265 - British Tanks of the Red Army

The WW2 Podcast

Angus Wallace

Rifle, Gun, Second, Army, Ww2, War, Society & Culture, Carlin, Aircraft, Military, Navy, Wwii, World, History, Plane, Armour, Infantry, Tank

4.7 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, we are exploring a topic that doesn’t get talked about much — the British tanks that ended up serving with the Red Army during the Second World War.

We often think about the Soviet Union producing huge numbers of its own tanks like the T-34, but in the early years of the war—and even before it—the Soviets were looking abroad for armoured vehicles to strengthen their forces. Britain, with its long history of tank development stretching back to the First World War, was one of the countries they turned to.

Joining me is Peter Samsonov, who’s spent a lot of time researching Soviet armoured warfare and is the author of 'British Tanks of the Red Army'.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This country is at war with Germany.
0:04.6	We shall go on to the end.
0:08.3	I remember the sheets of flame which came up and almost blinded us from our guns.
0:42.3	Welcome to a other episode of the World War II podcast. Today we are exploring a topic that doesn't get talked about much, the British tanks that ended up serving with the Red Army during the Second World War. We often think about the Soviet Union producing huge numbers of their own tanks like the T-34, but in the early years of the war and even before, the Soviets were looking abroad for armored vehicles to strengthen their forces.
0:45.1	Britain, with its long history of tank development, stretching back to the first war,
0:48.8	was one of the first countries they'd turned to.
0:51.6	Joining me today is Peter Sampsonov, who's spent a lot of time researching
0:56.6	Soviet armored warfare and is the author of British tanks of the Red Army. Peter, thanks for joining
1:02.4	me. Shall we kick off by looking at those years before the Second World War? Did the Soviets have
1:07.5	a shopping list of British tanks they were interested in?
1:11.2	Were they keeping tabs on what British manufacturers and even those private companies were designing and selling?
1:18.0	It's not like today where only more or less governments built tanks.
1:22.0	You could go out and buy yourself an army if you could afford it.
1:25.7	You had tons and tons of companies working both for their own army or the export market.
1:34.5	And in some cases, particularly in the 1930s, when the financial situation in the whole world wasn't exactly great.
1:43.4	Some companies, Landsberg is a very good example, did more business with external purchasers than they did with their own army.
1:51.1	And that's what kept them afloat.
1:52.1	And particularly, Vickers, a very well-known company for the time, very famous by that point, built the exceptional Mark E or Vicar 6-Tunner.
2:03.1	The British Army didn't want it.
2:05.3	Now, I haven't particularly researched that direction very far.
2:08.3	I don't know why they didn't want it, but fortunately for Vickers, lots of other people did.
2:13.9	For its time, it was very fast.
	...

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