Russian t-34 battle tank

It would be historically incorrect to consider the most famous tank of the era of the Second World War T-34 - a thunderstorm of the German army - arising from nowhere. The German Wehrmacht let down intelligence.

   The predecessors of this tank, BT series 1-7 and BT-IS, developed in 1936, were distinguished by the Christie type suspension with large wheels, modern for those times, which subsequently found application in the "thirty-four". Starting with the BT-7 model, a reliable and powerful diesel engine was installed on both tanks.
   These tanks, as well as their latest versions of the A-20 and A-30, were equipped with a 4.5 cm cannon and could move on wheels even in the absence of tracks - by the way, partly for this ability they were called “Fast” in the army.
The best features of these tanks formed the basis of the T-34. Of all the modifications, the T-32 (developed in 1939) was the closest to them, which, however, did not go into production, although it became the transitional model to the “thirty-four”. The T-32 was equipped with a 7.62 cm gun and the fifth pair of wheels, which was subsequently excluded from the design on the present T-34.
   After a number of minor improvements in 1940, two prototypes of the T-32 model were assembled. They were given the name T-34. In March of this year, they successfully passed the test in the army. After improving the transmission on the T-34, they began to install a 7.62 cm caliber cannon, after which the tank was put into production.