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

German accounts of this period of the war tend to emphasize tactical victories, where small numbers of German tanks knocked out much larger number of Soviet tanks. While there is some truth in these accounts, they are generally silent about German losses. These types of accounts also tend to miss the main point, that German armour was fighting delaying actions, not successful defensive operations, while the much-maligned T-34s were generally accomplishing their operational objectives. The fact is that by late 1943 the Panzer-Divisionen could no longer stop the Soviet ‘steamroller’, only delay it and increase the price of victories. Each retreat cost the Germans logistic resources that further degraded their ability to maintain combat-effective Panzer-Divisionen in the field and the breaking point was fast approaching. It is also important to note that the Panzer-Divisionen lost their freedom of manoeuvre in late 1943, due to being increasingly tied to the defence of critical sectors. Von Manstein no longer had a masse de manoeuvre.

There is no doubt that victory did not come cheaply for Vatutin’s and Konev’s fronts, which had suffered personnel casualties that exceeded 1 million (including 290,000 dead or missing) during July–December 1943, but they received a similar number of replacements. In the same period, the Red Army as a whole lost about 12,000 tanks, but 10,162 new tanks were built and about 7,000 damaged tanks repaired, which enabled the Soviets to maintain a 3–1 or better armoured numerical superiority over the Germans.²⁰⁶ In contrast, the Germans lost a total of about 2,800 tanks and 850 assault guns in the East during July–December 1943, against 1,954 tanks and 1,328 assault guns received as replacements or reinforcements.²⁰⁷ Indeed, only 60 per cent of German AFV production in this period went to the Eastern Front, the rest going to build up armoured units for the defence of Western Europe. Due to the loss of repair facilities in Dnepropetrovsk and Kiev, German support capabilities were severely disrupted: only half of the 2,053 German tanks on the Eastern Front on 31 December 1943 were operational.²⁰⁸ The personnel situation was even worse for von Manstein, with Heeresgruppe Süd having suffered over 372,000 casualties (including 102,000 dead or missing) in the last half of 1943, but receiving fewer than 200,000 replacements.

Beyond the crushing quantitative imbalance, the failure of the much-anticipated Panther tank to deliver a qualitative solution to the Red Army’s numerical advantage was a severe disappointment for the Panzer-Divisionen. Although the Panther’s long 7.5cm KwK 42 gun had proven itself, the new tank’s mechanical unreliability prevented it from making more than a local impression; at the critical moment in December 1943, only 28 of PzAOK 4’s 139 Panthers were operational.²⁰⁹

Chapter 3 Armoured Operations in 1944

Heeresgruppe Nord retreats from Leningrad, 14 January–1 April 1944

For nearly three years, Heeresgruppe Nord had been holding its positions outside the city of Leningrad, with little change in the opposing lines. Although the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts had opened a land corridor to Leningrad with Operation Iskra in January 1943, a year later the Germans were still within artillery range of the city. Generalfeldmarschall Georg Wilhelm von Küchler commanded Heeresgruppe Nord from his headquarters in Pskov and he had two armies: AOK 18 holding the lines around Leningrad and AOK 16 deployed between Novgorod and Velikiye Luki. Given the static nature of warfare on the Leningrad sector, the OKH had stripped Generaloberst Georg Lindemann’s 18.Armee (AOK 18) down to the bone during 1943. Several Luftwaffe Feld-Divisionen were sent to this relatively quiet sector, which allowed Heer infantry divisions to be sent southward and AOK 18 received far fewer personnel replacements than other German armies. At the start of 1944, Lindemann had 20 divisions holding a 280km-long front. In terms of armour, AOK 18 had relied upon the Tigers from s. Pz.Abt. 502 to repel enemy attacks and this unit enjoyed a considerable amount of success outside Leningrad. Oberleutnant Otto Carius was one of the Tiger ‘aces’ who made a name for himself in this Stellungskrieg (positional warfare).