New book from the author of the best-selling books "Penal Battalion and Detachments of the Red Army" and "Armored Forces 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 have come a long and difficult way from the first failures and defeats of 1942 to the triumph of 1945. They distinguished themselves in all major battles of the second half of the war - on the Kursk Bulge and in the battle for the Dnieper, in the Belorussian, Yasso-Chisinau, 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 "Blitzkrieg in Russian," which broke the back of the previously invincible Wehrmacht.