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Just wondering:
Was the T-34 significantly superior to the contemporary German tanks?

I get the impression that it may have only been slightly better, but was easily mass-producable, unlike the German tanks (throughout the war). Of course, I could look this up, but discussions are interesting too.

This is a purely tactical 1-1 analysis, with equivalent crews (rather than the somewhat woeful crews that the Soviets had at the introduction of the tank).

It depends heavily on which tanks you look at. Was the T-34 significantly superior to the Panzer II? Hell yes. Was the T-34 significantly superior to the Panzer IV? I don't know. Was the T-34 significantly superior to the Panzer V "Panther?" I don't know, but I kind of doubt it.

Although when you look at the higher-end German tanks, the difficulty of production really should be called into consideration when you ask "superior/inferior" questions. A tank that costs five times more to build than its weight in enemy tanks, and that cannot kill more than five times its weight in enemy tanks, is an inferior tank.

The T-34 was significantly superior in the economic sense - the USSR managed to install such efficient mass-production that there was a several times difference in metal and manhours spent for a typical T-34 and a typical German tank.

Other than that, in pure combat chars, it was a good medium tank. That's all. But that's good enough on it's own.

defanatic wrote:Just wondering: Was the T-34 significantly superior to the contemporary German tanks?

Which tanks and when?

The T-34 started off massively superior to the Pzkfw-I and Pzkfw-II, marginally superior to the Pzkfw-III with the L42 50mm gun and significantly superior to the Pzkfw-IV with the L24 75mm gun. From that point on, there's a continually swinging balance as tanks improve. For Pzkfw-I and Pzkfw-II they never got on to equal terms with the T-34 but for the rest, to give a sensible answer, one would almost have to ask "on which day of the week?"

Also, things are never even. It's not as if the two armies sat down and said "We'll pitch the best of mine against the best of yours". In mid-1943 for example, it's quite likely on some quiet area of the front, a German unit might still have Pzkfw-IIIs with L42 50mm guns when the Russians decide it's been quiet long enough and turn up with some T-34/85s. Or, on the other hand, the Russians still have 1941 vintage T-34s when the Germans turn up with Pzkfw-IVs with L48 75mm guns.

This kind of "was X better than Y" question is one military analysts keep getting asked when people find out what we do. The only really sensible answer is "when, where, what, how and why?"

However, the T-34 had one undeniable war-winning advantage over the German tanks. There were 58,681 of them.

Stuart wrote: However, the T-34 had one undeniable war-winning advantage over the German tanks. There were 58,681 of them.

And that's pretty much it

One can go blue in the face arguing for one side or another in such a simplistic getup, and in reality, even a tank with inferior armor and weaponry can win an engagement: due to luck, if not anything else.

But when the frontline reality is that the enemy always has more tanks to throw at you than you have shells for your main gun, the question of whether your tank is slightly better than one of those 20 coming at you becomes completely irrelevant.

You get bonus points if your tanks are so complicated and overengineered they require several times the logistical support in spare parts and servicing man-hours than the enemy's.

That is kind of the point of why the T-34 and the Sherman were the tanks that won WWII.

Not only were there massive numbers of both due to their ease of manufacture both were easy to keep on the battlefield. The biggest problem with the German tanks was how that while they might have had better weapons and guns when 1 in 4(rough guess) is out of action because of a need to replace the complicated transmission, which has to be brought to the tank as one from a knocked out tank won't really work, the T-34 can be got back up and running by in some cases using trwist ties to match parts together well enough to let the tank run.

The T-34 had better transmissions then their German adversaries, Better suspension, better engine and with it's sloping armor better protection then most of the German tanks at the time of it's introduction. It doesn't help the Germans any to knock out 20 when 40 more are joining the fight down the road. Even the Tiger with it's 88mm gun can only knock out so many tanks coming at it before it it either overwhelmed or forced to retreat.

There was an even bigger problem with all the many German 'super tanks' of WWII and that was the simple fact that Germany did not have the fuel to run the gas guzzling monsters. It doesn't matter how good a tank is if it is out of gas it is just a giant paperweight.

Tactically, wasn't the inferior gunsights on the T-34 along with inferior comns a liability?

From an engineering perspective, it's always annoying when you see people who assume that "high performance" = "superior" without regard for all the myriad other factors (such as maintenance; always a problem for German tank fanboys). There are so many factors to consider when designing and evaluating something. For an engineer, the biggest question is whether it meets its specified requirements. A lot of people view "over-engineering" as a good thing, but it's not. If you've over-engineered something, then this means you designed it to greatly exceed its requirements. This means one of two things must be true:

1) Its requirements were grossly inappropriate for its application. This indicates incompetence.

2) It could have been made far more cheaply, easily, quickly and/or with lesser maintenance requirements while still performing adequately. This also indicates incompetence.

In both cases, you do not come out ahead. Either there is something very seriously wrong with your design goals, or you threw practicality to the winds. Neither of these make you or your product "superior".

I think part of the problem is that some people confuse the idea of over-engineering with the idea of designing a safety factor into the product.

Building a bridge stronger than it has to be sounds like a good idea on the naive level, because no one wants bridges to collapse. Few people think through the implications of making the bridge ten or twenty times stronger than it has to be- as you say, cost and maintenance.

The same thing comes into play when someone talks about designing a tank that carries 50% more armor and can knock holes in 50% more armor than the original specifications called for. They look at that as a safety factor and think "Great, this means the tank will survive hits that would otherwise kill it, and kill things it otherwise couldn't," rather than "Damn, this means that the tank costs more than it should."

It is important not to put to much weight to kill ratios between forces. Germans achieved a great deal in this regard due to tactical supremacy.

Also it is hard to judge tanks that served different roles, or were at least designed to serve different roles. The Sherman is not a failure by being inferior to the Tiger or Panther in terms of range, fire power and armour one is a heavy tank the other is an infantry support tank.

PeZook wrote:But when the frontline reality is that the enemy always has more tanks to throw at you than you have shells for your main gun, the question of whether your tank is slightly better than one of those 20 coming at you becomes completely irrelevant.

The thing is, sheer numbers don't work that way, otherwise the Germans would have kept on producing Panzer I/II or and the Soviets the small light tanks that died out in favor of the T-34 (some attempts were made at newer light tanks, but they were never as prolific as the T-34).

You need a vehicle that:

• Offers a reasonable level of protection; such that the vehicle won't spontaneously light up and burn when hit by the lightest possible weapon.
• Offers a reasonable level of firepower; so that if you run across something on your travels, you have a reasonable chance of killing it.
• Is mechanically reliable.

The first two are required because even in WWII, manpower is important -- specifically trained/experienced manpower.

I'm sure you've seen the statistics that 5% or so of all fighter pilots were responsible for like 35% or so kills (or some number); but what about the other 95%?

Simply by surviving your first couple of combat missions in a fighter, or first couple of days of combat in a tank, your survival skills skyrocket, and you're much less likely to die.

Given that your vehicle even at it's cheapest level of production, represents a strategic investment; it's in your best interest to maximize the survival rates of your tanks as much as reasonably possible.

For example, a Panzer III at 22,250 kg final empty weight requires the following materials:

• 39,000 kg of steel
• 1.4 kg of tin
• 60 kg of copper
• 90.4 kg of aluminum
• 71 kg of lead
• 49 kg of Zinc
• 125 kg of rubber

Now, if the vehicle's destroyed, a lot of stuff like the steel can be recycled easily; but the more specialist stuff like for example, rubber will be lost forever as it burns.

The real problem that the allies faced in WWII was that the Germans deployed the PaK 40 on a large scale, despite it being on the very upper edge of what was actually handleable on the battlefield by manpower -- some 3,200 lbs; and also made it the general "standard" weapon of the Panzerwaffe in StuGs and Panzer IVs.

It had enough penetration ability that it was essentially a "one shot one kill" weapon at the normal combat ranges commonly encountered on all theaters; and in order to actually get a vehicle capable of reasonably protecting against a PaK 40, vehicle weights had to go up to like 50-55 tons.

However, you could get reasonable protection against 50mm guns on 30-35 ton weights; and that's what the T-34 and Sherman were optimized for. It's also worth noting that the Panzer IV/StuG combo was just as vunerable to the Allied 75mm/76mm/85mm spam so it all evened out.

The big crying shame was that we didn't invade France in 1943 -- at that point, the Germans had not yet fully developed PaK 40 spam, and you would have faced a majority of 50mm guns, both on tanks and attached to the infantry. By 1944, the 50mm had been pretty much superceeded in all frontline roles basically.

MKSheppard wrote:For example, a Panzer III at 22,250 kg final empty weight requires the following materials:
...39,000 kg of steel...

Where'd the extra steel go? I mean yes, there's bound to be wastage when you're machining parts out of steel billets, but wastage roughly equal to the final weight of the vehicle? Wow.

MKSheppard wrote: The thing is, sheer numbers don't work that way, otherwise the Germans would have kept on producing Panzer I/II or and the Soviets the small light tanks that died out in favor of the T-34 (some attempts were made at newer light tanks, but they were never as prolific as the T-34).

You need a vehicle that:

• Offers a reasonable level of protection; such that the vehicle won't spontaneously light up and burn when hit by the lightest possible weapon.
• Offers a reasonable level of firepower; so that if you run across something on your travels, you have a reasonable chance of killing it.
• Is mechanically reliable.

Well, of course: that's why I said it doesn't matter if your individual tanks are slightly better than what the enemy has. If your vehicles are overwhelmingly superior (like, say, due to night vision and impenetrable armor, to use a more modern example), the balance of power shifts.

MKSheppard wrote:Given that your vehicle even at it's cheapest level of production, represents a strategic investment; it's in your best interest to maximize the survival rates of your tanks as much as reasonably possible.

Actually, you have to optimize, not maximize. You have to balance a lot of competing requirements, so there is an optimal level of survivability. Maximizing is a mindset that leads to massive cost overruns, and the disclaimer "reasonably possible" doesn't really provide any kind of meaningful guideline.

Darth Wong wrote:Actually, you have to optimize, not maximize. You have to balance a lot of competing requirements, so there is an optimal level of survivability. Maximizing is a mindset that leads to massive cost overruns, and the disclaimer "reasonably possible" doesn't really provide any kind of meaningful guideline.

Good point.

For example, if your vehicle is meant to be a scout vehicle, a rapid fire autocannon is very nice -- while the individual shells are not that powerful, being about equivalent to a grenade or less; letting loose a nice long burst of them to splatter against a window or chew up another light vehicle works.

If your vehicle is intended for infantry support duties, something like 75mm is a nice choice; since it has a longish range, even when short barreled; and has a fairly large shell that will inflict reasonable damage on any house or fortification. As a side bonus, it also has a reasonable effect on not only light vehicles, but medium vehicles as well.

It's worth noting that the US Army actually preferred 75mm Shermans right up to the battle of the Bulge, because the 75mm had a higher HE content than the 76.

What changed their mind toward the 76mm wasn't just the Panther/King Tiger Spam of the Bulge, but as US forces got closer to germany, they kept running into more and more fortifications, and the 76mm was ideal for taking those out, due to it's greater accuracy at longer ranges -- you could sit outside the bunker's effective range, and slowly lob 76mm into the place.

Also, there was a huge fight in the Armor community over the 105mm vs 120mm in the design phases of the Abrams. It was the old tradeoff between ammunition capacity, and multipurpose use (105) versus higher probability of killing enemy armor (120).

Simon_Jester wrote:Where'd the extra steel go? I mean yes, there's bound to be wastage when you're machining parts out of steel billets, but wastage roughly equal to the final weight of the vehicle? Wow.

You have major wastage at every stage of materials handling, all the more so because a lot of that raw steel has to be first turned into armor grade material, then the armor ingots turned into actual plates. A lot of the surplus weight will disappear early in the process from cropping ingots and then cropping plates to the required sizes.

The Germans also usually built tanks with batch production methods and a lot of machine time, rather then a continuous mass protection. This tended to make the process even less efficient. It was only in the 1943-44 period that entire new factories adapted to modern mass production started coming online in the Nazi war economy. No surprise, these caused German production numbers to skyrocket late in the war. But anyone building tanks is going to have major wastage. Some of the huge Soviet tank plants built in WW2 had complete integrated steel mills, as did some US tank tanks so any wastage could be sent right back to the foundry.

MKSheppard wrote: The real problem that the allies faced in WWII was that the Germans deployed the PaK 40 on a large scale, despite it being on the very upper edge of what was actually handleable on the battlefield by manpower -- some 3,200 lbs; and also made it the general "standard" weapon of the Panzerwaffe in StuGs and Panzer IVs.

The Germans also just defended more then anyone else, and thus fielded huge numbers of captured artillery pieces as additional anti tank guns. Plus they gave up most divisional heavy anti aircraft capability in favor of using all the 88mm guns in the anti tank role and just ate being carpet bombed.

Sea Skimmer wrote:The Germans also usually built tanks with batch production methods and a lot of machine time, rather then a continuous mass protection. This tended to make the process even less efficient. It was only in the 1943-44 period that entire new factories adapted to modern mass production started coming online in the Nazi war economy. No surprise, these caused German production numbers to skyrocket late in the war.

Is that the effects of Speer's appointment to production minister? Or was the process already underway?

atg wrote: Is that the effects of Speer's appointment to production minister? Or was the process already underway?

Process was already underway. "Fordism" was a goal for the nazzys throughout their administration. Some of the "reforms" for mass production didn't work too well...take a look at U-boats being built in modules at inland factories and floated down to coastal shipyards to be assembled there. The Goddamn hull pieces didn't fit!

From the point of view of a commander, the T-34 is one of the best tanks you could have under your command. Cheap, robust, good main gun, easy to train operators for, decent range, as reliable as anything the Soviets ever made, T-34s were wonderful assets. There are few problems the enemy could present you could not make go away with suffient numbers of T-34s. As a crewman, well, it wouldn't be my first choice. Cramped, no heater in Russian winter, you've got four men to do the work of five, you have terrible situational awareness even for a tank, you've only got the hull machinegun for anti-infantry work, you're more vunerable to infantry attack than the vast majority of vehicles. and early in the war you'd be lucky if you had a radio and even if you do your radio operator also works your hull machine-gun. I read an essay once where the author speculated that the lack of dedicated commander position in the T-34 is part of the reason for comparibly higher casualty ratios the Russians suffered against German anti-tank ambushes (with Pak guns and hull-down tank destroyers) as compared to American and Briitsh units facing the same weapons; the reaction times of the vehicles were lower because the commander had to coordinate the crew, locate the attacker, and aim the turret to face the threat at the same time, and if the hull gunner saw it he could either engage or warn the rest of the column, but not both at the same time.

The T-34 was great for tackling other tanks or assaulting fixed positions, but it had a lot of vunerablities, especially to infantry, that other tanks didn't have thanks to the lack of situational awareness and lack of freely moving secondary machine-gun. It required close infantry support but because of how good it was as a linebreaker and a spearhead it didn't have it nearly enough.

Not to discount your post but didn't German heavy tanks (i think Tiger) prove extremely venerable to infantry attack. In fact I believe almost all tanks of the period were somewhat venerable without infantry support.

Stas Bush wrote:The T-34 was significantly superior in the economic sense - the USSR managed to install such efficient mass-production that there was a several times difference in metal and manhours spent for a typical T-34 and a typical German tank.

Other than that, in pure combat chars, it was a good medium tank. That's all. But that's good enough on it's own.

Nicely put.

Perfection is the enemy of good enough and IMHO the T-34 was good enough. And it could be/was up gunned (not to mention installing radios and changing the commanders turret hatch) and provide a useful chassis for other vehicles.

spaceviking wrote:Not to discount your post but didn't German heavy tanks (i think Tiger) prove extremely venerable to infantry attack. In fact I believe almost all tanks of the period were somewhat venerable without infantry support.

I think you mean vulnerable.

Lonestar wrote: Process was already underway. "Fordism" was a goal for the nazzys throughout their administration. Some of the "reforms" for mass production didn't work too well...take a look at U-boats being built in modules at inland factories and floated down to coastal shipyards to be assembled there. The Goddamn hull pieces didn't fit!

Well at least the modular U-Boat construction wasn’t just about building faster, it was also meant to provide defense against air raids through dispersion. The actual assembly could take place safely inside of new bunkers built in German ports, largely similar to the operational bunkers in France and Norway. The German submarine and fighter industries benefited from a bunch of deliberate dispersion and hardened projects, though not so much anything else except the V weapons.

Lonestar wrote:

spaceviking wrote:Not to discount your post but didn't German heavy tanks (i think Tiger) prove extremely venerable to infantry attack. In fact I believe almost all tanks of the period were somewhat venerable without infantry support.

I think you mean vulnerable.

crap, well im retarted.

spaceviking wrote: In fact I believe almost all tanks of the period were are somewhat venerable vulnerable without infantry support.

I fixed that for you. If we are tallking about terrain not favourable for tanks (urban and forest), you can also overstrike the word "somewhat" and replace it with "highly", of course assuming the infantry is provided with reasonably modern AT weapons. In general not much has changed since WW2 it that regard.