Kharkiv 1939 — track or wheel?
Ever since the fast BT tanks, Soviet armored doctrine has rested on a principle inherited from the Christie chassis: a convertible running gear that runs on tracks over rough terrain and on wheels on roads. The official 1938 specification therefore calls for a new wheel-cum-track tank, the A-20.
But at Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv, chief engineer and his deputy have doubts about this convertible mechanism: heavy, fragile, expensive, and incapable of bearing thicker armor against modern anti-tank guns. Koshkin wants to build a purely tracked variant in parallel, the A-32, simpler and more rugged.
The command leans toward the wheel-cum-track A-20, faithful to tradition. Koshkin must decide what to put forward at the comparative trials of mid-1939, at the risk of clashing with established doctrine.
Kharkiv, 1939, chief engineer Koshkin: which test tank to champion before the Red Army?
As early as 1938, Koshkin obtained Stalin's authorization to build and test both prototypes. At the 1939 trials, the purely tracked A-32 proved as mobile as the A-20 while offering a margin for additional armor that the convertible running gear had ruled out. Rearmed and up-armored (A-34), it was adopted on 19 December 1939 under the name T-34. The wheel-cum-track running gear, long held sacred, was abandoned. Koshkin died of pneumonia in September 1940, shortly after series production was launched.
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