Warspot Digest: September 2021
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Sturer Emil: a Rare Specimen from Stalingrad [READ MORE] Cases where prototypes that never saw mass production ended up on the battlefield are not uncommon. In the U.S.S.R., the T-100 and SMK were tested in combat during the Winter War. The T-29 and A-20 defended Moscow in the Great Patriotic War. There are similar examples for Germany. Two experimental SPGs, built on the chassis of the VK 30.01 (H) heavy tank, which also never made it into production, ended up near Stalingrad in 1942. Unlike its ancestor, these vehicles not only took part in the fighting, but achieved impressive results. These tank destroyers are known as Sturer Emil. |
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Pershing: Heavy by Necessity [READ MORE] The British Churchill tank was the only one heavy tank supplied to the U.S.S.R. by the Western Allies en masse. The U.S. had bad luck with heavy tanks. Work on the Heavy Tank M6 hit a dead end. Nevertheless, heavy tanks did arrive in the American army by the end of the war. These were Heavy Tanks T26E3, standardized as M26 Pershing. However, the T26E3 was rather arbitrarily classified as heavy. In practice, this was a medium tank. Only its mass made it a heavy, and even then, it returned to medium after the war. This article is dedicated to the trials of the T26E3 in the U.S.S.R., during which it was compared to heavy tanks. |
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T-44: An Intermediate Tank [READ MORE] GKO decree #6209s, "On organizing T-44 tank production at factories #75 and #264" was signed on July 18th, 1944. With this order, Stalin gave permission to produce a replacement for the T-34. However, the T-44 never truly replaced the T-34-85. It was only produced at a backup factory and production volumes were small compared to the T-34-85. 1823 tanks is a very small number, and even in 1946 only 2701 T-44 tanks were built. The T-44 shouldered the problems of a revolutionary tank, although its service was long and it even saw battle. |
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HMC M37: A Fast Howitzer on a Light Chassis [READ MORE] Unlike American light tanks, which towards the war reached perfection in their class, light SPGs did not work out. The first successful design, the HMC M8, appeared towards the middle of the war. It did not satisfy the military and work on light SPGs continued. The result of this work was the HMC M37, a good design that appeared far too late. The production run was limited and it only saw battle after the end of World War II. |
