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Pen & Sword- Tanks on the Battlefield T-34

ISBN Number: 9781036156237 Publisher: Pen and Sword Books
Published: Sunday, July 19, 2026 Retail Price: US$34.95
Reviewed By: Dan Egan

Tanks on the Battlefield T-34



Tanks on the Battlefield T-34 is Francis Pulham's second book on T-34s and his third Soviet armor book. This is a very nicely printed hardcover of 208 pages, with 282 photos. 

Once again, as with his earlier T-34 Shock, his method of study is to look mostly at photos of destroyed T-34s. However, the result this time is much better than his previous work. Pulham acknowledges the assistance of Peter Samsonoff in his work, and this may contribute to the better quality. That's not to take anything away from Pulham; the author is the one who does most of the work and takes all the risks. So, kudos on a very good book.

The first thing to be said is that almost all the photos are newly published. I consider myself a T-34 nut, and all but perhaps 5% of the photos here are new to me. The photos are generally pretty good quality. Most were taken in the field by nonprofessionals, so quality varies, but in general they are pretty good. So, just having almost 280 new T-34 photos is, by itself, a great new modeling resource. Most of the photos were taken during WW2, but there is a nice, short section from Korea and some of the Syrian wars. 


Nice shot of a very early L-11 armed T-34. This one still has the big periscope on the turret hatch. 


I enjoyed how Pulham organized this book. After a fairly short (and good) introduction, we get 13 pages on the design and production of the tank. This is a good bit of stage-setting for the real meat of the book, which is the photos. After the design and production chapter, there is no additional body of text as such, just the photos and their detailed captions.  


Table of contents


Another early L-11 armed tank, with unmistakable hard-edged camouflage paint. 


The author organizes his photos around major production types (by factory) and then, within that, by minor sub-types. So, for example, the T-34-85 section begins with the early Factory 112 vehicles with the D5T gun, then proceeds to the later types with the ZiS-S-53 gun. Likewise with e.g. the Stalingrad tank variant, he starts with early types that were pretty much identical to the basic Factory 183 Kharkov type, and then gradually shows how the Stalingrad variant took on new features. So, despite not having any large body of text, it is very easy to follow and easy for a new T-34 fan to learn to identify the major types. 

To his credit, the author avoids the "Model / year" designations often seen in western publications. These types of designations were never used by the Red Army, and they lend confusion rather than clarity to anyone learning about T-34s. The author does use his own nomenclature for the sub-types, but acknowledges that they are his own designations. These designations are printed with half-quotes every time they are used, which is a reasonable compromise, I think, between historical fidelity and the need to give some identity to these variants. It's a reminder that these labels are not Soviet designators. 

Good closeup of a narrow-turret tank. 


In terms of accuracy, most of the captions appear to me to be correct. I didn't spot any that were obviously incorrect. I would of course yield to others on this point, but overall I don't see any major boo-boos. There are a few obvious types here and there. For example, a date of "March 1945" is given when the author obviously meant "March 1944". Also, the word "default" is used rather than 'fault'. I would ascribe all of these trivial issues to be typos rather than actual research errors. 


Hex-turret T-34; note the broken handrail and the damaged recuperator housing. 



A T-34-85 with a colorful insignia and its crew. 



A word of warning: because many of the photos are of wrecks, there are human remains visible in a few photos. This may be triggering for some people. 


Detail of a Syrian T-34-85 with the Dushka mount and markings. 
 
  

Very Highly Recommended for all T-34 fans. The new photos alone justify the book; the fact that the captions are quite informative is also great.  

Thanks goes out to Casemate Publishing for this review sample.

Reviewed by Dan Egan

 

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