"T-34 Best Tank of the war " Topic

"The Soviet T-34 tank is well known by anyone who has an interest in WWII history. Books, articles, documentaries present it in triumphant terms. It was superior to everything the Germans had, it had revolutionary sloped armor, unprecedented mobility and was one of the reasons the Soviet side won in the Eastern front.

How realistic are these statements? Was the T-34 really a war winning weapon? How did it compare to German and Western tanks? How did it perform during the war? If we try to answer these questions by looking at actual data then things start to change. Instead of a mechanical marvel we get a poorly designed and built combat system that suffered horrific losses against ‘inferior' German tanks.Let's start with debunking some of the most common statements…"
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Amicalement
Armand

The way I see it.

Build quality was generally rough. Suffered from poor ergonomics (doubly so the early versions). Mechanical reliability? well it was a coin toss if the one you got would last the week before breakdown.

BUT

Good enough in the 3 areas a tank needs to be (Firepower, mobility and protection), available in quantity, and the Germans had to to develop the Panther in direct response to it.

In Korea, the Chaffees that were first deployed had major problems dealing with them, so did the smaller sized 2.36 inch Bazookas. So they had to get up-gunned (76mm) Sherman and heavier tanks in theatre as well as the 90mm Bazooka to deal with them.

So, good enough to cause the opposition to upgrade their tanks and anti-take capability in 2 significant wars. So can't be that bad.

I would add that you must take into account factors beyond the tank itself such as crew training and tactical doctrine. And to attribute "winning the war" to any one weapon is absurd. Modern wars are won or lost based on logistics or politics not weapons systems. As stated above, the T-34 was good enough but not great. The most important statistic is how many were made.

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YES!

The debate continues.

Conclusions Regarding the T-34's Overall Performance as a ‘War Winner'
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The T-34 is possibly the only weapon system in history to be rated by most commentators as the finest all round weapon in a century of warfare, and yet never consistently achieved anything better than a one to three kill-loss ratio against its enemies.(21) The fact that the USSR produced 54 550 T-34s (easily the most widely produced tank of WWII) and hence produced a ‘war winning' tank is a separate strategic level discourse and should not be confused with giving the T-34 credit for being effective at the tactical level.

Undoubtedly the T-34 went a long way to enabling the USSR to be ultimately victorious, but the price was huge with approximately 44 900 T-34s (82% of total production) being irrecoverably lost. Soviet output during WWII was 99 150 fully tracked AFVs (including all types of assault and self-propelled guns) produced from June 1941 to May 1945, and an additional 11 900 tanks and self-propelled guns received via Lend Lease.(22) The Germans are often criticised for their low tank production during WWII: being accused of producing too few high quality tanks with too many refinements and excessive quality control during production. In support of this statement the figure of only 26 900 German tanks is quoted as being produced during WWII. However tanks formed only part of German AFV production: they actually produced 26 925 tanks, 612 command tanks, 232 flame tanks, 10 550 assault guns, 7 831 tank destroyers, and 3 738 assault and self-propelled artillery AFVs, from 1938 to May 1945.(23) A total of around 49 900 fully tracked AFVs out of a total production of 89 254 AFVs of all types. This represents around 50% of Soviet fully tracked AFV production during WWII. It should be remembered (a fact that seems to be often forgotten) that Allied strategic bombing reduced German AFV production by at least 10% in 1943, 40% in 1944 and even more during 1945, exactly when German AFV production had peaked.

There is no doubt that German tanks possessed many refinements, subtleties of design and high quality components which contributed to a relatively slow production rate. In comparison Soviet tanks had a generally rough and ready finish, and lacked many features which were assumed essential by German tankers and to a large extent by their Western Allied counterparts. There were of course considerably more Soviet tanks, which ultimately helped them to win the war. Nonetheless, it was these same refinements and subtleties of design which gave German tank crews the edge in combat at the tactical level, and it is these which are picked up in the methodology detailed in Part II-‘The Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Military Simulation- The Barbarossa Simulation's Resource Database'. As always, the Soviets had a choice regarding weapon system production during WWII: they could have mass produced more lower quality and less refined AFVs, or produced less more refined and higher quality AFVs. They chose the former and achieved strategic success, but payed an exceptionally high price in terms of human life. In terms of AFVs, this ‘price' was the loss of 96 500 fully tracked AFVs compared to 32 800 German fully tracked AFVs (on the East Front) during WWII (2.94 to 1).(24) The German losses include all SP guns, SP artillery, and several thousand vehicles captured when Germany surrendered.

One very significant point about these figures is that if we remove the 11 900 AFVs received by the Soviets via Lend Lease, and allocate all German WWII fully tracked AFV production to the Wehrmacht's East Front forces (i.e. add those lost fighting the Western Allies), then the Germans would have only needed kill loss ratio of 2.45 to 1 in order to have destroyed all Soviet fully tracked AFVs that existed on 22nd June 1941 (23 300 AFVs) and all 99 150 fully tracked AFVs produced during the war (122 450 AFVs). This figure is well below the 2.94 to 1 kill-loss ratio historically achieved. These figures demolish another more recently fashionable myth relating to the East Front; specifically that the Soviets (largely due to the huge number of T-34s produced) could have won WWII without any input from the US or Commonwealth forces. This is before we even consider the effects of increased German production (of all weapon types) due to the absence of Allied strategic bombing, the direct effects of German air superiority on the East Front from 1943 onwards, the effects of the Red Army loosing over half its motorised transport, and the effects of 9-10 000 additional (and fully supplied) heavy 88mm flak guns on the East Front from 1941 onwards.

The ongoing discourse on the strategic decisions regarding weapon manufacture is not particularly relevant here: we are specifically focused on the inherent tactical combat power present in specific AFV designs. In the T-34's case however, there appears to be confusion among T-34 enthusiasts between the strategic features of the T-34's design (ease of manufacture, simplicity of design, etc) and the tactical features of its design (the overall combat power (OCPC) inherent in the individual vehicle). To put it another way, the T-34 was a ‘war winning' tank but this should not detract from the fact that at a tactical level its performance during four years of continuous war was relatively poor. If there was ever a case for not basing a tank's overall combat power on over simplified parameters such as thickness and slope of frontal armour, and penetration of a single round from its main gun, then the T-34's case is it.

Wolfhag

As I see it, the issue was not so much a question of "More of the basic roughly-made tank (ie: T-34), or less of the more capable highly refined finely crafted tank (Panther)?"

Yes, that's the question that was answered on the battlefield. But that's not the question any policy maker faced in determining the country's fate.

The important question was not "Which approach do we take to the kind of tanks we'll build?" The important question was: "How do we build 2,000 tanks per month?" That was a question that the Soviets asked in 1941. It was a question that the Americans asked in 1941. It was a question that the Germans never asked.

The Soviets did not chose to build T-34s because they wanted a rough and easy-to-build tank. They chose to build the T-34 because they had the T-34 and it was time to build tanks. Lots and lots of tanks. And it was time to build tank factories … final assembly factories, and casting forges for track links, and casting forges for turrets, and rolling mills for plate armor, and milling forges for gun barrels, and casting/milling forges for engine blocks, etc. etc. etc. And building each and every one of those facilities required 1,000 questions to be answered. And if you didn't have a tank in mind, you didn't know how to answer those questions. And if you didn't know how to answer the questions, things didn't get done. So all of those questions got answered for T-34s, and guess what? T-34s came out of the end, in the thousands.

If the Germans had asked themselves how to build 2,000 tanks per month in 1943, when they had the Panther, the question would have been irrelevant anyways. They were already being drowned by a flood of Soviet and American tanks.

1943 was the year when the Germans had the GREATEST advantage over Soviet armor in terms of tank quality. They had the Panther and the Tiger, while the Soviets did not yet have the T-34-85 or the IS-2. But the Soviets had Chelyabinsk and Magnetogorsk. And over the course of 1943, the number of tanks in Soviet combat units at the front soared, while the number of tanks in German combat units at the front collapsed.

If the Germans had asked themselves how to build 2,000 tanks per month in 1940 or 1941, then it would have been a very relevant question. The Germans could have built the infrastructure and the super-factories, and matched the Soviet production tank-for-tank in 1943. But the tens of thousands of subordinate questions that were driven by that single big question would have required a tank IN HAND in 1940 or 1941. So they would have needed something other than the Panther, because they didn't HAVE a Panther in mind, much less in hand, to drive their approach to building 2,000 tanks per month.

The Soviet and the American leadership in 1941 and 1942 focused on building the world's best tank factories. They got Chelyabinsk and the Detroit Tank Arsenal (and MANY other facilities). The German leadership in 1941 and 1942 focused on building the world's best tanks. They got excellent answers in the Tiger and (except for the final drive) in the Panther.

Both the Allies and the Germans got what they asked for. And the Germans could do nothing BUT lose in 1944, because they asked the wrong question in 1941.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

One of the German issues in the whole of WW2 was the lack of long term planning.

An example of this is anti tank guns, Britain started the war with 2pdrs (good at the time) but already had started on the design of the 6pdr, as soon as that was refined enough to go into production they immediately started work on the 17pdr, so that when Tigers hit Tunisia in 1943, the new gun could be added to a mount (the 25pdrs) but the gun already existed and been on the drawing board long before the need for it came around. The moment the 17pdr was put into production the 20pdr and 32pdr were being designed and refined, so an ongoing process.

The Germans didn't play the long game.

And to win the war, they should have ignored Panthers (I know they were cool but….) and mass built IVGs.

It's quite an interesting point that Mark raises.

The pz3 and pz4 were the product of a lot of thought and in some ways excellent tanks.
They were both fairly expensive and difficult to make though. Short term winners but long term problems.
Hitler was betting on a short war so to him it probably didn't seem to matter that there were no long term production plans.
The result was that Germany had huge production capability in 41,42 but poor output.
Nobody was organising it properly.

Best tank is a bit of a silly award really. Criteria are pretty tricky.
You could make a case for the pz4 as the best tank. It was used throughout the war and reasonably effective thoughout.
IIRC it had a better loss ration vs either t34 as well.

If you ignore length of service during the war then the Centurion would presumably "win".

As others have noted, one weapon doesn't win a war.

That said, the T34 was precisely the machine that the Soviets needed, and they had it when they needed it. In design terms it was ahead of the Germans with sloped armor (though retaining the problematic two man turret) but also capable of being upgunned to the 85mm after Panthers and Tigers arrived on the scene.

A lot of observers have decried the poor finish of the vehicle, but I think it is in his book 'Demolishing the Myth' (about the Kursk battle) that Zamulin points out that the Soviets only expected a T34 to have a battle field life of about 10 hours, so why bother with a 'fine finish'?

Whether that is correct or not, the industrial effort the Soviets were prepared to put into making T34's (and a few other weapons) is what helped them with their contribution to winning the war.

The Brits, Soviets and US all started the war with some good weapons, or at least designs for them, but were always going to have to fight a long war in order to give their economies time to catch up to the German lead, and then over take it.

The Germans, as others have noted, had lousy (non-existent?) long term planning, as they were convinced they would win quickly, and with what they had pre-war.

It was the industrial decision making process, rather han any particular weapon that won the war for the allies.

Along, of course, with the courage and sacrifice of the men and women who brought the war back to the Axis.

A most interesting thread. Thanks to all.

Interesting take on criticizing the lack of the "long term" planning on the German's part. I think the Germans knew from the beginning that there was NO long term game strategy. They had to win and win fast in Russia. Their problems, options and decisions were demonstrably different because of that fact.

"Was the T-34 really a war winning weapon?"

Yes. But apart from that not that great. The early ones tended to break down a lot. But good and easy to produce. Which means if you had a lot of steel, it worked.

Tiger all the way

But by the time of the invasion of Russia they had been at war 2 years, and were fighting in other theatres other than the Eastern Front. Some long termism should have reared its head about then.

With the joint producction of Russia and USA no matter which tank they did… the germans were done!.

Amicalement
Armand

My first thought is the same one when some one brings up the Sherman and says it was the war's best tank. Was the T-34 the war's best tank? Maybe not but it was good enough!

The second issue is that we tend to overly focus on production. What wins or loses wars is the very unsexy discipline of logistics, something we tend to ignore in most of our games. As Col Glantz says in When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler: "Germany's main weakness lay in the field of logistics". Not only inadequate logistics but as they pushed further and further in Russia they were moving away from supply sources while the Russians were falling back on them. The Germans had issues keeping their tanks in POL, ammunition and spare parts. They were not adequately prepared for the incredible dust (mud would come later) and were burning out engines at a dangerous rate. And as an old logistics guru once told me a tank without fuel is a pillbox and a tank without ammunition a speed bump no matter how good it is.

With the joint producction of Russia and USA no matter which tank they did… the germans were done!

I disagree, my friend.

If the German leadership had been anything more than streetgang members in suits, they could very well have driven a very different outcome from the resources they had available.

In 1939 Germany's economy was the second largest in the world (as measured by Gross Domestic Product). It was only about 5% larger than the Soviet economy, but it was still larger.

By 1942 Germany's economy had grown by about 8 1/2%. The Soviet economy had SHRUNK by about 25%. At this point the Soviet economy was only about 2/3rds the size of the German economy. Stated another way, the German economy was half-again as large as the Soviet economy! Germany also had taken control of the Czech and French economies … both tank-producing nations.

By 1942 German had, in economic terms, the ability not just to match, but to vastly out-produce the Soviets. So why did the Soviets out-produce the Germans in tanks by almost 5-to-1?

Soviet production 1942: ~24,700
German production 1942: ~5,530
(Light, medium, and heavy tanks and self-propelled guns combined)

Let us remember, in 1942 we are speaking of a Germany that has not yet felt the effects of strategic bombing, or of the loss of critical trained manpower from factories to fill the ranks of the armed forces.

In 1942 we are speaking of a Germany that is still 2 years away from facing the Western Allies in France. Still 1 year away from facing the Western Allies in Italy.

Let us remember that the war that started in 1939 started on Germany's timetable. Most other nations in Europe were still trying to avoid war, and were limited politically in how aggressively they could re-arm. Germany, on the other hand, had the ability to plan for exactly when the war would start, and had a free hand to build-up for that war.

And let us remember that Germany's war with Russia started on Germany's timetable. And let us remember that Russia's greatest industrial regions were overrun by the Germans within 4 months of the start of that war. So 1942 was by no means a year of peak production for the Soviets. It was a year they were re-starting production, with factories that were often just machine tools sitting outside in the elements manned by workers who had to build their own houses between their work shifts!

This from a Germany who taught the world how critical the tank was to land warfare! They were the conductors of the orchestra, the maestro's of combined arms warfare, the headmasters of the school of modern mobility.

And by 1942, they were deep enough in Russia to win. They could have cut the Soviets off from their sources of petroleum, and perhaps even seized those sources (in whatever state they might have been left) for themselves. But they ran out of tanks and could not re-enforce their spearhead deep into the Caucasus.

But what if, instead of 200 Panthers, they had an additional 10,000 Pz III tanks, Pz IV tanks, StuGs, or whatever they might have come up with as a product-improved Pz III/IV hybrid … how would Kursk have gone?

It's not that building 200 Panthers in the first half of 1943 prevented the Germans from building 10,000 other tanks. Not at all. What stopped them from building 10,000 other tanks is that no one asked what needed to be done in order to build 10,000 other tanks. Leadership focused enormous attention on the Tiger and Panther development programs, but never even asked what it would take to build 10,000 of anything in the first half of 1943, much less what those 10,000 things might be.

If you want to understand why the Germans, from mid-1943 to mid-1945, lost more territory, more industrial and economic resources and more population base than any other nation in history in any two year period, you need look little farther than these numbers.

The Germans simply did not ask the questions they needed to answer to win the war. Instead they asked the questions they needed to answer to get big shiny toys that would fascinate wargamers for the next half century.

The reason that the T-34 was such a great design was because it was there, in 1941, to build factories around.

The Panther was not.

But reverse the tanks or the timetables, give the Germans the T-34 in 1941, or even the Panther in 1941, and it will not change the outcome. Because it was not their choice of tanks that lost the war for Germany. It was their lack of drive to build tanks, whatever those tanks might have been.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I thought that the Panther was actually simpler/cheaper to build than a Pz4?

As far as the T34 being a war-winner, how interchangeable were the parts between factories? Shermans could take parts from any factory and bolt on in minutes or hours. Pz3/4/Panthers were all hand-fit, so even parts from the same factory took hours to days to install.

This is soon interesting, one thing that has struck me that the Russians having found a tank that was at least capable standardized production into that model,unlike the Germans that had so many production lines for so many different types.Not satisfied with the Tiger and Panther,were designing yet newer models that must have had teething troubles

I no longer subscribe to the idea that certain weapons were "decisive".

In that regard T34 was part of the system that defeated Germany, it was the right kind of tank for the Soviets, just as the Panther was the right kind of tank for the Germans and the Sherman for the Americans.

Rather than say it was decisive, I would say that the T34 worked, but it was not the weapon that won the war, it was a mix of things, going from being profligate with the lives of soldiers to building a strong artillery corps and air force, while the commanders and strategists learned to fight a modern war and were by the end able to completely dominate the Germans in the field.

T34 is a mix of good and bad. It was an inspired design, extremely cleverly made, yet simple and low tech. The original model had many virtues and flaws and the Soviets were able to improve it dramatically.

Measuring up tanks against each other and looking at armour thickness and gun calibre is unfair. Certain tanks were superior on paper only and very weak in the field.

There are other factors, experience is critical, more so than the thickness of plate or the size of the gun. After the German army was defeated in Normandy, the Germans were able to replace many of the tank losses, but the permanent loss of experienced crews lead to the Germans often rushing blindly into battle, much like the inexperienced Soviets had done in 1941 and be defeated by allegedly inferior Allied tanks like the M4 and the often damned Tank Destroyers.

A battle like Arracourt is the prime example of this (or the battle for France or Barbarossa for that matter) good crews in less effective tanks can dominate the best tanks manned by poor crews.

T34 was far from perfect, it doesn't have the big gun and thick frontal armour of a tank like Panther, but it could be used much more effectively by the Soviets than what the Germans were able to do with Panthers, because it was improved with better guns, better optics, better crew layout and better integrated in the C3 of the Soviets than it had been at the start.

The best tank in my opinion, is the average one covering your back in battle, not the vastly superior one that might as well be a rare Pokemon, for you know it exists, but you've never even seen it …

The characteristics of the tank the Soviets produced had to satisfy some minimum level – the T34 probably exceeded this minimum, especially early in the war. The key was the Soviet production capability. Tanks where they were needed in large numbers. Once they figured out how to use them the production volume was effectively multiplied. The t34 was nicknamed the 'matchbox' not 'the dreadnought' or 'enemy tank smasher'. The point is that there were an endless supply of them. The western allies adopted the same strategy with the Sherman. In 1942 the Germans called the t60 the locust because crap though it was, it was all over the place and kept appearing.
Meanwhile, the Germans tried to follow several strategies at once, mass production, super specialised production, ultimate tank, ultimate tank destroyer. And failed miserably. Adolf and the much vaunted liar Speer missed the point. Stalin and the western allies did not. Wargamers usually do but comments here show less are taken in by shiny things than in previous years. Wargames rules often do.

Interesting that the Soviets stuck with the make 'em cheap, pile 'em high strategy that served them so well in WW2 throughout the Cold War, while the western allies went for ever more expensive and tech heavy tanks fielded in much smaller numbers. IIRC the total for T54/55/62 production was 250,000 vehicles. The much vaunted US production potential would have been little use as the war would have been won or lost before the new factories had even been planned.

When considering the "best" I think you need to take into account the other logistical and combined arms considerations.

If the US had chosen to built Panthers the way the Germans built them they'd still be fighting their way across Europe.

The Sherman was probably the best tank for the US in WWII. It performed well until "surprised" (or not) after D-Day. The Sherman was built for breakthroughs and exploitation, not hedgerows where hidden defenders got off the first shot. These are combined arms attacks. When the Germans attacked and the US had a chance to get the first shot off they turned the tables like at Arracourt (also better crews and tactics).

Of the 262 tanks and assault guns deployed by the German units in the week of fighting near Arracourt, 86 were destroyed, 114 were damaged or broken down, and only 62 were operational at the end of the month. The 4th Armored Division's Combat Command A, which had borne the brunt of the 5th Panzer Army's counter-offensive at Arracourt, lost 25 tanks and 7 tank destroyers.[1] As a division, the 4th AD lost some 41 M4 medium tanks and 7 M5A1 light tanks during the whole month of September, with casualties of 225 killed and 648 wounded.
— Zaloga (2008)

It was designed to handle infantry which was approx(?)90% of their engagements. In 1944 the US knew that if the Germans did have a better tank the manufacturing and supply pipeline of Sherman's would ensure greater numbers.

When you look at Patton's operation to relieve Bastogne and other exploitation's of the Sherman they did pretty well in their mission. It could be mass produced, upgraded and the basis for other types or utility and artillery platforms.

Outside of Europe the Sherman was the best overall tank of WWII and did pretty well in North Africa too.

The T-34/76 had many weaknesses but excelled in exploitation in winter snows which is what doomed the Germans in the Winter Offensive outside Moscow. If you outnumber your opponent and can maneuver better you don't need to worry about engaging him with the TC exposed. Just batten down the hatches and haul ass through their lightly defended lines and wreck havoc in the rear and force them to fall back.

Also the tactic of a T-34 carrying a SMG squad to protect it from infantry was a great combined arms idea under the right conditions.

The German heavy breakthrough tanks never had a chance to really perform in that capacity because by the time they became operational the Germans had lost the initiative to attack. Unless you include Kursk where Tigers, Panthers and Ferdinands failed. The best chance in the Ardennes was doomed by having to stick to the roads.

Wolfhag

"IIRC the total for T54/55/62 production was 250,000 vehicles."

Production for the T-54/55 to include Czech and Polish production is estimated at approximately 81,500. For the T-62 22,700 for a grand total of 104,200. Impressive but approximately 42 percent of your figure. During roughly the same period US production of the M47/48/60 was approximately 36,000. But to that number one must add in UK and French production of various MBTs.

Wolfhag, by the Ardennes offensive the British had captured and had broken the Enigma codes. So no matter what the Germans planned or had on the ground, we knew about it.
I still can`t figure out how the Germans didn't know we had broken all their transmissions.

HammerHead,
I think the Germans suffered from hubris and thinking they were smarter than everyone else. I can personally relate to that because I'm half German.

Wolfhag

The Sherman was not built for hedgerows true, but neither was any other tank.

It can be argued that Sherman was one of the better suited with the high profile giving an elevated shooting position; certainly the terrain negated much of the German advantage with their guns being optimized for killing T.34's from 2km's away on the steppes of Russia.