T-34 - Variants

Variants

Identification of T-34 variants can be complicated. Turret castings, superficial details and equipment all differed between factories. New features were added in the middle of production runs or retrofitted to older tanks. Knocked-out tanks were rebuilt, sometimes incorporating newer-model equipment and even new turrets.

The Red Army never had a consistent policy for naming the production models. Since at least the 1980s however, many academic sources (notably, AFV expert Steven Zaloga) have used Soviet-style nomenclature: T-34 and T-34-85, with minor models distinguished by year, as T-34 Model 1940. Some Russian historians use different names: they refer to the first T-34 as the T-34 Model 1939 instead of 1940, all T-34s with the original turret and F-34 gun as Model 1941 instead of Models 1941 and 1942, and hexagonal-turret T-34 as Model 1942 instead of 1943.

German military intelligence in World War II referred to the two main production models as T-34/76 and T-34/85, with minor models receiving letter designations such as T-34/76A—this nomenclature has been widely used in the West, especially in popular literature. When the German Wehrmacht used captured T-34s, it designated them Panzerkampfwagen T-34(r), where the "r" stood for russisch ("Russian").

The Finns referred to the T-34 as the Sotka, after the Common Goldeneye, a sea duck, because the side silhouette of the tank resembles a swimming waterfowl (as related in the memoirs of Finnish tank ace Lauri Heino). The T-34-85 was called pitkäputkinen Sotka ("long-barreled Sotka").

The T-34 (German designation: T-34/76) was the original tank with a 76.2 mm gun.

• Model 1940 (T-34/76A): Early production run with interim L-11 76.2 mm tank gun in a two-man turret.
• Model 1941 (T-34/76B): Main production with heavier armour and the superior F-34 76.2 mm gun.
• Model 1942 (T-34/76C): Many minor manufacturing improvements.
• Model 1943 (T-34/76D, E, and F): New cast hexagonal turret, nicknamed "Mickey Mouse" by the Germans because of its appearance with the twin, round turret-roof hatches open. Main production had a new commander's cupola.
• T-34/57: Fewer than 324 T-34s in 1941 and 1943–44 were fitted with the ZiS-4 or the ZIS-4M high-velocity 57 mm gun to be used as tank hunters. Some of them took part in the Battle of Moscow.

The T-34-85 (T-34/85) was a major improvement with a three-man turret and long 85 mm gun.

• Model 1943: Short production run of February–March 1944 with D-5T 85 mm gun
• Model 1944: Main production, with simpler ZiS-S-53 85 mm gun, radio moved from the hull into a turret with improved layout and new gunner's sight

All T-34-85 models are externally very similar. Various technical improvements continued to be made to the T-34-85, including major refurbishing programs in 1960 and 1969. One can recognise the widely exported Czechoslovakian-built T-34-85s by a semi-conical armoured fairing (like a rear-facing scoop) on the left rear slanting side-panel of the engine compartment sponson.