158-607: The T-26 tank was a Soviet light tank used during many conflicts of the Interwar period and in World War II . It was a development of the British Vickers 6-Ton tank and was one of the most successful tank designs of the 1930s until its light armour became vulnerable to newer anti-tank guns . It was produced in greater numbers than any other tank of the period, with more than 11,000 units manufactured giving it
316-461: A T-26-4 took place: a blow-back because of shell case destruction during gun fire. Despite the fact that this defect was unrelated to turret design, the military representatives cancelled the order to produce the T-26-4. Also the work to design turretless AT-1 artillery tanks armed with the powerful 76.2 mm PS-3 tank gun started at that time. The T-26-4's turret construction was the design used in
474-607: A body "formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes." All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible. Its role being the defense "of the Soviet authority, the creation of a basis for the transformation of the standing army into a force deriving its strength from a nation in arms, and, furthermore, the creation of a basis for the support of the coming Socialist Revolution in Europe." Enlistment
632-498: A collective committee of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko , Pavel Dybenko , and Nikolai Krylenko . At the same time, Nikolay Dukhonin was acting as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief after Alexander Kerensky fled from Russia. On 12 November 1917 the Soviet government appointed Krylenko as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and because of an "accident" during the forceful displacement of the commander-in-chief, Dukhonin
790-565: A common border between Japanese controlled areas and the Soviet Far East and Mongolia . The Soviets and Japanese, including their respective client states of the Mongolian People's Republic and Manchukuo , disputed the boundaries and accused the other side of border violations. This resulted in a series of escalating border skirmishes and punitive expeditions , including the 1938 Battle of Lake Khasan , and culminated in
948-527: A configuration was that not all of the tank's firepower could be used at once on the same side. Four turret modifications existed, and they were mounted on tanks in different combinations (for instance, a tank with a riveted hull could have riveted and welded turrets). The hull and turrets of the T-26 mod. 1931 had a maximum armour thickness of 13–15 mm (until 1938, see below), which was sufficient to withstand light machine gun fire. Many twin-turreted tanks of
1106-465: A conical turret, with the same 45 mm model 1934 gun. Some T-26s mod. 1938/1939, equipped with radio set, had a PTK commander's panoramic sight. In 1938, the T-26 was upgraded to the model 1938 version, which had a new conical turret with better anti-bullet resistance but the same welded hull as the T-26 mod. 1933 produced in 1935–1936. This proved insufficient in the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938, so
1264-435: A crank lever tightener was located at the rear of the vehicle. The track was made from chrome-nickel steel 260 mm (10 in) wide and consisted of 108–109 links. The T-26 mod. 1931 did not have a radio set. The tank commander communicated with the driver by speaking tube, which was replaced with a signalling lamp in 1932. The T-26 was equipped with a fire extinguisher, a kit of spare parts tools and accessories (including
1422-544: A few T-26s for military educational institutions. These were dissected tanks to demonstrate the relative position and function of tank components during tank crew training. The Stalingrad Tractor Factory (STZ) was considered as one of the factories for production of the T-26 from 1932, but production in Stalingrad did not start until August 1933. This process went very slowly, with great difficulties because of delays with deliveries of machining equipment and press tools for
1580-418: A further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. Thus the grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. This is the official total dead , but other estimates give the number of total dead up to almost 11 million men, including 7.7 million killed or missing in action and 2.6 million prisoners of war (POW) dead (out of 5.2 million total POWs), plus 400,000 paramilitary and Soviet partisan losses. Officials at
1738-503: A hundred times as many tanks . The Red Army, however, had been hindered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge of 1937, reducing the army's morale and efficiency shortly before the outbreak of the fighting. With over 30,000 of its army officers executed or imprisoned, most of whom were from the highest ranks, the Red Army in 1939 had many inexperienced senior officers. Because of these factors, and high commitment and morale in
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#17327732493791896-454: A major reshuffling took place in the Soviet military administration. On 13 March 1918, the Soviet government accepted the official resignation of Krylenko and the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief was liquidated. On 14 March 1918, Leon Trotsky replaced Podvoisky as the Narkom of War Affairs. On 16 March 1918, Pavel Dybenko was relieved from the office of Narkom of Marine Affairs. On 8 May 1918,
2054-776: A more powerful, hybrid tank (the so-called "improved" T-19) with the hull, home-developed engine and armament from the native T-19, and the transmission and chassis from the British Vickers 6-Ton. On 26 January 1931, I. Khalepsky, Head of the Department of Mechanisation and Motorisation of the RKKA, wrote a letter to S. Ginzburg with information obtained via the intelligence service that the Polish government had decided to purchase Vickers 6-Ton light infantry tanks as well as Christie M1931 cavalry tanks and to mass-produce them with
2212-512: A result, the STZ failed to organise the series production of the T-26, but this experience helped to bring the T-34 into production in Stalingrad in 1941. The T-26s produced by STZ had no visual differences from other T-26s, but Stalingrad tanks were less reliable and more expensive. Some early T-26 tanks were repaired in tank units or factories with the use of later production parts. This meant replacing
2370-411: A second machine gun in the rear of the turret and an anti-aircraft machine gun on top of it, as well as the addition of two searchlights above the gun for night gunnery, a new VKU-3 command system, and a TPU-3 intercom. Some tanks had a vertically stabilised TOP-1 gun telescopic sight. Ammunition stowage for the main gun was increased from 122 rounds to 147. In 1938, the cylindrical turret was replaced with
2528-545: A stable nucleus. By 1925, this system provided 46 of the 77 infantry divisions and one of the eleven cavalry divisions. The remainder consisted of regular officers and enlisted personnel serving two-year terms. The territorial system was finally abolished, with all remaining formations converted to the other cadre divisions, in 1937–1938. The Soviet military received ample funding and was innovative in its technology. An American journalist wrote in 1941: Even in American terms
2686-521: A surrender the following day although some Japanese units continued to fight for several more days. A proposed Soviet invasion of Hokkaido , the second largest Japanese island, was originally planned to be part of the territory to be taken but it was cancelled. Military administration after the October Revolution was taken over by the People's Commissariat of War and Marine affairs headed by
2844-406: A tank jack), canvas stowage, and a tow chain fixed on the rear of the hull. The T-26 could cross 0.75-metre (2.5 ft)-high vertical obstacles and 2.1-metre (6.9 ft)-wide trenches, ford 0.8-metre (2.6 ft)-deep water, cut 33-centimetre (13 in)-thick trees, and climb 40° gradients. Needless to say, it was easy to drive. Beginning in 1937, there was an effort to equip many tanks with
3002-549: Is 10 centimetres (3.9 in) for every day of the war. A golden-domed Orthodox church was erected on the hilltop in 1993-1995, followed by a memorial mosque and the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue . At the 60th V-Day celebrations in 2005, Russia President Vladimir Putin inaugurated 15 extravagant bronze columns, symbolizing the main fronts and navies of the Red Army during World War II . Since
3160-615: Is derived from the Russian for "to bow down" since everyone approaching the capital from the west was expected to do homage here. During the French invasion of Russia in 1812, it was the spot in which Napoleon in vain expected the keys to the Kremlin to be brought to him by Russians. In the 1960s, the Soviet authorities decided to put the area to use as an open-air museum dedicated to
3318-590: The Bolshevik Factory in 1931 had hulls and turrets made from mild steel. Later, it was planned to replace these hulls with ones built of armour plate as well as to mount engines of better quality. The business plan for 1932 called for 3,000 T-26s. For this, the tank workshop of the Bolshevik Factory was reorganised into the Factory No. 174 named after K.E. Voroshilov in February 1932. The director of
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#17327732493793476-784: The Fiat M13/40 . During the war, Nationalist forces would attack the tanks with petrol bombs , the first time such weapons were used in war. They were used in the Second Sino-Japanese War by the Chinese from 1938 to 1944, especially in the Battle of Kunlun Pass . The next military operation the T-26 light tank participated in was the Soviet-Japanese border conflict, commencing with the Battle of Lake Khasan , in July 1938. The 2nd Mechanised Brigade together with
3634-543: The Gulag . During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army conscripted 29,574,900 men in addition to the 4,826,907 in service at the beginning of the war. Of this total of 34,401,807 it lost 6,329,600 killed in action (KIA), 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 missing in action (MIA) (most captured). Of the 4.5 million missing, 939,700 rejoined the ranks in the subsequently liberated Soviet territory, and
3792-906: The Imperial Japanese Army ), the doctrine was not used. Only in the Second World War did deep operations come into play. The Red Army was involved in armed conflicts in the Republic of China during the Sino-Soviet conflict (1929) , the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang (1934), when it was assisted by White Russian forces, and the Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang (1937) in Northwestern China . The Red Army achieved its objectives; it maintained effective control over
3950-863: The Panther , the T-26 was gradually replaced through attrition by the vastly superior T-34 . The remaining T-26s participated in battles with the Germans and their allies during the Battle of Moscow from 1941 to 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of the Caucasus from 1942 to 1943. Some tank units of the Leningrad Front used their T-26 tanks until 1944. The defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria in August 1945
4108-462: The Red Army . The Vickers 6-Ton was among four tank models selected by Soviet representatives during their visit to Vickers-Armstrongs . Under the contract signed on 28 May 1930, the company delivered to the USSR 15 twin-turreted Vickers Mk.E (Type A, armed with two .303 in (7.71 mm) water-cooled Vickers machine guns ) tanks together with full technical documentation to enable series production of
4266-481: The Russian victory over Napoleon . The New Triumphal Arch , erected in wood in 1814 and in marble in 1827 to a design by Osip Bove , was relocated and reconstructed here in 1968. A loghouse in which Mikhail Kutuzov presided over the Fili Conference , which decided to abandon Moscow , to the enemy, was designated a national monument. The huge panorama " Battle of Borodino " by Franz Roubaud (1910–1912)
4424-545: The Russian Civil War , together with various armoured cars and obsolescent domestic MS-1 (T-18) light infantry tanks. On 13 February 1931, the Vickers 6-Ton light infantry tank, under the designator T-26, officially entered service in the Red Army as the "main tank for close support of combined arms units and tank units of High Command Reserve". One of the Vickers 6-Ton tanks (equipped with Soviet-made turrets for
4582-732: The Russian Constituent Assembly (5–6 January 1918) and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), removing Russia from the First World War. Freed from international obligations, the Red Army confronted an internecine war against a variety of opposing anti-Bolshevik forces, including the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno , the anti-White and anti-Red Green armies , efforts to restore
4740-610: The Soviet invasion of Manchuria on 9 August 1945 (three days after the first atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the same day the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki , while also being exact three months after the surrender of Germany). It was the largest campaign of the Soviet–Japanese War , which resumed hostilities between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Empire of Japan after almost six years of peace following
4898-727: The Spanish Civil War . T-26s were used in almost all Spanish Civil War military operations against the Nationalists from 1936 to 1939 and demonstrated superiority over the German Panzer I light tanks and the Italian CV-33 tankettes, both of which were armed only with machine guns. During the battle of Guadalajara , T-26s outclassed the Italian tankettes, inspiring the design of the first Italian medium tank,
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5056-595: The T-34 . In 1931, the only Soviet factory suitable for T-26 production was the Bolshevik Factory in Leningrad , which had had experience of manufacturing the MS-1 (T-18) light tanks since 1927. It was also planned to use the Stalingrad Tractor Factory , which was under construction at that time. But the production of the T-26 proved to be much more complicated than the semi-handicraft assembly of
5214-913: The United States . In total, the U.S. deliveries to the USSR through Lend-Lease amounted to $ 11 billion in materials ($ 180 billion in the 2020 money value): over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans ); 14,015 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras , 2,908 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,400 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras ) and 1.75 million tons of food. Soviet soldiers committed mass rapes in occupied territories, especially in Germany . The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence. According to historian Antony Beevor , whose books were banned in 2015 from some Russian schools and colleges, NKVD (Soviet secret police) files have revealed that
5372-575: The Wehrmacht in combat. The Axis's numeric superiority rendered the combatants' divisional strength approximately equal. A generation of Soviet commanders (notably Georgy Zhukov ) learned from the defeats, and Soviet victories in the Battle of Moscow , at Stalingrad , Kursk and later in Operation Bagration proved decisive. In 1941, the Soviet government raised the bloodied Red Army's esprit de corps with propaganda stressing
5530-502: The Wehrmacht was especially harsh. Per a 1941 Stalin directive , Red Army officers and soldiers were to "fight to the last" rather than surrender; Stalin stated: "There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors". During and after World War II freed POWs went to special " filtration camps ". Of these, by 1944, more than 90% were cleared, and about 8% were arrested or condemned to serve in penal battalions . In 1944, they were sent directly to reserve military formations to be cleared by
5688-849: The White Army . In February 1946, the Red Army (which embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces alongside the Soviet Navy ) was renamed the " Soviet Army " – which in turn became the Russian Army on 7 May 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II , and its invasion of Manchuria assisted
5846-587: The brigade and regimental levels. The commissars also had the task of spying on commanders for political incorrectness . In August 1918, Trotsky authorized General Mikhail Tukhachevsky to place blocking units behind politically unreliable Red Army units, to shoot anyone who retreated without permission. In 1942, during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) Joseph Stalin reintroduced the blocking policy and penal battalions with Order 227 . The Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919 occurred at
6004-532: The death penalty . Simultaneously, Trotsky carried out a mass recruitment of officers from the old Imperial Russian Army , who were employed as military advisors ( voenspetsy ). The Bolsheviks occasionally enforced the loyalty of such recruits by holding their families as hostages. As a result of this initiative, in 1918 75% of the officers were former tsarists . By mid-August 1920 the Red Army's former tsarist personnel included 48,000 officers, 10,300 administrators, and 214,000 non-commissioned officers . When
6162-632: The homogenous roof and bottom armour plates were made from mediocre steel. Even so, the British armour was better than armour produced by Izhora Factory for the first T-26s because of a shortage of modern metallurgical equipment in the USSR at that time. At the same time, the Faculty of Mechanisation and Motorisation of the Military Technical Academy named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky developed two tank models (TMM-1 and TMM-2) based on
6320-407: The triumphantly advancing enemy. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies. We have no power to stay the enemy; only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction." The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) can be divided into three periods: At the start of the civil war, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments . The civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved
6478-683: The "Second Soviet-Finnish War") which was a conflict fought by Finland and Germany against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944. In accordance with the Soviet-Nazi Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939, the Red Army invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, after the Nazi invasion on 1 September 1939. On 30 November, the Red Army also attacked Finland, in the Winter War of 1939–1940. By autumn 1940, after conquering its portion of Poland, Nazi Germany shared an extensive border with
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6636-466: The 1929 Field Regulations and became codified in the 1936 Provisional Field Regulations (PU-36). The Great Purge of 1937–1939 and the 1941 Red Army Purge removed many leading officers from the Red Army, including Tukhachevsky himself and many of his followers, and the doctrine was abandoned. Thus, at the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 and in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 ( major border conflicts with
6794-467: The 1932–1939 Soviet–Japanese border conflicts . The Red Army, with support from Mongolian forces, overwhelmed the Japanese Kwantung Army and local Chinese forces supporting them. The Soviets advanced on the continent into the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo , Mengjiang (the northeast section of present-day Inner Mongolia which was part of another puppet state) and via an amphibious operation
6952-451: The 1980s, the hill also includes the monumental museum to the Soviet victory during the Great Patriotic War . The main building of the museum was constructed between 1983 and 1995. The Hall of Glory holds reliefs of the 12 Soviet Hero Cities , and on its marmor walls are inscribed the names of several thousand Heroes of the Soviet Union that were awarded during the war. The Hall of Remembrance downstairs contains books of remembrance with
7110-434: The 32nd and the 40th Independent Tank Battalions had 257 T-26s, from which 76 tanks were damaged and 9 burnt towards the end of battle action. A small number of T-26 tanks, as well as some flame-throwing tanks based on the T-26 chassis, participated in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol against Japanese forces in 1939. The T-26 was vulnerable to Japanese tank-killing teams armed with Molotov cocktails ; poor quality welds left gaps in
7268-465: The 37 mm Hotchkiss (PS-1) gun in the right turret and the 7.62 mm DT tank machine gun in the left turret. These T-26s from the development batch were of low quality and made from mild steel, but it was an important test of the new tank production technology. The series production of the T-26, equipped with new higher turrets with observation window, began in August 1931. Such turrets proved to be more suitable for mass production. The production of
7426-677: The 37 mm gun in the right turret, but the final proportion was somewhat higher. About 450 twin-turreted T-26 mod. 1931 tanks mounting the 37 mm gun in the right turret were produced in 1931–1933 (including only 20–30 tanks with the B-3 gun). There were 392 T-26 mod. 1931 tanks with gun plus machine gun armament in the Red Army on 1 April 1933. One twin-turreted T-26 was given to the Research Institute of Communication in March 1932 to develop special tank communication devices. The plan
7584-646: The All-Russian Chief Headquarters was created, headed by Nikolai Stogov and later Alexander Svechin . On 2 September 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) was established as the main military administration under Leon Trotsky, the Narkom of War Affairs. On 6 September 1918 alongside the chief headquarters, the Field Headquarters of RMC was created, initially headed by Nikolai Rattel . On
7742-623: The Army. The Council of People's Commissars appointed itself the supreme head of the Red Army, delegating command and administration of the army to the Commissariat for Military Affairs and the Special All-Russian College within this commissariat. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy. Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko , commissar for
7900-455: The Bolshevik Revolution took place there were few machines in Russia. Marx said Communism must come in a highly industrialized society. The Bolsheviks identified their dreams of socialist happiness with machines which would multiply production and reduce hours of labour until everyone would have everything he needed and would work only as much as he wished. Somehow this has not come about, but the Russians still worship machines, and this helped make
8058-416: The British 6-Ton. Soviet turrets had a round firing port for the Degtyarev light machine gun , as opposed to the rectangular ports used by the original British design for the Vickers machine gun. The front part of the hull was also slightly modified. Hulls of twin-turreted T-26s were assembled using armoured plates riveted to a frame from metal angles. Some tanks, produced in 1931, had sealing zinc shims at
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#17327732493798216-543: The Dungan Cavalry Regiment commanded by the Dungan Magaza Masanchi . It also co-operated with armed Bolshevik Party-oriented volunteer units, the Forces of Special Purpose from 1919 to 1925. The slogan "exhortation, organization, and reprisals" expressed the discipline and motivation which helped ensure the Red Army's tactical and strategic success. On campaign, the attached Cheka special punitive brigades conducted summary field court-martial and executions of deserters and slackers. Under Commissar Yan Karlovich Berzin ,
8374-451: The Eastern Front consisted of an estimated 3,604,800 KIA/MIA within the 1937 borders plus 900,000 ethnic Germans and Austrians outside the 1937 border (included in these numbers are men listed as missing in action or unaccounted for after the war) and 3,576,300 men reported captured (total 8,081,100); the losses of the German satellites on the Eastern Front approximated 668,163 KIA/MIA and 799,982 captured (total 1,468,145). Of these 9,549,245,
8532-408: The Finnish forces, Finland was able to resist the Soviet invasion for much longer than the Soviets expected. Finnish forces inflicted stunning losses on the Red Army for the first three months of the war while suffering very few losses themselves. Hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty . Finland ceded 9% of its pre-war territory and 30% of its economic assets to
8690-454: The Finnish, German, Romanian and Hungarian armies. The tank was reliable and simple to maintain, and its design was continually modernised between 1931 and 1941. No new models of the T-26 were developed after 1940. The T-26 (along with the Polish 7TP ) was a Soviet development of the British Vickers 6-Ton (Vickers Mk.E variant) tank, which was designed by the Vickers-Armstrongs company in 1928–29. The simple and easy-to-maintain Vickers 6-Ton
8848-432: The Germans and their allies during the Battle of Moscow in 1941–42, the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of the Caucasus in 1942–1943; some tank units of the Leningrad Front used their T-26s until 1944. Soviet T-26 light tanks last saw use in August 1945, during the defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria. The T-26 was exported and used extensively by Spain, China and Turkey. Captured T-26s were used by
9006-552: The Leningrad Factory of Experimental Mechanical Engineering (from 1935 known as the Factory No. 185 named after S.M. Kirov) by talented Soviet engineers P.N. Syachentov, S.A. Ginzburg, L.S. Troyanov, N.V. Tseits, B.A. Andryhevich, M.P. Zigel and others. Various vehicle-mounted equipment was developed for the T-26, including mine-clearing attachments, inflatable pontoons and a snorkel system for fording water obstacles, devices for overcoming obstacles and many others. T-26 light tanks were also modified into different armoured combat vehicles in
9164-405: The MS-1, so the planned production of 500 T-26s in 1931 proved to be impossible. The Bolshevik Factory needed to convert all tank drawings from imperial units into metric, in order to develop a production technology, special tools, and equipment. The first 10 T-26s were assembled in July 1931 – they were identical to British Vickers 6-Ton tanks except for their armament. Soviet tanks were armed with
9322-399: The Manchurian Chinese Eastern Railway , and successfully installed a pro-Soviet regime in Xinjiang . The Soviet–Japanese border conflicts , also known as the "Soviet–Japanese Border War" or the first "Soviet–Japanese War", was a series of minor and major conflicts fought between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan from 1932 to 1939. Japan's expansion into Northeast China created
9480-418: The NKVD. Further, in 1945, about 100 filtration camps were set for repatriated POWs, and other displaced persons , which processed more than 4,000,000 people. By 1946, 80% civilians and 20% of POWs were freed, 5% of civilians, and 43% of POWs were re-drafted, 10% of civilians and 22% of POWs were sent to labor battalions, and 2% of civilians and 15% of the POWs (226,127 out of 1,539,475 total) were transferred to
9638-438: The PS-2 gun was delayed, the Main Artillery Agency of the RKKA gave preference to a new gun. It was developed by the Artillery Design Office of the Bolshevik Factory , constructed from parts taken from the previously purchased German 37 mm anti-tank gun developed by Rheinmetall and the PS-2 gun. This system was successfully tested and the Artillery Factory No. 8 named after M. Kalinin started its series production under
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#17327732493799796-516: The PS-3 tank gun was tested in October 1933 but it was found that the PS-3 was too powerful for the T-26 light tank—turret's race ring and hull roof were deformed during gun fire, and the suspension springs were damaged. It was decided to arm the T-26-4 with the 76.2 mm KT tank gun only. All five experimental T-26-4 artillery tanks were tested during military exercises near Leningrad in September 1934 before scheduled series production of 50 such vehicles in 1935. But on 19 September 1934 an incident with
9954-460: The Red Army finally achieving a Soviet-Mongolian victory over Japan and Manchukuo at the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in September 1939. The Soviet Union and Japan agreed to a ceasefire. Later the two sides signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact on 13 April 1941, which resolved the dispute and returned the borders to status quo ante bellum . The Winter War ( Finnish : talvisota , Swedish : finska vinterkriget , Russian: Зи́мняя война́ )
10112-481: The Red Army numbered some 6.5 million men, many of whom the Army had difficulty supporting, around 581,000 in the two operational fronts, western and southwestern. Around 2.5 million men and women were mobilized in the interior as part of reserve armies. The XI Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RCP (b)) adopted a resolution on the strengthening of the Red Army. It decided to establish strictly organized military, educational and economic conditions in
10270-501: The Red Army the most highly mechanized in the world, except perhaps the German Army now. Like Americans, the Russians admire size, bigness, large numbers. They took pride in building a vast army of tanks, some of them the largest in the world, armored cars, airplanes, motorized guns, and every variety of mechanical weapons. Poklonnaya Hill Poklonnaya Gora ( Russian : Покло́нная гора́ , literally "Bow-Down Hill"; metaphorically "Worshipful Submission Hill"') is, at 171.5 m, one of
10428-404: The Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations and assistance with farm work. Some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army; men, along with some women, flooded the recruitment centres. If they were turned away, they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages. In some cases, the money they earned would go towards tanks for
10586-474: The Red Army with an initial Red Guard organization and a core soldiery of Red Guard militiamen and the Cheka secret police. Conscription began in June 1918, and opposition to it was violently suppressed. To control the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Red Army soldiery, the Cheka operated special punitive brigades which suppressed anti-communists , deserters , and " enemies of the state ". The Red Army used special regiments for ethnic minorities, such as
10744-483: The Red Army's defeat of Pyotr Wrangel in the south in 1920 allowed the foundation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in December 1922. Historian John Erickson sees 1 February 1924, when Mikhail Frunze became head of the Red Army staff, as marking the ascent of the general staff , which came to dominate Soviet military planning and operations. By 1 October 1924 the Red Army's strength had diminished to 530,000. The list of Soviet divisions 1917–1945 details
10902-411: The Red Army's strength was 401 divisions. The Soviet forces were apparently unprepared despite numerous warnings from a variety of sources. They suffered much damage in the field because of mediocre officers, partial mobilization, and an incomplete reorganization. The hasty pre-war forces expansion and the over-promotion of inexperienced officers (owing to the purging of experienced officers) favored
11060-430: The Red Army's tank models suffered severe losses due to the air supremacy of the German Luftwaffe . The majority of the Red Army's T-26s were lost in the first months of the German-Soviet War, mainly to enemy artillery and air attacks. Many tanks broke down for technical reasons and lack of spare parts. As the war progressed and Germany's lighter tanks were replaced by the Panzer III, Panzer IV and heavier tanks, such as
11218-473: The Russian Central Defense Ministry Archive (CDMA) maintain that their database lists the names of roughly 14 million dead and missing service personnel. The majority of the losses, excluding POWs, were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). As many as 8 million of the 34 million mobilized were non-Slavic minority soldiers, and around 45 divisions formed from national minorities served from 1941 to 1943. The German losses on
11376-517: The Russian Central Defense Ministry Archive (CDMA) maintain that their database lists the names of roughly 14 million dead and missing service personnel. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote: "There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, and that is to create a people's militia and to fuse it with the army (the standing army to be replaced by the arming of the entire people)." At
11534-645: The Soviet Union made Red Army logistical support difficult because many depots (and most of the USSR's industrial manufacturing base) lay in the country's invaded western areas, obliging their re-establishment east of the Ural Mountains. Lend-Lease trucks and jeeps from the United States began appearing in large numbers in 1942. Until then, the Red Army was often required to improvise or go without weapons, vehicles, and other equipment. The 1941 decision to physically move their manufacturing capacity east of
11692-535: The Soviet Union. Soviet losses on the front were heavy, and the country's international reputation suffered. The Soviet forces did not accomplish their objective of the total conquest of Finland but did receive territory in Karelia , Petsamo , and Salla . The Finns retained their sovereignty and improved their international reputation, which bolstered their morale in the Continuation War (also known as
11850-436: The Soviet defence budget was large. In 1940 it was the equivalent of $ 11,000,000,000, and represented one-third of the national expenditure. Measure this against the fact that the infinitely richer United States will approximate the expenditure of that much yearly only in 1942 after two years of its greatest defence effort. Most of the money spent on the Red Army and Air Force went for machines of war. Twenty-three years ago when
12008-598: The Soviets released 3,572,600 from captivity after the war, thus the grand total of the Axis losses came to an estimated 5,976,645. Regarding POWs, both sides captured large numbers and had many die in captivity – one recent British figure says 3.6 of 6 million Soviet POWs died in German camps, while 300,000 of 3 million German POWs died in Soviet hands. In 1941, the rapid progress of the initial German air and land attacks into
12166-573: The T-26 and the T-50 as bunkers for the defence of Leningrad. The T-26 entered active service for the Red Army (RKKA) in 1932; it was used in many conflicts of the 1930s as well as during World War II . The T-26 together with the BT was the main tank of the RKKA armoured forces during the interwar period. In the 1930s, T-26 light tanks were delivered to Spain (281 mod. 1933), China (82) and Turkey (60 mod. 1933 and 4 mod. 1931). The T-26 first saw action in
12324-526: The T-26 chassis in the 1930s. Among them were KhT-26, KhT-130 and KhT-133 flame-throwing (chemical) tanks (552, 401 and 269 vehicles were produced, respectively); T-26T artillery tractors (197 were produced); TT-26 and TU-26 remotely controlled tanks (162 teletanks of all models were produced); ST-26 bridge-laying tanks (71 were produced); SU-5 self-propelled guns (33 were produced); experimental armoured cargo/personnel carriers, reconnaissance vehicles, and many others. The majority of these vehicles were developed at
12482-735: The T-26 chassis. T-26s composed the majority of the fighting vehicles in the Soviet mechanised corps of the border military districts. For instance, the Western Special Military District had 1,136 T-26 tanks on 22 June 1941 (52 percent of all tanks in the district). The T-26 (mod. 1938/39, especially) could withstand most German tanks in 1941 but were inferior to the Panzer III and Panzer IV participating in Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 and all of
12640-480: The T-26 encountered many problems: a lot of armoured hulls and turrets supplied by the Izhora Factory were of low quality (with cracks) and were 10 mm thick instead of the planned 13 mm. Poor production standards were the reason behind the frequent failures of tank engines, gear boxes, springs in suspension, tracks and rubber-covered road wheels of early T-26s. Thirty-five of the 100 T-26s produced by
12798-504: The T-26 suffered significant losses during the breakthrough of the Mannerheim Line , in which the flame-throwing tanks based on the T-26 chassis played a significant role. By mid-1941, most of the Red Army's vast numbers of tanks were suffering from serious wear and tear. Poor quality roads, the vulnerabilities of track design in the early 1930s and inadequate maintenance, recovery and repair services all took their toll. In some of
12956-545: The T-26 was already in progress. The British tanks were sent to Soviet factories for study in preparation for series production and to military educational institutions and training units. Later, some tanks were given to military supply depots and proving grounds. The Vickers-built 6-Ton tanks were called V-26 in the USSR. Three British tanks were tested for cross-country ability at the small proving ground near Moscow on Poklonnaya Hill in January 1931. Kliment Voroshilov ordered
13114-477: The Trust of Special Machine Industry, consisting of four factories, was established to solve the problem of tank production in the USSR. The planned production of T-26s for 1932 was decreased significantly and special attention was given to increasing the quality of the tanks. A production run of the new model single-turreted T-26 armed with the 45 mm gun was launched in mid-1933. Factory No. 174 also manufactured
13272-675: The USSR, with whom it remained neutrally bound by their non-aggression pact and trade agreements . Another consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina , carried out by the Southern Front in June–July 1940 and Soviet occupation of the Baltic states . These conquests also added to the border the Soviet Union shared with Nazi-controlled areas. For Adolf Hitler ,
13430-422: The Ural Mountains kept the main Soviet support system out of German reach. In the later stages of the war, the Red Army fielded some excellent weaponry, especially artillery and tanks. The Red Army's heavy KV-1 and medium T-34 tanks outclassed most Wehrmacht armor, but in 1941 most Soviet tank units used older and inferior models. The Red Army was financially and materially assisted in its wartime effort by
13588-471: The Vickers 6-Ton tank design but with an American Hercules 95 hp (71 kW) six-cylinder water-cooled engine, improved front armour (to 15–20 mm), and a driver's position on the left side. TMM stands for tank maloy moshchnosti or "tank of low power". The TMM-1 was equipped with transmission details from the native Ya-5 truck [ ru ] and a ball mount for the DT tank machine gun in front of
13746-468: The Vickers 6-Ton. The engine was located in the rear part of the hull. Early Soviet-made tank engines were of bad quality but they became better beginning in 1934. The engine did not have an over-speed limiter, which often resulted in overheating and engine valve breakage, especially in summer. A fuel tank for 182 L (40 imp gal; 48 U.S. gal) and an oil box for 27 L (5.9 imp gal; 7.1 U.S. gal) were placed alongside
13904-530: The Winter War; the majority of these modified tanks did not have a moving armoured gun mask as seen in Factory No. 174's original design, and some tanks had front appliqué armour only. It was found that the A-43 turret was very tight for two crewmembers; it had insufficient observation field; there was no turret ventilation, which made continuous gunfire difficult; and it was hard to rotate the turret manually. At
14062-411: The additional DT tank machine gun was installed on the T-26 tanks from the end of 1935 until 1939. The T-26 Model 1933 carried 122 rounds of 45 mm ammunition, firing armour-piercing 45 mm rounds with a muzzle velocity of 820 m/s (2,700 ft/s), or lower-velocity high-explosive munitions. Tanks intended for company commanders were equipped with a radio set and a hand-rail radio antenna on
14220-504: The all-rubber road wheels (except the front wheels) and track idlers with new strengthened ones. Armour was added for the headlight, the armour thickness of the driver's hatch lower door of the twin-turreted tanks was increased from 6 to 10 mm and armoured PT-1 or PTK observation devices were installed. A common hatch above the engine, oil tank, and fuel tank was mounted starting in May 1940. In 1940, 255 T-26s were modernised in this way and in
14378-513: The armour plate, and flaming petrol easily seeped into the fighting compartment and engine compartment. The 37 mm gun on the Japanese Type 95 light tank, despite its mediocre performance, was also effective against the T-26. Portions of the armour plating on earlier models of the T-26 used riveted construction and were very vulnerable to both types of attacks. The use of riveted armour on some older T-26 models led to " spalling ", when
14536-636: The army. However, it was recognized that an army of 1,600,000 would be burdensome. By the end of 1922, after the Congress, the Party Central Committee decided to reduce the Red Army to 800,000. This reduction necessitated the reorganization of the Red Army's structure. The supreme military unit became corps of two or three divisions. Divisions consisted of three regiments. Brigades as independent units were abolished. The formation of departments' rifle corps began. After four years of warfare,
14694-606: The assistance of both the British and French. Because Poland was then considered, in Soviet military doctrine, to be the USSR's main enemy, the Soviet Revolutionary Military Council decided to pass the foreign tanks into Red Army service, starting their production immediately without waiting for the completion of development works, in order to counter possible aggression. At that time, the RKKA had only several dozen outdated Mark V heavy tanks and Medium Mk.A and Renault FT tanks, captured during
14852-583: The beginning of 1932 demonstrated no advantage over the Vickers 6-Ton and the T-26 (the TMM-2's maneuverability was found to be even worse). The Soviets did not simply replicate the Vickers 6-Ton. However, like its British counterpart, the T-26 mod. 1931 had a twin- turreted configuration and was designed to carry two machine guns, mounting one in each turret. A major difference was that the Soviet T-26 mod. 1931 had higher turrets (with an observation slit) than
15010-495: The beginning of 1933, a new 76 mm KT tank gun mod. 1927/32 with reduced (from 900 mm to 500 mm) recoil length was installed into the A-43 turret. The turret was still a very tight place for crew members. The ammunition stowage for 54 rounds was unsuccessful, and the military refused the A-43 turret. The T-26-4 with the KT tank gun passed tests successfully and five vehicles were built in 1933–1934 as pilot batch. Initially it
15168-629: The beginning of its existence, the Red Army functioned as a voluntary formation, without ranks or insignia. Democratic elections selected the officers. However, a decree on 29 May 1918 imposed obligatory military service for men of ages 18 to 40. To service the massive draft, the Bolsheviks formed regional military commissariats ( voyennyy komissariat , abbr. voyenkomat ), which as of 2023 still exist in Russia in this function and under this name. Military commissariats, however, should not be confused with
15326-480: The brigades took hostages from the villages of deserters to compel their surrender; one in ten of those returning was executed. The same tactic also suppressed peasant rebellions in areas controlled by the Red Army, the biggest of these being the Tambov Rebellion . The Soviets enforced the loyalty of the various political, ethnic, and national groups in the Red Army through political commissars attached at
15484-485: The chassis, transmission, and engine of the light tank. Drivers were advised to use low gears only. During World War II, a mounting of 15–40 mm appliqué armour on about a hundred different T-26s was performed by local factories in Leningrad in 1941–1942, during the Siege of Odessa (1941) , the Battle for Moscow and the Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942) . A cutting of armoured plates was more rough than developed during
15642-682: The circumstance was no dilemma, because the Drang nach Osten ("Drive towards the East") policy secretly remained in force, culminating on 18 December 1940 with Directive No. 21, Operation Barbarossa , approved on 3 February 1941, and scheduled for mid-May 1941. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, in Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army's ground forces had 303 divisions and 22 separate brigades (5.5 million soldiers) including 166 divisions and brigades (2.6 million) garrisoned in
15800-420: The civil war ended in 1922, ex-tsarists constituted 83% of the Red Army's divisional and corps commanders. In 1919, 612 "hardcore" deserters of the total 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed following Trotsky's draconian measures. According to Figes, "a majority of deserters (most registered as "weak-willed") were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of
15958-566: The creation of the "Special Commission for the Red Army (RKKA) new tanks" under the direction of S. Ginzburg to define the tank type suitable for the Red Army. The T-19 8-ton light infantry tank, developed by S. Ginzburg under that programme at the Bolshevik Plant in Leningrad , was a competitor to the British Vickers 6-Ton. The first prototype of the complex and expensive T-19 was finished in August 1931. Because both tanks had advantages and disadvantages, S. Ginzburg suggested developing
16116-750: The defeated Provisional Government, monarchists, but mainly the White Movement of several different anti-socialist military confederations. "Red Army Day", 23 February 1918, has a two-fold historical significance: it was the first day of conscription (in Petrograd and Moscow), and the first day of combat against the occupying Imperial German Army . The Red Army controlled by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic also against independence movements, invading and annexing newly independent states of
16274-549: The defense of Motherland and nation, employing historic exemplars of Russian courage and bravery against foreign aggressors. The anti-Nazi Great Patriotic War was conflated with the Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon , and historical Russian military heroes, such as Alexander Nevsky and Mikhail Kutuzov , appeared. Repression of the Russian Orthodox Church temporarily ceased, and priests revived
16432-499: The depth of the enemy's ground forces, inducing catastrophic defensive failure. The deep-battle doctrine relies upon aviation and armor advances with the expectation that maneuver warfare offers quick, efficient, and decisive victory. Marshal Tukhachevsky said that aerial warfare must be "employed against targets beyond the range of infantry , artillery , and other arms. For maximum tactical effect aircraft should be employed en masse , concentrated in time and space, against targets of
16590-513: The designator B-3 (5K). The B-3 gun had less recoil and a smaller breech compared to the PS-2, so it could be easily mounted in the normal machine gun turret of the T-26. The first twin-turreted T-26 was armed with a B-3 gun in the right turret in late 1931. Unfortunately, series production of the B-3 gun proceeded slowly due to poor production standards (none of 225 guns produced in 1931 were accepted by army representatives; it took until 1933 to complete
16748-409: The engine in a special shroud. From early 1932, the exhaust silencer was affixed by three clamps instead of two. The transmission of the T-26 consisted of single-disc main dry clutch connected to a gearbox, with five gears, in the front part of the vehicle by drive shaft passing through the vehicle. Steering was through steering clutches and band brakes . The gear change lever was mounted directly on
16906-399: The engine. The engine required top-grade petrol; the use of second-rate petrol could cause damage to the valve units because of engine detonation. From mid-1932, a more capacious fuel tank — 290 L (64 imp gal; 77 U.S. gal) instead of 182 L (40 imp gal; 48 U.S. gal) — and a simplified oil box were introduced. An engine cooling fan was mounted over
17064-514: The factory began retooling to produce the new and much more complex T-50 light tank. This work was slowed by delays in the delivery of new equipment and series production of the T-50 did not begin on schedule (planned for 1 June 1941). As a result, factory management decided to resume the production of the T-26, using T-26 hulls, turrets, and other parts already in stock. About 47 T-26 tanks were assembled and 77 were repaired in July–August 1941 before
17222-500: The factory was relocated from Leningrad to Chelyabinsk in the end of August 1941, and then to Chkalov in September 1941. Factory No. 174 produced engines and spare parts for the T-26, installed additional armour plates on some T-26s, replaced flame-throwers with 45 mm tank guns in turrets of 130 KhT-133 flame-throwing tanks, repaired tanks in army units (846 T-26s since the beginning of 1941) and mounted about 75 turrets from
17380-559: The field during wartime. Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army , often shortened to the Red Army , was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union . The army was established in January 1918 by Leon Trotsky to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War , especially the various groups collectively known as
17538-528: The first half of 1941 another 85 tanks were improved. A central factory responsible for the T-26's repair and modernisation was the Factory of Carrying-and-Conveying Machines named after S. Kirov in Leningrad , and Factory No. 105 named after L. Kaganovich in Khabarovsk from the beginning of the Great Patriotic War until 1945. Factory No. 174 produced its last T-26 tanks in February 1941. After that,
17696-443: The first series had 10 mm armour plates of low quality, which could be penetrated by 7.62 mm armour-piercing bullets from 150 m (490 ft) In 1933, the Soviets unveiled the T-26 mod. 1933. This model, which had a new single cylindrical turret carrying one 45-mm cannon L/46 ( length in calibers , which meant quite high initial velocity, over 700–800 m/s depending on ammunition) and one 7.62 mm machine gun, became
17854-516: The fleet. Proshyan, Samoisky, Steinberg were also specified as people's commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars. At a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked: "We have no army. The demoralized soldiers are fleeing, panic-stricken, as soon as they see a German helmet appear on the horizon, abandoning their artillery, convoys and all war material to
18012-569: The formations of the Red Army in that time. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, Soviet military theoreticians – led by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky – developed the deep operation doctrine, a direct consequence of their experiences in the Polish–Soviet War and in the Russian Civil War. To achieve victory, deep operations envisage simultaneous corps - and army-size unit maneuvers of simultaneous parallel attacks throughout
18170-574: The former Russian Empire. This included three military campaigns against the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic , in January–February 1918, January–February 1919, and May–October 1920. Conquered nations were subsequently incorporated into the Soviet Union. In June 1918, Leon Trotsky abolished workers' control over the Red Army, replacing the election of officers with traditional army hierarchies and criminalizing dissent with
18328-498: The front line armoured units, up to half of the T-26, T-28 and BT tanks had major drive train components (engine, drive train or suspension) that were broken down or worn out and these disabled tanks were parked and cannibalised for spare parts to keep the rest running. Tanks damaged during the 1939 Winter War with Finland were also cannibalised for parts. On 1 June 1941, the Red Army had 10,268 T-26 light tanks of all models on their inventories, including armoured combat vehicles based on
18486-402: The gearbox. Suspension (for each side) consisted of two bogies , four rubber-covered return rollers, a track driving wheel and a track idler. Each bogie consisted of a cast box with four twin rubber-covered road wheels connected by balancing levers and two one-quarter elliptic leaf springs . The cast track driving wheel with removable sprocket ring was located in front, and the track idler with
18644-598: The highest natural spots in Moscow . Its two summits were separated by the Setun River until one of the summits was razed in 1987. Since 1936, the area has been part of Moscow, and it now contains the Victory Park, with many tanks and other vehicles that were used during World War II on display. Historically, the hill had great strategic importance, as it commanded the best view of the capital of Russia . Its name
18802-456: The highest tactical importance." "To the Red army, Stalin has dealt a fearful blow. As a result of the latest judicial frameup, it has fallen several cubits in stature. The interests of the Soviet defense have been sacrificed in the interests of the self-preservation of the ruling clique." Trotsky on the Red Army purges of 1937. Red Army deep operations found their first formal expression in
18960-503: The hull bottom between armoured plates for fording water obstacles. After problems with rain entering the engine compartment, a special cover was installed over an air outlet window after March 1932. Some T-26s produced at the end of 1932–1933 had a riveted and welded hull. The T-26 mod. 1931 had two cylindrical turrets mounted on ball bearings; each turret turned independently through 240°. Both turrets could provide common fire in front and rear arcs of fire (100° each). The disadvantage of such
19118-583: The hull, whereas the TMM-2 was equipped with an improved gearbox, a clutchless steering device and a 37 mm Hotchkiss gun in the right turret. Representatives from the main Soviet tank manufacturers together with officials from the RKKA Mobilization Department considered the Hercules engine to be too difficult to produce, and the engine tended to overheat inside the engine compartment. Tests of TMM-1 and TMM-2 prototypes performed in
19276-561: The hundreds of thousands, and possibly as many as two million. While the Soviets considered the surrender of Germany to be the end of the "Great Patriotic War", at the earlier Yalta Conference the Soviet Union agreed to enter the Pacific Theater portion of World War II within three months of the end of the war in Europe . This promise was reaffirmed at the Potsdam Conference held in July 1945. The Red Army began
19434-399: The impact of enemy shells, even if they failed to disable the tank or kill the crew on their own, caused the rivets to break off and become projectiles inside the tank. On the eve of World War II, T-26s served mainly in separate light tank brigades (each brigade had 256–267 T-26s) and in separate tank battalions of the rifle divisions (one company of T-26s consisted of 10–15 tanks). These were
19592-426: The institution of military political commissars . In the mid-1920s, the territorial principle of manning the Red Army was introduced. In each region, able-bodied men were called up for a limited period of active duty in territorial units, which constituted about half the army's strength, each year, for five years. The first call-up period was for three months, with one month a year thereafter. A regular cadre provided
19750-460: The interwar period. The T-26 was the most important tank of the Spanish Civil War and played a significant role during the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938, as well as in the Winter War in 1939–40. Though nearly obsolete by the beginning of World War II , the T-26 was the most numerous tank in the Red Army's armoured force during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The T-26 fought
19908-417: The leadership knew what was happening, but did little to stop it. It was often rear echelon units who committed the rapes. According to professor Oleg Rzheshevsky, "4,148 Red Army officers and many privates were punished for committing atrocities". The exact number of German women and girls raped by Soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate their numbers are likely in
20066-423: The life of any soldier and (almost any) officer of the unit to which he was attached. In 1942, Stalin established the penal battalions composed of gulag inmates, Soviet PoWs, disgraced soldiers, and deserters, for hazardous front-line duty as tramplers clearing Nazi minefields, et cetera. Given the dangers, the maximum sentence was three months. Likewise, the Soviet treatment of Red Army personnel captured by
20224-440: The losses, excluding POWs, were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). Of the 4.5 million missing, 939,700 rejoined the ranks in liberated Soviet territory, and a further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. The official grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. This is the official total dead , but other estimates give the number of total dead up to almost 11 million. Officials at
20382-487: The most common T-26 variant. The 45 mm 20K tank gun was based on the Soviet 45 mm anti-tank gun M1932 (19-K) and it was one of the most powerful anti-tank guns of its time. The T-26 could carry up to three secondary DT 7.62 mm machine guns in coaxial, rear, and anti-aircraft mounts. This increased firepower was intended to aid crews in defeating dedicated anti-tank teams, as the original machine gun armament had been found insufficient. The turret rear ball mounting for
20540-753: The newly built factory. In 1936–1939 the Design Office of the STZ developed several experimental tanks (6 TK, 4 TG, STZ-25, STZ-35) based on the T-26 tank and the STZ-5 transport tractor. For instance, the STZ-25 ( T-25 ) had the turret, rear part of the hull, engine and some transmission details from the T-26 mod. 1938, but the STZ-25 wheeled-tracked tank weighed 11.7 tonnes (12.9 short tons ) and had 16–24 mm sloped armour. Factory managers tried to promote tanks of their own design rather than producing T-26s. As
20698-654: The northern portion of Korea . Other Red Army operations included the Soviet invasion of South Sakhalin , which was the Japanese portion of Sakhalin Island (and Russia had lost to Japan in 1905 in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War ), and the invasion of the Kuril Islands . Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan on 15 August. The commanding general of the Kwantung Army ordered
20856-460: The original order for 300 guns placed in August 1931). Completed B-3 guns were mounted on BT-2 light tanks after mid-1932. This meant that twin-turreted T-26 tanks continued to be equipped with old 37 mm Hotchkiss (PS-1) guns. As production of the PS-1 gun had ended, some guns were taken from military supply depots and scrapped MS-1(T-18) tanks. The initial plan was to arm every fifth T-26 with
21014-500: The pilot batch of T-26 tanks) was tested for gunfire resistance in August 1931. The hull was subjected to rifle and Maxim machine gun fire with the use of normal and armour-piercing bullets at a range of 50 m (160 ft). It was found that the armour withstood gunfire with minimal damage (only some rivets were damaged). Chemical analysis showed that the front armour plates were made from high-quality cemented armour ("S.t.a Plat" according to Vickers-Armstrongs classification), whereas
21172-482: The rear armies or directly to the front". Even those registered as "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when the demand for reinforcements became desperate". Forges also noted that the Red Army instituted amnesty weeks to prohibit punitive measures against desertion which encouraged the voluntary return of 98,000–132,000 deserters to the army. In September 1918, the Bolshevik militias consolidated under
21330-572: The remaining troops as numbering 10 million. While the Imperial Russian Army was being taken apart, "it became apparent that the rag-tag Red Guard units and elements of the imperial army who had gone over the side of the Bolsheviks were quite inadequate to the task of defending the new government against external foes." Therefore, the Council of People's Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918. They envisioned
21488-696: The same day the office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was created, and initially assigned to Jukums Vācietis (and from July 1919 to Sergey Kamenev ). The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces existed until April 1924, the end of Russian Civil War . In November 1923, after the establishment of the Soviet Union, the Russian Narkom of War Affairs was transformed into the Soviet Narkom of War and Marine Affairs. At
21646-585: The same time as the general Soviet move into the areas abandoned by the Ober Ost garrisons that were being withdrawn to Germany in the aftermath of World War I . This merged into the 1919–1921 Polish–Soviet War , in which the Red Army invaded Poland, reaching the central part of the country in 1920, but then suffered a resounding defeat in Warsaw , which put an end to the war. During the Polish Campaign
21804-595: The series-produced BT-7A artillery tank. In 1939, the Armoured Directorate of the Red Army (ABTU RKKA) ordered the development of a new conical turret for the T-26 similar to the BT-7 's turret and to arm it with the 76.2 mm L-10 tank gun. Engineers of the Factory No. 174 felt it was impossible to implement this project because it would lead to a significant overload of T-26's chassis. A large variety of different armoured combat vehicles were developed on
21962-686: The supreme command of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic ( Russian : Революционный Военный Совет , romanized : Revolyutsionny Voyenny Sovyet (Revvoyensoviet) ). The first chairman was Trotsky, and the first commander-in-chief was Jukums Vācietis of the Latvian Riflemen ; in July 1919 he was replaced by Sergey Kamenev . Soon afterwards Trotsky established the GRU (military intelligence) to provide political and military intelligence to Red Army commanders. Trotsky founded
22120-404: The tank factory became K. Sirken and the chief engineer was S. Ginzburg. The problems with organizing the complicated new technological processes, poor production planning of parts suppliers, a great shortage of qualified engineers and technicians as well as of necessary equipment still resulted in many of the tanks being flawed, and they were not accepted by army representatives. On 26 October 1932,
22278-560: The tank in the USSR. The ability of the two turrets of the Type A to turn independently made it possible to fire to both the left and right at once, which was considered advantageous for breakthroughs of field entrenchments. Several Soviet engineers participated in assembly of the tanks at the Vickers factory in 1930. The first four Vickers 6-Ton tanks arrived in the USSR at the end of 1930. The last tanks arrived in 1932, when series production of
22436-405: The tank was upgraded once more in February 1939 to have an underturret box with sloped (23°) 20 mm side armoured plates. The turret featured an increase to 20 mm at 18 degrees sloping. This time it was designated T-26-1 (known as the T-26 mod. 1939 in modern sources). There were subsequent attempts to thicken the front plate, but T-26 production soon ended in favour of other designs, such as
22594-634: The time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. Approximately 23% (about 19 million) of the male population of the Russian Empire were mobilized; however, most of them were not equipped with any weapons and had support roles such as maintaining the lines of communication and the base areas. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters, 1.8 million dead, 5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners. He estimated
22752-438: The title of the most produced tank during the interwar period . During the 1930s, the USSR developed 53 variants of the T-26, including flame-throwing tanks, combat engineer vehicles, remotely controlled tanks, self-propelled guns, artillery tractors, and armoured carriers. Twenty-three of these were series-produced, others were experimental models. The T-26 and BT were the main tanks of the Red Army 's armoured forces during
22910-631: The tradition of blessing arms before battle. To encourage the initiative of Red Army commanders, the CPSU temporarily abolished political commissars , reintroduced formal military ranks and decorations, and introduced the Guards unit concept. Exceptionally heroic or high-performing units earned the Guards title (for example 1st Guards Special Rifle Corps , 6th Guards Tank Army ), an elite designation denoting superior training, materiel, and pay. Punishment also
23068-498: The turret (so called "radio tanks"). Later the hand-rail antenna was replaced with a whip antenna , because experience in the Spanish Civil War and Battle of Lake Khasan showed that the hand-rail antenna drew fire onto commander tanks. The tank was powered by a GAZ T-26 90 hp (67 kW) straight 4-cylinder air-cooled petrol engine , which was a complete Soviet copy of the Armstrong Siddeley engine used in
23226-399: The type of tank units that participated in the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 and in the Winter War from December 1939 – March 1940. The Winter War proved that the T-26 was obsolete and its design reserve was totally depleted. Finnish 37 mm antitank guns and even 20 mm antitank rifles easily penetrated the T-26's thin anti-bullet armour and tank units equipped with
23384-664: The unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan . During its operations on the Eastern Front , it accounted for 75–80% of the casualties that the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS suffered during the war, and ultimately captured the German capital, Berlin . Up to 34 million soldiers served in the Red Army during World War II, 8 million of which were non-Slavic minorities. Officially, the Red Army lost 6,329,600 killed in action (KIA), 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 missing in action (MIA) ( mostly captured ). The majority of
23542-568: The western military districts. The Axis forces deployed on the Eastern Front consisted of 181 divisions and 18 brigades (3 million soldiers). Three Fronts, the Northwestern , Western , and Southwestern conducted the defense of the western borders of the USSR. In the first weeks of the Great Patriotic War (as it is known in Russia), the Wehrmacht defeated many Red Army units. The Red Army lost millions of men as prisoners and lost much of its pre-war matériel. Stalin increased mobilization, and by 1 August 1941, despite 46 divisions lost in combat,
23700-434: Was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland . It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland . The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union on 14 December 1939. The Soviet forces led by Semyon Timoshenko had three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and
23858-412: Was conditional upon "guarantees being given by a military or civil committee functioning within the territory of the Soviet Power, or by party or trade union committees or, in extreme cases, by two persons belonging to one of the above organizations." In the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a "collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary." Because
24016-419: Was installed here in 1962. The Victory Park [ ru ] and the Square of Victors are important parts of the outdoor museum. In 1987, the hill was levelled to the ground, and in the 1990s an obelisk was added with a statue of Nike , and a monument of Saint George slaying the dragon , both of which were designed by Zurab Tsereteli . The obelisk's height is exactly 141.8 metres (465 ft), which
24174-449: Was intended for export to less technically advanced countries: the Soviet Union , Poland , Brazil , Argentina , Japan , Thailand , China , and many others. Vickers advertised the tank in military publications, and both the Soviet Union and Poland expressed interest in the Vickers design. In early 1930, the Soviet buying committee, under the direction of Semyon Ginzburg , arrived in the UK to select tanks, tractors, and cars for use in
24332-419: Was killed on 20 November 1917. Nikolai Podvoisky was appointed as the Narkom of War Affairs, leaving Dybenko in charge of the Narkom of Marine Affairs and Ovseyenko – the expeditionary forces to the Southern Russia on 28 November 1917. The Bolsheviks also sent out their own representatives to replace front commanders of the Russian Imperial Army . After the signing of Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918,
24490-541: Was planned to arm three of these T-26-4 with the 76.2 mm KT tank gun mod. 1927/32 and the other two tanks with the 76.2 mm PS-3 tank gun. The PS-3 tank gun was developed at the Experimental Engineering-Mechanical Department (OKMO) of the Factory No. 174 by engineer P. Syachentov. The PS-3 had better specifications in comparison with the series-produced KT tank gun and also had several technical innovations (foot firing switch, original training gear, travelling position fixing, binocular optical sight). The T-26-4 armed with
24648-408: Was the last military operation in which Soviet T-26s were used. The Finnish Army used captured T-26s of different models during the Continuation War and some tanks served in Finland for various non-combat purposes until 1961. Captured T-26s were also used by the German, Romanian and Hungarian armies. The Romanian-captured vehicles saw some modifications (see below ). As the series production of
24806-492: Was to equip each tank with a keyphone, while a platoon commander's tank would be equipped with a telephone switch for 6 subscribers (four for the tanks in the platoon, one for communication with infantry and one for contacting headquarters). A special terminal block was mounted on the rear of the tank so that communication wires could be connected. The work remained experimental. The T-26 mod. 1939 with appliqué armour weighed 12 tonnes (13 short tons ), which caused an overload of
24964-402: Was used; slackers, malingerers, those avoiding combat with self-inflicted wounds cowards, thieves, and deserters were disciplined with beatings, demotions, undesirable/dangerous duties, and summary execution by NKVD punitive detachments. At the same time, the osobist (NKVD military counter-intelligence officers) became a key Red Army figure with the power to condemn to death and to spare
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