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

The Red Army’s other two domestically-built tanks, the KV-1 heavy tank and the T-70 light tank, added little to overall armoured capabilities. Since the beginning of the war, the KV-1 heavy tank had failed to properly fulfill its role as a breakthrough tank due to persistent mobility issues with its inadequate transmission – it was unable to keep up with other Soviet tanks. In order to improve mobility, the KV-1S tank was introduced in December 1942, which was five tons lighter than previous models; this increased off-road speed from 13 to 24km/hour but at the cost of reducing armoured protection by 30 per cent. Consequently, the KV-1S was only marginally faster, but significantly more vulnerable. Recognizing that the KV-1 series was a technological dead-end, the NKO decided to relegate KV-1 tanks to separate heavy tank regiments and to cease production as soon as a better alternative was available. Finally, the ubiquitous T-70 light tank was in most Soviet tank units from battalion to corps as a filler, until more medium tanks were available. The NKO knew that the T-70 could not stand up to even the German Pz III series tanks, but there was little alternative. What the T-70 lacked in firepower and armoured protection, it made up for in sheer numbers.

Unlike the German Heer, the Red Army had failed to make a significant investment in halftracks, which negatively affected the mobility of the mechanized infantry units within tank formations and impaired their logistic support capabilities in mud and snow. There was no Soviet equivalent of the German Sd. Kfz. 250/251 type armoured personnel carriers and the limited number of U.S. M2 and M5 halftracks delivered under Lend-Lease were usually used as command vehicles or prime movers for artillery, not to transport infantry. Instead, the Red Army continued to rely upon tanks to transport a significant amount of infantry on their decks in the desant role. Soviet industry had developed the ZIS-22 halftrack (based upon the ZIS-5 truck) and the GAZ-60 halftrack in the mid-1930s, but only about 1,100 were built before the German invasion and most were lost in the first year of the war. In 1942, the ZIS-42 halftrack entered large-scale production, but this vehicle’s mobility in snow and mud was very poor. Consequently, the Red Army’s tank units were not provided with either the quantity or quality of German tracked support vehicles – an important but often ignored deficiency.

Soviet Tactical and Doctrinal Changes

On 16 October 1942, Stalin had issued Order No.325, which outlined a host of problems noted in the Red Army’s use of tanks in combat. Foremost was a lack of coordination between tanks and supporting infantry, artillery, engineers and aviation, which led to an inability to conduct the kind of combined arms warfare employed by German panzer units. A second significant problem was a failure of tank commanders to conduct proper reconnaissance or to use terrain properly; consequently, Soviet tank units had tended to ‘wander onto the battlefield’, unsure of where the enemy was located and ignorant of obstacles, including minefields. Finally, Soviet tank commanders at brigade and above often attempted to exercise Command and Control (C²) over their units from fixed command posts and did not rely on radios, since they had few. Instead, Soviet tank commanders issued a rigid operations order with a very simplistic scheme of manoeuvre – usually a frontal attack – and expected subordinate battalions and brigades to fulfill it to the letter. This rigid Soviet tactical C² style was the polar opposite of the German doctrine, which relied upon front-line leadership and flexibility through radio-coordinated operations. Consequently, Soviet tank units had been routinely bested by smaller German panzer units, due to their inherently rigid style of battle command. Although he made a fairly accurate assessment of shortfalls in Soviet armoured operations, Stalin failed to note that he was often responsible for causing many of these problems, by bullying commanders to prematurely start offensives and depriving them of time to coordinate with other units or to conduct proper reconnaissance.⁴²