Ivan's War stat?

[76mm]

Hi, just finished reading the book IVAN'S WAR by Catherine Merridale. Overall pretty disappointing, in that it is not really military history.

In any event, on page 215 (of the hard-cover edition), she says: "Of the 403,272 tank soldiers (including a small number of women) who were trained by the Red Army in the war, 310,000 would die." She cites "Erickson, THE SYSTEM, p. 239"

I find these numbers--that 3 of 4 Red Army tankers were KILLED during the war (?)--very difficult to believe.* Can anyone shed any light on this, or does anyone have the source that she cites?

*Actually, read another way, I would say that ALL of the 403,272 tankers "would die"--just not necessarily during the war.

[JasonC]

More likely, the figure refers to casualties of all kinds, and the author made the typical mistake of conflating all casualties with KIAs. As a total causalties figure, the number if perfectly believeable. The Russians produced 102,000 tanks during the war and ended with around 30,000.

[76mm]

JasonC, thanks for the response. Even a 75% casualty rate (including killed and wounded) is much higher than I would have expected, but it does track with the vehicle stats that you cite. Just curious--any idea how these figures correspond to casualty figures for other fronts/armies?

[Mad Russian]

Originally posted by 76mm:

JasonC, thanks for the response. Even a 75% casualty rate (including killed and wounded) is much higher than I would have expected, but it does track with the vehicle stats that you cite. Just curious--any idea how these figures correspond to casualty figures for other fronts/armies?

102,000 tanks produced, with 30,000 remaining at the end of the war, does not correspond to 75% crew casualties. Many of those tanks were hit and repaired numerous times, and that is what produces an overall casualty rate of 75%.

Tanks recovered and repaired are also what causes German tank kill numbers to be much higher than actual manufactured numbers. A fact that escapes many people on these forums.

[JasonC]

Some tanks are repaired and used twice, others break down mechanically without every being KOed in battle. One entry accounting always tries to pretend the first happens but the second doesn't for one side, and the opposite for the other side. Why? Trying to force apart exchange ratios to defend nationalist horsefeathers, mostly. There is no rational reason for it. So every T-34 is supposed to be KOed four times, while only half of German tanks were ever KOed at all. It is just rot.

[76mm]

While I agree that it is possible for vehicle and crew casualty % to diverge significantly, I think they they would tend to track each other: Just as not every tank destroyed is not written off completely, not every destroyed tank results in 100% crew casualties.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Panther Commander:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by 76mm:

JasonC, thanks for the response. Even a 75% casualty rate (including killed and wounded) is much higher than I would have expected, but it does track with the vehicle stats that you cite. Just curious--any idea how these figures correspond to casualty figures for other fronts/armies?

102,000 tanks produced, with 30,000 remaining at the end of the war, does not correspond to 75% crew casualties. Many of those tanks were hit and repaired numerous times, and that is what produces an overall casualty rate of 75%.

Tanks recovered and repaired are also what causes German tank kill numbers to be much higher than actual manufactured numbers. A fact that escapes many people on these forums. </font>

[JasonC]

No it doesn't appear low. Also, most tank KOs did not result in anything like a total crew KO. Casualties per KO run about 2-3 where unit level stats are available, with most of them WIA not KIA. If you look for instance at casualties in US armor battalions, you find they lose high two digits killed over their service life, low 3 digits wounded, while turning over their tank strength. Russian tank losses and production were quite close, as LL about matches the net change from start of the war to the end.

[Mad Russian]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Some tanks are repaired and used twice, others break down mechanically without every being KOed in battle. One entry accounting always tries to pretend the first happens but the second doesn't for one side, and the opposite for the other side. Why? Trying to force apart exchange ratios to defend nationalist horsefeathers, mostly. There is no rational reason for it. So every T-34 is supposed to be KOed four times, while only half of German tanks were ever KOed at all. It is just rot.

It is hard to find the number of times vehicles were hit and repaired. There are some indications though in the personal histories of tank crews/commanders. I would think that there could easily have been an overall average of a tank being hit and repaired at least once. AN OVERALL AVERAGE. That would mean that a hit vehicle would be counted twice on average, and more important for this discussion, two crews would have been affected.

Jasons reference to less than half a crew being casualties on a disabling hit is pretty well documented by the Americans and as he says, there is no reason to believe that other nations vehicle crews suffered worse results than American Sherman crews.

Some tanks are repaired and used twice, others break down mechanically without every being KOed in battle. One entry accounting always tries to pretend the first happens but the second doesn't for one side, and the opposite for the other side. Why? Trying to force apart exchange ratios to defend nationalist horsefeathers, mostly. There is no rational reason for it. So every T-34 is supposed to be KOed four times, while only half of German tanks were ever KOed at all. It is just rot.

It may be rot, but far more vehicles were disabled do to mechanical breakdown than you give them credit for. It has your contention in past posts that tanks rarely broke down in a combat zone and the greater number losses were by combat means.

That is rot to me. A tank may only be KO'd once in it's lifetime, but may breakdown multiple times. Maintenance records don't support your position. Not all of those broke down in the rear areas.

What is rot is that only Allied, or Axis tanks broke down that often. Tanks are tanks, are tanks, in that respect. Some were better than others but WWII track life alone had tanks unavailable for commitment. Death Traps, I believe, gives an example of their being a spark plug shortage and large numbers of American tanks were unserviceable until replacements arrived.

[JasonC]

PC - you misrepresent my thesis and past arguments. It is my contention that battlefield knockouts and AFVs lost are pretty close, not because there are no breakdowns and no repeated KOs of some, but because they work in opposite directions and are roughly equal in magnitude.

Yes there are tanks that are used twice as it were, in the sense of a battlefield KO repaired and battlefield KOed again. But there are also a roughly equal number - in all armies - that fall out without ever being battlefield KOed.

As a result, there is no reason to expect battlefield KOs and actual, eventual losses to differ greatly. Not by fixed multiples, whether 2 or 4. By 10s of percent, with variation, sure, no doubt. The other entries in "tank accounting" going in both directions are a noise term between battlefield knockouts and tanks out of action. They are not a lever between them.

As for what I have contended about the relation of battle damage to maintenance, it is almost the opposite of what you represent me has saying. I have stressed in the past that one frequently sees very large declines in the "operational" category in the first few days of combat, and that much of this must represent actual battle damage of the less than KO variety. Not mere mechanical breakdown.

Mechanical breakdown is frequently aggreviated by minor battle damage (to tracks and roadwheels, to suspensions, to engines and fuel systems, leaks, etc), cumulative wear, and the like. The bright line that wargamers would dearly love to draw between direct hit-n-kills and purely automotive repair issues, does not exist in reality. Because tanks drive through artillery barrages and take repeated less than killing hits from direct fire weapons. Toyotas don't.

Thus, when someone records a tank as "abandoned by crew", this does not mean enemy action had nothing to do with it.

Incidentally, similar issues arise with manpower and human casualties. Men are reused in war, every bit as much as equipment. Wounds outnumber deaths typically by a factor of 4, with some variation for medical conditions and immediate battle aftermath (who gets the field etc). Some of those are debilitating and end the war for that soldier. A solid half, though, mean a little time in hospital and a return to the front.

But again this is only one side of the ledger. Men also fall out from disease and other non-combat injuries and ailments. WW I was the first in history in which battlefield injuries outnumbered disease losses - and not by a large margin in many armies. The tempo of action tends to determine the ratio between battle and non-battle losses, but it approaches 1 to 1 at times.

Take both into account, and the number of battlefield casualties an army can take - along with non-battle losses - before a permanent drawdown of 20%, say, might be 30% of strength or it might be only 20%, but it won't be 40 or 50.

[LongLeftFlank]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Because tanks drive through artillery barrages and take repeated less than killing hits from direct fire weapons. Toyotas don't.

Except, of course, for the marvelous Toyota Hilux pickup, bane of the Libyan T-55s in Chad (1984, when paired with TOWs), and of the Russians in Afghanistan (as an all-terrain, and I mean ALL terrain transport).

[JasonC]

Touche.

Some other anecdotes on losses, battle damage, repairs, "churn", etc.

The 11th and 19th PDs in the battle of Kursk each report an average of 4 tanks per day return from the workshops, during the periods they were fighting actively.

Here is a (frankly, stunning) description of the affairs of the 503rd Tiger battalion, which supported AD Kempf on the right part of the southern attack. The day before the battle they have 38 operational Tigers and 2 in repair.

"There is a report to the Corps that states that on the 5th that 13 out of 14 Tigers in one company (the one attached to the 19th PzD) were lost that had just begun an attack. 9 were lost

to mine damage, 8 being friendly minefields. The cause of the other 4 losses are not reported."

Not the usual picture.

"The next report we have for this unit is the loss report of 7/08, which states that on the 5th thru the 7th, it lost 25 tanks, 2 of them total."

"On the 8th a message was sent to the 3rd Pz corps stating that the batttalion begun on the 5th with 39 Tigers, 5 were returned to service on the 6th. From 5th through the 8th there were a total of 34 losses requiring more than 8 hours to correct. Of these, 7 were from enemy fire, 16

from mines, 9 were due to technical problems. 2 were burned out."

And what do they record as Tigers lost? Why 2, of course.

And reasonably, because many of the mine damage "losses" were simple immobilizations that were readily corrected. They got as high as 33 Tigers running again afterword. Then it falls to 23, then 19, then 6, then 9. With 2 companies held out doing nothing but try to repair their tanks, and one supporting a single PD with one company of 9 Tigers.

But do they record additional losses? Only one.

"There is a message from 3rd Pz Corps to Corps Raus stating that a disabled Tiger is near Krutoi Log. Despite many attempts to tow it, it cannot be towed. Permission is requested to have

engineers destroy the tank - 100 kg of explosive is needed."

That's what it takes to make a quarter of a million Reichmarks a TWO. Oh and you have to get permission, too.

[Becket]

Originally posted by JasonC:

More likely, the figure refers to casualties of all kinds, and the author made the typical mistake of conflating all casualties with KIAs. As a total causalties figure, the number if perfectly believeable. The Russians produced 102,000 tanks during the war and ended with around 30,000.

It is dangerous for me to mess around with statistics. But what strikes me here is that of the 102,000 or so produced (consisting with what I red in Colossus Reborn on a Friday train trip), I believe only 57,000 or so are T-34s.

What would be very interesting is to know of the 30,000 remaining, how many are T-34s. Or, put differently, to see the produced/remaining tallies for the major Soviet vehicles. I'm guessing that almost all of BT series, T-26, KV-1, KV-2 tanks were destroyed and that's a large part of the figure. My gut instinct is that given the necessities of the early war period and the mid-war through the Kursk counteroffensives (no radios, poorly trained tankists), few of the pre-44 T-34s survived, but I've never seen any data on this.

It would be very interesting to see how the T-34/85 & IS-2 fared, as they were deployed after the pendulum had swung irrevocably the other direction.

As a last random note, I wonder if there is any hard data on the performance of the Lend Lease Lee in terms of received/destroyed and total crew / total casulties. Was the "grave for five brothers" moniker supported by actual experience?

[JasonC]

Losses exceeded production by a long way in 1941, and the old pre-war fleet evaporated. Half of it was already gone by the middle of July - never really serviceable, or lost in the first retreats as unable to keep up. Tanks fell out for trivial maintenance issues and were simply abandoned. Supply was chaotic to nonexistent, leading to wholesale abandonments for simply want to fuel, etc.

In front of Moscow, the fleet is at its nadir, transitioning to current production almost exclusively - meaning a mix of T-34s and T-60s, soon T-70s, in place of the pre war lights.

In 1942, production exceeds losses by a long way, and the fleet expands again, to nearly the prewar size. With a vastly improved mix, roughly half T-34s, 40% or so lights (T-60 and T-70), the remainder lend lease and a few KVs.

For the rest of the war, production and losses run about even, so the fleet turns over each year, basically. Only 1945 is an exception, with losses falling while production expands a bit. There is a last growth spurt in the fleet at the end because of it, but frankly a fair portion of that are tanks that just get made too late to matter for the war.

So later on, you can figure the fleet will look like the production mix of about 6 months prior. Dragged from the 50-50 T-34 and light starting point of late 1942.

The lights are replaced by SU-76s in the later war, though the T-70s hang around into 1943. (1944 is the big year in SU-76 production). Heavies and better SUs expand a bit, raising the overall average weight. And T-34/85s partially replace the T-34/76s - by summer 1944 they are quite common, though 76s are still around.

It ends with something like 50% of the fleet improved types, the worse half still 76mm armed, split between older T-34s and newer SU-76s. So around 15-20% heavies or ISUs or improved SUs (85, 100, etc), 30-35% T-34/85s, 20-25% remaining T-34/76s, 25-30% light SUs.

All approximate, understand.

[Locksley]

Hi Jason

Just a quick note,

How the hell do you know all this?!!? You seem to speak with such authority and seeming sense I don't doubt a word, you should be congratulated on your incredible depth of knowledge on the subject!

(haha, just reread not intended to sound quite so brown nosing!)

[JasonC]

Long debates with other grogs on the general progress of the war in the east, attrition's role in that progress, and the like. Lots of people research and advance useful facts in the course of those. I remember them. Places like this, also the Dupuy Institute. Long reading of various military histories. Trolling the web, everyone's sites, sometimes for scenario design purposes, sometimes just curious. Playing every wargame on the subject for 25 years. It adds up.

[Bigduke6]

I think Jason has the numbers pretty much right on the break-down (yep, that word choice was intentional) of the Soviet tank fleet, but I'll make a few qualifications.

On the subject of T-34/76 to T-34/85 mix, I've read that the ratio was roughly 1:2 as of Bagratian in June-July 1944 - pay attention here -in the top-of-the-line Tank and Shock Armies. This means I'm not disagreeing with Jason as he is talking entire fleet, and I am talking the Tank and Shock Armies, and for this paragraph anyway the ratio of T-34/76 to T-34/85.

The point I want to make here is that in the major battles and campaigns the Soviets unsurprisingly concentrated their better armor. I think this is worth bearing in mind when designing an armor-heavy late-war scenario.

Thus, if a designer were to make a February '45 scenario depicting, say, leading-edge combat in Silesia or Prussia, and he were to give the Soviet side vehicles in ratios Jason just listed for the entire fleet (basically, half 76mm) I would take issue with that. From everything I have seen at the the leading edge the Soviets concentrated their better tanks and assault guns.

By way of anecdote there are Katiukov's memoirs (1st Guards Tank Army), where he writes about the first T-34/85s going into combat in about April '44 (and without familiarization training either), at a time when the Red Army was pretty much wholly equipped with 76mm. Point being: 1st Guards Tank was at the top of the supply feeding chain, they got the good stuff first.

I've seen a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest the 76mm/85mm ratio for T-34s was something like 1:6 and maybe 1:8 by the Spring '45 offensives, again, in these favored units , the Tank and Shock Armies. For practical purposes, and speaking generally, once the Red Army was in Germany its main tank formations were equipped wholly with T-34/85.

This doesn't count for Sherman-equipped units, naturally. There was a similar changeover from 75mm to 76mm in progress, but from what I have been able to gather it looks like the first 76mm Shermans were fielded in Fall '44, and the ratio was very roughly 50/50 as of January '45. If any one can point me to more information on the subject I'd appreciate it. I've seen the raw Lend-Lease numbers; what I'm trying to figure out is how that worked out in the combat units.

Back to T-34s. By the European war's end a T-34/76 in a first-line unit in Germany was extraordinary and remarked on. There is a fairly well-known anecdote about a couple of T-34/76 serving out the war in Europe, and then participating in the invasion of Manchuria.

The qualification here is that the less-favored units, meaning the infantry armies and second-echelon-forces, were not as well equipped. It is an iron-clad fact the Soviets never threw equipment away if they could avoid it.

For instance, I would be very surprised if the Karelian Front every saw T-34/85 at all, that was a low priority front and in any case the opponents were Finns capable of using sticks and pine cones to destroy hundreds of T-34s regardless of cannon caliber, so why waste the good T-34s on the Finns?

Something I noticed about assault guns, and I can't document this properly, but...Ok, the standard operational tank unit the Soviets used in the last 1/3 of the war was a tank Corps, which was 2-3 brigades of tanks, 1 brigade of motor rifle infantry, and among other things - this is the interesting bit - 2 and later 3 regiments of assault guns. By 1944 it was generally 3, again in the top-end formations like, say, 1st Ukrainian Front.

Ok, what was the equipment of these three assault gun regiments? Well, if you look it up (russian battlefield, mkka.ru) the standard answer seems to be 1 regt with Su-76m, 1 regt with Su-85, and 1 regt with Su-152.

However, if you check out the regimental lists (I used mkka.ru) it turns out that at least sometimes what supposedly was an Su-76 regiment, actually had Su-85. My theory is that as time went on the more favored formations - and the Guard Tank Corps and Guard Tank Armies absolutely qualify - pushed the supply system and got themselves assigned heavier assault guns as the war wore on, and the Germans fielded heavier and heavier armor.

Like I say, I've no real grounds for this theory except that I've back-checked the equipment in a few of the Tank Armies late war, and more than once where there's evidence it points to an assault gun regiment supposedly equipped with 76mm, and apparently equippped with 85mm. Any one who can point me to more details, thanks.

[Andreas]

The Polish Tank Brigade 'Heros of the Westerplatte' used T34/76 well into the battle for Danzig.

BT-7 (an uparmoured and re-engined version from what I have read) were apparently used by Leningrad front in 1944, and pretty certainly in Manchuria in 1945.

There are also reports that T60 were still used in Leningrad in 1944, and IIRC the history of Stug Brigade 276 mentions T70 in Poland in 1944.

It was a big war, a lot of things were possible, and freakish outliers did occur (e.g. it is entirely imaginable that BT-7 battled Somua S-35 on the Leningrad approaches in February 1944) but I agree with Stefan on what a standard assault group should look like.

BTW Stefan ITBEv4 is now on TPG.

All the best

Andreas

[JasonC]

The Russians used a lot of independent armor formations. The heavy tanks were pretty much all in special tank regiments, which is quite a small unit, typically 21 vehicles. Similarly with the SUs, a "regiment" of those was only 16 vehicles (occasionally 20). The former were generally attached to tank corps, the latter were attached to the mobile formations but also just spread around at army level.

SU-76 regiments in particular were frequently assigned to an ordinary army and by it down to an ordinary rifle division, sometimes concentrated to support a single one of its regiments and give it some additional attack ability.

There were also independent tank regiments of lend lease tanks, some of them not at all heavy - Valentines were used well into 1944, for instance.

Independent tank brigades were more common and had more typical Russian equipment. These were assigned to armies, including some Guards and Shock ones but also one each to plenty of plain vanilla rifle armies - which typically had 7 or so rifle divisions, often understrength. These independent tank brigades kept older organizations for longer than the tank corps. Meaning, some were mixed mediums and lights long after the big specialist units had dropped their lights. That is a place you'd see lingering T-70s, for example. And the bulk of the fighting power of these independent brigades stayed T-34/76s right to the end of the war.

So the real dividing line was Mech parent division type or Infantry parent division type. In the latter, you were overwhelmingly likely to see 76mm armed types, right to the end. Either from T-34/76s in an independent armor brigade, the only tank force in the army, or from SU-76s stiffening the line RDs.

The organizational purpose of all the layered different ways of parcelling out armor was to put the combined arms force mix decision in the hands of army commanders - much higher than it typically was decided in other armies. So they'd decide sector A was quiet and leave an unreinforced RD to screen that area with only its organic guns. Then decide enemy armor might threaten sector B, and so put a towed ATG brigade with the next couple of RDs in that sector. And in sector C, another RD would attack supported by the only tank brigade, with a second line RD behind it ready to exploit, with an SU-76 regiment attached to it. And then in sector D, a single RD would screen another long sector with favorable terrain, where they would stand on the defensive.

The resulting force mix in CM terms as you scan along the line, would be thin infantry only with MGs and mortars and limited light artillery support, then thicker infantry with full batteries of ZIS-3s on map as well and better arty, but still infantry force type, then a combined arms force type with infantry parent division featuring a platoon of T-34s or 2-4 SU-76s on a typical map, maybe another wave like it reinforcing during the scenario, and then another screen like the first, perhaps thinner on the arty to reflect limited range not covering everything (or e.g. 82mm mortar support instead of 120mm).

You don't get one average in a single fight, you get it over multiple kinds of fights.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Andreas:

BT-7 (an uparmoured and re-engined version from what I have read) were apparently used by Leningrad front in 1944, and pretty certainly in Manchuria in 1945.

There are also reports that T60 were still used in Leningrad in 1944, and IIRC the history of Stug Brigade 276 mentions T70 in Poland in 1944.

And Soviet Karelian Front lost some T-26's in the battle of Ilomantsi in late summer 1944.

[rune]

JasonC,

Also do not forget the lendlease tanks that were lost. A grant could have 7 casualties in one loss. You can correct these figures, as they are from memory, and I am getting old.

USA 3734 Tanks

Britain 4292 Tanks

Canada 1188 Tanks

SO about 10,000 tanks, but am not sure how many of these were lost in combat.

Rune

[Bigduke6]

Andreas,

anything is possible

You got that right, one of those SU regiments (something like the 1419th, but that's not the exact number I can look it up again if any one's interested) was apparently equipped with StuGs.

(Downloading the scenario...WOAH...GREAT MAP!)

Originally posted by Andreas:

The Polish Tank Brigade 'Heros of the Westerplatte' used T34/76 well into the battle for Danzig.

BT-7 (an uparmoured and re-engined version from what I have read) were apparently used by Leningrad front in 1944, and pretty certainly in Manchuria in 1945.

There are also reports that T60 were still used in Leningrad in 1944, and IIRC the history of Stug Brigade 276 mentions T70 in Poland in 1944.

It was a big war, a lot of things were possible, and freakish outliers did occur (e.g. it is entirely imaginable that BT-7 battled Somua S-35 on the Leningrad approaches in February 1944) but I agree with Stefan on what a standard assault group should look like.

BTW Stefan ITBEv4 is now on TPG.

All the best

Andreas

[JasonC]

Rune - several thousand were lost en route and never reached Russia. Overall there was a modest increase in the Russian fleet size, pre war to May 1945, roughly the same amount as actually received LL. So their losses and production were basically equal for the war as a whole.