Hearted Youtube comments on Unbelievable true stories (@Unbelievabletruestories1) channel.
-
537
-
343
-
293
-
286
-
181
-
162
-
Ok, i wrote a diploma work about this tank so will point few things.
1.st error. which was later fixed during vid: The armor steel wasnt flexible. it was hardened to even over 600 brinell or more which was causing armor to be extremely brittle, breaking under fire and causing a lot of spall inside which was main cause of crews deaths on hit. In addition welding and steel quality were horrible.
2-nd error. No, Germans did not needed 88 mm guns to destroy T-34. around 57% of T-34 losses were caused by 50mm cannons the tanks armor was supposed to be completely immune to. Not only that, but in fact 20mm autocannons destroyed more T-34s than 88 mm ones. That myth probably came from fact that at the beginning of Barbarossa Germans were calling both T-34 and KV-1 a "T-34" - for KV indeed best option was Flak 88 or immobilising it. With soviet tests, 37mm gun could sometimes pen front armor from 300-500 metres due to poor quality of it, 50 mm gun could easily destroy T-34 even at long range, anything above that was just massacrating this tank. On the opposite side, yes, T-34 at very beginning could destroy German tanks like PZ II and III without much problem since even if 76mm also suffered from penetration decrease due to quality of both guns and ammo, it was still enough to destroy those tanks who were still underarmored.
3-rd error, when we talk about very beginning of Barbarossa, the number ot T-34s wasnt very big, it was something between 900 and 1000, spread over 5 mechanised corps, large part of them did not even left the bases due to lack of fuel, spare parts and technical breakdowns.
4-th error: Spare transmission is a myth, the photo was taken in Ukraine, somwhere in Lviv. There were other tanks taken out on nearby streets with various stuff on them, and since any spare parts etc were precious, while they were evacuating nearby base they put anything they could onto tanks to take with them so they wont fall into German hands. The transmission switch was impossible in the field without workshop, and even in workshop it was very long process that could, depending on conditions and equipment, take even more than 24 hours.
5-th error: Soviets did not lose 2 men out of 4 (50%), the losses ratio was around 85% so even more. What is funny is, that crew losses after hit in Sherman were almost perfectly reversed, with
15% casualties.
6-th error is, that only STZ variant produced in Stalingrad was uparmored to around 60 mm, there were some cariants like concrete armor but never reached mass production, the armor stayed basically the same for whole war. Also worth to solve one myth here - no, T-34 werent "so simple they could be made in tractor factory" Stalingrad Tractor Factory was producing tractors, but it was also military factory with full tank assembly line ready, You would not make this tank in line for agricultural equipment.
Additional info:
Add very poor ventilation to crew conditions which was turning tank into gas chamber after few shots.
In first mass versions of T-34 the top speed was limited by like in half since due to catastrophic design of gearbox switching to 3-rd gear required strength of 2 men, and switching to 4-th was simply impossible. Even after that, T-34 could not maintain top speed for long due to engine overheating. Gearbox clutches were also leaking oil and heating during lots of manuevering which could even cause a fire in the tank, as once of Germans who served on captured T-34s recalled.
136
-
136
-
121
-
112
-
110
-
103
-
87
-
85
-
78
-
76
-
72
-
66
-
66
-
65
-
The belly turret is misinformation! Look at 8:45 in this video and notice that there is a rear hatch on the ball turret. Two latches, one on each side of the gunner's head release this hatch whether on the ground or in the air, regardless of the turret's position. The ball turret allows the fastest egress of all the crew positions. Furthermore, the B-17 had a structural flaw where if landed with the gear up and the turret down, the rear fuselage would break and collapse around the turret before more force was applied to the turret than it could support. See 9:35 in this video for a pic of a fuselage broken around the deployed ball turret. The turret remained intact as they always did. Several trapped turret gunners survived this happening and there is no record of any of them ever being crushed or ground up in such rare events. There were two risks in the belly turret, the first being any turret gunner over ~5' 6" tall or who was not thin enough, could not fit their parachute worn on their stomach, into the turret and see over it to aim the twin .50 caliber machine guns. Only larger gunners had to leave their parachutes inside the fuselage and the turret had to be fully operational to raise it for them to retrieve their chute. If a belly turret gunner lost the use of even one hand, they could not release both of the hatch handles to fall out of the turret, thus they would be trapped. Even so, the belly turret was the least likely position to be hit by enemy fighter bullets and cannons, but no safer than any other position from being hit by flak. Please stop spreading misinformation about the belly turret position.
57
-
55
-
51
-
47
-
46
-
40
-
38
-
37
-
35
-
34
-
31
-
30
-
27
-
27
-
26
-
26
-
24
-
23
-
22
-
22
-
21
-
20
-
15
-
15
-
14
-
13
-
13
-
12
-
12
-
12