Info on T34 add-on armor

[MikeyD]

There was a question over on the CMAK group about applique armor on T34s. Here's all the material I've got. My source was an excellent article by Karl Brandel in 'AFV News' Vol.31 No.3 (exactly 10 years ago).

According to Brandel's research applique armor was a very early feature of the T34, first being designed for early T34 M40 (41?) hulls. Brandel puts the plate thickness at 20mm but I've got another source estimating 15mm. The plates appear to be add-ons to fresh factory vehicles. Most up-armored T34s appear to have come from the Stalingrad (STZ) plan, which was of course overrun in 1942. Some also came out of the Gorki plant and I've seen photos of Leningrad T34s also with the extra armor too.

Most interesting is the single-piece 35mm armor plate. Yes it's real, I've spotted a photo of this heavy armor on an abandoned T34 M43. That extra 35mm armor combined with the 45mm hull is a respectable 80mm (and if you factor in the 60 degree angle of the bow that measures-out to some 160mm!). A Tiger I's 88 gun is listed in CMAK penetrating only 61mm at 60 degrees from 100m. Ouch!

And whether those thinner plates were 15mm or 20mm they still push the bow thickness to at least 60mm, past what the PzIV 75mm gun can reliably penetrate (51mm at 60 degree from 100m according to CMAK). Too bad applique T34 armor isn't included in CMBB, that would be REAL trouble for the German side!

[Hammer-n-Sickle]

any of that available for the Hummers in Iraq

[MikeyD]

I'm surprised uparmored T34s have showed up so little in the literature (a.k.a. German sources), especially considering it must've made holing them considerably more difficult. I don't think there's been any mention in available sources of how they were portioned out and in what numbers. Can we speculate, did every T34 coming off the assembly line in a particular month get extra armor, and were they parcelled out randomly like 'normal' T34s to units? Or were they considered breakthrough tanks and would each platoon get their 'Jumbo' T34 to head the upcoming assault?

With so much known about details of WWII armor you'd think PzIV -proof hull T34s would warrant a bit more digging.

[Bigduke6]

Fascinating. Brilliant post!

This is pure speculation, but I would assume that the additional bow armor plates would have been a Soviet Union-wide addition, rather than a factory-wide addition. The logic here is that design decisions like this were almost always top down, and the more resource-intensive the decision, the more likely the top was to control it.

That is however not conclusive. There ARE documented minor differences between T-34s depending on the factory, the best known of which are the hatches in T-34/85.

330 kg. of steel times about 1,000 vehicles a month is of course pretty durn resource intensive. It could have been the Soviets decided the plate were necessary at one point in time, and that the fleet no longer needed it at another time.

I would say that for sure the Soviets would not parcel them out to platoons. As a standard, vehicles were replaced wholesale by brigade or regiment. Replacement of damaged vehicles of course was on by case, so if in fact the "thick front" T-34 was produced only in some cases, I guess you could get a platoon or company with mixed "thin front" and "thick front" T-34s. But a single "breakthrough T-34" in a platoon, and that standard across lots of platoons, is absolutely against Soviet doctrine.

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of T-34s resisting 75mm strikes, but there's also plenty of anecdotal evidence of 75mm AP destroying T-34s at normal combat ranges. Whether this is indicative of lack of thick-front T-34s, or a lower quality of the extra armor plate, I haven't the foggiest.

I'd be delighted to dig more about this, and a good place to start would be the bibliography of the Brandel article. MickyD, can you provide a link or post the bibliography up here?

[JasonC]

I notice that the drivers hatch and MG turret don't get the extra protection. I've seen both mentioned repeatedly in German side accounts as important due to greater vulnerability. To me it suggest this kit was rather more common...

[undead reindeer cavalry]

according to Zaloga it was mostly STZ modification, and mostly for 41/42 models. these tanks appeared mostly on just two fronts. according to Zaloga the added plates were most likely scrap metal.

i would not call these jumbos and i don't think they had any kind of special tactical use.

i'll check later the photos i mentioned in the other thread and see if they are worth scanning.

EDIT: some pics from quick googling:

[ November 18, 2006, 07:23 AM: Message edited by: undead reindeer cavalry ]

[Guest Mike]

well there ya go then - 30+ years after starting my interest in wargaming with WW2 Russians I can still learn something new!

Thanks

[JasonC]

So will 45+20 T-34s be modeled as having the equivalent of 70mm plate at 60 degrees, and thus bounce 75L48 routinely down to point blank? Or is that only for StuGs?

(ducks)

[Bigduke6]

UDR,

Shows ya what I know. Thanks for setting me straight.

[JasonC]

I have a problem believing it was only a Stalingrad factory thing, when the photo is of 1942 tanks near Leningrad.

[z-warfare]

Damn lucky to get issued one of those. Any idea as to HOW rare these kits were? 1 in 30,000?

[Sergei]

Originally posted by z-warfare:

Damn lucky to get issued one of those.

Well, I don't know... I think you still were better off inside a KV-1.

[Soddball]

If these were manufactured for early T-34s (that is I assume those in combat in 1941-1942), does it suggest that existing armour was inadequate even with that slope? What would T-34s have been facing in 1941 that made such extra armour necessary?

[Andreas]

10cm K18

8,8cm Flak 38

15cm sFH18 Panzergranate

Those are some I could think of.

All the best

Andreas

[JasonC]

105mm HE even, is barely adequate against the 45mm with slope but would be hopeless against this.

As for people pretending is was very rare, you simply know nothing of the kind. So far we've seen nothing definitive about how rare or common it was.

When a source says it was produced at 3 factories, you have to understand that practically all T-34s were made at a whopping 6 and these were huge affairs. Being made at 3 factories could mean half to practically all of 1942 output.

Gorki 92, Stalingrad, and Leningrad were the main places in 1942 - Stalingrad the single largest from the time Leningrad went under seige until the battle for the city. There was another at Kharkov that relocated to the Urals, one heavy machinery megaplant already there that switched to them, and another one set up there. By 1943, most were being made in the Urals.

[MikeyD]

About not uparmoring the driver's hatch, I'm recalling from an earlier discussion (on another forum?) that the '2nd generation' standard T34 hatch with the twin periscopes was more than twice as thick as the bow armor. German training docs showing vulnerable areas on the T34 pretty much classed the hatch as invulnerable (which was a surprise to me when I saw it).

Reports indicated that the add-on armor was for 1941-42 vehicles mostly, but I have seen picts of more than a couple M43 hex turret vehicles. I think the heavier the vehicle turret got the less likely you'd see add-on armor. That 35mm applique armor would probably stress the old Christie suspension and sharply degrade the T34's one advantage of speed.

When you start looking for add-on T34 armor in picture books they seem to start popping up everywhere. BUT we've got to keep in mind most pictures are still of plain-vanilla T34s.

[JasonC]

The mobility claim is a crock - the T-34 was very generously supplied in that respect, while the Pz IV chassis for example took nearly half again the weight it was designed for by the end. These kits are less than half a ton to a little over 1 ton for the thickest, on a 30 ton tank. The extra weight all up front might marginally effect the steering, but would not appreciably effect flotation or typical speed etc.

[realest]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The mobility claim is a crock - the T-34 was very generously supplied in that respect, while the Pz IV chassis for example took nearly half again the weight it was designed for by the end. These kits are less than half a ton to a little over 1 ton for the thickest, on a 30 ton tank. The extra weight all up front might marginally effect the steering, but would not appreciably effect flotation or typical speed etc.

Jason, are you talking about the 728 lbs listed on the picture? If so i fully agree with you. This is of no significance, especially when you consider that if a few infantrymen gather on top of the deck you've got way over that. Say each man weighs in at 225 or more complete with gear, it's like adding riding 3 guys on the tank.

[MikeyD]

I think the 728 lbs figure was a rough estimate of bow area covered by 20mm plate. If 15mm plate is more accurate I suppose that would come out to roughly 550-ish pounds? A T34 could handle that easily.

The rarer and thicker 35mm plate weighs twice as much. I'm reminded of Patton objecting to his soldiers piling sandbags and spare tracks onto his Shermans. However much a few lengths of spare track weighs, he argued the weight would dramatically cut down on mobility and increase parts failures. An extra thousand pounds on a T34 bow could probably be handled by the suspension okay - but I wonder about the added strain on the T34's Soviet-quality transmission!

A modern day equivalent would be parts failure on increasingly heavy armored Humvees in Iraq. You can argue they haven't passed the vehicle's official max load capacity yet but that doesn't mean they aren't still replacing ball joints at a very hight rate.

[Guest Mike]

The front suspension of hte T34 couldn't handle too much more weight - the T34/85 was right at the limit of it ie making the tank nose heavy.

Adding half a ton of armour on the bow of a '76 might have a similar effect.

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by JasonC:

. So far we've seen nothing definitive about how rare or common it was.

When a source says it was produced at 3 factories, you have to understand that practically all T-34s were made at a whopping 6 and these were huge affairs. Being made at 3 factories could mean half to practically all of 1942 output.

Try the 3 volume T34 work from Ajaks.

There you will find mention of this uparmouring at factory 112 (Gorky, Spring 1943)and at STZ (Stalingrad, late 1942)

Mention is also made of a Repair Workshop 27 welding armour plate on the turret sides

[Soddball]

Originally posted by Andreas:

10cm K18

8,8cm Flak 38

15cm sFH18 Panzergranate

Those are some I could think of.

All the best

Andreas

Would those have been common enough to cause the uparmouring? And even with the uparmouring, what's the chance of stopping an 88 round?

[Andreas]

They were not common, but they did have an impact on the operational level in the first days of the war, when they stopped a Soviet Mech Corps from overrunning the HQ of 1. PD near Siauliai (Schaulen).

This and similar events could have sent a clear signal to the Soviet high command that sumfink needed to be done with their newest toy, especially since at that point in time they may not have been clear about German AT capabilities, and their future development. That something was rare is not enough reason not to plan to deal with it - witness Zimmerit on German tanks.

According to MikeyD's starting post, the 88L56 (easily the most common of the three in terms of AT work) might have had trouble to get through this level of armour and sloping at standard combat ranges.

All the best

Andreas

[Bigduke6]

Fair enough, but to the Soviet way of thinking the reason you up armor you main tank is not because of fears of onsies and twosies, but because there is a threat out there - present or future - that you think will make your medium tank too vulnerable.

My guess, the Soviets got wind of German plans for the widespread deployment of the 75mm, and the GMZ and STZ were the first step in the logical response: Uparmoring the T-34's front.

The Soviets were very good on weapons intelligence and as far as I know nothing the Germans ever fielded suprised them, from a tech POV. I think it's reasonable to assume shortly after the Wehrmacht decided it needed 75mm across the force, the Soviets knew about it too.

Taking this supposition a bit further, I would assume that the reason the thickened plates did not become standard across the force was because of a decision to save steel, combined with the conclusion that the extra plates really didn't buy you that much advantage at normal combat ranges. Essentially, the arguement would be once the Soviets figured out the exact capabilities of the 75mm/L48, they decided trying to stopping that round with armor on a T-34 was pointless: you need close to 100mm sloped.

So basically, I am theorizing they started with the uparmored T-34s in response to information about the 75mm, but once the 75mm got fielded extensively they decided the uparmoring wasn't worth extending to the other four T-34 factories.

Of course, it goes without saying that if you get in the 100 - 120 bracket and slope it then you could stop the 75mm at least at longer ranges, which is precisely what Stalin II did - in RL anyway.

Besides, T-34s weren't Tigers, they were supposed to be mobile and as a result T-34s risked flank shots etc. more than a slugging tank like the Tiger. So with that mission giving that inherent vulnerability, maybe the Soviets decided it was pointless to waste extra steel on a T-34 front.

One more call for a bibliography, and also if some one has the production figures for GMZ and STZ for the period, as opposed to overall T-34 production, that might shed some light too.

[MikeyD]

Someone asked for the references used in that Karl Brandel article I got much of my info from.

It looks like mostly an enthusiast's observation of photo references. Remember there's been a decade of amazing new references that have appeared since the article was written:

1: Squardon N.20 "T-34 in Action" by Zaloga

2: Waffen-Arsenal Bd. 116, "Beutepanzer unterm Balkanreuz - Rissische Panzer" by Regenberg & Scheibert.

3: Waffen-Arsenal Bd. 109, "Der russiche Kampfwagen T-34" by Regenberg & Scheibert.

4: Model Art "T-34, KV" No. 338.

5: "Soviet Combat Tanks 1939-45" by Chamberlain & Ellis.

I could add my own laundry list of reference books that have confirmed/augmented Brandel's observations. And I think the now-defunct 'Russian Armor' webside covered the topic somewhat too. But like the original article stated, there's a maddening lack of detailed primary source material.