T-34 variants

T-34 variants
T-34 family portrait, 1941 (BT-8, A-20, T-34 Models 1940 and 1941)
Type	Medium tank
Place of origin	Soviet Union
Service history
In service	1940– 1970s (USSR)
Production history
Produced	1940–1956 (USSR)
Number built	about 84,070

The T-34 medium tank is one of the most-produced and longest-lived tanks of all time.

Identification of T-34 variants can be complicated. Turret castings, superficial details, and equipment differed between factories; new features were added in the middle of production runs, or retrofitted to older tanks; damaged tanks were rebuilt, sometimes with the addition of newer-model equipment and even new turrets. Some tanks had appliqué armor made of scrap steel of varying thickness welded onto the hull and turret; these tanks are called s ekranami ("with screens"), although this was never an official designation for any T-34 variant.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, newly declassified sources have demonstrated that all T-34s with the original turret and F-34 gun (conventionally known as Models 1941 and 1942) were officially called "Model 1941", and hexagonal-turret T-34 (Model 1943) was officially called "Model 1942".

German intelligence in World War II referred to the two main production models as T-34/76 and T-34/85, with minor models receiving letter designations such as T-34/76A—this nomenclature has been widely used in the west, especially in popular literature.

Since at least the 1980s, many academic sources (notably AFV expert Steven Zaloga) have used Soviet-style nomenclature: T-34 and T-34-85, with minor models distinguished by year: T-34 Model 1940. (This page has adopted that convention.)

Because many different factories manufactured T-34s, with components built by subcontractors, the listing below merely gives a broad overview and does not capture every possible variant. Also, not every factory implemented all model changes at the same time. For example, factory No. 112 continued building narrow-turret 76 mm armed models long after all other plants had switched to hexagonal-turreted tanks.