T-14 Armata

[Brenus]

“Like I said... junk.” Yeah, still won the war mind you, so the others side was even worst junk. As yes, you probably forgot than when the USSR was putting on the front line T34 and other junks as KV, the Germans and allies were lining-up Pz II and III, T38 T and others very well advanced machines and pieces of Technological Art. Not mentioned of course the beautifully engineered Mathilda or Somua S35 (in the last one the engineers just forget to put a loader so the Tank Commander was the loader as well) on the other side of the front.
Well, it happen that Guderian (apparently unaware “of the idea of sloped armour was well known and was to be incorporated into future AFV designs long before the Germans encountered the T-34”) "Numerous Russian T-34s went into action and inflicted heavy losses on the German tanks at Mzensk in 1941. Up to this time we had enjoyed tank superiority, but from now on the situation was reversed. The prospect of rapid decisive victories was fading in consequence. I made a report on this situation, which was for us a new one, and sent it to the Army Group; in this report I described in plain terms the marked superiority of the T-34 to our PzKpfw IV and drew the relevant conclusion as that must affect our future tank production. I concluded by urging a commission be sent immediately to my sector of the front... If this commission was on the spot it could not only examine the destroyed tanks on the battlefield, but could also be advised by the men who had used them as to what should be included in the design for our new tanks, in Panzer Leader” and von Kleist who describe the T34 as “The finest tank in the world” (and von Runstedt :"best tank in the world"). They gave their opinion, and, surprisingly, they disagreed with what you said. Wonder why. But who are they?
And the German soldiers fleeing in terror at the 1st encounter just did it because the T34 was a piece of junk that their special anti-tank gun couldn’t pierce the piece of junk tin foil armour. That goes against you view on heroic German soldiers, doesn’t it? So tell me, why did they retreat so hastily?

“Daimler put forward a prototype that was much closer to the T-34, but it was rejected.” Because un-patriotic they said. The other probably better explanation was confusion in combat, and use possibility to shoot your own in the smoke of the battlefield.

“This guy actually agrees with you and his explanations make sense if his numbers are correct” Except of course that the reality doesn’t match his explanations, nor the witness statements from the T34 crew members nor the ones from the receiving end of the pile of junk, German, Italian, Rumanian, Croatian, Hungarian and others German Allies soldiers. The pile of junk still defeated the very well designed Elefant, Panthers at Kursk.

[Husar]

“Like I said... junk.” Yeah, still won the war mind you, so the others side was even worst junk. As yes, you probably forgot than when the USSR was putting on the front line T34 and other junks as KV, the Germans and allies were lining-up Pz II and III, T38 T and others very well advanced machines and pieces of Technological Art. Not mentioned of course the beautifully engineered Mathilda or Somua S35 (in the last one the engineers just forget to put a loader so the Tank Commander was the loader as well) on the other side of the front.

Seriously, the T-34 did not have a gunner, so the commander had to fulfill both functions himself. I also remember reading something about the loading process having been rather tedious because the turret was so small.
And this overload of the commander probably allowed the Wehrmacht tanks to outmaneuver them quite a few times, fire faster and so on. If you have bad vision, have to concentrate on finding targets as well as keep the current one in sight and so on, it's easier to lose your situational awareness or act in a tactically disadvantageous manner.

And the German soldiers fleeing in terror at the 1st encounter just did it because the T34 was a piece of junk that their special anti-tank gun couldn’t pierce the piece of junk tin foil armour. That goes against you view on heroic German soldiers, doesn’t it? So tell me, why did they retreat so hastily?

A lot of people fled from a lot of new tanks at the first encounter, but yes, the design was not bad in all aspects, but maybe the worse aspects weren't so visible during that first encounter.

“Daimler put forward a prototype that was much closer to the T-34, but it was rejected.” Because un-patriotic they said. The other probably better explanation was confusion in combat, and use possibility to shoot your own in the smoke of the battlefield.

Or maybe that the interior, especially the turret, was also too small, cramped and didn't allow for proper operation of the tank.
The soviets improved the T-34 with the T-34-85, which has a much bigger turret and one more crew member. You can even read about the ergonomics issues on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34#Ergonomics

“This guy actually agrees with you and his explanations make sense if his numbers are correct” Except of course that the reality doesn’t match his explanations, nor the witness statements from the T34 crew members nor the ones from the receiving end of the pile of junk, German, Italian, Rumanian, Croatian, Hungarian and others German Allies soldiers. The pile of junk still defeated the very well designed Elefant, Panthers at Kursk.

No, nonono, also no.
1) First of all, I set out to show that PJ was wrong, but found only stuff about how bad the T-34 was.
2) I'm nonetheless not sure about the performancve of the T-34-85 being as bad as the T-34-76, especially due to the turret and gun upgrade it always seemed like a more capable tank, although by that time it was also very vulnerable as the hull armor was no longer that great against the upgraded german guns.
3) I already showed that german steel was more junk than people usually assume and that allied tanks were junk as well.
4) The Ferdinand was neither well-designed nor beaten by T-34s at Kursk. It lacked almost any defense against infantry and was sent into the soviet lines without proper cover, allowing their infantry to flank it and attack it with grenades. The elefant was the upgraded version with a mchine gun to help it at least a little bit. Apparently a lot of them were also blown up by their crews as they had to retreat and couldn't recover them with broken tracks etc. This says absolutely nothing about the T-34, which could certainly not penetrate them easily.
5) There were more war machines involved at Kursk than just T-34s. And just winning a pyrrhic victory of sorts does not make a tank design good. You are absolutely right that the allies won the war in the end, but the question here is more whether they could have won the war with fewer dead tankers if they had had better tank designs. It's not a strategic but an operational question. Would you be happy to be given a death trap and told that you're expendable enough that when you die your thousands of buddies will still win this for you because we have many thousands more of these death traps than the other side?

Wikipedia sez:

Soviet equipment losses during the German offensive came to 1,614 tanks and self-propelled guns destroyed or damaged[19] of the 3,925 vehicles committed to the battle. The Soviet losses were roughly three times larger than the German losses.[291][292] During Operation Kutuzov, 2,349 tanks and self-propelled guns were lost out of an initial strength of 2,308; a loss of over 100 percent. During Polkovodets Rumyantsev 1,864 tanks and self-propelled guns were lost out of the 2,439 employed. The loss ratio suffered by the Soviets was roughly 5:1 in favour of the German military.[293] However, large Soviet reserves of equipment and their high rate of tank production enabled the Soviet tank armies to soon replace lost equipment and maintain their fighting strength.[291]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...ies_and_losses

That does not exactly speak for the T-34 having been the superior tank design at the battle of Kursk if we assume that it made up the majority of russian tanks involved. Again, the complaint by PJ was not about it's strategic viability if you can afford to throw a lot of tank crews into certain death, but about whether the tank design was good. And apparently it was not all that great if about three times as many of them got killed than tanks on the german side. They could just replace them with new junk and repair some of the destroyed junks to put new crews into them.