Were Soviet Tanks Poorly Made?
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
- In the armored fighting vehicle enthusiast community, it's commonly asserted that Soviet tanks were generally low quality but high quantity. It's said that little effort was put into the design and construction, as they were intended for human wave attacks. I don't think this stereotype is accurate, so we'll be briefly covering the major Soviet tanks; the T-34, T-54 / T-55, T-62, T-64, T-72, and T-80.
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There are a lot of misconceptions about the T-34 in the comments, so I thought I would clarify. When it came to parts like sights, radios, and intercoms on early T-34s, the quantity of them was not a huge issue. The quality was. Early periscopes used polished steel, which obviously reduced sight quality. Both the intercom and radio had reliability issues, but as mentioned in the video, they were improved as time went on. Ventilator fans were of short supply on early T-34s, but supply lines were eventually stabilized. Gun fumes once again became on issue on the T-34-85 (and specifically during warmer months), but designers did try to fix the issue as fast as they could. First they tried introducing a bore scavenging system, but the spent casings would still release fumes. The problem was eventually fixed entirely with the introduction of bore evacuators. The welds on T-34s were technically of lower quality and more brittle, but US intelligence during the Korean War noted that it did not have an effect on battlefield performance. The armor plate itself had a much higher hardness, increasing protection against singular shots but also increasing the chance that the plate would shatter with multiple hits. This was a deliberate design tradeoff. I remember recording a line stating that the quality of T-34s varied wildly from plant to plant, but I must have accidentally skipped it while editing. Some factories certainly cut corners while producing T-34s, but this was a necessary step. Soviet forces would often undertake incredibly risky and dangerous operational moves in order to catch German forces off guard, paving the way for easier follow-up engagements. This approach is often confused for human wave attacks. Anyway, this (and the fact that most of Germany's attention and resources were focused on the Eastern front), meant that losses for T-34s were staggeringly high. Even with the corner-cutting measures, T-34 production barely outpaced attrition.
i recommend the latest video from lazerpig, he goes over a lot of good details on the t34
@@browning2471 was just gunna mention that lad, long video but he really breaks down the flaws of the war production T-34, very highly recommended
Tearjerker hey man you didn’t have to go out and just say it
@browning It's a pretty solid video, obviously more comprehensive than this one, but unfortunately he does repeat some myths. For example, saying that T-34s would often ride into battle with spare transmissions lashed to the engine deck. This myth is based on two photos showing the same singular T-34 with a transmission on the back. I agree with his conclusion that the Soviets could not have won the war on their own, but I disagree with his assertion that corner-cutting on T-34s was unnecessary. There's little evidence to suggest that the T-34's high attrition rates were a result of the corner-cutting. I mean, just looking at his sources:
"Although welds in Soviet tanks are inferior in quality and much more brittle than corresponding welds in American tanks, this condition has not been a major factor in impairing the battlefield performance of Soviet armor. Poor joint fits, sloppy appearance, jagged and rough finishes should not divert attention from the fact that the Soviet tanks are rugged and battle-worthy and require many fewer man-hours of labor, precision machine tools, jigs, and fixture to construct than corresponding American tanks." - US report on Soviet metallurgy - T-34-85 vs M26 Pershing: Korea 1950 by Steven Zaloga
"Materials were found ample for the job - better than those used in American tanks, in some instances. Virtually all parts were in operating order. Engineering development had been actively continued; it was evident that most of the changes found through the comparison with the Aberdeen and German reports had probably been made to improve tank performance and especially tank service life, rather than to simplify or reduce cost...Detailed examination revealed that most parts were in excellent condition, with no likelihood of early failure. The exceptions are listed in Appendix 15, "Failures". Most important among these are the transmission and final drive, - inadequate in design, and the front suspension members, - a manufacturing and inspection slip-up." - ENGINEERING ANALYSIS OF THE RUSSIAN T-34-85 TANK, CIA
So if the corner-cutting of components and the armor aren't contributing to battlefield performance in a majorly negative way, it seems kind of counterintuitive to say that simply spending more time on individual T-34s would have been better.
Spookston What would you personally say the culprit of the high attrition rate is then? Faults of the design itself? Strategic issues? I’m not very knowledgeable on the T-34 myself
Hello, Spokston. I was wondering if you could make a montage of Pain Thunder from all your recordings, I think it would be very fun
I agree
yeah it would be cool but it would certainly be time consuming for spook
*spoksten
Help me feel better about the Aneurysm that is War Thunder.
@@missionslos8856 sponkstan *
Often with Soviet era weapons, it boils down to which plant it came from. This is very common in the firearms community. Certain models made in different factories have vastly differing prices due to quality of the production line of those particular factories. However Gaijin still hates mid level US tanks and planes.
Great example: the Rogak P.18 is a copy of the pretty excellent Steyr GB, but it was made so poorly it was below even being called a poor gun, it was flatly unacceptable.
Everyone says that Gaijin hates the tanks they grind. Americans say that Gaijin hates American tanks, Germans say that Germany suffers, and anyone who doesn't grind the USSR screams RuSSiAn BiAs the second a Russian tank gets an unlikely kill.
@@ender1111 true
@@ender1111 I just want to know how a shell can go through smoke, 3 indestructible buildings, a hill, and then explode on a boulder in front of me and kill me through the front armor on a Super Pershing. Happened with a Jagdpanzer. Plenty of other bullshit stuff just like that happens too. It's why I can maybe get about 5 or 6 matches in before I just sigh and log off for at least 30 minutes to an hour. And I do have plenty of decent games too, it just seems like it's maybe 80% uptiers/random gaijin bullshit and 20% actually good games, even if it is a loss sometimes it's just well played by both sides and there's no shenanigans. Love it when it happens, but like I said, seems like 1 in 5 matches at best. Then you consider I probably leave 2 of those matches outright due to max uptier, and then the other 2 will be .3 to .7 uptier. It just gets exhausting to be honest. And honestly it only seems to be US in the 4.0-6.3 range that is a real issue. My 9.3 and 7.0 loadouts usually do relatively ok, even with a 8.3 an 6.3 loaded on them respectively (Merkava Mk2b and M26 T99). Sweden does not suffer the same issues and I got them loaded up to 8.3.
A great example of this is the ppsh if it's magazines were manufactured at different Factory they would not work in a gun made at a different Factory
For the T-34: the T-34 was originally designed to be a decent tank (at least for the time) but with operation Barbarossa, the soviets were forced to make certain cutbacks in time and work quality for the T-34. Yes the designs became better as the war went on but even by the wars end, there were many disparities between tanks that were built in the same factory. There is an even bigger disparities between tanks built in different factories. Parts of the tank that were deemed not essential or as important as other parts were either completely missing or made out of worse materials then the core parts. Things like lights, crew hatches, vision visors, and even the early transmissions were either missing or of low quality in early and mid T-34’s.
yeah, idk why we is talking like the t34 was a well made tank. it wasn't. it had many problems around how brittle the armour was, and many things were mssing from them.
Designed as a decent start of a tank, there were some pretty clear flaws in the vehicle which the USSR found and were going to fix but, wars tend to make things like that hard to do.
It also wasnt even just early or mid, late production and post WW2 production T-34s also had serious issues.
There's an interesting mini documentary about the T-34 made by LazerPig on UA-cam, check it out.
may i remind you that by 1942 83.6% of T-34 tested completed their 300km test runs. Furthermore, the 5th guards tank army endured a 3 day march, totalling 330-380km, to prokhorovka and we all know how that went. The germans called the sherman "zippo" or cigarette lighter and i gotta wonder why... The british cromwell required 199 man-hours to be properly maintained compared to an M4A3's 39 when subjected to the same test.
@@Nave4x4 that documentary is pretty flawed, as it compares the t-34 to different tanks. There is no constant. For example, when he talks about mobility, he compares it to fast tanks like the Panther, however, when comparing firepower or armor, he compares the t-34 to more beefy tanks like the Tiger, which gives a false "always bad" view of the t-34, which is very misleading. And yes, the tank obviously had problems, however it is not as bad as it may seem from his videos.
Tank crew man and a mechanic here: My experience with russian tanks are with T-55 and T-72 models. No matter what anybody says they are very reliable tanks but when they brake down they are very hard to maintain bolts spin different directions and finding 2 next to each other same size is a rare treat. Crew comfort is shit and the feeling you get fixing it is that this was meant to be put together one time and never to be opened again
That was the doctrine in ww2 pretty much . Most t34 tanks wouldn't make it home since either they were destroyed or abandoned by its crew after it broke down and since there weren't a lot of recovery vehicles at the time most just stayed abandoned until the end of the war. Maybe that translates into cold era tanks as well
You can replace them with something better.
i think its the Russian doctrine, not only tanks but also Airforce. Yes, it's cheap, but hell damn if it broke then it broke, never intended to go back to the repair station. This is why most nation today (including Indonesia) think twice when buy Russian Firearms and Vehicles. Yes it is cheap, but for long cost and service, it can be almost twice of the price.
@@azravalencia4577 Well that and many western weapon systems (and all American ones) tend to have their costs inflated by what they're bundled with, namely maintenance, parts, training, trainers, training gear, a customer support hotline, and what's effectively a "quality assurance warrantee" and all of it over a certain period of time. Russian equipment does not have this. So Russian gear is good for making statements or bulk orders. American gear has the advantage that if you run into a manufacturing or design defect, you get on the phone and lockheed martin will send new/spare parts and engineers over to your country and fix the problem ASAP for free. Should the fix not exist yet, they will develop one and then send it and engineers again for free.
Oh damn. How tall were you? The T-72 was made so that it fit the standard Soviet man's height - 5"5' - 5"7'. Chieftain was lots taller, around 6 ft, but he fit well.
I have read that the faults of the early T-34's were only readily apparent when you were the nation that is operating them. The Germans for example heavily praised its design in the early stages of the war because all they could see were tanks that they had trouble knocking out, and were reasonably mobile.
How much of that was the German commanders trying to deflect from their own fuckups?
@@ScrogginHausen In the Summer of 1941 it would have been difficult to achieve more than the Wehrmacht did in Russia
Post war german praise is heavily biased toward excusing their failures.
@@HelghastStalker Apparently even a 50mm would crack the hulls of Soviet tanks due to their poor metallurgy and welding.
@@HelghastStalker "Best" gets a bit hazy when technology was progressing so quickly. The 50mm Pak 38 entered service in April 1940, and was perfectly capable of dealing with a t-34 from the front. Also keep in mind that the vast majority of soviet tanks in 1941 were not t-34s, but t-26s and BTs.
Well, there was a reason why Czechoslovakian and Polish-produced T55s and T72s were considered to be of higher baseline quality. Especially the welding. In fact, it is said that Soviet artillery crews preferred the Polish produced 2S1 Gvozdika because they had way fewer drowning "accidents" while crossing rivers.
Yes I can agree cause my father served in one
You know the domestic saying about "who are you on your factory"? I could continue the phrase, but Russian rhyme cannot be recreated due to English not being a language of rhyme.
I am absolutely not surprised that the culture was producing weldings of the mentioned quality.
That's bullshit lmao, soviet domestic vehicles, weapons were all higher quality than anywhere in Warsaw pact
@@luciusartorius3437 Because that's why the Trabant was generally more popular in eastern block countries than the Ladas produced in the USSR.
Just like the Yugo tanks were better than the Russian variants.
Tank exist:
Mechanical problems: *Hello*
Vehicle *exists*
People in the field: I will break you and complain while I or the maintenance crew fix you.
@@shadowraven3253 Good one 😂😂
Spookston on T-54: " the transmission was garbage"
Me: ha! So that sentence from The Bear and the Dragon about the T-54 needing the steel shavings removed from its transmission after ~500 running hours is probably true.
500 running hours is quite a lot of runtime for a tank engine and would almost certainly involve several maintenance checks. This sounds like classic Clancy nonsense.
it's because tom clnacy's soviets where so advanced they discovered how to create material from the void: their engines where nothing more than metal particles generators, producing steel shaving one could forge into usefull things :))))
@@halfassedfart If you do not know the facts, fill them with numbers that sound right I guess 😄
Still one of my favorite authors though.
Just remember a part of the T-54 was made out of magnesium and caught fire until replaced
Trasmissions have been universally problematic.
I feel a lot of Soviet military equipment follow the modern 'agile development' philosophy. Deliver a minimum viable product first, regardless of the issues, and then fix and improve later. This way you can keep the production lines running in case a war broke out. The drawback is with so many variants logistics becomes a nightmare but if these weapons are meant to be expendable, maintenance shouldn't be a major concern anyway.
Not just that. Central planning and full employment policy had to be killers for quality in any production.
"who needs seats anyway"
-soviet factory worker
Virgin sit vs chad S T A N D
@@Xiphactinus lol
Tank: has bad transmission, poor crew work conditions, maintenanceand reliability issues.
Soviet engineer: Give me a year, and I'll make it better and cheaper.
German engineer: Let's start the production right now and I promise, in a year it's gonna be more expensive.
German engineer: Actually, let's start design work on the new Wunderpanzer that will have twice the armour, twice the speed, and a cannon which is twice the calibre. This will solve our issues!
@@Ypog_UA And we only need four times the fuel for it.
@@Cyberdoom460 Eight times, weight goes with cube, not square of the increase...
@@KuK137 No, a tank with double the weight does not automatically have a fuel consumption eight times the size.
@@Cyberdoom460if only Germany was as big as Soviet they would probably had more resources
I think badly made is incorrect I think inconsistently made is correct. Different factories made the tanks and some were worse and others better
It's not a matter of a specific factory. It's a matter of specific time, conditions etc.
First, during the war Soviets had terrible trouble maintaing production. Evacuation of factories and random people, even children at production lines.
Another problem were production targets, and full employment policy.
The main issue with any 'communist' production is that production targets came before anything else, and quantity was always the main concern.
The second issue was the full employment policy. In typical factory anywhere in communist block you had to be so drunk to fall unconscious at work, or openly sabotage production to be fired. Even if you were fired for poor performance or anything, you had another job granted waiting for you, so there was no way to actually make people do a good job. There were elite workers, yes, but they were rare and still rewarded for quantity, not quality.
Production for export into capitalist countries would (sometimes) go through special quality checks. In Polish car factories, once PDI (mainly for export) was introduced, it turned out that even 4 in 5 of rear axles in a passenger could be faulty. Guess what happened to the faulty ones; they were used for domestic market cars.
Would you be interested in making a companion video to this on the quality and reliability of NATO tanks? You touched on how the M60 had its own issues and I'd be curious to hear more about it, as well as other vehicles on that side of the Cold War. You spoke about the T-34, T-54/55, T-62, T-72 and T-80 here; I'm sure you could easily find 6-7 NATO tanks to go over in the same way (e.g. the Chieftain had engine troubles IIRC). Alternatively, you could expand on the M60 mention in this one and chronologically go over these Soviet tanks' US counterparts. So: the M4 Sherman (because you covered the T-34 here), M26 Pershing, M46 Patton, M47 Patton II, M48 Patton III, the M60, and the M1 Abrams (good contrast with T-80). Either the M26 & M46 or the M46 & M47 could be grouped together like the T-54 and T-55 were here, as the M46 and M47 are both heavily based on their predecessors. Anyway, I loved the video. Keep up the good work!
Well British tanks had tea making facilities, others didn't, argument won.
What for when he ignores the actual production quality. It doesn't matter if a tank, or any machine, is well or poorly designed. If it is poorly MADE it will be unreliable.
In WWII, Soviets had obvious troubles and the tanks just had to be poorly made.
After WWII they had to be poorly made because of full employment policy and stiff production targets.
Like with any socialist product, quality varied from good to terrible.
From what I remembered reading, the t34s were built to a quality sufficient for its expected life expectancy (planned obsolescence). No point making it perfect if it's only going to live a several 100kms at best and probably knocked out before then (rolling straight off the production line and into battle in stalingrad)
That rolling off the production lines and into battle thing is very likely a myth as by the battle of Stalingrad tank factories had been relocated to the north, and the tank factories did not produce ammunition for the tanks either, there may be some truth to this as if there was still a factory in Stalingrad, which is unconfirmed, there's no doubt in my mind that the Russians would use everything available but there is no proof of this ever happening
Reference?
That most likely never actually happened, considering how all Soviet factories were moved East as soon as possible
@@alexwhitehead3494 The myth could easily be explained by T34s being serviced in older tank factories. The equipment to produce may be gone, but the bricks are still standing.
So when a T34 rolls out of a factory, which was built to accommodate heavy equipment inside. It's easy to see how it could be mistaken as a new vehicle by the common soldier.
You want a reference for the well known and established fact that the tank factories were moved to get them out of the way of the German advance? Really?
I would not describe the T-34 design as a bad design, but everything about it was rushed - design, production, and quality checks. Especially when compared to its mass produced rival, the Sherman. Though it was good enough for what it was used for.
I guess it would be described as purposefully rushed as to get them produced earlier.
Well that’s one way of looking at it. Although the initial version was a good version, later versions were bad in terms of crew ergonomics and build quality compared to German and Allied tanks. Quantity does NOT have a quality of its own.
@@wanderingnomad1 I don’t think that any of the T-34 variants were ever very ergonomic. Especially the turret on the early models, mostly solved on the 1943
@ArchDuke ArchDuke true, it’s ergonomics we’re bad from the start as the crews were expected to tolerate the cramped conditions
@@wanderingnomad1 based
Post war tank designs had time and money to fix problems and be treated quickly, T-34 however had loads of problems that couldnt be resolved if they wanted to keep the insane production numbers up, the tanks were crudely made and I wouldnt give them the title of reliable
Soviet idea of reliability is different from western. For western armies "reliable" means it rarely breaks. For Soviet armies "reliable" means it breaks, but can easily by fixed by a conscript.
@@phunkracy so just diffrent types of relieble
yes and no, the prototype was reliable but still had bugs, they then lowered quality control during the crisis months of the war, then upped the quality control again so that by early 1944 most built/rebuilt tanks were very reliable. there is a reason the T-34 has the fastest and longest combat march in history, they could infact be quite reliable if built in the right factory at the right time.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 what people also forget is the context that the USSR faced itself in, 30 years before Barbarossa, it was barely having thoughts of wide scale industrialisation, and, as the industrialisation that did occur (not knocking the Soviets here) wasn't as long-term as it had been in Germany, the UK, the US etc., there were always going to be problems. To even get to the stage the USSR was at from where it started deserves some recognition.
T-34 made during WW2 were often missing A LOT of stuff. Not just cosmetics. We're talking things like gunner's sights, headlights, adequate armor welding, hardening of key internal wear components, etc.
There is a way to make a medium tank that should take 8000 comrade-hours in 3000 comrade-hours. It's to cut every possible corner you can.
Yup. Germams taking the factory that was making the sights didnt help.
they did have the sights though, but the rest were only due to efforts to reduce the required time. that myth of the "unsighted t-34s" probably came from the rumours of cobbled-together t-34s at stalingrad which were "made" in constantly bombed factories manned by literal peasants
Makes them all the more impressive when you consider what they went up against!
@@arandomperson7713 true
Ah, you watched the lazerpig video
90% of the comments watch 1 video about the T-34 and consider themselves experts.
Bet they came from that one video by Lazerpig
@@fulcrum2951 ;)
T-64s were actually intended to be used by the "elite" forces of the soviet army. That vehicle was never intended to be that mass produced like later the T-72, wich is basically a downgraded, cheaper version of the T-64. At the start, sure, both tanks had serious problems, but overall the T-64 is a way more advanced vehicle than the T-72s at that time. Later it would be pointless to compare the 2 because more and more advanced models of T-72s were came, wich were on pair or even more advanced than the T-64s.
About the T-80, well it was intended for complete replacement of T-72s and T-64s, the problem was, there were just too many and the T-80 was too expensive to replace the full stock. Same goes with the T-90s. Thats why today's russian armoured forces consists of a big variety of MBTs. From T-72s to T-14 Armatas, I beleive even some T-64s are in service.
Overall, economy was always an issue for the russian army, they wanted too many, too fast, too cheap, thats why compromises were made. Russia has the biggest armoured fleet in the world, you can't just swap the vehicles, like there were T-72s yesterday and now there are T-14s or something.
i belive that the only t 64s left in the russian army are reserves..or yk maybe they are stored.
Iirc T-64 already retired or at least put as reserve like many T-55 and T-62. Older T-72 and T-80 probably will be replaced by T-14 starting this year, knowing T-14 serial production has started and state test will be completed this year.
So yeah Russia tank fleet has many variety, with modern Russia tank fleet will consist of T-72B3, T-80BVM, T-90M and T-14.
T-64's are all retired since IIRC 8 or so years ago, but at least couple thousand are still in storage and probably will be for some time still. Obviously the same goes for T-55/62 series, but they did drag out some 62's for use in training as opposing force couple of years ago AND sent them to Syrian goverment to replenish their losses.
Russia retired T-64 for the simple reason that they and the spare parts for them were produced in Kharkov Morozov factory, in Ukraine. It became unreasonable to continue servicing them or to attempt to aquire spare parts. Ukraine did the same thing with its T-72 tanks.
@@Ypog_UA Not that simple. First, logistical challenge of keeping 4 different models with lot of submodels in the field - T-64, T-72, T-80, T-90 plus T-14 was already being worked on. USSR was doing the very expensive thing of producing three different tanks and, arguably, it had more than it actually needed. Russia couldnt afford that, cuts had to be made and they had more than enough of newer models to cover all their needs and still leave thousands in stock. Second - the upgradability. T-64 was the original after all, it had most of the baby issues and was, simply put, old. The biggest problem is, AFAIK, weak undercarriage. Any major upgrades meant increase in mass, which the platform can't sustain without expensive refit. So why do that when you can take T-72 or T-80?
Look at what Ukraine had to do with their Т-64БМ2 - cut the hull open to have the place for the new engine, leading to turret looking wierd because it had to be raised up.
Also Ukraine is using T-72's as of right now, including doing some modernizations. Necessity due to losses sustained.
I remember watching a video quite a while back about an American living in Russia (Or he had a Russian friend, can't remember) and long story short, their idea of quality isn't something that is well built and will last you forever, it's something that is easy to fix and get running again. This has stuck to me really well tbh.
You can't produce something more complex, than just steel balls if you want to produce something unbreakable, and even this ball can be destroyed by someone dumb enough or smart enough to break it. Better to produce something, that even dumb can fix with dirt and sticks. Just different philosophy, or, if you want, our mentality, dictated by the constant need to experience different shit throughout our history.
Not just that. You can't force people to do their job well when job is granted however badly they work.
And another issue; central plans and production targets. In USSR controlled countries, you had to meet the targets whatever the cost. This resulted in terrible quality of products that could be broken even when brand new (quality was not a target for most production), or even outright stupid doings, like mining coal only to drown it in the lake instantly.
A lot of information about the t-34 was left out. Like how one factory produced over 50% of the t-34s, and that factory was producing insanely low quality product, more than half the components of most of the vehicles they produced were missing. Including important things such as optics for the crew, and radios for most of the tanks. Not only this but all of the soviet heat treating of the t-34 was poorly done and done twice as hot as a proper heat treating temperature should've been. Thus making the armor extremely ineffective to the point where over 50% of t-34s knocked out in combat were knocked out by panzer 3s with their 50mm cannons. Furthermore the t-34 was oftentimes only half assembled off of the factory line, a large percentage only having one half of their fuel tanks. Even more poor construction is found in the transmission and engine where gears and drive components weren't heat treated at all, causing such damage to the transmission that many crews carried a spare transmission into combat
This is mostly true, however this was caused by the war situation. In 1943, most of Soviet production was seized, 15 million soldiers were dead, famines and food deficiency across the country, millions of civilians being executed by Germans behind the front lines, because they weren't German, were not the best conditions for quality assured, flawless tank manufacturing.
*tactically reloads transmission*
remember, switching to your second transmission is faster than repairing
This isn't really true. 50 mm guns were made specifically to counter new generation of tanks like T-34. Armor quality has nothing to do with it - simililarly you can't blame T-34 for not resisting 88 mm gun. Even then according to Germans own field tests, 50 mm couldn't reliably pen T-34 with standard non tungsten munition. T-34s were made to be impervious to 37 mm AT guns and AT rifles. And they completely protected the tank against them, by design.
It's also a huuuge stretch to say that all T-34s had poorly heat treated armor - it happened only when production was so ramped up that many factories didn't recieve temperature measuring devices in time, so metal workers had to estimate it.
Lastly, brittle armor still provides plenty of protection. The issue appears only when projectile reach near overmatch values of penetration. A 37 mm gun won't crack a brittle armor. But 50, 75 mm gun will, with spalling, where otherwise it would likely, but not surely deflect.
PS. Transmission was deliberately made shoddily to save on manhours. The logic behind this is that most tanks were delivered near the front via railways, and then last more or less the average lifespan of a tank / length of engagement.
The Panzer3 and the T34 having nearly the same weight, what's surprising that the German tank killer could take out it's Russian counterpart? Unless people expect something exceptional from Russian design.
@@2adamast yeah, it's not like Sherman was impervious to 50 mm either lol
By this logic it means Sherman was crap
In general? No. It depends entirely on which factory you look at for an example. Nizhny-Tagil removed items that western vehicles simply wouldn't do- like radios for the base variant- and thusly were of lower quality. Couple this with the fact that unskilled labour is being asked to build these things then obvioulsy you will have vastly varying quality in armour to the point that the welding might either be expertly done or just spot welding in vital areas to hold the armour together.
Bare in mind also that the factories built their own versions, with cast and welded turrets being the most prominant differences.
You also have the govt setting unreachable quotas and shortcuts being needed to be made.
Ok what about crew space?
Crew survivability?
If i draw a crayon picture of a tank with 10,000 horse power and 3m of armour does that make me the worlds best tank designer? Or does it make me someone with unreal expectations? Because things arent judged on how good they COULD be. they are judged on how good they are... And even a good T34 would still be quite bad.
To say nothing of the fact one built correctly could never achieve the same production rate.
designed and manufactured are two very different things. as the T-34 shows, because it's design was good. it's manufacturing... well it existed to the point most of them most of the time could reach the battlefield before breaking down.
Late T-54B or so already had vertical stabilizer (pairing with D-10TG), T-55 had 2-plane stabilizer.
T-54B already had the two-plane stabilizer. The vertical stabilizer was introduced on T-54A. T-55's principal improvement was the anti-nuclear protection system.
Mostly because of Uralvagonzagod influence by making most (and most cheaply made) t-34's.
Mostly because people dont know what they are talking about. And UZMT was NOT the only factory making T34's.
@@Vlad_-_-_ I find it always confusing cause I know that there were factories (or should I say factory complexes?) who made 'high' (as much as you can when the enemy is knocking on your door and asks for you to get out to the back [or the NKVD]) quality tanks. You have the shit that really was as cheap as everyone (me included) says but also some better and more reliable ones.
@@shadowraven3253 Yeah, quality did vary between the factories. And soviets were in a desperate situation with the invasion and all. Its truly impressive what they achieved.
@@Vlad_-_-_ True but they still produced more then half of all t34 compared to other factories
@@Vlad_-_-_ Well when 40% of your tanks come from UZMT, with questionable quality, that's still almost 1 in 2 tanks being possibly shit and little more then 1 in 2 tanks not being absolute shit.
Good videos mate, keep up the good work.
@Spookston 2:03
The vertical stabilizer and driver's night vision device were introduced in 1955 on T-54A (one other improvement was fume extractor / bore evacuator). 1957 T-54B had a two-plane stabilizer and full set of night vision devices / sights for driver, gunner and commander.
As a side note, during 1960-1968 period virtually all Soviet Army T-54s mod. 1949/51 and T-54As were upgraded to T-54B standard (except no fume extractor on upgraded T-54s mod. 1949 and 1951, because the original gun was retained, with counterweight added instead at the end of the barrel for proper stabilizer function).
hey guys I have a question for you I remember years ago I got into an argument over whether a T-72 had a spall liner. I said the T-72 did another guy said it didn't and that he worked in a factory producing the tank in like Yugoslavia or some eastern bloc country, they also said that there's no room in the tank for a spall liner. When I pointed out that the NBC was a spall liner too they argued it wasn't even though documentation says I'm correct
Ok, you said a lot... but what is the question? You forgot to ask it? Or you just trying to understand who is right, who's wrong?
@@worldoftancraft ya I'm trying to figure out if I was right because from what I understood was that export models didnt get the NBC
PT-91 and late Polish T72M1 had spall liners. This is a no-brainer for me.
The guy is lying. If the official documentation is contradictory to what he, a supposed factory worker is saying, then he is trying to use BS to back up his point.
T-72 is very cramped naturally by design, that's probably why he thought it.
If he was a factory worker in Yugoslavia, he must have been working on M-82 which may or may not have a spall liner.
@Spookston you forgot to mention the T34s Track Pins. Vibrations from the track moving would cause the Track pins holding the different plates of the track to move and become loose. This often led to the pins falling out and the trap coming apart. A chunk of metal was welded to the hull to knock the pins back into place instead of just outright changing the pins and locking them in place.
Hey Spooks. I was in your t62 match on karelia on the same team. Lovely encounter.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. I love your videos man but I really wish they were longer lol Keep up the good work man.
So sick of all these myths and narratives about how backward and inhumane the Soviets were. While economically yes, the USSR was not as industrially sophisticated in the late 30s as Germany (the latter being one of the more advanced loci of world capital), it was still quite capable, especially considering that practically all investment went into military development. For their sacrifice in withstanding and ultimately crushing a fascist scourge bent on racial annihilation, the Soviets are written off as barbarians. Human waves this; faulty equipment that. (Like the Germans never made a piece of crap over-engineered faulty tank?) This is really an insidious idea.
This is all a post-facto German propaganda play (propagated by "innocent" 13-year old wehraboos and unapologetic Nazis alike) to justify how the supposedly superior German military, with its ubermenches and Kruppwerk cannons and super cool tanks and StG 44s and Erika marches, managed to be so comprehensively destroyed in the East. Instead of conceding the possibility that maybe the USSR had plentiful resources, adequate industrial capacity, effective leadership and a population able to endure the unprecedented hardships of the eastern front, Germany sycophants act like the Soviets were cheating or something by producing a huge amount of tanks that were simply... okay. (This crowd conveniently likes to ignore that Germany relied massively on horses and beasts of burden to transport supplies throughout the war.) Do they expect the Soviets just to roll over and die because Germany's army and vehicles are supposedly so much better? Or should they do everything in their power to fight on knowing that defeat means mass murder or enslavement? If the Germany army is so superior like you say, how come they weren't able to beat a country as backward, dysfunctional and martially-challenged as you say the USSR was? Sure, maybe Germany was overextended, industrially and militarily, by fighting a 2-front war. Well, whose fault is that again?
Ju knouu zouse Jormans. Couldn't produce 30 M of bullets to kill all zis Damned East's human waves.
Not individual and collective heroism, not willingness, not help of the headmen But Despite Theirs Counterefforts. How I am tired from this pathetic and braindead narrative of revanchists.
Nice comment, you can criticise the USSR all you want, but their contribution to Germany's defeat cannot be overlooked (not going to even think about starting the argument over who did the most)
“The argument that Germany lacked the capacity to defeat the Soviet Unionis plausible, however, Hitler and his entourage seem not to have held that opinion, and neither did many outside the Soviet Union. The Drive on Moscow 1941, Niklas Zetterling & Anders Frankson, ISBN: 1612001203 Page viii lines 5-7
at that time even foreign Nations didnt believe that the soviet Union would be able to withstand a german unslaught. and in the end they barely did.
Is exacty what i want to said!
the sight on the T-34 was not heated, pretty much always leading to fogging, making it unusable, the welds would often break after being hit with a substantial round (penetrating or not) due to the poor quality of said welds, and also the excessively hot temperatures used when heat treating the armour would lead to increased spawling after being penetrated, due to this survival rates of T-34 crews were abysmal, shit was cramped as hell, some models weren't equipped with radios to communicate with other armour units, the list is endless, but yeah the paper stats of the T-34 make it seem like a good tank, but it was limited by the rushed environment they were built in, and ofc the situation.
The sights varied drastically by factory.
Many failed to seal them properly which allowed in water vapor that could fog up the lenses. However, some factories created some of the best made sights of any tank at the time.
@@thelordofcringe or some sights were bought from germens
The heat treating was especially a horrible idea. so many men were lost because of spalling
@@F4Wildcat it wasn't a bad idea, it was lack of temperature measuring devices due to massive expansion in tank production.
Most of the faults with the T34 are the fault of a few particularly shit tank factories that pumped out useless cannon fodder. There were other factories that mad quality T34s. So its not really fair to say all T34s had the same problems. Its just sorta what happens when your pumping 100+ tanks a day out of a factory that is actively being bombed.
OMG i knew it was you in my games, super cool to know i played a few against you!
I’m really starting to realize why for war thunder Contant, I enjoy you a lot more than I enjoyed it BaronVonGamez or Phly. They are both good UA-camrs respectively, but your content- short, concise and to the point is just what I like.
And plus you give us military history which I love.
2 points
1: I think another reason Soviet tanks are viewed as inferior is the gulf war were T-72s and other tanks beaten without contest by American and British tanks
2: Also I think this idea of Soviet tanks being lower quality and rushed is also due to the way modern Soviet/Russian tanks look compared to modern western tanks where western tanks like the Abrams and leopard have very sleek and modern looking designs while Russian/Soviet tanks have ERA all over them which makes them look (in my opinion) like they just took an older tank and slapped ERA to make it better.
I’m not saying that modern Soviet/Russian tanks are worse though just that they look more rushed
A bad army with great tank is still a bad army. The Saudis with their Abrams get owned in Yemen. Iraqis with Abrams got owned by ISIS. And arab armies with Soviet tanks got owned by Israelis and US.
@@phunkracy good point I’m not saying that Soviet tanks are worse just that because of Iraq’s loss in the gulf war they are perceived as worse probably should of been more clear in my first point
The Iraqi army wasn’t able to put up a decent fight against an alliance of the world’s strongest militaries with absolute air superiority and cutting edge tech advantage in every aspect of the war…
It must be that the T72s were bad!
Isis captured Iraqi M1 Abrams abandoned by their crew is one of the most beautiful statement made about how garbage the M1 Abrams are.
A superpower tank can't even beat a bunch rebels arms with AKs, must be garbage then.
Having had the clutch parts from a Czech 1952 build T34-85 in my hands,(pics to prove) and been responsible for finding a solution to replace the old horsehair hand sewen seals, read the translated service manuals etc etc.(it was a haul). Thanks to the Cheiftain for helping with sources. The quality of the parts were outright rejects in a US wartime factory. Inferring from the manual, if you & your T34-85 lasted 100hrs, then the maintenance got ugly and heavy. At 500hrs anyone still alive, give them a new tank/IS-2. If you need new seals for your t34. Cut felt -1mm smaller than the shaft, +1mm bigger than the housing. As thick as you can cram in the groove, soak in a heavy grease/oil(moreys was used) prior to installation. The felt/horsehair capures the bits of metal coming off the shafts and polishes the rougher bits somewhat.(you can also use lower quality steels) It may ooze a little but it gets rough untrained production tanks/vehicles out the door.
I recommend Lazerpig's video on the T-34
I understand that you all guys watched lazerpig and now scream about horrible T-34 but it wasn’t. It was a decent tank in design but with many flows in its exploitation due to the fact that how young and inexperienced soviet industry was, plus just being relocated and working in chaos of war. The tank saw many upgrades and served well, especially because it was also used for infantry support. There’s a good reason why Panther in many ways copied design of T-34 and why it was so highly estimated by german military. So stop, please. Seeing people having their opinions shaped by one youtube video with a lot of extremely strange statements is weird.
Germans liked the T-34 because it was mass produced and was more usefull as an IFV. Thats purely it. The tank itself was mid at best, and 90% of the factories churned out utter dogshit.
Germans wanted a T-34/M4 Sherman for their army. Mustache man thought it wasnt glorious enough, and opted to go for Panthers instead, which solved nothing.
Next video idea: how bad was the t72?
It wasnt bad. Still isn't
@@Vlad_-_-_ i know but he did the same on the m4, tiger etc so why not my fav tank, the t72
@@Vlad_-_-_ and also because or the iraqi, they made it look bad
@@MageOtter27 he made a video about T72 already
@@MageOtter27 but it is only the historical accurate series
Love your vids
I think a video from LazerPig gives the best insight into the t34.
The t34 design itself wasnt bad, but it had some galring problems. The main problem was the bad transmission that had problems going into 4th gear and broke down often, the outside view was horrible, no radio intercom cramped crew space and so much more. LazerPig is definitley someone who puts a lot of effort into his videos and I would recommend watching that.
He's a diamond in the rough. His channel is blowing up right now. Love that crazy pig.
@@mikedrop4421 yeah, his humour just hit the right spot for me. And the topics are also something Im interested in.
Its also nice to see the "other side" from vehicles that are hyped.
Spook: early T-34 was rushed due to desperate situation on the front
NPCs in the comments: spook, you forgot how early T-34s were bad because Soviets rushed it's production!
This a myth that has always been prevalent due to one or more factors and thankyou for addressing it Spookston.
For the majority of the Cold War the Soviets were ahead of the Western powers in terms of guns and armour. For example the Royal Ordnance L7-105mm was pushed into service following the Hungarian revolution when a T54A crashed into the British Embassy on the British were able to examine it and were shocked to find none of the guns they fielded on their armoured vehicles would be capable of penetrating its frontal armour. Following this the emergence of the T62 and its brand 115mm and new type of Russian developed ammunition (APFDS) rendered most if not all allied Armour obsolete and was responsible, in large part, for the development of the Chieftan and others.
As for the T64 vs T72, you're correct on it being a cost vs production issue. The T72 took the best of what it could from the 64 and did it cheaper and on a mass production scale, subsequently Russian tanks were the first to field ERA in the late 70's.
The reputation for poor quality largely comes as a result of their tanks being poorly used for the most part by other nations who lacked the training, facilities and knowledge to use the machines properly (for the T80 and T72 this would lead to their horrid reputations due to Desert Storm and Grozny where lack of training, lack of proper munitions in the case of the Iraqi Army and poor decisions in the case of the Russian Army resulted in massive losses)
Good video as always bro
Yeah, nah. Soviet tanks post WWII always sucked, and were basically designed to be small, which ended up making them unfightable. Blaming Soviet design deficiencies on little brown people not using them right is just a weak cop out. The big hint should've been, "when your tank can only fight when fully exposed, or dug into a 'kill me' pit, you have a shitty tank." Regardless of what high tech trivia some idiot engineer decided to put on it.
@@HelghastStalker Yeah, for monkey models that was a fact, the poor Iraqis has to use T-72Ms which were basically T-72As vs M1A1 models during desert storm, It doesn't help that the T-72 was designed to fight at shorter ranges in europe where 2.5km was considered the range where the battles would take place, unlike the open desert the Iraqis had to fight on, also the export ammo used by those T-72s were made out of steel, not even Tungsten, that was just a big fuck up
@@HelghastStalker Ok, we are comparing a 1976 tank vs a 1991 tank, ¿Does that help?
Always thought that post-war Soviet tanks were particularly advanced looking. Like the IS-7. That does *not* look like it was designed in 1945. I suppose that since the T-54 the visual design (namely the lower profile and rounded turret) hasn't really changed all that much, so it may infact be that contemporary tanks are more archaic in appearance, rather than the other way around. Still, 50s Russian tanks are pretty cool.
gotta love you being able to shoot heatfs through bushes and shit like that, meanwhile mine explode on literal fucking grass
even though they always get flak for the tanks and tactics... for me over all the tanks history the russians are the king of tanks for me (even though my fav designs are all western weirdly).
I'd say, nothing ever had more CLASSIC TANK LOOK than T-55.
I think the perception of Russians not being good at tank building is compounded by people watching one of documentaries about world war 2, and hearing a 10 second sound byte in there somewhere about the early t34s having reliability problems. That and how many tanks they lost.
The real reasons for some of these machines shortcomings are far more complex. It also bears remembering during early days of WW2 red army was poorly led. Also most of the war they fought far more experienced German divisions than the allies did.
Because it bears remembering if Russians were so bad at making things. Then how did they wind up putting the first satellite into orbit. Had the longest serving space station and the most reliable rocket to take stuff into space.
Dont fall for the silly argument of "if they can build x, why cant they build y?" trap. The UK for example built some of the best ship designs of the war with some of the best welding, but had serious issues getting a welded tank put together. Also the satellite was a post war completely different thing.... Apple to orange.
As for the T-34, it had massive logistics and reliability issues through the whole war, which isnt surprising when the factory that built half of them took pride in how quickly they pushed them out. It was so bad that upper levels genuinely believed the crews sabotaged their own vehicles, then after believed it was happening in the factory.
So the average T-34 wasn't better than a Panzer 3 simply because... the German crews were more experienced? You do realize that in theory they can't even penetrate a T-34's armor, yet they still had the most kills throughout the entirety of the war on the eastern front? Doesn't that kind of prove the narrative that they were built poorly?
@@mitchverr9330 I am merely saying that Russians are and were pretty capable of building decent equipment. Just because x happened in WW2 doesn't mean all Russian equipment is like this. My argument was much larger than simply the T34. It was built very well for its intended purpose.
@@raddestshiba1589 you do realize that having a very experienced combat force in inferior equipment more than makes up for it's short comings. You have to just look at the Israelis and all their wars. Secondly war is fought as a combined arms struggle. Yes the pz 3 is out classed by the T34.
But what good does that do a crew when a flak 88 can take out a tank before it can get in range or units are deployed in a manner in which the pz 3 assault mostly infantry units. There is something to be said about tactics.
War thunder is not a depiction of how armor fights in wars
@@ahmadjavedaj But it wasnt though, it was so unreliable that the Russians had to speed up production to push more out, which made the situation worse in a vicious cycle. Again though much of this wasnt their fault, for a chunk of the war they didnt even have temp guages for their furnaces which were then given to them iirc by the UK.
They made do with their issues, but to sweep the issues away does a diservice to the soldiers forced to use and die in them and the commanders that knew full well about those issues begging for them to be fixed.
Simply, its russian state propaganda whitewashing to claim it was all fine, because it was not. (this isnt a meme btw, the modern government under Putin made it a crime to "spread lies" about the war, and they pick what is a "lie", such as whenever the Russians were bad at something)
Damn that concept of Quantity
Hey Spookston. Could you do a 'tanks that should be added' on the Yugoslav tech tree? There are some nice tanks and improved versions.
T-34 was to be the best technological tank of the WW2 but the Operation Barbarosa force the soviets produce everything they had the, ofc the quality decrease due to mass product, T-54/55 was made for Mass production but its not that bad as the Midwar T-34, the T-64 and next MBTs was Perfect in Russian ground forces, the T-72 Bought by Iraq was a old version of T-72 so theyre not modern as M1A1 abrams, the Upgraded russian tanks only remains in russia due to if the tanks was destroyed the enemy dont steal it secrets thats why the russians never send T-14 armata to syria for Tests
Not only did Barbarossa make it necessary to just crank out the T-34s, problems and all, but as the Germans advanced rapidly towards their tank FACTORIES, they had to evacuate them and start over, often re-starting production without heat...in the dead of winter in the URALS. Needless to say, this doesn't allow time to shake down the design issues. Adding to that was, at least the GERMANS were impressed, as the T-34s that did run went through the marshes and snowbanks a lot better than the vaunted panzers, and their armor was fairly much proof against the most common German anti-tank gun, the Pak 36, a 37mm weapon they derided themselves as the "door knocker".
Nevertheless, work did proceed on development of an improved design, the T-43, which had the three-man turret, though the turret basket was dispensed with to save time and materials. Other improvements were also made, but to implement production of the T-43, the factories would have to be shut down and re-tooled, which would suspend tank deliveries for about 2-3 months even on a crash program. As the battle of Kursk and those immediately afterwards in advancing to the Dniepr river and retaking Smolensk were using up tanks by the thousands, the Soviet Army could not afford that production lull. It was also deemed wrong to go ahead with the KV-85, which was further developed into the IS-1, with the D-5T 85mm cannon,. WIth the ability to fit the 85mm gun into the turret developed for the T-43, it was also determined the way forward was to plop it onto the existing T-34 chassis, which would alleviate quite a few of its defects. The resulting T-34/85, though it was nose-heavy and hard to steer, and prone to getting stuck in trenches, was still able to hold its own against the vaunted Panther tank and could even knock out a Tiger, so 11,000 of them were produced in 1944 alone, and many more in 1945 and onwards. Some still serve TODAY, some 78 years after its debut, though the T-34Ms are a far cry from the original.
@@selfdo T-43 was just a prototype, the Last tank was the T-34-85 and his sucessor was the T-44
@@Russinh0 The T-43, despite its similarity in appearance to the T-34, was a "clean sheet" design, which followed the German practice of a torsion-bar suspension rather than the Christie suspension of the T-34 and the preceding BT series. I've already explained the main reason the Soviet Army passed on it, but kept the up-gunned turret (the T-43 was to use the F34 76mm gun, but this weapon had trouble penetrating the frontal armor of not only the Panther but also the uprated Mark IV and StuG III vehicles, hence why the decision to cram in the D5T 85mm main weapon). You're exactly right in that the T-34/85 was the last vehicle to use the Christie suspension; though the SU kept it production until 1951, and it was produced, along with upgrades of existing stocks to T-34/85M standard, by China, Czechoslovakia, and Poland well into the 1960s. The T-44 used many features that would have gone into the T-43, but with a lower, redesigned hull, and a crossdrive layout and new gearbox, so it should be considered a new design altogether rather than a further development of the T-43.
BTW, the AFV numbering convention often confuses folks outside Russia. For example, had they built the M-60 "Patton IV", they would have designated the M60A3 as the "M-63". Making it further confusing is the similarity of the T-64 and T-80 to the more common (and exported) T-72. Despite their similarity in size, and use of the same main weapon, these tanks share almost nothing else in common, and not just b/c they came from different factories. Further confusion arises from the T-90, which is essentially a hybrid of the T-72 and T-80, with intent to combine their best complementing features.
@@selfdo yeah, but u know the T-72 was made for be the mass product mbt and the T-80 and T-90 an Complemental element for the T-72 divisions (russia had divisions fully equiped with T-90s and T-80s but the major part is T-72 tanks)
@@Russinh0 Do correct if I've got it wrong, but it's my understanding that the Russian Ground Forces, essentially the downsized continuation of the old Soviet Army, still uses divisional "categories", I, II, and III, with the "I" being their "elite" units, almost all ethnic Russian, and gets the "best" of what's current. The "II" are full-timers, AFAIK, but considered lesser in quality and capability, and have non-Russian ethnic members mixed with Russians. These are the units that get the T-72s, but I understand some Cat II armored units have T-90s now. IDK if there are any Cat III (reservists) armored regiments or divisions, but if so, and along with the typical "motor-rifle" units, aren't they still using whatever T-55s and T-62s that still run? Or have all those tanks been "retired" and sold off or scrapped, and the reservists only using T-72s?
yes
Lazerpig did a great video breaking down all the T-34's design and quality control issues
Spookston is such a underrated youtuber
A problem. The problems with the T-34 aren't addressed in reality, and doesn't even discern that most of the problems were ironed out **after** the war, with the productions of the Model 1946, which is the one mostly known in the west thanks to surviving models. The T-34 had a lot of problems, I am tempted to say more than the Panther. Most glaring problem is the non-mention the worst problem there, the Overheated armor.
All the other comments already go over many of the problems with the T-34, but I definitely think this video does the reality of the situation an injustice. It's arguably the only the tank that could be described as being made poorly, but not because of "human wave tatics" and more so that the eastern front was very much a war of attrition, so corners could afford to be cut.
Howdy, can you do a vid on the Churchill’s? They need more love
Hey Spooks, I was wondering if you could identify the tanks that appear in the game Far Cry 6. I'm pretty sure it's around a T-54 or T-55, but I would like someone like you to confirm
I’m just agreeing with everything here in the video. T34s we’re rather bad when it came to communication between the crew, and other tanks as a whole. In game, these faults don’t exist, possibly making Russian bias a thing. Maybe? At the same time, Tigers and other “MBT’s” I guess, had poor transmission, so making it 100 miles was unlikely for a squad. This game just lacks these features of breakdowns and cooperation, making everything not quite what it seems.
What? Nobody has to worry about comms, like you said, late German tanks don't have to worry about transmission, the Chieftain tanks won't break down all the time, there's not really bias towards any nation apart from how much content gets added, in which case, the USSR/Russia, the USA, and Germany are experiencing bias in their favour.
Anyone wishing to see a great video on the t-34 should definitely watch Lazerpig , who's made a great hour long video about it !
Ironcly i just watched that for the first time a couple days ago.
@@robertharris6092 great video ain't it ?!
@@solsticefr9142 Bit exaggerated, but it's alright
Agreed! Quite a fun watch too!
I was expecting a video about tanks being made (manufacturing issues), but the entire video is about tanks being designed. Please, make a video about manufacturing issues as well! We all know that T-34 was not designed to have holes in the hull, but it sometimes was made with them, for example.
Agreed
I belive that the situation makes the quality, during the ww2 the t34 are made fast but with lower quality during the advance of the Axis, but when they got pushed back the tanks became better, with the other tanks i belive is because they haven't to much combat situations until the 80s-90s with a feel happening in África but they almost are in lower numbers
Feel like the reliability and performance issues of the T34 are heavily downplayed in this video.
In all the "soft" factors the T34 is bad, with it's cramped crew compartment due to slopped armor, lack of radio, extremely brittle or too soft heat treatments on the plates.
It's a good tank on paper, but it's so poorly made in factories like N.183 that it doesn't matter.
According to data from the book
"Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century" which is compiled from soviet records, in 1942 54.3% of T-34 tanks were knocked out by Panzer 3s.
Because he largely covered such in a previous video.
Would that be because 50 mm was made specifically to destroy heavier armoured tanks?
That’s because Panzer 3s and 4s made up the bulk of the German tankforce for nearly all of the war. It’s like saying 54% of gun deaths are caused by bullets.
@@phunkracy It is because the T-34 had such bad optics that the crews couldn't see and didn't even realize they where under attack. This and the lack of a radio so T34's could not communicate meant that the PZ III's could easily knock out T-34's with little issue. Not to mention that they over hardened their steel which caused increased spalling. There is a reason why the T-34 had only a 15% survival rate for its crew. Most of these factors were not fixed by wars end. The truth is the T-34 was one of the worst made tanks of the war.
@@Crembaw I never said anything about the Panzer 4 in my original post. What you don't seem to understand is that the Panzer 3, which many will argue as being inferior to the T-34, is theoretically not supposed to be able to penetrate the T-34 frontally without special APCR which was not common due to special metals needed for it's production. Now if you used your big smooth brain to develop some wrinkles and think, you'd realize how your "witty" comment is not very much so.
The t-34 had the highest failure rate of all majorly produced tanks in WW2, which was because the factory 183, which produced about 50% of them cut corners to reduce the manhours needed for 1 T-34 from 8000 to 3700. They simply left out everything that they felt was not needed, like internal and external lighting, the hatch sealing to keep rain out, the radios, the entire turret basket, heat treating of the gears and drive shifts, using steel roadwheels on steel tracks because of a lack of rubber and so very much on.
TL; DR: The factory producing most T-34's in WW2 made over 26k of them through cutting corners like it is crunchtime at the circle factory.
A friendly recommendation. Please when you talk about model names and numbers can you put the name somewhere on screen? I had to go back a few times to catch what equipment replaced what and it breaks the flow of the video.
For instance when you talk about the T-80 replacing the T-64. Because you mentioned the T-72 in the same sentence it threw my small brain offgard because I was focused on the image.
Otherwise keep up !
At 0:29, I believe you used a picture of a T-55 instead of the T-62 lol
I never really saw the Russian tanks as being particularly unreliable, I tended to chalk up poor Soviet tank performance with poor Soviet tactics, doctrine and strategy. Take Afghanistan, the Russians utilized mass armored movements through mountains, something that worked for the Germans in the Ardennes because the Germans actually had surprise, both France in 1940, and the US/UK in 1944/45 didn't expect a German armored assault through the Ardennes.
Comparably, in Afghanistan, the Afghans know the Russians would have to use one of the exceptionally few roads that can support the weight and size of an armored column, and that the Soviets would travel through said route regularly. Thus ambushes with RPGs, LAWs, and other handheld AT weapons was easy. Combined with the ability to stop and even box in entire tank divisions with the elimination of the lead and rear most tanks, Afghanistan was a Soviet failure of strategy not too dissimilar to the other major Soviet Tank doctrine failure in the Winter War (the Soviets 1939/40 invasion of Finland, which they did eventually win, but at far greater cost.)
It's not like they had a choice. Tanks were literally the only vehicles able to resist RPG-7s and mines, and the roads were the only way of transporting materials and troops.
They learned that lesson again in Chechnya in urban areas.
@@phunkracy they did have a choice, the choice we saw later in the war when they started using primarily helicopter based units to protect the convoy lines and clear ambush points, to the point the US had to arm the Afghani with AA launchers to put a dent in the tactic.
Compare this with the early war tactic of just ramming a tank division through a choke point with minimal infantry support.
@@Mikalent Soviets had to modify their heli fleet specifically for mountainous terrain. They also had to prepare infrastructure for helicopters. Both things take time and combat experience.
@@joeblow5214 yup, thats why they did very well on the 2nd war
Quality in Russia is different then what the West usually thinks. To the Russians, as long as it is easily fixed, it won't break down.
You fix it before it breakdown?
"its quality if it doesnt break, so thats why our standard for quality is to be able to repair the broken things"
your comment is basically taking russia at their word... their propaganda. they say that shit to not look bad for having outdated and dumpy equipment
@123 unfortunate for you i dont buy into talking to russian trolls. so youll have to find someone else to troll
Short Answer; yes they were
Long Answer: it depends on which tank you look at
Comments: have you seen the the pig the laser?
The T-34 was a expensive tank made cheaply.
So things like some of the bolts on the engine, lights, etc. wouldn't be included, which would sometimes effect the tank like the turret basket being not included or the optics being made poorly, but sometimes they wouldn't.
1:30 I think armor is a component that matters but idk, mayby tanks should be taped together with silver tape or armor plates should be connected with zip ties. I saw countless T-34's in museums, so I know how terrible the armor quality is, the tanks are basicaly falling apart.
interesting name+profile combo. Makes you think huh?
@@enriqueouro9 His name and profile picture doesn't change the fact that the welding on the T-34 was of such low quality the frontal armor plate could be detached by a non penetrating shot, or that armor spalling was so bad T-34 crew members had a 15% chance of surviving a penetrating shot (in the Sherman, the so called "death trap", it was 75%).
@@crazeelazee7524 Well that's a new one, where did you read the front plates fell off?
@@enriqueouro9 i recomend watching lazerpigs video on it. The govt set insane quotas. Spot welding was common among other shortcuts to meet these quotas. They also didnt heat treat their steel as well as the other nations. Making it more brittle.
@@robertharris6092 I did see it, but like half of the things he said I knew to be old myths so i didnt put much cred into it. I dont think I heard the front plates falling off thing before though.
Wwii era t34s had some insane quotas to meet. Loooots of spot welding.
Hey spookston do you know if the ags use the m900 round?
The thing I have always wondered about with Soviet tank design is why the ALMOST(caps indicating I realize there were exceptions) universal lack of negative gun elevation? You could argue that it is forgivable for early designs but it seemed to be a common theme for their design for several tank generations. They must have recognized it but did not consider it as a deficiency in their tank doctrine? I know they always strived for low profile tanks, is this an issue or was it the general design of their gun breach? Obviously, not as much of an issue for urban combat, but in open, uneven terrain, seems like it would put them at a disadvantage, even in real life, not just War Thunder. Just curious.
This is exactly why Soviet tanks suck. On a modern battlefield, most successful engagements are fought from the hasty hull down position, and Soviet tanks cannot assume that position due to the nonexistent ability to depress their main guns. The problem was, the designers and engineers drove development, not combat tankers.
This was done on purpose, as it was easier to build. Plus, the eastern front was mostly and or largely plain open fields so they really so no need for gun depression on the tanks.
@@pirozhkov8568 Thanks, in what way is it easier to build?
@@danmallery9142 The less things they had to implement on the tanks, the easier they were able to pump them out. Many factory workers were also unexperienced so doing this simplified the process for them aswell. And since the eastern front was a large open plain field, they didn't really see the need for this as they were also on offensive. Even post-war tanks and later into the cold war the max elevation for soviet tanks was usually 5 degrees
Just me speculating but: I suspect that modern Russian armor keep the low gun depression statistics because Russia has 0 plans of fighting in very hilly or mountainous terrain. This doesn't mean they aren't expansionist (just look at the Ukranian conflict) but their tanks seem to scream defensive in nature if you contextualize their overall design with the kind of terrain that Moscow has between it and its neighbors.
If I wanted to be able to invade just any country I'd make an MBT that reflects that.
The popular image of the T-34 was that it was made cheap during the war but the sheer numbers made up for that. This isn't actually true- it didn't make up for the poor production quality in numbers.
In terms of number of tanks produced the German tanks would have had to achieve a kill ratio of 2-4 to defeat the Soviet tank fleet through attrition. They achieved one of 3-5.
Quantity over quality was a losing strategy pursued because the Red Army kept trying to build back up to its pre-war numbers only to lose all of the tanks they had made during each years offensive. Being able to make 3 times the number of cheap tanks means you have 3 times the logistical load, in a war ruled by resources and logistics. On top of that it limited soviet tank corps to thrusts of about 50km (a tiny distance on the eastern front) before having to stop and wait for the tanks they'd left on the side of the road to be repaired and catch up. This is what allowed the German troops in the Caucasus to escape after Stalingrad. And it wasn't just or even mainly tanks the T-34 had to worry about, the poor optics for everyone but the gunner made it especially vulnerable to AT guns, which along with breakdowns were the real tank killer. Quality usually does beat quantity.
(this is your weird niche youtube comment section fact of the day)
Boris Kavalerchik, The Tanks of Operation Barbarossa, ISBN 1399014293, Introduction, page 2, Last two lines: „History has repeatedly shown that even a substantial numerical superiority in force and means far from always guarantees a victory in armed struggle “
your last sentence hits the mark.
It seems you just watched a certain UA-cam video and regurgitated what you heard from it (I know because your arguments and phrases are structured in the exact same way). Losses of Soviet tanks were not inherently due to their design, but to the tactics of the military. Also, that number includes inferior and old tanks, which were becoming replaced by newer better models and more experienced crews which didn't die immediately in battle. The Germans would not be able to maintain that kill ratio in an extended attritional war with the Soviets.
About T-34, many factories did shortcuts. Leading to poor quality, half of T-34s had poorly made transmission, weak armor, no radio, no commander seat, etc.
( By weak armor I meant that a single shell could lead to a hull break, without penetrating the armor)
a t-34/85 took out three konigstigers in a row so it couldn't have been that bad
No Tiger II was penetrated during the war. Most were lost to fuel shortages and allied air.
I think it’s also important to note that crew survivability was typically low on the priority list compared to western designers.
Crew survivability was rarely priority in any tank design until the 80s. Tanks have always been deathtraps
You missed a few key parts on the T34, though I get it, the video needs to be short. How factory 183 managed to cut production times was but cutting corners. Many corners. "Cosmetics" is pretty misleading. America was building tanks at an unprecedented rate, they weren't wasting time on pretty tanks, otherwise the M3 medium tank would never have left the production line. No, the T34s made in Factory 183 which produced over 50 percent of all T34/76 tanks during the war. Cut times down by cutting out lights, as in head lights and tail lights, this lead to an infamous incident where a t34 crew ended up following a German convoy thinking it was a Russian convoy, they were captured. They also cut things like optics. Now the gunner sights on most T34s were actually pretty good, some were faulty but most were good. But the viewing ports and periscope for the commander and driver were very poor, leading to many incidents of T34s being driven into ditches because the driver never saw them and T34s coming under fire and them not reacting because they never saw anything and the noise bleed of the engine was so loud, you wouldn't hear a shell unless it hit your tank. This was immortalized in an incident when a German 37mm gun fired 26 rounds at a T34 before it finally noticed them and then proceeded to turn and open fire. Now, the gun wasn't going to do much to the tank, but the tank wasn't engaging a different target, it was just crossing an area, and suddenly came under fire. Also, no radios, radios were left to command tanks, which meant coordination was terrible, leading to higher losses which meant the tanks needed to be made faster, therefore more cuts, a never ending cycle. Also, in many models, there was no turret basket. In most tanks, the commander gunner and loader all spin with the turret so they are always in the same orientation with the gun. Not the 34/76, while some war time tanks had a basket as it was designed with one, and all post war examples had one. The overwhelming majority of war time produced ones didn't. The men just had to turn with the turret, and not get smacked by the gun as it recoils in a new direction everytime. This cut down reload speeds. Some models also failed to even have seats installed, with some crews using wooden crates as seats because the factory couldn't spare the time to install them. And all this is to say nothing of the quality. The T34 was welded. Badly. See, in America and Britain, early war tanks were riveted and late war tanks either cast or welded. The reason is they didn't have enough forges to cast the tanks in the beginning and they had a major shortage of skilled welders and it took time to train enough welders. Russia on the other hand? Would run peasants through a crash course on welding lasting anywhere from a few hours to a couple days if they were lucky. Meaning the welds were poor and lacking. Combine this with brittle steel because the Russians overhardened their steel, and you have a tank that had a proclivity to shattering its armor plating. Over half of all T34s produced during the war were destroyed, and the majority of which were lost to mechanical breakdowns. It was so bad Stalin thought it was sabotage because there was simply no way that more tanks were breaking down beyond repair than being destroyed by the Germans. When factory 183 was inspected in 1943, only 7 percent of tanks had no defects. The T34 was an excellent and modern design on paper, but no T34s made after the start of the war ever came close to the standard set out by the blueprints.
I just watched the video of laser pig on the t34 and now this appears
Hi spookston can make a video for adding tanks and saying about LAV III(Kodiak)?
It's canadian IFV that WT can give it to US or GB
The T-72 is an extremely reliable tank, debatably more so than it’s NATO counterparts. I saw a report of the US military getting their hands on a captured T-72. It was leaking oil, but it seemingly didn’t even need it, because after the oil ran out the tank continued to drive around just fine. Another thing is the tracks; they had tried multiple times to intentionally throw a track by throwing everything at it and nothing was working. Not to mention the Silver Bullet (M829A1) did manage to penetrate the front turret, but only bearly. This showed that with modifications to the armor, it would have been able to stop the round. It’s like the Honda Civic of tanks, love it
A guy I know worked with the government on a captured T-72 or T-62 (will have to ask him to confirm which one lol) and he said it was wonderful how reliable it was, but would have hated to crew it as it felt extremely cramped and he is only 5’8.
LazerPig did an hour long video about the T-34 that really brought to light just how trash it was.
heh.
you really believe that tea-gulping fool?
the t-34 won the war for a reason.
@@arandomperson7713 Your opinion is like day old bread... Discounted.
@@arandomperson7713 Only because the Germans didn't built enough Panzerjägerkampfwurstschütz III Ausf. K
@123 You 100% didn't watch the entire video if that's all you got out of it, lmao
@123 He argued the T-34 had trouble dealing with the 5 cm KwK from the Panzer III, btw the Panther is a medium tank, if barely.
lets look at more modern, cold war to 2000's conflicts. while im nowhere near as well versed in tanks as i am in aircraft, i see plenty of online videos of unsupported tanks for mostly export countries.
it seems like the biggest issue is green crews from ex soviet or supporting countries that got tanks from export are pushed into service and left to get taken out by a guerilla with a recoilless rifle or other anti tank weapon.
Diligent maintenance: bro just replace the transmission even 24 hours
I have to give it to you that yes, they weren't badly built but they were generally inferior. Give 5 people who would genuinely prefer crewing a Soviet tank over a NATO one and I'll give you 5 people that have been lied to
I would crew T-74 over Centurion (doubly so if it would not be 105mm variant) or Leopard 1.
Not even inferior, just poorly made, check out lazerpigs video on them because I've summed this up in a comment already
facts. death rates in the t34 if it was hit were 85% iirc. the materials were rubbish and the soviets heat treated their steel in a wrong way. spalling damage was the cause of teh majority of the deaths of t34s crews. because the first t34s and their crews died, there was the urgence to replace them, always faster as the germans were coming, thus they didn't give an actual crap about their tanks or their badly trained crews, they only wanted to field more.
side story, i've seen a story of a t34 crew who didn't notics they were being shot at before the 37mm shot at them over 20 times. because of the trash optics. the crew was also in bad conditions; freezing cold, the sound of firing a gun was enough to deafen them, and there ee=ven was an issue where the most penetrating shots of theirs... would have a tendency to explode in the barrel... if you really want a deep and critic dive into the t34, i recommend "lazerpig"'s video about it.
Nah that's a really time dependent situation considering that nearly every new NATO development was a direct response to whatever new shit the soviets were making
This is the "would you rather be in a King Tiger or an M4 Sherman argument" all over again. Yes, if I were a tanker I'd rather be in the Tiger. No, if I were a general actually winning a war I'd rather have the Sherman. And if I were an infantryman id rather our guys got Shermans.
i love how for the most of the cold war the warsaw pact was always on a technological superiority when it came to tanks until NATO started putting thermals on their gunner sights.
the soviet union had been at the forefront of tank design for most of the 20th century and its not well appreciated. export models of the T-55 and T-72 did suck a lot and i did hear that some iraqi T-72s had concrete or desert sand instead of their sandbar composite armour for the turret. but the tanks that were being used by the armies and guards armies of the USSR had great nicely manufactured vehicles with very advanced technology in armour and weaponry, they just lacked very advanced fire control systems.
True
The Soviet tanks were literally a collection of high tech, encased in poorly designed platforms incapable of fighting on a battlefield. The fact that they were incapable of occupying a hasty hull down position due to lack of gun tube depression for instance. Western tanks could, and did, massacre Soviet tanks when they went head to head every time it happened, regardless of tech. Soviet designers went way too far down the "compactness" rabbit hole and failed, utterly in the process.
@@drewschumann1 they were desinged to fight in the east all flat plains and such gund depression is not as importent there
@@drewschumann1 they had a reason to make all of their tanks small and light, their doctrine was that they would be the ones to attack into western germany if hostilities broke out. and they'd expect that all of the bridges wouldve been blown up by NATO, so they had to make all of their tanks light to be able to easily transport them through rail and pontoon bridges without having to worry about the logistical side of taking care of a 60 ton tank's advance into western germany.
also every time western tanks clashed with soviet tanks they were almost always export models of said soviet tanks and operated by subpar foreign crews so thats not really a valid point. The Iraqi T-72's with monolithic steel/concrete turrets and extremely bad gunners that couldnt hit the broadside of a barn cant be compared to a T-80U in the western group of forces advancing through the fulda gap with kontakt ERA and top of the line crew from guards divisions
*its also the reason why the BRDM-2 recon car, BTR-series of APCs, BMP-series IFV's, and BMD--series IFVs on top of a lot of other assorted vehicles all shared some kind of amphibious capability, they didnt want to rely on bridges or rely as much as they otherwise would.
Worth noting, the soviets made export variants (often referred to as a monkey model) of soviet vehicles which were significantly inferior to the original soviet designs, usually missing the more advanced or expensive features but shared the same designation as the original. These were sent to non communist allies.
The majority of soviet tanks that contemporary western tanks fought against were in fact monkey models and their worse than expected performance likely had an impact on the reputation of the real thing. I kinda wonder if many of the initial tanks that Russia used in Ukraine were monkey models.
What are your thoughts on Lazerpig's video of the T-34?
Yes. Apparently they were.
I mainly saw them as well designed to be cheap and mass-produceable allowing unreliability, design flaws and performance issues to be minimised
Overall many Soviet tanks were very effective they just were made to be produced on a massive scale and as such had compromises
Because why do a 1:1 battle when you can overwhelm them
But then you have to take into account 3 times the tanks means 3 times the crew, steel, ammunition, radio equipment etc. choosing a quality design over a far worse design that you can make more of is an awful idea
@@piecharb.1343 Thing is, the technology gap of an available, better design is simply not worth it. Yeah it's better, but how much better to justify retooling every factory in the Union, with the Germans 20 meters from the door? The new tank would need to be a cold war dart-slinger in 1941 for it to make sense.
Cue the response from Red Effect! :)
Is that stellaris music in the background?
Some definitely were. IIRC the T-44 had a major problem where non-penetrating hits during live fire trials could still make the welds holding the armor plates together fail, and then the whole thing would disintegrate like the Flintstone's car.
Yes it did, but it was mostly because the firing tests were using very powerful weapons in successive fire, like the 100 mm D-10 and the 88 mm PAK-43, which were one of the best anti-tank weapons at the time, and, hitting the same armor plate 15 times with a powerful anti-tank artillery, is not something realistic or even possible to survive
T44 was blasted to bits and still did not fall apart like the Tiger II plate. And note the T44 plate is 100mm not 150. Soviet steel was better.
After watching LazerPig's video on the T34, i have come to the conclusion that probably the best medium tank of WW2 was the Sherman...
T34 was good on paper, but awful in practice, mainly due to poor production quality.
Can you verify in T34? If the crew had a heater for warmth?
if collecting some milsurplus items have taught me anything: it's that eastern block (may it be soviet, polish, east german, czech, hungarian, etc...) stuff is often far better tought and built than we give it credit for. generally, finition of non crucial parts is raw, but what has to be done correctly is done correctly. in a very utilitarian way.
I think that the main reason people think that soviet Tanks are bad is mainly the choises to focus on "mass armor" over the perfect single vehicle. Also the lack of crew safety and comfort can leave those testing them a negative feeling about the whole vehicle.