Tank t 34 where it was produced. History of creation

Most experts are of the opinion that the T-34 tank was the best in World War II, it came to victory, but there are other opinions. A whole staff of developers worked on the creation of this tank even before the start of World War II.

It is believed that the history of the t 34 tank began with the creation of an experimental A-20 tank. Since 1931, wheeled-tracked tanks of the BT type began to appear in service, they were considered fast. After gaining experience in combat operations, the Kharkov Locomotive Plant was tasked with creating a project for a wheeled-tracked tank, which would be able to replace the BT in the future. According to historical data, the design was started in 1937. technical department under the leadership of Koshkin. It was assumed that new tank will have a 45 mm cannon and 30 mm thick armor. The diesel version of the V-2 was offered as an engine. The engine was supposed to reduce the vulnerability of the tank and the fire hazard of equipment. It was also provided for three driving wheels on each side in connection with a markedly increased mass of equipment. The weight of the machine became more than 18 tons, the whole design was complicated.

Prototypes of the T-34 tank

The production of a tank engine began on the basis of aviation oil engines. The engine received the B-2 indexation in wartime, and many progressive ideas were incorporated into its design. Direct fuel injection was provided, 4 valves were provided in each cylinder, a cast aluminum head. The engine passed state tests for a hundred hours. Diesel mass production began in 1939 at a special plant headed by Kochetkov.

In the process of creation, the design of the A-20 seemed too complicated, so it was supposed to create a purely tracked tank, but it had to have anti-cannon armor. Due to this idea, the mass of the tank was reduced, which made it possible to increase the armor. However, initially it was supposed to create two machines of the same weight in order to conduct an equivalent test and determine which tank is better.

In May 1938, the project of a wheeled-tracked tank was still considered, it had a rather rational shape, was created from rolled armor plates, and had a conical turret. However, after consideration, it was decided to create exactly the same model, but only on tracks. The main thing for the tank was to be able to create excellent bulletproof armor. Such tanks were already being created in 1936. They had a mass of 22 tons, but the armor was 60 mm. An experienced tracked tank was named A-32.

Both the A-32 and A-20 models were fully approaching completion in 1938. Most military commanders leaned towards the A-20 version, it was believed that a wheeled-caterpillar tank was more effective in combat. However, Stalin intervened in the consideration of the projects and ordered the start of the initiative construction of two models in order to test them in comparative tests.

More than a hundred employees were involved in the development of both models, since both tanks had to be completed in the shortest possible time. All experimental workshops were consolidated into one and all employees worked under the best tank developer - Koshkin. Both projects were completed in May. All tanks were presented for testing in 1939.

Features of the A-32 tank

Tank A - 32 had the following characteristics:

• very high speed
• machine body made of rolled steel sheets,
• rational angles of inclination of the armor,
• 45 mm gun,
• machine gun DT.

In 1939 A - 32 was modified again. The armor was reinforced by adding various cargoes to the tank's armor, from which the mass of the vehicle increased to 24 tons. A new L-10 tank gun, developed at the Kirov plant, was installed. In December 1939, the defense committee decided to build several test models with reinforced 45 mm armor and a 76 mm tank gun.

It is this model that will become the famous T-34; in the process of creating the design of this machine, special attention was paid to simplifying the design. The specialists of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant and the specialists of the technological bureau helped a lot in this. It was thanks to them that the model of the T-34 tank was finally developed for mass production. The start of production of the first experimental models took place in Kharkov in the winter of 1940. On March 5 of the same year, the first two models left the factory and were sent on their first march to Kharkov Moscow under the strict control of M.I. Koshkin.

Start of T-34 production

On March 17, the tanks were shown to the entire leadership of the Kremlin, after which the ground testing of the vehicles began. The tanks were subjected to a full test of armor, firing at the tanks with direct fire with armor-piercing and high-explosive shells. In the summer, both tanks were sent to the range for the patency of anti-tank barriers. After that, the cars went to their native plant in Kharkov. On March 31, the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union to mass production tank. By the end of the year, it was planned to build about 200 T-34s.

By the summer, their number had increased to five hundred. Production was constantly slowed down due to poor recommendations and data from specialists from the test site, which was added to the GABTU test report. As a result, only three cars were produced by the fall, but after the improvements made, according to the comments, another 113 cars were produced by the new year.

After Koshkin's death, KhPZ bosses A.A. Morozov not only managed to fix the serious problems that had arisen with the tank, but also managed to improve the tank's firepower by installing a much more powerful gun F-34 than L-11. After that, the production of the tank increased significantly, in the first six months of 1941, 1,100 vehicles were built. In the fall of 1941 KhPZ was evacuated to Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk region.

Already in December, the first T-34 tanks were produced at the new location. Due to the military situation, there was not enough rubber, non-ferrous metals, so as not to stop the production of tanks, the designers reworked all the details of the structure and were able to significantly reduce the number of parts. Soon the development of the new T-43 machine began.

Tank 34 was a great achievement in tank building. The design of the tank was very reliable, it had very powerful weapons, reliable armor of the hull and turret of the tank. Most importantly, the car was very dynamic.

Video history of the creation of the T-34

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About the T-34 tank, and Comrade Stalin

If you carefully study the history of creation military equipment Yes, to impose it on the general history of those years, then the whole history of those years becomes more convex, voluminous and integral. Because in the history of the creation of weapons, in dates and documents, sometimes you can better see all the fuss, up to the betrayal of your country, of those years. If you look at the biographies of those who created the weapons of Victory, and those who filled up the army with rubbish under the Tukhachevskys, you get an interesting picture. Before 1937, there were often specialists from the old, "pre-revolutionary" school, with "real higher education”, about the “loss” of which the “whistleblowers of Stalinism” are so lamenting today. And then - young people, Komsomol members, "directors of confectionery factories." These were already "Stalin's specialists" who, after the war, were already creating nuclear missile weapons.

With knowledge from the educational institutions of the "Stalinist" education system, without currying favor with the West, they created the "Great Era". In the same aviation, all designers, except, probably, Tupolev and Polikarpov, received their education in Soviet schools - Yakovlev, Ilyushin, Lavochkin .... And their planes won the war. In the development of small arms, “continuity” has just been preserved. The Russian weapons school of Fedorov, Tokarev, Degtyarev was continued by the Simonovs, Sudayevs, Kalashnikovs. By the way, no one "repressed" the old "specialists" - gunsmiths of small arms in the "terrible Stalinist times" for some reason. Everyone was put in jail, and these somehow got out? Or maybe because the shooter gunsmiths simply did not write denunciations against each other? As the same rocket constructors wrote denunciations against each other.

The designers of the BT and T-26 tanks, "specialists" old school, they simply reworked and modernized licensed American Christies and English Vickers. They also created strange three and five-turret tanks T-28 and T-35 ("similar" to English M-III sample 32), with the same armor as light tanks and tankettes. But the T-34 and KV with ISs were created by people from the Soviet school, and these tanks determined the future development of the entire world tank building. Now the West and the whole world "copied" our tanks. And they did it "Stalin's specialists."

"T-34"

Let's return to some of the myths associated with the weapons of Victory. In Soviet times, a fairy tale appeared that in 1939, Komsomol designers Koshkina M.I., having received an order from the People's Commissariat of Defense for the manufacture of a medium, wheeled-tracked tank, with anti-ballistic armor and a 45 mm cannon, managed to "secretly" and "semi-legally » make also a tracked version of a similar machine, with thicker armor and a 76 mm gun - T-34. But in fact, at the beginning of September 1938, the commission of the ABTU of the Red Army, chaired by a military engineer of the 1st rank, Ya.L. Skvirsky ordered plant N 183 to develop and manufacture one version of a wheeled-tracked tank (A-20) with a 45-mm gun and two tracked tanks with 76-mm guns. Those. it was an order to the plant from the state represented by Auto Armor of the Red Army Tank Directorate.

On the one hand, this myth was launched in order to hide the trace of the “Tukhachevsky case” in the history of the T-34. On the other hand, they indirectly showed the inertia and backwardness of Stalin's "favorites", the "red horsemen" Voroshilov and Budyonny, who allegedly advocated the creation of "cavalry" tanks of the BT type. And at the same time they kicked Stalin, who "interfered" with the development of the Red Army, listening to their "favorites", and not the "great strategists" of the Tukhachevskys.

In the books of M. Baryatinsky “T-34. The best tank of the Second World ”and“ T-34 in battle ”it is said that in 1937 the Kharkov Locomotive Plant, where from January 37th the chief designer of one of the three tank design bureaus (KB-190) was M.I. Koshkin, the task was to develop modifications of the same BT-7. A light and wheeled-tracked tank, made under license from the American Christie. The tank is absolutely dead-end, having no prospects either in increasing the thickness of the armor or in increasing the caliber of the gun. Koshkin began to balk and frustrated this work, arguing that it was necessary to develop a more powerful, but easier to manufacture and operate medium tracked tank, with non-tractor-type road wheels like the ("medium") T-28. A fundamentally new tank is needed, and not trying to endlessly “modernize” all the same light BTs, trying to make them “medium”.

Strange as it may seem, but Koshkin was not imprisoned or shot for "sabotage" and disruption of the state order in that same "terrible 37th". Also, Koshkin at the same time “threatened” the work on the development of a modification of the BT-BT-IS tank, which was carried out at the same plant by a group of adjunct VAMM named after. Stalin military engineer 3rd rank A.Ya. Dick, seconded to the Koshkin Design Bureau at KhPZ. Apparently, Koshkin found competent "patrons" in the People's Commissariat of Medium Machine Building? Or did he initially act on orders from above? It seems that there was an undercover struggle between supporters of the eternal "modernization" of the light BT (and in fact, marking time and a waste of "people's" state funds) and supporters of a fundamentally new (breakthrough) medium-class tank, which differed from monsters with three towers, such as T -28.

As a result, on Sept. On the 37th KhPZ, it was proposed to produce by 1939 samples of the same, wheeled-caterpillar type, the BT-20 tank, with “reinforced” armor as much as 3-5 mm compared to the BT-7 and heavier by a whole ton. (This tank, like the BT-IS, differed from the BT-7 only appearance hull, had inclined sheets of frontal and side armor, was already similar “from afar”, to the future thirty-four, but the mover remained the same, the same wheeled-caterpillar).

To do this, a separate reinforced design bureau was formed at KhPZ, headed by A.Ya. Dick, reporting directly to the chief engineer of the plant. They seconded more than 40 military graduate students from VAMM and ABTU, and attracted the designers of the plant, headed by Morozov A.A.

Further history is dark. After this design bureau ceased to exist in November of the 37th, and a wave of arrests of "saboteurs and pests" went through the plant, up to the director of the plant, I.P. Bondarenko, chief engineer, chief metallurgist, head of the diesel department and other specialists, M.I. Koshkin, with the new management of the plant, organizes a new design bureau. Almost with the same composition of designers. It would be nice to look through those criminal cases. But as a result of such a strange purge of "enemies of the people" at the plant, which received a state order for a new tank, work on technical project of this BT-20 were thwarted for a month and a half.

The project was nevertheless approved at ABTU and considered at a meeting of the Defense Committee around March 30, 1938, in the minutes of which they wrote: “Comrade Pavlov’s proposal (beginning of ABTU and future commander of the ZapOVO in June 41st) on the creation of a tracked tank by plant N183 to recognize expedient with increased armor in the frontal part up to 30 mm. To adapt the tank turret for mounting a 76-mm gun…”.

However, on May 13, 1938, the head of the ABTU, D. G. Pavlov, approved the revised performance characteristics of the same wheeled-tracked BT-20, albeit with thicker armor and increased angles of inclination of the hull and turret. The mass of the tank grew to 16.5 tons and it finally became "medium".

Koshkin, it seems, did not stop fighting for the caterpillar version of the medium tank all this time, and in August 1938 the USSR Defense Committee adopted a resolution "On the system of tank weapons", which said that by July 1939 it was necessary to develop samples of tanks with a gun, armor and mobility must fully meet the conditions of the future war. And then, in September 1938, KhPZ received the task of developing two new models. One wheeled-tracked A-20, and a tracked version of the A-20G. The frontal armor of these vehicles was still 20 mm. At the beginning of 1939, all three factory tank design bureaus were merged into one, and Koshkin M.I. became the chief designer. Three (!) Months later, by May 1939, the first samples were ready. By August 23rd, the 39th, the tanks had passed factory and field tests. The A-20G was called the A-32, and its side armor was already 30 mm, and this was the very “amateur” of the Koshkin team. Also, the A-32 differed from the A-20 in a wider caterpillar, a body width of 15 cm, had one more track roller and, therefore, had a margin of weight. At the same time, due to the lack of mechanisms and drives on the tank for movement on wheels located along the sides, the weight of the A-32 differed from the weight of the A-20 by only a ton. A-32 passed the required test run on tracks for 3121 km, and A-20 2931 km (plus another 1308 km on wheels).

On September 23, 39, these samples were already shown at the Kubinka training ground. Voroshilov K.E. was present. - People's Commissar of Defense, Zhdanov, Mikoyan, Voznesensky, Pavlov D.G. - Head of ABTU, and tank designers. Also tested and presented new KV, SMK, T-100, and upgraded BT-7M, T-26. According to the test results, and due to the fact that the A-32 had a margin of weight and already had sides with a thickness of 30 mm, it was proposed to increase the frontal armor of the A-32 to 45 mm. The plant hastily began to assemble new ones, with reinforced T-32 armor. The caterpillar and body of these machines have become even wider. And on December 19, 1939, the resolution of the CO under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 443ss “On the adoption of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery tractors and on their production in 1940” was already issued, in which the name T-34 appeared.

Already in January-February 1940, the first two T-34s were assembled and factory tests began immediately (one had a mechanic's hatch protruding forward, and the other had a hatch in front of the mechanic). And on March 17 (!) a government show in the Kremlin was already scheduled for Stalin. However, due to frequent breakdowns of the same new diesel engines, the tanks did not have time to wind up the required 3000 km of run.

Then there was a story with the transfer of these tracked samples to Moscow on their own in March 1940, with breakdowns and repairs on the way of one of the tanks. But on the morning of March 17, the tanks stood on Ivanovskaya Square in the Kremlin. They were approached by Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kalinin, Beria and others. The head of the ABTU, D.G. Pavlov, presented the cars to Stalin. After demonstration runs on the paving stones, the tanks stopped in the same place. The leader liked the tanks, and he gave the order to provide the necessary assistance to the plant to eliminate the shortcomings of the tanks, which were persistently pointed out to him by the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense for armament G.I. Kulik and head of ABTU D.G. Pavlov. At the same time, Pavlov very boldly told Stalin: "We will pay dearly for the production of insufficiently combat-ready vehicles."

After being shown to Stalin, the tanks were fired at the range from a 45-mm cannon (the main caliber of anti-tank artillery of those years in all European countries) from 100 meters and “the dummy remained intact”, the armor withstood and the engine did not stall. This was in the 20th of March 1940. On March 31, there was a meeting with People's Commissar Voroshilov with Kulik, Pavlov, Likhachev (People's Commissar of Medium Machine Building), Koshkin, and a protocol was signed on setting the T-34 (with a hatch in the front plate in front of the driver) into a series, in Kharkov and at STZ , for the manufacture of 600 pieces of T-34 in 1940. It was decided to eliminate the shortcomings during production. But in the autumn of the same 1940, two T-IIIs purchased in Germany were tested in Kubinka. And although, after comparative tests, in terms of armament (37 mm versus 76 mm for the T-34) and armor protection, the T-34 was superior to the German tank, but in terms of comfort, engine noise, smoothness, and even speed on a gravel road—GIVED IN!?!

GABTU D.G. Pavlova submitted a report on comparative tests to the Deputy People's Commissar for Armaments, Marshal G.I. Kulik. That report approved and suspended the production and acceptance of the T-34, until “all shortcomings” were eliminated (what honest and principled generals we had then!). K.E. intervened. Voroshilov: “Machines continue to be made, handed over to the army. Limit the factory mileage to 1000 km ... "(the same" stupid horseman "). At the same time, everyone knew that the war would not be today or tomorrow. Months were cut out. Pavlov was a member of the country's military council, but he was a very "principled officer." Maybe for this "courage and adherence to principles" Stalin agreed with the appointment of the hero of the Soviet Union D.G. Pavlov to the "main" district - ZapOVO? But how Pavlov boldly and principled command in this district, surrendering Minsk on the fifth day, has already become a fact of history. At the same time, Pavlov himself was a professional tanker, fought in tanks in Spain, received a Hero of the Soviet Union for this war. His proposal to create a caterpillar tank with anti-ballistic armor with the installation of a 76 mm gun on this tank (the caliber of heavy tank guns of those years!) Was even recorded in the minutes of the meeting of the CO at the SNK of the USSR in March 1938, two years before. That is, Pavlov should have understood better than others what kind of tank was in front of him. And it was this man who did everything in his power to disrupt the acceptance of this tank for service.

But in fact, M.I. Koshkin is not the father of the T-34. Rather, he is his "stepfather", or "cousin" father. Koshkin began his activity as a tank designer at the Kirov Plant, in the design bureau of medium and heavy tanks. In this design bureau, he worked on the "medium" tanks T-28, T-29 with bulletproof armor. The T-29 already differed from the T-28 in the type of chassis, rollers and an experimental torsion bar suspension instead of a spring one. Then this type of suspension (torsion bars) was used on heavy tanks "KV", "IS". Then Koshkin was transferred to Kharkov, to the design bureau of light tanks, and apparently with the prospect of starting work on the design of precisely "medium", but on the basis of a light "BT". He had to, fulfilling the order of the army, making a light wheeled-tracked tank BT-20 (A-20), ensure that at least on its base make a tracked version of this machine - A-20G, and bring it to that same T-34 . Born from blueprints for a light tank, the T-34 had problems with tightness in the tank and other shortcomings. Also, from the light BT, Koshkin also got the chassis (some T-34s were even equipped with rollers from the BT tank, although they were already the required design) and a spring suspension. Almost in parallel with the “creation and modernization” of the T-34, Koshkin also designed another medium tank, the T-34M, which had other chassis rollers similar to those from heavy KVs, with a torsion bar suspension, and not a spring one (an example of the “universalization” of tank production , which the Germans later used with might and main in the production of their tanks during the War), a more spacious hexagonal turret with a commander's turret (it was later installed on the T-34 in the 42nd year). This tank was even approved by the Defense Committee in January 1941. In May of the 41st, fifty of these towers were already manufactured at the Mariupol Metallurgical Plant, the first armored hulls, rollers, and a torsion bar suspension were made (the “suspension from BT” remained on the T-34). But the engine was never made for him. And the outbreak of war put an end to this model. Although the Koshkinsky Design Bureau was engaged in the intensive development of a new, "native" T-34M tank, more "better", but the outbreak of the War required an increase in the vehicles already put on the conveyor, those that are. And then throughout the war there was a constant alteration and improvement of the T-34. Its modernization was carried out at every plant where the T-34 was assembled, constantly seeking to reduce the cost of the tank. But all the same, the emphasis was placed, first of all, on increasing the number of produced tanks and throwing them into battle, especially in the autumn and winter of 1941. "Comfort" took up later.

In 1942, the “Koshkinites” tried again to offer the army a new medium tank to replace the T-34 (which had a bunch of “shortcomings”), the T-43, with a chassis already similar to the T-34 chassis, but with a different hull and a larger turret, with the prospect of installing guns of larger caliber. But Stalin simply banned work on this tank, giving the command to direct all his efforts to improving the existing T-34. Baryatinsky is surprised by this decision. Like, if Morozov A.A., who became the chief designer after Koshkin, “named” the new tank “Joseph Stalin”, like Kotin and Dukhov, who created the new tank “IS” to replace the “KV”, then Stalin would certainly have given permission for the production of the T-43. As if Stalin was a fair girl, thrilled by such flattery. At the same time, Baryatinsky himself cites the results of the tests and conclusions of the commissions on the medium T-43 with the same 76 mm gun, and variants of the medium T-34 with thicker armor and a longer 76 mm gun. Anyway, it turned out that when meeting with the heavy "Panthers" and "Tigers", which appeared already in the same 42nd, this did not give anything. To fight the German "menagerie" on an equal footing, a completely new heavy tank of the same class was needed, and preferably with a more powerful gun. And it was easier and cheaper to install a new turret from the T-43 with an 85 mm gun to fight the main Pz-IV tank and other armored vehicles on the already existing and tested T-34. Therefore, Stalin agreed to replace the heavy KVs with similar, but more powerful ISs, but did not allow the medium T-34s to be changed to medium T-43s, since this did not give anything in principle, but led to unnecessary costs. The Germans had to take this path. They spent time and money on the development of completely new "super tanks" (which Hitler strongly spoke out against before the War and what he did already during the war), not being able to endlessly upgrade their already existing Pz-III, Pz-IV. And the story with the use of "universal" rollers for tanks continued, but only after the War. After the T-34 there were T-44, T-54, T-55, which had one type of single-row roller. Design bureaus of heavy tanks with two-row rollers, in the Urals, created the T-62. The design bureau in Kharkov, where the Koshkinites returned after the war, led by Morozov, created the T-64 also with two rows of rollers, as they wanted back in 1941, on the T-34M.

So the story of the T-34 is just an example of the foresight of its creators, who laid a huge foundation for future upgrades, at no significant cost, on the main base of the tank. And also, an example of the wisdom and economic calculation of the head of the country, choosing between the good and the "best" (which is sometimes the enemy of the good). And that did not allow the designers to be "distracted" by promising, but ruinous samples for the country at that moment. This is what Stalin told the designer Morozov A.A.: “You have created a good car (T-43). But at present, our army already has a good T-34 tank. Now the task is to improve its combat qualities, to increase output. Until the plant and the design bureau fulfill these requirements of the army in the field, it is necessary to prohibit diverting designers to new developments. Then make your wonderful tank. And now the front needs a T-34.

Similar decisions were made after the war, with the copying of the next American "flying fortress" B-29. When Tupolev announced that he had a draft of his two-keel long-range bomber ready, the "half-educated seminarian" ordered simply to copy the already flying B-29. This gave a gain in time in the race to the bottom with America. And only then somehow we will deal with the "copyrights" and our new aircraft. So the TU-4 appeared quite quickly, and Tupolev's designers began designing jet machines. Or the story of how Korolev, at Stalin's reception, tried to dream about flying to Mars. But the "narrow-minded Leader" did not appreciate the dreams of the Great Designer and forbade him to even think about astronautics and spaceships!

When various authors try to use such examples to show, to put it mildly, the “short-sightedness” of a tyrant who stifled the flight of thought of our designers of new equipment (tanks, aircraft, missiles), it would not hurt them to give parallel comments on the economic state of the country at that moment a country. And what would happen to the country if, instead of working with a rocket under a "bomb", Korolev would have been busy with a flight to Mars. Would the Americans give our designers time for this "flight of thought"?

During the production of the T-34 tank, many of its modifications were released. Today we will talk about one of them, produced at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant in 1941-42.

The order to put the T-34 tank into production was signed by the Defense Committee on March 31, 1940. In accordance with it, it was ordered to launch the production of the machine at the Kharkov Locomotive Plant No. 183 (KhPZ) and the Stalingrad Tractor Plant (STZ). In Stalingrad, it was planned to produce 2000 cars a year, they should have reached such a capacity in 1942. If in 1940 it was planned to assemble 20 cars at the STZ, then 1941. the program ordered to release already 1000 tanks. The introduction of the new car into the series went with big problems. The first released T-34s were not reliable, many design and manufacturing defects were identified and corrected. Changes were constantly made to the design. If at plant No. 183 part of the components and assemblies of the T-34 tank could largely be produced by its own facilities, then at the STZ, which at that time was an assembly plant and was entirely dependent on the supply of components from subcontractors, things were going worse. The development of a new machine at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant was accompanied by a number of difficulties. First of all, the product contained components and parts, the manufacture of which required a completely new approach to production technology. Some technological processes were mastered for the first time. It was necessary to expand the production area, in particular, the blacksmith shop, for the manufacture of stamped parts. Only at the end of May 1940. STZ received working drawings for the T-34 tank, and the first vehicle, with many shortcomings, was assembled on June 17, 1940. After various fine-tuning, debugging, refinement and refinement of the drawings, in early October, the plant began to implement the government program - 20 tanks per month. However, by November 1, only 2 vehicles were assembled, without the main armament, and they were factory tested. By the end of 1940. in the workshops of the STZ, 23 T-34 tanks were assembled, which were not delivered due to various imperfections. Thus, the plan for the production of new tanks was not fulfilled either at the KhPZ or at the STZ. In addition to the untimely provision of working drawings to the Stalingrad plant, the plan for the production of tanks was constantly frustrated due to the untimely delivery of components from allied plants. Hulls, guns, motors were not delivered on time. Many components failed, the main clutches burned, bearings crumbled, various systems- it's far from full list defects. The inexperience of the staff also made itself known, especially at the newly organized production. In December 1940 Kharkiv specialists arrived at STZ to assist in the development of T-34 production. Gradually, the development of the production of a new tank went on, for the first half of 1941. STZ gave the customer 294 units.

The beginning of the Great Patriotic War made adjustments to the work program of the factories. July 1, 1941 GKO Decree No. 1 ordered to increase the production of T-34 tanks at all factories, and at the Gorky plant No. 112 Krasnoye Sormovo to begin production of T-34 tanks. From that moment on, the production of cars has been continuously growing. September 15, 1941 Factory #183 started evacuating and setting up production of tanks in Nizhny Tagil. From the autumn of 1941 until the first half of 1942. STZ was the main manufacturer of T-34 tanks. With the outbreak of war, the program for the production of national economic products at the STZ was canceled, due to this, the number of produced tanks increased. If in June 1941. Stalingraders handed over 86 vehicles to the military, then in August already 155 tanks. In October, the number of delivered vehicles fell, as there were interruptions in the supply of components from subcontractors, some of which were evacuated to the Urals at that time. Serial production of V-2 diesel engines had to be established at home, since plant No. 75, which at that time was also in the process of evacuation, stopped shipping them. Due to the lack of diesel engines, the T-34 began to install M-17F carburetor engines designed for BT-7 tanks. This option was worked out as early as June 1941. in shop "500" of plant No. 183. this work was carried out in the shortest possible time, after 5 days at the STZ and at Gorky plant No. 112 was transferred to the entire design documentation. A gradual increase in the production of V-2 engines allowed in the spring of 1942. refuse to install gasoline engines on the T-34. The loss of subcontractors, during the initial period of the war, led to the fact that tank builders had to find new design solutions for the continuous production of T-34 tanks. For example, at the STZ, part of the welded and stamped parts were replaced with cast ones. Interruptions in the supply of rubber from Yaroslavl led to the fact that the road wheels became cast, with internal shock absorption, this gave the machines manufactured by STZ characteristic appearance. New tracks with a straightened treadmill were developed, this made it possible to reduce noise during movement. They simplified the technology for the production of the hull and turret, the armor parts began to be connected “into a spike”. As a result of the reduction in machining, the production cycle of cases was reduced from nine to two days. German air raids on August 23-29, 1942. continued virtually continuously, the plant suffered significant damage, but even in such conditions, work did not stop. From the end of August and September 1942, equipment was evacuated from the plant, raw materials and tank components were taken out. Military commissariats were instructed to evacuate qualified engineering and working personnel to safe areas. In August 1942 STZ produced the last 250 machines, and a few more were assembled in September from a previously created backlog of parts. October 5, 1942 an order was received to completely stop the STZ, so the battles were already going on on the territory of the plant. October 14, 1942 the Germans dealt a severe blow to the defenders of Stalingrad and by evening broke into the territory of the STZ. This, one might say, ended the production of T-34 tanks at the STZ. Several vehicles were assembled from the backlogs taken to Gorky, which were transferred to training units.

Photos of the T-34-76 tank were taken at the Panorama Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad in September 2014. in the hero city of Volgograd. Now about the car itself, presented in the photo. This T-34-76 manufactured by STZ took a direct part in the Battle of Stalingrad. It was found in September 2013. at the bottom of the Golubinka River near the village of Golubinka, Kalachevsky District, Volgograd Region. The condition of the car was terrible, apart from the damage received by the tank during the hostilities, the T-34 was significantly damaged by vandals, who tore off and irretrievably destroyed the turret, plundered the engine compartment and tried to cut the hull. In this state, he was sent for restoration, where he stood for almost a year, although the restoration work itself took about five months. The problem was to find a tower similar to the lost one. Options for installing a monument tower, which are located on pedestals in Volgograd along the line of defense of the 62nd Army, were considered. In the end, I managed to purchase in Ukraine, from one collector, a cast tower manufactured in 1943. and exchange it with the famous collector E. Shimansky for Stalingrad. During restoration work the car was washed from dirt, rust was removed, the board and feed damaged by vandals were restored. Judging by the reviews of specialists, this vehicle has been almost completely restored to the original state of the T-34-76 tank produced by STZ. Since there were no measuring instruments at hand, to bind to the dimensions, I had to use a camera case measuring 122x87x57mm.

On the labor front, a struggle has unfolded to increase the production of tanks

At the end of 1941 - the first half of 1942, the production of T-34 tanks was carried out at three plants: No. 183 in Nizhny Tagil, Stalingrad Tractor Plant (STZ) and No. 112 Krasnoe Sormovo in Gorky. Plant No. 183 was considered the head plant, just like its design bureau - department 520. It was assumed that all changes made to the design of the thirty-four by other enterprises would be approved here. In fact, everything looked a little different. Only the performance characteristics of the tank remained unshakable, while in the details the machines of different manufacturers differed significantly from each other.

GENERAL SIGNS

For example, from October 25, 1941, at plant No. 112, they began to manufacture prototypes of simplified armored hulls - without machining the edges of the sheets after gas cutting, with a “quarter” connection of parts and a spiked connection of the frontal sheet with sides and fender liner.

On the drawings of the head plant, received by Krasnoye Sormovo, there was a hatch in the rear wall of the tower, closed by a removable armor plate with six bolts. The hatch was intended for dismantling a damaged gun in the field. According to their technology, the metallurgists of the plant cast a solid aft wall of the tower, and a hole for the hatch was cut on a milling machine. It soon became clear that when firing from a machine gun, a vibration occurs in the removable sheet, leading to the separation of the bolts and its disruption.

Attempts to abandon the hatch were made repeatedly, but each time representatives of the customer objected. Then the head of the weapons sector, A. S. Okunev, proposed using two tank jacks to raise the rear of the tower. At the same time, in the hole formed between its shoulder strap and the roof of the hull, the gun, removed from the trunnions, freely rolled out onto the roof of the MTO. During tests, a stop was welded onto the leading edge of the hull roof, which prevented the turret from slipping during lifting.

The production of such towers began at factory number 112 on March 1, 1942. The military envoy A. A. Afanasyev proposed instead of a thrust bar for the entire width of the hull roof, to weld an armored visor, which would simultaneously serve as an emphasis and protect the gap between the end of the turret and the hull roof from bullets and shrapnel. Later, this visor and the absence of a hatch in the rear wall of the tower became hallmarks Sormovo tanks.

Due to the loss of many subcontractors, tank builders had to show miracles of ingenuity. So, in connection with the cessation of supplies from Dnepropetrovsk of air cylinders for emergency engine start at Krasny Sormovo, they began to use artillery shells rejected for machining for their manufacture.

They got out as best they could at the STZ: from August 1941, there were interruptions in the supply of rubber from Yaroslavl, therefore, from October 29, all thirty-fours at the STZ began to be equipped with cast road wheels with internal shock absorption. As a result, a characteristic external feature of the Stalingrad tanks was the absence of rubber bandages on all road wheels. A new track design with a straightened treadmill was also developed, which made it possible to reduce noise when the machine was moving. Eliminated the "rubber" and on the drive and guide wheels.

One more characteristic feature tanks STZ steel hull and turret, manufactured according to a simplified technology developed by plant number 264 following the example of "Krasny Sormovo". The armor parts of the hull were interconnected into a "thorn". The options in the "castle" and in the "quarter" were preserved only in the connection of the upper frontal hull sheet with the roof and the bottom with the lower sheets of the bow and stern. As a result of a significant reduction in the amount of machining of parts, the hull assembly cycle was reduced from nine days to two. As for the tower, they began to weld it from sheets of raw armor, followed by hardening already assembled. At the same time, the need for straightening parts after hardening was completely eliminated, and their fitting during assembly “in place” was facilitated.

The Stalingrad tractor plant produced and repaired tanks right up to the moment when the front line approached the factory shops. On October 5, 1942, in accordance with the order of the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry (NKTP), all work at the STZ was stopped, and the remaining workers were evacuated.

Plant No. 183 remained the main manufacturer of thirty-fours in 1942, although after the evacuation it did not manage to reach the required mode immediately. In particular, the plan for the first three months of 1942 was not fulfilled. The subsequent growth in the production of tanks was based, on the one hand, on a clear and rational organization of production, and on the other, on a decrease in the labor intensity of manufacturing the T-34. A detailed revision of the design of the machine was made, as a result of which the manufacture of 770 was simplified and the manufacture of 5641 items was completely canceled. 206 purchased items were also cancelled. The labor intensity of the hull machining has decreased from 260 to 80 standard hours.

The chassis has undergone significant changes. In Nizhny Tagil, they began to cast road wheels like the Stalingrad ones - without rubber tires. Starting from January 1942, three or four such rollers were installed on one side of the tank. Scarce rubber was removed from the guide and drive wheels. The latter, in addition, was made in one piece - without rollers.

The oil cooler was excluded from the engine lubrication system and the oil tank capacity was increased to 50 liters. In the power system, the gear pump was replaced by a rotary type pump. Due to the short supply of electrical components, until the spring of 1942, most tanks did not install some instrumentation, headlights, taillight, fan electric motor, signal and TPU.

It should be emphasized that in a number of cases, changes aimed at simplifying the design and reducing the labor intensity of manufacturing combat vehicles were not justified. Some of them subsequently turned into a decline performance characteristics T-34.

SCIENCE AND INTENTITY HELPED

The increase in the production of thirty-fours in 1942 was facilitated by the introduction, first at plant No. 183, and then at other enterprises, of automatic submerged arc welding, developed by Academician E. O. Paton. The 183rd plant turned out to be the leader in this matter not by chance - by the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Institute of Electric Welding of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR was evacuated to Nizhny Tagil, moreover, to the territory of the Ural Tank Plant.

In January 1942, as an experiment, a hull was made, in which one side was welded by hand, and the other side and nose were welded under a layer of flux. After that, to determine the strength of the seams, the hull was sent to the landfill. As E. O. Paton said in his memoirs, “the tank was subjected to fierce shelling from a very short distance with armor-piercing and high-explosive shells. The very first hits on the side, welded by hand, caused a solid destruction of the seam. After that, the tank was turned and the second side, welded by a machine gun, came under fire ... Seven hits in a row! Our seams survived, did not succumb! They were stronger than the armor itself. The seams of the nose section also withstood the test of fire. It was a complete victory for automatic high-speed welding.”

At the factory, welding was put on a conveyor. Several wagon bogies left from pre-war production were rolled into the workshop, bevels were cut out in their frames according to the configuration of the sides of the tank hull. Above the line of carts, a tent of beams was placed so that the welding heads could move along the beams along and across the body, and by connecting all the carts together, they got a conveyor. At the first position, transverse seams were welded, at the next, longitudinal ones, then the body was rearranged on edge, first on one side, then on the other. Finished welding by turning the body upside down. Some places where it was impossible to use the machine were cooked by hand. Thanks to the use of automatic welding, the labor intensity of manufacturing the case has decreased by five times. By the end of 1942, only six automatic welding machines were operating at plant No. 183. By the end of 1943, their number at tank factories reached 15, and a year later - 30.

Along with the problems of welding, the production of cast towers, which were molded into the ground, remained a bottleneck. This technology required more work on trimming and gas trimming sprues and fills in the seams between the mold blocks. The chief metallurgist of the plant, P.P. Malyarov, and the head of the steel shop, I.I. Atopov, proposed introducing machine molding. But this required a completely new design of the tower. Her project in the spring of 1942 was developed by M. A. Nabutovsky. She entered as a tower of the so-called hexagonal or improved form. Both names are very conditional, since the previous tower also had a hexagonal shape, perhaps more elongated and plastic. As for “improvement”, this definition entirely refers to manufacturing technology, since the new tower was still very cramped and uncomfortable for the crew. For its close to the correct hexagon shape, it was nicknamed "nut" by tankers.

MORE MANUFACTURERS, WORSE QUALITY

In accordance with the order of the GKO dated October 31, 1941, Uralmashzavod (Ural Heavy Engineering Plant, UZTM) was connected to the armored hull production for the T-34 and KV. However, until March 1942, he only issued cutouts of hulls, which he supplied to Krasnoye Sormovo and Nizhny Tagil. In April 1942, the complete assembly of hulls and the manufacture of thirty-four turrets for plant No. 183 began here. And on July 28, 1942, UZTM was instructed to organize the production of the entire T-34 tank and double the production of turrets for it due to the shutdown of plant No. 264.

Serial production of the T-34 began at Uralmash in September 1942. At the same time, many problems arose, for example, with the towers - due to the increase in the program, the foundries could not ensure the implementation of the plan. By decision of the director of the plant, B. G. Muzurukov, the free capacities of the 10,000-ton Shleman press were used. Designer I. F. Vakhrushev and technologist V. S. Ananiev developed the design of a stamped tower, and from October 1942 to March 1944, 2050 units were manufactured. At the same time, UZTM not only fully provided for its program, but also delivered a significant number of such towers to the Chelyabinsk Kirov Plant (ChKZ).

However, Uralmash did not produce tanks for long - until August 1943. Then this enterprise became the main manufacturer of self-propelled guns based on the T-34.

In an effort to compensate for the inevitable loss of the Stalingrad Tractor, in July 1942, the State Defense Committee gave the task of starting the production of thirty-fours at ChKZ. The first tanks left his workshops on August 22. In March 1944, their production at this enterprise was stopped in order to increase the production of heavy tanks IS-2.

In 1942, plant No. 174 named after K. E. Voroshilov, evacuated from Leningrad to Omsk, also joined the production of the T-34. The design and technological documentation was handed over to him by Plant No. 183 and UZTM.

Speaking about the production of T-34 tanks in 1942-1943, it should be noted that by the fall of 1942, a crisis in their quality had come. This was led to a constant quantitative growth in the manufacture of thirty-fours and the attraction of more and more new enterprises to it. The problem was considered at a conference of NKTP factories held on September 11-13, 1942 in Nizhny Tagil. It was led by the deputy commissar of the tank industry Zh. Ya. Kotin. In the speeches of him and the chief inspector of the NKTP G. O. Gutman, harsh criticism of the factory teams was voiced.

The spacing had an effect: during the second half of 1942 - the first half of 1943, many changes and improvements were introduced on the T-34. Since the autumn of 1942, tanks began to install external fuel tanks- stern rectangular or onboard cylindrical (on ChKZ machines) shape. At the end of November, the drive wheel with rollers was returned to the thirty-four, stamped road wheels with rubber tires were introduced. From January 1943, tanks were equipped with Cyclone air cleaners, and from March-June, five-speed gearboxes. In addition, the ammunition load was increased to 100 artillery rounds, and an exhaust turret fan was introduced. In 1943, the PT-4-7 periscope sight was replaced with the PTK-5 commander's panorama, and many other, smaller improvements were introduced, such as landing rails on the turret.

Serial production of T-34 tanks of the 1942 model (unofficially, but most often they are referred to in the literature) was carried out at factories No. 183 in Nizhny Tagil, No. 174 in Omsk, UZTM in Sverdlovsk and ChKZ in Chelyabinsk. Until July 1943, 11,461 tanks of this modification were produced.

In the summer of 1943, a commander's cupola was installed on the T-34. An interesting detail: priority in this matter is defended in their reports on tank building for the period of the Great Patriotic War three plants - No. 183, Uralmash and Krasnoye Sormovo. In fact, the Tagilites offered to place a turret in the rear of the turret behind hatches and put a third tanker in the turret, as on an experimental T-43 tank. But even two crew members were cramped in the "nut", what a third! The Uralmash turret, although it was located above the left commander's turret hatch, was of a stamped design, and it was also rejected. And only cast Sormovo "registered" on the thirty-four.

In this form, the T-34s were mass-produced until the middle of 1944, and the last to complete their production was plant No. 174 in Omsk.

MEETING WITH "TIGERS"

It was these vehicles that bore the brunt of the fiercest tank confrontation on the Kursk Bulge (in parts of the Voronezh and Central Fronts, thirty-fours accounted for 62%), including the famous Prokhorov battle. The latter, contrary to the prevailing stereotype, did not take place on any single field, like Borodino, but unfolded on a front with a length of up to 35 km and was a series of separate tank battles.

On the evening of July 10, 1943, the command of the Voronezh Front received an order from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command to launch a counterattack on a grouping of German troops advancing in the Prokhorovka direction. For this purpose, the 5th Guards Army of Lieutenant General A. S. Zhadov and the 5th Guards Tank Army of Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces P. A. Rotmistrov (the first tank army of homogeneous composition) were transferred from the reserve Steppe Front to the Voronezh Front. Its formation began on February 10, 1943. By the beginning of the Battle of Kursk, it was stationed in the Ostrogozhsk region (Voronezh region) and included the 18th and 29th tank corps, as well as the 5th guards mechanized corps.

On July 6, at 2300, an order was received demanding that the army be concentrated on the right bank of the Oskol River. Already at 23.15 the advance detachment of the association set off, and after 45 minutes the main forces moved behind it. It is necessary to note the impeccable organization of the redeployment. On the routes of the columns, oncoming traffic was prohibited. The army marched around the clock, with short halts to refuel their vehicles. The march was reliably covered by anti-aircraft artillery and aircraft, and thanks to this, it went unnoticed by enemy reconnaissance. In three days the association moved 330-380 km. At the same time, there were almost no cases of failure of combat vehicles for technical reasons, which indicates both the increased reliability of tanks and their competent maintenance.

On July 9, the 5th Guards Tank Army concentrated in the Prokhorovka area. It was assumed that the association with two tank corps attached to it - the 2nd and 2nd Guards at 10.00 on July 12, would attack the German troops and, together with the 5th and 6th Guards combined arms armies, as well as the 1st Tank Army, would destroy the wedged on Oboyan direction of the enemy grouping, preventing its retreat to the south. However, the preparation of a counterattack, which began on July 11, was thwarted by the Germans, who delivered two powerful blows to our defenses: one in the direction of Oboyan, the other in Prokhorovka. As a result of the partial withdrawal of our troops, artillery, which played a significant role in the counterattack, suffered losses both in deployment positions and in movement towards the front line.

On July 12, at 08:30, the main forces of the German troops, as part of the motorized divisions of the SS "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler", "Reich" and "Dead Head", numbering up to 500 tanks and assault guns, went on the offensive in the direction of Prokhorovka station. At the same time, after a 15-minute artillery preparation, the German group was attacked by the main forces of the 5th Guards Tank Army, which led to the deployment of an oncoming tank battle, in which about 1200 armored vehicles took part on both sides. Despite the fact that the 5th Guards Tank Army, which operated in the 17-19 km zone, was able to achieve a density of battle formations of up to 45 tanks per 1 km, it was unable to complete the task. The losses of the army amounted to 328 tanks and self-propelled guns, and together with attached units reached 60% of the original number.

So the new German heavy tanks turned out to be a hard nut to crack for the T-34. “We were afraid of these “Tigers” on the Kursk Bulge,” recalled the former commander of the thirty-four E. Noskov, “I honestly admit. From his 88-mm cannon, he, the "Tiger", with a blank, that is, an armor-piercing projectile, pierced through our thirty-four from a distance of two thousand meters. And we, from a 76-mm cannon, could hit this thickly armored beast only from a distance of five hundred meters and closer with a new sub-caliber projectile ... "

Another testimony of a participant in the Battle of Kursk - the commander of a tank company of the 10th tank corps P. I. Gromtsev: “First they fired at the Tigers from 700 meters. shoots our tanks. Favored only strong July heat - "Tigers" here and there caught fire. It turned out later that gasoline fumes often flared up, accumulating in the engine compartment of the tank. It was possible to directly knock out the "Tiger" or "Panther" only from 300 meters, and then only on board. A lot of our tanks then burned down, but our brigade nevertheless pressed the Germans for two kilometers. But we were at the limit, we couldn’t withstand such a fight again. ”

N. Ya. Zheleznov, a veteran of the 63rd Guards Tank Brigade of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps, had the same opinion about the Tigers: “... Taking advantage of the fact that we have 76-mm guns that can only 500 meters, they stood in an open area. And try to come? He will burn you for 1200-1500 meters! They were cheeky. In essence, while there was no 85-mm gun, we, like hares, ran from the "Tigers" and looked for an opportunity to somehow wriggle out of it and slam it into the side. It was hard. If you see that a "Tiger" is standing at a distance of 800-1000 meters and begins to "baptize" you, then as long as it moves the barrel horizontally, you can still sit in the tank. As soon as you start to drive vertically, it's better to jump out. You will burn! It didn’t happen with me, but the guys jumped out. Well, when the T-34-85 appeared, it was already possible to go one on one ... "

VICTORY TECHNOLOGIES

After the end of the war, the chief designer of the Ural Tank Plant, A. A. Morozov, wrote the following lines: “Unlike the supporters of any abstruse solutions, we proceeded from the fact that the design should be simple, not have anything superfluous, random and far-fetched. Of course, it is always easier to make a complex machine than a simple one, which not every designer can handle ... The structural simplicity of the T-34 tank made it possible, at the most difficult moment for the Motherland, not only to have tanks, but to have a lot of them, much more than had an opponent. It made it possible to quickly organize the production of military vehicles at many factories in the country that had not previously produced such equipment, and by the forces of people who previously knew about tanks only by hearsay.
Everything is said accurately and correctly, but it requires one addition: the high manufacturability of the T-34 tank is not an innate property, but acquired in the course of long and painstaking work.

Electric furnace for flux smelting AN-2. Plant for the production of tanks T-34

Initially, the layout of the T-34 tank was a “tough nut” for both metallurgists and machine builders, “The history of tank building at the Ural Tank Plant N 183 named after. Stalin" says:

“The design of armored parts for the T-34 at factory 183 was carried out without taking into account technological possibilities and methods for manufacturing armored parts, as a result of which such details as a one-piece stamped nose, a one-piece roof over the engine, etc. were designed, the production of which in mass production would be impossible ... All the main parts with a thickness of 40 and 45 mm along all butt-welded edges had quarters and locks, which required gouging and milling. The tower consisted of separate, very complex stamped parts that required complex machining. The tolerances on the parts were such that all parts required machining along the edges.

The hexagonal (nut) turret of the T-34 tank is being polished. Factory #183, 1942.

The appearance of cast towers did not make matters much easier: in Mariupol they were molded by hand in dry molds. The casting of one tower took 5-7 days and was impossible without high-class molders.
Particularly difficult was the processing of side parts: they needed planers with a table length of up to 7 m. The assembly and welding of armored hulls was carried out on stands, which made it difficult to introduce automatic welding machines. The machine park consisted mainly of universal equipment designed for small series of machines. In general, according to the History of Tank Building, “... the production technology was designed for the availability of skilled workers who could machine complex tank parts in small batches using universal equipment, and the quality of processing depended on the qualifications of the worker.

The hexagonal turret of the T-34 tank is being turned. 1942

Engineering and technical staff, foremen and adjusters had experience small-scale production. The coefficient of equipment of technological processes was low ... which caused the presence of a significant amount of manual preparatory work on the assembly of components and the machine ... Technological process was built on the principle of consolidated operations. The location of the equipment in the main tank department 100 was grouped, which created unnecessary cargo flows of parts. In general, the production of T-34 tanks in Kharkov was mastered only thanks to the highest qualifications of workers and engineers.

In Nizhny Tagil, one could not even dream of such specialists.
Other solutions became urgent, namely, a sharp simplification of the design of the tank and the technologies for its manufacture. In the winter of 1941-1942. technologists and the design bureau of the N?l83 plant began a huge amount of work that continued throughout the war and took place in the following areas:

Thermal treatment of the T-34 tank turrets is underway. 1942

"1. The maximum possible reduction of parts that are of secondary importance in the tank, the exclusion of which should not reduce the technical and combat qualities of the vehicle.
2. Reducing the normal parts used on the tank, both in quantity and in size.
3. Reducing the places on the parts that are subject to machining, with a simultaneous revision of the degree of cleanliness of the machined parts.
4. The transition to the manufacture of parts by cold stamping and casting instead of the applied hot stamping and forgings.
5. Reducing the range of parts requiring heat treatment, different types anti-corrosion and decorative coatings or special surface treatments.
6. Reduction of knots and details received in the order of cooperation from outside.
7. Reducing the range of grades and profiles of materials used for the manufacture of the tank.
8. Transfer of parts made from scarce materials to the manufacture of substitute materials.
9. Expansion, where it is allowed by the working conditions, permissible deviations from the technical conditions.

Turning the shoulder strap of the T-34 tank turret at factory No. 183. 1942

By January 1942, changes were made to the drawings of 770 items of parts, and 1265 items of parts were simply removed from the design of the T-34 tank. At the same time, despite the short time and the lack of experimental verification of the modified and new designs, no errors were found in the future! By the end of 1942, the number of abolished parts reached 6237, and the range of fasteners was reduced by 21%. Such parts and assemblies as the driver's hatch, final drive housing, tracks, control instrument panel, shoulder strap according to the configuration and processing places were simplified. During 1943, another 638 changes were made to the design of the T-34, with the aim of reducing labor intensity.

Cutting the teeth of the shoulder strap of the T-34 tank turret. Plant number 183. 1942

An illustrative example is the simplification of the technology for manufacturing armor parts. At the end of 1941, enterprises that produced T-34 tanks, one after another, began to refuse to machine the edges to be welded. STZ and Plant No. 112 were the first to do this, followed by Plant No. 183. As a result, the labor intensity of manufacturing one set of armored parts decreased from 280 machine hours at the Mariupol plant to 62 at the Ural Tank Plant, the number of finishing jobs decreased by 4 times, and the number of correct rolls by 2 times. In addition, after studying the fluctuations in the dimensions of the parts during hardening, the workpieces were slightly modified so that the hardened parts were obtained within the drawing requirements, which again reduced their processing.

Automated section of the plant's normal shop. 1942

During the war, German factories not only did not cancel the mechanical finishing of tank armor parts, but made it more complex and time-consuming. In the NII-48 report on the topic “Clarification of the technology for welding the armor of German tanks” for 1944, it was indicated that if the first German tanks of the Pz. Kpfw I and Pz. Kpfw II welded parts were simply fitted to each other using machining, then starting with the Pz. Kpfw IV cutouts for lock-type connections appeared. On the tank Pz. Kpfw V were used connections such as "thorn", "embedded spike" and "lock".

Note that for the simplification of technology has always had to pay.
By carefully processing the edges of armor parts and introducing their complex connections, German designers protected the weld from shock loads, especially when shells hit. Having abandoned milling and gouging of welded edges, Soviet technologists had to dramatically increase the strength of the weld. In other words, simplified technologies in one place required fundamentally new technological solutions within adjacent limits. Here we will talk about this in more detail.

Before diving into high tech Soviet tank building, let's pay attention to metallurgy. Almost a hundred thousand tanks and self-propelled guns made in wartime are, first of all, millions of tons of smelted and carefully rolled armor steel. Recall that by the end of 1941, only one armored plant remained in service - Kulebaksky. The Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk metallurgical plants, the Novo-Tagil Metallurgical Plant, again involved in armor production, had powerful open-hearth furnaces, but designed for the smelting of ordinary metal.

Automatic section of the plant's normal shop (details for the T-34). 1942

Restructuring took time, and the pre-war technology itself was distinguished by slowness and considerable complexity. Armored steel in the 1930s. were brewed in sour hearth open hearth furnaces: either in a monoprocess from pure charcoal iron, or in a duplex process (basic + sour furnace) from ordinary coke iron. The smelting of armored metal by a single process in large open-hearth furnaces with a main hearth was considered impossible due to very strict requirements for its purity. Since little charcoal iron was produced in the USSR, the duplex process dominated. Meanwhile, our rivals - the metallurgists of Germany - even during the First World War, used the technology of smelting Boon steel in the main furnaces. In the USSR, experiments of such melting were carried out under the guidance of NII-48 at the Izhora, Mariupol and Kulebak plants in 1936 - 1940, but in relation to ship armor of large thicknesses, up to 330 mm, and in small open-hearths. The war forced us to give up prejudice and indecision: already in July 1941, at the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, experiments with the main process began - on the initiative and under the guidance of NII-48. The first heat was obtained on July 23, 1941. In September 1941, armored steel was produced by the main high-capacity open-hearth furnace of the Kuznetsk Iron and Steel Works. In October, based on the data received, by order of the People's Commissar of Ferrous Metallurgy, the entire production of armored steel grades in the USSR was transferred to the main process. Bottom line: the performance of existing units has almost doubled.

Cutting gear teeth for the undercarriage of the T-34 tank. 1942

Having smelted and rolled armored steel into sheets, metallurgists transferred their products to the armored hull shops of tank factories. Here sheet metal they were cut according to the template into the corresponding parts. In the production of the T-34 tank, two parts of the hull were especially troublesome: the fender liner (the inclined part of the side) and the vertical side plate. Both of them were long, even-width strips with slanted cuts along the edges.

Accordingly, a proposal arose to roll a measuring strip equal in width to the finished parts.
For the first time, this idea was proposed by the armored cars of the Mariupol plant in the summer of 1941. The slab of the Zaporizhstal plant was intended for experimental rolling, where two echelons of armored ingots were sent. But then they didn’t have time to get down to business: the advancing German troops captured both the echelons and Zaporozhye itself.

Dental shaping. Production of T-34 tanks. 1942

At the turn of 1941-1942, during the evacuation and development of the production of armor, the new factories were not up to the measuring strip. However, in May 1942, the People's Commissariat of Ferrous Metallurgy again received an order to hire it - for the T-34 and KV tanks. The task turned out to be difficult: width tolerances should not exceed -2/+5 mm, crescent (i.e. bending) for the total length of the part - 5 mm. Cracks, sunsets and delaminations were not allowed on the edges - in order to weld without machining or fire cutting.

Experimental work began simultaneously in the rolling shops of Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk metallurgical plants, at first without much success. They soon abandoned the rental of parts for KB tanks, but in the end they managed to succeed with the T-34. The team of authors consisting of the head of the metallurgical department of NII-48 G. A. Vinogradov, the chief engineer of the KMK L. E. Vaisberg and the engineer of the same plant S. E. Liberman during November 1942 - January 1943. obtained a high-quality strip by applying a completely new rolling method “on edge” on the rolling stand “900” of the rail and beam mill.

Shelf line of the workshop. Production of T-34 tanks. 1942

In January 1943, 280 strips were issued, in February - 486, in March - 1636. In April, after all the required tests, the development of the gross production of measured strips for T-34 tank wing liners began. Initially, they were supplied to UZTM and the Ural Tank Plant, and then to other plants - manufacturers of T-34 tanks.
Marriage, which was initially 9.2%, decreased to 2.5% by October 1943, in addition, substandard strips were used for cutting into smaller parts.

A complete and accurate assessment of the new technology is given by the corresponding report of NII-48 dated December 25, 1943: “A fundamentally new method of rolling a wide armor strip“ on edge ”was developed, tested and introduced into gross production, which until recently was considered unfeasible in the USSR and abroad . Obtaining a calibrated (black) strip, the width of the finished part of the armored hull of the T-34 tank, made it possible for the NKTP factories to adopt a new high-performance technology for the manufacture of armored parts, without trimming the longitudinal edges. Thanks to the application of the new method to one of the main armored parts of the T-34 tank (wing fenders), a very significant time saving was achieved (about 36%) when cutting them. Up to 15% savings in armor steel 8C and oxygen savings of 15,000 cbm per 1,000 hulls have been achieved.

It remains only to add that by the end of 1943, the rolled measuring strip for another part of the T-34 hull - the vertical side was mastered.
Rollers to the best of their ability facilitated the work of not only armored hulls, but also the machining shops of tank assembly plants.
The minimum allowances had turret shoulder straps for T-34 tanks, manufactured in 1942 - 1945. on
bandage mill of the Novo-Tagil Metallurgical Plant. The People's Commissar of the tank industry, V. A. Malyshev, in his order of September 28, 1943, considered it necessary to express special gratitude to the Tagil metallurgists.

Boring of the crankcase of the gearbox of the T-34 tank. 1942

The metallurgical production of tank factories (producing in particular T-34 tanks) was associated primarily with the casting of armor parts, mainly turrets.

Such a technology was not something fundamentally new - a cast turret was installed on French Renault FT tanks of 1918 release. In the interwar period, French tank builders widely used cast turrets and hull parts on light tanks Renault R-35, Hotchkiss H-35 and medium S-35. Our Anglo-American allies did not neglect armor casting either - on tanks Mk II "Matilda", Mk III "Vallentine", medium MZ and M4.
The reasons for this are clear and obvious: although cast armor has less durability compared to katana, large cast parts ultimately turn out to be more reliable under projectile fire due to the absence of weakened zones in the form of welds.

In addition, armor casting was less labor-intensive and made it possible to free up pressing, welding and other equipment necessary for processing armored parts from rolled steel for other needs.

However, foundry technology had many of its subtleties.
Relatively simple was considered the casting of parts with subsequent processing for low and medium hardness - as was the case on American and British tanks. Hardening of the casting to high hardness was more difficult. As already reported in the first chapter, in the USSR and Germany, to protect medium tanks in the late 1930s. armor of high hardness was chosen. Therefore, German metallurgists chose not to take risks and until 1945 used castings only for small details - such as cannon masks or commander's cupolas. Soviet tank builders took a conscious risk and, even before the war, they began to master armor casting, followed by hardening to high hardness. It all started with timid attempts in 1937-1938. castings of armored masks for the central turret of the T-35 tank at the Kharkov Locomotive Building and Mariupol Metallurgical Plants.

Then, in 1938, a cast tower was made for the first tank in the USSR with anti-ballistic protection T-46-5. In 1939-1940. armor casting experiments were headed by NII-48, which made it possible by June 1941 to organize mass production for KB tanks - cast turrets and armored masks, for T-34 tanks - turrets, nose beams, driver's hatch covers, DT machine gun protection, crankcase and base protection viewing devices. By the end of the year, the T-60 light tank turret was added to this list.

Already during the Great Patriotic War, two major innovations were introduced in the production of cast T-34 turrets. On August 15, 1942, the Ural Tank Plant introduced the casting of turrets and raw molds made by machine molding. This technology was developed and mastered by engineers I. I. Bragin and I. M. Gorbunov; it made it possible to increase the production of tower castings from 5-6 per day at the end of 1941 to 40 pieces at the end of 1942. Of course, NII-48 hastened to immediately distribute materials related to the use of machine molding to all plants in the industry.

Assembling the gearbox of the T-34 tank. 1942

Around the same time, starting in March 1942, experiments were being made at the Uralmashzavod to cast turrets into a chill mold. In addition to the convenience of production, this ensured greater anti-ballistic resistance of the armor of the T-34 tank. In 1943, the new technology was introduced into serial production, first at UZTM, and then at factories No. 174 and No. 112. It remains only to add that the development of "Mold steel casting for tank building" (a group of authors headed by Professor Nehendzi from NII-48) was submitted in 1944 for the Stalin Prize.

But the technology of stamping tank turrets from rolled sheet, which had high hopes before the war, did not bring the desired effect. Recall that in 1941 the Mariupol plant had already started stamping turrets for the T-34M tank; in Leningrad, at the same time, they were preparing to produce stamped turrets for the KV-3 super-heavy tank (sheet thickness - 115 mm). The evacuation violated all plans, however, in 1943, UZTM workers - designer I.F. Vakhrushev and technologist V.S. Ananiev - adapted the design of the T-34 turret and created a technique for stamping it on a 100-00-ton Shleman press . However, there were still few stamped towers - 2050 (according to other sources - 2670) pieces. The press was constantly occupied with other orders, so the focus on casting turned out to be more far-sighted.

Testing of the gearbox of the T-34 tank is being carried out. 1942

Electric welding for connecting armor structures attracted the attention of tank builders as early as 1930, when a special experimental group appeared at the Izhora plant. Compared with the fastening of armor plates to the corners with rivets, the new technology looked more than attractive.

However, the path from intentions to serial production took several years: in the serial production of hulls and turrets of T-26 tanks, electric welding was introduced only in 1935, and for BT - by the beginning of 1937. The case was accompanied by a lot of difficulties: during the past in 1938 At the Izhora plant conference, technologists sadly stated that welded structures were affected by cracks. Employees of NII-48, together with the metallurgists of the Izhora plant, had to adjust the composition of armored steel of grade 2P - only in order to improve its weldability.

Meanwhile, in 1940, employees of the Institute of Electric Welding of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (director - Academician E. O. Paton) managed to independently recreate the method of automatic submerged arc welding, patented in 1936 by the American company Linde. The technology of the new process at the institute was handled by V. I. Dyatlov, and the equipment was developed by P. I. Sevbo. However, both the Americans and the staff of the Paton Institute used submerged arc welding to join ordinary steel parts; for armor welding, the method needed serious improvement. In the beginning of 1941, the scientists of NII-48, together with the workers of the Izhora plant, took up this business.

By the summer, it was possible to achieve, thanks to the introduction of ferrotitanium and ferrosilicon into the flux, a consistently high quality of the welded seam of armor structures. At the same time, with the help of special equipment manufactured by the Electrician plant, automatic welding of several components of the T-50 tank was introduced into mass production.
A technological process for automatic welding of straight seams of the KB tank was also developed, but it was not possible to master it due to the evacuation of the enterprise.

In parallel with the Izhora plant, automatic welding of armor under a layer of flux was introduced at the Kharkov Tank Plant No. 183. We do not know for sure whether the employees of NII-48 or the Institute of Electric Welding were directly involved in this. It is only known for certain that the Kharkiv residents received the drawings of the machine from the Institute of Electric Welding and independently manufactured three installations of the R-72 type. One of them was launched and used to weld the sides of the T-34 tank with the bottom of the fender liner; the other two did not have time to install before moving the plant to Nizhny Tagil. According to the director of the plant Yu. E. Maksarev, Academician E. O. Paton was present at the test of the first Kharkov machine gun. New method demonstrated excellent quality: when testing the welded structure with shell fire, it was not the seam that was broken, but the armor plate.

Processing line for suspension cups of the T-34 tank. 1942

At Uralvagonzavod, the first automatic welding installations appeared in the spring of 1941 and were intended for welding long car seams. After the start of the war, employees of the Institute of Electric Welding did not waste time and by October 1941 they managed to reconfigure the R-70 installations of the carriage production for welding the sides of the T-34 tanks.
On November 6, 1941, the People's Commissar of the tank industry, V. A. Malyshev, while in Nizhny Tagil, signed order No. at hull and tank factories, the only reliable means to ensure the implementation of programs for hulls is the use of automatic submerged arc welding according to the method of Academician Paton, which has already proven itself and has been tested at a number of factories. I consider it necessary in the near future for all directors of hull and tank factories to seriously engage in the introduction of automatic welding for the manufacture of tank hulls.

During 1942-1943. The Electric Welding Institute, together with the employees of the armored hull department of the Ural Tank Plant, created a whole range of automatic machines of various types and purposes. In 1945, UTZ used the following auto-welding machines:

Universal type for welding straight longitudinal seams;
- universal self-propelled carts;
- simplified specialized carts;
- installations for welding of circular seams at a motionless product;
- installations with a carousel for product rotation when welding circular seams;
- self-propelled units with a common drive for feeding the electrode wire and moving the head for welding seams on bulky structures.

In 1945, automatic weapons accounted for 23% welding work(by weight of deposited metal) for the hull and 30% for the T-34 tank turret.

Assembling the radiators of the T-34 tank at factory No. 183. 1942

The use of automatic machines made it possible already in 1942 to release 60 qualified welders at only one plant No. 183, and in 1945 - 140. A very important circumstance: the high quality of the seam in automatic welding eliminated the negative consequences of refusing to machine the edges of armor parts.

Nz welding machines, according to the memoirs of Academician E. O. Paton, "a student of a theater technical school, a mathematics teacher from a rural school, a collective farm shepherd from Dagestan, a cotton grower from Bukhara, an artist from a Ukrainian town ... Girls worked on welding the turrets of the T-34 tank from the Mari Autonomous Republic. I remember how they first appeared in the shop. The foreman led them, showed them the installations and explained what we were doing here, and the girls huddled together, looked with fear at the cranes that carried huge carcasses of tank corps over their heads, plugged their ears from the roar in the workshop.

I saw tears in one of their eyes. They first came to the plant, and even such, and thoroughly frightened ...
Girls from the Kursk region were put on automatic welding of the sides (here, an inaccuracy crept into the memoirs of E. O. Paton. According to factory documents, these girls were evacuated from the Kalinin region. - Author's note). Very lively, smart and literate, they quickly got used to their work, always laughed a lot and sang. They brought in brooms and brushes and kept their jobs with purely feminine accuracy. Not fulfilling the plan was their biggest grief, but this rarely happened.
As a rule, somewhere in the machine, in a place inaccessible to prying eyes, these wonderful girls hung an intricate bow or a picture cut out of a magazine. Age took its toll...
The young men worked mainly in the welding of bow assemblies, in the welding of shaft pipes and on the conveyor. There were a lot of guys from Ukraine whom the war forced to immediately become adults ..,. Some of our fellow countrymen were very small in stature. To reach the control panel, they put boxes under their feet. At first it was very difficult for them, but they behaved bravely and proudly, did not want to lag behind their fathers who worked at the same factory, and showed particular perseverance.

Installation of cannon weapons on the T-34 tank

Meanwhile, V.I. Dyatlov somewhere at the turn of 1942-1943. was transferred to UZTM, where he continued to work on the development of submerged arc welding technology. From the memorandum "On the organization of research work on automatic welding" signed by the chief engineer of NII-48, engineer E.E. Levin, it follows that during 1942-1943. Dyatlov created and implemented the following improvements:

"1. The method of auto-welding with two wires (suggested by V. I. Dyatlov and B. A. Ivanov), which made it possible to eliminate cracks in the armor of the T-34 during auto welding.
2. Apparatus for automatic welding with a constant feed rate of the electrode wire (proposed by V. I. Dyatlov), which greatly simplifies the equipment, which allows it to be manufactured by the factories themselves.
3. Flux-arc welding method (proposed by V. I. Dyatlov and G. D. Knyazkov), which simplifies power equipment.
It remains only to add that in the USA automatic submerged arc welding was used in armor production in 1944. In Germany, automatic welding machines appeared only at the very end of the war, before that only manual welding was used. In the corresponding study of NII-48, its good quality was noted, which, of course, required the highest qualifications of welders.

Post-war surveys of German tank factories showed not only the vastness, but also the high technical perfection of their machine park. As J. Forti noted: “The Germans managed to achieve special art in creating special machines, with the help of which many quick-clamping and multi-place devices were brought to perfection. The use of single-pass modular broaches for the manufacture of gears by designer Nickelberg increased productivity several times. Multi-spindle drilling heads have reduced the complexity of the drilling operation on the “fan” assembly by 55%.

Installation of V-2 diesel engines on T-34 tanks.

In Nizhny Tagil, technologists of the Moscow Machine-Tool Plant named after V.I. Ordzhonikidze. Only in 1941-1942. they completed 325 adjustments, which made it possible to establish a stable production of very important transmission and running gear parts for the thirty-fours. In 1943, the work was continued by the tank builders on their own: the annual report reads: “The simple and easy-to-maintain designs of devices made it possible to rebuild the technology of parts, differentiate and simplify operations as much as possible. In the reporting year of 1943, the production received equipment of high productivity. This tool has contributed new technology into the production plant. It has become a common requirement for technologists and production workers to design multi-cutting adjustments, combined dies, quick-clamping and multi-place attachments.

The assistance of the allies gradually affected: during 1942-1943. At UTZ, high-performance machines became more and more widespread: special modular, multi-cutting and multi-spindle machines. Their total number by the end of 1943 increased to 227 units - against 51 in Kharkov. At the same time, 132 obsolete machines were modernized.

The main advantage of the Soviet tank-building enterprises, and above all the Ural Tank Plant, was the complete transfer of all the main workshops to the flow-conveyor method of assembling T-34 tanks.
If we talk about mechanical assembly shops, then initially their production sites in Nizhny Tagil were organized, as in Kharkov, on the principle of a complete work cycle. However, such a system was effective only with small-scale assembly of machines and the presence of skilled workers. Therefore, already in 1942, painstaking work was carried out in all workshops to break down production operations into the simplest components accessible to almost untrained workers. Following this, the “alignment” of equipment began in the order of the sequence of operations, that is, in the form of production lines.

Installation of a turret with a 76 mm gun on a T-34 tank. 1942

Almost the only way out for our factories was to increase the productivity of available universal machines by introducing new tools and special adjustments. The report of the Ural Tank Plant for 1942 states: “For the manufacture of many parts, a completely new original technology and new techniques were used that were not previously used in tank building: widespread use of multi-cutting cutting, in-line milling, widespread use of broaching, the introduction of aggregate specialized machines .. .introduction of high-performance adjustments on turret machines and automatic machines.

At the end of 1942, the leadership of the NKTP turned to the government with a request to involve specialists from the cutting department of the Moscow State Technical University. Bauman. They have already distinguished themselves at the factories of the People's Commissariat of Arms, offering a different sharpening of cutting tools. As an experimental base for the development of tools with a rational geometry of the cutting edges, the mechanical workshops of UTZ were chosen. For this purpose, a team of researchers was created from local technologists, employees of the VGSPI branch institute and, of course, representatives of the Moscow Higher Technical School. The very first months of joint work in the winter - summer of 1943 demonstrated complete success: cutters, drills and cutters had 1.6 - 5 times greater durability and made it possible to increase the productivity of machine tools by 25-30%.

Assembly line T-34. 1942

The "Guidelines on the geometry of the cutting tool" developed by the scientists of the Moscow Higher Technical School and the workers of plant No. 183 were approved as mandatory for use at all NKTP plants (91).
The Ural Tank Plant's own innovators also had a creative approach to business. In 1943 alone, the head of the bureau of rationalization and inventions, V. A. Nauchitel, developed and for the first time in the USSR introduced a modular milling cutter with plug-in knives, engineer Yunkin created a progressive cutting broach.

Following the first three production lines, another 64 production lines were created in 1943, 67 in 1944, and 17 in 1945. In total, as of January 1, 1946, 151 production lines operated at UTZ. The following example speaks of the efficiency of production lines: for the manufacture of final drive gear T-34 in 1942, before the introduction of the production line, 39 machines and 70 workers were required, and in 1945, on a streamlined stream, 19 machines and 27 workers. For some particularly complex units, automatic production lines were developed. So, for processing the rear axle of the T-34, after welding it into the body, in 1943 it was developed and mounted automatic line of 14 units

Workshop for the delivery of T-34 tanks. 1942

With external simplicity, this work required enormous efforts and incredible accuracy of calculations from technologists. The UTZ report for 1943 states: “The transition to a flow organization production process required the following maximum pre-production:
a) Revision of blanks, possible rationalization and simplification of it, reduction of allowances.
b) Revision of processing technology, possible differentiation of operations in relation to the required rhythm and their simplification, designed for the use of unskilled workers.
c) Rationing of technical processes and selection of the required equipment, specialized in operations, and equipping it with as simple a tool as possible.
d) The layout of the equipment along the flow, ensuring the processing of the part without "loops".
e) Solving the issues of technical control of the product and its location.
f) Providing the production line with the minimum necessary vehicles, the choice of these means, the organization of workplaces, the provision of their inventory and small-scale mechanization (tool boxes, carts, etc.) ...

The first stage on the way to the transition to the in-line organization of production sites and lines at our plant was the organization of machine-assembly shops on the principle of finished production ... These shops supply finished units to the main assembly conveyor ... The next step was the rejection of the group arrangement of machines. With the group arrangement of equipment, the “face of the part” was lost, the beginning and end of processing was not visible, it was extremely difficult to plan the release of parts and control the implementation of the schedule. At the same time, the details made large “loops”, the cargo flow as a whole was confused, a large number of transport workers and means were required. It was not enough to arrange the machines in the order of operations. In all cases, the success of the in-line method of production was inextricably linked with the rise to a new more high level technologies for processing T-34 parts and organizing a production site.
It only remains to add that the chief technologist of the enterprise M. E. Katz was the main "ideologist" of production lines at UTZ.

Adjustment and tuning of the T-34. 1942

If production lines were created for the machining of parts and assemblies of the T-34 tank, then the conveyor reigned at the assembly. The invention of American automakers has been used at tank factories in the USSR since the early 1930s. In particular, the first assembly line in Kharkov was created in 1932 for the production of BT-2 tanks. In Nizhny Tagil, the assembly line for T-34 tanks came into operation on January 7, the second - on April 1, 1942. Later, at the beginning of 1944, a reduction in the assembly cycle of vehicles made it possible to abandon the second conveyor and concentrate all forces on one.

What was the assembly line? It was a system with intermittent movement similar to the wagon conveyor that previously operated at UVZ, with two preparatory sections. At the first, the body of the T-34 tank was installed on stands where electrical equipment, tanks, suspension, tubes and brackets for the engine were mounted. In the second section, the hull was raised on the goats for the convenience of installing road wheels with balancers, guide wheels and front suspensions. Further, the body on its wheels moved to the conveyor belt and was included in the moving production line. As the car moved forward, final drives, control drives, gearboxes, motor, fuel, oil and air systems prepared outside the conveyor line were installed on it.

The entire assembly process included 8 preparatory work units performed before the conveyor in two preparatory sections, and 35 assembly positions for work directly on the conveyor. The work of workers was facilitated by the use of electric wrenches, pneumatic machines and other means of mechanization.
On the conveyor, the cars were refueled with fuel, oil and water.

After adjustment, the tanks were transferred to stands for stationary testing. The closing of the machine and installation on the tracks were carried out on a separate delivery conveyor.

Conveyor assembly was also known in Germany. J. Forti reports: “The efficient conveyor method of production was widely used in German engineering. Each T-34 tank, using a crane or special trolleys, moved around the shop, going through a series of successive stages of assembly and processing, and finally left the assembly line and went for testing and running in.

Tanks T-34-76 loaded onto the train and sent to the front. 1942

But the conveyor in armored hull production was a purely Soviet invention and was first implemented in Nizhny Tagil, on the initiative of the director of plant No. 183 Yu. E. Maksarev.
The order to create a conveyor for welding armored hulls was signed on December 10, 1941, but its implementation was delayed for a number of reasons. The construction was completed in early May, and after a series of experiments, from June 1, the conveyor entered into commercial operation. In January 1943, the same one began to operate for assembling and welding the nose of the tank hull. In the book "History of Tank Building at the Ural Tank Plant N9183" we find an exhaustive description of these systems: "The conveyor for welding hulls is a normal gauge railway track 98 m long. On this track there are 26 "Diamond" wagon bogies, having a spring coupler between them ... All bogies have the same profile for installing bodies in all four positions in which welding is performed.

A tractor winch is installed in front of the conveyor, moving all carts simultaneously to one workplace. The front trolley, released from the body, is transferred by a crane to the beginning of the conveyor and coupled with the rest of the trolleys. Rhythm conveyor 44 minutes.
The organization of work is regulated by the technological process, which provides for 4 positions of the T-34 tank hull on the conveyor:
1. Normal position.
2. Position on the right side.
3. Position "upside down".
4. Position on the left side.

In each of these positions, several carts are occupied, depending on the amount of welding work and the number of welders working simultaneously ... special places... The body is removed from its place, tilted on the floor by an overhead crane and placed on the next trolley in a new position...

The conveyor for assembly and welding of the T-34 hull nose unit is a lattice-type metal structure carrying horizontally reinforced squares along the entire conveyor. The horizontal shelves of these squares serve as a support for rolling rollers, on which an endless Gall chain rests with a step of 200 mm. The conveyor moves periodically every 44 minutes. Support channels are welded to the chain links with a pitch equal to the width of the nose, on which the nose assembly is laid. They protect the supporting structure from touching the protruding parts. The technological process of assembly and welding provides for 15 operations equal in labor intensity.

History of Soviet tank building 1941 - 1945. the fact that the lack of material resources is by no means an insurmountable obstacle in the competition with a more powerful adversary proves indisputably. True, under the obligatory condition that intellectual resources are available. Let's not go into excessive pathos and give the right to a final conclusion to a person who this respect unbiased, namely, the American Steven Zaloga: “The Soviet philosophy of tank design was obviously focused on the creation of an inexpensive and reliable design, devoid of any embellishment. Such a pragmatic approach meant that the Soviet Union throughout the war was able to significantly surpass Germany in the number of tanks built, despite a much weaker production base due to the huge losses of 1941. It was the success of the industry that ensured Soviet Union victory in World War II."

Data source: quote from the book "UralVagonMashzavod Combat Vehicles: T-34"