Wednesday 18 September 2019

V-2 Improvements

I've written a lot about what the reliability of the T-34 tank was, but not as much about where the army wanted it to be. I don't have as much data on the expected lifetime of engines in 1942 as I do for other years, but from documents it seems that it did not drop as some people state. The USSR did not opt to discard quality for quantity, far from it. The order issued by People's Commissar of Tank Production Malyshev on April 21st, 1942, demonstrates that the quality target was higher than ever:


"Given the exceptional importance of increasing the lifespan of diesel engines, the following awards are established for designers, technologists, and workers who increase the warranty period of the V-2-34 engine to:
  • 350 hours:
    • 1st place: 10,000 rubles
    • 2nd place: 5,000 rubles
    • 3rd place: 3,000 rubles
  • 300 hours:
    • 1st place: 8,000 rubles
    • 2nd place: 3,000 rubles
    • 3rd place: 2,000 rubles
  • 250 hours:
    • 1st place: 5,000 rubles
    • 2nd place: 2,000 rubles
    • 3rd place: 1,000 rubles
Deliver the results of work on increasing the warranty period to the People's Commissariat by August 1st 1942."

5 comments:

  1. Nick Moran should really stop repeating the myth about tanks in the Red Army only having an average lifespan of 1-2 battles and thus not needing better quality components that lasted longer...

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately he is not the only one.

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    2. While that is a exaggeration, the sad truth for German and Russian soldiers is that they and their equipment tended to not last that many battles in WW 2. They're loses were huge. They used to call a wound serious enough to get you out of the war, a Million Dollar Wound.

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    3. For sure they had great losses. But it was not uncommon to have tankers that had 20 assaults with their tanks. I mean some of of the tankers had their first battle at Kursk and ended up fighting in Viena and Berlin. I'd say that Soviet tankers on average outlived their tanks. This is backed up by the fact that even when there was shortage of tanks they never had shortage of tank crews. They had what they called horseless tankers.

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  2. ...was I the only one who glanced at the title and wondered "wait since when did this site cover ballistic missiles"?
    >_>
    brb putting on my robe and my dunce cap <:c

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