How many capital ships did the Soviets build before the invasion? The Japanese had multiple fleet carriers and battleships. How many carriers and battleships did the Soviets field?
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yeah but when discussing Soyuz’s potential capabilities that’s going to be the main factor
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Tanks and planes are far, far simpler to set up production for than capital ships. If you take a tractor factory (Which the Soviets had a great many of, thanks to their efforts to crash mechanise their agricultural sector), you already have most of the expertise and tooling. All you need then is gun and armor production.
It’s also worth noting, the Soviets had severe issues with the quality of their tanks, especially early war. This ranged from simple issues like cut corners (Tanks would be shipped out missing sealant, optics, even chairs in some circumstances), to more systemic ones like their overhardening of armor, making it vulnerable to lethal spalling even on non-penetrating hits.
There was also their general lack of radios, and how every single tank they made until late war lacked a cupola, giving their tank crews simply appalling situation awareness. This is a large part of why their supposedly superior tanks had such awful combat records during the early war.
But that’s getting off topic. Just know that the “armoured might of the Red Army” didn’t come about from Stalin snapping his fingers. It took years and years of cut corners, design flaws, and massive losses on the front lines for enough combat experience to trickle back and produce an actually good tank.
They have two, the Ho-Ris, but that’s a separate argument. FWIW, I’d be OK with them replacing the “production”, as it is a historical abomination.
I’m sure you wouldn’t mind actually writing up some examples? As far as I know, all the Japanese tanks are performing as designed. Reliability is one issue that isn’t model, to the great relief of the entire late war German lineup (As well as the Soviets. T-34s were known to drive around with a spare transmission on their backs, so they could quickly and easily replace it when it inevitably destroyed itself due to the previously mentioned overhardening on the gears).
Either way, even if they were overperforming compared to their IRL counterparts, the difference is that they aren’t meta defining. Hell, most war time Japanese tanks aren’t even that good. The Chi-Nu in particular is actually pretty awful.
The only tank I’d say is particularly strong is the Ho-Ri Production, and again, I’d point to what I said above.
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Not to downplay this but wasnt this the case for basically any major power that developed and fielded tanks back then? development moved so quick in this field compared to nowadays (at least in the general design, guns, ammunition and machinery categories) that obviously a lot of stuff was lacking, like tiger 2s (at least some, dunno if that flaw was dealt with later) couldnt or could barely turn their turret when on uneven ground, the transmissions struggling heavily with the massive weight of those monsters (i mean they weight more than most modern day mbts, kinda crazy to think about) and in general, especially for russia quantity was understandably more important than, lets just say, fielding 200 insanely strong but hard to transport, repair and maintain heavy tanks in form of something like a tiger 2 (instead of maybe 1000 t34s) considering the huge country they had to defend. And even then, the t34 general design rly aint that bad, considering the hull and also the turret are both heavily or at least somewhat angled on most sides, something the german tanks of the same time and class were heavily behind with and US tanks and GB ones also didnt implement in that Form, while possibly excelling in other metrics like gun performance, reliability and whatnot.
Also its probably even for historical experts hard to reconstruct nowadays what lead them to design the tanks the way they are, why they cut back on other stuff, its known at least under what immense time pressure all of this must have taken place. but no one here was part of the political decisions behind all of that so…so much about it is just guestimates and to say nowadays: the armor was subpar is like: yeah ofc now, 80 years later thats easy to say. But there were very real reasons for most of that stuff back then.
And Even then, to think about that the t34 was built in what? 1940? and in 1946 they built the IS-7 prototypes which were most likely the best or at least one of the very best tanks in the entire world back then (if only they werent too expensive) and ofc not battle proven and still prototypes is kinda crazy to me. absolute nuts development in just 6 years no?
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I tend to use the Soviets as an example as there’s a long standing myth that the T-34 was some kind of wonder weapon that singlehandedly turned the tide of the eastern front.
The T-34 was a very OK design. As you point out, it was well protected, fairly fast, and had a respectable gun for the time it was introduced.
But it’s failures were also many. They were cramped, and unergonomic, meaning crews comfort was severely lacking and survivability was poor. They continued to use the outdated two crew turret until the 85mm variant which only saw full scale production in 1944. This lack of a dedicated commander, combined with the lack of a proper cupola and a general lack of radios, resulted in some truly awful spatial awareness.
There was one recorded instance of a 37mm anti-tank gun engaging an early T-34. As you would expect, it’s armor held up under the onslaught. However, despite the 37mm rapid firing dozens of rounds at the T-34, it was never able to find and destroy the gun.
These failures were why, despite being fielded in respectable numbers as early as 1940, they got completely stomped in the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa. They, along with KV-1s, who were supposedly impervious to any German gun fielded at that time, were lost in scores during the opening stages of the invasion.
Now, it’s not a terrible design, and the later T-34-85s were a completely respectable medium tank when the war ended. But I take umbrage with this idea that the early T-34s are proof that the Soviets had incredible tank building prowess.
I’ve not heard this about Tiger IIs. I have heard this about KV-2s, for obvious reasons.
Either way, no-one credible is holding up the late war German tanks as examples of excellent design. As you point out, they were massively overloaded, complicated, difficult to build, all for the benefit of a massively overkill tank killing formula. There was no reason why the Germans should have developed the Jadgtiger, let alone the Maus.
Dunno where this idea comes from. Sloped armor had been known for years at that point. Most French tanks used it heavily. The Americans used it as early as the M2 Medium tank project, and it featured heavily on their later Stuarts, the M3 Lee, the M10, all the Shermans, etc.
The British used it more sparingly, but you can see it as early as the Matilda 1.
There are reasons for not choosing an entirely sloped armor profile. It tends to lead to a cramped tank, as you’re effectively sacrificing half of the internal volume compared to a more boxy design. It also complicates the fitting of hatches, periscopes and machine gun ports.
As the lessons of the war bore out, the advantages typically outweighed the costs (Which could be made up for in other ways), but it’s not like the Soviets were the first to come up with a groundbreaking new idea.
I am doubtful about this. Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about the IS-7 project. But I am keenly aware of their other “super tank” at the time, the IS-3. The one they proudly paraded in the victory day parade to scare the western allies. The tank that would then become infamous for it’s terrible design (Literally killing some of it’s own crew).
The heavy tank as a concept was already on it’s deathbed when the IS-7 was produced. Even if it had no unforseen flaws and was produced in great numbers, all that would have happened is an even faster switch to the HEATFS/APDS reliant tanks by the west that would have rendered it obsolete.
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And here you go whole armada of Bob Semple tanks.
Soviet basically has to same time relocate and increase whole production line of armored vehicles while like biggest invasion in history happening right now ofc it’s quality is going to drop while tanks are needed in frontline critically.
Story old as time. Soon spoons will start killing it’s crew.
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As a hypothetical that I said before, make naval a bigger area of war during WW2 for the Soviets, and they will bolster bigger and better ships.
Hence why Japan did it. They’re an island whom depends on all of that.
You all seem to skip this… and that fact capability was there, yet it was shifted for T-34 production and the like due to the massive ground war
Chi Ri II is fake, there was a prototype Chi Ri but no second version prototype of it.
Its shell holder was commonly jamming or barely worked as is.
Japanese metallurgy was getting weaker towards the mid to end of the war, causing steel to be more brittle. Especially for the Chi To, Chi Nu II, and Chi He.
Heavy Tank no.06 was never delivered to Japan, and was repurchased by Germany.
Then there is the whole Ho Ri proto, and production… which are a whole mess in and of themselves.
Off topic… but, the most infamous tank for killing its own crew is the M551 Sheridan. Paper charges that ignited if reloading too quickly. Very very bad.
Project A140’s initial stages can be traced as early as 1929 where Japan started research into creating Vickers Hardened plates of gargantuan sizes that would later be used for Yamato, Musashi and even Shinano.
Creating the infrastructure to even start construction took nearly a decade and the schematics themselves had almost 30 different drafts. Like the Kirov project - which was a goalpost shifting mess with increasing demands - A140 was also fraught with shifting requirements. Sadly, many of these schematics were lost to Fatman and Little Boy or destruction by Japan itself just before surrender.
Project A140 started at roughly 35kish tons. It ended at 72k+.
A-140-J3 - for example - was a ‘traditional’ AB XY layout of four 41cm twin turrets.
Another A-140 (A, B, C, G0A variants) is the ugly as hell ‘Nelson’ layout of all three turrets in the bow. World of Warships named it Izumo. Izumo itself is based off the G0A variant. And yes, I am a hater of the Nelson layout. It’s like carcinisation but for battleships and I hate it. On a side note, A and B was also the designs planned to utilize the later dropped diesel engines.
‘but what’s the difference of the A, B, C and G0A variants?’ G0A flipped turret 3 180 degrees so the guns faced stern instead of forward. Think the front turrets of Atago or Kako.
A1, A2, B1 and B2 started to look more like the Yamatos we know today with A-140F being the closest to the accepted final design. A-140F6 is the Yamato and Musashi that was built.
1929 to 1937 was solely research and schematic drafts.
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The T-34 was absolutely hell to sit in during cross-country conditions. It was not a comfortable ride at all.
As for the IS-7, the biggest death knell to the project was logistics; it being so heavy is primarily what doomed the project as transporting the damn thing anywhere was going to be a herculean task. Russia also saw the writing on the wall and realised the T-54 was the better way to go.
Well that just really weird statement Stalin came to power only in 1934 and he was advocating for better fleet since like 1920s.
That’s why I specified gun and armour production.
The point being that even a tiny, barely industrialised nation like New Zealand could turn around and turn a tractor into something you could broadly call a tank (tankette?), so there really wasn’t much stopping the Soviets from being able to do the same, at a scale and complexity that befit their greater industrial base. That doesn’t make them wizards at being able to achieve seemingly impossible progress over a very short time.
While this is mostly true, it’s not the whole story. Even in 1944 and 45, when the Soviets had their new factories well established behind the Ural mountains, you still had T-34s rolling off the production line missing components, or poorly welded, or lacking hardening on certain components, or with the older 4 speed gearbox.
At lot of this is due to the insane production quotas that were still in effect, but it strikes me as odd that the Soviets get a pass for all of their reliability and build quality issues for the entire war, while the unreliability of early British tanks (Which they were crash building in a desperate attempt to replace their losses at Dunkirk), or later German tanks are used to deride them as terrible tanks that were a burden to their countries.
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There were plans for a second Chi-Ri prototype, one using a slightly different gun and a diesel engine. I have no idea why Gaijin insisted on that being the tech tree model, but it’s hardly a stretch to imagine that they could’ve manage to produce such a tank if the war had continued on.
Mechanical unreliability and lacking armour quality are not modelled in game, something for which the Soviet and German tank trees should be very thankful for as they both have much worse problems in that area than some Japanese mediums who are almost never blocking shots as it is.
It’s a “what if” tank, putting it in the same category as prototypes in my book. It was never fielded, but had the war gone differently, it’s possible it could have. It’s no great secret that the Japanese purchased many designs from the Germans, and derivations of those designs almost made it into service (Ki-200, Kikka, etc).
I already mentioned them, but it’s worth mentioning that there is a kernel of truth to them. As far as anyone can determine, there were plans to develop the Chi-Ri into a heavy tank destroyer, influenced by Japanese delegates in Germany who saw tanks like the Ferdinand and Jadgtiger, but the entire project was very much still speculative and almost entirely shelved (As the Chi-Ri was) when the war ended.
If it were up to me, I would not have added either to the game, but if I had to, I would have gone with the much more conventional design akin to slapping a large casemate onto the Chi-Ri’s hull.
I think you still missing the severity of situation USSR found itself. Half of the most developed and populated part of country is gone, whole production line is gone they have to rebuild from scrap when there is no time at all, war is here or in other word biggest invasion in human history and it sucking all resources even trained workers are lacking while aslo critically important to increase production so more people needed and they mostly or completley untrained pushing out something even if some of it had bad quality is impossible trick and you wan’t it in tip top condition it’s same thing like demanding New Zeland build an armada of Maus tanks.
This was certainly the case in 1941/42. Less so in 1943, and absolutely untrue in 1944/45. By that point, the Soviets had a massive industry churning away behind the Urals, the Germans were in full scale retreat across the entire front, and yet still there were T-34s being put out that couldn’t drive more than 50 km without breaking down, that were missing optics entirely, that had the original, terrible four speed gearbox, etc.
Either way, this is getting off topic. My point was that while the Soviets might have been able to crash build the tanks they needed to turn the tide of the war, they did so by cutting corners and dropping build quality to the bare minimum.
Try to pull the same trick with a battleship, and you end up with 90% of the delivered armour plating being rejected, and one of the class being scrapped on the stocks because the rivets weren’t up to par.
The Soviets were never going to manage to build the Sovetsky Soyuz class, and all we can say for certain is that if they had tried, the results would be nothing at all like what’s currently implemented in game.
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There’s no way to say for certain
No you just not giving the same slack for USSR as to New Zeland.
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I mean, just out of the gates we know that they couldn’t make cemented armour of that thickness, and they certainly wouldn’t have been able to stand up that capability during the course of the war.
I’d actually argue that the Bob Semple was a far more realistic project than the Sovetsky’s were for the Soviets.
See, the Bob Semple was designed by a country that knew it’s limitations. They did not go out and try to design a tank that could match the very best in the world. Hell, they didn’t even try to make one that could match the Japanese. They designed a tank that could be built by the currently existing infrastructure of New Zealand.
As a base, they chose tractors that were in wide circulation. Thin armour plates, which were within the limits of the tiny foundry available to them. For a gun, the ubiquitous 2 pounder, or Bren guns which were in wide circulation.
By every objective measure, these were bad tanks. But they weren’t designed to be great tanks. They were designed to be small, mobile bunkers, easily stood up at any corner of the country on short notice, to beat back what was assumed to be a primarily infantry based Japanese invasion.
And, most critically of all, when the government actually saw these tiny, awkward, frankly kinda pathetic tanks, they cancelled the project.
Compare that to a nation with severely limited background in shipbuilding, who hadn’t designed a similar ship in over 20 years, deciding to simultaneously build 4 of the largest and most capable battleships known to exist, using armour of a thickness they weren’t capable of making, turbines, guns and turrets they had never built anything similar to before, whilst also massively overhauling most of the rest of their military industrial base at the same time.
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Improvisation would be the operative word here but the fact remains; you don’t build a battleship against an enemy that’s vomiting U-Boats and is kicking your teeth in via land invasion.
You build tanks, planes and guns. Which the Soviets pragmatically chose.
Now let’s assume the invasion never happened; Krupp delivers six 38cm twin turrets fir the Kronshtadts and the plates for Soyuz. What then?
That is the tricky part. Soyuz and her sisters would probably be stuck in construction hell. Soyuz, at least, would probably be completed but the earliest would probably have been between 1944~47 if I’m being charitable.
And not without a severe load of issues. Like gun handling, lack of speed, maneuverability - probably rangefinding, just to name a few.
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I would say that 1944 is very charitable. By 1941, the Soviets had yet to produce:
- A single turbine for any of the engines.
- More than one gun.
- A main turret.
- The dual purpose secondary guns and their turrets.
- Cemented armour of the correct thickness.
Probably a lot of the secondary systems as well (Rangefinders, propeller shafts, etc), but that’s just supposition.
Even in a world where the Soviet industrial base isn’t thrown into chaos by Operation Barbarossa, it’s hard to imagine the Soviets managing to solve all of these bottlenecks that had been holding them back for three years in time to hit the deadline in another three years.
Then, of course, we need to imagine the responses that the various potential opponents would field as a result of these ships. The Montanas, the Lions, the H39s, the A-150s.
If we’re giving the Soviets a blank cheque in terms of the ships they can make, it only seems fair to extend that courtesy to their contemporaries, and match the Soyuz up against the ships it would face in this hypothetical alt-history universe.
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