Tanks in the Soviet Union

This article deals with the history and development of tanks of the Soviet Union from their first use after World War I, into the interwar period, during World War II, the Cold War and modern era.

After World War I, many nations needed to have tanks, but only a few had the industrial resources to design and build them. During and after World War I, Britain and France were the intellectual leaders in tank design, with other countries generally following and adopting their designs. This early lead would be gradually lost during the course of the 1930s to the Soviet Union who with Germany began to design and build their own tanks. The Treaty of Versailles had severely limited Germany's industrial output. Therefore, in order to circumvent Germany's treaty restrictions, these industrial firms formed a partnerships with the Soviet Union to legally produce weapons and sell them, and along with other factors built up an infrastructure to produce tanks which later made the famous T-34 and other Soviet tanks.

Imperial Russia had flirted with some designs such as the Tsar Tank which was scrapped, and the Vezdekhod (Вездеход) which did not however progress further than a pre-production model, due to problems in the design.

The final tank designs in World War I showed a number of trends such as in the US and British produced Mark VIII tank for heavy tanks. However, the French Renault FT set the pattern for almost all tanks that followed it; these tanks generally had lower track profiles and more compact hulls, and mounted their weapons in turrets. Following the Great War, Britain continued its technical dominance of tank design, and British designs, particularly those from Vickers-Armstrong, formed the basis for many Soviet tank designs of the 1930s, including the T-26 and BT series. Designs such as the Vickers Medium Mk II brought to the forefront the fully rotating turret on top and dual-use 3-pounder gun (that could fire both high-explosive and anti-tank shells), while the Vickers Carden-Lloyd machine gun carriers influenced the tankette concept such as the Soviet T-27.

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