Questions re the Soviet T-34.

[Sigrun]

One rather gets the impression the German attack into Russia in June of 1941, at least initially, was a cake-walk against Soviet bean-cans. Then, suddenly, up popped the T-34 and KV-1 series of tanks and the Panzers got a bloody nose.

When did the Germans first encounter the T-34 and KV-1 in any meaningful way? When did they first cause a significant problem? It looks like over 1000 T-34s were produced in 1941, but they don't seem to have caused the German advance much of a problem. What were the Panzers killing in June 1941, with their MkIII's 50mms?

The reason I'm asking is that somebody has pointed out my war's Barbarossa will go tits-up if I allow un-restricted availibility of the T-34 to the Soviets in June 1941.

[ August 28, 2006, 11:10 AM: Message edited by: Sigrun ]

[JasonC]

T-34s were encountered in strength (100s) in the border fighting in AG South in early July, just two weeks into the war.

They had a momentary tactical effect, halting one German prong for about 3 days. Another went behind them and the entire force they were a part of evaporated in place, anyway.

The Russian mech arm was completely broken in 1941, summer and fall. Mech corps of 1000 tanks are launched into attacks at appropriate points along the line, and they evaporate on contact. Within typically 3 days they are down to the strength of a single western armor battalion.

Combat had little to do with this. CSS did not exist. (That stands for combat service and support). Meaning, there was no fuel, there were no repair facilities, there were no parts, there were no mechanics. Not insufficient, none. Corps commanders complain that they lost their force to swamps. What that means is they drove down the wrong road, and ran out of gas turning columns around.

It was one of the great cluster frumps of all time.

The Russians responded by abolishing the pre-war mech corps as a formation. It had had 1000 armored vehicles and at least as many trucks at TOE, but they were uncommandable, uncoordinate-able, and unsuppliable, under Russian 1941 conditions.

Instead they went to using individual tank brigades of around 50 vehicles. Which could actually be managed and maneuvered. The first of those started acting effectively on the lunge to Moscow after the battle of Kiev. They still had teething pains. By the battle of Moscow everything was brigades, but the weather didn't help readiness states, and the victory there was primarily an infantry affair (including off road mobile groups from cavalry and ski brigades etc).

Tank specs are negatively corelated with operational outcomes. Meaning, they were never decisive or even particularly important. The Germans romped in light IIIs and 38s when the Russians had the best tanks, and the Russians romped on T-34/76s and T-70s after the Germans started getting Tigers and Panthers, and before the Russians got their improved stuff to counter them.

Operational factors dominate tactical factors. Utterly. Good luck getting your sim to show that.

As for how the Germans dealt with Russian heavies in 1941. The Germans went into Russia with as many heavy tank killers as the Russians had heavy tanks. They just weren't on tanks. They were towed guns. 88 Flak, 105 Kannon, 150mm howitzers, and 105mm field guns firing HEAT as it became available. They also started to get 50L60s towed in the Panzerjaegers long before they dominated the vehicle fleet.

PAK front tactics worked against armor when armor-artillery cooperation was poor, as it was in all the early-war allied armies. Rommel beat French tanks in 1940 with PAK fronts, and British ones in the western desert, and Germans beat Russian tanks in 1941 with gun fronts too.

The panzers used "hail fire" when they encountered limited numbers of heavies, simply putting a whole company on single enemy vehicle, and wrecking it even without penetrations. This only worked tactically because the Russians practically never had a full sized formation of heavies on the field. Where they did, the Germans didn't duel them, they pulled back behind a gun front and penetrated elsewhere with the armor.

What were the Germans hitting with their 50L42 Pz IIIs? Infantry, mostly using the MGs. The odd gun, many on few, and frequently with artillery or mortars suppressing the gunners beforehand.

The T-26s were so numerous that some were running, but they also broke down if you looked at them funny. Many were used emplaced as bunkers. The BTs were marginally better, but on a road march of 150 miles easily half of them fell out. And instead of being repaired in 24-48 hours as they would have been in a western army, they were abandoned by their crews and permanently lost.

Visualize rusting buckets of junk strewn across every road in western Russia.

Having obsolete tanks made the existing decent ones less effective than if the former hadn't existed, because they took the gas and the road space and the coordination efforts of the commanders and swamped the services such as they were, etc.

The Russian tank fleet falls by half in the first 2-3 weeks, and by half more by the start of the fall. Nowhere do they have an operational impact, and nowhere does a mech corps survive contact for more than 72 hours as anything more than a cadre.

The operational relationship was, German mech corps of 500 tanks hits Russian rifle division and blows through it in hours, then romps across the Russian operational rear. Multiple Russian mech corps of 1000-2000 tanks hit single German PDs or IDs and *evaporate*.

The Russians couldn't believe it either. It is why their plans all failed. They took to using infantry armies instead because those were still on the map a week after an attack order.

[ August 28, 2006, 10:01 AM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Sigrun]

Thanks Jason, that was a superlative reply, painted the entire gig in my mind like a picture.

It's obviously not going to be possible to replicate the operational circumstances attendant to Barbarossa, so I guess I'll have to abstract them somewhat with restrictions on the use of the T-34 and KV-1 for the first month of fighting. After that it'll be gloves off I'm afraid and vJerry will have to put up with a far more formidable vIvan than the real chaps did.

Thanks again for that most excellent summation.