Comments by "josh fritz" (@joshfritz5345) on "Military History Visualized"
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Despite it's battlefield effectiveness, the T-34 was in many ways, a flawed vehicle. A controversial statement, I know. They were plagued with reliability issues, and had very few considerations for the crew. Some of these issues that were more down to manufacturing than design might be able to be worked out of the design with an extensive rebuild, but others would not. In addition to that, reverse engineering is not a very simple process, and the more complex the piece of equipment, the more difficult it is to reverse engineer.
As to my first point, yes, the T-34 had above average firepower and protection when it first saw action on the battlefield, and it's mobility was adequate as well. However, its firepower was matched by Germany's own up gunned Panzer IVs (and by American M4s), as well as by the less common Panther and Tiger tanks (which themselves did have reliability issues that plagued their production runs). On terms of mobility, they were really no better or worse than the other premier medium tanks of the war. Only really in armor did they distinguish themselves, being somewhat better protected with sloped frontal armor than the stock Panzer IVs, and having similar levels of frontal protection to the excellent American M4 Shermans. While in these respects, the T-34 could said to have been a very well rounded and strong vehicle, it's non-paper stats are worth considering. It had worse crew accommodations, poor visibility, and terrible gun sights, all of which negatively impacted combat effectiveness. The comfort of the crew is an often overlooked but significant factor in vehicle performance, especially in prolonged engagements. The poor visibility afforded to the crew meant the T-34s were more vulnerable to ambush by infantry attacks, and a T-34's side armor was unexceptional and certainly inadequate against anti-tank weapons such as the Panzerfaust.
I'm not claiming that the T-34 was a bad tank, it was not. In terms of paper stats, among medium tanks it was matched only by the M4s and Panthers, but I think it is worth considering that even an effective weapon system sometimes has very serious flaws that may cause it to be rejected, even if it can be effective on the battlefield. Germany did capture T-34s, and while they did take note of the effectiveness of the sloped armor, they were unimpressed with the build quality, as well as the previously mentioned characteristics. There was little reason for them to spend enormous time and resources switching from their own perfectly adequate medium tank over to a foreign design whose combination of strengths and weaknesses made it a comparable but not strictly superior war machine. And they DID actually adapt aspects of the design onto their own future tanks which they liked, the sloped armor for example being a notable feature in the Panther medium tank, as well as the Tiger 2.
I wrote this prior to watching the bulk of this video, and I'm happy to see we touched on many of the same issues.
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