Chapter 589: The Soviet Monster
On July 10th, in a production workshop in Chelyabinsk, deep in the Soviet heartland, a tank was slowly rolling out of the factory. This was not a T-34, but a tank even larger and more powerful.
“Ivan, this is the super T-34 we’ve newly designed and produced. It has a resounding name: the Stalin,” an engineer said proudly, pointing at the tank. “This is the experimental model. When it goes into mass production, it will be the most powerful tank in the world.”
“To deal with the high-powered 75mm and 88mm armor-piercing shells of the German army, we’ve put in a lot of effort,” the engineer said, pointing to the tank’s gun barrel. “Due to problems with our metallurgy, we couldn’t use a high-caliber-length design to increase the armor-piercing power. So we could only increase the caliber of the gun to surpass the power of the German cannons.”
This cannon was a modification of the army’s 122mm cannon. In this era, successful anti-tank guns seemed to all be amateur guns that had been converted. The Germans used anti-aircraft guns, and the Soviets did not use their own 100mm anti-tank gun either. Considering the power of the German 88mm anti-aircraft gun when used as an anti-tank weapon, one can imagine how terrifying this Soviet cannon was. In fact, if one were to only discuss the destructive power of the cannon, the power of this gun had already surpassed that of the currently serving German Tiger tank.
The main reason that had forced the Soviet designers to use such a large-caliber cannon was that, to this day, the Soviets had not been able to obtain a complete German Tiger tank. So the Soviets did not know what kind of power the German 88mm cannon possessed. They could only increase the power of their own cannon as much as possible to ensure that the next generation of tanks could surpass the German Tiger.
Thus, the 85mm cannon was no longer an option. Because judging by the level of Soviet metallurgy, it was completely unrealistic to rely on an 85mm cannon to surpass the German 88mm. So the Soviets had no choice but to adopt a cannon of a larger and more powerful caliber.
Among the many choices, three cannons were presented to the Soviet designers: a 100mm, a 122mm, and a 152mm.
The 152mm was the first to be eliminated. This cannon had been used on the KV-2, and its battlefield performance and reputation were extremely poor. Its rate of fire was too slow, and it would affect the size of the tank’s turret, a losing proposition.
The next to be eliminated was the 100mm cannon. Although this gun was expected to be very powerful and could use single-piece ammunition, guaranteeing a better rate of fire, and the tank’s turret volume could be further compressed, the problem was that its reference version, the BS-3 anti-tank gun, was simply too large, and its recoil was also a headache.
So the final weapon choice for the Stalin tank was the 122mm cannon, and after a series of experiments and modifications, they came up with this super tank with a tonnage of over 45 tons.
However, the Soviet Union’s tank technology was not particularly mature, so although this IS-2 tank looked impressive on paper, it still had quite a few problems. Because the weight of the tank was severely over the limit, its top speed was not high—it did not exceed 40 kilometers per hour on a good road surface, and its cross-country speed was even below 20 kilometers per hour.
And because it used a main gun modified from a 122mm cannon, it also inherited some of that cannon’s design. The shells still used separate-loading ammunition, and because the internal space was cramped, the layout of this ammunition inside the tank was simply terrible.
The warheads were basically all placed inside the turret, while the propellant charges were all placed under the floor. For the loader, this was simply a disaster. The loader had to first push the shell into the breech, then bend down to open the floor, take out the propellant charge, straighten up and load it again, then close the breechblock to complete the entire loading action. In this way, the IS-2’s rate of fire in battle was only two rounds per minute. If the crew was not very skilled, the rate of fire could be even lower.
But the Soviets had solved the problem of the German tank advantage with the most primitive method: they had made a trade-off between the three important performance aspects of a tank and had re-prioritized them according to their own understanding and the needs of the battlefield. They believed that a tank’s firepower was more important than its armor protection, and that armor protection was more important than its mobility.
“When can this tank be mass-produced?” a general asked with a frown, looking at the somewhat crude-looking tank and tapping its somewhat crooked mudguard. “I’m talking about reaching a level of 100 units per month.”
“Comrade General,” the Soviet designer named Ivan said dejectedly. “The lathes and workers that were originally in Kiev were intercepted by the Germans. This has seriously affected the reconstruction of our tank factory here. We can only make many of the processes by hand, and the output has been unable to meet the requirements.”
“Get to the point! When can you reach a production of 100 units per month?” the general asked with a frown and a cold snort, clearly not satisfied with the engineer’s excuse. “This is a tank named after our great leader! If it cannot become a super weapon that changes the battlefield, you know what the consequences will be?”
“Comrade General! We will work overtime to produce them, but we can only maintain a production scale of a dozen or so tanks per month. To equip the army on a large scale, we will have to wait at least five months, after the American machine tools and the corresponding raw materials have arrived, before we can continue to increase production,” Ivan quickly said.
The general nodded, tacitly accepting this explanation. He paused for a while, then said, “I don’t care what methods you use. Before winter arrives, prepare 300 of these tanks. Our counter-offensive plan has been approved, and this batch of tanks must be in place on time to participate in the winter counter-attack.”
“We guarantee we will complete the plan!” the engineer named Ivan said, shaking the general’s hand and patting his chest in assurance. Vasilevsky, who was standing to the side, smiled and led the general away, continuing to introduce the other parts of the tank production workshop. This place also produced KV-2 and T-34 tanks and had tens of thousands of workers.
On July 19th, nine days later, at a German Wehrmacht military-industrial development conference, the head of the Porsche company frowned as he studied the intelligence from the German intelligence services. “My Führer, are you so sure that the Soviets are preparing to mass-produce a new type of tank? And that its cannon has a 122mm caliber? This is quite a big difference from the mainstream tank cannon calibers in the world right now.”
The intelligence, which had just been obtained from the spy network “Honeycomb” and was personally submitted by its leader, “Beehive,” even included photographs of this tank and various parameter data.
The director of German armored vehicle equipment and the frontline panzer force expert representative, Guderian, were shocked by the data of this tank. Once this tank entered service, it, combined with the T-34, would be fully capable of countering the German high-low mix of the Tiger and the Panther. At that point, the losses of the German panzer forces would rise sharply, and the number of losses would be unbearable for Germany.
“My Führer, if this intelligence is true, we must begin to deal with it,” Guderian said, frowning as he studied the photograph of the Soviet tank. “The advantage of our panzer forces lies in the high quality and mature coordination of our personnel. This advantage is based on the tank’s performance being sufficient to preserve these crew members. Once the losses begin to increase, then the combat level of our panzer forces will decline, and we will be drawn into an even greater vortex of losses.”
He paused, glanced at Akado, and continued, “If we and the Soviet Union get bogged down in an inefficient competition of numbers, then it is very likely that the war will enter a stalemate.”
Akado had not expected that because he had improved the German panzer forces, both the United States and the Soviet Union had rolled out their own new-generation tanks much faster than in the original timeline. And because there were no technical difficulties and the design had adopted targeted trade-offs, the Soviet tanks had caught up with the German tanks in such a short time.
However, the good news was that Akado’s own technological development had not stopped; in fact, it was even faster than the original German technological development. Now he had at least two ways to increase the power of his tank cannons. One was to replace the Tiger’s cannon with a longer-barreled 88mm gun. The other was to issue new tungsten alloy armor-piercing shells to all the tanks on the front line.
Moreover, the Soviets had not yet mass-produced this IS-2 tank; they had only produced one prototype. The progress was about the same as Germany’s King Tiger, which was currently being tested. Once the nearly 40-ton German King Tiger tank entered service, the advantage would immediately return to the German side.
But everyone knew that the era of fighting a war with almost zero casualties by relying on a technological advantage was over. Now, the overall weapon equipment of the two sides was gradually approaching a state of parity. Unless Germany could come up with a劃時代的 (huàshídàide – epoch-making) weapon to once again change the mode of warfare, they could only endure the current situation.
“There is no very good solution. Let the technical department begin to act. First, re-equip all the heavy tank destroyer battalions with the new cannons, and then strive to replace them with the 88mm L/71 long-barreled cannon before winter arrives,” Akado said after a thought, speaking to Krupp and some of the other heads of the technical departments. “On the other hand, begin to distribute the new type of shells to the frontline troops as well. At least let the soldiers have an understanding of their new weapons.”
After he had spoken, he looked at Krupp. “The development speed of the 105mm cannon must be accelerated! We must make the King Tiger tank enter a state of mass production in the next few months! In this era, not to advance is to fall behind!”
“Understood!” Krupp nodded solemnly.
Published: 2025-09-08T03:37:52.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2026-01-10T17:44:42.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c589-soviet-138391152
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