weapon2010 Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 Seems like they fire only after commander buttons up?Is this the case? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 Seems like they fire only after commander buttons up?Is this the case? Should be. The TC was also the gunner, I believe. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeFF Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 Seems like they fire only after commander buttons up?Is this the case? By design, yes. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 Michael is correct. The crew of the T-34/76 has 2 men in the full upfront, the driver and the radio operator / ball MG gunner, and 2 in the turret, the loader and the tank commander / gunner. The TC gets to drop down and get on the gunsight to aim the main gun, and he pulls the trigger. He can't do that while up scanning the landscape. Incidentally, the early war tanks like the BT series also shared the TC and gunner role. The T-60 and T-70 have only a 1 man turret and 1 driver, so in those he also gets to load. The Russians get a 3 man turret for the T-34/85, quite late. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weapon2010 Posted April 9, 2014 Author Share Posted April 9, 2014 seems like an awful disadvantage 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barkhorn1x Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 seems like an awful disadvantage Umm...yeah! That's why they switched to the T-34/85 3 man turrent. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 ...and there's ongoing debate about whether the initial T34-85s had retained a two man turret arrangement before shifting the cupola back and moving to a 3 man crew. BFC falls on the side of 3 man turret, I'm not so sure. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sardaukar Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 Indeed...2-man turret was damn awful disadvantage. That is, if against tank with 3-man turret. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 An extra set of eyes are useful, certainly. But the gunner's hands are not exactly connected to the commander's eyes by internal nerves. Splitting the role creates another coordination point of failure, as the gunner can't understand what the commander is saying about just to the left of that big oak tree (huh, which one?). The real reason for the smaller turret crews was of course the physical size of the turret - more men just didn't fit. You can design a bigger turret from the start, of course. Then you get things like the Panzer III can't take a gun bigger than 50mm, so you have to convert them all to turretless StuGs once a 50mm isn't a good enough gun for the armor the other guy has. The Panzer 38 had the same 4 man crew and crew positions at the T-34. The Panzer II had a TC / gunner, loader / radio operator on the right side of the turret, and 1 driver up front - less overwork for the TC than in a T-70, but as much as there is in a BT-7 or a T-34. Just under 1600 of the tanks used in Barbarossa had 3 man turrets - the lower half of the tank fleet had 2 man turrets. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreigner Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 I've read there were two versions of 85-mm tank guns that competed for approval - D-5T and S-53 - and two turret versions - 2-men and 3-men. S-53 won the trials, but could not be fitted to the 2-men turret, which was ready for production earlier. Apparently, in the rush to get an upgunned T-34 to the front, for a couple of months one plant produced a T-34-85 version with a 2-men turret with the D-5T gun with a run of several hundred. By March 1944, though, the 3-men turret with the S-53 gun was in regular production. I think Battlefront can be excused for ignoring a stopgap version that was a very small fraction of total numbers produced, and discontinued some time before "Bagration" started. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 The D-5T gun 'early' version is actually in the game, and the forward-set cupola. The issue was locating conclusive documentary evidence on crew number in the darned turret. There were debates on that, believe me there were debates. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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