German Kill Claims

Most of his knocking copy is a direct lift from the book T-34 Mythical Weapon. The book is completely biased.

 

In which case it is a coprywrite violation but I don't see how it has much import to the question at hand.

I'm not even sure what that means. Certainly there was a bias evident on the page listed. However many of the points seam accurate and relevant. So what exactly do you object to?

 

Tank Crews on both sides sometimes painted kills on Tanks which they saw on the Battlefield.

 

Sorry to pick something up from so long ago, but,

'Mythical Weapon' is something of a curate's egg.
Tremendous for nerdish technical detail, pictures, production values etc., but curiously spoilt by the author/s setting out with a hypothesis from the first page, and their determination to prove that hypothesis throughout.
I don't know if it's purely a Polish/Russian thing, but the book is no real sort of objective treatise. Enjoyable, excellent in parts, but consistently determined to undermine the machine to an extent that often makes one go 'hmmmmm'.
Someone very kindly sent me a copy when it first came out, and while I still like it in the way I like any great slab of a shiny tank book; it's content is often worthy of a quick double-check against other references. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with a biased book, as long as you account for the bias.

 

German tanks/assault guns were working fine against T-34's. The most important factor, after the numbers of course, is always the level of training of the tank crews.

E.g. in Finland in summer 1944 Stu-40 G's (StuG III) were more than a match against T-34 - the T-34-85's included.

"Finland lost 8 of the 1943 batch StuG's. ... The Soviets lost 87 tanks and an uncounted number of anti-tank guns, anti-tank rifles, truck etc., thanks to our Stug's and their crews."

http://www.andreaslarka.net/sturmi.html

 

At least on my machine the "highlighted" text is almost impossible to read, which is a shame as it goes a long way to making your point.

 

Karlaja, Thanks for that link. Most interesting reading. The Stug 111 and it's variations were remarkable AFV's. They seem to do extremely well in defense, I assume the low silhouette and thick frontal armor was a plus. the limited traverse of the main gun being less of a disadvantage than in offense. . By 1944 the Russians had lots of experience on offense so much credit goes to the obviously well trained Finnish tank crews and their overall strategy.
The T-34-85 was not a bad tank, though I am aware the 85mm gun did not live up to expectations.. ( Anyone know why ?) It speaks well for the Stug's 75MM that it did so well.....of course there were many other.factors.

The Germans had good sucess with the Stug, I gather, in their retreat from Russia as well. Can anyone elaborate or point me to more information on this Stug-T-34 struggle or am I misreading something ?

lwd, I am about as blind as a bat and still be legally driving. Have a hard time with lack of contrast, but can make out the highlighted sections of Karlaja's link. I had to get a fair monitor , HP2511X, in order to do so. Then spend lots of time with fine tuning it so I can read the damned grey scaled print !!!

Gaines

 

I found the last few post very interesting so I went to the beginning and have a much better understanding of the T-34. Good thread.

Gaines

 

You are most welcome!

Yes, I think too that the low silhuette and good frontal armour were bonuses. StuG III was overall smaller than T-34-85. The widths were 2,95 m/3,00 m, the hights 2,16 m/2,70 m and the lenghts 5,4 m/6,68 m respectively.

I agree, that not having a turret was a disadvantage. However StuGs were used succesfully in counter attacks too, where the defence was also offensive.

I rewrote that highlighted bit in my previous post, so now it should be easy to read for everybody!