That One Article

There is an article that is rather common in certain circles, "mythbusting" the idea that the T-34 was any good. Ignoring the quest of arguing about which tank is "best" (a futile one, according to the late Mihail Svirin) , the article itself is full of utter nonsense. It is often linked, and the nonsense spreads, forcing me to take action and bust the article, so to speak.

The T-34 was supposed to be the first tank that employed sloped armor. This characteristic meant that the armor protection was significantly enhanced, compared to straight armor. However French tanks of that period like the SOMUA S35 and the Renault R35 also had sloped armor.

No it wasn't. The T-34 wasn't even the first Soviet tank with sloped armour. The first such tank was the BT-SV, whose creation documents make no attempt to mask the inspiration from the FCM 36.

The limited space not only affected crew performance but turned the T-34 into a deathtrap. A US study from the Korean War (based on the T-34/85 that was roomier than the T-34/76) concluded that due to the limited internal space a penetration by an A/T round usually led to the destruction of the tank and loss of 75% of the crew. In the Sherman the figure was only 18%.

Poor citation style, but hey, at least he tried. Or, I mean, he might have, seeing as how Soviet figures for actual tank crew losses are much lower than that. ~90% of Soviet tank division manpower losses came from tank riders, and 2/3rds of those "losses" were light wounds (Armour protection of T-34 tanks 1941-1945, Zeughaus, 2007). Oh yeah, did I mention the Soviets counted wounded men as losses? Because the author sure didn't. In addition, the Soviet findings in WWII were quite different. "Brief report on the combat damage to tanks and SPGs of the 1st Belorussian Front": "From one shot, the amount of percentage of destroyed tanks was: ... T-34: 33.4%...the T-34 shows exceptional resilience". In my book, 33.4% is not "usually". To compare, the 38.4% of Shermans were lost from one hit, and 38.4% of "German tanks, usually PzV".

Looking at other sources, the survivability of Sherman and T-34 tanks and crews was comparable. Far from the cherry-picked 75% figure from a completely different war.

German tanks like the Pz III and Pz IV had a conventional hull design but they also used slope in the middle part of their front hull armor. The new Panther tank was the first German tank to have a fully sloped hull front and sloped sides however the armor layout did not limit internal space like in the T-34.

I am interested in finding out how the Germans bypassed elementary geometry and made sloped armour that does not limit space.

The turret also suffered from a lack of space. It was so cramped that it affected movement.

All tanks' layouts affect movement. Yes, the T-34 was no Hilton, but all tanks are cramped. Such is the nature of armoured warfare. See this comparison between what the Germans and Soviets considered cramped, for instance. Additionally, German ergonomics are far from criticism free themselves.

One was the lack of turret basket (a rotating floor that moves as the turret turns) for the loader. This meant that the person loading the shells had to follow the movement of the gun and at the same time keep an eye on the floor so he doesn’t trip on the spent casings.

Wait, first the loader can't move at all, now he's running back and forth so much he can trip over shell casings? What? How? Not to mention the fact that spent shells were caught in the brass catcher and then thrown out of hatches.

A three-man turret was finally introduced with the T-34/85 in March ’44.

T-34-85 production began in 1943, and was far from the first try at a 3-man turret on the T-34 chassis.

A German test of tank pitching motion at the Kummersdorf testing facility (1km undulated track) showed that the T-34 had the worst stability compared to the Pz IV, Tiger, Sherman and Panther.

Except not really. The provided chart has a prototype PzIV marked as having highest instability. Additionally, the "T-34" is not a T-34, but a "T-34 Sturmg.", likely a SU-85.

The Christie suspension was a technological dead-end and the Aberdeen evaluation says: ‘The Christie's suspension was tested long time ago by the Americans, and unconditionally rejected’. It was replaced in postwar Soviet tanks with the torsion bar system, same as the T-34M and T43 prototypes intended to replace the T-34 during the war.

Now let's look at words written about the Christie suspension by an actual American: "Only the USSR exploited the genius of the American tank designer, Walther Christie, whose inventions underwrote World War II's best tank, the Soviet T-34" (CIA DTIC document 0001066239). Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose. Also, the Americans loved the Christie tank, but couldn't get any funding to buy them. I guess after the Soviets had good luck, they got upset and pretended they didn't want Christie tanks anyway.

Initially the powerful V-2 engine (500hp) could not be used to the fullest due to the 4-speed gearbox. Changing gears required excessive force on behalf of the driver. The T-34 could use the 4th gear only on a paved road, thus the max speed over cross-country was theoretically 25 km/h but in practice it was only 15km/h because changing from 2nd gear to 3rd required superhuman strength.

Seeing as how the T-34 was effectively driven by malnourished teenagers, women, and one-armed heavily wounded men, it is highly unlikely that operation of the tank required superhuman strength. Once again, the force applied to control the tank was comparable to the Sherman.

The caliber numbers look impressive. After all the main German tank of 1941-43 Pz III had a 50 mm gun and that of 1943-45 Pz IV had 75mm. However Soviet tank guns suffered from low velocity leading to poor penetration and accuracy at long ranges.

I guess being as accurate as a Tiger and capable of penetrating any German tank at 2 kilometers is not enough? Such high standards!

German combat reports show that T-34 tanks had serious difficulties in navigating terrain and identifying targets. The problem was that the vision devices made it hard for the driver and the gunner to see what was happening.

Unlike, say, the Panther's gunner, the T-34's gunner had a full panoramic sight available to him, in addition to the gunsight. The T-34-85 retained this sight, while also giving the commander a cupola. As for the driver, the alleged unusability of his vision devices is countered by the fact that this was the crewman who corrected fire on tanks without a dedicated gunner.

The T-34 ‘1943 version’ had a larger turret and a German style cupola.
The T-34/85, introduced in March ’44, had a new large turret and the German style cupola.

Germany does not own the concept of a commander's cupola. For instance, the cupola on the T-34-85 was based on British observation devices. If the author wanted a "German style cupola", he would have to look no further than the T-50.

The majority of vehicles in 1941 were lost due to equipment malfunction.

I address this point here in great detail. The long story short is that most of these vehicles were either broken down to begin with and had no parts to fix them or simply lacked the fuel or ammunition to do any fighting.

The evacuation and relocation of industrial facilities combined with the loss of skilled workers could only lead to the fall of reliability.

It certainly could, except that skilled workers were given priority in evacuation, and the People's Commissariat of Tank Production was formed with the exact objective of maintaining and increasing tank quality. If you look at the warranty periods for T-34 tanks and their engines, you will note that they consistently increase as the war goes on.

There were constant problems with the gearbox and the engine filters. The Aberdeen evaluators noted:

What the Aberdeen evaluators didn't note is that you have to put oil into an oil bath filter.

Apparently the air filter problem was never fixed. A US study of a captured T-34/85 from the Korean War (built in 1945) noted ‘Wholly inadequate engine intake air cleaners could be expected to allow early engine failure due to dust intake and the resulting abrasive wear. Several hundred miles in very dusty operation would probably be accompanied by severe engine power loss.’

Several hundred miles in dusty operation would be accompanied by engine power loss in any tank. Thankfully, when properly maintained, T-34s could travel for 2000-2500 km on average.

The mental image of the T-34 travelling hundreds of kilometers without stopping is fantasy.

Tanks certainly stop overnight for inspection and maintenance. Sweeping fast operations like the Vistula-Oder offensive would certainly dismiss the idea that a prolonged march by T-34 tanks is a fantasy.

The T-34 tested at the Aberdeen centre was built at the best factory using materials of superior quality but its engine stopped working after 72.5 hours.

The T-34 received by the Americans was built in early 1942 or late 1941, as evidenced by the old model of turret and air filters. The author conveniently ignores the fact that this was a heavily used refurbished vehicle by the time it reached American hands. The British, who received a new T-34 for inspection, did not have these complaints.

If you look at a new tank, it's expected to put out over 200 engine hours, and often put out more in skilled hands.

According to the head of the Armored Directorate of the Red Army N.Fedorenko, the average mileage of the T-34 to overhaul during the war, did not exceed 200 kilometers. This was considered adequate since the T-34’s service life at the front was considerably less. For example in 1942 only 66km.

Another instance of the author citing nothing in his assertions. Service life at the front lines is different than service life driving in a straight line, as it is characterized by being shot to bits, especially true in the fierce fighting of 1942. If the author bothered to look at summer of 1943, he would have found that this service life leaped to 2000 km.

Still there are examples of T-34’s breaking down during assaults even late in the war. For instance the 5th Guards Tank army in 1943 lost as much as 15% of its tanks during its march to Prokhorovka. In August ’43 the 1st Tank army lost 50% of its tanks due to malfunction.

"The technical losses field also includes vehicles stuck in mud, even for a short time, and tanks requiring repairs, where one tank could undergo several repairs, and count several times. Tanks needing medium or heavy repairs are also counted. As a result, the amount of losses is larger than the total amount of tanks."

As late as the second half of 1944 tank units tried to replace engines with more than 30 hours of operation before a major attack.

It is common practice to ensure that the tanks are in the best shape possible before a prolonged march. I don't know why the author finds this surprising.

There is also the question of standardization. The T-34 was produced at several factories. Each factory produced a slightly different variant. Could spare parts from Nizhny Tagil be used on a T-34 from Gorky? Doubtful.

Standardization of parts in Russia between factories dates back to the Imperial days when Sergei Mosin famously dumped parts from five different factories in a bag, shuffled them around, and produced five functional rifles. Looking at photographs of T-34s, it is very easy to see mutts with turrets from one factory, hulls from another, and a mishmash of road wheels.

The concept of ‘cheap’ or ‘expensive’ has no meaning in a command economy. The reason being that the pricing mechanism is controlled by the government. If Moscow wanted a weapon to cost x amount of roubles it would cost x amount. Command decisions were made at the top and did not take into consideration free market concepts like return on investment, opportunity cost etc etc

Cost was absolutely an important consideration from top to bottom in the Soviet Union in general and the Red Army in particular. Only someone with a very shallow understanding of manufacturing can think otherwise.

http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2014/10/t-40-cost.html
http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2014/11/bt-7m-cost.html
http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2013/05/tank-plans-for-1941.html
http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2013/07/t-50-factory-174.html
http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2013/07/is-2-vs-big-cats-at-lvov.html

This makes it impossible to directly compare weapon systems by looking at the official prices. In general trying to compare the costs of weapon systems built in different countries under a command economy is very hard and prone to errors. Even using other indicators such as man-hours and input of raw materials can be misleading.

The author makes this assertion, but then does not back it up with examples of how a German man-hour might differ from a Soviet man-hour.

Just to give an example the ‘cheap’ T-34 had an aluminum engine. The Germans with more industrial assets than the SU and significantly higher aluminum production reached the conclusion that they could not provide their own tanks with an aluminum engine. It was simply too costly for them. This shows the different capabilities and priorities that countries have.

While bashing the Red Army in general and the T-34 specifically, drawing attention to drawbacks of German industry seems conterproductive.

The Germans also took advantage of gigantism when they built the Nibelungenwerk factory in Sankt Valentin, Austria. This greatly expanded Pz IV production.
They also built the ‘expensive’ Panther in huge numbers (for their standards) in the period 1943-45. It was not the ‘cost’ of the Panther that allowed them to do so but the industrial assets assigned to it.

The author uses the controversial "One, two, many" counting system in order to establish that making your tank simple to build does not help the war effort.

The Americans built staggering numbers of M4 tanks in their tank arsenals, not because the M4 was intrinsically cheap but because gigantic facilities were provided for its construction.

The fact that the M4 was cheap to produce was also very helpful.

When looking into whether a weapon system is cheap or expensive the price is only one factor. The other one and I think the more important one is its performance. Is it better to build 100 cheap tanks or 50 expensive ones? The price difference might be significant but that about the other costs?
100 cheap tanks will need twice the crews and twice the fuel as the 50 expensive ones. They will also need twice the spare parts. If 50 tanks require 25 supply trucks then the 100 will need 50. You get the idea.

What the author forgets is that bigger tanks with less fuel efficient engines need more trucks too, as well as more maintenance personnel. For example, a German heavy tank battalion used about twice as many trucks and twice as many maintenance men per tank as a Soviet heavy tank brigade did.

Then there is the aspect of losses. A cheap but poorly designed tank system will suffer more losses than an expensive but well armed and armored one.

The more tanks you build, the more tanks you lose. The author forgets that the biggest enemy of a tank is not other tanks, it is AT guns and mud.

Machines can be mass produced but what about trained crews? A tank force that has limited crew casualties will have many tank aces and even the rest will be able to perform well in combat. On the other hand a country that builds large numbers of inferior tanks will lose them quickly, together with their crews. This will create a downward spiral as inexperienced crews will make up the majority of crews and thus severely limit the capability of the armored force.

As evidenced by dirt-poor quality of German tank crews by 1945.

Another myth is that there were hordes of T-34’s attacking the German formations. A simple look at the Soviet tank strength at various points in the war shows that the T-34 was not the most important tank. The light tanks T-60 and T-70 and the tank-destroyer SU-76 made up the majority of AFV’s in 1941-42 and even in 1943-45 the T-34 comprised roughly half of the Soviet frontline AFV force. In summer 1941 there were only 967 T-34’s in the total strength of 22.000 tanks.

As mentioned before, the amount of anti-tank guns and man-portable anti-tank weapons built eclipses the production of any AFV.

Just a bit under 45.000 lost during the war! War-winning indeed…

Again, the author somehow asserts that total

Total Soviet AFV losses in 1941-45 were 96.600. That’s not a typo. Almost one hundred thousand vehicles.

Those losses, as mentioned above, include tanks sent to the factory for any reason, including routine maintenance such as engine replacement. Compared to the German practice of counting a tank as lost only when it has completely burned out and is no longer recoverable, this will of course create an unflattering comparison. This is a fact that has been known for quite a while that the author chooses to ignore.

For comparison’s sake a German document posted at AHF lists tank losses in the East from 1941-44 as 15.673 and total AFV losses (tanks, Stug, self-propeled guns etc) as 23.802.

As mentioned above, a German tank that was knocked out and then subsequently repaired does not count as a loss. A Soviet one does.

The German models Tiger and Panther were greatly superior to the T-34 in armor and firepower.

Armor and firepower win tank on-tank duels, not wars or even battles.

Despite its theoretical inferiority the PzIII was able to fight against the T-34.

And despite its theoretical inferiority, the T-34 was able to fight against Tigers and Ferdinands. Life is not a video game, the tank with the most attack points doesn't win.

The upgraded PzIV was superior to the T-34 in internal layout, firepower, turret basket, optics, commander’s cupola, radio in every vehicle and its frontal hull armor could withstand the F-34 rounds. A Soviet study in 1943 admitted that the Pz IV was superior to their tank, assigning it a combat value of 1.27 to the T-34’s 1.16 (with the Pz III being the base 1.0).

As usual, no reference of any kind is given for the origin of this mysterious report and no methodology is described.

This allowed the loader to use them quickly but it had the downside that a penetration of the turret led to the explosion of the shells and loss of the tank.

Penetration of the turret generally means loss of the tank, explosion of the shells or no. The author also conveniently ignores the fact that the Germans copied this feature on the King Tiger, and then swiftly disallowed the use of the ready rack due to the danger of detonation.

If the T-34 was as good as propaganda made it out to be then it should have led to great Soviet victories in 1941-42.

The author previously mentioned that the T-34 was far from the core of the Soviet armoured force in 1941 and 1942, and yet now he holds the design responsible for a lack of great victories. Additionally, he ignores the great victory in, say, the Battle of Moscow, which no one in the entire world expected at the time.

The ‘best tank of WWII’ suffered horrific losses against those tanks and even the updated version T-34/85 could not bridge the gap.

The author hammers away at the "losses = bad" point continuously, conveniently ignoring the difference in loss recording.

On paper the Soviet types looked superior but on the field it was the US and British types that won the battles.

While Lend-Lease tanks were certainly useful to the Red Army, crediting them with all Soviet victories is a bit much.

That battle was a repeat of WWII when the T-34’s charged the field only to be slaughtered by German tanks from a distance.

The author's idea of combat performance comes from Hollywood as opposed to any actual history books, which is indicated by lumping "WWII" into one big homogeneous engagement.

The performance of the T-72 which was supposed to be the tank that would win a hot war for the Russians was similar. In the Gulf Wars Iraqi T-72’s were easily destroyed by modern M1 Abrams tanks from great distances.

Modern tank with well trained crew and a well backed army defeats an old export model tank with a poorly trained crew and a poor army? You don't say.

The T-34 legacy led the Russians to invest in quantity over quality. A mistake that their Allies paid dearly.

Yes, the Western Allies had such a poor time with 80% of the Wehrmacht dying in the East.