(August 18, 2016 at 2:38 am)Rhythm Wrote: Yeah, that's the usual narrative. It helped that their tank design was fucking visionary, too (since you mentioned tanks). The 34 and IS were monstrous. German armor didn't stand a chance (a fact which was immediately realized by german tank commanders and generals).
Not quite true. T-34 held a firepower, armor and mobility advantage until mid-1943. But by mid 1942, Germans were deploying updated panzers III and IVs that would defeat it, although not equal it. After July 1943 German Panther came into service, and substantially surpassed t-34 in armor and firepower, and matched it in tactical mobility. Panther held German qualitative superiority in medium tanks for the rest of the war. Panther was also a near match for IS heavy tank in effective (not nominal) armor and firepower, and superiori to IS in tactical mobility. The king tiger, which came into service in mid 1944, was significantly superior to any Russian tank in effective firepower and armor for the duration of the war.
But the important thing to remember is neither the Panther nor the king tiger were blitzkrieg tanks. They had decent tactical mobility for maneuvering on the battlefield, but lacked strategic mobility to conduct truly mobile operational level maneuvers. After 1943, the German army was no longer trying to equip itself for further blitzkrieg style operations. Both Panther and the king tiger were designed for head to head, set piece battles.
In many ways, the role of the T-34 in second half of the war mirrored the role of older German panzers iii and panzer iv during early war. Just as t-34 was materially inferior in a tactical sense to Later German tanks after 1943, panzer iii and panzer iv were materially inferior to t-34 in the tactical sense before 1943. But on the reverse side, even as t-34 was inferior in a tactical sense after 1943, it was superior for the purpose of operational level maneuvers after 1943, and succeeded against the Germans who were no longer organized or equipped for highly flexible mobile operations. The same applied panzer iii and iv before 1943, when even as they were tactically inferior, they succeeded against a Russian army that was not organized and equipped for highly mobile warfare.
The other important thing to remember is the soviets never understood how the Germans trained their tank crews until near the end of the war, and as a result never closed the training gap with the Germans. So the rate of losses in tank on tank engagements were always lopsided, with soviets suffering much heavier losses than the Germans even when the t-34 held the material advantage.
