T-34 - What's your impression on this?

[MikeyD]

I was a bit miffed to see the T34 'Uberweapon' status tarnished in the demo too, but I simply can't say if this is accurate or not. After all, the T34 has been considered a piece of junk in practically every post-war conflict I can think of, from Lebanon to Angola.

As to turret front penetrations, I suppose that would include the vulnerable armor box covering the external recoil cylinder under the gun tube (or would that be "GUN HIT"?). I can't say for sure but I suspect vulnerability to 37mm will drop when the larger 2 man turret arrives in 1942.

[rune]

Things to remember:

The numbers lsited on the screen are exactly that, numbers listed. CMBB does NOT use tables, but uses a formula to figure out the penetration. So it MAY be just the screen is incorrect. However, to be sure, I just emailed the BFC folks so they can take a look to verify or not.

Rune

[gunnergoz]

I think that too many conclusions are being drawn based upon initial experience with the M-40 version of the T-34. The later versions were to various extent, uparmored and upgunned.

Though armor plate quality varied, it seems that the Russians leaned towards mass vs. quality and the armor was considered good enough at the time considering the numbers of tanks being produced.

As to the T-34 being considered "junk" in postwar conflicts, recall that these wars were mostly conducted using the T-34/85...a very different beast than the old M-40. More to the point, the postwar use of these tanks did not use the Soviet-style mass quantity of tanks, or the doctrine that the Soviets developed to take advantage of the T-34's virtues (cheap to procure, cheap to maintain, long range w/o refueling, ease of use, etc.) In the right hands, with the correct doctrine and numbers, the T-34 was a war-winner in its day.

Don't forget the old adage: "Quantity has a quality all it's own."

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by gunnergoz:

[snips]

Though armor plate quality varied, it seems that the Russians leaned towards mass vs. quality and the armor was considered good enough at the time considering the numbers of tanks being produced.

"The quality of the workmanship varies considerably. Whilst the highly-stressed parts have a finish comparable with that of British aero-engines of moderate output, the sand castings by contrast are exceptionally rough. In spite of this, however, the latter appear to be sound, there being no sign of porosity or blow-holes on the manufactured surfaces. Most of the important bolts and studs are stress-relieved and ground, and on a few components the standard of finish is very high. The large number of inspection stamps on certain components is very noticeable... The design shows a clear appreciation of the essentials of an effective tank and the requirements of war... When it is considered how recently Russia has become industrialised, and how great a proportion of the industrial regions have been overrun by the enemy... the design and production of such useful tanks in such great numbers stands out as an engineering achievement of the first magnitude."

-- from a report on the T-34 by the British School of Tank Technology, quoted in Douglas Orgill's "T-34: Russian Armour", Purnell, 1970.

All the best,

John.

[MrSpkr]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

Well, if you have an infantry BN with a pair of Pak36s defending ~1500m of front against a soviet regimental sized attack supported by ~10 T34s and 7 KVs (not to mention the 30 or so light tanks in a tank brigade) you would [CENSORED].

WWB

Okay, now I have a fun scenario design to put together before I do my serious work on the Novossibrisk invasion.

[Egan]

I've played yelnia stare three times now and yet to lose a single tank. the most i got was some internal flaking on one, nothing else. Iwas going to make a post about how awesome the T-34's are, they just chewed up the infantry every time, first with HE then those nasty cannister shells. I thought the german anti tank guns were rubbish when i tried as the axis, after 1 shot the russian tanks just wasted them. Give me the 34 any day!

[Diceman]

Well I've gone through my meager WWII library and can't find a single first person account of the 37mm PaK against the T34, only accolades about how it scared the hell out of the Germans. Anyone have any accounts they could post?

Accounts of StuGs or PZIVs dealing with T34s would also be welcome.

[tools4fools]

If you go to onwar.com and check the front armor for T-34 40, 41 and 42 models, you will see that on these 3 models there was only one part that was uparmored on the front of the tank; the front turret from 45mm to 52mm and then to 70mm. Front hull, superstructre, etc reamined the same as in the first model. This indicates that the front turret ideed was the weakest (and sometimes maybe insufficent) part of the front armor and needed to be upgraded.

Guess those who mentioned that the later models will be a different story for the little doorknocker might be right...

Marcus

****

[Paul Lakowski]

Front turret of the 1940 model of the T-34 was 45mm cast armor . This armor was known to be brittle and suffered when hit by overmatching shells [ wider than the plate thickness]. SO as a rule the 45mm rolled plate glacis @ 60° was in vulnerable to even 50mm rounds but 75mm cut through out to 1500m or more.

The front turret and glacis did have weak spots that could reduce the armor 10-20% in resistance to a 37mm @ short range through this area [ 2-3 projectile radius = < 11cm or 4 inches for you yankees]. Thats a pretty small area to hit even at 200-300m range. All the battle accounts I've seen of 37mm speak of them repeatedly ricocheting off the T-34 armor.

I can believe damage could be done but not so many kills?

[shrek]

When I played as Russian, all the hits from the Pak36 were against the turret, never the hull. And remember that the front face of the turret is curved, so part of it is at or about 0 degrees. So it seems that the gunners may actually be targetting the verticle part of the turret face, which would account for all the "penetration" results.

[rvalle]

Originally posted by Diceman:

Well I've gone through my meager WWII library and can't find a single first person account of the 37mm PaK against the T34, only accolades about how it scared the hell out of the Germans. Anyone have any accounts they could post?

Accounts of StuGs or PZIVs dealing with T34s would also be welcome.

I have one... though its at VERY close range and it does not name the exact type of tanks; just Heavy Tanks. Its from 'In Deadly Combat'. Let me know if you want to read it as it would take me a while to type it in.

rv

[rvalle]

Originally posted by shrek:

When I played as Russian, all the hits from the Pak36 were against the turret, never the hull. And remember that the front face of the turret is curved, so part of it is at or about 0 degrees. So it seems that the gunners may actually be targetting the verticle part of the turret face, which would account for all the "penetration" results.

'20-rounds were required to bring this heavy tank to a standstill', commented Grimm captioning a photograph which he took passing a blazing T-34 tank. Its gun was traversed rearward, to enable to driver to escape from this forward hatch.

(snip)

Grimm's reportage for Signal, the German pictorial propaganda magazine, glossed over the desperate nature of the engagement as German tank gunners realized they were up against surprisingly heavy and unknown tank types. Leutnant Ritgen's observations of the 6th Division's encounter with IVs at Rossieny three days later were more honest: 'These hitherto unknown Soviet tanks created a crisis in Kampfgruppe "Seckedorff", since apparently no weapon of the division was able to penetrate their armour. All rounds simply bounced off the Soviet tanks. 88mm Flak guns were not yet available. In the face of the assault some riflemen panicked. The super-heavy soviet KV tanks advanced against our tanks, which concentrated their fire on them without visible effect The command tank of the company was rammed and turned over by a KV and the commander was injured.'

(snip)

German tactical ingenuity began to level the odds. 'Despite their thick skin,' Ritgen explained, 'we succeeded in destroying some by concentrating fire on one tank after the other. "Aim at the hatches and openings!" we ordered.'

(snip)

PzkpfwIV tanks had already ceased firing because they were being respelled with ammunition.

(snip)

... the heavy PzkpfwIV companies 'found mainly by chance' that quarter-second delayed action HE shells fired into the back of T34 tanks either set the fuel or engine on fire, as blazing fuel poured though the air induction grating. By 21.00 hours the battle was over. The 11th Panzer Division destroyed 46 tanks on the heights south-west of Radciekow village alone.

(snip)

Arthur Grimm's Signal report,, not unexpectedly, ended on a high note. 'The Soviets left the battlefield after a duel lasting eleven hours. More then 40 soviet tanks were destroyed. The pursuit continues. Only 5 of our own tanks were disabled.'

Whew.

From War without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941/42 by Robert J. Kershaw pgs 70 and 71.

[ September 03, 2002, 11:47 PM: Message edited by: rvalle ]

[Guest Mike]

The early T34's modeled in the Demo have weak front turret armour. They are armed with the L-11 gun, of which only 400 were made, the decision being made in 1939 to upgrade the gun to the F34.

the armour protection for the L-11 arrangement was not nearly so good as that for the

F-34 - have a look HERE for eth arrangement - at the bottom of the page - note that no armour thickness is defined for the mantlet but it is shown as significantly thinner than the turret armour.

Compare that to the armour arrangement at the bottom ofthis page .

the armour thickness bars on the T34 are only yellow at the turret front, which represents this, although perhaps a weak spot might've been a better representation.

The development story makes a good read too - note the comparison with the Pz-3, and that at this early stage there wa a proposal to give the T34 a 3-man turret but it wasn't actioned for unknown reasons!! Lucky for some perhaps?

[ September 04, 2002, 04:10 AM: Message edited by: Mike ]

[Fishu]

Hello?

Thats not Pak 36 :>

The Pak 36 in demo uses penetration stats of a 50mm cannon.

50L42 KwK 38, APCBC round.

Why do I think so?

1) too high penetration values for Pak 36

2) it retains penetration over a range too well for 37mm projectile.

I think the HE stats for Pak 36 are of 37mm however.

Seems to be almost exactly identical penetration value with 37mm.

[Ex Bellator]

Rune - I'm still curious, did you get a reply to your email to BFC confirming that all is in order with the T34 - Pak36 issue?

[rune]

We have been all busy. Will follow up with them today.

Rune

[Ex Bellator]

Great - much appreciated

[rune]

Charles has replied. The figures are correct for the 37mm Pak. The figures are actually slightly under the figures given in Hogg's. Also, the 60% drop between 1000 and 2000 meters is accurate. You may be quoting Jentz, which has an error.

Rune

[apex]

Chamberlain/Doyle gives the Pak 36 (for 30 degrees)as (100/500/1000/1500)

34 29 22 19

while CMBB gives me(100/500/1000/2000)

51 42 34 22

Quite a discrepancy. BTW, CMBO rates the US 37mm AT gun at

65 56 45 34

Weird stuff.

apex

[Ex Bellator]

Thanks to Rune (and Charles). This is obviously what is intended by BFC and not a mistake (as if!).

I don't think there is any real merit in quoting different sources for penetration against each other. This is how BFC want their game to be using their sources, and it looks damn fine to me.

[von Lucke]

The Red Army's failures during the initial period of the war allowed the enemy to capture a number of mineral-rich regions of Ukraine and Belorussia. As a result of the Soviet's having lost control of these regions, a complicated situation developed in the plants manufacturing the armor for our tanks. Because these factories had recieved insufficient quantities of some of the smelted meltals required to ensure the necessary toughness of armor, the armor plate they produced turned out to be somewhat brittle in its composition --- and, of course, there were negative consequences on the battlefield.

...The brittle-armored tanks of the brigade (45th Tank Bde, 4th Tank Corps) fought their first battle in the defense of Voronezh the month following their delivery (July 1942). It was a fierce engagement with the enemy. Almost immediately the unit commander had begun to recieve radio messages with strange contents. Despite the failure of enemy rounds to penetrate the T-34 tanks' armor, crew members were being wounded inside their turrets, primarily in the exposed areas of the body --- the hands and arms, the face, and, in the case of some commander-gunners, the eyes.

With the first lull in the battle, the Soviet troops began to investigate these mysterious wounds. It soon became clear to them that the steep slope angle of the T-34 turret's exterior surfaces was allowing enemy solid-shot rounds generally to ricochet when they struck that area. But when such a round did indeed hit the turret's outer wall, pieces of the tank's armor itelf flew off the inner wall at extremely high velocities --- a rate that seemed to vary according to the kinetic energy of the round at the moment of impact. In general, if the enemy round struck on the left side of the turret, the commander-gunner --- whose crew position was closest to the left inner wall of the turret --- was being injured by the fragmenting armor. If the round hit on the right, the armor spalling was striking the loader. The size of the fragments ranged from microscopic to several millimeters in diameter.

...We tankers in the rear and at the front found out about this "sickness" of Soviet-made combat vehicles through various channels (unofficial, of course).

...This serious deficiency of the T-34 was finally eliminated in early 1943. It was the tankers of the older generation --- soldiers and officers who had gone through training before the Great Patriotic War and come into the active army in the first months of that conflict --- who experienced the situation firsthand.

---Fighting for the Soviet Motherland: Recollections from the Eastern Front, by Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitriy Loza

[Bastables]

Originally posted by Rex_Bellator:

Thanks to Rune (and Charles). This is obviously what is intended by BFC and not a mistake (as if!).

I don't think there is any real merit in quoting different sources for penetration against each other. This is how BFC want their game to be using their sources, and it looks damn fine to me.

Sure it is, thats how we got intresting things like an increase in tigger front turret armour to go from 100mm to 140mm in CMBO.

Or the downgrade of KwK40 (PIV) guns to initial velocities of 750m/s for Pzgr 39 versus the PaK40 that retained its 792m/s due to a more powerful cartridge.

This board was built on my tables are better than yours.

[ September 06, 2002, 07:48 PM: Message edited by: Bastables ]

[Ex Bellator]

OK Bastables, and any other impressive table weilders, let 'em have it...

[Bastables]

Heh I agree with the numbers in the game, but others feel differently. But then again I agreed with the 100mm for tigger mantlet.

[von Lucke]

Originally posted by apex:

Chamberlain/Doyle gives the Pak 36 (for 30 degrees)as (100/500/1000/1500)

34 29 22 19

while CMBB gives me(100/500/1000/2000)

51 42 34 22

Quite a discrepancy. BTW, CMBO rates the US 37mm AT gun at

65 56 45 34

Weird stuff.

apex

Ian V. Hogg, "German Artillery of WW2":

Armor penetration (30deg.) for PaK36:

PzGr: 50mm at 100m & 36mm at 500m

PzGr40: 68mm at 100m & 40mm at 500m

Seems more in keeping with Charles' numbers.

Though, most souces tend to agree with Jentz (which, I believe, is where Chamberlain got his numbers).