Red Machines 3: T-34 Development & First Combat

Red Machines 3: T-34 Development & First Combat book

The Red Machines Series is entirely devoted to the hardware of the Red Army. Each volume provides in-depth information, much of it completely new to the western world, as well as a large number of photos, of which many have never been published to date. Blueprints, drawings, colour profiles and data tables are also provided with each volume to describe each vehicle’s development and production variants.

This book describes in detail the complex and nuanced development of what became the T-34, the conditions under which the tank was developed and tested, and how a few calm words by Stalin prevented the T-34, later the most famous Soviet tank of World War Two, from being terminated as a stillborn design during its development trials.

The T-34 medium tank was the best-known and most widely used Soviet tank of the Second World War. Produced at Plant No183 in Kharkiv, the Stalingrad Tractor Plant (STZ) and at plants in Gorky, Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk and in other cities, the T-34 and later T-34-85 were produced in larger numbers than any other Soviet wartime tank design.

The A-20G, A-32 and A-34 full-track prototypes that resulted in the production of the T-34 were developed from and in competition with combined wheel-track medium tank designs, the preferred direction for all but heavy tanks in the Soviet Union of the late 1930s. The new prototypes also went against other prevailing tank development thinking at the time. As such, the birth of the T-34 as a series production tank was not a foregone conclusion at the time of its development.

Book Data

Authors: Igor Zheltov & Alexey Makarov
ISBN: 9789198477641
Language: English
Pages: 208
Photos: 250+
Colour Profiles: 8
Physical: Hardcover, 280x210mm, portrait

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About the authors

Igor Gennadyvich Zheltov
For 15 years, Igor Zheltov worked as Deputy Director for research at the museum and memorial complex “History of the T-34” near Moscow. Since 1997, he has worked in the Russian state archives on issues related to the history of the development of Russian armoured combat vehicles. He is the co-author of more than 20 books on the history of tank building and types of armoured weapons and equipment. Twice winner of the literary prize “Prokhorov readings”, Igor Zheltov is one of the creators of the website “T-34inform”, dedicated to the history and design features of the T-34 tank and its modifications.

Alexey Yurevich Makarov
For several years Alexsey Makarov was a researcher at the Museum and memorial complex “History of the T-34” near Moscow. Since 2006, he has worked intensively within the Russian state archives on issues related to the history of Russian tank building in the pre-war and war years, and mainly on the topic “Development and production of the T-34 tank”. The author has published numerous articles in Russian naval historical and scientific-technical journals and is co-author of a series of books in Russia on the history of the legendary T-34 tank. He is also one of the creators of the site “T-34inform”, dedicated to the history and design of the T-34 tank and its modifications.

James Kinnear (Editor)
James Kinnear has been researching Soviet and Russian tanks since his first visit to the Soviet Union in the 1970s and has lived in the post-Soviet Russian Federation for almost three decades. As well as writing many articles on Russian military technology for Jane’s Soviet Intelligence Review, Jane’s Intelligence Review and Jane’s Defence Weekly, Classic Military Vehicles and Military Machines International, he has written books on Soviet and Russian military technology for Barbarossa, Canfora, Darlington, Osprey and Tankograd.