Radio War Nerd EP #364 — Tanks-giving In Ukraine, feat. John Griffiths
Guest: John Griffiths, Totally Tanked podcast
Recorded: January 30, 2023
Tanks are all the rage in the Ukraine war, a very mid-20th-c. weapon for a very 20th-c. war. We talk to Totally Tanked's John Griffiths about the workhorses of this war — the T-64 and T-72 — along with the alleged "game-changers" pledged to Ukraine, the Leopard, Challenger and Abrams.
Check out John's podcast Totally Tanked.
Attn London RWNers! Don't forget the RWN London Meetup, February 7th 2023, at the Old White Bear.
Music Interlude by Brendon Anderegg's Mountains. Buy Mountains here.
Total time: 1:23:08
Comments (32)
Funny, I'm a fish nerd to hitting the aquarium store and the tank info page would be a win/win for me
lol, i love the sigh we will do one for the military gear obsessed hogs. As a military tech obsessed war nerd hog thankyou. Great guest!
Spotted in this travel video, here (near the border - about 2/3 through) were some German tanks heading for Ukraine, one assumes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJBPvJtQ0WI
"Nerdling", a perfect follow-up to the "Zerg Rush".
Great episode- Tanks for it
Wonderful episode, I’ve never had any interest in the machines or mechanics of war, just the geopolitics, but this convo has made a convert of me.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse podcastam
I always learn something useful from this podcast. Nice job.
What a wonderful episode, and it turns out I DO want to know more about tanks.
I finally have the opportunity to correct a RWN guest on something, and I would be remiss if I didn't take it. This is my particular area of expertise, you understand. The welding process that was used for the T-34 is known as submerged arc welding. "Submerged" doesn't refer to water, however. Rather, granular weld flux is deposited from a hopper ahead of the advancing weld electrode. The electric arc is therefore *submerged* in flux (unlike other welding processes, in which the arc is not occluded.) This eliminates most of the light and smoke from the welding process - you can look at it without eye protection. Submerged arc welding inherently lends itself to automation (its basically always done by a machine, rather than someone manually holding the electrode), and it can weld much faster than most other methods. All of this makes it perfect for mass production. In contrast, German tanks were all welded purely by hand (if i'm not mistaken). So a long weld along the side of a Tiger tank would be done manually by a guy holding an electrode and welding at maybe 10 inches per minute, whereas a long weld on a T-34 would be done by someone operating a machine specifically set up to do that weld, and it would be done 5-10 times faster.
I’ve learnt something new. Thanks!
yes to a discussion on Carthage and Salammbo, such a brilliant book
I'll never understand why everyone doesn't just use the T-34 and the AK-47. They get the job done, they're cheap, and there's tons of spare parts because so many have been manufactured. Some military innovations are worth adopting, but I really don't think that you can improve much on something like an infantry rifle or a main battle tank at this point. Not enough to justify the cost, anyway.
Low margin manufacturing doesn’t pay for mansions in northern Virginia
The music interlude…anybody know which album its from?
Music Interlude by Brendon Anderegg's Mountains (link in show description)
What were the two main reasons that tank guns don’t make good substitutes for artillery? John G started to explain and then got sidetracked. Thanks!
artillery is indirect fire (shoot above 45 degree angle and let the projectile "fall down" on target") versus tank guns which do direct fire (shoot at the lowest possible elevation to compensate for projectile fall). That means that in practice tanks usually can't shoot high enough, when they do the bullet is too fast, and the fire control system may or may not be even designed to support indirect fire because why would you do that. BUT! as he was saying, since fire control systems and scouting just got much better it's actually more and more worth it to lob tank shells on low indirect trajectories* occasionally, and the insanely long tank kill he described, that's what happened *edit: I got some confusing between direct and indirect fire - the first means you see what you're shooting at, the latter means you don't, but usually in practice that means that if you're seeing the target you're shooting "directly" at it (lower parabola), while if you don't see the target (it's over a hill) you're using the higher parabola to shoot over the hill. In the case of that tank kill I understand that the hill was very low, so they still went with a low parabola with low elevation, but still cleared a low hill, and hit. Also to add to how "not legit" this kill looks like, I understand that the target was stranded and they shot repeatedly at it until it got completely disabled. Which I'll give you that, it doesn't *look* like a regular tank battle kill, but as far as we know it's still totally legit and valid
Hey what was the name of the book that John recommended? Solombo?
Salammbô, by Flaubert?
hey just for fun, is there a collab or a guest spot in the cards with Chris and Matt from Hell on Earth?
There is indeed. Coming soon.
I am so confused about underwater welding. I thought it was welding that took place underwater due to the inconvenience of bringing whatever was being welded to the surface, e.g. underwater structures, or the bottom of boats for some reason. All I knew about underwater welding is that it is taught in prison to reduce recidivism because the work pays well and is too dangerous for anybody without the occupational difficulties of ex-criminals to consider. Is the same underwater welding? Excellent episode I listened to the t-34 episode of the podcast. People who like me got to RWN via Jacobin (remember when Connor Kilpatrick reviewed Corey Robin's "the Reactionary Mind" in the eXile?) probably have a lot more affection for the t-34 than Mark Ames did in his youth
Hi James, my understanding is that the pieces to be welded are placed in water and then the arc is applied
I’d love an episode on the Punic wars. I’m currently listening to Adrian Goldsworthy’s The Fall of Carthage, which has a good overview. Also enjoyed John’s attempts to find writing in Carthage. I only recently found out the Punic language is very closely related to Biblical Hebrew, so a cursory understanding of one and the variations in scripts can help in reading the other. Great stuff as always.
Im glad that John mentioned that all armoured vehicles are in a constant state of breaking down.
4 hours of daily maintenance right? that surprised me a bit
Love hearing Gary’s stories from abroad at the top of the ep
Great episode. This long awaited hardware discussion about the Ukraine war (hopefully the first of many) did not disappoint. Bonus points for interviewing a fellow Aussie! I would love to know if the new T-90 ‘breakthrough’ entering the conflict is an updated model without the French sighting systems mentioned in this episode? Interesting stuff.
If I have to hear one more news outlet say "game changer" about some overcomplicated western system I'm gonna hurl That's not directed at RWN, german news is the worst offender imo
IS-2 is massively underrated for sure
This afternoons data cleaning just got a lot more pleasurable