I have been trying to find out if the Soviets/Russians had any specialized recovery vehicles like the German FAMOs, bergepanzers or the US M-31/32 or the British ARV's based on Shermans/Churchills or Cromwells.
I know that that they had turretless tanks that they used as prime movers and could tow a disabled tank for repairs, but did they have any specialized vehicles? I know that the VT-34 was developed post war.

I came up empty. I thought an M31 varient showed up in Poland, but can't remember where I saw/read that. Hunnicutts lend lease information shows no M31's to Russia, but that could be wrong.

Jim, there are photos on the net of the turretless version doing recovery work. AFAIK the Soviets only started building dedicated ARVs after WW2.

What about the Stalin tractors. I do not know for sure but I plan on using one of the ones made by Wespe models in a dio recoving a early T-34 in in the43 time frame. They had to have something as they used a lot of German stuff.

I did a search and found a picture showing a turretless T-34 pulling a damaged T-34. Caption says at Kursk. The big T-34 book has one picture of a heavy tractor being used to transport a damaged T-34, so that is possible, and probably the most likely scenario other than the turret less tanks.

There were specialized (turretless) T-34s which were kitted-out as ARVs. Simply put, the turret was removed and an armored plate welded over the space. Both T34-76 and T34-85 hulls were used.

These were attached to the engineer units of Armored Regiments (they may well have been issued at battalion level although it's safe to assume that it would be regimental at least) .

The (many) tractors were certainly used although as few of these had little more than light armor plating, they would be little practical value on the battlefield.

The (turretless) T34 was also used by the Germans as Bergepanzers.

Hi the russians used three types of recover tanks in WW2 , the T 34 , without turret , the Turret ring covered in Canvas or wooden boards and later version a metal plate . also they used the deturreted KV 85 in the same configuration as T 34 , for light work they used a converted T 50 . with a A frame jib , hope this helps cheers ian

Military Wheels makes a T-34 recovery vehicle in 1/72. Unfortunately the hoist is given in a folded position. Does anybody have any photos/drawings of hoists used by the Russians?