In the summer of 1942, when the first Soviet tank armies were formed, the Wehrmacht command felt that “the Russians had created an instrument that they would never learn to play.” However, just two years later, these armies turned into a perfect fighting mechanism, capable of opening any enemy front, like a bayonet-knife through a captured tin can... This book is about how steel was hardened. How the Soviet Tank Guard was born and strengthened in battle. How the crushing power grew, ultimately breaking the back of the previously invincible Wehrmacht. This is the best study to date of the combat path of the 3rd Guards Tank Army, which went from Kozelsk and Kharkov to Berlin and Prague, grinding up the elite formations of the Third Reich and placing them in the Great Patriotic War war victory point.