Howdy fellas,

Can't believe I missed this bit of intel, but , did I hear this correctly? Was the WW II T-34 series of tanks deployed without a position for a Tank Commander?
I could have sworn I heard this on the Military Channel the other day..........

tia.

Tread.

I beleive on the early T 34/76s, there was no loader position so the Tank Commander would often double as loader or take the gun himself.

Tread
IIRC I think that most of the Soviet tanks didn't have any type of radio/wireless set in them as well I think that the T-34/85 had a 3 man turret I guess that's why the German armor did so well against the T-34's at first because they had a 3 man turret along with vision cuppolas and the wireless sets

Of course T-34s had commanders!

It wasn't so strange for early WWII tanks to have one or two-man turrets, which meant doubling up for the turret crew.

All of the 76mm gunned T-34s had a two-man turret, which meant the commander usually doubled up as gunner. Sometimes the commander occupied the loader's position, as this gave a slightly better observation, at the cost of less control over the main gun. This was also less effective as the commander had less direct control over the driver ('direct' in the sense of foot-in-the-back control).

Early -85s may have had a two-man turret, but this is a little uncertain. Later 85s were the first T-34s to have a commander whose time was devoted to commanding.

If T-34s were undermanned the first position to be left unoccupied was the bow-gunner.