A new book from the author of the bestsellers “Penal Battalions and Barrage Detachments of the Red Army” and “Armored Troops of the Red Army.” THE FIRST study of the history of the creation and combat use of Soviet tank armies during the Great Patriotic War. They went through a long and difficult path from the first failures and defeats of 1942 to the triumph of 1945. They distinguished themselves in all the major battles of the second half of the war - on the Kursk Bulge and in the Battle of the Dnieper, in the Belarusian, Yasso-Kishinev, Vistula-Oder, Berlin and other strategic offensive operations. Possessing crushing power and phenomenal mobility, the Guards tank armies became the elite of the Red Army and the main striking force of the “Russian blitzkriegs” that broke the back of the previously invincible Wehrmacht.