Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1941-1942: Schwerpunkt

The main component of the Soviet Winter Counter-offensive began on 6 January, with a fairly coordinated series of offensives by General Kirill A. Meretskov’s Volkhov Front, General-Polkovnik Pavel A. Kurochkin’s Northwest Front, Konev’s Kalinin Front and Zhukov’s Western Front. Zhukov employed nearly one-fifth of the Red Army’s available armour in his sector, about 400 tanks, leaving less than 200 tanks for Konev, 100 for Kurochkin and 150 for Meretskov. The Volkhov Front attacked with the 4th, 59th and 2nd Shock Army against the 16.Armee and one corps of the 18.Armee. The marshy and heavily-wooded terrain along the Volkhov precluded the large use of armour by either side, although the neighboring Leningrad Front was able to use small numbers of KV-1 and T-34 tanks against the hard-pressed German Stützpunkt (strongpoint) at Kirishi, which quickly gained a reputation as ‘the Verdun of the Volkhov’. Soviet tankers painted their KV-1s with whitewash for winter camouflage, contributing to their nickname as ‘White Mammoths’. German infantrymen in front-line trenches would see the ‘White Mammoths’ forming up for an attack in the open, up to 1,000 meters away. The Soviets knew that their KV-1s were invulnerable to all but 8.8cm flak and heavy artillery – which could not be easily moved to the front through deep snow – and became increasingly brazen, which they hoped would undermine German morale when they realized how impotent their defenses were against the KV-1. Often, one or two KV-1s would approach German lines and, from a distance of 500 meters – beyond the effective range of the 5-cm Pak gun – they would mercilessly hammer any visible targets with high explosive rounds and machine-gun fire. This occurred day after day during the winter, when low clouds and poor visibility made it unlikely that any Luftwaffe Stukas could intervene.

On the morning of 18 January 1942, a small group of KV-1s and T-34s from Polkovnik Mikhail Rudoy’s 122nd Tank Brigade began their usual demonstrations near Pogost’e, west of Kirishi. Suddenly, the Soviet tanks came under fire at a distance of about 800 meters and several of their tanks were knocked out. Lying concealed in the German positions, two StuG III assault guns from Sturmgeschütz-Batterie 667 were firing 7.5cm HEAT ammunition. Although the ‘White Mammoths’ broke off their attack, they apparently thought that the engagement was some kind of fluke and tried again the next day – with similar results. In two days, the German StuG IIIs managed to knock out four KV-1s and five T-34s – almost one-third of Rudoy’s brigade.

The three Soviet armies encircled in Leningrad had over 100 tanks in the 124th Heavy Tank Brigade and five OTBs and made repeated efforts during the winter of 1941–42 to break out toward the rail junction at Mga in order to link-up with Meretskov’s forces. In one action, the 124th Tank Brigade committed the only extant KV-3 heavy tank – an experimental version of the KV-1 that was built in Leningrad just prior to the war. The 62-ton KV-3 was intended as a ‘breakthrough tank’ and was given additional armour plate, making it nearly invulnerable – or so the Soviets thought. In an effort to punch through the German blockade lines around Leningrad, the single KV-3 was made the vanguard of an attack. The heavy behemoth clanked toward the German lines, but its weight greatly reduced its mobility, which gave the enemy artillery the ability to zero in on it. A well-placed German 15 cm howitzer shell struck the KV-3’s turret and detonated its ammunition, bringing the combat debut of the only Soviet breakthrough tank to a sudden end.

Elsewhere however, the KV-1 was more successful in creating breakthroughs. As part of Kurochkin’s Northwest Front offensive, the 11th Army sent a platoon of five KV-1s under a Leytenant Astakhov and a company of T-60s across frozen Lake Il’men on the night of 7–8 January in order to outflank the German X Armeekorps at Staraya Russa. As one Soviet rider noted: