New Vanguard 045 Union Monitor 1861 1865

The SU-76 assault gun was the second most widely manufactured Soviet armoured fighting vehicle of World War II, out-numbered only by the legendary T-34. Inspired in part by the German Marder series of tank destroyers, Soviet designers realized that the chassis of the obsolete T-70 light tank could be adapted to a much more substantial gun if it was placed in a fixed casemate rather than in a turret. This led to the design of the SU-76, which saw its combat debut at Kursk in the summer of 1943. The SU-76 was deployed primarily as an infantry direct support weapon, becoming the infantry tank of the Red Infantry, much as the StuG III became the infantry tank of the German infantry.

The Red Army suffered such catastrophic losses of armour in the summer of 1941 that they begged Britain and the United States to send tanks. The first batches arrived in late 1941, just in time to take part in the defence of Moscow. The supplies of British tanks encompassed a very wide range of types including the Matilda, Churchill, and Valentine and even a few Tetrarch airborne tanks. American tanks included the M3 (Stuart) light tank and M3 (Lee) medium tank and the M4 Sherman tank, which became so common in 1944–45 that entire Soviet tank corps were equipped with the type. With these Western tanks, the Soviets were finally able to beat back the German tide in the East.