Diamond Tactical Markings - Soviet AFVs

[Michael Dorosh]

I had asked a while back about Soviet map markings. Turns out the diamond was the symbol for "tank troops" - found that out in a Concord publication.

This is why the diamond is also used on turret sides.

My question - what do the numbers represent? I know German turret numbers were vehicle/platoon/company (or vice versa), but can someone explain the Soviet ones for me please?

Thxx.

[Michael Dorosh]

Bump for Grisha....damn this board fills up fast, eh?

[Michael Dorosh]

bump

[Foxbat]

Generally Brigade/Battalion&Platoon, or Brigade/vehicle no, or somefink like that. In order to confuse the enemy, historians and grogs there was no uniform system (make that no system at all) and the numbers often only made sense within a given unit (generally a Corps or independent Brigade), they were often changed between operations and not consistently applied.

Hope this helps

[EDIT] just to add to the confusion, Brigades could be numbered according to their normal number (eg 250 for 250th Tank Brigade), numerical within the Corps (eg 1,2,3) or 'other' (eg 1,C,K or C,K,P or whatever seemed like a good idea at the time).

Vehicle numbers could be assigned numbered for a whole brigade, within a battalion or 'other'.

[ September 26, 2002, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Awesome - are there any references out there with specific examples? I have not had much luck finding explanations on the better websites or in books.

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Awesome - are there any references out there with specific examples? I have not had much luck finding explanations on the better websites or in books.

Digging out my copy of Zaloga's 'Eastern Front' (one of those curious books that seem to be about nothing in particular but cover all kinds of tidbits you won't find anywhere else), has quite a bit of info on tactical markings. Including some good examples of how it worked -when it worked.

For example during Operation Bagration in 1944 the 2nd Guards Tank Corps was assigned the use of a White Arrow. Above the arrow was painted one of three letters (Cyrillic L, B, or I) which indicated 4th Guards Tank Brigade, 25th Guards Tank Brigade and 26th Guards Tank Brigade respectively. Under this was painted a three-digit vehicle tactical number, being issued 100, 200 and 300 block for each of the Brigades.

[..]The meaning of the numbers varied from unit to unit. In the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, a three-digit number was used. The first number indicated the brigade, and the second and third were issued to all 65 tanks of the brigade consecutively. Therefore tank 104 belonged to the 1st Guards Mechanized Brigade, 231 belonged to the 2nd Guards Mechanized Brigade, and 323 belonged to the 3rd Guards Mechanized Brigade.

A related system was used by the 18th Tanks Corps . The first digit indicated the brigade, and the numbers used were 4, 5 and 6 for the 110th, 170 and 181th Brigade respectively [Zaloga doesn't give an explanation for the use of but consistent numbering of the brigades withi a front would seem to make sense]

In other units a more complicated system was used. The first digit indicated the battalion, the second the company and the third indicated the platoon and vehicle. Soviet tank battalions during this period had a single HQ tank, plus twoo companies each with 10 tanks (1 company command tank, three platoons of three tanks each). Therefore, 100 was the battalion command tank, 110 was the command tank of the first company, 111 was the command tank of the first platoon, first company, 114 was the command tank of the 2nd platoon 1st company, etc. This system could be expanded to four digits, in which case the first digit indicated the brigade within a corps.

[ September 26, 2002, 03:38 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Foxbat]

One of those tidbits from the book, Divisional (Corps) Insignia:

These new formations [the Tank and Mech Corps instituted in 1942] did not make use of divisional insignia until 1944 during the great offensives. By this time divisional insignia were introduced for logistical reasons to ease the task of the military police; often it became neccesary for them to direct tank columns from different units and these insignia saved them the trouble of having to ask each crew which unit they served with. Divisional insignia were issued by staffs of Fronts and were often only temporary. They were not always applied to tanks and from some unit histories it is evident they were mainly used as road markers.

[ September 26, 2002, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Foxbat]

Looking at pictures 3 digit markings seem to have been fairly common as were 1-23 markings, Brigade marking and two digits.

[Foxbat]

I did a quick and dirty count on images of soviet medium tanks, and about half of them carried any kind of tactical marking. Broken down for early (41-42) and late® war it works out as:

early war:

</font>

• 75% of the tanks has no tactical markings</font>
• 10% has a basic vehicle ID marking (ie one that only made sense within the platoon or company)</font>
• 15% has proper tactical markings (about a third of those actually had the diamonds, the rest had 3 or 4 digit numbers)
  </font>

later war:

</font>

• 10% unmarked</font>
• 15% had only basic vehicle ID markings</font>
• 10% carried a diamond style marking</font>
• 55% had 3-digit style markings, and another 10 had 4-digit markings
  </font>

[Grisha]

Michael,

I think some of those markings were actual factory markings, showing which factory they came from. I'll have to figure out where I saw that, but I can't remember at the moment.