Best Tank Of WW2

>>33046946
Fuck off

>>33046959
The truth hurts, doesn't it?

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>>33046946
It's efficient but it's just so ugly.
Besides, this is the best tank of WW2.

>not the comet

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>>33047026
>tank

>>33047042
Why is the comet a contender? Is it just because of the speed?

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>the best tank of WW2.

Thats a funny way you called M-24 Anon..

>>33047061
The M24 was proven to be completely inferior to the T34 during the opening phases of the Korean War.

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>>33047075
But the M-24 has more strategic mobility (and tactical mobility, for that matter). Firepower and protection are of lesser importance.

>>33047095
If that was the case, then why did the M24 get steamrolled by the T34? History defies your assertion.

>>33047026
>can take a shot from any direction
>except the fucking front
>can't fire from any direction but front-facing

>>33046946
Here are the stats,you decide.
T-34-85
Weight:26.5 tonnes
Length:6.68 m (21 ft 11 in)
Width:3.00 m (9 ft 10 in)
Height:2.45 m (8 ft 0 in)
Crew
5
Armor:Hull front 47 mm /60° (upper part)[2]
45 mm (1.8")/60° (lower part),
Hull side:40 mm[3]/41°(upper part),
Hull rear:45 mm,
Hull top:20 mm,
Hull bottom:15 mm;
Turret front:60 mm (2.4"),
Turret side:52 mm/30°,
Turret rear:30 mm,
Turret top:16 mm
Main
armament:85 mm ZiS-S-53 gun
Secondary
armament:2 × 7.62 mm (0.3 in) DT machine guns
Engine:Model V-2-34 38.8 L V12 Diesel engine:500 hp (370 kW)
Power/weight:18.9 hp (14 kW) / tonne
Suspension:Christie
Ground clearance:0.4 m (16 in)
Operational
range:240 km (150 mi)
Speed:53 km/h (33 mph)
Panther
Weight:44.8 tonnes
Length:6.87 m (22 ft 6 in)
8.66 metres (28 ft 5 in) gun forward
Width:3.27 m (10 ft 9 in)
3.42 m (11 ft 3 in) with skirts
Height:2.99 m (9 ft 10 in)
Crew 5 (driver, radio-operator/hull machine gunner, commander, gunner, loader)
Armour
Front:
80 mm at 55°
LOS thickness: 140 mm
Main
armament:1 × 7.5 cm KwK 42 L/70
79 rounds
Secondary
armament:2 × 7.92 mm MG 34 machine guns
5,100 rounds
Engine:V-12 petrol Maybach HL230 P30
700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW)
Power/weight:15.39 PS (11.5 kW)/tonne (13.77 hp/ton)
Transmission:ZF AK 7-200. 7 forward 1 reverse
Suspension:double torsion bar, interleaved road wheels
Fuel capacity:720 litres (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Operational
range:250 km (160 mi)
Speed:55 km/h (34 mph)

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It's a bait thread, there is no correct answer. If 'best' means best protected and armed a cube of 3ft thick steel with a railgun attached to it is the pinnacle of tank technology.

If mobility is key, the BMD-3 is the best tank ever built.

>>33047109
But you can build 4 for the price of a single Panther, so they can cover eachother. Turretless tanks like the S-tank have performed surprisingly well in both offensive and defensive actions/exercises.

>>33047105
Improper use.

What was the t34 reliability like, i think the meme is that it was soviet shit, was it varied or did it improve?

Working with heavy equipment and tractors , reliability ranks high imo, even though it was fast, had a good gun and good armor , it's a major pain trying to use something that blows and engine every 2nd day or gets stuck in 2nd gear/ throws a track etc.

That being said i saw something that they had the idea that the tank would only last a few days before it was destroyed so maybe it was well made.

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>>33047161
>What was the t34 reliability like
Awful, but it improved slightly as the war went on.
The T-34 was a sound design but the execution was amazingly bad.

>>33047161
While the design was meh/ok the reliability was abysmal.

>>33047186
I can't get over the fact that with the massive waste of material on the front they didn't realize the advantages of smooth bore guns and sabot rounds sooner. also, german tank engineering ideology seems to basically boild down to "how do we make the thing more massive, clunky and cumbersome so our ability to produce it is minimized?"

>>33047227
German tank engineers actually wanted to stay with the panther style and really only mive to the Tiger 1, but were coming under increasing funding, political, and military pressure to produce a wonder weapon super-tank that would kill all it saw. It was a stupid amount of fallacy and misappropriation that caused the ridiculous spiral, and ut never really worked. The tiger 2 (king/koneg-tiger) was rushed through production so fast it only got something like 30 days testing before an order of 200 was placed and they were sent to the russian front. This is why they didnt know until too late that the engine would fuck itself with its own transmission if it wasnt in perfect conditions.

I still believe that the german scientific community was the best in the world at the time, and given equal resources could have beaten all other major countries in any major conflict.

>>33047050
Good gun
Good armour
Good reliability
Good engine
Good miles per gallon
Good optics
Overall a tank far beyond its time
Though if we are counting any tanks in ww2 the real answer will be the centurion

>>33046946
You spelled IS-2 wrong.

>>33047161
>i think the meme is that it was soviet shit, was it varied or did it improve?
It was disaster in 1941 in 1944 it became ok.

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>>33046946
You dun goofed commiefag.

>>33047639
>rivets

Also, anyone have that comic of that British Grant tanker?

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>>33046970
Sure does

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I think it's readily apparent that you should stop posting this shit thread every week.

Also, the M4A3 Sherman was overall the best tank of World War II, and the M4A3E8 76(W) in particular, as evidenced by the fact that they stomped the shit out of T-34-85s in Korea.

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>>33047026
It wasn't even efficient. Aside from the fact that it wasn't as easy to manufacture as its reputation would suggest (pic related), it was constantly breaking down, and the cramped interior, lack of a turret floor, and piece of shit transmission made life hell for the crew. A crew that's uncomfortable and overworked isn't going to fight well.

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fuck off communist

>>33047875
Forgot a few things there

>armor's high Brinell hardness rating a lack of ductility tended to cause spalling when the tank was hit

>clutch required constant readjustment

>poorly shielded electricals susceptible to water damage

>nearly impossible to get out of second gear due to shitty transmission, limiting top speed

>>33047898
>as evidenced by the fact that they stomped the shit out of T-34-85s in Korea.
Fun fact: aircraft was number one tank killer in Korea.
https://murdercube.com/files/Combined Arms/employment_of_armor_in_korea_vol_1_operations_research_study.pdf

>>33047161

The "reliability" of the T-34 was overall quite good, the MTTF for a T-34 was around Panzer 4 levels.

What was awful about the T-34 was the expected lifespan of the components. Which is how long a T-34 can run before the rate of failure increases due to wear and tear.

The automotive components of the T-34 were designed and made to lower tolerances than say, the M4 or Panzer 4. This means the engine doesn't run as well, but it will still run under adverse conditions and with moderate wear. But this also increases rate of wear. Eventually, parts that can not be easily replaced will become worn down enough to significantly degrade engine performance, and the tank will have reached it's design lifespan.

But those cases were rare, because the average lifespan of a T-34 in combat was very very short. The Soviets found out where that number was and made the T-34 so that the lifespan of the automotive components was just longer than the lifespan of the tank.

>>33046946
It was the right tank for the Soviet Union.

>>33047524
>I still believe that the german scientific community was the best in the world at the time, and given equal resources could have beaten all other major countries in any major conflict.

Which is fine, but has nothing to do with building tanks. Their industrial organization insured that Germany was a self-defeating nation. Industry is what develops and builds tanks.

>give equal resources

There would have been no war, hence no reason to build wonder weapons.

>>33047875
half of those have nothing to do with the design of the tank
another quarter aren't necessarily bad
most of the points that maybe have some weight are small details

the claim the M4 Sherman is the same price is EXTREMELY dubious considering war time production

>>33047524

> I still believe that the german scientific community was the best in the world at the time, and given equal resources could have beaten all other major countries in any major conflict.

Not without the Jews, who accounted for roughly 20% of all scientific papers written in Germany before 1933.

And you definitely aren't going to make great progress on nuclear bombs if the theory of mass-energy equivalence was Judenphysiks.

>>33046946
At having most of its production turned into irrecoverabl wrecks, sure. While exchange rates aren't everything, the Sherman often went positive.

>>33047227
It's really hard to engineer for acceptable dispersion. That's why.

>>33048676
This

Most of you use consumer quality shit even though higher quality commercial/industrial goods would last longer because the amount you use it means it's cheaper for you to get consumer goods than commercial

for example your stove isn't designed to run for 18 hours a day 7 days a week

>>33048573
Is that from claims by aircrews or on the ground assessments considering that WW2 aircrews overestimated by factors of 50 at times.

What about the Panzer III? Decent early to mid war AT combatant, then when the T-34 showed up and the Panzer IV took over AT duties it either helped out with antipersonnel or got turned into the StuG to keep fighting tanks.

>>33047075
And the T-34 lost out to the M4 Sherman in Korea as well as in various Arab-Israeli conflicts.
So that cements the M4 as the best tank of WW2.

Well that's a simplistic way to look at it. But when evaluated on every basis the M4 still handily comes out on top.

>>33048899
All of those add up to create a fairly poor vehicle.
Things the Soviets didn't address or were incapable of fixing.

>>33049035
>>33049068
American tanks have had inferior design to Soviet ones since T-34 was introduced
They were all around inferior to Soviet tanks until the M1 Abrams was introduced
When the M1 was introduced the USSR had nothing new because it was in a death spiral

For example, autoloaders are objectively better than manual
America doesn't use autoloaders because they fucked up with the Sherridan and the MBT-70 and value their pride more than combat effecitveness

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>>33049089
>[American tanks] were all around inferior to Soviet tanks until the M1 Abrams was introduced

>>33049112
It's true
They were playing catch up since the T54 rolled out

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>>33049153
Whatever helps you sleep at night, Boris.

>>33049089
>American tanks have had inferior design to Soviet ones since T-34 was introduced
T-34 was pretty damn good when it was unveiled, as was the KV-1, and as was the Tiger 1. Problem was they couldn't adapt.
Your tank that was amazing in 1941 isn't going to be as amazing in 1943. The T-34 was a dead-end the best that could be done to it was a new turret and an 85mm gun, but the vehicle always retained the issue of little space for the crew and the loader having to maneuver themselves while the turret traversed.
Meanwhile the M4 was easily adaptable. Multiple variants, different gun options that were effective, different hull modifications, while still retaining the best crew conditions of a medium tank during the war throughout all of these variants. Only big issue that comes to mind is the loader initially not having a turret hatch.

>They were all around inferior to Soviet tanks until the M1 Abrams was introduced
They were built for the wars they would be fighting. Primarily defensive engagements where they were dug in and firing on advancing Soviet forces.
Maybe they would have failed in the offensive role against the Warsaw Pact at its prime (But the 1991 Gulf War indicates otherwise, at least on a purely vehicle basis- it's obvious there was a huge cap in crew capability on both sides)
On the other hand, Soviets tanks were built for the offensive role in mind.

>When the M1 was introduced the USSR had nothing new because it was in a death spiral
Not really a relevant point. Even before then NATO had tanks that could knock out Soviet armor. The Abrams (After upgrade) was not the first Western tank to mount a 120mm gun.

>For example, autoloaders are objectively better than manual
An argument that goes both ways. Autoloader gives you sustained rate of fire, a good manual loader can give you a burst fire capability early on but will tire out over time. Plus having a loader means another person to help with maintenance/repairs.

>>33049089
Shouldn't you being war thunder at this time or something like that.

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*beep beep* best tonk coming through.

>>33049212
>the vehicle always retained the issue of little space for the crew
same with the T54 and the T72 and probably the T14
the Russians obviously dont care

>They were built for the wars they would be fighting.
Yeah
wars where American ground forces would be hiding behind planes and nukes
NATO was never capable of winning a ground battle

>Even before then NATO had tanks that could knock out Soviet armor.
You can kill a jsoc dude with a martini henri rifle
doesn't mean it's not outdated

>An argument that goes both ways.
No
Autoloader is objectively better for what America wanted
Merkava etc 4 guys makes sense

The fact is DOD tried to make an autoloader tank

they bombed

then they pretended nothing happened

they do this a lot

>>33049228
it's sunday
shouldnt you be at nascar or watching football you brainwashed american jingoist

>>33049182
This isn't a "My country's tank is better than yours"
Im Canadian
look up the ram

>>33049345
You're saying the US is incapable of making an autoloader? And saying that the M1 is outdated because it doesn't meet some Eastern standards of what is acceptable?
You're not even taking them seriously and clearly have a bias towards Soviet/Russian forces.

Looks at the Abrams TTB. An M1 with an unmanned turret, it had an autoloader for gun and a similar layout to the Russian T-14. It was never produced though because the technology for sensors and awareness were not satisfactory at the time. We'll see how it works out for the Russians. There are other examples of American tanks with autoladers but those too were prototypes.
The US favors the loader to be a crew member for the reasons I stated above.

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>>33049345
>Im Canadian
That explains it

>>33048958
Answer is in that book.

>>33049414
Well, give a quick rundown, since you seem to have read it.

>>33049002
>Panzer III could be best?
Well, no, obviously not, the IV alone was better.

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*increasingly loader whirring noise*
*slowly crests ridgeline*

>>33047026
Face it, it was purely a stopgap, they built it because they were too resource/time/cash/manufacturing capacity poor to build actual turreted vehicles.
They would have done that instead if they could.

>>33049402
>Looks at the Abrams TTB. An M1 with an unmanned turret
There was another TTB with manned turret, 140mm gun and autoloader. But God bless FSB agent Shinseki he gutted them all because "anything heavier than 20 tons is outdated guys :^)"

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>>33049523
>loader
Bollocks! I meant louder.

>>33047161
By everyday civilian standards no tank of world war two was reliable. They all required constant repair and maintenance and frequently broke down.
There were some that broke down even more than normal mind you.
The key to 'reliability' in world war two, as far as tanks are concerned, was ease of repair/maintenance and a large pool of spare parts to do it with.
In which case the M4 wins hands down.

>>33049592
TTB was cancelled by Dick Cheney.

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>>33046946
While I agree the later Shermans were the all around best of the war, the Panther gets abuse here that isn't necessarily deserved:

Later war Panthers had a lot of the early issues ironed out, and ended up only being marginally more expensive than a Pz.IV. Things like the RPM governor for the engine increased reliability by a long way.

One thing that doesn't get mentioned here enough, because the autists here are only concerned with external stats, is crew comfiness: that a crew in a roomier tank, with more ergonomic and easy to use controls, and a smooth ride added a lot to effectiveness in the crew to do their job effectively.

Like, would you rather drive a fucking Geo Metro, or a nice Volvo or something like that?

>>33050174
The criticisms the Panther gets are warranted. The transmission and the complexity of replacing parts.
Also the inside was not nearly as ergonomic as you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL2KO2maIkU
Commander's hatch was way too complicated and couldn't be opened quickly, gun being mounted higher in turret meant loader couldn't do get shells into the breech as easily, and the gunner didn't have a periscope (Only their sight) so they have to rely on the commander to them onto target.
Really the only medium tank that seemed to get it right was the Sherman. Being something that could be fought in effectively by all of the crew, being able to live inside for a little bit, and giving everyone inside a fair chance at bailing out.

>>33047524
>I still believe that the german scientific community was the best in the world at the time
it's amazing what a group of smart people can do when pumped full of amphetamines 24/7 and given access to a lot of money.

>>33050249
Goddam that was a lot of typos.
The loader couldn't easily get shells into the breech.
The gunner had to rely on the commander to bring them onto the target.

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All other answers are just plain wrong.

>>33050174
>has to dismantle the entire front end of the crew compartment to remove the transmission through the roof, the only way to deal with issues regarding this system.

As for crew comfort; I won't deny that it was a roomy tank, but it wasn't much better off than late-war HVSS-equipped Sherman.

The T-34 is your Geo-Metro. The Panther may be a nice Volvo. I'll take a Ford, thank you very much.

>>33050302
>JagdPanzer 38(t)
>Tank

Not only is it not a tank, but it wasn't even the best tank destroyer of the war.

>>33049467
Okay, then the Pz. IV instead. One of the better rounded vehicles. Granted it probably couldn't take out an IS or Pershing but for the time it was a good vehicle.

>>33050302
>crowded as fuck
>suspension cant handle all of these weight

>>33050302
Much like the Panther: Very impressive looking from the outside or on paper (Armor effectiveness, mobility, gun performance, etc.)n but in actual combat the interior layout was detrimental to the crew's performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4JVBp2JOgE

Granted, Moran is taller than the crews many of these vehicles were made for. But still, that is not a factor concerning how the Jadgpanzer 38t itself is made.

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>>33050249
>>33050326

I admitted the Sherman was the best, in my opinion; I was just making a case for the Panther being better later on than people tend to appreciate.

The main point I really wanted to convey was that crew comfort gets so little thought here as far as tank effectiveness goes, yet mattered so much under real conditions....the Sherman, Pz.III and IV, Panther, Tiger, probably some other allied tanks that aren't coming to mind...all more ergonomic, comfortable, and easier to use than the T-34.

>>33046946
are russians all midgets or do they really just not give a fuck about the crews

>>33050369
>probably couldn't take out an IS or Pershing

It technically could, but you'd have to be quite the wily crew to pull it off, kind of like how 75mm gunned Shermans could manage to kill a Tiger..just took a lot of work and clever movement.

>>33050381
No fucks about the crews were given.

>>33050378
I kind of did miss your first point.
But I agree entirely about crew comfort. It is one of the most important aspects of a vehicle.
If they crew cannot move around and do their task efficiently then they are not operating at their best. If they cannot escape their vehicle, they will die when hit. If they are not happy with having to constantly fix things or doubt the vehicle's capability, their morale is low.

Small things go a long way, take the Sherman and applique armor for example. It didn't help anything (it arguably made things worse) but it made the crews feel more confident.
Among the most relatively comfortable tanks from WW2 I'd say they were the Sherman, Tiger I, and Churchill. Big casemate TDs/ Assault Guns as well.

>>33050369
Fine, but an M4 is better than a Panzer IV, upgrades kept them edging each other out every so often for armour and firepower, but the Sherman was always comfier, easier to escape and more ergonomic.

>>33050414
I suppose if they came across one that was at a good angle for the gun or was previously damaged, sure.

>>33050449
Well, we are comparing a tank invented in the early to mid 30s vs one invented during the war years.

The fact that the Pz.IV stayed relevant and decently usable during that whole period is impressive in itself.

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>>33050466
>if they came across one that was at a good angle for the gun
that goes for every tank in every war though

>>33046946
To get it into gear, they had to use a fucking hammer.

>>33050466
Like I said, a clever crew could manage it. Not a guarantee of course, but possible.

Shermans with those shitty early 75mm guns killed Tigers, not by virtue of how great they were at tank to tank fighting, but by wily battlefield tactics...or numbers.

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>>33050496
is intended feature of good workout for the crew comrade

>>33050483
Yup, a tank crash designed in a panic versus one that had been carefully designed and refined over years.
Pretty impressive on the M4's part.

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>>33047161

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>>33050491
Unless you dropped an M8 from a plane so it could shoot straight down on a Tiger's engine deck, I think the 37mm gun is one of those weapons that is actually useless in this situation. The best they could hope to do is maybe blind the driver, jam the turret, or pierce the barrel, none of which would constitute "knocking out" any tank. I suppose detracking is also a possibility, making the Tiger an easier target for proper tanks to handle, but even then I doubt the kill would be credited to the Greyhound.

>>33050528
That's not what I meant, but alright.

I'm just saying the Sherman was such a fundamentally sound tank, and the Pz.IV was also, and also very adaptable.

If any two allied and axis tanks can be compared fairly, it's probably the Sherman and Pz.IV.

That being said, I think the Sherman was a bit better, part of that being it was designed later with new knowledge and experience incorporated into the design.

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>>33050566
>he doesn't know

>>33050491
I thought Greyhounds were meant to raid supply lines and blow up unarmored vehicles.

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>>33050566
>>33050593
Shit happens.
like that guy who shot down a Zero with a pistol

>>33050593
There was one instance of an M8 getting a jump on a Tiger II and knocking it out.
Just as ridiculous and lucky as the shot from a Churchill's 6lb gun that jammed the turret of Tiger 131, which allowed it to be abandoned and captured.

>>33050574
The fundimental issue is that, regardless of upgrades, late model Pz.IVs are still 1930s technology.

I get what you're saying; both starting out as more-or-less modular platforms who's development tended towards improved anti-tank capabilities. There was a fair degree of leapfrogging, with early Sherman using a longer barrel 75mm gun versus early Pz.IVs snub infantry support gun. The KwK 40 L/43 and L/48 (especially the latter) could be argued as one of the best tank guns of the war, being much easier to handle and far more versitile than weapons like the KwK 36 or KwK 43. However later american 76mm guns tended to outperform them.

The point I'm making is that the Sherman started and ended the war as the better tank. Fair enough there was a lapse in the middle. The Sherman was, indeed, a fundamentally sound tank. The Panzer IV was an outdated tank that could be fitted with up-to-date firepower. It could be argued that this was a good thing, given that the designers of the Panzer IV recognized the futility of trying to adapt to threats before you even know their nature. Unlike the Sherman, I don't think anyone working on the development or evolution of the Panzer expected it to be the apex predator of the armored world.

>>33050620
In his defense, there's a pretty huge gap between a 37mm and 57mm gun in terms of what it can deal with.

>>33050581
No, clearly I don't, but now I want to.

>>33050528
The M4 had a fairly decent development time, though. The base design existed since the M2, and the M3 acted pretty much as a test bed for most of the equipment. By the time the M4 was actually ready to be put out, most of the issues with equipment had been worked out.

The Panzer IV on the other hand, was not only designed for Anti-Infantry actions, but had to be upgraded a number of times throughout it's live in manners it wasn't designed for. The upgunning in the F series, the uparmoring with the G, and more that left the suspension and engine overloaded.

>>33050174
I wouldn't say the Panther was anything to write home about in the ergonomics department either. The loader, commander, and bow gunner positions all left something to be desired. The driver and gunner positions didn't have anything glaringly wrong with them that I can think of, but the driver had to contend with the awkward steering system, and the gunner had to deal with the narrow FOV gunsight without the benefit of a wide angle periscope. The commander's hatch and the loader's hatch were questionable in terms of how quickly you could get them open and climb out, but I don't know how much of a problem it was in practice.

>>33050341
Definition of tank

: an enclosed heavily armed and armored combat vehicle that moves on tracks

>>33050449
The Panzer IV never came close to the Sherman in terms of armor. An early M4A1 Sherman's frontal armor had a line of sight thickness of just over 90mm. To my knowledge, the Panzer's frontal armor never exceeded 80mm. Side armor was 38mm versus the Panzer's 30, and rear armor was also 38mm versus the Panzer's 20mm.

The only thing the Panzer IV managed to do better than the Sheman was AT performance, and that only if we're talking about the L/48 in comparison to the M3.

>>33050674
>However later american 76mm guns tended to outperform them.
Did they?
Though they were generally pretty similar, the KwK 40 had slightly better armor penetration and its HE rounds carried close to twice as much filler.

>>33051229
Generally speaking, a tank is defined either by the presence of a traversing turret, or by the role it was intended to perform.

What you just described should be the definition for an armored fighting vehicle, not specifically a tank.

>>33047132

The lack of a turret on the S-tank seems to negate one of the greatest advantages that a modern tank has--the ability to fire while moving.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to make a solid conclusion, though. How does the S-tank compensate for being turret-less?

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>>33049153
Since T-64.
>>33049182
Whatever helps you, Eugene. Americans were playing catch up with Soviet armour up until the very end of the Cold War.

>>33049212
>Maybe they would have failed in the offensive role against the Warsaw Pact at its prime (But the 1991 Gulf War indicates otherwise
Iraq was neither a part of WarPac, nor had any top notch Soviet equipment Americans would have faced if they decided to get silly around Europe.

>>33050608
>like that guy who shot down a Zero with a pistol
That was a myth.

>>33049089
>When the M1 was introduced the USSR had nothing new
Except for, you know, their own gas turbine tank in service 3 years before M1 was introduced.
>because it was in a death spiral
In was in death spiral in the 80s with the whole Perestroika thing going completely off the rails. Still took Americans the fall of the USSR to catch up on Soviet armour.

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>>33047118
>Comparing T-34 to a heavy tank
Good littly mommys wehraboo. Now go compare it to its actual counterpart, IS-2.
>According to German tactical instructions, a Panther had to close to 600 m (660 yd) to guarantee penetration of the IS-2's frontal armor, while the IS-2 could penetrate the Panther at ranges of 1,000 m (1,100 yd).[20][Notes 1] The hull armor of the Soviet IS-2 model 1943 would be defeated by Tiger I between 100 and 300 m (0.062 and 0.186 mi) at the driver's front plate and nose.,[33] while the IS-2's 122 mm gun could penetrate the Tiger's front armor from between 500 and 1,500 m (0.31 and 0.93 mi).[33]

>>33051422
They were still fighting from dug-in positions. The T-27, and other Soviet-designed tanks before it, were made with low profiles for mobile warfare.
It shows a point that the Abrams (and Challenger) can be versatile and go on the offensive. the Soviet-designed tanks were not able to hold a line while stationary.
At least in that case. For as much as people hate on the 'Lion of Babylon' T-72s, they had just as much mobility and just as effective guns as Soviet/WarPac T-72s. The Americans and British out ranged them because they controlled the distance of the engagement- where as the T-72 in Europe would have relied on closing distance and maneuvering to kill Western tanks.

>>33051494
You keep talking about Iraq, but Iraq was neither a part of SU, nor a part of WarPac.

>>33051810
I'm talking about a T-72 in its most basic variant not being suited to a certain style of warfare.
The earlier discussion in the thread was how Soviet/Russian tanks were superior because they had an autoloader and were smaller.
I pointed out how, regardless if what nation is actually fielding them, that is no necessarily true.

>>33047105
I mean, in the environment it was in there were no flanking routes. Mountains only have so many roads, see?

>>33050698
>No, clearly I don't, but now I want to.
In the Bulge, a M8 crew found themselves in a position to get right behind a Tiger and fire straight into its rear from point blank range.

>>33051257
Here is the official oxford dictionary definition for a tank.

"A heavy armoured fighting vehicle carrying guns and moving on a continuous articulated metal track."

>>33049616
Dick Cheney = Communist confirmed

>>33047524
German scientist and engineers are amazing, but their political leadership thought it knew better than them and kept forcing them to work on wonder weapons that they somehow thought would magically win the war, when the real problem was that their politicians forced them into a 2 front unwinnable war in the first place.

>>33052032
The Jagdpanzer 38 wasn't classified as a tank.

>>33051491
The IS-2 was the Tiger II's counterpart you scoundrel.

>>33051491
The Panther was medium and should be compared to late model Shermans and T-34/85s.

>>33052678
>Panther - 45 tons
>IS-2 - 46 tons
>Tiger II - 68 tons
Nope IS-2 is Panther counterpart.

>The Panther was medium
>45 tons
>medium
>oh you

>>33054593
>t. vatnik obstinately insisting on the Russian definition of heavy tank
>next up: armored recovery vehicles that weigh more than 40 tons are instantly heavy tanks

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>>33055632
>next up: this is heavy tank according to krauts who failed to put more than 75 mm gun on 45 tons heavy tank

>>33051378
There are a couple things that that list doesn't take into account, namely the fact that up until recently the 2A46 had piss poor KEPs, which is why the USSR put so much focus on GLATGMs in the first place.

>>33051378
>>33057007
Plus, the comparisons pre-T-64 are completely meaningless given the L7 and the D-10T could kill literally any tank of the era anyway

>>33051285
At the time the S-tank was designed tanks had piss poor hit probability on the move anyway so it was not considered enough of a liability to outweigh the lower profile the turret-less design offered.

>>33051491
Retard,the Panther is a medium tank like as is the M4 Sherman and the T-34.

>>33057690
>The T-54 and T-55 tanks received full gun stabilisation in 1956
>the tank could fire accurately despite the lack of ballistic computers if the tank was moving at lower speed, or if heading straight towards its target.

>>33057871
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-54/55_Fire_Controls

Anyone keeping count of these shitty "x tank is best/worst" threads?

>>33057884
Does it look like i want brain cancer?

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>>33049523
*Distant British Grenadiers intensifies*

>>33057796
>Panther is a medium tank like as is the M4 Sherman and the T-34
Wehraboos, wehraboos never change.

>>33047109
>getting shot from anywhere but the front
>needing to fire anywhere but the front
reevaluate your strategy
>>33058079
light/medium/heavy is based on doctrine, not arbitrary weight/armor/gun classifications that fit your autistic bias.

>>33051491
IF the IS-2 could hit the tiger...and IF the crew were sober enough to use the gun optics and not just shoot randomly. Slavboo detected

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>>33058191
>>33058315
Wehraboos on suicide watch.

>>33049182
Fun fact: CIA initially reported that T-54 had 85mm gun and 100 mm armor, T-64 had 115mm gun and 200 mm armor. (before US got hands on real pieces of equipment). US military planned "answer" to soviet armor "accordingly".

>>33049402
The US was incapable of developing an autoloader that worked adequately in the 1960s

That led them to completely abandon the concept for 20 years.

The TTB of which you spoke had an autoloader because autoloaders are superior.
If you wanted to improve the abrams as an MBT, you'd give it an autoloader

However the US doesn't need an MBT, they need a mobile gun platform
That's all the Abrams is right now.
Just look at the M1A2 and the TUSK.

Tanks are obsolescent and entirely irrelevan on the modern battlefield, at least in American doctrine.

The germans were the first to start using HEAT shells in tanks which was actually kind of a big deal at the time.

For all its other faults the panther had much better mobility on rough terrain than the M4 despite it's weight.

>>33051466
T80 is a glorified T64
The only difference between a late model T64 and a T80 is the T80 had 10% better nominal performance
(though this was offset by higher downtime iirc), and the T80 was hugely more expensive, and required an entirely different set of components.

>>33059518
So essentially in modern combat tanks are worthless because they're just large metallic objects that attract fire from AT launchers and the same ilk?

Would make sense in symmetrical warfare, but I'm not getting that vibe from the recent wars the US has been in.

>>33059546
All German war time tanks were shit.
When they encountered the T34 in 1941 it was UNDENIABLY the best tank in the world.
If anyone denies that the T34 was the best tank in 1941, they're misinformed or a jingoist burger.
Of course jingoist burgers are all misinformed, but I digress.

All German tank design after Operation Barbossa was completely shit, because of bickering high command politics and the fuhrer's meddling. Nazi high command had the sense they'd lost when they were forced to invade Russia.

The Panther suffered from inherently terrible reliability, excessive complexity, and difficulty to produce and maintain, which makes it utterly ineligible for the title of best tank.
If you go purely off performance, there was tanks in 44 and 45 with greater.

>>33059624
No, they're not shit.
The US has put a lot of effort into putting a 105mm on a Stryker.
A war horse makes an expensive field animal.

>>33059679
I should say I wanted to have a clear divide between MGS and tank, I know that the Stryker exists but I'm curious if tanks are too expensive for the purpose they serve if there was any instance of symmetrical warfare soon.

>>33059689
There`s no chance of real symmetrical warfare because the US today grossly outclasses all other nations militarily.

Dumb Arabs against dumb Arabs is symmetrical though, and they seem to have use for tanks.
The Finnish just bought a couple hundred Leo 2s, the Finnish defence force is designed for a straight fight with Russia.
Turkish Leo 2`s keep getting knocked out. Not sure how.

>>33049297

>*beep beep*

I've never though about this before, do tanks have horns?

>>33059782
>t*rks
>keeping tanks alive
pick one m8 :^)

Is there a noticeable benefit for using tanks as opposed to MGS's like the Stryker in most theaters, or do tanks just perform better in the places you listed (arabs mostly) since they have a bit better variety of roles and operate better than MGS's in softer or more obstructed terrain?

>>33059839
Idk
Tanks are readily available
Mobile gun systems are not

The stryker is a pretty terrible system though.

>>33059839
Tanks are a lot harder to kill.

>>33059833
Actually, yes.

>>33059833
Yep. Its kinda symbolic though, you can feel the ground shake and the bass from the engine wil vibrate your stomac before you hear the horn. That being said, its surprisingly difficult to range-estimate a Leo 2 by sound alone

>>33059546
It had better mobility than a narrow track VVSS Sherman. HVSS Shermans with their horizontal volute spring bogies and wide tracks were well known for their stability and comfort, and had a much lower ground pressure than VVSS variants despite the increased weight.

I must say though, despite it being a tanker's nightmare in terms of field repairs, the Panther's suspension was pretty damned good.

>>33059679
>All German war time tanks were shit

I wouldn't say that. They all did something well, usually firepower, but they all had at least one major design flaw, and their effectiveness was further hampered by Germany's sub-par manufacturing and logistics capabilities.

And the T-34 was hardly the best tank in the world even when it was introduced. T-34's fire control, crew safety, ergonomics, firepower, and mechanical reliability were all either equal or inferior compared to German tanks. This is why the T-34 maintained negative kill ratios throughout its existence. The impression it left on the Germans was due solely to its mobility and sloped frontal armor, and of course the Germans had no way of knowing the deleterious effects this had on crew efficiency. All they know is that the only thing they have that can stop it is the 8.8 cm flak gun.

Besides, even if the T-34 was the best tank in the world when it was introduced, that distinction would have gone to the M4 Sherman soon afterward.

>>33046946
I know this is a shit throwing contest, but what could the Germans have done to improve the Panther and Tiger II tanks to make them better?

>>33060036
>And the T-34 was hardly the best tank in the world even when it was introduced.
Okay, I guess I was wrong.-
I said anyone who says the T-34 wasn't the best in 41 was misinformed or full of shit.
You seem to fundamentally not understand WHAT the T-34 is.

The T-34 was a tank DESIGN.

Designs ARE NOT measured by the quality of implementation, unless the implementation is directly hindered by some aspect of the design.
For example, if an integral portion of the design requires something in short supply in the producing nation, it is a failure of the design.


The T-34 was superior to the Sherman.

The Sherman was superseded by numerous other, superior designs during the war.
Production of the Sherman completely ended in July 1945, before the war even ended for the US.
The T-34 was only superseded by the T-54 in 1946.
Production of the T-34 only ended in 1958.

>>33060182
Actually, discussion in this thread hasn't been as blisteringly stupid as it usually is.

To answer your question, better transmissions come immediately to mind. The Panther also had notoriously bad final drives and differentials. The use of power take off for the turret traverse wasn't as good as a dedicated electric or hydraulic drive, and the traverse motor and gearing themselves were weak and overloaded.

The Panther had a laundry list of defects really, but I'll try to keep it succinct.

>replacing the transmission required the removal of the bow MG, radio sets, and frontal roof armor
>interleaved road wheels were a pain in the ass to repair/replace in the field
>Tzf 12a dual mag optic had a narrow field of vision at 2.5x magnification and even narrower at 5x magnification, leading to slower target acquisition which was exacerbated by the lack of a gunner's periscope
>bow MG optic was even worse (admittedly this wasn't a big deal)
>engine was underpowered and prone to catching fire
>ergonomics were poor for a western tank, and egress points left much to be desired

There could be things I'm forgetting, but I think I covered the major issues

>>33060267
Even as a design it was vastly inferior to the Sherman. All-around sloped armor, Christie suspension, fuel tanks in the crew compartment, inadequate egress points, obsolete transmission and steering systems, inadequate engine cooling and air filters, unprotected ammunition stowage. These are all things inherent in the design, and they all detracted from the overall effectiveness of the tank and the crew.

>>33060036
>their effectiveness was further hampered by Germany's sub-par manufacturing and logistics capabilities.
The context determines the quality of the design.

>>33060267
Ignoring all the other bullshit in this post, you are aware that the Sherman was in use by other nations for decades after World War II? And that the US employed 76mm Shermans to extremely good effect against T-34-85s in Korea? The Army chose them over the M26 Pershing.

>>33060267
>The T-34 was superior to the Sherman.
>2 men turret.
>superior

>>33060329
I know, that's why I said that.

>>33060340
See, the Sherman had one major deficiency when it was introduced, and that was the lack of a loader's hatch. But this was rectified (I think) as early as 1942 or early 1943. The T-34-76 stuck around for years before the T-34-85 came around with a three man turret.

>>33059582
Except for the different hull, different turret, different propulsion. Yeah, essentially fuck right off, clueless nigger.

>>33060388
Even without the loader's hatch, the loader could still escape by going over/under the gun breech and out through the commander's hatch.
It would take a few seconds to do but as long as he had those few seconds he could get out.
I wonder if there was any study done to show on early Shermans how many crew died and who most common died. As silly as not including a loader's hatch was, it really doesn't strike me as a massive issue overall.

>>33060433
It probably wasn't, though I imagine egress would be a bit more troublesome for the loader if the gun was in elevation. Still, I can't imagine climbing over the breech would have been too terribly difficult.

>>33060337
>the US employed 76mm Shermans to extremely good effect against T-34-85s in Korea?
>The Army chose them over the M26 Pershing.
That's exactly it.
In 1950, America was a superpower.
American forces engaged in Korea were mostly regulars, hardened fighting Nazis.
They faced poorly trained, poorly equipped, largely illiterate communist peasants who were starving to death by the tens of thousands.

>They won against T-34s
NO SHIT THEY WON
That was never a question.

>>33060432
>required an entirely different set of components.
Do Americans have a literacy test?
Did you pass?

>>33060451
You would also have the motivation of "Oh shit I need to get out or I'm going to fucking die" assisting your movements.
I understand that at the time hatches were considered weakpoints, but as you said they came around to fixing it fairly quickly and installing another hatch (And issuing kits to modify existing vehicles for it).
Obviously the wet ammo storage also helped by making it less likely that the crew would need to bail out quickly.

>>33060480
>different hull, different turret, different propulsion
>required an entirely different set of components
>T80 is a glorified T64
Seriously, fuck right off.

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>>33057963
*Bunker full of bally Jerry hammering away at out lads with their MG-42s*
*Infantry commander uses his set to call for assistance*
*AVRE rolls up*
*Jerry's automatic fire is making quite a ruckus as it pings off the armour*
*Turret slowly turns towards the offending emplacement*
*Dustbin annihilates the bunker*
*Commander pops his hatch open and emerges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4smssvoLgpM *

>>33060537
>Does the exact same thing
>Works almost the exact same way
How can Americans be as dense as a dwarf star and not know it?

>>33060504
True enough. It can be easy to forget about intangibles like that.

I'm not trying to knock the Sherman, just to clarify. I love it, and the more I learn about it, the more I become convinced that it was the best tank of the war overall. I'm just trying to be fair in my assessment.

Also, I know hatches constitute a ballistic weak point, but was this really pertinent for roof hatches, as opposed to frontal hatches like the T-34's?

>>33060587
>different hull, different turret, different propulsion
>required an entirely different set of components
>exact same thing
Nigger, please.

>>33060626
If you increase the size of every component of a Ford F-150 by 3%, it will be the same, despite none of the parts working together.

>>33060622
I'm surprised to. For the longest time I bought into the whole "death traps" thing and that the only way Americans ever won was by sheer numbers. Now I realize it's all bullshit. The Sherman was easily the best medium tank of the war and still worked perfectly fine after it.

Regarding the hatches on the roof, the enemy would have to either be at a higher position or get extremely lucky to penetrate that kind of shot.
There really seemed to be no reason to not have one but considering how the very first M4s looked (With hatches in the side of the hull, more machine gun ports, and pistol ports- which were all deemed weakpoints and eliminated until the crews asked for the pistol ports back) I can kind of see why they didn't want to add any more openings onto the turret earlier into the production.

>>33060699
I have to give a lot of credit to Nicholas Moran for that on my end.

I figured that mortars and artillery or enemy AFVs in elevated positions might present a problem, but AT guns or tanks coming from the front or sides are another story. I hadn't considered that the kooky hatch ideas implemented in the early Shermans may have played a role.

>>33060665
And if you change hull, turret and propulsion of a T-64 it will not be a T-64 anymore. Nigger, please.

>>33060267
>I said anyone who says the T-34 wasn't the best in 41 was misinformed or full of shit.
But it wasn't. There weren't that many made by that time anyhow, and most of those were still destroyed in Barbarossa. And no, the Luftwaffe wasn't taking them all out. That was what Soviet commanders were claiming to justify their high losses.

>>33060753
I owe a lot to him for that as well. The lectures he's done on American armor and what a Tank Destroyer was (He's recently done another on tanks as a whole but it's more centered towards newer World of Tanks players or people with no real knowledge of tanks) were informative and enjoyable.

I've also read a history of WW2 American tanks and AFVs by Michael Green, which references Hunnicutt and Zaloga (as well as Belton Cooper just as an eyewitness account).
It goes into the history of the M2 medium and how that ultimately became the M4. Going into every variant of Sherman and what was different and why. Also some interesting stuff on the American heavy tanks.
Once you trace the lineage the M4 came from, it makes a lot more sense and displays its brilliance.

>>33060267
>I said anyone who says the T-34 wasn't the best in 41 was misinformed or full of shit.
I would disagree with that. It has some flashy figures, but I would argue that the Panzer III was still the superior tank. Sure, it had less thick armor and a smaller gun, but it was better at warfare nonetheless.

The ONE thing the early T-34s had was the sloped armor. But that doesn't do a single thing to mitigate the flaws of the tank, its cramped interior, or the hazards for its crew.
Even with the sloped front the early turret could still be penned with the right hit and the sides/rear were vulnerable as on any other tank.

>>33062156
Hell, the sloped armor was at least partially at fault for those deficiencies in the first place.

>>33062217
I get why they sloped the frontal armor and at the time it was a fairly new idea.
The French did it on the Renault FT, the Americans did it with the M2, but the armor on those were only really going to stop machine gun fire. The French also did it but their tanks in the 30s-early 40s but were on vehicles hwere armor was the only focus
T-34 was the first real application of it with the principle that it would allow a mobile medium tank to have armor approaching the effectiveness of a heavy. That it could stop shots fired by other tanks or AT guns.
That does not excuse why they decided to slope the side and rear as well because that made things event worse. The suspension units already took up space and sloping the sides made them take up even more, leaving the crew with barely any room.
The turret of the T-34 is also a major failure for crew effectiveness, safety, and even general comfort.
It was only with the T-44 that those problems were solved, but then it also introduces the drawbacks associated with Soviet/Russian MBTs up to the T-90.

>>33062156
It also had 76.2 mm gun that BTFO anything Germans had.

>>33062565
The Russian 76 had even worse penetrative performance than the short 75mm on the m3 lee

>>33062599
Too bad for Germans it was enough for their tinkans. Gun power is relative.

>>33062565
That's why German tank crews were taught to avoid situations where their armor was getting hit.
Range and situational awareness were a German tanker's friends.

>>33062565
Which is all well and good, IF it can actually hit anything. And because the T-34-76 had insufficient optics (no optics whatever for the bow gunner or the loader, commander/gunner only had a direct vision block to his left and no wide angle periscope, driver either had to make do with two vision blocks or expose himself by driving with the hatch open), actually hitting something was a dubious prospect more often than not. The fact that the commander was pulling double duty as the gunner and the fact that what optics there were to be found suffered from narrow fields of view and/or poor glass quality only exacerbated the issue.

Granted, the T-34-85 mostly rectified this. The commander had a vision cupola with five vision blocks, plus a binocular sight, and the gunner and loader both had periscopes. All of this made for more effective fire control. The hull crew were still screwed on that point however, which meant that two sets of eyes which could otherwise be used for target acquisition were going to waste.

Also, when you compare either T-34 to the M4 Sherman, which from the very beginning had periscopes for every crew member, plus fixed auxiliaries for the hull crew, and had three different optics for the gunner, and only got better as time went on, you get a better idea of just why the T-34 has a reputation for bad visibility and slow fire control.

>>33062972
>no optics whatever for the bow gunner
How the hell is he supposed to aim the gun then?

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>>33063092
See that hole above the barrel? That runs all the way back into the hull, and you can aim down the sights that way. Needless to say, this is not ideal.

Meanwhile, the bow gunner in a Sherman would have a periscope adjustable in elevation and azimuth, and he would use tracers to adjust his fire. A Panzer IV bow gunner was able to make use of a Kzf 2 optic mounted co-axially to the gun. The field of view for the sight was pretty bad (18 degrees at 1.88x magnification if I remember correctly), but I imagine it was still a bit more precise than the Sherman's periscope, and leagues ahead of whatever the hell you would call the hole sight on a T-34.

>>33062131
Then why did German high command in 1941 think the T-34 was better than anything they had?

Do you know the Panzer III better than they do?

Fucking retard.

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>>33063092
>>33063262
To give you a better idea of what I'm talking about

>>33060555
Fucking kek

>>33063304
For the same reason Allied crews thought the Panther was better than anything they had. They only see the apparent advantages when it's coming right at them. They have no way of knowing about all the trouble the tank was actually causing for the crew and the logistics base tasked with supporting it.

>>33063262
>>33063309
to this i will add that the T-34 being cramped is not a meme. I managed to seduce my way into one in an armor museum and it was just a very bad place to be. Seats were bad, space was bad

There was just not a lot of room. And i am 5'4

>>33060270

>engine was underpowered

Hm?

The rest is spot on, I'd add that the turret was a complete shitbox in almost all aspectswhich is the reason for the Schmalturm's development

It did have glorious tactical mobility, the best non-heavy tank gun and also excellent frontal armor though

>>33063350
The panther was better than anything they had from a capability and sophistication standpoint.
Just like an Austin Martin is better than a Honda Civic in many ways.

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>>33063355
Maybe the T-34 was designed for Russian men, not American man-children

>>33063446
I should clarify, it was only underpowered compared to the size of the tank. I've heard it said that the Panther was a basically good design that just went beyond the automotive technology available at the time, at least when you take the initial design parameters into consideration. Had the designers been allowed a little more leeway with the weight of the design, things may have been a bit different.

>>33063355
Small wonder the Chieftain took over a minute to extricate himself from the driver's position when he was able to open the hatch and get out of a Sherman in under 10 seconds.

>>33063500
i am neither of that. I was just trying to give you guys an idea of it. Only other tank i have been in a centurion, which was comparatively room-y compared to the 34

>>33062972
>actually hitting something was a dubious prospect more often than not.
You mistaking hitting with detection. T-34/76 gun sight TOD-6 has same characteristics as German TZF 5 sigh of T-III/IV. Detection yes was bad because of double duty gunner/commander.

>>33060465
Most WWII vets were out of the service by Korea, which is why they had to use a draft.

Also many of the NK tankers and fighter pilots were actually Soviet "advisors".

>>33063479
>Austin Martin

Is that the budget Aston? (Bongs will understand.)

Good analogy tho. British automobile reliability has always been ghastly for some reason, though they do fit and finish well on their high end rides.

>>33063350

The Coldstream Guards operated a captured Panther and were quite content with it, although it did break down eventually and had to be abandoned.

>>33063479
No, it really wasn't. Nothing in the Panther was beyond the technological/manufacturing capability of the US. The Soviets and maybe the British are another matter. And the Sherman had a number of features that the Panther did not, and managed to be better with crew safety and comfort, ergonomics, and reliability on top of it.

>>33063533
Perhaps I could've worded that better, but then again, hitting something does require you to actually see it first.

>>33063561
Then again, the French made use of a not insignificant number of them after the war, and after a while found it impossible to keep them running.

>>33063500
I wasn't aware that Russian men were such big fans of immolation

>>33063505
>just went beyond the automotive technology available at the time
it's not the tech, it's the cost

wartime production quality is garbage

every country that actually had a stake in the war was pumping stuff out as fast as they can, almost always at the expense of quality
the US was a big exception to the rule, they could afford to give their stuff had a lot more quality
that being said, liberty ships tended to fall apart
and more than one T6 tanker split in half

the complexity and sophistication of the panther failed to reasonably weigh wartime needs
therefore it was a shit design

>>33063616
they're not fans, they're slavically indifferent to suffering

>>33063552
>British automobile reliability has always been ghastly
Reason for this is simple
Cars are dispensable in British culture
It's always been trains trams and metros
Am I right to say Britain has produced some good lorries and rural vehicles in its history?

>>33063596

It should be said that the report aims to dump the German hardware in order to get native French tank production up and running again, although it does bring up some valid points. Still, I find it hard to believe that the French didn't get their late model Panthers babysitted by German factory engineers to run longer than some early D versions captured at Kursk and tested by slavs, the influence of their lobby is quite noticeable.

I know Hunnicutt rated the Panther the best tank of the war, does anyone have further information on why he's doing that?

>>33047933
I read a German memoir on the eastern front.

Apperently, on the russian steppe, just outside Stalingrad, the germans were fighting off waves of T-34 attacks with only a handful of stg 3s. They knocked out 20+ T-34s in a single day.

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>>33063659
Probably thinks it's sexy
aesthetic is heavily weighted in the American mind

>>33063659
That is a good point, which I hadn't considered. But as you said, it wasn't entirely exaggerated. Other sources have made note of its shortcomings.

>>33063304
Because the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Believe me, the Germans did better with the Panzer III than they would have with the T-34. The T-34 would not have enabled the main advantages the Germans had- radios and well trained commanders directing well trained crews.

>>33063804
dude

if you drive a Honda Civic
and it breaks down
because the mechanic you went to did a bad job
is that a problem with the design, or just your car?
think about it very hard

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>>33063791

Precisely. It says a lot that the French decided to roll with quite a a large number of features adapted from the Panther/Tiger II series, with the only one getting into serial production being the high velocity 75mm on the AMX-13. Ultimately the engines were a mess and burgerland flooded Europe with cheap surplus Pattons anyway, so there was no need for these butterfly collection of these heavy tanks

>>33063804
also let's say you get a different car

does driving a different car make you lose all your driving skills?

maybe you install a ham radio in your cars
if you get a new car, would you not do what you usually do install a ham radio in it?

>>33063693
Wouldn't surprise me.

For some reason, that reminds me of the story of the T-34 that took 23 rounds from a Pak 36 AT gun. Everybody points to that story as proof of the effectiveness of the T-34's sloped armor (not like it's hard to shrug off hits from a 37mm in the first place), when instead they should be asking why the hell the crew of that tank allowed the gun crew to get off that many rounds without returning fire effectively.

As it turns out, optics are indeed important.

>>33063642
>Am I right to say Britain has produced some good lorries and rural vehicles in its history?
As in other niches in the automotive industry, British lorries and offloaded were often fantastically capable, when they were working, but had an above average failure ratell and maintenance needs.

The Land Rover in particular is phenomenal, good enough to poison the mind of its owners into thinking that an emergency rebuild of the shifter mechanism on the side of the road is "just maintenance".

>>33063804
The Germans actually did make use of captured T-34's in fairly significant numbers. Their main complaint was having to stop every hour or so, lest the engines overheat.

>>33063908
True enough. Pattons weren't perfect, but at least the damn things worked properly.

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>>33063938

To be fair they had to utilize every vehicle they could get their hands on from 1938 onwards. Their improvization skills reached mad max tier at times.

Just look at this, they tied a 37mm pak to some shitty French tractor. It's a bloody meme.

>>33063868
>>33063916
This is a horrific comparison. There are many design decisions in the early war T-34 (commander pulling dual duty, two man turret, no turret basket, etc) that make the T-34 objectively worse for a commander to do his job. You're simply ignoring that to try and feel better about a tank you feel emotional investment behind, for whatever reason.

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>>33064010

It is precisely for that reason that I would rather sit in a long-barreled Panzer IV than a T-34, at least with the commander having a good overview I'll probably stay alive a good deal longer than the poor sod in the slav memepyramid

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>emergency rebuild of the shifter mechanism on the side of the road is "just maintenance"
kek

>>33046946
Kek alright

>>33064055
Really, I can think of plenty of reasons why I wouldn't mind being in a Panzer IV. The armor doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence, but the internal layout and optics are excellent for the most part, and the L/48 was a true blue no shit tank gun.

>>33064010
>>33064055
>crews and radios
Crews and radios have nothing to do with tank design
>HATCHES HATCHES HATCHES HATCHES

>>33064115
This. Even if I were to disregard all the other bad points, I would still reject the T-34 solely on the basis of its hatches. Now in fairness, the turret crew aren't doing TOO badly in that department. But if the tank gets K-killed and you're the driver or the bow gunner? You're fucked.

Bad hatches kill tank crews, and that is one design flaw that to me is inexcusable.

>>33064164
hatchman autist

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Usually I shill the IS-2 on these threads and get wrecked with muh bad loading time and two-part ammo.

Are there any other weak points to the design?

>>33064294
Uneconomical compared to medium tanks.

>>33063916
Until the later 3 man turret tanks, the excessive commander task load and lack of search optics will mean that even if you give all your tank commanders radios, they won't be able to be as effective with them as the men in a pz3.

I don't need to talk about hatches, other people have that covered.

>>33064265
Well god damn son, I don't want to burn to death. I think that's a pretty good place to start when gauging a tank's efficacy.

>>33064294
It's limited in what roles it can perform, but that was by design, same as the Tiger I. It's a breakthrough tank, not a workhorse like the T-34, Sherman, or Panzer IV.

>>33050249
In that video, Moran makes reference to something called a unity sight. I've heard him use that term in other videos, but I can never seem to find out what it is he's talking about. Any anons wanna help me out here?

>>33064307
>Uneconomical compared to medium tanks.
In 1944 IS-2 costed 60% more T-34. In 1945 40%.

>>33046946
Where is that krump steel vid. You know, the one where the museum director explains the various attributes of the 34, like the lack of sights

>>33064367
The motherland doesn't give a shit what you want.

Get in the fucking tank or you will be shot for desertion.

>amerifats actually think that """""crew survivability""""" is a worthwhile metric of tank performance

>>33064756
>can't tell if being facetious or not

Either way, a good crew is better than a good tank, as the Americans proved at Arracourt, and others proved a thousand times elsewhere.

>>33064829
That would imply that there was such a thing as a good tank crew in the Red Army. Maybe that explains why they gave no shits when it came to anything pertaining to the human element of the tank.

>>33051378
And yet T-72s got BTFO by M60s in Iraq.

>>33064891
Would there have been a significant deleterious effect on the T-34 in any way if they had widened and lengthened the hull to create more space for the crew? That right there may have solved a lot of the design's shortcomings.

>>33063938
The Germans made use of every single tank they captured. Seeing as they had their hands on a lot of T-34s, no shit they used them.

>>33064115
The crews were enabled in their task by the design of the tank. Dedicated commander slot is big.

>>33065028
Upgrading T-34 soviets ended with T-54.

>>33046959
Sage is not a downvote, maybe you should go back to another site.

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>>33047026

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>>33065337

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>>33065353

The most depressing thing about the T-34 brewing up is that I can't find any Soviet references to that issue before January 1945. The officer in question was extremely upset that he'd spent several months training with his corps to break into Germany, and tank losses were indeed light, but crew losses were way higher than he could understand. He wanted an official investigation into what exactly caused the bizarre fatality rate so that it could be fixed before it devoured all his veterans. It took 4 years for someone to go
>wait, do all tanks explode like that?

>>33064355
M1s are getting blown the fuck up by militia with Konkurs and RPG-29s as we speak.
How can you be this ignorant and not have died by now in traffic or by drinking bleach, or something?
Is it just your mother had 8 children under the hope at least some of you would survive to the reproductive age of 16?
Expand the trailer park warren

>>33065756
It's because when the T-34 was first being put into production they were in some cases being driven out of the factory onto the battlefield. The situation was that desperate. So the Soviets said "this tank is going to last about 5 minutes in combat so there's no point investing in quality" and what followed was an almost maniacal effort to drive down the cost of everything. In some cases there are photos of welders working on the tanks as they are being driven out of the factory. It was less "try to finish the tank in this time limit" and more "build as much of it as you can in this time limit" - i.e. the tank was finished when time was up, not when it was "feature complete." There are some instances of T-34s with inch-wide gaps in the armour. Fixable problems abounded, but when the time's up the tank is finished, whether it's finished or not.

The other thing was that T-34s were never updated. The Germans updated their models constantly - a Tiger that had just rolled off the production line was obsolete in some fashion compared to the Tiger just 6 units behind it because they kept fucking with the design. This slowed down production. The Soviets chose to continue with flawed designs rather than slow production.

By the later war period the pressure had eased somewhat and some attempts to fix this quality control and the design flaws was made in models like the T-34-85 but even then the Soviets knew that it would be more sensible to just build a new tank from the ground up than try and keep the T-34 in service.

It's not that people didn't know that the T-34 had problems. You only have to climb in one to see it's got problems. But the pursuit of "perfect weapons" is why Germany's production was fucking abysmal and the USSR drowned them in a flood of "good enough" tanks. People knew that the tanks exploded. People cared that the tanks exploded.

It was just something that they couldn't afford to fix.

>>33065028
>Would there have been a significant deleterious effect on the T-34 in any way if they had widened and lengthened the hull to create more space for the crew?

Yeah, the tank would be heavier and larger.

>>33065622
get that world of tanks bullshit outta here

>>33064880
There are more elements then the vehicle design on the battlefield.

If you knew this then you would not create such stupid post.

>>33065028
>make the tank bigger
Makes it heavier, so now you need a bigger engine. And the bigger engine also makes it heavier so it gets exponentially bigger depending on how much bigger you make the tank. And now that the tank is bigger to have the same value of armour also makes it exponentially heavier, requiring an even bigger engine. And now your tank weighs 50 tons and your transmission and everything is shit and has to be totally redesigned from the ground up.

Basically you'd have to redesign the whole tank.

Or alternatively you can just slap the extra weight on and deal with the constant breakdowns (cough cough... Germany).

Yeah, they COULD have done it, and they DID do it. They just did it in the 50s and 60s instead of when Hitler was at the gates of Moscow.

>>33065892
Yeah and a bunch of retards in this thread think that the low production quality of the tanks makes the design bad.
And you're wrong, the T34 remained in service and was updated for 15 years after the war ended, and new units produced in the USSR until 1956.
Of course it was replaced in Soviet service with newer tanks, but that was in the 50s and 60s when there was such rapid evolution of technology they were rolling out an entirely new platform every 10 years.
Don't forget, the M48 remained in West German service for decades. Just because it wasn't utilized by superpowers in an arms race doesn't mean it was discarded.
The design withstood the test of both war and post war production.
They stopped making Shermans in July 1945, months before victory.

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>>33066410
The T-34 stayed in service because they had a fuckton of them and weren't going to throw them away, and was updated for the same reasons, but it was "succeeded" in 1944 by the T-44. The T-44 was the Soviet answer to all of the shit that had gone wrong with the T-34 It had everything - the three man turret, more crew space, better optics, better egress, blah blah blah. The Soviets looked at it and said "that's a cool tank, Ivan, but it is more important that we keep shitting out tanks as fast as we can than have the best possible tank."

Like I said, they KNEW the T-34 had problems but decided that it was more important to have flawed tanks that could fight than perfect tanks on paper. There was a good strategic reason to build flawed tanks. Does that make the flawed tanks good tanks?

The T-34 was not a great design, in my opinion. It was a 'good enough' design. If you're asking which I'd rather be in, an M4 or a T-34, my answer is an M1 Abrams. The fact is that you don't get to choose what tank you get put in. We go to war with the equipment we have available, not the equipment that we want.

Pic related, a T-44. Looks a lot like a Panther...

>>33066541
>The T-44
You mean that great tank NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF OR EVER SAW COMBAT IN WORLD WAR II
The T-44 didn't replace the T-34. If it replaced it, they would have stopped making T-34s. As I mentioned in the post you replied to but apparently didn't fucking read - THEY KEPT MAKING T-34S.

War was over. They could and were manufacturing new, more expensive models of tanks.

But guess what, they kept making T-34s.

Part of the reason is they did this while Sherman production stopped is probably because the unlike M4 shermans which had the luxury of high production quality, surplus T-34s they had from the war were largely garbage quality

>decided that it was more important to have flawed tanks that could fight than perfect tanks on paper
You just described the Sherman.
The Sherman was shat out as quick as they could design it for wartime use, and that was to replace the even more shit M3 Lee
The T-34 was designed before the war with no expectation of conflict

>>33066541
>T-44. Looks a lot like a Panther...
T-44 doesn't have armored sponsons and its like 3/4 of the turret lower.

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>>33066541
>T-44 looks like a panther
Oh wow the red army ripped off German designs?
Who knew the Red Army was capable of such things!

>AK47 sturmgewehr
>most produced, most lethal, and generally best firearm and weapon in history
>only reason it's not the most popular in the US market is tariffs and military use
>only reason it's not used by western military's is its primary strengths are less important to rich nations

The T-44 is a forgotten tank that never saw action during the war.

They stopped making it 8 years before they stopped making T-34s

You bringing it up proves the weak to the point of non existence of your argument.against the T-34

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>>33066671
>You mean that great tank NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF OR EVER SAW COMBAT IN WORLD WAR II
Yes.

The question is "is the T-34 a flawed design" and the answer is yes, as evidenced by the T-44 which is essentially just a fix package for the flaws of the T-34. The USSR didn't choose to produce it because they saw the value in the production lines they already had, not because they doubted that it was an improvement.

>But guess what, they kept making T-34s.
They were definitely phasing them the hell out.

The US probably stopped producing the M4 because it didn't need any. They were already scaling back production in '45 and I think even '44. The US simply didn't have as big an army as the USSR.

>surplus T-34s they had from the war were largely garbage quality
Definitely this as well.

I guess what I'm saying is that the T-34 was not a good tank or a bad tank. It was the right tank.

>>33066772
>You bringing it up proves the weak to the point of non existence of your argument.against the T-34
What is my argument?

The T-34 is a flawed design, which is why the T-44 was even conceived in the first place. The USSR chose to proceed with a flawed design for good strategic reasons, but that doesn't make the design not flawed.

Chassis wise, the US Sherman variants win out.
> Used by Multiple World powers.
> Large factor in fighting in france etc etc.
> easily modified to suit a Smorgasboard of roles and weapons.
> Cast hull shermans are cute.
> Welded hull shermans are fearsome.
> Pushed the D.A.K to defeat in Afrika because of its thick and rounded hull. (Citation, "With Rommel in the Desert." by Heinz Werner Schmidt.")

Shermans are cheap and easy to produce, So easy a chip could crew it, and so damn reliable (barring the early variants with radial engines.) with a solid gun that can pack a mean punch against most targets. they did the jobs of countless Specialised vehicles and cut a path to Berlin for the Western allies.

>>33067107
They weren't cheap or easy to produce. Each Sherman cost upwards of $700,000 in today's money, and each one was built to extremely high standards of quality. No tank was cheap or easy to produce, unless you were comparing them solely to each other. The secret to production was all in the size and/or quantity of your production facilities. This is why America (dozens of contractors and subcontractors, many of which had very large production facilities) and the Soviet Union (massive tank plants in the Ural region) were able to vastly outproduce Germany. As an example, Tigers only came from one company (Henschel), as opposed to half a dozen or more for the Sherman, and that company had one Tiger production facility.

Beyond that, I'd say you're spot on

>>33067473
The Sherman WAS easy to produce. However, the reason why it was expensive compared to the T-34 was because the Sherman involved a lot more expensive pieces of machinery. The Soviets did what they could to lower cost, America did that to an extent, but recognized they had a lot of money to throw at problems, and so they did just that. The end result was high quantity produced at high quality.

This is a rather civil tread for some reason. Probably not what OP had in mind, but its a nice change

>>33067473
Sherman was the quickiest and fastest, due to America have good casting technology and the Sherman having multiple large cast parts that would have to be cut+rolled+welded in other tanks.

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>>33065246
Oh look, it's this meme again.

>>33057040
It was originally an argument about weight in relation to armour and the post was to show that Russian tanks always were way lighter while enjoying equal or better armour.

>>33066541
>Like I said, they KNEW the T-34 had problems but decided that it was more important to have flawed tanks that could fight than perfect tanks on paper. There was a good strategic reason to build flawed tanks. Does that make the flawed tanks good tanks

this

>>33050381
USSR was big, very big
so instead of fitting the vehicles to the people they chose people to fit the vehicles. Red Army tankers were selected first to be AT MOST 1.70 meters tall, and then for other characteristics
when jet planes came along and g-loading became better understood, the red midget population became split in two - smart midgets went on to drive MiGs, dumb midgets drove tanks
artillerymen were selected from the tallest and strongest, and so on.

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>>33069875
>while enjoying equal or better armour

well the russians did pioneer composite armour and T-72/T-90 weldet turrets are thicc a fuck.

>>33063999
That looks very much like a Carden Loyd suspension

>>33070721
that's because the "shitty french tractor" is a Bren

>>33066772
>knows exactly nothing about the stg44

If the T34 is based off BT tanks, and BT tanks were based off the Christie tank, how much of his original design made it to the T34? Anything beyond the suspension?

>>33072002
bump

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>>33046946
>>33046946
>implying there was a tank better then the panzer 6
>implying any non-german WW2 tank was superior
>implying the allies won not because of the massive amount of shitty tanks they where able to pump out, but becacuse of "superior design"
>implying any non- german tank would be able to hold up in a one on one against a tiger
>implying hitler did anything wrong

>>33074082
IS-2 and Pershing were both better tanks in that category

>>33074148
Pershing is questionable, but it certainly had a better gun

>>33049576
not sure they were self propelled assault guns / anti-tank guns.
i think they were quiet nice for those times all things considered.

>>33072002
nothing. even the suspension was found lacking and heavily modified

>>33047118
In a 1v1, the Panther would break down, the T-34 would catch fire, or stall out, or shock the crew to death, etc. However the horde of T-34's following the one T-34 would eventually beat the panther.

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>>33064055
Shoulda posted the one that showed the inside of the tank crews.

>>33074082
>Hans! The engine and the transmission broke! And we need to rev the engine to turn the turret which means that the russians have flanked us! Also we ran out of fuel!

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>>33074082
good luck getting it to do anything but fuck up, hans

>>33075161
Why the Germans thought power take-off for the turret traverse was a good idea, I'll never know.

>>33075126
>TFW you notice Putin is in the turret of the T34
is there anyplace where that motherfucker can't be found?

>>33077182
In the company of honest and law abiding individuals

>>33047026
Not a tank.

>>33066816
>The USSR chose to proceed with a flawed design for good strategic reasons, but that doesn't make the design not flawed.
Of course the design is flawed. Every design has its flaws.
The point is it was the best design of world war II.

>>33070751
>greentexts some aloof and obnoxious response
American.

>>33077005
A mixture of copper scarcity and hydraulic systems being better for heavier turrets.
There's a reason why everyone switched to hydraulic traverse after the war.

>>33059679
>If anyone denies that the T34 was the best tank in 1941, they're misinformed or a jingoist burger.
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/
>The combat results for 1941 show the Soviets lost an average of over seven tanks for every German tank lost. (5) If all German fully tracked AFVs (assault guns, tank destroyers, SP artillery, etc) and losses from Germany’s allies are included in the German figures, then the ratio drops to 6.6 to 1 in the German favour.
>Of the total of 20 500 Soviet tanks lost in 1941, approximately 2 300 were T-34s and over 900 were mostly KV heavy tanks.(7) Even if the T-34’s loss ratio was better than seven for every German tank, it was still most likely in the region of four or five to one. Frankly, if 2 300 of any new Wehrmacht tank type had been lost within six months of its first deployment, even with a loss ratio of one to one (let alone 0.2-0.3 to one), then most WWII historians would have described the tank’s combat record as an unmitigated diaster.

>inb4 attack the source
It's well cited with footnotes to respected sources.
The T-34, while great on paper, performed abysmally in combat throughout the war. Terrible optics, crew visibility and tank commander workload made it a deathtrap in the tactical sense. Strategically it was incredibly important, but as individual machines they were outperformed at every phase of the war by their opponents and allies.

>>33060267
>The T-34 was a tank DESIGN.
Yes. And as a design it was a comparative failure. Again:
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/
>The T-34/76’s one great weakness was its fire control efficiency. It suffered from the same two-man turret syndrome as other Soviet tanks in this period, namely that the tank’s commander, gun aimer, gun firer and platoon commander (if a platoon leader), were all the same person. Exacerbating this was the fact that the T-34/76 had relatively poor main gun optics quality, no turret basket, a very cramped and low turret (the gun could not depress more than three degrees severely restricting use on a reverse slope or at close range), poor turret drive reliability, no radios, and generally poor target observation and indicator devices (including no turret cupola and only one vision periscope for the tank’s commander).
>In summary, the T-34/76’s inherent fire control efficiency was so bad that even well trained and experienced tank crews were put at a severe disadvantage. For inexperienced tank crews, with no radios and probably no organised combined arms support, it was a disaster.
>German tankers noted “T34s operated in a disorganised fashion with little coordination, or else tended to clump together like a hen with its chicks. Individual tank commanders lacked situational awareness due to the poor provision of vision devices and preoccupation with gunnery duties.
>The Germans noted the T-34 was very slow to find and engage targets while the Panzers could typically get off three rounds for every one fired by the T-34.(10)

>>33078754
>>33078768
great source. fucker really did his homework. saved.

>>33078754
>>33078768
Oh look, it's this "analysis" again.

>>33078813
Seems pretty simple. The had X number of tanks. They ended up with Y number of tanks. Ditto the Germans. The Soviets lost 5-7 T-34s for every German AFV killed, depending on how generous you want to be about operational non-combat losses.

That's a hell of a bad exchange rate for "the best tank in the war".

>>33078830
>Seems pretty simple
And I suppose this is how it appeals to people.

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>>33072002
>>33074586
>nothing.

A modified christie suspension is still a christie suspension.

>>33077342
Well, yeah. And the Clinton lady too.

>>33077905
Actually, the US was already using hydraulic systems on the M4A1 in the early war period. The Oilgear electrically motivated hydraulic traverse system. 24 seconds for a full rotation if I remember correctly. The Oilgear company couldn't keep up with the demand though, so they started also using purely electric systems by Westinghouse, which were faster at 15 seconds, but were less tolerant of imperfections in the turret race ring than the Oilgear systems.

>>33077825
>The point is it was the best design of world war II

But it wasn't. That point has been made several times already. The T-34 design had numerous inherent deficiencies on which Soviet quality control had no bearing.

>>33078898
What else to it is there exactly? A supposedly good tank design doesn't take 78% combat losses despite vastly outnumbering the enemy.

Now it could be argued that the disparity in casualty rates can be chalked up to the skill and experience of German tankers. The US proved after Normandy that experience can often trump superior armor and firepower of enemy tanks. But the T-34 had a laundry list of design flaws even when it was well made, and it so often wasn't, compounding the issue. It deserves at least some of the blame.

>>33079554
>constant mesh spur gear transmission
>clutch and brake steering
>driver's hatch was difficult to egress from in a hurry and compromised frontal armor
>tiny floor hatch
>no bow gun optics
>fuel tanks in the crew compartment
>field repairs are impossible without tools to undo bolts on all access points including the fuel port
>no turret platform
>poor ergonomics
>poor engine support systems (cooling, filtration)

These are all problems inherent in the T-34 design that persisted even when the tank was well made with good materials from a high quality factory.

>>33064660

It's what >>33060270 refers to by a "lack of gunner's periscope". A unity sight in general is simply an unmagnified periscope or vision block coaxial to the relevant optic; a gunner's unity sight, then, gives you a good way to roughly direct the gun in azimuth to place the target in the center of the field of view while you transition to your optic and/or your commander tells you "on".

>>33078898
>And I suppose this is how it appeals to people.
Explain what we're all missing. How do you lose 5-7 tanks for every single one you kill yet still call the tank the greatest design of the war?

Regardless of reasons (training, lack of radio, overworked tank commanders, and most importantly incredibly shitty targeting optics and crew visibility) or whatever other factors you might introduce, there's no way you can handwave away AT BEST losing five tanks for every one your enemy lost.

If that shit happened to the British or Americans, it would have been an incredible scandal and there would have been an immediate redesign of the tank.

>inb4 it got better
Not really:
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/#The%20T-34’s Performance in 1942
>The combat results for 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945 show the Soviets lost an average of 6, 4, 4 and 1.2 tanks respectively, for every German tank lost.(12) If all German and Soviet assault guns, and all other types of fully tracked AFV losses are included, then the ratio changes to 5, 3, 3 and 1.3 for 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945 respectively, in the German favour.(13) The figures for 1945 are not much use as the majority of German losses were operational or strategic, i.e. they are classified as lost when Germany surrendered in 1945. The figures for 1942 to 1944 are more useful in assessing the T-34’s tactical combat performance.

>>33079583
>What else to it is there exactly?
The remaining 4 years of the war.
>>33080354
>Explain what we're all missing
The fact that simply calculating paper k/d ratio of the first year of the war doesn't show jack shit except for disposing how biased such an "analysis" is.

>>33080478
>The remaining 4 years of the war.
see >>33080354
>The combat results for 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945 show the Soviets lost an average of 6, 4, 4 and 1.2 tanks respectively, for every German tank lost.
Get bent.

>>33080478
>The fact that simply calculating paper k/d ratio of the first year of the war doesn't show jack shit except for disposing how biased such an "analysis" is.
Sure. Just keep ignoring the test of the years posted IN THE POST YOU'RE RESPONDING TO. Go ahead and ignore the source, which gives hard numbers and good sources for tank park numbers and loss rates over the entire war.

Ignore the data, because your feels are always more important than the facts.

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>>33075126
>dude is split in half

christ they don't fuck around with these exploded diagrams

>>33080536
Sure, just keep jerking off to paper k/d ratio. Wars are won and objectives are achieved exactly like that, right? Every time someone posts operationbarbarossa.net link somewhere it's always the same shit.

>>33080685
>>33075126
is there some modern 3d version of these diagrams?
where it's animated and you can pause and spin around and stuff?
that'd be chill

>>33047132
>price of a single Panther
simple reichmark price is a poor indicator in a wartime economy where steel of different grades is already rationed for production. Factories are limited, labor is limited too.

You might think a Stug is 4 times cheaper than a Panther, but it doesn't mean you can build 4 Stugs in place of a single Panther.

>>33080755
Then maybe you should address it with an actual argument, which you've yet to produce.

I restate:
IF IT WAS THE BEST TANK IN THE WORLD, WHY WAS IT LOST AT RATES BETTER THAN 3 FOR EVERY GERMAN TANK OVER THE ENTIRE WAR?

Clearly stated. Even capitalized it for you so you'll know for sure what the question is. Now, instead of bitching about the well-cited source with plenty of hard numbers and solid analysis to back his conclusion, how about you actually produce a serious argument or source of your own?

>>33047690
The M3 was the most successful tank in North Africa.

Even the Russians liked it.

>>33046970
More like nobody wanted to ride in a t-34 of any kind. The damn things broke down after a couple hundred kms and the ergonomics were horrific. The optics for the gun were so bad that you'd be better off looking out through the barrel with a telescope and the less said about the christie suspension, the better.

the 85mm gun had it's own issues since the damn thing tended to catch on everything. Worse, the barrel wasn't particularly strong and even a slight bend would cause it to rupture.

Damned pain in the neck, performance not widthstanding.

>>33048899
>the claim the M4 Sherman is the same price is EXTREMELY dubious considering war time production
The material and labor resources to produce the M4 and T34 were similar. However that doesn't mean the Russians could have produced Shermans as anything other than a poor imitation.

>>33080810
>performance not widthstanding.
What performance? They got popped like jack in the boxes all over the place.

When you have to build 4+ times as many tanks as your enemy to win, you're doing something very wrong.

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>>33080755
Americans don't understand warfare.

They have some idea of how to start them.
They wage war like a 6 year old plays monopoly - a grasp of the basics.
And they have no CLUE how to win them.

The only reason the US won World War II is they were led by the hand by Anglos and while the Soviets were carrying the team.
Even when the Germans were defeated the US was politically 3 steps behind the USSR
The only reason the US kept West Berlin was the USSR underestimated the capacity of the United States to throw money at a problem.

The US never won a war before or since.

>>33080833
>When you have to build 4+ times as many tanks as your enemy to win, you're doing something very wrong.
Not when your tanks are 1/5 the price, 1/3 the power, and 1/10 the difficulty to produce

>>33080833
Do we have a real genuine wehraboo fanboy of logistic monstrocities like Tiger here?

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>>33080922
>strategic logistics and production have nothing to do with winning a war
ok
Also, without strategic bombing of production, interdiction, decimating the Luftwaffe in the west and Lend-Lease, the Soviets either stalemate or take many years longer to get to Berlin. Pic related, for instance.

>>33080938
>Not when your tanks are 1/5 the price, 1/3 the power, and 1/10 the difficulty to produce
Then why are we calling them the best tank design of the war? OP's post calls it the best tank of the war. Period. As a design, it clearly was not.

Call them what they were: an important tool in Soviet battlefield and production strategy. Not this currently over-mythologized battlefield giant.

>>33080953
I'm no Wehraboo. I simply don't buy that the T-34 was the best tank of the war. It was far too deficient in several areas for that. Was it an important tool for the Soviets to succeed? Absolutely. Did it have a few design features which influenced future design? Yup. Best tank of the war? Not even close.

>>33080938
>Not when your tanks are 1/5 the price, 1/3 the power, and 1/10 the difficulty to produce
I'd love to see a source for any of these three assertions.

>>33081007
then look it up yourself you lazy ass
the onus of educating yourself is upon yourself

>>33081007
also none of those claims is even questionable
basically common /k/nowledge

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>>33080922
>US never won a war before or since
>Before
>war of independence
sure