Yesterday I participated in my first Q&A stream! The Chieftain asked me about how Tank Archives got started, whether or not the Sherman was better than the T-34, and of course about my new IS-2 book. We also took questions from the audience, so there's all sorts of interesting tank trivia to be learned. Check it out!
Note that due to technical difficulties the stream starts at about 4 minutes into the clip.
Good interview Peter. My only quibble is that you forgot some of the details of your own posts here. :)
ReplyDeleteI would also contend that the ammo supply problem for the D-25T wasn't as big a problem as it is made out to be by some--there is the report that it was "sufficient for one day's battle" and moreover a gun that is usually a 'one hit, one kill' weapon doesn't mean you have to plink a target multiple times.
A new tidbit for me was I had no idea the Soviets actually put animals inside tanks and hit them with the D-25T, and found out nearly always the animals were killed by the concussion. Poor animals!
Another thought came to mind...
ReplyDeleteIf the impact of the D-25T HE round generated enough shock and concussive effects on enemy tanks to kill any animals in the interior, how did the Soviets compensate in the design of their own heavy tanks? You've said that postwar, resisting the D-25T was the requirement for new Soviet heavies, while resisting the German 88 mm Kwk43 was the requirement for new mediums.
However, it seems to me that if an IS-3 or IS-4 was hit by a D-25T HE round, and--yay!!--it resisted successfully the impact!--then you open up the hatches only to find the crew is either dead or seriously injured, then the success of the armor resistance was something of a Pyrrhic victory.
I think the requirement was for armour penetration only. Looking at the results of the test (https://www.tankarchives.ca/2017/03/under-pressure-part-2.html) even 240 mm of armour is not enough to avoid damage to the crew.
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