Out of the many resilient myths that surround the T-34 tank, there are several that revolve around the rarest one of them all: the T-34 tank armed with the 57 mm ZIS-4 gun, specifically the four experimental tanks produced in 1943. Many sources give these tanks and their guns some kind of made up name like T-34-57 or ZIS-4M and claim that these tanks fought in "special tank company #100" from August 15th, 1943. All three of those claims are false.
"Act
On August 18th, 1943, we the undersigned:
- representative of the Gorohovets ANIOP Guards Senior Lieutenant-Technician A.F. Platonov
- representative of factory #183 engineer-designer U.Ye. Hlopenko
- GBTU military representative at factory #183 Lieutenant-Technician Belyanskiy
- commander of T-34 tank #36-322 Lieutenant G.S. Romanov
compose the current act to record that, during the breaking in and firing on the move trials of the ZIS-4 gun at the Gorohovets ANIOP the following defects occurred after 200 km of travel:
- The air thermometer did not show water temperature. The thermometer was replaced with one that arrived from factory #112.
- The left fender was torn off while driving on the forest road.
- The headlight was smashed while driving on the forest road.
[Signatures]"
