No.9
The engineers behind the t-34 understood the logistical struggles of maintaining entire battalions of tanks where before they only existed in handfuls. Such an exponential expansion of the deployment of tanks, in tandem with the increasing complexity of tank parts and intricacies of tank design, meant that the modern war effort would require logistical feats never before preformed by any army. Innovations of the t-34 would include everything from sloping armor to increase deflection and grazing rates from enemy shells without substantially increasing production cost to simplifying turret design while not stripping functionality to maintain the maximal performance and accessibility while cutting down on logistical profile. The general design ethos of the USSR was to think smarter so they could fight harder, and longer. One of the innovations was its tank treads - rather than being fully bolted on both sides, only one side was bolted, and a raised metal plate was installed to prevent these bolts from slipping out from their position, decreasing the work needed to replace tank tracks while still maintaining full functionality.
This industrious and pragmatic design philosophy is what drove the war machine of the Red Army, making its constituent components consistent and interchangeable, and to make such work easy to preform. Any man or woman, from Siberian tribespeople to West Russian urbanites, could fight with equal skill and capability under the red banner. Meanwhile every German vehicle or weapon required specially trained crews, specially trained engineers, specially trained gunsmiths, all required to jump through the hoops of different corporate designs and methods to keep their weapons of war functional. Where the Germans had tanks so finnicky that only 50% of spare parts would be accepted in any given German tank, you could disassemble 100 T-34s, mix up the parts, and assemble 100 of them again, and they'd all run equally well. In a war of logistics, this streamlining and accessibility is what allowed for the USSR's tanks to stand against the Germans even with numerical inferiority, because of shorter time out of action for logistical or repair work. As the number of T-34s increased, they started to geometrically outnumber them. then, exponentially outnumber them.
Simplified and streamlined designs with accessibility and consistency will win out against the most "advanced" and "complex" of designs, because war is not waged in a way that the individual statistics of the unit in question matters as much as its capacity for rapid and consistent deployment while proficiently preforming its field duties. All 20 of the T-34s ready for action were worth far more to the Soviets than the 20 tigers which were 4 miles behind the battle lines getting serviced by repair crews to the Germans, no matter how much advanced armor or big guns you slapped onto the tiger. The ubiquity of the ease of use of these machines of war allowed for the easy training and massed deployment of legions of specialized soldiers and vehicle crews for the USSR, while the Nazi's ranks endlessly squabbled to poach what few trained soldiers there were that could field the different vehicles of their service branches.
These are the logistical methods by which the USSR won out against the fascist menace - not by creating an insular and superficially "elite" corps of soldiers, but creating an army by and for the common man, dictated by practicality and ubiquity. The Red Army stood, and its legacy still stands, as that of the Army of the People.
No.10
Good post overall OP, except for a few things.
>Innovations of the t-34 would include everything from sloping armor to increase deflection and grazing rates from enemy shells
The Soviets weren't the first to introduce sloped armor (even French FT-17s from WW1 had it in some places). The concept of steeper angles increasing protection was already well known, but it was avoided because it decreased the space of the crew compartment by quite a bit, making it harder to operate. Soviet tank crews in WW2 often complained by T-34s being extremely cramped, and some even preferred lend lease Shermans for this reason. Still though, the trade off was better protection for lower cost, so even if the crews were uncomfortable they were still safer.
>you could disassemble 100 T-34s, mix up the parts, and assemble 100 of them again, and they'd all run equally well
I'm a little skeptical of this, since certain Soviet firearms of the period have the opposite tendency, and were notoriously finicky if you tried to mix parts from different factories or even with different serial numbers. I've experienced this first hand when trying to fit SKS parts together. Idk if that applies to vehicles though.
No.11
this reminds me of how the soviets found a broken down, abandoned tiger tank in a ditch long before they ever saw one in actual combat allowing the soviets to prepare countermeasures
>>10>but it was avoided because it decreased the space of the crew compartment by quite a biti believe the soviet solution to this was to literally just hire smaller men for tank crews lol, and they were fully aware of the T-34s issues but were not able to address them properly (T-34M) due to the war breaking out, and once it was over they had better tanks anyway
an interesting thing to note that whilst the germans were very impressed by the T-34 and it was statistically superior to many german tanks (to the point where when the soviets were reviewing the german tanks a few months before operation barbarossa, they were confused and thought they were looking at older tanks), its poor ergonomics, visibility and so on made them pump out a lot less shells than one may expect
No.12
People really need to read up on soviet military doctrine and understand how it relies upon dialectical materialism as a way to make the art of war into a science. Hell, this is what went into their engineering as well. They learned from their enemies, studied them tirelessly, and often figured out not only how to reverse engineer and internalize what they did, but to do it BETTER.
The Avtomat Kalashnikova is an example of this, insofar as it combines the best aspects of WW2-era firearm technology used by many sources (a lot of its internal mechanisms are based on the M1 Garand) into a revolutionary new weapons system. “Nazis did it first”, as many wehraboos would like to claim, is a cope. The soviets took those sturmgewehrs and made them into viable instruments of war.
No.13
>>9<war strategy oversimplifiedNazis : make battle tanks that shoot projectiles
Soviets : make battle factory that shoots tanks that shoot projectiles
No.14
>>12>People really need to read up on soviet military doctrine and understand how it relies upon dialectical materialism as a way to make the art of war into a science.was always interested in warfare studies like this, any recomendations to read ?.
No.16
>>12>>15The Nazis and Soviets arrived from the assault rifle from two different directions - Hitler had always dreamed of an army equipped with the most accurate rifles, including wanting to revert largely to bolt-actions and equip every soldier with a telescopic sight (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBstpqUAniw) which was converted into the StG by the German military after they realized the impracticability of the idea - a prime example of the constant conflict and strife that plagued the Nazi war effort. Of course by the time that the Army had proven their design concepts, after years of purposeful delays and sabotage by Hitler and his general staff, it was already well too late, and many of the design failures of the StG were well baked into the cake.
The Soviets, meanwhile, approached from the opposite angle - the SMGs of the war had proven to be useful, not only in their expected duties of room-clearing, but also in more generalized combat due to the rapidly shrinking engagement distances of war. This proved the viability of smaller cartridges in open warfare being expanded not purely for killing, but for tactical utility like suppression, which had traditionally been relegated to crew-operated machine guns.
tl;dr the Germans tried to arrive at assault rifles from scaled down rifles, the USSR arrived at it from scaled up SMGs, and the USSR's design philosophy was the one which was most true to the tactical utility that assault rifles would come to have.
No.17
>>14This one’s from a ukrainian lieutenant colonel for a US military academy, but it may be interesting
No.18
>>16yes, soviets became a master of urban warfare (battle of konisberg, battle of berlin) which germany had dredded in the eastern front and they are responsible for a lot of modern-day tactics too
an amusing thing of note is that the StG was designated as a SMG so hitler would go through with it, and when hitler found out he had halted the program and only allowed it to continue a year later for evaluation purposes
No.19
>>16Arguably with the development and small-scale deployment of the Federov the Russians (under the Tsar at least) were more aware of the necessity of the development of lower-powered automatics that were between the submachine gun and the rifle of the era. The 7.62x39mm was also under development for quite a while before being put into the SKS, suggesting the concept of the intermediate round was not unique to the Germans of the time.
No.20
>>19The Americans were also approaching something similar with their .30 Carbine round.
No.21
>>15Interesting but outdated gun
No.22
>>18>yes, soviets became a master of urban warfare (battle of konisberg, battle of berlin) which germany had dredded in the eastern front and they are responsible for a lot of modern-day tactics tooYeah, Soviets took Konigsberg in like 3 days (after a siege, admittedly) while Nazis propagandized it as a Stalingrad level turnaround to be.
No.23
>>16Nazis war equipment "doctrine" was based around malthusianist understanding of resources, while Soviets weren't constrained by such foolish notion. While Soviets did heavy artillery barrages all the damn time, every time, Nazis stockpiled all their ammo for one big attack, which was first weathered, then pushed back. They had tanks they tried to make reliable and overengineered, similar approach to planes and rockets and guns. Wunderwaffe mentality results in huge profits for the bourgeoisie, but not much military victories. Same shit is happening to the US military today, by the way: it's all extremely pricey, riddled with problems, and it can't compete with functional militaries' equipment.
No.24
>>10>Soviet tank crews in WW2 often complained by T-34s being extremely cramped, and some even preferred lend lease Shermans for this reason.What Shermans? Any actual proof that Shermans saw the frontlines? I haven't seen even a single photo of Shermans on Soviet frontlines
No.25
>>24they were present mostly at the war's start, but they were there.
No.28
>>27the answer is neither: the soviets just had a much wider definition of "casualty" or "destroyed" than the Germans, who often flubbed the numbers to look better to their superiors as they were in political and inter-service branch competitions. The USSR had few such concerns and were more plain with their logistical needs and shortcomings, hence why they look "worse" statistically. The question you should always ask for any statistics before anything is that of methodology.
No.29
>>28the germans were also not always right, often supposedly encircled and destroyed soviet divisions would show up days later at the front line like nothing happened
No.1053
I’ve noticed a new movement recently with the revision of a lot of military equipment during WW2. Especially in regards to the T-34 tank. There’s probably hundreds of people half assed military enthusiasts that tried to do this as if equipment quality has that much matter in anyway if you cannot put it in production.
https://youtu.be/CIZ6PFYUM5oDo these claims hold up to scrutiny or it’s another new wave of porky historiography like the last time they did this to play up lend lease to inflate the US egos?
No.1054
>>1053Let me give you some straight talk. T-34 was an adequate weapon that did it's job. It had flaws and the USSR were aware of these flaws. See for example T-34M and T-44 as updates to correct the flaws of T-34. For the sake of maintaining production however, the updates to T-34 (except for the 85mm gun update) were not put into production. Even after WWII had ended, the USSR continued to produce T-34s instead of switching over to a new tank. They kept up T-34 production until almost 1950. Obviously, the USSR valued having actual equipment in the field over having the best equipment. The were certainly capable of producing good equipment but their leadership chose to prioritize keeping the front lines supplied over suffering production slowdowns form upgrades, at least for tanks.
Contrast tank production to aircraft production where the USSR did produce several different designs over the course of the war. Why was that the case? What different between tanks and aircraft?
No.1055
who cares. military equipment just does the job. hobbyists (fetishists) just need a distraction from their sad lives so they pick up stuff like this
No.1060
>>1059Spookton is one of the worst US military shill out there. Most are sourced in a single book he read on certain subjects. Sometimes worse than even TIK when it comes to biases. Being a furry on top of that doesn’t help.
No.1061
>>1060Yep he's a massive freeaboo, he made a video against the guy who wrote Pentagon Wars, and while there are a ton of inaccuracies that he actually could have pointed out, all he did was ad hominems about the group he belongs to having some crazy people in it… because he can't actually argue that the points about the Bradley's development being utter shit, overpriced, and a Frankenstein monster from 3 decades in development are false, because the public records for the event exist and if anything are more absurd than both the book and movie(The Hotplates on the BTR-70 is actually true and it's even more hilarious in context since the missile's big schtick was being able to independently target vehicles with low thermal signatures)
No.1062
>>1054>T-34 was an adequate weapon that did it's jobThis gets brought up a lot but it's really massive misconception. Let's take a look at the T-34's development. It was created as a side project by Koshkin and then decided to impress Stalin with it by driving all the way to Moscow… and then got told to drive it again to Kubinka all the way up by the Finnish border. And he did that without any spare parts or breakdowns, the T-34 was incredibly reliable but people keeping pointing out that it wasn't but keep forgetting that EVERY TANK IN EARLY WW2 WAS UNRELIABLE, having to the exhaust every 400km was nothing relatively at the time. This is also exacerbated by how the Soviets kept track of replacements and logistics, if a tank just had a faulty part that inconveniences the crew, it's written as a casualty in the logs so that the replacement parts can be brought up, because the Soviets had a very good supply chain for spare parts where they bring up the amount of parts according to the casualties. This means that numbers seem massively inflated compared to the Germans who were loath to ever write something down as breaking down or a casualty because of scarcity of parts and not wanting to admit they lost a tank. This bleeds over in statistics in general, as the Soviets counted partisan and civilian causalities as part of their war loss figures but the Germans didn't consider Volkssturm casualties as real casualties, hence the disparity.
But anyways, for its time the T-34 was far above average, the early problems were inconveniences that are exaggerated to make it look like the tank was useless, again ignoring that all contemporary tanks had similar problems because that was just the limit of technology at the time, and were fixed easily. The real big draw of the T-34 was that it was better than anything else at the time while being simpler and cheaper to make, as in even with a 76mm gun and 45mm with an effective thickness of 80mm+(most tanks at the time had 30-50mm full stop) it was cheaper than the alternative T-50 which only had a 47mm gun, by all accounts it was an improvement over anything at the time in all aspects. And then the Germans invaded while they were jigging the factories so there were only handfuls in the field, and again people keep pointing to the rushed out units of proof of being "inferior quality". Except uh the Soviet strategy was to send the shittiest units to the front, since their strategy was to halt the Germans at a preordained line from Stalingrad to Moscow, yeah that was preplanned, and behind that line was a 'secret' reorganized army, to give perspective by the end of 1941, in the middle of the German's conquest and while the Soviets were moving the majority of their industry they were producing 12-15 000 T-34s compared to the total production of German tanks of 5-7000… and that's the Soviets at their lowest point. So the trickle of units to the front was always just enough to slow the Germans down and was the leftovers that they didn't need for the reorganized army behind the lines. So the 'real' Red Army which was behind the Volga at Stalingrad that ended up doing the pincer was fully equipped with proper quality T-34s and nobody ever talks about it, they always just point to the early models that were essentially just bait for the Germans. It's like saying the Sherman was made out of rubber because of those fake ones they made for D-day to fool the Germans, it has no bearing on the overall quality of production when the Soviets themselves admit those units were the bottom of the barrel stuff meant for a delaying action.
Also sourcing for the reformed army production sourcing and production numbers at least,
No.1120
>>1062>the early problems were inconveniences that are exaggerated to make it look like the tank was useless, again ignoring that all contemporary tanks had similar problemsAlso worth noting that during Barbarossa the T-34 was just being introduced to the Red Army, so most of the tank crews had not been adequately trained in its operation, maintenance, and repair.
No.1126
>>1061Funnily enough Lazerpig is much more accurate when it comes to the Pentagon wars despite the latter also massive biases. I just don’t get anyone in their right mind would shill the Bradley. Literally a 40k tank irl.
>>1062Especially when in comparison with the Sherman which had multiple years to work out the kinks with the US being entirely safe from the war or the Panzers which were just trashy jewelry in the form of an armored vehicle.
No.1127
>>1126>Funnily enough Lazerpig is much more accurate when it comes to the Pentagon wars despite the latter also massive biases. I just don’t get anyone in their right mind would shill the Bradley. Literally a 40k tank irl.Yeah well there is a LOT wrong with pentagon wars, and is largely just skimming over issues and so ends up being an abridged overview of the whole issue with the pentagon as a whole. But while you can nitpick its details all day at the end everyone who criticizes it can't really say "Well the Bradley is actually a well designed vehicle that didn't go through a bloated production", which is why I hate Spookston's take the most because his response is essentially "Hey you know the author of Pentagon Wars? He got a drink once with a guy who thought gliders were the future of warfare, hahahaha and that's why the pentagon is perfect and we shouldn't look closer out overbudget projects like the Bradley and F-35". There used to be some Canadian officer poster back on here around 2017 who told us why Canada chose the LAV III over the Bradley and it boiled down to "it's kinda shit and doesn't do what it's supposed to" before he got whacked by the old BO for being western military.
>Especially when in comparison with the Sherman which had multiple years to work out the kinks with the US being entirely safe from the war or the Panzers which were just trashy jewelry in the form of an armored vehicle.The Sherman's development is especially funny because the M3 was supposed to be a stopgap, but then the Canadians, South Africans, and Australians that got lend leased M3s took the hull and stuck the 75mm from the hull into an enlarged turret and called it the RAM II, a training vehicle. So the US spent years developing the Sherman and it just ended up being based on the M3 chassis with a 75mm gun, while every other country that got the M3 did it in a week. I know there's a lot of details like welded vs riveted hulls, suspension etc but at the end of the day the Sherman took waaaaay too long for what it was and the US took waaaaay too long in upgrading it because they sent out the upgrades piecemeal to Europe
No.1128
>>1127Errr the centre image is the RAM btw, compare that to the M4a1 on the right. One was made by 2 guys in a garage with no training and the other was the result of the US pouring 3 years worth of development into a single tank.
No.1132
>>1127>There used to be some Canadian officer poster back on here around 2017 who told us why Canada chose the LAV III over the Bradley and it boiled down to "it's kinda shit and doesn't do what it's supposed to" before he got whacked by the old BO for being western military. Imagine being so paranoid. That’s like the Bolshevik killing all tsarist military personnel that defect to their side. So counterproductive. Organizing and exciting revolution inside the military is literally one of the more basic steps in fighting capitalism.
>The Sherman's development is especially funny because the M3 was supposed to be a stopgap, but then the Canadians, South Africans, and Australians that got lend leased M3s took the hull and stuck the 75mm from the hull into an enlarged turret and called it the RAM II, a training vehicle.Speaking of lend lease do you have any good books on the subject? It seems like one of the biggest propaganda points freedomboos latched up to recently.
No.1134
>>1131Old BO was so damn anal about posters being in the military, he'll ban anyone who said they were on service as soon as he saw them.
It was really painful to see.
No.1135
>>1132>Speaking of lend lease do you have any good books on the subject? It seems like one of the biggest propaganda points freedomboos latched up to recently.>>>/hobby/5199 There might or not be problems with it, but i do not feel qualified to about them.
No.1136
>>1131>>1132>>1134Yeah it's especially stupid when you consider that some countries have conscription, so RIP any Norwegian comrades back in the day, guess they should have just gone to jail for draft dodging if they wanted to post on leftypol according to the old BO.
>Speaking of lend lease do you have any good books on the subject? It seems like one of the biggest propaganda points freedomboos latched up to recently.Directly on the subject? No unfortunately but I do know several snippets of trivia that undermine the myths a lot. Like up until the US joined WW2 proper, all lend lease equipment had to first go to the Canadian border, have all the bullets and fuel taken out and laid alongside the tanks/planes whatever, and then at nightfall the British and Canadians had to scurry out and bring it all across the border by hand, literally dragging planes and tanks across the border to get around restrictions put in place by Congress. Furthermore, US lend lease was absurdly inflated price-wise, the UK didn't finish paying off their debt until the early 2000s because weapons like the Thompson SMG were valued at 10x their price and slapped interest on it to boot. Even funnier is that they did the same thing with the USSR but the Soviets had a neat trick up their sleeve; they paid entirely up front in gold. The Soviets didn't really know what to do with all the Tsarist gold reserves and on top of that had the Spanish gold reserves from when they were evacuated during the Spanish civil war and just used that to pay the Americans and British since they had no use for it. Even better still is that half the payment went down on the HMS Edenborough but because it had already traded hands it still counted as fully paid but the US and UK lost all the gold lmao.
No.1139
>>1136>Even funnier is that they did the same thing with the USSR but the Soviets had a neat trick up their sleeve; they paid entirely up front in gold. The Soviets didn't really know what to do with all the Tsarist gold reserves and on top of that had the Spanish gold reserves from when they were evacuated during the Spanish civil war and just used that to pay the Americans and British since they had no use for it. Even better still is that half the payment went down on the HMS Edenborough but because it had already traded hands it still counted as fully paid but the US and UK lost all the gold lmao.<All that shitHoly fucking kek
No.1140
>>1139The USSR had also sent Platinum that got sunk too on The HMS Port Nicholson, that had the current value of 3 billion $ of Platinum that they are only trying to recover now
No.1148
>>1140Welp here I go into the diving business to revive the Soviet Union. Wish me luck.
No.1154
>>1140Ebin
>>1148Good luck, Comrade Anon
No.1203
>before he got whacked by the old BO for being western military.
I supported old-BO's anti-imperialist line, bit that's just asinine. You can get valuable info from current military.
No.1204
>>1203Even then that’s retarded. What if an anon is in Asia? In which many countries have mandatory conscription. Because you’re from Thailand or Korea, you’re out?
No.1312
>>1053>lazerpig videogod that trash keeps popping up in my recommended. Fucking garbage video like nearly every video on Soviet tech run by anglos, repeating laughable Cold War inanity.
No.1439
>>11>this reminds me of how the soviets found a broken down, abandoned tiger tank in a ditch long before they ever saw one in actual combat allowing the soviets to prepare countermeasures Kek
No.1504
>>24>Any actual proof that Shermans saw the frontlines?Rus-anon here, Shermans did not exist in large numbers but they did fight on the front in specialized sherman groups. There is a famous memoir of one Soviet tanker Dmitri Loza that describes fighting on the tank.
As for photographs, here.
No.1546
>>1502>LazerPig has always been a pro-NATO shillHe's a seething anglo that made a video defending the Crusader tank (defend against what? It's never been called a bad tank, just initially mediocre in performance). And its full of pro-anglo memes.
As a side note, his defense of the crusader is essentially a ton of points that could also be applied but that he he ignored in regards to the T-34. See
http://www.tankarchives.ca/search?q=t-34 for a ton of basic information debunking Lazerswine.
No.1553
>All these comments about LazerSowHow long until there's an effortpost dunking on him lmao
>>1504>There is a famous memoir of one Soviet tanker Dmitri Loza that describes fighting on the tank. Happen to have a link to it?, ideally in English
No.1555
>>1553>there's an effortpost dunking on him I might make one later down the line, I just have too much to do for the next couple months to dedicate time to that for the moment.
>link to itHere
http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/manufacturer/m4a2incombat/commanding_red_army_shermans.pdf The file is the same book
https://iremember.ru/en/memoirs/tankers/dmitriy-loza/ No.1691
The amazing stories of T-34's shooting down planes using their main gun.
During WW2 A Soviet tank commander took out a German plane in his T-34-76
https://archive.ph/Len3Z https://archive.ph/EFGVthttps://archive.ph/Q8rL8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Фадин,_Александр_Михайлович During the Korean War, a T-34-85 took out an F-80C Shooting Star - a jet fighter-bomber
https://archive.ph/8RGXV http://www.opoccuu.com/t-34-sbil-f-80.htm No.1780
>>1778I've noticed lately that there's been an upsurge of content trying to defend the British Empire, its failures and atrocities to the point of absurdity.
No.2538
>>1691 >Warthunder Russian Bias IRLKek
No.2781
>Where were the T-34 tanks in World War 2 mostly manufactured and were there variants to the tank from the various tank factories?
The Soviets had 3 principle tank factories in WW2 producing T-34s. The biggest and most well known is Factory No. 183 which is now called Uralvagonzavod. This wasn’t just the biggest tank factory in the USSR, but in the world, and it still is. Uralvagonzavod is enormous, and after producing T-34s they went on to produce T-55s and T-72s. They are still the primary tank factory in Russia.
The other principle two factories were the STZ factory(Stalingrad Tractor Plant), and Factory No. 112 in Nizhny Novgorod.
In January 1942 the production was as follows
Factory No. 183: 430 T-34s
Factory No. 112: 250 T-34s
STZ: 308 T-34s
A group of minor factories also produced parts of the T-34. There were some differences especially in the beginning, some STZ T-34s had a thicker hull armour than other T-34s. Some hull made in minor factories were not made to the same quality that the bigger factories could manage due to a lack of resources and time. However, this was the exception, and the T-34 models were supposed to be uniform.
However, several variants were produced, with many different improvements over time. Ignore the dates of the T-34s, as they are just a misunderstanding. Also bear in mind that the STZ factory was severely damaged during the battle of Stalingrad.
No.2801
>>1550><Ewald von Kleist 1941: "(it is) the finest tank in the world” This quote was from the times when Germany changed from Pz III to early Panzer IV models
No.2846
>>2801>>2802 More concrete info. The T-34's 45mm frontal armor was angled at 60 degrees creating an equivalent of roughly 90mm or so of effective armor thickness (not to mention increased ricochet capability). The Panzer IV had 42mm armor initially that had almost no sloping.
Report from May 1942
"Characteristics of the T34.
The T-34 is faster, more maneuverable, has better cross-country mobility than our Pz.Kpfw.lll and IV. Its armor is stronger. The penetrating ability of its 7.62 cm cannon is superior to our 5 cm KwK. and the 7.5 cm KwK40. The favorable form of sloping all of the armor plates aids in causing the shells to skid off. Combating the T-34 with the 5 cm KwK tank gun is possible only at short ranges from the flank or rear, where it is important to achieve a hit as perpendicular to the surface as possible. Hits on the turret ring, even with high-explosive shells or machine gun bullets, usually result in jamming the turret. In addition, armor-piercing shells fired at close range that hit the gun mantle result in penetrations and breaking open the weld seams. The T-34 can be penetrated at ranges up to 1000 metres with the 7.5 cm PaK 40 as well as the 7.5 cm Hohlgranate (hollow-charge shells).''
From October 1941:
For the first time during the campaign in the East, in these battles the absolute superiority of the Russian 26 tons and 52 ton tanks over out Pz.Kpfw.III and IV was felt. The Russian tanks usually formed in a half circle, open fire with their 7.62 cm gun on our Panzers already at a range of 1000 meters and deliver enormous penetration energy with high accuracy. Our 5 cm Kw.K. tank guns can only achieve penetrations under very special favourable conditions at very close range under 50 meters. Our Panzers are already knocked out at a range of several hundred meters. Many times our Panzers Were split open or the complete commander's cupola of the Pz.Kpfw.lll and IV flew off from one frontal hit. This is proof that the armor is insufficient, the mounting for the commander's cupola on our Panzers is deficient, and the accuracy and penetration ability of the Russian 7.62 cm tank guns are high. In addition to the superior weapons effectiveness and stronger armor, the 26 ton Christie tank (T34) is faster, more maneuverable, and the turret traverse mechanism clearly superior. His wide tracks allow wading of fords that can't be crossed by our Panzers. The ground pressure is somewhat better than ours, so that in spite of the larger weight of the Russian tank the same bridges can be crossed as by our Panzers. Unique IPs: 43