Now the turret, of course, big difference between it

and the earlier model to accommodate the larger gun,

also meant you had a three man crew.

This is great, the TC could spend his time commanding the tank

and not performing multiple duty.

Now initially T-35-85 turrets had about 75mm of armour on the front

and about 52 on the sides and rear.

However, later models, by the end of 1944,

you are starting to look at 90mm at the front

and 75 on the sides and rear.

The Turret was of cast construction,

although the roof was a simple sheet of metal

which got welded in place.

TC of course has his own cupola now.

It's a fixed cupola, the vision ports are fixed,

you can't rotate them around.

However, he can rotate the roof with the hatch.

So by lifting up the lever here, it's on rollers,

it rotates fairly simply.

Now the hatch itself, after I lock this back into place.

Very simple, one piece, it's locked in place by a simple locking latch

and there is a torsion bar spring to help lift it open.

That's the outside, let's go in.

Now the Commander's seat, is not really the most comfortable

that I've ever been in,

it's actually a good incentive to fight with your head out.

Now for reasons which elude me it seems the TC has a choice

of two different foot pedals.

The first one is below the gunner's seat.

In order to get to fold down,

you have to lift up the gunner's seat to give it room

and then let the gunner's seat fold down.

Now with this set of food pedals he's aiming pretty much

his legs in a forward direction,

so he's quite comfortable.

The downside though is that with his knees lower down,

he's more of a risk of hitting the gunner in the back.

The other set of foot rests,

which is part of the gunner's seat itself,

the advantage is now my knees have been lifted up not quite

as intruding into the gunner's space.

The downside though is that now my knees are angled over at forty degrees,

and so I'm fighting with my body twisted

and it doesn't strike me as being particularly comfortable

for any length or duration.

To see out, TC isn't doing too badly.

He's got five of these individual vision points around here,

which, if it looks like you're taking fire,

you can actually pull down and it will protect the port.

To his front here he has a binocular or unity sight,

which is adjustable in elevation,

and, in theory, traverse, although this one is a little bit stiff.

He doesn't have any other controls.

He's along for the ride.

No TC's override, he's got some stowage facilities

around him so it looks like a little bit sparse

but otherwise his job is, quite simply, command the tank.

Probably a nice relief for T-34 Commanders

who used to have to do multiple duty

in earlier versions of the tank.

Other than that, the only thing I can really say is that if I've got no gunner,

I can stretch my legs out

and I can still control the turret and get her around.

Not really a three man crew because you've got no sight

but it's comfortable.

The better way to control the gun, of course,

is from the gunner's seat, so that's where I'll go next.

That was easy.

So this is an example of elegance in operation:

it's a crude tank but it can also be elegant.

So you sit and here and you go

'Well, where is the control for the powered traverse'

because, obviously you've got manual traverse,

you have manual elevation.

Where is powered traverse?

Because, ordinarily, there would be another set of controls.

Well, no, not in this -

they saved space.

All you do is move the manual control to the top left,

pull out the handle and now you're in a powered traverse mode.

It's not precise, but it's a lot faster than cranking.

So, if I try spinning to the right…

POWER!

Alright, so similarly, going back,

again note how there's momentum in the turret,

it continues to spin even after I go back to the zero position.

So this is a case of traversing quickly to get roughly on target.

More or less straight, then you go back to manual mode,

and that's how you conduct your final lay and service the target that way.

And again, you saw how fast this thing spins, being a loader,

holding that big 85mm shell, while the turret spins,

unpredictably,

because you don't control it, you want to pay attention.

To engage the target the gunner is supposed to have a TSh-15 sight.

As you can see, it's somewhat missing.

It did have an electric light bulb so you could have an illuminated reticle

for firing at night

and by January of 1945 it came with a heater to prevent it from fogging.

This primary toy is the S-53 85mm cannon.

54.6 calibres in length and it has 56 rounds to play with.

Maximum service range: 5,200 metres.

The gun has two ways of firing, electrical or manual.

The electrical trigger is located on the elevation handle.

The manual trigger is located next to the solenoid here.

It would be a string that you pull and it would release the firing pin.

Just behind the solenoid and manual firing trigger is an elevation quadrant.

You can use this to engage targets at night

if you are firing from a range card for example,

so you can't actually see the target,

you know what the range is.

Or alternatively perhaps, for indirect fire,

although without an azimuth indicator,

at least not a precise one,

I'm not entirely sure how that would be performed.

There is a basic azimuth indicator on the left hand side.

It's a simple pointer.

There is a graduated scale on the inside of the turret ring and

that will give you an approximate way of telling

which way you are facing compared to the hull.

To his front he has selectors for the main gun and the coaxial machine gun.

Curiously, you can have them both on or both off at the same time.

I'm not entirely sure that's how it's supposed to work,

so we'll have main on, and coax off.

The coaxial is a 7.62mm DT

and he has over 1800 rounds of ammunition to play with in drums.

To his left he has a pistol port,

there is another one on the other side of the turret.

You unscrew it, bring it down,

you can then push out the port plug

and engage targets with what was usually a revolver.

It was preferred by the tankers over the semi-auto apparently.

And you just put it back in, lock into place, and off you go.

Last thing on the right hand side.

This is a recoil guard with a travelling position.

So, the release latch would be here, unfortunately,

its locked into place, so I can't release it to demonstrate going up and down.

However, sufficed to say, it can theoretically be done.

Last thing to say for the gunner,

he doesn't have a foot rest of his own

but because he is in control of when the turret traverses,

it's probably less critical.

That's the gunner's side.

Loader next.

Now, we're over on the loader's side

and this is where things start getting a little bit nasty.

For starters, of course, there is no turret baskets

so I'm standing on ammunition boxes which are on the hull floor,

so I've got to be careful as I'm wandering around inside the tank.

I've seen the turret on this thing move under electrical power.

It is actually very fast,

which means you have a tripping and leg-cutting-off hazard for the loader.

Now it is possible for the Loader to have a Loader's seat,

however, I've never ever seen a loader sit in a loader's seat

when performing the loading operation.

It's usually more for road marches or long distance travelling.

So perhaps this is why it isn't in this particular tank,

perhaps the loader just got sick of it being in the way.

He has enough problems of his own to deal with.

As you can see, I'm…

Let me stand up and I can show you how little room I have to stand.

So that shows you where the floor is,

and what kind of angle my legs are on right now.

So, yes, I know I'm taller than most people,

a foot isn't a difference though,

it takes more than a foot and a difference to do this.

You would have to be particularly short to work on this.

The Ammunition, as you can see, is not particularly short.

85mm of course, much stronger than the earlier one.

So once I insert the round in,

it's not going to go in all the way because the breech has been welded up.

But you can see how the back of the round rests on this spring-loaded deflector.

It's is actually a relatively neat little thing here.

What it will do is it will take some of the weight off of the long round

and make it easier for the loader with his left hand,

his weak hand usually, to throw the round in

without also having to support its weight.

Of course it springs up out of the way

to let the empty shell casing fall to the floor,

where the loader can then trip over it.

The loader does have another periscope of his own.

It's of course adjustable in elevation and rotation.

Forward of that is a dome light on the turret roof

mounted over the machine gun -

which I have to say is rather convenient -

if he wants to change ammo belts in the dark.

The loader has sixteen rounds of ready ammunition available to him.

Four are on the turret wall behind him,

and the other twelve are located in the bustle.

The rest of the sixty rounds of 85mm, in the hull.

Now unlike an American Tank which have removable panels

which basically make a false floor,

the T-34-85's ammunition boxes are stowed in the open,

giving an uneven footing for the loader

as he's attempting to navigate his way around inside.

So the astute of you will realise this segment is filmed

in a different tank on a different day.

We had a small incident involving a memory card and the turret monster.

However, this is the bow gunner's position on the T-34,

and I have to say this is rather miserable,

not because it's uncomfortable,

which is my normal complaint about such things,

in fairness, the seat is actually very nice,

and you can see my leg is actually absolutely straight.

I can put both legs absolutely straight into the bow of the tank.

No, what really concerns me more is the fact that he can't see a damn thing.

Your only view of the outside world, except maybe the driver's hatch,

is from this small little hole through

which you shoot your DT machine gun.

Outside of that, you can imagine the noise of battle

and you have no idea what's coming at you.

You just have this small little hole.

Oh, by the way, what happens when you get hit?

Well, there is actually, at my feet a very small escape hatch.

Very small. Still, slightly bigger than the Matilda's I guess.

For his machine gun he's got 22 drums scattered around

in double depth here,

single here and then there is a vertical row

and of course you got one on the gun itself.

Held in place by a very simple travel lock,

just unscrew it a little bit and there you go.

It's very solidly in place.

You almost don't need to put your shoulder up onto it.

You certainly have no need for the shoulder guard here.

Radios if mounted in the hull,

would be in the front right corner here.

However, this particular tank has moved the radio to the bustle.