Soviet Artillery Tractors of World War II

James Kinnear

• Publisher: Osprey Publishing
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781472871978
• Topic: History
• Index: History

Packed with rare and unpublished photographs, this is a new history of the Red Army's tracked artillery tractors that were pivotal to its success in World War II.

The development of artillery tractors in the 1930s was integral to the industrial development of the Soviet Union. The tracked tractor plants at Chelyabinsk, Kharkov and Stalingrad were built specifically to industrialize the Soviet Union as well as to mechanize the Red Army, particularly the artillery.

This new study by Russian armour expert James Kinnear tells the story of these artillery tractors. How they suffered horrendous losses in the opening months of the war but continued to be built and their numbers were bolstered by Lend-Lease tractors, primarily of American origin. At the end of the war, the same slow-moving and cumbersome artillery tractors that had served with the Red Army in the dark days of 1941 towed their heavy artillery pieces at a steady pace all the way to the streets of Berlin.

There has been a resurgence of interest in recent years in these military workhorses and wrecks have been exhumed and restored, while Soviet factory and operational records have also become available. This new research is used here for the first time in English, alongside unpublished images, to tell the remarkable story of the artillery tractors that delivered Red Army artillery into combat throughout World War II.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Content
• Author’s Notes
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: INDUSTRIALIZATION AND EARLY SOVIET TRACTOR DEVELOPMENT
• Chapter 2: MASS PRODUCTION, WAR AND EVACUATION
• Chapter 3: TRACKED UNIVERSAL TRACTORS
• Chapter 4: TRACKED TRANSPORTER-TRACTORS
• Chapter 5: ARMOURED ARTILLERY TRACTORS
• Chapter 6: HALF-TRACK ARTILLERY TRACTORS
• Chapter 7: WHEELED ARTILLERY TRACTORS
• Chapter 8: SELF-PROPELLED ARTILLERY ON TRACTOR CHASSIS
• Chapter 9: IMPROVISED ARMOURED TRACTORS
• Chapter 10: POST-WAR SERVICE
• Chapter 11: PRESERVED WORLD WAR II ARTILLERY TRACTORS
• Chapter 12: WALKAROUNDS
• Appendices
• Data Tables
• Artworks
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• eCopyright