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

Conclusions

Both sides made tactical and operational mistakes in the conduct of armoured operations on the Eastern Front in 1941–45, but it was the Germans who made the strategic mistake of starting a war that they were not prepared to win. Furthermore, the Red Army learned a great deal more from its defeats in 1941– 42 than the Wehrmacht learned from its victories. Both during and after the war, the Germans repeatedly tried to rationalize their defeat by pointing to the Soviet numerical superiority, as if it was somehow not fair. Yet the reason that the Red Army enjoyed a numerical superiority in tanks was due to the fact that its tanks were designed to be simple to produce and operate and easy to repair; they could also move lengthy distances without too many breaking down. This functionality of Soviet tanks was based on pre-war industrial decisions that were made with an eye to winning a protracted war. Both before and throughout the war, the Soviet oversight of tank development, production and evolution was much more professionally directed than on the German side. Unlike the Germans, who did not put a tank expert like Guderian in charge of overseeing the restoration of the Panzer-Divisionen until after Stalingrad, General-leytenant Yakov N. Fedorenko, head of GABTU, directed Soviet tank programmes throughout the entire war. Furthermore, Guderian was ignored on all the key decisions – such as the premature commitment of the Panther tank, the decision to attack at Kursk, the need to build panzer reserves – whereas Fedorenko played a key role in reconstituting shattered Soviet tank armies and ensuring that tank production stayed ahead of combat losses. Instead, the Germans opted for more sophisticated tanks that were produced in smaller numbers and were more difficult to maintain. The Germans also enjoyed producing small numbers of experimental designs such as the Ferdinand tank destroyer, whereas the Soviets had the discipline to focus on a few proven designs.

Certainly the most obvious mistake German tank designers made was to rely upon petrol engines rather than expending the effort to build a high-torque diesel engine, as the Soviets had. Fuel-hogs like the Panther and King Tiger were using 2–4 times as much fuel as earlier designs, just when Germany was running short of fuel. Hitler regarded the diesel engine as the preferred solution, but allowed himself to be dissuaded by technocrats who opined that it would take too long to develop and the war would be over before it was ready. Tied in with the mistaken reliance on fuel-inefficient petrol engines, the Germans became enamoured of mounting bigger and bigger guns on their tanks and Panzerjägers. The problem was that armoured vehicles over 45 tons were difficult to get across rivers, since German pontoon bridges were not intended for heavy tanks, and it was increasingly problematic for recovery vehicles to retrieve them on the battlefield. Thus, by 1943, German heavy tanks had difficulty getting across minor water features, which negatively impacted mission accomplishment on a number of occasions, such as Kursk and the Korsun relief operation. Germany needed a good 30–35-ton tank with a diesel engine and a long 7.5cm gun that could be built in quantity, but instead the Panzer-Divisionen were provided with tanks that increasingly failed to meet the operational requirements of Bewegungskrieg. Interestingly, many of the design features that the Germans found so interesting – such as interweaved road wheels – were abandoned by all post-war tank designers.

Another mistake which cost the Germans dearly was the diversion of so many resources to building Waffen-SS and Luftwaffe Panzer-Divisionen, which was done for political rather than military reasons. By late 1943 Himmler was outfitting more and more Waffen-SS units, many of which were of dubious quality. Guderian failed to stop this diversion of resources and most of the Heer Panzer-Divisionen were starved of resources and allowed to become second-rate formations by late 1944. After Kursk, the German combined arms team was increasingly broken as less infantry, air and artillery support was available.

Soviet leaders stuck with a conservative attitude toward tank design and production throughout the war and it paid off handsomely. By late 1943 the Red Army had six tank armies which contained up to 30 per cent of its available armour and a small cadre of veteran front leaders such as Vatutin, Rokossovsky, Bagramyan and Konev, who learned to employ these armoured fists to achieve operational-level victories. Yet the Red Army could not have smashed German army groups just with superior numbers – that method had failed repeatedly in 1941–42. Instead, the Red Army learned how to mass its artillery to achieve breakthroughs and to employ its engineers in mobility and counter-mobility roles. By the time of Kursk, the Soviets learned that a minefield covered by fire from concealed anti-tank guns was the best answer to the Tiger or Panther, yet the Germans never really improved their mine-clearing skills. The Soviet ability to quickly refit decimated tank armies and redeploy them long distances without being detected was another skill that contributed greatly to the Soviet victory over the Panzer-Divisionen. Soviet expert use of Maskirovka (deception) allowed the Red Army to gain the advantage of surprise again and again over German commanders who could not understand that their opponents were evolving.

The Soviet failure to invest in developing armoured personnel carriers for their infantry, better reconnaissance vehicles and mobile flak guns were serious technical mistakes that proved costly in battle, but Lend-Lease deliveries of US-made halftracks and reconnaissance vehicles helped to partly rectify this deficiency by the last year of the war. Could the Red Army have defeated Germany’s armoured forces without Lend-Lease? This is doubtful for a number of reasons. Although the quality of many Lend-Lease tanks was poor, the quality of the trucks, halftracks and other support vehicles was not and without these vehicles, the Red Army’s ability to conduct Deep Operations would have been severely impaired. Another factor is that the supply of aluminum, machine tools and other key raw materials enabled the Soviet Union to rapidly expand its tank production despite the loss of so much of its own territory and resources; without this assistance, Soviet tank production would likely have been reduced by one-third. It is highly unlikely that the Red Army would have had the mobility and the numbers necessary to conduct the sweeing advances of 1944–45 without Allied Lend-Lease aid.

Yet Soviet armoured tactics were undermined throughout the war by the lack of training provided to Soviet tankers in comparison to their opponents. In 1945, some Guards tank units were afforded special gunnery training, but for most of the war Soviet tankers went into battle with inadequate gunnery training and poor communications due to the limited number of radios. These limitations – which could have been mitigated – gave an enormous advantage to German tankers and help to explain many of the lop-sided kill ratios. Yet Stalin and his Kremlin cronies were not interested in improving military training since they regarded this as a step toward professionalism and elitism, which was dangerous for the authority of the party. Instead, Stalin accepted heavy losses as the price of victory and only cared about losses when it affected mission outcomes. Nevertheless, the Red Army eventually developed a veteran armoured force by 1945 that was capable of achieving any mission assigned and had surpassed the capabilities of the German Panzer-Divisionen even in their prime.