M26 Pershing vs T34-85

It’s the evening of August 17th, 1950, near the city of Pusan, in South Korea. UN forces have been pushed back from the moment they became involved, going from just south of Seoul to cornered against the sea in Pusan in just a month. The North Koreans are equipped with Soviet T34-85s, which outnumber and outgun the American tanks, leaving the soldiers fighting them with bazookas or no anti-tank weapons at all. Lieutenant Granville George "GG" Sweet leads a four tank platoon of M26 Pershings, which have
been performing well in the defense of Pusan, but is about to face the tank that has been dominating the battlefield in the last month. An urgent message arrives through the radio, "Flash Purple!" incoming enemy armor. Sweet and his crew prepare for combat and engage in a fierce tank battle against the T34-85s. They form a wall across a road and aim straight ahead as the enemy approaches. Fullerton takes his position, when suddenly a T-34 rounds the corner before him.

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[ALJZ]

If you watch the original bf109 sparing a b17 vid or a long time viewer, you can really feel the warmth in your heart to see how realistically the animation has become

[JetS_Gamer]

I really love how the detail and effort in these videos are getting butter and better, especially liking the detail of the shells fired flying towards their targets

[wadimgrig]

only pindos can incorrectly evaluate the battle of the lance of heavy vehicles against the lance of medium tanks...And if there were IS-2, pershings would burn.
The Pershing was originally created as a medium tank, but at the end of 1944, to raise the confidence of the crews, it was reclassified as heavy. In May 1946, due to the changed American concept of tank forces, the Pershing was again reclassified as a medium tank. He is 10 (!) tons heavier than his opponent!

[WolfBlade-]

Dude I remember watching these guys years ago. Ive kept watching them until now, but this video really hit home to me just how much they've improved. These animations are amazing!

[maheshdwic]

Can we take a moment to appreciate how much better these videos have gotten over the years? BUT If you watch the original bf109 sparing a b17 vid or a long time viewer, you can really feel the warmth in your heart to see how realistically the animation has become

[Idothingys]

Ive been a follower since the bf109 sparing ye ol pub and the graphic are so much better and interesting

[Bertik.]

u guys always astonish me how fast u manage to produce the videos, my question is how do u guys manage to find all these great stories?

[SonyBartolata]

Pershings in War Thunder: I have armor that is pretty good and my 90 mm gun can penetrate Tigers and Panther from distances
Pershing in real life: My armor is useless if my engine always breaks down!!!

[allenjay]

DUDE THAT FACIAL DETAILS ARE SO DAMN SICK

[MrSamcooly]

Wow it’s really nice like from the OG b109 sparing a b17 to the 3D vids but the people weren’t that realistic to now everything realistic

Also is it okay you make a video about the Pearl Harbor attack ik you already made a vid about the first black man in the us navy to get the Medal of Honor but if you don’t want to make one it’s okay

[TheNotoriousNemo]

I love these videos and I love yarnhub

[ДмитроПодорванський]

And now almost the same take place in Ukraine... And russian T-72 and T-90 burns very well with the help of Javelin and other US weapon. Glory to US weapon! Victory to Ukraine!

[Slevwy]

Lets face it, a t-34-85 has never stood a chance against larger canons. Despite the t-34-85 being one of the best and most efficient tanks, it didn't have the armor or canon to do too much itself.

[Sllammyy]

This channel is growing to be very, very impressive. Not just the incredible animation, but also the way that Yarnhub is able to make such interesting and easy to watch video while still being very informative. I find that with many YouTubers, documentaries, etc I get bored very quickly watching and never get to learn the full story.

[visassess]

The Korean War is too overlooked there are some absolutely incredible battles to be told about it. Glad you guys are getting stories like this out there

[jessiesheriff]

I'm a 71 yr old woman and retired truck driver who began watching YouTube videos of gardening and such to find a hobby to fill my days. I was curious when one of your earliest videos showed up in my feed. I was impressed and shared it with my son. A few months later I went to visit him, his girlfriend and her 9 yr old son. Being a typical 9 yr old, he loves anything military, especially aircraft and was excited to show me his collection. He began to tell a story and demonstrating maneuvers. It didn't take long for me to realize that he was telling one of your stories. When he finished I asked if he got it from Yarnhub. When he realized I liked you too, we spent the time before dinner to rewatch a few of his favorites. My son told me recently that he has shown interest in other areas of history and is reading above grade average. You and your team have lite a spark. Your love of history shows in every episode. Thank you

[Commander]

I love how the gun is so effective that it's ineffective at first

[ThatGuyOrby]

The M26 Pershing really was quite the overmatch for the T-34-85. It's frontal armor was essentially impenetrable to the 85mm gun and there was essentially no range that the M26 could realistically hit the T-34-85 that it wouldn't penetrate unless the shell struck at a very unlucky angle (as happened sometimes with older conventional full-caliber style AP projectiles). However, the M26 were very few in number as their production was very short lived due to the end of WW2 so there were only a little more than 4, 500* ever made due to the lack of a need. Once the Korean War kicked off the M26's replacement, the M46 (which was just a Pershing with a lot of improvements) was already in production so there wasn't a need for more M26s to be made. In fact a lot of M26s were busy being converted to M46s (yes the tanks were that similar that the older M26s could simply be updated to the M46 standard).

For a bit of a comparison in hard stats (these don't tell the full story but they'll give you an idea of why things unfolded the way they did).

Frontal Hull Armor (effective thickness):
-Pershing: 155mm (102mm inclined at 42 degrees)
-T-34-85: 90mm (45mm inclined at 30 degrees)

Frontal Turret Armor (effective thickness)
-Pershing: 216mm+ (102mm mantlet, 114mm underlapping turret face, spall shield of unspecified thickness)
-T-34-85: 180mm (90mm mantlet, 90mm underlapping turret face though coverage was to a lesser degree)

Maximum Armor Penetration (best AP shell available, only using data at shared test ranges):
-Pershing (T33 AP): 211mm at 100m, 200mm at 300m, 193mm at 500m, 178mm at 1000m, 174mm at 1500m, 150mm at 2000m, 139mm at 2500m, 128mm at 3000m
-T-34-85 (BR-365): 119mm at 100m, 115mm at 300m, 111mm at 500m, 102mm at 1000m, 93mm at 1500m, 85mm at 2000m, 76mm at 2500m, 70mm at 3000m

There are also other factors like the Pershing being considerably less cramped than the T-34-85, having actually pretty good sights for it's time (unlike the T-34-85), being an exceedingly stable platform due to it's design and weight, having decent commander's sights (again, for the time), etc.

There are a lot of soft factors that go into why a tank is successful and they're often have a greater impact than strict hard stats if the tanks are even roughly comparable. Unfortunately by the standards of their day, they were not even remotely comparable even if the difference seems minimal to us by modern standards were tanks are armored to resist shells with 600-800mm+ penetration values. It's all about context.

The M26 Pershing crews back then also had absolutely no way of knowing this. They likely knew that their tanks was pretty good, they might've even known that it was likely better than their opposition...but there is simply no way that they logically could've assumed that their vehicles were that much better because assuming something like that and turning out to be wrong is how you get yourself killed. It is always safer to assume that you're at best on par with your enemy when it comes to such things. After all, making such assumptions when you don't know is simply laughing in Death's face and asking him not to laugh back.

As a final note there is also one last very important thing to touch on. The M26 Pershing was "practically" frontally impenetrable to the 85mm D-5T anti-tank gun the T-34-85 carried. However, there were two weak spots where it likely would've been capable of penetrating at close range. These weak spots are actually quite infamous. The bow machinegun port in the hull and the coaxial machinegun port in the turret. Both incredibly small targets but important to note regardless. There's also the obvious factor that none of this matters if they got to the M26's side because it's armor was only 76mm on the sides, still much greater than the T-34's but still completely vulnerable. No tank is invulnerable, no tank has ever been invulnerable. Some tanks have just been notably harder to kill in their time.

[thatdumbQ]

i cant believe how high quality this is for a small channel, you truly deserve so much more than this. appreciate the hard work and thanks for making such entertaining content :)

[nelsons]

It is absolutely amazing how fast your team can fix bugs. Thanks for another amazing video!