Eastern Front Tank Warfare 1944 - WW2 Documentary Special 

What’s your favourite tank of the war, and why?

Just a quick correction, the SU-76 isn't built on the chassis of the T-34 but a lengthened T-70 chassis and while it has some limited anti-tank capabilities by 1944 the 76mm is mostly only useful for close support Love your work

Hungarian 1st Army received 10 Tigers in the Summer of 1944. They were effective in combat, but most of them would be lost within a few months, mainly due to mechanical breakdowns and a lack of fuel. Since the Hungarians did not have anything that could tow a Tiger (aside from another Tiger, which exposed both tanks to enemy fire), they proved to be too heavy and cumbersome to operate over the long term. By October, 3-4 were left, but we are not sure what happened to them.

The Tiger 1 we have in the US Army Armor and Cavalry collection at Fort Moore was captured in a maintenance area towards the end of the North Africa campaign. Some of the parts on that tank contain serial numbers that belonged to around a dozen other Tigers from that unit.

OMG I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HOW WELL THE FERDINAND PERFORMED

The USA sent some 225,000 2.5 ton cargo trucks, 1,000 locomotives and around 7,000 railway freight cars. That not only freed up a lot of Soviet heavy industry to concentrate on tanks, but it gave them the logistical ability to successfully support deep battle.

As The Chieftain has pointed out in multiple videos, the Panther also featured challenging ergonomics. It is a very difficult tank to learn to use effectively.

6:02 About tungsten, being Spanish, I remember hearing stories on the ways that our government (aligned with Germany) used to transfer them tungsten through the borders without the Allies knowing: It was in small ore chunks, the size of a fist, that could be carried easily. Children in border towns would be hired for extra cash and given those "stones" to play throwing the stones onto the other side of the border, where German agents collected those stones. They also tied them to dogs and made it look like a kid's prank.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder Indy, the T-34/85 is a looker to me.

I always like Special episodes like these, at this late stage of the war you can really see how tank warfare has evolved over time. Thank you Sparty and team as always!

To be fair to the PzKpfw III I think the torsion bars themselves stand the test of time as a great method in general, and the III's specifically seem to have worked just fine. What let down the running gear overall was the narrow track, and perhaps the smaller diameter of the roadwheels themselves compared to T-34

Lendlease sent over 4100 Sherman tanks to the soviets. About half each 75 mm and 76 mm armed. 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps, 6th Guards Tank Army and the 9th Guards Mechanized Corps, were fully lend lease equiped. The Sherman was widely liked, much more than the 2850 other western tanks supplied in the Lendlease program (including nearly 1400 Valentines armed with 40mm or 57mm). The radios, trucks and spares (and 15 million pairs of boots) may have been as important.

Thanks for another excellent video. BTW, the SU 76 was actually based on a modified T 70 chassis. Cheers.

FINALLY! Another special episode! I really missed these🥳

Gotta love that Christie suspension! Americans + Russians working together = unbeatable 😊

Sometimes "good enough" is pretty damn awesome.

I nearly snorted my morning coffee with that Lord Humungous opening

There is a mistake at 11: 43, the SU 76 self propelled gun is not based in the T-34 hull, it is based in the T - 70 light tank hull. The advantage of the " turretless tank" is that a bigger gun can be installed in the same hull. The T-70 tank features a 45 mm gun the SU 76 spg wich is based on the basic T-70 hull features a 76 mm gun.

I remember when 1940 and in France the average panzer division had 300 tanks. For Barbarossa it was reduced to 200.

"The [Soviet] tank brigades had a battalion of infantry, riding in American trucks, and a few pieces of artillery, some of it self-propelled, but the mainspring of the thrust, once it hit open country, was the redoubtable T34. It seems to have been used for every task which in more sophisticated armies was allotted to particular and specialised units and vehicles. Charging ahead in reconnaissance, massed side by side as artillery, dug in as pillboxes; towing, crushing, bulldozing; carrying infantry or, still more perilous, bringing up ammunition chained in boxes to its flat afterdeck, this crude, cramped, poorly ventilated but immensely tough and reliable instrument of war played its many roles. The few early models which had so alarmed the Germans in front of Moscow in 1941 had spawned a limitless progeny. In the one year from January to December 1944 over 22,000 were produced." - Alan Clark, Barbarossa.

A great video.From the 37-40mm to 122-128mm tank guns in just 5 short years.

Indy, I know you've got a lot of people behind you on the show (and they're amazing too), but I gotta hand it to you, I love your voice and delivery - even after 4 years (?) it's always spot on.

I want to make a small correction at 9:00, the photo you used is a T-34 equipped with a 57mm ZiS-4 gun, which is in some regards an improvement to the 76.2mm gun, and this model was quite rare. I have a question, did you use War Thunder models for the T-34 models you've shown here? They look very familiar to me. :)

In Siberia there were T-34 factories that was making 2000 tanks a month, soon as they were finished straight to the front.

Those books on Indy's table looks like they have lovely tank illustrations.

Brilliant, clear description. Very well researched and presented. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Man, what a fantastic special episode, incredibly well researched and presented, to the point where this is the quality I'd expect from a dedicated tank channel. :)

12:29 I just want to say that the soviets produced 102 000 tanks in ww2 and they received around 12000 armored vehicles out of which only 7000 were tanks so, even though lend lease shortened the war by providing the soviets with a lot of trucks and other raw materiel (especially aluminum) and other stuff that is needed to establish good logistics, I personally think it is unfair to say that the soviets received a substantial amount of tanks from lend lease.

Hook, line, and sinker with the Mad Max intro.

I really love those specials! Favorite tank is a tricky one. I go with the Jagdpanther, its just an awesome piece of machinery.

Thank you Lindy, a well done presentation, very informative but easy to understand in your straight forward speaking style.

Every German tank crews gangster until they see a lone KV-2 standing in the middle of the road.

Again, a great piece of content Indy and team! You and your team are a blessing in the time of general bad documentaries and clickbait content! I wish you well!

Great special and analysis, thoroughly enjoyed

Hi Indy Wonderful special episode. Need more like this. Thanks.

The "Cross of Iron Tank Attack" snippet on RU-vid (taken from the Cross of Iron movie) is an excellent film rendition of the T-34 in attack against German positions.

The lend lease item that helped the soviet armor divisions the most was the American Trucks ,GMC, Ford and Studebaker. The trucks brought up the feul and ammo to the front keeping up with the advance. The USSR relied so heavily on those trucks that they didn't put an emphasis on thier own truck manufacturering

Fun video, although I had been hoping that we'd see more of the excellent collaboration between you and the Chieftain that we saw earlier in the series around the battle for France and in North Africa. I guess that didn't work out, thank you for the content anyway!

What a great overview of Tank strengths and weaknesses.

Great video and presentation.

Hoping to see the same concept of episode with planes ! Or even navies of the major powers !

My understanding is that the T34 was not an incredibly reliable tank so much as it was not difficult to fix and had a very short life expectancy anyway (a couple of weeks or so). Also sloped armor and Christie suspension had advantages but also made the tank uncomfortable (and thus less effective) to fight in.

Tanks for the video.

That was really great Indy. Thank you!

I love how the T-34-85 looks. Probably the most beautiful tank of the war next to the Tiger

This is the first time that I've watched an armored warfare episode without my eyes glazing over. I appreciate the technical explanations without getting too far in the weeds, and I cannot in any way get sleepy listening to Indy!! Kudos to all the Time Ghost Team!!

No mention about the radios ? Ussr tank brigades were completely disorganized before the ussr received radios from USA. It is not a convenient way on the battlefiled for the tank commanders to get out of the tank, meet up to discuss how to proceed and then return to their tanks to execute the plan.

Great lecture--thank you.

The biggest factor working against the Germans, on all fronts, in 1944 was that the average tactical engagement that included tanks was one with some tanks on the Allied side and no tanks on the German. As much as German tanks had their individual superiorities, that's just not important if they just are not there. Like they say in sports, the best ability is availability.

Favorite tank is the M18 Hellcat, there's one outside of the airport in Lubbock TX. Grew up climbing all over that thing.

Indy you and your team are number one on history. Displayed knowledge is amazing. As an Ameri 13:16 can Tank officer from 1974 until 1994 ( we went from the m48 and M60 in that 20 years) to the M1A1 you are clearly qualified as an honorary tanker. Want a natural high sit in the turret while firing these beauties at 20 miles and hour at night.

There is something to be said for bogey suspension. It may not offer similar speed or ride quality when compared with torsion or Christie suspension, but it is much easier to repair, and reduces production costs significantly. Christie suspension has most of it's major parts present on the inside of the hull, which takes up more space and complicates repairs. Generally the T-34 wasn't built for a long operational life anyway, being built to last about as long as it was expected to live before getting destroyed in action, and admittedly, it was easy to fix, if not terribly reliable from the standpoint of part lifespan.

Yes! A special!

8:59 This is T-34/57, not T-34/76. Are you kidding me?

Thank you for the lesson.

Great episode

"Good enough" was definitely a Stalin mantra. As part of a class lecture I received from Sergei Sikorsky he told the story of a Soviet aircraft engine designer who was ordered to report in person to Stalin to explain why his powerful new design had not yet been put into production. The rightfully nervous designer told Stalin the engine had yet to survive more than 50 hours of running time before it failed. Stalin responded that any pilot who managed to survive 50 hours of combat flying had to be a coward and should be shot. He then ordered the engine into immediate production or he would have the engineer shot. The engine went into production.

I'm going to guess that the M-3 AFV at frame [12:46] was modified from a Grant [w/ its exclusive squat turret] into a CDL. Code named ''Coastal Defense Lights'' they were M-3 Tracks with a huge carbon arc spotlight inside the turret, coupled with a shutter mechanism, to create a strobe effect. The stroboscopic output [@120 FPS] of scores of these tanks were to distract and disorient German bombers attacking the Suez Canal. Also used later in the Rhine Crossing. The vertical slit between the dummy cannon and dummy Besa MG, housed a prism, intensifying the effect. The dummy guns are for camouflage. Since they were highly classified, photos of CDLs are rare. I was unaware of the Dummy Gun set dressing.

7:03 to my knowledge the stug 3 had the greatest kill ratio of all tank models in ww2. at only 2.16 m (7 ft 1 in) tall it was easy to conceal. this was highly useful when setting an ambush and made for a small, hard to pinpoint target even after the battle started.

hehe, efficiency vs effectiveness: that was really well summed up and you touch on some unique aspects of the nature of breakthrough armored warfare that is lesser discussed in the WW2 community. The only thing left to do is an all out data analysis!

Always remember OIL and logistics! Germany did not the get OIL in 42. Someone once said "amateurs study tactics, pros study logistics." Excellent episode to maybe educate someone. Will get the get it? Doubt it. But thank you for trying.

8:58 I don't think that's a T-34/76. The gun barrel is way too long and skinny. That looks much more like a T-34/57 which I think only about 10 were ever made to make more room for T-34/76 production. Considering how few 57's were built and how many 76's there were its actually kind of impressive how a photo of a 57 would get mistakenly put in place of the most produced tank variant of WW2.

Nicely done video

New tank doctrine videos with the chieftain at some point? I use them to think wargames tactics and organize my command structure.

PLEASE PLEASE do it for the western front as well

The main front where allies tanks were actually the main force was in the Caucasus since they were cut off for quite while but they usually preferred their own tanks over British tanks or whatever light tanks the Americans sent them, they quite liked the Sherman though.

It's worth noting the heavy IS-2 weighed less than the "medium" panther.

Heinz Guderian was so shocked by his meeting with the Soviet T-34 during Barbarossa that he asked Hitler to copy it for mass production in Germany. Moreover, the first prototype of the new medium German tank from Daimler-Benz in 1942 were very similar to the T-34, but the Germans did not stoop to such a “shame” and accepted the version of the Man company, which became known as the Panther.

While the # of tanks [7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lee and 4,102 M4 Sherman] in Lend Lease was important, just as important and often ignored is the trucks, the fuel and the food sent. Remember that the breadbasket of the USSR had been scorched earth 2x, once by Stalin and once by the Axis. Stalin had ordered the oil fields set on fire when the Axis got close, and the high tank production of the USSR was in part because they converted farm and truck production, so they needed trucks. So Lend Lease sent tanks and truck, and the food and fuel - along with other important stuff like radios [50% of Russian tanks had a Lend Lease radio.] But of course Stalin said all that was insignificant.

Love the content from the team.

Wow. One of your best ever!

We need one of these on Chinese forces at the end of 1944.

9:50 the Panzer IV was not the focus anymore. They produced 2500 real Panzer IVs with a turret during 1944, but 3800 Panthers. In 1944 the soviets produced 10500 T34/85 and 4500 T34/76. So the production ratio of medium tank was actually 1/2.25 and and not 1/6. A ratio which would not have worked for the soviets, if germany did not had to split their forces after the fall of Italy and the Landing in normandy. In 1944 Soviets and germans traded their tanks at a ratio of 1 to 4 or sometimes even higher in favor for the germans. So germany actually did not to bad of a job when it comes down to tank production. The two front war was unwinable anyway at this point. But speaking of a total missmanagement of german tank production is a bit far fetched. They could not operate more tanks anyway without bigger fuel and oil supplies, they could not even maintain the tanks they already had.

Thank you

Really love you did another video as this the point in the war, where you could see some truly titanic clashes between the monsters of the Eastern front. Unfortunately, however, none of the heavy tanks was really all that good.... Hence my favorite tank is still the Sherman/Sherman Firefly for its high quality, availability and immense battlefield reliability. Also glad Indy mentioned the improvement in capability of the Red Army. Worth noting here was the effectiveness of the IL2 at this point. Earlier on, they would miss most of the time, didn't know what to shoot at, couldn't kill tanks and were shot down in droves. By 1944, they worked closely with Forward air controllers, had P-tab anti-tank bomblets and were concentrated in very high numbers all along the frontline. The constant attacks meant the Germans could never regain their positions after the initial artillery bombardment and the IL2's would wreak havoc in the rear areas too. Combined arms indeed! Couple of points on the German and Russian vehicles too. Aside from the lack of materials and inability to say good enough, the Germans are constantly tinkering with upgrades to their production lines, hence there are hundreds of different versions of the Panzer III and IV, requiring work stoppages, retooling and screwed up component logistics. There were about 3 versions of the T-34/76 by comparison. With regards to the Panther, even though they did get over most of the initial teething problems, they never fixed the final drive, meaning they were constantly breaking down in the field and replacing a transmission there was impossible. The gun was great though, with a seemingly smaller 76 mm shell, but fired at a huge velocity, making it a superb tank killer. The transmission was a major factor for the Tiger I and Tiger II, which basically had the same engine and transmission, but got progressively heavier. Already a weakness in the Tiger I, more of the heavies would be lost to breakdowns and inability to recover them than through combat. Sure, they could kill anything from very long range, but the frontlines were constantly moving back, with no way of retreating quickly. On the Soviet side, sure the IS-2 had a massive 122 gun, but the projectiles were so big and heavy, they had to be stored in two parts, they could only carry 22 shells and the time between shots was about a week.... not great if a German heavy tank can fire 2-3 shots in the meantime. Worth mentioning is also the most Russian armored vehicle I can think of, the ISU 152, an absolute beast of a machine with the 152 mm howitzer on an IS 2 chassis. The velocity was slow and the shells had no armor penetration capability, but they didn't need them. The sheer concussive force of the blast could blow the turret or tracks off a Tiger. It had a good chance of killing the crew too just by the splinters worked loose from the blast flying around inside the enemy tank.

Western front tank warfare 1944 🥺👉👈

"The Panzer III's torsion bar suspension is outclassed by the T-34's Christie suspension". I'm sorry Indy and team, but this is just patently false. Torsion bars are still used today by modern MBTs and are objectively superior in practically every conceivable metric barring cost and maintenance. In fact, the Soviets wanted to put torsion bars on the T-34 (the T-43 project), but decided against it largely because it would be too expensive to convert existing production lines. The Panzer III was an extremely forward-thinking design.

TANKS for sharing

Very interesting, need to repeat the famous quote from “the big moustache” regarding the t-34 etc. “Quantity is a quality of its own.”

Most of the problems are as you said due to a lack of oil for the Germans, that is why Hitler from 1933 on wanted to capture te Kaukasus for the oil fields there, from crude oil is not only fuel made but also lubricants what was also a issue for the Germans, there was not enough.

For clarification. Panther was ment to replace both Panzer III and IV and it was planned to share its drivetrain, track and roadwheels with the Tiger II (Tiger I was just planned as a gap filler until Tiger II was ready from the beginning, yes that is actually true). This could not be realized because of the bombing of the bottlenecks of the german war industry and the Tiger production plant aswell. Panthers and Tiger IIs already used the same engine, but the Panther never got the transmission upgrade to the Maybach Olvar because of shortages. So the Panther was forced to use a simpler steering and transmissions system compared to Tigers, Cromwells, Churchills, Comets and Centurion. So its not that they did not planed the simplification of the Logistics between the types, they simply could not realize it. Furthermore the Panther was planned to be the platform for all types of fighting vehicles like Flak, mobile Arty, ARVs, TDs.....just like the Sherman or later the Leopard 1.

This is very interesting, it'd be nice to see a similar video on other subjects, like air warfare.

I'm enjoying this.

Fun fact the IS-2 1944 version featured effectively impenetrable armor that would stop even the long 88mm on the elephant and king tiger and of course the outdated 88mm of the regular tiger. In contrast the regular tiger had only 100mm of unangled frontal armor, meaning an IS-2 would have no problem penetrating the tiger even at extreme ranges like 2km

Both the Tiger and Panther were reliable by WW2 standards by 1944, readiness rates from the units showed this. The former was probably one of the most reliable late war tanks - if maintained properly. Maintenance was a problem, as tanks, spare parts, fuel and work shops were targeted by allied bombers right from the factory out to the front. And they only used about as much fuel as a late war M4A3, and about 30% more than a Panzer IV. The keywords are power to weight ratio (PTWR). Both the Tiger 1 and Panther had a good PTWR, and it's a well known fact that a heavy vehicle with a good PTWR may use as little fuel as a lighter vehicle with poor PTWR due to less stress on the engine. The Tiger II OTH... Soviet vehicles often looked excellent on paper - in reality they often performed far worse than "expected" - a factor even today in Ukraine.

Very good episode on tanks late in the war. I wonder what the beginning of Barbarossa would have been like with more Mark IIIs and IVs and had the Germans not halved the strength of their panzer divisions.

Thanks!

El Alamein when Monty tricked Rimmel into going south through the Qattarra Depression in Egypt while a minefield added to the danger. Then artillery and tanks the British unleashed,the infantry advancing, all made for a victory. Utt may not have involved a large tank battle on both sides, but the strategy stopped the Desert Fox advance into Egypt.

ppl like to talk about lend lease tanks and planes the shiny glorious stuff. im sad they dont talk about the hundreds of thousands jeeps and trucks fuels and food that even made it possible for the soviets to field such large tank forces in the first place (plus probably help a soviet economic collapse which was looming until mid 1944)

The Soviet SU-76 was built on a lengthened version of the T-70 light tank chassis. It did not use the T-34 chassis.

The increasing efficiency of the Russian Army sounds like what's happening in Ukraine. Unlike what NATO assumes, the Russians learn from experience and, yes, lots of good enough is good enough and little of great is not. If it ain't broke, don't fix it and especially don't try to fix it with something complicated, unreliable, expensive, and hard to repair.

At 9:06 a pucture of a t34 57 is used for the t34 76

My mothers uncle was in the hitlerjugend. The first generation of it. He was a tank driver and drove both Panzer IV and Panther

great birthday video and my favorite TANK WARFARE

Would be cool to an episode on the Soviet navy we have heard very little about them during the war.

Great channel

nice video, but a short note: the tank pictured at 9:05 is not a T-34/76, but a T-34-57 used as a tank destroyer. this is seen by it's longer and thinner barrel

Do a show on how the lend lease equipment worked for the Russians.

the thing about the Lend lease is perhaps that its biggest contribution is trucks, think about it, if you get a 1000 trucks its a 1000 trucks you dont have to produce yourself, or it means you can support a higher amount of tanks, without those trucks the soviets could not have produced and operate nearly as many tanks as they did.

The Russian tank factories were designed by the renowned Detroit industrial architecht Albert Kahn and they were vastly more efficient than German tank production. The Russians tooled their parts to looser tolerances, kept production to a limited number of models and kept modifications to a minimum. The Germans, on the other hand actually bragged that each Tiger required 300,000 man hours to complete. Insane. On the western front, tank on tank engagements were pretty rare. One historian studied it through US Army quartermaster records. American tank units submitted their requisitions for resupply of tank ammunition and the consumption of HE ammunition outpaced AP ammuntion by about 4 tx; this meant that US armored units were more likely to be engaging soft targets and infantry rather than tanks. I highly recommend Jonathan Parshall's presentation on the video of Kursk with Robert Citino. He lays out the systems differences in Russian, German and American tank production. "Kursk: The Epic Armored Engagement (2013)"