"The WrongTrack: The Inferiority of American Tanks in WW2" Topic

Of possible interest?

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Amicalement
Armand

Who won the war????

Our tanks were not supposed to fight tanks. That's where Tank Destroyers came in. Sometimes that worked. But artillery and planes could take care of the Hun.

Another historian who doesn't understand logistics, development, and production. Standardizing on Pershings in 1944 would mean only 2/3 as many tanks in the field (a matter of shipping space – same thing that killed the M6 heavy tank), and, given the development history of the M26, less reliable ones.

American tankers averaged on KIA for every tank destroyed. American tanks were intended to both provide infantry support and fight enemy tanks. Typically on the Western Front the tank that fired first won the engagement.
The Germans and Soviet Union liked the Sherman. The M3 Lee / Grant tanks were intended to be used in training only to give experience with the 75mm gun, it was only an interim tank until the Sherman could come along. In the Korean War the American tanks of WWII vintage did just fine against Soviet built tanks.

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Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

same thing that killed the M6 heavy tank

There was A LOT more that killed the M6 besides shipping space, like the fact it was a poor design.

Shermans were reliable, easy to repair, & could get there & still fight. The Germans did not have that advantage. If you needed to pull the transmission on FREX the Panther, it was an all-day operation, since the interior had to be partially dissassembled & the roof removed to do so. The situation was not much better on the Pz III or IV for that matter. Let alone the Tigers. On a Sherman you could swap transmission in an hour or so.

The T-34 is often praised as being one of the best tanks of WWII, & praised for its firepower & protection. But the performance of the F-34 was very similar to the 75mm M3, the only exception being that the F-34 got an APCR round, where the M3 gun never developed one.

The Sherman got an unfair reputation. But once they were armed with the M1A1 76.2mm cannon, they were at least equal in firepower to PzIVs, and much more reliable.

Damon.

Thanks!

Amicalement
Armand

In assessing the T-34 as one of the best tanks of the Second World War, its low cost and high manufacturability in production are of no small importance. This war – a war of mass armies. "Tiger" and "Panther" are good tanks. But if these tanks are few, they are doomed. They are never enough where they are needed. This is the path to defeat.
"Sherman" – tank, manufactured in large quantities, at sufficiently high fighting qualities. This means it is a good tank for the Second World War.

Both the low cost and the high manufacturability of the T-34 are based on Soviet propaganda figures. over a third of T-34's had to be remanufactured, at least one of them 13 times! Of course, since the factory director reported, no to the Army Minister, but to the Armaments Production Minister, EACH of those 13 counted as a separate tank against his quota. But all the costs still only produced one real tank.

And lets not talk about what the workers in the plants were paid, compared to even their German counterparts, much less the British or Americans.

Makes for an interesting discussion but it does lack novelty. All it is doing is repeating the contemporary discussion with no new insights. Odd that he misspells Christie throughout as "Christy" for the suspension designer.

rmaker! Wow! This is interesting information. Would you like to share the source of these revelations? It will be interesting to read the DOCUMENTS confirming this story.

Regarding the wages of workers – what will we evaluate? In the cost of training and medical care for workers? ;)
In Germany, they probably paid more, since millions of Ostarbeiters could be paid three times less than a German. And slaves from prisoners of war could not be paid at all.

Did slave workers get involved in things like tank production? That strikes me as requiring high level training in metal working, welding etc.

Turning out ammo, bombs sure. Digging tunnels for V2 manufacture, but not actually assembling them. I think. I stress I have no idea and am speaking with great authority despite profound ignorance.

rmarker + 1

Amicalement
Armand

Did slave workers get involved in things like tank production? That strikes me as requiring high level training in metal working, welding etc.

There are accounts of tank production being sabotaged. They might not be involved in assembling the armored hull (something that would require quite a bit of expertise & experience), but in subsidiary assemblies, like final drives.

Damon.

I do not understand well how the tanks produced only "on paper" moved on … They had to be centrally distributed among military units, crews were trained for them, resources were allocated for them, and later they were assigned combat missions. How could you hide the fact of such additions? Moreover, representatives of the "terrible" NKVD observed the work at the factories, and representatives of the army took the finished products. And in case of disclosure of such a manipulation, did all the perpetrators expect to be shot or for many years in the GULAG? It was a very stupid director with suicidal tendencies, in my opinion)

Tank production costs in man-hours (average, excluding tank modifications):
Pz-4 – 89,700 people / hour
"Panther" – 156,000 people / hour
"Tiger" – 300,000 people / hour

T-34 in 1943 at the Ural Wagon Plant – 17,600 people / hour

According to "Sherman" information, I think you will find it yourself ..

Data from the book: S. Ustyantsev, D. Komakov "Combat vehicles of the Uralvagonzavod. Tank T-34". Data on German vehicles are from F. Hahn Waffen und Geheimwaffen.
On the T-34, manual metalworking is minimized, the bulk of the work is casting and stamping. Welding is automatic, not manual. Well, due to the fact that the bulk of the Soviet tank factories were concentrated in the Urals during the war, the time and costs for transportation and interaction between component manufacturers were significantly reduced.

An excerpt from the book by Maxim Kolomiets (one of the leading Russian researchers in this field) "Hitler's Last Tanks":

"It is interesting to cite data on the number of workers involved in tank production. For example, at the MAN plant as of March 1, 1945, 5448 people were involved in the production of panthers, of which 124 worked in various positions in the administration, 841 in auxiliary production, 3983 manufactured various units and assemblies "panthers" and 500 were engaged in the assembly of tanks.

Of the 5448 people, 5023 were men (of which 2719 were foreigners) and 425 were women (230 of them did not know German). The work went on around the clock, in two shifts of 12 hours each".

An excerpt from the book can be read here, but in poor automatic translation:

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And this is an article about how forced labor was supplied to Germany and under what conditions it was used:

link

Many thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

I read collections of documents on Soviet weapons production. Although I could not find what the case presented here was based on, I can imagine what it looked like in reality.
After the evacuation of military factories from other regions of the country to the Urals and the conversion of existing "civilian" factories in the Urals for the production of tanks, during the first months of the start of work, tanks were produced with 50% of production defects (!). The tanks, which were not suitable for use, refused to take the military representatives. They were sent for revision to eliminate the detected defects. It is possible that some tank was sent to rectify the deficiencies 13 times.
But the fact that this tank, before being accepted by the military, was counted as manufactured 13 times is not based on anything speculation;)
Such problems with new, not mastered in production, tanks are quite natural – let's remember the history of the beginning of production and operation of "Panthers".

Highly skilled slaves were not hard to find. Even many soldiers from former farmers knew how to repair their cars and tractors. Among the soldiers there were many factory workers of various specialties. What can we say about those who, on duty, served tanks, airplanes and other equipment in the army. The technical officers were often highly qualified engineers.