedately like ordinary turtles.
At one time, they carried out a huge amount of testing, comparing T-80 tanks with a gas turbine and the diesel T-72. The eightieth has a higher absolute speed and higher specific power. But as they began to simulate long marches and combat use, the seventy-second won.
In general, if the Germans had not fooled themselves with tigers and panthers, but had simply thrown all their efforts into producing the four, then we would have celebrated Victory Day not on the ninth but on the tenth of May.

Tiger great and terrible

The Tiger was an ideal tank for protecting a concrete airfield. He had powerful armor, especially for the forty-third year. It had a modern torsion bar suspension. He had a powerful gun. It had great optics and was very easy to control. Unlike the T-34, the tiger could be controlled by any dystrophic person.

Pay attention to the gas tank - it is quite compact and located in the engine compartment and not like the T-34 along with the crew.
There were only three shortcomings. The same idiotic layout scheme, which added height to the body and excess weight designs. The way the torsion bar suspension was made. And too heavy weight tank.
I don’t know what the German designers were thinking about when they designed the suspension. The skating rinks were arranged in a checkerboard pattern, beautifully overlapping each other. Perhaps they wanted to get a particularly soft ride or cover the lower part of the hull with rollers. Although there are practically no hits in the lower part of the hull, they fight in the field and not at the airfield. As a result, in order to change the torsion bar or roller, half of the suspension had to be disassembled.
But the most important thing is the weight of the tiger. For any level of industry there is a maximum weight of a product at which the product will work reliably. For the age of forty-three, the tiger’s weight was greatly overestimated. He himself often broke down, and most often the chassis broke down, which was very difficult to repair, and our soldiers added to the hassle. Realizing that it is difficult to knock out a tiger and sometimes there is simply nothing to do with it, a tactical method was invented. In front of the advancing tigers, sappers ran on all fours and simply scattered anti-tank mines. When German sappers tried to collect these mines, since they were lying on the ground without any camouflage, they were knocked out with mortar and machine-gun fire. This technique was used especially often in battles on the Kursk Bulge. Because the Germans, believing in the invulnerability of their tigers, stupidly climbed into multi-layered anti-tank defense. It was very difficult to evacuate the tiger from the battlefield. For transportation, either another tiger or THREE conventional tractors was needed. And this is only if the soil was dry and strong enough. That’s why I wrote that the ideal conditions for using a tiger are an airfield with a concrete surface.
By definition, the tiger could not perform classic tank tasks. Its most effective use was the use of the tiger as a MOBILE firing point. The tank stands in a trench (the trench sometimes had concrete floors) and with a ninety-eight percent probability it will wait out an artillery attack of any power. When our troops rise to attack, the tiger crawls out of the trench for direct fire. In this capacity, the tiger is very similar to our KV in initial period war. The KV achieved its loudest victories when it simply occupied some strategic (locally) crossroads and German tanks pressed against it like their foreheads were against a wall. Both tanks had a gun that was quite modest in power for their weight, but a large number of shells.
Tales of the T-34 fighting a tiger. The fairy tale looks something like this - using the speed and maneuverability of the T-34, they came in from the side and hit the side. As a former tanker, I have a hard time imagining this. There are twenty tigers in a line, with a distance of one hundred meters between the vehicles, and in front of them are two hundred of our tanks. And how, or where should one maneuver in order to be between neighboring tigers, at a distance of fifty meters from any of them? Most likely, everything was much worse. In the last two kilometers of approach, nine out of ten of our tanks were killed, and the tenth, which we simply did not have time to knock out, destroyed the tiger.
There was really more successful way struggle. The front broke through a hundred kilometers from the nearest tiger, the ring closed and the tiger was left without fuel. But in order to fight like this, firstly, you need to think with your head, and secondly, understand that tanks are not designed to fight enemy tanks.
In any case, the tiger made a strong, if not indelible, impression on our military. Although it could not be taken into account at all. By the standards of that war, the tiger was released in scanty quantities. He had zero tactical mobility. Even loading onto the railway platform caused a lot of time. Due to its dimensions, the tiger did not fit on the railway platform. Therefore, before loading, the usual tracks were removed from it and special narrower transport tracks were put on. After unloading, the same thing happened only in reverse order.

The Panther that no one noticed

Well, it’s not that they didn’t notice at all, it’s just that the reaction to the panther was quite calm. Well, another German tank. Apparently after the tiger there were no more emotions left. The panther's armor was conditionally anti-ballistic. That is, the front of the tank was protected by eighty millimeters of inclined armor, and the side had only forty millimeters of armor. For the forty-third year, this was clearly not enough. And the thin side was all due to the same idiotic design of the tank with a gearbox in the bow and an engine in the stern. The panther turned out to be unusually tall. The height was almost three meters.

Among the advantages of the panther, we must admit that it has a large ammunition load and a small gas tank located at the very rear of the tank. True, there was only enough gasoline in it for two hundred kilometers, but the panther burned very rarely.
A small technical digression. Almost any damaged tank can be repaired. The only exceptions are burnt tanks or tanks torn into small pieces. The Germans put their destroyed tanks into operation several times during the initial period of the war. Therefore, our troops knocked out ten times more German tanks than the German factories produced. And then some authors write that we lied a lot about German losses. To be honest, they lied, but not that much. Later, two different concepts even appeared: knocked out and destroyed. Therefore, after the battle, the artillerymen tried to set fire to the damaged but not burning tanks on the battlefield.
Since in 1943 we were mainly advancing, the destroyed panthers were not restored but were given to us as a trophy. There were many cases when we received serviceable panthers that were abandoned only because they ran out of gas.
Patera was much lighter than a tiger, but medium tank she didn't hesitate. And in general, the forty-third year for the panther is a copy of the forty-first year for the T-34. It is difficult to knock out a tank, but it is possible, and most of the losses are due to the breakdown of the chassis. Why did the technically competent Germans' chassis break down? Yes, everything new breaks down in the first half of the year, and the weight of forty-three tons (the T-72 weighed only forty-two) is too much for that level of industrial development.

Royal tiger

In principle, there was no need to write about this tank, because this is the height of technical absurdity. But he has one interesting technical solution.

Fuel tanks were located to the right and left of the propeller shaft at the bottom of the fighting compartment. There were several other small tanks in and around the engine compartment, but according to theory they should already be empty by the time of the battle. On the one hand, the tank in the fighting compartment is absurd. But on the other hand, there are practically no hits into the tank at the level of the floor of the fighting compartment. I don’t know whether the royal tigers burned well or badly, there were simply so few of them that there are probably no statistics on this tank.

Production of German tanks

Here is a picture from my favorite youth technology magazine from 1970. Next to each tank is the number of units produced. As you can see, the Germans did not succeed in quantity and tried to take it in quality. This would make sense if the war was fought in a gorge ten kilometers wide. But when the front line is thousands of kilometers long, you can’t do without quantity. For all their technical perfection, German tank factories, by our standards, resembled tank workshops.
Small lyrical digression. This topic in Soviet time was kept silent, but our brothers Czechs and Slovaks made a huge contribution to the armament of the German army. In the initial period of the war in the Baltic states, the Germans attacked practically with Czechoslovak-made tanks, which they inherited after the occupation of Czechoslovakia. And during the war, tank production in Czechoslovakia operated at full capacity.
Many point out that German tanks were difficult to produce. This is probably true, although like a tank shaped like a shoebox and having a gasoline engine, it could be more expensive than a tank with sloped armor and a diesel engine? Most likely it's all about the size of production.
We had three huge factories. Of these, one is the largest car production plant in the world, on the territory of which all the Kharkov factories and some other evacuated production facilities were located. Of course it was a little crowded, but it turned out to be the world's largest tank factory with continuous production of tanks. The second plant was created from a former shipyard. The quality of the tanks the first year was terrible, but the quantity was impressive. And the Germans at that time produced a thousand submarines. I think instead of a thousand boats, ten thousand tanks could have been released.
The third huge plant was supposed to be based on a tractor plant and, again, a shipyard in Stalingrad. But Stalingrad was razed to the ground. Therefore, the T-34 began to be made at the tractor plant in Chelyabinsk. Moreover, heavy tanks were also made on it at the same time, which from the point of view of a technologist is technical idiocy. The plant was initially not very powerful (eight thousand tractors per year), but the entire tank production of Leningrad moved to its territory.
And speaking about the cost of tanks, we must not forget that our workers worked practically for free. A wage is also included in the price of the product.
Well, how can we not remember the Americans? They launched the production of their rather primitive tanks in huge automobile factories. And if they needed it, they would have made more tanks than all the warring countries combined. But they needed steamships and so they produced TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED Liberty-class transport ships.

During the Second World War, tanks played a decisive role in battles and operations; it is very difficult to select the top ten from the many tanks, for this reason, the order in the list is rather arbitrary and the place of the tank is tied to the time of its active participation in battles and significance for that period.

10. Tank Panzerkampfwagen III (PzKpfw III)

PzKpfw III, better known as T-III – light tank with a 37 mm gun. Reservation from all angles – 30 mm. The main quality is Speed (40 km/h on the highway). Thanks to the advanced Carl Zeiss optics, ergonomic crew workstations and the presence of a radio station, the Troikas could successfully fight with much heavier vehicles. But with the advent of new opponents, the shortcomings of the T-III became more apparent. The Germans replaced the 37 mm guns with 50 mm guns and covered the tank with hinged screens - temporary measures yielded results, the T-III fought for several more years. By 1943, production of the T-III was discontinued due to the complete exhaustion of its resource for modernization. In total, German industry produced 5,000 “triples”.

9. Tank Panzerkampfwagen IV (PzKpfw IV)

The PzKpfw IV looked much more serious, becoming the most mass tank Panzerwaffe - the Germans managed to build 8,700 vehicles. Combining all the advantages of the lighter T-III, the “four” had a high firepower and security - the thickness of the frontal plate was gradually increased to 80 mm, and the shells of its 75 mm long-barreled gun pierced the armor of enemy tanks like foil (by the way, 1,133 early modifications with a short-barreled gun were produced).

The weak points of the vehicle are that the sides and rear are too thin (only 30 mm in the first modifications); the designers neglected the slope of the armor plates for the sake of manufacturability and ease of operation for the crew.

Panzer IV is the only German tank that was in mass production throughout the Second World War and became the most popular tank of the Wehrmacht. Its popularity among German tankers was comparable to the popularity of the T-34 among ours and the Sherman among the Americans. Well-designed and extremely reliable in operation, this combat vehicle was, in the full sense of the word, the “workhorse” of the Panzerwaffe.

8. Tank KV-1 (Klim Voroshilov)

In the summer of 1941, the KV tank destroyed the elite units of the Wehrmacht with the same impunity as if it had rolled out onto the Borodino field in 1812. Invulnerable, invincible and incredibly powerful. Until the end of 1941, all the armies of the world did not have any weapons capable of stopping the Russian 45-ton monster. The KV was 2 times heavier than the largest Wehrmacht tank.

Armor KV is a wonderful song of steel and technology. 75 millimeters of solid steel from all angles! The frontal armor plates had an optimal angle of inclination, which further increased the projectile resistance of the KV armor - German 37 mm anti-tank guns they didn’t take it even at point-blank range, and 50 mm guns – no further than 500 meters. At the same time, the long-barreled 76 mm F-34 (ZIS-5) gun made it possible to hit any German tank of that period from any direction from a distance of 1.5 kilometers.

The KV crews were staffed exclusively by officers; only driver mechanics could be foremen. Their level of training far exceeded that of the crews who fought on other types of tanks. They fought more skillfully, which is why they were remembered by the Germans...

7. Tank T-34 (thirty-four)

“...There is nothing more terrible than a tank battle against superior enemy forces. Not in numbers - that didn’t matter to us, we got used to it. But against better vehicles it is terrible... Russian tanks are so agile, at close ranges they will climb a slope or overcome a swamp faster than you can turn the turret. And through the noise and roar you constantly hear the clang of shells on the armor. When they hit our tank, you often hear a deafening explosion and the roar of burning fuel, too loud to hear the dying screams of the crew ... "
- opinion German tankman from the 4th Tank Division, destroyed by T-34 tanks in the battle of Mtsensk on October 11, 1941.

Obviously, the Russian monster had no analogues in 1941: a 500-horsepower diesel engine, unique armor, a 76 mm F-34 gun (generally similar to the KV tank) and wide tracks - all these technical solutions provided the T-34 with an optimal ratio of mobility, fire power and security. Even individually, these parameters of the T-34 were higher than those of any Panzerwaffe tank.

When the Wehrmacht soldiers first met the “thirty-four” on the battlefield, they were, to put it mildly, in shock. The cross-country ability of our vehicle was impressive - where German tanks didn’t even think about going, the T-34s passed without much difficulty. The Germans even nicknamed their 37mm anti-tank gun the “tuk-tuk beater” because when its shells hit the 34, they simply hit it and bounced off.

The main thing is that Soviet designers managed to create a tank exactly as the Red Army needed it. The T-34 ideally suited the conditions of the Eastern Front. The extreme simplicity and manufacturability of the design allowed as soon as possible to establish mass production of these combat vehicles, as a result, the T-34s were easy to operate, numerous and ubiquitous.

6. Tank Panzerkampfwagen VI “Tiger I” Ausf E, “Tiger”

According to a number of Western historians, the main task of the Tiger tank was to fight enemy tanks, and its design corresponded to the solution of precisely this task:

If in the initial period of World War II the German military doctrine had a mainly offensive orientation, then later, when the strategic situation changed to the opposite, tanks began to be assigned the role of a means of eliminating breakthroughs in the German defense.

Thus, the Tiger tank was conceived primarily as a means of combating enemy tanks, be it on the defensive or offensive. Taking this fact into account is necessary to understand the design features and tactics of using the Tigers.

On July 21, 1943, the commander of the 3rd Panzer Corps, Hermann Bright, issued the following instructions on the combat use of the Tiger-I tank:

...Taking into account the strength of the armor and the strength of the weapon, the Tiger should be used mainly against enemy tanks and anti-tank weapons, and only secondarily - as an exception - against infantry units.

As combat experience has shown, the Tiger's weapon allows it to fight enemy tanks at distances of 2000 meters or more, which especially affects the enemy's morale. Durable armor allows the Tiger to approach the enemy without the risk of serious damage from hits. However, you should try to engage enemy tanks at distances greater than 1000 meters.

5. Tank "Panther" (PzKpfw V "Panther")

Realizing that the Tiger was a rare and exotic weapon for professionals, German tank builders created a simpler and cheaper tank, with the intention of turning it into a mass-produced medium tank for the Wehrmacht.
Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther" is still the subject of heated debate. The technical capabilities of the vehicle do not cause any complaints - with a mass of 44 tons, the Panther was superior in mobility to the T-34, developing 55-60 km/h on a good highway. The tank was armed with a 75 mm KwK 42 cannon with a barrel length of 70 calibers! An armor-piercing sub-caliber projectile fired from its hellish mouth flew 1 kilometer in the first second - with such performance characteristics, the Panther's cannon could make a hole in any Allied tank at a distance of over 2 kilometers. The armor of the Panther is also considered worthy by most sources - the thickness of the forehead varied from 60 to 80 mm, while the angles of the armor reached 55°. The side was weaker protected - at the level of the T-34, so it was easily hit by Soviet anti-tank weapons. The lower part of the side was additionally protected by two rows of rollers on each side.

4. Tank IS-2 (Joseph Stalin)

The thickness of the IS-2 armor reached 120 mm. One of the main achievements of Soviet engineers is the efficiency and low metal consumption of the IS-2 design. With a mass comparable to that of the Panther, the Soviet tank was much more seriously protected. But the too dense layout required the placement of fuel tanks in the control compartment - if the armor was penetrated, the Is-2 crew had little chance of surviving. The driver, who did not have his own hatch, was especially at risk.

City assaults:
Together with the self-propelled guns at its base, the IS-2 was actively used for assault operations in fortified cities, such as Budapest, Breslau, and Berlin. The tactics of action in such conditions included the actions of the OGvTTP in assault groups of 1-2 tanks, accompanied by infantry squad consisting of several machine gunners, a sniper or marksman with a rifle, and sometimes a backpack flamethrower. In case of weak resistance, tanks with assault groups mounted on them full speed ahead they broke through along the streets to squares, squares, and parks, where they could take up a perimeter defense.

3. Tank M4 Sherman (Sherman)

Why did the Red Army command like the “Emcha” (as our soldiers called the M4) so much that they completely switched to them? elite units, for example 1st Guards mechanized corps and 9th Guards tank corps? The answer is simple: Sherman had the optimal ratio of armor, firepower, mobility and... reliability. In addition, the Sherman was the first tank with a hydraulic turret drive (this ensured special pointing accuracy) and a gun stabilizer in the vertical plane - tankers admitted that in a duel situation their shot was always the first.

Combat use:
After the landing in Normandy, the Allies had to come face to face with German tank divisions, which were sent to defend Fortress Europe, and it turned out that the Allies had underestimated the degree to which the German troops were saturated with heavy types of armored vehicles, especially Panther tanks. In direct clashes with the Germans heavy tanks The Shermans had very little chance. The British, to a certain extent, could count on their Sherman Firefly, whose excellent gun made a great impression on the Germans (so much so that the crews of German tanks tried to hit the Firefly first, and then deal with the rest). The Americans, who were counting on their new weapon, quickly found out that the power of its armor-piercing shells was still not enough to confidently defeat the Panther head-on.

2. Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B "Tiger II", "Tiger II"

At 7.00 on August 13, the enemy, under the cover of fog, went on the offensive with the forces of the 16th Tank Division with the participation of 14 Royal Tigers of the 501st Heavy Tank Battalion. But as soon as the new Tigers crawled to their original positions, three of them were shot from an ambush by the crew of the T-34-85 tank under the command of junior lieutenant Alexander Oskin, which, in addition to Oskin himself, included driver Stetsenko, gun commander Merkhaidarov, radio operator Grushin and loader Khalychev . In total, the brigade's tankers knocked out 11 tanks, and the remaining three, abandoned by the crews, were captured in good condition. One of these tanks, number 502, is still in Kubinka.

Currently, the Royal Tigers are on display at the Saumur Musee des Blindes in France, the RAC Tank Museum Bovington (the only surviving example with a Porsche turret) and the Royal Military College of Science Shrivenham in the UK, the Munster Lager Kampftruppen Schule in Germany (transferred by the Americans in 1961) , Ordnance Museum Aberdeen Proving Ground in the USA, Switzerlands Panzer Museum Thun in Switzerland and the Military Historical Museum of Armored Weapons and Equipment in Kubinka near Moscow.

1. Tank T-34-85

As is known, two layout schemes with a bow and stern transmission are most widely used in tank building. Moreover, the disadvantages of one scheme are the advantages of another.

The disadvantage of the layout with a rear-mounted transmission is the increased length of the tank due to the placement in its hull of four compartments that are not aligned along the length, or the reduction in the volume of the fighting compartment with a constant length of the vehicle. Due to the large length of the engine and transmission compartments, the combat compartment with a heavy turret is shifted to the nose, overloading the front rollers, leaving no space on the turret plate for the central or even side placement of the driver's hatch. There is a danger that the protruding gun will “stick” into the ground when the tank moves through natural and artificial obstacles. The control drive connecting the driver with the transmission located in the stern becomes more complicated.

T-34-85 tank layout diagram

There are two ways out of this situation: either increase the length of the control (or combat) compartment, which will inevitably lead to an increase in the overall length of the tank and a deterioration in its maneuverability due to an increase in the L/B ratio - the length of the supporting surface to the track width (for the T-34- 85 it is close to the optimal - 1.5), or radically change the layout of the engine and transmission compartments. What this could lead to can be judged by the results of the work of Soviet designers when designing the new medium tanks T-44 and T-54, created during the war and put into service in 1944 and 1945, respectively.

T-54 tank layout diagram

During the war they did not agree to such a radical rearrangement of the T-34 tank, and, probably, it was the right decision. At the same time, the diameter of the turret ring, while maintaining the same hull shape, of the T-34-85 was practically maximum, which did not allow placing an artillery system in the turret of more than large caliber. The tank's armament modernization capabilities were completely exhausted, unlike, for example, the American Sherman and the German Pz.lV.

By the way, the problem of increasing the caliber of the main armament of the tank was of paramount importance. Sometimes you can hear the question: why was the transition to an 85-mm cannon necessary? Could it be possible to improve the ballistic characteristics of the F-34 by increasing the barrel length? After all, this is what the Germans did with their 75-mm cannon on the Pz.lV.

The fact is that German guns have traditionally been distinguished by the best internal ballistics(ours are just as traditionally external). The Germans achieved high armor penetration by increasing the initial speed and better testing of ammunition. We could respond adequately only by increasing the caliber. Although the S-53 cannon significantly improved the firing capabilities of the T-34-85, as Yu.E. Maksarev noted: “In the future, the T-34 could no longer directly, in a duel, hit new German tanks.” All attempts to create 85 mm guns with initial speed over 1000 m/s, the so-called high-power guns, ended in failure due to rapid wear and destruction of the barrel even at the testing stage. To “duel” defeat German tanks, it was necessary to switch to a 100-mm caliber, which was carried out only in the T-54 tank with a turret ring diameter of 1815 mm. But this combat vehicle did not take part in the battles of World War II.

The suspension hasn't changed on the T-34-85 either. And if the use of higher quality steel for the manufacture of springs helped to avoid their rapid subsidence and, as a result, a decrease in ground clearance, then it was not possible to get rid of significant longitudinal vibrations of the tank hull in motion. It was an organic defect of the spring suspension. The location of the habitable compartments in the front of the tank only aggravated negative impact these fluctuations affect the crew and weapons.

Summarizing all these points, we can conclude that, unlike the same "Sherman", the possibilities for modernizing the hull and suspension of the T-34-85 were not fully used.

When considering the advantages and disadvantages of the T-34-85, it is necessary to take into account one more very important circumstance. The crew of any tank, as a rule, in everyday reality does not care at all about the angle of inclination of the frontal or any other sheet of the hull or turret. It is much more important that the tank as a machine, that is, as a set of mechanical and electrical mechanisms, works clearly, reliably and does not create problems during operation. Including problems associated with the repair or replacement of any parts, components and assemblies. This is where the T-34-85 (like the T-34) was fine. The tank was distinguished by its exceptional maintainability! Paradoxical, but true - and the layout is “to blame” for this!

There is a rule: to arrange not to ensure convenient installation and dismantling of units, but based on the fact that until they completely fail, the units do not need repair. The required high reliability and trouble-free operation are achieved by designing a tank based on ready-made, structurally proven units. Since during the creation of the T-34, practically none of the tank’s units met this requirement, its layout was carried out contrary to the rule. The roof of the engine-transmission compartment was easily removable, the rear hull sheet was hinged, which made it possible to dismantle large units such as the engine and gearbox in the field. All this was of enormous importance in the first half of the war, when more tanks failed due to technical faults than from enemy action (as of April 1, 1942, for example, the active army had 1,642 serviceable and 2,409 faulty tanks of all types, while while our combat losses in March amounted to 467 tanks). As the quality of the units improved, reaching its highest level in the T-34-85, the importance of the repairable layout decreased, but one would hesitate to call this a disadvantage. Moreover, good maintainability turned out to be very useful during the post-war operation of the tank abroad, primarily in the countries of Asia and Africa, sometimes in extreme climatic conditions and with personnel who had a very mediocre, to say the least, level of training.

Despite the presence of all the shortcomings in the design of the "thirty-four", a certain balance of compromises was maintained, which distinguished this combat vehicle from other tanks of the Second World War. Simplicity, ease of operation and maintenance, combined with good armor protection, maneuverability and fairly powerful weapons, became the reason for the success and popularity of the T-34-85 among tankers.

In my opinion, it makes no sense to compare those tanks of the Great Patriotic War that were on different lines of barricades. It would be logical to say that the highest quality military equipment turns out to be the winner. In the 20th century, there were no distinctive criteria for evaluating weapons, so it was believed that the victorious enemy had better quality.

English, German, Soviet and other tanks are compared on such points as towing capacity, armament, durability and comfort.

Each tank was superior to its opponent in one of these points, but as a result the anti-Hitler coalition won. It cannot be said that England or the Soviet Union were better equipped with technology than Hitler's Germany. But in terms of the number of soldiers in the country who were against fascism and Nazism, they significantly exceeded Hitler’s army.

This explains their victory. According to general research data, it was found that throughout the Great Patriotic War humanity has produced almost 200 thousand tanks. Of these, most belonged to the USSR and the USA, of course, and a third went to Germany and Great Britain.

It is worth noting that, despite the clear superiority in soldiers and equipment, Germany managed its resources very skillfully.

The Soviet Union did not have enough time to prepare for a serious attack, so it was forced to retreat and accept considerable losses of military equipment and soldiers.

Generally speaking, the army was completely unprepared to go to war. Completely untrained tankers were recruited into the detachments, who subsequently became the cause of defeat in the early stages. Although it is nice to know that many models of Soviet tanks are included in the list of “best tanks of the 1940s”.

Issued units: 84,070 units
Weight: 25.6–32.2 tons
Weapons: 76/85 mm cannon, two 7.62 mm machine guns
Crew: 4–5 people
Speed on the p/m: 25 km/h

No tank in the history of world tank building has ever been produced in such colossal quantities. More than half of the nearly 85 thousand “thirty-fours” are modifications of the very first version - the T-34-76 (the brainchild of the legendary designer Mikhail Koshkin), armed with a 76-mm F-34 cannon. It was these tanks, of which about 1,800 were produced by the beginning of the war.

Units produced: 49,234 units
Weight: 30.3 tons
Weapons: 75/76/105 mm cannon, 12.7 mm machine gun, two 7.62 mm machine guns
Crew: 5 people
Speed on the p/m: 40 km/h

The Sherman tank is named after the hero of the American Civil War, General William Sherman, - the M4 was first received in Great Britain, and only then it became common to all tanks of this model. And in the USSR, where Lend-Lease M4s were supplied from 1942 to 1945, it was most often called “emcha”, according to the index. In terms of the number of tanks in service with the Red Army, the M4 was second only to the T-34 and KV: 4,063 Shermans fought in the USSR.

Issued units: 23,685 units
Weight: 12.7 tons
Weapons: 37 mm cannon, three to five 7.62 mm machine guns
Crew: 4 people
Speed on the p/m: 20 km/h

IN American army light M3 Stuart tanks appeared in March 1941, when it became clear that their M2 predecessors clearly did not meet the requirements of the time. But the “two” became the basis for the creation of the “troika”, inheriting both its advantages - high speed and operational reliability, and disadvantages - the weakness of weapons and armor and the terrifying cramped fighting compartment. But the tank was easy to manufacture, which allowed it to become the most popular light tank in the world.

Issued units: 8686 pcs.
Weight: 25 tons

Crew: 5 people
Speed on the p/m: 25–30 km/h

In German it was called Panzerkampfwagen IV (PzKpfw IV), that is, battle tank IV, and in the Soviet tradition it was designated as T-IV, or T-4. It became the most popular Wehrmacht tank in the entire history of its existence and was used in all theaters of war where German tank crews were present. The T-4 is, perhaps, the same symbol of German tank units as the T-34 became for Soviet tankers.

Issued units: 8275 pcs.
Weight: 16 t
Weapons: 40 mm cannon, 7.92 mm machine gun
Crew: 3 people
Speed on the p/m: 15 km/h

The Valentine tank became the most popular British armored vehicle, and, of course, these tanks were actively supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease. In total, 3,782 Valentine tanks were shipped to the Soviet side - 2,394 British and 1,388 assembled in Canada. Fifty fewer vehicles reached the Soviet-German front: 3332 units. The first of them reached combat units at the very end of November 1941, and, as the German participants in the battle of Moscow wrote in their memoirs, they proved themselves to be in the best possible way: the captured Soviet tank crews, they say, wholeheartedly scolded the British “tin cans”.

Issued units: 5976 pcs.
Weight: 45 tons
Weapons: 75 mm cannon, two 7.92 mm machine guns
Crew: 5 people
Speed on the p/m: 25–30 km/h

Panzerkampfwagen (PzKpfw) V Panther - or “Panther” for short. Unfortunately for the Soviet tank crews and artillerymen, the German tank was too tough for most of the Red Army's guns. But the Panther itself “bite” from afar: its 75-mm cannon penetrated the armor of Soviet tanks from distances at which the new German vehicle was invulnerable to them. And this first success made it possible for the German command to talk about making the T-5 (so new tank was called in Soviet documents) the main one instead of the “veteran” T-4.

Issued units: 5865 pcs.
Weight: 25.9 tons
Weapons: 37/50/75 mm cannon, three 7.92 mm machine guns
Crew: 5 people
Speed on the p/m: 15 km/h

Although not as massive as the T-4, the Panzerkampfwagen (PzKpfw) III from mid-1941 to early 1943 formed the basis of the Panzerwaffe fleet - the tank forces of the Wehrmacht. And the reason for this is the system of determining the type of tank based on... weapons, which is strange for the Soviet tradition. Therefore, from the very beginning, the T-4, which had a 75-mm cannon, was considered a heavy tank, that is, it could not be the main vehicle, and the T-3, which had a 37-mm cannon, was classified as a medium tank and fully aspired to be the main battle tank.

Issued units: 4532 pcs.
Weight: 42.5–47.5 tons
Weapons: 76/85 mm cannon, three 7.62 mm machine guns
Crew: 4–5 people
Speed on the p/m: 10–15 km/h

“Klim Voroshilov” - and this is how the abbreviation KV stands for - became the first Soviet heavy tank classical scheme, that is, single-tower, not multi-tower. And although the experience of its first combat use during the Winter War of 1939–1940 was not the best, the new vehicle was installed on the Arms. The military became convinced of how correct this decision was after June 22, 1941: even after several dozen hits from German guns, the heavy KVs continued to fight!

Issued units: 3475 pcs.
Weight: 46 tons
Weapons: 122 mm cannon, 12.7 mm machine gun, three 7.62 mm machine guns
Crew: 4 people
Speed on the p/m: 10–15 km/h

The first tanks of the IS series - "Joseph Stalin" - were developed in parallel with the modernization of KV tanks, which were equipped with a new 85-mm gun. But very soon it became clear that this gun was not enough to fight on equal terms with the new German tanks"Panther" and "Tiger", which had thick armor and more powerful 88-mm guns. Therefore, after the release of a hundred or so IS-1 tanks, the IS-2, armed with a 122-mm A-19 cannon, was adopted.

Issued units: 1354 pcs.
Weight: 56 tons
Weapons: 88 mm cannon, two to three 7.92 mm machine guns
Crew: 5 people
Speed on the p/m: 20–25 km/h

Contrary to popular belief that the Panzerkampfwagen (PzKpfw) VI Tiger owes its appearance to the clash between Germany, which attacked the USSR, and the new Soviet T-34 and KV tanks, the development of a heavy breakthrough tank for the Wehrmacht began back in 1937. By the beginning of 1942, the car was ready, it was accepted for

The weapon was designated PzKpfw VI Tiger and sent the first four tanks to Leningrad. True, this first battle was unsuccessful for them. But in subsequent battles, the heavy German tank fully confirmed its cat name, proving that, like a real tiger, it remains the most dangerous “predator” on the battlefield. This was especially noticeable during the days of the battle on Kursk Bulge, where the “tigers” found themselves out of competition.

It was improved and modified many times, thanks to which it was very effective against other medium tanks throughout the war.

History of creation

The decision to develop the Pz.Kpfw.IV was made in 1934. The vehicle was primarily made to support infantry and suppress enemy firing points. The design was based on the Pz.Kpfw.III, a recently developed medium tank. When development began, Germany still did not advertise the work on prohibited types of weapons, so the project for the new tank was called Mittleren Tractor, and later, less secrecy, Bataillonfuhrerswagen (BW), that is, “battalion commander’s vehicle.” Of all the projects, the VK 2001(K) project presented by AG Krupp was selected.

The project was not accepted immediately - at first the military was not satisfied with the spring suspension, but the development of a new, torsion bar suspension could take a lot of time, and Germany was in dire need of a new tank, so it was decided to simply modify the existing project.

In 1934, the first model was born, still called the Bataillonfuhrerswagen. However, when the Germans introduced a unified tank designation system, he got his last name- PzKpfw IV tank, which sounds exactly like Panzerkampfwagen IV.

The first prototype was made of plywood, and soon a prototype made of mild welding steel appeared. It was immediately sent for testing to Kummersdorf, which the tank successfully passed. In 1936, mass production of the machine began.

Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.A

TTX

general information

Classification – medium tank;
Combat weight - 25 tons;
The layout is classic, transmission at the front;
Crew – 5 people;
Years of production: from 1936 to 1945;
Years of operation – from 1939 to 1970;
A total of 8686 pieces were produced.

Dimensions

Case length – 5890 mm;
Case width – 2880 mm;
Height – 2680 mm.

Booking

Type of armor – forged steel, rolled with surface hardening;
Forehead – 80 mm/degree;
Bead – 30 mm/degree;
Hull stern – 20 m/degree;
Tower forehead - 50 mm/degree;
Tower side – 30 mm/degree;
Feed cutting – 30 mm/degree;
Tower roof – 18 mm/degree.

Armament

Caliber and brand of gun - 75 mm KwK 37, KwK 40 L/43, KwK 40 L/48, depending on modification;
Barrel length - 24, 43 or 48 calibers;
Ammunition - 87;
Machine guns - 2 × 7.92 mm MG-34.

Mobility

Engine power – 300 horsepower;
Highway speed – 40 km/h;
Cruising range on the highway – 300 km;
Specific power – 13 hp. per ton;
Climbability – 30 degrees;
The ditch to be overcome is 2.2 meters

Modifications

Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf. A. – with bulletproof armor and weak protection for surveillance devices. In fact, this is a pre-production modification - only 10 of them were produced, and an order immediately came in for an improved model;
PzKpfw IV Ausf. B - a hull of a different shape, the absence of a frontal machine gun and improved viewing devices. The frontal armor has been strengthened, a powerful engine has been installed, new box transmission Of course, the mass of the tank increased, but the speed also increased to 40 km/h. 42 were produced;
PzKpfw IV Ausf. C is a truly massive modification. Similar to option B, but with a new engine and some changes. Since 1938, 140 pieces have been manufactured;
Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf. D – model with an external turret mantlet, thicker side armor and some improvements. The last peaceful model, 45 were produced;
Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf. E is a model that took into account the experience of the first war years. Received a new commander's tower and reinforced armor. The chassis, the design of inspection devices and hatches were improved, as a result, the weight of the vehicle increased to 21 tons;
Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf.F2 – with a 75 mm cannon. Still had insufficient protection compared to Soviet tanks;
Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G - a more protected tank, some were equipped with a 75-mm cannon with a length of 48 calibers;
Ausf.H is a 1943 vehicle, the most popular. Similar to Model G, but with thicker turret roof and new transmission;
Ausf.J - an attempt to simplify and reduce the cost of tank production in 1944. There was no electric drive for turning the turret; soon after release, the pistol ports were removed and the design of the hatches was simplified. Tanks of this modification were produced until the end of the war.

Pz.Kpfw IV Ausf.H

Vehicles based on Pz. IV

Several special vehicles were also built on the basis of the Panzerkampfwagen IV:

StuG IV – medium self-propelled gun of the assault gun class;
Nashorn (Hornisse) – medium anti-tank self-propelled gun;
Möbelwagen 3.7 cm FlaK auf Fgst Pz.Kpfw. IV(sf); Flakpanzer IV "Möbelwagen" - anti-aircraft self-propelled gun;
Jagdpanzer IV - medium self-propelled gun, tank destroyer;
Munitionsschlepper - ammunition transporter;
Sturmpanzer IV (Brummbär) - medium self-propelled howitzer/assault gun class;
Hummel - self-propelled howitzer;
Flakpanzer IV (3.7cm FlaK) Ostwind and Flakpanzer IV (2cm Vierling) Wirbelwind are self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.

The PzKpfw IV Hydrostatic with a hydrostatic drive was also developed, but it remained experimental and did not go into production.

Use in combat

The Wehrmacht received the first three Pz tanks. IV in January 1938. A total of 113 cars were produced in 1938. The first operations of these tanks were the Anschluss of Austria and the capture of the Judiciary region of Czechoslovakia in 1938. And in 1939 they drove through the streets of Prague.

Before the invasion of Poland, the Wehrmacht had 211 Pz. IV A, B and C. All of them were superior to Polish vehicles, but anti-tank guns were dangerous for them, so many tanks were lost.

By May 10, 1940, the Panzerwaffe had 290 Pz.Kpfw.IV tanks. They successfully fought French tanks, winning with fewer losses. However, while the troops still had more lungs Pz.l and Pz.ll than Pz. IV. IN further operations they suffered virtually no losses.

After 1940

By the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans had 439 Pz.lV. There is evidence that at that time the Germans classified them as heavy tanks, but they were significantly inferior to the Soviet heavy KVs in terms of combat qualities. However, the Pz.lV was inferior even to our T-34. Because of this, about 348 Pz.Kpfw.IV units were lost in battles in 1941. A similar situation occurred in North Africa.

Even the Germans themselves did not speak very well of the Pz.Kpfw.IV, which was the reason for so many modifications. In Africa, the vehicles were clearly defeated, and several successful operations involving Pz.lV Ausf.G and Tigers ultimately did not help anything - in North Africa the Germans had to capitulate.

On the Eastern Front in the offensive against North Caucasus and Stalingrad participated Ausf.F2. When the Pz.lll ceased production in 1943, it was the four that became the main German tank. And although after the start of production of the “Panther” the four wanted to stop producing them, they abandoned this decision, and for good reason. As a result, in 1943, Pz.IVs made up 60% of all German tanks - most of them were modifications G and H. They were often confused with Tigers due to their armored screens.

It was the Pz.lV that actively participated in Operation Citadel - there were many more Tigers and Panthers. At the same time, it seems that Soviet troops many Pz. just accepted. IV for the Tigers, since according to reports they knocked out many more Tigers than were present on the German side.

In all these battles, a lot of fours were lost - in 1943 this number reached 2402, and only 161 were repaired.

Shot down Pz. IV

End of the war

In the summer of 1944, German troops were constantly losing both in the East and in the West, and Pz.lV tanks could not withstand the onslaught of enemies. 1,139 vehicles were destroyed, but the troops still had enough of them.

The last major operations in which the Pz.lV participated on the German side were the counter-offensive in the Ardennes and the counter-attack on Lake Balaton. They ended in failure, many tanks were knocked out. In general, the fours participated in hostilities until the very end of the war - they could be found in street battles in Berlin and on the territory of Czechoslovakia.

Of course, the captured Pz. IV were actively used by the Red Army and allies in various battles.

After World War II

After the surrender of Germany, a fairly large batch of fours was transferred to Czechoslovakia. They were repaired and were in service until the 50s. The Pz.lV was also actively used in Syria, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Turkey and Spain.

In the Middle East, Pz.Kpfw.IV fought in 1964, in the “water war” over the Jordan River. Then the Pz.lV Ausf.H fired at Israeli troops, but were soon destroyed in large quantities. And in 1967, during the “six-day” war, the Israelis captured the remaining vehicles.

Pz. IV in Syria

Tank in culture

Tank Pz. IV was one of the most popular German tanks, so it has a strong presence in modern culture.

In bench modeling, 1:35 scale plastic kits are produced in China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. On the territory of the Russian Federation, the most common models of the Zvezda company are the late shielded tank and the early short-barreled tank, with a 75-mm cannon.

Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.A, model

A tank is very common in games. Pz. IV A, D and H can be found in the game Word of Tanks, in Battlefield 1942 it is the main German tank. He can also be seen in both parts of Company of Heroes, in Advanced Military Commander, in the games “Behind Enemy Lines”, Red Orchestra 2 and others. Modifications of Ausf. C, Ausf. E, Ausf. F1, Ausf. F2, Ausf. G, Ausf. H, Ausf. J are presented. On mobile platforms Pz.IV Ausf. F2 can be seen in the game "Armored Aces".

Memory of a tank

The PzKpfw IV was produced very en masse, so many of its modifications, especially the later ones, are presented in various museums around the world:

Belgium, Brussels – Royal Army Museum and military history, PzKpfw IV Ausf J;
Bulgaria, Sofia - Museum of Military History, PzKpfw IV Ausf J;
UK – Duxford War Museum and Bovington Tank Museum, Ausf. D;
Germany – Museum of Technology in Sinsheim and Tank Museum in Munster, Ausf G;
Israel – Israel Defense Forces Museum in Tel Aviv, Ausf. J, and the Israeli Museum tank troops in Latrun, Ausf. G;
Spain, El Goloso – Museum of Armored Vehicles, Ausf H;
Russia, Kubinka – Armored Museum, Ausf G;
Romania, Bucharest – National War Museum, Ausf J;
Serbia, Belgrade – Military Museum, Ausf H;
Slovakia – Museum of the Slovak Uprising in Banska Bystrica and the Museum of the Carpathian-Dukele Operation in Svidnik, Ausf J;
USA - Military Vehicle Technology Foundation Museum in Portola Valley, Ausf. H, US Army Armament Museum at Fort Lee: Ausf. D, Ausf. G, Ausf. H;
Finland, Parola – Tank Museum, Ausf J;
France, Saumur – Tank Museum, Ausf J;
Switzerland, Thun – Tank Museum, Ausf H.

Pz.Kpfw.IV In Kubinka

Photo and video

Flakpanzer IV "Möbelwagen"

10 Best Tanks of World War II 13.09.2017 14:21

During the Second World War, tanks played a decisive role in battles and operations; it is very difficult to single out the top ten from the many tanks; for this reason, the order in the list is rather arbitrary and the place of the tank is tied to the time of its active participation in battles and its significance for that period.

10. Tank Panzerkampfwagen III (PzKpfw III)

PzKpfw III, better known as T-III, is a light tank with a 37 mm gun. Reservation from all angles - 30 mm. The main quality is Speed (40 km/h on the highway). Thanks to the advanced Carl Zeiss optics, ergonomic crew workstations and the presence of a radio station, the Troikas could successfully fight with much heavier vehicles. But with the advent of new opponents, the shortcomings of the T-III became more apparent. The Germans replaced the 37 mm guns with 50 mm guns and covered the tank with hinged screens - temporary measures yielded results, the T-III fought for several more years. By 1943, production of the T-III was discontinued due to the complete exhaustion of its resource for modernization. In total, German industry produced 5,000 “triples”.

9. Tank Panzerkampfwagen IV (PzKpfw IV)

The PzKpfw IV looked much more serious, becoming the most popular Panzerwaffe tank - the Germans managed to build 8,700 vehicles. Combining all the advantages of the lighter T-III, the “four” had high firepower and protection - the thickness of the frontal plate was gradually increased to 80 mm, and the shells of its 75 mm long-barreled gun pierced the armor of enemy tanks like foil (by the way, it was fired 1133 early modifications with a short-barreled gun).
The weak points of the vehicle are that the sides and rear are too thin (only 30 mm in the first modifications); the designers neglected the slope of the armor plates for the sake of manufacturability and ease of operation for the crew.
Panzer IV is the only German tank that was in mass production throughout World War II and became the most popular tank of the Wehrmacht. Its popularity among German tankers was comparable to the popularity of the T-34 among ours and the Sherman among the Americans. Well-designed and extremely reliable in operation, this combat vehicle was, in the full sense of the word, the “workhorse” of the Panzerwaffe.

8. Tank KV-1 (Klim Voroshilov)

“...from three sides we fired at the iron monsters of the Russians, but everything was in vain. The Russian giants were coming closer and closer. One of them approached our tank, hopelessly stuck in a swampy pond, and without any hesitation drove over it, pressing its tracks into the mud ... "
- General Reinhard, commander of the 41st tank corps of the Wehrmacht.
In the summer of 1941, the KV tank destroyed the elite units of the Wehrmacht with the same impunity as if it had rolled out onto the Borodino field in 1812. Invulnerable, invincible and incredibly powerful. Until the end of 1941, all the armies of the world did not have any weapons capable of stopping the Russian 45-ton monster. The KV was 2 times heavier than the largest Wehrmacht tank.
Armor KV is a wonderful song of steel and technology. 75 millimeters of solid steel from all angles! The frontal armor plates had an optimal angle of inclination, which further increased the projectile resistance of the KV armor - German 37 mm anti-tank guns did not take it even at point-blank range, and 50 mm guns - no further than 500 meters. At the same time, the long-barreled 76 mm F-34 (ZIS-5) gun made it possible to hit any German tank of that period from any direction from a distance of 1.5 kilometers.
The KV crews were staffed exclusively by officers; only driver mechanics could be foremen. Their level of training far exceeded that of the crews who fought on other types of tanks. They fought more skillfully, which is why they were remembered by the Germans...

7. Tank T-34 (thirty-four)

“...There is nothing more terrible than a tank battle against superior enemy forces. Not in numbers - that didn’t matter to us, we got used to it. But against better vehicles it’s terrible... Russian tanks are so agile, at close ranges they will climb a slope or overcome a swamp faster than you can turn the turret. And through the noise and roar you constantly hear the clang of shells on the armor. When they hit our tank, you often hear a deafening explosion and the roar of burning fuel, too loud to hear the dying screams of the crew ... "
- the opinion of a German tankman from the 4th Panzer Division, destroyed by T-34 tanks in the battle of Mtsensk on October 11, 1941.
Obviously, the Russian monster had no analogues in 1941: a 500-horsepower diesel engine, unique armor, a 76 mm F-34 gun (generally similar to the KV tank) and wide tracks - all these technical solutions provided the T-34 with an optimal ratio of mobility, fire power and security. Even individually, these parameters of the T-34 were higher than those of any Panzerwaffe tank.
When the Wehrmacht soldiers first met the “thirty-four” on the battlefield, they were, to put it mildly, in shock. The cross-country ability of our vehicle was impressive - where German tanks didn’t even think about going, the T-34s passed without much difficulty. The Germans even nicknamed their 37mm anti-tank gun the “tuk-tuk beater” because when its shells hit the 34, they simply hit it and bounced off.
The main thing is that Soviet designers managed to create a tank exactly as the Red Army needed it. The T-34 ideally suited the conditions of the Eastern Front. The extreme simplicity and manufacturability of the design made it possible to establish mass production of these combat vehicles in the shortest possible time; as a result, the T-34s were easy to operate, numerous and ubiquitous.

6. Tank Panzerkampfwagen VI “Tiger I” Ausf E, “Tiger”

“...we took a detour through a ravine and ran into the Tiger.” Having lost several T-34s, our battalion returned back..."
- a frequent description of meetings with PzKPfw VI from the memoirs of tank crews.
According to a number of Western historians, the main task of the Tiger tank was to fight enemy tanks, and its design corresponded to the solution of precisely this task:
If in the initial period of World War II the German military doctrine had a mainly offensive orientation, then later, when the strategic situation changed to the opposite, tanks began to be assigned the role of a means of eliminating breakthroughs in the German defense.
Thus, the Tiger tank was conceived primarily as a means of combating enemy tanks, be it on the defensive or offensive. Taking this fact into account is necessary to understand the design features and tactics of using the Tigers.
On July 21, 1943, the commander of the 3rd Tank Corps, Herman Bright, issued the following instructions for the combat use of the Tiger-I tank:
...Taking into account the strength of the armor and the strength of the weapon, the Tiger should be used mainly against enemy tanks and anti-tank weapons, and only secondarily - as an exception - against infantry units.
As combat experience has shown, the Tiger's weapon allows it to fight enemy tanks at distances of 2000 meters or more, which especially affects the enemy's morale. Durable armor allows the Tiger to approach the enemy without the risk of serious damage from hits. However, you should try to engage enemy tanks at distances greater than 1000 meters.

5. Tank "Panther" (PzKpfw V "Panther")

4. Tank IS-2 (Joseph Stalin)

The IS-2 was the most powerful and most heavily armored of the Soviet production tanks during the war, and one of the strongest tanks in the world at that time. Tanks of this type played a big role in the battles of 1944-1945, especially distinguishing themselves during the assault on cities.
The thickness of the IS-2 armor reached 120 mm. One of the main achievements of Soviet engineers is the efficiency and low metal consumption of the IS-2 design. With a mass comparable to that of the Panther, the Soviet tank was much more seriously protected. But the too dense layout required the placement of fuel tanks in the control compartment - if the armor was penetrated, the Is-2 crew had little chance of surviving. The driver, who did not have his own hatch, was especially at risk.
City assaults:
Together with the self-propelled guns at its base, the IS-2 was actively used for assault operations in fortified cities, such as Budapest, Breslau, and Berlin. The tactics of action in such conditions included the actions of the OGvTTP in assault groups of 1-2 tanks, accompanied by an infantry squad of several machine gunners, a sniper or a marksman with a rifle, and sometimes a backpack flamethrower. In case of weak resistance, tanks with assault groups mounted on them broke through at full speed along the streets to squares, squares, and parks, where they could take up a perimeter defense.

3. Tank M4 Sherman (Sherman)

"Sherman" is the pinnacle of rationality and pragmatism. It is all the more surprising that the United States, which had 50 tanks at the beginning of the war, managed to create such a balanced combat vehicle and rivet 49,000 Shermans of various modifications by 1945. For example, the ground forces used a Sherman with a gasoline engine, and the Marine Corps units received the M4A2 modification, equipped with a diesel engine. American engineers rightly believed that this would greatly simplify the operation of tanks - diesel fuel could easily be found among sailors, unlike high-octane gasoline. By the way, it was this modification of the M4A2 that came to the Soviet Union.
Why did the Red Army command like the “Emcha” (as our soldiers nicknamed the M4) so much that elite units, such as the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps and the 9th Guards Tank Corps, moved entirely to them? The answer is simple: Sherman had the optimal ratio of armor, firepower, mobility and... reliability. In addition, the Sherman was the first tank with a hydraulic turret drive (this ensured special pointing accuracy) and a gun stabilizer in the vertical plane - tankers admitted that in a duel situation their shot was always the first.
Combat use:
After the landing in Normandy, the Allies had to come face to face with German tank divisions, which were sent to defend Fortress Europe, and it turned out that the Allies had underestimated the degree to which the German troops were saturated with heavy types of armored vehicles, especially Panther tanks. In direct clashes with German heavy tanks, the Shermans had very little chance. The British, to a certain extent, could count on their Sherman Firefly, whose excellent gun made a great impression on the Germans (so much so that the crews of German tanks tried to hit the Firefly first, and then deal with the rest). The Americans, who were counting on their new weapon, quickly found out that the power of its armor-piercing shells was still not enough to confidently defeat the Panther head-on.

2. Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B "Tiger II", "Tiger II"

The combat debut of the Royal Tigers took place on July 18, 1944 in Normandy, where the 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion managed to knock out 12 Sherman tanks in the first battle.”
And already on August 12, Tiger II appeared on the Eastern Front: the 501st heavy tank battalion tried to interfere with the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive operation. The bridgehead was an uneven semicircle, its ends resting on the Vistula. Approximately in the middle of this semicircle, covering the direction to Staszow, the 53rd Guards Tank Brigade defended.
At 7.00 on August 13, the enemy, under the cover of fog, went on the offensive with the forces of the 16th Tank Division with the participation of 14 Royal Tigers of the 501st Heavy Tank Battalion. But as soon as the new Tigers crawled to their original positions, three of them were shot from an ambush by the crew of the T-34-85 tank under the command of junior lieutenant Alexander Oskin, which, in addition to Oskin himself, included driver Stetsenko, gun commander Merkhaidarov, radio operator Grushin and loader Khalychev . In total, the brigade's tankers knocked out 11 tanks, and the remaining three, abandoned by the crews, were captured in good condition. One of these tanks, number 502, is still in Kubinka.
Currently, the Royal Tigers are on display at the Saumur Musee des Blindes in France, the RAC Tank Museum Bovington (the only surviving example with a Porsche turret) and the Royal Military College of Science Shrivenham in the UK, the Munster Lager Kampftruppen Schule in Germany (transferred by the Americans in 1961) , Ordnance Museum Aberdeen Proving Ground in the USA, Switzerlands Panzer Museum Thun in Switzerland and the Military Historical Museum of Armored Weapons and Equipment in Kubinka near Moscow.

1. Tank T-34-85

The T-34-85 medium tank, in essence, represents a major modernization of the T-34 tank, as a result of which a very important drawback of the latter was eliminated - the cramped fighting compartment and the associated impossibility of complete division of labor among the crew members. This was achieved by increasing the diameter of the turret ring, as well as by installing a new three-man turret of significantly larger dimensions than the T-34. At the same time, the design of the body and the arrangement of components and assemblies in it have not undergone any significant changes. Consequently, there are still disadvantages inherent in vehicles with a stern-mounted engine and transmission.
As is known, two layout schemes with a bow and stern transmission are most widely used in tank building. Moreover, the disadvantages of one scheme are the advantages of another.
The disadvantage of the layout with a rear-mounted transmission is the increased length of the tank due to the placement in its hull of four compartments that are not aligned along the length, or the reduction in the volume of the fighting compartment with a constant length of the vehicle. Due to the large length of the engine and transmission compartments, the combat compartment with a heavy turret is shifted to the nose, overloading the front rollers, leaving no space on the turret plate for the central or even side placement of the driver's hatch. There is a danger that the protruding gun will “stick” into the ground when the tank moves through natural and artificial obstacles. The control drive connecting the driver with the transmission located in the stern becomes more complicated.

T-34-85 tank layout diagram

T-54 tank layout diagram

These combat vehicles used a layout with a transverse (and not longitudinal, like the T-34-85) placement of a 12-cylinder V-2 diesel engine (in the B-44 and B-54 variants) and a combined significantly shortened (by 650 mm ) engine and transmission compartment. This made it possible to lengthen the fighting compartment to 30% of the hull length (for the T-34-85 - 24.3%), increase the diameter of the turret ring by almost 250 mm and install a powerful 100-mm cannon on the T-54 medium tank. At the same time, we managed to move the turret towards the stern, making room on the turret plate for the driver's hatch. The exclusion of the fifth crew member (the gunner from the course machine gun), the removal of the ammunition rack from the fighting compartment floor, the transfer of the fan from the engine crankshaft to the stern bracket and the reduction in the overall height of the engine ensured a decrease in the height of the T-54 tank hull (compared to the T-34- tank hull 85) by approximately 200 mm, as well as a reduction in the reserved volume by approximately 2 cubic meters. and increased armor protection by more than two times (with an increase in mass of only 12%).
During the war they did not go for such a radical rearrangement of the T-34 tank, and, probably, this was the right decision. At the same time, the diameter of the turret ring, while maintaining the same hull shape, was practically limiting for the T-34-85, which did not allow placing a larger caliber artillery system in the turret. The tank's armament modernization capabilities were completely exhausted, unlike, for example, the American Sherman and the German Pz.lV.
By the way, the problem of increasing the caliber of the main armament of the tank was of paramount importance. Sometimes you can hear the question: why was the transition to an 85-mm cannon necessary? Could it be possible to improve the ballistic characteristics of the F-34 by increasing the barrel length? After all, this is what the Germans did with their 75-mm cannon on the Pz.lV.
The fact is that German guns were traditionally distinguished by better internal ballistics (ours were just as traditionally distinguished by external ballistics). The Germans achieved high armor penetration by increasing the initial speed and better testing of ammunition. We could respond adequately only by increasing the caliber. Although the S-53 cannon significantly improved the firing capabilities of the T-34-85, as Yu.E. Maksarev noted: “In the future, the T-34 could no longer directly, in a duel, hit new German tanks.” All attempts to create 85-mm guns with an initial speed of over 1000 m/s, the so-called high-power guns, ended in failure due to rapid wear and destruction of the barrel even at the testing stage. To “duel” defeat German tanks, it was necessary to switch to a 100-mm caliber, which was carried out only in the T-54 tank with a turret ring diameter of 1815 mm. But this combat vehicle did not take part in the battles of World War II.

As for the placement of the driver's hatch in the front hull, we could try to follow the American path. Let us remember that on the Sherman the driver and machine gunner’s hatches, originally also made in the sloping frontal plate of the hull, were subsequently transferred to the turret plate. This was achieved by reducing the angle of inclination of the front sheet from 56° to 47° to the vertical. The T-34-85's frontal hull had an inclination of 60°. By also reducing this angle to 47° and compensating for this by slightly increasing the thickness of the frontal armor, it would be possible to increase the area of the turret plate and place the driver’s hatch on it. This would not require a radical redesign of the hull design and would not entail a significant increase in the mass of the tank.
The suspension hasn't changed on the T-34-85 either. And if the use of higher quality steel for the manufacture of springs helped to avoid their rapid subsidence and, as a result, a decrease in ground clearance, then it was not possible to get rid of significant longitudinal vibrations of the tank hull in motion. It was an organic defect of the spring suspension. The location of the habitable compartments in the front of the tank only aggravated the negative impact of these fluctuations on the crew and weapons.

A consequence of the layout of the T-34-85 was the absence of a rotating turret floor in the fighting compartment. In combat, the loader worked standing on the lids of cassette boxes with shells placed on the bottom of the tank. When turning the turret, he had to move after the breech, while he was hampered by spent cartridges falling right there on the floor. When conducting intense fire, the accumulated cartridges also made it difficult to access the shots placed in the ammunition rack on the bottom.
Summarizing all these points, we can conclude that, unlike the same "Sherman", the possibilities for modernizing the hull and suspension of the T-34-85 were not fully used.
When considering the advantages and disadvantages of the T-34-85, it is necessary to take into account one more very important circumstance. The crew of any tank, as a rule, in everyday reality does not care at all about the angle of inclination of the frontal or any other sheet of the hull or turret. It is much more important that the tank as a machine, that is, as a set of mechanical and electrical mechanisms, works clearly, reliably and does not create problems during operation. Including problems associated with the repair or replacement of any parts, components and assemblies. This is where the T-34-85 (like the T-34) was fine. The tank was distinguished by its exceptional maintainability! Paradoxical, but true - and the layout is “to blame” for this!