T-34 Tank

[Doc Yo]

 If you count the tank riders, the T-34 was an APC for the early part of its career...be interesting
to speculate how far they might have taken the concept if they'd developed some kind of powered armor,
or...heheh...if they'd actually gotten the "Gorilla soldier" program to work....

[dy031101]

If you count the tank riders, the T-34 was an APC for the early part of its career...

Personnel carrier maybe, but can we say it's really "armoured" with respect to the way the troops were carried? 

[dy031101]

Then of course there was the Russian plan to upgun their Matilda's with 76mm gund    

How big is the F-34 gun compared to the 4-pounder?

[ysi_maniac]

This site is a jaw-dropping collection of T-34 variant models:
Henk of Holland T-34 Variants

A wonderful site

[dy031101]

This is a screenshot from Trion's End of Nations.

As part of my job-seeking-related portfolio, I am planning to make a "realistic" (as in modelling it after real-world components) version of this massively upgraded tank.  The plan so far is to base the model on a Egyptian T-100 and then maybe to give it a mantlet in a similar style to the Challenger 2 MBT.

In this case I have a couple of questions:

• can anyone suggest a real-world counterpart to the radar-like sensor mounted at the rear of the turret?
• does a Easter-Bloc counterpart to the M134 Minigun exist?

Thanks in advance.

[Jschmus]

I suppose the closest Russian equivalent to the Minigun would be the Yak-B 12.7mm gun developed for the Mi-24.  It's a four-barreled gun with a 4000 rpm rate-of-fire.  It's been mounted in pods, but I've never heard of it being used in ground applications.  This, however, is the Whiff world, where anything is possible.

[Taiidantomcat]

The Russians did design a 6 barrel rotary cannon in two sizes:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gryazev-Shipunov_GSh-6-30

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gryazev-Shipunov_GSh-6-23

[rickshaw]

For the "radar like sensor" on the rear of the turret, you have a choice.  The Russians utilise radar for their various active defence systems to detect the incoming anti-tank round which is attacking the vehicle.   The other is something akin to the experiments done utilising the Longbow millimetre wave radar to detect and direct engagements of enemy AFVs.  It was planned at one point to install that system on the M1 Abrahms but because of cost and lack of the then defunct Soviet "red hordes" it wasn't undertaken.

[dy031101]

The other is something akin to the experiments done utilising the Longbow millimetre wave radar to detect and direct engagements of enemy AFVs.

Wikipedia claims that Soviet/Russia has a radar gun sight available for their anti-tank guns.  Does anyone know more and/or have a picture of this radar gun sight?

[dy031101]

Browsing through an entry on the Russian Battlefield website, I saw a brief mention that a test to give the T-34 a larger, 100mm-gun-armed turret was actually successful (T-34-100; though it is said to have more to do with recoil reduction of the gun itself) and didn't enter service only due to the advent of the T-54.

(The page includes a T-54 prototype equipped with a turret very similar to that used by the T-34-100...... now I feel tempted to use the Russian experiment instead of the Egyptian mod as the basis......)

The hull is said to be modified as well- does it include enlarging the turret ring?  If the answer is yes, by how much?

EDIT: reminded by redstar72...... 

[redstar72]

The hull is said to be modified as well- does it include enlarging the turret ring?  If the answer is yes, by how much?

It is written there - the new turret ring diameter was 1700 mm (the same on the T-44; compare to 1600 mm for T-34-85, and 1850 mm for IS-2).

[dy031101]

This one, mentioned in a discussion on the Panther tank in the associated thread:

The frontal hull armor for the T-34 was inadequate by 1943 and there was nothing that could be done about it.  It would remain inadequate the rest of its career.  That's why you see the turret further back on all subsequent Soviet tank designs.

Is it a result of the T-34's engine being too large?  Or of the tank just being too darn small to have a properly-positioned turret while maintaining future upgunning potential?

[apophenia]

It was the arrangement of the T-34's drivetrain. Soviet medium tanks from the T-44 on had transversly-mounted engines (the T-44's V-44 being an adaptation of the T-34's V-2 diesel). Transversly-mounting engines allowed Soviet designers to place the turrets centrally and, the resulting better balance, allowed them to increase armour weight.

Beyond balance issues, increasing frontal hull armour on the T-34 would be complicated by the driver's access hatch. The T-43 was supposed to deal with the T-34's armour problems - glacis upped to 75 mm, turret front to 90 mm. But the T-43 kept the T-34's layout and was rejected for its resultingly cramped fighting compartment.

Note that, even though the T-43 had lighter armour than the T-44, the former required a new torsion bar suspension while the latter could still use the T-34's Christie-type suspension.

[Logan Hartke]

Weight distribution.  You couldn't put a bigger turret on the tank and give it more frontal armor.  It would be too heavy in the front.  It was all about the engine, but not as much about engine size as it was placement and--as apophenia points out--arrangement.  The original T-34 was wonderfully sloped from every direction, giving the tank this great, pyramidal armor layout.  See our local profiler Clave's wonderful early T-34.



See how nice that looks?  Like a ziggurat or something.  The engine and turret, the biggest bits of weight are in the middle of the tank.  That was all well and good until they tried to increase the armor on the front of the tank and improve the firepower.  Due to the distribution of weight, trying to uparmor the front would have resulted in the tank being very nose-heavy.  This could have been counter-balanced by adding additional armor to the rear, but that would have been a needless waste of armor plate and it would have resulted in a much heavier tank overall.  That would require a new suspension, better engine--you can see where this is headed.  It would have been better to design a new tank...which is exactly what they did (T-44 then T-54).

So, how did they get the new turret on?  They moved it as far back as they could (not very) and left the thin glacis armor just as it was.



Compare the engine deck of the T-34 to that of the two major designs that it inspired.

Here's the T-34.  See how it slopes inward, towards the center of the tank?



Now look at the Panther tank, a tank that--by all accounts--strove to mimic the efficient sloped armor layout of the Panther.



We have big roadwheels, a wide hull, wide tracks, armor sloping inward on the front and sides.  Even the turret looks similar to that of the T-34/76.  What are the two big differences?  Turret in the middle, engine set further back.  Even so, with the front-mounted transmission and armor unexpectedly increased from 60mm to 80mm on the glacis, the T-34's spawn was likewise nose-heavy.

Morozov learned the lesson, as well.  Let's take a look at the T-54.  Still we have sloped armor, big roadwheels, wide hull, wide tracks, rear-mounted engine and transmission, and a good balance of protection, firepower, and mobility.  What's different?  The tank is lower, the turret ring is a LOT bigger, the turret is in the middle of the tank, the fuel is now stored largely on the outside of the hull, the suspension has switched to torsion-bar, and the engine is set further back.  All the main issues of the T-34 rectified.



See the armor in the rear now sloping the opposite way, like the Panther and King Tiger?  Nice job, Morozov!  As you can tell, I am a fan of the T-54.  Best tank to ever come out of the Soviet Union.

Cheers,

Logan

[dy031101]

Would it have been safe to assume that, being an even more direct homage to the T-34 (albeit with suspensions more familiar to the Germans), the VK3002(DB) would be subject to the same kinds of concerns?  Or is it that the Germans should have waited to allow the design to mature instead of hastily accepting the seemingly finalized VK3002(MAN)?