T-34/76 would be model 1942 with the hexagonal turret and mickey mouse hatches?
Don't think those came out until '43. The '42 model looked just like the '41 model but with slightly thicker armor is some places.
The labeling of T-34 models is a tricky business, because the Soviets put very little information into the actual model naming. There were no actual sub-variant names tracked in official sources. They were just T-34s. Occasionally they are given a long-hand name based on the year they entered production, so a T-34 1940 production, vs. a T-34 1941 production, vs. a T-34 1942 production. That label typically does not identify when an individual tank was built, but when that version of the tank entered production.
From this we can, if we chose, identify T-34s as 3 types:
- T-34 1940 production had a shorter L-11 76.2mm gun, easily identified by the gun protruding from the lower half of the cast mantlet.
- T-34 1941 production upgraded to the longer F-34 76.2mm gun, easily identified by the gun protruding from the top half of the riveted / welded angular mantlet.
- T-34 1942 production, easily identified by the hexagonal turret.
The hexagonal turret with two round hatches, which the Germans identified as T-34D and nicknamed the "Mickey Mouse" version, began production in June of 1942. Russian sources sometimes call it a T-34m1943, and sometimes call it a T-34m1942/43, and sometimes call it a T-34m1942, although official sources typically call it a T-34, or in long-hand a T-34 1942 production.
The version that the Germans identified as the T-34F was essentially the same model with a turret made in the forge at the Uralmash factory in Sverdlovsk (a different production process that produced a turret with a different appearance). It was otherwise no different than the version the Germans identified as the T-34D, although the Sverdlovsk turrets did not come into production until somewhat later.
The version that the Germans identified as the T-34E was the same as the D, but with a cupola for the commander. Some sources indicate this was built as a platoon or company commander's version, others indicate that it was just an incremental improvement in some (not all) of the factories that was often given to the unit commanders but not built for that purpose.
There was no T-34m1942 with the cast turret and large top hatch, as imagined by German intelligence as the T-34C and so frequently described as such in western publications. The T-34m1941 was built with a variety of incremental features from different factories, and so they may or may not have had an armored plate over the hull MG, or hook vs. pintle tow points on the hull, or round vs. square engine maintenance hatches (all described as visual identifiers of the T-34C vs. T-34B). Some (primarily Leningrad production) were built with additional armor plating and are often described as -E (for ekrani). Official Russian sources typically do not identify any T-34 with the large single roof hatch as a T-34m1942. They are all just T-34 1941 production from different factories built at different times.
As to which one would be right for December 1942, a mix of 1941 and 1942 models (aka: m1942/43, aka: m1943, aka: Mickey Mouse) would be appropriate. The 1941 version remained in production for several months after the 1942 version was introduced, and remained in service for even longer (some seen in photos in Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1945). As with the very good information on the Pz IIIs and Pz IVs above, front line units would have kept their older models in service even as they received newer models, and would frequently have received depot and factory rebuilt older models as part of their new allocations as they re-equipped.
German sources generally tracked 5cm short vs. 5cm long gun versions of the Pz III, or 7.5cm short vs. long versions of the Pz IV, but typically not identifying Pz IIIL vs. IIIM, or Pz IVF vs. IVG. Soviet sources made even fewer distinctions. A T-34 was a T-34. If it was a T-34-85, that might be identified separately, but sub-variants of the T-34 were not. No one tracked T-34m1941s vs. T-34m1942s. It just isn't in the unit records. (And there was no such label as T-34/76. If it had a 76.2mm gun it was just a T-34.)
And BTW, the (few) KVs might be the KV-1 or KV-1S. Can't say from the available records. The majority of KV-1S's were built in the second half of 1942. But there were more KV-1s produced, even in 1942, than the -1S's. In this case it was more likely for a unit to have all -1S's than in the case of the T-34m1942s. Because the -1S had a different mobility profile there was a deliberate effort to built units with all -1S's. There still would have been some mixed units, but all -1S units would also have been a possibility.
Or so I've read. Wasn't there, can't say from personal experience. Might read something different next week, in which case I'll change my story without hesitation.
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
bases up the start of his 1:72 scale WWII Russians.
