everyone knows the story of the t-34 and t-34 85 but during the final stages of world war 2
a lesser-known project was underway this project would lead to one of the only failed variants
of the t-34 the t-34 100 throughout history there have been countless tanks
all designed to kill but not all have been a success what happened to the ones
that never made it and why did they fail my name is ConeOfArc join me as we journey through time
uncovering failed projects and forgotten creations in cursed by design the year was 1944 and the war
on the eastern front raged on with the arrival of the panther and tiger 2s it became clear that the
85 millimeter armed t-34s were beginning to become more limited against these well-protected machines
so it was decided to try to find a way to up gun the tank further work reportedly began in factory
number 183 and engineers set to work attempting to find a way to fit one of the larger guns the
soviets already had into the t-34 early work was focused on trying to mount a larger version of the
zis s-53 designated the zis 100 into the available turret from the t-3485 but it quickly became clear
that the increased recoil from the bigger gun would be too much for the turret couplings to
handle as well as causing other issues with other parts of the tank another rumored idea consisted
of mounting an is-2 turret to the tank but this was reportedly also discarded due to the inability
to mate the turret ring to the much wider turret this is when our next player enters the stage
the t-44 being developed at the same time as the attempted modifications the in-development turret
that would eventually be used on the t-44 offered a tantalizing solution this was not without
trade-offs though since the t-34 would need to be modified to allow the mounting of this new turret
this modification involved increasing the turret diameter from 600 millimeters to 1700 millimeters
and also caused the lower hull floor to be reduced to compensate for the added weight from these
changes the bow machine gun was also removed and with it the whole machine gunner was eliminated
dropping the crew count to only four although this was a more promising concept during testing
once again both the previously mentioned zis 100 and the d10t used on the su-100 were found
to be unfavorable in performance finally in mid-1945 a usable armament was found in the new
LB1 100 millimeter cannon and the final version of the t-34 100 was assembled using this improved gun
sadly despite finally having found a working design this would be the end for the soviet
project to mount a 100 millimeter with no production ordered with the war ending there
was simply no longer a need for an up gunned t-34 as the resources could be better spent on the new
t-44 and eventually the t-54 which would become the most produced tank in the world however you
may have noticed i said the end of the soviet project because this would not be the last time
a t-34 100 was attempted the next nation to try their hand at up-gunning the faithful old t-34
were the Czechs in the mid-50s with plans to start production of said tank in 1955 however
this never came to fruition this tank would likely have resembled the Russian t-34 100 quite closely
with a modified turret to fit the bigger gun but as with its soviet cousin the project was not
moved to production although you can still find this vehicle in the Czechoslovakian tech tree
in world of tanks it was not only the Czechs who would attempt this however almost two decades
later the Egyptian military would produce their rendition of the t-34 100 this time calling it the
t-100 the Egyptians took a much different route with their design however rather than previous
designs this would not be small changes made to the turret to accommodate the larger caliber
the gun chosen was the soviet 100 millimeter bs3 and although the general turret shape can
still be made out the changes were immense to help combat the recoil the gun was fitted with a muzzle
brake as well as more recoil dampeners mounted below the barrel on the turret front this tank
however was not just a prototype an estimated 100 units were produced and saw action during the 1973
Yom Kippur war against Israel these tanks were later further modified to mount an even bigger 122
millimeter gun but that's a topic for another time and with that the story of the t-34 100 what could
be considered the forgotten variant of the t-34 comes to an end thank you all so much for watching
and I do hope you enjoyed it if you did please be sure to like this video and subscribe if you want
to see more i would also like to thank my YouTube members for helping pick this tank for this video
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and stay tuned for my upcoming video guide on how to use this tank in war thunder