The T-34 is not as good as you think it is
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- Опубликовано: 23 дек 2021
- In his worst multi-award seeking documentary to date, unemployed schizophreniac, and low-tier RUclipsr Lazerpig invites us on a journey into the mystical realms of WWII's greatest myths. In this episode, we concentrate on the T-34 Tank, a legend in its own right, forged in the very fires of Soviet Russia by the hands of Stalin himself.
This tank brought the Germans to their knees, vastly superior to all their pathetic tanks with its revolutionary sloped armor and wide tracks it erupted in great unlimited waves which crashed down into Germany and ended the hopes and dreams of Tiny Tash Man and his Third Reich.
Or did it?
Does the T-34 deserve the Legend it has become or is it all a fabrication in the minds of Soviet Russia's own version of the wehraboo. The great, mythical Commieboo.
Come with me on a journey into the unknown, but be warned, the truth may not be what you expect.
Credits:
Suburbs of Moscow 1-5 - VK.com & Epidemic Sound Publishing
Booty - Jetpack Superheros ( • Jetpack Superheroes - ... )
Alan Aztec - Bad Girl ( • Alan Aztec - Bad Girl ... )
Katyusha | Epic Orchestral Cover - Kamikaze ( • KATYUSHA | Epic Orches... )
Warthunder footage by Gaming with Ender ( / @ender15 )
Sources:
Panzer Tracts No. 19-2: Beute-Panzerkampfwagen by Thomas L. Jentz
(www.amazon.co.uk/PANZER-TRACT...)
T-34 Mythical Weapon by Robert Michulec
(www.amazon.com/T-34-Mythical-...)
T-34/85 Medium Tank 1944-45’ and ‘T-34-85 vs M26 Pershing’ by Steven J. Zaloga (www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Steven...)
Tankovy udar. Sovetskie tanki v boyakh. 1942-1943 by A Isaev (www.amazon.com/Tankovy-udar-S...)
Engineering Analysis of The Russian T34/85 Tank (www.scribd.com/document/23067...)
Неизвестный Т-34 (Unknown T-34) by I. Zheltov, M. Pavlov, I. Pavlov, A. Sergeev, A. Solyankin (www.ozon.ru/product/neizvestn...)
Once Again About the T-34 by Boris Kavalerchik
(www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...)
Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century by G.F. Krivosheev (Editor), John Erickson (Foreword), Christine Barnard (Translator) (www.amazon.co.uk/Soviet-Casua...)
Sherman prices: web.inter.nl.net/users/spoelst...
You can give me money with the link below and I legally have to spend it on coffee
www.buymeacoffee.com/LazerPig
#WW2 #SovietHistory #Tanks #T34
![Finesse2Tymes - Pretty Ricky [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xIoP_mhYRT0/mqdefault.jpg)
"Logistics was secondary to everything else, and it was forgotten that men in tanks need food, fuel and ammo." Wow so nothing has changed with russian military practices in 81 years lmao
Edit: Cry more Z nerds
Exactly what I was thinking
From the Winter War to today, nothing has changed.
aged like fine wine, if you ask me.
@@kirknay the russian military has aged like fine wine?
@@TheMr5x the comment from a few months ago about logistics failings.
I feel like there's a joke in here somewhere about T34s being so angled because of all the corners that were cut.
" T34s being so angled because of all the corners that were cut "
That's a good one.
smooth like the designer's brain
You just made it, mission accomplished lol!!
@@fauxtool952 HAH!
@@fauxtool952 the designer was good, and the t 34 has a good design, exceptat that YOU CANT FU****G FIT IN IT. JESUS CHRIST, MAKE IT A BIT TALLER.
"logistics were an afterthought"
A proud 80+ years tradition for the Russian military!
Lmao
🤫 Why, let them continue that tradition 😁
It was an issue back then and now. I don't think logistics were this bad during much of the Cold War.
ROFL
That is a centuries old tradition.
T-34 has inspired a Polish idiom: "przejebane jak w ruskim czołgu" meaning "you're as fucked, as someone inside a russian tank". It was based on crew experiences from WW2 and is in use to this day.
I have a feeling it won't stop being used any time soon, because of (((reasons)))
Lol. Still true.
@@SaltyChickenDip Indeed. I mean, the driver hatch of the "modern" T14 armata is... hydraulically sealed?!
I hope you don't mind if I steal that saying for my personal day to day use
@@ajc0072one got blown up in ukraine last month (they expect only 5 are still in existence) sabot round from a leopard went through the front and out the back of the engine.
"Diesel does catch fire, shut up."
You mean a fuel that specifically designed to be burnt, burns?
You need some effort to ignite diesel whereas petrol can be ignited easily with a match
This video was clearly targeted towards idiots pretending to be the high school history teacher
Did you know that diesel won't catch fire easily, obviously show it a hot enough flame and it'll ignite, but this won't be how you get efficiency out of it.
@Shy Cracker what
It does, however, have a significantly higher flashpoint (55° C) than gasoline (flash point in the realms of below 0°C). This means you would have to heat up the *bulk* of the fuel volume before it even starts to consider burning.
It burns, but it's nowhere near as immediate as gasoline (assuming they are both at ambient conditions). This is why diesel engines compress the hell out of the fuel-air mixture instead of trying to directly ignite it. (P is directly proportional to T and all that fancy stuff)
Not arguing with the video or anyone else just wanted to point that out.
The M4 Sherman and T-34 were both designed under the principle that its crew would be dead before the vehicle wore out and needed major repairs.
The difference is that the American crew was expected to be dead of old age.
Had us in the First half not gonna lie
I ruined the 69 likes
The M4 Sherman was actually decent in reliability and quality.
@@michaelusswisconsin6002🤦♂️
@@michaelusswisconsin6002
serious?
38:00 "Russia just gave the new guy a welder and told him to get on with it." That gives me flashbacks to "on the job training" at the knife factory.
Honestly the two aren't very different when it comes to Russia I'd wager
After the video at the Tank Museum, now I'm just picturing Lazerpig making these claims while wearing WWI French Officer drip.
Same
Now I cant stop thinking about a pig in a bright blue uniform with red trousers now..
"..they were quickly abandoned by their crew when they broke down, ran out of ammo or fuel ...."
Wait, are we still talking about WW2 here?
Things never changed it just got fancier and propaganda 💀
The biggest change is that it’s easier to spot nowdays
I'm surprised you have enough air to breath with as much as you're all sucking off Zelenski. You must enjoy funding his Nazi battalions with your tax payer dollars whilst paying nearly twice as much for everything back home, all as he shuffles from country to country too busy to put on a fucking suit, begging for more x, y and Z. The latter of which he is recieving plenty of at the moment :)
But hey, maybe Ukrainian cheerleading is a Gay-British thing. I don't know. Either way, it can't be the Russians are completely inept. If they were we would've joined the war! Instead we pay for it and dance around the proposition on the sidelines, pretending we are the "good guys". We have quite literally learned nothing in the West. We've never faced an existential crisis, we've never fought a true war, we've never learned how dangerous propaganda is, unless of course it's *other* countries propaganda. We are fat, stupid, arrogant, and horribly out of touch with most things outside of our bubble. You stand on the graves of your ancestors (actual, real men) and proclaim moral superiority, despite not being worth enough to even stand on the soil of your own countries.
"Oh Z-nerd, Russian troll, (insert deflection here). Go ahead and get that shit out of the way so we can address some of these points. War is about those who laugh last. Ask the Taliban.
@@pokerone6489 aren't you surprised you have Internet and using RUclips because of the west??
@@pokerone6489 Woop woop. Clear the area everyone. We are in danger of a critical melt down event. Woop oop.
I absolutely love the irony of Barbarossa - when things get underway, Soviet logistics is fucked but as the Germans advance they inadvertently shorten and simplify Soviet logistics while putting more and more stress on their own supply capabilities. They helpfully stuck their head into the noose and waited patiently for the Soviets to kick the wood out from under them.
I never thought about this. Great observation, thinking about it now I completely agree.
however, the same thing didn't happened to the soviets when they advanced, so how come you say soviet logistic was bad?
You gotta remember the germans were fighting a stupid idiot war that they caused by picking a fight with almost every major industrial power. They got outproduced by the allies and were running low on manpower. Ww2 was unwinnable from the german side from the beginning.
@@gms80sixtreme the front gets shorter in length as you move towards Berlin. The infrastructure also gets better. The weather gets better too
@@gms80sixtreme american trucks
There is a story I read in a German WWII veterans autobiography about being surprised by a seemingly lost t34 which appeared on their left. They thought they were dead, but strangely the t34 apparently could not see them, despite their tank being completely in the open and continued to drive without reacting to a tank in front of it on open ground, allowing them time to bring their gun around and destroy it.
The speculation among the German crews mentioned in the book was that the t-34 crews were taught to button up at all times, so unless a tank literally drove in front of the gunners sight, they would have no idea it was there.
I don’t know about Soviet tanks, but German tanks have a hatch on top of the turret that has small windows on all sides.
The Door Knocker myth stems from this.
A 37mm PaK, which has no way of penetrating a T-34 was shooting it dozens of times. The T-34 was turning its turret around trying to find the PaK until a round hit the turret ring a f the T-34 retreated.
@@Wolfspaine7N6 thats called a "commander's cupola" and all tanks have them (well most of them)
@@4T3hM4kr0n- Many of the tanks available in 1939/40/41 still had vision slits set at various points around the turret sometimes protected by an inch or two of removable ballistic glass. This was true for the Germans, Poles, French and the Russians. The Poles in fact had one of the most innovative vision systems in the Gundlach periscope, which was copied by the Russians and later sold back to the Poles under a different name.
@@sirrathersplendid4825this is about the commanders cupola, not vision slits around the sides of the tank
In designing the Tiger I, the Germans were well aware of the effects of sloped armor, but purposely didn't use it because of the cramped crew cabin that resulted.
The A-1 and Grosstraktor had sloped armor iirc so the German were aware of it's down sides when designing the Panzer 1 and 2 as well. Shit, anyone who played with boxes or wood blocks growing up would know that a triangular box has less available volume than the rectangular ones that it can fit snugly in.
Yes, that is a factor but, it was mainly due to silhouette of the tank, it's shape, so it could be easily identified in the battlefield. They, the Germans literally had to come up with a total complete opposite of the the sloped armour, that's the tiger tanks block square shaped tank you see.
@@goodwinter6017 the Tiger I hull shape was fixed the month before Barbarossa.
Yeah the Americans solved that problem by just letting their tank be a tall frontally sloped box on wheels. it didn't look pretty, but the Sherman was by far the least exhausting tank to drive because it was so roomy and the Americans used their automaking experience to make the tank super easy to operate.
The rounded cast armor also provided ballistic protection.
People always give the Sherman flak because it was considered poorly armed and armored.
But they forget that it fit the American tank niche perfectly, specifically it’s high crew survivability rate. After all, losing a Sherman isn’t that bad when the experienced crew can just get into another Sherman.
The Sherman is pretty much just the T-34 done right. It's generally simple and easy to mass manufacture but it's still given enough investment to actually work and even be generally comfortable while fighting. And then, like you said, it's invested in enough so that even if one dies, it's crew probably won't and can hop into another one with the experience of driving the old one.
The Sherman was being constantly upgraded during the war. They also produced upgrade kits for Shermans in service, like the springs added to the hatches to make them easier to open in a hurry.
@@JayM409 yeah, it was wild learning that the Calliope from BFV was a real thing. That seemed like some mumbo jumbo bullshit but no. Some mad bastards stuck a rocket barrage on top of a tank.
@@kieranadamson3224 Be aware though the T-34 is an older tank, entering production a full year before the US even put the awful M3 Lee into production.
@@Edax_Royeaux fair enough, however I feel like even the age doesn't help it. Because, even though Germany's tanks were often hopeful failures when put into practice. They still put in the effort from pretty much right after the Great War to innovate on tank design and usage. As did many other nations. The T-34 being so ineffective falls to the Soviets not putting that effort in. Though, I will say as Mr Pig mentioned, the design itself was quite good for what it was, the Soviets could've had something to rival the Sherman. But the problem lay in how they were actually produced.
This has such a vendetta against the T-34 he makes a whole MOVIE to explain why. You sir have earned my respect and subscription.
If you are saying this because of America he made one on the A-10
@@NorgumiOwO I know, I just found this whole thing quite hilarious.
Ditto.
So damb ecstatic I’ve stumbled on your channel that I’m currently rolling on the ground clutching my belly, alternating between laughing hysterically & drooling uncontrollably.
Subscription confirmation 😂👍🏽👍🏽
Literally the reason why the T-34 was 'good' is because it was an exceedingly cheap and quickly assembled vehicle. Overall the thing was a death trap.
I also hesitate to EVER call a WWII Soviet tank good in any way other than ease of mass production and the fact the guns were usually up to the task of punching through German tank hulls. Most issues I have are strictly with the production quality, not the vehicle design. Though the shot traps and how cramped they were certainly don't help my opinions.
I watched a documentary on the T34, the narrator of the documentary gave a very good analysis of theT34. He pointed out the pros and cons.
At the end of the documentary his last comment was.." I would never go to battle in that thing".
This video has given me a new found respect for the Sherman, mass produced but didn't produce mass death for her crew.
Well, you could have changed the production to Jumbos wich armor from the front ( exsect some small weak spots) was almost invisible from German cats.
It's gun a bit less but great for infantry support.
@@thefirstkingdogo1126 many of US Tanks were supporting infraintry most of time
The sherman was a fine tank despite its propensity for it to catch on fire after being sneezed at the engineers at least made it easy to get out of
A feature I'm sure was very much appreciated by its crews 😊
The Sherman wasn't more likely to go on fire then any other tank that is a myth.
The Sherman was an excellent tank. Look into why it turned out the way it did, and American military procurrment, and you come away with huge respect for the Sherman
I believe the issue with the T-34's optics stemmed from the optics-making factory being overrun in 1941.
That makes sense.
You know just Soviet Union things.
Furthermore, the Soviets imported a significant amount of optics from Germany. Though this was optics in general, I don't know whether it was the T34 optics specifically or not.
They should have produced more mk.I optics for the tanks by ripping them straight from the skulls of the Germans.
sounds like a rather minor inconvenience
Fun fact: I was once asked to translate a fragment of T-34 technical manual for some US owners, I presume, of one T-34. Guess what the fragment was about? Replacing the clutch xD
I estimate that replacing the clutch constituted about 80% of the manual itself, so chances are pretty good that you would open to that section. Srsly though, thanks for sharing. Interesting.
Share more pls
Yes but replacing the clutch was a really important thing to do. The last thing you want to have is a tank you drove down three roads, you encounter the Panzer IV and suddenly your clutch goes out. It is equal with the transmission, the last thing you want is to start racing and then your transmission goes out.
@@jrus690 Ok? You said nothing?
@@johns.1898 You said less than nothing. Capich.
"The T-34 was not a cheap tank mass produced in infinite waves. It was a costly tank manufactured cheaply."
Like many parts of this video, those sentences reminded me of the C&Rsenal video about the Mosin Nagant. They mention that people think the Mosin is a simple gun because they're so common, but the reality is it's a decently complicated design that happened to be produced in the tens of millions.
To play Devil's advocate, mass production and simplicity don't always go hand in hand. Look at cellphones, which are quite complicated yet are still mass-produced.
Now that said, the T-34 was absolutely a cheap piece of crap
Question which production run? As pre Soviet ones while produced in high numbers were of really good quality equal to the German equivalent. Post Soviet ones on the other hand are gun versions of T34s.
@@barrybend7189 if you mean soviet revolution, then yeah, that's pretty accurate. I was always surprised the imperial russian version managed to be both well-made and fairly cheaply made; post-rev it was *only* cheaply made.
@@barrybend7189 even well made mosins have a lot of built in “slop” inherent to the design. As op mentioned, C&rsenal covers it well in their video. Mausers and Enfields just have better designed actions overall. Enough to make a huge difference in combat though? Probably not.
I mean, the engine is made in part of aluminium! Something that even the Germans thought too expensive. And they were the leading aluminium producers. Meanwhile, the Soviets, who were so starved of aluminium they were making their aircrafts out of wood, were using the V-2 engine with aluminium construction.
The t-34 a tank that could be assembled in 3 hours but a enemy shell can disassemble in 3 seconds
They were used to shoot nazis so I will give it just a tiny bit of respect.
@@Haispawnerso was the British crusader tank yet it is hated by a lot of people and was arguably better than the t34
@@Haispawner So was the Sherman but people seem to look at that thing as though it was some kind of steel coffin
No it was not, it didn't have sufficient firepower to take on tigers and stuff, and cost more than t-34-85@@adammissildine8027
@@artemefimov8215 wait... if im right... there is a video about the best tank and it stated that the sherman crew could penetrate tigers whit the 75mm ( i dont think that was the size) whit no problem and they werent even concious about the danger of the tiger from what i remember? if its not right then pls correct, the video was ''what was the best tank in WW2?'' now there are a lot of those videos so yh.......... sadly i dont know the ytuber name
The Bob Semple had the best sloped armour. It had about 20 slopes per square metre.
ikr! best tank ever, its such a shame nobody talks about it... awesome gun, suspension, armor, and a physics breaking amount of size inside of it.
No bob sample were ever lost. That is the prove that bob sample is the superior tank
the speed was astonishing
It is the god-emperor of tanks
Brilliant
I had the pleasure of meeting several WWII T-34 crewmen.
The majority of them hated their tank, but were attached to it for the sake of nostalgia and the fact that it was what they had.
eh, the people who actually had to fight in tanks often had very different opinions to historians. like, my uncle fought thru north africa then italy in tanks & his favourite by far was the american m3 stuart cos it was so reliable & nippy. same with pilots & their planes, my dad flew convoy protection off escort carriers in the north atlantic & hated any plane that wasn't a fairey swordfish.
@@77thbrigadesockpuppetaccou50 the different opinion is certainly prevalent in the Sherman's case, often remarked as dangerous and crappy tank to be in by its crews.
But historians report it's higher than average survival rate on being penetrated, decent reliability and ease of maintenance among other positives.
It's an interesting thing to see.
@@jamesscott4574 statistics are often water on oil for someone who physically sat in a tank and had a shell fly into the compartment, and I cant really blame them
@@vihurah9554 Oh me neither, statistics and lived experiences definitely don't have a friendly co-habitation with each other most of the time.
Although having someone complain about how 4/5 crew members survived a penetrating shot rather than the tank just having a cook-off like their enemies with no survivors is telling in itself.
It's like a flipped and morbid customer review phenomena, the living have the the time and ability to complain, not so much the dead.
@@jamesscott4574 i think the main reason sherman crews were unhappy is cos they were used as assault tanks, so were going up against the best german AT guns/tanks, which they were pretty much defenceless against at range. made em feel like cannon fodder, no matter what the stats on survivability etc. say. so when my uncle said the m3 was his favourite tank he coulda meant that being in light/recon tanks was his favourite posting. still, the m3 was excellent in its role, neither the germans nor the italians had a light tank as good, which is another reason for its popularity.
41:00 TBF if a guy designs a tank so rugged that you can skip 75% of assembly and it still mostly sorta works, "rugged" is a fair word to use.
32:09 "T-34 is the first tank to use sloped armor!" *Shows picture of Little Willy, THE first tank*
Yeah, that was a genuine lol moment.
It isn’t even the first tank to have sloped armour on all sides either, the French FCM 36 would have a better claim to that title.
Interesting bit about the lack of seating in T-34s; I have _heard_ (with unfortunately no source) that Soviet Sherman tankers had to keep careful guard over their Sherman tanks, because if they didn't, other Soviet tankers would steal the nice leather seats and soviet soldiers would strip its leather. Again, no source, but it makes sense, compared to the terrible conditions the East's tankers went through, the Sherman was positively luxurious.
I can’t confirm it for that BUT I do have an interview of an American pilot in Italy that him and a few buddies took a Dodge Command Car into town and by the time they got back someone had stripped the leather bench seats bare. So I would believe it
@N Fels the whole elite units got the sherman is bullshit. Sherman were used by both guard and normal units and so were the t34.
Beyond that the Soviet opinion on the sherman were mixed they liked the sights and the comfort but disliked their height and how badly they operated in the mud compared to t34-85.
You probably saw that from the "I Remember" interview of Dmitriy Fedorovich Loza. That's most likely your source. The interview has plenty of insight on his experience with M4A2s in the Red Army.
@@sammykablamy885 Thank you!
@@unaiestanconapelaez2526 I once read an account of a Sherman soviet tanker who praised the thing because it didn't blow up and kill him when it was hit. Apparently most of his colleagues in 34s got blown up or burned to death trying to get out of their tanks.
I can understand how such a thing would affect one's viewpoint on a tank's performance.
36:20 "and absolutely nothing to do with their consistent tactical failures and poor chain of supply" some things never change
Yeah, this Ukraine war has shown that Russia has changed very little since the darkest of the Soviet days...
@@RipOffProductionsLLC Including, evidently, their tendency to r*pe the people they "liberate."
@@RipOffProductionsLLC Lazerpig Loop!
im fascinated that in every russian engagement ive ever known about, theres always been some severe, disgusting, ridiculous break in logistics. they've never seriously attempted to correct it either.
Russians hate reason. They subscribe to the more that is sacrificed the more is gained. The highest moral duty is to fight in vain and die for mother Russia and thru sacrifice they will prevail.
Not only that they've built it into a mythos for themselves. As if suffering were just part of being Russian, rather than something that you deal with because someone F'd up.
An image of Thomas the tank engine pushing a WW2 piece of field artillery and a Vulcan/minigun is one of the best things I’ve ever seen
My favourite part about T-34 is it's clutch. Made of 22 pairs of steel plates with 1.5 mm distance between fully engaged and disengaged positions. It was the main reason why soviet tankers basically used only 2nd gear. And all because they couldn't produce decent friction material.
Главкраб оказывается может в английский!
@@DrHavoc1 Так он ещё относительно давно засветился у... Сквайра, примерно
@@Saber643 а можно ссылочку? Просто я сквайра не смотрю
@@DrHavoc1 ruclips.net/video/NYioaoSwKv8/видео.html
I have not heard that they couldn't make proper clutches or had poor metallurgical technology. They had some serious quality control problems so sometimes things were done badly but they could make good steels. From what I have read the main transmission problems of the T34 stem from the original need to use the same tooling and production lines building the BT tank transmissions. The original 4 speed transmission was basically a beefed up BT transmission and was simply totally inadequate for a tank over twice it's weight.
The T-34 saved my marriage. Its thick armor helped to calm my wifes nerves. I appreciated the large caliber for its sheer power. We couldn't have done it without it.
Is the T-34 a condom?
@@joeblow9657 T-34 is one size fits all.
Umm I hate to break it to you but if the armor was anything like invincible, you got cuckolded by the KV-1.
@@johnd2058 even then the kv1 can't compare to the girth of the kv2
@@generalgrievous6778 The KV-2 is unspeakable without a "Must be 21" clickwall.
The benefits of sloped armor were known even before that - medieval armor used rounded shapes and sloped designs. In fact, I think armors made even before that already used those concepts, even as early as the bronze age!
WW1 naval warships inclined their belt armor for the same reason.
As an absolute armour nerd you are right
Rounded plates or ones with steep angles were the norm
In late medieval Europe you didn’t really see any flat plates because a globose breastplate that’s 3mm mild steel could deflect a lance or a heavy crossbow bolt no problem but you make that 3mm flat? It gets run through lol
Also medieval people knew that rivets were weaknesses in armour as it was with tanks
It's a pretty old tech, shields also used a metal sphere in the middle to deflect blows.
Almosy every tank i look at has sloped frontal armor, pre or post war.
Damn, even walls reflected that, check classical medieval walls vs bastion walls, latter ones were sloped because cannon shots, wich came in replacement of catapults/trebuchets come in a straight trayectory instead of inclined from above like trebs did
4:50 "large portions of europe still speaking german....."
Yeah, we call that germany.
That guys head looks really funny
Someone should tell him that German is currently the most spoken single language in Europe
Little did you know that about 2 months after this video was released that we would learn that the "build a lot of stuff and fuck logistics" mantra of the Soviets in WWII would still be around and still be a problem.
Except instead of build a lot of stuff it’s pull a lot of stuff we built decades ago out of the warehouses and send it to battle severely undermaintained & lofted years ago for embezzlement
soviets excelled at logistics in later stages of ww2, look at the invasion of Manchuria in 1945.
I don't think it's fair to compare the 1941-43 Red Army to the current Russian Army.
The former had to make do with whatever they had, were caught by surprise, were outnumbered at one point, fought one of the most powerful enemies you could possibly have at the time, and they still won in the end, even if they had allies (since iirc most of the German army was fighting the Soviets for most of the war anyway). Meanwhile, the latter had the initiative, had more troops and equipment, more time to prepare, etc. And yet they still botched it spectacularly. So idk there are quite a few difference one has to consider here.
Yeah, the Russian's decided to go mano-a-mano with the entire western MIC and their production capabilities and spare stocks, while alienating Tiawan (largest microchip producer in the world), leaving China indifferent (they have their own problems), and deciding to source parts for drones from a dictatorship that's currently fending off a proto-revolution (I say proto here because it's not clear to me what exactly is happening in Iran, other than the government culling and pissing off their entire population, or if the military, or part of the military, has truly taken a side in the conflict yet for or against reform).
@@casualduelist854 Which isn't a surprise since most of the Japanese army is bogged down within China and the navy was busy with the United States....also, the Japanese tanks were heavily outdated and the lack of anti-tank doesn't help much. So yea...it was expected that the Soviet Union would steam roll the weak Japanese/Manchuria army as most of the resources and manpower that they had was just gone.
I dont understand how any one can think that the T-34 never got stuck. My father served in the soviet army, and told me that tank crews would literally carry logs with them, to help get tanks out of mud and snow
I believe the thinking goes like "Something Something the tank logs were just brilliant Soviet innovation of spaced armor for vulnerable sides. Way cheaper and just as effective as silly metal sheets of the Germans or the heavy sandbags the Americans put on Shermans. Robust Soviet Engineering Best Engineering!"
@martenkahr3365 I can unfortunately envision someone saying something like that.
@@martenkahr3365 I thought the soviet solution to spaced armor was infantry riding on the sides
@@lennartj.8072 Soviet spaced armor is the tank next to you
Same here.
I bet that this man could teach an entire college semester whilst absolutely shit faced
It would be glorious.
'This will upset a lot of people' are some of my favorite words.
I remember visiting a museum in Luxembourg and they had a part of the museum explaining about camps for prisoners of war. Between all the the information there was a journal. A journal from a Russian tank commander (I believe). It was an interesting read about the T-34. The following of his complaints stood out:
- The back plate/engine cover of the T-34 was not completely bolted shut. It had only 2 bolts. This made the plate shake and make a lot of noise during driving.
- Their T-34 came WITHOUT SEATS. So what they did, before they entered the front lines, they entered a restaurant or a home (not sure) but conviscated the seats and pillows and fitted them in the tank.
- They couldnt drive over 15 KM/H for long times (OVER ROAD) because the tank and transmission would overheat too quickly and break down and had to be cooled which took too long.
They soon had to abandon the tank during a fight due to a failing transmission and got captured shortly after.
He was allowed to keep writing in his journal as higher ranked officers got in to 'better' camps apparently.
What year was the journal written? It’s interesting to read crew perception of the T-34 from all periods
I wonder if he survived after the war since the Soviets were pretty awful to captured Troops when they returned.
The one in diekirch?
Seems like the t-34 was your typical bottom tier product of the Soviet union. They never could make anything well it seems. Communism really held them back.
@@lindsey607 LOL! Sure kid.
You actually helped me understand something which I suspected: after WW2, in conflicts between armies using the amazing T34 and those using the mediocre Sherman, the side with the Sherman usually won...
The T34 was a very good tank for 1940. The Sherman was a mediocre tank for 1943.
Both of these statements are true and correct. AFV development during the war was ridiculously fast.
in later conflicts the t-34 will lose to the toyota hilux.
@@naughtyhieroglyph669 It was actually the T55. And by about the same metric the CharB1 lost to the Opel blitz.
@@egoalter1276 The Sherman was not mediocre in 43, it remained a great tank throughout the war, its just they were up against an enemy that was almost always on the defensive.
correlation isn't causation
The story I was always told wasn't that the tank was good, but was basically designed to be bad. That it was made of cheap, replaceable parts, and that any losses could be salvaged for surviving tanks, and the Soviets just accepted the crew losses because they had the manpower for it. I don't know how true that is, but it was a lot more believable then "Best tank ever made, trust me comrade".
same
Of course its the best tank ever made ,just one was needed to replace all 13 Armatas and T-
90s in the last parade .
'It's a piece of shit but it shoots and we can make a lot of them.'
"are they reliable?"
'no.'
"are they good?"
'no.'
"are they fast?"
'no.'
"are they durable?"
'no.'
"so we will crush them superior numbers.?
'no.'
"So they're cheap?"
'no.'
"ah, so they're expensive because they are good!"
'still no.'
"..."
'...'
"Stalin truly is a wonderous leader. I wish to someday be so wise as to understand his glorious plan!"
'yes.'
A: They are fast
B: They are durable
C: They are reliable
D: They aren't comfortable
That's the only difference. Just because the crew doesn't like it doesn't mean the tank is utter garbage. Soviet aircraft crews alone were amazed by the comfort of lend-lease planes. The IS-2 is a great tank too, but if course the T-34 was the only Soviet tank it seems.
@@tyomikshkolnik7988bro he just debunked this.
A) you can, hear me out, NOT SHIFT INTO THE TWO FASTEST GEARS, the gear stick becomes impossible to move because of a shit design.
@@tyomikshkolnik7988B) they aren’t durable, the soviets heat treated their metal so much it became brittle
@@thetubeboi6991 the amount of tanks able to conduct a 330-kilometer run without problems rose from 10.1 percent to 79 percent at the end of the war...
@@thetubeboi6991 yeah I'm not sure you're much better, going around and whining how great your Shermans were. Just because you saw a video by a person who is clearly anti-soviet / anti-russian that doesn't mean he is right...
22:35 No, it's not a myth: I know several people who served in the Romanian Army on T-34/85s [post-war models, formerly of Czechoslovak stock] who told me that, more often than not, the only way for the driver to get the tank into gear was to get the radio operator to help him; now imagine you're under fire and have to reverse the tank very QUICKLY.
That’s not terribly ideal.
On the other hand I drove T-34 twice and driving wasn't nearly as terrible as portrayed. In fact, the tank seemed bizzarely fast and mobile for it's size. We easily did 30 km/h cross country.
I would rather not imagine my 6' 2" frame inside any Russian tank.
@@whiskeytangosierra6 what about a Sherman that has more room
@@USS_Grey_Ghost I have been inside a Sherman. It's tight. Tanks are not really designed for tall people. Oddly, the drivers compartment of an M5 is plenty big and the thing is a hoot to drive. That turret though...
Talked with Finnish veterans who fight against and used the captured t-34's. No one really liked it, but when they knew how bad the view was from inside, they didn't fear to get close enough to give them their cocktail.
This gives me an idea, “I’m not fat, I just have sloped armor”.
People believing diesel can't catch fire have an average IQ of the soil supporting the garden salad.
Other than that, a masterpiece ❤
Yes, but it takes a very hot combustion source to start a diesel fire. Hence, the misconception.
Right? If it couldn't combust, it couldn't be used as fuel.
@WillM38 ya, though its technically compressed until it explodes.... but same difference
@@petergray2712 Throw diesel on a fire, and the fire will get bigger, throw Gasoline on a fire, you my just lose your eyebrows. I know, i almost did 😂
@thewingedhussars9080 You have to turn gasoline into an aerosol to make it burn. If it pools, a match or a cigarette won't be enough to ignite it.
Edit: That's an exaggeration on my part. But droplets of a certain size to properly ignite from a low temperature heat source.
Who in THE hell is LazerPig? I’m a few videos into this guys library and I’ve never been so thoroughly entertained while still enjoying what is obviously knowledgeable and well thought out lessons in military history. You sir are a true master of your craft.
Lol I'm here having just stumbled upon him thinking the same thing
@@ollietizzard5180 Same here.
I’ve been watching LazerPig for some time now. Knowledgeable and well researched stuff. But the kicker is that he’s incredibly entertaining and funny. Aces! 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼
He is great. I always end up binge watching his videos while going for long walks.
Lazerpig hits that sweetspot between giving you interesting, well-researched information and shitposty af humor.
Broke: The German big cats were the peak of WWII engineering
Woke: The cheap, mass-produced, easily-maintained T-34's were the most effective tanks of the war in terms of impact.
Bespoke: Both the T-34 and the Sherman were a delicate, well-toted balance of mitigating factors and unique capabilities created to fit the unique requirements of their respective fighting forces during the conflict, and in this we see the tanks themselves matter little, but what matters most is a frank, self-aware appraisal of your nation's capabilities and requirements and when this is considered even the oft-maligned Italian and Japanese tanks seem sensible and at least somewhat considered, and to a degree this is true for all the countries in the war except the British whose tanks were utterly shite until the very end where they had to pioneer a new class of tank because they were hopelessly lost trying to read the room and keep up with what everyone else was doing.
Finally someone with common sense; ^^
Bewoke: Bob Semple Tank is greatest tank ever made as no one died while driving one.
Hey, I defence of us Brits the Two Tank system we developed evolved into the modern IFV, Tank and infantry doctrine, so we may have been a bit behind during the war, after it we were light years ahead
British tanks weren't shit, at worst they were average. They just suffered from introducing a few of them, and the Cromwell in particular, relatively late in the war. Their Churchills were used to through to the end of the war with great success.
@@magoshighlands4074 But if you compare the two tank system to the modern one the British got the requirements completely wrong they took heavy tanks hobbled the speed to such ridiculous limits so that the infantry could keep up with them and assigned them as support roles and then took fast lighter armed tanks and expected them to break through enemy lines on the attack with no infantry support. Assuming modern doctrine is correct.
I'm no historian. I just like how they work in WT. Especially that one in the Swedish tech tree. *holds up digital t-34* I just think they're neat.
the T34 was an amazing tank for the early 1940s amazing Armour almost 300mm on the turret an amazing 120mm gun it was just outstanding... (hushed muttering from a person in the room)
OH that T-34.....i mean it was a Tank.
Fellow T34 enjoyer I see
T34 heavy tank was just obsolete when it was being designed, heavy tanks in general just got obsolete after 1945
Tiny correction on the great drive from karkov to Moscow the driver didn't get pneumonia from exhaustion he got it because the tank didn't have a fucking heater for the crew
it is Kharkov, 2 years i lived there
@@Skaldy1 From one grammar Nazi to another: respect.
A SOVIET tank used in UKRAINE and RUSSIA didn’t have a heater installed. My god.
@@Man_0f_Trenches Soviet tank used in Soviet Union* FYI factory that made first t34 is now fridge or freezer factory. and i thin that pun was intended
You don't get pneumonia strictly from being in the cold. Being in the cold likely caused him to be exhausted from his body trying to work overtime to keep him warm, and when you pair that with exhaustion from overexertion it probably caused his immune system to weaken to the point that his body couldn't effectively protect him from pneumonia
"The Cromwell is better than the T-34"
We're reading levels of *based* that shouldn't be possible
Cromwell actually had speed, there is a story about the British JUMPING across a tiny bridge that was blown up. I mean, aside from bt7, what could do that? (Hellcat, and probably a few other speedy bois as well)
@@mikaelgrande6968 - I believe Lindybeige tells that story.
@@mikaelgrande6968 that story is almost certainly fake.
Yes cromwell was a fast tank
No its very unlikely it could jump 10 m gap and keep going.
@@QurttoRco NAH MAN THAT HUNK OF STEEL IS MUCH FASTER THAN LIGHTINGING MCQUEEN
@@QurttoRco It was in the memoirs of one british tank commander. The gap was most likely not 10 meters wide but he does not say. There was sort of a ledge that could be used as a ramp to jump and the tanks had a bit of a run up to take up speed.
Exagerated, maybe. Fake, not definetly.
Every time I watch videos of The Chieftain trying to get in/out of some of these tanks that are cramped and do poorly on the "Oh crap, the tank is on fire" test... it stresses me the hell out.
I think it's important to note that in 1941 the Soviet's were already looking to replace the T-34-76 with a newer T-34M model that used a bigger 3 man turret with a commanders cupola, new torsion bar suspension (greatly increases the interior space), and a new engine/transmission. The original T-34-76 with the Christie suspension was already a dead end design and the outbreak of war stopped the development of the T-34M, but it was later dusted off in 1943, and became the basis of the T-44 tank by late 1944.
Had the Soviets had time to refine and mass produce the T-34M they would have been able to develop the T-44 a lot earlier in the war and that tank was vastly superior to the Panther in almost every category.
I'm glad you mentioned the bombing campaign led by the US and UK. A huge part of Germany not being able to crank out more weapons and supplies and move them in a timely manner was because their factories and rail systems and roads were all being leveled by copious amounts of explosives. Didn't know about the bidding wars you mentioned that kept valuable high grade materials from the Germans, always cool to see how resource procurement can have such a drastic effect on a conflict.
So basically if it wasn't for the western allies getting involved it would have been a war of attrition for the Russians and they would have lost due to literaly running out of supplies..geez
More tanks would be of no help to the germans considering they lacked fule to run theam
@@lordofdarkdudes Every one makes this claim but still have seen no evidence to back it up.
@@paullakowski2509 you mean germanys fuel shortage during ww2? That was without a doubt a thing i dont know what to tell you
@@lordofdarkdudes i would like to see credible sourced figures,...let me help out.
German oil supplies were average of 10 million tons per year from 1939 -1944? How much oil do they need.?
I’m surprised you didn’t delve into the T-34’s Korean War performance. Yes, it gained a ferocious reputation feasting on Chaffee light tanks and shrugging off bazooka and 57 mm anti-tank rounds. When faced with Sherman’s and Pershing tanks, the T-34 fared poorly.
Tank performance being bad in one war = being bad all around is quite misleading. It can even vary between different nations using the same tank. For instance, American crews had a higher survival rate in the sherman than british crews for one reason. Americans wore helmets and Brotish wore berets
@@comradekenobi6908 Or yknow, the overstocking of ammunition :P
Shermans tore the T34 a new asshole in Korea, and the same people who call the T34 a war winner call the Sherman a death trap, so it’s quite interesting
@@eazy8579 how do you know it's the same people?
@@comradekenobi6908 you ever seen the one show Lazerpig pulled clips from? It was called Top 10 Tanks, it was run on the “History Channel” and it ranked the Sherman 10 (lowest) and the T34 Number 1; they could not stop bashing the Sherman and, well, you saw the guy who’s hot take was “T-34 armor designed to stop gunfire.” He was that show
36:42 - 37:40 is an excellent example of Lazerpig's thespian talent, and I find his example endlessly hilarious.
The Russian military has the same logistics capability as my niece setting up a tea party for her stuffed animals 😂
I suspect your niece is actually a lot better. She actually cares about her stuffed animals and isn't selling all that state supplied (read parents) tea to the neighbors as a side hustle.
“They were quickly abandoned by their crews when they broke down, or ran out of fuel or ammo”
Hey, hey I’ve seen this one before, this is a classic!
what do you mean, it's brand new?
Yes, that comment aged well.
@@morvish1925fucking perfect hahaha
Some things never change
A farmer in Ukraine* and its free real-estate
The game Tetris was actually a game about fitting crew into a t34 in the most efficient way possible
So, correct me if I am wrong.
German: overengineered.
Soviet: poorly manufactured.
U.S.A: made to be light enough to be shipped across an ocean.
U.K: decent design limited production.
"Americans at the Aberdeen Proving Ground didn't properly maintain the tank." Neither did Russian tank crews. Getting to the fittings for engine maintenance involved dismantling the armor louvers installed on the engine deck, and that was such a pain in the backside that precious few of them ever bothered. With the numbers of T-34s being cranked out, it was much easier to drive one around until it broke down and then hike back and get a new one. Rinse and repeat.
I always find it funny that the people who are quick to call the Sherman a death trap, are also the quickest to praise the t-34 it honestly baffles me.
Well, the Sherman did have two nicknames: "Ronsons" - after the cigarette lighter because they "lit first time" and the Germans called them the "Tommy Cooker".
@@kiwitrainguy I believe the Germans called everything tommy cookers. Also, Ronsons didn’t start using the slogan “first time every time” until the 50s. There’s “one flip and it’s lit” in the 20s though. Also, the Americans used zippo lighters. Not ronsons.
@@kiwitrainguy Don't quote me on this but to add to the source less tidbits floating around the internet, I've also heard that the term "Tommy cooker" was given by the British while they were fighting in the desert, because it was a metal box in the desert and would naturally get very hot inside.
@@TuShan18 Also, everything tended to go up in flames during this time period, whether it was the fuel or the ammunition. The Americans took great measures to fix this problem, whether through preventive measures to flood the magazine if it was breached or attaching springs to every single hatch possible.
It turns out that being the Arsenal of Democracy and having an absolutely ludicrous industrial advantage over everyone else has its benefits.
@@BjornTheDim agreed. People might always say that American industry was a major factor of the war, but I don’t think enough people realize why that was the case, and how far America went to use the full force of its industry.
Tank nerds are great.
recall that in the previous 12 months 2 people in 2 different countries have gone to jail because of their need to trade secrets for E-Tank-Honor
I'm on team M3 Lee, not because it's a good tank but because it looks funny.
Based, the lee is cool
The Lee was there for them when they needed it to be, and it did the best it could. What more could you ask for from a tank?
@@tinyplaidninjas8868 it wasn’t great, but it was good n cheap!
Im on team Grant. Same tank, different turret
The Lee is such a good tank because even tho it wasn't the best, it did what it was supposed to. Was it supposed to be a fast, hard hitter and impenetrable tank? No! It was made to be good enough until something better could replace it, and it's what it did.
The reason the Societs did so good was the US provided trucks for their logistics, and their infantry combined with their commanders who were far better than what most people assume (Stalin's Purges could have actually left the Soviet Union with better officers overall, BUT the timing was what made the whole event something of a detriment for the Soviets)
Don't forget the amount of food, steel and vehicles the US gave them. If it wasn't for lend lease, the soviets would have been massacred
The US did provide a huge number of trucks, but virtually none before 1943.
Invented "Zerg rush" before SC was a thing.
My place of work (A war museum) has a T-34 produced during the war. the entire thing is rusted on the inside. Levers, clutch, front hatch and even the seats are all rusted shut. One time the owner asked me to turn the turret a bit to the right and raise the gun a bit, I asked him how I was supposed to move a rusted tank turret. He told me the turret traversal by hand still worked and to my surprise it did. it worked flawlessly and I could traverse the turret with just a finger. No idea how the Soviets did it, but they did produce a good turret ring even during the war.
The Soviets had to prioritize hard. If they had to make a choice between well buffed track cover rivets or a properly balanced turret mount, they chose the turret mount. A lot of the decisions made on the T34 came down to brutal realities of economics and warfare. A tank was only going to typically last a few months in service, and a matter of days at most in combat. So the emphasis became cranking out as many tanks as possible with care prioritized to mission critical components.
@@Mortablunt lol, that's hilariously wrong, and if they had done better the tanks COULD have lasted far far longer. Every other army was fully capable or recovering and servicing damaged tanks, Russia abandoned great numbers of them.
@@DrewLSsix Go take it up with historians if you know better.
@@DrewLSsix yeah, because they were fighting on the back leg for half the war. Terrain in Russia also isn't good for recovery. It is very muddy in Russia and it lacks proper road networks. During the winter there isn't any mud, but you can't recover a tank in half a meter of snow. The soviets abandoned their tanks because they knew that they could be replaced and it wasn't worth it. allies recover their tanks because they were produced overseas and hard to ship
Edit: also Russia had massive skilled labour shortages. They literally could not afford or even had the true capabilities to produce a superior tank with numbers to match the T34 during ww2 (which they needed because of the massive front and lots of German armour)
@@DrewLSsix russia didn't have "every other army" - they had the russian army. this is very important thing for a russian leader to understand.
so that 'could have lasted far longer' is a bit of a stretch in the circumstances. the biggest design criteria was to be able to make many of them and it did fill that criteria, better than germans.
I have to agree considering that the man who built the t-34 also died in the t-34 due to the heater not working
Lol
Actually it technicly DIND'T HAD ONE
@@teoborges3949 the heater was the engine.
He had to build it and drive it himself to prove it's worth, and of course he should have thought about installing a heater. I guess the mass produced ones did have a heater, although they cut down on just about everything else.
ouch
I hate that T is right next to the R on the keyboard, so whenever I search this thing up and misspell I get a roller coaster of emotions
Pardon me
WHAT?
I would have never thought that an hour-long video on the t-34 would become one of my favourite rewatch videos
“The Russians haven’t produced a good tank sense 1965”
*Me looking at all the T-80’s the Ukrainians have taken out*
…Well that aged very well.
You could literally replace the T34 in this video with virtually any other Russian or Soviet tank from the past 50 years
@@rorysparshott4223 Soviet gear has always been vastly overrated. The same for the chicoms.
@@joewelch4933 ChiComs steal America's shit, that's where their more advanced stuff tends to come from.
I doubt you could _pay_ China to steal Russian tank designs in the 21st century.
@@joewelch4933 The Ak is a great beginner gun for soldiers and those who never used guns.
Ukrainian T-64s are not bad, and they come in one year before your deadline, but even they will explode if you get a penetrator inside the turret.
I recently watched a movie called “T-34”. It’s very much a T-34 love letter. I watched it with one of my good friends does as much research as I do and we had a lot of fun tearing apart the way they make the T-34 seem like a god among tanks. The basic plot is simple: A Russian T-34 crew is captured after ambushing a German tank convoy, they are then given a new T-34 that was captured but without any shells to allow them to act as a dummy crew for training. The Germans didn’t take out the bodies from the tank, hiding 5 shells. They use the shells to destroy the German tanks during the training match and make an escape. We laughed a lot at the movie, we joked that the most impressive thing was the fact that the T-34 didn’t break down over the course of the movie.
I remember watching a clip where a Panther shell ricocheted off of the T-34 at a fairly close distance. Didn't the Panther's gun have better penetration capabilities than the Tiger's 88?
@@DakotaofRaptors not positive but I believe so, and they were good enough to penetrate T-34s at least but that’s a guess
I'd view it more through the lens of the likes of rambo, the tank and its crew were simply exceptional, one-in-a-million, the heroes, that one tank and its commander was a PROTAGONIST, able to defy all odds through his smarts, iron will and sheer fucking grit
after all everyone and everything else was murderised by the germans in that movie, and it isn't titled t-34s isn't it? just one t-34
He used a few clips from that movie in this video
@@DakotaofRaptors that panther round should have pen the t-34, it was pretty much point blank range. The only reason why it didn't pen the t-34 cuz of plot armor.
It wasn't only tanks that were produced like crap just to get higher production it was AIRCRAFT. Many early Russian aircraft had main spar failures because the workers were forced to use worn out drill bits and tools. Using worn out drills forced the Soviet workers to smash bolts through metal with heavy sledge hammers that weakened the main spar of the aircraft almost guaranteeing a wing failure in flight.
The Soviet air force was a flying grave
17:00 small innacuracy. Brunell is the measurement of hardness. the measurement for cold working or heat treatment is % which is weird.
To explain, hardness does not equal toughness. think of hardness like ceramic plates, yes it is hard but fragile. One of the benefits of steel over concrete is that it is ductile. Ductility is the amount something can deform( like shape change) before permanent deformation.
If the steel is too hard it will shatter on impact, a bunch of food plates will offer better protection. If it is too soft the round will cut through it like a hot knife through butter. So you should sorta get a middle ground between the 2, so that the harder part stops the projectile from piercing and the softer part keeping the metal together during the deformation caused by the impact
Fucksakes why did I have to do engineering
I was born in china. In there, people was told and believed that T34 was the best medium tank in wwii. But as I started to read more history, I started to question that why the best tank suffered such a high number of loss. Then I found that it was not as good as I was told. I agree with you. Maybe the design was not that bad but the real products were not exactly as they were designed. I like your channel.
is suggest reading the The T-34 is not as bad as you think it is, for proper info
@@suddenlythatenderman5800 Yes it was. It was one of the worst tanks of world war II.
@@suddenlythatenderman5800 so compare to the Japanese ones which looks bad?
@@TheVistula Is not the worst tank in ww2, if so then the Sherman also the worst tank in ww2 because the allies are afraid of the Tiger tanks when the Tiger tank blow up thier Shermans. The T-34 suffered the high causality because the Soviet can retrieved back the damaged or even destroyed T-34 and fixed them to get those tanks back to battlefield
"Best" does not mean superior to all aspects. Lots of mediocre tanks can be "better" than small numbers of good tanks.
Percentage of t34 lost in ww2: 78%. Percentage of Sherman’s lost: 18%. Which tank was a death trap, again? (Also the Sherman was vastly more easy to escape in an emergency, so far more crew would survive a vehicle loss)
>On Attack calling in airstrikes on everything that moves while screaming in fear
Yes...Total superiority against demoralized garrison forces
How did they fare on the Eastern Front?
Source?
The Sherman mate, the Sherman was a death trap especially while it had only one hatch for 3 turret crew and big fat 75mm rounds all down the thinly armoured vertical sponsons, which was actually for most of its WW2 service.
It was basically an early 30's design automotively with a turret added in 1942 housing a derivative of the famous French 75mm field gun of 1897 vintage.
It was cobbled together seemingly from bits and bobs laying around a shipyard, an ancient suspension here, an odd engine there made by bolting together many small engines
or obsolete aircraft engines.
@@antonrudenham3259 There are two hatches on the turret of the Sherman, with two more on the front hull of the tank, not to mention these were spring loaded making the tank really easy to get out of. Not to mention the escape hatch at the bottom of the tank. The Sherman had a better engine, better top speed, better quality overall in production and ammunition, it was more reliable and could be fixed easier. The T34 had a worse K/D ratio. Don’t forget their lack of radios either with the exception of the platoon leader, so much like the French in 1940 they were communicating with signal flags. It was literally the least reliable tank of the war, breaking down even more often than the Tiger and it’s memed transmission.
@@seanassociateproductions1691 I'm fully aware of the T34"s limitations, especially the M40, 41 and 42 versions.
The standard M4A1 and M4 kept a single hatch turret right through to 1944 and plenty served after that date.
There are a select few people in this world who understand that "military-grade" actually means the cheapest option presented mass produced with quality often set aside for quantity. This is true for all nations under the massive radioactive ball of burning gas in the sky. And also the UK.
But then there's "Hurry up with these tanks before Stalin has us all fall out of windows."
The lonely T-34 (and the only tank presented) on Red Putin Army Parade in Moscow 2023 was build in our country after war, in Czechoslovakia :-)
Like those russian imbeciles couldnt buy USED t34s from middle east or collectors
"From the factory to the front line" could just mean that "freshly" made T-34s were taken to the front line instantly
Not in this case. The stories he's referring to are of tanks rolling off the production line at a factory in a city under attack, then a crew jumping in them and driving it outside directly into combat with the Germans. You hear similar (albeit with more verification) stories about factories in Leningrad building PPS43 submachine guns and testing them by shooting out the window.
@@litkeys3497 I think it’s more realistic to build guns under attack then a goddamn tank that is functioning and doesn’t break down
I always assumed that expresion wasnt literal, but if some tell it as factual well, he wrong or extremely punctual event
@litkeys didn't Stalin already order the moving of said factories well before the Germans got to any major cities? I do recall one in Leningrad especially.
@@Niever Kirov factory was definetly functioning during siege, but it produced KV tanks, not T-34.
Tank Salesman: *Slaps roof of tank*
T-38: *Roof fractures*
Tank Salesman: "Shit."
Reminds me of...
Design lead: *Throws metal ball at armoured window*
Tesla Pickup truck: *'Bulletproof' glass fractures*
Elon Musk: "Oh my f------ god"
Tank Salesman: So how would you like Shermans?
"Blyat!"
Was it a bamboo sheet made to look like steel from china?
@@Katharina-rp7iq Nope, just steel heat-treated at 600 brunell
I have watched this video over and over, and I am repeatedly struck by how much the first historian looks like a thumb.
Considering all the myths regarding tanks like the T-34 and the Tiger, when do you think we could get a video on Franz Staudegger, a Tiger commander who reportedly took out 2 T-34s with grenades and up to 20 with his crew?
The T-34 is just the physical embodiment of the phrase, “Great on paper, horrible in execution.”
except it wasn't great on paper either, just decent at best.
It's the embodiment of the Zerg Rush. Throw on enemy until enemy is no more.
You can say that about a lot of CCCP stuff
Soooooo , communism ?
@@tech_report_0868 Yes and No. In fact, there isn't a single faith, form of government or organization in the history of the universe, that did not sooner or later begin to exploit and bullshit their way to the top.
I highly recommend people look into what soviet tank crews said about lend lease shermans that they got. They complained about the tracks being a bit annoying in mud, and the gun being a little underpowered, but they loved the reliability and comfort. This is the people that supposedly had the best tank of ww2(t-34) talking about the supposedly worst tank(Sherman) of the war. I do like T-34s, but they are overrated.
@Steven Doherty Dmitry Loza is a good example.
What not a single comment said here, is that the gun on a t 34 would penetrate german armour. Which was enough. And its not a russian tank but a judeo communist one. Learn the difference
@@brennanleadbetter9708 I thought the part where he said that you could safely play paintball with a tommy gun if you were wearing a padded jacket did somewhat diminish his credibility though.
@ jic1 might’ve been a lucky miss. But even American soldiers complained about the Tommy’s drawbacks.
@@brennanleadbetter9708 There's a big difference between 'it's heavy, expensive, and hard to control' and 'you can shoot your friends with it and they'll be fine'.
The reason why the t34 was good was cause it was cheap and easily repairable, not cause of its angled armer or its gun
So was the Sherman
@@HIdude5309 true
As a welding student, I can only imagine how badly it would be held together: harder steels (like steel used for tools) are very easy to crack while welding, in the form of microscopic cracks that still severely weaken the plate and weld; stick welding is awful and if you have to weld over welds, if you don't clean in between where you're welding well you'll get pourocity (holes and bubbles in the weld); lastly, my first welds after having it demonstrated were still terrible, I'm personally impressed it managed to get off the assembly line.
One of the most interesting reports I have read about the T-34 came from Israel. After the six day war, the Israelis captured many Egyptian and Syrian T-34s, most of them had broken down, thrown tracks, or trapped in the dunes, the Israelis tested them out, and discovered the T-34 was scorching hot, the desert made the interior as hot as a boiler room, the Soviets gave the tanks to the Arabs, without telling them how vulnerable the T-34 is to heat. The T-34 was impotent against sand, which would jam the turret, choke the engine, and paralyze the tracks, but the biggest flaw the Israelis discovered, was the T-34 was too vulnerable to infantry attacks, there were so many blind spots, infantry could sneak up on it, and destroy the tank with a recoilless rifle, or capture the tank by storming it.
I wonder what they thought about the Panzer IV
Sooo the T-34s would just melt anyone inside... Why .. why wouldn't the Russians tell them about the heat? Did they not know about Heat strokes, You can die by that stuff! What did the Russians Believe that the T-34 would remain so cold in there because it came out of Russia?
@@AllMightyKingBowser I can guess.
Paper thin armor makes it not ideal for assaulting, but it's got decent vision and a decent gun. Not great in the desert, but from the sound of it, not as bad as the T34.
@@AllMightyKingBowser They did capture at least 1 during the six day war as the Syrians used Panzer IV's. Am looking into it but so far it seems the Syrians were at least able to use the Pz IV in the desert. Well they did serve in the North African front during WW2 so that alone says it was better than the T34 in the heat.
I fully believe all of these flaws are true
But I will mention that the T-34 was not designed to fight in hot desert conditions without infantry support.
It's not a matter of design failure, it's a matter of equipment being used wrong. Like a knife to a gun fight
Now this is just my opinion; but I think the "From the factory to the front lines" comment originally came from the Germans. I think they looked over these tanks after they had been knocked out and noticed all of the parts that were missing and some one probably cracked a joke about them being in such a hurry to get their tanks to the front that they didn't finish it.
This comment has 34 likes, let's keep it this way.
In the history of WW-2, near Stalingrad, it actually happened. The tractor factory, which was heavily fought over, had been converted into a tank factory early in the war. The speed of the German advance caught the Russians off guard, and they decided to quickly move the tank factory machinery farther east. Right before the disassembly began, the Germans closed in on Stalingrad as the last tanks built at the tractor factory rolled out of the building and drove to the battlefield a few miles outside the city. The Russians then frantically removed the equipment and moved it to the east.
@@Haispawner im sorry little one
@@Helperbot-2000😡
also, being rushed from the factory straight into battle doesn't say anything about whether or not the vehicle managed to achieve anything in the battle.
I like the idea that there were a bunch of Russians on the OG internet getting paid to make T-34 memes.
I think i've heard the word "rugged" too many times in the military to justify the general mediocrity and lack of simple comfort to know what it really means.
(=that means "we don't have shit but don't complain)
A fourth possible source of 'Soviet tanks rolling off the production line right onto the frontline' could be during the Seige of Leningrad. There was a tank factory in the city which built KV-1s, and during the early parts of the seige they still had the materials nessisary to pump out a few more tanks, which would have immediately been put to work defending the city. It's not quite the same situation, but it's often presented as such when propagating the idea, so I think it's worth pointing out
Makes sense. I can see someone saying that and then someone else saying that the Soviet’s pumped out tanks during a siege. Then that got translated into T-34 because it’s the Soviet tank everyone thinks about. Then it became Stalingrad because that’s the battle everyone knows.
It could also be based off of the story of tanks going straight to the frontline from the 1941 October revolution parade
I'd just slightly add: there's gonna be tanks that are nearly finished, in that factory. Some are waiting for shipment, some for a paintjob, some for "non-essential" parts that are never gonna be delivered. Under the right circumstances you might as well complete them as far as possible and roll them out. They're not gonna win any battles, but they'll add a little bit of firepower and force the enemy to use some shells to take it out. Which also prevents the Germans from capturing a tank they'll be able to fix and use later.
This isn't in any way a good thing. Half of it is just pragmatism, and the other half is being desperate enough that you'll use a half-finished tank.
The third half being that you need the supplies etc. But if you just lost a dozen T-34s at the front, odds are there's a truck with ammo and fuel, and an assembly of crew members, left over from those.
@@sorsocksfake Russian manufacturing was (and probably still is) terrible. When the first Ford car plants were constructed over there the workers ate the grease sent for the bulldozers. The cement floors were made from ash and it damaged all the machinery. Nothing was ever maintained properly. Everything was stolen.
In a the hydroelectric powerplant they melted a very expensive Swedish turbine by burning the wooden crate it was shipped in to keep warm.
The one I have heared quoted was always the siege of Moscow.
So two nation with flawed tanks fought against each other and the smaller nation which industry was bombed into pieces eventually lost, while the other just kept producing?
Mild Shock!
atleast german tanks had better armout and firepower
Two virgins fighting while the Sherman chads write the mother and fatherlands divorce
@Arn Francis Tapic 🇺🇦 the great grandpa of the Bombastic Bradley
@Arn Francis Tapic 🇺🇦 Sherman the persevering shall forever watch over his kin proudly defend the land of the free from the unscrupulous Regimes of the world
@Arn Francis Tapic 🇺🇦 ok then why did the americans and british lose countless tanks against 6 germans with anti tank guns they were driving into the field and lost a huge amount
"Known by few, but loathed by many."
"So, what makes you the most angry?" "Grrrrrrrrrr.... I don't know!!!"
On the topic of sloped armor, we as humans have understood sloped armor is better at deflecting blows than flat armor, which is why all plate armor is sloped after the 14th century.
The T-34 was definitely one of the tanks of the war.
It did the thing it needed to do: Drive out the Nazis on the ground and halt their attempts to colonize Russia the same way the US colonized the west. They didn't need an engineering marvel to do that. They needed lots of things to throw at the overengineered Nazi shit. They made that, and so they won the war.
Engineering isn't about making something shiny, complicated, and sturdy. It's about completing a task with the resources on hand. Usually, making things complicated and sturdy is a good strategy for accomplishing that, but it isn't the only one. And, crucially, it wasn't one the Soviets had available to them. So they used the resources they did have to win the war they were actually fighting. Meanwhile, the Nazis were fighting an insane ideological war by trying to prove German technology was superior, instead of fighting the enemies they had made with the resources available to them. The Nazis were fighting a fake history book instead of the Soviets with their tank designs. It's no wonder they losy.
@@Frommerman bruh
@@Frommerman Bruh
@@Frommerman bruh
@@Frommerman Bruh
Also hear the stories of hit t-34 charging heroically into their enemy in suicidal ram runs. This however I've learned is BS because the tank didn't have an accelerator but a brake, the design often meant taking a hit killed the driver so unable to hold the brake anymore the tank would drive in a straight line until destroyed or hitting something big.
omg lol...
That would make the tank even less survivable because unless the tank is in neutral The crew can't dismount safely as it goes on a runaway.
I would like to see a source for this
@@AJPDing agreed. That sounds like an incredibly stupid design
it reminds me the story of the "italian ghost tanks" (basically the tankers of the italian M13/40 and M14/41 used to put an heavy object on the accelerator. so in some case, even bursting in flames some italians tanks keeped moving fowards as the soul of the driver wouldn't leave the engine.
5 minutes of any Lazer Pig video is worth an hour of a major motion picture, or 3 hours of a TV sitcom, or 10 hours of being high, on anything. It's that entertaining.
For the record, around 33 minutes was when I realized how shit the tank would have been to ride and operate. Then I thought what the earlier mentioned Spalling would do in that coffin.
It was when you mentioned that the Fuel was in the Crew compartment that I thought "Oh fuck. Fuckedy fuckedy fuck. I would never in a million years get into this deathtrap." That right there clinched it for me. I thought the fuel was in these cylinder things on the back.
AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!
For some reason the delivery of "Wot's a tank? is it like a tren?" is fucking perfect, makes me laugh like a lunatic every time
Example of soft factors mattering a whole lot: if an Abrams hits a mine and loses the idler wheel, the crew can rotate the next road wheel about 90 degrees forward and take some links off the track to drive home under its own power, like a tourniquet for a tank. A tank that lacks this ability requires a huge field repair session or possibly an entire recovery vehicle to pull it out. Granted, you won't be swapping this road wheel over while under machinegun fire, but it matters a whole lot on the grand scale when you don't need M88s babysitting every tank platoon. That damaged tank can run back to base for a proper repair while the Hercules can pull a Stryker out of a ditch or help clear a minefield, instead of towing the Abrams.
5 cm PAK gun that Germans had could and did kill T34.
7.5 cm PAK gun that came later did the same, only better. (Though large AT guns were not very maneuverable and quite unwieldy)
I laughed so much at your opening showing the T34 fan typing and ranting furiously 😂