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

After spending most of a year in constant dread of the T-34 and KV-1 tanks, German panzer and panzerjäger units began to receive the first new weapons intended to counter Soviet heavy tanks in February 1942 and this process accelerated during the spring. The 7.5cm HEAT rounds had arrived in limited quantities in January and problems with quality control limited production for some time, but their appearance helped to end the Soviet predilection for raids by single KV-1s. The Germans had also captured significant quantities of Soviet 76.2mm field guns in the 1941 campaign and these were rechambered in Germany and reissued as the 7.62cm Pak36 (r) in February 1942. The Pak 36(r) was the first weapon provided to the panzerjägers that could destroy a KV-1 or T-34 tank with kinetic armour-piercing rounds out to 1,000 meters or more and helped to level the playing field in 1942 until Rheinmetall could deploy the equivalent 7.5cm Pak40 in quantity. Since the Pak 36(r) was double the weight of the 5cm Pak 38, the Germans began mounting a large proportion of the Pak 36(r) guns on surplus Pz.II chassis, which entered service in April as the Marder II tank destroyer.

Production of tungsten-core 5cm anti-tank rounds for the 5cm Pak 38 and the 5cm guns on the Pz.III tank was also significantly expanded in early 1942, since the Panzergranate 40 – which was the only anti-tank round that had any effect on the T-34 – had only been available in token quantities during the 1941 campaign. Additionally, a new generation of anti-tank weapons that used the Gerlach ‘tapered bore’ principle to produce extremely high muzzle velocities began appearing in limited numbers, such as the 4.2cm Pak 41 and the 7.5cm Pak 41. While tungsten penetrators and tapered bore guns led to a temporary increase in German anti-tank firepower for the 1942 campaign, Germany’s supplies of tungsten – mostly imported from Portugal – were too limited to re-equip all units with this improved weaponry, or even to sustain increased production for very long. Instead, the Heereswaffenamt put its greatest emphasis in the short term on up-gunning the Pz.III and Pz.IV tanks to long-barreled weapons in order to increase muzzle velocities. The introduction of the Pz.III J with long 5cm Kwk 39 L/60 in December 1941 provided Germany’s main medium tank with the ability to effectively engage the T-34 at ranges up to 500 meters, although the Pz.III’s inferior levels of armoured protection and mobility meant that the T-34 was still a formidable opponent, if well handled. The Pz.IVF2, equipped with the long 7.5cm KwK 40 L/43, had the potential to become Germany’s ‘universal tank’ that could fulfill the anti-tank and infantry support roles equally effectively, but very little effort was made to expand its production during the critical winter months. In March 1942, the Pz.IVF2 began to appear in limited numbers – usually arriving in batches of just five to ten new tanks – which meant that the barely-adequate Pz.IIIJ would be the main German battle tank for much of the 1942 campaign. Concurrently, the StuG III Aus. F assault gun began appearing with the 7.5cm StuK 40 L/43 cannon, which provided the Sturmartillerie with a real anti-tank capability – even though their primary mission remained infantry support.

While these crash programs and ad hoc expedients significantly raised German anti-tank capabilities in 1942, the long-term plan to counter the T-34 was based upon finishing the development of the new heavy tank and medium tank designs. Henschel and Porsche were each developing heavy tank prototypes, but Hitler would not select the Henschel design for production as the Pz.VI Tiger until April. Armed with the 8.8cm KwK 36 L/56 gun and protected by up to 120mm of armour, the Tiger would provide the Wehrmacht with a large advantage in firepower and armoured protection when it began to appear in August, but its mobility remained inferior to the T-34, as well as previous German tanks.

Meanwhile, Daimler-Benz and Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nurnberg (MAN) were involved in a tight competition to produce the new medium tank, which would be equipped with the new 7.5cm KwK 42 L/70 gun under development by Rheinmetall. Originally, the new medium tank was supposed to be 30 tons, but the division of the Heereswaffenamt responsible for overseeing the new medium tank – Wa Pruef 6 – raised the requirement to 36 tons. Engineers at Daimler-Benz made a careful study of captured T-34s and developed a prototype that had a similar silhouette and was powered by a Mercedes-Benz MB 507 diesel engine. In contrast, MAN made torsion bar suspension the determining characteristic of its prototype, even though this was irrelevant to the original requirement made by Guderian in November 1941. Hitler was impressed by the Daimler-Benz design, which was shown to him in April 1942, and he favored a diesel tank engine.