German soldiers from the Nazi Wehrmacht posing on the armor of the Soviet T 35 multi-turret heavy tank of the Red Army Armoured Force. World War 2, the Eastern Front.
Most likely, the T 35 heavy tank was abandoned by the crew during the retreat due to a malfunction or lack of fuel.
Time taken: 1941
Photography Location: Ternopol, Western Ukraine
T 35 is a Soviet heavy tank of the interwar period. Developed in 1931-1932 by engineers of the Specialized Design Bureau (KB) under the general supervision of N. V. Barykov. It is the first heavy tank in the USSR put into mass production – in 1933-1939 at the Kharkov Locomotive Plant. Within several small batches, 59 serial machines were produced.
The T 35 was a five-turret heavy tank with a classic layout, with cannon and machine gun armament and bulletproof armor. It was intended to support infantry and qualitatively strengthen rifle and tank formations when breaking through heavily fortified enemy positions. The T 35 is the only mass-produced five-turreted tank in the world and the most powerful tank of the Red Army of the 1930s.
Since 1933, the T 35 tanks entered service with the fifth heavy tank brigade (5 TTBR) of the Red Army, since 1936 – allocated together with the rest of the TTBR to the reserve of the High Command. Until 1941, the T 35 did not participate in any hostilities, however, they were used to a limited extent during maneuvers and exercises and were often used in military parades, being a visible embodiment of the military power of the USSR. Its took part in the fighting of the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War as part of the 34th Tank Division of the Kiev Special Military District of the Red Army, but they were lost very quickly, mainly due to technical malfunctions (only seven tanks were lost in battle). In the fall of 1941, four of this heavy tanks took part in the battles for Kharkov as part of a separate anti-tank detachment. All of them were lost in battle.