Unfortunately, the last article did not "fit" material about the means of monitoring the situation, which provided the T-34, so we will start with it.
It must be said that the T-34 of pre-war production and production of the first war years is often (and absolutely deservedly) reproached for the absence of a commander's cupola, which provides the tank commander with a relatively good view of the battlefield. One may ask why our tanks were not equipped with such turrets?
The fact is that, in the opinion of domestic tank builders, the function of the commander's cupola will be performed by a viewer, which, according to the principle of operation, resembles a submarine's periscope. Accordingly, if the commander of the German T-3 had five sighting slots in the aforementioned turret, and were ordinary slots in the armor, taken by triplexes, then the commander of the T-34 had a PT-K panoramic device, which in some cases was replaced with a PT panoramic sight 4-7) and two periscopic sights located on the sides of the tower.
Thus, in theory, the commander of the T-34 should have had an advantage over his German "colleague", but in practice it was the Russian tank that turned out to be "blind", while the German one had quite acceptable visibility. Why is that?
Firstly, this is an uncomfortable position and a small field of view at the panoramic sight. It was corny, it was difficult to look at him from the commander's place - it was necessary to turn his head at an unnatural angle, and this shortcoming was especially manifested during the movement of the tank. Theoretically, the PT-K could provide a 360 degree view, but in fact it did it only 120 degrees to the right of the T-34's direction of movement, while leaving a very significant, not visible, "dead" zone near the tank.
It should also be noted that some of the disadvantages of the PT-K panoramic device followed from its advantages. So, he had a 2.5-fold increase, which was very useful in order to identify camouflaged targets - by the way, the commander of the T-3 was deprived of such an opportunity, which was considered a noticeable drawback of the German tank. But on the other hand, such an increase with a limited angle of visibility required the commander of the T-34 to slowly rotate the flywheel of the drive of the circular observation mechanism, otherwise the image was blurred. And so, as a result of all of the above, the German tank commander had a good opportunity at any moment, shaking his head, inspect the battlefield and identify threats to his tank, while the T-34 commander had to slowly inspect a limited sector of space in front of his right " iron horse "…
As for the side viewing devices of the towers, which the commander of the T-34 had, he had to bend down strongly in order to look at the one that was located on his side. The author of this article was never able to figure out whether the commander had the opportunity to look into the left viewing device, which was located on the side of the loader, but according to the test results, both devices indicated inconvenience of use, and a small sector of view, and the inability to clean the glass of the devices while remaining inside tank, and significant dead space … In general, despite the simplicity of the surveillance "instruments" of the German T-3 tank, its commander could control the battlefield much better.
The gunner of the German tank, in addition to the sight itself, also had 4 sighting slots, so he could inspect the space next to the tank along with the commander. On the T-34, the commander himself was a gunner, and as such, he had, in addition to the above-described means of observation, a tank telescopic sight TOD-6.
I must say that in terms of design, our sights were very perfect, moreover: the Americans who studied the T-34 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground even concluded that its sight was "the best in design in the world", but at the same time noted mediocre optics. As a matter of fact, this was the first significant drawback of our sight in comparison with the German one: in principle, they provided the gunner with comparable capabilities, but the manufacture of the lenses of the German device was distinguished by the traditionally high quality of German optics, while ours was somewhat worse even before the war. and in its initial period it became at some point quite bad, during the evacuation of the plant that produced it. Nevertheless, even in the worst times, it was impossible to talk about an inoperative sight of Soviet tanks.
The second drawback was that the German tank sights were, so to speak, "turning points." That is, the position of that part of the sight, which the gunner was looking at, remained unchanged from the angle of elevation of the gun, but the gunner-commander of the T-34 had to bend down, or vice versa, rise up after the TOD-6 sight.
The driver-mechanic on the T-34 had as many as three periscopic devices and, in fact, the driver's hatch, which could be slightly opened. Mekhvod T-3 had one "periscope" and one sighting slit. But the German instruments provided a very good forward-to-left view, despite the fact that the radio operator located nearby, having two sighting slits at his disposal, had a good forward-right view, which is why he could tell the driver something. At the same time, our designers placed three T-34 "periscopes" at different levels (the front periscope looking forward - 69 cm from the seat, left and right - 71 cm). Taking into account the fact that the difference of 2 cm in the sitting position required a different height, since the front periscope was at the level of the mechanic's eyes if the latter was short, and the side periscope - if "below average", there is no need to talk about any convenience of observation. In addition, there were no headbands on the side devices, they very quickly became dirty when driving on virgin soil to a state of complete loss of visibility, and the regular "wipers" could not cope with their cleaning completely.
The poor visibility of the driver in the T-34 (with the hatch closed) was complemented by the blindness of the radio operator, who only had an optical sight for a machine gun. In fact, it gave such a scanty viewing angle and was so inconvenient that it practically did not allow aimed fire from a machine gun in battle. From the memoirs of tankers it follows that the machine gun in the overwhelming majority of cases performed the functions of either a "psychological" (shoot in that direction!), Or a removable weapon.
Despite all of the above, I would like to note the following. Of course, the T-3 and T-4 observation devices provided a better view than the T-34 produced in 1940-1942, but this does not mean that the German tankers saw everything, and ours saw nothing. Still, you need to understand that the review from the tanks of those years, both British, German, domestic or American, was very bad. But the T-34 was worse than the German tanks.
Armament
Artillery. Here, without a doubt, the T-34 is in the lead with a huge lead over both the German and any modern medium tanks of other powers. Equipping the newest Soviet medium tank 76, 2 mm with L-11 artillery systems and, subsequently, F-34 with a sufficiently high initial projectile velocity for 1940, which was 612 and 655-662 m / s, respectively, was a huge step forward for world tank building. In essence, it was about the fact that it was the T-34 that received a universal artillery system suitable for fighting almost all possible targets of the tank: enemy armored vehicles, field artillery, anti-tank guns, infantry, as well as a number of field fortifications. At the same time, even at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, a well-known specialization was preserved in the artillery equipment of German tanks. So, the 37-mm and 50-mm guns installed on the T-3 due to the low weight of the projectile, and, accordingly, the low content of explosives in it, were not very well suited to defeat enemy infantry and artillery and were mostly anti-tank weapons. Nevertheless, in the fight against tanks, only the best of them, the long-barreled 50-mm KwK 39 L / 60 cannon, could compete with the domestic F-34, the armor penetration of which was quite comparable to the Soviet cannon. But, not having an advantage over the F-34 in terms of fighting armored vehicles, the KwK 39 L / 60 was inferior to it in terms of impact on other types of targets, and in addition, at the time of the invasion of the USSR, exactly 44 German tanks had such a weapon.
On the contrary, the KwK 37 L / 24 artillery system installed on the T-4 could operate well against field fortifications, infantry and other unarmored targets, but, due to the low initial velocity of the projectile, which was only 385 m / s, it was much inferior to the L-11, and F-34 in the ability to defeat enemy armored vehicles. Perhaps the only indisputable advantage of the German tank artillery systems over the domestic L-11 and F-34 was their relatively small size, which left more space in the turret for other units and crew.
There is nothing to say about other countries - the French 47-mm and British 40-mm F-34 cannons were categorically inferior in all respects. Another thing is the American M3 "Lee", which has received a 75-mm artillery system more or less comparable to the domestic 76, 2 mm guns of qualities, but the Americans managed to shove it into a sponson with a very small horizontal guidance angle. As for the domestic F-34, the verdict of the Americans, who tested it at the Aberdeen test site, was as follows: “… very good. It is simple, works flawlessly and is easy to maintain. " Only a relatively low projectile speed was set in the minus to our gun, which was quite understandable for 1942.
However, very high for 1940-1941. The performance characteristics of our 76, 2-mm guns were to a certain extent leveled out by the scanty amount of armor-piercing shells that our industry was able to manufacture for them. Apparently, an important role was played by the fact that there was no target for such projectiles for a long time - lightly armored tanks of the mid-30s could well have been destroyed even with a high-explosive 76, 2-mm projectile, or shrapnel exposed to contact action.
Until 1937, we produced a 76, 2-mm armor-piercing projectile mod. 1933, and the rate of release did not boggle the imagination at all: for example, in 1936-37. with a plan for the release of 80,000 shells, it was possible to produce 29,600 units. Taking into account the fact that not only tank, but also field guns needed armor-piercing shells, even the planned figures look completely insignificant, and the actual release is completely vanishingly small. Then, with the advent of more durable armor and the development of anti-cannon-proof tanks, it turned out that the arr. 1933 is ineffective against an armor plate 60 mm thick, so a new one had to be urgently developed.
However, the production of armor-piercing shells was completely disrupted. With plans to release in 1938-1940. 450,000 shells, 45,100 shells were produced. And only in 1941, finally, a breakthrough was outlined - with a plan of 400,000 shells at the beginning of June, it was possible to produce 118,000 shells.
However, on the scale of the battles of 1941-1942. and such releases were a drop in the ocean. As a result, even in July 1942, NII-48, studying the impact of domestic shells on German armored vehicles, in the report "Defeat of the armor of German tanks" noted:
"Due to the lack of the required number of chamber armor-piercing shells in the artillery units, widespread firing at German tanks from 76, 2-mm divisional guns with shells of other types …"
Not that the USSR could not design a normal armor-piercing projectile, the problem was that its mass production required highly skilled workers, and such were in great shortage. As a result, even those shells that were still produced by our industry were far from as good as they could be, but even there were few of them. To a certain extent, the situation was saved by the decision to produce armor-piercing shells-blanks that did not contain a fuse and explosives in general. Of course, the armored action of such shells was insufficient, they could completely disable the enemy tank only if they hit the engine, fuel tanks or ammunition.
But, on the other hand, one should not underestimate the capabilities of blank shells. In the last article, we described that the T-34 could receive quite serious damage even in cases where the projectile did not pass completely inside the hull: the damage was caused by fragments of tank armor, knocked out by the "armor-piercing" projectile and the head of the projectile, which in its entirety or by shrapnel got into the reserved space. In this case, it was about shells of caliber 37-45 mm. At the same time, 76, 2-mm steel blanks, according to the NII-48 report, penetrated German tanks "from any direction" and, obviously, their armor-piercing effect was much higher.
Let us also remember that, as the protection of tanks increased, almost the whole world began to use sub-caliber projectiles, whose striking element, in essence, was a small-caliber steel blank. Well, our T-34s fired with 76, 2-mm blanks and, of course, the armor effect of the "caliber" ammunition was much higher than that of the sub-caliber 50 and 75-mm German guns.
Another question - when did we have such shells? Unfortunately, the author of this article did not find the exact date of the entry into service of the "blank" BR-350BSP, but A. Ulanov and D. Shein in the book "Order in the tank forces?" mention 1942.
As for the machine-gun armament, it was, in general, quite similar in our and German tanks, including 2 machine guns of "rifle" caliber 7, 62 mm. A detailed comparison of the DT and MG-34 machine guns used in the Soviet T-34 and the German T-3 and T-4 is, perhaps, still beyond the scope of this series of articles.
Conclusions on the technical part
So, now let's try to summarize everything that has been said about the technical data of the T-34. Its armor protection was unambiguously superior to any medium tank in the world, but it was not at all "unkillable" - with great luck, the T-34 could be disabled even with a 37-mm gun, however, for this luck, his crew really had to be very, very much … At the time of its appearance and in the initial period of World War II, the T-34 should rightfully be called a tank with anti-cannon armor, since it provided quite acceptable indicators of protection against the main tank and anti-tank guns of the German anti-tank defense system. German tanks in 1941-42 could "boast" of a similar level of booking only in the frontal projection. The protection of the T-34 lost its “anti-cannon” status only after the 75-mm Kw.k. gun was adopted. 40, and it appeared on German tanks only in April 1942, and again, it should be understood that it played a somewhat serious role even later, as it appeared in the troops in noticeable quantities.
The armament of the T-34 also surpassed its German "competitors", but the position of the Soviet tankers was complicated by the almost complete absence of full-fledged armor-piercing shells. This forced our tanks to move closer to the enemy for reliable defeat at a distance, where the artillery systems of German tanks already had a chance to inflict significant damage on the T-34. In general, if the T-34 were armed with full-fledged armor-piercing shells, then we, most likely, at the beginning of the war would have had "Russian" Tigers " would be deadly. Unfortunately, this did not happen, but for a reason that had nothing to do with the design of the T-34.
Of course, the large number of the crew, thanks to which the commander did not need to combine the functions of the gunner, better working conditions and visibility gave the tankers certain advantages, but how great were they? Perhaps, only tankers who had the opportunity to fight in both Soviet and captured German vehicles could truthfully answer this question. Today, these shortcomings are often exaggerated, and one can find statements that they, together, made the T-34 a worthless tank, but there are other points of view. For example, D. Orgill, an English journalist and writer, author of a number of books on military history and the development of armored vehicles, wrote:
“All these shortcomings, however, were mostly minor. They could play a significant role only if the tanks with which the T-34 met on the battlefield were equivalent to it in more significant respects."
It is difficult to say how right D. Orgill was, but it should be noted that he wrote during the Cold War, having no reason to flatter the military equipment of the USSR. The author of this article, of course, understands the importance of ergonomics and good visibility in battle, but nevertheless assumes that the Englishman is largely right and that the indicated shortcomings of the T-34 in terms of visibility and ergonomics still did not have a decisive influence on the losses of the T-34s in 1941-1942
Most likely, the key technical shortcomings were the complexity of control of the pre-war and early military production of T-34s and their relatively low technical reliability. This was superimposed on such factors as poor crew training and not very successful disposition of our mechanized corps (MK), and all this together gave a cumulative effect. After all, what actually happened?
The location of the MK in the second and third echelons was the theoretically correct decision, since it was from there, after the directions of the German attacks were revealed, that it would be most correct for them to advance for counterattacks. Placing MK in the first echelon would allow the Germans to surround them and thereby deprive them of their combat mobility and power.
But in practice, this theory led to the fact that our MK had to advance and travel long distances in order to come into contact with the enemy. The T-34 crews for the most part did not have sufficient experience in driving these tanks, they saved on training due to the relatively low motor resource of the tanks. It even got to the point that the T-34 mechanics were taught to drive other cars! Of course, this is better than nothing, but with such "preparation" it was absolutely impossible to master the early T-34s with their mass of nuances in control.
The technical shortcomings of the gearbox and clutches required increased professionalism of driver mechanics, and in fact it was downgraded. In addition, not everyone knew and knew how to timely carry out the necessary preventive maintenance of components and assemblies, did not know the features of their technology. All this, obviously, could not but lead to the massive failure of the T-34 for technical reasons even before contact with the enemy. So, for example, during the famous march of the 8th mechanized corps KOVO, 40 tanks out of the available 100 were lost, while 5 more tanks at the beginning of the war were not in good order and they had to be left in the place of permanent deployment.
Of course, you can look at the same fact from the other side - yes, the 8th MK lost 45% of the available T-34 fleet, including 40% - on the march, but … during the transfer under its own power almost 500 km! Reading today's work, one gets the impression that the T-34s in the mechanized corps simply had to fall apart into parts after the first 200-250 kilometers of the march, but this did not happen. Maybe our machines with a resource were not so bad as it might seem at first glance … Or the commander of the 8th MK, Lieutenant General Dmitry Ivanovich Ryabyshev was still able to properly prepare the crews of his unit?
But, in any case, in conditions when it was still necessary to reach the enemy (and, often, having “wound” more than one hundred kilometers), and even on equipment requiring well-trained crews, but there are none, then large non-combat losses are inevitable by definition. For the strategic reasons that we described in the first article of the cycle, the USSR was doomed to lose the Border Battle, and it swallowed up the most combat-ready troops of the border districts. Accordingly, the strategic initiative remained with the Germans, and they continued the quite successfully launched offensive. And this, in turn, means that the disabled T-34s remained in the territory captured by the enemy, even in those cases when they could well have been put into operation. There are cases when it was necessary to destroy even fully combat-ready tanks, which, as a result of marches and battles, did not have fuel and / or ammunition left.
It is well known that, all other things being equal, in an armed conflict, a side forced to retreat and lose its territory will suffer large losses of tanks. This is also true for the Red Army: for example, in the Moscow defensive operation, which lasted a little over two months, from September 30 to December 5, 1941, we lost a total of 2,785 tanks of all types, or almost 1,400 tanks per month, but for one month of the offensive Moscow operation (December 5, 1941 - January 7, 1942), losses amounted to only 429 vehicles, that is, on average, more than three times less than in the defensive operation (data by I. Shmelev). This is due to the fact that tanks knocked out on the battlefields, as well as those out of action for technical reasons, remain with those who attack, seizing (recapturing) territory. Accordingly, the attacking side has the ability to bring such tanks into operation, while the retreating side does not. The retreating side can, to a certain extent, compensate for the forced abandonment of knocked-out and broken armored vehicles, but for this its armored units must be perfectly trained and provided with the necessary number of tractors, vehicles, etc. Alas, the tanks of the mechanized corps of the Red Army, in contrast to the above, were often forced to engage in battle on their own, apart from the rear services of the mechanized corps, but even apart from their own infantry and artillery.
Thus, we come to the conclusion that the technical reasons that significantly influenced the losses of the T-34 in the initial period of the war were the relatively low reliability and exactingness of the driver's qualifications. And we can even say that, due to the above reasons, the T-34s of pre-war production and the first war years did not correspond to the very concept for which they were created. While the main task for these tanks in their design was seen as active operations in the enemy's operational front zone, that is, to a depth of up to 300 km, in 1940-1941 they were not technically ready for such operations. Accordingly, they were not ready for that maneuverable tank war, which the Wehrmacht imposed on us.
Nevertheless, we have already said before, and we will repeat again - the actual technical problems of the T-34 were neither the main nor any significant among the reasons for the defeat of the Red Army armored forces at the initial stage of the war. Although, of course, they existed and, of course, interfered with fighting, so in the next article we will look at the history of improving the design of the T-34 - and, at the same time, changing the structure of tank forces and the role of the thirty-four in battle.
