This blog is dedicated to bringing World War II era documents to the general public, with an overall focus on armoured warfare. Questions? Requests? Comments? Email me at tankarchives@gmail.com or find me on Twitter @Tank_Archives.
A report by the Usage Department of the Armoured and Mechanized Warfare of the 2nd Ukrainian Front in February and a report of the NKTP inspector's group at the 1st Belorussian Front in May indicated vases where the gearbox of the T-34 tank with an 85 mm gun broke when the gun was fired on the move.
Plenty of PT-76 tanks were in service in the early 2000s. The Vietnamese army alone had about 500 units and the total number of functional but obsolete tanks was about 1000. An idea came up to modernize these tanks and give them as second life.
The PT-76 was simple and reliable, but also quite obsolete. The 76 mm D-56TS gun was no longer satisfactory for modern combat. A modern light tank needs to be able to fight personnel, unarmoured and lightly armoured vehicles, anti-tank weapons, helicopters, and low flying airplanes. Because of this, the primary goal in modernizing the PT-76 was improving its firepower. At this time TsNII Burevestnik in Nizhniy Novgorod offered the AU-220M artillery system, which had its own long history.
"Meeting minutes
August 20th, 1941
The British were the first to invent the tank during WWI, and so the Germans were forced into the position of being the first to undertake the difficult task of developing anti-tank weapons. The Kaiser's army approached the issue of protecting infantry from tanks in a pretty straightforward way: if regular machine guns and rifles can't penetrate the new British wonder weapon, then make a larger rifle.
Vadim Elistratov is a renowned restorer of armoured vehicles, and has extensive experience in driving the tanks he and his group restores. In a recent interview with TacticMedia he recounts the experience of driving a T-34 tank.
"Chief of the General Staff
Worker and Peasant Red Army
July 5th, 1936
#20032/ss
To the People's Commissar of Defense, comrade K. Ye. Voroshilov
While in Czechoslovakia I met with the Chief of the General Staff of the Czechoslovakian army General Krejčí on his request. The meeting was confidential and took place in a seldom visited suburban hotel near Prague.
General Krejčí was accompanied by his deputy General Fiala and a Colonel, Chief of External Relations and military attache in France.
I was accompanied by our military attache in Czechoslovakia, Colonel L.A. Schnitman.
General Krejčí underscored the respect that the Czechoslovakian government and army have for the Soviet government and Red Army and stated that he found it necessary to inform me and discuss a number of important issues to do with Czechoslovakia and the mutual assistance pact.
Probably the most frequently asked question about my book has been "is there going to be an ebook". I am excited to announce that the ebook version is finally here! Morton's designed variants for Amazon Kindle, Kobo, and Google Play Books. If you're on the fence about buying, Google Play offers the longest sample. Enjoy!
"To the Chief of the Tank Directorate, Engineer-Colonel Afonin
RE: development and production of teletanks (your letter #1148978)
October 2nd, 1943
Modern telemechanical devices for tanks consist of a whole complex of separate devices and components. Their production is effort intensive, requiring qualified personnel and highly precise equipment.
Production and tuning of telemechanical components can largely be done only by hand.
It is senseless to revive equipment for teletanks based on existing NII-200 designs and development of new simpler types of equipment would take a long time (5-6 months). Transition into mass production would take an equal amount of time.
The light tank as a cheaper and more numerous version of a medium tank was obsolete by the end of WWII. The Germans were one of the first to stop building classical light tanks, the USSR followed soon after in the fall of 1943. The USA was the only major tank building nation to continue light tank development. The result of this development was the Light Tank M24, the best light tank of WWII. Its success is underlined by its longevity: some nations kept theirs in service into the 21st century!
