![]() ![]() ![]() A series of three-way arguments about the design of the new tank followed, between the designers at Kharkov, the military and the Communist Party. These were similar to those of August 1937, but did add a requirement for sloped armour. In October 1937 the new design team received the official specifications for the new fast tank. Koshkin soon became chief designer for this new bureau, and would play a major part in the design of the T-34. A new design bureau KB-24 was created, with twenty one engineers from Kharkov and forty six moved in from Moscow. This specification reached the No.183 Factory at Kharkov just as its design team was being reorganised. This called for a tank with wheel-and-track suspension, as used on the BT series, 20-25mm of armour, a 45-75mm gun and a 400hp Diesel engine. The high command of the Armoured and Motorized forces of the Red Army (ABTV or Avto-Bronetankovye Voyska) wanted to replace the BT tanks with a new fast tank, and on 15 August 1937 issued Resolution No.94. In 1937 a large part of the Soviet tank force was made up of obsolete BT fast tanks. The T-34 emerged from three years of often confused development work, and was a very different vehicle to the one originally required in 1937. After this inauspicious start, the T-34 began to appear in ever larger numbers on the Eastern Front, and during the crucial battles around Stalingrad and at Kursk was almost the only tank in use with the Red Army. In 1941 it was the most advanced tank then in mass production, and nearly 1,000 were present on the front line at the start of Operation Barbarossa, but like every other Soviet tank the T-34 was swept aside in the first phase of German victories. The T-34 Medium Tank is by far the most famous Soviet weapon of the Second World War, and has become a symbol of the Red Army’s desperate struggle against the Germans. ![]()
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