This is a list of the former Soviet tank factories. Today most of them are located in the Russian Federation, while only the Malyshev Factory is located in Ukraine.
This list includes the heavy steel manufacturing plants where main production and assembly of medium and heavy armoured vehicles took place, initiated first in the late 1920s as a prerequisite for the developing Red Army doctrine that called for large tank forces. It does not list the related facilities which fabricated components for them, the many lighter automotive industries which built light tracked vehicles and armoured cars, nor the armoured vehicle repair and overhaul plants.
Keeping track of the tank factories can be difficult. Many were based on pre-Soviet imperial Russian shipbuilding or locomotive factories, and may have changed names more than once. The majority were evacuated and consolidated in the Urals in the fall of 1941, shortly after the disastrous German invasion of June 22. After World War II, some remained in their new location, others were moved back or re-established at other factories. Most were also known by their designation numbers as well as honorific names.
English translations of the factory names can also be confusing. In various sources, the Russian "завод" is translated either as "factory", "plant", "works", or simply transliterated as "zavod".
Initial Location | Kharkov (Kharkiv) | Kharkov (Kharkiv) | Nizhny Tagil | Leningrad (St Petersburg) | Leningrad (St Petersburg) | Leningrad (St Petersburg) | Chelyabinsk | Stalingrad (later Volgograd) | Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) | Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pre-Soviet name | Kharkov Locomotive Factory (KhPZ), 1895 | Treasury iron foundry, 1801 Putilov Factory, 1868 | Nizhny Novgorod Machine Factory, 1849 | |||||||
Early Soviet name | Kharkov Diesel Factory | Kharkov Komintern Locomotive Factory, 1928 | Dzerzhinsky Ural Railroad Car Factory, Uralvagonzavod , (UVZ or Vagonka), 1936 | Factory No. 185 (S.M. Kirov), 1935; originally a part of Bolshevik Factory No. 232 [1] | Red Putilovite Plant, 1922 renamed Kirov Plant, 1934 | K.E. Voroshilov (Russian), 1932; originally a part of Bolshevik Factory No. 232 [1] | Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ), 1933 | Dzerzhinsky Stalingrad Tractor Factory (STZ), 1930 [2] | Krasnoye Sormovo (Andrei Zhdanov), 1920 [2] | Ordzhonikidze Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant (UZTM), 1933 |
Factory Number | Factory No. 75 | Factory No. 183, 1936 | Factory No. 185 [1] | Factory No. 100 until 1941 | Factory No. 174 [1] | Factory No. 100, 1941 [2] [3] | Factory No. 112 [2] | |||
World War II | Moved to Tankograd in Chelyabinsk, 1941 [2] | KhPZ merged with Uralvagonzavod in Nizhny Tagil to form Ural Tank Factory No. 183 (I.V. Stalin), 1941; [2] Became the world's largest tank factory. | Partially moved to Tankograd in Chelyabinsk, 1941 | Partially [2] moved to Tankograd in Chelyabinsk, 1941 | Moved to Chkalov, 1941; Moved again to Omsk, as Omsk Lenin Factory No. 174, [2] 1942 | Chelyabinsk Kirov Factory, [2] unofficially known as Tankograd | Overran in the Battle of Stalingrad, 1942 | |||
Location after World War II | Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR | Nizhny Tagil | St Petersburg (Leningrad) | St Petersburg (Leningrad) | Omsk, 1962 | Chelyabinsk | Volgograd (Stalingrad) | Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) | Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) | |
After World War II | Restored as Kharkov Diesel Factory No. 75 by partly moving Factory No. 183 back from Nizhny Tagil, 1944-1952 Renamed Malyshev Factory, 1957 | Uralvagonzavod, 1984 | Switched to engines construction | Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, 1958 | Volgograd Tractor Factory, 1961 | Returned to shipbuilding | ||||
Post-Soviet | independent Ukraine, 1991 | Uralvagonzavod OAO | Kirov Plant | Omsk Transmash | ChTZ-Uraltrac, 1998 | Bankrupt, 2005 [4] | OAO Zavod "Krasnoye Sormovo", 1994 [5] | Uralmash, 1992 | ||
Design Bureau | Morozov Design Bureau (KMDB) | OKB-520 Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau, 1944 | OKMO [1] | SKB-2 (Josef Kotin) [1] | KBTM | Dukhov | ||||
Designed | T-24, BT tanks, T-34, T-44, T-54, T-64, T-80 turret, T-80UD, T-84 | T-54A, T-55, T-62, T-72, T-90, T-95 prototype, T-14 | T-26, T-35 | SMK, KV, IS-2, IS-3 hull, T-10 | (SKB-1: T-50) T-80 hull, BTR-T, TOS-1, Black Eagle tank prototype | IS-3 turret | T-34-85 turret | |||
Built | T-34 engine | T-26, BT tanks, T-28, T-35, T-34 | T-34 | T-34 | KV, T-34, IS | T-26, T-50, T-34 | KV, IS, SU-152, ISU-122, ISU-152, T-34, SU-85 [2] | T-34 | Russkiy Reno, T-34 | T-34, SU-85, [2] SU-122, [2] SU-100 |
T-54/55, T-64, T-80UD, T-84 | T-44, T-54/55, T-62, T-72, T-90, T-14 | IS-4, T-10, T-80, PT-76 | T-10, T-80 | PT-76 | T-54 |
A tank destroyer, tank hunter or tank killer is a type of armoured fighting vehicle, predominantly intended for anti-tank duties. They are typically armed with a direct fire artillery gun, also known as a self-propelled anti-tank gun, or missile launcher, also called an anti-tank missile carrier. The vehicles are designed specifically to engage and destroy enemy tanks, often with limited operational capacities.
The Katyusha is a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. Multiple rocket launchers such as these deliver explosives to a target area more intensively than conventional artillery, but with lower accuracy and requiring a longer time to reload. They are fragile compared to artillery guns, but are cheap, easy to produce, and usable on almost any chassis. The Katyushas of World War II, the first self-propelled artillery mass-produced by the Soviet Union, were usually mounted on ordinary trucks. This mobility gave the Katyusha, and other self-propelled artillery, another advantage: being able to deliver a large blow all at once, and then move before being located and attacked with counter-battery fire.
The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank from World War II. When introduced, its 76.2 mm (3 in) tank gun was more powerful than its contemporaries, and its 60-degree sloped armour provided good protection against anti-tank weapons. The T-34 had a profound effect on the conflict on the Eastern Front, and had a long-lasting impact on tank design. The tank was praised by multiple German generals when encountered during Operation Barbarossa, although its armour and armament were surpassed later in the war. Though, its main strength was its cost and production time, meaning that German panzer forces would often fight against Soviet tank forces several times their size. The T-34 is also a critical part of the mechanized divisions that form the backbone of the Deep Battle Strategy.
The IS tanks were a series of heavy tanks developed as a successor to the KV-series by the Soviet Union during World War II. The IS acronym is the anglicized initialism of Joseph Stalin. The heavy tanks were designed as a response to the capture of a German Tiger I in 1943. They were mainly designed as breakthrough tanks, firing a heavy high-explosive shell that was useful against entrenchments and bunkers. The IS-2 went into service in April 1944 and was used as a spearhead by the Red Army in the final stage of the Battle of Berlin. The IS-3 served on the Chinese-Soviet border, the Hungarian Revolution, the Prague Spring and on both sides of the Six-Day War. The series eventually culminated in the T-10 heavy tank.
The Kliment Voroshilov (KV) tanks are a series of Soviet heavy tanks named after the Soviet defence commissar and politician Kliment Voroshilov who operated with the Red Army during World War II. The KV tanks were known for their heavy armour protection during the early stages of the war, especially during the first year of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In certain situations, even a single KV-1 or KV-2 supported by infantry could halt German formations. The German Wehrmacht at that time rarely deployed its tanks against KVs, as their own armament was too poor to deal with the "Russischer Koloss" – "Russian Colossus".
The T-28 was a Soviet multi-turreted medium tank. The prototype was completed in 1931, and production began in late 1932. It was an infantry support tank intended to break through fortified defences. The T-28 was designed to complement the heavier T-35, with which it shared turret designs. The type did not have great success in combat, but it played an important role as a development project for Soviet tank designers. A series of new ideas and solutions that were tried out on the T-28 were later incorporated in future models.
A BT tank was one of a series of Soviet light tanks produced in large numbers between 1932 and 1941. They were lightly armoured, but reasonably well-armed for their time, and had the best mobility of all contemporary tanks. The BT tanks were known by the nickname Betka from the acronym, or by its diminutive Betushka. The successor of the BT tanks was the famous T-34 medium tank, introduced in 1940, which would replace all of the Soviet fast tanks, infantry tanks, and medium tanks in service.
The SU-152 is a Soviet self-propelled heavy howitzer used during World War II.
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The Type 97 Chi-Ha was a medium tank used by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battles of Khalkhin Gol against the Soviet Union, and the Second World War. It was the most widely produced Japanese medium tank of World War II.
The T-70 is a light tank used by the Red Army during World War II, replacing both the T-60 scout tank for reconnaissance and the T-50 light infantry tank for infantry support. The T-80 light tank was a more advanced version of the T-70 with a two-man turret—it was produced only in very small numbers when light tank production was abandoned. The T-90 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun was a prototype vehicle with twin machine guns, based on the T-70 chassis.
Tanks were initially deployed in World War I, engineered to overcome the deadlock of trench warfare. Between the two world wars, tanks were further developed. Although they had demonstrated their battlefield effectiveness, only a few nations had the industrial resources to design and build them. During and after World War I, Britain and France pioneered tank technology, with their models generally serving as a blueprint for other countries. However, this initial advantage would slowly diminish during the 1930s, shifting in favor of the Soviet Union and, to a lesser degree, Nazi Germany.
The Malyshev Factory, formerly the Kharkov Locomotive Factory, is a state-owned manufacturer of heavy equipment in Kharkiv, Ukraine. It was named after the Soviet politician Vyacheslav Malyshev. The factory is part of the state concern, Ukroboronprom.
The T-50 was a light infantry tank built by the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II. The design for this vehicle had some advanced features, but was complicated and expensive, and only a short production run of 69 tanks was completed.
The T-60 scout tank was a light tank produced by the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1942. During this period, 6,292 units were built. The tank was designed to replace the obsolete T-38 amphibious scout tank and saw action during World War II.
The Volgograd Tractor Plant, formerly the Dzerzhinskiy Tractor Factory or the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, is a heavy equipment factory located in Volgograd, Russia. It was once one of the largest tractor manufacturing enterprises in the USSR. It was a site of fierce fighting during World War II's Battle of Stalingrad.
An Aerosledge is a propeller-driven sledge, sleigh or toboggan which slides on runners or skis. Aerosleds are used for communications, mail deliveries, medical aid, emergency recovery, and patrolling borders in countries such as northern Russia, as well as for recreation. Aerosani were used by the Soviet Red Army during the Winter War and World War II.
The BA-27 was a Soviet first series-produced armoured car, manufactured from 1928 to 1931, and used for scouting and infantry support duties early in the Second World War. The BA-27 was a heavy armoured car, having the same turret and armament as the first Soviet tank, T-18, manufactured at the same time: the main gun was a modified copy of the French 37 mm Puteaux SA 18 cannon, and it was supported by an additional machine gun.
D-8 (Dyrenkov-8) was an early Soviet armored vehicle built in 1932–34. Only 60 were built; it was quickly superseded by the FAI armoured car. Both were assembled in the Izhorsky Factory near Leningrad.
The IS-2 is a Soviet heavy tank, the second of the IS tank series named after the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. It was developed and saw combat during World War II and saw service in other Soviet allied countries after the war.