I just noticed that I had not yet posted the first article of this series in this group. So here it is, my breakdown of the T-34

first, a brief history. the T-34 is for all intents and purposes the evolutionary descendant of the BT series of fast tanks, incorporating lessons learned from battles against the Japanese at the battles at Khalkhin Gol, the basic lesson being that a universal tank that could replace both the BT tanks and the T-26. One that would combine the mobility of the BT's with enhanced armor more capable of resisting penetration and spalling and a successor to the very potent 45mm cannon. this would be the A-20, culminating with the T-34. With that little bit of background out of the way, we can start looking at the tank, with any relevant history being covered in the following sections. To start, armor.
Armor.
Among all of the T-34-76's the armor remained pretty much unchanged (exempting the T-34E's which merit their own paragraph) all the marks had 45mm of armor at the front, sloped at 60 degrees from vertical, leading to a effective thickness of 90 mm. Sides were 40 mm at 40 degrees, leading to about a 53 degree effectiveness. The rear, finally, was 40 mm at 50 degrees, making it 60 degrees of effective armor.
The performance of this armor against the Germans at the start of Operation Barbarossa cannot be understated.indeed, this is where the armors legendary status comes from. the short barred 75mm that the Pz IV had was incapable of penetrating the t-34 from any angle at any range with its armor piercing round. the Pz III's 50mm cannon at this time could only penetrate the T-34 from the front with the Pzgr 40. APCR round, at less that 100 yards. in effect, in any tank vs tank combat in the early stages of the war the T-34 was mostly invulnerable.
However, this was remedied very quickly. the Pz III was upgraded in spring of 42 with a L/60 50mm gun as opposed to the earlier L/42, which increased its ability to defeat the T-34 to around less than 500 yards. More important was the introduction of the L/43 75mm on rushed Pz IV F2, which could defeat 100mm of flat armor at 1000 yards with conventional APBC rounds. while the effect of sloping did reduce the effectiveness to around the 500 yard range, the tank became capable of being penetrated, and thanks to a lack of armor upgrading throughout the war, the reign of the T-34s impressive armor was brought to a end.
This increase In german capabilities what compounded by a alarming quality issue in some tanks armor. in order to increase production shortcuts were made at the factories. in 1942 at the Ural tank factory 50-90% of the turrets were affected by fractures in the castings, and a similar thing happened at the Uralmashzavod factory, with 20-55% of turrets affected. the armor plates were affected by similar issues at different factories, 45 percent of the hulls from the Nizhni-Tagil plant were affected, and again at Uralmashzavod there were issues, with 89% of the hulls affected in 1942. the turret issues were remedied in 1943, but the hull issues from these plants were never fully rooted out.

the T-34E of the Stalingrad Tractor factory must be mentioned here briefly, in essence, it was a T-34 with 15 additional mm of armor at the front, leading to 60mm at a 60 degree angle for an impressive 120 mm of effective armor. this too was defeated by the increasing potency of german 75 and 88mm cannons.

Armament.
the initial L-11 gun of the 1940 series doesn't merit too much discussion as only 400 or so of that series was produced. Instead, we must focus on the F-34 cannon. This is likely the most positive attribute of the T-34/76. the cannon had a wide variety of ammunition, starting with a high explosive round with 640 grams of explosive filler, about up to par with the shermans 680 grams (which was the best 75mm explosive round of the war). It also had a shrapnel shell for specific anti infantry usage and light vehicle usage. more importantly, its anti armor shells were all quite acceptable for the time with the least performing shell (a APHEBC shell designated BR-350A) managing 63 mm of penetration at a thousand yards. this was enough to penetrate the Pz IV and the Pz III from the front at that range during Operation Barbarossa. Eventually the gun would start showing its age, but a bit of luck was in the Russians favor. healthy amounts of tungsten allowed them the luxury of creating more APCR rounds than most other nations. therefore, as the armor of its opponents grew it was still able to put up a bit of a fight, with the final BR-350P HVAP round able to penetrate 100 mm of flat armor at less than 500 meters. while not ideal, it did give the T-34/76 a fighting chance against tigers from the front and the side, something which my second favorite tank's 75mm gun couldn't really say. in all, the gun was always relevant and very adaptable.

Mobility.
Battlefield mobility of the T-34 was also very good. the tracks were relatively wide, giving good flotation and performance in muddy fields and icy conditions. the engine was 500 HP, so the power to weight ratio was good at 17.85 HP/ton. And it was also relatively fast, at 55 kph on road or 34 mph if you're American. this remained about unchanged for all the T-34/76.
Reliability.
The first three sections were in essence, the stuff that matters in video games. the statistics that make these tanks look so good, at least on paper. it is the final four that determine how good a design is overall, and it is here where the T-34/76 will begin to fail. Starting promptly with reliability.
If you want a less partial view of something that you care about, it is usually wise to ask a friends opinion on it. believe it or not, the Russians sent us a T-34/76 model 1941, and wanted us to test it and get give our opinions on it. this tank by the way can still be found at the Aberdeen proving ground. the results were sent back to the Russians, and they were... interesting.

On the one hand, the gun was well liked, the shape of the hull was universally praised, and dispite our issues with soviet metallurgy the armor was very good. the tank was good at climbing due to its good power to weight ratio. it's about here that the praise stops.
The steel tracks were considered borderline awful, they were easily able to be damaged by gunfire and mortar splash, and in the testing they broke easily. the track pins were only prevented from coming out on one side, and were able to wiggle their way out of the links toward the hull. there was a piece of metal on the hull to knock the pins back in, but if they wiggled out too far this metal would simply break them and the tracks would fail.
the steel of the springs was poor, so after a decent amount of driving (less than 343 km because spoilers, the tank suffered a unrepairable failure there) the tank lost some of its ground clearance and didn't have the give in the suspension to keep from bottoming out.
the Pomon air filter was a unmitigated failure and the ultimate cause of the tanks demise. it was unable to handle the airflow required for the engine, so the 500 HP statistic wasn't reachable, the airflow it could manage wasn't totally filtered, so dirt was able to accumulate in the engine and lead to its failure after only 200 miles.
the starter was considered poor.
the transmission was also a total failure, it was hard to work, and the cogs fell to pieces during operation and had to be replaced by parts that we reverse engineered. keep in mind this happened before it reached 200 miles when it failed completely. it used a friction clutch which allowed dirt into the transmission assembly, and because of that didn't always work.
finally, the radio was found to work consistently only within 10 miles. beyond that it was a dice roll.
So all of that looks pretty bad, and that's because all of that is pretty bad. the early T-34's were not reliable tanks, and the Soviets even admitted as much. But there were many, concentrated efforts to correct these problems. efforts that I didn't really look into but are really important to assessing the T-34/76's reliability. basically, the issues that the Americans had with the tank were the same issues that the soviets had. The Pomon filter sucked. the Transmission sucked, the engine kinda sucked too, and the tracks sucked. but the soviets knew this, and they worked to correct all of these issues.
The pomon filter was replaced in late 1942 with a cyclone filter that was about 20 percent better at increasing air purity (99.4 percent clean, in fact) which helped a lot. the just awful 4 speed transmission was replaced with a 5 speed transmission in September 1942, and this transmission was not just a bit more efficient, but had a life of nearly 2000 km. That's a ton better. As for the engine and the tracks changes came over time, but slowly yet surely they too became more reliable as well. the tracks were slightly changed and strengthened, the engine improved in various ways that are unseen to me. What this means is by 1943 new T-34's that had all of these improvements were actually pretty reliable. But this is in 1943, and the Soviets had been fighting since 41. so for that desperate year and a half before these changes were made, and more importantly that year and a half where the T-34 got its incredible reputation, it was a unreliable dog. and considering all the legacy tanks that would continue fighting through the war ( a 1944 report states that all 4 speed gearboxes needed to be changed to 5 speed by the first day of '45, so there were more than a few tanks with old and unreliable parts driving around out there), the T-34/76 would always be a bit of a problematic tank. about half of the production run was before these improvements, and it shows. a report from the 10th army in early 1943 shows that the T-34 was the least reliable tank in the soviet military at the time, with 3 in 10 losses coming from marches. in all, a mixed bag.
That about covers it for reliability. so how about fixing the tank when something went wrong?
Repairability.
the suspension was of Christie type, so the springs were located within the hull of the tank, as a result, issues with the suspension were very hard to fix. this was compounded by the fact that the access points for the second and third roadwheel suspensions were covered by the turret, so the turret had to be removed in order to work on the suspension. however, the tracks were relatively simple to change and tension, unlike other Christie suspension designs of the time. And the transmission, while being largely terrible, was actually fairly easy to replace, the entire back could be unscrewed and hinged open, and the entire transmission could be removed and replaced. in all it isn't the best tank to repair, but I would argue that it is not the worst (that will come later).

Ergonomics.
someone had to drive the T-34, and that must have been a shitty job, for this is also where the T-34/76 fails.
lets start with the least affected crewmember when it comes to ergonomics, being the assistant driver/bow machine gunner/radio operator. for starts, he has only the tiny hole for the machine gun sights to look out of, so has virtually no situational awareness on where enemy infantry may be apart from the small hole. the assistant driver also has no hatch, and must share with the driver. if the tank gets hit, he must wait for the driver to get out, which isn't pleasant. the only advantages are that the sloped hull gives mad legroom.

the driver has lost all of his legroom, but he has gained a hatch and a pair of periscopes to use, so he can at least see. unfortunately, he also has to drive a tank with a terrible transmission. so as he drives, he must drive with a experience in human misery, a heavy clutch, a hard gearbox to change (tales abound of hammers used to whack gears into place. if the tank gets hit, getting out is a multiple step process. the hatch must have two lugs unlocked, then it is opened with the help of a pneumatic jack. this must then be locked in place by screwing a set screw into place so the door doesn't slam shut on you. at this point you must then roll forward so that you can get out of the hatch (because it is located basically in front of you). only then can you exit. And the assistant driver is waiting for you to get this done whilst the tank is on fire or being shot with holes.
the loader (who may also be the commander, but we will consider if his only duty is loading) has the following issues to contend with. regardless of model, there is no turret basket, so the loader is standing during combat and must be aware of where the turret is and when it is rotating lest he be crushed. ammunition is located exclusively on the turret floor in a series of boxes, which in itself is actually good for protection, the ammo is hard to hit. bu the loader must open these boxes to load the gun, but they make up the floor of the tank that he must stand on, so as more ammo gets expended he must be mindful about not tripping over shell casings or trodding into partially empty ammunition boxes, lest he be greviously injured. finally, if this is the 1940 or the 1941 model, there is only one hatch on the turret, and you must fight the gunner/commander to get out first.

the commander/gunner has the worst job. they get a seat, which is nice, and don't have to load, which is nice, but they do have to command the tank, which on the 1940 and the 1941 models is nearly impossible, and doubly so if the commander decides to be a loader. the main issue is that on the early turrets the commander has no situational awareness. they have the gunsight (or a binocular that is mounted coaxially to the gun if they are in the loaders position) to see forward, and they have 1 immobile prisism on the side of the tanks turret. this means that the commander can only ever see out the turret front, the left side, and 1 direction based on the gunners single rotatable periscope. everything not covered by this is invisible to him. So he unbuttons the hatch. the hatch opens forward, so it is obscuring vision to the front of the tank, so the commander must lean around it to see forward if it is opened. it is large because it is theoretically for two people, so it obscures more vision that expected. on the 1942 turret, both crewmembers get their own hatches, and the gunner gets one rotatable periscope, not ideal, but better. it is only on the 1943 model that the commander gets a cupola with 360 degrees of vision. however, the commander still must also shoot the gun, so he can't spend all of his time gathering information on the enemy and commanding,
in all, the ergonomics of the T-34/76 are crippling to what is outwardly a great tank.
Production.
the final huge plus in the T-34/76's court, with 35,120 built over the course of the war.
Conclusion.
the T-34/76 was one of the most important tanks of the war, in part because what it was (a tank with exceptional armor and gun performance for the time that was also able to be produced at a incredible rate) and for what it spawned. but it never managed to tick all the boxes of tank greatness at the same time. when its armor and gun and mobility were unparalleled, its reliability and ergonomics sucked. And when those were improved to being pretty good and mediocre respectively, its armor and gun were getting long in the tooth. looking back with this new information that I have, the T-34/76 was at no point a bad tank, but it was also at no point the great one that popular history says it is. it's just pretty good.

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uh, FYI, some of the pictures are broken

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fixed