When it comes to armored warfare and the history of WWII, the T34 (and it’s variants) deserve an extra thick chapter any book that chronicles defeat of Nazi Germany – and afterward. In 1942, Adolf Hitler is reported to say to his military staff at his Wolf’s Lair headquarters in East Prussia, “If I had known that there were so many of them, I would have had second thoughts about invading!”
The “them” he was referring to was the Soviet Red Army T-34, the now-iconic tank that had come as such a nasty surprise to the Germans in the summer of 1941. The T34, and it’s variants continued to be a thorn in the side of the German’s throughout the war, ultimately rolling onto the streets of a shattered Berlin in April of 1945.
Drs. Matthew Hughes and Chris Mann in their 2002 work The T-34 Russian Battle Tank noted, “The presence of the T-34/76 in 1941 proved to be a rude shock for the Germans. Compared to other Soviet tanks, the T-34 was able to take on and destroy the best of the German panzers. In various modifications—and despite some setbacks—the T-34 held its own until the war’s end in the ruins of Berlin in 1945.”