The main bestseller about tank aces of the Second World War. Comparison of the best tankers of Hitler and Stalin. Having checked their victory lists against documents of both sides, separating truth from fiction, real successes from “hunting stories”, the leading military historian answers the most difficult and controversial questions: how, yielding to the enemy in combat training, and since 1942 - and in quality armored vehicles, Soviet tank crews were able to defeat the famous Panzerwaffe aces? Why was the leitmotif of the Great Patriotic War not the German march “Panzer voran!” (“Tanks, forward!”), and the Soviet “The armor is strong, and our tanks are fast...”? And it was not the German “tigers” that clanged on the paving stones of Red Square, but our ISs and “thirty-fours” fired directly at the Reichstag, and our grandfathers after the Victory wrote on its walls: “Order in the tank forces!”