Armchair general dot com? That's a board gaming site...although very interesting not a reliable source.
The table is sourced:
"Otechestvennye bronirovannye mashiny. XX vek" : nauchnoe izdanie v 4-kh tomakh/ Solyankin A.G., Pavlov M.V., Pavlov I.V., Zheltov I.G./ Tom 2. "Otechestvennye bronirovannye mashiny. 1941-1945" , Moscow, Exprint, 2005 "
Although I have no idea if the source is reliable, the table is certainly not based on pure speculation.
No sir and I pretty much agree after looking through that last site you linked. However, similarly I believe the 75/76mm Shermans should have a slower rate of fire, not 3.6 seconds.
Hunnicut's reference work on the Sherman seems to disagree, as do Army manuals. One shot every 3.6 seconds is less than 17 rounds per minute, which is slower than the theoretical maximum of 20 rounds per minute. Again, if there is a reliable source that contradicts this, then I would agree it should be slowed. In the absence of contradictory evidence, I would think we have to rely on those manuals.
One question still remains though, what besides inexperienced crewmen would cause such a slower rate of fire in a gun that operated similarly to the M3 Sherman gun? 1 man firing the gun, 1 man loading, a number of rounds in "ready racks", semi-automatic breech/loading mechanism, similar size and weight ammunition, stationary firing stance...smaller turret space means shorter distances to reach ammunition...under combat conditions 1 or 2 seconds should be all the difference there is.
Now you are asking for speculation rather than sourced reference materials. We have sourced references that seem to support the in-game rates of fire, and I would think this is what should be used in a game like AH.
But if you want to go into speculation, I would say you have a few faulty conclusions. First is assume since there are two people physically operating the gun means they have the same amount of room. They couldn't physically fit a third person into the T-34's turret, and it was cramped for the people who were there. The Sherman's turret was comparatively "roomy" even with the commander present. Second, although both had "Semi-automatic breech mechanisms", we don't have some of the particulars in terms of recoil length/time for all weapons, which could have an impact on ROF. Third, let's take a look specifically at those ready rounds you reference -- not all ready rounds are created equally. The Sherman book I linked earlier showed a picture of the ready round bin, which is in the floor of the
turret basket, presumably directly below the gun for very easy access by the loader, who needs only reach down for them. The T-34, as stated earlier in the thread, had no turret basket.
This book in the Firepower section (pg 41) states that in the T-34/76 there were three ready rounds
on the hull side near the loader's feet and six more ready rounds
on the opposite wall near the commander. So in a more confined space, to access the ready rounds, the T-34 loader needed to twist and bend down to the floor or reach around the commander/gunner to get the rounds, vs. the Sherman loader simply reaching down at presumably arms length to get them.
So, speculating, the Sherman's loader seems to have a very large advantage even when talking only access to the ready rounds. After the ready rounds are gone, we are back to bins in the floor with matting over them vs. the Sherman's racks (a good picture in the earlier link).
So to me it seems the disparity of rate of fire makes sense given both the documentary evidence presented so far and the ergonomics involved.
