Designing the T-34: Genesis of the Revolutionary Soviet Tank

by Peter Samsonov

When the German army launched Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of the Soviet Union – on June 22, 1941, it was expecting to face and easily defeat outdated and obsolete tanks and for the most part it did, but it also received a nasty shock when it came up against the T-34. With its powerful gun and sloped armour, the T-34 was more than a match for the best German tanks at that time and the Germans regarded it with awe. German Field Marshal von Kleist, who commanded the latter stages of Barbarossa, called it ‘the finest tank in the world’. Using original wartime documents author and historian Peter Samsonov, creator of the Tank Archives blog, explains how the Soviets came to develop what was arguably the war’s most revolutionary tank design.

Genres: History, Military Fiction, Military History

87 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 27, 2019

Reviews

[Antonio Bernarda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The battle history of the T-34 tank is well know in military history but a topic that is more obscure is the story behind what led to the iconic World War 2 tank. This book narrates how the T-34 came to be from the early studies for a new medium tank to the first production models.

[Zare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of initial development of T-34 up to the beginning of German offensive in the East.

Author gives a short overview of the tank development in USSR, starting from the end of WW1, Civil War to inter-war years during which lots of development of various tank types took place. In this period lots of theoretical discussions (since there were no actual full fledged inter-state conflicts taking place, Spanish Civil War notwithstanding, although not all parties came out of that war with full respect of what tank is capable for) drove development of tanks from relatively simple (and totally vulnerable in my opinion) one or two man tankettes to monstrosities wielding multiple gun turrets.

Following the discussion between various USSR MOD offices decision was made to create tank that would satisfy the needs of Red Army, provide good fire-power, protection and ability to survive confines of the urban combat (surviving improvised explosives and flammable devices and ability to use guns to shoot high being important points of interest).

And this is where history of actual T-34 early development starts, showing how initial proto-types progressed to the tank as is currently known to us.

Book is full of beautiful pictures and details, from the hull, turret all the way to the engine and tracks.

In a relatively small book (90 pages) we are given a full overview of not just the tank itself but also the constant (re)design of it, as new requirements are detected and pushed for, some things put into the backlog because they could not be handled at the moment, and finally how tanks were intensively tested to ensure they are actually providing what is required. I have to admit that what is - or will say was, at least for me - consensus on how USSR built its war machines - just slap the parts and here we go - that dominated a lot of WW2 literature I came across before from, lets be honest, German-point-of-view influenced books, is proven to me to be completely false (and not just from this book, mind you).

USSR war industry was as developed, inventive and based on constant incremental improvements as any war industry at the time (and continued as such after WW2).

This helped them concentrate on things that work without constant search for wonder weapon that would turn the tide of war by itself (which is something German did and cost them dearly when instead of improving what tanks they had, they moved to creating limited number of heavy tanks that were countered very fast in constant race of huge armor vs ever bigger gun). This period of tank coming out more defined and battle worthy is not so different from current days where from all sorts of drones (everyone and their mothers are working on various designs and uses), battle worthy and standardized ones are slowly becoming the norm.

Excellent book, highly recommended.

[Pierfrancesco Aiello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative work. I always read that manufacturing complicated weapons can slow down a lot if there is a constant flow of changes (one can hear this about German manufacturing in WW2 a lot). Well the book really stress what can happen. Trials done in 1939 and production barely started at the end of 1940. Fortunately they delayed changes as a "batch" otherwise the production couldn't pick up.

The only minor nitpick is that the text is aligned left and it forgot the justified alignment, that is in my opinion much better for reading, less eye fatigue.

[Shyue Chou Chuang · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thin volume, akin to those Osprey Publishing volumes, detailing the evolution of the T-34, from its inception to the earliest models. The introduction is a history of the early Russian tanks which includes the MS-1, T-37A, T-38, T-26, T-28, T-29, BT-2, BT-5, BT-7, leading to the early prototypes of the T-34, namely, the A-20. This is followed by the history of the development, from the A-20 to the A-32, and the A-34. The design is discussed including that of the diesel, the turret, the armament, the machine guns and more. The last chapter is of the production and service of the T-34, the early model. Colour photos of a surviving pre-war production are provided. Numerous black and white photos of the early A-20, A-32, A-34 prototypes are provided in the various chapters. A centre section with colour plates of the T-34 is included.