What tank was the best during World War II. The best tanks of World War II according to Discovery The best tank of World War II

Another purely propaganda myth from the series "Russia is the birthplace of elephants." It is very easy to refute. It is enough to ask a Stalinist agitpropist a very simple question: “What exactly does the best mean?” And what period of World War II? If 1941-42, then this is one thing. If 1942-44, then another. If 1944-45, then the third. For in these different periods the tanks were also very different (in many ways - even fundamentally different). Therefore, the above statement is simply fundamentally methodologically incorrect.

This could be the end of the refutation of this myth. However, the topic of the T-34 without this mythology is interesting enough to be discussed in more detail. Let's start with the fact that although the T-34 was not the best tank of World War II (due to the incorrectness of the very concept of "best" in this context), its design became perhaps the most influential tank design in the history of not only World War II, but and tank building in general.

Why? Yes, because the T-34 was the first truly massive and relatively successful implementation of the concept of the main battle tank, which became dominant in all subsequent tank building. It was the T-34 that became the starting point, model and inspiration for creating a whole string of production tanks and World War II ("Panther", "Royal Tiger", "Pershing") and post-war (M48, M60, "Leopard", AMX-30). Only in the 80s in the world tank building there was a transition to new concept main battle tank, closer to the German Tiger tank.

Now back to the concept of "best". Let's start with some statistics. On June 22, 1941, there were 967 T-34 tanks in the western border military districts (Leningrad, Baltic Special, Western Special, Kiev Special and Odessa). That's right - nine hundred sixty-seven. Which did not at all prevent the Wehrmacht from completely destroying the ENTIRE first strategic echelon of the Red Army. And only thanks to his own strategic mistakes, Hitler did not win back in October (and even in September). I will discuss these errors in more detail in a separate section of the book. In other words, strategically the Germans simply did not notice the T-34. As more than 300 completely monstrous heavy KV-1s did not notice.

Further. The overall ratio of tank losses in World War II between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht was approximately 4:1. The lion's share of these losses were precisely the T-34. The average "lifetime" of a Soviet tank on the battlefield was 2-3 tank attacks. German - 10-11. 4-5 times more. Agree that with such statistics it is very difficult to substantiate the assertion that the T-34 is really the best tank of World War II.

The right question should not be "Which tank is the best?" and “What qualities should an ideal main battle tank have?” and “How close to the ideal is this or that tank (in particular, the T-34)?”

As of the summer of 1941, the optimal medium (main battle) tank was supposed to have a long-barreled large-caliber gun (at that time - 75/76 mm); 1-2 machine guns to protect against enemy infantry; sufficient anti-ballistic armor to hit enemy tanks and artillery, while remaining invulnerable to them; crew of 5 people (commander, driver, loader, gunner, radio operator); convenient means of observation and aiming; reliable radio communication; sufficiently high speed (50-60 km / h on the highway); high throughput and maneuverability; reliability; ease of operation and repair; ease of management; the possibility of mass production as well as sufficient development potential to constantly be "one step ahead of the enemy."

With a gun and armor, the T-34 was more than okay for a year (until the PzKpfw IV tank appeared in mass quantities with a long-barreled 75-mm gun 7.5 cm KwK 40). The wide tracks gave the tank excellent maneuverability and maneuverability. For mass production, the tank was also almost ideal; maintainability in front-line conditions was also on top.

Firstly, there were few radio stations, so they were not installed on all tanks, but only on the tanks of unit commanders. Which the Germans quickly knocked out (with 50-mm anti-tank guns or 88-mm anti-aircraft guns, or even 37-mm "mallets" from ambushes from a short distance) ... after which the rest were poked like blind kittens and became easy prey.

Further. As was often the case in the USSR, the designers of the tank decided to save on the number of crew members and assigned the tank commander the function of a gunner. Which reduced the effectiveness of shooting, and made the tank almost uncontrollable. As well as a tank platoon, a company ... and so on.

Observation and aiming devices left much to be desired. As a result, when the T-34 approached at a distance long enough to see the enemy ... he was already in the penetration zone of 50-mm, short-barreled 75-mm and even 37-mm guns (and 47-mm guns of the Czechoslovak 38 (t) , which the Germans had a lot). The result is clear. Yes, and unlike German tanks, in which each crew member had his own hatch ... in the T-34 there were two hatches for four. What this meant in terms of combat for the crew of a wrecked tank, no need to explain.

Yes, by the way, the presence on the T-34 diesel engine had no effect on its flammability. For it is not fuel that burns and explodes, but its vapors ... therefore, diesel T-34s (and KVs) burned no worse than gasoline Panzerkampfwagens.

As in the USSR in general, when designing the T-34, priority was given to the simplicity and cheapness of the design at the expense of the quality characteristics of the design as a whole. So, an important disadvantage was the control drive system, which went through the entire tank from the driver’s seat to the transmission, which greatly increased the effort on the control levers and made gear shifting much more difficult.

In the same way, the individual spring suspension system with large-diameter rollers used on the T-34, being very simple and cheap to manufacture in comparison with the Pz-IV suspension, turned out to be large in placement and rigid in movement. The suspension system of the T-34 was also inherited from the tanks of the BT series. Simple and manufacturable, due to the large size of the rollers, which means a small number of reference points per track (five instead of eight for the Pz-IV), and spring cushioning, it led to a strong swaying of the vehicle in motion, which made it completely impossible to shoot from go. In addition, in comparison with the torsion bar suspension, it occupied 20% more volume.

Let's give the floor to those who had the opportunity to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the T-34 - both at the training ground and in battle. Here, for example, is the report of the commander of the 10th Panzer Division of the 15th Mechanized Corps of the Kyiv Special Military District following the results of the battles of June - July 1941:

“The armor of vehicles and hulls from a distance of 300-400 m is penetrated by a 37-mm armor-piercing projectile. The sheer sheets of the sides are pierced by a 20-mm armor-piercing projectile. When overcoming ditches, due to the low installation, the machines burrow with their noses, traction with the ground is insufficient due to the relative smoothness of the tracks. With a direct hit by a projectile, the driver's front hatch collapses. The caterpillar of the car is weak - it takes any projectile. The main and onboard clutches fail "

And here are excerpts from the T-34 test report (note - export version, which had a significantly higher build quality and individual components than the serial one, so we are talking about fundamental design flaws) at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in the USA in 1942:

“The first breakdown of the T-34 (the track burst) occurred approximately at the 60th kilometer, and after overcoming 343 km, the tank failed and could not be repaired. The failure occurred due to poor performance of the air cleaner (another Achilles plate of the tank), as a result of which a lot of dust got into the engine and pistons and cylinders were destroyed.

The main disadvantage of the hull was recognized as water permeability as its lower part when overcoming water barriers and top during rain. In heavy rain, a lot of water flowed into the tank through the cracks, which could lead to failure of electrical equipment and even ammunition.

The main noted drawback of the tower and the fighting compartment as a whole is crowding. The Americans could not understand how our tankers got crazy in the tank in the winter in sheepskin coats. A poor mechanism for turning the turret was noted, especially since the motor was weak, overloaded and terribly sparked, as a result of which the resistances for adjusting the turning speeds burned out, and the gear teeth crumbled.

An insufficiently high initial speed (about 620 m / s against a possible 850 m / s) was recognized as a disadvantage of the gun, which I associate with the low quality of Soviet gunpowder. What this meant in battle, I think, no need to explain.

Steel tracks T-34 were simple in design, wide, but American (rubber-metal), in their opinion, were better. The shortcoming of the Soviet caterpillar chain was considered by the Americans to be the mated tensile strength of the track. This was exacerbated by the poor quality of the track pins. The suspension on the T-34 tank was recognized as bad, because the Americans had already unconditionally abandoned the Christie suspension as obsolete.

The disadvantages of the V-2 diesel engine are a poor air cleaner, which: does not clean the air entering the engine at all; wherein throughput the air cleaner is small and does not provide the required amount of air even when the engine is idling. As a result, the motor does not develop full power and dust entering the cylinders leads to their rapid operation, compression drops and the motor loses power. In addition, the filter is made in a very primitive way from a mechanical point of view: in the places of electric spot welding, the metal is burned through, which leads to oil leakage, etc.

The transmission is unsatisfactory, obviously outdated design. During its operation in tests, the teeth on all gears completely crumbled. On both motors, bad starters are low-power and unreliable designs. The welding of armor plates is extremely rough and sloppy."

It is unlikely that such test results are compatible with the concept of "the best tank of the Second World War." And by the summer of 1942, after the appearance of improved "fours", the advantage of the T-34 in artillery and armor had also disappeared. Moreover, he began to concede in these key components to his main adversary - the "four" (and did not make up for this gap until the end of the war). “Panthers and “tigers” (as well as specialized self-propelled guns - tank destroyers) generally dealt with the T-34 easily and naturally. Like the new anti-tank guns - 75- and 88-mm. Not to mention the cumulative shells of "Panzershreks" and "Panzerfausts".

In general, the T-34 was not, of course, the best tank of World War II. It was an acceptable tank in general (although from the summer of 1942 it was inferior to its opponents in almost all key components). But there were many of these tanks (in total, more than 52,000 T-34s were produced during the war). Which predetermined the outcome of the war, in which it turned out that the winner is not the one who has the best warriors, tanks, planes, self-propelled guns, etc., but who has many times more of them.

In general, as usual, they filled up with corpses and showered with pieces of iron. And so they won. And Russian women still give birth.

Although the First World War was marked by the appearance of tanks, the Second World War showed the real rampage of these mechanical monsters. During the hostilities, they played an important role, both among the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and among the powers of the "axis". Both opposing sides created a significant number of tanks. Listed below are ten outstanding tanks of the Second World War - the most powerful vehicles of this period ever built.
10. M4 Sherman (USA)

The second largest tank of the Second World War. Produced in the United States and some other Western countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, mainly due to the American Lend-Lease program, which provided military support to foreign allied powers. The Sherman medium tank had a standard 75 mm gun with 90 rounds of ammunition and was equipped with relatively thin frontal (51 mm) armor compared to other vehicles of that period.

Designed in 1941, the tank was named after the famous American Civil War general, William T. Sherman. The machine participated in numerous battles and campaigns from 1942 to 1945. The relative lack of firepower was compensated by their huge numbers: about 50,000 Shermans were produced during the Second World War.

9. Sherman Firefly (UK)

The Sherman Firefly was a British variant of the M4 Sherman tank, which was equipped with a devastating 17-pounder anti-tank gun, more powerful than the original 75 mm Sherman gun. The 17-pounder was destructive enough to damage any known tank of the time. The Sherman Firefly was one of those tanks that terrified the Axis and was characterized as one of the deadliest fighting vehicles of the Second World War. In total, more than 2,000 units were produced.

The PzKpfw V "Panther" is a German medium tank that appeared on the battlefield in 1943 and remained until the end of the war. A total of 6,334 units were created. The tank reached speeds of up to 55 km/h, had strong 80 mm armor and was armed with a 75 mm gun with an ammunition capacity of 79 to 82 high-explosive fragmentation and armor-piercing shells. The T-V was powerful enough to damage any enemy vehicle at the time. It was technically superior to the tanks of the Tiger and T-IV types.

And although later, the T-V "Panther" was surpassed by numerous Soviet T-34s, she remained her serious opponent until the end of the war.

5. "Comet" IA 34 (UK)

One of the most powerful combat vehicles in Great Britain and probably the best that was used by this country in the Second World War. The tank was armed with a powerful 77 mm cannon, which was a shortened version of the 17-pounder. Thick armor reached 101 millimeters. However, the Comet did not have a significant impact on the course of the War due to its late introduction to the battlefields - around 1944, when the Germans were retreating.

But be that as it may, during its short service life, this military machine has shown its effectiveness and reliability.

4. "Tiger I" (Germany)

The Tiger I is a German heavy tank developed in 1942. It had a powerful 88 mm gun with 92-120 rounds of ammunition. It was successfully used against both air and ground targets. The full German name of this beast sounds like Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf.E, while the Allies simply called this car "Tiger".

It accelerated to 38 km / h and had armor without a slope with a thickness of 25 to 125 mm. When it was created in 1942, it suffered from some technical problems, but was soon freed from them, turning into a ruthless mechanical hunter by 1943.

The Tiger was a formidable vehicle, which forced the Allies to develop better tanks. It symbolized the strength and power of the Nazi war machine, and until the middle of the war, not a single Allied tank had sufficient strength and power to withstand the Tiger in a direct collision. However, during the final stages of World War II, the Tiger's dominance was often challenged by better-armed Sherman Fireflies and Soviet IS-2 tanks.

3. IS-2 "Joseph Stalin" (Soviet Union)

The IS-2 tank belonged to a whole family of heavy tanks of the Joseph Stalin type. It had characteristic sloped armor 120 mm thick and a large 122 mm gun. The frontal armor was impenetrable to German 88 mm anti-tank guns at a distance of more than 1 kilometer. Its production began in 1944, a total of 2,252 tanks of the IS family were built, of which about half were modifications of the IS-2.

During the Battle of Berlin, IS-2 tanks destroyed entire German buildings using high-explosive fragmentation shells. It was a real ram of the Red Army when moving towards the heart of Berlin.

2. M26 "Pershing" (USA)

The United States created a heavy tank, which belatedly took part in World War II. It was developed in 1944, the total number of produced tanks was 2,212 units. The Pershing was more complex than the Sherman, with a lower profile and larger tracks, which gave the car better stability.
The main gun had a caliber of 90 millimeters (70 shells were attached to it), powerful enough to penetrate the armor of the Tiger. "Pershing" had the strength and power for a frontal attack of those machines that could be used by the Germans or the Japanese. But only 20 tanks took part in the fighting in Europe and very few were sent to Okinawa. After the end of World War II, the Pershings took part in the Korean War and continued to be used by the American troops. The M26 Pershing could have been a game changer had it been thrown onto the battlefield earlier.

1. "Jagdpanther" (Germany)

Jagdpanther is one of the most powerful fighters tanks in World War II. It was based on the Panther chassis, entered service in 1943, and served until 1945. It was armed with an 88 mm cannon with 57 rounds and had 100 mm frontal armor. The gun retained accuracy at a distance of up to three kilometers and had a muzzle velocity of over 1000 m/s.

Only 415 tanks were built during the war. The Jagdpanthers went through their baptism of fire on July 30, 1944 near Saint Martin Des Bois, France, where they destroyed eleven Churchill tanks in two minutes. Technical superiority and advanced firepower had little effect on the course of the war due to the late introduction of these monsters.

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 significance for that period.

10. Tank Panzerkampfwagen III (PzKpfw III)

PzKpfw III, better known as T-III - light tank with a 37 mm gun. Booking from all angles - 30 mm. The main quality is Speed ​​(40 km / h on the highway). Thanks to the perfect Carl Zeiss optics, ergonomic crew jobs 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 manifested themselves more clearly. The Germans replaced the 37 mm guns with 50 mm guns and covered the tank with hinged screens - temporary measures gave their results, the T-III fought for several more years. By 1943, the release 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, which became the most massive Panzerwaffe tank, looked much more serious - the Germans managed to build 8700 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 enemy tanks, like foil (by the way, 1133 early modifications with a short-barreled gun were produced).

The weak points of the machine are too thin sides and feed (only 30 mm on the first modifications), the designers neglected the slope of the armor plates for the sake of manufacturability and the convenience of the crew.

Panzer IV - the only German tank that was in mass production throughout the Second World War and became the most massive 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. Russian giants came closer and closer. One of them approached our tank, hopelessly bogged down 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 smashed the elite units of the Wehrmacht with impunity as if it had rolled out onto the Borodino field in 1812. Invincible, invincible and extremely powerful. Until the end of 1941, in all the armies of the world, there was generally no weapon capable of stopping the Russian 45-ton monster. The KV was twice as heavy as the largest Wehrmacht tank.

Bronya KV is a wonderful song of steel and technology. 75 millimeters of steel firmament 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 close 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 a distance of 1.5 kilometers from any direction.

The crews of the KV were staffed exclusively by officers, only driver-mechanics could be foremen. The level of their training was much higher than the level of the crews who fought on tanks of other types. They fought more skillfully, and therefore the Germans remembered ...

7. Tank T-34 (thirty-four)

“... There is nothing worse than a tank battle against superior enemy forces. Not in terms of numbers - it was not important for us, we were used to it. But against better vehicles, it's terrible... Russian tanks are so nimble, at close range they'll climb a slope or cross a swamp faster than you can turn a turret. And through the noise and roar, you hear the clang of shells on the armor all the time. When they hit our tank, you often hear a deafening explosion and the roar of burning fuel, too loud to hear the death cries of the crew ... "
- the opinion of a German tanker from the 4th Panzer Division, destroyed by T-34 tanks in the battle near 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 protection. Even individually, these parameters for the T-34 were higher than for any Panzerwaffe tank.

When the Wehrmacht soldiers first met the T-34s on the battlefield, they were, to put it mildly, shocked. The cross-country ability of our vehicle was impressive - where the German tanks did not even think to meddle, the T-34s passed without much difficulty. The Germans even nicknamed their 37mm anti-tank gun the "tuk-tuk mallet" because when its shells hit the "thirty-four", they simply hit it and bounced off.

The main thing is that the Soviet designers managed to create the tank exactly the way the Red Army needed it. The T-34 was ideally suited to 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 as soon as possible, as a result, the T-34s were easy to operate, numerous and ubiquitous.

6. Tank Panzerkampfwagen VI "Tiger I" Ausf E, "Tiger"

“... we went around through the beam 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 tankers.

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 this particular task:

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

Thus, the Tiger tank was conceived primarily as a means of fighting enemy tanks, whether in defense or offensive. Accounting for this fact is necessary to understand the design features and tactics of using the "Tigers".

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

... 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 battle experience has shown, the Tiger's weapons allow it to fight enemy tanks at distances of 2000 meters or more, which especially affects enemy morale. Strong armor allows the "Tiger" to move closer to the enemy without the risk of serious damage from hits. However, you should try to start a battle with enemy tanks at distances of more than 1000 meters.

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

Realizing that the "Tiger" is 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 Wehrmacht medium tank.
Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther" is still the subject of heated debate. The technical capabilities of the car 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 infernal vent flew 1 kilometer in the first second - with such performance characteristics, the Panther's cannon could pierce any Allied tank at a distance of over 2 kilometers. Reservation "Panther" by most sources is also recognized as worthy - the thickness of the forehead varied from 60 to 80 mm, while the angles of the armor reached 55 °. The board 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 IS-2 was the most powerful and most heavily armored of the Soviet mass-produced tanks of the war period, 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 storming of cities.

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

Storms of cities:
Together with self-propelled guns based on it, the IS-2 was actively used for assault operations on fortified cities such as Budapest, Breslau, and Berlin. The tactics of operations in such conditions included the actions of the OGvTTP by assault groups of 1-2 tanks, accompanied by an infantry squad of several submachine gunners, a sniper or a well-aimed rifle shooter, and sometimes a knapsack flamethrower. In the event of weak resistance, tanks with assault groups planted on them at full speed broke through along the streets to squares, squares, parks, where it was possible to take up all-round 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 by 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 Sherman with a gasoline engine was used in the ground forces, and the M4A2 modification equipped with a diesel engine entered the Marine Corps. American engineers rightly believed that this would greatly simplify the operation of tanks - diesel fuel could be easily found among sailors, unlike high-octane gasoline. By the way, it was this modification of the M4A2 that entered the Soviet Union.

Why did the Emcha (as our soldiers called the M4) so ​​pleased the command of the Red Army that they were completely transferred to elite units, for example, the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps and the 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 provided special aiming accuracy) and a gun stabilizer in a vertical plane - the 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 close to the German tank divisions that were thrown into the defense of Fortress Europe, and it turned out that the Allies underestimated the degree of saturation of the German troops 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 of all, and then deal with the rest). The Americans, who were counting on their new gun, quickly found out that the power of its armor-piercing shells was still not enough to confidently defeat the Panther in the forehead.

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, the 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, resting at the ends against the Vistula. Approximately in the middle of this semicircle, covering the direction to Staszow, the 53rd Guards Tank Brigade was defending.

At 07:00 on August 13, the enemy, under cover of fog, went on the offensive with the forces of the 16th Panzer Division, with the participation of 14 King Tigers of the 501st Heavy Tank Battalion. But as soon as the new Tigers crawled out 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 the driver Stetsenko, gun commander Merkhaidarov, radio operator Grushin and loader Khalychev . In total, the tankers of the brigade 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 Saumur Musee des Blindes in France, RAC Tank Museum Bovington (the only surviving copy with a Porsche turret) and the Royal Military College of Science Shrivenham in the UK, 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 medium tank T-34-85, in essence, is a major modernization of the T-34 tank, as a result of which a very important drawback of the latter was eliminated - the tightness of the fighting compartment and the impossibility of a complete division of labor of the crew members associated with it. This was achieved by increasing the diameter of the turret ring, as well as by installing a new triple turret much larger than that of the T-34. At the same time, the design of the hull and the layout of components and assemblies in it did not undergo any significant changes. Consequently, there were also disadvantages inherent in machines with aft engine and transmission.

As you know, the most widespread in tank building are two layout schemes with a bow and aft transmission. Moreover, the disadvantages of one scheme are the advantages of another.

The disadvantage of the layout with the aft location of the 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 with a heavy turret shifts to the nose, overloading the front rollers, leaving no room on the turret sheet for the central and even lateral placement of the driver's hatch. There is a danger of "sticking" the protruding gun into the ground when the tank moves through natural and artificial obstacles. The control drive is becoming more complicated, connecting the driver with the transmission located in the stern.

The layout of the tank T-34-85

There are two ways out of this situation: either to increase the length of the control compartment (or combat), which will inevitably lead to an increase in the total length of the tank and a deterioration in its maneuverability due to an increase in the ratio L / B - the length of the supporting surface to the track width (for the T-34 - 85, it is close to 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 Soviet designers when designing new medium tanks T-44 and T-54, created during the war years and put into service in 1944 and 1945, respectively.

The layout of the T-54 tank

On these combat vehicles, a layout was used with a transverse (and not with a longitudinal, as in the T-34-85) placement of a 12-cylinder V-2 diesel engine (in the V-44 and V-54 variants) and a combined significantly shortened (by 650 mm ) engine compartment. This made it possible to lengthen the fighting compartment up to 30% of the hull length (24.3% for the T-34-85), increase the turret ring diameter by almost 250 mm, and install a powerful 100-mm cannon on the T-54 medium tank. At the same time, it was possible to shift the turret to the stern, allocating space on the turret plate for the driver's hatch. The exclusion of the fifth crew member (shooter from the course machine gun), the removal of the ammunition rack from the floor of the fighting compartment, 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 about 200 mm, as well as a reduction in the booked volume by about 2 cubic meters. and increased armor protection by more than two times (with an increase in mass by only 12%).

Such a radical re-arrangement of the T-34 tank was not done during the war, and, probably, this was the right decision. At the same time, the diameter of the turret shoulder strap, while maintaining the same shape of the hull, was almost limiting for the T-34-85, which did not allow placing a larger-caliber artillery system in the turret. The possibilities of upgrading the tank in terms of armament 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 did you need to switch to an 85-mm gun, could it be improved ballistic performance F-34 by increasing the length of the barrel? After all, the Germans did the same with their 75-mm gun on the Pz.lV.

The fact is that German guns have traditionally been distinguished by better internal ballistics (ours are just as traditionally external). The Germans achieved high armor penetration by increasing the initial speed and better working out of ammunition. We could adequately answer only by increasing the caliber. Although the S-53 cannon significantly improved the firing capabilities of the T-34-85, but, as Yu.E. Maksarev noted: “In the future, the T-34 could no longer directly, 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. For the "duel" defeat of German tanks, a transition to 100-mm caliber was required, which was carried out only in the T-54 tank with a turret ring diameter of 1815 mm. But in the battles of the Second World War, this combat vehicle did not take part.

As for the placement of the driver's hatch in the frontal hull sheet, one could try to follow the path of the Americans. Recall that on the Sherman, the driver's and machine gunner's hatches, originally also made in an inclined front hull plate, were subsequently transferred to the turret plate. This was achieved by reducing the angle of inclination of the front plate from 56° to 47° to the vertical. The T-34-85 had a 60° frontal hull plate. By reducing this angle also to 47 ° and compensating for this by some increase in the thickness of the frontal armor, it would be possible to increase the area of ​​​​the turret sheet 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 has not changed for the T-34-85 either. And if the use of better quality steel for the manufacture of springs helped to avoid their rapid subsidence and, as a result, a decrease in 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 front of the tank only exacerbated negative impact these fluctuations on the crew and weapons.

A consequence of the layout scheme of the T-34-85 was the absence of a rotating tower poly in the fighting compartment. In battle, the loader worked, standing on the covers of the cassette boxes with shells laid on the bottom of the tank. When turning the tower, he had to move after the breech, while he was prevented spent cartridges that fell right there on the floor. When conducting intense fire, the accumulated cartridge cases 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 upgrading the hull and suspension of the T-34-85 were not fully used.

Considering the advantages and disadvantages of the T-34-85, one more very important circumstance must be taken into account. The crew of any tank, as a rule, in everyday reality does not care at all at what angle of inclination the frontal or any other sheet of the hull or turret is located. It is much more important that the tank as a machine, that is, as a combination of mechanical and electrical mechanisms, works accurately, reliably and does not create problems during operation. Including problems associated with the repair or replacement of any parts, assemblies and assemblies. Here, the T-34-85 (like the T-34) was all right. The tank was exceptionally maintainable! It is paradoxical, but true - and the layout is “to blame” for this!

There is a rule: to arrange not to ensure convenient installation - dismantling of units, but based on the fact that the units do not need to be repaired until they completely fail. The required high reliability and non-failure operation are achieved when designing a tank based on ready-made, structurally proven units. Since, when creating the T-34, practically none of the tank units met this requirement, its layout was also carried out contrary to the rule. The roof of the engine compartment was easily removable; All this was of tremendous importance in the first half of the war, when more tanks went out of action due to technical malfunctions than from enemy influence (for example, on April 1, 1942, the active army had 1642 serviceable and 2409 serviceable tanks of all types, while while our combat losses in March amounted to 467 tanks). As the quality of the units improved, which reached the highest level for the T-34-85, the value of the maintainable layout decreased, but the language does not dare 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 Asia and Africa, sometimes in extreme climatic conditions and with personnel who had a very mediocre, if not more, level of training.

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

Since then, we have lived with this clear understanding that we made the best tank in the world. In general, as winners, we did our best. The best weapon, the best American lend-lease, the best American aircraft and so on, and, of course, a tank.

But today, with my guests, we will once again raise this very dangerous and controversial topic, with the same question: so, after all, which tank is the best, well, not that it showed itself in World War II, but at least it was appreciated by the users themselves as the most adapted to the tasks at hand.

Vyacheslav Len, collector, publisher, antiquary, historian, gambler, reviving and returning to our country its history.

Yuri Pasholok, a historian of armored vehicles, an encyclopedist, a person who knows the answer to the very question about which we have gathered here for three. Hello.

S. Aslanyan: Well, now I'll listen to you. So which tank is the best?

Y. Pasholok: Well, they still recognized the T-34 as the best tank of the Second World War.

S. Aslanyan: Shugurov, God rest him, who graduated from Baumanka, and also understood something about tanks, every time it came to this maxim, he carefully remarked: “Well, he has a transmission tunnel, suspension, sights ... Well, in general, yes , overall, not bad".

I asked those people who fought on the T-34 what they think about this, they said different things, but most often they called the German T-4 (PzKpfw IV Ausf H), after modernization since 1943.

They considered him the best, although, in general, they fought directly with him, and since they won, they probably still had some kind of, apparently, talent and vitality, because if the German tank was the best, and we won, it also remains question.

Y. Pasholok: Well, on this occasion it is interesting to learn this information from the Germans. I can say that the modernization of the T-4, in fact, ended at the end of 1942. Because it turned out that further loading it with armor, in general, is useless, because then it will have to redo the chassis. Therefore, the German T-4 tank, it has 80 millimeters of armor in the forehead, on the hull, but in the turret - the same 50 millimeters.

V. Len: But its advantage is that it was not as difficult to manufacture as the T-3 (Pz.Kpfw.III). The T-3 had torsion bar suspensions, but this one has a completely different one. The body was welded separately, there were no torsion bars,

it had completely different levers, so to speak, and therefore it was easier to manufacture. They could have been made much more, which was more than relevant for the Germans in the second half. Although the Germans themselves say that at the beginning of the war, the T-3 was more convenient for them. Well, it's in practice.

S. Aslanyan: Did the T-34 have flaws?

Y. Pasholok: Yes, sure. I'll tell you more, the T-34 that we know did not suit our military already at the beginning of 1941. Firstly, they were not satisfied with the fact that, in fact, he was pulling on a two-seat car. Well, actually, to be honest, the T-34 is a development of the BT tank. Very, very deep, but still it's BT. Well, with their cockroaches, with their shortcomings. Initially, the 17-18-ton machine began to weigh at first 27 tons, and by 1941, by the end, all 30.

S. Aslanyan: But what a motor.

Y. Pasholok: Well, the motor is not bad, but the problem, for example, is with the gearbox. The suspension was already considered unsuccessful. Moreover, initially the BT-20 tank, which is known as the A-20, the prototype of the T-34, was already initially told about its development: “Guys, why don’t we make a torsion bar, otherwise we have a little goat back and forth when we accelerate , we brake sharply.

S. Aslanyan: Well, yes. The problem of those who fought on the T-34, including in their description, boiled down to the fact that before firing it was necessary to wait until the tank settled down, until it swayed in all directions, and this was, in general, not the time which one could afford under enemy fire in anticipation of spending.

V. Len: They also shot on the move, but very rarely, and very few people could do it. Of course we had to stop. As a rule, the signal to stop the mechanic was given by foot. The tank commander hit him in the back. It meant stop. Short stop. And indeed the tank stopped rocking, and a shot was fired immediately. But, as a rule, they took into account this buildup.

S. Aslanyan: Of course, those who fought on it, they already knew all the features of the car, and took into account, including this, but here is the episode reproduced in the film, quite honestly, “In war as in war”, when our unit is being redeployed self-propelled gunners, and they go out into the clearing, where there are three wrecked T-34s, and one "Tiger". Here is the ratio of one to three, in order to fill up one German, you had to spend three of your own ...

V. Len: For "Tiger" much more was needed. At least a company to surround him. It was necessary completely ... All our tankers say that it was necessary for six or seven tanks to circle around him at once, so that he would not have time. His main thing was to blind him, it was necessary to knock out all his viewing devices.

This was told to me by a German tanker, by the way. It was scary. Of course, when the viewing devices were all knocked out, then they simply stopped, it was useless - where to shoot.

Y. Pasholok: But, in fact, in the case of the "Tiger" I can say that when we captured the "Tiger" near Leningrad and fired at it, it turned out that the 76 mm shell did not penetrate the frontal armor (and the sides, in general, too) from a distance 200 meters. Well, we can assume that almost completely point blank.

V. Len: Point blank.

Y. Pasholok: Yes. And only if they had caliber shells, which they already had in service in 1943, then yes, something could be done.

S. Aslanyan: And our KV-1? Maybe he is the best tank?

Y. Pasholok: No, the fact is that the KV-1 is the case when the tank was overweight. The original tank, which was, it weighed 40 tons. The tank that went into production was the very first, 42.5. It already weighed 45 tons in 1941, at the beginning, and everyone loaded it and loaded it, and it already weighed 47.5 tons in the summer. But it’s real that he has a cast tower, we are already getting almost 50 tons of mass.

As a result, his final drives flew, the friction clutches burned, and he burned already at the beginning of 1941. The box kept falling out. And, in fact, this was the reason why the KV-1 was discontinued. Lightened it up to 42.5 tons, it turned out KV-1S.

V. Len: But, the main drawback is its barrel, a 76-mm gun. In my opinion, it was a very good tank, it would have had a more powerful barrel. But again, to increase the barrel is to increase the weight, which Yura was talking about. And significantly.

S. Aslanyan: The complexity of managing this tank was such that it was one of the few tanks that had two officer positions on board. The driver was a junior lieutenant, an officer. This suggests what kind of incredible technique could be entrusted to such a qualified specialist.

V. Len: Everything is correct.

Y. Pasholok: Well, of course, this is a breakthrough tank. There must be an officer in the crew.

S. Aslanyan: But the officer was the commander, and the officer was the mechanic. Two officers aboard one tank. Absolutely amazing staffing.

Total. Does all of the above give reason to believe that the T-34 could be the best tank, but none of them was an ideal tank?

Y. Pasholok: Best tank war, the one that is produced in large quantities, more or less corresponds to its function on the battlefield, has a fairly simple design that allows it to be operated in combat conditions, and has a reserve for modernization. Say, the T-34 really had a reserve of modernization until the end of the war. T-4, in fact, ceased, as I said, at the end of 1942. An English tank, for example, "Matilda", it ceased to be capable of modernization already, in fact, in 1941.

S. Aslanyan: Total. From these, for example, the mentioned names, is the portrait of the best tank already dancing? Or you still need to go through all our armed forces and mention the Americans, who also fought with us.

V. Len: The Americans with their Sherman, of course, are a good tank, comfortable, our tankers say that it was a cool tank, but very often they say that they burned them themselves.

S. Aslanyan: Sabotage?

V. Len: Yes exactly. It is one and a half times higher than the T-34, but with a small 76-mm cannon. It was very unfortunate, in my opinion, in order to compare it with the T-34. T-34 is much better than him.

Y. Pasholok: But in the case of the Americans, I can say this. The most the main task when the M4 medium tank was being made, it was ... We already have the M3 medium tank in production, which is known as "Lee", we need to new car unify with it, so as not to drastically shovel production. Therefore, the M4 is such a tank of compromise. Moreover, its replacement began to be made already in 1942, but in the end it turned out at the end of 1944 the Pershing tank.

S. Aslanyan: Which was how lucky and successful?

Y. Pasholok: Well, it so happened to them that, in general, the medium tank turned into actually like ... Well, 2 tons lighter than the Lee tank.

S. Aslanyan: Vyacheslav Len, a collector, publisher and specialist in military equipment, returns to our country the pages of its history, including in a living, embodied form, bringing from abroad at his own expense a lot of equipment that we somehow lost. Yuri Pasholok, historian of armored vehicles, encyclopedist, and, in addition, a master who can revive and put a tank into motion with his own hands. We are trying to find an answer to a question that is not an axiom, it is precisely the reason for the discussion: what is the best tank in World War II? We were armed with as many things as we had, to put it mildly, different brands in this respect.

Y. Pasholok: Well, we can say that the same Germans had the same thing.

V. Len: If not more.

Y. Pasholok: Yes, if not more. We must proceed from the following that the tank, in fact, becomes obsolete at the time of its adoption into service. Namely, the end of the 30s, when the T-34 was born ... By the way, such a small, interesting fact that the Germans did not like the T-3 and T-4 already in 1938. The tanks that we know, "Tiger" and "Panther", are very, very well-fed tanks in terms of armament and weight, which were originally supposed to replace the T-3 and T-4. As a result, the T-3 was replaced by the Panther, which is twice as heavy.

S. Aslanyan: How ineffective is it?

V. Len:"Panther" is very effective.

S. Aslanyan: The fact of the matter is that the increase in mass, it cannot be said that, as with a woman, it greatly spoiled her figure, and everyone turned away from her.

V. Len: She had a beautiful trunk, excellent driving performance. On it you feel like driving a car, the handling is just crazy on this tank. You can shoot on the move quite calmly. It simply absorbs bumps, stones, everything imaginable and unimaginable. The tank was so successful.

Y. Pasholok: But there is a nuance. The problem is that the Panther, in fact, never became the main medium tank, because it was quite difficult to manufacture. Those firms that took up its production, they could not fulfill the plan that was supposed. Therefore, the “four” remained the main medium tank of the Wehrmacht.

V. Len: But, nevertheless, "Panther" about 5000 pieces, in my opinion, have been made.

Y. Pasholok: Well, actually, at that time, the Germans were already thinking even more likely not about tanks, but about fighters. The most interesting fact is that the Germans have the most massive armored unit - this is the "Geschutz", this is a self-propelled anti-tank gun.

V. Len: At first, it was not anti-tank, but one might say anti-personnel. They entered Russia with a so-called “cigarette butt”, with a barrel ... Well, “fifty dollars” is called in slang, both in German and in Russian. This is a short barrel with a 50 mm ... Well, first 50, then 75. The goal was to spit into the trench just like a mortar, as they say, there is no other way to call it.

Well, then, by 1942 and at the end of 1941, other goals appeared. Everything that the Germans could achieve with an offensive war, they achieved. Then there were already difficult victories for them. Moscow nevertheless set a border for an offensive German weapons. It was already more necessary to have defensive and, so to speak, anti-tank. Because Russia and the Soviet Union, it is correct to say, and our allied countries already produced such a quantity of equipment and tanks that it was necessary to fight with tanks with equipment. The direct purpose of the tank.

S. Aslanyan: And at what stage did it become clear that the infantry had nothing to oppose? Was there such a moment in the history of the war when it was clear that such equipment could only be stopped by technology? Or is it all the same to the last heroism and the Mosin rifle?

Y. Pasholok: 1943 When the Germans had Tiger and Panther en masse, it was exactly the episode when the German army got a weapon that, well, let's say, if not everything is impossible to oppose, then at least it is very difficult. But this stage, in fact, lasted until the end of 1943.

But look what happened in 1943. They lost the Kursk Bulge. Rolled back further. The front very quickly rolled back several hundred kilometers.

V. Len: Resources. The war of resources has already begun, in principle. To put it mildly, a country that is richer, human and material resources, so to speak, resources, well, all equipment and so on, it will win. We have already begun to fight ... Many people call it “throwing hats”, but this is not so. With your resources. First of all, human.

S. Aslanyan: But, nevertheless, it turns out that until 1943 it was still possible, one way or another, for infantry to resist tanks? After 1943, the weapons on the German side had already acquired such a specific focus that a response was needed at the level of comparable technology?

Y. Pasholok: Not only. First of all, we have cumulative grenades in service. First, the RPG-43, then the RPG-6, which completely pierced the side of the Panther. Secondly, we changed tactics. The same anti-tank artillery, which the infantry always had, had several guns working on one machine at once. As a result, it seems like the tank is intact, but it can no longer drive and shoot.

V. Len: No one.

Y. Pasholok: Someone, yes.

V. Len: As a rule, the gunners tried first, if it was a large tank, to immobilize it, knock down one of the tracks, and then it became an easy target, it could not leave. And as a rule, if a caterpillar was shot down, the tank stood sideways to the gunners, and as a rule, the gunners did not put one gun at a time. The tactics that Yura is talking about are crowded: they put five guns all together and one aside somewhere, 300 meters away. And five stood side by side, in fact, 20-30 meters from each other. Maybe even at 15.

Y. Pasholok: Well, our sappers do not need to be written off, as it were. The failure of the German offensive on Ponyri, where Ferdinand (Sd.Kfz.184) participated, which could not be penetrated by anything ...

V. Len: On the Kursk Bulge it happened.

Y. Pasholok: Yes, on the Kursk Bulge. It choked thanks to our sappers. The Germans lost a whole bunch of these Ferdinands there, which were blown up on exposed anti-tank mine screens.

V. Len: Since "Ferdinand" did not have ... Surprisingly, a huge self-propelled gun, incredible, the best one can say (would be), but it did not have elementary machine gun protection against infantry. It just wasn't. And so our sappers just burned almost all of them. There were 90 of them in that place, and almost 70 of them were burned there.

Y. Pasholok: 35 irretrievable losses precisely on the Kursk Bulge.

V. Len: Irrevocable - it is torn to shreds. The Germans had a very large system, such a gradation, almost ten scales. The tank, in a word, if it was torn into shreds, then this is the tenth scale. And everything else, burned and so on, is being treated, repaired, taken away, and the like.

Therefore, when the Germans talk about their losses on the Kursk Bulge, you don’t have to listen to it much, real losses by our standards ... We didn’t repair the T-34: it burned down and burned out. It was cheaper to make it again than to take it to the factory, take it apart, sort it out, and so on. The Germans had something else: if the tank did not shatter, they restored it. They were dragged to the rear and sent to factories. It was cheaper for them. And we had a conveyor.

Y. Pasholok: In this sense, we can say that we did not shower them with corpses, we showered them with iron.

V. Len: Everything is correct.

Y. Pasholok: And by the way, with regard to the "Tigers" and their losses, it must be borne in mind that, in general, behind each German tank battalion, in which the "Tigers" were, there was a train with spare parts.

V. Len: Real echelon.

Y. Pasholok: In reality, the Germans won not because they had better tanks, but because they had much better material support and, by the way, our victories are further, 1943 and beyond, firstly, we learned how to fight, stopped these sketches, “We need to capture it by such and such a date,” operations have already begun competently ...

This is clearly seen, for example, in the battles of 1944, when ours literally did not notice the German Tiger battalions: they rolled it out - and, in general, that's all, no. This is first.

Secondly, thanks, among other things, to the same Lend-Lease, we have a good material support. American trucks, including ... Not just a truck, but there were also repair kits and other vehicles. Thanks to all this, we received good material support, and this greatly affected the results.

V. Len: Letuchki, by the way, were chic, so equipped. And welding machines, and lathes, and drilling, and what was not there. In the field, it was possible to actually restore a blown up tank on a mine, and it was combat-ready.

S. Aslanyan: And besides the Lend-Lease flyers, what did fight in our army in general? On the topic of armor?

Y. Pasholok: Well, look, we, firstly, took a very serious look at self-propelled guns, already from the end of 1941. And the reason was banal: due to the fact that either the factories were evacuated, or the tractor factories stopped making tractors, and began to make tanks, a very comical situation turned out: we have guns, but we have nothing to carry them with. Therefore, the program was launched self-propelled artillery, it worked for about a year, and as a result, already in the winter of 1943, medium, light and heavy self-propelled units went into the troops.

V. Len: Before that, of course, the gunners tell something terrible: always on horseback, they hitch four horses somewhere, six horses - and they went, they dragged the cannon. It was, of course, a horse-drawn circus, so to speak. That's how we got to Moscow. And our guns were dragged from Moscow on horseback.

S. Aslanyan: But after we replaced the horses with self-propelled guns and applied lend-lease for its intended purpose, purely technically (not to mention tactically) we became unambiguously victorious? Or, nevertheless, from the German side, unfortunately, there were also quite combat-ready people and equipment?

Y. Pasholok: Well, the point here is that we need to look at the situation soberly and say that we have learned to fight, and we have received equipment that can really win.

V. Len: By the end of 1942.

Y. Pasholok: Yes. Here is the same, for example, SU-152, this self-propelled unit, which was originally developed to open enemy pillboxes, turned out, in principle, to be a very good tank destroyer. It is she who is called "St. John's wort".

V. Len: By the way, ours managed just because of the hills ... If the "Tiger" could only shoot in a straight line, then the self-propelled artillery mount (well, Yura says about 152 mm) could shoot like a canopy. Like a mortar. What our tankers perfectly used. They simply retreated behind the hill, if they understood that one or two “34s” were burned ahead, and they beat the “Tiger”, and the “Tiger”, as a rule, was a very arrogant tank, it burned calmly from 1.5 kilometers T -34 ours. Our T-34 could plant it in the side from 500 meters.

S. Aslanyan: Vyacheslav Len - publisher, antiquary, collector - well, a person who, in general, makes history not a dead paragraph in a textbook, but a living element of our modern life, you can go and see Len's footprints on Poklonnaya Hill, where, among other things, part of his collections. Yuri Pasholok is a historian of armored vehicles, an encyclopedist, a man who knows why a tank drives and knows how to breathe life into it.

We just finished on light tanks, I was reading the combat log of one of our tank regiments, this is the end of 1941, the entire regiment was on the Stuart, and it had only one entry: "The regiment entered the battle."

V. Len: With a 37 mm gun against the Germans with 75 mm guns, of course, no other record could follow.

S. Aslanyan: Yes, it’s just that the regiment was gone after that, they didn’t reach it.

V. Len: Everything is correct.

S. Aslanyan: They couldn't even sneak up, they just got out, and with that the entire regiment was destroyed.

V. Len: 2008 pieces were delivered to us.

Y. Pasholok: No, there is something on the order of a thousand, but, firstly, about the M-3 lung, and in general, in principle, the lungs American tanks, you can see it very well at the site in Kubinka, here is the tallest tank - this is the American "M5A1", a light tank.

V. Len: On which they landed, by the way, in large numbers in Normandy, but it must be taken into account that I will separately say about Normandy, only 60 defeated divisions opposed, and how many entered the Soviet Union - 300 pieces.

Y. Pasholok: 150 divisions for 1941 alone. As for light tanks, you need to understand that, firstly, we didn’t really understand about German equipment, the same M-3 light tanks ended the war in 1945 as part of regiments, for example, in cavalry divisions, there are some.

S. Aslanyan: Well, we still have cavalry, the Germans no longer had cavalry since 1943, they still had cavalry as a branch of service, in the form of cavalry reconnaissance companies with each SS regiment, and an element of the cavalry uniform - the famous yellow clearance, yellow shoulder straps and yellow buttonholes - he flashed only among those officers who were in the cavalry in the First World War, and the German cavalrymen put the checkers back into the warehouses and caulked into the chests just at the turn of 1942-1943, as the Germans did not have an active branch of the cavalry troops.

Y. Pasholok: And our cavalry felt very well right up to the end of the war. First, we make a breach, then the cavalry is launched there, which begins to work very effectively in the rear, and each cavalry division had a regiment of at least 10 tanks.

V. Len: That's right, tanks started first, we have already learned, under machine guns, as it was at the beginning of the war, when regiments lay down to go into the breakthrough, it was useless. By the way, one German describes, by the way, also from the cavalry division, which was stationed in Nakhabino, near Moscow, 20 kilometers from Moscow, we note, this is how he writes how our cavalrymen tried to break through, two regiments were seated there, just a terrible massacre: they are with machine guns against of our cavalry, no one survived. One regiment, and after an hour and a half, in my opinion, the second regiment was laid down.

Y. Pasholok: Yes, and then we have a completely different picture, moreover, everything was thrown into our cavalry according to the principle “on you, God, what’s not good for us”, therefore, in the same Lvov-Sandomierz operation, one of the cavalry regiments went into battle, having Matilda.

V. Len: Well, yes, this is the old tank that we just talked about, 1941-1942.

Y. Pasholok: The British stopped riding them in Africa, and we calmly used them in offensive operations.

V. Len: But they were developed for Africa, in which the sides are completely sewn up with armor.

Y. Pasholok: And the same "Valentine", which the British stopped actually using in battles in 1943 - we have reached the end of the war.

V. Len: And moreover, our tankers spoke very well of them due to the fact that they have a low hull, a really very low tank, and a low turret - they could sneak up on the Germans. They have rubberized tracks, a very quiet tank, it has a car engine, it got very close to the "Tiger" and literally could go in from the rear, and this case was described, in my opinion, in Hungary: two "Valentines" destroyed two " Tiger, incredible.

Y. Pasholok: And in general, if we are talking about the best tanks, then since we mentioned the Valentine, there are various disputes about which tank is the best of the light ones, but if you look at a sober look, the British released the best light tank into the war.

V. Len: Not average, like the T-34.

Y. Pasholok: This is, firstly, the most massive English tank, which was produced not only in England, but also in Canada, by the way, the Canadians mainly supplied them to us, they did not produce them for themselves. The tank is very technologically advanced, the tank was very reliable, it used a massive diesel engine, and at first they used their bus diesel engines, and then they began to use American diesel engines from GM, by the way, the same ones that we later produced in Yaroslavl.

V. Len: And to this day they produce, modernized.

Y. Pasholok: In general, yes, this is the same diesel. And the most interesting thing is that this tank started with a 40-mm cannon, which, by the way, did not have high-explosive fragmentation ammunition, well, the British were like that, very peculiar.

V. Len: Only armor-piercing, only armor-piercing could be fired against infantry.

Y. Pasholok: Yes, for infantry - here you are, with machine guns. Real lords consider it wrong to hit the infantry with high-explosive fragmentation shells. Then they put in a 57-mm cannon, which also did not have fragmentation shells, and here are the Valentine IX, which, in fact, came to us in mass quantities - it was they who worked well on the Tiger, they were good tanks, but not infantry, because there was so much space that they really didn’t have enough space for a machine gun on the Valentine IX. The tank is working - well, it will spit on someone with a blank. Already "Valentine X" received a machine gun, but we only had 60 of them, or something.

On the other hand, we also had people with ingenuity, and they noticed: “So, guys, you are supplying us with 157 installations,” this was an American 57-mm gun on the halftruck, “so, this is the same gun, and to it there is high-explosive fragmentation ammunition. Great, we will solve problems at the expense of the actual American supplies. The Australians, who fought in the Pacific on their Matilda and Valentine, they solved the problem in a different way, they set up their production, took the ammunition from the Bofors anti-aircraft guns and used it, and we, in general, solved the problem with ingenuity.

S. Aslanyan: And it turns out that the best tank of the Second World War is the Valentine, and in relation to the medium tank, which inevitably becomes the most massive on the battlefield, the appointment of this title depends not only on its characteristics, but also on the economic component - on the production price , from the cost?

Y. Pasholok: Yes, and on this occasion it is worth thinking about the fact that cheap tanks were produced in the Soviet Union. If I am not mistaken, the exchange rate of the ruble to the Reichsmark in 1940 was 2.1 rubles to 1 Reichsmark.

For reference, the T-3 cost about 120 thousand Reichsmarks, this is without weapons, well, okay, somewhere around 130-135 thousand Reichsmarks for one tank. And now, attention, according to the agreements between the Main Armored Directorate and the Kharkov Locomotive Plant, aka Plant No. 183, one T-34 cost 400 thousand rubles. So it turns out that, in general, our tanks are relatively cheap.

But one thing - Peaceful time and another thing is war. Already by February 1, 1942, the T-34 without a walkie-talkie cost 240 thousand rubles. The T-34-85 cost, in my opinion, 190 thousand rubles by the beginning of production, then they dropped the price to 170 thousand rubles.

S. Aslanyan: For what?

Y. Pasholok: Simplification of the design, because, in general, to be honest, it is much more profitable for the manufacturer to make the tank as labor intensive as possible so that it can raise the price. On this occasion, there were very serious battles, if someone thinks that money was not counted in the Soviet Union, he is very deeply mistaken.

V. Len: That the Germans, in principle, had not been decided before the end of the war, everything was commercial there, all the factories belonged to private individuals, so Hitler could not break their price tags for tanks and so on, everything I saw German was like a work of art , respectively, a work of art and costs the same. These tanks were so expensive, incredibly expensive to manufacture, and not only tanks - cars, and everything that is only related to the war, respectively, we were talking about resources

- German tanks could not be produced in such massive quantities, because they were super-expensive during the war.

S. Aslanyan: Now it’s clear why you became an antiquary.

Y. Pasholok: As for the German tanks, by the way. When at one time there was a big interview with the late collector Jacques Littlefield, who, in general, started with modeling 1 to 5, and ended up with the world's largest private collection ...

V. Len: Which, unfortunately, is now on sale.

Y. Pasholok: Yes, he said, “I looked at the Sherman and it has four types of pipes. Then I looked at Panther - and she has 20 types of pipes.

V. Len: 26.

Y. Pasholok:“And after that I understood why the Germans lost the war.”

S. Aslanyan: Due to technical difficulty.

V. Len: Everything is correct. This Yura is referring to the tubes in order to remove the engine. On the Sherman, four pipes were unscrewed, and that's it, on the Panther - 26.

S. Aslanyan: Non-repairable.

V. Len: No, it is suitable, but it must be a specialist the highest level to change, any machine operator from the village who rode a tractor will calmly transfer this engine to the Sherman, but to the Panther - only the highest level specialist, whom they have been raising for years.

S. Aslanyan: And if, nevertheless, the tactical and technical characteristics of tanks, the T-34 on a pedestal, are left in the bottom line?

Y. Pasholok: In general, yes, because the fact that

The T-34 was officially decommissioned in 1997, which is saying something.

V. Len: And our tankers, mind you, who won the Second World War, I believe that the back of fascism was completely broken by the Soviet Union, all the landings in Normandy and so on - these were all easy walks compared to what happened with the Soviet Union, we should remember and respect their ancestors.

So, literally this Saturday, I was talking on Poklonka with the commander of the T-34-85 tank, Georgy Egorovich Kuzmin, and so he said that the T-34-85 was the best tank, and he started the war in a motorized battalion on July 15, 1941 year, the tank received near Stalingrad. So, this man went through the whole war, and he said: "The T-34 was the best tank." I respect him, a deep bow to all the tankers who fought on these tanks, it was they who defeated great Germany, and the myth about them was broken here on Soviet soil.

Y. Pasholok: Well, and, by the way, with regard to British tanks, the British had such an excellent tank industry that the Sherman tank was the most massive English tank in the war.

S. Aslanyan: In total, the economy assigned its own idea of ​​​​which tank is the best, because the most affordable in production, and for all that, the T-34 is still really the best tank of the Second World War, because the economic component for it is a mass tank, especially the T-34-85 worth 190 thousand rubles, and performance characteristics.

I read from the Germans in their memoirs their rave reviews about our T-34, when they knocked it out in the village, approached an already defeated tank, ammunition was burning in the tank, and none of the Germans retreated, knowing full well and being drugged by this legend - they they said that, of course, the ammunition would explode now, but “we know that his armor is so strong that nothing will hit us.”

V. Len: And when the tower flew away with these Germans, when high-explosive shells exploded, then they didn’t think about anything, and the tower, especially on the early T-34s, for one, two, three. God forbid, a direct hit, or the diesel fuel began to burn after it hit the tanks - that's it, the tower - the first thing that flew away within a few minutes, flew 50 meters away.

Y. Pasholok: In this case, it makes sense to just raise the issue of the shortcomings of the T-34, of which there were a sufficient number.

S. Aslanyan: Having made a remark that this is rightfully the best tank.

Y. Pasholok: Yes. So, firstly, this tank had tanks inside the fighting compartment with all the ensuing consequences for the crew. Actually, it is believed that a gasoline engine is more dangerous - not quite so. The fact is that when it hits a half-empty fuel tank, it detonates no worse than ammunition, a tank can not only fly away the tower, but also fly forward the frontal sheet.

V. Len: The sides are expanded - this is just a tank. Shells - this is when the tower flew away.

Y. Pasholok: Secondly, there was a big problem: the T-34 is really "blind". The Germans had a bunch of observation hatches - this is both a disadvantage, since something can fly into any of these hatches, and at the same time an advantage, because the commander sitting in the commander's cupola sees everything. We simply did not have time to make a commander's cupola. It was supposed to be a tank with a torsion bar suspension, with tanks stowed in the aft, engine compartment, there should have been a triple tower with commander's cupola, reinforced with armor, but, unfortunately, all this did not have time. In fact, we received such a tank only at the end of 1944, it was called the T-44. And the T-34 is, in fact, the machine on which they had to fight, just like the Germans had to fight instead of their VK-2001 and VK-3001 ...

V. Len: Predecessors of "Tiger".

Y. Pasholok: Yes, and Panther. They had to fight with what they have, with the car ...

V. Len: which has been established in production.

Y. Pasholok: Yes, the T-3, which went into production in 1936, and the T-4, which went into production also in 1936. What other disadvantages does the T-34 have? Actually, the suspension is candle, “swinging” - by the way, the British did not have these problems. Why? Actually, the British, like us, bought a license from Christie, but somehow they stopped following Christie in our country in the mid-1930s, and they did it absolutely in vain, because in 1936 Christie introduced into the design of his tank a parallel shock absorber that solved the goat problem once and for all. And by the way, when they say that the “Christie” suspension is for light tanks - there is such a very light tank as the “Merkava”, it has 70 tons of combat weight.

V. Len: Officially - but on the bottom a 10-ton plate from mines is installed.

Y. Pasholok: Yes, so, this tank has Christie suspension, they just introduced a second shock absorber.

S. Aslanyan: Which is what they use to this day. But the problem of visibility and sights on the T-34 was solved ...

V. Len: There was a problem in the early days.

Y. Pasholok: So, there were no problems with sights. The fact is that even dug TMFD sights are quite normal.

V. Len: This is the commander and gunner.

Y. Pasholok: And by the way, the Americans recognized them as much better than their own. The main problem was precisely in the observation devices. Firstly, we had a construction made of stalinite, two pieces of iron, polished to a shine. The tank will shoot - it can burst. Then they changed it with big fights, the plant was very resistant to changing Stalinit for something else - they put prisms. But the problem: due to a violation of technology, they turned yellow very quickly. For example, these prisms were made in Gorky, but they did not get coal to the boiler room - as a result, they got married.

V. Len: But at the beginning of the war, tankmen very often describe, namely, mechanics - viewing devices were enough for exactly 10 minutes. What they were doing? Before the battle, the hatch is always open exactly on the palm of your hand. And so, they go into battle - as a rule, at first they did it, later they didn’t do it either. One viewing device is opened, they look at it for 5-10 minutes, then the second one. It is very easy - it leans back with its hands, they are right in front of the driver, these two viewing devices, but after 15-20 minutes of the battle you just need to open the hatch, and due to this, a lot of drivers died.

Both tank commanders and radio gunners describe this situation - very often driver mechanics died precisely because the hatch was open, the tank commander very often says that it’s just without a head - they drive, they drive, the tank stopped, they can’t understand what is it, they lower their head down - the mechanic has no head. This very often took place due to the fact that the hatch was ajar on the palm of your hand.

The gunner-radio operator himself could not shoot in this tank, the viewing gap was literally 10 millimeters - it was impossible to observe the battlefield through this hole. All that he did at the beginning of the war was to help the driver change the three-speed, outdated gearbox, and turn cigarettes for the driver, he was like an assistant to the driver. The radio, in principle, did not need it, it was possible to switch to internal communication without it.

Y. Pasholok: There is also the problem that, in general, he could, of course, get somewhere from his course machine gun, but it is problematic, because he did not have a sight as such - he had a hole in the ball mount.

V. Len: The hole is small.

Y. Pasholok: Only in 1943 did they begin to introduce the PPO-8 device, which is a sight adapted for a ball mount "PO" for sniper rifle. This sight has been actually installed since 1944, and even then not on all cars, but it went only to the T-34-85. As for surveillance devices, our armored vehicles still have such a device as the MK-4. It is believed that this is, in fact, an English device that was developed by the Polish engineer Gundlach, but the name "Wickers MK-4" and our name MK-4 have a slightly different origin.

In this case, this is not a device, but a tank, a device similar to the device that is installed on the MK-4 tank, "Churchill". This is a prism, which consists of two parts, if some fragment hit, this upper prism was broken - it was possible to open this prism, drop the top and put a new one. In addition, it can rotate 360 ​​degrees, which is very convenient. Thanks to this, in fact, we stopped having a "blind" tank. Ideally, the T-34-85 in the turret each of the crew members had an MK-4 sight, and the same thing on our heavy tanks.

V. Len: About T-34-85, modified T-34-76. It already had a five-speed gearbox installed, which the tankers already rated as very good. I drove both the T-34-76 and the T-34-85. Very often, tankers write that the T-34-76 immediately before the attack turned on the second gear, because on the battlefield they might not turn on the third gear, and accordingly, the tank was immobilized and became a target. As for the second period of the war, the T-34-85 had a good gearbox, and this problem for tankers has already gone.

S. Aslanyan: What crew did the T-34 have, how many people? After all, he constantly changed in composition.

Y. Pasholok: Four people in a T-34, five people in a T-34-85.

V. Len: Very often, early T-34-76s did not take a gunner-radio operator with them, because he is a useless crew member, in fact, as for the second period of the war, the crews were already almost always full.

S. Aslanyan: What did the five people do - jobs?

Y. Pasholok: So, a driver, a gunner-radio operator, but already further - just a shooter, because the T-34-85 radio moved to the tower, respectively, the commander - he also became a radio operator, gunner and loader.

S. Aslanyan: Still, a shell feeder is such a position, without which you can’t go anywhere?

Y. Pasholok: Oh sure.

V. Len: Absolutely. And by the way, on early vehicles it was such a position - I will tell you the episodes that the tankers told. During the battle, inexperienced loaders lost consciousness after the very first shots, the powder gases had nowhere to go, and, as a rule, the T-34s went into battle with open hatches: so that the loader, after the cartridge case fired, would throw them into this hatch , because the sleeve lies at the bottom, and there is an ammunition rack, and continues to smoke, so the loaders tried to simply throw these sleeves overboard through the hatches during the battle.

Y. Pasholok: This, in fact, is a continuation of the shortcomings of the T-34. Based on the experience of Khalkhin Gol and the battles for Lake Khasan, it was decided that the tank should have one large hatch so that the commander could shoot back, he opened the hatch in front and could shoot from personal weapons.

V. Len: Like a shield.

Y. Pasholok: Yes, but it's actually a trap for the crew, because if the crew is injured, they won't lift this hatch.

V. Len: Oh, and by the way, no one closed the hatch - they just tried to tie the hatch to the rope. The commander did it for sure. And they tried not to keep belts, belts, and so on, so as not to catch on during the evacuation from the tank. And there was an even bigger problem: the device for intercom, which is in the helmet, has a very powerful plug, and many wounded tankers did not jump out of the tank just because they could not pull out this device.

Y. Pasholok: By the way, the Germans have the same thing. When there were some legends that a German was chained in a tank, in fact, he couldn’t get out just the same, he could get caught ...

V. Len: And back, flies into the tank.

Y. Pasholok: All his headset became a grave for him.

S. Aslanyan: They were Vyacheslav Len and Yuri Pasholok. We answered the question, what is the best tank of the Second World War. The answer is still the same - T-34.

Y. Pasholok: Absolutely right.

The specialists of the American Military History Museum have chosen the 10 best tanks of the Second World War. It is noteworthy that in the foreign rating there is not only a tank that did not fight, but also a self-propelled gun.

Heavy tank"Joseph Stalin"

See all photos in the gallery

The heavy tank "Joseph Stalin", better known as the IS-2, was named after the leader of the USSR and at the time of its appearance was the strongest in the world. Its armor successfully withstood the fire of German anti-tank artillery, and after modernization, when the “stepped” upper frontal part was replaced with its straightened configuration, it could hold shells of the most powerful 88-mm Pak 43 anti-tank gun at close range. The tank itself was armed with a 122-mm cannon, shells which pierced such tanks as Tank PzKpfw IV Ausf H, PzKpfw.VI Tiger and PzKpfw V Panther right through.

JagdPanther

According to the German classification, the JagdPanther is a tank destroyer. This machine is considered one of the best self-propelled guns of the Second World War. Managed to fight in the Western and Eastern fronts, JagdPanther proved to be a dangerous opponent, its Pak.43 L / 71 gun (88 mm, 71 caliber) pierced the armor of almost any Allied tank from 1000 meters.

M4 Sherman

The most massive tank american army during the Second World War, a total of about 50 thousand of these machines were produced.
The simple and reliable M4 Sherman was loved by tank crews. Its 75-mm gun, equipped with a Westinghouse gyroscopic stabilizer, made it possible to fire quite accurately even on the move. However, with the advent of the PzKpfw.VI "Tiger" and PzKpfw V "Panther", its armor penetration was not enough, and subsequently the tank was equipped with a more powerful gun. The main drawbacks of the tank were the high silhouette and weak armor, and the tank often caught fire when a projectile hit it. The Germans even nicknamed the M4 Sherman as the "Burning Cauldron" or "Soldier's Cauldron".

PzKpfw V "Panther"

This tank was created as a response to the Soviet T-34 and was subsequently supposed to replace the Panzer III and IV. Due to the technological complexity of production, this was not possible, as well as to bring the design of the tank to mind - the PzKpfw V "Panther" suffered from childhood illnesses throughout the war. Nevertheless, armed with a long-barreled 75-mm KWK-42 cannon with a length of 70 calibers, this tank was a formidable opponent. So, in one battle, “Panther” of SS Hauptscharführer Franz Faumer in Normandy destroyed 9 M4 Sherman and 4 more were captured absolutely serviceable. No wonder the Panther is considered by some experts to be the best tank of the Second World War.

PzKpfw IV

The main workhorse of the German armored forces throughout the war. The tank had a large reserve for modernization, thanks to which it was constantly improved and could withstand all its opponents on the battlefield. By the end of the war, when Germany's resources were depleted, the design of the PzKpfw IV was greatly simplified. For example, on the Ausf.J version, the turret electric drive and the auxiliary carburetor engine were removed, and in 1944 the road wheels had to be reduced and the zimmerite coating was abandoned. But the tank soldier, as the “four” is also called, continued to fight.

Sherman Firefly

The British Sherman variant, armed with a magnificent 17-pounder, could withstand the German PzKpfw.VI Tiger and PzKpfw V "Panther". Moreover, the English gun had not only excellent armor penetration, but also fit into a standard tank turret.
The long and thin barrel of the gun required careful handling: in the stowed position, the Sherman Firefly turret turned 180 degrees and the gun barrel was fixed on a special bracket mounted on the roof of the engine compartment.
In total, 699 tanks were converted: the crew of the vehicle was reduced to 4 people, in addition, the course machine gun was removed to accommodate part of the ammunition.

Adopted on December 19, 1941, the tank became a real nightmare for German tankers on the battlefield. Fast, agile and invulnerable to most Wehrmacht tank and anti-tank guns, the T-34 dominated the battlefield for the first two years of the war.
It is not surprising that further developments of the German anti-tank weapons were aimed primarily at fighting the terrible Soviet tank.
The T-34 was repeatedly modernized throughout the war, the most significant improvement was the installation of a new turret with an 85-mm cannon, which made it possible to fight the German "cats": PzKpfw.VI "Tiger" and PzKpfw V "Panther". By the way, due to their simplicity and efficiency, these tanks are still used in some countries of the world.

Even more advanced than the T-34-85, the T-44 medium tank was put into service in 1944, but never took part in the war. Before the end of World War II, only 190 cars were built. The T-44 became the predecessor of the most massive tank in history, the T-54/55. By the way, on the battlefield, 44 still lit up, but, however, in the cinema and in the role of German tanks Pz VI "Tiger" in the film "Liberation".

PzKpfw.VI "Tiger"

The best means of fighting the T-34 and KV tanks were 88 mm anti-aircraft guns, and the Germans rightly decided that if such weapons were adapted for installation on a tank chassis, then the tank superiority of the USSR could be neutralized.
A total of 1358 PzKpfw.VI "Tiger" tanks were built. Armed with the 88mm Kwk L56 cannon, these vehicles wreaked havoc on the enemy ranks.
Tank ace Michael Wittmann, who fought on the PzKpfw.VI "Tiger", destroyed 138 enemy tanks and 132 anti-tank guns. For the Americans and their allies, aviation became the only means of combating the Tigers. Thick frontal armor reliably protected the Pz VI from enemy gun fire. So, there is a case when the tank received 227 hits, but, despite the fact that the tracks and rollers were damaged, it was able to go another 65 kilometers until it was safe.

"Tiger II"

"Tiger II", aka "King Tiger", appeared at the final stage of the war. This is the heaviest and most armored tank of the Wehrmacht. The 88 mm KwK.43 L/71 cannon was used as armament, which almost divided the turret in half. In fact, it was an improved Flak 37 anti-aircraft gun modified for installation on a tank. Its projectile, at a meeting angle of 90 degrees, pierced armor 180 mm thick at a distance of one kilometer.
A downed tank was officially recorded at a distance of about 4 km. True, despite the thick armor, the tank was not invulnerable: by the end of the war, the Germans had lost deposits of alloying metals, and the armor of the "Tiger II" became fragile. And the constant bombing of factories did not allow the production of these machines in the required quantities.