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

In southern Poland, Konev’s forces had secured a crossing over the Vistula near Sandomierz on 29 July and began feeding elements of Katukov’s 1 TA into the bridgehead. Heeresgruppe Nordukraine mounted counter-attacks to eliminate the bridgehead, but without success. On 5 August, the reconstituted s.Pz.Abt.501 was sent to spearhead another counter-attack with 45 of the new Tiger II tanks. This was the combat debut of this new weapon on the Eastern Front and it was a disaster. Forced to make a 50km road march from the rail head to the front, 37 of 45 Tiger IIs broke down due to faulty final drives. When the counter-attack actually began, it did not go well. A single T-34/85 from the 53rd Guards Tank Brigade (6 GTC/3 GTA), commanded by Leytenant Aleksandr P. Oskin, was camouflaged in a corn field and spotted a platoon of three King Tigers approaching in column along a road. Oskin fired BR-365P APCR rounds from a range of just 200 metres against the turret sides of the lead two Tigers and destroyed both with four rounds each; the turrets of both King Tigers were blown off. The third King Tiger tried to retreat, but Oksin pursued and pumped a round into its engine compartment, disabling it. In the one-sided action, 11 of 15 German King Tiger crewmen were killed, the rest captured.⁴⁸ The next day, the s.Pz.Abt.501 was forced to abandon another King Tiger, which was captured intact by the Soviets.

By the end of August 1944, the war in the East was decided, even though the Wehrmacht was able to temporarily create a new front. In an effort to get more tanks to the front, the OKH sent four Panzer-Brigaden, each with 36 Panthers, to the East in August 1944. These Panthers were the improved Ausf G model, which were less prone to engine fires, but the final drives still tended to fail after just 150km. In contrast, the Red Army was rapidly re-equipping its tank units with the T-34/85, which in competent hands could deal with any German tank. The Soviets not only had an overwhelming numerical superiority, but they were closing the gap in qualitative terms as well.

During the period June–August 1944, the Third Reich suffered catastrophic defeats on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. Altogether, the Wehrmacht suffered over 900,000 dead or missing in this period, which cost them the bulk of the combat veterans who had achieved the victories of 1940–42. After this point, the Wehrmacht could only continue to fight on for another eight months by scraping the bottom of the barrel. The Germans also lost 2,398 tanks in this three-month period, including 801 Panthers and 481 Tigers; these losses could not be replaced on a one-for-one basis because Allied strategic bombing on the tank factories and rail yards in Germany was finally causing a drop in German tank production. Without adequate fuel, veteran crews, spare parts or replacement tanks, the outlook for the Panzer-Divisionen was grim.

Compared to previous Soviet offensives, the Red Army did not pay an excessive price for its unprecedented gains during Bagration and the L’vov-Sandomierz operations; altogether 256,000 personnel dead or missing and 4,300 tanks lost. These losses would be made good in short order and the Red Army was gathering its strength for the final lunge into Germany.

Epilogue, September 1944–May 1945