CMBB: T-34 Armor Flaws?

[c3k]

Gents,

With all the debate about the glacis quality of the various Panthers, I thought I'd bring up the variable T-34 armor quality.

I read (in one of my 80% of all books ever written on WWII ) a first-person German commander narrative. In it, he mentioned how surprised they were at the decline in T-34 production quality. One of the specifics was that a T-34 had been produced with armor consisting of two plates, the gap between being filled with pig-iron.

(I believe this was a mid-war report ~'43.)

Is this type of shoddy armor going to modelled at all in CMBB? I mean, we've all had our uber-cat beliefs shattered, what of our uber-T/KV beliefs?

As always, don't dare answer this if it will delay CMBB.

Thanks,

Ken

[Iron Chef Sakai]

The quality on the T-34's/Kv's was quite simply awful. Especialy after they had to relocate some of their factories. The Soviet production standard was just that, production. Take a look at some pictures and you'll see the hurried welding jobs. The tanks welding was gruesome, but the Soviets did not have the luxury of time with what looked to be a defeat of their nation.

[MikeyD]

I've not heard stories about low quality of the actual armor plate on T34s (maybe I've just been reading the wrong sources).

I have heard about bad work done in manufacture, especially on non-critical items, and in large variations in quality of the cast armor. I recall one German doc being appalled at the quality of the T34 workmanship (Germans constructed their Tiger I's like expensive Swiss watchs!) but noted the sloppy welds held and the rough-cut plate was of pretty good quality steel.

[Commissar]

My understanding is that T-34 armor quality was really a mixed bag, some of it ok and others just awful due to loss of access to key alloys for armor production and the the massive move of the factories to the Urals. Soviet tank losses were quite massive and the leadership was mainly concerned with just producing as many tanks as possible. This of course led to "shortcuts" being taken, with armor quality being the most obvious sufferer. However, the armor quality did imporove from 1943 onwards as more emphasis was put on quality and access to the key metals were again in larger supply.

[c3k]

Guys,

Thanks for responding. Again, my emphasis is NOT on weld quality or other (arguably) cosmetic items. The case in point was a report of a T-34 using pig-iron for armor. Other cases were reported with similar ad-hoc type of fillings.

BTS has seen fit (with some very good analysis) to render Panther G's with 85% armor (oh God, don't start flaming... just accept it and press on). My question is in a similar vein: will T-34 armor reflect the various levels of quality which occurred throughout the production runs? I'd submit that the case I paraphrased was not unique. I'd also submit that using pig-iron provided substantially lower protection than 85% of normal armor.

Does anyone (rexford? JasonC?) have some information dealing with Soviet production quotas and how corners were cut to meet the raw numbers?

If the T-34 flaws are not addressed in the design stage, I fear that they Soviets will have ahistorically strong AFV's.

Ken

[Iron Chef Sakai]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by c3k:

Guys,

Thanks for responding. Again, my emphasis is NOT on weld quality or other (arguably) cosmetic items.

Ken<hr></blockquote>

Welds are hardly cosmetic....what do you think holds everything together? If a weld breaks, the peice of metal is is holding is going to have to go somewhere right?

And as far as what corners were cut in the production of the Soviet tanks the answer is simple.....all of them. Even with corners cut is a 37mm gun going to penetrate the frontal armor of a t-34 at 800m? Nope.

Even with the Soviet Tanks quaility severly lacking....the number of them on the battlefield will not be. Sure the Tiger is an excelent example of good craftmanship, but thats one of the reasons only a few thousand were produced.

Russian tanks were thrown together much like the Sherman...very simple design to convert into mass production. The Tiger had it's parts machined all over the place. Very good craftsmanship, but also very time consuming. Another main reason for the germans lagging behind som much in prduction with the Soviets was that Albert Spier did not set the german economy to a war time economy until 1943. Should have been done pre- Barbarossa. Luckily it was not implemented at that point in time.

Also are females going ot be modeled in the game in soviet tank crews? Many women fought for the Soviets in the Second Wolrd War.

[gredeker]

This doesn't have to do with armor protection, but I seem to recall reading/hearing somewhere that T-34's were issued with a large hammer as standard equipment to "encourage" the gearshift lever when needed. Can anyone confirm or deny this story? And does anyone else know of any other obvious manifestations of the shortcuts taken in the manufacturing process to speed production?

[Battlefront.com]

The short answer is yes... armor quality for certain Soviet tank models will suffer. The T-34 family was not the only one IIRC.

The decisions we had to make about reduced German armor quality was tough, but necessary. However, generally the problem with German armor was the quality of its hardening or of the welds which held the plates together. This is easy compared to the fact that the Soviets had these types of problems PLUS variable thickness of plates.

I don't have any figures off the top of my head, but some plates were perhaps 10% thinner than the spec sheets required. Obviously this makes a huge difference on the battlefield. And obviously it presentes a huge problem for us because the CM engine was not coded to handle such case by case things. We are also not sure how widespread thinner armor was.

The worst period of time was late 1941 through 1943. This was due to relocation, massive losses, shortages of materials, and tremendous pressure to produce as many vehicles in the shortest period of time. I suspect thin armor was the result of the foundery only have x amount of materials and y orders for finished product. With a 10% reduction of thickness you get one more plate for every nine made.

I'm not exactly sure what Charles plans on doing to at least take a stab at this vexing issue, but we are definitely aware of it.

Thanks,

Steve

[109 Gustav]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redeker:

This doesn't have to do with armor protection, but I seem to recall reading/hearing somewhere that T-34's were issued with a large hammer as standard equipment to "encourage" the gearshift lever when needed. Can anyone confirm or deny this story? <hr></blockquote>

I've heard this as well, but I can't remember and don't have the source. The T34 transmission wasn't very darn good, I've seen pictures of captured T34s with spare transmissions strapped on the back deck.

Another example of bad quality I just thought of- the turret traverse motor was overloaded, and frequently shorted out. I'm hoping damage to the traverse motor will be modeled for all tanks in CMBB, it would be a great way to have a tank suffer damage from hits other than gun damage or armor flaking.

Then there was the corner cutting of only having a four man crew, with the commander doubling as the gunner. Should be really interesting when the commander gets blown away by a sniper. Oops, I mean sharpshooter.

[ 01-25-2002: Message edited by: 109 Gustav ]</p>

[Diceman]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

The short answer is yes... armor quality for certain Soviet tank models will suffer. The T-34 family was not the only one IIRC.

I don't have any figures off the top of my head, but some plates were perhaps 10% thinner than the spec sheets required. Obviously this makes a huge difference on the battlefield. And obviously it presentes a huge problem for us because the CM engine was not coded to handle such case by case things. We are also not sure how widespread thinner armor was.

The worst period of time was late 1941 through 1943. This was due to relocation, massive losses, shortages of materials, and tremendous pressure to produce as many vehicles in the shortest period of time. I suspect thin armor was the result of the foundery only have x amount of materials and y orders for finished product. With a 10% reduction of thickness you get one more plate for every nine made.

I'm not exactly sure what Charles plans on doing to at least take a stab at this vexing issue, but we are definitely aware of it.

Thanks,

Steve<hr></blockquote>

Perhaps you could have multiple tank codes for each vehicle; for instance, have three (or whatever necessary or practical) T34/1942s coded up, each with different quality factors. This would be great for scenario designers, although I admit it might not add that much dimension to user select quick battles.

Not knowing whether this would be mostly a cut and paste job, or a huge multiplication of coding labor, I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but it seams plausible on the surface.

Now if it could be done in a way where you can only tell the difference between the high and low quality tanks on the purchasing screen, that would add a certain dimension to scenario play.

[109 Gustav]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Diceman:

.

Now if it could be done in a way where you can only tell the difference between the high and low quality tanks on the purchasing screen, that would add a certain dimension to scenario play.<hr></blockquote>

Why then? When you're buying a T34, wouldn't it be a lot more fun if you didn't know if it's going to be a top quality tank lovingly crafted by skilled machinists, or something slapped together by a bunch of drunken yahoos on the night shift trying to meet the quota to make the boss happy?

[rexford]

T34 armor is high hardness (beyond ability of normal machine tools to cut), and relatively thin compared to projectile diameter, so will lose about 25% of its resistance against 75mm German projectiles.

The indicated penetration ranges for 75L43 in Thomas Jentz' books, 1200m on any angle hit and 1600m maximum, match up well with armor resistance estimates using high hardness modifiers and a slight to non-existent quality decrease from there.

What was really variable about T34 armor may have been the thickness, German firing tests against T34 like armor use 40mm to 50mm design thicknesses, and measurements of 45mm design thickness on SU 100 and other tanks range from 42mm to 50mm.

When armor plate is brittle and projectile diameter is much larger than thickness, variations in plate quality have a much smaller impact than thickness changes.

[Battlefront.com]

Diceman wrote:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Perhaps you could have multiple tank codes for each vehicle;<hr></blockquote>

I can't definitively say what we are or are not going to do, but keep in mind that in theory we could have done this with the Panther and other German tanks far more easily than with the much more bulky Soviet tank roster.

Again, the core game engine was not designed for this level of variableness. Any solution we come up with will be limited and lack the granularity of real life. Until we rewrite the engine game engine that is

With an ideal system the player in a QB would purchase "Medium Tank Platoon" and would just have to live with whatever was issued to him, flaws and all.

Rexford... thanks for filling in some numbers!

Steve

[Diceman]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by 109 Gustav:

Why then? When you're buying a T34, wouldn't it be a lot more fun if you didn't know if it's going to be a top quality tank lovingly crafted by skilled machinists, or something slapped together by a bunch of drunken yahoos on the night shift trying to meet the quota to make the boss happy?<hr></blockquote>

Exactly! I was assuming that if a specific vehicle was coded up more than once to allow a choice of quality facters for the scenario designer they would be named in such a way as to tell the purchaser what he was getting: T34-1942 42mm front glasis as an arbitrary example. But the scenario player should not automatically know his T34 doesn't meet design specs. Such details should only be visible at the battle construction level, not on the battlefield.

[JasonC]

Armor quality for the T-34s should certainly be below 100, but may result in realism problems if dropped all the way to 75. Especially against smaller rounds (50mm and below) and HEAT projectiles, where harder can be better. Slope may also be more effective against HEAT than APC, so problems can "squish out" on some projectile match ups if one tries matching only one round (e.g. the 75L43 AP) and then deducing the rest from equivalent thicknesses.

Notice, for example, that T-34/85s regularly defeated US 60mm bazookas, which CM today rates as penetrating 45mm of armor at 60 degrees. Any quality reduction would have the bazookas KOing them, since that was the plate thickness and slope. Getting 1-3 quality ratings to cover what happens against 75mm HEAT (e.g. from 75L24, apparently defeated by the hull), 105mm HEAT (which should be sufficient against T-34s but not KV-1s, based on 1941 combat reports), 50mm AP of different velocities (usually defeated), 75mm AP (effective at range), and 88mm AP (effective at range, though range limited for the slower FLAK-18 projectiles), is going to be a balancing act.

From Rexford's explanations, you'd expect the larger APs to do better, and the HEAT to do worse, than average. With the smaller AP somewhere in between. So which quality number do you use, one that matches the worst, the best, or splits the differences? It is obvious to me it should be one that splits the differences. Which will probably mean the final result is a bit too generous to HEAT, and a bit too stingy to large caliber AP, than perfect realism about each case would dictate.

To get one armor quality number to cover all cases, one will have to accept such limits. It is better than getting large AP right and making the armor too vunerable to e.g. 75L24 HEAT, as a result.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Steve wrote,

“The worst period of time was late 1941 through 1943.”

I have always been of the same opinion, based on general reading, and a touch of commonsense thrown in.

However, in 1942 the Soviets sent the British a T34b and a KV1, with full loads of lubricants, ammunition, the lot. They were no doubt a thank you for all the obsolete British tanks being sent the other way. Anyway, as a result, the Tank Museum in Bovingdon is stuffed with 1942/43 reports on these two tanks. Every thing you can think of was analyzed, the fuels used, everything. Overall the British considered them of good quality. The sites are especially mentioned for their quality. (I did a post/thread just on the sites about six months ago.)

The armour was indeed of high hardness. I agree with what Rexford says, but overall the tanks were of acceptable quality, even at this most stressed time in their production run. I have sat in the archives at Bovingdon reading this stuff, boxes full of lots of different reports, there is no escaping their conclusions.

My only reservation about what Rexford says is the weight he sometimes gives to German combat reports from books such as the excellent/ stunning Jentz books. I certainly do not disregard combat reports, but on all sides, I feel it likely combat reports are biased. This is simply a difference of emphasis, no more. I have read Rexford’s great book a number of times I know he also gives great weight to lab reports and test firings. But we have had this discussion before; part of the fun is that no two people see things exactly the same way.

If you are really interested in armour and armour penetration in WW2, some sad cases like me are, get the Rexford book. World War II Ballistics: Armor and Gunnery.

All the best,

Kip.

[Battlefront.com]

Jason,

The quality of a late 1940s vintage T-34/85 would most likely not compare to an early production T-34/76, which is the family of vehicles that was hit hardest by the quality problems. So your analogy is a bit off the mark because you are comparing the wrong elements together (apples to oranges).

Kip, I would suspect that the Soviets would have sent over the "best" they had as they have always taken great pride in their acheivements vs. those in the West. I doubt very much that they grabbed a production model off the line in Leningrad during the seige for example. My point is that the quality/thickness thing varied quite a bit factory to factory, month to month, vehicle to vehicle. Real bitch to try and simulate that with any degree of accuracy

Steve

[kipanderson]

JasonC, hi,

Good post, good points.

I had not thought about it, but now you bring the matter up, I agree 100% that decreasing the armour quality/thickness to say, 75% would lead to real problems against the quite common 75L24 HEAT round, and other 75mm HEAT rounds. However, I believe there is a possible “fix”.

Let’s say we all accept Soviet high hardness armour was less affective against APCBC rounds. So T34 armour was given say, a 75% rating to bring it into line with the penetration figures for German APCBC rounds. Lets also assume that Soviet armour generally, the thicker plates anyway, were of lower quality and therefore given ratings of say 75% -85% on other Soviet tanks too. This would indeed result in unrealistic penetration of Soviet tanks by German 75mm HEAT rounds.

A possible “fix”, that would achieve “realistic battlefield results”, which is what we are all ultimately after, would be to decrease the penetration figures for some German HEAT rounds by 25%, in line with the decrease in Soviet armour quality.

Let’s take an example.

From memory, German 75mm HEAT rounds had an armour penetration of between 75mm and 90mm depending on the date/version. Let’s go with a 90mm penetrating round. The T34 glacis and nose plate were both 45mm plate at 60degrees, i.e. 90mm thick against HEAT. If you give the T34 armour a 75% quality rating, but also decrease all German 75mm HEAT rounds by 25%, you end up with 67.5mm for both. You will still end up with a 50/50 result; you will achieve a “realistic battlefield result”.

I believe the best course of action would be to decrease Soviet armour quality to adjust for resistance to APCBC rounds, and then to “fix” the penetration figures of German HEAT rounds so as to give the most “realistic battlefield results”. It is not perfect, but would still give realistic results in terms of which rounds could defeat which tanks, which is the important thing.

All the best,

Kip.

PS. All this makes me quite nostalgic. In the very old days, when playing Squad Leader and Advanced Squad Leader, we had to “fix” all sorts of penetration figures to take account of errors in the data that shipped with the games. Being in my early forties I do not feel that old, but I must be!

[kipanderson]

Steve wrote,

“My point is that the quality/thickness thing varied quite a bit factory to factory, month to month, vehicle to vehicle. Real bitch to try and simulate that with any degree of accuracy ”

I sympathies 100% and do understand the problem. I would ask Charles if it were possible to fall back on the “old randomizer affect”. As he did with the Panthers/Tiger front turret armour. What I mean is this.

Let’s accept that T34s had a quality rating of 75% due to high hardness. In tanks produced between June 41 and June 43 ask Charles if he can enter a random affect between 65% and 85% to take account of varied thickness and quality. In the same way he does with the Panther’s and Tiger’s front turret armour. Again, this would give realistic battlefield results, which is what we all want.

Hope you understand what I mean, even if you do not agree with the possible solution.

All the best,

Kip.

PS. That reminds me, most Soviet mantlets need to be modeled the same way Charles ended up doing the Panther. But I will post about that on another day. For all I know they already are modeled like that.

[Battlefront.com]

Hi Kip,

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>A possible “fix”, that would achieve “realistic battlefield results”, which is what we are all ultimately after, would be to decrease the penetration figures for some German HEAT rounds by 25%, in line with the decrease in Soviet armour quality.<hr></blockquote>

Oooo... big no no Fudging something known downards because of something else known is a really bad idea. It could have totally unintentional unrealistic consequences elsewhere. The problem is with the armor quality/hardness so that is where we need to focus our attention on.

But I once again need to remind people that the most serious flaws of the armor were highly variable. Therefore, there is no good way to solve this issue with the game engine the way it is now.

Steve

[PJungnitsch]

While the tank the Soviets sent the British seemed to be a high quality one, the one they sent the Americans had a lot of manufacturing problems. Strangely enought, the armour of this one was too soft, if I understand this passage right:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>A chemical analysis of the armor showed that on both tanks the armor plating has a shallow surface tempering, whereas the main mass of the armored plating is made of soft steel. In this regard the Americans consider that by changing the technology used to temper the armored plating, it would be possible to significantly reduce its thickness while preserving its protective ability.<hr></blockquote>

Maybe more evidence of the variable armour quality. Link to Russian Battlefield article.

[kipanderson]

Steve,

I agree that such a “fix” is undesirable. I was just trying to work out a way to take account of the high hardness of Soviet armour, and thus its lower quality against APCBC rounds, but leaving its quality unaffected against HEAT rounds. You probably know this, but I can confirm that whether steel is high or low quality makes no difference to HEAT round penetration. You would have to get into other materials such as ceramics or glass before HEAT round penetration would be affected.

Given that there were quite a lot of German guns firing 75mm HEAT rounds, that if realistically modelled could only “just” penetrate a T34, call it 50/50, it is important not to affect the T34’s armour resistance against HEAT while adjusting for high hardness.

No doubt, I am now starting to repeat what was said earlier.

Paul Jungnitsch, interesting post. Shows just how variable it all is.

All the best,

Kip.

[JasonC]

I think the obvious way of dealing with it is with armor qualities in the 85 range, and then if desired somewhat boosted performance for large APCBC, and somewhat understated performance for HEAT. You minimize the problems by splitting the threats, not by taking the round that penetrates best and modeling that one only.

If you don't want to tweak APCBC up and HEAT down, then you need some sort of armor hardness modeling that goes beyond a single quality percentage. That would indeed be preferable. But it probably also involves considerably more coding changes from the CMBO system. If BTS can pull that off for CMBB, great, more power to them.

What I am worried about avoiding, however, is T-34s that die to 75mm HEAT or 50L60 AP, just to get the right quality number against large caliber APCBC. That would mean giving up getting very common, critical early war stuff right, in return for extending a vunerability window from 1200m out to 1600m, based on one comment in Jentz.

The latter may well be more accurate precisely for the reasons given by Rexford. But that doesn't make it more important than the other vunerabilities. If armor qualities remain a single number treated as they are now, it would be better to understate the vunerability vs. 75L43 slightly, than to overstate the vunerability to 75L24 or 50L60 significantly.

Any reasonable armor quality number is going to let long 75s penetrate T-34 fronts at most CM ranges, which tend to be on the short side (1 km and under). The realism benefit from getting the vunerability range exact for that match up is marginal, compared to creating vunerabilities to earlier guns that the combat reports do not support.

[patolino]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redeker:

I seem to recall reading/hearing somewhere that T-34's were issued with a large hammer as standard equipment to "encourage" the gearshift lever when needed. Can anyone confirm or deny this story? <hr></blockquote>

I recall reading about this in Paul Carell's Operation Barbarossa (or maybe that other book of his), but can't recall him quoting any sources on that. Well, it's not a scientific study anyway.

[Porajkl]

I don't know if this has been discussed, but I'm wondering if there will be variable armor quality for tanks in CMBB. So if you buy 3 Panther A's they might have each different quality factor and one could have 85%, the other 95% and the third again 95%. Will these be modelled?