"Late WW2 Russain T34 Ratios" Topic

Basically, did Russian T34 tank companies 1944/45 include a mix of 85mm and 76mm gun tanks…down to within platoon level?
I would imagine that new units or rested units would have latest kit…but would replacements come from a pool…including repaired older variants? Would new T34/85 replace 76mm gun tanks as available?
Was there any policy of mixing calibres as in U.S/U.K forces for HE/AT capability?
Obviously, tank unit commanders would want to avoid logistics and training problems…in an ideal situation…but what actually was the score in Russian T34 units 1944/45? I have seen pics of 1942 variants 'soldiering on to Berlin'..but was this propaganda or just what was there at the time?
Your thoughts, please,!

When the military unit received new tanks at the front, it almost never received a full set of new-type tanks. These tanks came gradually, as a replenishment in exchange for the lost ones. Usually, some unit (say, a company) completely received new tanks, and transferred the remaining old-style tanks to other units. This facilitated the supply of ammunition. The shortage of crews (there were five people in the new tank) was replenished from the anti-tank rifles unins assigned to the tank units.
The newly formed tank units received tanks of the same type (usually a new model, but could also have received the .T-34-76 from the stock created earlier). Tank units that were relegated to the rear for recreation and replenishment often transferred their remaining tanks to those tank units that remained at the front, and in the rear received new tanks.
In the USSR army there was almost no practice to send damaged tanks for restoration to rear plants. It was considered economically inexpedient. What could not be repaired in the field in mobile workshops was simply thrown away or used as a source of spare parts.

T-34-76 in Berlin:

Also, T34-76s were shifted to specialty support formations, like the OT34 flamethrower tank companies or the PT34 mine-roller companies.

In the USSR army there was almost no practice to send damaged tanks for restoration to rear plants.

This statement is at odds with everything I have understood about Red Army tank management up to this point.

It has been my understanding that everything that could be useful was gathered from the battlefield and shipped to central control for determination of how it could be re-used.

That is why we see 76.2mm SPGs built on Pz III hulls, and T-34s with features of 2 or 3 different factories and production years. It is almost impossible to say what features define what model because they were often re-manufactured so that a turret from a factory that used square external fuel tanks would be found on a hull from a factory that used barrel-style external fuel tanks, or different tow claws, or different tool paniers, etc.

If we look at the tanks pictured above, we will see instances of two different factory versions of T-34 model 1942 turrets, both mounted on 1944 hulls. It is possible that these T-34s were built in 1944 using newly-build but older-designed turrets alongside T-34-85s, but it is even more likely that these were the result of remanufacturing of older turrets taken from used-up T-34s (the turret had a much longer service life than the hull). These sorts of combinations would not be as common as they are if there wasn't some higher level re-manufacturing going on.

Or so I understand. Will now go looking for some source materials, but would be interested if anyone else has some back up for either side of this proposition.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Nevertheless, this is so.
Your first example (SPG, built on the hulls of Pz III) is not relevant to the case – we are talking about the second half of the war (since 1943). In the first half of the war, during the retreat of the Red Army, factories manufacturing and repairing military equipment were located at a small distance from the front. Therefore, damaged tanks (which, by the way, were not very many, since the battlefield usually remained behind the enemy) could be sent to the rear for repairs without any problems. The self-propelled guns you mentioned were created mainly from those German tanks that were captured in large numbers near Moscow in 1941. During this period (1941-42), the USSR had a big problem with the production of tanks, since the territories of almost all Soviet tank factories were captured by the enemy. Although a significant part of the equipment of these plants was exported to the Urals, it took a long time to establish the production of tanks in the new place. Of course, during this period, any tank that could be restored would be sent to the factory for repair. But by 1943 the "tank crisis" in the USSR was overcame, production was growing. The front began to move west.
At this moment, it was decided to create mobile plants for the repair of damaged and worn tanks. These factories had all the necessary equipment for rebuilding engines, welding damaged parts of the hull and other complex work. They had autonomous energy sources. Such plants could curl up and turn around in any locality during the day. They were located at a distance of 100-150 km from the front. All this made it possible to commission damaged equipment in an extremely short time and eliminated the need to transport damaged tanks to the rear. It is the result of the action of these mobile factories that you observe on tanks that have a bizarre mixture of various units and assemblies.
Here is an article about these plants. Alas – only in Russian. But use the Google translator – you can quite catch the meaning of the article:
link

Cherry on the cake:

A team of repairmen mobile plant is installed on the T-34 rollers from the "Panther")))

From here, by the way, the large numbers of tank losses in the Soviet army — something that could not be quickly restored in the field, were simply dropped and these tanks replenished the lists of losses, although in other conditions they could have been restored. But it was not economically viable. Given the transportation, it was cheaper to produce a new tank than to restore a badly damaged one. T-34 is a very cheap tank.

Of the two broken T-34 we get a properly functioning.

To answer the OP, yes Soviet tank Corps did have a mix of 76 and 85 T34s, but I would be utterly amazed to see them mixed at platoon level. More commonly homogenous brigades, or battalions.

Independant tank brigades, regiments and battalions had wierd mix of all kinds of stuff, but they weren't priority for 85mm T34s which went, AFAIK, almost exclusively to tank Corps. I've not convinced the Mech Corps even got any (but a lot of them were happy with their 76mm Shermans).

There were still 500 T-34/76 produced in May 1944 so they were not taken out of service immediately afterward. I produced a computer program that estimated the depreciation month over month based on losses and time.
Using this method it looks like the T-34/76 were about 10% at March 1945. Though this is a mathematical reduction so at some point the Russians would totally retire a line of tanks when they aren't needed.

Wow! Some very interesting stuff…thanks…glad I asked!
Love the Panther wheel on T34…wonder how many modellers will take this up? :)
Still would like to know whether mix of 76mm/85mm would be common at platoon/company level. Many photos, such as that from Cuprum2 above could indicate yes…but you cannot rely on photo's to give a definite answer as vehicles in column could vary due to the particular situation .
I am thinking about ammo replenishment difficulties within a company/regiment.
Hm. Just wondering if the Red Army units actually did have enough ammo to completely replenish at the front…given the enormous length of supply line and numbers of tanks? I am sure that enormous efforts would have been made…but given recent re-thinks about Cold War Naval 'empty missile bins'…did they just have enough to do the job and could this also be the case with other nations? We always assume full ammo racks…apart from 'special' A/T rounds, which at some times were in short supply on the Western Front.
Curious?

well, you know in Korea they used the SU-76 and T-34/85 tank so they could supply both 76mm ammunition and 85mm ammunition. And the SU and T-34 didn't even have the same running gear or engine.

A mixture at the company-platoon level could occur after the military unit suffered losses and the remaining tanks were brought into one unit for ease of management, as well as in the case of replenishment of losses from tanks restored at field plants. It is unlikely that this was provided for by any regulation.
I think difficulties due to the difference in ammunition could of course arise periodically. But, given the large unification of ammunition for various Soviet artillery systems, such difficulties were not critical .. For 76 mm tanks, ammunition from 76 mm divisional cannons was suitable. For 85 mm, shells were used for self-propelled guns, and anti-aircraft guns.

Problems with the presence of artillery ammunition were in the USSR during the period from the end of 1941 to the middle of 1942. A huge amount of ammunition was destroyed or captured by the Germans during the retreat of the Red Army. In addition, a very large number of plants had to be transported to the East, which required a lot of time to establish production in a new place. There were big problems with the manufacture of gunpowder and explosives, due to the loss of some parts of the technological chain, which were interrupted by the seizure of the western territories of the USSR. The Americans helped a lot here – about half of the gunpowder, explosives and components for its manufacture were delivered from the USA.
Later, the full supply of ammunition in the Red Army was fully restored. Difficulties could arise only as a result of difficulties in logistics, usually due to the autumn and spring thaw, which turned dirt roads into impassable roads. With actions in Europe, this problem disappeared, since there was a developed system of high-grade roads.

Cuprum:

Thanks you for the excellent information. Very informative.

Thanks also for the link. I frequently review Russian-language sources … not quickly, not easily, but when one has the interest, one figures out ways to decode (ie: read).

Example:

My translation of the caption of the photo would be:
"Repair Brigade 4-go PTR3 (or PTRZ?) places the T-34-85 rims on a Panther."

Not sure how well Google will do on that. And since the text is in the photo, one would have to re-type it with a Cyrillic keyboard app before Google can get to it, which most westerners might find a bit painful. Unless they were motivated enough, that is. And then one must add familiarity with how the literal terms translate into common usage -- turret vs. tower, etc.

For example I think Google has trouble with катки. Of course I might have it wrong too. (I checked that one to see how Google translated it, but not my whole translation. Google thinks it's an ice rink. I'm guessing … not.)

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I have a Google translator built into the browser, and at any time I can click the "translate" button when opening a page in a foreign language.

Of course, such a translation is not perfect, but it allows us to understand what is being discussed and how interesting this information is to me. Further, if necessary, I will already find the opportunity to translate the information more precisely (there are various dictionaries, and eventually comes the knowledge of various special terms).

To translate printed or scanned pages, I use "ABBYY FineReader" for text recognition. Very convenient program.

I have a big problem only with the translation of texts in languages ​​using hieroglyphs)))

4th PTRZ – this abbreviation means "4 Mobile Tank Repair Plant"