Your favorite Russian tank

Da t-18 is teh shizzles, homie!

In my eyes its the most beautiful tank of them all...

 

mines one of those multi turret ones. i think it either the t-100 or t-35

 

Right. Er, might I ask how?

"Big is beautiful"? No, can't be; it isn't big. You can't really accuse it of smooth lines either. Or a hugely impressive barrel. "Beauty is functionality, functionality is beauty"? Not really, this thing probably couldn't fight a polar bear without getting scratched. So whatever in or on this tank is beautiful?

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

I think that it looks a little like a Dalek with that turret, but hey

 

Not a bad tank.

Looks like its directly from WW1 though

 

The beauty of the T-18 lies in many things.

Its not the biggest tank, it does not have any smooth lines, it wasnt very effective - but it looks like an armored frog, and to me that is beautiful.

It cannot directly explain why it is beautiful, but it is.

 

I love your description!

 

What an utterly strange turret design. Neither the gun nor the MG is the front side... It doesn't seem very practical to those using view slits in the turret (i.e. the gunner).

 

Plus I doubt you could use both at once - the breeches muct have been awfully close to each other.

 

It probably had a hand cranked turret as well... oh the beauty of such rustic simplicty, defined by a backdrop of heavily armored amphibians and uneffective military hardware... simply... beautiful.

 

Because the Frog is the most badass creature on earth, thats why.

 

My favorite WWII tanks served in the Red Army was, you guess it, the Shermans. Imagine the demoralizing effect it has on the Germans, knowing that the US can pump out 50,000 Shermans and ship them half-way around the world to the Russians, along with the canned meat of course.

 

I don't think they minded the few thousand Shermans as much as the tens of thousands of Russian tanks that were produced right there under their noses without a long line of supply they can disrupt in any way. The assumption that the average tank gunner will conclude from meeting a Sherman in the field in Russia that his country has lost the Battle for the Atlantic is a bit far-fetched, I think, even though it certainly is significant.

 

T-34 - Period.

 

Definitely a well-supported opinion... I agree with you, but I'd still like to know why you like the T34, Greg?

 

I'd go for the T-34 or the IS 1 as well. But that's just because I think there's a lack of any better!

By the way Liang, concerning the lend- lease shermans being shipped to Russia: Do you know whether these transports might have been attacked by U-boats? I mean they were all over the globe, so why not there. Any idea, perhaps?

 

The Western Allies lost 58 ships to all causes trying to supply the USSR through the norhtern ports. The ships lost were 7.2% of the total sent to the USSR or about ten times the overall loss rate in the Atlantic (2654 lost, 0.7% of all sailings).
Material losses included 5,000 tanks (of all types, not just Shermans), 7,000 aircraft and more than 200,000 tons of other material.

Edit: I see a retraction coming here. I'm trying to find out how many tanks were lend leased to the Soviets, but somehow 5,000 being lost at sea seems rather high. I mean 5,000 tanks is enough for around 100 battalions or about 30 divisions.

 

the T-18 is a copy of the ft-18 right
:bang:

 

i dont know
:bang:

 

No, it wasn´t. :bang:

It was the first indigenous Soviet design. :bang:

But probably influenced by the experience the Soviets had from copying the FT. :bang: