To the 40th anniversary of the Great Victory Back in the 1930s, the Communist Party launched a huge effort to further develop the domestic tank industry. If in 1930-1931 our defense factories produced 740 tanks a year, then in 1935-1937 they produced an average of 3139 tanks . In connection with the aggravation of the international situation in August 1938, a meeting in the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) considered the state and prospects of Soviet tank construction . Special attention was paid to the creation of new samples. Soviet designers developed original types of combat vehicles in a short time; among them, the T-34 medium tank (the design bureau headed by M. I. Koshkin), the KV heavy tank (the design team headed by N. L. Dukhov under the general direction of Zh. Ya. Kotin), which had high combat qualities: strong armor, powerful weapons, excellent maneuverability, high speed and cross-country ability. In 1940, the country's tank industry began mass production of new combat vehicles. The Kirov Plant in Leningrad, Krasnoe Sormovo in Gorky, Traktorny in Stalingrad, and others switched to their production. A tank base was being laid in the east of the country. In June 1940, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) decided to produce tanks at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant3 . A number of enterprises were assigned to manufacture tank engines, armored hulls and turrets. As a result, by the summer of 1941, the production capacity of the Soviet tank industry was 1.5 times higher than that of the German tank industry . 4 By June 22, 1941, our factories had produced 1,225 T-34 tanks, and in 1940 and the first half of 1941, 639 KV tanks. Nazi Germany, which had subjugated the economic and military resources of almost all of Western Europe, then had a numerical superiority in tanks. In June 1941, its armed forces numbered 5,600 tanks and assault guns .5 And it is no coincidence that on the second day of the Great Patriotic War, a group of tank industry wor ... Читать далее