In the previous article, we examined the general prerequisites for the defeats of the Red Army in the battles of 1941, and now we will try to assess what impact the design, performance characteristics, and the production culture of the T-34 tank had on the unsuccessful actions of the tank forces, which developed in the pre-war and early war years.
The first thing I would like to say right away: there is no doubt that the T-34 was an outstanding tank, which became a landmark for both Soviet and world tank building. However, unfortunately, at one time its advantages were absolutized, and its shortcomings were not noticed, this was especially characteristic of the times of the USSR. Then everything went exactly the opposite - they began to forget about the advantages, but the disadvantages were presented to the reading public in a very exaggerated form. As a result, among the public interested in history, polar views of the T-34 were formed - either the brainchild of the "gloomy Soviet genius" was perfection itself, or, on the contrary, perfection was only on paper, but in practice the T-34 was a collection of all tank vices as possible.
In fact, the truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle, and history buffs who are seriously interested in tanks have known this about the T-34 for a long time, since a sufficient number of excellent, professionally written works have been published on this topic. This article will not be able to tell such people anything new, since it was written on the basis of the same materials with which they have long been familiar.
Reservation
In terms of armor protection, the T-34 at the time of its creation was clearly and unequivocally superior to other tanks in the world of the same class. Of course, there was no uniform classification of tanks in those years in the world, but there was a fairly clear distribution of "responsibilities". So, in France and England, tanks were subdivided (including) into infantry, intended for direct support of the latter on the battlefield, and cruising (cavalry), intended for raids on the enemy's rear. Obviously, the T-34 in its concept is much closer to the cavalry (cruiser) tanks, respectively, and should be compared with the SOMA S35 and the English Crusader. In Germany, the analogue of the T-34 should be considered the T-3 of the corresponding modifications and, probably, the T-4, since, although there is an opinion that the Germans themselves considered this tank to be heavy, no documents confirming this point of view seem to have been found. All of them had hull protection at damage of 25-36 mm, despite the fact that their armor plates did not have rational angles of inclination, and only the German T-4 had a hull forehead reaching 50 mm, and on the T-4 modification H, the frontal hull armor was reinforced with an additional 30 mm thick armor plate (which, most likely, provided an aggregate armor resistance at damage of 50 mm). Against this background, the 45 mm T-34 armor positioned at a large angle looked excellent. The medium tank M3 "Lee" of the USA, which had sloping armor plates of the hull forehead of 38-51 mm and vertical sides of 38 mm, came closest to the level of armor protection of the T-34, but strictly speaking, the M3 is not the same age as the "thirty-four", since it entered the troops only since June 1941, and he was still inferior to the "thirty-four".
During the spring trials of 1940, two shots were fired at the T-34 turret from the 37-mm Vickers - 6 tons cannon and the 45-mm BT-7 cannon. The armor withstood, only dents remained on it.
Only the frontal 50 and 60 mm armor plates of German tanks showed similar armor resistance: in tests with a 45-mm armor-piercing tracer projectile, the 50-mm frontal armor of the "Artshturm" self-propelled gun and 60-mm T-3 was not penetrated from any distance, 50- mm armor T-4 managed to penetrate 50 m, but the Czech "Prague" 38T was weaker - 50 mm armor (we are talking about a military modification of the tank, which received enhanced booking) succumbed to our armor-piercing tracer from 200 m. However, it should be borne in mind, that the T-34 turret was fired on "on the side", while the 30-mm sides of the German tanks obviously had less durability (according to indirect data, they penetrated a 45-mm projectile from 150-300 m).
Thus, the armor protection of the T-34 was superior to the German tanks, which, in fact, was recognized by the Germans themselves. And we are not talking about these or those memoirs, which could be dictated by the desire to write off their failures on "this terrible, all-conquering T-34", but about the "Panther" and "Royal Tiger", in the design of which the Germans used rational angles of inclination of armor plates … However, the indisputable fact that the T-34 was better armored did not at all testify to the invulnerability of the Soviet tank.
Firstly, there were "weak points" in the design - for example, a 34-45-mm projectile hitting the chassis could ricochet upward, pierce the 15 mm bottom of the fender liner and thus go inside the armored hull without breaking through the armor. A projectile hitting the rim could pass into the body through a cutout in the armor (made for the passage of the balancer) and the balancer spring, etc.
Secondly, even in those cases when the armor was not pierced, the impact of the projectile could still lead to serious damage to the tank. So, during the test shelling of the T-34 with high-explosive 76, 2-mm grenades, the armor was not pierced in any case, but hits in the chassis led to rupture of the tracks, destruction of the drive wheel, sloth, support wheels.
All of the above is not a disadvantage of the T-34, since the rest of the world's tanks, generally speaking, also had various technical holes in the armored hull, through which the tank could be hit, and in addition, their tracks and rollers could also be disabled in the same way as described above. … The point is that anti-cannon armor does not make a tank invincible at all - any tank still has vulnerabilities where it can be hit by an enemy shell.
The most significant disadvantage of the T-34's armor was that it was lower on pre-war and military production tanks of the first years than on prototypes. So, for example, in a memo addressed to K. E. Voroshilov dated 1940-27-12, it is reported that according to the results of tests of serial T-34 in September of the same year:
"The armor of the tower was penetrated at an angle of 30 degrees with a 45-mm armor-piercing blunt-headed projectile from a distance of 160 meters, and according to earlier tests carried out at the plant, the armor under these conditions did not penetrate from a distance of 50 meters."
Of the three towers, only one withstood the full cycle of tests; the unsatisfactory strength of the welded seams was revealed.
This was very well shown by the results of the so-called Mariupol tests, when two serial "almost tanks" T-34 were subjected to shelling: not empty hulls were delivered to the landfill, as was done before, but almost completely equipped vehicles, there was only a cannon and, as far as you can understand the engine.
It turned out that small-caliber anti-tank artillery can cause significant, sometimes critical damage to the T-34 at a distance of 170-250 m.
I must say that in those years, our military experts divided armor-piercing shells into sharp-headed and blunt-headed, and it was believed that the former, with better armor penetration, would ricochet from armor with rational angles of inclination, and the latter would not be able to penetrate it. And even if the armor is broken “at the limit of strength”, the projectile will not enter the tank, but will only knock out a small plug, which will become the only “damaging factor” in the armored space. It was believed that such a traffic jam had very little chance of hitting the crew or any important tank unit. Alas, it turned out that even 37-mm sharp-headed projectiles (trophy "Bofors" were used) at the above distance often did not ricochet, but pierced the armor. In most cases, they themselves did not go entirely inside, but, firstly, they did not knock out the cork, but several fragments from the tank armor, and secondly, the head part of the projectile often went inside along with the fragments. Thus, the chances of hitting something (or someone) important inside the tank increased significantly. So, for example, in one case, a 37-mm projectile, without going inside the tank, pierced the right sheet of the turret, caused fragmentation dents in the upper and lower shoulder straps, which caused the turret to jam. In another case, the armor protection of the crankcases and the crankcases themselves were pierced, which would have caused the tank to stop. It is clear what such damage threatened in a combat situation.
On the other hand, it is not worth “demonizing” the results of the Mariupol and other similar tests. If you don't be too "impressed" by the descriptions of individual hits, but look at the whole picture, it turns out that even the serial T-34s were very well protected from the main anti-tank weapon of the Wehrmacht at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War - the 37-mm Pak 35/36, which, by the way, in terms of armor penetration was inferior to the 37-mm Bofors cannon, from which the T-34 was fired at in Mariupol. That is, it was possible to knock out the T-34 from it, but for this it was necessary to shoot almost at point blank range, preferably no further than 150 m, or even closer, but even then there was no guarantee of inflicting decisive damage on our tank from the first shot. And also from the second, and from the third … But what is there - the T-34 was not always able to hit even with the more powerful long-barreled 50-mm cannon, which the German "troikas" received later!
If we look at the report on the lethality of the T-34, drawn up in the fall of 1942, we will see that 154 tanks were out of order, having received a total of 534 hits, and this included not only 37-mm, but also 50-; 75-; 88- and 105-mm artillery systems, as well as hits of an unknown caliber. Part of the hits were sub-caliber 50-mm shells. In other words, in order to disable one T-34, the artillerymen and tankmen of the Wehrmacht needed to provide them with an average of 3.46 hits, although in some cases the number of hits in one tank reached 11. At the same time, the amount of safe damage, that is those that did not lead to damage to mechanisms and injuries to the crew, amounted to 289 or 54% of the total. Interestingly, 68% of all 37mm hits and 57% of 50mm hits were considered safe. You subconsciously expect a better percentage from sub-caliber shells, but in fact it turned out that expensive 50-mm sub-caliber ammunition gave the same percentage of safe hits as 37-mm artillery, that is, 68%.
I would like to mention such an interesting aspect of the "tank" discussions on the armor protection of the T-34. The fact is that the revisionists, that is, the adherents of the point of view "the protection of the T-34 was no good," completely ignore the memoirs of the German military and works that indicate the inability of the German anti-tank defense system to resist the T-34. But remember, at least the German historian Paul Karel "Eastern Front":
“The anti-tank fighter unit of the 16th Panzer Division quickly moved its 37-mm anti-tank guns into position. At the enemy tank! Range 100 meters. The Russian tank continued to approach. Fire! Hit. Another and one more hit. The servants continued the countdown: the 21st, 22nd, 23rd 37-mm projectile hit the armor of the steel colossus, bouncing off it like peas from the wall. The gunners cursed loudly. Their commander turned white with tension. The distance was reduced to 20 meters.
“Aim at the tower pillar,” ordered the lieutenant.
Finally they got it. The tank turned around and began to roll away. The turret ball bearing was hit, the turret jammed, but the rest of the tank remained intact."
The exceptional combat stability of the T-34 was noted in the works of E. Middeldorf, B. Müller-Hillebrand … yes, Heinz Guderian, finally! Alas, the revisionists have no faith in the Germans, and this is motivated by the fact that, they say, the German generals actually did not have any special problems with the "thirty-fours", but sometimes they covered up their mistakes, unsuccessful actions, by the presence of the Red Army "invincible miracle tanks" T -34 (and KV).
In refutation, for example, the report of the interim commander of the 10th tank division, Lieutenant Colonel Sukhoruchkin, who reported from the experience of the T-34 battles, that "the armor of the turret and hull from a distance of 300-400 m is penetrated by a 47-mm armor-piercing projectile" is presented. But, firstly, it is still not entirely clear whether we are talking about a 50-mm projectile or a 37-mm one, a 50-mm projectile could well do this (though with a probability of about 50%). And secondly, for some reason the revisionists forget that the battles, which resulted in the Sukhoruchkin's report, were not successful for our tankers. The author of this article does not in any way reproach the warring lieutenant colonel with lying, but, reasoning impartially, he had exactly the same motive to cover up his failures with the German "miracle PTO" as the Germans had - to justify his failures with "miracle tanks". The revisionists prefer not to notice this contradiction in their logic: according to their views, everyone who contradicts their theories is openly lying, and those who confirm - speak the truth, the truth and nothing but the truth.
I would also like to note that the reports of various observers and commissions are accepted by many as the ultimate truth, and this is not always the case. Let's give an interesting example: according to the results of tests of the armor resistance of the T-34, it was concluded that the driver's hatch was harmful. The first shell that hit it usually tore off its attachments, and the next one "drove" into the hull, hitting the driver. From this it was concluded that this hatch is harmful, and that in the future it is worth abandoning such hatches altogether.
At the same time, many driver-mechanics, on the contrary, saw great advantages in this hatch. It could be opened, fixing it in various positions in height, which provided, for example, a very good view on the march. And in battle, many driver-mechanics preferred not to “hide behind a triplex”, but to keep the hatch open by about a palm, thereby changing the protection for better visibility. The latter, oddly enough, was often much more useful than the additional protection provided by a closed hatch. Many tankers talk about the crucial role of the driver, whose timely actions in battle became the key to the survival of the entire crew, and obviously, better visibility was very conducive to such actions.
But, if the tank was still hit, then the indicated hatch allowed the driver to leave the car with ease, which, alas, could not be said about the other crew members. And so it turned out that, despite such a "negligent" attitude to their own safety, and the fact that 81% of all hits in the T-34 were in the hull, and only 19% in the turret, the main losses of the crews were just the commander and loader who were in the tower, but the mechanized guides, despite the formally weakened protection, died much less often.
In addition, the open hatch provided natural ventilation when moving in battle, and given the fact that it was only after the war that they learned to effectively remove powder gases from the tower (and not only us, by the way), the latter also turned out to be very important.
Undercarriage
Here, alas, the T-34s of the pre-war production and the first military ones are really very bad, and this applies to almost every component of the chassis of our tank. Moreover, here it is even impossible to "nod" at the culture of mass production, because problems with the chassis were also observed on the reference, almost manually assembled first prototypes.
The engine, the V-2 diesel, had not yet been brought up to standard by the beginning of the war. According to tests of production vehicles in November-December 1940it was recognized that "the reliability of the engine within the warranty period (100 hours) is satisfactory", but it was immediately noted that such a warranty period for the T-34 is short, and it takes at least 250 hours. Nevertheless, in combat units, the diesel engine often did not give it the 100 hours it was supposed to guarantee, breaking down somewhere after 70, sometimes after 40, or even after 25 hours of operation. The most vulnerable point of our diesel engine was, most likely, the air cleaner, which had a very poor design. The head of the 2nd Directorate of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, Major General of the Tank Forces Khlopov, cited the following information about the conclusions made by the Americans based on the results of the T-34 tests at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds:
“Diesel is good, light … The disadvantages of our diesel are the criminally bad air cleaner on the T-34 tank. The Americans believe that only a saboteur could have designed such a device."
But there were plenty of problems besides the engine. The T-34 gearbox was a real technical rarity, gear shifting in which required the gears to move relative to each other. In the world, generally speaking, they took the next step long ago, creating gearboxes in which the change in the gear ratio was achieved not by shifting the gears, but by changing the position of the small cam clutches. Then they took the second step, introducing synchronizers into the box, which made it possible to switch speeds without bumps and noise. And, finally, the Czechs and the British took the third step by introducing planetary gearboxes on their tanks, which the USSR was going to design and implement in the first half of 1941, but, alas, did not have time.
In general, the T-34 received the least perfect box of all possible. It was unreliable, easily broke, because it was easy for the driver to make a mistake and "stick" instead of the first speed the fourth, or instead of the second - the third, which led to a breakdown of the gearbox. We can only fully agree with the conclusions of the domestic engineers of the NIIBT test site in Kubinka, who, having arranged comparative tests of domestic, captured and lend-lease equipment, gave the following assessment:
"The gearboxes of domestic tanks, especially the T-34 and KV, do not fully meet the requirements for modern combat vehicles, yielding to the gearboxes of both allied tanks and enemy tanks, and are at least several years behind the development of tank building technology." …
The main clutch of the T-34, which connected the engine to the gearbox, was also unreliable and easily out of order, for this it was enough to make just one wrong movement. A. V. Cooper, who was training driver-mechanics on the T-34 after being wounded, said: "The last third of the pedal must be released slowly so as not to tear, because if it tears, the car will slip and the friction clutch will warp." Such a breakdown was called "burn the clutch", although there were no flammable substances in it, and, alas, it happened quite often.
As a result of all of the above, we can state that at first the T-34 chassis left much to be desired and, indeed, was a drawback of our tank. The technical reliability of the running T-34s of the first series is perfectly illustrated by the timing of tests of serial T-34s in November-December 1940. The net movement time of the three tanks was 350 hours and 47 minutes. But in order to ensure this time, repair work was required by a team of two people - factory specialists with a total duration of 414 hours, and another 158 hours and 9 minutes were repaired by their own crews. Thus, out of the total test time of 922 hours 56 minutes, the tanks were on the move only 38% of the time, and 62% of the time was spent in repairs, and for the most part - too difficult for the crews of the tank itself to perform!
The situation was fundamentally improved only at the beginning of 1943, from January of which the T-34 began to be equipped with new air cleaners of the Cyclone type (and not one, but two), and from March - a new five-speed gearbox with constant gear engagement, as well as (the exact time of the innovation is, alas, unknown to the author of this article) with a simple but effective device with the proud name "servo drive", which makes it easier for the driver to control the main clutch for the mechanic. All this did not make the T-34 chassis an exemplary one, but, of course, provided the required level of reliability to perform the tasks facing the tank, but we will return to this stage of the T-34's history later.
In the meantime, we note that with all the above-described shortcomings, the T-34 chassis had undeniable advantages. This is a very powerful engine, which gave our tank a high specific power (the ratio of engine power to vehicle weight), as well as wide tracks that reduced the specific ground pressure. All these qualities could not fully manifest themselves until the main problems with the chassis were resolved, but in 1943, when this happened, they turned out to be extremely useful. In addition, the duplication of starting the engine with compressed air was an undoubted advantage.
Interestingly, in addition to the real advantages, the T-34 chassis had an imaginary advantage, namely: the low fire hazard of diesel fuel. Of course, the demonstrative demonstration of one of the designers, who first put a lit torch into a bucket of gasoline and caused it to ignite, and then put another burning torch into a bucket of diesel fuel, where it went out, made a great impression on the audience. But the enemy projectile is not a torch, its effect is much stronger, therefore, in battles, T-34s burned with approximately the same intensity as tanks equipped with a gasoline engine. However, the misconception about fire safety was very widespread and … played a positive role. As the famous Russian military theorist A. A. Svechin: "If the importance of material resources in a war is very relative, then faith in them is of great importance." The Soviet tank crews were sure that the proximity to the huge reserves of fuel did not particularly threaten them, and this confidence, naturally, affected their actions in battle.
Crew and working conditions
On this part, there are four quite fair claims to the T-34. The first of them: the sub-optimal composition of the crew, which consisted of 4 people, while for the full-fledged operation of a medium tank, five were still required. The fact that the crew commander must command in battle without being distracted by pointing or loading the gun is a fact confirmed by the combat experience of all the belligerents. The German T-3 and T-4, the English "Crusader" with a 40-mm cannon had 5 crew members, and the American M3 "Li" with its two guns had 6 and even 7 people. For the sake of fairness, we note that the T-34 nevertheless ended up here not in the last, but in the penultimate place - the crew of the French Somua S35 and the newer S40, the production of which was not launched before the fall of France, consisted of only three people.
I must say that the problem of the lack of one person for the T-34 was realized very quickly, but, for objective reasons, it was impossible to resolve this issue as quickly. The main reason was the second drawback of the tank - a too small turret with a narrow shoulder strap, in which it was difficult to accommodate even two crew members. There was absolutely no way to shove a third one there without increasing the shoulder strap.
However, the rest of the tanks in the world were not doing very well with this either. The Germans solved the problem best of all - a spacious tower for three, period.
The British with their "Crusader" followed the same path, placing three in the tower. Alas, the tower was by no means German in size, so when the weak 40-mm cannon was replaced with a 57-mm one, there was only room left for two, and the commander had to perform the functions of a loader as well. But the British understood that such a scheme would not be successful and in subsequent projects they returned to the three-man towers. The Americans somehow magically managed to shove the gunner, commander and loader into a small turret with a 37-mm M3 "Li" gun, although it is indicated that the loader was below the others. It is unlikely that the conditions there were better than in the T-34, but then the Americans created the Sherman, with a relatively comfortable turret for three people. But the French distinguished themselves - the tower of their "Somua" S35 and 40 was designed for exactly one! That is, the French tank commander had to not only command, but also load and direct the gun himself.
The third problem of the T-34 of the pre-war model was the very uncomfortable control of the tank - in some cases, to switch speeds and other actions related to the control of actions, the driver had to apply an effort of up to 28-32 kg. The mechanic often could not switch the same speed with his hand, and had to help himself with his knee, or even resort to the help of a radio operator who was nearby. Subsequently, of course, as the transmission improved, this issue was resolved, but this, again, happened at the beginning of 1943. And before that, according to eyewitnesses: “During a long march, the driver lost two or three kilograms in weight. He was all exhausted. It was, of course, very difficult”(PI Kirichenko).
Finally, the fourth problem was poor visibility from the car. But there is no room left for a story about her in this article, so …
