The Bloody Triangle

by Victor Kamenir

  The Soviet tanks fell into three distinct categories: light, medium, and heavy. Depicted in multiple books and film, the T-34 medium tank carved out a niche as a quintessential Soviet tank. However, at the start of Operation Barbarossa:

  The mainstay of the tank park of the RKKA consisted of light T-26 and BT tanks of various models, making up nearly 75 percent of total number of vehicles.15 The new medium T-34s and heavy KVs composed only almost 8 percent. Majority of old tanks, such as early versions of T-26 and BTs, plus the T-28, T-35, T-37, and T-38 were seriously worn out: 9 percent of these machines required major overhaul, and 44 percent, intermediate-level overhaul.16

  By far, the most numerous armored fighting vehicles of the Red Army at the start of Operation Barbarossa were the T-26 light tanks, developed on the basis of the British Vickers light tank. In the scope of the “Deep Battle” concept, this tank was designated as an “infantry escort tank”—supporting the infantry on the offensive and carrying out limited follow-through attacks in the enemy rear. Starting from late 1931 and up to the start of the war, over 11,200 different variations of this tank were produced, and some 10,268 were still carried on the rosters of the Red Army armored units, representing close to 40 percent of the total Soviet tank park.17 Many of the very early models, like the two-turreted machine gun–armed versions, while officially designated as “training park,” padded the total numbers, adding practically no value to the overall strength of their units.

  Eventually upgraded to mount a 45mm cannon, the T-26 could successfully outshoot all German light tanks. However, a significant weakness in the design of the T-26 rendered this most-numerous Soviet tank an easy prey to German antitank defenses. Endemic to all T-26 versions, it suffered from inadequate armor protection, being able to mainly withstand machine-gun fire, and in some cases, not even that. The frontal armor of T-26, the thickest part of the tank, was only 15mm thick, making it vulnerable even to the most outdated 37mm antitank cannons. This was illustrated time and time again in Spain, Finland, and Mongolia. Attempts to up-armor the T-26 came to naught due to the vehicle engine’s inability to accommodate heavier armor. Still, the basic design of the T-26 proved to be a very versatile basis for many mission-specific purposes. T-26 chassis were used as a platform for such specialist vehicles as flame-throwing tanks, bridge layers, self-propelled artillery, tank recovery tractors, prime movers, and others.

  The Bystrokhodniy Tank (fast tank, or BT) series consisted mainly of the BT-2, BT-5, and BT-7 versions. As mentioned previously in this chapter, both the BT series and the T-34 were based on the work of American tank designer J. Walter Christie. The light and fast BT series of tanks were developed to operate as a mobile branch of the “deep battle” concept—striking far into the rear of the enemy. Characteristic to all BT models, these tanks could operate in tracked mode for traversing cross-country and wheeled mode on the road. Successive designs of BT tanks, mainly the BT-7, featured upgraded armor, engine, and armament, plus a series of other vital improvements.

  While the BT-2 and BT-5 versions could not successfully contend with medium German panzers, the BT-7 could trump the German Panzer II and Panzer 38(t) tanks and was generally on par with the Panzer III, especially the BT-7s produced after 1937. However, in the upcoming contests, the Germans would almost always come out victorious due to their superior training, command and control, and communications.18

  Rounding out Soviet light tanks were T-37, T-38, and T-40 swimming reconnaissance tanks, which could be grouped together, being essentially similar in design and purpose. Tanks in this category were developed based on the prototype models of Vickers tanks, created by two British designers Sir John Valentine Carden and Vivian Lloyd, appropriately called the Vickers-Carden-Lloyd Amphibian Tanks. While several other countries successfully experimented with amphibious tanks, the Soviet Union was the only country to ramp up serial production of these vehicles. By the time the war started, over four thousand of these machines were produced, with significant numbers of them still found among Soviet mechanized formations.

  The T-37/38/40 family of tanks was, in reality, one short step up the armored ladder above the tankette. The tankette was a small armored vehicle, usually lacking a rotating turret and crewed by two men, sometimes one, armed almost exclusively with one or two machine guns. Its thin armor and light armament proved totally inadequate for survival in the struggle with German panzer formations and their formidable antitanks defenses. Virtually all of the Soviet T-27 tankettes and superlight T-37/38/40 perished within the first several months of the German invasion.

  The next weight category, the medium tanks, was represented by the older T-28 and the famous T-34. This category of armored combat vehicle was envisioned to operate in support of infantry breaking through heavily fortified areas and for limited follow-up exploitation. Once again borrowing from the British, the T-28 was based on the Vickers A6E1. Like many contemporary designs of its class, the T-28 sported three turrets and was manned by a crew of six. As the already familiar malady, the early versions of the T-28 suffered from insufficient armor, which had to be upgraded later. Overall, this was not a successful model, and its serial production was discontinued in 1939. Slightly over six hundred tanks of this type were produced between 1932–1939, with a significant portion of them still in service at the start of war.

  Sharing its weight category, the vaunted T-34 was the most mass-produced tank of World War II. The basic design by the American Walter Christie laid the groundwork for this versatile combat vehicle. Its thick-sloping armor was virtually impervious to most of the German antitank artillery and tank-based guns except at extremely close ranges. The wide-stable platform and wide tracks gave the T-34 an exceptional mobility on poor Russian roads and in difficult cross-country terrain. Starting in 1940, by the beginning of conflict with Germany, roughly 1,225 T-34s were produced. By the time the war ended, over 35,000 of them took the field. Undiscovered by German intelligence before the war, these combat vehicles came as a rude surprise to advancing Germans.

  While the numbers of heavy tanks were relatively low in the Soviet Army, the German Wehrmacht did not have any heavy panzers in serial production, other than several experimental prototypes. The heavy tanks were envisioned by the Red Army commanders as close support for infantry in breaching enemy defensive works. The early Soviet heavy T-35 was a veritable land behemoth, weighing in at forty-four to fifty-five tons, depending on the year of modification, and mounting five turrets. Manned by a crew of ten or eleven, the five turrets, mounted in two levels, were armed with one 76mm cannon, two 45mm cannons, and six 7.62mm machine guns.

  Being large and heavy, the T-35 was a surprisingly fragile vehicle, extremely prone to mechanical breakdowns. Its sheer size and mass made this heavy tank exceedingly difficult to operate in any terrain but the most favorable. In the era of no power steering, it was physically exhausting for its drivers to maneuver the heavy tank. Before the war, almost all the operational T-35s were concentrated in the VIII Mechanized Corps of the Kiev Special Military District. Less than a handful actually came to grips with the enemy on the battlefield, the majority of them being lost to breakdowns and air attacks on the march. In all, between 1935 and 1939, only sixty-one of these monstrous tanks were produced.19

  Another heavy Soviet tank, the KV-1 (named after Kliment Voroshilov, a leading Soviet marshal and Stalin’s crony) was a much more successful version. Designed to replace the T-35, the KV-1 initially resembled a heavier version of the T-34, even being armed with the same caliber cannon, the 76mm. Slightly over six hundred KV-1s were produced from mid-1940 to mid-1941.

  The KV-2 was the poor relation of the KV-1. Designed specifically for suppressing and destroying enemy fortifications, the KV-2 mounted a 152mm howitzer in a tall, square naval gun turret mounted on KV-1 chassis. Even though slightly over 330 of these tanks were produced in 1940 and the first half of 1941, less than 100 of them were operational when the red balloon went up. Like the T-35, very few of them engaged the
enemy on the battlefield. When they did, the results were almost invariably pathetic. Designed to engage stationary fortifications, the KV-2 did not have armor-piercing ammunition and, being armed with a howitzer, could not effectively engage enemy in a tank-versus-tank combat. Virtually all of the KV-2s perished in 1941.

  Well into the first year of the brutal campaign against the Soviet Union, Hitler has been said to have stated: “Had I known that the Soviet Union had so many tanks, I would not have attacked.” Indeed, the number of tanks in the Soviet arsenal has been almost unanimously placed by historians between twenty-three thousand and twenty-four thousand machines. This number, even though including older versions of these combat vehicles, was larger than almost all other tanks in the world put together.

  On paper, the Red Army tank park was indeed impressive. Regulations of 1940 created eight mechanized corps numbering 1,031 tanks each, with twenty-two more corps added the next year. At full strength, this would have amounted to a staggering 30,930 tanks in just the mechanized corps alone, plus a large fleet of armored cars, many of which had mounted cannons capable of defeating light tanks. In addition to the above numbers, additional thousands of light tanks and armored cars were to be assigned to rifle and cavalry divisions and training institutions.

  A significant portion of 1,031 tanks comprising a new mechanized corps was to be composed of the medium T-34 and heavy KV-1 machines (420 and 126 respectively), amounting to 53 percent of the total number. These new machines were superior to any tank in the world. While the senior German military command had an inkling about the existence of new Soviet heavy tanks, this information was not disseminated down to the lower echelon, and the presence of these new combat vehicles came as a rude shock to German troops within the very first days of the war.

  The T-34 medium tanks went into serial production in July of 1940, and by June 22, 1941, only 1,225 of these machines had been produced. Their distribution was uneven. Almost all of the T-34s were delivered to the mechanized corps created in 1940 and were located in the first echelons of the western border districts. The mechanized corps created in spring of 1941 and garrisoned deeper in the Soviet territory either did not receive any new tanks by the start of the war or received them in single-digit numbers. Diluting their strength further, the new tanks were often not concentrated in units but were distributed in penny packets among many formations within a mechanized corps.

  To further exacerbate the problem, the tanks that were available to the mechanized corps were an ill-matched collection of vehicles. By 1939 the existing mechanized corps were disbanded and the armored vehicles were organized into tank brigades and separate battalions. There were two types of tank brigades, the light and heavy ones. The heavy tank brigades were assigned the mission of cooperating and supporting the infantry in breaching enemy defenses. The light tank brigades were to operate independently or in close cooperation with cavalry in exploiting breakthroughs and carrying out attacks in depth.

  The heavy tank brigades of 1939 to early 1940 were equipped with T-28 medium tanks and a small number of heavy T-35s. The light brigades were allocated fast BT tanks and light T-26s. Reconnaissance detachments of both also had a sprinkling of light T-37 and T-40 reconnaissance tanks capable of swimming. No other country in the world at the time had amphibious tanks.

  When the first nine mechanized corps were reconstituted in late 1940, the new T-34 and KV-1 began arriving in small numbers. Demand for these new vehicles totally exceeded production capacity. Despite being produced in numbers unheard of in western Europe, the Red Army needed another two to three years to acquire the proposed number of tanks.

  However, before the first wave of the nine mechanized corps was fully organized, the Soviet government high-handedly ordered creation of twenty-one more corps. Bottoms of barrels were scraped to come up with the needed combat vehicles. Almost any tank was used to make up the desired numbers. This resulted in many nonoperational tanks being delivered to units so that their inventory would show numbers on hand. This created a bewildering array of vehicular hodge-podge. Zhukov described the situation:

  We did not objectively consider capabilities of our tank industry. To completely equip the new mechanized corps [we] needed 16,600 tanks of just the new types, with 32,000 tanks being the total number. It was practically impossible to obtain these numbers in one year; there were shortages of technical and command personnel as well.20

  As mentioned previously, there were multiple models of BT tanks, with the BT-5 and BT-7 being most common. However, small numbers of earlier versions, like the BT-2, were still around. Even within the BT-5 and BT-7 series there were multiple models. As one type or model was taken out of serial production, manufacturing of spare parts for them ceased as well. However, the existing tanks of discontinued models were not taken out of circulation, instead being retained for training purposes. When the new mechanized corps were formed, the “training park” vehicles were again listed as operational. This resulted in units still being equipped with obsolete models without means to replace the worn-out parts to keep them operational. A small number of them were kept running by salvaging parts from vehicles beyond repair or manufacturing replacement parts in local machine-shops on an individual basis. The German invasion found large numbers of these older versions still sitting immobile in their motor pools. A similar situation existed for earlier versions of still T-26 and for still T-28 and T-35, the last two already being taken out of production.

  When the red balloon finally went up, the Soviet mechanized corps differed drastically in strength and composition. The corps re-created in the first wave in 1940 were the most combat capable. Some of them, like the IV and VIII Mechanized Corps, deployed in the first echelon of the Kiev Special Military District, numbered over nine hundred tanks each and contained hundreds of new T-34s and KV-1s. On the other hand, their poor brethren of the second wave of spring in the 1941 were mere shadows of their envisioned selves. The IX and XIX Mechanized Corps, also located in the Kiev Special Military District, but further east, numbered less than three hundred tanks each, mainly T-26s and BTs. Neither corps had the modern models, and around 15 percent of the tanks that they did have were nonfunctional. The July 1940 directive that reconstituted the mechanized corps envisioned each comprised of two tank divisions, one mechanized infantry division, a motorcycle regiment, and supporting units, including an air force squadron. None of these aviation squadrons were actually created and remained on paper only. Otherwise, the mechanized corps were allotted formidable 38,000-plus personnel, 1,031 tanks, 358 artillery pieces and mortars, and 384 armored cars.21

  By the time the war started, none of the corps were fully formed. While most of them had required numbers of lower enlisted personnel, a great portion of them were either new recruits or recently called-up reservists. None of the mechanized corps had the assigned strength of 1,031 tanks, with the actual strength being between 300 to 900 machines.

  The round-out of the Soviet armored fighting vehicles would not be complete without mentioning the armored cars. These numerous vehicles were generally represented by wheeled light BA-20 and medium BA-10 armored reconnaissance cars. While the BA-20 was armed with one 7.62mm machine gun, the BA-10, in addition to the same machine gun, also mounted a turret with a 45mm cannon. These were the same turrets as the two secondary ones mounted on the heavy T-35 tanks. Overall, over 5,300 of these two types of vehicles were made, with most of them perishing in combat by the spring of 1942. The cannon-armed BA-10, if used properly, would have presented a significant challenge to German vehicles of the same type. As it was, Soviet commanders proved completely incapable of effectively employing these weapons platforms in the type of missions for which armored cars were designed.

  The Red Army’s artillery was technically on par with the German Army. Regimental artillery batteries were mainly equipped with 76mm and older 107mm guns. Divisional and corps artillery regiments were equipped largely with 120mm guns and 152mm howitzers. There were additional separ
ate battalions and regiments of large-caliber 210mm guns, 203mm and 305mm howitzers, and 280mm mortars that belonged to the Reserve of Supreme Command and were doled out to support the field armies.

  At the start of the war, the vaunted BM-13 rocket launcher artillery systems, later nicknamed Katyushas, existed only in seven experimental models. Ironically, their serial production was ordered on June 21, 1941, one day before the war started.22

  The mortars were largely represented by 50mm mortars of limited effectiveness. The more-effective 82mm and 120mm mortars existed in smaller numbers.

  However, the greatest weakness of Soviet artillery was in its lack of mobility. The majority of artillery was still horse-drawn, and there were insufficient numbers of draft horses, the shortage of which was supposed to be made up from the civilian economy upon the announcement of mobilization. The heavier-caliber artillery was supposed to be towed by slow-moving tractors, of which there was also a dearth.

  The drive to increase the antitank capability to counter possible (German-led) armored threat started late. Only in May 1941 the Soviet high command began forming ten antitank artillery brigades in the western border districts. Five of such brigades were being formed in the Kiev Special Military District. However, due to the common tone of shortage of everything, only one such brigade was more or less completed by the beginning of war. These brigades were to be assigned one per field army and designated to cooperate with the mechanized corps of these armies. To keep up with the mechanized formations, these antitank brigades were also to be completely mechanized. However, with the exception of the 1st Antitank Artillery Brigade, due to overwhelming shortages, most brigades were at 40 to 80 percent of assigned guns, and many brigades were without a single tractor to tow them. There were also severe shortages of wheeled vehicles to transport supplies, personnel, and ammunition.