I recently picked up a copy of "Russian Armor Vol4 T-34 medium tank (1939-1943)" by Mikhail Baryatinskiy. It a small 96 page reference. Its has built up my appetite for another indepth or more complete study of the T34, not only for modeling but for my own general reference. What is the best english language book(s) available today?

The english version of "T-34 Mythical Weapon" from Airconnection Publishing is probably the definitive reference book regarding all things T-34. It's a hardcover with well over 500 pages, so it can be quite pricy, but it contains pretty much every piece of info you’d want to know about the T-34 and then some (history, photos, illustrations, interior/exterior details & an excellent collection of 1:35 scale profile drawings for every version of the tank produced).

But if you’re not looking to spend too much $$$, then you could also pick up;

“Soviet Tanks in Combat 1941-1945 – The T-28, T-34, T-34-85 and T-44 Medium Tanks” from Concord Pubishing. The book almost exclusively covers the T-34 and its variants and features great captioned wartime photos and color unit profiles.

“T-34/76 Medium Tank 1941-1945” & “T-34-85 Medium Tank 1944-45”, both from Osprey Publishing. Both are small paper backs but have nice photos, history, and color unit profiles. Osprey also published 2 books on modeling the T-34/76 & 85 with some great tips in it.

“Russian T-34 Battle Tank” from Schiffer Publishing. It’s an older paper back with about 50 pages but it has a nice collection of war time photos.

As you may be able to tell, I’m a big fan of this particular tank. Hope this helps you out.

Jon,
Thanks for the information, exactly the kind of stuff i am looking for.

If you're looking for good affordable books with reliable drawings, get the polish Militaria books on the T-34 (vol III & IV). See here:
http://www.militaria.net.pl/strony/main.html

These are translations of russian Frontline Illustrations titles.
They offer drawings of all factory variations.

Thank you mark, those look excellent as well! One of the big things I want to learn is the variations in production by the diferent factories, very fascinating and similar to what I find in collecting japanese rifles

The only downside to "Mythical Weapon" is the author's earnest desire to prove that the T-34 wasn't the best tank in the world during World War Two. Since few Western readers believe this in the first place, he is wasting an awful lot of ink, there. Apparently, there is a lot of nationalistic nonsense left over from the Soviet era in Russian and Polish language books, which he is going to great pains to dispel. The drawings are generally very good, but there are other Polish books with better ones, at least of rare variants, like the transitional T-34-85 models from early 1944. In some cases, the authors must recreate versions that do not survive in museums, and where factory drawings were being redlined on the production line and changed almost daily.

I agree 100%. I have this book and find it incredibly valuable for the photos and drawings. But the best thing to do with the text is ignore it. The T-34 was neither a piece of junk nor a wonder weapon. It *was* a great design manufactured under conditions most of us can't imagine and that, combined with the usual Soviet-era quality issues, probably led to an awful lot of avoidable problems.

Styeve Zaloga's old Squadron "T-34 In Action" is still one of the best inexpensive references you can get.

Danny Egan
President
AMPS

Actually, you already have the best English language history of the T-34. Baryatinskiy's book is my personal favorite.
Michulec's Mythical Weapon is a distant second but not entirely for reasons stated in previous posts.
Though aimed at taking the reputation of the tank down several notches, when taken as a whole his treatment of the tank is "fairly" even handed (Taking the editorial point of view into account, lauding the T-34 when deserved and tearing it down without mercy when dealing with its faults).
Its biggest flaws are its iffy translations (and confusing HEAT/APCR/APDS rounds for instance) and what as often as not seems to be guesswork rather than scholarship when speaking production dates and so on.
Many of the drawings in the book suffer from one level or another of error (some minor, some not).
At the same time majority of the information in the book seems golden. The short version being: take what you read with a grain of salt and cross check any specific dates with Baryatinskiy.

Though I have huge respect for the authors the other English books on the T-34 most written prior to just a few years ago suffer from all kinds of inaccuracy and questionable designations. Best take these as photo references only.

Good luck with your search and welcome to the tiny corp of T-34 enthusiasts!

Mark

Hi Jon
Thanks fot the info. I just purchased a copy of t-34 Mythical Weapon can't wait till it arrives