The T-34 is not as good as you think it is
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- čas přidán 23. 12. 2021
- In his worst multi-award seeking documentary to date, unemployed schizophreniac, and low-tier CZcamsr 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
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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"..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 CZcams because of the west??
@@pokerone6489 Woop woop. Clear the area everyone. We are in danger of a critical melt down event. Woop oop.
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.
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 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
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
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
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
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
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.
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..
"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 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?
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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
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.
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.
@@JayMH409 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.
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".
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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 czcams.com/video/NYioaoSwKv8/video.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.
T34 is a great tank for parades.
Especially when all other tanks are broken or somewhere else.
And again in 2024😉
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
"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.
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 .
Watching this video 15 months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine and I find it baffling how little the Russians have changed since WW2.
It's almost as if Putin and his cronies are still living in the so-called glory days, and have the tactical ability of Pierre Sprey
The logistics issues they face are because they expect heavy losses
Alcohol is a helluva drug.
Are you kidding me the red army would shit bricks over these Russian federation troops
Russian tactics haven't changed since the tsars.
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.
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.
'This will upset a lot of people' are some of my favorite words.
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
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
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
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Suddenly all the problems with the T-14 makes sense
Do not judge yet
We ain't clearly know about T-14 or get RedEffect'd
@@02suraditpengsaeng41 we know one thing they either have less of them then they claim they do or too many got fucked (transmition/engine or something else dying) before the last victory parade they were in
@@501stIstheBestRegiment I mean for common sense especially "History repeat itself"
I found out T-14 Armata has familiar story as IS-3
T-14 problem is the corruption inside the Russian military and cut budget costs during the R&D.
Indeed the theory was good but it'd be good if it's deployed during the 2010s.
Know the tank is outdated.
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 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.
'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...
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.
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
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.?
36:42 - 37:40 is an excellent example of Lazerpig's thespian talent, and I find his example endlessly hilarious.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
*Smacks roof of tank*
*Armor cracks*
@I hate myself crew is stuck
@I hate myself *turret flies to space*
@I hate myself *Tractor appears*
*AMMO EXPLODES*
@I hate myself oh right, i forgot the non-existent ventilation
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 ?
@@udbhavsingh8608 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.
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
I bet that this man could teach an entire college semester whilst absolutely shit faced
It would be glorious.
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'.
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.
"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 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
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.
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
This gives me an idea, “I’m not fat, I just have sloped armor”.
I have watched this video over and over, and I am repeatedly struck by how much the first historian looks like a thumb.
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.
Poor logistics and soldiers quickly abandoning equipment, surely that could never happen again….what? It has? In Ukraine you say? Oh…
Oh and vehicles that don’t allow you to escape if your the driver and you get hit with a anti tank round, referring to a photo I saw from Ukraine with a bmp-2s front completely split open the driver still visible.
@@charlesmcgill2974 source? I wanna see that lol
@@charlesmcgill2974 you see the one where the tank gets smoked and the crew go flying? czcams.com/video/fngPVC4V4Gk/video.html
@@charlesmcgill2974 where can we see that?
For a moment I couldn't tell what era you were talking about lol
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 M4 Sherman: the best example of a tank that has a great mix of quality and quantity
While people give the Sherman shit, it was a acceptable quality thank produced in vast quantities and thus it was a war winner. Because the detail those "quantity is a quality of its own" dipshits forget is that 0 multiplied by a trillion is still zero, one multiplied by a million is one illion. And 2 multiplied by 500 thousand is also one million. The T-34 is a zero, the Sherman is the 2, while the Tiger was a 4 multiplied by 36
Can’t run a Sherman tank now.
I would say the t-34 also fits that example.
@@U_Go_Boom except the T-34 is worthless. A rolling tomb, if you can't see a enemy even when they shoot you, your useless, more Russian Field Guns killed German Tanks than the T-34 and the T-34 is also the only tank of the war to have the distinction of suffering a more than 100% casualty rate in a battle of WW2 which coincidentally happens to be one of the largest tank battles in human history, a battle won by Russian Infantry. This why I hold the dumbass who wanted to cancel all Russian AT gun production as the biggest idiot of WW2.
@@U_Go_Boom have you even watched this video ?
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.
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
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)
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
On Soviet logistics: had the Western Allies not supplied them with lots and lots of *trucks* (not weapons, just boring Studebaker trucks) via the northern convoys the Soviets would have been fairly well fucked.
They got 200,000 trucks, and absolutely loved every single one of them.
They used 'em for everything, even towing artillery and mounting Katyusha rockets on the back. Logistics, baby.
Soviets built 130,000 trucks from 1942-44; mostly 1.5 ton. Wehrmacht built 200,000 during this same period, with average 2.5-3 ton lift each. USA % COMMONWEALTH shipped 460,000 trucks and light transports. The combined allied LL trucks could lift 900,000 tons supplies munitions etc , while Soviet trucks could haul , 355;000 tons ...in other-words 3/4 of the entire RED ARMY MOTORIZED LIFT CAPACITY CAME FROM LL.
OPERATION BARBAROSSA V-III A ; NIGEL ASKEY..pp 108/109.,....2016.
czcams.com/video/bzsKnKcb1-A/video.html
Ah how the Soviets loved to forget that. No comrade, capitalism bad, never mind we have to buy wheat from the America on credit! (btw this happened in the 70s’s so no blaming it on Stalin).
The Soviets provided a lot of the main tip of the spear. The other Allies tempered said tip, and kept them from Communising all of Europe.
It's all well and good to beat one's chest for their "side" or team, but the fact is that if not for the Soviet people's tenacity and Allied logistics/armaments and soldiers, the Germans would or could have overrun everything.
Factories were critical to the war. It isn't as though the soviet people sat on their ass and won through sheer numbers alone.
Look at what Japan managed to do to China. The Chinese got butchered at Nanking and all over the place. Numbers alone do not win wars.
People are very myopic, and that is why we have so many issues in the world. I don't buy either the Western nor Eastern/Russian narrative in full.
They are all full of it, and high on their own supply, causing major problems for themselves and everyone/everything around them.
@@GeistInTheMachine They're all full of it. But there is the one additional note. In addition to trucks, fuel, metals, and so on and so forth, the Western allies also provided the Soviets with a BUNCH OF TANKS. Some, like the Valentine, weren't particularly well liked and went by the wayside. The Shermans, however, were front-line tanks and the sherman crews had to defend their tanks from looting by their own forces as the quality of even such sundries as the seats was so good.
“The T-34 is a bad tank with major issues”
Soviets: “We know that’s why are have a modernization program to give it torsion bar suspension, a 3 man current, and better sights/optics.”
*Operation Barbarossa happens*
Soviets: “Well shit”
Yeah I really dislike this video tbh, he says a lot of this stuff like the Soviets weren't aware of the issues at all and completely strawman's arguments that I don't think I've ever seen people make for the T-34.
@@jacksteel1539 It is a bad tank, of course the designers were aware of it but this video is pointed at tankies that think that T-34 is a good tank. If you decide to position yourself into that strawman's position its on you for getting your feelings hurt about it.
@@castor3020 it is was at least better than what americans had
@@castor3020 He say's he would take 100 tigers over 1000 T-34s which is completely baffling.
He doesn't compare any tanks to it in their early stages of production and he seems to only compare the T-34 vs the worst things it could face but not what against it would face 90% of the time or for the first 2 years of the war.
The video can be pointed at whoever it wants to point at but it's not correct just because "tankies bad"
@@castor3020 czcams.com/video/WE6mnPmztoQ/video.html
This is what Hitler thought of the Soviet tank numbers
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 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
"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.
“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
I want to know how many war thunder russian mains this man has triggered
All of them except the ones that only play it due to the history of russian bias warthunder has had
I would have never thought that an hour-long video on the t-34 would become one of my favourite rewatch videos
16:41 FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN METALLURGY: The process he's likely referring to is called 'annealing', which is a process by which the steel is heated and then cooled slowly, softening, yet toughening the material to make it more shock resistant. Softening a metal doesn't necessarily make it weaker. Think of the difference between rubber and glass. Rubber is very tough, you can squeeze it, bend it, and smash it, and it won't break. But if you cut into it with a knife, it'll slice right through. Conversely, glass is a very hard material, but very brittle, meaning you can't easily bend it, but you can smash it with a hammer.
Another problem that can occur with heat-treating improperly is called "Thermal Shock." The molecules of most steels aren't uniform, meaning they're all made up of thousands of different materials interlocked together. They all heat and cool at different rates, meaning that if you heat and cool the whole thing too rapidly, you run the risk of creating cracks in the armor and weakening the structural integrity of the piece. Now I can't say for certain whether or not thermal shock was a problem T-34's faced, but could easily have been a contributing factor, given the poor production quality of the machines.
--A former machinist.
He is referring to tempering the steel. Annealing is a slightly different process where you take the metal past it's critical temperature and cool very slowly. Tempering keeps the metal below it's critical temperature. Both of these will restore ductility and soften the metal but annealing does so to a much greater degree.
A "former machinist" who doesn't know the difference between annealing and tempering?
*Cough*bullshit*cough*
@@Solnoric bait
@@psychromaniac3525 also the part where he said that the molecules are made up of thousands of materials is spoken straight out of his arse. What really happens is that the lattice might be dirupted, having holes in some parts, making it easier to shatter the material.
-former chemistry student
@@Solnoric key word former like do you expect him to hold all the knowledge of his previous trade like he probably knows the difference but got them mixed up like he explained the entire process. Who would go on google and look up that like no, no one not even an attention seeker because how can you get attention for knowing what annealing is.
I always found the argument that diesel doesn't catch fire ridiculous. If it couldn't catch fire, how would it be used as fuel?
Of course it burns, but its flash point is 52-93 degrees C, vs -45 degrees C for petrol. As a result, diesel can't form explosive mixtures with air under room temperature conditions, whereas petrol can (assuming the mixture ratio is correct). This makes diesel somewhat better for safety, as a leaking fuel tank is unlikely to produce a mixture that can later be induced to explode by a spark.
@@nerd1000ify While it is less prone to fire, people do tend to conflate this with being completely impervious to it when Soviet testing showed otherwise.
It's less prone to fire and especially sudden explosions however it still can catch fire and being typical for fuels will spread pretty quickly.
Last time I heard this argument it was by a motorhead trying to explain how dry coated batteries were more likely to catch fire than diesel fuel réservoirs which is fucking nonsense.
"Diesel doesn't catch fire" is a somewhat wrong argument. But your argument, that is actually ridiculous. Yes, diesel CAN catch fire; damn, it's a fucking hydrocarbon! But you seem to not understand how fuel and engines work: Gasoline is more way more volatile and flammable, that's why gas engines use spark plugs and have less compression rates. Diesel needs to be mechanically pumped and aerosolized inside a pressurized and preheated chamber, to be further compressed, in order to ignite. You can even take some burning logs and spray gasoline over them, it will catch fire instantly (hell, even the fire can "climb" the fuel stream up to the recipient you have in your hands, and ignite it too, lots of domestic accidents happen that way). Now, go and pour a whole gas oil jerrycan over some burning stuff... Yes, a fire extinguished WITH A FUEL LOL
@@eduardotrillaud696 What the hell are you talking about? We just burned diesel a couple months ago. It easily catches fire and burns really well too. Gasoline too. Why wouldn't they? They don't need special mixing and mechanics. Gas, petrol, benzine, explodes. Very very easily. Diesel doesn't explode, but burn very well. While gasoline, if we talk about the same thing, is very hard to exhaust if burning.
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)
Around 45 min there are scenes from a Polish tv series "Four Tankmen and a Dog" about a brave, honourable Polish crew of a T-34 they called Readhead (no. 102), fighting within the Red Army ranks. Literally all the kids from the 60s up until the 80s, maybe even 90s, watched and loved this cult classic series. I used to reenact scenes from it when playing with my friends when I was, like, 9 years old. Everyone wanted to play as Johnny, the resolute tank commander. We did not care then that the show was actually (also) a piece of socialist propaganda, supporting the mythos of the invincible Red Army, superb T-34 tank, and USSR always in friendly alliance with Poland.
Watched it on Soviet TV in the 80s. Loved it. True, it was pure soviet propaganda.
I mean they were definetly not indestructible since their tank blew up twice throughout the show if I recall correctly
@@bogdanzalan84 I never said "indestructible". :) I was literally shocked when they lost the turret, afair.
@@dariuszzukowski5244 I was shocked too. I was like surely that is the end for them but next episode they just climb out from the haystack that they crashed into. Oh man I have to watch it again it is such a nice series. Fortunately it has dubbing in my language as well :)
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.
Quantity over quality is a viable strategy when the net gain for slightly less quality is more than made up for in quantity. But when half your tanks break down before battle, and those that make it are exhausted, can't see shit, and their armour shatters like glass the minute something looks at them hard, it becomes slightly less viable.
Which is why the shermans were rhe perfect tank for the quantity vs quality strategy. They weren't the greatest tanks, but were 100% the most reliable. Even if the shermans broke down fixing them were never an issue.
German infantry did not have an easy time dealing with T-34s. The Karabiner 98k or the MP-40 is not going to penetrate the armor of a T-34. The race to Berlin was lead by tank charges that the Germans just couldn't stop them with bullets and trenches.
Yep. 2 pretty good thanks is probably better than one amazing tank but it is probably still better than 3 horrible tanks.
@@andrewgreenwood9068 It depends. If say you're fighting against WWII China whom only has infantry, every last tank you have is going to have a massive advantage. So long as we're not talking about Bob Semple tanks but decent autocannon armed 12 ton light tanks, they're going to mow down infantry and resist machine gun fire, cause havoc and move fast. You'll get more bang for your buck than a 68.5 ton King Tiger.
@@Edax_Royeaux due to the T34 not seeing mich it Was often tolerable. The infantry oftrn fought against the soviet infantry or pinned them. The soviet tanks often failed to Support their own guys and went for the breaktroigz. Without infnatry they then Fell prey to rear elements
tell that to Gaijin, War Thunder devs (you'll get banned for complaining on forum)
Bob Semple Tank superiority