Page 72 - The Chief Culprit

Stalin’s Preparations for War: Tanks y 49

e KV remained the most powerful tank in the world throughout the first half of
World War II, right up to the Stalingrad battle. No other country in the world had anything
comparable in the same weight class. e KV design had reserves for improvement, which
enabled it to undergo several stages of development from the KV-1 to the KV-13. Later, it
turned into the IS-1 and then the IS-2, the most powerful tank of World War II.
e evolution yielded stronger armor and increased gun power, and in 1943 the IS-2
was put into use. B. H. Liddell Hart wrote: “ ese monsters had six-inch [150-mm] armor
and were armed with 122-mm guns, while the most powerful German Tiger had just an 88-
mm gun and four-inch [100-mm] armor.” Steven Zaloga said: “In rare instances, a shell
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from the IS-2 tank did not pierce the armor of German tanks, but this did not change any-
thing: the energy of the shell was so great that it tore the turret off any German tank.” Major
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General F. W. von Mellentin admitted: “[IS-2s] caused excessive problems for our Tigers.”
Designers of the Soviet heavy tank accomplished a technological feat: they almost dou-
bled the thickness of the armor and installed a gun that was three times more powerful, while
staying in the same weight class and even reducing the weight of the heavy tank. e KV-1
weighed 47.5 tons, while the IS-2, its direct and several times more powerful descendant,
weighed 46 tons.
Stalin had a remarkable pair: the most powerful heavy tank, in terms of fire power and
armor, for elite units, and a wonderful, mass-produced, truly medium T-34 for regular units.
Stalin understood that the T-34 needed to be improved, but it couldn’t be allowed to turn
into a heavy, complex, expensive tank for the elite. In that case, the T-34 would stop being
a mass-produced tank, and the war would be lost. Soviet designers succeeded in improving
the characteristics of the T-34 during the war, but in weight and in simplicity of production
and maintenance they kept it in the medium tank class, which could easily be put out by the
tens of thousands.
Soviet medium and heavy tanks were an inseparable pair, like two complementary
weapon systems. e availability of tens of thousands of relatively inexpensive and simple
T-34s allowed them to be used anywhere, thereby conserving the energy of the heavy tanks
for secondary objectives. e crews of the T-34s could confidently fight, knowing that they
had the support of an almighty KV or IS behind them. e availability of the heavy tank
increased the battle capabilities of the medium tanks.