Why did the T-34 lose to the PzKpfw III, but beat the Tigers and Panthers? In the previous articles of the series, we analyzed the technical features of the T-34 of the 1942 release, as well as the staffs of tank units and formations, along with some nuances of the combat use of domestic armored vehicles. A quick summary would look like this:
As you know, a number of disadvantages of the T-34 mod. 1940, such as an unsuccessful transmission, insufficient resource, a narrow turret ring, "blindness" and the lack of a 5th crew member were obvious to the top leadership of the Red Army even before the war. Nevertheless, in 1941 and 1942, the stake was not made to eradicate all this, but to maximize manufacturability and simplify the existing design of the tank. Our top military leadership considered it necessary to deploy mass production as soon as possible and provide the Red Army on a massive scale with anti-cannon armor and an extremely powerful 76, 2 mm cannon for its time, even if they would have very serious shortcomings. It was assumed that this would be better than major redesigns, and the associated drop in production.
And what did we get?
What were the consequences of this decision? We can say that 1942 became one of the most important stages for our thirty-four. At the beginning of this year, it was still a fairly crude combat vehicle, moreover, it was not yet too well adapted for mass, serial production on the equipment that existed in the USSR at that time. Its production was carried out at three plants, two of which started production of the T-34 before the war (Considering the Nizhniy Tagil plant as a "continuation" of the Kharkov plant). By the end of the year, the T-34 was already being produced at 5 factories, and this is taking into account the fact that STZ stopped production of tanks, due to the fact that the battles in Stalingrad were already fought on its territory. That is, if in 1941, in addition to STZ and Nizhniy Tagil plant No. 183, it was possible to launch the production of T-34 at the Gorky plant, then in 1942 Chelyabinsk, Omsk and Sverdlovsk plants were added to them.
In other words, the task of mass construction of the T-34 in 1942 was solved. Of interest is the ratio of medium and heavy armored vehicles produced in 1941-42. in the USSR and Germany. In 1941, the production capacity of the Third Reich gave the Wehrmacht and the SS 2,850 T-III T-IV medium tanks, command tanks based on them, as well as StuG III assault guns, which, with a mass of 22 tons, had a reservation quite comparable to the T-III. but an incomparably more powerful 75-mm gun, capable of quite successfully fighting our T-34s.
At the same time, the USSR in 1941 was able to produce 3,016 T-34s, that is, we can say that in terms of medium armored vehicles, the production capabilities of the Soviet Union and Germany turned out to be quite comparable. True, the situation was significantly improved by the production of heavy KV tanks, of which 714 units were created in 1941, but nevertheless we have to admit that the USSR did not have a multiple advantage in the production of medium and heavy armored vehicles in 1941: our country surpassed the German production by about 30%.
But in 1942 the situation changed dramatically, because the USSR managed to produce 2, 44 times more armored vehicles than the Third Reich - and the increase in production of the T-34 played the main role here.
The cost of production of one tank in comparison with 1941 fell by about 1.5 times (plant No. 183, from 249,256 rubles.up to 165,810 rubles), although, of course, at new factories in 1942 the price per unit was still higher. Many minor design flaws were eradicated, and in general, by the end of 1942, the army received a much more advanced machine than was the T-34 of the 1941 model.
Nevertheless, alas, the main design flaws were not eradicated - the T-34 remained a difficult to control and not very reliable tank, the commander of which was extremely lacking in visibility in battle. In other words, surpassing the bulk of German tanks in armor protection and weapons, it was inferior to them in situational awareness and reliability, which allowed experienced German tankmen, artillerymen and infantrymen to select effective tactics for countering domestic medium tanks. Undoubtedly, the anti-cannon armor and powerful armament of the T-34 were excellent "arguments" that, if used correctly, could tilt success in battle to the side of Soviet tankers. But this required combat experience, of which the Wehrmacht still had more, and besides, a well-tested interaction with its own artillery and infantry, which, alas, the Red Army was simply categorically lacking.
As we said earlier, the tank forces of the USSR at the end of 1941 were forced to "roll back" to the level of brigades - that is, purely tank formations. And although at the beginning of 1942 the Red Army began to form larger formations, tank corps, at first they were poorly balanced structures, which clearly lacked field artillery and motorized riflemen, as well as other important support units. Such formations could not fight on their own with the same efficiency as the German Panzerwaffe did, who had plenty of artillery and motorized infantry, and who knew how to use it all in an integrated manner. At the same time, attempts at joint actions of the same tank brigades with the RKKA rifle corps often led to the fact that the infantry commanders illiterately used the tank formations assigned to them and did not provide the proper level of interaction with their units.
The situation improved gradually, throughout 1942, the staff of the tank corps was constantly being improved. The states established in January 1943 in accordance with Decree No. GOKO-2791ss can already be considered optimal, but, apparently, at least part of the tank corps had a similar structure already in the 4th quarter of 1942, and possibly even earlier …
In other words, we can say that the "stars converged" precisely by the beginning of 1943, when:
1. The Red Army received a large number of T-34 tanks, saved from many childhood diseases, although they retained their main shortcomings, identified even before the war;
2. The states of the highest tank formations approached the optimal ones, and fully corresponded to the requirements of modern mobile warfare;
3. The troops have acquired combat experience, allowing them to successfully fight even against the best units of the Wehrmacht.
But all this happened only towards the end of 1942. But in 1942 itself, we had to pay a high price for the technical shortcomings of tanks, for the lack of combat experience, for the imperfection of the staff of tank formations.
About Soviet and German losses. Only numbers first
Let's look at the balance of losses of medium and heavy armored vehicles of the USSR and Germany in 1942. But the author warns right away - the figures given in the table should be treated very, I emphasize, very carefully! All the necessary explanations will be given below.
So, we see that the USSR greatly overtook Germany in the production of armored vehicles, having released in 1942 2, 44 times more medium and heavy tanks and self-propelled guns, although, strictly speaking, the Su-76 with its 11, 5 tons of mass for medium armored vehicles did not pull at all. But on the other hand, she was armed with a 76, 2-mm gun ZIS-3, which quite confidently hit almost any enemy tanks and self-propelled guns, with the exception of the "Tiger", of course, therefore, "for the purity of the experiment" we took into account its production.
However, having overtaken the Third Reich in tank production, we, alas, overtook it in terms of the level of losses, which, according to the above data, for the Red Army, averaged 3.05 tanks per German. As a result, the following situation developed: at the beginning of 1941 the state of the Red Army tank forces can be described as catastrophic - we had 1,400 medium and heavy tanks against 3,304 tanks and self-propelled guns from the Wehrmacht. But thanks to the efforts spent on organizing the mass production of tanks, we were able, despite very large losses, to provide the Red Army with an approximately 44.7% superiority in the number of heavy and medium tanks at the beginning of 1943.
But it is not exactly
Are you already horrified by the ratio of losses of Soviet and German tanks in the amount of 3: 1? Well, these are the statistics - but now let's figure out why the above data is incorrect.
The attentive reader has probably already noticed that the figures given in the table are not "balanced" among themselves: if we add the number of armored vehicles produced to the availability of tanks at the beginning of the year and subtract losses, the final figures will be completely different than those given as balances at the end of the year. Why?
To begin with, let's remember that tank losses can be divided into two categories - returnable and irrecoverable. Both of them, of course, make the tank unusable, but tanks that fall into the first category can be restored. They, in turn, are divided into 2 categories: those that can be repaired in the field, and those that can only be restored in the factory. Irrecoverable losses are considered to be tanks that are so badly damaged that even under factory conditions it is already irrational to restore them - it is easier and cheaper to build new ones.
So, the author took the figures of Soviet losses in aggregate, based on materials from the site tankfront.ru, where they are rounded up to hundreds. On the whole, they are more or less correct; deviations, if any, are relatively small. At the same time, on the site mentioned above, they were brought into balance, which we present below:
We see that the numbers in the table correspond to the formula: "the actual number of tanks at the beginning of the year + the number of vehicles transferred to the troops per year - losses per year = the number of tanks at the end of the year." Why? Yes, because the number of tanks received by the troops is greater than their release. As we said earlier, the T-34 was produced in 1942, slightly more than 12.5 thousand units, and other medium tanks were not produced in the USSR at that time. At the same time, according to the above table, the number of medium tanks is 13.4 thousand, that is, almost 900 more vehicles. With heavy tanks, the picture is even more interesting - they were produced in 1942 by 1, 9 thousand units, but delivered to the troops - 2, 6 thousand units! Where does this difference come from?
There are, in fact, only two options - these are either vehicles supplied under Lend-Lease, or tanks that, for some reason, were not included in the general release, and these could only be restored tanks. Moreover, if we can still assume that a certain number of Lend-Lease vehicles received in 1942 went under the category of medium tanks, then heavy tanks were not supplied to us for sure - simply because of the lack of such tanks from our allies.
In other words, the above table for the Soviet Union takes into account not only newly produced and delivered from abroad armored vehicles, but also restored tanks. But to what extent they were included in the statistics is, of course, an interesting question.
The fact is that some time ago, there was such a point of view that the tank factories of the USSR did not keep separate records of new armored vehicles, and those restored at factories after damage to tanks and self-propelled guns. The fact is that all of them, of course, underwent military acceptance as soon as they were ready, which took into account only the total number of transferred vehicles. Unfortunately, the author of this article could not find out whether this is true or not, but if this is so, then in 12, 5 thousand T-34s, produced in 1942, there is a certain number of not newly created, but restored tanks …
In this case, an additional roughly 900 medium and almost 700 heavy tanks, the difference between produced and transferred to the troops is the number of armored vehicles repaired in the field.
If the numbers 12, 5 thousand T-34 and 1, 9 thousand KV are still only new equipment, excluding those repaired at the factories, then the indicated difference is the tanks restored at the factory.
But, be that as it may, the following turns out. In addition to those irretrievably lost, the Soviet tank losses also included all the return losses of tanks (the first case we described), or part of the return losses, i.e. tanks that have been restored at factories. In other words, in the recorded losses of Soviet armored vehicles - 6, 6 thousand medium and 1, 2 thousand heavy tanks, both irrecoverable and returnable losses "sit". The latter could be in total losses in full, or in part (in volumes requiring factory repair), but they are there for sure.
But the Germans took into account only and exclusively irrecoverable losses. The fact is that the author did the calculations of German tanks on the basis of the book by B. Müller-Hillebrand "The Land Army of Germany 1933-1945", which is considered the "golden fund" of literature on the Wehrmacht. But in this book, obviously, in terms of the release of German armored vehicles, it is the new issue that is presented, without major repairs of damaged tanks and self-propelled guns. Apparently, B. Müller-Hillebrand simply did not have data on the return losses of Wehrmacht and SS tanks, which is why, in the corresponding section, he cited only such data for only 4 months, from October 1943 to January 1944, inclusive. I must say that the return losses of the Germans over these 4 months turned out to be very large - in the field, 10,259 tanks and self-propelled guns were restored in the field, and 603 - in the factory. At the same time, the author points out that tanks of the T-III and T-IV types were being repaired. Well, since the tables for the production of armored vehicles do not contain T-IIIs released from factories in the specified period, this obviously indicates that the specified table does not take into account the restored equipment.
At the same time, B. Müller-Gillebrand gives, at first glance, comprehensive data - both the monthly release of armored vehicles, and its remnants in the troops at the beginning of each month, and production … The only problem is one - these figures categorically "do not fight" with each other. Take the Panther tanks, for example. As you know, at the beginning of the war, these tanks were not produced, but, according to B. Müller-Hillebrand, 5,629 vehicles were produced up to December 1944 inclusive. Losses of the "Panthers" through December 1944, inclusive, according to the "Land Army of Germany 1933-1945", amounted to 2,822 tanks. A simple arithmetic operation suggests that in this case the Germans had 2,807 Panthers left on 1945-01-01. But - that's bad luck! For some reason, according to the data of the same B. Müller-Hillebrand on January 1, 1945, the Germans had only 1,964 tanks. Excuse me magnanimously, but where else are 843 Panthers? The same is observed with other types of German armored vehicles. For example, on the same January 1, 1945, according to the data on the production and losses of the T-VI "Tiger" tank, 304 units should have remained in the ranks. of this legend "Panzerwaffe" - however, according to the data on the remnants, there were only 245 of them. Of course, the difference in 59 cars somehow "does not look" against the background of 843 "Panthers", but in percentage terms, the numbers are quite comparable - the Germans have much then almost 30% of the "Panthers" were lost, and 19.4% of the "Tigers" relative to those that should be in the ranks!
And this can only say about two things - either the German statistics of tank losses are lying to us without blushing, and in fact the losses of German armored vehicles were higher than the declared ones, or … everything is correct, only irrecoverable losses are taken into account in the loss tables. Then everything becomes clear - as of January 1, 1945, the same Germans had 1,964 Panthers in service, and another 843 vehicles were disabled and incapable of combat, but could be returned to service after appropriate repairs.
But maybe the Germans and the Red Army had the same thing - tanks and self-propelled guns being repaired in the field did not appear either in losses or in production, but only irrecoverable losses and tanks that required factory repair were taken into account in them? Mathematically it is possible, but historically it is not, because in this case it will be necessary to admit that as of January 1, 1945, the Germans had accumulated 843 Panthers in their factories awaiting repairs. The figure is completely impossible, and not supported by any sources.
Thus, when we look at the statistical data and see that in 1942 the Germans lost 2,562 medium and heavy tanks and self-propelled guns, and the Russians as many as 7,825 (approximately) similar combat vehicles, in no case should we forget that we see incomparable quantities in front of us. Simply because the Germans took into account only irrecoverable losses, and we also have returnable losses, or at least some of them. And, obviously, if we were not comparing “warm with soft”, then the ratio of losses would have been somewhat different, and not 3 to 1, not in favor of the Red Army.
But the oddities of German statistics have not yet ended - they, one might say, are just beginning. Let's pay attention to the estimated remnants of the tanks of the Third Reich as of the end of 1942, or rather, on January 1, 1943.
That is, when we see, for example, that the Germans should have had 1,168 assault self-propelled guns left, but only 1,146 are listed, this can be explained by the fact that the remaining 22 self-propelled guns were damaged and required repair. Not enough, of course (we will return to this issue a little later), but when the actual balance is less than the calculated one, this can be explained and understood. But what to do when this remainder is greater? Tanks T-IV from the Germans, taking into account their production and losses, should have left 1,005 vehicles, where did they come from as much as 1,077? Where did the "extra" 72 tanks come from? A wizard in a blue helicopter arrived, with a racially correct magic wand in his breeches pocket, or what?
This phenomenon can only be explained by the fact that in 1942 the number of return losses was less than the number of tanks repaired. Since neither one nor the other figure in the German statistics, then, taking them into account, 72 "magic" tanks that came from nowhere can be explained. And this once again confirms the author's thesis that only irretrievably lost were taken into account in German losses, and only new tanks and self-propelled guns in production. If the author was mistaken, then we have to admit that German statistics lie to us, giving out mathematically impossible data.
But here's the thing … Let's remember what happened on the fronts at the end of 1942. Of course, the Battle of Stalingrad! In which, according to the German generals, the Wehrmacht suffered very heavy losses, including in equipment. In this case, could it be that as of 1943-01-01 the Germans had only a few dozen tanks and self-propelled guns under repair? On all fronts, including Africa? Oh, something is hard to believe.
Let's take a better look at this. According to German data, in December 1942 the Germans lost only 154 medium tanks and self-propelled guns. In January 1943, losses increased to 387 units. And in February, they reached a record, simply unrealistic value, which had no analogues during the entire Second World War - in February 1943, the Wehrmacht reported the loss of 1,842 tanks and self-propelled guns!
That is, for a second, for the whole of 1942, according to their data, the Germans lost 2,562 medium and heavy tanks and self-propelled guns, or an average of 213-214 tanks per month. And then, in 1943, in February alone - more than 1,800 units of medium and heavy armored vehicles, or almost 72% of the annual losses of the last year ?!
Something here ends meet.
According to the author, the following happened. The fact is that B. Müller-Hillebrand, in his own words, took his statistical data from the reviews of the state of armaments, published monthly by the Armaments Directorate of the German Ground Forces. So there is a persistent feeling that when the Red Army was smashing the Wehrmacht in the tail and in the mane at Stalingrad, the German commanders on the ground had no time for reporting to higher directorates. It is quite possible that the Paulus army, which found itself in the cauldron, did not present such reports at all, or did present, but provided erroneous data in them, which, given the actual state of the German troops, would be extremely unsurprising.
So, as you know, on February 2, the northern group of the 6th Army surrendered, and its southern part, together with Paulus himself, surrendered two days earlier. And after that, the Germans had the opportunity to clarify the data on their tank losses, but since it was somehow not comme il faut to correct the reporting retroactively, they simply wrote them off in February 1943.
In other words, it is quite possible, and even very likely that the Wehrmacht, in fact, did not lose 1,800 tanks during February 1943, because part of this armored vehicle was lost to them earlier, these losses were simply not included in the reports in a timely manner. But, in this case, we again come to the conclusion that in fact, even the only irrecoverable losses in 1942, the Germans had more than their statistics show.
But that's not all. The fact is that every successful military operation has several stages, and, of course, this fully applies to the Stalingrad operation. First, when our troops break through the enemy defenses, we suffer losses. Then, when our troops cover the "cauldron" in a thin line, into which large masses of enemy troops have fallen, and this adversary is trying to unblock this cauldron with all his might from inside and outside, we also suffer losses. But then, when the enemy's forces run out and he surrenders, at this moment he suffers simply colossal losses, which significantly exceed everything that we have lost before.
So the statistics "by years" are just "lame" in that the above proportions can be violated in it. We suffered heavy losses in order to stop and surround Paulus's 6th Army, of course, losses not only in men, but also in tanks, and all this was taken into account in the statistics of 1942. But all the benefits of our operation were "transferred" to 1943 year. In other words, in addition to all of the above, you need to understand that at the end of 1942, we made a certain "contribution" in losses to our future success, but did not have time to collect from the enemy "according to the score." Thus, the statistical calculations for the calendar year 1942 will not be indicative.
It would be much more correct to estimate the losses of the tank forces of the USSR and Germany not for 12 months of 1942, but for 14 months, including January and February 1943. Alas, the author does not have accurate data on monthly losses of domestic armored vehicles. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that for the period from January 1, 1942 to February 2, 1943 inclusive, the Germans lost about 4, 4 thousand medium and heavy tanks and self-propelled guns, and the Soviet troops - about 9 000 units. But do not forget, again, about the fact that in our 9,000 units. A certain part of the returnable losses also "sits", and the German 4, 4 thousand - these are only irrecoverable losses.
And so it turns out that the real ratio of losses of armored vehicles in the specified period is not 3 to 1, but rather, even less than 2 to one, but still, of course, not in our favor.
Alas, such was the price of the insufficient experience of our soldiers and commanders, the suboptimal staffing of tank forces and the technical shortcomings of our tanks - including, of course, the T-34. That is why the title of the series of articles includes "Why did the T-34 lose to the PzKpfw III …". This does not mean, of course, that the aggregate combat qualities of the T-34 were once inferior to the German three-ruble note. But the fact is that in the period 1941-1942, the German army, armed mainly with T-III (at the beginning of 1942, the share of "three rubles" in the total number of medium armored vehicles was 56%, at the end of 1942 - 44%) she knew how to inflict much heavier losses on us in tanks than she herself carried.
By the way, I foresee the question of an attentive reader: “Why, this author compares the total losses of German tanks with the losses of tanks in the USSR? After all, Germany fought not only on the Eastern Front, but, for example, in Africa ….
Well, I am happy to answer. The fact is that I have a persistent feeling that B. Müller-Hillebrand took not general losses as the total losses of the German tanks, but only those that were incurred on the Eastern Front. Let me just remind you that on May 26, 1941, Rommel began the battle that went down in history as the "Battle of Gazalla". At the same time, by the beginning of June, he managed to attack, get involved in a battle with British tank forces, suffer serious losses from the fire of 75-mm guns of the Grant tanks and get surrounded.
It is clear that Rommel's divisions suffered significant tank losses. Nevertheless, according to B. Müller-Hillebrand in May 1941, the Third Reich lost 2 (in words - TWO) tanks, one of which was the T-III, and the second was the commander's. Such a level of losses is quite acceptable when it comes to non-combat losses deployed on the Soviet-German border of troops, but it is completely impossible for two tank divisions conducting intense battles for 6 days. By the way, from January to April 1941, according to B. Müller-Hillebrand, the Wehrmacht had no tank losses at all.
Oh, those German statistics!
