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Little Tank, Great Success
Czech-made weapons were popular since the start of the 20th century. Skoda's artillery was in demand even outside of Austria-Hungary, which Czechia belonged to until 1918. Weapons exports continued...
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Less Armour, More Mobility
The gradual increase of a tank's mass is a normal and logical occurrence. Mass grows, first of all, due to thicker armour. During WWII, the thickness of tank armour grew several times over. However,...
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Unlucky KV
Cases where vehicles that never reached mass production become milestones are common in tank building history. The Soviet KV-13 tank is one of those cases. This tank is often referred to as a "heavily...
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Tank Archives in Print
My name already appeared in print next to that of Thomas Jentz, and now it's time for a long-time inspiration and a source of many materials posted on this site: Yuri Pasholok.The original plan was to...
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HEAT Protection
Conventional internet wisdom dictates that WWII era standoff armour was, at best, ineffective against the Panzerfaust, or even accentuated its effects by improving the standoff distance. However, there...
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G43 Trials
"Trials resultsThe precision of the semiautomatic G-43 rifle at ranges of 100, 300, and 600 meters, is less than that of the German G-41 rifle and domestic AV-40 rifle. Disassembly and reassembly has...
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Partisan's Companion: Weapons of Combat
The Partisan's Companion is a book distributed among partisans in order to help them combat German forces more effectively. A few sections of the book deal with firearms. This one teaches the user how...
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The Father of All RPGs
The American "Bazooka" M1 anti-tank rocket launcher is one of the most famous weapons of WWII. Despite its primitive design, it was a very effective anti-tank weapon, which was imitated by the Germans....
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Super Bazooka: Improved Antitank Fist
During WWII, M1 and M9 "Bazooka" rocket launchers were considered good weapons, although their penetration was inadequate to reliably penetrate medium tanks, and nearly useless against their front...
View ArticleInformation on American Tanks
"To the chief of the Armoured Directorate of the GABTU, Military Engineer 1st Class comrade KorobkovSeptember 3rd, 1941I report to you the details about new American tanks and news of American tank...
View ArticleFirst SU-152s
"To fulfil GOKO order #2883 issued on February 14th, 1943Deliveries for contract #1489 signed in March of 1943Customer: GAU UMT and SAProducer: Kirov factory (Chelyabinsk)1. SU-14 SPGsProduce SU-14...
View ArticleZIK-7
"To the People's Commissar of Armament, comrade UstinovTo the People's Commissar of Tank Production, comrade MalyshevJune 16th, 1942RE: production of installation parts and cradle for the 76 mm ZIK-7...
View ArticleBirth of the PPS
"To the deputy commander of the Red Army GAU, Major-General of Artillery, comrade HohlovExperience shows that the 7.62 mm DT tank machinegun does not provide sufficient volume of fire, due to its 63...
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Lady with a Thick Skin
The Matilda, or MK-II, as it was called in Soviet documents, became one of the best known foreign vehicles used by the Red Army. Appearing in the USSR in the fall of 1941 along with the Valentine,...
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Matilda's New Sword
On October 11th, 1941, the PQ-1 convoy arrived in Arkhangelsk: the first British convoy that delivered weapons and military vehicles to the USSR. It was the result of the agreement titled "On joint...
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Cheating at Statistics 21: Fudging Franz
Like the Tiger, the Ferdinand is a weapon that often has some rather incredible kill ratios attributed to it. Personally, I've seen numbers as high as 50:1, but those tend to not be accompanied by any...
View ArticleTougher Armour
"Order of the People's Commissar of the Defense Industry #337ssMoscowAugust 23rd, 1938To carry out government order #198/ss/ov issued on August 7th, 1938, and to further improve tanks and armoured cars...
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German Ammunition
There is a surprsing amount of interoperability between British and German hardware. The Sten gun could, famously, be fed with German ammunition, and slightly reworked German 75 mm shells went into 75...
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Shooting from Horseback
Yuri Pasholok got his hands on a pile of old military manuals recently, including Shooting from Horseback. It's a somewhat lengthy book, so I'm not going to translate all of it, just interesting...
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The First Classic Tank
France was the second country in the world to equip itself with tanks. The French were about half a year behind the British, but their designs were a lot more progressive. The French army had the most...
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