True, but they suffered from Command and control difficulties, (the
commander doubled as the loader, and only the command tanks in a
squadron was equipped with two way radio), they were much less
mechanically reliable than the American tanks, (the Germans were envious
that that mean time to failure was about twice as long on a Russian tank
than one of theirs, they were amazed that American tanks traveled to the
battle field under their own power, and didn't need an overhaul every
100km). US tanks needed Aircraft 101-104 octane fuel to run "properly"
but they would run on jeep (72 octane) fuel. IIRC the T34 used diesel
fuel. I was referring to the fact that the German high velocity 75mm
guns would relatively easily penetrate the armor on either the Sherman
or the T34 and the 88mm could go thought the front armor and out the
back So the Sherman was more likely to get bogged down, but the T34 was
more likely to break down. In combat against the later German Armor
both Shermans and T34s would win by out outnumbering the German tanks.
Herb Chong wrote:
Russian tanks had wider tracks and less problems with muddy conditions
than American or British designs. also, they ran OK on much poorer
quality fuel.
Herb...
----- Original Message ----- From: "P. J. Alling"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Take a course in philosophy, will ya.
It seems that the T34, (Russian), has a better reputation than it
deserves, it was simple and robust, packed a big punch and had armor
that would stand up to the main gun on a Panzer Mark IV. The Sherman
M1A[X] had also had armor designed to stand up to the Panzer Mark IV.
Unfortunately by the time the Sherman tank was facing German Armor in
Europe the Germans had developed the Panther, Tiger and Tiger II
tanks in the face of the T34. The T34 had most of the same problems
against the later German tanks that the Sherman did, only slightly
less flammable. By the way it was never supposed to be the job of
American tanks to kill Armor, that was the job of a Tank Destroyer.
