Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1943-1945: Red Steamroller

The foremost modification to German Bewegungskrieg was a realization that Luftwaffe close air support was no longer a given. While the Luftwaffe could still occasionally muster substantial numbers of Ju-87 Stukas and bombers for a major operation like Zitadelle in mid-1943, most relief efforts would receive modest air support at best. The declining ability of the Luftwaffe to support offensive operations meant that manoeuvre units required more organic firepower in order to blast their way through stout defences. At the beginning of the war, German Panzer-Divisionen relied upon speed to accomplish their missions, not firepower or armoured protection. The Pz II, Pz III and Pz IV had been adequate, even against the occasional T-34 or KV-1, as long as the Luftwaffe was available. Indeed, the units that normally formed the Panzer-Division’s Vorausabteilung (advance guard) were the divisional Aufklärungs-Abteilung (Reconnaissance Battalion) and Kradschützen-Abteilung, equipped primarily with armoured cars and motorcycles. However, the increase in Soviet defensive capabilities by late 1942 meant that thin-skinned German tanks and motorcycle units could no longer easily penetrate the enemy’s front line as they had in the past. Thus, due to the shortfall in close air support and improved Soviet defences, German tactics shifted from an emphasis upon speed and mobility, to tactics based upon shock effect and firepower.

Reflective of this trend, in January 1943 the organization of Panzer-Divisionen was modified and all Kradschützen-Abteilungen and the Aufklärungs-Abteilungen were supposedly merged into a new Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung, although it took most of 1943 to implement this new structure. The Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung was a powerful armoured force, authorized 122 halftracks and 18 armoured cars, which gave it the ability to ‘fight for intelligence’ rather than act merely as scouts. As this new structure was introduced, the reconnaissance battalions in German Panzer and Panzergrenadier Divisionen became de facto manoeuvre units and were often used as such. German tactical doctrine was revised to assign a variety of potential missions to these versatile units, including advance guard, rearguard and even counter-attacks.

Another major modification to German manoeuvre doctrine was an increased emphasis upon zone defence, decentralized operations and local counter-attacks. Although German doctrine preferred to maintain a Hauptkampflinie (HKL or main line of resistance) with infantry divisions and to keep Panzer-Divisionen in reserve in the rear, this was no longer possible by January 1943. By that point, most Panzer-Divisionen in Heeresgruppe A and B were forced to hold their own sector of the front, which deprived the army commander of mobile reserves. When a Soviet breakthrough in another sector occurred, local infantry corps commanders would demand that the nearest Panzer-Division respond by dispatching a Kampfgruppen to launch a counter-attack; the inevitable result was that Panzer-Divisionen in defence were parcelled out into small Kampfgruppen to support various hard-pressed infantry units, losing mass and being diluted into the ‘driblets’ that Guderian had decried in 1939–40. Rather than being used properly as an independent manoeuvre force, German panzers were increasingly likely to be used to stiffen infantry units in the defence or mount company-size counter-attacks.

Of course, German tanks and other armoured vehicles were evolving rapidly by 1943, based upon two years of combat experience on the Eastern Front. Several painful encounters with the superior Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks had caused the Germans to question the value of their existing tanks and to seek a technical solution that would ensure German armoured superiority. The resulting OKH Panzer Commissions of July and October 1941 began the process of defining the requirements for a new medium tank which resulted in the development of the Panther tank in 1942.⁹ As 1943 began, the Pz V Panther was about to begin serial production and was expected to re-equip one tank battalion in each Panzer-Divisionen as soon as possible. While the Pz V had far superior gunnery capabilities compared to earlier German models, it was a medium tank in name only and its 44-ton bulk would be far too heavy to cross existing tactical bridges. The Panther was also a fuel-hog that used double the amount of fuel to move 100km compared to a Pz III and, like the 54-ton Tiger, it was difficult to recover on the battlefield. Taken together, the shift to reliance upon heavily-armoured and up-gunned tanks like the Panther and Tiger meant that previous German mobile tactics became impractical; these tanks could not slash cross-country, covering up to 100km in a day, and would have to rely upon shock effect rather than manoeuvre.