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

In tactical tank-vs.-tank combat, the Germans demonstrated that they could inflict a 6–1 or better casualty ratio on Soviet armour, but the odds were more even when Soviet armour was on the defense. In strategic terms, the elimination of the Barvenkovo salient greatly shortened the German front line, thereby providing Heeresgruppe Süd with the necessary reserves to mount Operation Blau.

The German operational handling of their armour during the Second Battle of Kharkov was superb, and in many respects the panzer divisions were at the apogee of their capabilities. In each case, the armour-air support team had formed a successful schwerpunkt that broke through Soviet rifle units with relative ease. Soviet tank units were still difficult to deal with, when equipped with either KV-1 or T-34 in large numbers, but the performance of the improved German Pz.III and Pz.IV tanks and PzGr 40 ammunition indicated that the gap was closing. Another more ominous result of the battle was that von Bock and the OKH came to believe that Romanian forces could hold front-line defensive sectors if properly supported – which would lead to problems soon enough. In fact, no significant Soviet tank units were deployed against the four Romanian infantry divisions involved in the battle, so they had not really been tested. For the Stavka, Kharkov was a painful lesson about the necessity of proper intelligence and logistic preparation in order for offensives to succeed, as well as including likely German responses into planning.

Clearing up Loose Ends, 2 June–4 July

Once Timoshenko’s Southwest Front was crippled by its losses in the Second Battle of Kharkov, von Bock directed his subordinate armies to clear up loose ends before Operation Blau began on 28 June. Von Manstein’s 11.Armee began Operation Störfang (Sturgeon Haul) against fortress Sevastopol from 2 June, using an unprecedented amount of artillery and air support to smash the Coastal Army’s multi-layered defenses, before beginning his ground assault on 7 June. Von Manstein, who had developed the concept of the assault gun before the war, massed three Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen with sixty-five StuG IIIs to support his infantry, but he spent two weeks battering his way through the first two Soviet lines of defense. In order to assist in reducing concrete bunkers, von Manstein also received Hauptmann Weicke’s Panzer-Abteilung (FL) 300, which used radio-controlled B IV and Goliath-tracked explosive carriers to attack Soviet fortifications. Nevertheless, the reduction of Sevastopol took longer than expected and most of the Luftwaffe air support was needed elsewhere before von Manstein’s assault had reached a decisive point. For their part, the Soviet Coastal Army had the 81st and 125th OTBs, with a total of one T-34 and thirty-seven T-26 tanks, which were used to support local counterattacks. Von Manstein’s use of assault guns and radio-controlled tanks at Sevastopol helped to shape German thinking about how armour could be used in city-fighting, which had not occurred much in 1941.

On 10 June, Paulus’ AOK 6 kicked off Operation Wilhelm, using four infantry divisions from VIII Armeekorps and von Mackensen’s III Armeekorps (mot.) to conduct a double envelopment against the Soviet 28th Army in the Staryi Saltov bridgehead. Mackensen’s armour, with 14 and 16.Panzer-Divisionen, struck at the boundary of the Soviet 28th and 38th Armies and rapidly overran a single rifle division. After resisting for a day, the 28th Army began to withdraw eastward as its flanks gave way – the Red Army had learned something from previous battles like Vyazma-Bryansk – and it used its four tank brigades to conduct self-sacrificial local counterattacks to prevent the German pincers from closing too fast. Yet within five days, the German pincers did close, trapping 24,800 Soviet troops, but two-thirds of the 28th Army escaped. Mackensen’s corps accounted for more than half the prisoners and knocked out or captured 264 tanks, at a cost of 4,334 casualties.³¹

Timoshenko’s center was so denuded of armour after this defeat that he was obliged to transfer the 13th Tank Corps and request more armour from the RVGK. Stalin agreed to transfer the 4th and 16th Tank Corps from Bryansk Front to reinforce Timoshenko’s Southwest Front, but dressed him down for losing so much armour so quickly.