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

Thirty enemy tanks were destroyed and one Pak. Lots of the Russian tanks were USA (American M3 Lees). Attack continues with infantry on the HKL. Whole Abteilung shoots, shoots, shoots. Russian artillery and tanks shoot straight at us. We cannot do anything about it as they are further away than 3,000 meters… All in all, 6 of our tanks are hit but they do not burn up so can be recovered… Return to refuel and rearm at 2000 hours. What a day!⁵⁹

The 17 and 18.Panzer-Division managed to prevent a breakthrough and shot up most of Rokossovsky’s infantry support tanks in the process. As Hager noted, German tank losses were also significant, but since they held the ground most damaged tanks could be recovered and repaired. Despite lack of a breakthrough, on the evening of 7 July Rokossovsky decided to commit Burkov’s 10th Tank Corps, but their night deployment was seriously hindered by the marshy terrain in the sector. Whenever near the front, large armoured units are frequently moved at night in order to avoid detection by the enemy and thereby gain the maximum advantage of surprise. A well-trained armour unit will send a quartering party ahead to reconnoiter the route of march from the assembly areas all the way up to the front, leaving traffic control personnel along the way to ensure that vehicles stay on the correct path. However, the Red Army of mid-1942 had not yet learned these lessons and instead, tanks and vehicles of Burkov’s 10th Tank Corps blundered off the road and got stuck in marshes. When daylight on 8 July arrived, Burkov’s armour was still all bunched up in column formation on trails just behind the front and Lemelsen requested Luftwaffe air strikes on the mass of Soviet armour. German air superiority over the Zhizdra sector was absolute and Rokossovsky later wrote, ‘before the battle I had never seen the Germans throw so many aircraft into such a small sector as the one in which the 16th Army was operating.’⁶⁰ Burkov’s armour was badly knocked about by the Luftwaffe and entered battle piecemeal, not as a corps.

During the night of 7–8 July, the 17.Panzer-Division dug in a number of its tanks along the HKL to protect them from Soviet artillery fire and they awaited Burkov’s armour.

Hager’s Pz.IV knocked out a T-34 but was hit on the hull by an HE round that damaged the track and engine. Nevertheless, Hager’s Pz.IV kept firing until all ammunition was expended and remained in the fight for eight hours. One German tank platoon of three tanks knocked out ten attacking Soviet tanks and, overall, Burkov’s corps lost about fifty tanks on its first day in action. Even though it was clear by 8 July that neither Belov nor Rokossovsky was going to achieve any worthwhile success, Zhukov ordered the offensive to continue and 9 July was a repeat of the previous day. Hager noted,

The battle begins at 1200 hours. We have to stay in the same position and fire until our ammunition runs out. Russian tanks are driving around in front of us but do not see us luckily… 35 tanks attack us and 35 tanks are knocked out and burning. At 1700 hours we finally leave the battle and make our way to refuel and rearm with 4.Kompanie. Also make repairs.

After two days of battle Hager’s Pz.IV was still combat-capable, but operating in degraded mode. Statistics about numbers of ‘operational tanks’ should consider that many in this category were actually rather marginal. After firing something like 200 rounds in two days, the recoil system on the 7.5cm cannon was malfunctioning and finally broke down altogether. The tank’s radio was also non-operational after repeated hits on the hull and turret and the running gear was in poor condition. Nevertheless, Hager’s degraded-mode Pz.IV was committed into action again on 10 July, when 17.Panzer-Division mounted a counterattack against the off-balance 10th Tank Corps. Oberstleutnant Otto Büsing led a kampfgruppe from his II/Pz.Regt 39, which included Hager’s 6.Kompanie: