"Germans against Russian tanks. Statistics." Topic

Armor is strong and our tanks are fast

link

"It immediately turned out that all German tank and anti-tank guns (PTP) did not penetrate the armor of KB and T-34 tanks, and Soviet 76-mm tank guns with a length of 30 klb. (L-11 and F-32) and in 40 CL. (F-34 and ZIS-5) pierce the armor of all German tanks at a distance of up to 1000 m. After the first battles, the German soldiers christened 37-mm * PTP "door hammers" and "army crackers". One of the reports said that the calculation of 37-mm PTP achieved 23 hits in the same T-34 tank and only when the shell hit the base of the tower, the tank was incapacitated. The T-III tank from 50 meters hit the T-34 four times, and then from 20 meters again, but all the shells broke into pieces without damaging the armor."

Interesting article, thanks mate

Presumably by "base of the tower" they mean base of the turret – some things get almost lost in translation.

that's right. In Russian, castle tower and tank tower are the same word, it is just "tower" (башня)

"Presumably by "base of the tower" they mean base of the turret – some things get almost lost in translation."

I'm blanking on the term, but it's the hull superstructure that the turret is on top of …

The turret ring?

"Presumably by "base of the tower" they mean base of the turret – some things get almost lost in translation."

Actually I think it is as mufh something that is lost in the current usage of the word by most modern English speakers, but is not lost by the etymology of the word in Russian. Or some such…

In most dictionaries the first definition you will find for the word "turret" is something like: "A small tower on a fortress or city wall, generally round in shape, that is used by defenders to fire in multiple directions." Or maybe a shorter version of that.

It derives from the old English / French word Touret, for small Tour (the French word for tower).

Again in most (but not all) English dictionaries it is only the second definition of the word turret that gets to something like "A rotating platform for a gun or weapons that can fire in multiple directions."

My understanding, subject to correction, is that Russian retains only a single word for Touret and Tour (turret and tower). So auto interpretation programs have difficulty determining the intended meaning as they translate.

So when reading translations of Russian language sources I use context to guide me, but almost always substitute "turret" whenever I see "tower" in the English version text.

In the OP case, the correct translation should be "… only when the shell hit the base of the turret, the tank was incapacitated." From that, you can proceed to interpret that it may have jammed the turret ring, or penetrated, or whatever you wish..

At least that would be my understanding.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)