Tanker Time - T-34, the Soviet workhorse - Part 1

Apologies for putting this up late, but I have kinda been caught up in watching Sherlock (I missed it the first time around and spent all of yesterday watching the first two seasons). To make it up to you guys, this will be a two part entry, both covering the same tank. Now, I know what you are thinking, why two posts on one tank? Well, the T-34 is a special tank. It was used a LOT. The T-34 used at the end of the war was vastly different to the one used at the start, while still being the same tank. Hence, the two parts. This is also our first venture outside of 'stronk fascist box tenk' territory too!

The T-34-76, the last mass produced model before up gunning to the T-34-85

The T-34 is probably the single tank we have to thank for the designs to come out of World War 2. It was incredibly balanced in terms of mobility, speed and protection, and when first encountered by the Germans in 1941 they termed it 'the deadliest tank in the world'. But why was it so good?

Well, lets start with the armor, shall we? It was 45mm thick, which you might think a little thin - and you would be right. It was VERY thin. But also very light. And very angled. This gave the T-34 and effective armor value of around 90mm on the frontal slope. This was simply unpenetrable for the early German tanks, and even a lot of infantry-operated anti tank weapons. This, paired with the excellent V-2-34 engine offering a whopping 500 horsepower, gave the T-34 its incredibly mobility. The T-34 could move through deep mud and snow with ease, while the German Panzer IV could not.

And now, the gun. In this part we shall only cover the 76mm F-34, due to it being the last (and most commonly used) cannon before moving on to being called the T-34-85. This gun could pierce 92mm of armor at 500m when firing APCR shells - this was overkill when considering that the T-34 faced at best around 60mm of frontal armor in 1941. Now, this isn't to say that the T-34 was a god amongst tanks, far from it. The tank commander also doubled as the tanks loader, which is bad enough - but the T-34 lacked the excellent optical viewfinders that the Germans had. This led to tank platoons being slow to find targets, and when they did find their target they lost all situational awareness of other targets around them due to the restricted fields of vision and overworked commander.

A T-34 in World of Tanks, sporting the 1942 turret model and the F-34 gun.

Despite its flaws, the T-34 was still a very influential design. It worked incredibly well, and was cheap too. While the Germans were designing bigger and better tanks like the Panther and Tiger, the Russians were simply churning out more and more T-34's. Costing around 135 thousand rubles to manufacture, they could afford to - by the end of the war Germany had produced no more than 6,557 Panther tanks and 2,027 Tiger tanks - while Russia manufactured 35,119 T-34-76's and 29,430 T-34-85's. The difference was staggering.

Fresh T-34's on their way to battle.

In regards to its performance in World of Tanks, the T-34 needs to play very carefully. At Tier 5, its armor is not nearly as impressive as it was against its historical foes - it can be penetrated by virtually every tank it can see. So, what does that tell you? The T-34 should use its mobility to get to a sniping position and flank its opponents, while using that same mobility to get out of dodge if needed. The gun is excellent if you can get the hang of the incredibly obnoxious aim time - fully equipped the T-34 can fire once every 1.7 seconds or so. While it lacks alpha damage, it makes up for that with incredibly DPM. And yes; you should be using the 76mm gun and not the 85mm gun. Why? The 85mm is just simply inferior. Less penetration and rate of fire do not compensate for the gained alpha damage at all.

Suggested equipment load out would be a Tank Gun Rammer, Ventilation, and an Enhanced Gun Laying Drive. This will speed up the rate you can lob shells at your enemy and also cut down on that horrible aim time. Crew skills are setup in the usual way - Commander training Sixth Sense and everyone else on Camouflage, before training everyone with Brothers in Arms as a second skill. Consumables are standard Fire Extinguisher, Repair Kit, First Aid Kit, although you *could* replace the Fire Extinguisher with food for the 10% buff to crew skills if you feel the credit price is worth it.

And that friends, is all I can tell you about the T-34-76! Be sure to stop by tomorrow for the second part, where I will talk about the modifications the Red Army made to this already amazing machine, and also what this means for the Tier 6 T-34-85 in game! Das Vidaniya!