Panzer IV just have a good gun. Everything else is really bad. The german T-34, the german Churchill or the german KV-1 are much, much, much better to use. These three prems outclass every German TT vehicle, including all Panzer IV’s. I don’t know how ppl suppose Panzer IV to have a good armor, I always get onehotkilled by any enemy vehicle. Even some AA trucks kill you with ease from any direction. Its just a bad design, in WT at least. Panzer IV has its niche for long range engagements, unfortnately there are rarely any maps where this matters. Panzer IV can be even killed by cal 50 aremed planes, simply with some strafing runs, for a fully enclosed medium tank thats pretty much poor. Even the weakest guns take you out with ease. Rus players like to just spawn ZSU-37 (BR 3.3, 87mm pen autogun) and take on whole Panzer IV teams alone. On small maps theres no way to compete with these high pen AA vehicles in Panzer IV. Several nation have these high pen autoguns in Panzer IV BR brackets…which makes Panzers IV / III impossible to play.
Maybe it would help Panzer IV and III when high pen HVAP shooting SPAAs get moved up towards BR 6.7. For some reason Ger SPAAs with more pen than 50mm are all rather high BRed. Cause if autoguns shred this medium box tank so easily, it is just on a bad spot. You cant play it on all these small maps.
Also don’t forget they’re all rank II. Means no events, no tasks and abysmal rewards… Why playing this tank? I won’t. I’d rather pick my KV-1 or T-34 which are 2 full leagues better. Always ask myself why the early phase of WW2 was dominated by Panzer III and IV models, while they’re so incredibly bad in WT. Something is strange there, since WT uses realistic base values for its vehicles. But something fundamental, I don’t grasp, must be different to rl. Maybe its the abundance of high pen autogun vehicles which zap Panzer models so easily…this and the small maze like maps.
There’s a couple explanations for this, but the two that stick out the most to me are:
-the german tanks were one of the few with functional radios - neither the french nor russian tanks had radios at all, or ones that worked well enough to be reliably used;
-reload times for T-34s are much faster than what would be seen IRL, especially for the models with a 2-man turret. None of the T-34’s manufacturing flaws or lack of crew training are present in-game either.
There were a few factors in the early stages of WWII that WarThunder does not or cannot reflect:
Germany had a better military doctrine and was superior when it came to logistics and combined arms warfare.
Russia had almost no well-trained tank crews and commanders since a lot of their qualified military personnel had been purged by the commies previously.
There were still a lot of tanks around that were not T-34s or KV-1s.
Especially the T-34’s quality was not that great. The crew was practically blind and many of them did not have radios until the later stages of the war. It also often broke down and recent tests on surviving T-34s have shown that a realistic fire rate was two shots a minute.
Tank battles were not just huge brawls in cities.
In real life, a tank can already be lost when it loses a track, not just when the whole crew dies or the ammunition explodes.
A lot of these claims are common myths, much like the Sherman being a death-trap.
Skip to 19:57:
It’s a bit of an oversimplification.
It’s also important to keep in mind that a lot of German tanks (or any other countries’ tanks) at that time didn’t all feature radios.
Not really true, the reliability was roughly equal to that of a Sherman, both were reliable vehicles for their respective time periods, and it easily exceeded the reliability of the KV-1.
Apparently the least reliable part of a T-34 were it’s tracks, not the transmission (which is often claimed).
Previously asked Tank Archives about this myth, I’ll copy/paste his answer here:
''The practical rate of fire on earliest T-34s (the one with the oblong turret) was 5-6 RPM. This included fire correction, extraction of spent brass, constraints of closed hatches and gathering fumes, etc. This was also before the racks were redesigned for easier loading. There was also another trial where T-34s with the less reliable L-11 gun were tested in a blizzard. The rate of fire was 3-4 RPM even when the gunner had to wipe away snow from his periscope and the guns were jamming constantly. ‘’
‘’ The maximum rate of fire I ever saw quoted was 20 RPM, which might be achievable in short bursts without correcting fire or throwing away brass, but I don’t envision any T-34 doing this for an entire minute as normally prescribed in Soviet rate of fire trials.‘’
Personally, I think the 2-man turret design coppled with limited visibility and poor internal volume were the major drawbacks of the design, all of which would eventually be addressed with the T-44.
No offense, but what makes “Tank Archives” and his sources more reliable than other, arguably more renowned, sources? I had to look up his book he advertises in the video you linked just to find out his real name so I can see what he does for a living and what his degrees are. From what I can tell he’s simply a guy with a hobby and a lot of self-confidence, who also speaks Russian. So I might as well say TheChieftain and the guys from The Tank Museum disagree with him.
Like which? Every German tank from Pz II to Tiger had radios + the Pz 38(t).
Not sure about StuGs or TDs like Marders but they probably had them as well.
And he says: Till 1943 not every tank had a radio because they couldn’t produce enough radios.
So it’s pretty clear that a lot of Soviet tanks from 1941 and 1943 did in fact not have a radio.
He took it upon himself to become the personifcation of the anti-wehrabo.
Tank archive mostly consists him translating Russian articles to English.
The Russian Bias is strong with him 😂
Of course he makes some valid points from time to time and the website is generally great to find information in English about all sorts of things WW2 relateted.
Yeah. He’s an infamously Pro Russia guy. Buys into all of their propaganda despite all of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Best just to ignore him.
Because he takes the primary sources from Russian/Soviet archives, but also primary source British documents and reports from Canadian museums.
Most (older) English sources on the T-34 aren’t based off of old Soviet documents from the time period, instead they’re often based on British evaluations or German wartime notes, which obviously leads to a skewed view of reality.
If you ask him about a certain claim he makes, he’s fully able to back it up with source documents.
I’d suggest to ask him a couple of questions on his youtube channel if you have any, he reponded to mine within a few minutes.
This is really annoying to me, I’ve been listening to Hilary Doyle these past few weeks and I very clearly remember him saying many vehicles early on only featured receivers, but not transmitters. He also stated certain types did not yet have radios on every vehicle.
I cannot find the relevant video/portion of the video, if I do find it in the future I’ll link it.
Well, yeah. They also had command tanks that coordinated the other tanks.
Better to only be able to listen, than to have no clue what you are supposed to do.
Of course, when I argue that the PzKpfw IV’s in-game aren’t as good as the T-34 and M4 Sherman, I’m a just Wehraboo and blind to how undertiered everything German is.
When I argue that the Chieftains and Challengers are all stupidly over-tiered, I’m just a Teaboo and should L2P.
When I argue that in my experience, the M1A1 Abrams is the best MBT relative to it’s BR in the game, I’m somehow anti-US and pro russian.
When I say the T-80UD is undertiered and should be a higher BR, including a chart that shows how it’s just massively better than a T-64B and T-72B, I should just flank it and learn the weakspots.
Given that that Conte guy has repeatedly accused me of being pro-Russian just because I don’t share his opinion that anything Chinese or Russian must automatically be horrendously bad, I’ve got a suspicion that he was talking about me.
And if he was indeed talking about Tank Archives, I’d welcome Conte to bring up sources of his own which show that Tank Archives is heavily biased and wrong on their statements.
For @GunValkyrieElise The issue is that, in fact, everything Russian and Chinese sucks. Look at who buys what and how much, worldwide. It will paint a pretty clear picture. Also, look at at how USA and NATO equipment that is mostly old outdated stuff (by our standards and again easily verifiable through public information) is absolutely crushing the best Russia can produce.
I mostly don’t give sources because it’s a waste of time. When you wrestle with a pig you both get muddy but only the pig is happy.
The facts are that Russian equipment has always been technologically inferior and of poor quality. As an example people rave about how cheap and reliable the AK-47 is, which is true, but it is inaccurate, heavy, has a harsh recoil for a assault rifle, and in my experience gets really hot really fast. It’ myth does not match reality.
Russian and Chinese stuff, as demonstrated by the historical record is crap.
To be fair, I feel like we’ve reached a bit of a impasse with that discussion.
It’s a fine vehicle, but generally isn’t as well suited to the game’s meta as it’s American or Russian medium tank counterparts.
They’re not under-tiered if you consider the fact that it’s closest contemporaries are at the same BR.
I personally feel like the PzKpfw IV J should drop down to 3.3, I have no idea why it’s at a higher BR than the G when it’s inferior.
In the recent days a hell of rather new movies like the Beekeeper, Guardians III, Deadpool-Wolverine etc are uploaded there; somehow yt is unable to stop that.
Or take a six-pack and watch totally stupid movies like “The Marvels” - DEI madness at its finest…
If I were to rank all the Rank 2 mediums at BR 3.0+.
S Tier -
T-34-76s (perfect combo of armor/mobility/firepower for their BR)
A Tier -
Shermans with the 63.5mm sloped fronts (frontal armor can bounce shots and you can hull down)
Turan III (better Panzer 4 imho - has insane reverse speed)
B Tier-
Other Shermans (frontal armor is weak, but you can fight hull down still)
C Tier-
Panzer 4s (clumping them together. Armor/mobility is average, but gun is great)
D Tier-
Chi-Nu 1 & 2 (bad armor/great gun)
F Tier-
Cromwells (fast forward speed/terrible reverse/fires solid shot)
