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

T-34 tanks on the production line.

Vyacheslav Malyshev was the Soviet engineer tasked by Stalin with running the Soviet Union’s tank industry.

A Lend-Lease Matilda tank with a tank unit in the Central Front, January 1943.

An Su-122 self-propelled gun negotiates its way down a very muddy trail.

German preparations for Operation Zitadelle were extensive.

A Soviet tank company commander briefs his platoon leaders on their next operation.

The turret of a Panther Ausf D after an internal explosion had shattered the interior.

A German StuG-III assault gun pauses by a burning T-34/76 Model 1942 in the summer of 1943.

This is the same burning T-34 as in the previous photo.

A Tiger positioned next to a knocked-out KV-1.

Crewmen of a Panther loading 7.5-cm ammunition in a hurried, haphazard manner which begs for an accident.

T-34 with its turret blown off after a massive explosion.

The crew of an SU-76M assault gun in action.

Soviet T-34s enroute to Zhitomir, November 1943.

A Soviet KV-85 tank captured during the German counter-attack near Radomyschyl in early December 1943.

Soviet Lend Lease Churchill tanks entering Kiev, November 1943.

T-34s advance with infantry across a frozen field, winter 1943/44.

A German Pz IV advancing with an infantry section.

The recapture of Zhitomir in late November 1943 was a minor tactical victory, but von Manstein’s armored counter-offensive failed to destroy Rybalko’s 3 GTA or recover Kiev.

A Kampfgruppe from 1.

German infantry ride atop a Pz IV tank during the winter of 1944.

A German grenadier with a Panzerfaust observes a burning T-34 in a village.

A late-model Pz IV alongside a knocked-out late-model T-34/76 in the Ukraine, early 1944.

A Panther from SS- Wiking in a wood line in Poland, September 1944.

A Lend-lease Sherman in Red Army service.

A JS-2 lies disabled in the streets of an East Prussian town.

Another JS-2 has come to grief in a German city street, which was far too narrow for armoured operations.

Disposition of German Panzer-Division and Soviet Tank/Mechanized Corps on 1 January 1943

LVII Panzerkorps stand north of the Manych River, 5–11 January 1943

The Ostrogozhsk-Rossosh Operation, 13–31 January 1943

Advance of Hoth’s Panzerarmee 4 on first day of Zitadelle , 5 July 1943

Operation Rumyantsev , the breakthrough of 1st Tank Army and 5th Guards Tank Army, 8 August 1943

Battle of Bogodukhov, 13–16 August 1943, Totenkopf vs. the 1st Tank Army

Soviet breakout from the Lyutezh Bridgehead and liberation of Kiev, 3–5 November 1943

German Effort to relieve the Korsun Pocket, 1–16 February 1944

Second Battle of Tirgu Fromos, 2 May 1944

Advance of Soviet tank armies during Operation Bagration and Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive, June–July 1944

ABTU – Auto-Bronetankovoe Upravlenie (Main Tank Directorate), 1934–40.

AFV – Armoured Fighting Vehicle

AOK – Armeeoberkommando (Army)

AP – Armour Piercing

APCBC – Armour Piercing Composite Ballistic Cap (steel core)

APCR – Armour Piercing Composite Rigid (tungsten core)

APHE – Armour Piercing High Explosive

C 2 – Command & Control

cbm (m 3) – Cubic meter of fuel, equivalent to 1,000 litres or 744 kg

Desantniki – Russian term for troops who rode mounted on tanks or other AFVs into battle

GABTU – Glavnoe Avto-Brone-Tankovoe Upravlenie (Chief Department of Autos and Armoured Vehicles), 1940–45.

GAU KA – Glavnye Artilleryiskye Upravlenue Krasnoy Armii (Main Artillery Directorate of Red Army)

Gefechtstroß – Combat Trains, including ammunition trailers

Gepäcktroß – Baggage Train, including field kitchens

GCC – Guards Cavalry Corps

GKO – Gosudarstvennij Komitet Oboroniy (State Defence Committee)

GMC – Guards Mechanized Corps

Großtransportraum – Large Transport (GTR)

GTC – Guards Tank Corps

HE-FRAG – High Explosive, Fragmentation

HEAT – High Explosive Anti-tank

HKL – Hauptkampflinie (main line of resistance)

HVAP – High Velocity Armour Piercing (Tungsten core)

Instandsetzungsgrupe – Repair Group

Kradschützen – Motorcycle infantry

KwK – Kampfwagenkanone (Fighting vehicle cannon)

LSSAH – Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler

MC – Mechanized Corps

MD – Military District

NKO – Narodnyi Kommisariat Oborony (the People’s Commissariat of Defence)

NKTP – Narodnyi Komissariat Tankovoy Promyslennosti (the People’s Commissariat of the Tank Industry)

NKVD – Narodnyi Kommisariat Vneshnykh Del (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs)

OKH – Oberkommando des Heeres (German, Army High Command)

OTB – Otdel’nyye tankovyye batal’ony (Separate Tank Battalion)

OTTPP – Otdel’nyye Tyazhelij Tankovij Polk Proriva (Independent Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment)

PaK – PanzerAbwehrKanone (anti-tank gun)

PP – podderzhka pekhoty (infantry support tanks)

Pz.Rgt – Panzer Regiment

PzAOK – Panzerarmee

RKKA – Raboche-Krest’yanskaya Krasnaya Armiya (the Army of Workers and Peasants/the Red Army)

RVGK – Rezerv Verkhovnogo Glavnokomandovaniya (Reserve of Supreme High Command)

SAP – Samokhodno-Artillerijskij Polk (Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment)

SPW – Schützenpanzerwagen [Armoured Infantry Vehicle or APC]

SR – Schützen-Regiment [Motorized Infantry]

TA – Tank Army

TC – Tank Corps

TSAP – Tyazhelij Samokhodno-Artillerijskij Polk (Heavy Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment)

TTPP – Tyazhelij Tankovij Polk Proriva (Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment)

UABTTS – Uchebnyy Avtobronetankovyy Tsentr (Tank Automotive Training Centre)

UMM – Upravlenie Motorizatzii i Mekhanizatzii RKKA (Directorate of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army), 1929–1934. Re-named ABTU.

VA – vozdushnaya armiya (Air Army)

VAMM – Voennaya Akademiya Mekhanizatzii i Motorizatzii RKKA (Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army)

V.S. – Verbrauchssatz

VVS – Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily (Military Air Forces) i.e. the Soviet Air Force

Vorausabteilung – Vanguard battalion (abbrev. V.A.)

It was hot and dry, as I stood in the turret of ‘Godzilla-II’ and scanned across the flat horizon with my binoculars, looking for any indications of the adversary – but there were none. My tank company had been out on manoeuvres for a week in the desert and our battalion commander – who rarely graced us with his presence in the field – had ordered us to spend a day conducting company-size tactical drills. One particular favourite of his was the so-called ‘thirteen-on-one’ scenario, in which one tank from the company would assume a hull-down defensive position and the other thirteen tanks would then manoeuvre to engage and destroy the one hidden tank. We were informed that the mission had to be conducted with urgency and that we would be provided no air, artillery or infantry support, nor could we try to bypass the defending tank. This was the kind of mental inflexibility that usually leads to disaster. When I tried to point out that this kind of tank-pure assault across flat desert terrain had not worked in the Western Desert in 1941–42 or on the steppes of Russia in 1941–43, all common sense was dismissed with a curt, ‘Do as you are ordered’.