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- #21
vinnye
Senior Airman
Yulzari, from what I have been told by my neighbour, he liked the Conqueror, loved the Centurion and loathed the Chieftan!
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German tank development had fairly solidly outclassed the Sherman M1A1 by 1943, so certainly the British considered the Sherman a stopgap measure until the HV75mm Cromwell 17 pdr Challenger were produced in quantity for British armoured units.
The Cromwell Challenger (as envisioned) were more than capable of dealing with Panther tanks, and it's not even certain that stopping their development would speed up the Centurion (as built)
Yes, I was aware that Russia was allied to Nazi Germany in 1940. In fact they were right up until the time the Germans invaded them.
However, this does not mean that they trusted the Germans, far from it!
How else do you explain the fact that the Germans and Russians co-operated in exercise before WW2, and yet, the Germans were completly taken by surprise by the introduction of the T34?
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They just didn't want to share anything with the West.
Then why were a T-34 and a KV-1 sent to the USA?
Evaluation of tanks T-34 and KV by workers of the Aberdeen testing grounds of the U.S.
Sending 1940/41 tanks to The US at the end of 1942 isn't really sharing a whole lot. Soviets have been getting Western weapons for well over a year.
I agree, for the most part, but would the Us have benefitted if they had built copies of the T-34, perhaps with US engines,optics and transmissions? I think the t-34 was at least a generation ahed of US tank development at that stage of the war....
Engine: The deficiency of our diesels is the criminally poor air cleaners on the T-34. The Americans consider that only a saboteur could have constructed such a device. They also don't understand why in our manuals it is called oil-bath. Their tests in a laboratory showed that:
- the air cleaner doesn't clean at all the air which is drawn into the motor;
- its capacity does not allow for the flow of the necessary quantity of air, even when the motor is idling. As a result, the motor does not achieve its full capacity. Dirt getting into the cylinders leads them to quickly wear out, compression drops, and the engine loses even more power. In addition, the filter was manufactured, from a mechanical point of view, extremely primitively: in places the spot-welding of the electric welding has burned through the metal, leading to leakage of oil etc.
Transmission: On the T-34 the transmission is very poor. When it was being operated, the cogs completely fell to pieces (on all the cogwheels). A chemical analysis of the cogs on the cogwheels showed that their thermal treatment is very poor and does not in any way meet American standards for such mechanisms.
Clutches: Without doubt, poor. In America, they rejected the installation of friction clutches, even on tractors (never mind tanks), several years ago. In addition to the fallaciousness of the very principle, our friction clutches are extremely carelessly machined from low-quality steel, which quickly causes wear and tear, accelerates the penetration of dirt into the drum and in no way ensures reliable functioning.
I used to drive a couple of fire trucks with non-synchro transmissions (30 years ago and they were left overs then) and if you blew a shift the best thing was to come to a complete halt and start in 1st gear again. Granted we weren't being shot at but we were responding to emergencies. Blowing the transmission doesn't get you to the fire