@@darknut9696 Both are real. The V/IV was a single vehicle used by the Schwere Panzer Abteilung 653 (which also operated a Tiger P) and it was a Bergepanther tank recovery vehicle with the Panzer IV turret fitted to it and it was used as a command tank. However, unlike in WoT, the turret was bolted down and could not rotate at all. The Panzer III/IV was a prototype that was made at the time where the Panzer IV was only equipped with a short 75mm which was not very good against tanks. The Panzer III/IV combined various elements of the two vehicles together, and also added novel elements such as a long 75mm gun, sloped frontal armor, and I believe a new engine as well. However, the German Army decided it would rather not complicate the factories with new production and just upgraded the Panzer IV with the new gun and engine. The Nashorn/Hornisse tank destroyer and Hummel SPG were later built on the Geschutzwagen III/IV chassis, which confusingly is a different design from the Panzer III/IV but borrowed many of its ideas.
I have no knowledge of any 88 armed T-34s, but there was an rearming of an T-34-85 with a German gun during the war made by Finns. One of the captured T-34-85s was modified to fit a Pak 40 to test if this was an feasible modification to ease the ammo logistics of Finnish tanks. The tank was eventually given its original gun back, but it retained a modified mantle. The tank is novadays on display at Parola armour museum, where it is recognisable from the modified mantlet.
if they add bmp-2m combined to t-72 turms-t i’d play wot (just image a t-72 with 4x atgms, 30mm grenade launcher, 30mm auto-cannon, entrenching tool and era)
Not sure how Germany plays into any of this, but there actually was a T-34-85 with redrilled bore and modified breach to accept ammo from Kwk36. It was soviet experiment to see if captured supplies of german ammo were of any use without captured guns. Basically it was the same modification germans did on soviet 85mm AA guns to supply them. Resulting barrel life was very low btw. Yuri Pasholok has an article on that tank in archive documents
I believe one prototype was built but the design was too complicated and was not pursued any further after that. But I am not sure this has ever been confirmed.
You’re probably right. Even if it was real the effectiveness would be incredibly questionable considering that the guns would not be designed to shoot larger shells.
to make the kwk 36 ammunition seat properly and fire safely would likely not actually require a breach modification as the rim sizes are within 0.25mm of each other with the kwk 36 using a 115.5mm +/- about 0.15mm rim size and the soviet being 115.75mm +/- about 0.20mm, you may require a very slight modification to the extractor as that is going to be the most ficicky part of the modification, but this may work by simply filing the inside edge of the extractor or the inside of the extractor groove to allow the extractor to pop in a bit more.
The T34 with an 88mm wich is most likely is Yugoslav T34A wich is basically a T34 with French 90mm guns, there was also a T34B with a 90 mil from a Pershing, but most commonly known T34A got a standard 85mm gun, there is a T34A with a French 90mm still surviving on Kalemegdan in Belgrade
Speaking of the Yugoslav Army, you might recall the movie, "Kelly's Heroes", which features Yugoslav T-34/85s mocked up to look like Tiger Is. Although the conversion is obvious to anyone that knows something of WWII-era tanks, for 1970 it was a reasonable job. These machines had taken part in a movie made the prior year in Yugoslavia, As far as I can tell, the tank guns appear to be the standard D5T 85mm guns with muzzle brakes fitted.
the french gun thing is a fabrication as they didn't even have access to those back then or friendly enough relations in france, They just used standard guns with a muzzle break, and there wasn't a "T34B" and the actual one wasn't even called "T34A" but "tank type A". 90mm from M47 or M36 was considered later on but scrapped along with the whole program as soviet tanks became available. The tank in Kalemegdan is the sole survivor of the tank type A program but two turrets survived and are on display in croatia. The muzzle break concept was actually later applied to some T-34-85s as later as the 90s.
Maybe they actually attempted to rebore a T-34-85 but failed, the story that the tank commander tells is only half of it and someone misinterpreted the story.
wouldn't the barrel be thinner if so i would not like to fire it too many times in a row, or does it mean the barrel was replaced to avoid it...you know...having the barrel explode, cause as we know soviet steel was not exactly done professionally
You could rebore the barrel and use 85mm cartridge cases with 88mm projectiles. No reason not to do it as a 1-off. If they did, it obviously wasn't successful.
There are some examples of field modifications like the Flak88/T34, but usually with smaller AA Guns to make a mobile AA platform. the rebored 85mm could work if they somehow had many soviet 85mm casings without shells and adapt them to use german 88mm shells instead, but it would be prone to malfunction due to stuck casings
Aswell as intensely shortening the lifespan considering the smaller wall thickness of the gun while taking a presumably higher pressure due to the heavier projectile and the barrel/material being designed/chosen for use with the 85mm
Getting casings with power but without shells is highly unlikely with single-peice ammo, and you'd still be left with a gun that has limited foreign ammunition so it wouldn't even solve to problem
Prone To Malfunction Didn't Stop Them From Making A Tank That Breaks Down Evry 2 Meters And Instantly Breaks If It Goes Uphill. The Elefant Tank Destroyer
A rebored 85mm is a possibility, an 88/85 could really existe, but firing only kinectic shells, as the decrease in barrel caliber forces the projectile to compress its diameter, but making it denser than a common 85mm projectile
I believe there is actual photographic evidence that the Germans field modified at least one Pzkpfw-IV chassis to mount a 88mm Flak36 where they removed the turret and superstructure to mount the Flak gun. As far as the rebored 85mm. I would be willing to bet that it was actually an ex-Soviet Pak36(r) 76.2mm L/51 mounted into a T34/85 turret - the same used in the 76.2mm Marders. This would make more sense since the Germans had a plentiful supply of that ammunition. It could also give rise to the myth of either an 88mm mounted into the turret or a rebored 85mm.
Another possibility is they could have fitted a German 88mm projectile into a Russian 85mm case rather than rebored the 85mm gun. Using a lathe to turn down driving bands is a rather more trivial exercise than reboring a gun... and there's actual precedent in that the British did that very thing with captured German 75mm AP ammo in North Africa.
@@christopherroach264 Good point. The ballistics of such a change would be questionable however. Sure it would work; but the velocity would be worse than a normal 88mm and certainly only HEAT or APCR would have been effective at penetrating the T-34-85s and IS-2s by 1944.
Could it have been possible that a unit in the field mounted the muzzle brake from an 88 on the end of their t34-85 as a trophy? That would seem like the easiest way to confuse someone into believing that there was an 88 fitted to the tank.
I don't see the point of doing so. It could be bad for the gun to have a weight added to the end for which it wasn't made and the muzzle break will increase the flash and dirt being kicked up which is bad for any allied troops and makes the tank more visible to the enemy...
@@edi9892 i dont think soviet infantryman really knew or cared about the advanced mechanics of sticking heavy objects on the barrels of tanks, it seems completely plausible that they might stick a muzzle break from a different tank on a t34.
About time someone looked at, examined and debunked these tank myths. The internet is awash with nonsense that the 'game' and kit companies exploit to make more money. Thank you, and I hope you do many more of this type of production....by the way, did you hear about the Matilda II with a fixed 128mm PAK and rear facing flame thrower? It's true, I saw one in a dream once...
I disagree with you on the reboring. I'd say that it was plausible enough that it shouldn't be considered a definite fake tank like first one. While there isn't any definite proof that it existed, more than enough documentation on these sorts of things is lost and the reboring process is subtle enough that it would be nearly impossible to actually get any picture proof of one operating in the field without seeing the 88mm munition being loaded in, or the reboring process itself. As you said yourself, this process, including modifying the breach, was done on flak 85 guns. The most likely scenario was that some of the 85mm guns that were rebored back in Germany were sent to the front, and somebody in the field had the idea of using this rebored gun on a T-34 as to decrease logisitcal strain on capture munitions.
To add on to the plausibility of the reboring, the Soviet D-5t, the main gun of t-34-85s, was based off of the Soviet 85mm AA gun, even using the same ammo. It’s entirely possible a very janky attempt was made utilizing parts from one of these AA guns to make the tank.
It was supposedly done but the information on the reboring isn't that detailed either. There's just far too much unknown to say anything other than it's most likely fake unless information is found.
I think its possible that they also adapted captured 85mm casing to use 88mm shells, would be messy to operate but eliminates major changes to the breach
@@ConeOfArc aye I agree, there's no information out there to say it existed for sure, but it feels too plausible to say with confidence that it is fake. Did it exist? Probably not but nobody can actually say for sure. "Fake Tank" is too strong of a label. I think that "Plausible Tank" with an explanation of why is better but also citing that ultimately we just don't know. Certainly more real than the E-79 if only because there's a logical enough chain of real events that may or may not have resulted in it.
It's also plausible that a T-34-85 could have its gun bored out to 88mm, and the 88mm projectiles combined with Soviet 85mm shell casings. This wouldn't be ideal (you'd have to reuse the fired shell casings repeatedly due to limited availability), but it'd remove the need for modifying the breech (which is much more difficult to do in the field than boring out the barrel).
Have you ever had the idea of creating fake tanks yourself or from a fan and explaining if their creation could be possible or not, for example I came up with an EBR with a chaffe turret since the m24 turret fits in a amx13 chassis and following this process putting the chaffe turret in the ebr sounds possible to me, and making this creation more interesting I came up with the idea of putting the 60mm hvms cannon that israel proposed for the chaffe imported to chile I used the translator since I'm not good at English I also have a drawing that I made myself and I don't know where to share it
I was unaware of the gun swap "T-34-88" tanks but I was familiar with the one with the photoshopped Flak 88 mounting and how it was fake. Learn something new every day
I’ll try to find the article and the documents but I did read of a SU model being from refitted with a flak 88 in By German forces in Poland. The source stated that it was captured by German infantry and pulled behind enemy lines they believe it was abandoned as it had run out of ammo. Over a few weeks it was refitted with a 88 but the vehicle was destroyed while being moved back to Berlin
The Finns apparently used 85 mm Soviet AA guns *relined* to use Flak 36 8.8 cm ammo. Simple reboring wouldn't work because the cart casing of the 85 mm is 629mm from the base to the mouth (85x629R112 mm) versus 571 mm of the 8.8 cm for the Flak18/36 & KwK36 (88x571R111 mm). Thus there was a gap of 58+ mm between the mouth if the 88 mm case and start of the rifling of the 85 mm. Relining would involve boring & fitting a sleeve/insert inside the chamber (or replace the "A" tube of the 85 mm if it wasn't a monoblock) all the way to the muzzle. The rim diameters are close enough so that modified extractors would be fitted.
in 1942-43 when T-34-76s were captured, the germans attempted to regun the tanks with the KwK 36 L42. it was impossible to keep the original soviet designed 2 man turrets, and putting a custom designed 3 man turret with a larger breech and more equipment to an already small turret ring was logistically more of a nightmare than reverse engineering 76.2mm shells or just moving captured ammo.
The Riga area would be the one place on the eastern front where this one off could have happened in 44-45. It’s not just that local shipyards had the equipment and machinists to pull of modifications to weapon or the ammunition, but the area had been home to a large complex of German workshops that had repaired and rebuilt significant numbers of German and Russia tanks and heavy weapons. If the T-34-85 Tiger main gun or Russian rebore happened it would not have been a field conversation.
I think a more likely functional experiment would be a a soviet Sherman M4A2 76(w) with an 88. The result modification would probably force the turret to have a two man crew however. captured 76mm would be hard to come by, since it was specifically for these lend lease tanks, and replacement parts would be easy to find since they would be able to get parts from other captured shermans.
even WarGaming is known for fake tanks, i completely understand them, its good to make some creative vehicles and weird experiments with them just for fun, and WarGaming is good at doing such weirdies
Reboring a cannon barrel sounds great and easy for a layman, but rebore a different caliber gun is really a complex and exacting operation. you have to factor in barrel thickness, pressures, and even the twist of the rifling to get everything right.
Regarding a T-34/85 rebored to fire 88mm. You dont have to rebore it, you just have to ream out the diameter by 3mm. A well worn barrel might not even need to be reamed out. Regarding the projectile, casing, and breech. You cant really modify the casing because you would have to modify the breech as well. Modifying the breech would be very hard to do. What would be pretty easy to do is take a 88mm projectile, disassemble it and remove explosive filler and fuze, place the projectile in a lathe which any battalion level machine shop or Latvian shipyard should have access to, turn down the base of the 88mm projectile to fit the 85mm casing, reassemble. fire down your reamed out barrel. In North Africa in 1942 the Commonwealth troops had the Axis on the run after El Alamein. US AP rounds like M72 AP and M61 APCBC were not very good and performance varied widely *wAS TRACED TO FAULTY MANUFACTURING). The Commonwealth forces captured Tobruk and found a warehouse full of German 75mm Pz.Gr.39 rounds. A Australian officer named Major Northy got the idea to remove Pz.Gr.39 projectile from the German casing, machine down the base of the projectile to fit US 75mm M3 shell casing and reassembled to fire a superior APCBC round to use against the Germans. Records indicate about 15,000 rounds were converted, best estimate about 9,000 were used.
FYI , Wargaming is a big player in military restoration circles and countries have handed them all kinds of never seen information. They have released several "paper" vehicles using actual schematics of unbuilt Ships , tanks and aircraft. Model makers generally have 1 model with a specific German unit group that used repurposed allied military vehicles . I have dozens of relatives who fought in the Great Patriotic War who told me stories of these and their own modifications. Anti aircraft refits were more prevalent in early years before allied air superiority and parts of eastern front
T-34 with more powerful gun was SU-100, one of most famous tank destroyers. It used T-34 chassis with casemate superstructure housing D-10 gun of T-54/55 fame. There was also T-44 but by 1944 Soviets figured out that retooling production lines (and slowing down production) have no sense, since they had heavy breakthrough tank IS-2 and SU-100 to contain any German attack with Panther and Tiger tanks.
its possible the muzzle brake and breech were repurposed for the re-bored gun, or at least parts of it, the muzzle brake could add weight to the end of the gun and keep it from splitting as easily
Reboring is actually possible judging that the caliber difference is only 3millimeters, but the much bigger pressure generated by the propellant and the now slightly weakend gun barrel integrity makes me clinch my teeth a little bit
Man, the idea of trying to deal with the added size of the KwK 36's shells inside the already notoriously cramped interior of the T-34 is not a pleasant image.
The Soviet 85 and the German 88 are actually the same diameter at their thickest part due to the rim of the shell so there would be no need to rebore the breach.
I find it funny people find it so implausible these tanks could have existed without intense documentation, Stuff like this was done a lot in WW2 especialy the more equipment strapped an army would be. Improvisation is one of the most necessary skills in a good military. Lots of history only survives through first hand accounts without intense documentation, especially the further back in history you go.
Maybe the gun was a 75mm like on the Panzer-IV, and was mistaken for an 88 given the very simular muzzle breaks. After all allied tankers sometimes mistook Panzer-IVs for tiger due to that reason, plus distance. Or so iam told.
I should say this there is a t 34 85 tank in yugoslavia designed to fit a bigger gun and more armor i do not know the the name of it but there were 2 prot types with diffrent guns but same more armored heavy hull
I wonder if this is related to the studies Germany did on the t34 where they reasoned that copying the design would cost just as much as building the panther from scratch.
Germany, so short sighted on "Total War" that they were critically short of Combat Tanks. Earlier in the war, Germany did re-gun captured Soviet KV-1's & some KV-2's., but by 1943, they just added side-skirts, Large "Balkenkreuz" crosses & maybe Cupolas to the T34/76's (like 2d SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" at Kursk... The German forces on the Eastern Front had plenty of captured Soviet ammo to rearm captured Soviet Tanks.... All the recently recovered former German T-34's are armed to the Teeth! Ammo was always available, Fuel wasn't!
No way the 88mm would fit in a T34 turret. However, what does fit and was actually done, was to rearm a KV-1 with the 75mm Pak 40, the Germans made a few such conversions, they fitted them with cupolas too. They were probably quite effective.
Even the flak 18 version would be very weird to operate. Lets consider the scenario where you bolt/weld the flak base on top of the hull, covering most of the hole inside the former turret ring. So now, where would you place the gun crew? Presumably on top of the hull, instead of the hole, that is now covered with the either the 4 legs of the flak gun, or with a plate on top of which the gun is welded on. Ok, thats the crew. But where do you put the ammo? Inside the hull? Well, I´d say that would be extremely unpractical, as it would mean that the loader would have to climb inside, grab the ammo, somehow squeeze it around the legs of the flak and on top of the hull, then climb out and load the shell inside the gun. And whats the other option? Well, put the box with the shell between the gun and the engine cover. I.e. on the place that is most likely to be hit by gunfire from both enemy ground units and airplanes.
I can throw some extra bits of info in the WoT Console variant known as T-34-88. Latvia's one supossedly had an inscription in the gun in german that, translated into english, is something like "Is coming". However, the WoT Console model's inscription can be translated as "don't throw it (away), fit it!" Another curiosity is, that model and the one of the AMX Chaffee (a M24 chasis using the turret and the 75mm gun of the AMX 13) were at least on the early versions of the orginal PC game, well hidden as for many other models. All it took to Console devs team was just to make it available publicly. Same as a Console exclusive US Sexton I that, in origin, was a first concept on SPG's shelved by WoT PC team as they deemed it way overpowered. Being shaped lately in the UK Sexton I that everybody knows in PC
Hey I got a crazy proposal for the next fake tank. The Steamtank from Wargamers fantasy given how absurd it looks and that it was used in a fantasy Renaissance Germany.
Bruh I made a model of this thing using the hollowed out shell of a firework tank that looked like a t-34 and an extra tiger cannon leftover from my last 1/35 model. I didn’t even know that was a tank people thought were real! I made it that way only because I lacked any other convincing cannon for the improvised model. What a strange coincidence.
If it was a gun-change or rebore its more likly to be 75mm as its more available and easier to make it smaller then wider If it was a turret swap it would more likly be with a pz 4 or panther but still need a ring The 88 to the germans was what the 17pdr was for the british but atleast the british some what succeded with the firefly and archer
@@poldi2233 Soviet Naval 180mm cannons are mostly rebored 203mm ones. You put in an insert into the barrel that makes the inside diameter smaller, but it isn't any easier then drilling out to a bigger bore.
@@shepardpolska Yup, and you still need to rebore inserted one because it would be managed with the differences of the temperatures between a gun and the insert to fit the two snuggly. Any such heating and normalizing would most likely need a correction. Maybe even straightening the barrel.
You stated that only plants in Germany had the capability to rebore the gun etc. That is simply not true any shipyard would have the tools and the know-how to do it while you are very knowledgeable on tanks you are clearly out of your knowledge zone when it comes to shipyards with them often being brought in to make specialist changes to tanks as they usually had the best welders as well as far superior equipment than your average tank factory with many countries literally using shipyards to make tanks Harland and Wolff made hundreds of Tanks as did Beardsmore and Camel Laird. Such a gun would have issues and would have a very limited barrel life but as a stop-gap measure, it is feasible.
It really depends on the shipyard. I do not think Latvia made any military vessels. If it was just used for a Baltic merchant/fishing navy, it wouldn't necessarily be very sophisticated.
@@lucidnonsense942 Lativia like many of the baltic states invested heavily in shipyards in the 1920s especially around Riga, as not only did they inherit a lot of imperial Russian equipment as Riga was one of the key support centers for the Russian Baltic Fleet which in WW1 was there most modern Fleet on top of this there was and always has been a large amount of trade in the Baltic. Even a commercial yard would need good tools even if they were just making fishing vessels as that would still require precision lathes, cutting equipment riveting equipment, cranes, and welding equipment.
Good video as always! Next time can you talk about the "mauschen"? Long ago i had a long discussion with a friend talking if the mauschen was a fake tank or a maus prototipe
The Mauschen is a real design, but never left paper printing. It's design dates to October 28th, 1942. The only design of the Maus lineage put to steel was the version a few minor revisions(such as filling in the slots for the hull mounted flamethrowers) removed from the design we know of today in Kubinka museum.
WOT is the common denominator here. It's a Belarussian owned game platform that many people still believe only fields vehicle with at least some basis in historical reality . Even though WOT has long since abandoned this policy many people still regard a WOT creation as being a real.
Not done by germany the Yugoslavian partizans did some interesting re-arms of stuarts given to them via lend lease using german quad AA's and pak guns. Those are on my wish list to be added in WT if just for the memes like other yugo frankentanks
The effort they would have needed to put into simply just wouldn´t have made much sense, because the Soviets had more than enough Tank Guns that could penetrate everything the enemy could field rather easy at the end of the war.
The rebore might have used a 88mm shell with a modified 85mm case. This would minimize the modification required and reloading the brass easier than making quality 85mm shells and casings. Yet pointless as T34 hulls are useful for many things that require no ammo.
It's entirely *possible* that a unit might've done one-off modification like that. Just because the captured T-34 hull would be more useful for other purposes doesn't mean it might not be tried. After all, there was the documented instance of a captured KV-1 being fitted with a 7.5cm KwK 40, which seems like more effort that it was worth. But at that moment, presumably a unit had a wrecked Panzer IV and a captured KV-1 (possibly with a damaged barrel) and decided they could make the KV-1 into a functional tank to replace their Panzer IV and bring themselves back up to full strength.
Can you guys stop calling 8,8cm KwK 36 cannon (and all PaK, Flak, KwK guns of 88mm size caliber) the "88mm gun"? Nobody in history did that, ever. There is a reason it is 8,8cm, not 88mm.
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Could you cover the panzer iv/v and the iii/iv from WoT
The iv/v is a panther with a panzer iv h turret and gun
Hey steve what do you think about the kv1 with pak40?
@@darknut9696 Both are real. The V/IV was a single vehicle used by the Schwere Panzer Abteilung 653 (which also operated a Tiger P) and it was a Bergepanther tank recovery vehicle with the Panzer IV turret fitted to it and it was used as a command tank. However, unlike in WoT, the turret was bolted down and could not rotate at all.
The Panzer III/IV was a prototype that was made at the time where the Panzer IV was only equipped with a short 75mm which was not very good against tanks. The Panzer III/IV combined various elements of the two vehicles together, and also added novel elements such as a long 75mm gun, sloped frontal armor, and I believe a new engine as well. However, the German Army decided it would rather not complicate the factories with new production and just upgraded the Panzer IV with the new gun and engine.
The Nashorn/Hornisse tank destroyer and Hummel SPG were later built on the Geschutzwagen III/IV chassis, which confusingly is a different design from the Panzer III/IV but borrowed many of its ideas.
I have no knowledge of any 88 armed T-34s, but there was an rearming of an T-34-85 with a German gun during the war made by Finns. One of the captured T-34-85s was modified to fit a Pak 40 to test if this was an feasible modification to ease the ammo logistics of Finnish tanks. The tank was eventually given its original gun back, but it retained a modified mantle. The tank is novadays on display at Parola armour museum, where it is recognisable from the modified mantlet.
There’s the German one that was competing with the production Panther
I think it was a 88, it was probably a 75 long now that I think about it
@@averagesnailgodpraiser3840 the vk 30.01 and 0.2 D?
@@bigmac3373 the VK 30.01 is a tiger porsche prototype so no
@@angryman_ i mean the vk 30.01 *D* from daimler benz
WoT literally combines any two tanks and calls it a premium for 10$
Go to console (WoT), go buy it since it can train 2 nations (USSR and Deutschland) with no gold to transfer nations spent 🗿
@@bilibilix4007 when you use 100% of brain power
@@datpudding5338 no cap true
Bro what?
if they add bmp-2m combined to t-72 turms-t i’d play wot
(just image a t-72 with 4x atgms, 30mm grenade launcher, 30mm auto-cannon, entrenching tool and era)
Can we take a moment to appreciate the work this man is going to entertain and educate us? Man thank you very much!
This man easily makes this entertaining and educating
Not sure how Germany plays into any of this, but there actually was a T-34-85 with redrilled bore and modified breach to accept ammo from Kwk36. It was soviet experiment to see if captured supplies of german ammo were of any use without captured guns. Basically it was the same modification germans did on soviet 85mm AA guns to supply them. Resulting barrel life was very low btw. Yuri Pasholok has an article on that tank in archive documents
I believe one prototype was built but the design was too complicated and was not pursued any further after that. But I am not sure this has ever been confirmed.
sorry, not a good joke.
You’re probably right. Even if it was real the effectiveness would be incredibly questionable considering that the guns would not be designed to shoot larger shells.
to make the kwk 36 ammunition seat properly and fire safely would likely not actually require a breach modification as the rim sizes are within 0.25mm of each other with the kwk 36 using a 115.5mm +/- about 0.15mm rim size and the soviet being 115.75mm +/- about 0.20mm, you may require a very slight modification to the extractor as that is going to be the most ficicky part of the modification, but this may work by simply filing the inside edge of the extractor or the inside of the extractor groove to allow the extractor to pop in a bit more.
The T34 with an 88mm wich is most likely is Yugoslav T34A wich is basically a T34 with French 90mm guns, there was also a T34B with a 90 mil from a Pershing, but most commonly known T34A got a standard 85mm gun, there is a T34A with a French 90mm still surviving on Kalemegdan in Belgrade
Speaking of the Yugoslav Army, you might recall the movie, "Kelly's Heroes", which features Yugoslav T-34/85s mocked up to look like Tiger Is. Although the conversion is obvious to anyone that knows something of WWII-era tanks, for 1970 it was a reasonable job. These machines had taken part in a movie made the prior year in Yugoslavia, As far as I can tell, the tank guns appear to be the standard D5T 85mm guns with muzzle brakes fitted.
@@selfdo it's an 85 with a muzzle brake
@@stralegaming2597 I thought I said that. Whether that muzzle brake has any effect, IDK, it certain didn't come out of any Soviet "Zavod" with one.
@@selfdo yugos did modify some T-34-85s with muzzle breaks, thats the one thing to survive out of the Tank type A project
the french gun thing is a fabrication as they didn't even have access to those back then or friendly enough relations in france, They just used standard guns with a muzzle break, and there wasn't a "T34B" and the actual one wasn't even called "T34A" but "tank type A". 90mm from M47 or M36 was considered later on but scrapped along with the whole program as soviet tanks became available. The tank in Kalemegdan is the sole survivor of the tank type A program but two turrets survived and are on display in croatia. The muzzle break concept was actually later applied to some T-34-85s as later as the 90s.
Maybe they actually attempted to rebore a T-34-85 but failed, the story that the tank commander tells is only half of it and someone misinterpreted the story.
Seem plausible to me.
Or the veteran is just senile and is misremembering things.
wouldn't the barrel be thinner if so i would not like to fire it too many times in a row, or does it mean the barrel was replaced to avoid it...you know...having the barrel explode, cause as we know soviet steel was not exactly done professionally
@@andreyradchenko8200 Or he heard the story from someone else, as a rumor going around from soldier to soldier.
You could rebore the barrel and use 85mm cartridge cases with 88mm projectiles. No reason not to do it as a 1-off. If they did, it obviously wasn't successful.
There are some examples of field modifications like the Flak88/T34, but usually with smaller AA Guns to make a mobile AA platform.
the rebored 85mm could work if they somehow had many soviet 85mm casings without shells and adapt them to use german 88mm shells instead, but it would be prone to malfunction due to stuck casings
Aswell as intensely shortening the lifespan considering the smaller wall thickness of the gun while taking a presumably higher pressure due to the heavier projectile and the barrel/material being designed/chosen for use with the 85mm
@@datpudding5338 agree but considering the situation the german army was in, the lifespan of a modified gun would be playing second fiddle at best.
Getting casings with power but without shells is highly unlikely with single-peice ammo, and you'd still be left with a gun that has limited foreign ammunition so it wouldn't even solve to problem
Prone To Malfunction Didn't Stop Them From Making A Tank That Breaks Down Evry 2 Meters And Instantly Breaks If It Goes Uphill.
The Elefant Tank Destroyer
A rebored 85mm is a possibility, an 88/85 could really existe, but firing only kinectic shells, as the decrease in barrel caliber forces the projectile to compress its diameter, but making it denser than a common 85mm projectile
I was wondering when you were going to cover this topic, really cool info!
I believe there is actual photographic evidence that the Germans field modified at least one Pzkpfw-IV chassis to mount a 88mm Flak36 where they removed the turret and superstructure to mount the Flak gun. As far as the rebored 85mm. I would be willing to bet that it was actually an ex-Soviet Pak36(r) 76.2mm L/51 mounted into a T34/85 turret - the same used in the 76.2mm Marders. This would make more sense since the Germans had a plentiful supply of that ammunition. It could also give rise to the myth of either an 88mm mounted into the turret or a rebored 85mm.
Another possibility is they could have fitted a German 88mm projectile into a Russian 85mm case rather than rebored the 85mm gun. Using a lathe to turn down driving bands is a rather more trivial exercise than reboring a gun... and there's actual precedent in that the British did that very thing with captured German 75mm AP ammo in North Africa.
@@christopherroach264
Good point. The ballistics of such a change would be questionable however. Sure it would work; but the velocity would be worse than a normal 88mm and certainly only HEAT or APCR would have been effective at penetrating the T-34-85s and IS-2s by 1944.
The most famous photo of the flak 36 T-34 is known to be faked
@@ladela7348 Yeah, that's what's this video is about.
An paper machine, first time I heard of it it was on WoT Console ;-;
*The quality is awesome as always for the vids, keep it up Cone!*
Could it have been possible that a unit in the field mounted the muzzle brake from an 88 on the end of their t34-85 as a trophy? That would seem like the easiest way to confuse someone into believing that there was an 88 fitted to the tank.
I don't see the point of doing so. It could be bad for the gun to have a weight added to the end for which it wasn't made and the muzzle break will increase the flash and dirt being kicked up which is bad for any allied troops and makes the tank more visible to the enemy...
@@edi9892 i dont think soviet infantryman really knew or cared about the advanced mechanics of sticking heavy objects on the barrels of tanks, it seems completely plausible that they might stick a muzzle break from a different tank on a t34.
About time someone looked at, examined and debunked these tank myths. The internet is awash with nonsense that the 'game' and kit companies exploit to make more money. Thank you, and I hope you do many more of this type of production....by the way, did you hear about the Matilda II with a fixed 128mm PAK and rear facing flame thrower? It's true, I saw one in a dream once...
It'd be cool if you could do a video on the T-34-62. A T-34 supposedly modified to fit a T-62 turret. Great vid btw!
You should keep making more fake tank videos. these are very entertaining
The most plausible one would be if they re-gunned a t-34-100. The turret might be large enough. Though most references seem to be a normal t-34-85
However, there was only one T-34-100 ever built, and the Germans never captured it.
I disagree with you on the reboring. I'd say that it was plausible enough that it shouldn't be considered a definite fake tank like first one. While there isn't any definite proof that it existed, more than enough documentation on these sorts of things is lost and the reboring process is subtle enough that it would be nearly impossible to actually get any picture proof of one operating in the field without seeing the 88mm munition being loaded in, or the reboring process itself. As you said yourself, this process, including modifying the breach, was done on flak 85 guns. The most likely scenario was that some of the 85mm guns that were rebored back in Germany were sent to the front, and somebody in the field had the idea of using this rebored gun on a T-34 as to decrease logisitcal strain on capture munitions.
To add on to the plausibility of the reboring, the Soviet D-5t, the main gun of t-34-85s, was based off of the Soviet 85mm AA gun, even using the same ammo. It’s entirely possible a very janky attempt was made utilizing parts from one of these AA guns to make the tank.
It was supposedly done but the information on the reboring isn't that detailed either. There's just far too much unknown to say anything other than it's most likely fake unless information is found.
I think its possible that they also adapted captured 85mm casing to use 88mm shells, would be messy to operate but eliminates major changes to the breach
@@ConeOfArc aye I agree, there's no information out there to say it existed for sure, but it feels too plausible to say with confidence that it is fake. Did it exist? Probably not but nobody can actually say for sure. "Fake Tank" is too strong of a label. I think that "Plausible Tank" with an explanation of why is better but also citing that ultimately we just don't know. Certainly more real than the E-79 if only because there's a logical enough chain of real events that may or may not have resulted in it.
It's also plausible that a T-34-85 could have its gun bored out to 88mm, and the 88mm projectiles combined with Soviet 85mm shell casings. This wouldn't be ideal (you'd have to reuse the fired shell casings repeatedly due to limited availability), but it'd remove the need for modifying the breech (which is much more difficult to do in the field than boring out the barrel).
I want to see paper firing cannons shooting at steel now.
Or Grass firing cannons shooting at people who didn't touch grass 🗿
Have you ever had the idea of creating fake tanks yourself or from a fan and explaining if their creation could be possible or not, for example I came up with an EBR with a chaffe turret since the m24 turret fits in a amx13 chassis and following this process putting the chaffe turret in the ebr sounds possible to me, and making this creation more interesting I came up with the idea of putting the 60mm hvms cannon that israel proposed for the chaffe imported to chile
I used the translator since I'm not good at English
I also have a drawing that I made myself and I don't know where to share it
That is very interesting. I think ConeOfArc could use this for a separate series, just like you said
I was unaware of the gun swap "T-34-88" tanks but I was familiar with the one with the photoshopped Flak 88 mounting and how it was fake. Learn something new every day
I’ll try to find the article and the documents but I did read of a SU model being from refitted with a flak 88 in By German forces in Poland. The source stated that it was captured by German infantry and pulled behind enemy lines they believe it was abandoned as it had run out of ammo. Over a few weeks it was refitted with a 88 but the vehicle was destroyed while being moved back to Berlin
The Finns apparently used 85 mm Soviet AA guns *relined* to use Flak 36 8.8 cm ammo. Simple reboring wouldn't work because the cart casing of the 85 mm is 629mm from the base to the mouth (85x629R112 mm) versus 571 mm of the 8.8 cm for the Flak18/36 & KwK36 (88x571R111 mm). Thus there was a gap of 58+ mm between the mouth if the 88 mm case and start of the rifling of the 85 mm. Relining would involve boring & fitting a sleeve/insert inside the chamber (or replace the "A" tube of the 85 mm if it wasn't a monoblock) all the way to the muzzle. The rim diameters are close enough so that modified extractors would be fitted.
in 1942-43 when T-34-76s were captured, the germans attempted to regun the tanks with the KwK 36 L42.
it was impossible to keep the original soviet designed 2 man turrets, and putting a custom designed 3 man turret with a larger breech and more equipment to an already small turret ring was logistically more of a nightmare than reverse engineering 76.2mm shells or just moving captured ammo.
this is really interesting... would it be possible to actually do this? im sure you could maybe do this in a T34-100 turret or something of the like?
*Installs a 122mm gun on the turret*
The Riga area would be the one place on the eastern front where this one off could have happened in 44-45. It’s not just that local shipyards had the equipment and machinists to pull of modifications to weapon or the ammunition, but the area had been home to a large complex of German workshops that had repaired and rebuilt significant numbers of German and Russia tanks and heavy weapons. If the T-34-85 Tiger main gun or Russian rebore happened it would not have been a field conversation.
Latvia and courland mentioned🎉
'Its not possible if you want to fire a german 88 on a t34 the t34 gets a mustache und explode itself xaxaxa
I think a more likely functional experiment would be a a soviet Sherman M4A2 76(w) with an 88. The result modification would probably force the turret to have a two man crew however. captured 76mm would be hard to come by, since it was specifically for these lend lease tanks, and replacement parts would be easy to find since they would be able to get parts from other captured shermans.
Love that the music in the background is the same used by mountain general lmao
even WarGaming is known for fake tanks, i completely understand them, its good to make some creative vehicles and weird experiments with them just for fun, and WarGaming is good at doing such weirdies
i've been around the tank community for over 3 years and i never heard about a t 34 with a 88mm gun
Reboring a cannon barrel sounds great and easy for a layman, but rebore a different caliber gun is really a complex and exacting operation. you have to factor in barrel thickness, pressures, and even the twist of the rifling to get everything right.
Great series buddy. Keep um coming !😎
Before watching I could completely believe all of these have been at least thought of being made
That Flak-88 T34 looks sexy. Reminds me of the profile silhouette of the Grille-15 from WoT
Regarding a T-34/85 rebored to fire 88mm. You dont have to rebore it, you just have to ream out the diameter by 3mm. A well worn barrel might not even need to be reamed out.
Regarding the projectile, casing, and breech. You cant really modify the casing because you would have to modify the breech as well. Modifying the breech would be very hard to do.
What would be pretty easy to do is take a 88mm projectile, disassemble it and remove explosive filler and fuze, place the projectile in a lathe which any battalion level machine shop or Latvian shipyard should have access to, turn down the base of the 88mm projectile to fit the 85mm casing, reassemble. fire down your reamed out barrel.
In North Africa in 1942 the Commonwealth troops had the Axis on the run after El Alamein. US AP rounds like M72 AP and M61 APCBC were not very good and performance varied widely *wAS TRACED TO FAULTY MANUFACTURING). The Commonwealth forces captured Tobruk and found a warehouse full of German 75mm Pz.Gr.39 rounds.
A Australian officer named Major Northy got the idea to remove Pz.Gr.39 projectile from the German casing, machine down the base of the projectile to fit US 75mm M3 shell casing and reassembled to fire a superior APCBC round to use against the Germans. Records indicate about 15,000 rounds were converted, best estimate about 9,000 were used.
So someone decided to fill the gaping lack of "Fake Tank" channels? Ok then.
FYI , Wargaming is a big player in military restoration circles and countries have handed them all kinds of never seen information. They have released several "paper" vehicles using actual schematics of unbuilt Ships , tanks and aircraft. Model makers generally have 1 model with a specific German unit group that used repurposed allied military vehicles .
I have dozens of relatives who fought in the Great Patriotic War who told me stories of these and their own modifications. Anti aircraft refits were more prevalent in early years before allied air superiority and parts of eastern front
T-34 with more powerful gun was SU-100, one of most famous tank destroyers. It used T-34 chassis with casemate superstructure housing D-10 gun of T-54/55 fame. There was also T-44 but by 1944 Soviets figured out that retooling production lines (and slowing down production) have no sense, since they had heavy breakthrough tank IS-2 and SU-100 to contain any German attack with Panther and Tiger tanks.
I didn't know about any of these versions, but it was interesting to watch.
its possible the muzzle brake and breech were repurposed for the re-bored gun, or at least parts of it, the muzzle brake could add weight to the end of the gun and keep it from splitting as easily
Love the Sacred War in the background
I didn't know thes tanks even existed before now like the series keep it up.
Reboring is actually possible judging that the caliber difference is only 3millimeters, but the much bigger pressure generated by the propellant and the now slightly weakend gun barrel integrity makes me clinch my teeth a little bit
Wait - someone fitted a 122 mm to a T-34 hull? What madness! I want one.
Excellent video as always.
IIRC the Egyptian army did that, but those were more or less just self propelled artillery
Man, the idea of trying to deal with the added size of the KwK 36's shells inside the already notoriously cramped interior of the T-34 is not a pleasant image.
The Soviet 85 and the German 88 are actually the same diameter at their thickest part due to the rim of the shell so there would be no need to rebore the breach.
Instead of if you give a mouse a cookie there should be a book called "If you give a Wehraboo a photoshopped tank."
At around 4:44, aint that pic from Tampere, Kauppi park?
Thank you for your hard work. Cone of Arc.
Cone of Arc. The best tank nerd around. 😊
I find it funny people find it so implausible these tanks could have existed without intense documentation, Stuff like this was done a lot in WW2 especialy the more equipment strapped an army would be. Improvisation is one of the most necessary skills in a good military. Lots of history only survives through first hand accounts without intense documentation, especially the further back in history you go.
That was amazing, thanks! Just subbed in 🤩
Maybe the gun was a 75mm like on the Panzer-IV, and was mistaken for an 88 given the very simular muzzle breaks.
After all allied tankers sometimes mistook Panzer-IVs for tiger due to that reason, plus distance. Or so iam told.
Not only that, but later Panzer IVs had an armored skirt around the turret which made it appear to have a round shape, like the Tiger's turret.
@@KermitTheGamer21 I forgot about that yeah!
I actually bought the T-34 with the tiger gun in world of tanks and I absolutely loved it.
That KV-1 with the 75mm that gun is the very same gun that was used on the Panzer IV H.
Ngl i do think of making a museum of concept tanks. Like that one and many many many others that are full sized
I remember when the WoT Xbox 360 server still existed. The T-34-88 was a hit or miss tank for me. I miss it.
Panzer front music nice
Did Romania captured Tiger tanks after King Michael coup? There are some sources that say it did and some that doen't mention it.
The Germans and their imaginations... they never cease to impress me with the designs that they show the 20'th Century UA-cam history community..
I should say this there is a t 34 85 tank in yugoslavia designed to fit a bigger gun and more armor i do not know the the name of it but there were 2 prot types with diffrent guns but same more armored heavy hull
0:36 Stop teasing us and make the video on the KV1/2 Calliope w/flak already! We are waiting!
not a bad tank in game( t34 88), I always enjoy these videos.
Third Video of requesting of you know anything about the 'midgardschlange' "Mole Tank" project
I wonder if this is related to the studies Germany did on the t34 where they reasoned that copying the design would cost just as much as building the panther from scratch.
ua-cam.com/video/vczPA1xGJQI/v-deo.html
Germany, so short sighted on "Total War" that they were critically short of Combat Tanks. Earlier in the war, Germany did re-gun captured Soviet KV-1's & some KV-2's., but by 1943, they just added side-skirts, Large "Balkenkreuz" crosses & maybe Cupolas to the T34/76's (like 2d SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" at Kursk... The German forces on the Eastern Front had plenty of captured Soviet ammo to rearm captured Soviet Tanks.... All the recently recovered former German T-34's are armed to the Teeth! Ammo was always available, Fuel wasn't!
No way the 88mm would fit in a T34 turret. However, what does fit and was actually done, was to rearm a KV-1 with the 75mm Pak 40, the Germans made a few such conversions, they fitted them with cupolas too. They were probably quite effective.
Even the flak 18 version would be very weird to operate. Lets consider the scenario where you bolt/weld the flak base on top of the hull, covering most of the hole inside the former turret ring. So now, where would you place the gun crew? Presumably on top of the hull, instead of the hole, that is now covered with the either the 4 legs of the flak gun, or with a plate on top of which the gun is welded on. Ok, thats the crew. But where do you put the ammo? Inside the hull? Well, I´d say that would be extremely unpractical, as it would mean that the loader would have to climb inside, grab the ammo, somehow squeeze it around the legs of the flak and on top of the hull, then climb out and load the shell inside the gun.
And whats the other option? Well, put the box with the shell between the gun and the engine cover. I.e. on the place that is most likely to be hit by gunfire from both enemy ground units and airplanes.
I was able to faintly hear the Soviet theme from the Panzer Front game. Nice ;-)
Why always we talk about fake tanks, WOT name appears 🤣🤣🤣
Good video!
Jez the front cover of this video looks so cursed. Long 88 with t34 chassis
Your videos are awesome 😎
The panzer front music I'm the background is great
Latvia had a very creative shipyard
Can you do a fake tank Friday or cursed by design on the P. 1000 RATTE please and love the content
I can throw some extra bits of info in the WoT Console variant known as T-34-88. Latvia's one supossedly had an inscription in the gun in german that, translated into english, is something like "Is coming". However, the WoT Console model's inscription can be translated as "don't throw it (away), fit it!"
Another curiosity is, that model and the one of the AMX Chaffee (a M24 chasis using the turret and the 75mm gun of the AMX 13) were at least on the early versions of the orginal PC game, well hidden as for many other models. All it took to Console devs team was just to make it available publicly. Same as a Console exclusive US Sexton I that, in origin, was a first concept on SPG's shelved by WoT PC team as they deemed it way overpowered. Being shaped lately in the UK Sexton I that everybody knows in PC
Hey I got a crazy proposal for the next fake tank.
The Steamtank from Wargamers fantasy given how absurd it looks and that it was used in a fantasy Renaissance Germany.
Bruh I made a model of this thing using the hollowed out shell of a firework tank that looked like a t-34 and an extra tiger cannon leftover from my last 1/35 model. I didn’t even know that was a tank people thought were real! I made it that way only because I lacked any other convincing cannon for the improvised model. What a strange coincidence.
Ngl some of the WoT console fake tanks are straight up wacky
How about the next Cursed tank, the Chrysler TV-8?
If it was a gun-change or rebore its more likly to be 75mm as its more available and easier to make it smaller then wider
If it was a turret swap it would more likly be with a pz 4 or panther but still need a ring
The 88 to the germans was what the 17pdr was for the british but atleast the british some what succeded with the firefly and archer
How is a rebore from 85 to 75 possible?
@@poldi2233 Soviet Naval 180mm cannons are mostly rebored 203mm ones. You put in an insert into the barrel that makes the inside diameter smaller, but it isn't any easier then drilling out to a bigger bore.
@@shepardpolska Yup, and you still need to rebore inserted one because it would be managed with the differences of the temperatures between a gun and the insert to fit the two snuggly. Any such heating and normalizing would most likely need a correction. Maybe even straightening the barrel.
You stated that only plants in Germany had the capability to rebore the gun etc. That is simply not true any shipyard would have the tools and the know-how to do it while you are very knowledgeable on tanks you are clearly out of your knowledge zone when it comes to shipyards with them often being brought in to make specialist changes to tanks as they usually had the best welders as well as far superior equipment than your average tank factory with many countries literally using shipyards to make tanks Harland and Wolff made hundreds of Tanks as did Beardsmore and Camel Laird. Such a gun would have issues and would have a very limited barrel life but as a stop-gap measure, it is feasible.
It really depends on the shipyard. I do not think Latvia made any military vessels. If it was just used for a Baltic merchant/fishing navy, it wouldn't necessarily be very sophisticated.
@@lucidnonsense942 Lativia like many of the baltic states invested heavily in shipyards in the 1920s especially around Riga, as not only did they inherit a lot of imperial Russian equipment as Riga was one of the key support centers for the Russian Baltic Fleet which in WW1 was there most modern Fleet on top of this there was and always has been a large amount of trade in the Baltic. Even a commercial yard would need good tools even if they were just making fishing vessels as that would still require precision lathes, cutting equipment riveting equipment, cranes, and welding equipment.
It's not reboring the gun that would be of much difficulty. It's altering the breech to handle a different shell casing.
Good video as always! Next time can you talk about the "mauschen"? Long ago i had a long discussion with a friend talking if the mauschen was a fake tank or a maus prototipe
The Mauschen is a real design, but never left paper printing. It's design dates to October 28th, 1942.
The only design of the Maus lineage put to steel was the version a few minor revisions(such as filling in the slots for the hull mounted flamethrowers) removed from the design we know of today in Kubinka museum.
@@Legiondude is there any existent image of the paper printing? Because when i talked with my frirnd i found not a single image
One of the best tier 6 premiums on WoT console. It's a beast
Very cool premise honestly.
WOT is the common denominator here. It's a Belarussian owned game platform that many people still believe only fields vehicle with at least some basis in historical reality . Even though WOT has long since abandoned this policy many people still regard a WOT creation as being a real.
Not done by germany the Yugoslavian partizans did some interesting re-arms of stuarts given to them via lend lease using german quad AA's and pak guns. Those are on my wish list to be added in WT if just for the memes like other yugo frankentanks
Well it exsisted actually because it was good Cone. Tigers were complicaited themselves and still were mass produced.
For failgaming company, that will be a perfect tier 6 premium to sell when they'll get it on the game
The effort they would have needed to put into simply just wouldn´t have made much sense, because the Soviets had more than enough Tank Guns that could penetrate everything the enemy could field rather easy at the end of the war.
As a Latvian i am interested seing something like this to be asociated with Latvia
A factor to help judge feasibility is turret ring diameter. Any info on that?
And the length of the breach and the length of the cartridge.
There was at least one panzer IV with a flak 36/37 88 mm.
no mention of "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - Spearhead" t34-88?
Hey cone!, Can you please make a vid about the KV2 with the IS hull
Should've never sold my grizzly
The 88 flak is about as plausible as the other 2 thered be no elevation for it
Fascinating video .
The rebore might have used a 88mm shell with a modified 85mm case. This would minimize the modification required and reloading the brass easier than making quality 85mm shells and casings. Yet pointless as T34 hulls are useful for many things that require no ammo.
It's entirely *possible* that a unit might've done one-off modification like that. Just because the captured T-34 hull would be more useful for other purposes doesn't mean it might not be tried.
After all, there was the documented instance of a captured KV-1 being fitted with a 7.5cm KwK 40, which seems like more effort that it was worth. But at that moment, presumably a unit had a wrecked Panzer IV and a captured KV-1 (possibly with a damaged barrel) and decided they could make the KV-1 into a functional tank to replace their Panzer IV and bring themselves back up to full strength.
Can you guys stop calling 8,8cm KwK 36 cannon (and all PaK, Flak, KwK guns of 88mm size caliber) the "88mm gun"? Nobody in history did that, ever. There is a reason it is 8,8cm, not 88mm.