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[mainiac]

Uh, I mean the tanks armour, not the crews body armour. No tanker would suggest removing armour modules for more legroom.
:p

One of the biggest problems with the T-34 was the lack of legroom for the driver.  Ergonomics means reaction time and reaction time is life and death.

[Erkki]

Soldiers being reluctant to kill the enemy has been a problem through history. A normal human being just cant kill another just like that, many not even when in danger themselves.

I suppose that in the past the lack of hesitation and will to kill was what was partly giving mounted knights, drunk Vikings or the Huns their fearsome reputation. In modern times, its one of the reasons why soldiers are drilled. The more automatic things become, the smaller the last step of aiming the weapon at the enemy and pulling the trigger becomes.

Its also why say in many drills the pop-up targets are torso-shaped and may be camouflaged: the soldier stops looking for a white or yellow target but rather something shaped like a human with clothing on it, to automatically take aim and fire.

[MarcAFK]

Uh, I mean the tanks armour, not the crews body armour. No tanker would suggest removing armour modules for more legroom.
:p

One of the biggest problems with the T-34 was the lack of legroom for the driver.  Ergonomics means reaction time and reaction time is life and death.

Oh I'm sure the driver getting a cramp was a bigger problem than having an untrained crew, volatile easily detonatable ammunition, plumbing leaking flammable fluids everywhere, turret that can cut limbs off particularly when retrieving shells stored under the floor, an engine choking on improper airflow through poorly designed air filters, and finally those same leaky air filters allowing in contaminates which ruin the engine in a few hundred kilometers.
All very minor problems compared to comfort.
Edit: actually the chieftan of world of tanks fame recently mentioned asking one of his former crew if he minded being kicked in the back very time he got down from the head out of turret position as commander of an M1, the guy said he had no idea that was even happening. However Major Moran is quite adamant that a t34 is horrible for a 6 foot tall guy like him to squeeze into.

[Strife26]

*responds to the signal*

Soviet tanks are, in general, absolutely terrible ergonomic-wise for the crews. The T72 in particular is somewhat famous for requiring very short operators.


Like infantrymen, individual tankers vary pretty greatly in how much personal protective gear they're going to wear if uncontrolled. As part of my oh-shit-let's-kill-north-koreans gear, I replaced my light armor spall vest with an IBA plus xsapi plates.

On Killing is a very useful book that more people should read, however, I would caution about applying it too heavily to the modern field. Grossman didn't have Iraq and Afghanistan to look at, and I'd imagine the continuous contact style of those wars to have some suffering psychological results.

[Erkki]

Not just the T-72, the T-90 is even more compact, heck it basically is just a modernized T-72 renamed in hopes of export sales. Just without the old cast turret(the company went bankrupt in the 90s or something). Those two aren't quite as cramped as the old T-55 though.

I'm a skinny guy too but still had trouble getting in a T-55...

[Tack]

Well horse jockeys need to earn a living after they hit 18 and get kicked off the track.

[MonkeyHead]

Soldiers being reluctant to kill the enemy has been a problem through history. A normal human being just cant kill another just like that, many not even when in danger themselves.

I suppose that in the past the lack of hesitation and will to kill was what was partly giving mounted knights, drunk Vikings or the Huns their fearsome reputation. In modern times, its one of the reasons why soldiers are drilled. The more automatic things become, the smaller the last step of aiming the weapon at the enemy and pulling the trigger becomes.

Its also why say in many drills the pop-up targets are torso-shaped and may be camouflaged: the soldier stops looking for a white or yellow target but rather something shaped like a human with clothing on it, to automatically take aim and fire.

IIRC, studies were done on ww1 or ww2 veterans (or possibly an earlier or later conflict, but a basic googling shows it to be a commonly studied phenomenon - the most high profile study seems to have been done by S.L.A Marshall) where they were asked about their shooting habits. It turned out that a massive number never shot to kill, and that they would shoot deliberately high as they did not want to kill. I think the correct military term is soldiers who "posture" - that is, who give the appearance of fighting without actually doing so.

[Erkki]

Yeah thats right, only about 25% or so of the US soldiers consciously shot at the enemy in WW2. Even against the Japanese.

[mainiac]

All very minor problems compared to comfort.

I didn't say that they were minor problems.  But the fact that it physically took extreme effort to steer the tank is an ergonomic problem.  Try disabling the power steering on your car sometime.  You can still drive it, it just requires you put some strength into it.  You wont drive as well.

Shell stowage sure helps but mostly tank survival came down to whether they saw danger in time.  The side that shot first, be it tanks or static artillery, almost always came out the better.  Having your driver able to do their job to the best of their abilities matters a lot in avoiding ambushes or engaging rapidly.  Also proper shell stowage might help you survive a hit but being able to evacuate quickly will also help you survive.

And the lack of range on T34s ended up not mattering too much.  Those tanks only needed to last 300 km anyway because the Soviets planned their operations around that assumption.

[Rolepgeek]

Yeah thats right, only about 25% or so of the US soldiers consciously shot at the enemy in WW2. Even against the Japanese.

Far as I knew, it was about 15-20%. Though that might have been Allied soldiers in general. It's hard to kill your fellow man in a stressful situation, strange as it may sound. You have to be trained to do it on automatic. 55% in Korean War, 95% in Vietnamese war. Crew weapons almost always fired, though, and 'key' weapons like flamethrowers were usually fired, compared to the generic rifleman.

Explains a lot about earlier wars, though. It was brutal, sure, but few deaths were direct on the battlefield, far as I know.

[Strife26]

Yeah, there's a lot of interesting data on those kinds of numbers. It's important to remember that infantry rifles haven't been the primary killer basically ever (if one defines pre ww1 wars with illness as a weapon). Crew serves have diffusion of responsibility built right in.

It's also important and frequently forgotten that, especially in ww2, the number of days of combat operations served by individual soldiers is very low. Seeing Jerry wasn't a daily or weekly occurrence.

[Rolepgeek]

I believe the data collected was the percentage of incidences whereupon a soldier, seeing an enemy combatant in the open (aka a ready target), fired with intent to kill, as compared to not firing or firing with intent to miss.

[MarcAFK]

All very minor problems compared to comfort.

I didn't say that they were minor problems.  But the fact that it physically took extreme effort to steer the tank is an ergonomic problem.  Try disabling the power steering on your car sometime.  You can still drive it, it just requires you put some strength into it.  You wont drive as well.

Shell stowage sure helps but mostly tank survival came down to whether they saw danger in time.  The side that shot first, be it tanks or static artillery, almost always came out the better.  Having your driver able to do their job to the best of their abilities matters a lot in avoiding ambushes or engaging rapidly.  Also proper shell stowage might help you survive a hit but being able to evacuate quickly will also help you survive.

And the lack of range on T34s ended up not mattering too much.  Those tanks only needed to last 300 km anyway because the Soviets planned their operations around that assumption.

All those points are valid, every source I've heard has said the t35 was a death trap of epic proportions.
However the Americans who had a look said it had great optics, better than they had available. Also they praised the dodgy build quality, stating that perhaps it would be good to cut more corners where applicable to produce more vechicles. Which is funny really as I've been made aware that the most major advantage the us tankers had over Germans apart from mechanical reliability was situational awareness.
Us tankers could consistently get off the first shots due to a variety of factors, sure some of those might bounce off a tigers hull, but even soo their success rate was petty self evident. Unless you listen to Belton Cooper.

[Erkki]

Yes, in a Sherman, every man had several periscopes out. In a Panther, not so much, and the worst of all the gunner only had the scope!

On casualties: I believe the last major wars where musketry inflicted most casualties in combat were probably the US Civil War, 2nd Schleswig War (Denmark vs. Prussia), Seven Weeks War(Austria vs. Prussia) and finally the massive Franco-Prussian war. Interestingly in many of those wars one side had breech-loaders and the other muzzle loaded muskets... And not always the loser!

Besides US Civil War where combat casualties were in minority, those may have also been some of the few wars of the 19th century where combat casualties were higher or equal to non-combat...

[mainiac]

Also they praised the dodgy build quality, stating that perhaps it would be good to cut more corners where applicable to produce more vechicles.

If they said that they were idiots, seeing as the US started to cut M4 production in 1944 since they already had plenty of tanks.