"May 20th, 1940
#730034s
To the People's Commissar of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union, Timoshenko
I present to you the conclusions of the trials commission for the T-34 tank, approved for service in the Red Army by decree #443ss issued by the Committee of Defense of the SNK on December 19th, 1939.
Regarding points raised in personal thoughts (pp. 83-85) of Military Engineer 2nd Class comrade Sorkin and comrade Morozov from factory #183, I report that:
- Widening the turret by 160 mm without touching the hull and turret ring that was proposed by factory #183 is approved. I disagree with increasing the height of the turret, as this will present a larger target to the enemy, and there is no need of this since the depression angle of -5 degrees forward and to the sides is already achieved.
- I do not agree with unifying the components with existing tanks, as this will increase the weight.
- There are no disagreements about the main clutch. The factory admits that no cause for deformation of the disks has been found. Disk deformation is a serious defect.
- I approved the second type of idler, with the internal tension adjustment mechanism, as the more robust and better protected option.
- I insist that the radio be moved to the front of the tank in order to free up the commander for combat. The hull gunner/radio operator sits in the hull.
- I insist on changing the observation device design to use metallic periscopes and a vision block.
- I approved the all-round vision device for 1940 as it was presented on blueprints.
Factory #183 will produce a pilot batch (10 units) of T-34 tanks based on prototype blueprints. I gave permission to the Mariupol factory (armour) and factory #183 to produce 10 more T-34 tanks based on prototype blueprints to better prepare for mass production.
Attachment: as mentioned on 85 pages
Red Army ABTU Chief, Army Commander 2nd Class, Pavlov
Red Army ABTU Military Commissar, Divisional Commissar, Kulikov"