Soviet soldiers on armor of the T 34 85 medium tank of the Red Army Armored Force posing against the background of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Eastern Front, Second World War.
T 34 85 tank is covered with screens, which protect it from hitting reactive grenades from Faustpatrone and Panzerfaust.
T 34 85 is military designation of the last mass modification of the Soviet medium tank T-34 with an 85-mm gun. Adopted by the Red Army by the Decree of the Main Committee of Defense of the USSR No. 5021 of January 23, 1944.
Designed on the basis of the serial T-34 tank of the 1942 model. The installation of an 85-mm gun and design improvements significantly increased the combat effectiveness of the medium tank compared to the T-34-76.
The new larger turret with enhanced armor protection is structurally similar to the turret of the experimental T-43 tank. The overall security of the crew (5 people) has been increased, the conditions for the functional interaction of crew members have been improved. Mobility indicators (speed, maneuverability and maneuverability) of the T-34-85 tank decreased slightly due to an increase in its combat weight.
In the spring and summer of 1944, the stabilizer of an 85-mm tank gun was tested in a vertical plane. This stabilizer was developed by a special design bureau of the People’s Commissariat of Shipbuilding under the leadership of A. Atovmyan on the subject of “Battering Ram”. Its design features are that the gyroscope, spun by a three-phase asynchronous motor, was not located on the gun, but controlled the power supply circuits of the hydraulic drive pump of the power unit. To power the gyroscope, a GKZ-T DC converter is installed based on a 24 V DC electric motor and a three-phase network generator with a voltage of 60 V and a frequency of 275 Hz. The power consumption of the stabilizer is 550 W, the startup time is 4.5 minutes. The first tests of the prototype took place in March-April 1944 in Kubinka.
Location: Berlin, Germany
Date: May 1945
Author: Evgeni Khaldei