Not one tank, airplane, ship, submarine or rocket ever produced by the Soviet Union was ever considered better than, or even equal to, their western counterparts. At best they were serviceable and cranked out in numbers, the latter by devoting a far greater proportion of the USSR’s economic output to the military then the west did. A far larger percentage of the USSR’s strategic systems were degraded or out of service at any given time. And these were the elite of Soviet industrial production, the stuff that as a matter of national survival had to work (or give a convincing illusion of working). The USSR’s military excelled at the stuff too dumb to seriously mess up: basic artillery and small arms.
That’s more a statement of how the metallurgy industry had progressed in the intervening decades. Crappy but usable steel in 1936 would be unusably bad by the standards of 25 years later.
But regardless, that still shows my point, an industrial sector that manages to produce a lot of crappy steel is still doing its job better than an agricultural sector that produces so little food a good sized chunk of the country starve to death
I’m sorry, but this is complete and utter tripe. A great many tanks, airplanes, submarines and rockets amongst a smorgasbord of military hardware the equal to their western counterparts, and believe it or not, were sometimes superior. Considering basic artillery and small arms to be ‘too dumb to seriously mess up’ is really underselling man’s ability to screw things up, regardless of the economic system they live under.
I have to imagine you’re looking at the distorted lenses of the present if you consider anything western made to be inherently superior to anything the Soviet Union produced. Nazi Germany was utterly shocked to discover the existence of the T-34 and KV tanks when they invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, as they had no clue the USSR had tanks that heavy, and they utterly outclassed anything Germany had at the time. They produced nothing but excellent armored vehicles during the war, all of which were at least the equal to anything produced by the ‘West’ or Germany, and frequently far superior. See also the IS-2, IS-3, SU-122, SU-152, ISU-122, ISU-152, SU-85 and SU-100. Postwar see the T-10, the MiG-15 which outclassed the F-80 Shooting Stars it first went up against before the delivery of the F-86 Sabre which was only its equal, not its superior, the entire line of Soviet surface to air missiles from the earliest mass-produced SA-2s that brought down Gary Powers U-2 up until the present-day S-300 and S-400 systems. Add in things like the Typhoon ballistic missile submarine, still the largest submarine ever built, the Alfa submarine which was both obscenely fast and capable of diving deeper than anything the West had at the time, causing a panic to improve the US Navy’s Mark 48 torpedo to the Mark 48 ADCAP (Advanced Capability) to have any hope of even hitting it, the SS-27 mobile ICBM, the BMP infantry fighting vehicle which was a revolutionary design as its counterpart when introduced in 1967 was the M-113 battle taxi with the M-2 Bradley not reaching production until the early 1980s, the T-64 main battle tank which when introduced in 1964 completely outclassed anything the West had, even the lowly RPG-7V which was a much more effective anti-tank rocket than its US equivalent in the M72 LAW for decades, and even the lowly AK-47 series assault rifle that you consider too dumb to seriously mess up, the MiG-25 and MiG-31 which remain the fastest interceptors ever made, the VA-111 Shkval supercavitating torpedo capable of speeds in excess of 200 knots, the Type 65 650mm wake homing torpedo, Soviet ship and submarine fired anti-ship missiles in general from the SS-N-2 Styx which was responsible for the first sinking of a warship by an anti-ship guided missile all the way up through the SS-N-22 Sunburn and SS-N-19 Shipwreck, a whole range of air-launched anti-ship missiles with ranges in excess of 250 nautical miles at a time when the US Navy had no operational anti-ship missiles until finally introducing the Harpoon in the last years of the 1970s…
Need I go on?
I’d suggest reading the wiki article on the Great Leap Forward if you want to actually understand what went wrong with Mao’s plan. It had absolutely nothing to do with the progress of the metallurgy industry’s progression from 1936.
Great Leap Forward - Backyard Furnaces:
With no personal knowledge of metallurgy, Mao encouraged the establishment of small backyard steel furnaces in every commune and in each urban neighborhood. Mao was shown an example of a backyard furnace in Hefei, Anhui, in September 1958 by provincial first secretary Zeng Xisheng.[27] The unit was claimed to be manufacturing high quality steel.[27]
Huge efforts on the part of illiterate peasants and other workers were made to produce steel out of scrap metal. To fuel the furnaces, the local environment was denuded of trees and wood taken from the doors and furniture of peasants’ houses. Pots, pans, and other metal artifacts were requisitioned to supply the “scrap” for the furnaces so that the wildly optimistic production targets could be met. Many of the male agricultural workers were diverted from the harvest to help the iron production as were the workers at many factories, schools, and even hospitals. Although the output consisted of low quality lumps of pig iron which was of negligible economic worth, Mao had a deep distrust of intellectuals, engineers and technicians who could have pointed this out and instead placed his faith in the power of the mass mobilization of the peasants.
Moreover, the experience of the intellectual classes following the Hundred Flowers Campaign silenced those aware of the folly of such a plan. According to his private doctor, Li Zhisui, Mao and his entourage visited traditional steel works in Manchuria in January 1959 where he found out that high quality steel could only be produced in large-scale factories using reliable fuel such as coal. However, he decided not to order a halt to the backyard steel furnaces so as not to dampen the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses. The program was only quietly abandoned much later in that year.
Without spending several hours researching the weapons systems you cite, I would point out that many of those are examples of the Soviet Union being the first to deploy an advancement in a rapidly evolving field, with the USA playing catch-up. To give credit where it is due, Soviet scientists and engineers were as well-educated and skillful as any in the world- the USSR took education seriously. But they were hampered by what Soviet industry could actually produce for them to work with. I seriously doubt that western military manufacturers ever rued how hopelessly outclassed they were.
Interesting I had never heard of that. I argue that doesn’t really count as an industrial policy. “let’s make steel in our backyards” is more like a hipster domesday preppers fantasy.
Have you ever read a history of the cold war arms race? (Or watched Rocky IV) Ruing how hopelessly outclassed they were was the main motivation behind American defense spending in the second half of the 20th century.
It’s an overstatement to say that the west was ‘hopelessly outclassed’. Some of thr Soviet weapons that instilled fear in the west turned out to be not all that when the west first got their hands on them. The MiG-25, for example.
The Soviets started to get seriously outclassed in weaponry when electronics began to be a major differentiator. And the other thing the west is much better at is combined arms coordination with AWACS and doctrine and such.
But yeah, the Soviets were capable of building good hardware.
That’s not too far off the mark. Not only did Mao have an almost mystical faith in the virtue of the peasant farmer, but in the 1950s and 1960s it was looking like cities would be nothing but targets for nuclear destruction. Something like a “Small Is Beautiful” approach done non-fanatically might have had some good results; but unfortunately Mao combined his faith in ruralism with an even greater mystical faith in the power of the wise enlightened philosopher (i.e., Mao) to tap into the fundamental harmony of the universe to create a utopia. Towards the end Mao degenerated into messianism and proclaiming the fall of “Babylon” (i.e. both the capitalist West and the industry-focused USSR).
I’ve spent a great deal of my life researching the weapon systems I cited, and can assure you that were you to take the several hours to research the weapons systems I cited, you would find that your speculation that they were examples of the Soviet Union being the first to deploy an advancement in a rapidly evolving field is as wrong as your initial assertion that:
I’ll just also add that one advantage the USSR enjoyed as a result of being such a paranoid, security conscious state* is that the West sometimes didn’t even know these systems that outclassed what they had so badly even existed until encountering them in battle (as happened with the T-34 and KV series tanks in WWII, not only did they hopelessly outclass anything Germany was fielding or even have on the drawing boards at the time, but they had produced 1,500 of them when Germany invaded) or decades after they had been deployed. Very little was known about the T-64 until the mid-1970s, and even then, much of what was known was educated speculation. The VA-111 Shkval was placed into service in 1977, the West had no idea of its existence until the 1990s.
*I found a map of Leningrad at a used bookstore from the 1970s or 80s a couple of years ago that I was tempted to buy but ultimately didn’t. It was a map in only the loosest sense of the word, there was very little information or landmarks on it. That was classified information. Among the many things that caused problems for Germany when they invaded the Soviet Union was the lack of maps that were remotely up to date.
Not only was it what passed as industrial policy under Mao, it was also one of the primary driving factors in the initial mass starvations in China during the Great Leap Forward. As noted, farmers were told to stop farming and produce ‘steel’ in their back yards at a time when
Mao decreed that efforts to multiply grain yields and bring industry to the countryside should be increased. Local officials were fearful of Anti-Rightist Campaigns and they competed to fulfill or over-fulfill quotas which were based on Mao’s exaggerated claims, collecting non-existent “surpluses” and leaving farmers to starve to death. Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies, and national officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in food output, took little or no action. Millions of people died in China during the Great Leap, with estimates ranging from 15 to 55 million, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest or second-largest[1] famine in human history.
The Great Leap forward only lasted from 1958–1962. The Backyard Furnace campaign lasted half of that time.
Let us compare the T34 1941 to the 1941 Panzer 4
T34 front hull armor- 50 mm Panzer 4 front armor= 50mm.
T34 gun- 76 mm tank gun M1940 F-34, penetration 50mm
Panzer IV gun (1941 model) 7.5 cm Pak 40 penetration 108 mm
Speed- T34- 33 mph
Pkw IV= 26 mph.
Now yeah the 1941 Pkw 4 replaced the earlier model with slightly lighter armor and a lesser gun.
The 400 1940 T34 with an inferior gun did face the Pkw IV with an inferior gun, true.
So which tank was better?
The first Pz. IVs went into active service in 1939 with a short-barreled gun and were extremely successful until confronted by Soviet T-34 tanks in late 1941. To cope with this threat, the Pz. IV was given thicker armour and refitted with a long-barreled, high-velocity gun that could better penetrate the T-34’s armour. The improved Pz. IV could engage the T-34 on nearly equal terms and was superior to the U.S. Sherman tank in many respects.
So, the T34 was about the same as the Pkw IV in stats, guns (the late 1941 P4 gun was much much better, but the earlier P4 gun was not as good) armor, with a nice advantage in speed. However, in now way shape or form did it “hopelessly outclass” the PkW IV.
But the T34 replaced the T-26 with crappy 15mm riveted armor and a sad 45mm. A crappy tank. However note the Red army had over 10000 of those (plus another 4000 BT similar crappy light tanks) but only about 4000 T34s by the end of 1941.
Oh and when you earlier said the Japaneses had paper mache tanks at Khalkhin Gol, they were facing those t26s- wiki- During the Battle of Lake Khasan in July 1938 and the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in 1939, an undeclared border war with Japan on the frontier with occupied Manchuria, the Soviets deployed numerous tanks against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). Although the IJA Type 95 Ha-Go light tanks had diesel engines,[17][page needed] the Red Army’s T-26 and BT tanks used petrol engines which, while common in tank designs of the time, often burst into flames when hit by IJA tank-killer teams[18] using Molotov cocktails. Poor-quality welds in the Soviet armour plates left small gaps between them, and flaming petrol from the Molotov cocktails easily seeped into the fighting and engine compartment; portions of the armour plating that had been assembled with rivets also proved to be vulnerable.[19] The Soviet tanks were also easily destroyed by the Japanese Type 95 tank’s 37 mm gunfire, despite the low velocity of that gun,[20] or “at any other slightest provocation”.[21] The use of riveted armour led to a problem whereby the impact of enemy shells, even if they failed to disable the tank or kill the crew on their own, would cause the rivets to break off and become projectiles inside the tank. In other words, those “paper mache” Imperial Japanese tanks were quite a bit superior to the Soviet tanks at that time.
Certainly the early T34 had an edge over the early Pkw 4, but the early Pkw4 was mostly fighting crappy T26 light tanks.
As usual, you are quite simply factually incorrect. The Panzerkampfwagen IV didn’t come in a “1941” model. The gun you are using for comparison and claiming was in use by the Pz-IV in 1941 is the 7.5 cm KwK 40, the ‘long barreled’ 75mm. You might want to look at the years of production: 1942-45. Kind of hard for Germany to be fitting them on the Pz-IV in 1941 when it didn’t even go into production until 1942, no? The Germans did a crash course to get a gun onto their tanks that could actually penetrate the T-34 and KVs from anything but point blank from the flank or rear, and the KwK40 was one of the results, with it first being mounted on the Pz-IV Ausf. F2, in March 1942. The Pz-IVs used in the invasion of Russia, the Ausf. A to Ausf. F1 were armed with the 7.5 cm KwK 37, a short-barreled (24 caliber) howitzer intended for infantry support.
Relevant section on the Auf F.2 and plans to up gun it prior to Barbarossa with the 50mm/L60 PaK38, the panicked recognition that even that gun wouldn’t cut it against the T-34s and KVs they encountered, the decision to modify the PaK40 into the KwK 40/L43 and mount it on modified Auf F1s designated as Auf F2s in March 1942:
Panzer IV - Wikipedia Ausf._F2_to_Ausf._J
On 26 May 1941, mere weeks before Operation Barbarossa, during a conference with Hitler, it was decided to improve the Panzer IV’s main armament. Krupp was awarded the contract to integrate again the 50 mm (1.97 in) Pak 38 L/60 gun into the turret. The first prototype was to be delivered by 15 November 1941.[30] Within months, the shock of encountering the Soviet T-34 medium and KV-1 heavy tanks necessitated a new, much more powerful tank gun.[31] In November 1941, the decision to up-gun the Panzer IV to the 50-millimetre (1.97 in) gun was dropped, and instead Krupp was contracted in a joint development to modify Rheinmetall’s pending 75 mm (2.95 in) anti-tank gun design, later known as 7.5 cm Pak 40 L/46.
Because the recoil length was too great for the tank’s turret, the recoil mechanism and chamber were shortened. This resulted in the 75-millimetre (2.95 in) KwK 40 L/43.[32] When the new KwK 40 was loaded with the Pzgr. 39 armour-piercing shell, the new gun fired the AP shell at some 750 m/s (2,460 ft/s), a substantial 74% increase over the howitzer-like KwK 37 L/24 gun’s 430 m/s (1,410 ft/s) muzzle velocity.[29] Initially, the KwK 40 gun was mounted with a single-chamber, ball-shaped muzzle brake, which provided just under 50% of the recoil system’s braking ability.[33] Firing the Panzergranate 39, the KwK 40 L/43 could penetrate 77 mm (3.03 in) of steel armour at a range of 1,830 m (6,000 ft).[34]
The longer 7.5 cm guns made the vehicle nose-heavy to such an extent that the forward suspension springs were under constant compression. This resulted in the tank tending to sway even when no steering was being applied, an effect compounded by the introduction of the Ausführung H in March 1943.[35]
The Ausf. F tanks that received the new, longer, KwK 40 L/43 gun were temporarily named Ausf. F2 (with the designation Sd.Kfz. 161/1). The tank increased in weight to 23.6 tonnes (26.0 short tons). Differences between the Ausf. F1 and the Ausf. F2 were mainly associated with the change in armament, including an altered gun mantlet, internal travel lock for the main weapon, new gun cradle, new Turmzielfernrohr 5f optic for the L/43 weapon, modified ammunition stowage, and discontinuing of the Nebelkerzenabwurfvorrichtung in favor of turret mounted Nebelwurfgerät .[36] Three months after beginning production, the Panzer IV Ausf. F2 was renamed Ausf. G.
I won’t even bother getting into the frontal armor figures you give for the T-34 and Pz-IV, which are equally incorrect.
ETA: Oh, and I’ll just note that your own cite that you even quoted says the exact same thing, bolding mine.
The first Pz. IVs went into active service in 1939 with a short-barreled gun and were extremely successful until confronted by Soviet T-34 tanks in late 1941. To cope with this threat, the Pz. IV was given thicker armour and refitted with a long-barreled, high-velocity gun that could better penetrate the T-34’s armour. The improved Pz. IV could engage the T-34 on nearly equal terms and was superior to the U.S. Sherman tank in many respects.
Yes, exactly as i said- I used the 1941 Pkw IV vs the 1941 T34.
In November 1941, the decision to up-gun the Panzer IV to the 50-millimetre (1.97 in) gun was dropped, and instead Krupp was contracted in a joint development to modify Rheinmetall’s pending 75 mm (2.95 in) anti-tank gun design, later known as 7.5 cm Pak 40 L/46. ….The first pre-production guns were delivered in November 1941
Yep, the PKW IV was was upgunned in late 1941 to counter the T34, which was also upgunned in 1941.
Note - The L-11 76.2 mm tank gun was a Soviet tank gun, used on the earliest models of the T-34 Model 1940 medium tank and KV-1 Model 1939 heavy tank during World War II. This was replaced in 1941 with the much superior F34 gun.
Armor-
In April 1941, production of the Panzer IV Ausf. F started. It featured 50 mm (1.97 in) single-plate armour on the turret and hull,
T34- Hull front 47 mm /60° (upper part)[4]
Comparisons can be drawn between the T-34 and the U.S. M4 Sherman tank. Both tanks were the backbone of the armoured units in their respective armies, both nations distributed these tanks to their allies, who also used them as the mainstay of their own armoured formations, and both were upgraded extensively and fitted with more powerful guns. Both were designed for mobility and ease of manufacture and maintenance, sacrificing some performance for these goals. Both chassis were used as the foundation for a variety of support vehicles, such as armour recovery vehicles, tank destroyers, and self-propelled artillery. Both were an approximately even match for the standard German medium tank, the Panzer IV, though each of these three tanks had particular advantages and weaknesses compared with the other two.
Both were an approximately even match for the standard German medium tank, the [Panzer IV]
Arguments can be made that any of these three T34 Pkw 4, Sherman, were better. But none were “hopelessly outclassed” by their equivalent.
“As usual, you are quite simply factually incorrect.”
This doesnt have a lot to do with collective farms, but it is a reply to your quite wrong post #129. , you were the one that started the discussion of better Russian tanks, dont get upset when someone counters your argument.
Plus of course the Sherman was a later tank (entered production in 1942, which in “war years” is a lifetime later). So a fairer comparison is between the M3 and the T34, and the T34 wins that hands down.
Though this discussion is a complete side track to the OP, except to highlight that while the Soviet industrial system was brutal and inefficient (and, ironically, far less tolerant of organized labour than any capitalist industrial system) it did roughly perform the functions required of a modern industrial society. Whereas the agricultural systems did not.
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This is a complete threadjack, so will be the last time I am going to address your egregious logical and factual errors.
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Again, read your own quote. The KwK40 was developed in response to encountering the T-34, which vastly outclassed any tanks Germany had in service or even on the drawing boards in June 1941 when they invaded the USSR. The first pre-production KwK40s were produced in November 1941. The Pz-IV Auf F2 fitted with it didn’t enter service until March 1942.
Moderating:
This whole line of discussion is a hijack to the issue framed in the OP. All who are participating in it should drop it now. Start a new thread if you wish to carry on this separate discussion.
A cooperative isn’t communism. A cooperative is just a way to organize a business interest; it’s not entirely dissimilar from a corporation.
The problems in Soviet farming weren’t at the farm, they were in the Kremlin. Central economic planning just doesn’t work very well, and when you throw in Lysenkoism to poison the central planning, things went south very quickly.
The stupidity of Lysenkoism can’t be overstated; using the power of the state to force farmers to implement solutions that are literally impossible - I mean, it would be like if you handed every single decision regarding public transportation over to a man who thinks internal combustion engines best run if fueled with root beer.
This is true, but cannot explain the systemic failure of a nation state’s agriculture. Of course most of these efforts failed, because most commercial efforts fail, no matter how the ownership is organized. In a proper free market economy most businesses fail very shortly after starting, and even well established businesses die or have to be bailed out by another business pretty regularly. The SYSTEM can still function.
Central authority and planning fails because economies are too complex to centrally plan, can not be predicted (hence the failure of 5-year plans and such), and the information needed to coordinate economic activity simply doesn’t exist in planned economies because it is created by markets forcing people to sort out their own hierarchy of goals and then bid against others who have their own. The process establishes supply and demand levels and sets prices for goods.
Without that, central planners are just guessing, and ideology and government’s goals override everything. Gluts and shortages occur, and efficiency drops. AI and supercomputers can’t even help, because the information they need is locked up in the heads of the people.
In small collectives below Dunbar’s number, everyone knows everyone and goals are often shared. Needs can be communicated between members directly, and conscientiousness is high. All those hippy collectives probably failed because their goals were ephemeral and once society moved on to the Next Thing they collapsed. Religious collectives can stay stable because the goals stay relatively stable.
Trying to coordinate the activity of millions of people from a central authority just doesn’t work, and we suffer harm every time we move closer to that path.
Libertarians love taking “Dunbar’s” number as gospel and extrapolating to their preferred conclusions to an absurd degree.
IIRC Cybersyn was aborted by a US-backed destabilization and military coup, not “market complexity”. So the public ended up with Pinochet’s military dictatorship instead of… central authority and planning and suffering harm.