The Tanks of Operation Barbarossa: Soviet versus German Armour on the Eastern Front by Boris Kavalerchik:
This book is a bombshell of new revelations.
The Soviets gained a knocked-out Panzer II and III in Poland and took them to USSR where they fired 45mm AP rounds at them and found that the AP rounds were improperly heat-treated and too brittle. They were still working to fix the problem when the Nazis invaded. This meant the 45mm gun-armed Tanks could not destroy German Panzers of any type.
When Kharkov fell to the Nazis, the Soviets lost the only machinery that could produce larger turret rings for T-34s and it wasn't untill Lend-lease sent them the machine tools that they could finally produce T-34/85s.
The Tanks of Operation Barbarossa: Soviet versus German Armour on the Eastern Front by Boris Kavalerchik:
ReplyDeleteThis book is a bombshell of new revelations.
The Soviets gained a knocked-out Panzer II and III in Poland and took them to USSR where they fired 45mm AP rounds at them and found that the AP rounds were improperly heat-treated and too brittle. They were still working to fix the problem when the Nazis invaded. This meant the 45mm gun-armed Tanks could not destroy German Panzers of any type.
When Kharkov fell to the Nazis, the Soviets lost the only machinery that could produce larger turret rings for T-34s and it wasn't untill Lend-lease sent them the machine tools that they could finally produce T-34/85s.