M3 Tank vs Panzer IV

This fully illustrated volume investigates the battles between Germany’s Panzer IV medium tanks and US Lend-Lease M3 tanks crewed by Soviet tankers on the Eastern Front in 1942.

In December 1941, a shipment of M3 medium and M3 light tanks, the latest and still unproven products of the US arms industry, arrived in Murmansk. Rapidly pitched into combat, these American designs had to contend with the PzKpfw IV, originally envisaged as a close-support tank but refined in the light of combat experience gained in Poland, France and North Africa.

In this study, armour expert Peter Samsonov sets out the origins, development, strengths and limitations of these very different tank types. He explains how as the Germans regained their footing after their defeat at Moscow and turned their sights south towards Stalingrad in the summer of 1942, the two sides locked horns in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Recovering after the appalling losses of 1941, the Red Army’s armoured corps had to field inexperienced crews and tanks that were foreign to them in more ways than one while fending off an opponent that had a well-refined tank along with veteran crews to operate it.

The author’s insightful analysis is complemented by archive photographs, full-colour maps and specially commissioned artwork to reveal these armour types at war in the crucible of the Eastern Front.