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One of the main flaws of T-34/76 was lack of commander's cupola and the fact that tank commander was also gunner. This caused already bad situational awareness from having to fight buttoned up to be even worse with commander having to do 2 tasks. This was corrected in T-34/85 with 3-man turret.
 
This explains also a lot why German tanks were usually performing lot better against theoretically better T-34. Most of the T-34s KO'd probably never knew what hit them, either because commander could not see out or he was busy using main gun.

Easy to answer the question... would you rather take a T34 or a Sherman into battle?

Easy for me, the T34.  I'd rather have armor than a seat-cushion.  Having a nice comfy butt matters not if you're dead.

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

The T-34 was better. The US stayed with the M4 because it was mass produced and reliable.

They also stuck with the Sherman because it weighed in less than 30 tons which allowed it to be loaded by standard dock cranes. That was actually a large deciding factor in going with the Sherman.

T-34 was possibly the best all around tank of the war, given its ease of production and general performance.

You could drink the distilled hydraulic fluid* of the T-34, so I'ld have to go with the ruskies on this one.


[font="times new roman"]*If you happen to believe James Dunnigan.[/font]

I'd rather take Sherman than T-34/76 for reasons I mentioned earlier. T-34/85 of course would be different thing and I'd prefer that over Sherman 76.

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Germany built roughly 50.000 tanks, are you sure that Britain built more?[&:]

Oops, sorry, that statement should have been heavily qualified. Tanks had joint top priority in British production decisions-making during the early war when the assumption was that we would have to provide for our own needs. After lend-lease and the entry of the US into the war more and more US manufactured tanks were available and Britain stopped prioritising home-made tank production. But from 1940-1943 - when tank-production was still a priority - Britain equalled and then out-produced Germany.
Numbers are (I think) just tanks, not including other self-propelled weapons.

Edit: the larger point being, if German production was so inefficient that they couldn't out-produce Britain alone (until Britain stopped trying) then clearly they were screwing-up big time.

OK, completely OT I admit, but an interesting discussion.....

Castor, point taken on kill rates. The Tiger/Panther were better tanks one on one. But these designs, and German tank designs in general, were a disaster for the overall war effort.

The Russians had T-34s in 1941/42, yet the Germans, with PzIIIs and IVs still outkilled them. Why? Because the tank isn't the whole story. The Wehrmacht had superior leadership at the division level and below to the Russians throughout the whole war. The Germans outkilled the Russians in everything right to the end, because the Wehrmacht had superior leadership at the unit level. They had higher kill rates regardless of tank for this reason.

The Germans built multiple models at a time, with many times several chassis at once, while the Americans were generally building only 1 tank, and 1 tank destroyer, and 2 types of chassis. The Sherman was not a brilliant design, but the overall PLAN that produced the Sherman, i.e. total industrial dominance, was brilliant.

Anyway, back to the Pacific War.

ORIGINAL: Mark Weston

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Germany built roughly 50.000 tanks, are you sure that Britain built more?[&:]

Oops, sorry, that statement should have been heavily qualified. Tanks had joint top priority in British production decisions-making during the early war when the assumption was that we would have to provide for our own needs. After lend-lease and the entry of the US into the war more and more US manufactured tanks were available and Britain stopped prioritising home-made tank production. But from 1940-1943 - when tank-production was still a priority - Britain equalled and then out-produced Germany.

Code: Select all

          Britain   Germany
 1939      969       1680
 1940      1399      1459
 1941      4841      3256
 1942      8190      4098
 1943      7476      6083
 1944      4057      9161
 1945      1392      1098

Numbers are (I think) just tanks, not including other self-propelled weapons.

Edit: the larger point being, if German production was so inefficient that they couldn't out-produce Britain alone (until Britain stopped trying) then clearly they were screwing-up big time.

thanks for this post. Only roughly 26.000 German tanks produced. Hmm, I thought to know that they produced something like 50.000. [&:]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

thanks for this post. Only roughly 26.000 German tanks produced. Hmm, I thought to know that they produced something like 50.000. [&:]

Those numbers probably don't count Self propelled assault guns, Tank destroyers without turrets...etc. Maybe also Self propelled artillery?

ORIGINAL: Iridium

ORIGINAL: castor troy

thanks for this post. Only roughly 26.000 German tanks produced. Hmm, I thought to know that they produced something like 50.000. [&:]

Those numbers probably don't count Self propelled assault guns, Tank destroyers without turrets...etc. Maybe also Self propelled artillery?

Exactly, tanks only.

hmmm,i'd take easy eight[:)]

I'd like to bring up the point of apples to oranges. The Sherman (especially early Sherman's) was not designed as an anti-tank weapon. American doctrine called for tanks to break up infantry (the machine gun initially was considered it's main weapon), if necessary by running them over. Anti-tank was to be handled by tank destroyers and AT guns. Had the USA wanted to use the tank as a anti-tank weapon , they would have concentrated production on the Pershing or other "heavy tanks". As it was , the Germans and Russians (at least by late in the war) used their tanks as anti tank weapons. And the T-34 was , an all around good , sturdy , usefully tank. The Panther and Tigers were great for their intended doctrine , but limited by production,weight and over engineering.

And of course , eventually all the nations of the war would decide that the absolute best tank killer was an airplane. The Typhoon,P-39 and P-62, the P-47, the Stuka (tank killing variant) and the IL-2, all showed their superiority to ANY tank.

You guys get hung up on armor and guns. There was more to these two tanks that that. Sherman has a very fast turret and a faster rate of fire. In close (city or restricted visability) this was a bigger advantage. Sherman had more dependable radios. Sherman was not as good off road but track life was 3-4 times better than T34, so it was better in Western Europe where tanks used the road net more. Sherman engine was better with about twice the operational time before needing overhaul. Most shermans had electric turrets that could be traversed with the engine off. All in all, I would call it a toss up between the two. Sherman was much more suited for Western Europe and the T34 better suited for the steppes.

One of the difficulties in looking at German tank production, not just the tank v. SP guns, but also the conversions.

I wonder if, for example, the Marders are counted TWICE in those numbers; first when they were built as a tank, and second when they were converted to an SP gun.

Althought the Germans wasted alot of effort building obsolete PzII and PzIII, at least they salvaged some value by converting them to SP guns.

And crsutton has good points. Really, in just about every aspect EXCEPT tank on tank combat, the Sherman was an excellent tank. And it is true that it wasn't designed anyway for an anti-tank role.

The real design shortfall wasn't the Sherman, it was the whole US Army TD concept, which was flawed.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

One of the difficulties in looking at German tank production, not just the tank v. SP guns, but also the conversions.

I wonder if, for example, the Marders are counted TWICE in those numbers; first when they were built as a tank, and second when they were converted to an SP gun.

Althought the Germans wasted alot of effort building obsolete PzII and PzIII, at least they salvaged some value by converting them to SP guns.

And crsutton has good points. Really, in just about every aspect EXCEPT tank on tank combat, the Sherman was an excellent tank. And it is true that it wasn't designed anyway for an anti-tank role.

The real design shortfall wasn't the Sherman, it was the whole US Army TD concept, which was flawed.

While I might agree that the TD concept was unwieldly (like American football, two teams, one defensive and one offensive) it was not a bad concept. The two problems were 1) On this doctrine , like most American doctrines, the people in the field seldom followed their own rules. [:D] 2) the USA started with 105mm on the backs of white scout cars, a definate "Rube Goldberg" situation. Had they employed more of the M-36 , like they did later in the cold war , you might have seen a different result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M36_tank_destroyer

First off, the Pz II and III designs were hardly obsolete when they were built.  The later III models carried a high velocity 50mm gun which could knock out a T-34 at close range, and was better than any tank gun the Allies had until the Grant and Sherman began appearing.  They had to continue building the Mk III into 1942 and 43 because if they had converted all their factories to Mk IV or Tiger/Panthers, they would have had very few tanks built at all in 43.  The book "Hitler's Panzers", which just came out, goes into detail over the Germans' problem with tank production.  Basically they never had enough to fill out all their divisions, and even when they started building assault guns/tank destroyers the production still wasn't enough.  The obsession with quality over quantity meant they were always switching designs, which further hampered them being able to build enough tanks to match the Soviet numbers.

Had they gone with an upgraded Mk IV design (more than capable of dealing with the T-34's) and a single TD/AG design, they would have had a chance, but trying to build Mk IV's, Sturmgeschutz III's, Marders, Hetzers, Panthers, Tigers, King Tigers, Jagdpanthers, Jagdtigers, Sturmgeschutz IV's, Mk III's, Luchs, Brummbars, etc, meant they never had enough of any of them.

ORIGINAL: crsutton

You guys get hung up on armor and guns. There was more to these two tanks that that. Sherman has a very fast turret and a faster rate of fire. In close (city or restricted visability) this was a bigger advantage. Sherman had more dependable radios. Sherman was not as good off road but track life was 3-4 times better than T34, so it was better in Western Europe where tanks used the road net more. Sherman engine was better with about twice the operational time before needing overhaul. Most shermans had electric turrets that could be traversed with the engine off. All in all, I would call it a toss up between the two. Sherman was much more suited for Western Europe and the T34 better suited for the steppes.

If life expectation of tank in field is 2 weeks, engine which needs overhaul after 2 months is complete waste of resources. If 80% of combat is going to happen at less than 500 meters, then outfitting tank with optics which allows hits at 2000 meters is another waste of resources as it is in case you have raw recruits manning that optics who can't use it at more than 500 meters anyway. (those are arbitrary values, set up just as an examples, not real ones)

If your industry is working with plenty of resources and manpower at the safe distance from battlefield and at no risk of attack, you might give your tankers comfort of leather covered seats. On the other hand if half your country was just overrun by enemy and you just erected your tank plant in the middle of taiga after hastily evacuating it in front of advancing enemy miles away, then crew comfort is not going to be your first priority.

If I would want my tank to drive me in to office and back each day, then Sherman is the choice. If I want to stop Wermacht on the other hand...

In general those two machines are probably not too different from each other in combat efficiency (both are medium tanks with similar armament, agility, weight, fuel consumption), so other factors would probably prevail. Like crew training, leadership, doctrine... and so on. I would say, t-34 was better tank as it was t-34, not Sherman which influenced tank design around globe in years to come. Just look at post war US tanks and tell if they were influenced more by one or second (if by second at all).

There is actually interesting book:
Panther vs T-34 Ukraine 1943 by Osprey

I don't like books like this normally as these kind of comparisons are totally useless from historical point of view. But this book is quit good, full of interesting info. For example unit combat readiness statistics shows that Panther units readiness was quit low. Means Panther was very good tank ...at times when it was actually running and not broken. Which it was all the time. As many Panthers were lost to their own mechanical failures as to enemy fire, if not more.

German war production was big failure of course. That's not because Germans can not produce things effectively. At the outbreak of war, Germans believed in short, quick war. Generally design, development and research projects which would take more than year or two to finish were postponed for after war period. Many aircraft designs were stooped for example. For first few years of war, Germans were producing at prewar levels! Fully mobilizing their industry only at the end of war, when it was too late. From industry capacity point of view, Germans were in better position than Soviets. Especially after fall of France when most of continental Europe was under German control. If I remember right, they were producing more steel than Soviets for example. Yet Soviets outproduced Germans in most of the military equipment at last 2:1 and more. Also manpower difference was not that great, many big battle statistics shows 1:2 ratio or similar.
Kursk for example: 435,000/1,087,500 men, 3,155/3,275 tanks, 9,966/25,013 guns (Wikipedia).
If you take in mind that half of European USSR (best developed and most densely populated part of USSR) was overrun by Wermacht in few months, you can safely say that German industry failed miserably and that Soviets pulled miracle.

Speer's book makes it eloquently clear that the German high command grossly failed to get on a war footing early enough.

On topic: T-34 was better (than the M4).
Off topic (and because I like the quote): The German Tiger ace (can't remember his name), has been attributed to saying, "Sure, we could knock out a dozen of the American tanks. The problem was, there was always 13!"

And here is identicle thread (T-34 vs. Sherman), and has a interesting (if not long, I haven't even gotten far reading it) story on America's top Tanker ace (in a Sherman no less):

US Army tanker ace

I fail to understand how so many of you can talk about so obviously choosing the T34/85 over the Sherman 76 while a Soviet crew, who tried both, and their common battle history in the early 50s show that none was clearly better than the other for different reasons (if we still want to give the T34/85 credit and ignore the Korean & Middle-East engagements, because of xp disparity between the crews).

In 1944-1945, a panzerfaust was a "one-shot, one-kill" against any allied medium tank. A german 75mm or 88mm frontal hit could disable them the same way, and both the Soviet 85mm and US 75mm (and 76mm without special ammunition too) would have had problems dealing with Panther or Tiger front armor. Seriously, if you're better armored, it only matters if the number of enemy weapons that can penetrate you makes a difference. When you are a crew, the facts that you could actually hit with better accuracy, that you had a radio to coordinate your wingmen, or that your ammo would not cook are things that DO matter when it comes to talk about the merits of each tank. Again, this kind of things are not in the specs, while they do matter when crewing this tank is what your life is about.