From: Barclay, Tom <tomb@b...>
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 15:01:20 -0500
Subject: shermans versus panthers
Allan said: There is something no one has really mentioned yet. One of the primary reasons the Germans did so poorly in the West was something fairly new: tactical air support. When the weather was clear, the Germans could not easily move their forces without Allied aircraft attacking them with impunity. [Tomb] Not quite true. I mentioned that in the original post! *LOL!* And he went on to say: No, you're not a victim of urban legends. Your reading matches mine. In general, the Soviet vehicles were very good and far superior to that available to the Western allies. The T34/85 was a good, even superior, match for a Panther. The T34/76 came out in 1941, almost 2 years before the Panther, and was quite a shock to the Germans (and easily superior to every German tank at the time). The T34/76 suffered from an inferior gun and thinner armour than the Panther. However its armour was well sloped and it was fairly reliable, mechanically. It was better than the Panzer IV (the Germans' most plentiful tank) and far better than the Panzer III. [Tomb] The T-34 is undoubtedly better than the Panzer III. I wouldn't say it was (except perhaps on a mechanical robustness level) hugely better than a Pz IV. The T-34/76 was I beleive the tank that russian tank commanders were prepared to exchange 3-1 with Panthers. The T-34/85 could kill a Panther one on one. [Tomb] The problem with the soviet forces included: 1) an early shortage of good officers (having shot them all), 2) a shortage of good tactics (until later in the war, when they perhaps had an army an air force that could have kicked America out of Europe if they hadn't been afraid of the bomb), 3) a shortage of comms, 4) some rigidity in their command structure, 5) early on, inexperienced crews that used their vehicles poorly and bailed out to easily. Thus the German stats look more impressive than they were. German engineering was good, but it was often maintenance intensive and poorly suited to Russian winters. Eventually, when the Russians had bled enough and spent the time to develop experienced officers and tactics and had built good tanks and planes in profusion, things didn't look anywhere near as nice from the German PoV..... The T34, in all versions, was lighter than the Panther -- by about half in the case of the T34/76 -- which helped with ground pressure. The T34/85 was, according to my Jane's book, considered the best tank of the war by the Germans. [Tomb] I wouldn't doubt it. Similar to why the germans had a fondness for the PPSh-41 over the MP-40. Robust, reliable, and very effective _in the hands of a good commander_. The T34/85 was STILL being used as a frontline tank in Africa into the 1980s. [Tomb] I'm sure rifles from 1900 were still in use with some forces too. When you don't have to cope with lots of TOW, Hellfire, etc, then you can really get by with older technology armourwise.... The Germans used as many captured T34s as they could get, though logistics was a big reason for this.