Exactly 80 years ago, on March 31, 1940, the USSR Defense Committee signed a protocol on the acceptance into serial production of the T-34 medium tank. This decision was of great importance for the country, since the production of a tank began at Soviet factories, which would become one of the symbols of victory in the Great Patriotic War. The T-34 medium tank turned out to be a very successful machine, which the Soviet industry could produce even in the most difficult conditions with the evacuation of factories and the attraction of low-skilled labor (women and children) to the production. Many experts rightly call the "thirty-four" the best tank of the Second World War.
Chief designer of the T-34 Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin gave his life for his tank
The chief designer of the T-34 medium tank literally gave his life for his brainchild. Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin took part in the legendary Kharkov - Moscow rally, in which two T-34 tanks took part. The tanks that arrived in the capital were presented in the Kremlin to the country's top leadership, headed by Stalin. A column of two tanks and two Voroshilovets tractors, one of which was equipped for housing, and the other was packed with various spare parts and tools, moved out of Kharkov on the night of March 5-6.
The tanks left for Moscow unarmed and camouflaged beyond recognition, while the passage for conspiracy purposes was carried out far from settlements and even taking into account the movement of trains on the railroad. The tanks had to cover 750 kilometers between Kharkov and Moscow off public roads, while it was forbidden even to use bridges if the tanks could overcome water bodies on ice or ford. If this was not possible, the bridges could only be used at night. The passage was carried out in very difficult conditions, on the way Mikhail Koshkin caught a bad cold and ruined his health. After completing the race, he fell ill with pneumonia. The designer had one lung removed and sent for rehabilitation to a factory sanatorium near Kharkov, where he died on September 26, 1940. Mikhail Koshkin was only 41 years old at that time. The chief designer of the T-34 never saw the triumph of his vehicle on the battlefields.
For the entire 1940, only 115 tanks were manufactured
Although the decision to launch the new medium tank into serial production was made on March 31, 1940, the process of deploying the mass production of the T-34 at plant No. 183 in Kharkov and at the STZ plant in Stalingrad was difficult. The first tanks were assembled only in June - 4 vehicles, only one tank was assembled in July, and two in August. And only in September the plant №183 managed to produce a marketable number of vehicles - 37 tanks. In total, for the entire 1940, 115 thirty-fours left the factory workshops. Another tank was manufactured at STZ as part of testing the launch of serial production. At the same time, the GABTU did not accept this tank.
Practically throughout 1940, the Soviet industry was only adapting to the production of a new tank, which seriously surpassed the BT-7M and T-26 in terms of complexity, the production of which was well mastered by tank factories. At that time, the T-34 was really complex and low-tech. At the same time, related industries were slowly mastering the release of new parts, components and assemblies for the T-34 tank. And the KhPZ itself late transferred the technical documentation for the tank to Stalingrad - only in May 1940, and the delivery from Kharkov of tracked tracks for the T-34 to STZ did not begin until the end of the year.
Two different guns were installed on T-34-76 tanks
According to the initial project, the T-34 tank was armed with a 76, 2-mm gun. The gun of this caliber remained the main one until the beginning of 1944, when the USSR began mass production of an updated version of the T-34-85 tank with a new turret for three people and a new 85-mm gun. At the same time, the 76, 2-mm guns on the T-34 tanks of the early production of 1940 and 1941 were different. The first models of serial tanks were equipped with the L-11 gun. This gun was developed taking into account real combat experience in Spain on the basis of the L-10 gun, the barrel length of which was lengthened to 30.5 caliber. The armor-piercing projectile of this BR-350A gun at a distance of 100 meters had a maximum armor penetration of 66 mm.
In total, 458 tanks were produced with the L-11 gun, the last of them in March 1941. At the same time, in March, they began to assemble vehicles with the new F-34 tank gun in Kharkov; in Stalingrad, such vehicles began to be assembled a month later. Externally, the L-11 and F-34 guns differed in the length of the barrel and the shape of the armoring of the recoil devices. 76, 2 mm F-34 cannon with a barrel length of 41 caliber significantly surpassed the L-11 gun in its characteristics. The standard blunt-headed projectile BR-350A provided this weapon with 82-89 mm of armor penetration at a distance of 100 meters at an angle of encounter with the armor of 90 degrees. A more advanced sub-caliber projectile BR-345P at the same distance under the same conditions provided penetration of up to 102 mm of armor.
The T-34 tank had drawbacks
The T-34 tank had flaws, like any other military equipment. Don't assume that the car was perfect. Customer reviews of the tank followed throughout 1940. Among the main problems of the new combat vehicle, the military especially singled out the "cramped" inside the tower and the "blindness" of the tank on the battlefield, the view from the tower was poor. This is without taking into account complaints about technical malfunctions of equipment, which at that time was still very "raw".
In the same 1940, comparative tests of the T-34 tank and two PzKpfw III medium tanks purchased from Germany were carried out in Kubinka. The military noted that the Soviet tank was superior to its competitor in terms of armor protection and weapons, yielding in a number of other parameters. The test report stated that the turret of a T-34 medium tank could barely accommodate two tankers, one of whom was not only a gunner, but also a tank commander, and in some cases a unit commander. This is a rather important parameter, since it is not equipment that is fighting, but people, and if the crew is uncomfortable when performing combat work, and the vehicle commander is torn between several tasks, this reduces the effectiveness of the entire tank. It was also noted that the PzKpfw III surpasses the T-34 in terms of smoothness and is a less noisy tank. At maximum speed, a German tank could be heard 200 meters away, while a thirty-four could be heard from 450 meters away. The more successful PzKpfw III suspension was also noted in the report.
Individual production - tank T-34-57
Back in the spring of 1940, the Red Army raised the issue of increasing the effectiveness of the armament of the T-34 and KV-1 tanks, primarily in the fight against enemy tanks. In the same year, the powerful 57-mm anti-tank gun ZIS-2 was officially adopted, the tank version of such a gun was designated ZIS-4. The production of T-34 tanks with this gun was planned to begin in the summer of 1941, but for obvious reasons, it was not possible to launch mass production. As a result, in September 1941, Kharkov plant No. 183 produced only 10 T-34 tanks armed with a 57-mm ZIS-4 gun (by the way, such vehicles were never officially called T-34-57, like tanks with 76-mm guns were never officially called T-34-76).
In total, 14 T-34 tanks armed with a 57 mm gun were manufactured in the USSR during the war years. 10 tanks, manufactured in September 1941, were transferred to the 21st Tank Brigade from Vladimir. They arrived at the front on October 14 and took part in the battles in the Kalinin area. The last such tank was lost in the battles near Moscow on October 30, 1941. At the same time, the 57-mm long-barreled gun with a barrel length of 74 caliber was a very effective anti-tank weapon. In 1941, the ammunition used already provided armor penetration up to 82 mm at maximum combat distances and up to 98 mm in close combat. However, in wartime conditions, it was not possible to organize the production of a new and rather complex tank gun, they did not divert resources to this.
The T-34 tank really influenced the German tank building
The T-34 medium tank really influenced German tank building, although this influence was greatly exaggerated in the USSR. For example, one of the myths is related to the fact that, having got acquainted with the Soviet diesel engine V-2, the Germans wanted to create their own analogue, but they could not and drove gasoline engines throughout the war. In fact, projects and samples of diesel engines, superior in their capabilities to the Soviet V-2, were in Germany even before the beginning of World War II, such work was carried out since the mid-1930s, but German tank building developed in its own way.
In fact, the biggest influence the T-34 had on various design firms in Germany was the geometry of its hull and turret. Also, after inspecting Soviet vehicles, German designers finally switched to creating 30-ton and heavier tanks. At the same time, the Germans, of course, did not engage in any copying. Externally similar to the T-34 VK 30.01 (D) was technically a completely different machine with its own unique features. And the Germans knew about sloping armor long before they met Soviet armored vehicles. They actively used this technique on their armored vehicles, but in tank building they went a different way, creating tanks in the form of a "box on a box", this approach also had its advantages.
And yet the influence of the T-34 was considerable. For example, the designers of the company "Krupp" with renewed vigor struck the design of tanks with inclined armor and bent armor plates. Also, early samples of the T-34 had a significant impact on the design of turrets for German tanks. Before the end of World War II, German designers created a large number of towers modeled on the Soviet medium tank for their combat vehicles of various classes: from the VK 16.02 light tank to the heaviest tank in world history, the Maus.
The most massive tank in history
From 1940 to 1950, the Soviet industry at six different factories produced more than 61 thousand T-34 tanks, including the T-34-85 modification and the OT-34 flamethrower tanks. Taking into account the licensed production in Czechoslovakia and Poland in the 1950s, the serial production of all modifications of the T-34 medium tank amounted to 65.9 thousand copies. This is an absolute world record. Never in the world has any tank been built in such a huge series. In the Soviet Union, the production of the T-34-85 model was discontinued only after the start of mass production of the T-54 tank.
During the Great Patriotic War, the production of T-34 tanks grew continuously, along with this, the share of medium tanks in the total volume of combat vehicles produced in the USSR grew. If in 1941 only 1,886 T-34 tanks were produced, which accounted for 40 percent of the total production of tanks in the Soviet Union, then already in 1943, five factories produced a total of 15,696 T-34 tanks, which was already 79 percent of the total. production of tanks in the USSR, by the end of 1944, this share had already increased to 86 percent. At the same time, the last T-34 tank with the 76-mm F-34 gun was produced by the Soviet industry in September 1944. In parallel with this, in January 1944, the first serial T-34-85 tanks were assembled at the plant No. 112 in Gorky.
