Tanks of the USSR, 1917–1945

By Alexander Ludeke

The Soviet Union had already begun building an armored industry as early as the 1920s. Although initially limited to reconstructing and developing Western European armored vehicles, an independent line of powerful and easy-to-produce models had been established by 1939. Even after the Second World War, the USSR expanded its armament force considerably, even planning to cross western Europe in a massive armoured wave in the event of any conflict with NATO. In this book, Alexander Ldeke looks at all the important Soviet tanks that were built from 1917 up until the end of the Second World War

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781473891395

Book preview

Moscow.

Introduction

When the tanks of the Red Army rolled past the saluting dias during the Allied Victory parade in Berlin on 7 September 1945, the ground trembled. Amongst the numerous Soviet battle tanks were 52 heavy tanks of the type JS-3. The first public appearance of these giants made a lasting impression on the Western military observers present, for no Western Power at that time had anything comparable apart from prototypes. What made it all the more astonishing was the fact that 20 years before the USSR had possessed practically no tanks at all. Whereas a series of designs for armoured vehicles had been forthcoming in Tzarist Russia, only two prototypes had been built. The Wesdechod (vehicle for the terrain, see p.8 ahead) was a small tracked vehicle while the Tzar tank was a three-wheeled monster 17 metres long, the two forward wheels each having a diameter of around 9 metres. The Wesdechod proved impossible to steer and the Tzar tank bogged down on its maiden trials. Yet even if these two designs had proved successful, the Russia of the time would have lacked the industrial basis to follow through with these concepts.

Although great in population and area, neither pre-revolutionary Russia nor the embyonic Soviet Union could be considered industrialized by the Western yardstick. The land of the Tzars and Lenin was worlds apart in this respect from Great Britain, France, Germany or the United States, and the chaotic circumstances following the Revolution in 1917 contributed to its further deterioration. The civil war between the Reds (the Communists or Bolshevists) and the Whites (supporters of the deposed Tzar, and forces both nationalist and bourgeois) followed in the wake of the Revolution and tore the country apart. The Whites received military support from France, Great Britain, Japan and the United States and this included battle tanks such as the British Mk.V and Whippet as well as the French Renault FT 17. A whole series of these vehicles fell into the hands of the Red Army, enabling them to set up their first tank units. Captured FT-17s also served as the basis for the first battle tank to be built in the USSR, the Russkiy Reno (Russian Renault). Although the FT-17 was a comparatively simple vehicle, it presented Soviet industry with difficult problems. Soviet Russia lacked manufacturing concerns able to turn out motors, gearing and weapons, and even the necessary steel armour. In many regions there was nothing for it but to make a start and improvise, a policy which brought its own failures with it. Some sources even go so far as to suggest that not fifteen, but only one, Russky Reno was built from new and the other fourteen were nothing more than captured and overhauled FT-17s. Whatever the case, the number of battle tanks produced in the USSR up to the mid-1920s was insignificantly few although the interest in tanks on the other hand was very great.

In 1923 the Red Army had begun a study of tank operations at home and abroad since 1916 and on this basis drew up in 1924 the specifications for a new battle tank. The result was the prototype T-16 completed in March 1927, further developed into the T-18 (or MS-1 for Malyi Soprovoshdenya– small escort tank Type 1), the first battle tank to be mass produced in the Soviet Union. This occurred during the first Five Year Plan from 1928 which was to transform the mainly farming-oriented USSR into an industrial State and guaranteed its swift rise into armaments production. For the purpose the Soviet Union obtained on the grand scale civilian and military technology, tools and machines from abroad. Accordingly in 1929/1930 Soviet purchasing commissions visited the West and procured fighting vehicles from amongst others Great Britain and the United States, and obtained agreements to produce them in the USSR under licence. The British armaments firm Vickers supplied 26 tankettes of the type Carden-Lloyd Mk IV, fifteen Mk E Type A tanks (the Vickers 6-tonner) and eight amphibious A4E11/A4E12. These became the Soviet T-27 tankette, the light tank T-26 and the amphibious tanks T-41/T-37/T-38. Under the cover name agricultural tractors the USA supplied two Christie tanks which became the basis for the later BT-range and decisively influenced the design of the T-34. Even the medium T-28 and the heavy T-35 relied heavily on British models. Until the end of the 1930s therefore, practically all Soviet tanks had been developed from the designs of capitalist nations considered the enemy of the USSR. As from the end of the 1930s, the experience gained from the manufacture and further development of these Types enabled Soviet industry to produce its own designs which bewildered the world, and whose like could not be found anywhere. Types such as KW-1 and T-34 surprised by their firepower, armour and (at least the T-34) their mobility.

The Red Army only possessed 340 tanks in 1929, yet by 1935 the number had risen to 7633 which meant that by the mid-1930s the USSR had more tanks than the rest of the world put together. On the eve of the German invasion in June 1941, the Red Army (inclusive of reserve- and training vehicles) could fall back on the astonishing number of 28,000 tanks.

It was not only in the technological field that the Soviet Union had made great progress, for it had found a fresh path in military theory and tactics. The support of the Western Powers and Japan for the Whites in material and troops during the civil war, and the idea of World Revolution in their own ideology firmly established in the minds of the Soviet leadership the belief that war with the West was inevitable. In order to be able to win it, the Red Army studied the events of the First World War and their own civil war very closely. This gave rise in the mid-1920s to the doctrine of The Deep Operation (also translatable as Deep Strike) in which the enemy front would be attacked to its entire depths by coordinated strikes from infantry, pioneers, tanks and aircraft. Massed tank formations would make up a considerable proportion of this force. Together with vehicles giving immediate infantry support (T-26) there would be fast vehicles operating deep in the enemy’s hinterland (BT-ranks), and tanks whose task would be to force the way through the heavy defences (T-28, T-35). This theory was refined and expanded in cooperation with the German Reichswehr from the end of the 1920s until 1933. The Reichswehr worked together with the Red Army during that period: for example Ernst Volckheim, one of the leading German theorists on tank warfare, was a tutor at the Tank School Kama near Kasan in the USSR.

In 1941 the Red Army was numerically the strongest military force in Europe, and probably the world, yet in the summer and autumn of that year the USSR was brought to the edge of defeat. Of the 28,800 tanks it had before the outbreak of hostilities, by the beginning of 1942 only around 1500 were operational, the others had been destroyed or fallen into German hands abandoned, damaged or wrecked. There were many reasons for this catastrophe. The explanation lay less in the fact that many Red Army tanks were of the 1935 vintage – many Wehrmacht panzers were no better – while the 45-mm L/46 of the T-26, BT-5 or BT-7 was a weapon to be taken seriously, for it could take out all German panzers at fighting range.

Although the Soviet Types mentioned had only thin armour, that of the Germans was little stronger. Far more decisive was the fact that the Red Army had often placed more value on quantity rather than quality. Even by the standard of the times, Soviet tanks lacked mechanical reliability and required intensive maintenance. In the handbook for the T-34 – then a very modern tank – for example it was stated that the air filters had to be thoroughly cleaned every few hours for reliability. If this was not done, engine damage was unavoidable. Under battle conditions it was naturally very difficult to comply with such an instruction. In addition in the summer of 1941 the Red Army lacked spares, and crew training was inadequate.

Couplings and gearing both caused major problems for all armoured vehicles. This demonstrated that in the design and manufacture of these elementary components, subject to high degrees of wear and tear, Soviet industry still lacked experience. Another important cause of the poor performance of the Red Army after the Wehrmacht attack were the purges initiated by Stalin from 1937 onwards. Thus up to 1938 between 33,000 and 35,000 military officers from an officer corps of 178,000 were arrested for alleged espionage and treason, amongst them 13 of 15 Generals and 154 of 186 divisional commanders. Even the best of their successors lacked experience, and were often simply promoted for political reasons irrespective of whether or not they were competent for their new post.

The German invasion led to the transfer of Soviet tank factories from Leningrad, Kharkov and Moscow to the East in the autumn of 1941, and the numbers of tanks being produced fell drastically. When these factories resumed work, however, they did so untroubled by German air attacks and in the certainty of being able to count on practically unlimited reserves of raw materials. In the rare case that they were short of something themselves, the USA would supply it. Soviet concentration on a few Types such as the T-34 and the KW- and JS-series, and ruthless adaptation to the demands of mass production, led to astounding production figures which exceeded those of the German Reich several times over.