Myth buster threads: comments

I have updated the Tiger I post a bit (added the weight issue, and amended the kill ratio thing a little)

I might post a link in it to here as well, just for interest.

 

Great.

Good stuff Ricky.

 

I'm actually posting on the T34 mythbuster thread from Roel

I've read of the T34 belching black smoke when the diesel was reved up
giving their position in the gullies of the flat ukrainian plain .
A russian tankist in an interview said than fast movements over bad
ground would often result in broken bones amongst the crew and the loss
of the escort infantry riding " bare back "

of course the T34 wasn't the best in 44 but the backbone of the panzer
arm by early-middle 44 was still the old PZKWIV , hardly cutting hedge stuff
it all boil down to political decisions on what is possible , desirable and
effective , the sherman was a good infantry tank , but honestly , for
mixing it with the top stuff, a fair amount of optimism , balls
and a fine sense of manoeuvre was required

 

That mythbuster was made solely to point out that the T34 is often overrated. I did not wish to imply that it couldn't stand up to what remained the backbone of the German armoured divisions till the end - the Panzer IV. It could, but the Sherman was progressively updated to meet this task in better ways than the T34 ever was.

 

I'm curious to know if there were russian prototypes of medium tanks
being put through their paces ,
they had the JS3 who came up in production around march-april 45 ,
but I'm not aware of a medium tank ,
I supose than they left good enough alone , the war would soon be over
and for infantry tank availibility in large numbers , reliability , spares ,
ease of maintenance are more important than some millimeters extra of
penetration .

 

what about the T-44? http://www.nemo.nu/ibisportal/5pansar/index.htm you have to scroll down on left hand side.

 

A better link.. : http://battlefield.ru/index.php?option= ... 50&lang=en

 

Yes it is but that site has not been very how do you say it... Reliable, I mean the site isnt always up when I go to favourites and click on the link.

 

thanks for the links guys

This tank looks so good , its a pity it didn't had a fair crack at the panzer

I note than the soviet army also thought than mere performances wasn't
enought to create a mess of the production , training , supply, repair .
fully consistent of the mass production over quality point of view .

 

You say that the T-34 was not upgraded in armour, which is true, but what if they really didnt need to? Look at the facts, production was high, the tank could take on the majority of the enemy tanks if not all, also they could have just created a tank whose purpose was more of a breakthrought tank rather than MBT, oh wait they already had how silly of me. "If something is not broken than don't fix it" well I think that really sums it up.

Well my point is that the Russians really did not need to upgrade the armour of the T-34.

On another note I am not sure about this but wasnt teh chasis of the IS-2 based on the T-34 chasis? Thats a legitame question not liekt he one above.

 

i'll check , but I think it was more a bastard child of the failed KV2 ,KV85
JS1 , there was a shamble in the designs
all the project were occuring as the tigers and panthers were coming on
line.... the design specifications kept going up .

does any one has heard the story about the T34-85 being nicknamed
mickey mouse by the germans ??

 

jeaguear I think you are right about the KV chasis, but why mention the KV-85? wasnt that th one with the flamethrower? Or am I thinking of the OT-85

That story is on Achtung Panzer!, it is because on the T-34-43 when the two hatches were up, the silloute reminded them of mickey Mouse, wether the Germans really called it that, I do not know.

 

Actually I found what i was thinking of KV-8 and KV-8s(thosese were the 1s with flamethrowers).



http://www.achtungpanzer.com/t34.htm

Actually when I was looking thought captured tanks gallary i found a couple pics of a Sherman Firefly.

 

Probably not, but that means it can't be considered the best Allied tank of WW2. An upgrade would not have been strategically necessary, but I reckon that if the Russian tank design staff would have listened to crew complaints, like American tank designers did, they would have at least doubled the armour in the course of the war. As well as enlarging the crew compartment.

"Mickey Mouse" was a nickname given to pre-1942 models of the T34-76, IIRC. Later models didn't have the distinctive hatches required to make a Mickey Mouse-like silhouette.

The JS series tanks was based on the KV series chassis. It can clearly be seen on all pictures of these tanks: six smaller roadwheels and a set of track return rollers instead of the T34's Christie suspension with five full-height road wheels.

The KV-85 was a KV-1 with an 85mm gun, a stopgap measure before the arrival of the superior JS-1 which was in turn almost immediately replaced by the JS-2.

 

was it possible to upgrade the T-34 even more ?
I think the suspension was at it's limit in carying weight..so doubling it's armour was not possible....

 

Darn I thought the KV- 1 had a 76mm gun looks like im wrong again. the 76.2 L-11gun I thgought that was the aramant of the KV-1, and than later they switched to 76.2mm F-32

 

That's absolutely true. As far as I know, the KV-1, KV-1A and KV-1B all had the L11, after which the new versions (notably C and E) carried the F32. The KV-85 was a different type altogether, like I said.

Ome_Joop: I hadn't heard that, it might be true. Then again they did put a significantly bigger and more heavily armoured turret on the exact same chassis in 1944 - suppose they would have gone for armour upgrades on the 76 instead?

 

Why not get those mythbuster topics posted on the site as an article? Just a suggestion but its not like I go to the site the music annoys me.

 

ActuallyI think we were talking about kill ratios? or SHermans to Tiger or soemthing liekt that. I think it was in this topic.

I think this would be a pretty solid link for information.

http://www.alanhamby.com/losses.html

Two of the sources is a former Panther comman Dr. Wolfgang Schnieder or so claims the Discover Chanel......

 

The numbers given seem fairly credible, putting the total at a little over 3:1 against the Russians. I do believe this was more or less the ratio we ended up with in our discussion?