T-34 and KT vulnerability issue solved (was: narrow turret front)

[Grisha]

rexford,

Would something like the Panzerbeschusstafel be compiled from fragmentary evidence? And, if so little good data exists, then why adopt a position that flies contrary to existing anecdotal, if not empirical, evidence?

[Renaud]

Originally posted by Mark Gallear:

Frankly the weapon technology of the day was such that even with the best WW2 guns I do not believe you could hits over 1,250oms without using all the tanks AP ammunition ranging the gun in!

I feel pretty confident in stating that WWII rifled high-vel cannons could indeed hit targets well over 1250 meters. Not sure where you came up with this nonsense. Qaulity WWII guns, such as the 88/L56, are essentially identical to modern rifled high-vel cannons and I know for a fact that a decent gunner using low-tech daylight optical sights (10x mag w/simple fixed reticle and range bars) can hit very distant (+2000meters) targets reliably using nothing more than kentucky windage. The best high velocity guns can put shot after shot right onto a stationary jeep-size target at practically any range, once the gun is laid in on that spot. With daylight optical sights, it's going to take a varying number of rounds to range in on the target depending on conditions, but not the entire ammo load! The CMBB model is certainly more realistic than you give it credit for.

Ren

[offtaskagain]

Originally posted by Mark Gallear:

The range is now 1237m it was longer when the kills where made - I think this is extreme for WW2 tank battle. Currently I am getting an 8% chance of a hit and am hull down so is the target. Not sure if this was the case last turn - but terrain is much the same. This occured on turn one - he is in far right corner and I am in far left corner! The german crew must be regular sae as me.

I think something is wrong somewhere and it is more than just the T-34 turret size. The Germans

seem to have laser rangefinders and battle computers.

I think the longest range kill ever recorded in a battle was during the Gulf War by a British Challenger who struck a T-55 in the rear with a HESH round at about 5000m.

1237m is nowhere near extreme range. German doctrine was to open fire at 1500m or so which was considered a likely range for a first round hit. The record for long-range kills is held by the 88mm Flak. One of them killed a British tank from over 10 km in North Africa. Albert Ernst, who is in the "Hornets Nest" scenario, scored one kill at 5km. When he later command a Jagdtiger he scored several more at that range. These are extremes, 1237m is certainly not.

[Amedeo]

Just tried some unsophisticated tests with the game to find out whether there's a match between the game results and the 400m figure given in that German report (July '42) as the maximum distance for front turret penetration (with the long 50mm gun).

I setup a lone PaK 38 with a T-34 straight ahead slowly advancing.

The 1942 production version of the T-34 is more or less easily penetrated at 500m or so. The early 1943 model of the tank (that is available during July 1942, despite its denomination), is impervious to any kind of fire from the 5,0cm L/60 up to 400m and less. In fact while trying to determine the minimum distance at which a frontal penetration could be scored by having the tank advancing against the ATG (without firing, although it was impossible to avoid some sort of return MG fire) I had the tank crush the gun under its tracks without being penetrated!

Thus, assuming that the German report really was referring to this variant, the behaviour of the long 50mm gun vs. the T-34 seems to be consistent with some of the anecdotical evidence.

The issues about the 37mm and the short 50mm are still to be clearly solved.

Regards,

Amedeo

[rexford]

Grisha asked: "Would something like the Panzerbeschusstafel be compiled from fragmentary evidence? And, if so little good data exists, then why adopt a position that flies contrary to existing anecdotal, if not empirical, evidence?"

The Panzerbeschuschusstafel are usually not very good, based on our experience comparing them to combat and firing test results. They do not consider high hardness T34 armor, they use all sorts of calculated penetration data that cannot be related to firing tests, and many of the results are amusing. The 37mm Panzerb. shows very little chance of cleanly penetrating the turret front and mantlet at any range, if I remember correctly.

Going through our notes, the following are our revised penetration figures for German 37mm AP:

100m,48mm

250m,45mm

500m,39mm

750m,34mm

1000m,30mm

The above figures are more in line with the "door knocker" reputation of 37mm AP when it is used against T34. Someone questioned our figures for 37mm AP early this year and the abovenoted revisions were prepared. I don't remember where they came from (how they were derived), but will look.

According to above figures, German 37mm AP penetrates "45mm at vertical" side hull on T34 at about 250m or a little further if armor resistance is lowered due to high hardness. Ability of 37mm AP to penetrate T34 turret front should be very low at most combat ranges.

German 37mm AP, using above figures, will not penetrate 45mm at 30 or 40 degrees at any range (T34 turret side and side superstructure), which seems realistic.

Our original figures assumed 37mm AP has same penetration characteristics as German 75mm APCBC after modification for caps, but 37mm AP has very large HE burster (1.9% of total weight in 37mm is burster vs. 0.2% in 75mm),and may have had lower quality metal.

The war reports in Jentz are fragments with alot of missing information, particularly the number of encounters, the number of shots that landed and the impact angle (vertical slope and lateral side angle of shot). Jentz' books present ranges that are missing most of the really vital info, due entirely to the character of the German reports, so the information is really next to useless when it comes to 50mm L42. It can easily be misleading.

If one assumes that Russian T34 armor does not suffer a deficiency against 50mm AP and APC rounds, then the combat results are more in line with many of the OPINIONS being discussed. Or one can assume the 50mm L42 was using the lower quality and less effective uncapped AP rounds, which is why the hits failed.

I would agree that the 50mm L42 vs T34 situation should be revisited with an eye towards a possible revision, and the 37mm AP "door knocker" may be too good.

German tests with 50mm L60 during spring of 1942 showed that it could defeat KV-1 75mm/30° front plate at 100m, but failed at 200m.

As noted in my previous post, there is evidence which suggests that German ammo for 50mm, 75mm and 88mm guns was inferior to rounds which appeared spring 1942, which could account for some of the problems against T34.

[rexford]

Regarding long range hits, German reports on 88L71 ATG use indicate routine kills at 2500m to 3000m, and kills at 5000m. Gun was noted as being very accurate unless it was moved.

[rexford]

As an added confusing factor, when the Germans modelled T34 armor for their firing tests, they used 42mm to 53mm thick plates. An SU 100 nose armor, supposedly 45mm thick, was measured at 60mm.

Russian armor thicknesses may have been variable.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by rexford:

As an added confusing factor, when the Germans modelled T34 armor for their firing tests, they used 42mm to 53mm thick plates. An SU 100 nose armor, supposedly 45mm thick, was measured at 60mm.

Russian armor thicknesses may have been variable.

About time you got here. What took so long?

[Pantherbait]

Well, with all due respect, I'd have to wonder about this.

Modern tankers I know(German and American) via Steel Beasts say WW2 tank armament and current guns are night and day ballistically, etc., as well as actual armored combat obviously.

And as far as Kentucky windage, they've said that that's nothing but luck when a hit occurs today(i.e., if the rangefinder goes out, etc.), so if that's the case with modern armament, I'd be a bit suspect on WW2 armor.

For that matter, if that kind of hitting was possible, why was it sop to be firing from a stationary position at a stationary target with WW2 armor.

Maybe I'm mistaken, don't know personally. But *all* the modern tankers I've seen comments from say the above.

Originally posted by Renaud:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Mark Gallear:

Frankly the weapon technology of the day was such that even with the best WW2 guns I do not believe you could hits over 1,250oms without using all the tanks AP ammunition ranging the gun in!

I feel pretty confident in stating that WWII rifled high-vel cannons could indeed hit targets well over 1250 meters. Not sure where you came up with this nonsense. Qaulity WWII guns, such as the 88/L56, are essentially identical to modern rifled high-vel cannons and I know for a fact that a decent gunner using low-tech daylight optical sights (10x mag w/simple fixed reticle and range bars) can hit very distant (+2000meters) targets reliably using nothing more than kentucky windage. The best high velocity guns can put shot after shot right onto a stationary jeep-size target at practically any range, once the gun is laid in on that spot. With daylight optical sights, it's going to take a varying number of rounds to range in on the target depending on conditions, but not the entire ammo load! The CMBB model is certainly more realistic than you give it credit for.

Ren</font>

[Slapdragon]

First, I think it is useful to point out some things that make CM different from other games, which is where most people get their understandings of how armor works.

CM uses a physics model to determine round penetration on tanks taken from the best known research on the subject. That is very different from most games. Each game creates what I call an abstraction layer, which is the point where data is abstracted to allow the engine to function. For the average wargame, the abstraction layer comes for penetration in tank hits comes from the use of a lookup table to determine penetration. A look up table is simply a table which the application checks when a round hits, and compares the penetration value of that round at that range compared to the armor of the target and declares the hit either a penetration or a failure to penetrate (or sometimes offers other results). This abstracts out the physics and uses known penetration data, often against test metal of varying hardness.

CM is a much more complex beast. Rather than saying a 76mm penetrates x amount of armor at x range and leaving it at that, the designers of CM have created a very complex physics models based on a relatively large number of variables. Thus you feed CM the velocity and type of round being fired, the exact range to allow it to figure residual velocity, the angle of the target armor, the hardness of the armor (part of the armor quality figure) and other data and you get an formula that results in a penatration number. Then, as can be seen by any attempt to backwards engineer the game, it throws in a variable at some point (it seems to me that there are more than one variable, but that is Charles business and I don't really want to know, I just know it defies easy statistical analysis where a less complex variable would be easy to suss out) and you get a range of penetration results.

Changing the system means one of two things:

1) The physics model is wrong. Then the question is how the model is wrong, realizing that you may be changing the penetration value of every other tank in the game, since they all use the same model)

2) The data on the tank of the shell is wrong.

In the abstract, the game was tested to see if it resulted in results that were to be expected by the best data available. Some of the abstracts put forward are:

A) The T-34 was feared by the Germans.

In other games with less sophisticated modelling, they are nearly invulnerable to guns which in CM can occasionally take them out.

C) There are accounts of T-34 taking many hits from 37mm guns and surviving.

However, we also know that:

A) Many T-34s were killed by all sorts of means in the first year of the war. ATR gunners shot vision blocks out, petrol bombs caught them on fire, grenades disabled them, mines wrecked them, and even the lowly 37mm was capable of killing them sometimes.

The physics model mostly works.

C) Some data is lost to us forever, but mostly we have the best data that can be found.

In addition, there is the fact that the game does, like all games, have an abstraction layer. That layer is that the game does not truely model angle in all cases because the tanks position is a point rather than a shape in space. That is why you cannot hide behind a moving tank -- to provides no cover. So concievably we may not be accurately modelling the disadvantage small AT guns had when firing up at the front turrets of tanks at closer range -- namely high chance of richochets and more armor thickness to penetrate.

So what has to be looked at is:

Can the simulation, as is, handle the proposed variable.

Is the variable worth handling or does it get swallowed in passing.

Is the variable worth the effort adding

Does the variable even exist, or is our "feeling" that something is wrong incorrect.

[Amedeo]

Slapdragon,

from what Rexford said it seems that one could obtain results more in line with anectodal evidence just plugging in more accurate data.

Just for example: if we account for the large HE filler on 37mm AP, and give the short 50mm AP rounds instead of APBC rounds, whithout changing the current model but simply feeding it more appropriate data (maybe also the poorer manufacture of the rounds may be an issue here, but the model is already able to handle even this, as it does for eraly war 45mm rounds).

If we also feed in the 'narrow turret concept' (my pet suggestion in this thread) we'll end up with reasonable results without having to transform the comprehensive physic model of the game in a series of tabular data or ad hoc modifiers.

At this point we can start thinking to knock BFC door with a reasonable suggestion for the 1.02 patch

Regards,

Amedeo

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Mark Gallear:

Andreas seems like a serious guy - I hope a rethink is done on this issue and it really is sorted.

Me? Serious? Armour penetration? Isn't that what happens before my tanks go 'ka-booooom!'?

Seriously, if you hope for me helping you out of this one, forget about it, I have no clue about armour, I defer to Rexford. I do know that you don't want tankers as high-ranking commanders in CMMC though

Seriously though - I have at least one reference from a German armoured division in 1941 saying that the first time they encountered KVs and T34s they knocked them all out, and then never thought they were a problem again. Maybe a lot depended on that first impression? can't find it now though

Regarding the performance of Soviet 45mm armed tanks vs. 20mm armed tanks - I just figure that somehow the Red Army must have lost all those 20,000+ tanks during June-December 1941. I don't think they just waylaid them. I find it quite believable that these tanks were really as hopeless as they are in CMBB.

But all this is just impressions and opinions.

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by Amedeo:

Slapdragon,

from what Rexford said it seems that one could obtain results more in line with anectodal evidence just plugging in more accurate data.

Just for example: if we account for the large HE filler on 37mm AP, and give the short 50mm AP rounds instead of APBC rounds, whithout changing the current model but simply feeding it more appropriate data (maybe also the poorer manufacture of the rounds may be an issue here, but the model is already able to handle even this, as it does for eraly war 45mm rounds).

If we also feed in the 'narrow turret concept' (my pet suggestion in this thread) we'll end up with reasonable results without having to transform the comprehensive physic model of the game in a series of tabular data or ad hoc modifiers.

At this point we can start thinking to knock BFC door with a reasonable suggestion for the 1.02 patch

Regards,

Amedeo

Adding a "small turret front" variable to the game may work, but here is what would have to be done:

1) Define what this actually is. Adding an APBC round to a gun that lacks it, or increasing the filler of a round, is something that we can find emprical evidence of and add to the established model. A small front tank modifyer would need some research to define, 1) what constituted a small front, 2) did this really result in a useful change, 3) if yes to 2, then how much change to the physics model, 4) such a change would then have to be put into place across the board with each tank having the frontage of its turret given a variable based on some criteria of small, medium or large, or something to that effect.

2) Check the variable to see if the change to the physics model works as expected across all tanks. This is not just a single modifyer to a single tank, but a change to the model. Changes to the model have happened in patches before to fix unexpected behavior (usually when someone does something unrealistic, like charging jeeps at the enemy at high speeds) but often a lot of though must be placed into them.

3) Create the math for the patch.

My suggestion is that narrow turret is an idea, a theory, that may need some more research to make it work and be codable. Sort of like presenting evidence in a trial. The game is innocent until proven guilty, and you need to prove it guilty. You have a little probable cause, now you need to get the search warrant and dive into the data.

[illo]

Well... Im not the smartest, but even I can understand big is easier to hit than small.

Just look at Königstiger front turret. Its about 1/10th of monsters frontal profile. Of course you will have skewed results when CMBB counts this turret as (generic)1/3th of frontal area. Effect is most noticeable in hull down position.

I think t-34 suffers from this same problem.

[ October 20, 2002, 06:58 PM: Message edited by: illo ]

[rexford]

30° German penetration data in Jentz Panzertruppen 1943-1945 supports lower penetration for German 37mm and 50mm AP:

37mm L45 Pzgr uncapped AP @ 30 degrees

35mm at 100m, 29mm at 500m, 22mm at 1000m

50mm L42 Pzgr uncapped AP @ 30 degrees

53mm at 100m, 43mm at 500m, 32mm at 1000m

Above figures convert to following at 0° after considering armor hardness:

37mm L45 uncapped AP

48mm at 100m, 39mm at 500m, 30mm at 1000m

No turret front penetrations of T34 at 500m.

50mm L42 uncapped AP

73mm at 100m, 55mm at 500m, 39mm at 1000m

Penetration greater than 45mm at 500m.

Jentz has following 30° data for 75L24 APCBC:

41mm at 100m, 38mm at 500m, 35mm at 1000m

Which converts to 75L24 APCBC 0° penetration of:

50mm at 100m, 47mm at 500m, 44mm at 1000m

At Rowno, Michael Wittmann in a StuG IIIA with the 75L24 knocked out several T34 on the first shot at each, with quite a few knocked out on frontal shots. Scissors scope and ambush tactic helped StuG IIIA suddenly break out of cover and surprise T34 before it could react, but 75L24 could kill T34 frontally.

Would 50mm L42 AP fail against T34 turret front at all ranges?

German tests with 50mm L42 AP against normal hardness plate show 500m penetration of 43mm at 30 degrees. Would round fail on impact against 45mm of Russian armor at 0 degree angle at 500m?

I have read where Germans starting putting armor piercing caps on their ammo to reduce shatter tendencies. Maybe early war 50mm AP rounds were breaking up against very hard Russian armor.

Or maybe German commanders were blaming high losses to Russian formations on T34 armor, when problem was poor tactics. Some German commanders state that 75L43 gun was great against T34 during spring 1942, knocking them out at all angles to 1200m, with a maximum range of 1600m. Some commanders from same period complain that 75L43 is inadequate beyond 1000m. Different angles, bad ammo or trying to move the blame.

There has been discussion on the Tankers site that some T34 were built with medium hardness armor, an article was reviewed where the U.S. not only built factories in Russia during the 1930's that were for tractors but were converted to armor, but sent Russia armor plate prior to WW II which may have been medium hardness.

We know that T34 were built during 1942 with high hardness armor, who knows what happened during 1940 and 1941.

German 50mm AP rounds were probably soft enough to break up due to shatter on some hits.

50mm L42 AP should penetrate 45mm turret front on T34, why are the turret front kills given so little publicity in reports and anecdotes?

[Bastables]

Originally posted by rexford:

50mm L42 AP should penetrate 45mm turret front on T34, why are the turret front kills given so little publicity in reports and anecdotes?

they're there if you look:Jentz PanzerTruppen Vol I

Pz Regt 203 has knocked out 115 enemy tanks with the loss of 14 of their own Pz's

Combating the T 34 with the 5cm KwK tank gun is possible only only at short ranges from the flanks or rear. Hits on the turret ring, even with high explosive shells or MG bullets, usually result in jamming the turret. In addition, armour piercing shells fired at close range that hit the gun mantle result in penatrations and breaking open the weld seams.

[ October 20, 2002, 08:09 PM: Message edited by: Bastables ]

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Regarding the performance of Soviet 45mm armed tanks vs. 20mm armed tanks - I just figure that somehow the Red Army must have lost all those 20,000+ tanks during June-December 1941. I don't think they just waylaid them.

In a way they did thought, of the older tanks ~75% was not actually battleworthy. For one thing they had stopped making spares for the T-26&28 when they transistioned to the newer tanks.. so not only where they broken, they couldn't ne fixed either.

Not that changes the fact that the 45mm tanks were not up to the rigors of modern combat. The T-26 (nee Vickers 6 ton of the twenties!) was positively ancient history in '41 and the BT series made british tanks look like a safe proposition (they did compare favorable to Italian tankettes though..).

[Grisha]

rexford,

Sorry to bother you again, but do you have anything on BT-7(45mm) vs. PzII(20mm) engagements? CMBB appears to show a tendency to favor the PzII in such encounters under testing.

Some very interesting data on the whole. Many thanks.

[Renaud]

Originally posted by Pantherbait:

For that matter, if that kind of hitting was possible, why was it sop to be firing from a stationary position at a stationary target with WW2 armor.

This was necessary because German WWII AFV's did not have gun stabilization, which is unrelated to gun accuracy. That is to say, the ballistic accuracy of the gun is a seperate issue from the rangefinding, targeting and stabilization technology used to point the weapon: if you manually lay either a modern M256 smoothbore or WWII 88L56 correctly and apply the proper elevation you will hit with both reliably at ranges well over 1500 meters. Obviously, using the modern targeting devices, today's tank gunners are expected to get first round hits EVERY time even at long (1500+) ranges. You don't get the same accuracy if you must use the regular auxilary optical sights and no rangefinder. It may take you several shots, maybe only 1 or 2 if the TC has time to find range with the .50. However, my point is that the guns themselves are essentially the same in regards to ballistic accuracy, and that crews specifically trained in manual rangefinding (a skill in which modern US crews are poorly trained, but hardly need) as were those in WWII will hit regularly well beyond 1250m. I think if you stuck Bobby Woll in the gunner's seat behind a M256 120mm (a german designed gun btw) and asked him to only use the Gunner's Auxilary Sight, he would probably compare favorably to me using the full hi-tech works. Of course the standard Tiger I optical sight is vastly better than the M1 GAS which is extemely 'auxilary'...

On a side note, I believe a major contributor to the legendary long range AT effectiveness of the LW 88 Flak units was their high level of gunnery training particularly in manual rangefinding techniques.

Ren

[Grisha]

On a side note, I believe a major contributor to the legendary long range AT effectiveness of the LW 88 Flak units was their high level of gunnery training particularly in manual rangefinding techniques.

Absolutely agree on that. Given that these crews were normally tasked with determining the range for high flying aircraft ahead of their flight path, rangefinding something as slow as a tank at a 'mere' kilometer must have seemed easy for them.

[Amedeo]

Regarding the long range gunnery issue here are some interesting quotes:

1) From Hasso von Manteuffel memoirs about the first encounter of his division's (GD) TIger tanks against the new IS-2, May 1944 Romania:

"Not having seen this type before our Tigers opened fire from 3000m and the crews noted that the 88mm rounds ricocheted aff the armour! [...] Some Tigers crept up to within 1800m where they succeded in knowking out two Stalins [...] This encounter was shocking, as previously our 88mm gun had destroyed Russian tanks with direct hit at maximum ranges without difficulty."

NOTE: according to the official instructions regarding the use of the 8,8cm Kw.K. 36 on the Tiger, the firing range for the PzGr.39 was considered 2000m, 2500m in favourable circumstances, and 3000m when platoon fire was possible.

2) From the September 1944 issue of the 'Nachrichtenblatt der Panzertruppen':

"In many cases the Iosif Stalin tanks let themselves engage in a firefight only at long ranges, over 2000m"

3) From a report by the 4. Panzerdivision (October 1941):

"Russian tanks usually form in an half circle, open fire with their 76.2mm guns on our tanks at a range of 1000m and deliver enormous penetrating energy with high accuracy [...] the accuracy and penetrating ability of the Russian 76.2mm tank gun are high"

Thus it seems that for veteran troops armed with late war, long barrelled tank guns it was not so uncommon to open fire at ranges in excess of 2000m and score hits. And even for the eralier part of the was tank combat at 1000m was more the rule than the exception. So in this sector it seems that CMBB is in accord with empirical evidence.

Regards.

Amedeo

[Amedeo]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

[cut]

My suggestion is that narrow turret is an idea, a theory, that may need some more research to make it work and be codable. Sort of like presenting evidence in a trial. The game is innocent until proven guilty, and you need to prove it guilty. You have a little probable cause, now you need to get the search warrant and dive into the data.

You're absolutely right. In fact the reason of my first post was to start a discussion that could attract also other people that would have provided data and historical accounts to prove or disprove the relevance of the "narrow turret front" (despite the sensational thread name that was choosen only to attract the grogs' attention )

Anyway it's obvious that currently, in the game, the major vulnerability issue for early T-34s against German guns in the turret front, and the majority of tanks knocked out by antitank fire dies exactly for one or more front turret penetration. I found that in historical reports (at least the few ones that are available to me) the particular vulnerability of front turret in never mentioned. On the other hand instances of penetrations through the lower hull side or the driver's hatch were noted. In fact the soviet report I quoted complains against 37mm penetrations in the sloped hull!

Anyway I'm the first one to recognize that furter research is necessary, anyway my first guess was that a "narrow turret" effect could be modelled (in game terms) reducing the hit on the turret front to 1/3 and let the remaining 2/3 hits, strike on the turret side armor with a compound angle increased of, say, 30°.

Regards,

Amedeo

P.S. Any other data regarding the APC DOI for 50mm guns? Hogg says that the first gun to have APC round was the long 50mm.

[Priest]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Seriously, if you hope for me helping you out of this one, forget about it, I have no clue about armour, I defer to Rexford. I do know that you don't want tankers as high-ranking commanders in CMMC though

QB]

WHAT??!!!!?? :eek:

[rune]

I have debated posting this, because some of you don't know me. Those of you that do, may recall I have an uncle who served in a Tiger unit at the end of the war, but did serve in Barbarossa. When this first popped up in another thread, i debated asking him about this, as he is a private man and only talked about the war ONCE since I have been born, and those who have been here a while, recall my posting about the naviswhatchamacallit, and him using it three times. The way this works, is i send a series of questions to my mom, who translates it to German [unfortunately, i neither read nor write it] who then gets the reply and translates it back to English for me [well the best she can, some technical terms are hard for her to translate]. To those who asked before, no, he has not stated what unit he was with...and I will not push the point, the man is 86 and deserving of some peace.

Question:

Was the T34 tank a tank to be feared?

Answer:

Absolutely not. The tank itself had problems and at least in the units I was in, was not feared at all. I have no idea where this myth came from, other then the sheer numbers of [unknown word] that would be sent against you.

Question: Before you served on the Tiger, did you destroy any Russian Tanks?

Answer: Yes. During the beginning of the invasion of Russia I served as a gunner on Panzer IIIs, several versions, the Russians had several early types, none of which were particually effective.

Question: Did you destroy T34s in other then Tigers?

Answer: Yes, the Russian tanks were used piecemeal [not sure of translation] and the few times they were in numbers, were destroyed easily by us, or our Antiaircraft assets. [Rune: I assume he means 88s]

Question: Could a early Panzer destroy a T34 from the front?

Answer: There were many types of T34s. We taught ourselves to shoot at the weak points. However, the gun [casing?] was weak and easily penetrated by the short and long barrel Panzer IIIs. {Rune:I assume 50mm] I have some photos still of some of the kills, taken after the battle.

Last Question: Any long range kills?

Answer: Not sure what you are asking. If you mean in the Tiger, it was a poor crew that could not kill within 3 shots at 2000 meters. There were very few poor crews in the Unit. We were taught from early war to destroy at a distance. We adapted when we found we could not destroy the T34 above 1000 meters. [i assume he meant in the Panzer IIIs]

The rest of the letter has to do with family and cousins. I have not been back to Germany since my tour in the Navy, when I was there in 1977, or was it 1978? Don't remember.

Again, I debated posting it, but I do think it has good information. Believe it, or ignore it, that is up to you. I am lucky he answered at all, as he does not like to speak of the war at all.

Rune

[Bastables]

Thanks alot Rune