Best Tank of WWII

**Wraith601** · 24 Feb 06,, 01:19

Originally Posted by Garry

Sorry. I don't have statistics but remember when studying advanced history classes in early 1990-es I learned that in fact it was quite a lot of T-34 on Western border of USSR at the begining of war.... most lost stupidly. I remember numbers like few thousands.....

My grandfather was in one of them - he burned his tank in early July or early August 1941 when he ran out of fuel and shells being encirled deeply. I guess that many tanks in encirlements were destroyed to such reason.

He fought throughout the war (except for Nov-1941-July 1942 when he was in Stalin prison as a traitor) becoming one of the most experienced tank commanders personally his crew scored 3 tigers.

Of 10,000 Soviet tanks on the Western border at the outset only about 1,400 were of the the modern KV8 and T-34 type. The others were various older models and bore the brunt of the massive Red Army tank losses.

**Eddy01741** · 24 Feb 06,, 03:54

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

Actually it did literally take about 5 shermans to kill one panther.

A platoon of shermans even had a popular tactic where the plt tries to race around the enemy tank and get behind it to shoot into it's engine compartment.

The execution of this tactic usually resulted in the destruction of 4 out of the 5 shermans in a WWII armored platoon. I saw a full color reenactment on the military channel once(With real shermans and a real tiger!), it was really neat.

Saw that too, i saw it a thursday in summer, they were doing all these battles, like in the korean/vietnam wars, they had the M-16 vs. the AK-47, and the Sabre vs. the FIshbed. For WW2 tey had Tiger vs. Sherman, and Spitfire vs. BF 109. And they had sme more for WW1, but i don't watch much, i think it was like, german howitzer vs. British shrapnel artillery, and sopwith camel vs. Fokker. Anyways, ya, it was like this on D-Day, after they had gotten past Omaha Beach, they went up in roads. Four shermans traveled together, a TIger waiting in ambush shot at the first one and immediatly destroyed it, the second sherman shot in teh general area of the shot, the second sherman was then shot, and destroyed, the third sherman shot directly at the tiger, but the weak 75mm projectile bounced off, and the third sherman was destroyed as well. All this time though, the fourth sherman has flanked the tiger and has gotten behind it, due to the Tiger's extrmely slow turn rate of the turret, it can fire back, and the tiger is destroyed. So in the end the sherman won the little contest. Only cause they had sheer numbers. I'm sorry if somebody has already described the Tiger vs. Sherman duel, but i only read up till teh second page, i'm not gonna read seven pages. So my opnion, Best tank of the war was the Panther G, like many others said, good mobility, great armor, and a great gun. And it actually used sloped armor unlike the tiger. If it's not a 1 on 1 tank battle, and u can include how many of the tanks were produced, i would say the T-34/85, the gun is adequate, it had good sloped armor, and great mobilitly for it's time. It was a very robust tank, and imo the most influential tank in the war by far.

**leib10** · 24 Feb 06,, 06:48

It would be interesting to know exactly how many T34's were lost during WWII.

**dalem** · 24 Feb 06,, 09:44

Originally Posted by leibstandarte10

It would be interesting to know exactly how many T34's were lost during WWII.

Most of them.

-dale

**dalem** · 24 Feb 06,, 09:47

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

"Nope."

So then you're a moron.

I'm done here. I've posted my stats, you've posted yours, people are free to draw their own conclusions.

You have been purposely being cutsie and poking me with a stick in this whole thread(or you are an innatentive moron, which i know to be false), and i do not appreciate it.

PS: You don't understand your own chart.

Maybe you really are a Moron...

Right, I'm a moron, or an instigator. What was the thickness of the Panther G side chassis armor again? The verticle part?

-dale

**Eddy01741** · 25 Feb 06,, 04:00

Originally Posted by dalem

Most of them.

-dale

Ya, had the russians had good tactics like the rest of the allies (britain, USA), they wouldn't of lost as many tanks. But that wouldn't happen in a million years cause most of the russian army were conscripts and they were from probably a mandatory draft. THis also meant the only morale they had was the 'war fever'.

**dalem** · 25 Feb 06,, 10:13

Originally Posted by Eddy01741

Ya, had the russians had good tactics like the rest of the allies (britain, USA), they wouldn't of lost as many tanks. But that wouldn't happen in a million years cause most of the russian army were conscripts and they were from probably a mandatory draft. THis also meant the only morale they had was the 'war fever'.

Crack is pretty good, isn't it?

-dale

**Wraith601** · 25 Feb 06,, 20:17

Originally Posted by Eddy01741

Ya, had the russians had good tactics like the rest of the allies (britain, USA), they wouldn't of lost as many tanks. But that wouldn't happen in a million years cause most of the russian army were conscripts and they were from probably a mandatory draft. THis also meant the only morale they had was the 'war fever'.

As opposed to a voluntary draft?

**Garry** · 25 Feb 06,, 20:35

Originally Posted by Wraith601

Of 10,000 Soviet tanks on the Western border at the outset only about 1,400 were of the the modern KV8 and T-34 type. The others were various older models and bore the brunt of the massive Red Army tank losses.

Yes you are right..... actually I found the figure which I read in some articles before. It was 1800 T-34 and KVs..... OK it is not a big difference. Some hundreds of modern tanks were on far east.... OK even with your figure of 1400 modern tanks Red Army's tanks were a formidable force.

But Germans did not have that many modern tanks in their forces at begining of Barbarosa. Pazer IV was introduced in 1937 and did not yet become most massive tank as it would in years later. So the backbone of the German forces in Barbarossa were Panzer II and Panzer III and less than 600 tanks were Panzer IV. We both know what a crap were Pazer II and III, which counted for remaining of 3300 tanks available for Barbarossa.

These could be matced by five thousands of BT-26 which is quite comparable with the Panzer II and III crap - the backbone of German tank forces in 1941. It already exceeds 3300 tanks which Germany had at the begining of Barbarossa against USSR..... with 580 Panzer IV against 1400 T-34 and KVs.

So USSR by numbers looked good before Barbarossa went on and all those 1400 tanks were stupidly lost in few month.....

**Garry** · 25 Feb 06,, 20:40

Originally Posted by Eddy01741

Ya, had the russians had good tactics like the rest of the allies (britain, USA), they wouldn't of lost as many tanks. But that wouldn't happen in a million years cause most of the russian army were conscripts and they were from probably a mandatory draft. THis also meant the only morale they had was the 'war fever'.

Look! Most of tank crew in 1942-43 had only 3 month training before they went to a battle. Most of them were under 20 year old. You can not expect these kids do better than what they did before they died in battles.

Soviet industry was producing few thousand tanks a month.... it was hard to populate them with trained crews.

**Wraith601** · 25 Feb 06,, 20:43

Originally Posted by Garry

Yes you are right..... actually I found the figure which I read in some articles before. It was 1800 T-34 and KVs..... OK it is not a big difference. Some hundreds of modern tanks were on far east.... OK even with your figure of 1400 modern tanks Red Army's tanks were a formidable force.

But Germans did not have that many modern tanks in their forces at begining of Barbarosa. Pazer IV was introduced in 1937 and did not yet become most massive tank as it would in years later. So the backbone of the German forces in Barbarossa were Panzer II and Panzer III and less than 600 tanks were Panzer IV. We both know what a crap were Pazer II and III, which counted for remaining of 3300 tanks available for Barbarossa.

These could be matced by five thousands of BT-26 which is quite comparable with the Panzer II and III crap - the backbone of German tank forces in 1941. It already exceeds 3300 tanks which Germany had at the begining of Barbarossa against USSR..... with 580 Panzer IV against 1400 T-34 and KVs.

So USSR by numbers looked good before Barbarossa went on and all those 1400 tanks were stupidly lost in few month.....

That doesn't prove that the T-34s loss ratios were significantly skewed because of high losses early on by any means. Lot's of the 1,400 modern tanks were KV series, not T-34.

**Eddy01741** · 01 Mar 06,, 00:19

I'm just saying, if all thier tank crews weren't drafted young guys that had little training, then it woulda been much better. I'm not saying that the tank crews had enough experience to use/know better tactics. I'm just basically saying, if, u put UK tank crews inside the T-34/85 they woulda done much better than how the russian recruits did.

**gunnut** · 01 Mar 06,, 01:14

Originally Posted by Eddy01741

I'm just saying, if all thier tank crews weren't drafted young guys that had little training, then it woulda been much better. I'm not saying that the tank crews had enough experience to use/know better tactics. I'm just basically saying, if, u put UK tank crews inside the T-34/85 they woulda done much better than how the russian recruits did.

We did the same thing during the Normandy campaign (I think). Trained tank crews were wiped out by Tigers. We were literally dragging guys from infantry, stuff them in tanks, have them fire a couple of rounds from the 75mm, and send them to meet Tigers. They didn't fare well.

It's a cruel reality of war. When you meet superior hardware with inferior hardware, you will need numbers to overcome the difference. That number is human lives.

**Garry** · 02 Mar 06,, 10:59

Originally Posted by Wraith601

That doesn't prove that the T-34s loss ratios were significantly skewed because of high losses early on by any means. Lot's of the 1,400 modern tanks were KV series, not T-34.

I did not say that it was skewed to 1941...... somebody else did probably. I just meant that in 1941 Soviet Union has MODERN TANK FORCE EXCEEDING THAT OF ATTACKING GERMANY and that there were thousands of decent tanks in Soviet Army..... (BT-26 were a match of crappy Panzer II and III).

Soviet T-34s losses were mostly due to lack of training and tactical cooperaion in 1941-1943, and heavy urban fighting in 1945.

By August 1942 only 10% of tank crews of those who were in service in January 1941 survived. Most of the 1941 crews were killed or prisonned.

Yet Soviet tank force grew from 1800 modern tanks in 1941 to around 5,000 in 1942..... where do you think they got the new crews from? The new crews were recruited mainly from farm tracktor drivers and re-trained artillery operators.... they had less than 3 month training before being sent to combat. I remember reading in history books that 1942 and early 1943 was an absolut peak of T-34 losses, while 1944 was quite decent..... and then there was massive loss of T-34 tanks in last month of war - April...... due to rush to Berlin. But these were not tank to tank losses but tank to mines/infantry losses.

It is important to see for the context of comparison. For example Polish and Czech forces fighting in Soviet Army had 10 times less losses of their T-34s...... as many of their crews were professional tankers from their defeated armies. Both had extensive fighting in 1944 and 1945...... yet their losses to enemy tanks were quite small. Everytime Polish T-34s met Panthers or Tigers they retreated under cover of Polish antitank artillery following them closelly.

**Wraith601** · 02 Mar 06,, 17:13

I don't know much about the BT-26 but the upgraded Panzer III wasn't a bad tank until about 1943, it's 50mm gun was decent for the day and it had passable levels of armor protection.