On tanks and crews, a case example

[tss]

There's now a big debate on bailed out crews in the gamey tactics thread. I just went through one particularly well documented battle, Finnish counter-attack at Kuuterselkä 14.6.1944, to see what did the assault gun crews do after they had to bail out. Approximately one third of the attacking Stug-IIIGs were either knocked out or immobilized, and practically all of the rest were either damaged or had some severe malfunction that hindered their operational use.

The following is the list of stugs with problems, approximately ordered by their damage times:

531-3 Ylik. Hyytiäinen (2 x T-34-85)

Gun hit by a T-34-85, retreated for repairs.

531-19 Ltn. Sartio (4 x T-34-85)

The semi-automatic gun loader malfunctioned, retreated for repairs.

531-4 Kers. Nertamo

The clutch-break steering malfunctioned, retreated for repairs

531-6 Ltn. Aulanko (1 x ISU-152, 2 x T-34-85)

A T-34-85 hit penetrated right upper front armor killing the loader (Paavo Havu). The commander and gunner (Aulanko and korp. Taponen) dismounted and followed the counter attack by foot. The vehicle was sent back to retrieve more ammo and a new loader. It returned back to battle later and the crew remanned it (meanwhile Taponen had destroyed 2 tanks in other stugs). This stug was the last one to retreat from the battle field. Ltn. Aulanko did three trips to front line while footed, trying to find out reliable information. In the final phase of the battle Aulanko once more dismounted and tried to get in contact with the company HQ (the radio had malfunctioned, probably a result of the hit). On this trip he was wounded by artillery fire.

531-5 Alik. Koskiniemi (2 x T-34-85)

Koskiniemi's gunner panicked, jumped out of his hatch, and routed. Koskiniemi spotted Taponen walking along the road and asked him to man the gun. Taponen destroyed one T-34 but then the vehicle fell into a pit and the gun elevation control was jammed. The driver (alik. Pirttinen) managed to get the vehicle out of the pit and retreat out of fire. Koskiniemi then joined Aulanko on his first foot trip to front line but was killed by an artillery barrage. The loader had also come out of the stug and was wounded in eye by a shrapnell. Later, kapt. Kvikant took the vehicle (with damaged gun) after 531-29 was destroyed, and Taponen got one more T-34. The gun was repaired and the stug continued to fight until the end of the battle.

531-7 Alik. Vartio (1 x IS-II, 1 x ISU-152, 2 x T-34-85)

A camouflaged T-34-85 hit the vehicle on top right front corner. The hit didn't penetrate but it destroyed the MG and "some equipment" [i don't know what in particular]. Also, the engine stalled and the driver (psm. Leiponen) couldn't restart it so the crew bailed out. The loader (psm. Solismaa) and the tank commander were wounded by small arms fire while bailing. Both the driver (psm. Leiponen) and the gunner (korpr. Leppänen) were unwounded and retreated from the battle. Later, korpr. Vuorenmaa, the temporary loader of 531-6 managed to start the vehicle again (under enemy fire) and drive it to safety.

539-29 Kapt. Kvikant (1 x ISU-152, 2 x T-34-85)

A direct hit knocked this vehicle out. My sources don't have the exact details. It is possible that it was empty at the time, since no crew member was wounded. Kapt. Kvikant stayed on the area since he was the company commander, the rest of his crew retreated from battlefield. The gunner, alik. Haapamäki was later asked to be the gunner of 531-6 when it returned to front, but korpr. Taponen took the job in the end. Before -29 was destroyed, Taponen manned the gun (his 3rd assault gun in one battle!) for a while and destroyed an ammo truck that had wandered to the battle area.

531-27 Ltn. Myllymaa

An AT gun hit to the top left superstructure, killing the tank commander. The driver (korpr. Tuusa) managed to drive the vehicle away before the gun fired again. The vehicle then retreated.

521-24 Alik. Halonen (1 x IS-II, 2 x T-34-85)

An AT gun hit to right superstructure, wounding the loader (psm. Poskiparta). The tank commander then took the loader's position, observing the situation from loader's hatch. The vehicle didn't receive the order to retreat and it advanced alone several hundreds of meters, destroying three tanks. It was immobilized on a pile of rocks and the crew blew it up with a hand grenade. After doing that, they realised that they had left all weapons in the vehicle and were now unarmed. The driver (psm. Jaakkola) was wounded by a SMG burst and retreated. The tank commander didn't want to leave the battle ground but went to an infantry Major asking for something to do. He took the gunner (psm. Vuorela) with him while Vuorela thought that they had done enough for one battle. The Major sent them to destroy one assault gun (-23) that had been left intact in the no-man's land, but they failed. They then retreated from the battle.

531-17 Kers. Räsänen

Got caught in ambush of two AT guns. First hit destroyed the gearbox immobilizing the vehicle and the second one destroyed the gun. The crew bailed out and Räsänen ignited the self-destruct charge. The gunner (korpr. Hyvämaa) managed to take a SMG with him. The crew then retreated from the battle.

531-?? ylik. Liimata

The clutch-break steering malfunctioned, retreated for repair.

531-20 Kapt. Kumlin

Got hit by 2 AT guns, gun damaged, retreated for repair.

531-?? alik. Hietanen

Bogged in sand, got an engine malfunction while unbogging, retreated for repair.

531-?? alik. Tammisalo

Gun aiming mechanism malfunctioned, retreated for repair.

531-23 maj. Åkerman

Abandoned by crew when a 152 mm artillery round hit in front of it. The crew (except Åkerman who had to command the batallion) retreated from battle. The Soviets captured -23 intact.

531-?? kers. Rastas

Damaged by an AT gun. Loader bailed out and was wounded by a rocket barrage. The vehicle was evacuated for repair.

531-1 kapt. von Troil

The tank commander and the driver (kers. Haikka) were out discussing with ylik. Brotell about the situation when an artillery barrage hit the area and killed Troil and Haikka. The vehicle was then sent back but a HE near-miss cut a track immobilizing it. It couldn't be recovered and apparently sappers blew it up to prevent Soviets from capturing it. The surviving crew members retreated from battle.

Some notes: In CM terms, the assault gun batallion lost three stugs (-29, -17, -7) as knocked out, two were abandoned after immobilization (-24, -1), and one abandoned without a good reason (-23). One of the stugs (-7) could later be recovered. Additionally, six (-3, -6, -27, -24, 20, -??) were damaged by enemy fire. Two of the damaging hits were gun hits.

The number of otherwise malfunctioning vehicles is quite surprising. A total of five (-19, -4, -??, -??, -??) assault guns had to retreat because of malfunctions. Two had problems with steering, two with the gun, and one with engine. Additionally, one vehicle (-5) had a self-inflicted gun trouble but it could stay in battle.

In the end of the battle, only three stugs out of 18 were still in battlefield and two of them (-5, -6) had been somehow damaged. Only Brotell's vehicle (-10) was completely intact.

Of the six knocked-out or abandoned vehicles, five crews left the battle, with the exception that commanding officers (Aulanko, platoon leader, Kvikant, company commander, and Åkerman, batallion commander) stayed in the battle (Åkerman was not even in his vehicle when it was abandoned but was some 100 m away). Also, korpr. Taponen (whose vehicles were not knocked-out at any point) lingered on the battlefield and during the battle served in three different stugs. The one exceptional crew that stayed was alik. Halonen's crew and Halonen was a pretty special case, here's what his gunner Vuorela has later said of their private attack:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

That Halonen, he was a bloody maniac [in Finnish: "sotahullu", literally: "crazed of war"]. He ordered to advance over the ridge and said that there was a good hunting ground on the reverse slope. The driver, Jaakkola, said then that by hell he could drive there but then we wouldn't come back again. I saw a Klim [probably IS-II] crest the ridge and fired. A hit, but with a HE round. The loader had made a mistake. However, few enemy tanks fire back immediately since even a HE will give one hell of a bang. Halonen, who was loading after the real loader was wounded put the last AP round into the barrel, I fired, and it penetrated the Klim Voroshilov. It exploded into fire.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The assault guns knocked out 21 Soviet tanks or assault guns. It is not know how many could be repaired later. The total Soviet armor losses were 40 vehicles that day, according to their casualty report. Some were destroyed by a Ju-88 bombing run and the rest were knocked out with Panzershrecks and -fausts.

- Tommi

[Pvt. Ryan]

That is some very interesting stuff. I can't wait to see how the Stugs do against Soviet armor in CM2.

[Guest Germanboy]

Thanks Tommi, great post. It must be great to have access to all that information. Sometimes I wish I could speak Finnish. Then I usually stop drinking

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[Bastables]

The following detail an unsupported company level attack by 12 Panthers vs. the Regina Rifles in Norrey. ‘The twelve Panthers advanced at speed, as if in an old-fashioned cavalry charge. (This is not unusual for SS Panzer attacks, personal observation) They had no infantry with them and no cover and they were totally unaware that the tanks promised to the Regina’s had arrived at 0515 Hr. SS Sgt Morawetz describes the attack

“ There were almost no fighter-bombers in the air, which was usual for noon-time… We reached completely flat and level terrain, meadows and fields. Half ahead of us lay Norrey…The whole company drove as a body, at high speed and without any stops, in a broad front… after a muffled bang and a swaying, as if the track had been ripped off the vehicle came to a stop. It was quite inside the vehicle. I thought we had driven onto a mine. When I looked left…. I happened to see a turret being torn off the Panzer driving on the left flank. At the same moment, after another minor explosion my vehicle began to burn….. Paul Vithe, the gunner sitting in front of me…… did not move….. I jumped out… then I saw flames coming out of the open hatch as if from a blow torch…. To my left, along the same line of vehicles, other burning panzers…. The crews…. Were burned without exception in their face and hands. In the meantime we had noticed that the whole area was under infantry fire.’ (1997 Reynolds P 81-82)

The only infantry type work the remnants of 3rd SS Panzer Kompanie performed was Sgt Hermani using several grenades to silence a MG position, which had slipped in behind the line of ‘advance’ and had cut off the crews escape route. 33 crew men were wounded, killed or MIA. No mention was made into turning the dismounted crews into infantry support for the remaining mobile 5 Panthers as they all crawled or drove towards their own lines. All everyone wanted to do was to return to the safety of their lines. Neither did any one strip out their MG 34s or MP 40s before abandoning their Panzers, oddly enough.

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Absolutely Shatter, you have been completely misunderstood. When Andreas, Chuppy and Peter posted pictures of themselves at the IWM I took the earliest opportunity to complement Chuppy on how hot he looked in that T-shirt. Of course the next time an appropriate thread about the front bogey wheel on the Matilda II came up I skillfully insinuated a subtle remark about what a spunk PeterNZ was and a redhead too!

But alas, shatter, everyone thought I was a dickhead as well.

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Muddying the waters as usual.

by Simon Fox

Mr T says "I pity the foo!"

[tss]

The battle of Kuuterselkä gives also some insight on accuracy of official kill figures. The above figure of 21 kills is based on post-war compilation of different accounts. The official figure was lower, 18. On 9 July (almost a month after the battle) General Lagus, commander of the division, awarded tank-destroyer's badges to the following gunners:

- Olof Lagus, 4 kills (correct, and yes, he was the general's son)

- Veikko Haapamäki, 3 kills (correct)

- Lauri Leppänen, 3 kills (one too few, however, he was awarded two kills from the Portinhoikka battle instead of correct one, so in the end his total figure of 5 kills was correct)

- Toivo Juomoja, 3 kills (completely wrong, he wasn't even a gunner at the time)

- Sulo Vuorela, 3 kills (correct)

- Oiva Savela, 2 kills (correct)

Interestingly, Olavi Taponen didn't get any credits, though he destroyed 5 vehicles in the battle. Three of his kills were credited to Juomoja and two were not credited at all. The main reason for this seems to be that there was no one left to correct the figures when they came. Aulanko was wounded and Koskiniemi killed at Kuuterselkä, Kvikant was killed several days later, and Taponen himself was wounded at Portinhoikka, after destroying three more T-34s. After the Kuuterselkä battle, Taponen was made the tank commander of -6, and Juomoja came as a replacement gunner (though Taponen manned the gunner's bench himself at Portinhoikka). When the battle data was collected, someone probably remembered that Aulanko's -6 destroyed three tanks. As Juomoja was by then its gunner, the credits were awarded to him.

There are also some other cases where rewards go to wrong people, by a honest mistake (forged or beautified reports are a different case). For example, the former President of Finland Mauno Koivisto was awarded a VM 2 ("Freedom's Medal, class 2") for his bravery in combat, in particular in the battle of ... Oh dear, I forgot what battle it was. However, he has himself stated that he wasn't in the battle at all. He was on a two-day, three-man contact patrol. He was usually a (self-appointed) LMG gunner but had taken a SMG with him to the patrol because it was lighter. It seems that the unknown guy who fought with the LMG performed well in combat but the usual gunner got the reward.

That particular LMG is now in the Finnish War Museum. It was found several years ago from a hidden weapon cache in a forest. The company commander (Lauri Törni, later Larry Thorne) and one of his platoon leaders had hidden several automatic weapons and ammo because they feared that Soviets would try to occupy the country. The LMG could be identified to be Koivisto's weapon because his red handkerchief was still in the stock. This particular LMG was probably chosen because it wasn't in official books since Koivisto had taken it from a dead Russian, IIRC.

- Tommi