How Bad Was The T-34?

After doing videos on the M4, Panther, Tiger, and other various maligned tanks, the Soviet T-34 medium tank was heavily requested. The T-34 has this reputation as a mass produced pile of junk, so let's see just how accurate that statement is.

Check the channel "About" section for the link to the creator of my profile picture.

Sources:
Soviet T-54 Main Battle Tank - James Kinnear and Stephen L. Sewell
T-34-85 Medium Tank 1944–94 - Steven J. Zaloga and James Kinnear
Engineering Analysis of the Russian T-34/85 Tank - Central Intelligence Agency
Designing the T-34: Genesis of the Revolutionary Soviet Tank - Peter Samsonov
T-34 Shock: The Soviet Legend in Pictures - Francis Pulham, Will Kerrs
Panther vs T-34 - Robert Forczyk
The Tanks of Operation Barbarossa - Boris Kavalerchik
Tanks of the USSR - Alexander Ludeke
T-34 in Action - Artem Drabkin

Songs used (in order from first to last):
Halo Infinite - Various Unnamed Tracks
Halo 3: ODST - Rain (Deference for Darkness)

Sound mods:
Epic Thunder (Pre-release)
Armored Warfare Crew Voices

Reddit: /u/spookston
Discord: See my Patreon page.

#warthunder​​​​​​​​​​​​ #tanks​​​​​​​​​​​​ #tankhistory

[Spookston]

Small mistake; I said the commander had to both load and direct the gunner, but he actually was the one in charge of gunner duties. It was still incredibly taxing for him though, trying to engage tanks while also directing the rest of the crew.

[gabornemes]

It always amazes me that people are suprised when others tell them that a military machine did what it was designed for

[Tankdestroyer]

Potential history did a good job explaining this.
Every tank each nation produced were the best tanks for that specific country.
Russia needed tanks that could outproduce and outnumber the Germans, so the T-34 was the perfect tank.
America needed a round tank that could fit any roll, so they created the M4 Sherman.
Germany needed heavy tanks to counter the Russian tank swarms at long distances, so they invented the big cats AKA Panther's and Tiger's.
All in all, every tank is good at a certain role for a specific nation with certain strategic roles and tactics.

[logical-checkmate]

The smoke going from the exhausts after some shots (the real life footage in the beginning) means the driver had his foot on the gas pedal and he pressed it a bit because of the recoil.

[trevorwalkerjr.]

Also good to remember that old saying.

"If the first T-34 doesn't get them, the next five will."

[Joaosantos]

"Your tank broke down comrade?"

"Da..."

*"No problem, here's another one!"*

[eugenebebs]

The most fascinating thing about t-34-75 for me is its periscopic sight. It's a weird hybrid of gunsight and panoramic sight. There is an articulated scale for shooting and a linkage to synchronize the angle of elevation of the sight head with the gun, but it could also be disconnected for the sight head to be rotated 360 degrees (user's end remains stationary). It's by far the most overengineered and sophisticated optic of the time, but also a bad idea: it was bad for observation due to narrow FOV, and also not very accurate for shooting since the gun linkage wasn't super tight. A great example of using advanced technology to make a bad tool.
Edit: Also, t-34s were initially planned to have two such sights, for each turret man, which would improve situational awareness, but shortages and aggressive streamlining ensured that the second sight would only remain on paper.

[msdos]

“It had transmission issues” aren’t those like a given at this point?

[mikhailchuryukin]

Broke down, but was easily repaired or replaced. Tanks disabled in combat refitted in factories to be used again. Germany always underestimated number of fielded tanks by the Soviet Union

[heshshell]

Potential History also made a pretty good video on this.

The components were meant to break down and be of low quality, because why have a component that runs forever when the tank is going to be destroyed in X amount of time? The T-34 was the perfect tank for the war the Soviets were fighting, and when contextualized, is one of the best from WW2.

[gabem]

There’s an alt timeline where Barbarossa gets delayed and the T-34M enters production

[ivankrylov]

T-34s were incrementally improved, just not during the production run.
The way it worked was when a factory completed an order run, it set up to re-tool the next run. The issues that were found during the last run were recorded and consolidated among all factories, and technical solutions would be available to all factories.
So when a factory began to retool their lines, the retooled for the incrementally improved version.

[Matt_from_Florida]

There's a Russian saying that explains the German's relatively low tank production compared to the Soviet Union. *Perfection is the enemy of **_good enough._*

[Tomartyr]

Broke: The T-34 was a bad tank
Woke: The T-34 was a part of an effective system of systems.

[bololollek]

To expand further:
By 1942 basically all new tank crews had a part of their training in the factory while their tank was being build so thay they would be familiar with how the T34 operates and how to fix problems. This mitigated the issue with tanks being left by the side of a road du to an easy-fix problem.
T34 losses 1941-42 can in large part be attributed to poor tactics.
T34 losses over the ourse of the whole war can also in large part be attributed to them basically always being sent on the offensive. While defending, soviet commanders almost always sent their tanks in on a counter attack, and while attacking...well then they were obviously om the attack. Attacking always leads to more losses compared to the defender. A perfect example of this is Kursk. Soviet higher command ordered the soviet tank armies to counter-attack the german tank offensive. Katukov, who commanded the 1st Guards Tank Army, argued fiercly for his army to not counter-attack the german forces but instead, as he proposed, dig in the tanks and perform ambushes. His plan was approved and he suffered fewer losses.
On the other hand Rotmistrov and his 5th Guards Tank Army counter-attacked the germans as instructed and suffered great losses.

[sawr]

1:59 look where he penned this damn thing, its nearly impossible to do that

[Mikalent]

I have not watched the video yet, but here is my pre video knowledge:

The T-34 was not the greatest tank ever, nothing ever will be, but it served the Soviets purpose, being a relatively simple design at it's inception, and a viable tank to be mass produced under less than ideal conditions. With the factory move to the Urals, the Soviet industrial base required time to ramp up and properly tool and train their factories. This lead to vastly variable quality concerning the T-34 with some using extremely low grade steel and poor wields, meaning that even AT rifles could create spal with directed at the tanks, combined with the teething issues of early production models being rushed to the front, giving the T-34 the scrap iron mythos it has today.

However those where early war tanks, and the mythos generally stuck with the German command, and with the onset of the Cold War, the west generally stuck to this early war mythos. As for the mid and late war, many of the issues that plagued early war T-34s would be hammered out. Quality would rise and become consistent as the tooling and training of the factories finished. While like the Shermans, the Germans, and by extention west, still viewed Germany's tanks as superior, in concern to the Tigers and Panthers, and while 1v1 on an open range, a Tiger or panther would typically slaughter a T-34, or Sherman for that matter, these scenarios would never occur, it would always be platoons of T-34s against smaller platoons of Panthers. I could go on more, but this post is already to long, and the various mythos of the T-34, both good and bad, are far too numerous.

[Xer]

As Potential History said "why make parts that will last 7 months when the tank will only last for 6 months". Many people forget it was intentionally designed bad to cut down price so they could crank it out in ludicrous amounts. To the point where new tanks outnumbered trained men to crew them.

[syos]

Gotta say I have great respect for both the sherman and the t-34, they're classic examples of good medium tanks done right. The t-34 on one hand was streamlined in production and rugged enough to get it's job done, easy to repair etc. While the Sherman had great upgradability and could easily be tailored to a country's needs. By no means were either perfect, but they got their intended roles done pretty dang well if I do say so myself.

[robertalaverdov]

I think what a lot of people fail to understand is that the combat role of a tank as a breakthrough vehicle doesn't require that it only be used against other tanks. If you're fighting on a front thousands of miles wide and your opponent has a few hundred really good tanks but only in a few places while you have thousands of mediocre tanks all over the front, you'll end up winning everywhere where they're not. There are countless examples of crack Panzer divisions winning local battles but being forced to retreat because the soviets overran the infantry divisions guarding their flanks. Tactically German panzer divisions were mostly superior against all the allied nations. But on an operational and strategic basis their limited presence on the vast frontline left gaps that could be exploited by the simple superiority of numbers. So the T-34 with all it's flaws performed it's job as intended and that was wining the war.