Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "Panzer III vs. T-34 (featuring Chieftain)" video.

A few points that never really come in for consideration: first of all, the PzKpfw III was a mature tank whose development was a lot longer than it might have been because of the difficulties with the suspension. If I remember correctly it was nearly cancelled because it was taking so long. By contrast, the T-34, despite its numbers, had not been in production for very long when the war on the Eastern Front broke out. It was a pre-war design that was developed in circumstances of no threat. Secondly, the PzKpfw III was very much a combat proven weapons by the time it was committed to Barbarossa. The tank crew were no longer in a position of trying to find out how best to operate it. It had done well in both France and North Africa and was a known quantity in practically all kinds of conditions. Finally - and this is almost never pointed out - the T-34 was produced in conditions that were not experienced in the same way by any other combatant nation in WWII or, indeed, any other war. Much is made in any video about the quality of design and manufacture of the T-34 without acknowledging that it was built by people who were unsuitable for front line combat and occasionally, such as in the Leningrad factory, under the most horrendous conditions. It's certainly true that in some tanks you could put your finger between the plates. It's true that some parts were badly designed (you should see the original turret design) and it's true that many of them broke down in the early part of the war. But when you stop to consider the fact that the factories had to be moved to safety behind the Urals, that practically all the skilled workers were at the front and those manning the factories were mostly old, very young or unskilled, the fact that they were able to produce anything at all is quite amazing. Whether by design or coincidence, the T-34 was not terribly difficult to build. Overall, it's hard to imagine amore difficult situation in which to build and perfect and complex piece of machinery like a tank. On top of that, the Red Army had little time in which to learn how to use it to best effect. And by the way, I can't recall anyone saying the T-34 was actually revolutionary. The Germans were certainly very interested in the sloped armour and it was an influence in later tank designs. Even the BT series tanks had sloping armour.
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Anubis Einheit 33 I would prefer to see the tactical solutions employed, rather than the technical ones. To be fair though, he did say this was a technical comparison.
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@thewhite8uard That's a pretty complicated point. The BT series of tanks were good, as long as everyone remembers what they were designed to do. Some armies used their light tanks very well, The British were very aggressive in their use of their Vickers Light Mk VI tanks, particularly against the Italians in North Africa. There were the occasional disasters, like Buq Buq but by and large they did well, despite their paper-thin armour and machine gun armament. The Allies used M3 Stuart tanks well in Normandy too. Prior to the invasion in June, 1941, the Red Army was undergoing a major modernisation program (despite the effects of the purges). Their philosophy changed and changed back again. Among the things they considered was the idea of a light cavalry tank for rear echelon raids and reconnaissance. The result was the BT series. As a cavalry tank (the French were still using that term too), the BTs were, on paper, very good. They had a good gun and were very fast. However, a cavalry tank isn't a lot of use when your army is in full retreat. It's an offensive weapon for hit-and-run work. They were simply unsuited to the sort of defensive work needed, like setting ambushes. Added to that, at the start of June, 1941, the Red army forward units were desperately short of fuel, to the point of being non-operational. They were crewed by people who had no experience, much less combat experience, pitted against the veterans of the Polish and French campaigns (those who had survived). So just saying that the Red Army didn't use them well (I don't talk about Russians unless I mean Russians) doesn't really take into account what they were up against. They had thousands of them at the start but by the time the German advance had been halted, there were only a few left. I'm really not sure what they could have done to make the BT series work any better under the circumstances. They were eventually replaced by the less-than-loved T-60 and the equally-egregious T-70.
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@patrickholt2270 I'm pretty sure Chieftain wouldn't put it in those words. Some of what you said is right. A bit of it is not. But the foundation statement is misleading and it likely leads to people making the wrong assumptions (and they always do) about Soviet war planning.
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@thewhite8uard My point about the BT series is that lots of tanks had sloped armour but that the T-34 used it in a new way.. I think Chieftain is not doing himself or his argument any favours here because just saying any slope constitutes sloped armour is bordering on irrational. The difference with the T-34 was the way it used large panels all over it, creating comparatively few facets and shot traps. This had the side benefit of making it easier and simpler to build.
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"I can't help but wonder if the strength of the low-quality Russian armor was further reduced by cold temperature effects. When most structural steel alloys are subjected to low temperatures they can transition from a ductile failure mode where the material yields and stretches to that of a brittle nature where the failure becomes more glass-like and sudden." That's what happens when your factory roof gets blown off in the middle of winter and your tank is made by old people and children because everyone else is at the front.
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@theaceofknaves3285 Again, I suggest you review that. Reports following the Winter War disaster (they did actually win in the end) called for far greater efficiencies and better planning. It had been part of Tukachevsky’s doctrine. Naturally, Voroshilov pushed back on it after Tukachevshy’s execution. Timoshenko, who took over from Voroshilov, was a better officer and thought it worth looking at so they pursued it as far as they could before Barbarossa. Another point to consider is that a Red Army division was smaller than a German one, so when you see them on a map or read about a division doing something, don’t assume parity.
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@theaceofknaves3285 "Still, I don't understand what points you meant me to review again!" No, that's okay. I pretty much agree with all you said in that post. The problem with a lot of people - and I'm not saying you said this - is that they look at this and say, "oh, they only won because of numbers", which is definitely not true. It is true that once the numbers on the eastern front evened out, the Red Army's position started to improve. It is also important that the Red Army had a very large reserve force but the quality was low, while the Germans had about 300.000 reserves, all of which had been used up before they even got to Moscow. The Red Army could never have won the war in the east by numbers alone. They had to become better and they had to be allowed to become better, meaning that Stalin had to keep his hands off, which he more or less did. But to those who do argue that the Red Army only succeeded by numbers, I would say two things: a war of attrition is not always the wrong strategy, even if it appears callous (we are talking about war here...) and secondly, more fool the Germans for taking them on in the first place.
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@theaceofknaves3285 It's interesting that you mention planning too because - and I'm going to say something controversial here - I don't think we give the Soviet Union enough credit for planning the evacuation of the factories to the other side of the Urals. That was a major contributor to their survival. It was apparently part of their policy before they were invaded.
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@RussianThunderrr Well, I see it in just about every T-34 thread I read. Not saying you're wrong. We've probably been looking at different things. But I don't see a lot of others discussing the difficulties of tank production in the Soviet Union. I also think that talking about sloped armour ignores the radical differences in the T-34. Look how many panels and facets there were on contemporary tanks and look at how many more shot traps there were. This is what the Germans copied when they built the Panther. They didn't need to copy sloped armour because they knew about it. But the number of facets on a Panther vs a PzKpfw IV is pretty obvious, as are the smaller number of shot traps. For the record, I'm not even talking about relative thickness: that's a given..
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@RussianThunderrr How can I get this through to you? I am not talking about the relative thickness of armour. I'm talking about faceting and shot traps.
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@stuglife5514 It was even smaller than the standard T-34-76. It was changed during the prototype stage.
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@RussianThunderrr Lots of tanks used sloped armour for the exact reasons described. BUT... What made the T-34 unique was that the T-34 used far fewer panels and had far fewer shot traps than previous types, making them simpler, cheaper and faster to construct. This became critical when skilled workers went or were sent to the front. Many of these tanks were built by unskilled workers, even children and old people.
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@thewhite8uard Production quality varied from factory to factory and from year to year. There is no base standard for T-34 production quality. Remember - as nobody ever does - that the T-34 was built by unskilled labour, such as old people and children, because everyone else was at the front. How many other tanks could have been built that way? The T-34 was built under conditions that had never existed before. A couple of the factories had been moved beyond the Urals in the weeks and months after the invasion and tanks were rolling off the production line in Tankograd before the roof was even on.
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@thewhite8uard You talk about this as though it was some kind of constant. I have already explained there was no constant. The Soviet Union, unlike Germany, was not short of alloys like chromium, molybdenum and vanadium, which made the difference between armour which was brittle and that which was not. They were short of lots of things but those were not among them.
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@RussianThunderrr BTW, faceting was the thing that differentiated the T-34 from what went before it. As Chieftain points out in one of his other videos - almost to to point of absurdity - many tanks had use sloping armour in the past. What made the T-34 different was in the way it used it. That’s where facets come into the equation.
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@theaceofknaves3285 Well, I suppose that was the socio-political aspect of deep battle, eh? ;-)
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@RussianThunderrr I doubt there are many people who are interested in tank warfare who don't understand that. My point was a very different one.
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@RussianThunderrr I agree: there are always more interesting things to talk about than technical mumbo-jumbo.
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@thewhite8uard That’s nice.
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@RussianThunderrr This has gone waaaaaaaay off topic.
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@RussianThunderrr I'm not actually talking about that. The principles of sloping armour are widely known and I have already seen more than enough discussion about it. My point is that there are other factors in the T-34 design which are not just never discussed but IMHO, completely overlooked or ignored. I never questioned the efficacy of sloped armour but it was not the revolutionary factor in the T-34 design. Apart from the thin plates over the top of the tracks, how many plates do you think there are in its construction? How does that compare to a more conventional tank of the era, such as the PzKpfw IV?
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@RussianThunderrr You are talking about sloping armour. I am talking about faceting and shot traps. Do you understand the difference? Do you understand faceting? Do you know what a shot trap is? Because I am NOT talking about sloped armour. I have said that from the beginning. As far as my point is concerned, you might as well be talking about the dark side of the Moon.
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This has become utterly ridiculous. Neither of you has addressed the topic and now both of you are reduced to spec sheet warfare. Has either of you ever read anything beyond that?
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@panzer_v_panther2695 Good question. As a percentage of the Red Army in the west, they were probably in the minority, they were in different vehicles and definitely learnt the wrong lessons. BUT! They still had combat experience, for which there is no substitute. I can only surmise that they were swallowed up in the first six months of the campaign involved the entire Red Army in the west going backwards. I have no idea where any of them ended up, whether they were mixed in with other units or captured due to lack of fuel or what. To find out that information would be an interesting research project which is well beyond my skill set. Nevertheless it’s a very valid question.
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@armoredindividual5582 These generalisations can’t possibly apply to the entire range of production of T-34s.
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@armoredindividual5582 This is so convoluted and generalised it doesn't really make much sense. What applied to one batch of tanks from one factory didn't necessarily apply to all. At its peak, the T-34 was produced in half a dozen different and separate factories across the length and breadth of the Soviet Union. No two were the same. By the time the T-34 went into series production, its full range of testing and development had not been completed. Add to that the fact that the tank factories had to be moved by rail to the other side of the Urals, means that the coordination between different production batches and facilities would have been very poor. "a 76mm sherman could penetrate the front" I almost never use this kind of data when judging the worth of a tank. At some point there will be a round that will be powerful enough the blow any tank. Everything else is relative. Either the tank made a significant contribution or it didn't and the T-34 made an enormous contribution. "extremely bad visibility" ALL tanks in WWII had "extremely bad visibility". Some just had it worse than others. That's why defending machine gunners opened up at long range - to encourage enemy tank commanders to button up. "the engine making so much noise they could be hit and not notice" Also not unique to the T-34. Anyway, if the round doesn't penetrate... "still can't reach "max speed" but better" I don't even know what this means. "cramped" Once again, ALL tanks in WWII were cramped. Some were worse than others. "it had no seats" Myth. "a flawed tank and absolute shit at the start of pruduction" There is no such thing as a perfect tank, especially at the start of production (I have already addressed this). I don't like quoting myself but I'm going to - from my original post: "Finally - and this is almost never pointed out - the T-34 was produced in conditions that were not experienced in the same way by any other combatant nation in WWII or, indeed, any other war. Much is made in any video about the quality of design and manufacture of the T-34 without acknowledging that it was built by people who were unsuitable for front line combat and occasionally, such as in the Leningrad factory, under the most horrendous conditions. It's certainly true that in some tanks you could put your finger between the plates. It's true that some parts were badly designed (you should see the original turret design) and it's true that many of them broke down in the early part of the war. But when you stop to consider the fact that the factories had to be moved to safety behind the Urals, that practically all the skilled workers were at the front and those manning the factories were mostly old, very young or unskilled, the fact that they were able to produce anything at all is quite amazing. Whether by design or coincidence, the T-34 was not terribly difficult to build. Overall, it's hard to imagine amore difficult situation in which to build and perfect and complex piece of machinery like a tank. On top of that, the Red Army had little time in which to learn how to use it to best effect." Most of the criticism of the T-34 is just a mix of a surfeit of minutiae, recentism and western-centric - particularly American - ballyhoo.
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@ALEX HUANG Probably none. Does it matter? The OP was simply pointing out that Christie suspension was not a complete disaster.
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Two man turrets were the norm for most tanks of the period. 75mm guns were not.
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@ALEX HUANG Typo. Doesn't change anything though. Guns of that calibre were not the norm for that period, whether they were 75mm or 76.2mm.
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