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

The first large German armoured operations in 1942 were the relief of the Kholm and Demyansk pockets in March–May 1942. The relief of Kholm was spearheaded by StuG IIIs from Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 184 and a Kampfgruppen Crissoli from 8.Panzer-Division. After intense fighting on the approaches to Kholm, in which both sides lost armoured vehicles in ambush-style combat, German assault guns finally fought their way into the town and relieved Kampfgruppe Scherer. At Demyansk, the Soviets had encircled six German divisions with 96,000 troops, but the Red Army lacked the strength to reduce the pocket or even to seriously interfere with the Luftwaffe airlift that kept the defenders in supply. On 21 March 1942, Gruppe Seydlitz began Operation Brückenschlag, a relief effort involving five German infantry divisions, supported by thirty tanks from I./Pz.Regt 203 and 13 StuG IIIs.¹³ The going was very slow, over frozen marshlands and heavily forested, and temperatures still ranged between –20°C (–13°F) and –29°C (–20°F). The Soviets employed their only armoured reserve in this sector, the 69th Tank Brigade, to launch an attack on 27 March to try and stop the German relief effort. However, the German jägers managed to repulse the Soviet tank brigade and knocked out eight of its twenty T-34 tanks using a combination of means. The spring thaw, which began in early April, proved a bigger obstacle to the German relief effort than Soviet tanks. Nevertheless, Gruppe Seydlitz finally managed to link up with the trapped German forces at Demyansk on 21 April. The use of German armour – although only a single battalion plus two assault gun batteries – had been decisive in breaking the Soviet ring around the Demyansk pocket. This episode proved to be a harbinger of many future German operations, where panzer units were used to spearhead relief efforts.

Despite a lack of decision, the winter fighting was very costly for both sides. The failed efforts to capture Rzhev and Vyazma cost Konev’s and Zhukov’s forces the shocking total of 776,889 casualties and 957 tanks – which was 73 per cent of their personnel strength and 150 per cent of their tank strength at the start of the operation. During the same period, Heeresgruppe Mitte suffered 150,008 combat casualties but received over 160,000 replacements. Overall, the 1941–42 Winter Counter-offensive cost the Red Army 1.854 million casualties in the first three months of 1942.^{14, 15}

Armoured Warfare in the Winter

German tanks were not designed with the Russian winter in mind. The tracks on the Pz.III and Pz.IV were 16–25 per cent narrower than the T-34 and both vehicles had less ground clearance than either the T-34 or KV-1, which caused them to get stuck in deep snow. In particular, the T-34 had a significant mobility advantage over the Pz.III and Pz.IV on soft ground or snow due to its superior horsepower to weight ratio and lower ground pressure. The V-2 diesel tank engine provided the T-34 with mobility, reliability and endurance that no German tank matched during the Second World War. However, the Soviet tank with the best mobility on snow and ice was actually the T-60 light tank, even though its thin armour resulted in it being dubbed the BM-2 or ‘Bratskaya Mogila na dvoikh’ (a brother’s grave for two) by Soviet tankers. In contrast, the British-made Valentine and Matilda tanks had very little mobility in deep snow and little traction on ice. Near Lake Seliger, when the 170th OTB was marching to the front, it lost two of its thirteen Matilda IIs when they slid off an icy road and rolled over.¹⁶ Near Istra, the 146th Tank Brigade also lost several Valentines to roll-over incidents.