P-38L-5-LO

This page is about the Soviet medium tank T-34E. For other versions, see T-34 (Family).

T-34E

T-34E

Description

The T-34E is a premium gift rank Soviet medium tank with a battle rating of (AB), (RB), and (SB). It was introduced as a premium pack in June 2014 during Update 1.41. and was removed from the Gaijin store in October 2016. It was also available in the Steam store from June 2014 to August 2018, when it was removed to become a reward for the 2018 "Operation S.U.M.M.E.R." crafting event.

The feature of this tank is its 16 mm of spaced armour around its turret and sides, which in some occasions will bounce incoming shells when angled correctly. The T-34E is a truly unique tank for the collector, and also very useful often outperforming other T-34s. The extra spaced armour can be truly life-saving in certain situations.

General info

Survivability and armour

Armour type:

• Rolled homogeneous armour (hull, turret rear, turret roof, gun mantlet)
• Cast homogeneous armour (turret flanks, glacis joint, driver's hatch, machine gun port)
• High hardness rolled homogeneous armour (side skirts, sides and turret spaced armour)

Armour	Front (Slope angle)	Sides	Rear	Roof
Hull	45 mm (60°) Front glacis 75 mm (60°) Driver's hatch 65 mm (30°) MG port 100 mm + 20 mm Glacis joint 45 mm (60°) Lower glacis	40 mm (40°) + 16 mm (50°) Top 45 mm + 10 mm Bottom	40 mm (47°)	20 mm
Turret	45 mm + 16 mm (25°) Turret front 45 mm Gun mantlet	45 mm (30°) + 16 m (30°)	45 mm (30°) + 16 m (30°)	15 mm

Notes:

• Suspensions wheels and tracks are 20 mm thick.
• Additional 10 mm armour plates cover the engine air intakes on the hull roof.
• There is no cupola on this tank.
• Never try to shoot through the driver's hatch: it is a guaranteed ricochet.
• Frontally, the weak spots are turret cheeks and gun mantlet (under the gun).

Being a T-34 (1941) with spaced armour, the T-34E reacts like any other low-rank T-34, but stronger.

With the 16 mm of spaced armour, the upper side of the tank is almost impossible to penetrate when angled. While angling, the upper frontal plate will also be unlikely for a shell to penetrate, therefore only exposing the turret.

The T-34E suffers from its weak turret like other early T-34s do. Even with the spaced armour, the T-34E still cannot stop most other enemy shells. So during engagements, try not to expose your turret by hiding behind an object. Also, when the T-34E is not angled, the upper frontal plate is very weak since there is no spaced armour there. So to minimize the chance to expose the weak spots, you should angle the tank 45 degrees to bounce incoming shells.

When getting hit by an enemy, some shells can penetrate the tank, and depending on the type of shells and the type of gun, the result may be very different. Against cannons larger than 75 mm, the T-34E's interior will be decimated. However, you will have a good chance to survive shells that are smaller with AP (Armour-Piercing) related shells. When suffering damage, most times your gunner and loader will be knocked out, or sometimes the cannon breech will be damaged. Therefore you should train your crew with high repair and agility skills.

Mobility

Game Mode	Max Speed (km/h)		Weight (tons)	Engine power (horsepower)		Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
	Forward	Reverse		Stock	Upgraded	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade				775			__.__
Realistic				442			__.__

The T-34E has a decent top speed of 42 km/h, it is slightly slower than its other twins T-34 (1940) and (1941) because of the extra weight of the spaced armour. With this speed, you will be able to reach certain positions before other medium tank counterparts. To use this speed to the fullest, players are suggested to flank around the map and get side shots of enemies. The reverse speed of the T-34E is mediocre, which means that players should not attempt to overextend when attacking, or this often results in destruction.

Armaments

Main armament

The gun on T-34E is the same on T-34 (1941) and (1942), the F-34 cannon is a decent gun at this battle rating and offers a large number of different shells. All of the shells are useful in their own ways, but most players prefer using BR-350B, this is because of its performance in combat. BR-350B is classified as an APHEBC shell, which means that once the shell enters a tank, in most situations, it will explode and destroy the enemy at once. The reloading speed is average compared to other tanks in this tier, so you should avoid blind shooting just in case.

Like many other T-34s, the amount of ammunition does not affect combat by much, because of the location of the ammo rack. The ammo rack is located under the loader and the gunner, which is an unlikely place for one to shoot.

76 mm F-34					Turret rotation speed (°/s)					Reloading rate (seconds)
Mode	Capacity	Vertical	Horizontal	Stabilizer	Stock	Upgraded	Full	Expert	Aced	Stock	Full	Expert	Aced
Arcade	77	-5°/+30°	±180°	N/A	23.80	32.94	40.00	44.24	47.06	8.97	7.93	7.31	6.90
Realistic					14.88	17.50	21.25	23.50	25.00

Ammunition

The available ammunition allows for engaging all types of targets:

• BR-350A (MD-5 fuze): APHEBC; a shell with high explosive mass that will knock out any tank with a single shot but has an average penetration power.
• BR-350B (MD-8 fuze): APHEBC; increased penetration at the cost of slightly less explosive filler.
• BR-350SP: APBC; a solid shot with an even better penetration but no explosive filler.
• BR-354P: APCR; a composite round with the best penetration but no explosive filler and will only penetrate flat vertical surfaces.
• BR-350A: HEAT; a shaped charge with average penetration but without penetration loss over distance. Only penetrates flat vertical surfaces but the post-penetration damage is very effective on open and lightly armoured vehicles. Very slow shell travelling twice slower than your other projectiles.
• OF-350M: HE; useful for destroying open and lightly armoured vehicles.
• Sh-354T: Shrapnel; useful against vehicles that are resistant to the HE shells but too thinly armoured to trigger the fuzes of AP shells.
• D-350A: Smoke; useful to blind enemy vehicles that are too remote for you to disable so that you can progress towards objectives.

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
BR-350A (MD-5 fuse)	APHEBC	87	85	77	69	62	55
BR-350B (MD-8 fuse)	APHEBC	96	94	84	74	64	56
BR-350SP	APBC	99	96	87	76	66	58
BR-354P	APCR	125	117	87	60	41	28
BP-353A	HEAT	80	80	80	80	80	80
OF-350M	HE	10	10	10	10	10	10
Sh-354T	Shrapnel	35	34	30	26	22	19

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (m)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
BR-350A (MD-5 fuse)	APHEBC	662	6.3	1.2	14	150	48°	63°	71°
BR-350B (MD-8 fuse)	APHEBC	655	6.5	0.9	14	100.1	48°	63°	71°
BR-350SP	APBC	655	6.5	-	-	-	48°	63°	71°
BR-354P	APCR	950	3.02	-	-	-	66°	70°	72°
BP-353A	HEAT	355	3.94	0.05	0.1	600	62°	69°	73°
OF-350M	HE	680	6.2	0.05	0.1	621	79°	80°	81°
Sh-354T	Shrapnel	618	6.44	1.2	14	85	62°	69°	73°

Smoke shell characteristics
Ammunition	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Screen radius (m)	Screen deploy time (s)	Screen hold time (s)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (g)
D-350A	680	6.45	13	5	20	50

Ammo racks

Ammo racks of the T-34E

Full ammo	1st rack empty	2nd rack empty	3rd rack empty	4th rack empty	5th rack empty	6th rack empty	Visual discrepancy
77	75 (+2)	69 (+8)	53 (+24)	37 (+40)	19 (+58)	1 (+76)	No

Notes:

• As they are modeled by sets of 2, shells disappear from the rack only after you fire both shells in the set.
• To go into battle with the flanks empty of shells, pack 69 (+8) shells (racks 1 & 2 depleted).

Machine guns

The T-34E has two machine guns, one located in front of the machine gunner, and one beside the gun, but in-game only the turret machine gun is functional. The use of this DT machine gun is limited, with the controls being stuck with the turret, the machine gun cannot shoot aircraft. Instead, use the machine gun to blind the enemy and sometimes shoot open-topped tanks.

7.62 mm DT
Mount	Capacity (Belt)	Fire rate	Vertical	Horizontal
Coaxial	1,890 (63)	600	N/A	N/A

Usage in battles

In ground RB, T-34E can be used in many styles, it can either be a flanker or it can be a front line attacker, it can even be a sniper at times. But no matter what style you play, always angle the armour to avoid being penetrated and remember that you always have the choice to cover the tank with decorations to further confuse the enemy.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Bouncy sloped armour, effective against low-calibre guns (e.g. Churchill I)
• Decent top speed and good hull traverse
• Great firepower with several ammunition choices and useful primary shells
• Add-on side armour allows safer angling and side-scraping
• Fast turret rotation, useful to deal with flankers or multiple targets

Cons:

• Poor gun depression of only -5 degrees makes it ineffective in mountain combat
• No smoke launcher
• Lack of spaced frontal armour
• Awkward to place bushes on upper front hull due to the obstruction of MG port and driver's optics
• Armour doesn't hold up against experienced tankers or long-barreled guns (e.g. StuG III G, Achilles)

History

The T-34 was beginning to become the main tank of the Soviet Army by 1941, however, the initiation of Operation Barbarossa by the Germans postponed most manufacturing deadlines due to the relocation of various factories to the Ural Mountains to keep them safe from the Germans. During the movement, only the Dzherzhinski Tractor Factory in Stalingrad (STZ) stayed in production and produced most of the T-34s during the relocation.

To increase the survivability of the tanks, the T-34 design in the STZ factory was up-armoured by use of applique armour plates. These applique armour variants of the T-34 were called T-34E, with "E" meaning "ekranami" translates to "with screens" in Russian. These tanks were given applique armour throughout the entire vehicle, on all sides of the turret, one the front, on the sides, and even side skirts on the tracks. Some of the applique armour was placed in a way to act as spaced armour against enemy fire, which proved quite effective against the Panzer III's 50 mm KwK 39 cannon where the armour applied were on areas once vulnerable on the T-34 to the cannon. However, it was found that this additional armour did not help the T-34 against larger calibres such as the 75 mm PaK 40 and the 88 mm FlaK cannons. Due to the gradually growing number of tanks with the 75 mm and 88 mm, such as the up-gunned Panzer IV and the Tiger I that could easily destroy the T-34 even with the armour application, the armour configuration was not placed into mass production and thus only the testing batch of 47 units were made from the design. However, one armour applique model produced in STZ did see more widespread use in the production line, though it still had the name T-34E as its main nomenclature (also called the T-34E STZ in-game). This up-armoured model was more successful than the previous due to not drastically changing the design and only focusing on front armour protection by welding 15 mm of armour onto the front hull, thus minimizing weight gain by only focusing on the area most expected to be hit. The tank also featured redesigned road wheels and track designs. These T-34Es saw more widespread use and have photographs showing it being used in the Leningrad Front.

Archive of the in-game description

Up-armoured T-34 tanks were produced between the autumn of 1941 and the spring of 1942 at the STZ factory. In total, 3,644 of them were made. The vehicles' frontal hull armour was increased to 60 mm thickness and their frontal turret armour to 75 mm thickness. This was achieved by welding on add-on armour plates. A key character of these tanks was their fully metallic road wheels with radial hole patterns in the wheel disc. Such wheels were necessary due to a shortage of rubber for road wheel bands. The tank's idler wheels were also fully metallic. The turret's rear panel was fully welded, while its upper and side panels were held together by joints. The front of the turret featured characteristic lateral slots, while the cannon's recoil mechanisms were armoured with a straight frontal piece. The up-armoured T-34E tanks were used in battle from the summer of 1942 to the beginning of 1944. Some captured vehicles of this type were used by Wehrmacht troops in 1942-1943. These had both the standard 4BO green with Wehrmacht identifying markings and the camouflage used by German forces.

Media

Skins

• Skins and camouflages for the T-34E from live.warthunder.com.

Images

• 

  T-34E Bicolor summer camouflage

Videos

T-34E, Russian, Tier-2 Premium Medium Tank - Angry Nerd Gaming

See also

Other uparmoured vehicles of the same family

• T-34E STZ
• T 34 747 (r) (Germany)

External links

• [Marathon] Operation S.U.M.M.E.R.: Assemble a tank!

Kharkov Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering named after A. A. Morozov
Light Tanks
BT-5	BT-5 · RBT-5
BT-7	BT-7 · BT-7M · BT-7A (F-32)
Medium Tanks
T-34-76	T-34 (Prototype) · T-34 (1940) · T-34 (1941) · T-34 (1st Gv.T.Br.) · T-34 (1942) · T-34E STZ · T-34E
T-34-57	T-34-57 · T-34-57 (1943)
T-34-85	T-34-85 (D-5T) · T-34-85 · T-34-85E
T-34-100	T-34-100
T-44	T-44 · T-44-100 · T-44-122
Main Battle Tanks
T-54	T-54 (1947) · T-54 (1949) · T-54 (1951)
T-64	T-64A (1971) · T-64B
Export/Captured
T-34	▀T 34 747 (r) · ▄T-34 · ▄T-34-85 · ␗T-34 (1943) · ␗Т-34-85 (S-53)
T-54	▄T-54
See Also	Uralmashzavod · Uralvagonzavod