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

Despite successfully surviving Operation Barbarossa and Typhoon and forcing all four German panzer armies to retreat, the Winter Counter-offensive had demonstrated that the Red Army could not inflict decisive defeats upon the Wehrmacht with a motley collection of tank brigades and separate tank battalions. In order to conduct deliberate offensives that could seize deep objectives and encircle large enemy formations, the Red Army needed to resurrect corps-size armoured formations. In February 1942, the Stavka authorized the formation of twenty-five new tank corps from existing and newly-formed tank brigades. Initially, these formations were based upon two or three tank brigades with 100–150 tanks and a motorized rifle brigade with an authorized strength of 1,900 infantry, but were provided very limited artillery, engineer, reconnaissance and air defense supporting arms. Even trucks to carry fuel and ammunition for the corps were in very short supply.

The first three tanks corps were officially formed on 31 March 1942 in the Moscow Military district, with General-major Mikhail E. Katukov commanding the 1st Tank Corps (1 TC), General-major Dmitry K. Mostovenko getting the 3 TC and General-major Vasiliy A. Mishulin getting 4 TC. Katukov’s corps was based upon his own veteran 1st Guards Tank Brigade, but the other two tank brigades added to his command were newly-formed units that had not yet seen combat. Ten more tank corps were formed in mid-April and six more in May. Rotmistrov, who like Katukov had earned himself a reputation for results at the front, was given command of the 7 TC. All of the officers chosen to lead the first nine tank corps in March-April 1942 had commanded a tank brigade or division in combat during the 1941 campaign and three had been wounded in action. Thus, each corps contained a kernel of combat veterans and trained tankers, but many personnel were fresh from the tank training schools.

The Stavka and GABTU decided that the tank corps would receive the best available tanks, namely the KV-1, T-34, Matilda II and T-60. Outfitting the first nine tank corps in March-April 1942 required about 1,400 tanks, including 540 T-34s and 200 KV-1s. Equipping these tank corps should have been fairly straightforward for the GABTU, since by March Soviet industry was producing over 700 T-34s and 250 KV-1s per month. Yet while the Stavka and GABTU recognized that the new tank corps were essential to spearhead upcoming offensive operations, the Red Army’s infantry commanders all demanded tank support, so the decision was made to retain and even expand the number of separate tank brigades and OTBs so that each field army would have some armour support. While most of the remaining T-26 and BT light tanks and British-made Valentines were fobbed off on the infantry support units, they too would get a share of T-34s and KV-1s. However, the Red Army was still trying to do too much, too fast and the decision to develop two separate tank forces – one for mobile warfare and one for infantry support – diluted the Soviet Union’s growing advantage in tank production in early 1942 and resulted in units that often had a hodgepodge of tank models. Instead of concentrating the best armour in the tank corps, the separate brigades and battalions would divert a significant number of tanks and crews to units that would have little or no operational-level impact. The impact of this mistake was to reduce the value of the Red Army’s growing numerical superiority in tanks in the early campaigning in spring and summer 1942.

Even though combat experience from the 1941 campaign indicated that the T-34 had poor visibility for its buttoned-up commanders and the KV-1 had an inadequate transmission, the GKO and GABTU decided not to make any major changes to these designs since it would reduce short-term production output. Instead, both tanks received some additional armoured protection in their 1942 models and the T-34 Model 1942 would begin using a larger hexagonal-shaped turret after May 1942 in order to help improve crew performance. New tracks and road wheels began to appear during the course of 1942, but the major defects were left uncorrected until 1943–44. Indeed, Soviet tank design became rigidly conservative for more than a year, although once Germany began to field its own improved tanks the GABTU leadership recognized that the T-34 design needed to be updated. The KV-1 was more problematic and no amount of minor improvements would change the fact that it lacked the mobility to keep up with T-34 tanks. The only new Soviet tank introduced in 1942 was the 9-ton T-70 light tank armed with a 45mm cannon, which was intended to replace the T-60, which only had a 20mm cannon. The main reason for producing the T-70 was that it could be built in quantity and would help make up the deficit of T-34s, not because it added a great deal of combat effectiveness to Soviet armoured units.