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

…the KV-1 emerged from the forest and drove with such speed, and so close, past a well-camouflaged 10-cm gun that the crew had no opportunityto fire at it. The tank circled the church, crushing everything that appeared suspicious, including Oberst von Waldenfel’s regimental headquarters. Our Pz.35(t) were powerless – as at Raseiniai their fire had no effect on the monster. At long last, one particularly plucky NCO put an end to this critical situation. He jumped on the tank and kept firing his pistol into the driver’s vision slot. The latter, wounded by bullet spatter and his vision obstructed, was compelled to turn back.³⁵

Although there were far fewer T-34s and KV heavy tanks on the battlefield by mid-July 1941, the ones that did appear tended to be more dangerous since now they were fully armed and fueled, and had drivers with some experience. The Kirov plant in Leningrad was building more than forty KV tanks a week and the Northwest Front was receiving many of these. Furthermore, there were many re-called reservists with combat experience from the Russo-Finnish War and the best of these were used to form KV crews. The fact that Kampfgruppe Raus was forced to use such ad hoc desperation tactics to stop a single KV tank attack indicates the increasingly evident inadequacy of German tank and anti-tank weaponry.

After an advance of over 400km in less than three weeks, a combination of stiffening Soviet resistance, adverse terrain and supply problems brought Höpner’s advance to a virtual halt. It would take almost three weeks for Reinhardt’s corps to get sufficient supplies and reinforcements to break out of its Luga River bridgeheads. The stubborn Soviet defense at Luga bought Leningrad almost an additional month to prepare its defenses. After the Battle of Soltsy, both the 1st and 10th Mechanized Corps were dissolved, but part of the 1st Tank Division (minus one tank regiment and its motorized rifle regiment) was returned to Leningrad from the northern Finnish front on 17–19 July. The division remained in reserve near Krasnogvardeysk for the rest of July and into early August, receiving replacements and twelve new KV-1 tanks from the Kirov plant. By early August, the Northwest Front had about 250 operational tanks left: the 24th Tank Division at Luga (less than 100 BT-2 light tanks), a few tank detachments from the disbanded mechanized corps (about fifty–100 mixed BT and T-26) and the 1st Tank Division (sixty–eighty tanks).

Large-scale armoured warfare did not resume on the Leningrad front until 8 August. Reinhardt’s XXXXI Armeekorps (mot.) began its breakout from its bridgehead near Kingisepp, while von Manstein’s LVI Armeekorps (mot.) made a direct frontal assault on the Luga position. The 24th Tank Division committed individual platoons of light tanks to support the 41st Rifle Corps at Luga, but Voroshilov held most of his remaining armour back for the first few days, uncertain whether it would be needed to counterattack any German breakthroughs. In the breakthrough battle, Höpner’s panzers were aided by the arrival of several German infantry divisions, but heavy fighting lasted along the Luga line for two weeks. Voroshilov began committing the 1st Tank Division in bits and pieces, but a detachment sent to aid the defense of Kingisepp was ambushed by Reinhardt’s panzers and lost twenty-eight tanks on 11 August, including eleven KV heavy tanks. The Soviets claimed eleven German tanks in this action. However, the 1st Tank Division was able to make good some of its losses, including five more KV tanks and four of the new T-50 light tank (of which only sixty-nine were built).