Panzer III Made Like T-34

[Orcbuster]

Sloped armor was used in many ww2 and post-war tanks, on both sides. M4, Panther, AMX-30, cold-war Challenger, Merkava - sloped armor.
Design-wise, dead end tanks: M4, Churchill, Crusader, Cromwell, Comet, Pz-IV, Tiger, King Tiger, Panther.

I'd argue that the M4 had far more design elements in common with modern tanks than the t-34

Sloped front armor, straight side armor, stabilized gun, fully powered turret for fine tuning (in t-34 you had to handcrank for fine tuning while power traverse was too imprecise to do anything but rough laying) wet stowage, modern rubberpad track design, etc.

Its failing was the engine mounting which required the hull to be tall. It was however the best vehicle to actually live and fight in from a crew comfort and safety perspective by leaps and bounds during the war, something that was noted as an important feature in post-war design.

 

[Alex Zetsu]

1. Ergonomics. Sloped Armor reduces the amount of useable interior volume. Most gear was more like boxes than triangles, only fuel tanks can be conformal, and putting fuel tanks in the hull sides and sponsons of the fighting compartment is not great idea.

Some one else, from other post, and 'oh my god, the tank is on fire' is searchable.

3. The track life of the M4 exceeded the engine life on the T-34. There's a reason why the Soviet Red Guard units were equipped with LL Shermans for exploitation. Look up Dmitriy Loza and _Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks_

it was a tradeoff but I mean by the 1960s sloped armor was in all but the lightest tanks (and even some of those), so designers obviously decided it was worth it. To accodomade sloped armor, ergonomics was sacrificed or the tank was simply made longer for more volume. What I'm saying is that I think the T-34 sacrificed something but got something worth it.

Skoda did have a 75mm gun/howitzer they made for export sales, in 1928. Czechoslovakians to the rescue,again

Yeah I think if Britain said they would back Czechoslovakia and France said "Ok, and we'll give some ammo for Britain while they pay with blood to stop German aggression and pass the popcorn" the Wehrmacht officers after a month of banging into the enemy forts with their 1938 tech (before the addition of Czechoslovakian tech to their mix) would be plotting to get rid of the Mustached corporal who got them into the mess.

@Dorknought

Well, Let's say TTL Panzer III use German optics and electronics. This fixes the "optics and radio" flaws. Bad workmanship and lack of standardization should also be fixed. So TTL Panzer III wouldn't inherit those claws, although it would inherit a two man turret.

I disagree with your under gunned thing since AP shells still had greater penetration than the OTL Panzer III's weapons. It could even penetrate itself at 1 km, if it could hit accurately that far. And the T-34 could reach its paper speed in flat places when it wasn't too hot. Plus TTL Panzer III has a good diesel engine and much less weight.

Was it: our tanks need a better gun to punch wholes in the opposing tanks? Then why not the 50 mm L/69 on the OTL tanks?

Sticking with either a 75 mm or 76 mm for anti-tank purposes in this scenario, don't question it. You can say some engineers looked at drawings of designs and then submitted design suggestions. Hitler's whim often overrode any coordinated planning so any arbitrary design could be accepted in an early POD. So a 75 mm gun with lower muzzle velocity than a 50 mm gun could end up in a design.

The Panzer III was designed for one job: destroy armored enemy vehicles. That would be the case OTL and TTL. I guess TTL Panzer III would be the "diesel engine large gun anti-tank panzer" and the Panzer IV would be "the anti-tank Panzer where we get the joys of elbow room instead of tunnel vision"

 

[Orcbuster]

Germans would never accept a two-man turret. It would just go against every experience and theory they had about armored warfare.

 

[tomo pauk]

I'd argue that the M4 had far more design elements in common with modern tanks than the t-34

Sloped front armor, straight side armor, stabilized gun, fully powered turret for fine tuning (in t-34 you had to handcrank for fine tuning while power traverse was too imprecise to do anything but rough laying) wet stowage, modern rubberpad track design, etc.

Its failing was the engine mounting which required the hull to be tall. It was however the best vehicle to actually live and fight in from a crew comfort and safety perspective by leaps and bounds during the war, something that was noted as an important feature in post-war design.

Wet stowage of ammo was not a feature that M4 had when designed, ditto for rubber padded tracks.
Crew was sitting no worse in a Panther. M4 was a fair game for any decent German gun, from 7.5cm L43 on.

 

[Alex Zetsu]

Germans would never accept a two-man turret. It would just go against every experience and theory they had about armored warfare.

The Panzer 35(t) had one... and it was deemed an adequate Panzer III substitute before the 50 mm gun upgrades for the Panzer III.

And really what's wrong with having one tank out of many designs be the oddball?

Do you think when the 1940 battles open up the German crews might actually just end up suffering more losses due to the bad turret design and poor ergonomics? In OTL, most tank vs tank fighting happened in Belgium. Army Group A saw little of that after Sedan since many French mobile units originally designed to be in reserves were in Belgium racing towards Breda.

 

[Orcbuster]

question 1: The Panzer 35(t) had one... and it was deemed an adequate Panzer III substitute before the 50 mm gun upgrades for the Panzer III.

Question 2: And really what's wrong with having one tank out of many designs be the oddball?

Question 3: Do you think when the 1940 battles open up the German crews might actually just end up suffering more losses due to the bad turret design and poor ergonomics?

1: 35(t) was taken into service because they were there and could be made with no setup. It was a vastly inferior tank to what the germans had but the germans didn't have many tanks so they took what they could get.

2: Because the germans were right about what constituted an effective tank and what was required to make it effective and they made damn sure that any tank that they themselves designed would run paralell to these lines. They had odd ideas about overengineering and logistics but they were spot on when it came to crew workload and ergonomics for the most part.

3: Yes, definitly, as evidenced in poland, france and russia being able to spot and service a target fast is paramount in any tactical engagement. This improved tank survivability massively against any opponent, not just tanks, but against AT guns and infantry as well.

 

[marathag]

Wet stowage of ammo was not a feature that M4 had when designed, ditto for rubber padded tracks.

Rubber bushed track pads dated to 1934 in the US. Everything after that was set to use them: it was that large of a leap.

Ammo stowage was a problem, it didn't have proper bins. In the Korean War, Wet stowage was often drained to save weight and maintenance, with little corresponding increase in fire losses.

The real problem with M4 fires was from the hydraulic lines for turret rotation.

 

[AJE]

The design of the t-34s armor layout was indeed very poor. You'll again note that the T-34M and t-44 went away from this design. Most figured out that only sloping the front was the way to go and no one afterwards thougth that having sloped virtually same armor thickness on side as front was a good idea.

Design wise it was a dead end.

Not at all, the Leopard 1 and Chieftain used sloped armor on the sides and were very successful. For tanks that used sponsons sloping the side armor was useful for many countries.

1. Ergonomics. Sloped Armor reduces the amount of useable interior volume.

It does not.

It is hard to measure but sloping increases the hull volume as shown in the IS-2 armor scheme above.

 

[Not James Stockdale]

Not at all, the Leopard 1 and Chieftain used sloped armor on the sides and were very successful. For tanks that used sponsons sloping the side armor was useful for many countries.


It does not.

It is hard to measure but sloping increases the hull volume as shown in the IS-2 armor scheme above.

This is a very specific case unique to the IS tank's peculiar hull "superstructure". If you have a block of wood with a certain area on the bottom and want to bevel the top edges, you're going to have to mill those parts off and therefore reduce the volume. The volume only stays constant if you increase the dimensions of the block.

The early T-34 was a legitimately bad tank. Comparing armor values and penetration capabilities gets a fairly even match with the Pz III. These vehicles were roughly at the first-look, first-shot, first-kill equilibrium point, so the Pz III's far superior tactical attributes - 3 man crew, better optics, radios, better visibility - made it a superior tank to the early T-34 variants.

 

[marathag]

It is hard to measure but sloping increases the hull volume as shown in the IS-2 armor scheme above.

Hull volume increases, but not usable volume. Radios, gearboxes and all the rest don't fit into sharp corners, so the overall size has to be larger. If human beings were amorphous blobs rather than having bones would make a difference too. There are videos of T-34s and that front hatch. Watch them.

 

[AJE]

This is a very specific case unique to the IS tank's peculiar hull "superstructure".

There is nothing unique or peculiar about the IS' hull design.

Cromwell:

Panzer IV G:

Incidentally there was a proposed sloped armor version of the Panzer IV which had increased hull volume as a result.
Tiger I:

Churchill:

KV-1:

If you have a block of wood with a certain area on the bottom and want to bevel the top edges, you're going to have to mill those parts off and therefore reduce the volume. The volume only stays constant if you increase the dimensions of the block.

Hull volume increases, but not usable volume. Radios, gearboxes and all the rest don't fit into sharp corners, so the overall size has to be larger. If human beings were amorphous blobs rather than having bones would make a difference too. There are videos of T-34s and that front hatch. Watch them.

Except every piece of volume available in a non-sloped tank hull front is still available in the same spot in a sloped tank hull. The designers of the IS-2 1944 (or any other tank with sloped front armor) could have filled in part of the front hull with a foam wedge if they wanted and gotten the exact same hull volume in the exact same shape, with the exact same usable volume, as a variant without sloped armor.

 

[James Ricker]

When the Germans run into T-34s and Sherman's they will find out they have to up gun and up armor quickly. That is if the Matilda II didn't drive that point home in France.
The Germans could actually find themselves behind in the armor race

 

[Alex Zetsu]

When the Germans run into T-34s and Sherman's they will find out they have to up gun and up armor quickly.

Ummm, that was the case OTL.

But why here? Effectively TTL Panzer III would be a T-34 with less armor, but better optics and electronics. In this situation, both the T-34 and panzer III could destroy a T-34 at ranges longer than the effective range of their optics

And they would still have their TTL Panzer IV

In TTL they have a tank with either a clone of the same 76 mm gun (which can penetrate the T-34 at the front at one Km... ironically using German optics might make TTL Panzer III able to engage at longer ranges than T-34 with its bad optics unable to actually acquire targets from far away) or a Czechoslovakian 75 mm gun that works at least as well. So their two main tank vs tank panzer would the Panzer III (able to take on the T-34 at long range, good speed, good sightings, but problematic tunnel vision and bad turret design), and Panzer IV (3 man turret, better situational awareness, less breakdowns, but weaker 5 cm KwK 38.

 

[cortz#9]

What if the Germans did what the US did with self propelled anti-tank vehicles but earlier? below is a pic of the 75mm_selbstfahrlafette L/40.8 an experimental anti-tank vehicle.

What if the Germans had gotten this idea a few years earlier but had mounted the turret on the Pz-III instead and used the Czech 7.5 cm kanon PL vz. 37 that they had captured in good numbers in 1938? This would've given the Panzerwaffe a TD similar to the US M18 Hellcat in 1940.
The tank's turret armour would be lighter but would have a more powerful and longer ranged gun.
Below my take on what this TD could've looked like.

 

[Dorknought]

So TTL Panzer III wouldn't inherit those claws, although it would inherit a two man turret.

but the 3 man turret was one of the best features of the PzKfw III and IV. I know 'No. of meat-sacks' ain't particularly interesting on paper but it left the commander to actually 'command'.

 

[phx1138]

most of the Panzer IIIs were still E and F variants with the weaker gun. ...Suppose the Germans had...a 76 mm gun.

I find that a stretch. The 50mm L/60, yes, but the 76mm seems too big, given Heer attitude.

Since the German pre-war design includes lots of gasoline engines, they also develop something identical to OTL Panzer III. TTL Panzer IV is OTL Panzer III. TTL Panzer V is basically OTL Panzer IV.

I don't get this. If you've got the sloped Pz3 to start, why not just enlarge it in the Pz4, & go up to the 75mm L/48 or L/70?