Tanks of the Red Army in 1941: Medium and Heavy Tanks

I'm Indy Neidell and welcome to the second part of this two-part special on Soviet armor in 1941. As you will no doubt know from last time, Chieftain is handling things here. This week he is covering medium and heavy tanks, so a 1, and a 2, and a 3, and a 4. Where do we sit on mediums? Though on the way out, you still had to be concerned if you're going up against T-28s. These tanks, by now, are considered obsolete, with their replacements, heavy tanks, under construction. Though a medium tank, they were so-called mainly because of the existence of T-35. The T-28 was used in the breakthrough role supporting other units, so if you met one, you were probably meeting everything the Red Army had in the area. Experience in Finland being taken into account, the original 3 cm of armor, being found perhaps an up-armoring program saw applique armor added to make 5-8 cm thick from the front, 4 on the sides, and rear. When also combined with a higher velocity 76mm L-10 gun, it would prove to be a very nasty opponent for anything it met. Bear in mind, this tank also has a fully powered three-man turret with a basket. For the standards of when it was designed, this is not a bad tank at all. On the other hand, this also meant that the tank had gone from 25 tons to 32, was too long to be nimble, and was just damn big. In something of a foreshadowing of what the Germans were to suffer from a couple of years later, a very significant number of T-28s were lost not due to enemy action, but due to logistical or mechanical issues. 410 of them were still in service in June of 1941 out of the 500 originally built, about 300 of them had the L-10 gun. Like almost every other tank in western units, they did not tend to last beyond August, although a few would crop up here or there as late as 1943. There is only one other medium tank to talk about, the T-34. The T-34 of course is the icon of the Red Army of WWII, and would prove to be an excellent tank for the Soviets. But not during Barbarossa, they were steamrolled just like every other tank the Soviets had. About 935 were on hand for the German invasion. They were being knocked out by Panzer 38Ts by lunchtime, and by five weeks later, even with 526 replacements delivered, only 158 T-34s remained on the front line. If you're the sort of person who's watching this video, you probably already know about T-34's positive points. Good flotation on capable running gear, 76mm gun capable against tanks and anti-tank guns, well sloped armor, a diesel engine and powerpack at the rear, good cold and mud operation. Unfortunately, a vast improvement over the BT from which it was descended, though it may have been, it was still in teething trouble phase, exacerbated by a lack of training. Again, the Piper needs to be paid for these capabilities. The loss of internal volume caused by the Christie suspension system resulted in a cramped vehicle, never really resolved throughout T-34's production. Something which was eventually resolved was the poor turret. Remember, T-34 was derived from A-32, which is more or less derived from A-20, and was considered to be basically a BT-type vehicle with a 76mm stuck into the same turret where the 45mm originally was, plus a bit more armor. The turret was not ideal with a 45mm, you can imagine what happens when you stick a 76 in there even with powered reverse. Unfortunately, this vehicle was designed before T-50's three-man turret, and the two-man crew were almost blind, although they at least had periscopic and telescopic sights. The rate of fire was atrocious. Under ideal conditions, the Soviets rated it at 6 rounds per minute, but in practice, the Soviets concluded that it was really 2 rounds per minute. Further, the radios weren't the most reliable to coordinate between tanks. The L-11 wasn't a terrible gun, but the Colt went out very quickly to replace it with a far better F-34. The Germans didn't have any more difficulty really dealing with T-34s than they did the French tanks the year previously. The whole door knocker thing is a bit overstated. The Germans did have to do it the hard way, but do what they did. That first battle, on that first day at Alatas, 27 of 44 T-34s and 46 other tanks, including T-28s, were lost. The Germans lost 11 Panzer 38Ts, although admittedly they did bring an anti-tank unit along with a dozen long 5cm guns, and they also brought along some airplanes for good measure. But still, if you were blundering blind and deaf, kept under your armor by artillery and airstrikes, you are going to make yourself vulnerable to a more mobile, better coordinated enemy. Assessments of damaged vehicles indicate that the Germans tended to wait for flank shots. This was not helped by the standard of training. Only 50 T-34s had been operated before the war started. All the others were kept in war readiness in the motor pool to avoid breaking them. In 1941, on the test stand, the engine had a life expectancy of 100 hours. In the field, driven roughly by a driver suffering from pretty terrible driving ergonomics, this would be less. If they trained with the tanks, the tank would break and would no longer be able to be used, and it would look bad on your reports. There is a photo of a T-34 going into battle with a spare transmission on the back deck. Doesn't say great things. In 1941, this tank was not where it needed to be. They will get better, don't worry. Check back with me in a couple years. Actual causes of losses varied. 5th tanks lost over half of its T-34s in combat at Alathus, mentioned above. 32nd tanks lost half of its vehicles due to mechanical breakdown. 10% were shipped to the rear, 10% bogged down, and 30% were lost in combat. 8th Mechanized Corps started the war with 100 T-34s in its base. 5 never made it out the gate, 40 dropped off to the side of the road during the road march. 10th tanks lost only 16% of its T-34s due to mechanical breakdown, the rest were lost in combat. 50th tanks lost almost half of its T-34s stuck in marshes. Yes, there are stories of T-34s taking ridiculous punishment, but, much like Billox's run at stone, they also indicate the problems with the tank. One T-34 was hit 23 times by a 37mm gun from the front before it hit the turret ring and sent it home. In the movies, after the first one or two shots ricochet off the tank, the 76mm gun will turn, lay on the German AT gunners, and then there will be this dramatic pause, a close-up of the shock on the German faces, and then a muzzle blast from the Soviet cut the scene. The T-34 was too blind to see the target. Another example. 4 September 1941, a political officer, Vinny Yamanov, brought his T-34 home with 70 impacts from 37mm and 75mm guns, including one which knocked the driver's hatch off. What is not mentioned so often is that his tank was the sole survivor of the four T-34s, one BT-7 and two T-26s, which came back after a failed attack. I say these things not to disparage T-34. Again, T-34 will be the tank which will win the war for the Red Army. Spoiler alert, an excellent design for the Soviet circumstances. In 1941, though, this tank was hampered by design flaws, mechanical unreliability, and atrociously trained crews, and it was absolutely nowhere near as effective as the common story would have one believe. That done, on to the heavy tanks. There are only two to be concerned about. A tank which wasn't particularly unreliable, but which was a monstrosity which had never been built in the first place, was T-35. Only about 60 were made, 48 were on hand for the German invasion. This supposed rolling fortress, with effectively the T-28's turret and machine gun turrets together with a couple of T-26 turrets thrown in for good measure, had ridiculously poor armor for the weight, with only a couple of combat engagements to its credit. Even though they were more reliable than T-34, which wasn't hard, running them for hundreds of kilometers without servicing did for the majority of them. This now leaves us with one tank, the KV. Unlike the T-34, going around the back or the side of did not really present much of an easier target for this 45 ton beast. Even the long 5cm gun needed to get up close with tungsten ammunition to take it out. The torsion bar suspension provides an excellent ride without sacrificing interior volume. Selected for production just before the Winter War, about 530 KVs were available when the Germans came to visit. They would be distributed in tank divisions. On paper, in a division you'd have 210 T-34s, 147 BT-7s, 63 KVs, and also a battalion of 31 KVs in each tank regiment. But that almost never happened. In reality, just over 500 KVs were on hand for the German invasion. About a third of them were KV-2s with the bunker-busting 152mm gun and obscene silhouette, not of great use in maneuver fighting. It can be argued if German propaganda failed Germany yet again. After conquering France, they made sure to show how they were able to defeat even the highly regarded heavily armored Char B1s. This made the Soviets question whether their KVs were actually tough enough. With 75mm sloped armor at 30 degrees, they absolutely were tough enough, but just in case, a crash program for up-armoring was started, adding another couple of centimeters to the front and sides. It probably didn't make any practical difference to the Germans, but the KV just had a bunch of weight added to it. KV-1 model 1941 came with thicker armor from the factory. This leads to multiple stories of KVs acting as roadblocks for entire German formations, except this time the reputation for invulnerability is more deserved. Like most heavy tanks, a penalty was to be paid for the weight of armor. The transmission in particular was horrible, and it basically had the same 100-hour service life on the engine as T-34. Tenth Tanks, which earlier had lost 16% of T-34's mechanical breakdown, lost 44% of its KVs the same way. Eighth Tanks lost 13 in combat, two in swamps, and 28 abandoned to breakdown. There are also a surprising number of photographs showing KVs in rivers after the bridge they were crossing failed to hold their weight. The vehicle was very tiring to drive, trying to maneuver a 45 ton tank without power assist, and the gearbox was not exactly smooth. The quality of the optics was below standard, and the layout inside was not much better. The Germans would report these tanks to be lumbering as if blind, probably because they were. In theory, the tank had a five-man crew with a three-man turret. In practice, the layout made the fifth man almost useless, and four-man crews were not uncommon. There was no turret basket, the commander also functioned as the loader. He had no hatch to stick his head out of, and his vision was fairly limited to just being the periscope to his front, one to his right, a fixed one, and a view slit. He could, in theory, swap positions with the rear machine gunner, also officially known as the driver mechanic, and stick his head out the hatch at the rear, for whatever he could see beyond the bulk of the turret to his front, but if he closed the hatch, he could only see out the rear. So, in KV we have a very tough tank, albeit slow, one which could be dangerous if well handled, and oftentimes KV crews were actually hand-picked so that they could get the best out of them. On the other hand, they would only be dangerous if they could get to the fight, which they frequently couldn't, and a lost tank is a lost tank regardless of cause. You will notice I haven't mentioned self-propelled artillery, to include self-propelled anti-tank vehicles, because there weren't any. There were certainly a number of prototypes trialed, but nothing would be adopted for service until next year. This leaves just one oddity of the Soviet army, the armored trains. Trains have a great advantage, at least if properly constructed, of not being stuck in terrain just because it started to rain or the snow has melted, which is a useful capability on the Russian front, and the Soviets put quite a bit of thought into this problem. Some were rail cars made by simply putting a conversion kit onto the BA-6 or BA-10 armored cars. On the other hand, there were nearly 200 conventional locomotive-hauled armored trains in service, about half of them being anti-aircraft oriented. Mostly, they had about 2cm of armor. In the middle were the rail cars, self-propelled fighting vehicles on rails, such as the BTD, which was basically a T-26 turret and a couple of guns on an armored two-axle body. Most impressive were the 32 rail cruisers, larger, multi-turreted cars, which literally would look like a naval warship sailing across the plains. Most were the D-2, with twin 76mm turrets, but the MBV-2 was a monster. 80 tons of rolling steel, with three T-28 turrets and a bunch of machine guns, powered by the T-28's engine at up to 120 km an hour, and a crew of up to 40. Both of these rail cars were used near Leningrad, and proved to be a nuisance for the rest of the war. One was still in service in 1951, before finally being retired to Kubinka, where it is still on display. They ended up being something of a dead end though, just so its two were built. So that about covers it, the Red Army's armored vehicles during the initial desperate fighting after the German invasion. Hope you found it interesting and informative. Take care. Most interesting is that the mighty T-34 isn't necessarily all that mighty here in 1941. However, those T-34s will go on to play a very big role in the years to come. And of course, I want to say big thanks to Chieftain for doing these specials with us. He really knows his stuff, and he's a nice guy, and he's good on camera. So what more do you want? Well, there is plenty more armor related stuff to talk about, and as this war goes on, I am sure that he and I will be back here again to talk you through it. Don't forget to subscribe to both of our fantastic channels, and I'll see you next time.