Russian TANKS

Introduction

In the '20 Russians developed a cooperation plan with the German military for designing armored vehicles. Because this cooperation was not completely satisfully they begin to buy and test the anglo-saxon models: American and British expecially; french were rejected because of the conservative operational approach of the French Army about armored warfare. Vickers, Carden-Lloyd, but expecially the american Christies' were bought and then examinated and developed in Russia. Pre-war Russian doctrine required the mobile forces to be splitted in operation-oriented formations, as Guderian wrote in its "Achtung, Panzer!" (1937):

Inernal situation

In 1935 over thirty (30) tank-oriented industrial plants existed and with the 2nd quinquennal plan the tank reached the amazing number of 20,000 vehicles. But such a force based on the principles of technocratic efficiency stimulated Stalin's paranoy. Armored warfare doctrines were banded as reactionaries and during the purges the very bulk of Red Army officiers corps along with the technicians was executed or reclused in Siberia: a loss that will prove decisive in Germans' early victories in 1941. Nevertheless the tank development project proceeded because of the international situation: new prototypes were tested in Spain and in the 1939-40 winter war against Finland. They evolved in the well-known and German feared/admired T-34 and KV tanks.

In 1934 there were two mechanaized corps with 500 tanks each, each corps composed by two o three DD brigades along with an auxiliary motorized infantry brigade, an artillery regiment; out of them there were six more indipendent DD brigades with 90 tanks each.

In 1939, despite of Zhukov's successes during the "secret war" against the japaneses, in the Kalkin Gol area, the mechanaized corps were disbanded and their units dispersed between the major infantry units.

After the huge 1941 losses the Russian took their greater armored unit to a brigade level: two or three armored battalions - fifty tanks in all - grouped in eterogenous dormations, with a motorized infantry battalion and anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery elements. These armored brigades were easier leadered by the inexperted soviet commanders, although they were prematurely defeated when launched in the 1942 spring's counter-attacks (trying to delay "operation Blau", the German offensive in the southern sector).

After then the tank brigades were re-organized on a more homogeneous base, with 53 modern T-34s and T-70s in each battalion, while the autonomous battalions were doubled in their organics up a regimental level with 39 light and medium tanks. The heavy tanks were concentrated in special regiments with 21 tanks each.

Moreover the major formation were re-organized: the tank corps with three armored brigades and one infantry brigades and the mechanaized corps with three motorized infantry brigades (each with its own tank regiment). Each corps had 180-200 tanks, along with recon, moto, engineer, transmission and bridging troops plus AT and AA units. Two armored corps and one mechanaized corps formed a Tank Army.

Out of this, it must be said that afte the 1941 the industrial manufacture was oriented towards the succesful T-34 and KV tanks: the older T-26, T-28, T-35 and various BT light tanks were confirmed to be ineffective becasue of their armor and weaponry and their production was cancelled. This was an example of the pragmatic Russian thought: in last years of war, while the Soviets put on the the field many thousand of tank of very homogenous type, in greatest majority T-34, the Germans were still fighting with many several models such as Panzer III and IV derivatives, Panthers, Pz-38(t), Tiger I and II, Elefants, all of them sharing very few (if none ...) parts and each requiring custom productions. While the Soviets could manufacture thousand of tanks due to their uniformed designs and maintain in efficiency their tank forces providing the spare parts they needed, Germans were in difficult doing this, for both higher decisions and desperate need of any type armored vehicles.

In 1943 the Self propelled artillery regiments were formed, the SU regiments. They were aggregated to the major infantry or tank units, for a close and immediate fire support. They were often mixed with armored brigades or tank regiments to form the SU mixed groups.

Infantry transport on tanks (and other various improvvised means) was an official principle in Russian mobile warfare doctrine.

In 1944 the soviet standard armored brigade growed up to 65 tanks where the independent armored regiments up to 43, normally all T-34. The heavy tank brigades got 23 IS tanks. With two heavy regiments and two SU regiments aggregated, the tank or mechanaized corps can count on circa 300 between tanks and SP pieces.

By German surrender the soviets had 302 armored or mechanaized brigades, grouped in 25 tank corps, 13 mechanaized corps, sixty indipendent brigades (armored or motorized), 180 autonomous regiments plus 150 SP-artillery regiments. A huge production supplied such a mighty force: over 87,200 tanks and over 25,300 SUs were built in the 1940-45 period. Along them Russia got 4,260 tanks from Great Britain, 5,258 form U.S.A. and 1,188 from Canada: a contribute that, nevertheless being technologically inferior to the soviet mean, was vital during the major battle losses period.

Document: German 203º Panzerregiment's experience while fighting the KV-1s and T-34s (courtesy of Dr. Leo Niehorster)