June 22 1941 what do the Germans have to kill a KV1

[Simon Elwen]

Mr Johnson, without smoke or 88's What would you do?

Panzer Leader, What a top site,I think I feel the need to shop like the wife does when she sees shoes!!

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Simon Elwen:

OK we know about the 88, but what else is in the arsenal?. I read about the 3.7 pak having hollow charge ammo, was it available?, or will we be knocking on the door?

What do you mean, what did the Germans have to kill a KV1? They were busy acquiring Finns, you silly sod.

[Mr. Johnson--]

3 choices.

Retreat and ambush at a later date.

Wait till nightfall and close assault with infantry.

Sacrifce yourself in a kamikazi attack, try and make crew abandon tank threw massive fire of every gun you got.

[gredeker]

I'm surprised that nobody has said this...

I would use the radio .

Coordinate a swarming armor attack, call down some smoke, coordinate feints and thrusts, coordinate with the infantry, then watch the befuddled KV-1 commander try to figure out what the heck is going on.

It'll definitely be interesting to command 1941 Russian tanks with green crews and no radios. :eek:

[Gyrene]

Originally posted by redeker:

I'm surprised that nobody has said this...

I would use the radio .

Coordinate a swarming armor attack, call down some smoke, coordinate feints and thrusts, coordinate with the infantry, then watch the befuddled KV-1 commander try to figure out what the heck is going on.

It'll definitely be interesting to command 1941 Russian tanks with green crews and no radios. :eek:

What if there are 2 KV1's? Or 20?

Gyrene

[Michael Dorosh]

Considering somewhat less than 10 percent of the German divisions had tanks, I don't think radioing for tank support would have done much good. They were something of a rarity among German infantry divisions.

Certainly not a "swarming" attack - perhaps you have confused the German term "Schwarm" (a flight of aircraft)?

[Phantom Captain]

Can someone post a link to that video of the Pershing killing the Panther???

Thanks in advance!

[gredeker]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Considering somewhat less than 10 percent of the German divisions had tanks, I don't think radioing for tank support would have done much good. They were something of a rarity among German infantry divisions.

Certainly not a "swarming" attack - perhaps you have confused the German term "Schwarm" (a flight of aircraft)?

I guess I wasn't clear. I mis-read the question as "how would German armor take out a KV-1", to which I was trying to make the point of the greater tactical flexibility offered by the greater distribution of radios in the German army at that time. However, my view of eastern front combat tends to be colored by my ASL experience.

I was just over at The Russian Battlefield, and it was enlightening. The loss rate was actually very high, with the commander of the 10th tank division stating that 56 of 63 KV-1's were lost in June '41. He details the list as 11 lost in combat, 11 lost without a trace, and 34 lost due to technical problems and abandonment by their crews.

So I guess the right answer is to wait for the KV-1 to break down.

The site goes on to say that 88mm Flak guns could kill them, and that 105 howitzers could knock off a track. No mention about infantry close assault.

[Andreas]

Problems of the KV-1 (except for the transmission, replaace KV1 with T34)

1) weak transmission, leading to frequent breakdowns (in 1943 during operation Gallop, 50-60% of Red Army tank strength was lost due to this cause before entering battle)

2) untrained crews, exacerbating 1)

3) lack of ammo

4) lack of fuel

5) use in piecemeal, pointless counterattacks during the summer of 1941, frittering away the tank strength

Main weapons the Germans had:

1) 8,8cm Flak (although it seems that sometimes failed too where the penetration tables suggest it should not)

2) 10,5cm lFH firing over open sights

3) 10cm Feldkanone firing over open sights

4) infantry with satchel charges

5) air support (limited)

6) (later) 5cm PAK 38 with Tungsten (Rotkäppchen) rounds

7) Higher level commanders who stayed calm in crisis, particularly in the mobile divisions

Weapons that failed

1) all 3,7cm tank guns

2) 3,7cm PAK35

3) 7,5cmL24 w/hollow charge rounds

Just working from memory here.

[Stoffel]

This is a piece from the Totenkopf division book by Charles Sydnor:

To counter the possibility of breakthrough by the new Russian T34/KV1 tanks-against which the divisions AT guns were ineffective-Eicke(divisional commander) created tank annihilationsquads

These consisted of 2 officers and 10 enlisted soldiers armed with bags of satchel charges ,mines,gasoline bombs and grenades.

They were ordered to attack on foot individual tanks that penetrated the defensive lines,and to destroy or to disable as quickly as possible with their variety of explosives

At Lushno one of them was Haupsturmfuhrer Max Seela companycommander of an engineer company

At 26 th september his squad destroyed seven T34's in this fashion.

To set an example to his man and to demonstrate the proper finess in hand to muzzle combat(I like the way he words this)Seela destroyed the first tank by crawling right up to it,placing a double-satched charge against the turret and detonating the explosives with a grenade.

He than personally led his man as they tackled each tank

Seela and his man than shot all the remaining crews which managed to escape their doomed vehicles

[Munter]

Without heavy AT-weapons, satchel charges (Finnish variants were wooden boxes with handles, consisting of between 2-8 kilos TNT), molotov cocktails or placing AT-mines under the tracks should do the job. Of course, you also need someone brave enough to give it a shot...

In 1941 Finnish lieutenant Pentti used only his sidearm and a couple handfuls of mud to capture an immobilized KV-1. He smeared the prisms with mud and sat on the top of the turret knocking on the hatches with his pistol, suggesting the crew to surrender. And they did, eventually, after few hours of immense persuation. He got a Mannerheim Cross for that and became later the Finnish secretary of defence in the 60's.

I served with his grandson in the same armoured infantry batallion. A decent soldier even he.

M

[M Hofbauer]

The plain 3,7cm PaK didn't get very far against the KV (28mm @ 100m @ 30°). After the experiences in the early war the 3,7cm PaK was given the PzGr 40 with tungsten core. On July 1st 1941 ammunition supply of PzGr 40 was 982,300.

Beginning in February 1942 the Stielgranate 41 ammo for the PaK 3,7cm was delivered to the troops. Like a rifle grenade it was loaded into the muzzle and was an over-caliber warhead looking remotely like a Panzerfaust warehead. Armor Penetration 180mm, but the Vo was so low (110m/s) that it could only be used below 200m range with reasonable accuracy.

The 5cm PaK was a better hope and with the tungsten ammo it was a reasonable threat to the KV but at the beginning of barbarossa it still was not very widespread.

The 5cm too received a Stielgranate, the 5cm StGr 42, however it took until March 1943 before development was finished.

What's interesting is that even with the underperforming 3,7cm PaK the unitzs still managed to achieve successes against T-34 et al. I happen to be in possession of the unit history of the Pz.J.-Abt 38 (~AT battalion) of the 2nd PzDiv. They were still equipped with the 3,7cm PaK in late 1941, and only slowly got new 5cm paKs one by one over a long delivery time.

They talk about penetrations into the machine-gun assembly of the enemy tanks from 10 meters distance, but there are also battle reports where german tanks aided by the AT guns fought with russian T-34 tanks, where the russian tanks were destroyed and later analysis showed that at least one T-34 had clearly been destroyed by the 37mm AT guns alone.

Generally, however, the crews were very unsatisfied with the performance of the 3,7cm PaK.

And here's an account on what they did against a KV:

"at about midnight a 52-ton tank drives around the village along the eastern route out of range. He keeps turing around on the snowy fields and then drives, coming from the direction of Oserezkoje, on the village road into Gorki. the road was icy and littered with craters, so that the behemoth advances only very slowly. By shouting we communicate with other units, especially Pz-Rgt 3, andplan to destroy the tank with ATmines. When the tank was close to the platoon HQ emplacement, where a 3,7cm PaK is only 10m away, the tank slides once again into the snow-covered road ditch. The tank cannot free itself this time.

The gun commander of the 3,7cm PaK - Uffz. Hantsch - had already equipped himself with a T-mine. Now is the time to employ it. Platoon leader and 2 soldiers give him cover with SMG. With three leaps Hantsch reaches the rear of the 52-ton-tank, climbs it and applies the mine to the turret.

(now this nest part is for Jeff Duquette ) At the same time from the other side of the street the NCO of a tank crew (=TC), Uffz Kern, drags with him a gasoline jerry can, climbs onto the tank, halöf empties the gasoline can and jumps off. Hantsch pulls the detonator on the TZ-Mine and jumps to safety. A few seconds later the turret is thrown away as if moved by an invisible hand, and at the same time the tank starts burning."

tghere are other accounts on gun duels between a lone 5cm AT gun and several T-34 and BT-7, about 3,7cm and 5cm PaK working together with soldiers and T-mines to take out two KV-1s.

The diary also talks about how the unit received the first Stielgranaten for their 3,7cm PaK by air in late February 1942. On March 3rd 1942 they improvise a test firing against a T-34 with the new Stielgranate (in Arshaniki). It clearly penetrated the turret.

The entry concludes that although now they had an ammunition that could clearly penetrate even thick enemy armor, the accuracy of the slow-flying ammunition was so poor that they could only engage at hundred meters so that they still remained "Panzer-Nahkämpfer" (tank close combateers).

It seems the AT crews relied on their AT guns just as much as their skills and bravery to fight tanks with close assault means, namely manually attached T-mines.

It will be hard for CMBB to model this kind of combat on a very individual level, and I am, not sure how well the "abstracted" close assault of infantry upon tanks which CMBO has now will work for the early 1941/1942 russian front combat. As it stands now, we have gaggles of full squads assaulting the tanks.

Also not sure how it would model the tactic of waiting for the tanks to come very close and then aim at the many very small weakspots such as MG-mount, vision slits, cannon barrel etc. The current model of weak spots only models the random hit upon shot traps etc., but probably fails to model the fully intentional aiming at such locations from close distance.

We will see.

[ March 01, 2002, 05:39 AM: Message edited by: M Hofbauer ]

[jshandorf]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

The first Landser to see one wouldn't have known enough to be scared; they didn't know they existed, or how tough they were. I think it would have been more shocking once word spread across the front: "Kamerad, I tell you, those verdammt T-34s are unstoppable...." Sort of like Tiger-itis as suffered by Allied troops later in the war...

But you know, German troops didn't lose their nerve that easily in the face of armour. Look at the number of Char B1 bis knocked out in France; it was a behemoth too.

I wonder, come to think of it, if the Germans drew any lessons from the fighting in France on how to tackle "unstoppable" tanks, such as the Matilida or B1 Bis were in their day.

Funny but I picked up "Panzer Aces" last Sunday. I was just browsing a Borders with some friends and saw it. Fron my reading it is my understanding that the Germans just used superior training and command to defeat the Russians in most cases early in the Russian offensive. They would obviously have to since the book mentions on several occasions that they were figthing in late '42 and early '43 with Pz IIIS still. Pretty amazing considering the Russian tank they were up against.

Jeff

[JasonC]

The Germans had encountered thick tanks before, in France. Notably the British armor counterattack at Sedan, with Matildas. When the 37mm ATGs failed, they improvised the gun front idea. A small number of 88 FLAK helped, but they also use full battalions of divisional howitzers firing over open sights.

In Russia, the weapons against T-34s and KVs were the same, heavy FLAK and divisional artillery pieces. The 105 could kill T-34s if they had HEAT ammo available, and could immobilize either model with track hits. The 88 could kill either model, although the early FLAK didn't have the full muzzle velocity of later models, and so had limited range against them. Being large, they were hard to get close. But they worked defensively. Every German division had artillery pieces, so some were always available. 150mm barrages, indirect; rarer corps and army level heavy artillery; and air strikes were other methods.

Other means include demo charge close assault as others have mentioned, but usually to finish already immobilized tanks or isolated intruders, and massed tank fire. Massed tank fire worked sometimes by just persuading the Russian crews to get out of there, sometimes by weak point hits, most often probably by accumulated damage. In fact, many of the "persuasion" cases were probably gun damage or "shock" cases, that the shooters just didn't know about.

Just as in CMBO a 40mm AA can effectively wreck a tank it can't penetrate, with gun damage and immobilization, a whole company of tanks firing a dozen rounds apiece could break a tank too thick to kill. The sights get shot off, the barrel holed, the sprocket wheel or tracks are cracked. One area of the T-34 were vunerable to 50L42 from German Pz IIIs - lower hull sides, between the running gear and the top of the track.

As for breakdowns, you should realize that over 3/4 of all Russian tanks were under repair, not operational, on the day of the invasion. Overall readiness was low. The front then moved hundreds of miles eastward in a short period of time. So many tanks wound up abandoned before they could be got running, or after the crews tried to drive them even though they knew they were broken, and had to abandoned them along the way. Some were probably evacuated by rail to avoid this.

In addition, the KV and T-34 were rare in 1941, only about 1 Russian tank in 10. Most of the Russian fleet were T-26 and BT series. Many of them weren't running either, but there were so many of them the ones that were still constituted a numerous force.

As for APCR, 37mm versions of it weren't going to do the job. Even the 50L60 of the subsequent year, with APCR, needed close ranges. The early 75mm HEAT was ineffective. Later versions, fired from 75L24s on Pz IVs or StuG, could KO the T-34s with turret hits, but low muzzle velocity made them innaccurate beyond about 500 meters. The KV was tougher.

In the initial offensives, the Germans had another basic method of dealing with the rare Russian heavies. They attacked elsewhere with armor, while infantry with gun fronts defended were the Russian heavy tanks were. The Russian front was collapsing. Just bypassing could neutralize them, since they would probably break down before they got out again, or would have to throw themselves at an infantry unit gun front, etc.

In some places there were enough of them or the Germans couldn't pick another line of advance, and as a result they were held up for a few days, with loss. But the Russian armor units involved wasted away in the process, from breakdowns and accumulated battle losses. For a matter of a few exceptional places or small units, the Germans could afford attrition, even taking higher losses locally than the Russians did.

It remains one of the most striking proofs against the common tactical wargamer's belief in technological dominance when it comes to tanks. The fact is, having the best tank made little operational, let alone strategic, difference. The Germans conquered Europe in Pz IIIs, and lost it again in Panthers and Tigers. Mostly against T-34/76s and short 75mm Shermans that were much better than the Pz IIIs, but much worse than the Panthers and Tigers.

Armor doctrine, training, operational handling, logistics and support - all mattered more on the larger scales than gun and armor specs. Down at the CM scale, of course, the gun and armor specs are more important. But that is something of a tactical illusion, created by artificially "fair", even-odds fights. Fights that are very close - knife edged affairs that could go either way - are settled by such factors. And make for better strategy games. But that doesn't mean most of the tactical engagements of the war were so close.

If you put a platoon of better tanks up against a company of poorer ones, they will rock. But put them up against a battalion of tanks plus other arms, and they will not succeed (even if they do cause losses). A company of better tanks can hold off a battalion. But what do they do when the enemy pulls back and waits, while 36 planes work them over? If there aren't planes, they might even launch an attack to get at their thinner opponents. But will they succeed if they then fall under the fire of 24 artillery FOs at once, up to 210mm caliber?

Odds and escalation to "higher" combat arms are seperate solutions from tech specs, and they work. CM not showing them, simply because it roughly balances the points available on both sides, doesn't mean they didn't occur. Any tactical weapon that is "operationally exceptional" can be handled that way. And in the summer of 1941, T-34s and KVs were "operationally exceptional". There just weren't that many of them running, for very long. The same was true of Tigers and such on the other side, later on.

[Ligur]

Originally posted by redeker:

I was just over at The Russian Battlefield, and it was enlightening. The loss rate was actually very high, with the commander of the 10th tank division stating that 56 of 63 KV-1's were lost in June '41. He details the list as 11 lost in combat, 11 lost without a trace, and 34 lost due to technical problems and abandonment by their crews.

What is the URL to this site, The Russian Battlefield (with the text in English maybe)?

[Skipper]

Let's also not forget more than 50% of heavy equipment (including armor) lost by RKKA in the 1941 catastrophe was just abandoned, due to the lack of fuel / ammo / spares / mobility assets etc.

Total domination of Luftwaffe in the air and swift encirclements did that.

[Simon Elwen]

Quite a number of the previous posts clearly show that the Germans experience, training, and raw courage allowed them to adapt and improvise to overcome the challenge they faced with a new threat.

I take my hat off to the knowledge, research skills, etc of everyone on this forum, there's always someone who can answer a question out there, truly amazing.

[Skipper]

Without doubt, Wehrmacht obr. 1941 was a mean beast. However...

...on the operational scale that JasonC discussed above, it wasn't actually such a tough threat in 1941. Not much tougher than taking on all those french heavies (NB: who was commonly regarded as the most powerful military of the world in 1938? Right, it was France!).

Enjoying total superiority in the air (read, having nearly perfect online reconnaissance and denying same to RKKA) and in mobility, Wehrmacht could nearly always beat its soviet opponents in operational deployments and in counter-battery fight. Which meant that in virtually any important sector RKKA was outnumbered and outgunned, even though totals are perhaps telling a different story.

[Wolfpack]

I seem to remember reading somewhere about how the small caliber-rapid firing guns would just plink away at the hull of the KVs until the sheer noise level drove the Soviet crews out of the tank and out of their skulls incidentily. I can imagine it would be something like being in a tin house in a hailstorm magnified by about 1 million.

[Simon Elwen]

Wolfpack, I was backpacking in India and there was a monsoon hailstorm in Delhi, most of the city has corrugated iron roofs and the city roared!!!!,with the lightning too it was spectacular.

[Mattias]

Wolfpack, and for those who wonder what it might be like...

Spielberger presents the result of a "noise comparison" between the Panzer III and Somua S 35.

The two weapons used were MG and 20 mm Flak. Not much it might seem but they seem loud enough.

In "Phon", which I understand as being equivalent with dB (A):

The Pz III, between 115-118 for single fire MG to 118-121 for automatic fire. The 20 mm Flak was registered at between 127-135 (single fire only).

The S-35, between 102-122 for single fire MG to 114-125 for automatic fire. The 20 mm Flak was registered at between 127-130 (single fire only).

M.

[ March 01, 2002, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: Mattias ]

[Wolfpack]

Originally posted by Mattias:

Wolfpack, and for those who wonder what it might be like...

Spielberger presents the result of a "noise comparison" between the Panzer III and Somua S 35.

The two weapons used were MG and 20 mm Flak. Not much it might seem but they seem loud enough.

In "Phon", which I understand as being equivalent with dB (A):

The Pz III, between 115-118 for single fire MG to 118-121 for automatic fire. The 20 mm Flak was registered at between 127-135 (single fire only).

The S-35, between 102-122 for single fire MG to 114-125 for automatic fire. The 20 mm Flak was registered at between 127-130 (single fire only).

M.

Okay, but where's the data on the level of say a golfball sized chunk of hail hitting a tin roof? Seriously, I would think considering the turret design of the KVs, not only would it be easy to hit, but wouldn't the sound level be increased? I'm not familiar with the interior design of the turret, but it seems like a big bell waiting to be rung to me.

[Bullethead]

Panzer Leader said:

ANother thing I noticed, and I don't know if it was true in general, or perhaps just these skilled tankers, or just bravado, but they were ALWAYS blasting turrets completely off the enemy tanks. These battles are described in detail, and I swear, at least half of the tank-kills include flying turrets! And the ones that don't get blown off, then "every hatch is blown open as gouts of flame spew ten meters into the air."

Is this accurate or poetic licence?

In accounts of East Front fighting, I think a fairly high percentage of aerial Russian turrets is accurate. This is for 3 main reasons: 1) what I saw in the Gulf War, 2) the typical ammo load of Russian tanks, and 3) anecdotal evidence by a Russian TC interviewed at The Russian Battlefield(http://www.battlefield.ru/)

In the Gulf War, I saw dozens of AFVs die and dozens more post mortem. What I saw indicates the following: To pop a turret off, you need to have a large load of HE or HEAT shells aboard. Only that provides the power necessary to completely remove a turret or break the hull up. Fuel just burns out through hatches and louvres. Propellant fires can lift the turret a few inches, but that relieves the pressure and the turret drops back down slightly askew as in dead CM tanks.

Russian tanks carried a large percentage of HE to AP. This was usually on the order of 2 HE for 1 AP, sometimes even more skewed in HE's favor. This reflects their primary role as killers of soft targets, both in breaking through the lines and in rampaging in the German rear. Thus, most Russian tanks had enough HE aboard to do the job.

The Russian tanker mentioned above was in a unit equipped with Shermans. His tank got knocked out and burned, while he and his crew were pinned underneath due to MG fire. He heard the HE shells cooking off in the racks and thumping against the interior walls, and mentioned that he'd have died if he'd been a T34 jock, because for some reason Russian HE shells usually exploded when that happened. At least the Russian shells did more so than German and US.

So, I figure a fairly common Russian tank death scenario was as follows: The hit starts a fire, either in the propellant from broken cases or somewhere else that eventually cooks off the propellant. This fires a few shells into the hull sides and they explode, popping off the turret. Not enough shells go off at once to rip the hull apart, and subsequent detonations vent through the hole where the turret used to be.

Either that or Russian HE was a lot more heat-sensitive than that used by other countries, and the HE itself would explode just from exposure to fire. But I doubt this.

Note however that tanks can explode several minutes after they are knocked out. It might take that long for the fire to reach the ammo.

[gredeker]

130 dB is pretty dang loud. A quick search gave an example of 130 dB being the equivalent of a pneumatic jackhammer from the operator's position - definitely painful and enough to cause short-term deafness after as little as 15 minutes of exposure. It's also a level over which a shout cannot be heard - i.e. the tank commander can be screaming at you, and you can't hear his orders.

[gatpr]

I remember reading someone's firsthand account about a KV throwing a track and detouring German traffic for hours before some pioneers stuck some satchel charges about the turret ring. Finally the crew tried to break out during the night. It was a very early encounter.