<h2>Armour</h2> <p>The T-34's story begins in the early 1940s when Soviet designers angled its armour plates to deflect enemy shells and cut weight. Crews sometimes welded extra applique plates-called s ekranami or 'with screens'-to key areas, boosting protection without thickening the steel.</p> <p>In late 1942 two battle-used Model 1941 T-34s arrived at Aberdeen Proving Ground for US testing. Engineers admired the slope but found poor welds, soft steel and tiny gaps that leaked rainwater into electrics. Early cast turrets proved too brittle against even 37 mm fire, and inconsistent hardening led to spalling when hit by high-explosive shells.</p> <p>On the Eastern Front, though, those flaws mattered less. German 37 mm Pak 36 and 50 mm KwK 38 guns often bounced shots off the sloped hull unless crews scored perfect flank hits at close range. One 37 mm crew reportedly jammed its turret ring after 23 shots, and German reports in mid 1942 admitted their 50 mm could only dent a T-34 under ideal angles. Still, by late 1942 over half of Soviet T-34 losses came from the newer 50 mm KwK 39, and 7.5 cm Pak 40s, 8.8 cm anti-aircraft guns and Tiger tanks proved deadly at combat ranges.</p> <p>Into 1943 the Germans countered with Panthers and up-gunned Panzer IVs mounting longer 7.5 cm guns. Field tests and manuals detailed exactly how far back each German gun had to be to pierce the T-34's glacis, mantlet or turret face when it sat at a 30&deg; angle.</p> <p>After the war the T-34 reappeared in Korea. A captured T-34-85 in late 1950 impressed US evaluators with its sloped armour hardness-on par with American steel-and solid castings, though they still complained about weld gaps that could let in shell fragments. Even a decade after its debut, the T-34's clever geometry proved as vital as plate thickness.</p> <h2>Firepower</h2> <p>In the early 1940s the T-34 mounted the 76.2 mm F-34 gun, which shrugged off the flat 50–60 mm armour of Panzer III and IV tanks at normal combat distances. Firing APCR rounds it could punch through 92 mm of steel at 500 m and 60 mm at 1 000 m, while its high-explosive shells proved effective against softer targets.</p><p>However, the F-34’s crude sights (the TMFD-7 or PT4-7) and the two-man turret forced commanders to juggle aiming, loading and spotting, slowing down target acquisition. German adversaries noted that T-34 crews often clumped together and struggled to engage multiple threats, getting off only one shot for every three of their own tanks.</p><p>By 1942 heavier German designs like the Tiger I and Panther rendered the 76 mm almost useless from the front, forcing T-34 units to seek flank shots at a few hundred metres. To meet the challenge, Soviet factories rolled out the T-34-85 in early 1944, fitting an 85 mm ZiS gun and enlarging the turret to add a dedicated commander. The new gun could crack a Tiger I’s turret front at 500 m and its upper hull at 1 000 m, though Panthers still resisted frontal hits unless tungsten rounds were used or side armour was targeted.</p><p>The longer 4.65 m barrel also introduced new headaches: on rough terrain it tended to dig into the ground and collect dirt, sometimes bursting open if fired without cleaning. Crews learned to trail or elevate the barrel on roads to avoid accidents.</p><p>When a T-34-85 fell into UN hands during the Korean War, US engineers found its 85 mm gun could pierce roughly 100 mm of armour at 910 m, mirroring performance of their own high-velocity rounds. They pegged its maximum range at 2–3 km but knew effective fire ended around 1.9 km, a fitting epilogue to the tank’s long arms race with enemy armour. <h2>Mobility</h2> <p>Under the hood the T-34 packed a mighty V-12 diesel— the Model V-2-34’s 38.8-litre block churning out about 500 hp, enough to push it to roughly 53 km/h on road. It rode on Christie coil springs inherited from the BT series, with a ‘slack-track’ layout that ditched return rollers in favor of a simple loop back to the rear drive sprocket.</p><p>Early T-34-76s used a 4-speed gearbox that let crews only shift into top gear on smooth roads, and shifting from 2nd to 3rd could feel like wrestling a bear—requiring up to 112 kg of force. By September 1941 engineers tweaked the 3rd-gear ratio, cutting that effort to under 31 kg at the cost of trimming 3rd-gear speed from 29 to 25 km/h. Later T-34s got a 5-speed box, freeing 4th gear for cross-country use and nudging off-road top speed to about 30 km/h.</p><p>Thanks to its broad track shoes the T-34-76 kept ground pressure near 0.72 kg/cm², lending it surprisingly good mobility on dirt roads and most terrain. Still, even wide tracks couldn’t cure every bog. In a mid-winter drive on February 4, 1944 the 21st Guards Tank Brigade set out across some farm country, only to see 19 of its 32 T-34s mired in mud or sidelined by breakdowns before they’d gone 80 km.</p>

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