During the Second World War the Soviets relied heavily on the use of tractors for their heavy artillery and mortars to make their way across the battlefield. The most ominous of these was the ChTZ S-65 “Stalinez” tractor which was built in the Chelyabinskiy Traktornyy Zavod (ChTZ ) in the city of Chelyabinsk. Founded in 1933, the ChTZ factory began producing agricultural tractors first with the S-60, which was a copy of the American built Caterpillar 60 which was followed by an improved diesel powered version, the S-65. With the outbreak of war in 1941 the majority of the 37,626 Sons of Stalin (Stalinez) were pressed into military service where they were used to pull the larger Soviet artillery guns such as the 152 mm M1937 ML-20 and the B4 M1931 203mm Howitzers.
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