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

The Luftwaffe was out in full force and the Stukas ruthlessly pounded any concentration of Soviet armour, which forced many battalions to disperse in order to survive, but this made it easier for massed German armour to defeat them in detail. Soviet logistics in the Barvenkovo salient were also failing as von Kleist’s panzers overran one Donets bridge after another. The only problem for von Bock was Paulus’ dithering in moving the 3 and 23.Panzer-Division to link up with von Kleist; Fridericus was supposed to be a double pincer operation, but it ended up being a single envelopment until all but the end. It was not until 22 May that Paulus committed his panzers to Fridericus, but they rapidly tore through the Soviet infantry left holding the northern side of the salient and linked up with von Kleist’s armour on 23 May, trapping the Soviet 6th and 57th Armies in the Barvenkovo kessel.

By May 1942 the Germans had considerable experiencing in dealing with encircled Soviet forces and von Kleist quickly brought up infantry divisions to seal off the trapped forces in the kessel, while his panzers were relocated to deal with the inevitable Soviet relief and breakout efforts. Timoshenko scraped together some reserve units to make an attempt to pierce the German ring, including the 114th Tank Brigade, which had American-made M-3 Stuart light tanks and M-3 Lee medium tanks. Mackensen’s panzers easily turned back these puny relief efforts, while the German infantry decimated repeated Soviet efforts to break out of the kessel. Von Bock instructed von Kleist and Paulus to rely upon artillery and the Luftwaffe to crush the trapped forces, which they did with great relish between 24–28 May. The commanders of both the 6th and 57th Armies were killed, as well as Kuzmin, commander of the 23rd Tank Corps. Pushkin was able to escape with one brigade before the kessel was closed, but the rest of his corps was lost. According to the Soviets, 22,000 troops and six T-34s managed to escape the kessel before it was crushed, but the truth was that the Southwest Front had suffered a catastrophic defeat. Timoshenko’s forces suffered 277,190 casualties or 36 per cent of the troops committed. Of the 1,200 tanks committed during the course of the battle, 775 had been lost. Kuzmin’s 21st Tank Corps was annihilated – the first of the new breed to suffer that fate – and Pushkin’s 23rd Tank Corps was crippled.

An interesting demonstration of the inability of Soviet armour to break through a solid German infantry defense at this time was provided by the 62.Infanterie-Division, which had been directly in the path of the Soviet 6th Army assault. During the battle from 12–24 May, the 62.Infanterie-Division suffered a total of 3,121 casualties out of 17,900 troops, including 591 dead and 1,084 missing. However, during the same period, the division claimed 162 enemy tanks knocked out and gave a detailed breakdown of how it accomplished this feat, which indicated that most Soviet tanks fell victim to either 5cm Pak 38 or 8.8cm flak guns.²⁷ The use of field artillery in the direct fire role against tanks occurred often during the Battle of Kharkov, but yielded a very poor 1–1 exchange ratio.

Sample Soviet Tank Losses by Cause, May 1942

In contrast, the Axis forces suffered 30,000 casualties during the Second Battle of Kharkov and no major units were destroyed. German infantry was becoming less helpless against Soviet armour in 1942 than it was in the previous year. Although new anti-tank weaponry only played a minor role in the final stages of the battle, the increased production of PzGr 40 anti-tank rounds greatly improved the battlefield lethality of both the 5 cm Pak38 and the 5 cm guns on Pz.III; whereas these tungsten-core rounds had been in very short supply in 1941, they now comprised 17–18 per cent of the available 5cm ammunition.²⁸ Out of the 421 tanks committed in the four panzer divisions, 108 were lost, but this was equivalent to only one-third of monthly production and could still be replaced. Von Kleist’s forces suffered the bulk of German armoured losses, since they were on the offensive. Generalmajor Hermann Breith’s 3.Panzer-Division knocked out sixty-two enemy tanks, including five KV-1 and thirty-six T-34, at a cost of ten of its own panzers (seven Pz.III, three Pz.IV), while Generalmajor Hans Freiherr von Boineburg-Lengsfeld’s 23.Panzer-Division knocked out 260 Soviet tanks, including fifteen KV-1 and 116 T-34, for the loss of just thirteen of its own tanks.^{29, 30} Additional German tanks were damaged in combat, but since they kept the battlefield, they could recover and repair them.