Armored tracked vehicles have always occupied a special place in Soviet society. Tanks in the USSR knew how to make, and they were proud of them. Nimble and agile "fast carts" BT, chasing samurai at Khalkhin Gol, mobile fortresses KV and IS, "hunters" SU / ISU-152, endless arsenals of post-war T-54/55, one of the best tanks of the 20th century T-72 " Ural "… They composed songs and made films about tanks, they stood on pedestals in every Russian city, and every citizen of the Land of Soviets knew that" the armor is strong and our tanks are fast. " Among the many designs born by Soviet tank builders, a special place is occupied by the "Victory tank" T-34, whose priority was unconditionally recognized even by foreign experts:
“Exceptionally high fighting qualities. We had nothing like this,”wrote Major General von Melentin after the first meetings with the T-34. “The best tank in the world,” Field Marshal von Kleist voiced his opinion. “We have received alarming reports about the quality of Russian tanks. The superiority of the material part of our tank forces, which existed until now, was lost and passed to the enemy, - this is how the creator of the tank forces, Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, spoke about the results of tank battles on the Eastern Front.
No less high marks were given to the T-34 by British specialists: "The design of the tank testifies to a clear understanding of the most important combat qualities of armored vehicles and the requirements of war … The creation and mass production of such perfect tanks in such a huge number is an engineering and technical achievement of the highest level …"
Constructors' Cup
After comprehensive tests of the T-34 at the Aberdeen training ground, the American military was in no hurry to crumble in compliments and made quite predictable conclusions, which formed the basis for an enchanting report by the head of the 2nd Directorate of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, Major General V. Khlopov:
Medium tank T-34, after a run of 343 km, is completely out of order, its further repair is impossible …
Chemical analysis of the armor showed that the armor plates of the Soviet tank are surface hardened; the bulk of the armor plate is mild steel. The Americans believe that the quality of the armor can be improved by increasing the hardening depth …
An unpleasant discovery for them [the Americans] was the water permeability of the T-34 hull. In heavy rains, a lot of water flows into the tank through the cracks, which leads to the failure of electrical equipment …
Cramped fighting compartment. The turret rotation mechanism caused many complaints: the electric motor is weak, overloaded and sparks terribly. The Americans recommend replacing the turret turning mechanism with a hydraulic system or, in general, with a manual drive …
Suspension Christie was found to be unsuccessful. The candle-type suspension was tested in the United States back in the 30s, and the American army abandoned it …
The tank, from the American point of view, is recognized as low-speed (!) - the T-34 overcomes obstacles worse than any of the American tanks. It's all to blame - sub-optimal transmission. Despite the high thrust-to-weight ratio of the tank, the undercarriage does not allow the full potential of the tank to be realized.
Welding of T-34 hull armor plates is rough and sloppy. The machining of parts, with rare exceptions, is very poor. The Americans were especially outraged by the ugly design of the gears - after much suffering, they replaced the original design with their own part. It was noted that all the mechanisms of the tank require too many adjustments and adjustments.
At the same time, the Yankees meticulously noted all the positive aspects of the T-34 tank, among which there were several unexpected moments:
The choice of angles of inclination of the armor plates of the hull and turret indicates excellent projectile resistance …
Great sights. The sighting devices are unfinished, but very satisfactory. The overall visibility is good.
I liked the F-34 cannon very much, it is reliable, very simple in design, easy to install and easy to maintain.
The V-2 aluminum diesel is very light for its size [of course! B-2 was developed as an aircraft engine]. The desire for compactness is felt. The only problem with the engine is a criminally bad air cleaner - the Americans called the designer a saboteur.
A vehicle from a "special series" was sent to the United States - one of five specially assembled "reference" T-34s, but the Americans were horrified by the poor quality of the tank parts, the abundance of "childhood illnesses" and at first glance absurd design mistakes.
Well, it was a high volume product. In difficult times of war, in conditions of evacuation and general chaos, lack of workers, equipment and materials. The real achievement was not the quality of the armor, but the quantity. Fifty thousand T-34s - about the same number of tanks stamped by the factories of the USSR at the time of the end of the Great Patriotic War.
All the advantages and disadvantages of the T-34 were well known in the USSR long before the tests in the USA. That is why the state acceptance for so long refused to accept the "raw" tank into service, and throughout the war, detailed projects of a new medium tank were developed: T-34M, T-43, T-44, in which the shortcomings of the original T-34 were corrected step by step. The T-34 itself was also continuously modernized in the production process - in 1943 a new three-seat "nut" tower appeared, the four-speed gearbox was replaced by a five-speed one - the tank began to develop more than 50 km / h on the highway.
Alas, the turret moved forward did not allow to strengthen the frontal armor, the front rollers were already overloaded. As a result, the T-34-85 ran until the end of the war with a 45 mm forehead. The flaw was corrected only in the post-war T-44: the engine was deployed across the hull, the fighting compartment moved closer to the center, the thickness of the frontal armor immediately increased to 100 mm.
At the same time, for 1941, the T-34 was a revolutionary vehicle:
- long-barreled 76 mm gun (in comparison with foreign models of tank armament)
- rational angles of inclination of armor
- high-torque diesel engine with a capacity of 500 hp
- wide tracks and excellent cross-country ability
No other army in the world was then armed with such advanced combat vehicles.
Battle standings
Medium tank T-III. Issued 5000 units.
Medium tank T-IV, the most massive tank in the Wehrmacht. Manufactured 8600 units.
Medium tank Pz. Kpfw. 38 (t) made in Czechoslovakia. The Wehrmacht received 1400 units.
Tank "Panther". Issued 6000 units.
Great and terrible "Tiger". Issued 1350 units.
The "Royal Tigers" account was in the hundreds: the Germans managed to produce only 492 cars.
In terms of arithmetic, the Wehrmacht was armed with about 23,000 "real" tanks (I deliberately left out the T-I tankette, the T-II light tank with bulletproof armor and a 20 mm gun, and the Maus super-heavy tank).
From the point of view of the layman, a steel avalanche of 50,000 of the world's best T-34 tanks was supposed to sweep away all this German trash and victoriously end the war on May 9, 1942 (by the way, in 1942 alone, Soviet industry produced 15,000 T-34s for the front.). Alas, the reality turned out to be discouraging - the war lasted four long years and claimed millions of lives of Soviet citizens. As for the losses of our armored vehicles, historians cite figures from 70 to 95 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns.
It turns out … T-34 was undeservedly awarded the title of "best tank"? The facts eloquently show that the T-34 was not the "workhorse" of the Red Army, the T-34 was "cannon fodder" …
What's going on, comrades?
Inaccuracy in calculations
Tanks rarely fight tanks. Despite the colorful descriptions of the duels "T-34 vs Panther" or "Tiger vs IS-2", half of the losses of armored vehicles were the result of the work of anti-tank artillery. Legendary Soviet "magpies", 37 mm German "beaters", formidable 88 mm anti-aircraft guns, with an inscription on the gun carriage "Shoot only at KV!" - here they are, the real tank destroyers. It is from this position that you need to look at the use of the T-34.
By the end of the war, the position of the tankers became disastrous - the Germans managed to create a simple and cheap anti-tank weapon, ideal for combat in urban conditions. The rate of production of "Faustpatrones" reached 1 million per month!
The Faustpatron was not such a formidable weapon for our unsurpassed T-34 tank. During the offensive, I talked very seriously with the personnel and found out that the faustpatron was a bogey, which some tanks feared, but I repeat that in the Berlin operation the faustpatron was not such a terrible weapon as some imagine."
At the cost of the boastful words of the commander of the 2nd Guards Tank Army, Marshal of the Armored Forces S. I. Bogdanov, there were thousands of burned-out tankers who did not live to see Victory in just a few days. In our time, the anti-tank rocket launcher continues to remain one of the most terrible opponents of armored vehicles - an extremely secretive, mobile and elusive weapon that, as practice shows, is capable of destroying any tank, despite the cunning multi-layer protection.
The second worst enemy of tanks is mines. They were blown up by 25% of armored tracked vehicles. Some of the vehicles were destroyed by air fire. When looking at the statistics, it becomes clear that the tank battle at Prokhorovka is just a rare coincidence.
Ferdinand
Discussions about the number of German armored vehicles are often bypassed by self-propelled artillery mounts on the chassis of German tanks. In fact, the Germans managed to create a number of effective anti-tank weapons in this area. For example, little known to the general public "Nashorn" (German rhino) - 88 mm gun "Naskhorn" pierced any Soviet tank at a distance of 1.5 kilometers. 500 self-propelled guns of this type brought a lot of troubles to the Red Army - there are cases when the "Rhino" burned a company of T-34.
Here the odious Ferdinand, a miracle of the German genius, a heavy tank destroyer weighing 70 tons, crawls out of cover. A huge armored box with a crew of six could not turn around on difficult terrain and crawled towards the enemy in a straight line. Despite the mocking attitude towards "Ferdinand", the issue with his 200 mm forehead was not resolved until the end of the war - "Fedya" did not break through by any conventional means. 90 vehicles turned into a real bogeyman, every destroyed German SPG was reported as "Ferdinand".
Everyone knows about 1400 Czech tanks Pz. Kpfw. 38 (t). And how many people know about the Hetzer fighter on the chassis of this tank? After all, more than 2000 of them have been released! A light, agile vehicle, with a mass of 15 tons, it had acceptable security, mobility and firepower. The Hetzer was so cool that production continued after the war and was in service with the Swiss Army until 1972.
Among the many designs of German self-propelled guns, the most perfect and balanced was the Jagdpanther. Despite the small number - only 415 vehicles - "Jagdpanthers" set the heat on both the Red Army and the allies.
As a result, we see that the Germans also needed a huge amount of armored vehicles to conduct hostilities, the losses of our tankers no longer seem so incredible. On both sides, tanks and self-propelled guns had enough tasks: fortifications, equipment, artillery positions, defensive lines, manpower … All this had to be destroyed, pressed, destroyed, overcome, protected, counterattacked and covered.
Medium tanks were an extremely popular type of military equipment - they favorably distinguished themselves by their moderate mass and a rational combination of combat qualities. German tanks T-IV and T-V "Panther", as well as the American M4 "Sherman" are most often called analogs of the "thirty-four". Let's start with him.
Universal Soldier
According to its characteristics, the Sherman is very close to the T-34-85 - there is still heated debate about who was better. The silhouette of the T-34-85 is 23 centimeters lower. But the "Sherman" has the upper frontal part of the hull 6 mm thicker … Stop! We will not achieve anything like that, we need to approach the matter analytically.
Serious research suggests that the 76 mm Sherman cannon, thanks to the use of the BPS, had greater armor penetration, but was inferior to the 85 mm T-34 gun in high-explosive effect. Parity!
The T-34 has thicker side armor, the armor plates have a rational angle of inclination. On the other hand, the slope of the armor plates makes sense when the caliber of the projectile is equal to the thickness of the armor. Therefore, the Panther's 75 mm cannon pierced both the 45 mm inclined side of our tank and the 38 mm straight side of the American as foil. I'm not even talking about the "faustpatrons" …
The combat capabilities of the Shermans are most clearly indicated by the fact that Lend-Lease "foreign cars" entered service only with the Guards divisions. In addition to a comfortable fighting compartment, the Sherman had lesser-known advantages: for example, unlike other medium tanks, it was armed with a large-caliber machine gun. The tankers liked the precise and convenient hydraulic turret drive - their shot was always the first. And the Sherman was also quieter (the T-34 thundered so that it could be heard from miles away).
In addition to 49,000 tanks produced in a variety of modifications (each for a specific task), 2 types of multiple launch rocket systems, 6 self-propelled artillery units and 7 types of bridgelayers, tractors and recovery vehicles were created on the basis of the Shermans.
The T-34 is also not easy: the lethal SU-100 tank destroyer, the powerful SU-122 assault gun, three types of tractors, the TM-34 bridge layer and the SPK-5 self-propelled crane were created on the chassis of a Soviet tank. Parity!
As we can see, the differences are minimal, each tank is good in its own way. The only thing that "Sherman" does not have is that vivid and tragic combat history: an African sandbox, winter fun in the Ardennes and a limited appearance on the Eastern Front cannot be compared with the four-year bloody mess that fell to the lot of the harsh T-34.
Private Panzerwaffe
In the summer of 1941, everything went badly for the German T-IV - Soviet shells pierced its 30-mm sides like a piece of cardboard. At the same time, the "stump" of his short-barreled 75 mm KwK.37 gun could not penetrate a Soviet tank even at close range.
The Carl Zeiss radio station and optics are certainly good, but what happens if, for example, the transmission crashes on the T-IV? Oh, this will be the second part of the Marlezon Ballet! The gearbox will be pulled out through the shoulder strap of the removed turret. And you say you have problems at work …
The T-34 did not have such tricks - the rear of the tank was disassembled, opening access to the MTO.
It will be fair to say that by 1942, technical superiority had again returned to the Germans. With the new 75mm KwK.40 cannon and reinforced armor, the T-IV has become a formidable foe.
Alas, T-IV is not at all suitable for the title of the best. What is the best tank without a victorious story ?! And they collected too few of them: the super-industry of the Third Reich somehow mastered 8686 tanks in 7 years of serial production. Maybe they did the right thing … even Suvorov taught that you need to fight not by numbers, but by skill.
Disaster project
And finally, the legendary Panther. Let's face it: the German attempt to create a new medium tank at the height of the war completely failed. "Panther" turned out to be cumbersome and complex, as a result of which it lost the main quality of the Medium Tank - mass character. 5976 vehicles turned out to be too few for a war on two fronts.
From a technical point of view, the "Panther" was head and shoulders above the T-34, but it was bought at too high a price - 45 tons of rest mass and eternal operational problems. At the same time, by a strange coincidence, the "Panther" was unarmed: the lean barrel of the 75 mm gun seems to be a clear dissonance against the background of the massive hull of the tank. (The defect was promised to be corrected on the "Panther-II" by installing a normal 88 mm cannon).
Yes, the Panther was strong and dangerous, but its cost and labor intensity were close to the parameters of the Tiger tank. At the same time, the capabilities remained at the level of a conventional medium tank.
Outcomes
The best tank, as you already understood, does not exist. There are too many parameters and conditions in this task. The design of the T-34 undoubtedly carried a novelty, while one more Designers' Cup should be presented to the workers of the Ural factories - they accomplished a feat by starting the mass (or more correctly, super-mass) production of tanks in the most difficult times for our Motherland. As for combat effectiveness, the T-34 is unlikely to even make it into the top ten. Any "Nashorn" will plug the "thirty-four" in the belt by the amount of damage done per one tank. Here the undisputed leader is the invincible "Tiger".
However, there is one more, the most important - strategic offset. According to this competition, each tank should be considered as an element of contributing to the success of the army on a geopolitical scale. And here the T-34 is rapidly ascending to the top - thanks to its tanks, the Soviet Union defeated fascism, which determined the further history of the whole world.
