We spent the entire windy November searching for the mass grave of the soldiers of the 6th Tank Brigade. They searched in a grove and in vacant lots not far from the village of Chkalova. They asked local residents, possible witnesses that November battle, we hoped to meet those who saw where the tankers who died in the fall of 1941 were buried.
This is how we, members of the MIUS-FRONT Search Association, met Uncle Lesha and Uncle Seryozha.
“Serega and I were 10 years old at the time and we remembered that November day very well. How can you forget this? - Alexey Alekseevich, “Uncle Lesha,” began his story.
“Our families lived nearby in factory barracks, and when the Germans started shelling and bombing us, they dug dugouts near the grove and hid there.”
Well, we kids climbed everywhere, saw everything, although they scolded us for it. We weren’t scared, it was the adults who were scared, but for us children everything was curious and interesting. It became scary later when we saw the bodies of our tankers lying in the white snow.”
“They lay in the snow next to their broken and mangled tanks. They were lying there, somehow hunched over, with burnt overalls stuck to their charred skin,” Uncle Seryozha took part in the conversation, having listened silently to his friend’s recollections until then. “They took guys as tank crews short, and death in the fire made their bodies somehow very small, almost child-like. The worst thing was to look at the faces of the tankers, although they had no faces left - only eyes. In place of the nose, mouth, ears - only coals! And the smell... the smell of a burnt man - the sweetish, cloying smell of meat thrown to burn on the coals. Even the acrid smoke from smoldering equipment with the smell of wiring, gunpowder, burning oil, and kerosene could not drown it out. It was the smell of suffering, the smell of death - even we children understood this. We saw that the death of these guys was painful. I saw them burning in their cars, heard them screaming in pain, desperately trying to get out of the burning tanks.
Burnt Soviet tank crews light tank BT-2 (machine gun version). Village of Romanishchi, Belarus
And we, the boys, felt annoyance, resentment and terrible anger from what we saw and experienced. Before the war, every boy dreamed of becoming a pilot or tank driver. These were our heroes, our idols. We saw battles, battles as a beautiful attack of tanks and planes, smashing short, cartoonish enemy soldiers, somewhere far beyond the borders of our country. And suddenly the war came straight to our house, and our idols and heroes lay burnt in the snow. And the enemy - the enemy here he is - healthy Germans in black jackets with skulls on their buttonholes walked among the corpses of our tankers and photographed them. The Nazis did not pay any attention to us children. Everyone, children, adults, had only one thought - what will happen? What will happen to all of us now? - Uncle Seryozha sighed heavily, taking out a cigarette without a filter from a red pack.
“The battle itself, in which our tankers died, was short-lived,” Alexey Alekseevich continued his memories. “Our tanks arrived in the morning, and burned them after lunch. Ours had five large T-34s and several more small T-26s... At that time I knew the models of all the tanks and aircraft. Seryoga said it correctly - every boy dreamed of becoming a tank driver and pilot, so we knew all the equipment very well. “T-26, there were four cars,” Uncle Seryozha corrected his friend, puffing on a cigarette. “Yes, yes, four,” continued Alexey Alekseevich, “they drove up to the grove in the morning. They were in a hurry, immediately starting to choose their positions. Thirty fours hid near sheds and barracks, and light tanks were camouflaged with felled trees. Here, not far away, the old road went to Rostov, so our tank crews were supposed to guard it. One T-26 stood very close to this road to let us know when the Germans would appear.
“It seems he was the first to be burned right away. There was no radio communication in those tanks; commands were transmitted using flags. A tanker leans out of the hatch and waves red pennants. And this is in the middle of a battle, bullets are flying all around, fragments, smoke, nothing is visible - and he is waving flags. I personally saw how they gave signals to each other,” Uncle Lesha was noticeably worried. And this small tank was sent to the road to certain death,” he continued, “in general, they all understood well that they would not return from the battle alive, even when they equipped their positions, they gave all their supplies to us, the children. Well, what did they have in the cabins - bread, stewed meat, biscuits. I even got a chocolate bar, given to me by a lieutenant whose legs were later blown off in battle. And when they gave us everything, they began to drive us away from their positions: “Get out guys, you can’t be here anymore! Let's get out of here!!!" Reluctantly, but what can we do, we scattered to our homes, although some of our peers were still watching the actions of our tankers from behind the bushes,” Alexey Alekseevich, narrowing his eyes slightly, looked at his friend.
“I didn’t go home for dinner then,” continued Uncle Seryozha, “my mother was on shift, and my sister had gone to the market in the morning, so there was no one at home.” So I stayed in the bushes to watch the tankers. I gnawed on the biscuits that our soldiers gave me. Suddenly everything started to move. One day, a small T-26, which was standing in the distance, next to the road, suddenly fired. Then another volley, another and another. Birds sitting on the treetops in the grove, crows, jackdaws, disturbed by the noise of gunfire, circled, cawing loudly in the white winter sky. The tank along the road fired its gun several more times. The tank commander appeared from the hatch and waved a red flag somewhere forward. At that moment our T-26 exploded. The explosion was so strong that the car was literally blown to pieces. The turret flew off in one direction, the barrel and pieces of armor flew off in the other. The head and body of the lieutenant from this tank was thrown 50 steps towards the trees.
In the Second world war tanks played a decisive role in battles and operations; it is very difficult to single out the top ten from a multitude of tanks; for this reason, the order in the list is rather arbitrary and the tank’s place is tied to the time of its active participation in battles and its significance for that period.
10. Tank Panzerkampfwagen III ( PzKpfw III)
PzKpfw III, better known as T-III, is a light tank with a 37 mm gun. Reservation from all angles – 30 mm. The main quality is Speed (40 km/h on the highway). Thanks to the advanced Carl Zeiss optics, ergonomic crew workstations and the presence of a radio station, the Troikas could successfully fight with much heavier vehicles. But with the advent of new opponents, the shortcomings of the T-III became more apparent. The Germans replaced the 37 mm guns with 50 mm guns and covered the tank with hinged screens - temporary measures yielded results, the T-III fought for several more years. By 1943, production of the T-III was discontinued due to the complete exhaustion of its resource for modernization. In total, German industry produced 5,000 “triples”.
9. Tank Panzerkampfwagen IV (PzKpfw IV)
The PzKpfw IV looked much more serious, becoming the most popular Panzerwaffe tank - the Germans managed to build 8,700 vehicles. Combining all the advantages of the lighter T-III, the “four” had a high firepower and security - the thickness of the frontal plate was gradually increased to 80 mm, and the shells of its 75 mm long-barreled gun pierced the armor of enemy tanks like foil (by the way, 1,133 early modifications with a short-barreled gun were produced).
The weak points of the vehicle are that the sides and rear are too thin (only 30 mm in the first modifications); the designers neglected the slope of the armor plates for the sake of manufacturability and ease of operation for the crew.
Panzer IV is the only German tank that was in mass production throughout World War II and became the most popular tank of the Wehrmacht. Its popularity among German tankers was comparable to the popularity of the T-34 among ours and the Sherman among the Americans. Well-designed and extremely reliable in operation, this combat vehicle was, in the full sense of the word, “ workhorse» Panzerwaffe.
8. Tank KV-1 (Klim Voroshilov)
“...from three sides we fired at the iron monsters of the Russians, but everything was in vain. The Russian giants were coming closer and closer. One of them approached our tank, hopelessly stuck in a swampy pond, and without any hesitation drove over it, pressing its tracks into the mud ... "
- General Reinhard, commander of the 41st tank corps of the Wehrmacht.
In the summer of 1941, the KV tank destroyed the elite units of the Wehrmacht with the same impunity as if it had rolled out onto the Borodino field in 1812. Invulnerable, invincible and incredibly powerful. Until the end of 1941, all the armies of the world did not have any weapons capable of stopping the Russian 45-ton monster. The KV was 2 times heavier than the largest Wehrmacht tank.
Armor KV is a wonderful song of steel and technology. 75 millimeters of solid steel from all angles! The frontal armor plates had an optimal angle of inclination, which further increased the projectile resistance of the KV armor - German 37 mm anti-tank guns they didn’t take it even at point-blank range, and 50 mm guns – no further than 500 meters. At the same time, the long-barreled 76 mm F-34 (ZIS-5) gun made it possible to hit any German tank of that period from any direction from a distance of 1.5 kilometers.
The KV crews were staffed exclusively by officers; only driver mechanics could be foremen. Their level of training far exceeded that of the crews who fought on other types of tanks. They fought more skillfully, which is why they were remembered by the Germans...
7. Tank T-34 (thirty-four)
“...There is nothing more terrible than a tank battle against superior enemy forces. Not in numbers - that didn’t matter to us, we got used to it. But against more good cars- this is terrible... Russian tanks are so agile, at close ranges they will climb a slope or overcome a swamp faster than you can turn the turret. And through the noise and roar you constantly hear the clang of shells on the armor. When they hit our tank, you often hear a deafening explosion and the roar of burning fuel, too loud to hear the dying screams of the crew ... "
- the opinion of a German tankman from the 4th Panzer Division, destroyed by T-34 tanks in the battle of Mtsensk on October 11, 1941.
Obviously, the Russian monster had no analogues in 1941: a 500-horsepower diesel engine, unique armor, a 76 mm F-34 gun (generally similar to the KV tank) and wide tracks - all these technical solutions provided the T-34 with an optimal ratio of mobility, fire power and security. Even individually, these parameters of the T-34 were higher than those of any Panzerwaffe tank.
When the Wehrmacht soldiers first met the “thirty-four” on the battlefield, they were, to put it mildly, in shock. The cross-country ability of our car was impressive - where German tanks They didn’t even think about interfering; the T-34s passed without much difficulty. The Germans even nicknamed their 37mm anti-tank gun the “tuk-tuk beater” because when its shells hit the 34, they simply hit it and bounced off.
The main thing is that Soviet designers managed to create a tank exactly as the Red Army needed it. The T-34 ideally suited the conditions of the Eastern Front. The extreme simplicity and manufacturability of the design allowed as soon as possible to establish mass production of these combat vehicles, as a result, the T-34s were easy to operate, numerous and ubiquitous.
6. Tank Panzerkampfwagen VI “Tiger I” Ausf E, “Tiger”
“...we took a detour through a ravine and ran into the Tiger.” Having lost several T-34s, our battalion returned back..."
- a frequent description of meetings with PzKPfw VI from the memoirs of tank crews.
According to a number of Western historians, the main task of the Tiger tank was to fight enemy tanks, and its design corresponded to the solution of precisely this task:
If in the initial period of World War II the German military doctrine had a mainly offensive orientation, then later, when the strategic situation changed to the opposite, tanks began to be assigned the role of a means of eliminating breakthroughs in the German defense.
Thus, the Tiger tank was conceived primarily as a means of combating enemy tanks, whether on the defensive or offensive. Taking this fact into account is necessary to understand the design features and tactics of using the Tigers.
On July 21, 1943, the commander of the 3rd Tank Corps, Herman Bright, issued the following instructions for the combat use of the Tiger-I tank:
...Taking into account the strength of the armor and the strength of the weapon, the Tiger should be used mainly against enemy tanks and anti-tank weapons, and only secondarily - as an exception - against infantry units.
As combat experience has shown, the Tiger's weapons allow it to fight enemy tanks at distances of 2000 meters or more, which especially affects the enemy's morale. Durable armor allows the Tiger to approach the enemy without the risk of serious damage from hits. However, you should try to engage enemy tanks at distances greater than 1000 meters.
5. Tank "Panther" (PzKpfw V "Panther")
Realizing that the Tiger was a rare and exotic weapon for professionals, German tank builders created a simpler and cheap tank, with the intention of turning it into a mass medium tank Wehrmacht.
Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther" is still the subject of heated debate. The technical capabilities of the vehicle do not cause any complaints - with a mass of 44 tons, the Panther was superior in mobility to the T-34, developing 55-60 km/h on a good highway. The tank was armed with a 75 mm KwK 42 cannon with a barrel length of 70 calibers! Armor-piercing sub-caliber projectile, fired from its hellish mouth, flew 1 kilometer in the first second - with such performance characteristics, the Panther's cannon could make a hole in any Allied tank at a distance of over 2 kilometers. The armor of the Panther is also considered worthy by most sources - the thickness of the forehead varied from 60 to 80 mm, while the angles of the armor reached 55°. The side was weaker protected - at the level of the T-34, so it was easily hit by Soviet anti-tank weapons. The lower part of the side was additionally protected by two rows of rollers on each side.
4. Tank IS-2 (Joseph Stalin)
The IS-2 was the most powerful and most heavily armored of the Soviet production tanks during the war, and one of the strongest tanks in the world at that time. Tanks of this type played a big role in the battles of 1944-1945, especially distinguishing themselves during the assault on cities.
The thickness of the IS-2 armor reached 120 mm. One of the main achievements of Soviet engineers is the efficiency and low metal consumption of the IS-2 design. With a mass comparable to that of the Panther, the Soviet tank was much more seriously protected. But the too dense layout required the placement of fuel tanks in the control compartment - if the armor was penetrated, the Is-2 crew had little chance of surviving. The driver-mechanic, who did not have his own hatch, was especially at risk.
City assaults:
Together with the self-propelled guns at its base, the IS-2 was actively used for assault operations in fortified cities, such as Budapest, Breslau, and Berlin. The tactics of action in such conditions included the actions of the OGvTTP in assault groups of 1-2 tanks, accompanied by an infantry squad of several machine gunners, a sniper or a marksman with a rifle, and sometimes a backpack flamethrower. In case of weak resistance, tanks with assault groups mounted on them broke through at full speed along the streets to squares, squares, and parks, where they could take up a perimeter defense.
3. Tank M4 Sherman (Sherman)
"Sherman" is the pinnacle of rationality and pragmatism. It is all the more surprising that the United States, which had 50 tanks at the beginning of the war, managed to create such a balanced combat vehicle and rivet 49,000 Shermans of various modifications by 1945. For example, in ground forces the Sherman with a gasoline engine was used, and the units Marine Corps There was a modification M4A2, equipped with a diesel engine. American engineers rightly believed that this would greatly simplify the operation of tanks - diesel fuel could easily be found among sailors, unlike high-octane gasoline. By the way, it was this modification of the M4A2 that came to the Soviet Union.
Why did the Red Army command like the “Emcha” (as our soldiers nicknamed the M4) so much that elite units, such as the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps and the 9th Guards Tank Corps, moved entirely to them? The answer is simple: Sherman had the optimal ratio of armor, firepower, mobility and... reliability. In addition, the Sherman was the first tank with a hydraulic turret drive (this ensured special pointing accuracy) and a gun stabilizer in the vertical plane - tankers admitted that in a duel situation their shot was always the first.
Combat use:
After the landing in Normandy, the Allies had to come face to face with German tank divisions, which were sent to defend Fortress Europe, and it turned out that the Allies had underestimated the degree to which the German troops were saturated with heavy types of armored vehicles, especially Panther tanks. In direct clashes with the Germans heavy tanks The Shermans had very little chance. The British, to a certain extent, could count on their Sherman Firefly, whose excellent gun made a great impression on the Germans (so much so that the crews of German tanks tried to hit the Firefly first, and then deal with the rest). The Americans, who were counting on their new weapon, quickly found out that the power of its armor-piercing shells was still not enough to confidently defeat the Panther head-on.
2. Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B "Tiger II", "Tiger II"
The combat debut of the Royal Tigers took place on July 18, 1944 in Normandy, where the 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion managed to knock out 12 Sherman tanks in the first battle.”
And already on August 12, Tiger II appeared on the Eastern Front: the 501st heavy tank battalion tried to interfere with the Lviv-Sandomierz war. offensive operation. The bridgehead was an uneven semicircle, its ends resting on the Vistula. Approximately in the middle of this semicircle, covering the direction to Staszow, the 53rd Guards Tank Brigade defended.
At 7.00 on August 13, the enemy, under the cover of fog, went on the offensive with the forces of the 16th Tank Division with the participation of 14 Royal Tigers of the 501st Heavy Tank Battalion. But as soon as the new Tigers crawled to their original positions, three of them were shot from an ambush by the crew of the T-34-85 tank under the command of junior lieutenant Alexander Oskin, which, in addition to Oskin himself, included driver Stetsenko, gun commander Merkhaidarov, radio operator Grushin and loader Khalychev . In total, the brigade's tankers knocked out 11 tanks, and the remaining three, abandoned by the crews, were captured in good condition. One of these tanks, number 502, is still in Kubinka.
Currently, the Royal Tigers are on display at the Saumur Musee des Blindes in France, the RAC Tank Museum Bovington (the only surviving example with a Porsche turret) and the Royal Military College of Science Shrivenham in the UK, the Munster Lager Kampftruppen Schule in Germany (transferred by the Americans in 1961) , Ordnance Museum Aberdeen Proving Ground in the USA, Switzerlands Panzer Museum Thun in Switzerland and the Military Historical Museum of Armored Weapons and Equipment in Kubinka near Moscow.
1. Tank T-34-85
The T-34-85 medium tank, in essence, represents a major modernization of the T-34 tank, as a result of which a very important drawback of the latter was eliminated - the cramped fighting compartment and the associated impossibility of complete division of labor among the crew members. This was achieved by increasing the diameter of the turret ring, as well as by installing a new three-man turret of significantly larger dimensions than the T-34. At the same time, the design of the body and the arrangement of components and assemblies in it have not undergone any significant changes. Consequently, there are still disadvantages inherent in vehicles with a stern-mounted engine and transmission.
As is known, two layout schemes with a bow and stern transmission are most widely used in tank building. Moreover, the disadvantages of one scheme are the advantages of another.
The disadvantage of the layout with a rear-mounted transmission is the increased length of the tank due to the placement in its hull of four compartments that are not aligned along the length, or the reduction in the volume of the fighting compartment with a constant length of the vehicle. Due to the large length of the engine and transmission compartments, the combat compartment with a heavy turret is shifted to the nose, overloading the front rollers, leaving no space on the turret plate for the central or even side placement of the driver's hatch. There is a danger that the protruding gun will “stick” into the ground when the tank moves through natural and artificial obstacles. The control drive connecting the driver with the transmission located in the stern becomes more complicated.
T-34-85 tank layout diagram
There are two ways out of this situation: either increase the length of the control (or combat) compartment, which will inevitably lead to an increase in the overall length of the tank and a deterioration in its maneuverability due to an increase in the L/B ratio - the length of the supporting surface to the track width (for the T-34- 85 it is close to the optimal - 1.5), or radically change the layout of the engine and transmission compartments. What this could lead to can be judged by the results of the work of Soviet designers when designing the new medium tanks T-44 and T-54, created during the war and put into service in 1944 and 1945, respectively.
T-54 tank layout diagram
These combat vehicles used a layout with a transverse (and not longitudinal, like the T-34-85) placement of a 12-cylinder V-2 diesel engine (in the B-44 and B-54 variants) and a combined significantly shortened (by 650 mm ) engine and transmission compartment. This made it possible to lengthen the fighting compartment to 30% of the hull length (for the T-34-85 - 24.3%), increase the diameter of the turret ring by almost 250 mm and install a powerful 100-mm cannon on the T-54 medium tank. At the same time, we managed to move the turret towards the stern, making room on the turret plate for the driver's hatch. The exclusion of the fifth crew member (the gunner from the course machine gun), the removal of the ammunition rack from the fighting compartment floor, the transfer of the fan from the engine crankshaft to the stern bracket and the reduction in the overall height of the engine ensured a decrease in the height of the hull of the T-54 tank (compared to the hull of the T-34- 85) by approximately 200 mm, as well as a reduction in the reserved volume by approximately 2 cubic meters. and increased armor protection by more than two times (with an increase in mass of only 12%).
During the war they did not agree to such a radical rearrangement of the T-34 tank, and, probably, it was the right decision. At the same time, the diameter of the turret ring, while maintaining the same hull shape, of the T-34-85 was practically maximum, which did not allow placing an artillery system in the turret of more than large caliber. The tank's armament modernization capabilities were completely exhausted, unlike, for example, the American Sherman and the German Pz.lV.
By the way, the problem of increasing the caliber of the main armament of the tank was of paramount importance. Sometimes you can hear the question: why was the transition to an 85-mm gun necessary, could it be improved ballistic characteristics F-34 by increasing the barrel length? After all, this is what the Germans did with their 75-mm cannon on the Pz.lV.
The fact is that German guns traditionally distinguished by better internal ballistics (ours are equally traditionally external). The Germans achieved high armor penetration by increasing the initial speed and better performance ammunition. We could respond adequately only by increasing the caliber. Although the S-53 cannon significantly improved the firing capabilities of the T-34-85, as Yu.E. Maksarev noted: “In the future, the T-34 could no longer directly, in a duel, hit new German tanks.” All attempts to create 85-mm guns with an initial speed of over 1000 m/s, the so-called high-power guns, ended in failure due to rapid wear and destruction of the barrel even at the testing stage. To “duel” defeat German tanks, it was necessary to switch to a 100-mm caliber, which was carried out only in the T-54 tank with a turret ring diameter of 1815 mm. But this combat vehicle did not take part in the battles of World War II.
As for the placement of the driver's hatch in the front hull, we could try to follow the American path. Let us remember that on the Sherman the driver and machine gunner’s hatches, originally also made in the sloping frontal plate of the hull, were subsequently transferred to the turret plate. This was achieved by reducing the angle of inclination of the front sheet from 56° to 47° to the vertical. The T-34-85's frontal hull plate had an inclination of 60°. By also reducing this angle to 47° and compensating for this by slightly increasing the thickness of the frontal armor, it would be possible to increase the area of the turret plate and place the driver’s hatch on it. This would not require a radical redesign of the hull design and would not entail a significant increase in the mass of the tank.
The suspension hasn't changed on the T-34-85 either. And if the use of higher quality steel for the manufacture of springs helped to avoid their rapid subsidence and, as a result, a decrease in ground clearance, then it was not possible to get rid of significant longitudinal vibrations of the tank hull in motion. It was an organic defect of the spring suspension. The location of the habitable compartments in the front of the tank only aggravated the negative impact of these fluctuations on the crew and weapons.
A consequence of the layout of the T-34-85 was the absence of a rotating turret floor in the fighting compartment. In combat, the loader worked standing on the lids of cassette boxes with shells placed on the bottom of the tank. When turning the turret, he had to move after the breech, while he was hampered by spent cartridges falling right there on the floor. When conducting intense fire, the accumulated cartridges also made it difficult to access the shots placed in the ammunition rack on the bottom.
Summarizing all these points, we can conclude that, unlike the same "Sherman", the possibilities for modernizing the hull and suspension of the T-34-85 were not fully used.
When considering the advantages and disadvantages of the T-34-85, it is necessary to take into account one more very important circumstance. The crew of any tank, as a rule, in everyday reality does not care at all about the angle of inclination of the frontal or any other sheet of the hull or turret. It is much more important that the tank as a machine, that is, as a set of mechanical and electrical mechanisms, works clearly, reliably and does not create problems during operation. Including problems associated with the repair or replacement of any parts, components and assemblies. Here the T-34-85 (like the T-34) was fine. The tank was distinguished by its exceptional maintainability! Paradoxical, but true - and the layout is “to blame” for this!
There is a rule: to arrange not to ensure convenient installation and dismantling of units, but based on the fact that until they completely fail, the units do not need repair. The required high reliability and trouble-free operation are achieved by designing a tank based on ready-made, structurally proven units. Since during the creation of the T-34, practically none of the tank’s units met this requirement, its layout was carried out contrary to the rule. The roof of the engine-transmission compartment was easily removable, the rear hull sheet was hinged, which made it possible to dismantle large units such as the engine and gearbox in field conditions. All this was of enormous importance in the first half of the war, when due to technical malfunctions the more tanks than from enemy influence (on April 1, 1942, for example, in active army there were 1642 serviceable and 2409 faulty tanks of all types, while our combat losses in March amounted to 467 tanks). As the quality of the units improved, reaching its highest level in the T-34-85, the importance of the repairable layout decreased, but one would hesitate to call this a disadvantage. Moreover, good maintainability turned out to be very useful during the post-war operation of the tank abroad, primarily in the countries of Asia and Africa, sometimes in extreme climatic conditions and with personnel who had a very mediocre, to say the least, level of training.
Despite the presence of all the shortcomings in the design of the "thirty-four", a certain balance of compromises was maintained, which distinguished this combat vehicle from other tanks of the Second World War. Simplicity, ease of operation and maintenance, combined with good armor protection, maneuverability and fairly powerful weapons, became the reason for the success and popularity of the T-34-85 among tankers.
Traditionally, the largest tank battle is considered to be the battle near Prokhorovka in the summer of 1943. But, in fact, the world's largest tank battle took place two years earlier: in June 1941 in the Brody-Dubno-Lutsk area. If we compare the numbers, Prokhorovka is clearly inferior to the Western Ukrainian Tank Battle.
The Battle of Prokhorovka took place on July 12, 1943. According to official Soviet data, 1.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns converged on both sides: 800 Soviet against 700 Nazi Germans. The Germans lost 350 units of armored vehicles, ours - 300. Allegedly, after this, the turning point came in the battle on Kursk Bulge.
However, this officialdom was questioned even by many Soviet researchers. After all, such a calculation contains obvious distortion. Indeed, in the 5th Guards tank army General Pavel Rotmistrov, who on that day counterattacked the advancing German troops, had about 950 tanks. But as for the Germans, there were approximately 700 tanks and self-propelled guns in the entire German group on the southern flank of the Kursk Bulge. And near Prokhorovka there was only the 2nd SS Panzer Corps of Waffen-SS General Paul Hausser - about 310 combat vehicles.
Therefore, according to updated Soviet data, 1,200 tanks and self-propelled guns converged near Prokhorovka: just under 800 Soviet versus just over 400 German (losses were not specified). At the same time, neither side achieved its goal, but the German offensive was objectively losing momentum.
According to very precise data, in the tank battle on July 12 near Prokhorovka, 311 German tanks and self-propelled guns took part against 597 Soviet ones (some of the vehicles of the 5th GvTA failed after a 300-kilometer march). The SS men lost about 70 (22%), and guardsmen - 343 (57%) armored vehicles. At the same time, their irretrievable losses in 2 SS TK were estimated at only 5 vehicles! The Germans, which even Soviet military leaders admitted, had better evacuation and repair of equipment. Of those shot down near Prokhorovka Soviet cars subject to restoration 146.
According to Russian historian Valery Zamulin ( Deputy for Science Director of the State Military Historical Museum-Reserve “Prokhorovskoe Field”), by decision Supreme Commander-in-Chief A commission was created to investigate the causes of the large losses suffered by the 5th GvTA near Prokhorovka. The commission's report called the military actions of Soviet troops on July 12 near Prokhorovka "an example of an unsuccessful operation." General Rotmistrov was going to be court-martialed, but by that time the general situation at the front had changed - and everything turned out okay. By the way, on the outcome of the Battle of Kursk big influence There was a landing of Anglo-American troops in Sicily, after which the headquarters of the 2nd SS TC and the Leibshatnadrt division were sent to Italy.
Now let's go back two years to Western Ukraine- and compare
If the battle of Prokhorovka lasted only one day, then the Western Ukrainian tank battle (it is difficult to determine it by any one region - Volyn or Galicia - not to mention one settlement) lasted a week: from June 23 to 30, 1941. It was attended by five mechanized corps of the Red Army (2803 tanks) of the Southwestern Front against four German tank divisions (585 tanks) of the Wehrmacht Army Group South, united in the First Tank Group. Subsequently, another tank division of the Red Army (325) and one tank division of the Wehrmacht (143) entered the battle. Thus, 3,128 Soviet and 728 German tanks (+ 71 German assault guns) fought in a gigantic oncoming tank battle. Thus, total tanks and self-propelled guns that took part in the Western Ukrainian battle - almost four thousand!
On the evening of June 22, the troops of the Southwestern Front (the most powerful grouping of Soviet troops on the western border of the USSR) received the order “to encircle and destroy the enemy group advancing in the direction of Vladimir-Volynsky, Dubno. By the end of June 24, take possession of the Lublin region.”
Considering the balance of forces (primarily in tanks, but also in artillery and aviation), the counteroffensive had a very high chance of success. The Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Army General Georgy Zhukov, personally arrived to coordinate the actions of the Southwestern Front.
To implement the task, the command of the Southwestern Front decided to create two strike groups: each with three mechanized and one rifle corps. However, the breakthrough of the German tank group forced the front commander, General Mikhail Kirponos, to abandon this plan and give the order to launch a counteroffensive without waiting for the concentration of all forces. Tank formations entered the battle separately and without mutual coordination. Subsequently, orders changed several times, which is why some units made multi-kilometer marches under enemy air attacks.
Some units did not take part in the counterattack. Part of the forces was sent to cover Kovel from the Brest direction, from where German tanks were allegedly also advancing. But, as it later became clear, the intelligence report was completely inaccurate.
On June 27, the strike group of the 8th mechanized corps under the command of brigade commissar Nikolai Popel successfully counterattacked the Germans in the Dubno area, inflicting serious losses on the enemy. However, here the Soviet tankers stopped and, waiting for reinforcements, stood for two days! During this time, the group did not receive support and, as a result, was surrounded.
It is interesting that the German tank and motorized divisions, despite the Soviet tank counterattacks, continued the offensive, as if “running forward.” In many ways, the burden of the fight against Red Army tanks fell on the Wehrmacht infantry. However, oncoming tank battles that was also enough.
On July 29, the withdrawal of the mechanized corps was authorized, and on June 30, a general retreat. The front headquarters left Ternopil and moved to Proskurov. By this time, the mechanized corps of the Southwestern Front were practically destroyed. About 10% of the tanks remained in the 22nd, about 15% in the 8th and 15th, about 30% in the 9th and 19th.
Member of the military council of the Southwestern Front, corps commissar Nikolai Vashugin, who at first actively organized counterattacks, shot himself on June 28. The remaining members of the Military Council proposed to retreat beyond the line of the old Soviet-Polish border (which existed until September 1939). However, German tanks broke through the line of fortified areas on the old border and reached the rear of the Soviet troops. Already on July 10, German troops took Zhitomir...
It cannot be said that the Soviet troops showed complete failure in those battles. It was then that the Germans first started talking about the superiority of the T-34 and KV, against which German anti-tank guns were powerless (only 88-mm anti-aircraft guns could take them)...
However, in the end, the defeat was complete. By June 30, the Southwestern Front troops participating in the counteroffensive had lost 2,648 tanks—about 85%. As for the Germans, the First Panzer Group lost about 260 vehicles during this period (for the most part these were not irretrievable losses).
In total, the Southwestern and Southern Fronts lost 4,381 tanks in the first 15 days of the war (according to the collection “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century: Losses of the Armed Forces”) out of 5,826 available.
The losses of the First Tank Group by September 4 amounted to 408 vehicles (of which 186 were irrecoverable). A little more than half. However, with the remaining 391 tanks and assault guns, Kleist managed to link up with Guderian by September 15 and close the encirclement ring around the Southwestern Front.
One of the main reasons for the defeat lies in the unprecedentedly large non-combat losses of the Red Army. For example, non-combat losses in tanks (abandoned due to lack of fuels and lubricants, breakdowns, falling from a bridge, getting stuck in a swamp, etc.) in different divisions amounted to about 40-80%. Moreover, this cannot be attributed solely to the poor condition of supposedly outdated Soviet tanks. After all, the newest KV and T-34 failed in the same way as the relatively old BT and T-26. Neither before nor after the summer of 1941 did Soviet tank forces experience such non-combat losses.
Considering that the number of missing soldiers and those lagging behind on the march also noticeably exceeded the number of killed and wounded, we can say that the Red Army soldiers sometimes simply ran away, abandoning their equipment.
It is worth looking at the reasons for the defeat from the angle of Stalin’s postulate “personnel decide everything.” In particular, compare the biographies of the commander of Army Group South, Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt, and the commander of the Southwestern Front, Colonel General Mikhail Kirponos.
66-year-old Runstedt graduated from the Military Academy back in 1907 and became an officer of the General Staff. During World War I he was chief of staff of the corps, in 1939 he commanded an army group during the war against Poland, and in 1940 - an army group in the war against France. For successful actions in 1940 (it was his troops who broke through the front and surrounded the allies at Dunkirk) he received the rank of field marshal.
49-year-old Mikhail Kirponos started out as a forester. During the First World War he was a paramedic, during the Civil War he commanded a regiment for some time, then held various positions (from commissar to head of the economic command) at the Kyiv School of Red Petty Officers. In the 1920s he graduated from the Military Academy. Frunze, then was chief of staff of the division for three years and head of the Kazan Infantry School for four years. During Finnish war was a division commander and distinguished himself in the battles for Vyborg. As a result, after jumping over several steps career ladder, in February 1941 he headed the Kiev Special Military District (the largest in the USSR), which was transformed into the Southwestern Front.
Soviet tank forces were inferior to the Panzerwaffe in training. Soviet tank crews had 2-5 hours of driving practice, while German tank crews had about 50 hours.
As for the training of commanders, the Germans noted the extremely inept conduct of Soviet tank attacks. This is how he wrote about the battles of 1941-1942. German General Friedrich von Mellenthin, author of the study “Tank Battles 1939-1945: The Combat Use of Tanks in the Second World War”:
“Tanks were concentrated in dense masses in front of the German defense front; uncertainty and the absence of any plan were felt in their movement. They interfered with each other, collided with our anti-tank guns, and if our positions were broken through, they stopped moving and stopped, instead of building on their success. During these days, individual German anti-tank guns and 88-mm guns were most effective: sometimes one gun disabled over 30 tanks in an hour. It seemed to us that the Russians had created an instrument that they would never learn to use.”
In general, the very structure of the mechanized corps of the Red Army turned out to be unsuccessful, which already in mid-July 1941 were disbanded into less cumbersome formations.
It is also worth noting factors that cannot be attributed to defeat. First of all, it cannot be explained by the superiority of German tanks over Soviet ones. Quite a lot has already been written about the fact that at the beginning of the war, Soviet supposedly outdated tanks, in general, were not inferior to German ones, and the new KV and T-34 were superior to enemy tanks. There is no way to explain the Soviet defeat by the fact that the Red Army was led by “backward” cavalry commanders. After all, the German First Panzer Group was commanded by Cavalry General Ewald von Kleist.
Finally, a few words about why Brody-Dubno-Lutsk lost the championship to Prokhorovka.
In fact, they talked about the Western Ukrainian tank battle in the Soviet period. Some of its participants even wrote memoirs (especially the memoirs of Nikolai Popel - “In a difficult time”). However, in general, they mentioned it in passing, in a few lines: they say there were counterattacks that were not successful. Nothing was said about the number of Soviet ones, but it was emphasized that they were outdated.
This interpretation can be explained by two main reasons. First of all, according to the Soviet myth about the reasons for the defeat in the initial period of the war, the Germans had superiority in technology. To be convincing, in Soviet history about the initial period of the Second World War, the number of all German tanks (and their allies) was compared with the number of only medium and heavy Soviet tanks. It was generally accepted that the Red Army soldiers stopped the German tank hordes only with bunches of grenades, or even bottles with a combustible mixture. Therefore, there was simply no place for the largest tank battle in 1941 in the official Soviet history of the Second World War.
Another reason for the silence of the greatest tank battle the fact that it was organized by the future Marshal of Victory, and at that time the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Georgy Zhukov. After all, the marshal of victory had no defeats! In the same connection soviet history The Second World War hid Operation Mars, the failed large-scale offensive at the end of 1942 against the German-held Rzhev salient. The actions of two fronts here were led by Zhukov. So that his authority would not suffer, this battle was reduced to a local Rzhev-Sychev operation, and they knew about the large losses from Alexander Tvardovsky’s poem “I was killed near Rzhev.”
Apologists for the Marshal of Victory even made candy out of the catastrophe of the Southwestern Front. Allegedly, already in the first days of the enemy invasion, Zhukov organized a counterattack on the Southwestern Front with the forces of several mechanized corps. As a result of the operation, the plan of the Nazi command to immediately break through to Kyiv and reach the left bank of the Dnieper was thwarted. Then the enemy suffered considerable losses in military equipment, which noticeably reduced its offensive and maneuver capabilities.
At the same time, about the initial goal of the offensive (to capture the Lublin region), they said that the order given was unrealistic, based on an overestimation of one’s troops and an underestimation of the enemy. And they preferred not to talk about the ruined tank armada, only casually mentioning that the tanks were outdated.
In general, it is not surprising that the tank championship was given to Prokhorovka.
Dmitro Shurkhalo, for ORD
Films about tank crews are another special, more detailed case from the selection of films about the war. This can be explained quite simply, since you can hardly see a tank in films that do not describe military operations. Although tanks are also used in training and can be used, for example, in films about the army, the absolute majority feature films, where tanks play an important role, are dedicated to military operations. A significant place among such films is played by films about the Great Patriotic War, which lasted from 1941 to 1945.
The tank, in itself, is necessarily an armored vehicle. This point always remains unchanged, since its other characteristics may change from machine to machine. For example, most tanks have a tracked movement system, while some tanks move on conventional wheels. Much more expanded options are present in terms of the tank’s armament. Although tanks are by no means machines with only one type of weapon, one of them still plays a leading role. The most developed and the first thing that comes to mind as the main armament of a tank is the cannon. Although before good development cannon armament, most tanks were armed with machine gun armament, which took second place due to the advent of cannon armament. These two types of weapons still remain the most popular in tank building, although more exotic versions of tanks are also common, for example, with missile weapons or with flamethrowers.
Also speaking about tanks, I would like to definitely note that such a large and well-equipped vehicle in the conditions of military operations is almost impossible to handle alone. Therefore, the tank team consists of several people, which, depending on the size of the tank, can vary from 2-3 to 10-12 people. All this requires good and well-coordinated teamwork, where the absence or incapacity of one of the crew members can lead to the death of the tank and the entire crew during tank battle. And of course, all these details will be perfectly displayed in any film about tanks, an excellent example of which is the film Fury with Brad Pitt.
One of the first tank battles of the Great Patriotic War took place on its first day. On June 22, at approximately noon, the leading elements of the German 18th Panzer and possibly the 17th Panzer Divisions and the Soviet 30th Panzer Division, which was moving west from Pruzhany, collided near the small Belarusian village of Pelishche. It was a classic oncoming battle, which temporarily delayed the advance of German tank units from Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group. Around the same time, another tank battle took place in the afternoon - at Alytus in Lithuania, where battle groups The German 7th and 20th Panzer Divisions collided with the vanguard of the Soviet 5th Panzer Division. It so happens that information about the battles near the city of Alytus is much easier to find today. We’ll talk about the tank battle that took place near the village of Pelishche.
On the Soviet side, tanks from the 30th Tank Division of the 14th Mechanized Corps (14MK, commander Major General S.I. Oborin) of the 4th Army of the Western Special Military District, located at Slobudka (near the city of Pruzhany) took part in it. . The division began to form only in February-March 1941 on the basis of the 32nd tank brigade in Pruzhany. The division included the 60th and 61st tank regiments, the 30th motorized rifle regiment and the 30th howitzer artillery regiment. The unit was headed by Colonel Semyon Ilyich Bogdanov, who during the war rose to the rank of marshal armored forces(rank awarded on June 1, 1945). At the start of the war, the division had 211 T-26 tanks; there were no other tanks in service with the division.
By order of the chief of staff of the 14MK, Colonel I.V. Tutarinov, on the night of June 22, 1941, the 30th Tank Division, with one of its tank regiments, conducted night firing at a tankodrome located in the Poddubno area. On the afternoon of June 21, the commander of the 30th Tank Division, Colonel Bogdanov, and the chief of staff of the 4th Army, Colonel Sandalov, were present at the exercises of this regiment.
The position of the troops of the Western Front on the first day of the war (map). Original, CA RF Ministry of Defense
Order to bring divisions of the 14th Mechanized Corps to combat readiness, which was given at 3:30 a.m. on June 22, 1941 by the commander of the 4th Army, Major General A.A. Korobkov, did not have time to be transferred to the units before the start of hostilities. The divisions of the corps were alerted already under the explosions of shells and bombs. Colonel Bogdanov independently raised the 30th Tank Division on alert at 4:15 a.m. after German aircraft began bombing the Kuplin airfield in the Pruzhany region. The headquarters of the 14th MK, which was located in Kobrin, was subjected to precise and heavy bombardment from the air already in the first hours of the war, losing almost all means of communication from it. Remaining at 20% of its regular strength, the corps headquarters moved to the reserve command post in Tevli, however, large losses in the command staff and in the communications battalion significantly complicated the management of divisions and corps units. Later, in a report to army headquarters, the commander of 14MK, Major General Oborin, reported that of all the means of communication he had only one radio station, 5-AK, and communications with the divisions were carried out by communications delegates.
By 6 o'clock in the morning, parts of Bogdanov's division concentrated in the alarm gathering area (in the forest southwest of Pruzhany). The 61st Tank Regiment of Major P.I. Ivanyuk’s division, which was at night firing, joined the main forces of the division an hour later. Without receiving any orders from the headquarters of the 14th MK and the headquarters of the 4th Army, Colonel Bogdanov decided to act according to the cover plan that was developed on the eve of the war. After checking their combat readiness, units of the 30th Tank Division at approximately 7 a.m. set out for the concentration area (Shcherbovo, Boyary) in two columns, with forward detachments consisting of tank battalions reinforced with artillery. At the same time, most of the personnel of the division, which was not provided with vehicles, as well as the howitzer-artillery regiment (which did not have tractors and shells) were left at the location of the unit in order to organize the defense of Pruzhany.
As you can see, the Soviet tankers had to fight the upcoming battle without sufficient support from motorized rifles and artillery, as well as reliable air cover. From Pruzhany to the village of Pelishche, tanks from the 30th division had to cover approximately 45 kilometers during daylight hours. The latter circumstance led to the fact that already from the beginning of the march, the moving columns of the division were discovered by German aircraft, after which they were subjected to bomb attacks, suffering their first losses on the march. According to the report of the commander of the 14th mechanized corps, Oborin, by 11 o'clock the 30th tank division was on the march to the concentration area and the head of the column of the main forces reached the Poddubno area, having only one ammunition load and one fuel refueling; on the march, parts of the division were repeatedly attacked by enemy aircraft .
The advanced detachments of the German 18th Panzer Division were already moving towards the Soviet tankers. She began crossing the Bug with the 17th Panzer Division at 4:15 am. Already at 4 hours 45 minutes, the first tanks of the 18th Panzer Division crossed the river and found themselves on Soviet territory. During the crossing of the water barrier, the Germans used combat vehicles, which they had already tested during the preparation of Operation Sea Lion. Performance characteristics These tanks allowed them to overcome water boundaries up to 4 meters deep.
It is worth noting that the 17th and 18th tank divisions were not only well-equipped with tanks, the military equipment they were armed with was qualitatively superior to the vehicles of the opposing 30th tank division, which was armed exclusively with outdated light tanks T-26 different years release and state of varying technical serviceability. As of June 22, 1941, the 17th Tank Division had 202 tanks (12 PzKpfw I, 44 PzKpfw II, 106 PzKpfw III (with a 50-mm gun), 30 PzKpfw IV and 10 command PzBef), as part of the 18th Tank divisions - 218 tanks (6 PzKpfw I, 50 PzKpfw II, 99 PzKpfw III (with a 37 mm gun), 15 PzKpfw III (with a 50 mm gun), 36 PzKpfw IV and 12 command PzBef). Of the 420 tanks of these two divisions, 286 tanks, that is, more than half, were medium PzKpfw III and PzKpfw IV, which were superior in armor and armament to the Soviet T-26.
Submarine tanks were able to provide the invasion forces with a fairly significant advantage. They took full advantage of the moment of surprise. Already at 8:15 a.m., units of “diving” tanks break through to an important crossing over the Lesnaya River, flowing east of the Bug, capturing it intact. At 9:45, diving tanks captured another crossing of this river; it was also undamaged. Unlike the Soviet amphibious tanks T-37/38 and even the T-40, German tanks of similar purpose were not special developments, but a common adaptation of linear combat vehicles. For this reason, they had the same combat capabilities as ordinary “troikas” and “fours”, including the ability to fully engage in combat with enemy tanks.
Tank PzKpfw III 18 TD, 1941, after crossing the Western Bug River along the bottom.
However, having vigorously launched the offensive on the morning of June 22, the 2nd Panzer Group slowed down in the afternoon. To the north of Brest, by noon, sappers managed to build crossings across the Bug, but the access roads to them became a bottleneck. Leading from paved roads to the crossing, they walked through a swampy lowland, under the wheels and tracks of dozens of the most different cars approaches to crossings rapidly deteriorated. So the tractors of the 17th Panzer Division had to first pull out the trucks stuck in the mud, and then pull them to the road, which allowed movement in only one direction. In addition, in the evening, at the crossing of the same division, a bridge collapsed under a tank, which stopped the crossing of the Bug for five hours. As a result, the “diving” tanks that had rushed forward into Soviet territory were left without replenishing ammunition or refueling. The combat log of the XXXXVII Motorized Corps, which included the 17th and 18th Panzer Divisions, stated: “By the late evening of June 22, only small part both divisions crossed the Bug."
Apparently, at approximately noon on June 22, the forward detachments of the 30th Panzer Division encountered the diving tanks of the enemy 18th Panzer Division and other advanced units of the XXXXVII Motorized Corps near the village of Pelishche.
According to reports from the Soviet side, the division came into contact with the enemy with its advanced battalions at 11 a.m., and with its main forces between 12 and 1 p.m. It was reported that the advance detachment of the 60th tank regiment The division entered into battle with enemy tanks in the Shchebrovo-Pelishche area. Here an oncoming tank battle unfolded, in which dozens of tanks from each side took part. As a result of the battle, the German tanks retreated a little back to the village of Vidomlya. On a short time Soviet tank crews managed to delay their advance. At the same time, as early as 2 p.m., the division again began to be subjected to massive enemy air raids, suffering heavy losses in men and equipment from them.
At about 15:00 in the afternoon, the command of the 4th Army decided to begin equipping the rear defensive line on the line of the eastern bank of the Mukhavets River from Pruzhany to Bukhovichi using the forces of the 205th motorized rifle regiment motorized rifle division and foot units of the 30th Panzer Division from the 14th MK. At the same time, the main forces of the motorized rifle division were preparing defense in the Bereza areas. But with the receipt at 18 o’clock of a directive from the high command to launch counterattacks on the enemy with all available forces, the command of the army was given new order: on the morning of June 23, go on the offensive with the entire composition of the 14th MK. Of course, the requirements of both the NGO directive and the order of the front and army headquarters no longer corresponded to reality and the prevailing situation in this direction.
By the end of June 22, the 30th Tank Division (more than 120 T-26 tanks) was still fighting on the Pelishche, Podlesie line and part of its forces north of Ratajchytsia. During the battle on June 22, the division lost about 25% of its personnel, 30% of its tanks, and also lost three battalion commanders and five company commanders, which indicates the intensity of the battle. At the same time, at night, only the 30th Tank Division from the corps fought, since the Germans did not stop attacks in this direction at night, advancing in the light of flares and pushing the division’s units towards Poddubno. The fact that in the battles of June 22 the 30th Panzer Division suffered serious losses is evidenced by the fact that on June 23 about 130 T-26 tanks went on the offensive from it, the rest of the vehicles were apparently destroyed or damaged during the battles June 22, enemy air raids, and also failed for technical reasons.
About enemy losses in battles in the area settlement Pelishche knows nothing. The 18th Panzer Division reported that it had fought its way to the town of Pelishche. The combat log of the XXXXVII Motorized Corps indicated that along the road “several enemy tank detachments numbering up to 40 tanks were defeated.” These were the advanced detachments of the Soviet 30th Tank Division of Colonel Bogdanov. At the same time, the interim report of Army Group Center indicated that the 18th Panzer Division during June 22 “repelled a strong tank attack by the Russians.”
T-26 tanks from the 14th MK, abandoned in Kobrin
The counter battle that took place near the village of Pelishche was typical of the first days of the war. At that time, the Soviet command did not even allow the thought that tank forces could be used for defensive battles at a certain point. Only tank attacks were considered legal. Such attacks against advancing enemy tank units turned into oncoming tank battles, which were more beneficial to the Germans. Such a fight turned into a duel tank crews in unequal conditions. On our side, mainly tanks took part in the battles, sometimes without infantry at all, while on the enemy’s side, tank actions were supported by artillery and aviation. It is quite natural that Soviet tank crews, already inferior in skill to their more experienced colleagues from the Panzerwaffe, suffered incomparably greater losses in such battles. German tank crews were more successful in hitting the enemy from short stops than Soviet tank crews. In addition, the enemy continuously bombed Soviet tanks. The 30th Panzer Division lost no less combat vehicles from German dive bombers than from enemy artillery and tanks.
Also, the results of the first tank battles were affected by the fact that in the spring of 1941, most of the trained senior mechanics-drivers and tank commanders were transferred with promotion to the newly formed units of the new mechanized corps. As a result of this, the tank crews were renewed; the young soldiers who took their place did not have time to undergo full combat training. At the same time, the artillery training of the crews remained very weak; the fighters did not receive proper training. At the same time, the artillery regiments of the new tank divisions were armed with only howitzers with a very limited supply of ammunition, and there was also a lack of traction equipment for the artillery. Naturally, in such conditions it was inappropriate to engage in oncoming tank battles with the enemy. At the same time, we should not forget that the use of tank units in defense at that time was not worked out in detail, there was no proper experience, and it came to the commanders of the Red Army much later.
Today, the site of the first major tank battle, which took place near the village of Pelishche, has seriously changed: a new road junction has been built at the crossroads near this settlement. Despite the fact that more than 75 years have passed since those events, traces of the battle can still be found in local fields: for example, tracks from the tracks of T-26 tanks are still found here. These are the only silent witnesses to that distant battle, the eyewitnesses of which left virtually no documentary evidence about it.
Information sources:
http://myfront.in.ua/krasnaya-armiya/divizii/tankovye-16-30.html
Moshchansky I. B. Tragedy Brest Fortress. Anthology of feat. June 22 - July 23, 1941 / I. B. Moshchansky. - Moscow: Veche, 2010. - 128 p.
Isaev A.V. Unknown 1941. Stopped blitzkrieg / A.V. Isaev. - Moscow: Eksmo, 2013. - 480 p.
Materials from open sources.
Loading...
