Author Topic: US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942  (Read 3748 times)

Offline K West

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« on: January 16, 2002, 08:19:57 PM »
Incredible. Read the review by the US Aberdeen engineers on an evalutaion T34 the Soviets gave the ?US in 1942. :

http://history.vif2.ru/library/archives/stat/stat7.html

Offline Pongo

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2002, 09:05:48 PM »
Yup.

Offline Otter

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Re: US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2002, 12:22:25 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by K West
Incredible. Read the review by the US Aberdeen engineers on an evalutaion T34 the Soviets gave the ?US in 1942. :

http://history.vif2.ru/library/archives/stat/stat7.html


Nice article Westy. Classic "NBH". Not built here. Too bad they couldn't see a diamond in the rough, if we had licensed them instead of building Shermans alot of Allies would have lived.

Offline K West

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2002, 09:27:59 AM »
Exactly Otter.

 They dismissed most everything about the tank that kocked the sh&t out of the Axis armour much better than anything the US had could have.  

 When I read about the T34, the fiasco with the P-38 (blockage of Merlin engine fitting and hinderance of fixes earlier to it), the P 39 (super or turbo-charge removal that neutered it) and the late notice by the USAAF of the P-51 (thank God for the Brits!) as well as many other case of political/corporate bullsh&t at play it amazes me that we were able to help the Allies win the war as we did.

  Westy

Offline -lynx-

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2002, 09:43:39 AM »
Quote
Nice article Westy. Classic "NBH". Not built here. Too bad they couldn't see a diamond in the rough, if we had licensed them instead of building Shermans alot of Allies would have lived.
 Problem with production quality plagued not only Soviet tanks - you should read about planes as well. One has to remember that by 1942 most of what used to be the industrial heartland of Russia was occupied and those T34s were manufactured on barely adapted production plants in the East of the country. Many experienced workers and specialists alike (="men of combatant age") were drafted to fight the war...

If the US had licenced T34 possibly implementing those mods they were talking about and using advanced (and undamaged) manufacturing facilities in the States to build them... And started shipping them back to Russia/Europe instead of the crap that was coming over... Oh well... Never happened...

On the other hand all AH hardware has no reliability problems - lets have T34s!:D

Offline Karnak

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2002, 10:28:32 AM »
Interesting and disturbing report given what we know about the T-34's effect on the war.

I have a friend who was in the Army in the mdi-late 80s as an officer in tanks.  His interest in military history of WWII is from the tanker's perspective and he feels that our handling of tank production in WWII bordered on criminal.  In his opinion we should have done our best to license the T-34 and built it instead of the Sherman.

In his opinion the T-34 was the best all round Allied tank of the war, bar none.  The Panther V G was the best all round tank in his opinion.
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Offline Don

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2002, 10:49:47 AM »
>>>>it amazes me that we were able to help the Allies win the war as we did. <<<<

We did basically  because we had more...of everything. The warring nations had just about bled themselves white by the time the war ended. Even the US had begun to feel the effects of casualties near the end. Good thing our generals learned how to fight as the war progressed, at the beginning we lost men in huge amounts because of the ineptitude of our military leadership.
I read somewhere about the Sherman tank that it was a question of practicalities, the Sherman was easily produced, readily available, cheap, and we had enough manpower to run em. The bean counters prevailed; we send 1k tanks and can replace our losses with more tanks and more cannon fodder to run em.
Russians did amazing things to defend themselves when they faced the Nazi onslaught alone. Their factories were dismantled and moved hundereds of miles and put together in mere days in many cases. In Leningrad, factories continued to produce weapons (including tanks) even while they were starving and under seige for 300 days.
Brits got smart, they accepted the Sherman but replaced the ineffective 75 with their own high velocity version of the 76mm.
Sherman was still thin skinned but it had more punch and easily produced, it was also a good machine if they only had made adjustments to it (eg. increase armor plating) based upon experience in the field. I am amazed every time I read about the sinful waste that occured during both WW1 and WW2. And I cannot rule out a certain amount of Hubris on the part of American industrialists and military men. Cynically, what was at stake was the leadership of the world after the war was over.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2002, 11:03:41 AM by Don »

Offline Sabre

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2002, 12:31:43 PM »
You gentlemen need to take a second look at that article.  It was not writen by the American engineers at Aberdeen, but by the Soviets, based on the testing the Americans did.  It does not critique the two tanks' effectiveness in combat, but simply details the manufacturing processes and defects found in the tanks.  This is the reason the Soviets gave the tanks to the Americans.  I found it to be a balanced appraisal of the weaknesses in Soviet manufacturing during this time.  You'll notice that the Soviet general officer who submitted the report did not take exception to most of the what the Americans found.  Indeed, the last section are HIS suggestions, based on the testing, of what his country should do to improve the designs.

The true genious of the T-34's design is that, despite such poor manufacturing techniques and quality control, it still dominated the Easter Front.  Keep in mind that later German designs surpassed the T-34 in important ways, but by then the Soviets were out-producing Germany.  Quality only goes so far in countering quantity, afterall.

I do agree with the assessment made above that the US could have done worse than to build the design under license.  However, there would still have been the problems of getting priority over the US Navy for the diesel engines to put in them.  In the area of combat aircraft design, the US profited from perfect timing of their weapon's development cycle.  The Army was not so fortunate, resulting in a design that was a generation behind what the enemy was fielding.
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Offline Otter

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2002, 12:50:43 PM »
I was reading between the lines, particularly in regards to the remarks attributed to the American designers re: the Christie suspension being somehow inadequate, when in fact it was an integral part of the success of the T-34.

Co-ordination of the American manufacturing effort during the war was an enormous proposition and not to be dismissed lightly, but it appears from this report the Soviets improved what they could enough to make the tank effective.

It's also probable that the evaluation model wasn't altogether kosher given the Soviets well known paranoia.

Offline Don

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2002, 02:40:42 PM »
Sabre: I did not miss the obvious in that article. I based my comments on the american criticisms of the tank's construction etc.  The mere fact that the Russians were able to produce even poorly manufactured tanks that could kick the better quality tanks of the Nazis, was an amazing feat. That the Americans did not produce a better model of tank to protect its soldiers and, which could fight Nazi tanks toe to toe is, IMO a crime. Practicalities be damned. We could have done it, if the Russians could, we could have, and done it better. America had more than enough resources at its disposal to have overcome the monopoly of the Navy on diesel production or, even kept the gas engine design.
The Sherman was a ronson burner, and tankers life expectancy in them was even less than the B17 crews over germany before they had long range escorts.

Offline Pongo

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2002, 09:18:43 PM »
Anyone that would trade an M4 for a T34 doesnt know what they are talking about.
The T34 was revolutionary. Not a world beater.
The M4 was a far more usefull tank.  The M4a3 is at least equal in protection and speed. Supperior in armement. The russians loved the shermans they recieved Lend lease.
M4s biggest weakness vs its contemporarys was its tendacy to catch fire easy. The T34 has exactly the same problem and many more.
Read that assessment. It is by a russian for russians..The Germans aggreed 100% with that assessment.
That is why AH needs a T34/85. The 76mm ones are no match for a panzer IV or an M4a3-75.

Offline -lynx-

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #11 on: January 21, 2002, 10:45:44 AM »
Quote
You gentlemen need to take a second look at that article. It was not writen by the American engineers at Aberdeen, but by the Soviets, based on the testing the Americans did.
 Sorry to barge in - it's more "complicated" than that. It looks like an adaptation of a translation of American engineers' report into Russian for Soviet Army use later translated back into English to be included in a website for all to see. I don't think the website author had access to the original - he'd have posted it.

Quote
The T34 was revolutionary. Not a world beater.
I have to disagree here - in 1941 there was nothing coming even close. Panther was designed to beat it and hull design etc was carefully studied and copied by German engineers.  

Diesel engine in a tank makes sense (although filters weren't adequate blah-blah-blah) - it's not as prone to fires as petrol engine and is much simpller and more reliable (scratch complete electrical ignition system). Low profile sloping hull on a tank makes sense. Welded not rivetted hull/turret makes sense. Wide tracks make sense etc.

Manufacturing quality was leaving alot to be desired for and materials used weren't up to scratch but having in mind Soviet military doctrine of late 30s and what it came to replace - T28/35 slow many turreted poorly armed infantry support vehicles someone named "tanks" in error - it's a miracle it came to be.

T34-85 was what it should have been from the start but in 1940-41 there was no need for heavier main gun in a tank as most of opposition was sporting 37-57mm guns. And by 1943 there was no time/facilities to design/test things properly...

Offline janjan

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2002, 03:56:32 AM »
The main drawback of T-34-76 was it's 2 man turret and very poor sighting devices (not meaning gun sight). That meant the tank had virtually no leader as he was gunner or loader at the same time.

Also, as far as I know only leader tanks had radios.

With much faster reaction times and tactics/communication they were very often no match to German tankers.

Actually Russian tank doctrine guided not to engage German tanks.

With T-34-85 many sighting/leader problems were corrected but still not to German level.

Offline -lynx-

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #13 on: January 23, 2002, 11:02:36 AM »
I was referring to pre-war Soviet military doctrine which did not include tank/tank divisions as an independent weapon but as supporting infantry things. T34 was not an infantry support tank. Which was, in itself, a novelty.

It certainly had design imperfections, and yes, there were not enough radios to go around etc but surely one need to realise that this was a 1940 design? And when facing it's main competitors of the time (T-II and T-III) it was wastly superior fighting machine. It was on par with T-IV - weaker gun/optics, better armour/manouverability/hull design/engine. And that's T34-76... I'm not sure how american engineers managed to get 26kph max speed out of it - I've seen plenty documentary footage with T34s moving much faster than 15mph - cross country, snow, mud. Properly trained tank crews and better coms would allow it to fare much better than it actually did but hey - it's history now.

It seems that years of stereptyping are still preventing people from giving what is due - Ki84 was a flying bag of technical problems - we marvel at what it could have been, not a single King Tiger from their first batallion made it to the front line at Kursk - all broke down on the way! - we sigh admiringly "what a tank!". T34... Err... Not all machines had radios installed... Umm... And the turret was kinda small for 2 crew... Oh please...

Offline Nath[BDP]

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US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2002, 11:30:10 AM »
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not a single King Tiger from their first batallion made it to the front line at Kursk - all broke down on the way!


I believe you are thinking of the early Pzkfw VDs (Panthers) variants which were issued to the 51st and 52rd Panzerabteilung in May 1943. The King Tigers did not enter production until 1944.

It is true though, that many of the Panthers en route to their starting positions for the Kursk counter offensive broke down due to bad cooling systems and caught on fire. The peevish display that the Panthers put on in turn had a detrimental effect on moral.

It must also be noted that the Kursk offensive was consistantly delayed from originally beginning in May all the way to June, due to people higher up in OKW wanting to wait for the "new panzers" such as the Panther. The two month delay gave the Russians time to build up their defenses in the Kursk salient. Which in turn were attacked on July 3 by the Germans, who, by Hitler's own ignorance of aerial photos and advice by his officiers that the Russian defenses were too much proceded with the attack. Which entered a stalemate only 10 or so days after its beginning, with the two Germany Armies gaining only marginal ground with high losses--Model's 9th Army lost 20,000 men in the first week and eventually only gained about 12 miles of ground.

The attack was abandoned on July 13th.

Such is war. Soldier's lives should never be put in the hands of such a stupid fool.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2002, 11:34:24 AM by Nath[BDP] »
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