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

German Panzer-Ersatz-Abteilungen used obsolete tanks like the Pz I and Pz II for driver training and initial panzer familiarization, but recruits then moved on to obsolescent short-barreled versions of the Pz III and Pz IV tanks for manoeuvre and gunnery training. The Germans made a particular fetish of producing skilled tank drivers, something to which Soviet training attached no great value. During initial basic training, selected recruits could earn a driver permit for tanks up to 10 tons, but required another four weeks of training to earn the permit for tracked vehicles over 10 tons.¹⁴ Experience had shown that a good tank driver had to acquire a good deal of situational awareness in moving across the battlefield, using cover and concealment to avoid enemy observation and to keep the tank oriented toward the direction of threat. A good driver was also capable of making his own tactical selection of route, without being constantly told what to do; in contrast, Soviet tank drivers often expected to be told exactly where and when to move. Nevertheless, both fuel and time allotted for driving training in 1943 were much reduced compared to previous years and, in particular, the rush to get units equipped with Tiger tanks to the Eastern Front led to Tiger crews receiving insufficient driver training at Paderborn, which resulted in numerous accidents at the front.¹⁵

In 1943, the Heer was forced to shorten basic training for Panzer crewmen from 16 to 12 weeks by introducing a Kurzausbildung (abbreviated training).¹⁶ By this measure, the Heer intended to increase replacement output by one-third. The new training regime placed greatest emphasis on tank gunnery and teaching ‘battle drills’ that prepared a tank crew for combat in conditions that were as realistic as possible. All classroom training was cut to an absolute minimum and recruits were expected to spend most of their time in a field training environment. Most of the inculcation of old-style Prussian military discipline through marching and drill was abandoned. After basic training, the most promising recruits were sent to NCO training for 4–6 weeks and gunners were sent to advanced gunnery training at sites such as the Putlos range. German gunnery training was very advanced and began with training gunners to conduct a proper boresight of the main gun. Usually strings or wire were affixed in a cross pattern across the muzzle and the loader would look through the open breech and visually lay the gun on a target board approximately 800–1,200 metres distant. Then the gunner would adjust the elevation and deflection knobs on his primary sight, to put the gun tube and sight in synch, followed by a zeroing fire with 3–5 rounds. The zero fire confirmed the accuracy of the boresight and enabled final corrections to the gunner’s primary sight. With a good boresight, a tank crew could be reasonably certain that a gunner had a 25–30 per cent chance of hitting a target at the normal combat boresight ranges of 800–1,200 meters. Boresighting and zeroing were key characteristics that distinguished German from Soviet tankers and enabled them to have a much higher probability of achieving hits. However, boresighting and zeroing required discipline and good small unit leadership, since it needed to be conducted soon after any long tactical road march or movement over rough terrain. It is easy, after a night movement in the rain, to put off such details, but it was the kind of detail that made all the difference on the battlefield.

Soviet tankers were astounded to discover in 1945 that German gunnery ranges included both moving and pop-up targets.¹⁷ German tank gunnery employed a number of different drills, employing armour-piercing (Panzergranate) against stationary, frontal tank-size targets and moving targets moving obliquely to the tank. Crews were also trained to use high-explosive (Sprenggranate) rounds against anti-tank guns and machine-guns against troop targets. While the ammunition used for training was limited and often not the same calibre that would be used by the crew in actual combat, a panzer crew in 1943 could expect to fire the equivalent of a basic load of ammunition during the course of training. After hard experience in Russia, German tank gunnery training also emphasized low-visibility and night training scenarios to accustom crews to the reality that combat did not always occur under the best conditions.