And would the Russians have sold them to us? Did we ever consider manufacturing them ourselves? Why suffer for years with tanks that weren’t up to the job when one of your allies has one of the best tanks of the war?
No reason to. Our tanks were sufficient unto the day, and the Russians needed every one they could make. Not like we would have offered to buy any or Stalin would have sold us any in the first place.
We’ve been over this and over this, actually.
Allied tanks were not bad tanks; they were just fine at the job they had to do, which was, for the most part, fighting against infantry and lighter vehicles. The T-34 was similarly very good at what it had to do; fight tanks and other vehicles.
German tanks were not as good as you’ve heard.
The Allies stuck with the Sherman because it worked. It was a good tank.
I’ve read (but have no handy cite) that during the fight for Stalingrad, tanks were literally rolling out of the factory into the battle. I’d agree Stalin couldn’t spare much of anything. Took everything he had to stop the Germans, and then push them back across Russia.
Basically. The Stalingrad factory produced 40% of the T-34 production, right up until the city got surrounded.
I’d be very surprised to find that there was any consideration of the U.S. or the U.K. obtaining T-34s, for good reasons.
There were effectively two ways to get goods to and from the U.S.S.R. during World War II – a single-track railroad across Iran, plus shipment the length of the Caspian Sea, or hazardous convoys around Norway (which was German-held) to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. Essentially the Soviet Union was an elephant attempting to eat with the mouth of a shrew, in terms of getting imports. Both the U.S. and the U.K. sent a fair amount of aid to help the Soviet war effort.
You also have to remember that a large proportion of the sites of Russian and Ukrainian heavy industry had been overrun by the German attack, and the production equipment of whole factories were moved east to safer sites in the Volga valley and western Siberia (and a number of sites in Kazakhstan as well). Imagine if the U.S. had lost northern New Jersey, Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Akron, and Youngstown, and all the plants from that area had been moved to Omaha, Lincoln, Alliance, North Platte, Wichita, Topeka, Cedar Rapids, and Mankato, and were trying to ramp up to full production again – with national life or death at stake.
Yeah, the Russians really don’t get enough credit for their part in WWII. I don’t know as much about it as I should. Most of what I know comes from things I’ve read after gaming some of the major battles.
From the little I have read, the Russians took the brunt of German military might. They absorbed tremendous amounts of resources, and paid a staggering price. If for some reason Russia had stayed out of the war, or negotiated an early peace, and Hitler had those resources to use against the other Allies, things might have turned out differently. At the very least, the Allied cost in Europe would have been much higher, and the war would have taken considerably longer…
Why would the Allies want to buy T-34s? Up until later in the war, the T-34 didn’t even have a radio it in it…
FWIW, the Russians did manage to get Shermans off the Allies, and as others have said, the Sherman was a good tank, if a little prone (in earlier models) to catching fire when hit…
No kidding. Just look at the casualty rates.
USA - 300,000 KIA/MIA; 300,000 WIA
USSR - 9,000,000 KIA/MIA; 18,000,000 WIA
The reason why the Allies mught buy t-34s is very simple – to learn from superior technology and improve their next generation of product. The Ameicans acquired a Whittle jet engine from the British, and some of their code breaking machines I believe.
This is not about buying product off an assembly line, but buying samples to reverse engineer so you can kick its ass in the next war. We certainly did it wholeheartedly both during and after the war with German and Japanese equipment.
I have no evidence either way, but it would surprise me if the Americans or Brits DIDNT try to acquire a few samples. It equally would not surprise me if the paranoid Stalin refused to playy ball.
The allies never needed to worry about Soviet tank technology superiority.
By the time the war drew to an end certain allied tanks were just making it to production and this generation of tanks wold prove to be the best around.
Consider the British Meteor, Comet and the Centurian tanks, each was improved from the previous, and the Centurian was considered the worlds outstanding tank for many years after WWII, and versions of it were used by Israel in its wars with its Arab neighbours, where they met up with Soviet tanks of a similar generation.
OOOpps,
Actually, that tank list should read, Cromwell, Comet, Centurion.
It was the Meteor engine that powered the later variants of the Churchill and on to the others.
Mentions in this company must also include the Patton and the Leopard,
I found this very interesting t-34 history page. which claims that t-34 and most other Russian tanks were built almost entirely American technology.