The Soviet Tank Meme 

Soviet Tank production checklist: Can it move forward? Да Can it shoot Fascisti? ДА Perfect

“We’ve taken out the enemy’s tracks, they are going faster!”

Soviet tanker: We destroyed the enemy's transmission. Tank commander: Good, now they can't run away. German tanker: Jokes on them. We ran out of fuel 2 hours ago. *laughter that slowly turns into crying*

T-34:Oil leaks *IVAN GET THE FLEX TAPE* Panther:Tracks snap *Hans...back to the workshop.*

Fact Kv-2 has no gun sights as the hand of Stalin guides the rounds to its target

as a russian speaker, this thumbnail causes me physical pain

Whoever made that Russian Civil War map must be really awesome.

"Realistic upgrades" Yeah my WW2 tanks can totally rotate their turret 40 deg/sec......

Russian tanks in a nutshell: >finds T-34 in frozen mud >digs it up >cranks the engine >tank starts Or >finds rusty IS-3 in 2016 >changes some parts >tank starts >also has live ammo

It's good to be back.

When Potential History gets sponsored by both World of Tanks and War thunder *visible confusion*

German: *Shoots off BT tank’s tracks* BT: *Revs Engine*

WW2 Countries: Shit, I think we need to make a few more tanks Soviets: * spits out vodka * sorry what?

*A loose bolt pops out of a hurriedly built T-34* Ivan: *Ha ha, I'm in danger!*

“Hanz, ze enemy transmission broke!” “So did ours Kommandant.”

No one: Soviet Tanks: *And they don't stop coming, and they don't stop coming, AND THEY DON'T STOP COMING*

Potential History sponsored world of tanks *This enraged war thunder, who punished him severely*

If you give the Germans enough materials for 1 tank, they are gonna make sure it's the best goddamned tank that ever served Give the Soviets enough materials for 1 tank, and they are gonna find a way to make 3

Who needs a fire extinguisher when you're already sweating so much from your tank being on fire?

so the USSR tank plan was the equivalent of parents giving their kid a cheep car because they will wreck it in a week anyway... Seems legit

One of my professors told us about a Russian friend of his explanation for why he had such a junky washing machine. “Because I can fix it”

*The Bolt of the Turret Ring pops off* Dimitri: *Haha, Very funny. Wait until dawn Vladimir! Defend with Blyatiful Machinegun!*

Tsar Nicholas II: "Alright here me out, it's a big death tricycle. It'll roll across the steppes and the enemy won't be able to stop it." Soldiers: ???? That killed me

*engine breaks* Soviet Tanker: VADIM BLYAT!

"mechanic on suicide watch". Never truer words spoken.

Real talk, I would like to see a lend-lease video. Though more about supplies, food and tools and stuff.

In the west quality means it will run forever. "Makes stuff with designed in flaws so it can sell parts" In the east quality means its easy to repair. "Makes something that is simple to repair yet it actually turns out to last forever." ...

_Yuo see Ivan,_ _If Tiger tank has 92 big boolet ammo rounds,_ _We just send 93 T34's._

Ferdinand Mechanic Found who Hung himself by his lederhosen from the gun barrel after 3rd transmission broke in 24hrs. F

Whenever a comrade hears the word T34 he is obligated to collectivize at least 4 farms for the motherland.

“Unless you’re some kind of crazy masochist, in which case your probable playing a Japanese tank” I feel attacked. Feels....good.

One of the things soviets started doing during the war, that is never brought up, is them starting to train tank crews on factories. Them literally seeing the tank being built, helped with repairing, mostly fixing the breakdown problems, which plagued the Red Army early on

I mean, I'd watch a video on how Soviet tanks are used in modern-day conflicts. Shit's interesting yo.

Wait..didnt the confederate ironclads during the civil war have sloped armor? Does that count?..im gonna say that counts.

Factory Worker: So how many tanks do you want Mr Stalin? Stalin: Yes!

The RU-vid "Community" Guidelines made this video age-restricted. *This enraged Potential History, who punished them severely.*

"realistic models" *shows actual model from tha game thats more than 1000 words*

- Remember the murder of Comrade Tukhachevsky - Lie down - Try not to cry - Cry a lot

The title would be pronounced “Sfvizt Tdeenks.”

There is a god after all!

What’s thicker: An IS-7’s armor or Johnny’s forehead?

7:14 I wouldn't really call "sloped armour" as being a technological breakthrough.....I mean, it's really too simple. Now, metal casting on the other hand, IS a technological breakthrough that the Soviets were very familiar with. They also made great strides in casting.

Meanwhile in America: Use a gun, And if that don’t work, Use more gun. (EDIT) this comment was a shitpost, why are people arguing about this a year later

*Engine breaks* Soviet tank crew: meh German tank crew: O MEIN GOTT!!!! SCHIESSE SCHIESSE SCHIESSE!!! ZHEY SAID ZIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN!

Tank Designer: Good or plentiful, pick one. Germans: Good Soviets: Plentiful Americans: Yes.

Potential history: *uploads Russian tank meme* Me: " *I serve the Soviet Union* "

Other WW2 countries : We need to Focus on quality . Stalin : Quantity is itself a quality

"They delivered a crushing Victory to the Japanese!" Those poor japanese!

Talkernate history post a 70 min episode and now I see the soviet tanks meme video? It’s Christmas in July boys and girls!

People: t-34 best tank Bob Semple: *YOU DARE OPPOSE ME MORTAL?*

T-34s are fighting in wars up to this day,thats what i call a tank

Basically, the USSR knew what they were doing.

A cold war video would be neat, or maybe American tanks meme video considering how many ridiculous experiments they tried

12:30 When my mother first came to the US from Ukraine in the 1990s, what she was surprised about was the fact that there was no repair shops in NYC, for things such as umbrellas. In her home, if something broke? You fixed it, or had it fixed. The fact that no one repairs or is able to repair common things here in the US shows the mentality of US product design.

7:10 "... amazing technological breakthroughs such as slopped armor". Me: (Laughs in Da Vinci tank) Tiger I: Leaves the chat.

*you don't have to repair a tank if you just have a replacement*

I mean, the US did the same thing of "have a tank that will do the job but won't run forever" but managed to crank out machines with an 80% crew survival rate.

80% of the comments: People bitching about our man getting paid 20%: People being grateful for free content.

Last time I was this early the Soviet Union was still a country.

The early T34 versions where cheap ( for a tank, 240000 rubles) and at the end of the war, a T34-85 was 120000. Thats roughly 2500$, for a bloody tank! Not only that, it was very ez to repair (not like it would survive more than 2 battles), but thats the thing with every tank made by the soviets and russians. For example, a few rebeles in easter Ukraine found some broken down IS-3s, and the only think they had to do was fiddle with the engine. Minimal mecanical skill.

German Engineer in 1941: Sloped armor *NEVER HEARD OF IT*

"Realistic upgrades" *Panther with 7.5 cm L 100 cannon looking away*

"A hundred destroyed, a thousand more to come" - Literally Soviets on ww2

I love The Whole “panther final drive breaks and the mechanic has to be put on suicide watch” I laughed my ass off. It’s dark but probably true to an extent

"I don't understand how the Germans lost against a bunch of cheap tanks." *CHECK A LOOK*

As the Pig himself said: “The T-34 was not a cheap tank. It was an expensive tank *made cheaply”.*

7:21 I was sitting back watching this and then suddenly jolted cause I thought I left hoi4 open

"World of Tanks" "All models based on real tanks"

"Nothing lasts forever" Tiger 131: *Sad 88 noises*

"In the West, quality means something's that's gonna run forever. In to the East, quality means more something that's more easy to repair" *Laughs in M4 Sherman that has both*

Papa Stalin is appeased... *_no gulag for today_*

Military weapon designs these days bother me with how a single piece of equipment can cost in the millions but probably be destroyed by something tons cheaper. Not really equipment designed for an actual war but for fighting tiny weak nations at worst and terrorists at best.

After the German reunification, the west German labor market was flooded with east German, Russian and Viatnamese Labour. My Grandpa who had a construction business at the time, was amased by the Easterners taking every peace of broken equipment home, in Order to repair it or repair something with it. So this different quality Ethos does exist. Good for: Tanks, Cars, construction gear Bad for: Nuclear Power Plants, Rockets.

I think that the Soviet people are incredibly resilient culturally, and the Soviet High Command played into this brilliantly. It didn't matter how they threw the Nazis out of the Soviet Union, all that mattered was they did.

Did he just sponsored WOT?! I'm calling Gaijin...

Soviet tanks in a nutshell: *and they don’t stop comin’, and they don’t stop coming*

I live in a t-34 bro, bro you gotta a problem take it off with george

12:28 I mean the Shermans were built with the same idea, of being "good enough" and easily repairable. You even talk about it in a later video, how the Shermans were expected to be able to be repaired on the fly in the field. Though I would chock that up to the logisitical challenges of the US army than any innate cultural idea. It was the Germans who were expecting their stuff to simply be superior in every way. It wasn't really a factor in the tank design of the other powers. If there's anything I learned about WWII, it's that these grand cultural narratives never really play the part in warfare that you expect. At least in modern war, it's all about industrial capability, resources, doctrinal usage, and strategic decisions made even at the smallest level. Take the Tommy Gun for instance. It was a damn good high quality machinegun, but the British actively went out of their way to make the Sten, which was cheaper and dare I say shittier than the Tommy, solely because it was easier to produce, and the British understood that quantity over quality is how the war would be won. If there was anyone who was caught up in grand cultural narratives and convinced of the idea of quality over quantity, it was the Germans, and they obviously lost. The Axis as a whole lost mostly out of outdated and shortsighted ideas that their innate superiority would win them the war, and it shows in their equipment. (The sole exception being Italy, who just didn't have any business being in the war to begin with and didn't have the industrial capacity to even start out thinking that their equipment would be superior in any way). The Allies and the Commitern didn't expect such innate superiority. They saw it for what it was, a war of industrial capacity and pragmatism. Who could put the most stuff on the field the fastest and make it count where it could. Better an imperfect plan now than a perfect plan a week from now. The Germans wanted one tank that could kill 20 enemy tanks, but the Allies and Soviets made 40 that could kill a few tanks each and overran them. It sure makes wehraboos cream themselves over the quality of German tanks though. Even though that exact philosophy is what lost the Germans the war.

KV-2: Finish the Reload* Panzers: Enemy nuke Incoming!, repeat, Enemy Nuke Incoming!

That “tank that scared the west” thing was a common misconception. And “quantity has a quality of its own” is not something any military should consider.

If you read what the cyrillic letters in the thumbnail actually are, it comes out as: "Sfviet Tdiks," a beautiful phrase.

9:09 - em, what the hell is this ? Some kind of conversion project to fit turret on T-54(55?) into chassis of T-34 ? Who's make such thing ?

Adolf at 0:18: I did not see that coming, time to oof myself

I think the thumbnail says: Dzfvizt tdikdz. Strange how people use russian letters with different meanings to spell english words and make them look more russian xD

Funny thing is, the IS-2 was also cheap and costed almost as much as the standard T-34-85 and still was literally superior to the Tiger-I and Tiger-II

*A bunch of T-34's enter the battlefield* Germans: SHOOT FASTER COMRADE

I love the part where everyone comes back to this video created years before LP's and recite all of his video's criticism of the t34. Not saying he is wrong, but this seems to be a trend with his fans "Well Ackshully" a bunch of videos on topics he has alternate views on.

As an avid war thunder player I really wish they would market the game better

for real, though, soviet tanks get a terrible amount of hate from the west simply because they're 'the enemy' i reckon, a lot of soviet technology gets a similar amount of hate in other areas - aviation, maritime, small arms etc etc it's so hard to say that something is 'bad' simply because it's different to our technology and doctrines, i can't speak fully for tanks across the board from WW1 all the way to now, but i can say for damn sure that that's very, very true for soviet versus NATO aircraft during the cold war where the russian mindset was hunter-killer and tricking/confusing radar whilst the west was almost entirely reliant ON radar and thus, if it came to it, i think that the russian pilots would've been able to deal a serious amount of damage to that american pride that was going around when planes such as the F-15 came about (not that they're bad, they're fantastic, but it's impossible to definitively say that its counterparts are bad) there's a really good reason why russian stuff that was designed and developed in the 60s is still being used today despite 50 years of advancements, it's cheap and it just works sometimes IS-7s in war thunder can fuck right off though

Tiger's engine: *Breaks down* German tanker: Friedrich, drive to the workshop. 2nd German tanker: Hans, did you lose your mind, the engine broke down and we're surrounded by Soviet tanks T34's engine: *Breaks down* Soviet tanker: Ivan, go bring a new tank, this on has broken down 2nd Soviet tanker: I'll get one in a few minutes, Vladimir.

Lol what's the names of your twin T34s and little T70?

So basically Germany: Gold units Soviets: Trash units Germans ran out of gold.

HOW DID THIS GET AGE RESTRICTED?!?!?!?!?

9:26 "you missed, oh wait thats me"

Man I'd love to see more Cold War stuff. Soviet and German tank meme part 2 about T-55s and Leopards

Video: The Soviet Tank Meme Wargaming: *sponsors* me: 🤔🤔🤔🤔

A video about your mail-order bride please

Was wondering if you are ever going to do a video on the German military intelligence services during ww2. A lot of your videos seem to place a sizable portion of blame on them and I would love to here your take in full, cheers.

Point worth noting. The T-34 actually started out with VERY GOOD optics and radio as well as overall HIGH quality. Or rather, the almost first production run did. The initial production was used to get rid of problems. Then, just as they started building some really good ones, that's when the war started. And some of the very first casualties were the brand new factories that had started making good radios and optics, because those had been built with the help of Germany, and Germany KNEW that and specifically captured/destroyed those the first thing they did. And then came the big industry emergency move. With production lines ending up improvised and often lacking vital personnel and especially knowledge as well as time and often the proper tools and setup to make proper quality. So, the first T-34s produced once the initial bugs had been ironed out, those are the ones that scared the Germans, because they were GOOD. And any of them that survived 1941 and 1942, often survived the rest of the war, because the crews realised how much better their old stuff was and went to great lengths to keep them running instead of accepting a brand new replacement, because they knew that the armor of the new tanks were half as good, the optics and radio(if there was a radio at all) was crap, engine was rough to say the least and the tracks broke several times more often etc etc... This is why you will find such drastically different opinions on it. The Germans analysed and tested one of the quality ones. The Brits and yanks got a midwar model dumped on them to test and had trouble even figuring out what some parts were because they had been so roughed up from the original model. Though it's interesting that even despite getting a craptacular tank, they were still somewhat impressed by it overall. ... Another thing worth mentioning is that the Christie-suspension is hugely overrated. It was used on the T-34 because it was originally meant to retain the ability to drive trackless at high speeds on roads like the BT series. But it was in fact the greatest FLAW of the T-34. This quickly becomes very apparent when you look at the T-44, and realise it's basically a T-34 with torsion bar suspension instead. And the T-44 can easily outfight a Panther, despite being 10 tons lighter. Drastically better armor and better everything. Because the Christie-suspension made the tank very TALL, not a good thing, and it did so in return for no real advantage, making it a really bad thing. And the thing about sloped armor, no it wasn't a new thing as such, BUT, how many previous tanks tried to design the tank specifically to make maximum intentional use of it? Other designs makes use of it where they can, but on the T-34, the whole front was meant to be a "bouncy" place. ... If you think the IS-3 scared the west, look at the IS-7... Whooo boy... It's kind of a pity it never became a big thing, just because it was such an amazingly impressive tank. Basically making western tanks look like toys for decades. And yet, not making massproduction because it was a real heavy tank and that no longer fit the Soviet logistics and doctrine.

Wow you're married? Congrats. Been a fan from your first few vids, those few second long memes, and your in-depth Vietnam in Star Wars and the Banality of Evil days.....and I congratulate you on the milestone....geez I feel happy for you man. It's surreal. Congrats again, and keep on making good content, love you (no homo) and your work