General tank discussion thread.
Models accepted
Best tank of WW2. Prove me wrong.
>protip: you can't
>>1375881
oops, forgot picture
>>1375881
The M4 Sherman was cheaper to produce and had much, much better mechanical reliability, and much, much better crew arrangements.
>>1375881
Most overrated tank of WW2 perhaps
>>1375890
Didn't the T-34-85 solve most of those problems though?
>>1375907
It had a better turret design, but it was still easier to bail out of a Sherman.
There were spring loaded hatches above each crewman. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but it wasn't uncommon for tank crews to have tanks destroyed out from under them, and having the crew burnt alive before they could bail out significantly harms the number of experienced personnel in your war machine.
Also, I think Shermans were always the best in terms of mechanical reliability.
Credit it to the US having the world's largest automobile industry before the war, and figuring out a design that allowed them to use existing automobile production lines to build tanks.
>>1375927
Fair enough, but:
>I think Shermans were always the best in terms of mechanical reliability.
The T-34 wasn't really made to be too reliable, but to be produced in mass numbers instead. Speaking of which, which tank cost the most manpowers?
>>1375949
I could be wrong, but I think the Sherman was cheaper by the simple fact that America already had huge vehicle production facilities that could easily be converted to tank production.
I don't think the Soviets could have replicated that even if they wanted to, but I think that having such a small turret and trading crew space for a low profile proved to be a bad idea.
That and for whatever reason, the Red Army never really invested in armored recovery vehicles the way the Americans did, so a lot of tanks that were mobility killed or broke down were simply left to rust.
I'm a rather big fan of the British Comet A34.
>>1375960
>That and for whatever reason, the Red Army never really invested in armored recovery vehicles the way the Americans did, so a lot of tanks that were mobility killed or broke down were simply left to rust.
They didn't need to, though. They could always replace a broken down tank with a new one.
If the Soviets had wanted to, they could have made the T-34 more reliable. They didn't, however, for one simple reason: It would slow down production too much.
>>1375978
You see, under the American system there were repair stations and recovery vehicles at the division level.
If a tank got blown up, you'd just tow it back to the shop, scrape out the old crew, replace whatever parts were broken and send it back to the front.
Maybe the economics of this make less sense if you aren't shipping all of your tanks across an ocean.
>>1375984
Yeah, an important reason was probably that the Americans had more extended supply lines, while the Soviet tank factories were (sometimes literally) a street away from the front lines.
>>1376018
IIRC there are accounts that several T-34/85s drove all the way from the factory to Berlin.
My favorite T-34 version is the T-34/76 UZTM (Uralmash). It's just the standard Micky Mouse turret, but the turret was made from one entire 60mm steel plate that had been run through a giant 10,000 ton sheet metal press that had been originally used for making hydroelectric turbine blades.
