Originally posted by Sixpence
"The germans so appreciated the performance of the T-34 that when the german military discussed the development of their next tank, the Panther, one of the suggested designs was simply a german copy of the T-34."
Differences to basic german tanks:
1. fast
2. good offroad performance due to wide tracks (with the exception of Panther and Tiger, Panzers had alot narrower tracks than T-34)
3. sloped armour (Panther and Tiger II are the only widely used panzers with well sloped armour)
Weaker cannon? The 76mm had a long barrel and high muzzle velocity, it was very well armed. Also, it's diesel engine did not catch fire as quickly as a gas engine. You talk about quality, well, the fact is the T-34 was much more reliable on the battlefield than it's German counterparts. The T-34 was the best medium tank of the war, nothing came close.
First of all 76mm on T-34 was not long nor did it have high velocity, when compares to many other guns.
Early T-34's had 76.2mm L/30.5 L-11 cannon and later upped to 76.2mm L/41.5 (thats for the 76mm versions)
With muzzle velocities of 612m/s and 662m/s
You could already get a close match with with a german 50mm L/60 KwK 39
German high velocity 75mm guns had velocity of about 800m/s
Panther had even higher velocity 75mm, but that was later, same time with 85mm T-34.
Although Panther had still superior gun to 85mm T-34.
There was also difference in accuracy, in favor of Panther.
Optics were a whole another issue, thats where germans had a clear advantage without a doubt.
T-34's also lacked cupola for many years.
Another big difference was in communications equiptment.
From these things alone, you can find many things which makes production of T-34 faster and easier than the german counterparts.
Although survivability is also clearly obvious.
