And to think Christy basically invented the T-34 the Russians used to such great affect and we passed on it for the Ronson Lighter.
I look at all the areas in which US weapons excelled over those of Germany and the only 2 areas where the US was clearly inferior was artillery with the German 88mm cannon and the main battle tank. Yes, we had greater numbers of tanks but we had much greater losses of tanks too.
I am still furious at George Patton for saying that we didn’t need a heavier tank because tanks are not supposed to engage tanks. Well, maybe they weren’t supposed to General, but they sure did! And when they did, the US took heavy losses in their relatively lighter Shermans.
Beyond that, I am given to believe that a lot of German tanks were taken out by artillery shells dropping in from above on their thin top armor, or from aerial bombing. To the extent that there is no defense for a tank from an artillery barrage, I guess our general strategy of having more tanks worked out, even if more vulnerable.
Still and all, if we had something like the T-34 with a high velocity 75mm gun, our tanker losses would have been lessened, probably significantly. Letting the Russians have the tank based on Christy’s design was just criminal.
There was politics in the military even back then. That has never changed.
The only part of a T-34 that was Christy in origin was the suspension system. The Soviets used the Christy design in their tank suspension systems from the late 20s onward. The rest of the T-34, low profile, slope armor, diesel engines were Soviet ideas, not Christy.