What actually happened: In the years leading up to World War II, there was a great deal of debate over the proper role of the tank.  That debate took place in every major country of the world. The major issue was whether the tank would be primarily an instrument of infantry—kind of a machine-gun emplacement on tracks, or a superior replacement for horse cavalry.  There were also a number of subsidiary issues.  How important was armor?  Should a tank have a turret?  A couple of turrets? More? How should it be armed  With a lot of machine guns?  With one high velocity gun?   How fast did it need to be?  How large did the crew need to be?  One wrong guess could and did mean that a country was stuck with obsolete tanks at the start of the war.  Obsolete tanks got people killed, and lost battles.  Starting out with the wrong tanks could and did take years to recover from.  For example, the British didn’t really have a British-built tank competitive with the best German tanks until late 1944 at the earliest.

What might have happened:  The design and acceptance of the T34 was by no means a sure thing.   It had severe teething problems in our time-line, and for a time it also suffered from being on the wrong side of a policy split.  To oversimplify, the Soviets fielded two fundamental types of tanks in the period immediately before World War II.  The first type were infantry-accompanying tank—mostly variations of the T26.  The second was fast ‘cavalry’ tanks like the BT5 and BT7.  The ‘cavalry’ role for tanks fell into disfavor after the purges of 1937-38, and unfavorable reports from Spain.  The Soviets actually broke up their tank corps in November 1939, and distributed the tanks among infantry divisions.  In retrospect, that’s hard to imagine, given the success of the German blitz in Poland and the Soviet pseudo-blitz against the Japanese at Nomanham, but that’s the sort of thing that happens from time-to-time when only one man really matters in decision-making.

In any case, given slightly more severe teething problems, the T34 might well have been cancelled, probably in favor of some variation of the T50—a 14-odd ton light medium tank that on paper had a lot going for it.  The T50 had the same armor thickness as the early T34, and that armor was just as well sloped as the T34’s.  It had a suspension similar to the KV-series tanks, and was sometimes regarded as a mini-KV.  The T50 had a 45 mm main gun, as opposed to the short-barreled 76 mm gun in the early T34’s—slightly inferior, but not horribly so, and well within the standards of the time.

Deciding to cancel the T34 and mass-produce the T50 would not have been an unreasonable decision at the time.  It was touted as being easy to mass-produce, thus allowing the Soviets to bring factories that could not have made T34’s into the tank production program.  It was about half the weight of a T34, but apparently with similar capabilities.  It was also a ‘politically correct’ tank—coming from the infantry-accompanying side of things, rather than the ‘cavalry’ school of thought.

So, the Soviets cancel the T34 program after a few prototypes.   They put an enormous amount of effort into producing T50’s.  Unfortunately for them, the T50 initially proves to be a lemon.  It has severe teething problem, especially in its engine and proves to be much harder to produce than expected—actually as expensive as the T34 would have been.  Equally unfortunately for the Soviets, the T50’s most obvious problems appear to be solvable, and the Soviet Union produces almost two thousand of them in the last half 1940 and the first half of 1941 before it becomes obvious that the T50 is not going to be an adequate, or even particularly usable solution. 

At that point, the Soviets begin looking for an alternative, and the Germans invade the Soviet Union.  Given enormous Soviet losses in the next few months, switching production is not an immediate option.  The T50 isn’t big enough to be up-gunned and up-armored like the T34 could be, so the Soviets are stuck with a 45mm gun and 30 mm armor.  The Soviets desperately try to get the T50’s problems worked out, and they do to some extent, but the vehicle is still too hard to mass-produce and still considerably less mechanically reliable than the T34 would have been by this time.  The Soviets are trying to design a replacement for the T50, but they won’t have anything ready for mass-production until the second half of 1942 at the earliest.  In the meantime, they are taking unnecessary casualties as T50’s malfunction, often leaving their crews to be killed or captured. 

The Soviet KV tanks still have a major impact on the Germans, and the Soviets switch some production that would have gone to the T34 to the KV-1.  Overall though, the Soviets are significantly weaker, especially in the crucial battles of August and September 1941.  Does that make enough difference that Moscow falls?  Hard to say.  Certainly if they hold on their winter counter-offensive will be less powerful without the T34.

So where would this go from here?  The Soviets might actually end up with a better tank than the T34 in late 1942 or early 1943, if they survived that long.  They would be able to incorporate lessons learned in the ongoing battles into the basic structure of the new tank, rather than having to retrofit them into a less-than perfect structure.  On the other hand, they would have lost a lot more tank crews in 1941 and 42, and that would take its toll. Soviet manpower seemed almost inexhaustible, but it really wasn’t, and tank crews do require a certain amount of skill to survive against an enemy as skillful as the Germans.

How would all this have affected German tank design?  There wouldn’t have been the urgency to replace the Panzer 3 and 4 that there was in our time-line.  The Germans would have undoubtedly noticed the well-sloped armor of the T50, and would probably experiment with replicating it on a German tank.  Any such tank would probably have low priority until the Soviets came up with their T50 replacement.  Until then, the Germans would probably consider the Panzer 3 and 4 perfectly adequate to finish the war with.  They would probably gradually add longer and more powerful guns as the war went on, just as they did in our time-line.  Actually, the KV-1 would be enough to cause that, even without the T34. The Tiger might still happen, though it would probably be delayed slightly.  The Panther would probably not happen as such, though something even more advanced might later—in the last half of 1944.

In terms of the war itself, Germany would do considerably better in the east until at least mid-1943.  Their tank crews became somewhat demoralized (and somewhat less aggressive) in late 1941 and early 1942 in our time-line as they discovered that the despised Soviets had a better tank in the T34.  Conversely, the Soviets got a major morale boost and became more aggressive as it became obvious that the T34 was a better tank than anything the Germans had.

German allies like the Romanians, Hungarians and even Italians would be somewhat more competitive until the T50 got replaced. The T34 had a combination of mobility, firepower, and armor that made all of the tanks and anti-tank guns of the smaller powers obsolete.  The T50 would not, and the KV-series tanks were tactically limited by their weight. (They tended to break bridges they tried to cross).  A lot of the smaller armies, and especially the Italians were held somewhat in contempt by the larger powers, and to some extent rightly so.  On the other hand, there were times on the eastern front (and North Africa for that matter) when Italian equipment was so obsolete that there was essentially nothing they could do to stop opposing tanks.  That has to take a lot out of an army’s fighting spirit.

Ironically, Lend-Lease Sherman tanks might become the tank of choice for the Soviets for most of 1943.  The Soviets might well have upgunned them with essentially the same gun that went in our time-line’s  T34, as they did to some Lend-Lease Shermans in our time-line.

So then what? Would a Stalingrad be possible without the T34? Would the Soviet regime even be around long enough to participate in such a battle?  If the Soviets were able to stop the Germans, would they be able to push them back in late 1943 and early 1944 as they did in our time-line?  What would the postwar world look like?

If you enjoyed this scenario, or if you are disappointed with it, please let me know. I always read and enjoy any feedback I can get.  

Note: I'm still planning to start an 'e-mail to the editor' section soon if I get enough responses.  Please feel free to e-mail me.  I'll only use your comments in the 'e-mail' section if you specify that it is okay to do so.