An Idiot's Guide to Vehicles and Weapons

[Tux]

As a basic rule, by the way, the SU-76 will kill any german tank less than a Tiger from the flank or rear. Hide it behind elevated terrain, buildings or patches of trees and pop it out to shoot at tanks when you are guaranteed a flank shot. Against multiple tanks use 'shoot and scoot' to avoid getting hit in return - the SU-76 won't survive long against pretty much any calibre of tank gun.

Alternatively, you can position it so that it has a restricted view of the battlefield, ideally from the flank ('keyholing'). This allows it to take on enemy units a few (preferably one) at a time, reducing the opportunities the enemy get to respond.

Erm, what else...? Unless you have Tungsten ('T') ammo you're best avoiding Tigers and King Tigers altogether. Avoid any AFV from head on. Basically just fight dirty with the thing: Hide it, ambush tanks from the flank or rear, kill them quickly and then move the SU away, out of LOS of the enemy.

The way I became half-decent at using thin SPGs against enemy tanks was, ironically, to avoid the latter like the plague. I went to extreme lengths not to get my SPGs shot at, let alone hit. The instant an enemy tank fires at your thinly-armoured SPG you have lost control of its fate - its survival depends on chance. Become good at keeping your SPGs alive first, then you can start choosing opportunities to snatch flank shots at enemy tanks, always remembering to break contact before they have a chance to respond. Before you know it you will have found out for yourself exactly what they can and can't handle.

Not entirely incidentally, I did the same thing when learning to use tanks. The only real difference is the tanks' ability to shrug off certain AP rounds, which means you can be a bit more coarse when you're pushing them around the battlefield. Again though, by making keeping them alive a priority you will very quickly learn what they can and can't handle.

[John Kettler]

beady,

The SU-76 came into being because the Russians had a production line for an otherwise practically useless tank, the T-70, and needed something more powerful to compete on the battlefield. There was no way to upgun the tank as a tank (turret ring too small), so the ever pragmatic Russians, who practically pioneered the SPG concept, took a proven, hard-hitting DP gun, the ZIS-3, and mounted it in a lightly armored superstructure. This kept AFV production up at a time when numbers were critical. The SU-76i rose from the same urgent need, only relied this time on several hundred Panzer III chassis. When better protected gun tanks and SUs became available, and heavier German armor more common, the SU-76 was pulled from the front line and placed in a trailing position, where it functioned in a mop up role during offensives. For details, please see Milsom, RUSSIAN TANKS 1917-1970. The SU-76 is the Russian equivalent to the Marder and is, in the eloquent words of one of our members, an eggshell with a hammer.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

A short 76mm hardly qualifies as a hammer. Maybe a nerf hammer.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

Are we talking about the same gun? An L/51.6 isn't a "short gun" where I come from, let alone a nerf weapon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_divisional_gun_M1942_(ZiS-3)

We're talking about a gun 10 calibers longer (L/51.6 vs L/41.6) than the standard gun on the mature T-34 models, the F34!

http://www.battlefield.ru/content/category/6/33/49/lang,en/

The Wiki here confirms that I got the SU-76 armament right, too, and gives some useful background on the weapon and its use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SU-76

For contrast, here're the stats and history on the earlier F-22 Russian divisional gun and the German amping up program via chamber reboring and new ammo. The PaK-36®, as you know, figured prominently in the Marder and other parts of the German antitank effort, after first bloodying the Germans as the dreaded Rutch Boom before said improvements!

Regards,

John Kettler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76-mm_divisional_gun_M1936_%28F-22%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62_cm_PaK_36(r)

Suggest you rethink your position on this issue.

[JasonC]

It is a nerf gun, and no the German version of it isn't remotely the same. The Germans put a much longer round in it with about 70% more powder achieving 50% more muzzle velocity and with it penetrating power. The Russian version was fine as an HE chucker, but by the 1943 time frame and after in which is was fielded, it was barely able to hurt the lower end of the German armor fleet from close range, from the front.

The serious Russian AT weapons of that era were the 85mm guns on the SU-85s and T-34/85s in 1944, and the long 122mm guns on IS-2s and ISU-122s. Later the 100mm on the SU-100 exceeded both, and was used post-war on the T-54 and T-55. Even the 85mm was marginal against Panthers, or Tiger Is at range.

In that era, the Russians had flocks of 76mm weapons which were the bog-standard general purpose gun, used for HE chucking, lighter armor, and dealing with main battle tanks by using team work and positioning to set up flanking fire, or waiting for very close range (terrain created, or concealment created on defense). They had literally tens of thousands of those and none of them of any variety qualifies as a "hammer".

A hammer means a gun adequate to crack anything it is likely to encounter. An eggshell with a hammer means an AFV designed without regard to its armor defenses, beyond handling small arms that is, but given a supersized gun to kill anything it hits. Examples are the Nashorn or Achilles or Sherman Firefly, or the Hellcat and Wolverine using tungsten ammo, or more loosely the Marder against most enemies, or the SU-85 likewise. But the latter are below the real "hammer" standard, they are just decent, adequate AT weapons.

In contrast, a protected TD is meant to be able to bounce lots of enemy AP rounds at combat ranges. Examples are the Jagdpanther and the SU-100, and to a lesser extent the Jagdpanzer-70 and ISUs. Protected main battle tanks meant to act as tank duel winners are also out of the eggshell category but still have hammers - examples are the Tiger I, Panther, and IS-2.

The guns on all those tanks would have been adequate in tank dueling clear into the 1970s. Israelis used super-Shermans sporting a postwar copy of the Panther and Jagdpanzer-70 main gun clear into the 1973 war and killed T-55s with them, for example. That's a hammer. A Russian short 76mm that has trouble against a StuG front beyond 500 meters isn't a hammer.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

You can't have it both ways. At the time it operationally debuted, the SU-76 outgunned much of the Panzer force, this based on the very Kursk breakdowns by type you provided.

That the Germans subsequently introduced heavier armor against which the SU-76 was less effective in no way negates its significance or the fact that it was positively massive in striking power compared to the standard Russian ATG, a 45mm. Only a small fraction of the total German force had frontal immunity to the SU-76 at any appreciable range. This fraction includes Ferdinands, Tigers, Panthers, Mark III and Mark IV specials. The rest constituted lunch out to considerable distances. Besides, Russian tactical doctrine was to open the antiarmor ambush at from 100-300 meters, spitting range, smothering the targets with accurate fire--from the flanks-- before they could even react.

Here's a decorated Russian veteran's account of his service in the SU-76. Note particularly what his captain tells him the vehicle's primary function is--"direct fire engagement of enemy tanks over open sights."

http://www.iremember.ru/content/view/129/57/lang,en/

Note, too, that this guy reports specific tactical drills were developed for SU-76 engagements with the Tiger tank. One opens fire from the front and reverses, while the other goes for the close in flank shot.

http://www.iremember.ru/content/view/86/57/lang,en/

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

Oh horsefeathers, you just can't admit you were wrong is all. And only a third of the Kursk era fleet was fully vulnerable to an SU-76 from the front beyond 500 meters, a ratio that got worse as the war progressed.

The Russians switched to SU-76s to retain any use from their light tank chassis production lines, abandoning the T-70 as inadequate, much as the German abandoned turret Pz 38s for Marders - about a year earlier - and late in the war, Hetzers. The SU-76 was not a heavy hitter, it was a lightly armored AFV with a bog-standard gun.

And the Russians used 76mm as their standard ATG from the start of the war to the end. Yes along with lighter pieces, no not lighter ones exclusively. SU-76 production ramps quite late and they are not an appreciable part of the fleet at Kursk, or even later in 1943. In 1944 they are everywhere, but form the lightest quarter of the Russian AFV fleet, in armament as well as armor.

There was never an era in which the SU-76 was a heavier hitter than most of the tanks it was used alongside, as there was with the German Marder in 1942, or the SU-85 in the second half of 1943. The most that can be said is that its gun was less useless than that of the turreted T-70s it replaced, which was why it was done.

As for their role, infantry divisions were lucky to see AFVs of any kind, and obviously used them for both AT roles and as assault gun direct fire support. Operationally, SU regiments were small army level assets assigned to subformations to stiffen them, and the better SUs (the 76 was the lightest and worst of them) went to the mobile corps.

SU-76 regiments were occasionally used with those late as a second SU regiment, but more often were assigned to a rifle division to stiffen it for attacking purposes, or to beef up its AT ability defensively - the second role being much like towed ATG regiments.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

Let's just debate the facts, please. Das Reich AFV OOB at Kursk, day one for the unit in combat. From here http://www.dasreich.ca/kursk.html

"On July 4th, Das Reich had 48 Pz. III's, 30 Pz. IV's (1/4 with short barrels), 12 Tigers, 8 Pz. III command tanks, 18 T-34's, 33 StuG's, and 10 Marders combat ready."

The same article records the changing force mix over the days that followed, to include the attachment of Panthers and the transfer of tanks from LSSAH.

Der Alte Fritz provided this from Zetterling, in this thread. http://tinyurl.com/6buu5k

09-24-2006, 09:07 AM

Der Alte Fritz Der Alte Fritz is offline

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Join Date: Mar 2006

Location: United Kingdom

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John

Further to your breakdown of Das Reich, Zetterling has the complete unit breakdown day by day. This shows on 4th July:

PzIII 5cm/L42 1

PzIII 5cm/L60 47

PzIV 75cm/L45/48 30

PzVI 12

Marders 8

StuG 33

T34 18

so quite a mixture really.

From the Panzerkeil site http://www.sturmvogel.orbat.com/kursktanks.html, we get this tank only OOB for the Germans at Kursk. I tried to reproduce the table, but it didn't work. The point, though, is this: There are plenty of things in that OOB readily killable then by the SU-76. Naturally, relative SU-76 utility in the antitank role would rise or fall depending on what unit it encountered and under what engagement conditions. It goes without saying that the Marders not listed would be easily digestible.

Here's another list of German AFV types employed, taken from a major Kursk site

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/vy75/gerafv.htm This list clearly shows lots of SU-76 killable stuff was in the fight at Kursk.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

beady,

Was any of the discussion helpful to you?

Regards,

John Kettler