US evaluation of T34-76 in 1942

[GRUNHERZ]

The Sherman has a much worse profile, shilouette and ground pressure than T34. Dont mention HVSS sherman they only really became abvailable in any numbers from early 1945. T34 had a 76mm 3 man turret by 1943. And the 85mm by late 1943.

I dont know where Pongo gets the idea that Shermans were better when it came to fuel fires... Its a given that diesel engines are much better in this regard to gasoline. Everyone knew and agreed on this fact in WW2. Why do you think you know better?

I dont know why Pongo thinks the Shermans were more resistant to ammo fires than T34. In fact it was very easy to set Sherman ammo on fire. Thats why so many Shermans had the three plates on the hull hides, do you think its a coincidence they were placed right over the ammo store locations. Late model shermans  got water jackets over the ammo instead of extra armor. If the ammo gets hit it will blow up, its that simple....

The Sherman gun stabilization proved useless in real life use-though it reportedly performed nicely in optimal condition testing. All WW2 tanks had to stop to fire accurately.

The VVSS was awful. Again dont even bring up HVSS shermans or you will have to bring in T44....

Again the Sherman is much taller, has vertical sides, its much more upright, has a taller hull and glacis, less armor slope.


T34/85 suffered from poor optics, unreliable ammo, and poorly trained crews.

[Pongo]

I dont know where GH gets the idea I think the Sherman was better for fuel fires then the the T34. I never said that.
I have agreed that gas is  worse but that is a feature most other tanks in ww2 shared.
The ammo storage was rectified with wet storage as you point out. The T34 has exaclty the same issue. Not rectified. Many people here had the misconception that the Sherman was prone to fires because it was gas. Well its adverseries that the allied tankers were comparing against were gas. The issue was ammo storage.

The stabilization does not help you fire on the move. It helps you fire quickly after a stop. It never proved ineffective in the field. Just anoying cause it makes the gun bounce up and down in the turrent. So it was sometimes disconected.
How much taller is the Sherman? The early 76mm T34s definalty had a supperior profile to any sherman.  The T34-85...I dont know Its pretty close.
No 76mm T34 had a 3 man turrent. The last version had an improved hatch but the commander was still the gunner.

I dont know where you dug up the T44 from. The HVSS suspension served on WW2 shermans.  Even the earlier suspension was superior to the suspension on the T34.

Yes the ballistic shape of the hull is superior from all angles. And the protection of the vehicle benifits greatly from that. The internal layout does not. And the protection except from the sides is not superior to the Sherman.

So you agree then GH that the T34-85 is greatly supperior to the ultimate war time Sherman? I will admit if you discount the fire control improvements completly then its at best a dead heet. But I dont. I think they are near equal in raw numbers. And the fire control advances and supperior penetration of the Sherman give it the edge. Its more likly to see first shoot first and hit first.  I will take those advantages.  And its those features that this whole discussion concerns.
Thats why I think that the T34-85 should be our non perk soviet tiank and the M4a3(75) should be our non perk US tank.  Both are about equivilent in usefullness to a Panzer IV H

[GRUNHERZ]

T34/85 not greatly superior to lets say an HVSS 76mm 1945 Sherman, but a much more dangerous and vastly superior  to any 75mm Sherman and a much better tank than any VVSS 76mm Sherman. Mobility in bad terrain of VVSS was very poor. All T34 have greatly superior shilioutte and outline to any Sherman. Even a Kingtiger has a better Shiloutte than Sherman- belive it or not, just look at them side by side. Sherman is incredibly upright.

My argument with you is that you overrate the Sherman and underrate the T34. You and widewing are about the most fanatic Sherman lovers I have ever seen.  It wasnt that great you know- by 1944 it was a deathtrap i Europe and an embarassment to the US military, very vulnerable tank.

Panther is vastly superior to both though.

[-lynx-]

Just to put more.. err... gas on fire:

I dont know where GH gets the idea I think the Sherman was better for fuel fires then the the T34. I never said that.

vs.

"What was he price, sorry, I didn't understand? Again: how many American tankers burned in their Shermans? " About 20 000 fewer then soviets who burnt in thier T34s.

vs.

The Sherman was no more likely to burn then the T34. US tankers are just more likey to complain about it.

 You do seem to have a funny way with words;).

Sherman needs to be modelled first in any case as it served on more fronts and far more useful for scenarious. T34-85 as the next (after Sherman) tank would complete the list of unperked tanks representing all sides.

[Pongo]

This is all getting very comical.
People start out the thread with absolulte statments of the supperiority of the T34 over the Sherman. Even having just read a soviet indictment of the weaknesses of the T34.

It reads like they are comparing a Panther and a Sherman..
I had to point out that that is just silly. These two tanks are very simular in fundimentals. The ways they differ are very interesting to consider. As are the reasons why such an obviosly supperior tank didnt whipe out the Germans in 41.

People rail on about how the things I mention dont matter. Yet they were all adapted eventually in the T34 or later tanks. So we try to focus on the capablilitys of the tanks in their fully developed war time forms. And we still have two tanks that are very simular in fundimentals. And we still have to pick hairs to discuss which is better. (well some of you think its obvios.)

The reasons I would take the Sherman if I had the choice to go to war with I think I have backed up.  One vs the other. The sherman is more likely to get off the first shot and hit with it. They are that close, it comes down to that.
GH can take the T34 if he thinks its profile advantage would increase the chance of a miss from the sherman.....
I bet different.

As to the fire issue. The T34 is not a very survivable tank. IE its after penetration survival is poor. It has this in common with the Sherman. Both these tanks suffered heavily vs the germans. But we hear alot more about the weaknesses of one because it was used in the west.

[Daff]

"The sherman is more likely to get off the first shot and hit with it."

That doesnt help much when it can't penetrate the T-34 armor.

Daff

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Pongo
Quesion to borodo
please to explain why it bothers you so much to discussing why a tank that was definalty not perfect..might not be,
Maybe Miko can help. The T34 has the same issues as the T34.
As to me I was a TOW missle gunner and vehicle commander. We got to discuss the weaknesses of Soviet armour. And I made the study of the history of it an interest of mine...

I am Boroda, not "borodo" or "bordoa". BorodA, stress on the last "A". Means "beard" in Russian.

Pongo, do you know the first rule of the Israeli army? "Never answer the question with another question"

Pongo, armour penetration means that particles of armour go off the internal surface, leaving a plate-shaped hole. This particles are the main destructive factor. They can literaly shred the internals of the tank. Such thing can happen even if the penetration didn't occur. Another thing is excessive pressure (wrong word probably, in Russian it's "izbytochnoe davlenie"). Only 2.5kg/cm^2 can reliably "disable enemy personell" (shit, i always hated this kind of language!). You need much more "e. p." to damage ammo or any mechanisms. If ammo blows up - it means that the crew is already dead.

As for tight compatrment (internal layout) - it's again all about coffee machines and stereos. Tanks are built for combat.

BTW, try to find a copy of a Soviet movie "Na voyne kak na voyne" ("A la guerre com a la guerre"). It has an exellent picture of tank combat.  They could fit a camera into a SU-100 crew compartment! IIRC - there are also some footage inside a T-34-85. And it's simply a beautiful movie, with young Oleg Borisov, Michail Kononov and Viktor Pavlov...

http://www.ozon.ru/detail.cfm/ent=7&ptn=3&id=9236

[fdiron]

At http://history.vif2.ru/ there is an account where a T34 was hit by a Tiger tank.  A few crew members were killed but the driver was still able to drive the T34 back to base.

[Don]

The Americans COULD have designed a better tank and did, near the end of the war which included all of the battlefield tested improvements that should have been implemented earlier on in the war. The Sherman was produced in fantastic numbers so the allies went with them.
The Brits used Shermans but made their improvements once they received them by up gunning them and adding a bit more plate armor. Russians liked Shermans true, but they realized their T34 was better in many respects. Before the end of the war they put newer tanks in the field which included many of the design concepts that were in Nazi tanks and in the Sherman.
I have read that WW2 in particular was, in many respects, an exercise in competiton amongts the warring factor's scientists and engineers as much as it was a competition on the battlefield.
Brits loved American Sherman in Afrika campaign, at least until the advent of the Panther and Tiger; which brought out the serious flaw in the design (eg. poor armor design and weak main gun). The Russian T-34 was the only tank among all of the combatants which consistently competed well against Nazi armor. It had weaknesses, and would light up if hit in the right spot, but it was a better tank in the terrain it fought on and its sloped armor set the bar for modern armor design in tanks (which was not lost on Nazi design engineers btw). No higher compliment can be paid to ones nme than imitation.
Russia was under attack throughout most of the war. As a consequence they had to move their major industries and, often had to get those industries back online within days under wretched conditions. They did not enjoy a concentration of manufacturing assets, nor were their workers as well trained as other combatants. Yet they were successful enough in their main tank design to have had a major impact on the war, even with their backs against the wall for much of the early years.
In view of the above, by comparison the US Sherman should have been better and less of a hazard for our troops than it was. My objection is to the decision to concede to "practicalities", and leave the Sherman the way it was. IMO the losses in men could have been avoided.

[Pongo]

Here was a fun old thread, looks like my temperament hasn't changed much.
Now we sit here, 8 years later, how did it turn out?

[USRanger]

Now we sit here, 8 years later, how did it turn out?

With a locked thread.

[wgmount]

I think more of the problems with the T34 had to do with Stalin getting rid of his commanders than the tank.

The German Panther was a better tank but the t34 won by attrition. The soviets had one other advantage over the Germans which was great quantities of mud. The heavy tanks of the Germans would bog down in it and the t34 would truck right along.

The t34 had a good balance of firepower, armored protection, and mobility. Probably why it served in armies for 50 years

[stephen]

T3476 is VASTLY supperior to its 75mm Sherman counterpart... I hear guys saying that they are similar, and that there is little diffrence bettween them ,umm boys, thats understating things a bit.

First off (and the biggest diffrence that strikes me) the Sherman is slab sided, where as the T34's armor is sloped around the entire vehicle...
There is the mention of which one has the lower silhouette, and its the T34 again. How about mobility? well the T34's tracks are wider, (not to mention the Christy suspension is also supperior to the Sherman  arangment.) though the American tank had a better track in that it was studded with rubber, and probably gave better service than the T34's all metal tread.

I forget who it was that said the T-34 wasnt a world beat'r,.... well it doesnt matter, because its a damn close as you can come in 1942 to that very thing...
In fact the only equality I see bettween them is in the gun they where first armed with being nearly the same as far as I can tell.
Yes the Sherman has better optics, but optics arent worth a damn if your knocked out and burning on the side of the road in Holland...

[Pongo]

he he.
not going to start it all again, but everyone agreed with you but me.

[E25280]

he he.
not going to start it all again, but everyone agreed with you but me.

I wasn't around then, but I've been saying roughly the same thing for a while now.  The T-34 and Sherman were very comparable tanks, but have two vastly different "reputations."  The T-34 acquired a good one because in '41 it was up against German tanks with 37mm door knockers.  The Sherman acquired a poor one because it went up against a German army that already upgraded due to the T-34s.

I "love" how people say the Sherman was a deathtrap without any regard for the fact that by that point in the war, the T-34s were deathtraps of the same magnitude against the German heavies.

Here is a link to a good read from a Soviet tanker's point of view.  His opinion of the "Emcha" seems quite contrary to the reputation -- which brings to mind your comment from years ago about US armor not being any more prone to burn, just that US tankers are more prone to complain about it.

http://www.iremember.ru/content/view/85/19/lang,en/