44M Tas Tank

1. Lead

The 44M Tas was a Hungarian heavy tank of the Second World War that never entered service. Designed in 1943 and 1944 by the Weiss Manfréd works, it was intended to give the Hungarian Army a modern heavy tank, armed with a long 75 mm gun and protected by thick, sloped armour, and to replace the Turán tanks that were already obsolete.

Only two chassis were built, and neither was ever completed: the more advanced example, with its turret largely finished, was destroyed in an American bombing raid on the Weiss Manfréd works at Csepel on 27 July 1944, and the project was abandoned.

The 44M Tas never fired a shot in anger, never fought a battle and never entered production, but it remains one of the most interesting tanks of the Second World War, because it shows what a small country, with limited industry, could design when it tried to build a modern tank on its own.

It is important to be clear about what the 44M Tas was and what it was not. It was a prototype, not a production tank, and most of what we know about it comes from design documents, from photographs of the unfinished chassis and from the memories of the men who worked on it.

The figures given for its weight, its armour, its gun and its speed are design targets, not measured values, and they vary between sources, because the tank was never completed and never tested. This article gives the figures as ranges, and it says clearly where the sources disagree, because to give a single figure for a tank that was never finished would be misleading.

The 44M Tas deserves to be remembered, but it deserves to be remembered as what it was: a bold and ambitious design that was destroyed before it could be tested, and a symbol of Hungary’s attempt to build a modern tank industry in the middle of a losing war.

2. Key Facts

Type	Heavy (or medium-heavy) tank — prototype only
Origin	Hungary
Designer	Weiss Manfréd works, Csepel (János Korbuly and the design team)
Manufacturer	Weiss Manfréd, Csepel
In service	Never entered service
Produced	1943–1944; two chassis built, neither completed
Weight	About 37–38 tonnes (design target)
Length	About 6.5–6.8 m (estimated from the chassis)
Width	About 2.9–3.0 m (estimated)
Height	About 2.6–2.8 m (estimated)
Crew	5 (planned: commander, gunner, loader, driver, radio operator)
Armour	Up to about 75–120 mm (design target; sources differ)
Main armament (planned)	75 mm 43.M gun; an 80 mm gun was planned for later vehicles
Secondary armament (planned)	Two 8 mm Gebauer machine guns
Engine (planned)	Two Weiss Manfréd V-8H petrol engines, 260 hp each (520 hp total)
Top speed (planned)	About 45 km/h
Range (planned)	Not known
Note	All figures are design targets or estimates; the tank was never completed or tested.

3. Background and Development

Hungary’s tank problem

Hungary entered the Second World War in 1941, as an ally of Germany, and its army was equipped with tanks that were already obsolete. The Hungarian Army’s standard tank was the Turán, a Hungarian version of the Czech T-21, which was armed with a 40 mm gun and protected by armour up to 50 mm thick, and which was no match for the Soviet T-34, whose 76.2 mm gun could destroy it at long range and whose armour it could not penetrate.

The Hungarian Army also used the Toldi light tank, which was armed with a 20 mm gun, and the Nimród self-propelled gun, but none of these vehicles could fight the T-34, and the Hungarian armoured divisions suffered heavy losses on the Eastern Front, above all at the Don in January 1943, where the Hungarian Second Army was destroyed.

The Hungarian Army needed a modern tank, and it needed it quickly, but Hungary’s industry was small, and it could not build a tank as large and as complex as the German Panther or the Soviet T-34.

The Hungarian Ministry of Defence therefore ordered the Weiss Manfréd works, the largest industrial enterprise in Hungary, to design a new heavy tank, and the work was done by a team led by János Korbuly, who had designed the Turán and the Toldi.

The new tank, which was called the 44M Tas, was to be a modern heavy tank, armed with a long 75 mm gun and protected by thick, sloped armour, and it was to be built using Hungarian industry, with as few imported parts as possible.

The design was influenced by the German Panther and by the Soviet T-34, both of which the Hungarians had studied, and it was also influenced by the Turán, whose chassis and whose engine were used as the basis for the new tank.

The Tas was an ambitious design, and it was the most ambitious tank ever designed in Hungary, but it was also a design that Hungary’s industry could barely build, and it was never completed.

The design of the Tas

The Tas was designed in 1943, and the first chassis was built in 1944. The tank was to weigh about 37–38 tonnes, which made it a heavy tank by Hungarian standards, although it was lighter than the German Panther, which weighed about 45 tonnes, and it was to be armed with the 75 mm 43.M gun, a long gun that was also used on the Turán III, and which could penetrate the T-34’s armour at ordinary combat ranges.

The Tas was to be protected by thick, sloped armour, with a front plate of up to 75 mm, sloped at a steep angle, and a turret front of up to 120 mm, although the exact figures vary between sources, and the armour was to be made of Hungarian steel, which was of good quality but which was in short supply.

The Tas was to be powered by two Weiss Manfréd V-8H petrol engines, each of 260 horsepower, which together produced 520 horsepower, and which were to give the tank a top speed of about 45 km/h, although the twin-engine layout was complex and had never been used in a Hungarian tank before.

The bombing of Csepel, 27 July 1944

The Tas project ended on 27 July 1944, when American bombers attacked the Weiss Manfréd works at Csepel, the island in the Danube south of Budapest where the factory stood. The bombing was part of the Allied campaign against Hungarian industry, and it destroyed much of the factory, including the Tas prototype, which was in the assembly hall and which was hit by a bomb.

The more advanced Tas chassis, with its turret largely finished, was destroyed in the bombing, and the second chassis, which was less complete, was damaged and never finished. The project was abandoned after the bombing, because the factory was in ruins and because Hungary’s industry could not rebuild it, and because the war was going badly for Hungary, which was being invaded by the Soviet Army.

The Tas was never completed, never tested and never fought, and the only evidence of its existence is a handful of photographs of the unfinished chassis and the design documents that survived the war.

4. Design

The hull and the sloped armour

The Tas was designed with a hull of welded construction, with sloped armour on all sides, and it was the first Hungarian tank to use sloped armour, which was a lesson learned from the Soviet T-34. The front plate was to be up to 75 mm thick, sloped at a steep angle, which would have given it an effective thickness of more than 100 mm, and the side plates were to be 50 mm thick, sloped at a lesser angle, while the rear plate was to be 50 mm thick.

The turret, which was to be of welded construction with a curved front, was to have a front plate of up to 120 mm, although the exact figure is uncertain, and the turret was to be larger than that of the Turán, to allow room for the 75 mm gun and for the crew.

The Tas’s armour was to be made of Hungarian steel, which was of good quality, but which was in short supply, and the armour plates were to be welded, rather than riveted, which was a new technique for Hungarian industry and which required skilled welders who were in short supply.

The 75 mm gun and the planned 80 mm gun

The Tas was to be armed with the 75 mm 43.M gun, a long gun that was also used on the Turán III, and that was the most powerful gun available to Hungarian industry. The 75 mm gun could penetrate about 100 mm of armour at 500 metres, which would have been enough to destroy the T-34 at ordinary combat ranges, although it would not have been enough to destroy the Soviet IS-2 or the German Panther from the front.

The Tas was also to be armed with two 8 mm Gebauer machine guns, one coaxial with the main gun and one in the hull, and it was to carry about 60 rounds of 75 mm ammunition. A later version of the Tas was to be armed with an 80 mm gun, the 29/44M, which was being developed by the Hungarian arms factory, but the 80 mm gun was never completed, and the Tas was never fitted with it, and the 75 mm gun remained the Tas’s only armament.

The twin engines and the running gear

The Tas was to be powered by two Weiss Manfréd V-8H petrol engines, each of 260 horsepower, which together produced 520 horsepower, and which were to be mounted side by side in the rear of the vehicle. The twin-engine layout was chosen because no single Hungarian engine was powerful enough to drive a tank of 37 tonnes, and because the V-8H engine was already in production for the Turán, but the layout was complex, and it had never been used in a Hungarian tank before, and it would have been difficult to maintain and to cool.

The Tas was to have a top speed of about 45 km/h, which would have made it as fast as the Panther, and its running gear was to be based on that of the Turán, with six road wheels on each side and a torsion-bar suspension, although the exact details of the suspension are not known, because the tank was never completed and because the design documents that survive are incomplete.

5. Variants

Variant	Year	Key features	Production
44M Tas (prototype)	1943–1944	75 mm gun; two chassis built, neither completed	2 chassis
44M Tas (planned, 80 mm)	1944 (planned)	80 mm gun planned for later vehicles	0
Tas Rohamlöveg (planned)	1944 (planned)	Assault gun version on the Tas chassis	0

The two prototype chassis

Only two Tas chassis were built, and neither was ever completed. The first chassis, which was the more advanced, had its hull largely finished and its turret largely finished, and it was in the assembly hall at Csepel when it was destroyed in the bombing of 27 July 1944.

The second chassis, which was less complete, had its hull partly finished and no turret, and it was damaged in the bombing and never finished. The two chassis were the only Tas vehicles ever built, and they were both destroyed or abandoned in 1944, and no Tas was ever completed, tested or used in combat.

The photographs of the first chassis, which show a large, sloped hull and a turret with a long gun, are the only visual evidence of the Tas, and they are the basis for the models and the drawings of the tank that exist today.

The photographs are held in the Hungarian military archives, and they have been studied by historians who have tried to reconstruct the Tas from the few images that survive.

The planned versions that were never built

Two further versions of the Tas were planned, but neither was ever built. The first was a version of the Tas armed with the 80 mm 29/44M gun, which was being developed by the Hungarian arms factory, and which was to be fitted to later Tas tanks, but the gun was never completed, and no Tas was ever fitted with it.

The second was the Tas Rohamlöveg, an assault gun version of the Tas, with a fixed casemate and a large gun, which was to be built on the Tas chassis and used to support the infantry, but the assault gun was never built, and it remained a design on paper.

The planned versions show how ambitious the Tas project was, and how the Hungarian Army hoped to build a family of vehicles on the Tas chassis, but they also show how far the project was from completion, and how little of it was ever built.

6. Operational History

No combat record

The 44M Tas has no combat record, because it never entered service and never fought a battle. This is an important fact, and it must be stated clearly: the Tas never fired a shot in anger, never met an enemy tank and never supported the infantry, and any account that describes the Tas in combat is wrong.

The Tas’s story is the story of a design, not of a weapon, and it is the story of what might have been, rather than of what was. The Tas is remembered not because of what it did, but because of what it represented: Hungary’s attempt to build a modern heavy tank, and the destruction of that attempt by the bombing of Csepel.

The Tas’s lack of a combat record is not a failure of the design, but a consequence of the war, and of the fact that Hungary’s industry was destroyed before the tank could be completed.

Hungary’s armoured forces on the Eastern Front

The Tas was designed for a war that Hungary was losing, and its story cannot be understood without the story of Hungary’s armoured forces on the Eastern Front. The Hungarian Army fought on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1944, and its armoured divisions, equipped with the Turán, the Toldi and the Nimród, fought the Soviet Army in the Ukraine and at the Don, where they suffered heavy losses.

In January 1943, the Hungarian Second Army was destroyed at the Don, and the Hungarian armoured divisions lost most of their tanks, and the Hungarian Army never recovered. The Tas was intended to replace the Turán and to give the Hungarian Army a tank that could fight the T-34, but it was designed too late, and it was destroyed before it could be built, and the Hungarian Army fought the rest of the war with the tanks it had, including German tanks supplied by Germany.

The Don disaster and the need for a new tank

The disaster at the Don in January 1943 was the turning point for Hungary’s armoured forces, and it was the reason why the Tas was ordered. The Hungarian Second Army, which had been sent to the Don to hold the front, was attacked by the Soviet Army in Operation Little Saturn, and it was destroyed, losing most of its men and most of its tanks.

The Hungarian armoured divisions, which had been equipped with the Turán and the Toldi, lost their tanks to the Soviet T-34s, which they could not fight, and the Hungarian Army realised that it needed a modern tank, and that it needed it quickly.

The Tas was ordered in 1943, in the aftermath of the Don, and it was designed to be the tank that the Hungarian Army needed, but it was designed too late, and it was destroyed before it could be built, and the Hungarian Army never got the tank it needed.

The last year of the war

In the last year of the war, Hungary was invaded by the Soviet Army, and the Hungarian Army fought in the battles for Budapest and for Lake Balaton, where it used German tanks, including the Panther and the Tiger I, which were supplied by Germany, and Hungarian tanks, including the Turán and the Zrínyi assault gun.

The Tas, which had been destroyed in July 1944, played no part in these battles, and the Hungarian Army fought without it, and it was defeated. The war ended for Hungary in May 1945, when the Soviet Army occupied the country, and the Tas project, which had been abandoned in July 1944, was forgotten, and it was not remembered until after the war, when historians began to study the Hungarian tank industry and to write about the Tas.

The Hungarian Army’s last battles were fought in the ruins of Budapest, where the soldiers fought house by house, and where the city’s civilians suffered terribly.

The end of the project

The Tas project ended on 27 July 1944, when the Weiss Manfréd works at Csepel was bombed, and it was never restarted. The factory was in ruins, and Hungary’s industry could not rebuild it, and the war was going badly for Hungary, which was being invaded by the Soviet Army, and the Hungarian government, which had tried to leave the war in October 1944, was overthrown by the Germans.

The Tas was forgotten after the war, and it was not remembered until the 1970s, when Hungarian historians began to study the Hungarian tank industry, and when the photographs of the Tas chassis were published. The Tas is remembered today as a symbol of Hungary’s attempt to build a modern tank, and as a reminder that a small country, with limited industry, could design a tank as ambitious as the Tas, even if it could not build it.

The Tas project is remembered in Hungary as a what-might-have-been, and its story is told in the Hungarian Military History Museum in Budapest.

7. Performance and Specifications

Specification	44M Tas (design target — never measured)
Main gun	75 mm 43.M (planned); 80 mm 29/44M (planned, never built)
Armour penetration (75 mm, estimated)	About 100 mm at 500 m
Armour (front hull)	Up to about 75 mm, sloped (design target)
Armour (turret front)	Up to about 120 mm (design target; sources differ)
Armour (side)	About 50 mm (design target)
Weight	About 37–38 tonnes (design target)
Engine	Two Weiss Manfréd V-8H, 260 hp each (520 hp total)
Power-to-weight	About 14 hp per tonne (calculated from design targets)
Top speed (planned)	About 45 km/h
Range	Not known
Crew	5 (planned)
Number built	2 chassis, neither completed

What the Tas might have done

The Tas’s performance can only be estimated, because the tank was never completed and never tested, and the figures given here are design targets, not measured values. If the Tas had been completed, its 75 mm gun could have penetrated about 100 mm of armour at 500 metres, which would have been enough to destroy the T-34 at ordinary combat ranges, although it would not have been enough to destroy the Soviet IS-2 or the German Panther from the front.

Its armour, with a front plate of up to 75 mm sloped at a steep angle, would have given it an effective thickness of more than 100 mm, which would have been proof against the T-34’s 76.2 mm gun at ordinary combat ranges, although it would not have been proof against the 85 mm gun of the T-34/85.

Its twin engines, producing 520 horsepower, would have given it a power-to-weight ratio of about 14 horsepower per tonne, which was better than that of the Panther, and a top speed of about 45 km/h, which would have made it as fast as the Panther.

Comparison with the Turán, the Panther and the T-34

Compared with the Turán, which it was intended to replace, the Tas would have been a much better tank: it was heavier, better armed and better protected, and it was designed to fight the T-34, which the Turán could not fight.

Compared with the Panther, which was its model, the Tas was lighter and less well armed, but it was similar in its sloped armour and in its long gun, and it was designed to be built by Hungarian industry, which could not build a tank as large as the Panther.

Compared with the T-34, which was its enemy, the Tas would have been heavier and better armed, but it would have been built in much smaller numbers, and it would have been more difficult to maintain, because its twin-engine layout was complex and because Hungarian industry could not produce it in large numbers.

The Tas’s comparison with these tanks shows that it was a sound design, but also that it was a design that Hungary’s industry could barely build, and that it was never tested.

8. Operators

Hungary: the intended operator

The Tas was intended for the Hungarian Army, and it was the only army that would have used it. The Hungarian Army, which had fought on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1944, needed a modern heavy tank, and the Tas was designed to be that tank, and to replace the Turán, which was already obsolete.

The Hungarian Army’s armoured divisions, which had been equipped with the Turán, the Toldi and the Nimród, were to be re-equipped with the Tas, and the Tas was to be the standard heavy tank of the Hungarian Army, with the Turán remaining in service as a medium tank.

The Tas was never delivered to the Hungarian Army, because it was never completed, and the Hungarian Army fought the rest of the war with the tanks it had, including German tanks supplied by Germany, such as the Panther and the Tiger I, and Hungarian tanks, such as the Turán and the Zrínyi.

No other operators

No other country used the Tas, because it never entered service and never left Hungary. The Tas was a Hungarian design, built by Hungarian industry for the Hungarian Army, and it was never exported, never supplied to Germany and never captured by the Soviet Army, because it was destroyed before it could be used.

The Tas’s lack of operators is a consequence of its status as a prototype, and it is a reminder that the Tas was never a weapon, but a design, and that its story is the story of what might have been, rather than of what was.

The Tas is remembered today in Hungary, where it is studied by historians and by modellers, and where it is a symbol of Hungary’s attempt to build a modern tank, but it is not remembered outside Hungary, because it never fought and never left the country.

The Tas’s story is therefore a Hungarian story, and it is told in Hungarian books and in the Hungarian Military History Museum, rather than in the museums of other countries.

9. Legacy and Influence

Hungary’s most ambitious tank

The Tas’s legacy is that it was Hungary’s most ambitious tank, and the most ambitious tank ever designed in Hungary. It showed that Hungarian engineers, led by János Korbuly, could design a modern heavy tank, with sloped armour, a long gun and a powerful engine, and that Hungarian industry, even with its limitations, could attempt to build such a tank.

The Tas’s design influenced the later Hungarian tanks, including the Turán III, which was armed with the 75 mm gun, and the Zrínyi assault gun, which was built on the Turán chassis, and it showed the way forward for Hungarian tank design, even though the Tas itself was never built.

The Tas is remembered in Hungary as a symbol of Hungarian engineering, and as a reminder of what Hungary could have achieved if the war had gone differently, and if its industry had not been destroyed. The Tas’s designers, led by János Korbuly, are remembered in Hungary as pioneers of Hungarian tank design, and their work is studied by engineers and by historians today.

The Tas in history and memory

The Tas is remembered today by historians and by modellers, who study its design and its photographs, and who build models of it, and it is remembered in Hungary, where it is a symbol of the country’s attempt to build a modern tank industry.

The Tas’s story is also a cautionary one: it showed that a small country, with limited industry, could design a modern tank, but that it could not build it in large numbers, and that a tank that is never built cannot change the outcome of a war.

The Tas’s destruction in the bombing of Csepel is a reminder of the vulnerability of industry in wartime, and of the fact that a tank factory, however well protected, can be destroyed by bombing, and that a tank that is destroyed before it is built is a tank that never fights.

The Tas deserves to be remembered, but it deserves to be remembered as what it was: a prototype, not a production tank, and a symbol of ambition, not of achievement.

10. Surviving Examples

No surviving Tas

No 44M Tas survives, because no Tas was ever completed. The two chassis that were built were both destroyed or abandoned in 1944, and no Tas was ever preserved in a museum, and no Tas can be seen today. This is an important fact, and it must be stated clearly: there is no Tas in any museum, in Hungary or elsewhere, and any vehicle described as a Tas in a museum is a replica or a model, not an original.

The Tas’s lack of surviving examples is a consequence of its status as a prototype, and it is a reminder that the Tas was never a production tank, and that its story is the story of a design that was destroyed before it could be built.

The Tas is known today only from photographs, from design documents and from the memories of the men who worked on it, and from the models and the drawings that have been made from them.

Photographs, models and the Hungarian military museums

Although no Tas survives, the Tas can be seen in the form of photographs, models and drawings, and in the Hungarian military museums, where the history of the Hungarian tank industry is displayed. The photographs of the Tas chassis, which show a large, sloped hull and a turret with a long gun, are held in the Hungarian military archives, and they have been published in books and in articles about the Tas, and they are the basis for the models of the Tas that are built by modellers around the world.

The Hungarian Military History Museum in Budapest displays the history of the Hungarian tanks, including the Turán, the Toldi and the Zrínyi, and it tells the story of the Tas, although it has no Tas to display. For most visitors, the best way to learn about the Tas is to visit the Hungarian Military History Museum, and to see the photographs and the models of the Tas, and to learn about the Hungarian tank industry that built it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the 44M Tas?
The 44M Tas was a Hungarian heavy tank prototype of the Second World War, designed by the Weiss Manfréd works in 1943–1944. Only two chassis were built, neither was completed, and the project was destroyed by bombing on 27 July 1944.

Did the 44M Tas ever fight?
No. The Tas never entered service, never fired a shot in combat and never met an enemy tank. It was destroyed before it could be completed or tested.

How many 44M Tas tanks were built?
Two chassis were built, and neither was completed. No Tas was ever mass-produced, and no Tas survives today.

What gun was the Tas to have?
The Tas was to be armed with the 75 mm 43.M gun, and an 80 mm gun was planned for later vehicles, but the 80 mm gun was never completed and no Tas was ever fitted with it.

Why was the Tas project abandoned?
The Weiss Manfréd works at Csepel was destroyed by American bombing on 27 July 1944, including the Tas prototype in the assembly hall. The factory could not be rebuilt, and the project was abandoned.

Where can I see a 44M Tas today?
Nowhere — no Tas survives. The Tas is known only from photographs, design documents and models. The Hungarian Military History Museum in Budapest tells its story and displays models and photographs.

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Sources

1. Wikipedia, “44M Tas” — two chassis built, destroyed 27 July 1944, specifications as design targets.
2. Tank Encyclopedia, “44M Tas” — the design, the bombing of Csepel and the planned versions.
3. Péter Mujzer, Hungarian Armour in the Second World War — the Hungarian tank industry and the Tas project.
4. Csaba Becze, Magyar Steel (MMP Books, 2006) — Hungarian tanks and the Weiss Manfréd works.
5. Steven J. Zaloga, Tanks of Hitler’s Eastern Allies (Osprey Publishing, 2013) — Hungary’s armoured forces and the Turán.
6. The Hungarian Military History Museum, Budapest — the Tas photographs and the history of the Hungarian tank industry.