Combat on the Russian Front

[Mad Russian]

The discussion on the T-34 and Panther generated such interest let's start a thread that includes all issues related to combat on the Russian Front. I would like to start a thread where anyone with questions, opinions, comments about the war in Russia can have those questions, opinions and comments answered or discussed.

Of course tanks will feature prominently in such a discussion, so I have done a bit of scanning to start things off. Nikita may or may not agree with all that is presented here. It will be interesting to see how Western military history compares with that of Soviet military history.

Here is the first post, one that covers the early years tank development of the Soviet pre-war tanks. The impression in the west was that the Soviet armor tank for tank was inferior to German tanks. I think thats wrong. I think there were strengths and weaknesses in each tank design but that as a whole they were pretty even. With the two main exceptions of a five man tank crew and radios for the German tanks. These two items made the German tanks better. One, the five man tank crew, tactically better. The other, the radio, tactically and operationally better. Tactically better because they were more maneuverable on the battlefield and operationally because there were easier for the higher command levels to control.

Now...onto pre-war Soviet tank design:

Sixty British machines were purchased 12-ton, 6-ton, and light Carden Loyd models. Two years later they were followed by two examples of the new 10 ton fast tank which was then being demonstrated by the American tank designer J Walter Christie. This machine had a new kind of suspension which gave it in a later version 64.3mph on wheels. and nearly 40mph on tracks. To this tank the T-34, though it was not yet dreamed of, can trace its direct descent.

These various tanks, assembled hotch-potch from the bourgeois West, became the basis on which Soviet tank designers built the Russian armoured force of the next decade. It was an immense force. The great explosion of talent and energy which now took place in the field of Russian tank production is one of the most remarkable developments in the history of armaments. In 1924 the first lorry was built inside the boundaries of the Soviet state; by 1939 Russia had assembled tank forces which in number greatly exceeded the combined total of the rest of the armies of the world. The equipment of these forces varied in quality, but some of the Russian machines, in their day, were as good as or better than anything in general service elsewhere.

Much, at first, was copied from British designs, especially after the Russo-German tank school at Kazan was wound up when Hitler came to power. The Carden Loyd machine be- came the basis for the light, turret- less Russian T-27 ; the Vickers 6-tonner of the T-26. Other models were more purely Russian in inspiration -a 29-ton T-28 and a 45-ton T-35, both of them multi-turreted designs intended for independent operations. Neither tank was a success, but each carried an indication that Russian armoured theory was at least clear in definition: that a tank was a moving platform for a weapon, and that if the weapon was inadequate, the tank was doomed. The T-28 had a 76.2mm gun, while the T-35 carried a 76.2mm and two 45mm guns. Undergunning was one error which could not be laid at the door of Russian designers, whereas, by contrast, British medium tanks of the period were still armed with the three- pounder (equivalent to 47mm), soon to be superseded by the even smaller two- pounder (40mm).

A new path was opened for Russian tank design when the two Christie models were purchased. These tanks were the final product of many years of thought and experiment by Christie, an American automotive engineer who had entered the field of
mechanised war in 1916 with an anti- aircraft gun carriage, and had deve- loped his ideas through tanks of varying success until they reached full fruition in the revolutionary M-1931 (later called the T-3 in the United States Army). Christie himself summed up the thinking behind this machine when he wrote: 'It is an established fact, conceded by every- one who reads and thinks, that manpower in defence of a country is fast fading away, and that machines swift and low as a trench line are being substituted for manpower.

'My first object was to build a chassis that will protect the man who is to risk his life by facing the enemy, and to provide a machine by the use of which he can defend himself and destroy the enemy. Therefore we built a chassis with frontal lines and slopes that will make it almost impossible to penetrate the chassis with any type of projectile. Next we constructed the chassis as low as possible, making it as inconspicuous as the power plant permits. We then turned to the next problem of defense, which is speed. With speed you can surround 'the enemy, you can flank him, you can reach points quickly and take up positions to stop the advance. If you meet an overpowering force you can quickly evade it. ..'

Christie's definition of a tank was perfect, but, ironically, his ideas on the future of war were less realistic in terms of the conflict in Europe which was already on the horizon. They belonged to the more extravagant theories of armoured warfare which were in vogue in a small British coterie of the time, led by Generals Fuller and Hobart, but supported only part of the way, and with significant reservations by Liddell Hart. These theories, implicitly, saw the battlefield of the future as resembling the sea rather than the land.


This is taken from "T-34: Russian Armor" by Douglas Orgill.

Of particular interest here are the comments...."each carried an indication that Russian armoured theory was at least clear in definition: that a tank was a moving platform for a weapon, and that if the weapon was inadequate, the tank was doomed. The T-28 had a 76.2mm gun, while the T-35 carried a 76.2mm and two 45mm guns. Undergunning was one error which could not be laid at the door of Russian designers, whereas, by contrast, British medium tanks of the period were still armed with the three- pounder (equivalent to 47mm), soon to be superseded by the even smaller two- pounder (40mm). "



Good Hunting.

MR