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

Putting the tanks in the lead, Kampfgruppe Hühner moved south along a trail, through an area consisting of peat bogs and scrub forest. Soviet anti-tank gunners were waiting and they hammered the German armoured column, which could barely move off the road; four Pz IIIs were knocked out and even a Tiger was knocked out by 76.2mm fire. The German column tried to fight its way through the ambush, but the Tigers were hit repeatedly and disabled one by one. Two Tigers were blown up by their crews and another was burning. The last Tiger accidentally drove off the trail into a peat bog and became hopelessly mired. The Germans tried to retrieve this tank or destroy it, but were driven off by Soviet fire. Five of Khrustitsky’s T-60 tanks managed to hook tow cables to the abandoned Tiger and pull it free of the bog – the first intact Tiger captured. Although all five Tigers were lost, most of the troops of Kampfgruppe Hühner were able to escape to the south. By the end of 18 January, Operation Iskra had accomplished its main objective of opening up a land corridor to Leningrad, officially ending the siege.

Unfortunately for the front-line soldiers on both sides, Marshal Zhukov regarded Operation Iskra as an incomplete victory and ordered both the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts to continue the battle until the high ground around Siniavino was captured. The result was another 10 days of tough fighting with heavy losses on both sides, but the German defences held. The 1./s. Pz. Abt. 502 played a major role in stopping the Soviets from capturing the Siniavino Heights by knocking out 55 enemy tanks, but one Tiger was destroyed in action as well as 12 Pz III tanks. By the time that the battle ended in mutual exhaustion on 31 January, the company had only one operational Pz III and two non-operational Tigers left.³⁷ Soviet armour losses were also very heavy, with about 200 of 400 tanks knocked out or inoperative. Overall, the battle was a bitter disappointment for the Germans, who lost most of their armour, and 1./s. Pz. Abt. 502 was hors de combat. Furthermore, the captured Tiger would be intensely studied by the Soviets, leading to a decision by the GKO to finally upgrade the firepower of the T-34 and to develop a new heavy tank. Despite their success, the Red Army was not entirely satisfied with the performance of its tank units and the Leningrad Front issued a harsh criticism to the 67th Army on 27 January 1943:

Combat experience from the 67th Army shows that the employment of tank units had major deficiencies that resulted in unjustifiable heavy losses of tanks. Combined-arms commanders introduced tanks into battle too quickly, without taking the necessary time to prepare tanks for battle, or for reconnaissance or for coordination, nor did they use engineers to prepare the routes for tanks. The commanders of [rifle] divisions and regiments did not coordinate their actions with tanks on the battlefield… Tanks rushed at the enemy defences without adequate artillery support and tank units were usually not on the artillery radio net…³⁸