In Belgrade military museum, we have one of early versions, that survived entire warand made it to Belgrade. It was Soviet propaganda move, to prove its nonexisting quality to future western youtuber.
As a testament to unreliability, the T-34 shown at 1:39 has a spare transmission strapped to the engine deck because they knew it was probably going to break in short order. I have seen this in quite a few photographs of Soviet tanks at the time.
the transmission on the deck is evidence of both the reliability problem and the logistics bottlenecks. If you have to haul around a transmission as dead weight into combat, then your maintenance and logistics are also unreliable regards.
like you mentioned, the german optics of that time where really impressive. i found a german artillery/flak sight in a partially caved in garden shed at my grandmas place some time ago. i assume it layed there for many decades, since it was all covered in rust and after cleaning up every metal surface on it had deep rust pitting, heres what really impressed me about it: the optic is still crystal clear, the side to side adjustment still works fine, up and down is frozen into place tho. it also has an illuminated reticle for night use. it is some variant of an Rbl F40, im still trying to figure out what weapon system it was used for as its not a standard Rbl F40, if there is such a thing, but so far had no luck completely identifying it.
@John Cornell yeah, its hard to make out the engraving on the side through that rust pitting, but i believe it says "blc" wich was the factory code for zeiss
@John Cornell im not sure yet, its a nice thing but i might sell it for the right price and to the right guy, maybe some americans have the weapon it was desinged for in their backyard and are looking for the original scope for it ;D i believ now it was used for some kind of shortrange field howitzer since it has a range indicator scale on the side, going from 5 to 70, probably 50 to 700 meters.
One can't overestimate the value of training. With at least serviceable equipment, a well trained soldier makes a world of difference. I spent years behind an M-16 and its variants. Long distance hits are the norm. Hand that same rifle to a newbie and watch the frustration...... Thanks for another great video!
I've hoped more people would realize that training is everything,but as good the soldiers are, they need good leaders and the soviet union had few of them at the beginning
Neither can you undervalue the importance of actually having fuel and ammunition for your tank. The 1941 Red Army had neither. A typical Russian tank had a quarter of the ammunition that they were designed to carry. The Red Army in 1941 was a logistical nightmare (but no-one was going to tell Stalin that). Basically Russia had quadrupled the size of its army without ordering extra supplies....
@@Shantykoff Telling him you had failed was bad, having him find out was worse. The Russians became masters of obfuscation at this point - padding numbers in reports became standard, the results of this came home to roost forty years later.
I was a tank commander on an M48A3 tank in Vietnam. They were extremely effective in the infantry support role there, particularly since such a wide variety of ammunition was available for it's main gun.. (The M-73 coaxial MG was horrible, though) Will you ever do an analysis of this vehicle?
Each Soviet tank came with an official Soviet hammer. For transmission gear changes and downshifts. The People's Hammer Factory was the first one moved to the Urals. One errant bomb on the hammer factory and the war would be lost.
The T-34 was secretly made at the Number 9 Locomotive Factory in Karkov. They got it moved followed by the FED Commune which made cameras, microscopes etc.
To ramble a bit...Many T 34 cmdrs actually drove the tank because they could control where it went more easily , they felt it was the safest crew station and left the hatch open a bit to aid in vision.They could button down if needed but many didn't because it was faster to bail out with an unlocked hatch. Drivers survived more than other crew members.They also felt they were pretty safe as they were closer to the ground. The Air cleaners ( at least up to 1942) were horrible and an engine was usually wrecked after about 200 miles. The armor (1942) wasn't treated well and so was weaker and created more weight than if it was treated to western standards. The Transmission made it a bear to drive and the starter was weak. The turret drive was bad and the teeth would break off. These are just a few of the problems that come to mind. So as you say , the early T 34s had under rated problems ( by modern aficionados .) But as you see later, improvements and training make it into an effective weapon. The Sherman is terribly under rated . It was very reliable and that is the most important issue for any piece of Army equipment. How many tanks can roll out to combat on any day.? Even the Russians gave it its due eventually.
Just dont get any habits, any person skilled in intelligence knows that routine is one of your worst enemies. Thats why you dont get your coffee from the same place everyday
For the people that don't get this Premiere video, it's a new feature of TH-cam that let's you know a release date and let's you chat with the creator. So the only thing redeeming of this new Premiere Feature of TH-cam is the Chat option and if the creator doesn't join in, it's pointless.
Have you seen the video by Scotty from “Strange Parts”. Careful what you search for, but hes a good guy who built his own iphone. He tried Premiere and posted a video about how badly it went wrong. Be careful.
It's very dead stream. Or maybe stillborn stream. It's "hey, I'm going to release a video called "X" in ten days! Let's chat for the next 20 minutes about something you haven't seen! There is no video when the chat is live.
Sloped armor goes all the way back to Leonardo da Vinci's design. Also, the CSS Virginia is an early example of very effective sloped armor on a vehicle.
If you mean the CSS Virginia, I think it was all deliberate planning. I'm sure they were angling the armor with the intention of deflecting cannon shot. If you are talking about the armor worn in the Middle Ages, a lot of the design was an effort to keep the weight down while providing protection. It would not be unreasonable to assume, therefor, sloping was mostly happenstance. However, we know certain helmet designs were intentionally made to deflect the strike of projectiles and blades. A pig snout bassinette is the clearest example I can think of. I am no expert, though, so you might want to ask someone like the Metetron or Shadiversity.
I'd like a medication that eliminates emotions so people who have no control over them or opinions made in the effect of emotion would have a chance to finally get what scientific research means. All scientist seem to be dicks to the people who seek for emotional confirmation/co-operation from a person that does only Data and Fact. It's like computer coding. You will get the error message until it is right. No emotions involved. Cry me a river. Call me a Dick. I'm a cat person.
Too many times I had to read about the T-34 being that Wonder Weapon, like Stephen Sewell's "Why three tanks", where its detractors were simply jealous of not having invented it themselves. Thank you very much for kicking them right where it hurts
One of my favorite TH-camrs who points out errors of NOT ONLY Russian and eastern tanks BUT ALSO western tanks. Literally every other TH-camr channel post bias.
There are so many Pz. IV variants that it would be easily a couple hours. D, F, H, and then add in the various gun carriage designs Nashorn Hummel Jgdpz IV etc. oh yeah not to mention a Flakpanzer a Flammpanzer and then the Einhorn variant with Spruehregenbogen.
Thanks for the explanation, and explains in part the very heavy losses in 1941 to the point of essentially no tanks left. It must of been a tough life as a Russian tank crew in the early stages , brave men indeed.
@@looinrims A weapon is no good if you can't use it well. If we're keeping to theme here, the T-34 did have good armor early on and a fairly capable gun, however as Mr. Chieftain here has said the conditions for the crew were terrible and each crewman was often very overloaded. Because of this, they were not able to do their jobs effectively and could not put the armor and gun to good use, and so the vehicle suffered thusly. Not to mention that an experienced crew will likely do better in a vehicle than an inexperienced one. The guys using and their ability to use the weapon system do make a difference in the vehicle's performance and so they should be considered in an assessment of the weapon in question.
@@phosophorus8622 uh huh, that’s a criticism of the training regime, not the weapon The weapon in this case btw is dogshit, happily it fought an enemy that spent only 6% of their resources into armored vehicles and served a nation that while not fielding logistics trucks, its allies were happily giving hundreds of thousands of logistics trucks to it But the morons running it aren’t the weapon systems fault, well in this case it is cuz the service life of the T-34 didn’t allow any kind of training since the parts would all break but you know still
@@looinrims I guess so, but the point here is that the guys operating the weapon should not be completely left out, as they always will have some influence on the overall vehicle's performance. Sometimes the vehicle simply won't let them do well, other times it's the crew that let down the vehicle. It just depends. Going back to the T-34, the early models were horrendous with their setup, overloading the untrained crew and just not giving them very much of a fighting chance. But I also think it's safe to argue that if the crew were trained and had experience with it and knew what the vehicle was like before being issued with it, they likely would have done much better in it, no matter how bad it really was. Now that I'm thinking about it though, I believe we're thinking of two totally different things here. Analysis of a weapon based purely on its paper stats (ie. gun penetration, mobility, armor, etc.) vs. considering and including all the factors that would attribute to its overall effectiveness in a war. So because of that, debating this isn't going to go anywhere, and I'll leave it at that.
Not just how well people could use it, but also how well it was made. Cause damn, the T-34 had a lot of issues with production. Most was because workers were just handed welding tools and told “go weld that tank” More times than not the welds would break during combat and the tank fell apart.
Thanks for detailing the Christie suspension I tried finding pros and cons but couldn't find details. Is interesting to know the Germans faced T-34s from the beginning.
I cringe every time a history channel like "The Greatest Tank Battles" mentions the T-34 as being "revolutionary" for its sloped armor and "perfect balance between armor, firepower and mobility". Completely looking over issues like crew ergonomics, Blindness(T-34 crews were basically blind), Subpar performance of components like the optics and early air filters, and especially the internal space taken up by the Christie Suspension.
The later variants like the 1943 model(with the cupola and simplified production) as well as the T-34/85 variant yes, its just that whenhistory channels mention T-34s usually they mean the early-mid war version which had the aforementioned problems.
Just look how many tanks soviets lost in the continuation war here in Finland against Sturmgeschütz III Aus G used by finns. Corporal Olof Lagus son of renown Major General Lagus was able to destroy (as a StuG gunner) 4 T-34 tanks in a minute. A world record.
I believe one of the main factors in early performance of the T34 vs the Germans was that the Germans had radio communications and the T34 pilots were communicating with flags... add in experience and tactics. Which tank was actually better didn't matter so much.
11:03 Correction. Tanks that came after the T-34 that retained sloped side armor IS-3, IS-4, IS-5, IS-6, IS-7, IS-8/T-10M, Obj 277, Obj 279, Obj 430, Obj 432, Obj 435, Obj 770, even some Modern Russian T Series MBTs have a slightly slope in the side armor akin to the frontal slope on many earlier German tanks. Even I didn’t realize how many tanks I had to add to the list that came after the T-34, I’m sure I missed some. So it’s not that “they stopped sloping the side armor after the T-34”. Thats not entirely true. That was just the T-44, T-54/55/62 lineages themselves. Two tanks. The T-80s I can confirm added sloping back (even though it’s as slight as the Tiger I it’s still there). Many tanks have even heavier sloping than the T-34 (Like IS-3, IS-5, IS-7, Obj 277, Obj 770, Obj 430-435), you just couldn’t see it because of the integrated stowage boxes (or spaced armor as some call it) masking/hiding the inward slope. They didn’t get rid of the slope, they just switched the direction making it a V shaped hull. Even the Americans did this way back with the M48, M103, M60. However, the more notable current day MBTs with slopped side armors is the Challenger 1, 2, & “3” Tanks! A whopping 12 degrees! Same as the Centurion! The highest of the more recent UK MBTs as far as slope goes is the FV4202 with 13 degrees :}! IIRC. Correct me if I’m mistaken. *Edit: But as a result of the Centurion, the Merkava also has it.* *TL;DR: The Soviets/Russians never moved away from sloped side armor structures/designs. They only changed its direction, and vary the angle depending on the vehicle. Other than that, great video as always!*
@@TheChieftainsHatch I’ve likely made more mistakes than you’ve ever had on this topic so no worries. I just found the sloped side armor an interesting topic/idea for tank design and how it’s changed over time to a V shaped hull mostly.
They where blind could not shot fast the armor was bridle and wellded so bad you could shot the plates of if you could not penetrate. They where slow because the gearbox was unusable and thats before they omitted "useless things" like ammo racks, lights, hatch sealing, the glass in the periscope, the rubber on the wheels, the seats, the turret basket, half of the bolts on the rear, hardened steel gears in the gearbox internal radio and more, they where of course incredibly cramped and had the fuel fighting the germans together with the crewmembers. The power traverse of the turret was good but by omitting the hatch sealing the electronics would get showered so it was not working most of the time. I get the argument number over quality but the t 34 was no cheap tank at least not cheap enough to offset the losses even if we don't consider that more tanks require more fuel, ammo and logistics. Though they wanted to replaced gearbox not even 50% had the new one at the end of the war which was still bad anyways. Now most of these problems can be traced to one factory.......problem is they produced around 50% of all t - 34. So joust as they where only good on paper they only really got beter on paper.
Not a man of tanks but love how you mentioned the myth of 'inventing sloped armour'. Sloped armour has existed as early as armour itself. Ships have been using them since the end of full-conforming wooden ship and most of the tanks considered 'unsloped' usually have at least some parts in slope. The problem really is 'where to' rather than 'if to'. And the T-34 is better desicribed as 'designed around sloped armour as a concept' than something akin to 'first one with sloped armour'. In the end, most later tanks kept the frontal slopes but eliminated the side slopes, something hardly surprising. Different from, say, ships, which can more comfortably angle their main belts and bulkheads, tanks can hardly afford to lose the raw protection in the front.
Sloped armor concept goes back to the dawn of wearing any kind of armor, and was certainly well developed by the time of suits of plate armor became dominant.
Simply fascinating !, when the Chieftain speaks I listen , his opinion's are of course personal but born from genuine knowledge & experience and therefore valid and objective excellent , My one complaint ? I wish this episode was longer ! not a fault simply a matter of requirement within remit and perview . Thank You for imparting these facts , history was never this much fun at school !
Just wait for all the comments. To summarise, “my favourite tank was better than your favourite tank because reasons”. Followed by many replies of “I agree, that’s also my favourite tank”, and “No, my favourite tank is something else, and it was better for reasons”. None of these reasons will actually stand up to scrutiny, so lets kick this off well. Bob Semple fans - Assemble! Way better than T34 because the corrugations deflected incoming fire. Not a single unit was knocked out in combat. In other news, I’m actually quite looking forward to this video :)
@Jimmy De'Souza Bob Semple was New Zealand's prototype for a tank. It wasn't made from proper armor plate, and instead used corrugated sheet metal. The armaments had I think one or two Vickers machine guns but don't be afraid to fact check that I'm going off my memory and even I don't trust it. This was done in the 1940s and is really just a joke of a vehicle. I don't think it would stand up to a Vickers 6-ton or a Ha-Go. At least those have cannons.
The Semple, being a super tank, was too expensive to build. There just weren't enough of them. I mean getting enough dilithium crytsals for the warp drive was a nightmare.
Princeofcups Poc and also jumping between the warp and realspace requires massive amounts of space for the warp engines only the Tog 2 could hold. (If you're gonna use Star Trek references, I'll use 40k refrences)
The Bob Semple was such a devastating weapon that it was banned by the Geneva convention. It's also the only reason we haven't been invaded by aliens and been slaved yet, they know they won't stand a chance against the Bob, a weapon so powerfull that millions of people die simply by the airpressure from it's engine.
Please don't use this "Feature" of youtube... The only thing it says is well here is a video that you would like to see. But you just have to wait for it. Most of the time not knowing another video will come is way better
It’s probably still being edited (given that it premieres in 7 days), which is why this feature may exist (though other TH-camrs don’t seem to use it properly)
Imagine how cluttered youtube would be if every second video in my feed was a premiere. I'd barely be able to find a video to watch in the present moment
Whomever has the better trained crew will always take advantage of the situation. Germans early in the war knew how to operate their tanks even when going against better tanks.
11:10 The germans did start sloping their side armor on some of their late war projects. Panther had sloped upper side armor, but the section was small. The king tiger also used sloping on its upper side armor, albeit a pretty gentle angle.
The angle of "effective !" slope is also dependent on the location , distance and elevation (angle) that the adversary's projectile is propelled from .
From what I understand from studying the tanks is yes, both tanks had their strengths and weaknesses, but communication between the German tanks was light years better. The Russians at the time were not nearly as organized as the German tank crews. Germans were master tacticians at the time. Or should I say tankticians. Once the Russians got their act together with a slightly better tank, it was all over for the Germans. The mass produced T34 was what the Sherman should have been.
Sherman was exactly what it needed to be: a extremely reliable, comfortable, modifiable tank who's only real shortcomings was in its 75mm variants and its rather tall silhouette. It still performed its job with a significant reduction in maintenance time and very few cases of total breakdown, which German vehicles and Russian cannot say, but then Again their factories weren't across an entire ocean, so reliability wasn't as big a concern.
@@correndell195 All the facts you bring to the table are true. But the Sherman being a medium tank was outclassed by the German tanks in armor thickness and the T 34's sloping armor. We needed a heavy tank. One of the reasons it performed so well was just the sheer numbers. One on one against a Panther, bad day.
@@Make_my_day-1 T-34's had the exact same problem, and they provided the exact same solution: Bring more. Shermans were picked over heavy tanks because of the transportation concerns. Allies could bring way more Medium tanks thanthey couldHeavy tanks, and both World Wars proved that more tanks usually wins vs better tanks. The Char B1 had a few good moments in WW2, but was quickly outclassed by multiple german tanks and their radios. So, while I do appreciate a civil debate, I think you're going with more of a point of view vs a look into the past. The allies won with numbers, the occasional victory because of bigger guns and armor did not hold up to a long duration war. "Tactics win battles, logistics win wars."
I understand the logistics of trying to ship heavy tanks. You are correct the Sherman was the best tank of WW2. The Abrams is also the best tank in the world too. In fact, I think a match between the Abrams and Sherman would be close.
The Russian repair documents say that the majority of the rounds that knocked out t34's, were from the 50mm round used in the anti-tank guns. That same gun was also in some tanks the Germans used.
Love hearing about this kind of stuff! Really looking forward to something about the Pz IV. It seems everyone over looks this tank too much. It's one of the rare few tanks to pre date the war, survive the war(with upgrades, some good, some not so good) and was the workhorse of the German army. It seems the Pz IV got lost in the mammoth shadow of both Tiger and Panther tanks, which is kind of sad to be honest.
FWIW, General "Schnell" Heinz Guderian, who became the inspector-general of the Panzers, detested the "Big Cats", believing them to be overly large, expensive, over-engineered, hard to maintain, and generally troublesome in combat. He felt that the Panzer IV was all the tank the Panzerwaffe needed, or at least could sustain.
@@selfdohe was right, except for the fact that the panzer iv was really slow to build. If they had created a better panzer iv, with a faster production, instead of balooning the weight it would probably be a great tank. The panzer iv ausf. G is probably my favorite german tank, good ol' (not so) reliable.
5:22 What historical document says that the t-34 has a Loader/ Commander? I've never been able to find that reference outside of forum replies or the occasional passing statement. All sources that I could find, English and Russian name the turret positions as Loader and Gunner/TC. Granted that's not how it is on US tanks, but it's not a US tank.
Chieftain is mistaken here. The gunner was indeed the commander and the loader was just the loader. It was a matter of rank. The TC had the highest rank, the gunner had the second highest, then the driver, then the loader, and then the bow machine gun operator. It would be highly unusual for the loader to also be the commander.
I would like to know where they are getting this information as well. I have seen references to EXPERIMENTAL tests, where the TC was the loader instead of the gunner, but this was not adopted because it didn't improve the problems with a 2 man turret.
@@Crosshair84 Yeah. Another thing to mention is that the 360° rotating device is on the gunner's side of the T-34 hatch. It's pretty obvious that the gunner is the commander of the tank, not the loader.
@@bbcmotd Oh yes! But in the IKEA sense, if you understand what I mean. Brilliantly designed, to a price point where someone buying his first home can also afford all the necessary furniture. Not meant in a negative way at all, just a result of prioritising numbers over that last improvement in quality.
Really good video, thank you for this. I tend to respectfully disagree with the extent to which the overall effectiveness of the T-34 is downplayed, though. Is it not true that the Germans considered copying the T-34? I've read about this long before the advent of the WWW and recall (vaguely) reading this consideration attributed to Guderian. In addition to the poor ergonomics of the tank which the vidoegrapher does a fantastic job of covering, I am convinced that the lack of crew training (I know how long it takes to get a troop/platoon of tanks into smooth working order) and the lack of radios were major reasons why Soviet T-34s did so poorly in 1941. Lack of training will always amplify poor doctrine and vehicle layout issues. Hell, it makes a mess of established ways of doing things! Also, perhaps, the Soviet way of doing things was another consideration. The Stackpole book, T-34 In Action, is an anthology of memoirs of T-34 commanders (76 and 85) and in at least one of the memoirs, a Soviet commander of at least a platoon (possibly a company, I'd need to reread the book) claimed that he preferred to command from the driver's seat. (!!!!) One of the rationals he gave was that if the turret was hit, he could continue to command his sub-unit. I wonder if was more room in the driver's spot to deal with this map? I have experience as a peace time/Cold War junior armour officer and crew commander. I'm sure the videographer's reaction to commanding from the driver's seat would be the very same as mine was, which was nearly dropping the book and exclaiming out loud, "What the holy feck?" 5:16 Nit pick :) which also contributed to performance or lack thereof: Soviet practice at the time of the early T-34 was that the commander was not the loader (as per more modern light tanks, e.g. Scorpion, with 2 turret crew) but the gunner. All the best.
The Germans considered copying just about everything effective they met. Example. The Danish 20mm Madsen Auto Cannon when invading Denmark, which was considered superior to their own 20mm by the German waffen amt. But alas, they pretty much always came to the conclusion, that it would be too expensive to do it, instead of keeping with their own program. The Panther, who many think as a copy, was designed before they engaged the t-34. Germany had this big standard program. All tanks needed to use the same fuel and so on. For them to start designing a copy of the t-34 with their own specs, would be too expensive considering they could just up-gun the Pz3 and Pz4 and the Panther and Tiger was already on the drawing board as mentioned. The frontal sloped armor was ofc a natural road to go down, but if it was inspired by the Russian or not is debatable.
Like @Karakoth said. There's nothing more add, really. They actually built a copy of the T34, called the VK 30.02 (DB). It was basically a refined and improved t34 mod.41/42 They didn't mass produced it though. Instead they built the VK30.02 (MAN) which is completley different tank. (Also known as "Panther") The common statement that the Panther is a copy of the t34, is therefore not true.
@@gungatim6630 I was just trying to add/sum up things. I never thought that you said the panther was a Copy of the t34. But now, someone reading all the 3 comments might benefit from our combined knowledge ;) Cheers
People always talk about the three principles of tank design being armor, mobility, and firepower. I'm coming to the conclusion that there's really five of them: armor, mobility, firepower, communications (as put forward by Harry Yeide in Operation Think Tank), and ergonomics.
The three big principles of tank design simply describe the three necessary traits of any tank. Every design solution implemented in a tank should contribute towards these three aspects. If not, then it is superfluous. For example, communications and ergonomics have an effect on mobility and firepower, and armour protection has an effect on ergonomics and mobility. Tank silhouette size has an effect on protection and ergonomics, and engine size has an effect on armour.
The T34s were great tanks, if you didn't have to drive them far, and you parked them in a position where the gun can be slewed to a location where the enemy is expected to arrive with no surprises.
Now I really want to hear your thoughts on what made the T-34-85 so much better. Have you considered doing a video on the armor of the Korean War? That's a subject where I haven't seen much real discussion and it compares the T-35-85 and the M4 directly.
Basically: a larger turret, and that’s a lot You have a larger gun that have a chance to take out the panther and tiger, and you now have enough room for a three men crew in the turret, so that you are finding targets much faster and engaging them faster, and the crews generally sits comfortably in the turret, though the driver is still uncomfortable cuz the hull isn’t larger compare to the earlier T-34s also soviet crews are much better trained in 1944 in comparison to those tank crews earlier on There are other minor changes such as better quality, thus more reliable and stuff
Almost everything on the T-34/85s were better than the T-34’s. Primarily production quality though. T-34’s had a nasty habit of falling apart when shot, literally. Sometimes they were welded together so poorly a shell would hit the front and the side panel just kinda fell off. Sometimes the armor would just shatter on impact, sometimes both. Sometimes the damn thing didn’t start, so much so Stalin was worried that the tankers were trying to sabotage their vehicles so they wouldn’t have to fight. The crew couldn’t see out of the tank for shit. There’s one story about a German at-gun, I think a pak-37 or something like that, shot a T-34 about 37 times until the thing finally turned around and tried to run the gun over…and missed. The T-34/85 had a few of these problems, the shattering was still an issue, but the welds held, and the crew were able to see out the tank, and the armor was even thicker so honestly, and you could actually get the damn thing going. the 85 was leaps and bounds better than the 34. The 85 was on par, and sometimes better than the Sherman. But not the Firefly, that thing kicked so much ass Tiger Tanks feared it.
Thank you! Modern "scholars" -armchair and otherwise - often believe Soviet hype without appreciating that "pravda" was a tool of the Party - to be adjusted as needed. Of course, all governments are guilty of this, to some degree or another, but the Soviets were masters of propaganda. Nice to see you provide some balance.
@@chaosXP3RT Its because they were speaking about Great Patriotic War as they do not teach about Wolrd War two for one reason, before 1941 attack on USSR whole German army was using Soviet oil, tanks were made from Soviet metals and tank comanders were trained in USSR -> The Kama tank school (German: Panzerschule Kama) was a secret training school for tank commanders operated by the German Reichswehr near Kazan, Soviet Union. The school was established in order to allow the German military to circumvent the military restrictions on tank research spelled out in the Treaty of Versailles. Apart from Kama, for the same reason Germany also operated the Lipetsk fighter-pilot school and a gas warfare facility, Gas-Testgelände Tomka...
Great overview of the early T-34. However, one that I would LOOOVE to see is for you to do reviews of modern tanks especially some of the newer Russian tanks like the Sprut-SD airborne anti-tank/assault gun system. I'd be extremely interested in hearing what you think of such concepts in terms of practicality on a modern battlefield from someone who was a tanker on the modern battlefield. Likewise since you operated in an urban-combat environment in Iraq, it would be fascinating to hear what you think of dedicated urban combat tanks like the Russian BMP-T Terminator. As a former U.S. Army man (Corp of Engineers), I've often stated that it was a mistake to do away with the M728 CEV as it would have been fantastic in Iraq in an urban environment if updated with ERA and a bit of extra passive armor. It's snub-nosed cannon would have been excellent in terms of not hitting buildings and walls in tight streets and alley-ways. It's massive 165mm demolition gun likewise would have been fantastic for knocking out buildings in a very precise manner that would have minimized collateral damage. Sadly current M1 Abrams based CEVs removed the demolition gun which I think was a huge mistake. Given your experience Chieftain would you agree?
A very good primer video about the T34, I look forward to the next one about the later models. Will a discussion of the T34s used in Korea be a part of your analysis? I’ve heard mixed reviews of them from that war facing Shermans and Pershing’s.
Pz III was a battle tested tank, veteran of 2 years of fighting in 1941, its teething problems were gone. T-34 was fresh off the assembly line, they barely had the time to test anything.
Interesting topic. The Panzer III is, imo, rather underrated/-estimated by many (at least depending on the timetable of the war, when the 50mm wasn't nearly enough anymore and such (or the PzIV's 75mm was far more favourable)).
math problem for tank designers: suppose we want to protect 24" with 4" of effective armor thickness against a shell traveling parallel to ground. What volume of metal is require vs. slope angle? we could also factor in that executing generals and colonel's did not seem to do much for replacement commander initiative
I remembered there's a t 34m tank that was in development at the time equipped with improved armor, torsion bars and a proper 3 manned turret and it was planned to replace the existing t 34s with the 2 manned turrets Unfortunately Barbarossa has caused some issues to it
yeah, it's what the Chieftain called the T-34M, and what Wargaming puts in WoT as the A-43. It was, as you said, a somewhat shorter T-34 with torsion bars, a bigger model 1943-esque turret complete with a cupola reminiscent of german ones, way more space inside, and the intent of installing either the original 76mm F-34 or the anti-tank oriented 57mm ZiS-4.
The whole Soviet experience early war is being badly unprepared and trying to make do. They had the beginnings of a good tank, but it was just that. Beginnings. And without the time to hone production and equip enough radios and train crews, everything kind of stacks up.
Actually the Soviets also knew all this, and had developped the T-50 as a counterpart to the Pz. III, with a three-man turret, torsion bar suspension etc. but only managed to produce around 70 of these, and instead produced thousands of early T-34 with limited usefulness, and thousands more of the even worse T-60.
T-60s and 70s could be made in factories that weren't capable of producing the 34. Not sure about the T-50, but Wiki says it was designed at factory 174, which eventually made 34s anyhow. If you'd have to choose, another T-34 line is a better choice than opening one for the T-50, even if it wasn't the better tank. And frankly, I find the latter unlikely, even if the T-50 has a few neat features over the T-34. Hell, it's not like there wasn't a T-34 variant with torsion bars and a three-man turret, it just didn't enter production for fairly decent reasons!
I've read the book about Rommel's "panzer commander" Hans Von Luck, and it that book he talked about how much problems they had with the T-50's, they had to use 88's on them.
@@ricardo3760 Von Luck was reassigned to Africa in January 42. For any units that wouldn't have gotten the 5cm yet, the 88 would've been the smallest gun after the 37 at the time.
Afaik T-50 was almost as expensive as T-34 and was more akin to a light tank than a medium tank and Soviets were at the time realised that it is waste to build light tanks, there is no good use for them. T-60 were mostly used recoinnassance vehicles. T-70 was bad to say the least but the chassis lived bit longer in the form of SU-76 which was more useful and liked even if bit difficult to drive.
Part of the reason T-34`s were ineffective during Barbarossa (Army Group Center---Summer/Fall 1941), is the German panzer offensive simply avoided them through superior recon. Read the primary source "Panzer Leader: Heinz Guderian." They learned the latter tactic in France 1940.
Such tactic was employed by most armies except soviet who used massive number charge forward tank concentration, often losing huge numbers to archive victory as is pure brutal force Tanks are not supposed to match tank like in a game ,tanks are to brake defenses and do deep penetration, avoiding as much possible equal armored units .the moment you try to use tank to stop tank mainly you risk loose momentum and suffer losses that can be avoided Americans tactic were the same ,tanks were primarily infantry support, and when heavy enemy armor found they call for artillery,air strike or AT units to destroy them . Of course, never was the official case, and often, the tanks were forced to deal with tanks . British ,French used same tactics theorically too . Guderian books explain his basic early tactics doctrines .Reality often was not same as in 1941 Soviet tanks were far more than Soviets and German tanks units often have to deal with them aling with out air or artillery support and is reported in plenty other panzer books records from Germans sources . Guderian neither was in every tank division at once nor he can speak for every panzer unit encounter with Soviet armor. His experience is based in his units Corp only and his pre-war theories only . Read other panzer books memories from 1941/42 veterans and will be surprised how many times German crews from panzer II ,III and Skoda 35/38 found themselves fighting t/34 ,Kvs and t/26 models but won by using superior individual crew training,optics,awareness and else . Last but not least ,several errors and contradictions are found in Guderian book too ,it has been extensively observed in other historian books . His memories are recollection ,mix with thoughts, and many assumptions written after the war .
11:50 Christie suspension had an upper weight limit for the tank, as the tank weight tonnage kept going upwards the Christie drive system couldnt cope. Plus Stalin held back upgrade and fixes for the T34 in order to keep the production going to churn out as many as possible
"Christie suspension had an upper weight limit" contrary to every other typeof suspension that have no weight limit? hehe Did you read that explanation in "Pravda"?:P
@@Bialy_1 Yeah I totally made that completely up thats why all modern manin battle tanks abandoned Christie system for the Torsion suspension for some mysterious reason.
Love the video, wish you'd do more like this, or at least at more history of the vehicles you do inside the hatch of. Kinda how Ian does for Forgotten Weapons. What the crew thought of them, what the generals, how many were built and why, stuff like that to ground the videos.
@5:25 I am quite sure that in T-34 there was a designated loader from the very start. Commander was occupied with a gunner role, that's true, but loading shells into the gun was not normally his duty.
Another good, clear explanation from The Chieftain. It's sort of common sense, early tank models were pretty rubbish (including the original M4 or god help us, the M3s before it that even the Chinese described as particularly flawed), and the war gave us a tank arms race the likes of which has never been seen since as far as I know. The T-34 was no exception (and on top of that hey were a small fraction of the overall Red Army tank inventory--they were vastly outnumbered by older, poorer armed, poorer protected like the T-26 which, to its credit, had excellent reliability at least even if it was no match for the enemy). On top of that, the pre-war USSR was racked with material and technology shortages that were poorly or utterly unaddressed that couldn't have helped build quality. Plenty of countries had lots of interruptions to armour development, the USSR was definitely not an exception.
This is a great point. AFV production, in numbers, reliability, maintainability, and technical features, is very much an indicator of the overall economy and industrial capabilities of the nation making them.
In Vasiliy Krysov's book, he opines that he preferred the SU-85 and the other self-propelled gun he commanded to the T-34-85. If I remember it was because he found it easier for those vehicles to acquire targets.
No disrespect intended, but I feel like I must ask what is the point of posting up something that looks like a new video, only to say that there will be a new video soon? Isn't our subscribing/clicking the bell thing not already indicative of our desire to see new content? Do we really need to be 'hyped up' by being told there is a new video on the way soon? There is kind of an unspoken expectation of that in the first place. This premier function seems a tad bit odd, and could easily be seen as a bait-and-switch to some. Perhaps I am missing something here, but why not just wait and post the video when it is ready? Does this actually bring in more views? I legitimately do not know.
Yeah, not a fan of this feature myself. I would prefer my sub-box to display what I can watch, not what I can watch some day. And if the Chieftain insists on using this, maybe not 7 days in advance?
It’s a schedule of what is actually upcoming and probably still being edited. Instead of just posting a finished video of unknown content, this sets a date of what is essentially a teaser. And he’s done it right by giving it 7 days as it is still likely being editors etc as opposed to other TH-camrs giving it like 2 hours or something stupid.
@@Shepard_AU it has to be uploaded to be featured. The whole point of the premire function is to have people engage with each other during the video. It also allows the creator to talk directly to the viewers during the premire duration. It's also another annoying feature to boost ad revinue for Google.
The chat is, indeed, what attracted my attention. However, given the notification feature is not functioning as I had thought it would be functioning, I'm not going to try it again pending changes/education.
@@TheChieftainsHatch For what it is worth, I like most everything about the Premiere feature except when the delay between posting the announcement and watching the video is long. The shorter the time span between the announcement and watching the video, the better. Honestly, if there an option for a 1 hour delay, that would be about perfect for me.
I still think the slopes armour thing is down to the history channel series Tanks! Where the fact the t34 had sloped armour was taken to be revolutionary rather than just a benefit
I actually think the Tiger 1’s 10 degree slope made things worse for it, with a vertical plate you at least an effective reverse slope from the ballistic arc, but the 10 degree slope of the tiger will reduce that most likely. I do recall reading an interrogation carried out by the soviets of a German Pz 38 (IIRC) crew that they found the T34 the most threatening soviet tank as it had the same firepower as the KV but was much more mobile, and that it seems some soviet KV crews seemed to not understand how to use their main gun. I can’t find it now, frustratingly.
@BalF The Chieftain is one of the most famous and well informed tank experts ever, I've even seen him referred to as "Tank Jesus." His status as a very well informed tank expert is undeniable and you have provided precisely zero evidence to back up your claims. Yes it's true that German AT guns were usually deployed in groups but that doesn't mean that they would never find themselves alone, in many cases they did. The T-34 had absolutely horrendous vision, not just by 1941 standards, but by any years standards. As The Chieftain pointed out the Panzer 3 and also the Panzer 4 had cupolas for the tank commander, and the driver also had more and better vision ports and the radio operator actually had a vision port unlike the T-34 bow gunner who was practically blind. The gun sights of the T-34 were also less clear than the German ones and ths driver's vision port was incredibly narrow. Why would the Soviets themselves complain about the lack of vision on the T-34 if it wasn't a problem? And why did the Germans weld cupolas onto all of the T-34s that they captured and used?
Excellent Video as ever Mr Moran , What I like is you do actually have a very unbiased view , Some people say oh well He just loves American armor because He is an American , But in reality your an Irishman Who served in Armor , and can recognize from your prospective what makes a tank work , What makes it a successful design , Can each member of the crew do their job , does it break have reliability issues , can the crew fix them , As with any armor if its not reliable and if the crew cant service it you have a Armored gun emplacement nothing more . Thank you as ever for your insight
@@azgarogly I personally thought the commander was also responsible for aiming and firing the gun but of course I could be wrong, it didn't have a dedicated Gunner till the Advent of the 3 man turret of the T-34/85
Yes, you are right. The two man T-34 turret hosted commander and loader. Commander was both commanding the tank and firing the gun. But at least he did not have to crawl the bottom looking for the shells in the underfloor bins. At least before the loader got knocked down. Or both loader and a bow gunner.
@BalF The T-34 had one thing going for it , it was built in huge numbers, and they had to be the for example 1st Guards tank Army started the Kursk-Belgorod operation with 631 tanks, (including 511 T-34s). Between the 20th July and the 5th August , the unit lost 954 tanks, including 783 T-34s. That’s 150% losses in 15 days. Meaning that the entire unit had to be replaced in less than two weeks. After a period of rest & refit, the unit went back to the frontlines to take part in the Soviet counteroffensive around Kursk. On the 3rd August, the 1st Guards Tank Army could field 542 tanks, including 418 T-34s. By the end of the month, the unit had lost another 1040 tanks, including 889 T-34s. That’s another 200% losses in four weeks of fighting. When built, the T-34 had a planned service life of about 6 months. By this I mean that the average T-34, outside of combat, was only expected to last 6 months before suffering major mechanical failures necessitating a complete overhaul. Very, very few T-34 ever lasted long enough to enjoy the luxuries of “mechanical failures”. Most were destroyed long before that. During Most heavy combat Kursk, Kharkov, Stalingrad A T-34 was lucky to last 2 weeks. The factories that Made the T-34 by 1941 had implemented improvements , that meant all the components to build it where made in 36 hours and the tank Completed in 48 hours Second Factory No.183 - Uralskiy Tankovyj Zawod No.183 (UTZ), Nizhniy Tagil The staff and machinery from Factory No.183 reached Nizhniy Tagil in the middle of winter. The facilities remained primitive for some time - at first parts of the factory were unroofed, despite the low winter temperatures (as low at -40 degrees C at some times). Most of the original workforce had been lost, and much of the burden of production fell on children and women. There was barely enough food and virtually no medical care. Despite these terrible circumstances production at Nizhniy Tagil began in December 1941, when 25 T-34s were completed. Hardly surprisingly the quality of these tanks was not high, but as the factory became better established many of the problems were ironed out. Production Summary T-34-76: 15,014 T-34-85: 13,938 Total: 28,952. There where always More tanks that could be sent to the front The T-34 as I said had volume of production going for it that's all
how you comment what wikipedia state ,, at the begining when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa he T-34 was superior to any tank the Germans then had in service??. The diary of Alfred Jodl seems to express surprise at the appearance of the T-34 in Riga.The Wehrmacht had great difficulty destroying T-34s in combat, as standard German anti-tank weaponry 37 mm PaK 36 proved ineffective against its heavy, sloped armour'' I think that's kind a wierd what wikipedia state, given the fact the german didn't stop all the way to the Moscow, but may be some true in there i dont think Jodl lie in his diary. Also wikipedia state ''The Soviets lost a total of 3.200 tanks in 1941 (approximately 2,300 of them T-34s, as well as over 900 heavy tanks, mostly KVs) ''? How they lost 3.200 tanks in 41 if at the begining at operation Barbarossa they only have 1475 tanks( 967 T-34 tanks and 508 KV tanks) So they lost 2300 tanks and move tanks factory to Ural mountins and it state russian prodced tanks in factory at Stalingrand to till late 42. I guess is doesnt matter if those T34 was poor, cause russian make 1200 tanks per month in 43, this was the equivalent of three full-strength Panzer divisions. So quantity beat quality. I read when russian breck the front line at Stalingrad they has used over 800 T 34 and 1 milion soliders, and they atack to the weak side, on romanian italy and hungary army sector. The romanians army was around 250.000 soliders, and was posted there to defend a 200 km wide area of front line with not antitank guns at all , or they have only a few 37 mm antitank gun, only 40.000 of them will escape. Then russian eventually encircle the Paulus army at Stalingrad.
Great video, I didn't mind the wait and got a little pop up on my phone when the video did go live so had a pleasant user experience. PzIIIL has been one of my favourite tanks all the way back to my Squad Leader days.
It was a good idea. France had a demographics problem, by 1940 Germany would have almost 3x the conscription age manpower of France. in WW1, forts and fortified positions had been incredibly influential. Forts can also be garrisoned by older men who are no longer fit for infantry service. So France used fortifications to make up for their manpower shortage that they knew they would have. The reasons things fell apart were: 1. Assuming that the Ardennes Forest was impenetrable. Had the Maginot Line covered that area like the rest, the Germans could not have flanked allied forces. 2. Not confronting Germany when Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland. France's defensive plans assumed Belgium to be an ally so that French troops could reinforce the Belgian defensive fortifications along their border with Germany. By not confronting Germany, Belgium went Neutral, leaving the French/Belgian border unfortified and open to attack. French troops could not enter Belgium until after Germany attacked.
Lots of triggered Russians in the comments. Glad Chieftain had the good sense to actually address the reality of armored vehicles of the period. So much nonsensical misinformation out there about how "the T-34 was the greatest tank of the war!!11"
The harsh reality of living with famous WWII vehicles [the hierarchy]: M4>Cromwell>PzIII>>>>>>>>>>Tiger_I>PzV>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>dumpster_fire>KV-1>T-34 But Ronsons, I guess, and "quantity is its own cope"/"obligatory tigor breakdown wiki post" -(don't even look at muh T-34 trash fire rates)- text.
Bro, the T 34 won the decisive Eastern front, where I remind you, 90% of the German army was fighting. It has been by far the most brutal front humanity has ever seen. Meanwhile you Americans playing tic tac toe with the Japanese over shitty islands in the Pacific. "Yeah, the most mass produced and decisive tank of history was bad because I'm jealous, but hey, at least we have 30 D day movies"🤓
@@hashteraksgage3281 If the T-34 was "decisive on the Eastern front" then why did thousands of them fail to stop the German Army in 1941/42, when it was operating almost exclusively with early Panzer IIs, IIIs, and IVs? I swear, it's like you didn't even watch the video. The rest of your comment seems to explain it though, you apparently have some bone to pick with Americans lol.
@@_ArsNova I'm late, but this is just dumb. >why did thousands of them failed to stop german army in 1941-42 But they did, no? Did either Barbarossa or Blau actually achieve set goals? Also wtf is this logic? War isn't a collection of tank duels, it's organisation, logistics, material base, training and strategy. Wermacht had caught Red Army in the middle of rearmament in 1941 and dealt it a serious blow it could only somewhat recover from only by 1943. Afterwards it's a journey towards Berlin with only occasional breaks. Why did wonder weapons like Panthers and Tigers not stop soviet advance in 1944-45? After all T-34 was so bad, yet german were powerless to stop soviet tank armies breaking through their lines? For some reason westoids think western and eastern front are comparable and boast about defeating secondary forces of late war Wermacht. The latter was actually 4 to 9 times longer and involved much more troops and resources from both sides. Glaze M4 all you like, it never had to go through half of what T-34 did. There's a reason soviet tankers often said it's best to serve in Sherman during peace time, but it's better to go to war in T-34.
There's a long story behind the T-34/76. During WW2, well over 33,000 were manufactured compared to well over 15,000 of the newer, upgraded and improved T-34/85. While the T-34/76 had become obsolescent by late 1943, manufacturing did not stop as the T-34/85 was ramping up into production. The T-34/76 soldiered on into the Battle for Berlin, April 1945. Losses of the T-34/76 and T-34/85 were very high during the war in Russia. Reputedly the lifespan of a T-34 was something like three days in combat operations. Soviet tank manufacturing could barely keep pace but in the end it did. We don't have the data of how many T-34s were recovered from the battlefield, repaired, and sent back into combat. What we do know is that when a T-34 took a solid hit into the hull or turret, it had a tendency to blow up, sending the welded turret top into the air. The British referred to a struck enemy tank that burned and exploded as, 'brewed up'. Photos of destroyed T-34/85 tanks during the Korean War frequently show the tank had exploded and burned out completely from within. the turret top can usually be seen blown off and lying off to the side of the tank. Given the T-34's tendency towards complete destruction, it's not likely that many knocked out T-34s were in a salvageable condition. That didn't matter to the Soviets who treated the T-34 as disposable consumer goods. We don't know what the Soviets did with all of the surviving T-34/76 tanks after WW2. There had to be large numbers available. The Russians continued manufacturing the T-34/85 and were about to start production of the follow-on T-55, which resembled a beefed-up T-34/85. Josef Stalin gave the North Korean Army somewhere between 600 and 800 T-34/85 tanks. During the Korean War this number proved inadequate and almost all were eventually destroyed. It therefore remains fortunate that Stalin did not bother off-loading thousands of surplus T-34/76 tanks onto the North Korean Army, who could have used those surplus tanks desperately. It might have changed the course of the Korean War during the first three months of the war.
Fascinating approach, video informative and enjoyable. However the big question, given these numerous and valid issue it had, why was there the tank panic which escalated the up gunning programs and the Panther program. The ultimate question why did Daimler Benz effectively copy it for their Panther prototype, it clearly had a significant psychological effect on the German Commanders. Eg “In November of 1941, high ranking engineers, industry representatives, and armament directorate officers came to my tank army in order to familiarize themselves with the Russian T-34 tank. Frontline officers suggested that we should build tanks exactly like the T-34 in order to correct the unpleasant position of our armoured forces, but this position did not receive support from the engineers. Not because they were opposed to imitation, but because it was not possible to rapidly set up manufacturing of important components, especially the diesel motor. Additionally, our hardened steel, whose quality was dropping due to a lack of natural resources, was inferior to the Russians' hardened steel." H. Guderian, "Panzer Leader", page 268 published 1950, now he knew a thing or two about armour. I have now watched the series of videos, including Military History Visualized, but sorry I think you have both ducked the big question, given these numerous and valid issue it had and the Wehrmacht were advancing on all fronts, why was there the tank panic. Clearly, the German high Command opinion was different, so why?
There are two main reasons for that in my humble opinion. First, Chieftain is comparing T-34 with Panzer III, and most importantly newest (at the time) model of it. Most of the german tank divisions during Barbarossa still used panzer II`s and czechoslowakian tanks-and those were wirtually powerless against a T-34, same thing goes for panzer IV with short barreled 75mm and early panzer III`s. Fact that some of your tanks can deal with a threat is not exactly comforting when most of them dont. Second reason is actually mentioned in the video - most of the issues with T-34 could be solved by further development (mentioned T-34M and T-34/85) or actually proper crew training - and at that point existing german tanks would be truly outclassed not only on paper. As to why german officers asked for direct copy of it - I would dare to say that they thought it would be simplest and fastest solution to the problem, as opposed to actually developing a new tank.
Marcin Hęclik good points, however the issue appears to be with the Mark III 3.7mm. Barbarossa, the lost numbers increase with time as the Russian Army regroups. Total after 60 days. Mark II 1068, lost 105, Mark III 3.7, 327 lost 74, Mark III 5, 1177 lost 81 Mark IV 587, lost 81. I think the loss of 22% of the Mark III 3.7, yet to be upgraded made them take notice. All other losses were under 10%. The Panzer II losses are low compared to the Mark III 3.7. However, the Chieftain did make the point they had run into Matilda II in France which had been a shock for the Mark III 3.7. Also the Russians had purchased a Panzer III, so understood the strengths and weaknesses of the vehicle, so I believe my questions does stand if it was so bad why did they panic about the T34. KV1 I can understand. JENTZ, Thomas L. Panzertruppen 1 : The Complete Guide to the Creation & Combat Employment of Germany's Tank Force, 1933-1942.
I think it's fair to say that by 1941 the Panzer III's potential was maximised, there was little more the Germans could have done with it. However at the same time 1941 T-34's were still in their infancy. I suppose it's more about the moment shifting design ideals came into conflict. i.e. moving away from the specialised 10-20 ton designs to modular 30-40 tonners
i mean they could've upgraded the pz3 by changing the turret and changing to crew load out where the loader is father down in a rather tall turret with a 105 or 15cm howitzer/at gun but that would be impractical.
@@Thekilleroftanks are you nuts? The PzIII is a small tank, the turret is as wide and heavy as It can be. The Ausf N with the 75mm didn't work because it was too big. You can't move the loader much lower because the drive shaft that runs through the tank, not that that would make a difference. The only step was to remove the turret completely and that is how the Stugs were born.
@@PMGF na fam not like that. Think replacing the turret with something like the kv2s, really fucking tall for the tank and slapping a large howitzer or at gun in it with the loader below. Kinda hard to picture it but think the loader head slightly above the breech level off to the side. Or an enlarge pz3 with a japanese style turret with a 75 or short 88. Also cant forget the pz3/4 where they tried mating a pz4 turret to a modified pz3 hull.
@@Thekilleroftanks Again, that would have never worked. The KV-2 is a horrendous machine. The PzIII turret ring big enough nor can be made strong enough to support the weight of a 105, let alone the force of it recoiling. The suspension won't be able to take the extra weight, and such a big gun in such a tiny tank will topple it over. The engine would be over-strained to move it and traverse the turret. Wot is work of fiction & so is the 3/4. The Germans maximised the PzIII. The best plan was to delete the turret and fix the gun to the chassis.
It was the KVs that scared Hitler... No-one seems to have noticed that vertical armor doesn't have to be as long as sloped armor. As long as you're not fighting aircraft from above, you get the same effectiveness from thicker, shorter armor. Why don't they put more main gun ammo storage in the front of the turret? (facing forwards, obviously... and AP only) then the loader can still reach it without the turret basket.
Sloping armor compared to just making the plate thicker with no added slope only begins to work meaningfully at over about 45-50 degrees from the vertical/side (depending on the angle direction and the size of the enemy projectile compared to the plate thickness), though it rapidly gives better and better results as the angle goes up from there. As was mentioned here, sloping causes decrease in the room behind the plate (head room), but it also has the problem that it is IMAGINARY added armor; that is, the added armor is virtual and not really there for any other direction but the angle you expect the enemy to fire from (like an optical illusion such as the ever-rising staircase that only works from one very tight direction) -- if the enemy can fire downward or sideways to decrease the angle, the armor addition is reduced or disappears completely. Thicker, non-sloped armor does not have this problem. Note how many modern tanks have reduced the sloping portions -- especially on the turret face -- since sloping does not give enough benefit unless you virtually eliminate any room in the turret, so thicker armor of very unusual composition must now be used, enhanced by reactive armor and other things to assist in stopping the enemy weapon.
Okay early T-34 was not the best tank ever but it was still an upgrade overall from most Soviet interwar tanks. Not a wonder weapon but a good enough tank that was ready for large scale production after a few tweaks. Not the best possible tank for the time but the best available for local production to meet urgent demand.
That's like calling a crowbar and upgrade from a twig as a weapon of war. Earlier Soviet tank design were even more atrocious. The Soviets wouldn't develop and all-around capable vehicle without crippling design deficiencies or other woeful inadequacies until the T-34/85.
@@_ArsNova well a crowbar is an upgrade. If they had a couple extra years they would have built a better tank, but they got invaded and made the best of what they had. Mediocre quality overall but enough armor and enough gun to be serviceable. If they were lucky it would even get to move around a bit before breaking down. You might need a hammer to change gears and a prayer to hit the target but way better than nothing.
could you do light tanks comparisons between some of the nations? would be very interested to hear what you have to say on the topic. Keep up the good work too btw, always love watching your vids.
You missunderstand the design intentions. The T-34/76 has sutch a small turret to leave no room for doubt in stalin
nice
Oof... *misunderstand, such
@OptimalOptimus50 Not as terrible as your lack of humour
@OptimalOptimus50 Ah, I guess we have the joke police, policing jokes which is a subjective medium.
In Belgrade military museum, we have one of early versions, that survived entire warand made it to Belgrade. It was Soviet propaganda move, to prove its nonexisting quality to future western youtuber.
As a testament to unreliability, the T-34 shown at 1:39 has a spare transmission strapped to the engine deck because they knew it was probably going to break in short order. I have seen this in quite a few photographs of Soviet tanks at the time.
nice catch!
nope that the only t-34 that ever had a transmission on its back (as far as we know)
yes, thank you for telling me what the video says in the caption
You will find this is also true of modern Russian tanks.
the transmission on the deck is evidence of both the reliability problem and the logistics bottlenecks.
If you have to haul around a transmission as dead weight into combat, then your maintenance and logistics are also unreliable
regards.
like you mentioned, the german optics of that time where really impressive. i found a german artillery/flak sight in a partially caved in garden shed at my grandmas place some time ago. i assume it layed there for many decades, since it was all covered in rust and after cleaning up every metal surface on it had deep rust pitting, heres what really impressed me about it: the optic is still crystal clear, the side to side adjustment still works fine, up and down is frozen into place tho. it also has an illuminated reticle for night use. it is some variant of an Rbl F40, im still trying to figure out what weapon system it was used for as its not a standard Rbl F40, if there is such a thing, but so far had no luck completely identifying it.
@John Cornell yeah, its hard to make out the engraving on the side through that rust pitting, but i believe it says "blc" wich was the factory code for zeiss
@John Cornell im not sure yet, its a nice thing but i might sell it for the right price and to the right guy, maybe some americans have the weapon it was desinged for in their backyard and are looking for the original scope for it ;D i believ now it was used for some kind of shortrange field howitzer since it has a range indicator scale on the side, going from 5 to 70, probably 50 to 700 meters.
@John Cornell here is a link to a very similar but not quite the same scope:
www.lonesentry.com/ordnance/rbl-f-40-artillery-sights.html
great idea for a video ;)
owo
Prepare for angry and opinionated people.
I don't clean Jewish street Stones
@@supercjs6044 to
Paul oppppp
One can't overestimate the value of training. With at least serviceable equipment, a well trained soldier makes a world of difference. I spent years behind an M-16 and its variants. Long distance hits are the norm. Hand that same rifle to a newbie and watch the frustration...... Thanks for another great video!
I've hoped more people would realize that training is everything,but as good the soldiers are, they need good leaders and the soviet union had few of them at the beginning
Neither can you undervalue the importance of actually having fuel and ammunition for your tank. The 1941 Red Army had neither. A typical Russian tank had a quarter of the ammunition that they were designed to carry.
The Red Army in 1941 was a logistical nightmare (but no-one was going to tell Stalin that). Basically Russia had quadrupled the size of its army without ordering extra supplies....
@@allangibson8494 "not telling" Stalin about that would lead to bad things, not "telling".
@@Shantykoff Telling him you had failed was bad, having him find out was worse. The Russians became masters of obfuscation at this point - padding numbers in reports became standard, the results of this came home to roost forty years later.
@@allangibson8494 source? Immagination?
A negative take on the T-34? RIP Wargaming career.
They don't care, it's not their glorious napkin paper Soviet high tier heavy tank.
wargaming shits on the sovjet tanks so thats why he works for them
T-34 was an excellent use of American technology.
@@phil20_20 you wish... day dreaming I see.
BLASPHEMY I SAY!!! /sarc
I was a tank commander on an M48A3 tank in Vietnam. They were extremely effective in the infantry support role there, particularly since such a wide variety of ammunition was available for it's main gun.. (The M-73 coaxial MG was horrible, though) Will you ever do an analysis of this vehicle?
Seems you would be the better candidate since you are experienced
Each Soviet tank came with an official Soviet hammer.
For transmission gear changes and downshifts.
The People's Hammer Factory was the first one moved to the Urals.
One errant bomb on the hammer factory and the war would be lost.
Is that true? It sounds ridiculous, but Soviet Russia WAS ridiculous.
@@Aethgeir not true
The T-34 was secretly made at the Number 9 Locomotive Factory in Karkov. They got it moved followed by the FED Commune which made cameras, microscopes etc.
No, they'd just just distribute the mark 1 gearshift rock instead.
@@Aethgeir
Not true. The joke is the T-34 needed a hammer to get it to go into gear.
But it didn't need a sickle.
To ramble a bit...Many T 34 cmdrs actually drove the tank because they could control where it went more easily , they felt it was the safest crew station and left the hatch open a bit to aid in vision.They could button down if needed but many didn't because it was faster to bail out with an unlocked hatch. Drivers survived more than other crew members.They also felt they were pretty safe as they were closer to the ground.
The Air cleaners ( at least up to 1942) were horrible and an engine was usually wrecked after about 200 miles. The armor (1942) wasn't treated well and so was weaker and created more weight than if it was treated to western standards. The Transmission made it a bear to drive and the starter was weak. The turret drive was bad and the teeth would break off. These are just a few of the problems that come to mind. So as you say , the early T 34s had under rated problems ( by modern aficionados .) But as you see later, improvements and training make it into an effective weapon.
The Sherman is terribly under rated . It was very reliable and that is the most important issue for any piece of Army equipment. How many tanks can roll out to combat on any day.? Even the Russians gave it its due eventually.
Need a mallet to shift those early transmissions, supposedly?
Bold words for someone in gulag range.
He better start running a geiger counter over his potatoes on a regular basis, putin doesn't play.
only good commie is a dead commie
Only people who live under commie rule are in gulag range
@@Lehr-km5be Still in polonium range.
Just dont get any habits, any person skilled in intelligence knows that routine is one of your worst enemies. Thats why you dont get your coffee from the same place everyday
Ynow I cant help but feel that half of our misunderstanding of these tanks came from that top ten show that the discovery channel used to air
For the people that don't get this Premiere video, it's a new feature of TH-cam that let's you know a release date and let's you chat with the creator. So the only thing redeeming of this new Premiere Feature of TH-cam is the Chat option and if the creator doesn't join in, it's pointless.
This shit is horrible PP
It is like
Hey a new chieftan video!
Fucking premiere...
Wait you aren't dead?
Have you seen the video by Scotty from “Strange Parts”. Careful what you search for, but hes a good guy who built his own iphone. He tried Premiere and posted a video about how badly it went wrong. Be careful.
@@brunor.1127 it's a big cock tease option, and was the question directed to me? Because I did not know I was dead XD.
so it's a not-live stream?
It's very dead stream. Or maybe stillborn stream. It's "hey, I'm going to release a video called "X" in ten days! Let's chat for the next 20 minutes about something you haven't seen!
There is no video when the chat is live.
Sloped armor goes all the way back to Leonardo da Vinci's design. Also, the CSS Virginia is an early example of very effective sloped armor on a vehicle.
Sloped armor was even used on knights armor to deflect arrows, sloped armor isn't just some magic thing the Soviets invented.
How much of that was happenstance and how much of that was deliberate planning?
@@Ben..... Very deliberate considering they chose sloped armor over comfort and visibility.
If you mean the CSS Virginia, I think it was all deliberate planning. I'm sure they were angling the armor with the intention of deflecting cannon shot. If you are talking about the armor worn in the Middle Ages, a lot of the design was an effort to keep the weight down while providing protection. It would not be unreasonable to assume, therefor, sloping was mostly happenstance. However, we know certain helmet designs were intentionally made to deflect the strike of projectiles and blades. A pig snout bassinette is the clearest example I can think of. I am no expert, though, so you might want to ask someone like the Metetron or Shadiversity.
Wasnt the css merrimack the first ironclad with sloped armor?
well, so much for that sürprise :D
When are we getting Military History Reenacted ?
@@violettray2679 bit rude
You’re fucking comment makes no sense this video was made a day ago
I'd like a medication that eliminates emotions so people who have no control over them or opinions made in the effect of emotion would have a chance to finally get what scientific research means.
All scientist seem to be dicks to the people who seek for emotional confirmation/co-operation from a person that does only Data and Fact.
It's like computer coding. You will get the error message until it is right. No emotions involved.
Cry me a river.
Call me a Dick.
I'm a cat person.
@@violettray2679 Just curious since, how come the hate for MHV?
Too many times I had to read about the T-34 being that Wonder Weapon, like Stephen Sewell's "Why three tanks", where its detractors were simply jealous of not having invented it themselves. Thank you very much for kicking them right where it hurts
TH-cam PremREEEEEEEEiere
A wild Matsimus has appeared ! :D
@@sting2death2 a magnificent creature in his natural habitat 😁
One of my favorite TH-camrs who points out errors of NOT ONLY Russian and eastern tanks BUT ALSO western tanks. Literally every other TH-camr channel post bias.
Chieftain's hatch Panzer IV. Please
Abrams
Ikr, I really want him to check out German vehicles.
Isn't the panzer 4 review been out for like 6 years o more?
Andrés Der Sleepy yeah but it was only like 7 minutes on the history and that’s about it
There are so many Pz. IV variants that it would be easily a couple hours. D, F, H, and then add in the various gun carriage designs Nashorn Hummel Jgdpz IV etc. oh yeah not to mention a Flakpanzer a Flammpanzer and then the Einhorn variant with Spruehregenbogen.
Seriously, thanks Nick. Even if the average person gets to see a museum we don't get to see the inside of the tank. Love this channel.
7:46 "The all-around side had a 120º field vision which was fantastic!!! (If it wasn't obstructed by few other things)" xD
Thanks for the explanation, and explains in part the very heavy losses in 1941 to the point of essentially no tanks left. It must of been a tough life as a Russian tank crew in the early stages , brave men indeed.
Human factors should always be included in any assessment of a weapon system. Good job.
Why? It’s an assessment of the weapon system, not the guys using it
@@looinrims A weapon is no good if you can't use it well. If we're keeping to theme here, the T-34 did have good armor early on and a fairly capable gun, however as Mr. Chieftain here has said the conditions for the crew were terrible and each crewman was often very overloaded. Because of this, they were not able to do their jobs effectively and could not put the armor and gun to good use, and so the vehicle suffered thusly.
Not to mention that an experienced crew will likely do better in a vehicle than an inexperienced one. The guys using and their ability to use the weapon system do make a difference in the vehicle's performance and so they should be considered in an assessment of the weapon in question.
@@phosophorus8622 uh huh, that’s a criticism of the training regime, not the weapon
The weapon in this case btw is dogshit, happily it fought an enemy that spent only 6% of their resources into armored vehicles and served a nation that while not fielding logistics trucks, its allies were happily giving hundreds of thousands of logistics trucks to it
But the morons running it aren’t the weapon systems fault, well in this case it is cuz the service life of the T-34 didn’t allow any kind of training since the parts would all break but you know still
@@looinrims I guess so, but the point here is that the guys operating the weapon should not be completely left out, as they always will have some influence on the overall vehicle's performance. Sometimes the vehicle simply won't let them do well, other times it's the crew that let down the vehicle. It just depends.
Going back to the T-34, the early models were horrendous with their setup, overloading the untrained crew and just not giving them very much of a fighting chance. But I also think it's safe to argue that if the crew were trained and had experience with it and knew what the vehicle was like before being issued with it, they likely would have done much better in it, no matter how bad it really was.
Now that I'm thinking about it though, I believe we're thinking of two totally different things here. Analysis of a weapon based purely on its paper stats (ie. gun penetration, mobility, armor, etc.) vs. considering and including all the factors that would attribute to its overall effectiveness in a war. So because of that, debating this isn't going to go anywhere, and I'll leave it at that.
Not just how well people could use it, but also how well it was made. Cause damn, the T-34 had a lot of issues with production. Most was because workers were just handed welding tools and told “go weld that tank”
More times than not the welds would break during combat and the tank fell apart.
Thanks for detailing the Christie suspension I tried finding pros and cons but couldn't find details. Is interesting to know the Germans faced T-34s from the beginning.
I cringe every time a history channel like "The Greatest Tank Battles" mentions the T-34 as being "revolutionary" for its sloped armor and "perfect balance between armor, firepower and mobility". Completely looking over issues like crew ergonomics, Blindness(T-34 crews were basically blind), Subpar performance of components like the optics and early air filters, and especially the internal space taken up by the Christie Suspension.
But the later variants does the job good.
The later variants like the 1943 model(with the cupola and simplified production) as well as the T-34/85 variant yes, its just that whenhistory channels mention T-34s usually they mean the early-mid war version which had the aforementioned problems.
Just look how many tanks soviets lost in the continuation war here in Finland against Sturmgeschütz III Aus G used by finns. Corporal Olof Lagus son of renown Major General Lagus was able to destroy (as a StuG gunner) 4 T-34 tanks in a minute. A world record.
@@Jaeger958 Production of the Stug III G started on 1942. And production of the T-34 started in 1940 (after the winter war).
@@Jaeger958 What a great guy you are. But why did the Finns lose and betray their German allies?
I believe one of the main factors in early performance of the T34 vs the Germans was that the Germans had radio communications and the T34 pilots were communicating with flags... add in experience and tactics. Which tank was actually better didn't matter so much.
Any Chieftain video is worth waiting for.
11:03 Correction. Tanks that came after the T-34 that retained sloped side armor IS-3, IS-4, IS-5, IS-6, IS-7, IS-8/T-10M, Obj 277, Obj 279, Obj 430, Obj 432, Obj 435, Obj 770, even some Modern Russian T Series MBTs have a slightly slope in the side armor akin to the frontal slope on many earlier German tanks. Even I didn’t realize how many tanks I had to add to the list that came after the T-34, I’m sure I missed some.
So it’s not that “they stopped sloping the side armor after the T-34”. Thats not entirely true. That was just the T-44, T-54/55/62 lineages themselves. Two tanks. The T-80s I can confirm added sloping back (even though it’s as slight as the Tiger I it’s still there). Many tanks have even heavier sloping than the T-34 (Like IS-3, IS-5, IS-7, Obj 277, Obj 770, Obj 430-435), you just couldn’t see it because of the integrated stowage boxes (or spaced armor as some call it) masking/hiding the inward slope. They didn’t get rid of the slope, they just switched the direction making it a V shaped hull. Even the Americans did this way back with the M48, M103, M60.
However, the more notable current day MBTs with slopped side armors is the Challenger 1, 2, & “3” Tanks! A whopping 12 degrees! Same as the Centurion! The highest of the more recent UK MBTs as far as slope goes is the FV4202 with 13 degrees :}! IIRC. Correct me if I’m mistaken.
*Edit: But as a result of the Centurion, the Merkava also has it.*
*TL;DR: The Soviets/Russians never moved away from sloped side armor structures/designs. They only changed its direction, and vary the angle depending on the vehicle. Other than that, great video as always!*
Fair point, I obviously didn't consider the IS series.
@@TheChieftainsHatch I’ve likely made more mistakes than you’ve ever had on this topic so no worries. I just found the sloped side armor an interesting topic/idea for tank design and how it’s changed over time to a V shaped hull mostly.
@@TheChieftainsHatch "British led victory"
Montgomery and the Battle of the Bulge
th-cam.com/video/O3ltBabOiio/w-d-xo.html
They where blind could not shot fast the armor was bridle and wellded so bad you could shot the plates of if you could not penetrate. They where slow because the gearbox was unusable and thats before they omitted "useless things" like ammo racks, lights, hatch sealing, the glass in the periscope, the rubber on the wheels, the seats, the turret basket, half of the bolts on the rear, hardened steel gears in the gearbox internal radio and more, they where of course incredibly cramped and had the fuel fighting the germans together with the crewmembers. The power traverse of the turret was good but by omitting the hatch sealing the electronics would get showered so it was not working most of the time.
I get the argument number over quality but the t 34 was no cheap tank at least not cheap enough to offset the losses even if we don't consider that more tanks require more fuel, ammo and logistics.
Though they wanted to replaced gearbox not even 50% had the new one at the end of the war which was still bad anyways.
Now most of these problems can be traced to one factory.......problem is they produced around 50% of all t - 34.
So joust as they where only good on paper they only really got beter on paper.
Yeah, I'm sure the most mass produced tank in history and the one that won ww2 was bad, because you say it :)
Tell that to Gaijin.
Not a man of tanks but love how you mentioned the myth of 'inventing sloped armour'.
Sloped armour has existed as early as armour itself. Ships have been using them since the end of full-conforming wooden ship and most of the tanks considered 'unsloped' usually have at least some parts in slope. The problem really is 'where to' rather than 'if to'. And the T-34 is better desicribed as 'designed around sloped armour as a concept' than something akin to 'first one with sloped armour'. In the end, most later tanks kept the frontal slopes but eliminated the side slopes, something hardly surprising. Different from, say, ships, which can more comfortably angle their main belts and bulkheads, tanks can hardly afford to lose the raw protection in the front.
Sloped armor concept goes back to the dawn of wearing any kind of armor, and was certainly well developed by the time of suits of plate armor became dominant.
Simply fascinating !, when the Chieftain speaks I listen , his opinion's are of course personal but born from genuine knowledge & experience and therefore valid and objective excellent , My one complaint ? I wish this episode was longer ! not a fault simply a matter of requirement within remit and perview . Thank You for imparting these facts , history was never this much fun at school !
Just wait for all the comments. To summarise, “my favourite tank was better than your favourite tank because reasons”. Followed by many replies of “I agree, that’s also my favourite tank”, and “No, my favourite tank is something else, and it was better for reasons”. None of these reasons will actually stand up to scrutiny, so lets kick this off well. Bob Semple fans - Assemble! Way better than T34 because the corrugations deflected incoming fire. Not a single unit was knocked out in combat.
In other news, I’m actually quite looking forward to this video :)
@Jimmy De'Souza Bob Semple was New Zealand's prototype for a tank. It wasn't made from proper armor plate, and instead used corrugated sheet metal. The armaments had I think one or two Vickers machine guns but don't be afraid to fact check that I'm going off my memory and even I don't trust it. This was done in the 1940s and is really just a joke of a vehicle. I don't think it would stand up to a Vickers 6-ton or a Ha-Go. At least those have cannons.
You know the only reason they didn't go through with the Bob Semple was because it is considered a weapon of mass destruction
The Semple, being a super tank, was too expensive to build. There just weren't enough of them. I mean getting enough dilithium crytsals for the warp drive was a nightmare.
Princeofcups Poc and also jumping between the warp and realspace requires massive amounts of space for the warp engines only the Tog 2 could hold.
(If you're gonna use Star Trek references, I'll use 40k refrences)
The Bob Semple was such a devastating weapon that it was banned by the Geneva convention. It's also the only reason we haven't been invaded by aliens and been slaved yet, they know they won't stand a chance against the Bob, a weapon so powerfull that millions of people die simply by the airpressure from it's engine.
Please don't use this "Feature" of youtube... The only thing it says is well here is a video that you would like to see. But you just have to wait for it.
Most of the time not knowing another video will come is way better
It’s probably still being edited (given that it premieres in 7 days), which is why this feature may exist (though other TH-camrs don’t seem to use it properly)
@@Shepard_AU I think you can only premier it after it's been uploaded, or as it's being uploaded
He might be getting paid to do it? and if he can earn a few more bucks, to make more videos then Heck Yeah
Tcuel wrong
Imagine how cluttered youtube would be if every second video in my feed was a premiere. I'd barely be able to find a video to watch in the present moment
Whomever has the better trained crew will always take advantage of the situation. Germans early in the war knew how to operate their tanks even when going against better tanks.
11:10 The germans did start sloping their side armor on some of their late war projects. Panther had sloped upper side armor, but the section was small. The king tiger also used sloping on its upper side armor, albeit a pretty gentle angle.
The angle of "effective !" slope is also dependent on the location , distance and elevation (angle) that the adversary's projectile is propelled from .
From what I understand from studying the tanks is yes, both tanks had their strengths and weaknesses, but communication between the German tanks was light years better. The Russians at the time were not nearly as organized as the German tank crews. Germans were master tacticians at the time. Or should I say tankticians. Once the Russians got their act together with a slightly better tank, it was all over for the Germans. The mass produced T34 was what the Sherman should have been.
"Laughs in Deep operation"
Sherman was exactly what it needed to be: a extremely reliable, comfortable, modifiable tank who's only real shortcomings was in its 75mm variants and its rather tall silhouette. It still performed its job with a significant reduction in maintenance time and very few cases of total breakdown, which German vehicles and Russian cannot say, but then Again their factories weren't across an entire ocean, so reliability wasn't as big a concern.
@@correndell195 All the facts you bring to the table are true. But the Sherman being a medium tank was outclassed by the German tanks in armor thickness and the T 34's sloping armor. We needed a heavy tank. One of the reasons it performed so well was just the sheer numbers. One on one against a Panther, bad day.
@@Make_my_day-1 T-34's had the exact same problem, and they provided the exact same solution: Bring more. Shermans were picked over heavy tanks because of the transportation concerns. Allies could bring way more Medium tanks thanthey couldHeavy tanks, and both World Wars proved that more tanks usually wins vs better tanks. The Char B1 had a few good moments in WW2, but was quickly outclassed by multiple german tanks and their radios. So, while I do appreciate a civil debate, I think you're going with more of a point of view vs a look into the past. The allies won with numbers, the occasional victory because of bigger guns and armor did not hold up to a long duration war. "Tactics win battles, logistics win wars."
I understand the logistics of trying to ship heavy tanks. You are correct the Sherman was the best tank of WW2. The Abrams is also the best tank in the world too. In fact, I think a match between the Abrams and Sherman would be close.
The Russian repair documents say that the majority of the rounds that knocked out t34's, were from the 50mm round used in the anti-tank guns. That same gun was also in some tanks the Germans used.
Love hearing about this kind of stuff! Really looking forward to something about the Pz IV. It seems everyone over looks this tank too much. It's one of the rare few tanks to pre date the war, survive the war(with upgrades, some good, some not so good) and was the workhorse of the German army. It seems the Pz IV got lost in the mammoth shadow of both Tiger and Panther tanks, which is kind of sad to be honest.
FWIW, General "Schnell" Heinz Guderian, who became the inspector-general of the Panzers, detested the "Big Cats", believing them to be overly large, expensive, over-engineered, hard to maintain, and generally troublesome in combat. He felt that the Panzer IV was all the tank the Panzerwaffe needed, or at least could sustain.
@@selfdohe was most probably right lol
@@selfdohe was right, except for the fact that the panzer iv was really slow to build. If they had created a better panzer iv, with a faster production, instead of balooning the weight it would probably be a great tank. The panzer iv ausf. G is probably my favorite german tank, good ol' (not so) reliable.
"Loader/Commander" - sounds like a problem description.
Loader/Commander/Gunner if you're French. :D pfft, who needs a crew.
Knowing that there is a new video coming is nice, knowing that there is a 7 days wait is not very nice.
I love this man's lecture voice...love the subject too
5:22 What historical document says that the t-34 has a Loader/ Commander? I've never been able to find that reference outside of forum replies or the occasional passing statement. All sources that I could find, English and Russian name the turret positions as Loader and Gunner/TC. Granted that's not how it is on US tanks, but it's not a US tank.
Chieftain is mistaken here. The gunner was indeed the commander and the loader was just the loader. It was a matter of rank. The TC had the highest rank, the gunner had the second highest, then the driver, then the loader, and then the bow machine gun operator. It would be highly unusual for the loader to also be the commander.
@@tankolad I believe that the Stuart had a TC/loader, but its a 37 so its not as big of a deal
I would like to know where they are getting this information as well.
I have seen references to EXPERIMENTAL tests, where the TC was the loader instead of the gunner, but this was not adopted because it didn't improve the problems with a 2 man turret.
@@Crosshair84 Yeah. Another thing to mention is that the 360° rotating device is on the gunner's side of the T-34 hatch. It's pretty obvious that the gunner is the commander of the tank, not the loader.
You are correct. I’ve been mucking around with too many Stuarts recently or something. End result was the same, mind, poor situational awareness.
I've always thought the greatest thing about the T-34 was the sheer number of them. At least considering the production capacity they had.
No it was actually a brilliant design
@@bbcmotd Oh yes! But in the IKEA sense, if you understand what I mean. Brilliantly designed, to a price point where someone buying his first home can also afford all the necessary furniture. Not meant in a negative way at all, just a result of prioritising numbers over that last improvement in quality.
@@thomaslutro5560 yea and was a smart decision for the attriotional war the Russians found themselves, where numbers are very important
Very fast turret rotation compared to German tanks, but the actual reload speed was poor.
@@bbcmotd a brilliant design that was discontinued with the T-44
lol, Soviet fanboys are a crime against information
Really good video, thank you for this. I tend to respectfully disagree with the extent to which the overall effectiveness of the T-34 is downplayed, though. Is it not true that the Germans considered copying the T-34? I've read about this long before the advent of the WWW and recall (vaguely) reading this consideration attributed to Guderian. In addition to the poor ergonomics of the tank which the vidoegrapher does a fantastic job of covering, I am convinced that the lack of crew training (I know how long it takes to get a troop/platoon of tanks into smooth working order) and the lack of radios were major reasons why Soviet T-34s did so poorly in 1941. Lack of training will always amplify poor doctrine and vehicle layout issues. Hell, it makes a mess of established ways of doing things!
Also, perhaps, the Soviet way of doing things was another consideration. The Stackpole book, T-34 In Action, is an anthology of memoirs of T-34 commanders (76 and 85) and in at least one of the memoirs, a Soviet commander of at least a platoon (possibly a company, I'd need to reread the book) claimed that he preferred to command from the driver's seat. (!!!!) One of the rationals he gave was that if the turret was hit, he could continue to command his sub-unit. I wonder if was more room in the driver's spot to deal with this map? I have experience as a peace time/Cold War junior armour officer and crew commander. I'm sure the videographer's reaction to commanding from the driver's seat would be the very same as mine was, which was nearly dropping the book and exclaiming out loud, "What the holy feck?"
5:16 Nit pick :) which also contributed to performance or lack thereof: Soviet practice at the time of the early T-34 was that the commander was not the loader (as per more modern light tanks, e.g. Scorpion, with 2 turret crew) but the gunner.
All the best.
The Germans considered copying just about everything effective they met. Example. The Danish 20mm Madsen Auto Cannon when invading Denmark, which was considered superior to their own 20mm by the German waffen amt. But alas, they pretty much always came to the conclusion, that it would be too expensive to do it, instead of keeping with their own program. The Panther, who many think as a copy, was designed before they engaged the t-34. Germany had this big standard program. All tanks needed to use the same fuel and so on. For them to start designing a copy of the t-34 with their own specs, would be too expensive considering they could just up-gun the Pz3 and Pz4 and the Panther and Tiger was already on the drawing board as mentioned. The frontal sloped armor was ofc a natural road to go down, but if it was inspired by the Russian or not is debatable.
Like @Karakoth said.
There's nothing more add, really.
They actually built a copy of the T34, called the VK 30.02 (DB).
It was basically a refined and improved t34 mod.41/42
They didn't mass produced it though.
Instead they built the VK30.02 (MAN)
which is completley different tank.
(Also known as "Panther")
The common statement that the Panther is a copy of the t34, is therefore not true.
@@paulw6949 Thanks Micha, but I am not saying the Panther was a copy of the T-34. All the best.
@@gungatim6630
I was just trying to add/sum up things. I never thought that you said the panther was a Copy of the t34. But now, someone reading all the 3 comments might benefit from our combined knowledge ;)
Cheers
@@paulw6949 Sounds good to me! Take care. :)
People always talk about the three principles of tank design being armor, mobility, and firepower. I'm coming to the conclusion that there's really five of them: armor, mobility, firepower, communications (as put forward by Harry Yeide in Operation Think Tank), and ergonomics.
The three big principles of tank design simply describe the three necessary traits of any tank. Every design solution implemented in a tank should contribute towards these three aspects. If not, then it is superfluous.
For example, communications and ergonomics have an effect on mobility and firepower, and armour protection has an effect on ergonomics and mobility. Tank silhouette size has an effect on protection and ergonomics, and engine size has an effect on armour.
TheScorpionStrike Availability, most important!
The T34s were great tanks, if you didn't have to drive them far, and you parked them in a position where the gun can be slewed to a location where the enemy is expected to arrive with no surprises.
Well done to the Chieftan
and the production team
for this informative
lecture!
Now I really want to hear your thoughts on what made the T-34-85 so much better.
Have you considered doing a video on the armor of the Korean War? That's a subject where I haven't seen much real discussion and it compares the T-35-85 and the M4 directly.
Basically: a larger turret, and that’s a lot
You have a larger gun that have a chance to take out the panther and tiger, and you now have enough room for a three men crew in the turret, so that you are finding targets much faster and engaging them faster, and the crews generally sits comfortably in the turret, though the driver is still uncomfortable cuz the hull isn’t larger compare to the earlier T-34s
also soviet crews are much better trained in 1944 in comparison to those tank crews earlier on
There are other minor changes such as better quality, thus more reliable and stuff
Almost everything on the T-34/85s were better than the T-34’s. Primarily production quality though.
T-34’s had a nasty habit of falling apart when shot, literally. Sometimes they were welded together so poorly a shell would hit the front and the side panel just kinda fell off. Sometimes the armor would just shatter on impact, sometimes both. Sometimes the damn thing didn’t start, so much so Stalin was worried that the tankers were trying to sabotage their vehicles so they wouldn’t have to fight. The crew couldn’t see out of the tank for shit. There’s one story about a German at-gun, I think a pak-37 or something like that, shot a T-34 about 37 times until the thing finally turned around and tried to run the gun over…and missed.
The T-34/85 had a few of these problems, the shattering was still an issue, but the welds held, and the crew were able to see out the tank, and the armor was even thicker so honestly, and you could actually get the damn thing going. the 85 was leaps and bounds better than the 34.
The 85 was on par, and sometimes better than the Sherman. But not the Firefly, that thing kicked so much ass Tiger Tanks feared it.
Good information. Looking forward to the next one.
Thank you! Modern "scholars" -armchair and otherwise - often believe Soviet hype without appreciating that "pravda" was a tool of the Party - to be adjusted as needed. Of course, all governments are guilty of this, to some degree or another, but the Soviets were masters of propaganda. Nice to see you provide some balance.
@ It's okay. I just found out from some Russian TH-camrs that the USA just massacred civilians and didn't do anything to fight the Nazis
@@chaosXP3RT Russians are masters of rewriting history.
At least they make some good songs
@@chaosXP3RT Its because they were speaking about Great Patriotic War as they do not teach about Wolrd War two for one reason, before 1941 attack on USSR whole German army was using Soviet oil, tanks were made from Soviet metals and tank comanders were trained in USSR -> The Kama tank school (German: Panzerschule Kama) was a secret training school for tank commanders operated by the German Reichswehr near Kazan, Soviet Union. The school was established in order to allow the German military to circumvent the military restrictions on tank research spelled out in the Treaty of Versailles. Apart from Kama, for the same reason Germany also operated the Lipetsk fighter-pilot school and a gas warfare facility, Gas-Testgelände Tomka...
Piotr Dudała alongside their communist friends in the communist workers party of China.
Thank you, please make more videos like this. It felt to be not biassed toward either of the sides and that made it really enjoyable for me.
Great overview of the early T-34. However, one that I would LOOOVE to see is for you to do reviews of modern tanks especially some of the newer Russian tanks like the Sprut-SD airborne anti-tank/assault gun system. I'd be extremely interested in hearing what you think of such concepts in terms of practicality on a modern battlefield from someone who was a tanker on the modern battlefield. Likewise since you operated in an urban-combat environment in Iraq, it would be fascinating to hear what you think of dedicated urban combat tanks like the Russian BMP-T Terminator.
As a former U.S. Army man (Corp of Engineers), I've often stated that it was a mistake to do away with the M728 CEV as it would have been fantastic in Iraq in an urban environment if updated with ERA and a bit of extra passive armor. It's snub-nosed cannon would have been excellent in terms of not hitting buildings and walls in tight streets and alley-ways. It's massive 165mm demolition gun likewise would have been fantastic for knocking out buildings in a very precise manner that would have minimized collateral damage. Sadly current M1 Abrams based CEVs removed the demolition gun which I think was a huge mistake. Given your experience Chieftain would you agree?
A very good primer video about the T34, I look forward to the next one about the later models. Will a discussion of the T34s used in Korea be a part of your analysis? I’ve heard mixed reviews of them from that war facing Shermans and Pershing’s.
Would the much wider tracks of the T34 give it a noticable advantage over the Pz III in mobility over mud, snow etc?
Pz III was a battle tested tank, veteran of 2 years of fighting in 1941, its teething problems were gone. T-34 was fresh off the assembly line, they barely had the time to test anything.
Finaly someone who uses his mind. Thank you.
Great Videos & Content as always Chieftain. Thank you
Interesting topic. The Panzer III is, imo, rather underrated/-estimated by many (at least depending on the timetable of the war, when the 50mm wasn't nearly enough anymore and such (or the PzIV's 75mm was far more favourable)).
math problem for tank designers: suppose we want to protect 24" with 4" of effective armor thickness against a shell traveling parallel to ground. What volume of metal is require vs. slope angle? we could also factor in that executing generals and colonel's did not seem to do much for replacement commander initiative
I remembered there's a t 34m tank that was in development at the time equipped with improved armor, torsion bars and a proper 3 manned turret and it was planned to replace the existing t 34s with the 2 manned turrets
Unfortunately Barbarossa has caused some issues to it
yeah, it's what the Chieftain called the T-34M, and what Wargaming puts in WoT as the A-43. It was, as you said, a somewhat shorter T-34 with torsion bars, a bigger model 1943-esque turret complete with a cupola reminiscent of german ones, way more space inside, and the intent of installing either the original 76mm F-34 or the anti-tank oriented 57mm ZiS-4.
The whole Soviet experience early war is being badly unprepared and trying to make do. They had the beginnings of a good tank, but it was just that. Beginnings. And without the time to hone production and equip enough radios and train crews, everything kind of stacks up.
Unprepared was an understatement more like woke up in the middle of the night after a day of heavy drinking and lack of sleep in the couple of days
Middle of the night is always when bad news comes, it's tradition. After drinking, that's just icing on the cake.
You have opened the Pandora's box of Russian indignation, be strong TC!
Thanks!
*Stalin wants to know your location*
This is really good, a marvelous and informative chat. More please!
Actually the Soviets also knew all this, and had developped the T-50 as a counterpart to the Pz. III, with a three-man turret, torsion bar suspension etc. but only managed to produce around 70 of these, and instead produced thousands of early T-34 with limited usefulness, and thousands more of the even worse T-60.
T-60s and 70s could be made in factories that weren't capable of producing the 34. Not sure about the T-50, but Wiki says it was designed at factory 174, which eventually made 34s anyhow. If you'd have to choose, another T-34 line is a better choice than opening one for the T-50, even if it wasn't the better tank. And frankly, I find the latter unlikely, even if the T-50 has a few neat features over the T-34.
Hell, it's not like there wasn't a T-34 variant with torsion bars and a three-man turret, it just didn't enter production for fairly decent reasons!
Let's no forget that the situation on the front was a bit desperate the germans were literally plowing trough soviet lines so they needed numbers
I've read the book about Rommel's "panzer commander" Hans Von Luck, and it that book he talked about how much problems they had with the T-50's, they had to use 88's on them.
@@ricardo3760 Von Luck was reassigned to Africa in January 42. For any units that wouldn't have gotten the 5cm yet, the 88 would've been the smallest gun after the 37 at the time.
Afaik T-50 was almost as expensive as T-34 and was more akin to a light tank than a medium tank and Soviets were at the time realised that it is waste to build light tanks, there is no good use for them.
T-60 were mostly used recoinnassance vehicles. T-70 was bad to say the least but the chassis lived bit longer in the form of SU-76 which was more useful and liked even if bit difficult to drive.
Love that you have your Cav Stetson. I got out in 1990 and I still have mine and I cherish the bugger. GO CAV !!
Part of the reason T-34`s were ineffective during Barbarossa (Army Group Center---Summer/Fall 1941), is the German panzer offensive simply avoided them through superior recon. Read the primary source "Panzer Leader: Heinz Guderian." They learned the latter tactic in France 1940.
Such tactic was employed by most armies except soviet who used massive number charge forward tank concentration, often losing huge numbers to archive victory as is pure brutal force
Tanks are not supposed to match tank like in a game ,tanks are to brake defenses and do deep penetration, avoiding as much possible equal armored units .the moment you try to use tank to stop tank mainly you risk loose momentum and suffer losses that can be avoided
Americans tactic were the same ,tanks were primarily infantry support, and when heavy enemy armor found they call for artillery,air strike or AT units to destroy them .
Of course, never was the official case, and often, the tanks were forced to deal with tanks .
British ,French used same tactics theorically too .
Guderian books explain his basic early tactics doctrines .Reality often was not same as in 1941 Soviet tanks were far more than Soviets and German tanks units often have to deal with them aling with out air or artillery support and is reported in plenty other panzer books records from Germans sources .
Guderian neither was in every tank division at once nor he can speak for every panzer unit encounter with Soviet armor.
His experience is based in his units Corp only and his pre-war theories only .
Read other panzer books memories from 1941/42 veterans and will be surprised how many times German crews from panzer II ,III and Skoda 35/38 found themselves fighting t/34 ,Kvs and t/26 models but won by using superior individual crew training,optics,awareness and else .
Last but not least ,several errors and contradictions are found in Guderian book too ,it has been extensively observed in other historian books .
His memories are recollection ,mix with thoughts, and many assumptions written after the war .
You can even make the argument that sloped armor goes back to plate armor tbh.
11:50 Christie suspension had an upper weight limit for the tank, as the tank weight tonnage kept going upwards the Christie drive system couldnt cope.
Plus Stalin held back upgrade and fixes for the T34 in order to keep the production going to churn out as many as possible
"Christie suspension had an upper weight limit" contrary to every other typeof suspension that have no weight limit? hehe
Did you read that explanation in "Pravda"?:P
@@Bialy_1 Yeah I totally made that completely up thats why all modern manin battle tanks abandoned Christie system for the Torsion suspension for some mysterious reason.
Love the video, wish you'd do more like this, or at least at more history of the vehicles you do inside the hatch of. Kinda how Ian does for Forgotten Weapons. What the crew thought of them, what the generals, how many were built and why, stuff like that to ground the videos.
@5:25 I am quite sure that in T-34 there was a designated loader from the very start. Commander was occupied with a gunner role, that's true, but loading shells into the gun was not normally his duty.
6:59 i can't find a good source but i once read they ran out of ammo and tried to ran over the canon
Another good, clear explanation from The Chieftain. It's sort of common sense, early tank models were pretty rubbish (including the original M4 or god help us, the M3s before it that even the Chinese described as particularly flawed), and the war gave us a tank arms race the likes of which has never been seen since as far as I know. The T-34 was no exception (and on top of that hey were a small fraction of the overall Red Army tank inventory--they were vastly outnumbered by older, poorer armed, poorer protected like the T-26 which, to its credit, had excellent reliability at least even if it was no match for the enemy). On top of that, the pre-war USSR was racked with material and technology shortages that were poorly or utterly unaddressed that couldn't have helped build quality. Plenty of countries had lots of interruptions to armour development, the USSR was definitely not an exception.
This is a great point. AFV production, in numbers, reliability, maintainability, and technical features, is very much an indicator of the overall economy and industrial capabilities of the nation making them.
In Vasiliy Krysov's book, he opines that he preferred the SU-85 and the other self-propelled gun he commanded to the T-34-85. If I remember it was because he found it easier for those vehicles to acquire targets.
No disrespect intended, but I feel like I must ask what is the point of posting up something that looks like a new video, only to say that there will be a new video soon? Isn't our subscribing/clicking the bell thing not already indicative of our desire to see new content? Do we really need to be 'hyped up' by being told there is a new video on the way soon? There is kind of an unspoken expectation of that in the first place. This premier function seems a tad bit odd, and could easily be seen as a bait-and-switch to some. Perhaps I am missing something here, but why not just wait and post the video when it is ready? Does this actually bring in more views? I legitimately do not know.
Yeah, not a fan of this feature myself. I would prefer my sub-box to display what I can watch, not what I can watch some day.
And if the Chieftain insists on using this, maybe not 7 days in advance?
It’s a schedule of what is actually upcoming and probably still being edited. Instead of just posting a finished video of unknown content, this sets a date of what is essentially a teaser. And he’s done it right by giving it 7 days as it is still likely being editors etc as opposed to other TH-camrs giving it like 2 hours or something stupid.
@@Shepard_AU it has to be uploaded to be featured. The whole point of the premire function is to have people engage with each other during the video. It also allows the creator to talk directly to the viewers during the premire duration. It's also another annoying feature to boost ad revinue for Google.
The chat is, indeed, what attracted my attention. However, given the notification feature is not functioning as I had thought it would be functioning, I'm not going to try it again pending changes/education.
@@TheChieftainsHatch For what it is worth, I like most everything about the Premiere feature except when the delay between posting the announcement and watching the video is long. The shorter the time span between the announcement and watching the video, the better. Honestly, if there an option for a 1 hour delay, that would be about perfect for me.
I still think the slopes armour thing is down to the history channel series Tanks! Where the fact the t34 had sloped armour was taken to be revolutionary rather than just a benefit
The Chieftain in this screen looks... surprised....
I actually think the Tiger 1’s 10 degree slope made things worse for it, with a vertical plate you at least an effective reverse slope from the ballistic arc, but the 10 degree slope of the tiger will reduce that most likely.
I do recall reading an interrogation carried out by the soviets of a German Pz 38 (IIRC) crew that they found the T34 the most threatening soviet tank as it had the same firepower as the KV but was much more mobile, and that it seems some soviet KV crews seemed to not understand how to use their main gun. I can’t find it now, frustratingly.
I can't believe how embarassingly on point your question is at 6:57... xD
@BalF The Chieftain is one of the most famous and well informed tank experts ever, I've even seen him referred to as "Tank Jesus."
His status as a very well informed tank expert is undeniable and you have provided precisely zero evidence to back up your claims. Yes it's true that German AT guns were usually deployed in groups but that doesn't mean that they would never find themselves alone, in many cases they did.
The T-34 had absolutely horrendous vision, not just by 1941 standards, but by any years standards. As The Chieftain pointed out the Panzer 3 and also the Panzer 4 had cupolas for the tank commander, and the driver also had more and better vision ports and the radio operator actually had a vision port unlike the T-34 bow gunner who was practically blind. The gun sights of the T-34 were also less clear than the German ones and ths driver's vision port was incredibly narrow.
Why would the Soviets themselves complain about the lack of vision on the T-34 if it wasn't a problem? And why did the Germans weld cupolas onto all of the T-34s that they captured and used?
Ah, thats why the early Panzer 3 had 2 coax MGs, it had room for a 5 cm gun but had a 3.7 cm gun instead, gotta take up that space with something...
Made up gunning to 50mm easy.
hey chieftain what about the kv1 was it an efective tank?
Excellent Video as ever Mr Moran , What I like is you do actually have a very unbiased view , Some people say oh well He just loves American armor because He is an American , But in reality your an Irishman Who served in Armor , and can recognize from your prospective what makes a tank work , What makes it a successful design , Can each member of the crew do their job , does it break have reliability issues , can the crew fix them , As with any armor if its not reliable and if the crew cant service it you have a Armored gun emplacement nothing more . Thank you as ever for your insight
Too bad The Chieftain is wrong about the commander of T-34 being a loader. Otherwise it is quite a sound analysis.
@@azgarogly I personally thought the commander was also responsible for aiming and firing the gun but of course I could be wrong, it didn't have a dedicated Gunner till the Advent of the 3 man turret of the T-34/85
Yes, you are right. The two man T-34 turret hosted commander and loader. Commander was both commanding the tank and firing the gun. But at least he did not have to crawl the bottom looking for the shells in the underfloor bins. At least before the loader got knocked down. Or both loader and a bow gunner.
@BalF The T-34 had one thing going for it , it was built in huge numbers, and they had to be the for example 1st Guards tank Army started the Kursk-Belgorod operation with 631 tanks, (including 511 T-34s).
Between the 20th July and the 5th August , the unit lost 954 tanks, including 783 T-34s. That’s 150% losses in 15 days. Meaning that the entire unit had to be replaced in less than two weeks.
After a period of rest & refit, the unit went back to the frontlines to take part in the Soviet counteroffensive around Kursk. On the 3rd August, the 1st Guards Tank Army could field 542 tanks, including 418 T-34s.
By the end of the month, the unit had lost another 1040 tanks, including 889 T-34s. That’s another 200% losses in four weeks of fighting. When built, the T-34 had a planned service life of about 6 months. By this I mean that the average T-34, outside of combat, was only expected to last 6 months before suffering major mechanical failures necessitating a complete overhaul.
Very, very few T-34 ever lasted long enough to enjoy the luxuries of “mechanical failures”. Most were destroyed long before that. During Most heavy combat Kursk, Kharkov, Stalingrad A T-34 was lucky to last 2 weeks. The factories that Made the T-34 by 1941 had implemented improvements , that meant all the components to build it where made in 36 hours and the tank Completed in 48 hours Second Factory No.183 - Uralskiy Tankovyj Zawod No.183 (UTZ), Nizhniy Tagil
The staff and machinery from Factory No.183 reached Nizhniy Tagil in the middle of winter. The facilities remained primitive for some time - at first parts of the factory were unroofed, despite the low winter temperatures (as low at -40 degrees C at some times). Most of the original workforce had been lost, and much of the burden of production fell on children and women. There was barely enough food and virtually no medical care.
Despite these terrible circumstances production at Nizhniy Tagil began in December 1941, when 25 T-34s were completed. Hardly surprisingly the quality of these tanks was not high, but as the factory became better established many of the problems were ironed out.
Production Summary
T-34-76: 15,014
T-34-85: 13,938
Total: 28,952. There where always More tanks that could be sent to the front The T-34 as I said had volume of production going for it that's all
how you comment what wikipedia state ,, at the begining when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa he T-34 was superior to any tank the Germans then had in service??. The diary of Alfred Jodl seems to express surprise at the appearance of the T-34 in Riga.The Wehrmacht had great difficulty destroying T-34s in combat, as standard German anti-tank weaponry 37 mm PaK 36 proved ineffective against its heavy, sloped armour''
I think that's kind a wierd what wikipedia state, given the fact the german didn't stop all the way to the Moscow, but may be some true in there i dont think Jodl lie in his diary.
Also wikipedia state ''The Soviets lost a total of 3.200 tanks in 1941 (approximately 2,300 of them T-34s, as well as over 900 heavy tanks, mostly KVs) ''?
How they lost 3.200 tanks in 41 if at the begining at operation Barbarossa they only have 1475 tanks( 967 T-34 tanks and 508 KV tanks)
So they lost 2300 tanks and move tanks factory to Ural mountins and it state russian prodced tanks in factory at Stalingrand to till late 42.
I guess is doesnt matter if those T34 was poor, cause russian make 1200 tanks per month in 43, this was the equivalent of three full-strength Panzer divisions. So quantity beat quality.
I read when russian breck the front line at Stalingrad they has used over 800 T 34 and 1 milion soliders, and they atack to the weak side, on romanian italy and hungary army sector. The romanians army was around 250.000 soliders, and was posted there to defend a 200 km wide area of front line with not antitank guns at all , or they have only a few 37 mm antitank gun, only 40.000 of them will escape. Then russian eventually encircle the Paulus army at Stalingrad.
Great video, I didn't mind the wait and got a little pop up on my phone when the video did go live so had a pleasant user experience. PzIIIL has been one of my favourite tanks all the way back to my Squad Leader days.
So we started the controversy already.
Since we are on it then... The maginot line was a good idea and Whatsapp should have gun emojis 🔫!
It was a good idea. France had a demographics problem, by 1940 Germany would have almost 3x the conscription age manpower of France. in WW1, forts and fortified positions had been incredibly influential. Forts can also be garrisoned by older men who are no longer fit for infantry service. So France used fortifications to make up for their manpower shortage that they knew they would have.
The reasons things fell apart were: 1. Assuming that the Ardennes Forest was impenetrable. Had the Maginot Line covered that area like the rest, the Germans could not have flanked allied forces. 2. Not confronting Germany when Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland. France's defensive plans assumed Belgium to be an ally so that French troops could reinforce the Belgian defensive fortifications along their border with Germany. By not confronting Germany, Belgium went Neutral, leaving the French/Belgian border unfortified and open to attack. French troops could not enter Belgium until after Germany attacked.
I wish you could put out more vids like this one at a bit faster pace ;) great vid loved it
100hr engine service life? Hmpf... still better than Ford's eco-boost 2L.
Slightly better than the Junkers on the Me 262....
I enjoy your videos. I’d like to hear comparisons like this for modern tanks. I kept glancing at the Abrams during this video.
Lots of triggered Russians in the comments. Glad Chieftain had the good sense to actually address the reality of armored vehicles of the period.
So much nonsensical misinformation out there about how "the T-34 was the greatest tank of the war!!11"
The harsh reality of living with famous WWII vehicles [the hierarchy]:
M4>Cromwell>PzIII>>>>>>>>>>Tiger_I>PzV>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>dumpster_fire>KV-1>T-34
But Ronsons, I guess, and "quantity is its own cope"/"obligatory tigor breakdown wiki post" -(don't even look at muh T-34 trash fire rates)- text.
Bro, the T 34 won the decisive Eastern front, where I remind you, 90% of the German army was fighting. It has been by far the most brutal front humanity has ever seen. Meanwhile you Americans playing tic tac toe with the Japanese over shitty islands in the Pacific. "Yeah, the most mass produced and decisive tank of history was bad because I'm jealous, but hey, at least we have 30 D day movies"🤓
@@hashteraksgage3281 If the T-34 was "decisive on the Eastern front" then why did thousands of them fail to stop the German Army in 1941/42, when it was operating almost exclusively with early Panzer IIs, IIIs, and IVs?
I swear, it's like you didn't even watch the video. The rest of your comment seems to explain it though, you apparently have some bone to pick with Americans lol.
@@_ArsNova I'm late, but this is just dumb.
>why did thousands of them failed to stop german army in 1941-42
But they did, no? Did either Barbarossa or Blau actually achieve set goals? Also wtf is this logic? War isn't a collection of tank duels, it's organisation, logistics, material base, training and strategy. Wermacht had caught Red Army in the middle of rearmament in 1941 and dealt it a serious blow it could only somewhat recover from only by 1943. Afterwards it's a journey towards Berlin with only occasional breaks. Why did wonder weapons like Panthers and Tigers not stop soviet advance in 1944-45? After all T-34 was so bad, yet german were powerless to stop soviet tank armies breaking through their lines?
For some reason westoids think western and eastern front are comparable and boast about defeating secondary forces of late war Wermacht. The latter was actually 4 to 9 times longer and involved much more troops and resources from both sides. Glaze M4 all you like, it never had to go through half of what T-34 did. There's a reason soviet tankers often said it's best to serve in Sherman during peace time, but it's better to go to war in T-34.
There's a long story behind the T-34/76. During WW2, well over 33,000 were manufactured compared to well over 15,000 of the newer, upgraded and improved T-34/85. While the T-34/76 had become obsolescent by late 1943, manufacturing did not stop as the T-34/85 was ramping up into production. The T-34/76 soldiered on into the Battle for Berlin, April 1945.
Losses of the T-34/76 and T-34/85 were very high during the war in Russia. Reputedly the lifespan of a T-34 was something like three days in combat operations. Soviet tank manufacturing could barely keep pace but in the end it did. We don't have the data of how many T-34s were recovered from the battlefield, repaired, and sent back into combat. What we do know is that when a T-34 took a solid hit into the hull or turret, it had a tendency to blow up, sending the welded turret top into the air. The British referred to a struck enemy tank that burned and exploded as, 'brewed up'.
Photos of destroyed T-34/85 tanks during the Korean War frequently show the tank had exploded and burned out completely from within. the turret top can usually be seen blown off and lying off to the side of the tank. Given the T-34's tendency towards complete destruction, it's not likely that many knocked out T-34s were in a salvageable condition. That didn't matter to the Soviets who treated the T-34 as disposable consumer goods.
We don't know what the Soviets did with all of the surviving T-34/76 tanks after WW2. There had to be large numbers available. The Russians continued manufacturing the T-34/85 and were about to start production of the follow-on T-55, which resembled a beefed-up T-34/85. Josef Stalin gave the North Korean Army somewhere between 600 and 800 T-34/85 tanks. During the Korean War this number proved inadequate and almost all were eventually destroyed. It therefore remains fortunate that Stalin did not bother off-loading thousands of surplus T-34/76 tanks onto the North Korean Army, who could have used those surplus tanks desperately. It might have changed the course of the Korean War during the first three months of the war.
Fascinating approach, video informative and enjoyable. However the big question, given these numerous and valid issue it had, why was there the tank panic which escalated the up gunning programs and the Panther program. The ultimate question why did Daimler Benz effectively copy it for their Panther prototype, it clearly had a significant psychological effect on the German Commanders. Eg “In November of 1941, high ranking engineers, industry representatives, and armament directorate officers came to my tank army in order to familiarize themselves with the Russian T-34 tank. Frontline officers suggested that we should build tanks exactly like the T-34 in order to correct the unpleasant position of our armoured forces, but this position did not receive support from the engineers. Not because they were opposed to imitation, but because it was not possible to rapidly set up manufacturing of important components, especially the diesel motor. Additionally, our hardened steel, whose quality was dropping due to a lack of natural resources, was inferior to the Russians' hardened steel." H. Guderian, "Panzer Leader", page 268 published 1950, now he knew a thing or two about armour.
I have now watched the series of videos, including Military History Visualized, but sorry I think you have both ducked the big question, given these numerous and valid issue it had and the Wehrmacht were advancing on all fronts, why was there the tank panic. Clearly, the German high Command opinion was different, so why?
There are two main reasons for that in my humble opinion. First, Chieftain is comparing T-34 with Panzer III, and most importantly newest (at the time) model of it. Most of the german tank divisions during Barbarossa still used panzer II`s and czechoslowakian tanks-and those were wirtually powerless against a T-34, same thing goes for panzer IV with short barreled 75mm and early panzer III`s. Fact that some of your tanks can deal with a threat is not exactly comforting when most of them dont.
Second reason is actually mentioned in the video - most of the issues with T-34 could be solved by further development (mentioned T-34M and T-34/85) or actually proper crew training - and at that point existing german tanks would be truly outclassed not only on paper.
As to why german officers asked for direct copy of it - I would dare to say that they thought it would be simplest and fastest solution to the problem, as opposed to actually developing a new tank.
Marcin Hęclik good points, however the issue appears to be with the Mark III 3.7mm. Barbarossa, the lost numbers increase with time as the Russian Army regroups. Total after 60 days. Mark II 1068, lost 105, Mark III 3.7, 327 lost 74, Mark III 5, 1177 lost 81 Mark IV 587, lost 81.
I think the loss of 22% of the Mark III 3.7, yet to be upgraded made them take notice. All other losses were under 10%. The Panzer II losses are low compared to the Mark III 3.7. However, the Chieftain did make the point they had run into Matilda II in France which had been a shock for the Mark III 3.7. Also the Russians had purchased a Panzer III, so understood the strengths and weaknesses of the vehicle, so I believe my questions does stand if it was so bad why did they panic about the T34. KV1 I can understand.
JENTZ, Thomas L. Panzertruppen 1 : The Complete Guide to the Creation & Combat Employment of Germany's Tank Force, 1933-1942.
@@DC9622 most tank losses were from towed AT guns, not T-34s
rapter229 Yes, then why the T34 panic.Guderian is no fool, this may be of interest th-cam.com/video/1xTQ-oyo-G4/w-d-xo.html
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Great video. Please crank up the volume and the next video.
I think it's fair to say that by 1941 the Panzer III's potential was maximised, there was little more the Germans could have done with it. However at the same time 1941 T-34's were still in their infancy. I suppose it's more about the moment shifting design ideals came into conflict. i.e. moving away from the specialised 10-20 ton designs to modular 30-40 tonners
i mean they could've upgraded the pz3 by changing the turret and changing to crew load out where the loader is father down in a rather tall turret with a 105 or 15cm howitzer/at gun
but that would be impractical.
@@Thekilleroftanks are you nuts? The PzIII is a small tank, the turret is as wide and heavy as It can be. The Ausf N with the 75mm didn't work because it was too big. You can't move the loader much lower because the drive shaft that runs through the tank, not that that would make a difference. The only step was to remove the turret completely and that is how the Stugs were born.
@@PMGF na fam not like that.
Think replacing the turret with something like the kv2s, really fucking tall for the tank and slapping a large howitzer or at gun in it with the loader below. Kinda hard to picture it but think the loader head slightly above the breech level off to the side.
Or an enlarge pz3 with a japanese style turret with a 75 or short 88.
Also cant forget the pz3/4 where they tried mating a pz4 turret to a modified pz3 hull.
@@Thekilleroftanks Again, that would have never worked. The KV-2 is a horrendous machine. The PzIII turret ring big enough nor can be made strong enough to support the weight of a 105, let alone the force of it recoiling. The suspension won't be able to take the extra weight, and such a big gun in such a tiny tank will topple it over. The engine would be over-strained to move it and traverse the turret. Wot is work of fiction & so is the 3/4. The Germans maximised the PzIII. The best plan was to delete the turret and fix the gun to the chassis.
@@PMGF like I said. It wouldnt be practicable but it could've worked.
It was the KVs that scared Hitler... No-one seems to have noticed that vertical armor doesn't have to be as long as sloped armor. As long as you're not fighting aircraft from above, you get the same effectiveness from thicker, shorter armor.
Why don't they put more main gun ammo storage in the front of the turret? (facing forwards, obviously... and AP only) then the loader can still reach it without the turret basket.
Sloping armor compared to just making the plate thicker with no added slope only begins to work meaningfully at over about 45-50 degrees from the vertical/side (depending on the angle direction and the size of the enemy projectile compared to the plate thickness), though it rapidly gives better and better results as the angle goes up from there. As was mentioned here, sloping causes decrease in the room behind the plate (head room), but it also has the problem that it is IMAGINARY added armor; that is, the added armor is virtual and not really there for any other direction but the angle you expect the enemy to fire from (like an optical illusion such as the ever-rising staircase that only works from one very tight direction) -- if the enemy can fire downward or sideways to decrease the angle, the armor addition is reduced or disappears completely. Thicker, non-sloped armor does not have this problem. Note how many modern tanks have reduced the sloping portions -- especially on the turret face -- since sloping does not give enough benefit unless you virtually eliminate any room in the turret, so thicker armor of very unusual composition must now be used, enhanced by reactive armor and other things to assist in stopping the enemy weapon.
I think you are right. And I think trigonometry says a 10° slope increases effective armour thickness by only 1% or so.
what about the role of air support and emplaced anti-tank guns in knocking out T-34s early in Barbarossa?
Chieftain's hatch Kv-1 and KV-2 we all is waiting for the true king of tanks
Nice analysis! Very informative.
Okay early T-34 was not the best tank ever but it was still an upgrade overall from most Soviet interwar tanks. Not a wonder weapon but a good enough tank that was ready for large scale production after a few tweaks. Not the best possible tank for the time but the best available for local production to meet urgent demand.
That's like calling a crowbar and upgrade from a twig as a weapon of war. Earlier Soviet tank design were even more atrocious. The Soviets wouldn't develop and all-around capable vehicle without crippling design deficiencies or other woeful inadequacies until the T-34/85.
@@_ArsNova well a crowbar is an upgrade. If they had a couple extra years they would have built a better tank, but they got invaded and made the best of what they had. Mediocre quality overall but enough armor and enough gun to be serviceable. If they were lucky it would even get to move around a bit before breaking down. You might need a hammer to change gears and a prayer to hit the target but way better than nothing.
could you do light tanks comparisons between some of the nations? would be very interested to hear what you have to say on the topic. Keep up the good work too btw, always love watching your vids.