Brief Operational History

The T-34 /76 was designed in the 1938 when the Red Army found that the BT-7 would no longer be effective on a modern battlefield.  The armor of the BT-7 was already known to be far too light and its main gun was in need of modernization.  The first attempt to replace the BT-7 was called the T-32.  It had beaten another prototype known as the A-20 and featured heavy sloped armor and a powerful 76.2mm main gun. It would also have a diesel engine instead of the petrol engine of the BT-7.

The T-32 prototypes would see combat on the Karelian front during the Winter War.  The experience of that war showed that the tank had an excess of engine power, and that more armor could be added without slowing it down.  Its armor was soon increased to 45mm.  On December 19, 1939 the new vehicle was designated T-34 and ordered into full production.

It would take until July of 1940.for production to begin, and by the end of that year only 117 examples would be completed.  An order for 600 tanks was placed for the following year.  These tanks were to be built at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory and the Kharkov Locomotive Factory (No. 83).  All of this would take place under extreme secrecy because of the deteriorating international situation.

Re-equipping new units with the T-34/76 was very slow.  Initially the tank suffered from mechanical difficulties.  This was because the tank was much more difficult to produce than the BT-7 and Soviet industry was still having difficulty producing it.  The faults were corrected by redesigning parts of the tank.  This sped up production and made the tank more reliable.

Wartime production of tank was difficult at first as the Kharkov Locomotive Factory was relocated east of the Urals and merged with the Nishni Tagil auto factory to form the Stalin combine.  The Stalingrad Tractor Factory continued to make T-34/76's until the front line advanced to that city.   Other factories would be pressed into service.  The most famous of these would be the Chelyabinsk factory known as 'Tankograd'.

Many modifications were made to the T-34/76 during its service life.  The first was to replace the L/30 76.2mm cannon with a more advanced L/40 gun of the same caliber.  Other versions used rolled plate armor on its turret.  A later modification had a larger turret with two hatches in place of the original single hatch.  A later version with a hexagonal turret had the ability to mount external fuel tanks for increased range.  Later models would have a cast turret.  These were usually of a very rough finish and many would even go into battle without a coat of paint.

It was soon found that the T-34/76 would need further improvement if it was to compete against the more advanced tanks that the German army were beginning to field in quantity.  The Germans had even designed their latest tank, the Panther, to be superior to the T-34/76.  The Soviet army decided to use the larger gun found on the KV-85 in a new version of the T-34.  This version came to be known as T-34/85 and entered service in 1943.  All work on T-34/76 ended the following year with a total production run of 35,099 tanks in just five years.

Despite the fact that the T-34/76 would no longer be used as a main battle tank.  Its body would still be used in other roles.  The Soviet tank destroyers SU-85, SU-100, and SU-122 all were based on the T-34 chassis.  In the years following the war an artillery tractor would also use the T-34 frame.

Tactical Use and Limitations

T-34/76 tanks were so widely produced that they served in a variety of roles.  They were used as main battle tanks, as recon vehicles, as engineering vehicles, and as armored recovery vehicles.  Flamethrower variants with 100 liters of fuel known as OT-34's were also developed in 1943-44.

The machine had few limitations.  It had was reliable, easy to build and maintain, as was liked by the troops.  It also had the advantage of heavy armor and a powerful 76mm cannon without all of the limitations of the KV series heavy tanks.  During the beginning of the war there were few German tanks that could fight it effectively.  Most of their successes were due to their powerful anti-tank guns and poor Soviet command and control.

The main weakness was that very few of the T-34/76 tanks were equipped with radio sets.  This meant that the command tanks would have to lead formations into battle.  The Germans discovered this tactic early in the war and would concentrate their fire on the command tanks.  The leaderless formation could then be destroyed in short order.  To further complicate matters the crew had poor visibility from inside the tank.  This made them very vulnerable to anti-tank weapons and infantry formations.

Deployment Chronology

Here you can see what armored vehicles the T-34/76 replaced and what tank eventually replaced it during the desperate early days of the Great Patriotic War.  You can find out more about these vehicles if we have them on our site by clicking on the links below.

Sources Cited

Here are some of the most informative sources that we have used in compiling this information for you.  We hope you can find them as useful as we have.

• Russian Tanks and Armored Vehicles 1917-1945, by Wolfgang Fleischer, published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd., Atglen, PA, 1999

• The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II, edited by Chris Bishop, published by Barnes and Noble Inc., 1998