Military historians and analysts believe that the main role of all types of weapons used in the Second World War belongs to armored vehicles, which determined the outcome of battles and major battles. It is estimated that from 1939 to 1945, about 230 thousand tanks left the factory departments of different countries. These are 130 brands of light, medium and heavy machines, which were produced in 13 countries of the world.
Before the start of World War II, there were 11 countries producing tanks in the world: the USSR, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Great Britain, France, Italy, Sweden, the USA and Japan. Spain and Romania also made short-term attempts to produce such equipment, but then abandoned them and began to buy cars abroad. Czechoslovakia disappeared from this list during the war, but Canada, Australia and Argentina were added.
If we consider only those armored vehicles that went through fire baptism in deadly battles, then in the first period of the war on the battlefields, of course, Germany was the leader. It was the "finest hour" of the formidable combat vehicles Panzerkampfwagen III and Panzerkampfwagen IV, whose tracks were cut by the sands of the Sahara, the roads of Europe and the vastness of Russia. Tank corps were also equipped with a light tank PzKpfw III, better known as the T-III, and the most massive PzKpfw IV, the number of units produced by the end of the war reached 8700 vehicles.
The KV heavy tank turned out to be a worthy adversary to the Germans, which already in the year 41 destroyed the elite units of the Wehrmacht. But besides him, the Red Army had a great and formidable T-34, which had several more modifications. Technical solutions used to create this miracle of military equipment provided the T-34 with mobility, combat power, and security. He was maximally suited for fighting in the conditions of Russian impassability. During the war years, the defense industry produced 84, 000 T-34 tanks of all modifications.
By the year 43, the year of the great tank battles, the heavy tanks PZ.VI - the Tiger and PZ.VII - the Royal Tiger - entered the arsenal of the German troops. The Panzerkampfwagen V “Panther” medium tank, which has high combat characteristics, was added to these vehicles. But Soviet designers also managed to quickly respond to the changing conditions of warfare - the army received a heavy IS-2 breakthrough tank, equipped with a 122 mm howitzer, capable of demolishing the entire structure.
It should be noted one more machine that played a role in the battles of World War II - the American M4 Sherman tank, which was supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease since 1942. The Soviet troops had 3, 600 of these machines, but they gained fame by participating in battles in the West in 1944-45.
