Page 64 - The Chief Culprit
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Stalin’s Preparations for War: Tanks
Germans were surprised to discover that it was practically impossible to stop the Red
Army’s KV tanks.
—R G, WORLD WAR II ALMANAC, 1931–1945
talin’s goal was to develop and mass-produce the best tanks in the world. Tanks were to
be the spearhead for the Soviet offensive against Western Europe, and Stalin set about
Sdeveloping them as he built Soviet industry.
In 1933, the Red Army adopted the T-28 tank. A variation of this model was designed
in 1937—the T-28 PKh (Podvodny Khod—“underwater traversing” tank). Tests showed that
if necessary, all series of T-28s could be converted to cross water barriers underwater, at a
depth of up to 4.5 meters and width of up to one kilometer with a stream speed up to one
m/s (meter per second). Not a single German, British, American, French, or Japanese tank
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from the 1930s could compete with the T-28 in terms of weapons, armor, or engine power. 2
At the end of 1937, the Germans started producing the Pz-IVA, the most powerful
German tank of the first half of World War II. It had 15-mm armor. e T-28’s armor was
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of higher quality and twice as thick—30 mm. is most powerful German tank had a 250-
horsepower engine. e T-28’s was twice as powerful: 500 horsepower. e German tank
had two machine guns, while the T-28 had four or five. e gun on the German tank was
approximately equal to the Soviet one. e T-28 had a 76-mm KT-28 gun, while the German
tank had a gun of slightly smaller caliber—75 mm; therefore, the shells were slightly lighter.
e T-28 fired shells with an initial speed of 381 m/s. e German Pz-IVA had a slightly lon-
ger barrel (16.5 caliber); therefore the speed of the shells was slightly higher—385 m/s. us
the muzzle energy of both guns was practically the same. Soviet designers could not reconcile
themselves to the fact that the Germans had caught up with them at least in one parameter. In
response, starting in 1938, the Soviet T-28 tanks were produced with a new L-10 gun. Its bar-
rel length was 26 calibers. e muzzle velocity of its shells was 555 m/s. e Germans did not
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