The Soviet Union’s relentless military-industrial development also left today’s Russian Federation with a peculiar conundrum: What to do with so many leftover weapons? It’s believed the Russian Army is stuck with an estimated 23,000 Soviet-era tanks. Even when derided as crude and unsophisticated the Red Army’s armor always leapfrogged the West in terms of cost-effective mass-production, ruggedness, and firepower. In the ensuing decades the Cold War arms race inspired the continuous production of new and ever deadlier tanks. The lesson learned from defeating the Axis powers would resonate for generations to come: Tanks will decide the outcome of any great war over Eurasia. This is why the Red Army possessed between 22,000 to 25,000 armored vehicles, including at least several hundred KV-1 and 2 heavy tanks, at the onset of the Great Patriotic War.īy the time the almost indestructible Joseph Stalins arrived at the Reichstag the total number of Soviet tanks had swelled to more than 60,000.
As the world’s dominant land power the Soviet Union understood the value of mechanized forces.
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