T34M in production before Barbarrossa

Good as it was for it's time, the Russians were aware of the limitations of the T34 , and were about to replace it with the improved T34M model when war started and they sensibly decided not to switch horses midstream. Considering development had been faster, and PODing improved model in such a way that it had just entered or was close enough to enter production,j making it possible to have it in units replacing the base model from September, would it make a significant diference? Consider also it's bigger turret would make up gunning it easier.
 
I don't think it would have made too big a difference, oh it was a good vehicle, but the T-34 was better than any of the German Tanks, and the weakness of the soviets at the time wasn't the equipment.
 
tactical adavantages

I don't think it would have made too big a difference, oh it was a good vehicle, but the T-34 was better than any of the German Tanks, and the weakness of the soviets at the time wasn't the equipment.

It solved the main weakness of the T34. The T34M had a bigger turret with 3 crew members with a cupola from wich the commander could actually command the tank. T34 were handicapped by poor visbility and overworked commanders. This severely limited the tactical use of the tank, specially for hurriedly trained crews. Having a properly developed tank, with German style crew arrangment, coul have led to better tactical use and, in time, revised tank unit employment.
The revised engine and transmission (an extra reduction box now giving 8 forward ratios) would probably made the tank much easir to mantain and operate, and the bigger turret would could have made fitting the 85mm easier.

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However, 34 standard or 34M does little for the training of the crews, little for the defence vs. the Luftwaffe, and nothing for their atrocious leadership. This'll slow the Germans up a bit (depending on how many tanks you can get out before the factories have to be moved), but it won't come close to stopping them.
 
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However, 34 standard or 34M does little for the training of the crews, little for the defence vs. the Luftwaffe, and nothing for their atrocious leadership. This'll slow the Germans up a bit (depending on how many tanks you can get out before the factories have to be moved), but it won't come close to stopping them.

My point was more that the limitations of the T34, notably the turret design, conditioned the evolution of soviet tank tactics. Having tank commanders who can concentrate on commanding their tanks, and more reliable easy to operate tanks could have allowed them to use their tanks in a more "germanic" manner...
If you learn to ride in an Harley you're going to be a different rider than you would be if you learned to ride in a BMW...
 
As with the German Wunderwaffen threads unfortunately changing one weapon does not change the outcome of the fighting or the 1941 battles. Even more superior armor isn't going to compensate for the poor execution of the poor Soviet operational plan in 1941, nor is it going to smooth the path to executing Deep Operations. It might, however, at a tactical level bleed German armor white earlier, however.
 
My point was more that the limitations of the T34, notably the turret design, conditioned the evolution of soviet tank tactics. Having tank commanders who can concentrate on commanding their tanks, and more reliable easy to operate tanks could have allowed them to use their tanks in a more "germanic" manner...
If you learn to ride in an Harley you're going to be a different rider than you would be if you learned to ride in a BMW...

The Soviets had their own concepts of mechanized warfare, they never copied the Germans except insofar as they adjusted their concepts to reflect the gap between theory and reality.
 
Problem with early T-34s was, that in early stage of Brabarossa most of them were lost to technical problems.
If I remember correctly, one of T-34s supplied to US in 41/42 was tested in Aberdeen Proving ground and found to be not reliable due to engine and transmission problems.
According to some Soviet sources, on 200 km march towards front, almost half T-34s broke down. So if Soviets have more T-34s on front, for sure because of bad tactics, they will have huge casualties, but also could cause more troubles to Germans.
 
That's why they needed the M

The T34 was designed as the final of a series of shellproof tanks. In order to make it as hard to kill as possible, it was made as compact as possible, and the turret was particulary small. That made for a smaller target, and the less area you have to cover the thicker the steel for the same weight. Since it was to be a breakthrough tank (a fast Matilda with a real gun, if you like) the fact that the cramped, cupola less turret made it difficult for the two man in the turret to fight other tanks properly was accepted. The main tank was, after all, going to be the lighter, faster, T50 with a dedicated 45mm AT gun in a three man turret with a commanders cupola. When the T50 proved to be unreliable, it was decided to stndartize on a new, better T34 with all the advanced features of the T50. And since the initial trop trials of the T34 had found it unreliable and difficult to drive, the new model w given a revised engine, mounted longitudaly with much better space for maintainance work, and critically a new transmission with a reduction box that gave it twic the gears and was expected to be much easier to drive.
Now the T34 suffered hugely from reliability issues, so the M, if it worked as advertise would be a big bonus. But I'll stress again that if the Russians used rudimentary tank tactics in 41, 42, and 43 that was not only for lack of training, but because in a tank without a dedicated gunner and poor visibility the gunner/commander had far less options and time to think than in a tank with a proper turret.
So better tank, beter performance on the field, much stepper (upwards) learning curve for tank commanders, much better kill ratios!
And it would be doable if they had droped the T50 and concentrated on getting the T34 right earlier. Note that the troops were so unsatisfied with the T34 before the war that there were requests for it's production to be stooped in favour of the BT7M until the T34M could be produced.
After Barbarrossa there was such a huge need for tanks that it was to late and the soviets were going to fight with the T34 for the rest of the war.
 
AdA said:
Having tank commanders who can concentrate on commanding their tanks, and more reliable easy to operate tanks could have allowed them to use their tanks in a more "germanic" manner...
Limited to flag signals, due to lack of radios, exploiting the advantages would be more than problematic...:rolleyes:
 
Limited to flag signals, due to lack of radios, exploiting the advantages would be more than problematic...:rolleyes:

They had radios. just not on all the tanks. The T34M was designed to have radio equipement. But even if they couldn't fit them, having a tank commander who didn't also have to be a gunner and who had better vision devices would create conditions for better crew performance.
 
T34M

Necromanced to bring a picture and relevant information on the T34M closer to the surface without having to post it all again on the PzIV MBT thread.
 
While this may not have such a big effect in the short term, maybe the better performance would be noticed by Soviet tankists and be reported back for accelerated tank development later in the war?
 
This is relevant, T-34M production was scheduled to begin only a few months after Barbarossa.
Going through unfulfilled orders, another unbuilt tank pops up, the T-34M. The T-34M (factory designation A-43) was a modernized version of the T-34, with features that would be seen in Soviet medium tanks several years after, like torsion bars, a 5 man crew, a commander's cupola, a planetary gear transmission, and internal shock absorption.


The scan is a bit cut off, but the production of T-34s wanes to only 40 units over the month of September, and is fully replaced by T-34Ms by October. It is interesting to point out that 380 out of the 800 T-34Ms were armed with a ZiS-4 gun, instead of the F-34 gun that the overwhelming majority of T-34s received. 300 of the tanks were also to be equipped with a flamethrower, aside from their main guns (65 F-34 armed T-34Ms and 235 T-34Ms with a ZiS-4). That was one way of compensating for the deficiencies of the 57 mm HE shell.​
 
The problems of the T-34 was not only in the size of the towers, did not allow them to place the fifth member of the crew, and in poor optical sight and a shortage of radio stations. Why do you think that the T-34M, they would be eliminated?
 
With torsiom bar suspension you get a lot more internal space comparing to the Christie suspension
 
The problems of the T-34 was not only in the size of the towers, did not allow them to place the fifth member of the crew, and in poor optical sight and a shortage of radio stations. Why do you think that the T-34M, they would be eliminated?
For sure quality of optics and shortage of radio station will not be eliminated but making commander of vehicle to command and observe battlefield situation will certainly increase fighting efficiency.
 
For sure quality of optics and shortage of radio station will not be eliminated but making commander of vehicle to command and observe battlefield situation will certainly increase fighting efficiency.
Abreeden did delvare the T-34's optics the best in the world, I so I don't that's the problem.
 
For sure quality of optics and shortage of radio station will not be eliminated but making commander of vehicle to command and observe battlefield situation will certainly increase fighting efficiency.

And critically, those commanders will be able to acquire and pass on to other combat leadership skills. The T34 would not only have been a better weapon, it would have facilitated a surge in tank commander/tank unit commander skills. It's very hard to improve your tank platoon leader qualities when you're also acting as a gunner in a tank with very limited visibility. Apart from the mechanical advantages, the cupola and the freeing of the tank commander alone was a huge advantage.
 
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