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

On 1 January 1943, the Red Army had a total of 20 tank Corps, 11 Mechanized Corps, 120 tank brigades, 91 tank regiments and 68 OTBs. According to Krivosheev’s data, at that time the Red Army had 20,600 tanks on hand, of which 7,600 were medium tanks (T-34 or M3 Grant) and 2,000 were KV-series heavy tanks. The remaining 11,000 tanks were light T-60s and T-70s or Lend-Lease Matildas, Valentines, Lees and Stuarts.³⁹ A small number of American M4A2 Shermans had arrived via the Persian Corridor in late 1942, but were just beginning to be fielded. Some of the Soviet armoured units that had been heavily engaged in the December 1942 fighting, such as the 24th and 25th Tank Corps, had very few tanks operational, but most Soviet tank units had at least 50 per cent of their tanks operational. Unlike the Germans, the Red Army did not divert sizeable amounts of armour to quiet fronts; in 1943 there were some 2,500 tanks (mostly obsolete T-26 and BT-7 light tanks) deployed in the Far East and a few hundred on the Turkish-Iranian borders. The Stavka’s Reserve (RVGK) contained two tank corps, four tank brigades, three tank regiments and three OTBs, amounting to about 700 tanks. In addition, there were over 2,000 tanks in the Moscow, Volga and Trans-Baykal Military Districts. This left approximately 14,000 Soviet tanks at or near the front, with perhaps 7–8,000 operational. This meant that the roughly 1,000 operational German tanks and assault guns on the Eastern Front were outnumbered by more than 7:1, which far exceeded the textbook 3:1 numerical advantage required for a successful attack.

However, only 30 per cent of the Red Army’s armour was deployed in large-scale tank and mechanized corps, while the rest was still employed in smaller units geared toward the infantry support role. The Narodnyi Kommisariat Oborony (NKO or People’s Commissariat of Defence), which directed organizational changes, was acting to change this imbalance by gradually phasing out many of the OTBs and consolidating more brigades within corps-size structures, but this would not be fully realized until 1944. Thus, the maintenance of so many smaller tank units tended to make it difficult for the Soviet fronts to mass decisive combat power and to maintain it through a protracted battle of attrition. Brigade size and smaller tank units could be consumed in a single action, which often caused Soviet offensive pulses to lose momentum at critical moments.

At the start of 1943, the Red Army’s tank units relied primarily upon the T-34/76 medium tank (known to Soviet tankers as the Tridtsat’chetverka), which had the excellent V-2 diesel engine, sloped armour and the decent 76.2mm F-34 gun. Yet while the T-34 had been an impressive weapon in 1941–42, it had seen only modest evolutionary improvement during the first two years of the war due to the NKO’s desire to achieve maximum production, rather than tinker with the design. The basic ammunition load, typically 75 OF-350 HE-Frag rounds and 25 BR-350A APHE rounds indicated that the T-34/76 was primarily intended to attack soft targets, not other tanks. A new hexagonal turret had been introduced in 1942, along with slightly thicker armoured protection, but there was no change in firepower and crew ergonomics – particularly for the commander – were suboptimal. The lack of a commander’s cupola, which German tanks had, seriously reduced the situational awareness of T-34 tank commanders. The T-34 did receive one upgrade in 1943 that made a real difference: more and better tactical radios. Stalin had not appreciated the value of the electronics industry, so it had a low priority in the pre-war Five Year Plans. Consequently, Soviet industry was not able to manufacture enough radios for each tank and during 1941–42 only platoon leaders and above received a radio in their tank. Furthermore, the NKO failed to evacuate pre-war electronics factories eastward in 1941, so Soviet domestic manufacture of tank radios fell off sharply in 1942. However, in 1943 the British began supplying radio components in large quantities to the Soviet Union, which was able to introduce an improved 9R radio for the T-34 and by late 1943, most Soviet tanks were equipped with a radio or at least a receiver.⁴⁰ Brigade and higher-level communications remained problematic throughout 1943, since the Tank Brigade command post was only provided with two 12-RP radio sets with a range of only 8km.⁴¹