T-34 no better than the M4 Sherman.

I guess that Heinz Guderian said it all when he sent a T34 back to Germany, "Don't fiddle with the damn thing, just copy it!"

The balance between; firepower, protection and mobility, combined with its reliability - something the Panther never achieved. The Panzer Leader saw it, experienced it, and wanted it.

Tiger was a mobility/logistic/reliability nightmare. M4 was petrol powered, but that does not necessarily detract from it as the Centurion in the Six Day War was loved by its crews; as IF it was hit it never brewed up and it was a petrol machine at that time.

But the Sherman was stove!

I therefore accept the proposition of the Guru, General Heinz Guderian. No higher recommendation. Best was T34 in its many guises.

 

Most tanks on either side were knocked off by A/T guns anyway.

So the 5:1 (or 4:1) Panther/Tiger to Sherman ratio has to be an urban legend.

 

T34 was diesel. What Guderian liked was that it worked! Hit the starter, it goes! Diesel motor is obviously more appropriate than petrol, more torque and a flatter torque curve.

Come rain, hail, snow or shine, it just worked, first with its 76mm then 85mm gun.

By the time the Germans had sorted the Panther and that was six months after it arrived with the Panzer Regts! they had transfered/adopted some of its key points into the Tiger - wrong Demo.

The interlaced road wheels (Panther and Tiger) used to clog with mud, and the next morning the crews had to use a blow torch on the thing to melt the ice so they could move the damn thing!

Typical example of the technocrat having more to say in the design than the user.

Guderian's opinion will do me.

 

You're kidding right? Next to shooting yourself in the head with a .45, the fastest way to die in WWII was to be a driver, assistant driver, gunner, loader, or tank commander of an M4 Sherman Tank. Those guys (I was in armored infantry) deserved a medal for just going through the hatch. As for the Tiger tank, there was nothing out there, let alone a Sherman, that had any business on the field with that 72 ton behemoth. It came equipped with the most lethal, flattest shooting canon of WWII, the 88mm.

When the Germans parked the Tiger and sent the 54 ton Panther out to mind the store, its 75mm canon fired armor piercing rounds with such staggering muzzle velocity that the poor 33 ton Sherman armed with a WWI vintage 75mm pop-gun, was like your grandmother trying to go ten rounds with Mike Tyson. That sorry 75mm couldn't chip the paint off a Panther. When the 76mm canon was finally developed and introduced later in the war, the Sherman became a little more respectable. The 76mm had some bite, more muzzle velocity. At the very end of the war, the army finally unveiled the new M-26 Pershing Tank. Coming in at 42 tons and carrying the attention getting 90mm canon, it was the tank we should have had to start with. The one we got with a top crew, went head to head with a Panther in Cologne and won a dramatic shootout — the entire sequence was caught on tape.

It's a disservice to American tankers to defend the Sherman tank. The public should know their grandfathers faced 88mm canons, Panthers and Tigers in "Ronson Lighters." The only thing I can say for the M4 was that we had an endless supply of them. Every time a Sherman was knocked out (with agonizing regularity), there was a replacement right behind it with a brand new crew. When the Germans lost a tank, they had to scrounge parts at night from their own burned out tanks to keep going. Those burned out tanks got burned out P 38s and P 51s dropping 500 lb. bombs on them. Back then our factories, out of harms way, could have out produced the world, and did.

Our production prowess shouldn't get the generals in our War Department who approved the Sherman tank, General Patton was one of them, off the hook. As far as I'm concerned, those generals should have been court-martialed for sending American kids out to fight a war in kiddy-cars.

The bottom line is, the German Panther was the best tank of the war for my money. The Tiger was a behemoth, but it spent too much time in the garage being tuned up — lots of nagging mechanical problems.

I don't know the T-34, but people I respect believe it was a first class tank that could fight anything in its class — but I'd still take the Panther.

Muse over this: In Altenkirchen, Germany, I saw a Panther put a 75mm AP shell through the front our lead tank, exit from the engine compartment (right under a squad of infantry on the rear deck), and whack out the halftrack behind it. This was even before we had moved up close enough to begin our assault. Trust me on this, no one there that day ever forgot Altenkirchen.

If you ever meet an old WWII tanker, get on your knees and kiss his feet.

 

T34 was diesel. What Guderian liked was that it worked! Hit the starter, it goes! Diesel motor is obviously more appropriate than petrol, more torque and a flatter torque curve.




I think your right, you dont see any petrol tank now, but less powerful, with heavier engines, that are harder to start, easier to freeze, and not interchangeable with other vehicles making for logistical problems and of course only any use if you have supply of diesel. Not sure Diesel does have flatter torque curve, it just cant rev.

Its interesting, why the svoiets chose this route.

As said the British used quite a lot of diesel Shermans and I dont remember seeing evidence these where likely to brew up. I think the fuel system was only part of the problem.

Kev

 

Most tanks on either side were knocked off by A/T guns anyway.

So the 5:1 (or 4:1) Panther/Tiger to Sherman ratio has to be an urban legend.


I guess it has some basis in fact, but I think its probably a very generalistic figure.

Number made less / the number lost

something like this, its probably not based on any individual study.

 

Just to pick up a couple of points.

Cromwell, Churchill etc; had riveted steel! One hit with any large calibre weapon and the rivets pulled, they then became missiles shooting around the inside of the vehicle, ergo: shredded crew.

Sherman vs 88mm; In the last year of the war the Poms equipped some of their M4s with their 17 pounder high velocity gun, and they could and did take on any comers, the L7 105mm weapon of the all the free world's MBT until ten years ago were based on this weapon.

T34; had a cast turret and other parts of the hull were cast and then welded. Better all together than the German welded plates.

Just for interest, the first tank with cast turret to be deployed against the Hun was the French Char B! The first all cast tank, hull and turret was the Australian Sentinel ( Sentinel tank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) which never fired a shot in anger, but at the end of its development cycle was much akin to the A43 of the Poms which became the Centurion. And as I've mentioned before, in spite of the Cent being powered by petrol, in service with the Israelis, across all their wars, has never "brewed up."

So I guess the lesson is that the basis of tank design is the compromise between; firepower, protection and mobility. It is the designers dilemma to balance this three legged horse.

 

Back to the old 5:1 business...
Still seen absolutely no confirmation or convincing explanation for the source of these figures. Often cited but apparently never backed up.

Not one piece of allied after action analysis that I've read, yet, makes this estimation, though it is referred to and refuted in at least one contemporary report so presumably it began at the time.

Well I would think the 5 to 1 business would depend highly on who crewed what tank. Another thought to ponder, how many variants of each design were there? Include chasis design as well and that would give you an idea of how valuable the brass of each respective Ally felt about their machines. In other words the versatility of T-34 versus M-4.

 

Re-reading the Kursk book & it keeps mentioning how out gunned the T34/76 was, how the exposed fuel drums on the back were a good target for brewing one up.
How the T34 had to get in really close & take out the Tigers from the flank.
How rubbish the radios were as the command tanks only had transmiters the rest had recievers only.
So on & so on....

Now if that had been an M4, people would be blue in the face slagging it off.
As it's the T34 there seems to be no big deal with it.
In posts #21 & #25 Guderian's comments refer to when the T34 was first met in 1941, I wonder what he'd have said if he'd come across an M4 in 1941?

Anyway just some thoughts.......
To be fair Owen, the T-34 did give the Wehrmacht quite a scare in 1941 when it was encountered and that is as much down to the German's arrogance as anything else. Both the T-34 and the M-4 were extremely successful designs and the fact that they both, not only, survived the battlefield but spawned a whole host of variants speaks volumes for them. The Germans didnt fully grasp the idea of mass production in relation to tank design and the designs that were introduced were prone to breakdowns or other flaws that the M-4 and T-34 didnt have. Maybe the Panther was a superior tank in a one on one situation assuming all things being equal but that was never the case. Give me a tank that is reliable not one that could potentially rule the battlefield, assuming that it was ok!

 

Owen,

Wow and old one yourve dug here, Didnt you have guys to pull up the other M4 thread (frankenstein monster one!)

Another thing is see that is often glossed over is the Quality assurance. M4 allways seem to be finished to a reasonable standard. Never seemed to be any doubt about the standard of M4's brand new ones parked up on Sword beach, ready to go. Looking at some T34 they really look like they have been thrown together, huge ugly welds, no paint ,etc.

Kev

 

I think that one of the major differences between the Sherman and the T-34 that makes a comparison difficult is the terrain where they were employed. The Shermans were primarly used in the Western European theater as we all know and the T-34 , the eastern front. I believe that the terrain in Western Europe would have provided an advantage to both the defender, concealment, but also helped a tank like the Sherman which had a high profile to manuver whith at least some concealment. The eastern front on the other hand was very different. Soviet tanks had to attack across broad open areas against tanks with weapons noted for their incredible range, a situation perhaps similar to the North African theater.

The Sherman has often be described as a good tank and probably would have been great tank if it was available in 1940 but by 1944 it was seriously out classed. The Pershing, the tank that followed the Sherman has far more similarities in appearance at least, with Russian designs, including the T-34, than with its predecessor or even German designs.

 

Now if that had been an M4, people would be blue in the face slagging it off.
As it's the T34 there seems to be no big deal with it.
In posts #21 & #25 Guderian's comments refer to when the T34 was first met in 1941, I wonder what he'd have said if he'd come across an M4 in 1941?

Anyway just some thoughts.......


I think your right, the perception in the west is that Russian Equipment is of a lesser standard (which im not usre is wholy true in this case) so when it performs on a par, then its better.

Yep, I Remember Von lucks account of first meeting M4 in Alemain and it is a simaler to first meeting the T34, in that the M4 outclassed all the German Tanks esp PZ3. He specifically mentions the 75mm gun and well sloped armour (very T34 esq).


Kev

 

I'm not going to bet into a discussion on the relative merits of these two great tanks, but the next time somebody inserts the word "Tiger" into this discussion I swear I'll scream!

How many braincells does it take to recognize that there simply has to be a difference between a 56ton tank and a 30 ton or less tank? Too many?

 

I'm not going to bet into a discussion on the relative merits of these two great tanks, but the next time somebody inserts the word "Tiger" into this discussion I swear I'll scream!

How many braincells does it take to recognize that there simply has to be a difference between a 56ton tank and a 30 ton or less tank? Too many?


Za, me too.

Agreed dont think Owen is comparing the vehicles, jusr comparing the public perception of the vehicles.... yea?

Kev

 

Kev and Owen,

My apologies. I went bananas not about any of you but because of a post in July 07 by one "Been There" person who made that one and only post. I'm sorry if I seemed to be offending other people.

Tank design is a matter of compromises, decisions, conditioning by current thought, availability of production facilities, etc. I can't see any point in comparisons of this kind as every country has different conditions, requirements and doctrines, therefore blasting the Sherman for not being "up to" the Tiger is completely devoid of sense.

 

Surely the most successful design feature of the T34 was it's wide tracks giving it good mobility in the mud which seemed to be prevalent for almost six months of the year. In comparison to all German tanks which tended to bog down the T34 could literally run rings around the opposition in wet conditions and this extra mobility gave it it's big advantage. The benefit that Russian designers had was that they were creating armour for use in their own terrain not foreign countries.