In the late 1920s and 1930s, armored and mechanized troops of the Red Army began to form on a larger scale. Especially in the 1930s, they developed dynamically. This affected both the organizational structure and equipment. On the first of these aircraft, in 1932, the formation of mechanized bodies began, the structure of which developed until the beginning of the Second World War. As for equipment, new types of tanks were introduced, such as BT-5, BT-7, T-26 and the multi-turret T-28. Very successful tanks were also put into service shortly before the start of the war with the Third Reich - of course, we are talking about the KW-1 and T-34. However, despite the fact that at the time of the German aggression, the Soviet armored forces had a numerical advantage over the aggressor, in the first period of the war they suffered huge losses in men and equipment. They are explained by the shortcomings of the trained officers (the consequences of Stalin's purges of the 1930s), the worse individual training of Soviet tank crews compared to German opponents, or the inferior tactics of Soviet tank crews. In addition, the doctrine of their use was not as consistent and grounded in training as in the German army. We can also add the rather poor ergonomics of Soviet equipment or the shortage of short- and long-range radio stations in tank troops. However, over time, these errors began to be more or less successfully corrected. For example, from the spring of 1942, armored armies began to form, which were supposed to perform mainly offensive tasks and which constituted a slightly more ergonomic structure than the previous mechanized corps. However, it seems appropriate to say that until the end of the war, the Red Army emphasized quantitative superiority, not qualitative superiority over the enemy, although it introduced such successful tanks as the T-34/85 or IS-2. during the war. This is clearly visible, for example, during the Battle of Kursk in July 1943.
