Then why did so many T-34/85 get lost while trying to flank Tigers? After all they could have stayed at long distance and sniped the Tigers on equal footing.
The 85mm was introduced to narrow the gap in the firepower of German and Russian tanks, not close it. Actually the lighter models like StuG and Panzer IV gave Soviets a headache because they had a way superior weapon to the 76mm. Thus the 85mm was introduced. Also: A chance of penetrating on close range is better than not penetrating at all. The 85mm was used because it could be mounted on the T-34 chassis, not because it was so superb. (Hell, maybe that was the reason those ridiculous test results were published. Try to explain to Stalin that you can only mount an average gun on the vehicle, that struggles versus the heavies.)
It´s referring to the "non-mantlet" part of the turret, which is that spot marked red (the small edges) on this picture - which pretty much means the Panther was almost impervious frontally to that gun - as the article states. The mantlet was thick enough.
Where do you get information that many t-34/85s died flanking tigers? Why are those test results ridiciluos? Every single source i found links to that the t-34/85 gun penetration was exactly 100mm at 1000 meters, except wikipedia... The panzer IV wasn't really all that well armored (it had 50mm armor and only in 1943 did it upgrade it's hull to 80mm and still had that 50mm on the turret .
The stug had 80mm worth of armor, and the t-34/76 did struggle againts, but could penetrate it at 500m, just like it could penetrate the side armor of the tiger at 500m.
The t-34/76 had around 70mm worth of armor on the turret and the sloped armor translated to 70mm worth of armor on the hull.
Yes, the panther did have the advantage over the t-34/85, but to be fair, panther was more of a heavy tank than it is a medium tank.
And it's not to say that the t-34/85s armor was crap, either, it had 90mm worth of armor on the turret, pretty good for a medium tank.
And answer to jaigens post, yes the t-34/85 was indeed created to counter tigers. Not panthers, but tigers, soviets did not know about the panther when creating the t-34/85mm. If you want a counter to the panther, IS-2, isu-152 or su-100 work well.
This is very usefull
http://www.wwiiequipment.com/pencalc/