Cromwell: English Dictator in Soviet Fields
Over the years of the Great Patriotic War, over 5000 British and Canadian tanks were sent to the Soviet Union. Most of them were so called Infantry tanks, with thick armour and low speeds. Light tank...
View ArticleAMX 50: Five Years of Trial and Error
The second half of the 1940s was a dark time for a lot of tank building schools. Many projects were either downsized or cancelled completely. France was no exception. The only tank to make it out with...
View ArticleAMX 50 120: Long Road to a Dead End
At an unusual parade in Paris on July 14th, 1951, the French military showed off all their newest vehicles that was adopted by the army or still undergoing trials. EBR armoured cars and ARL 44 tanks...
View Article4th Guards Infantry Corps Artillery Review
"AT ArtilleryThe 45 mm anti-tank guns mod. 1937 and 1942, despite all of their tactical, technical, and design qualities (good mobility, off-road performance, ease of concealment, and reliability in...
View ArticleRefactoring
"Order of the Commissar of Defense of the USSR #002January 3rd, 1943MoscowContent: On the reduction and replacement of military personnel with older personnel and women in Red Army mechanized and...
View ArticleRadio Network of the 31st Independent Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment
Radio communication is an important part of combined arms warfare. Despite popular belief, the Red Army paid extensive attention to this issue, as shown by radio networks such as this one.CAMD RF...
View ArticleValentine Spurs
I posted about spurs developed for the Valentine tank by the the Red Army before, but the actual blueprint of the spur was in a quite low resolution. Here it is, much bigger and clearer, in case you...
View ArticleExtended Warranty
"State Committee of DefenseDecree #7418sMoscow, KremlinJanuary 29th, 1945On the increase of guaranteed service life of tank diesel enginesIn connection with improvements in design and production of...
View ArticleM6A2E1: Heavy Clownshoe
The Heavy Tank M6 had the worst fate of all mass produced heavy tanks of WWII. A decent vehicle with competitive characteristics became another victim of work dragging on too long. The tank was...
View ArticleValentine Mods in the USSR
The Infantry Tank Mk.III, or Valentine, was the most produced British tank of WWII. However, the British themselves actively used Valentines from 1941 to the first half of 1943. The Soviet Union, who...
View ArticleGerman vs Soviet Ergonomics
This is an issue that comes up many times. According to a popular theory, Soviet tanks achieved their compact size by being unusably cramped for their crew, whereas the larger German tanks were, in...
View ArticleBombs vs Tanks
Building the biggest and heaviest tank might seem like a good idea when that tank is going to engage in honourable 1:1 duels with the enemy, but the thing about enemies is that they are often not that...
View ArticleThe Log
From the first clumsily mass produced tanks to post-war state of the art fighting machines, only one element remained present in Soviet tank design: the log.The purpose of the log was simple: to help...
View ArticleSummer 1941
"SecretTo the deputy commander of the South-Western Front, Major General of Tank Forces, VolskiyOn June 22nd, 1941, during the hour of cowardly attack by fascists, the 41st Tank Division, 5-6 km from...
View ArticleRicochet!
Sure, you can make a huge turret to give even a very powerful gun good gun depression and elevation, but there's a trap in making your gun mantlet too small.As you can see in this excerpt from the...
View ArticleWorld of Tanks History Section: Panzer 58 Mutz
What is Switzerland famous for? One immediately thinks of watches, banks, mountains, and cheese. Despite fighting its last war in 1848, this small country remained among the top producers of armament...
View ArticleThe Last of the Char B
There is a misconception that the French worked only for their new masters during the occupation of 1940-1944. Indeed, most French tank manufacturing facilities ended up in the German occupation zone....
View ArticleTank Crew Losses
The following table contains total losses in the 5th Tank Corps during the Rezhitsa-Dvinsk Offensive Operation (July 18-28th, 1944)Position24 TBr41 TBr70 TBr48 GHTBr92 OMB704 OBSTotalTotal (by...
View ArticleFragmentation vs Tanks
Previously, our friends at the Armoured Journal (Bronetankoviy Vestnik) looked at how to model the amount of damage an HE shell does to a tank. This article discusses a similar topic, but looks at how...
View ArticleKV-4 Initial Proposal
Upon learning of the German 105 mm Flak 39 and its potential conversion into a tank gun, Soviet tank engineers began development of the superheavy KV-4 tank. However, the initial requirements were a...
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