Was a German-Russo conflict inevitable?

Nice thread! I totally agree!

 

I am here referring to my post on 31st July. I mentioned a thing on those press machines...

I found the writing mentioning this so I´m proud to say I didn´t make it up ...Anyway, as you guys know about authors and how much you can trust them I would like to hear your opinion.

This is from " The Tiger I in combat" by Wolfgang
Fleischer, a Schiffer military history book, 2000. Originally "Waffen Arsenal-Panzerkampfwagen Tiger in Der Truppe" by Podzun-Pallas Verlag, GmbH.

"The Tiger´s external aspect was anything but beautiful and pleasant. It seemed dull, almost all its surfaces were vertical, only the bow was angled. the avoidance of rounded shapes had been made up for by heavier armor. It was surely not without irony to learn that shortly before the war we had delivered to the Russians the big hydraulic presses with which they were able to make their T-34 and T-43 tanks so elegantly rounded. Our armaments experts had placed no value on them, because in their opinion such thick armor never came into the matter. Now we had to accept flat surfaces."

Heard of this before? Ideas?

 

Kai, I have read of that before. Not sure about the exact circumstances of the sale, but I'm pretty sure that before the war germany sold russia a good amount of heavy machinery and industrial equipment- part of Stalin's "modernization" of russia. And the russians put it to good use once the war started.
The sloped armor of the T-34 was one of the major advantages it had. Sloped armor has two benefits- the effective thickness of the armor is increased because of the angle, and the slope makes it likely that hit will be deflected with little damage to the tank. The Tiger had no sloped armor at all. This is one of the reasons, other than production, that the Tigers became less effective in the later years of the war- the better tank guns made the Tiger's straight armor obsolete.