For many years, having been researching the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, I periodically come across questions about how many armored vehicles were there in the USSR on June 22, 1941? How many tanks were there in the mechanized corps of the border military districts on the eve of the attack by Germany and its allies on the USSR? How many combat vehicles were combat-ready, and how many were not? What was the ratio of the size of our tank fleet and a similar fleet of enemy combat vehicles? There are quite comprehensive answers to the questions asked. But in the beginning, a little about the background of the study of the problem of the number of Soviet tanks on the eve of the Second World War.
For many years, having been researching the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, I periodically come across questions about how many armored vehicles were there in the USSR on June 22, 1941? How many tanks were there in the mechanized corps of the border military districts on the eve of the attack by Germany and its allies on the USSR? How many combat vehicles were combat-ready, and how many were not? What was the ratio of the size of our tank fleet and a similar fleet of enemy combat vehicles? There are quite comprehensive answers to the questions asked. But at the beginning, a little about the background of the study of the problem of the number of Soviet tanks on the eve of the Second World War.
Serially, armored vehicles in the USSR began to be produced in the mid-20s of the twentieth century. Even then, the whole world began to understand that in the future "big war" tanks and other armored vehicles will play a decisive role in military operations on land fronts. At first, the use of tanks in various local conflicts between the two world wars did not give an unambiguous answer to the question of the use of armored combat vehicles in a large-scale war. And only the Second World War, which began in 1939, showed the world the "sword-kladenets" of modern highly maneuverable combat operations - large mechanized formations.
In the USSR, they independently came up with a similar concept of using tank forces, and also tried to take into account the experience of using the Wehrmacht in the Polish and Western campaigns of shock tank groups.
In 1940, mechanized corps were organized in our country, uniting the vast majority of the armored vehicles of the Red Army. The mechanized corps were the main striking force of the ground forces and were very powerful formations. The number of equipment in them was for a long time, as well as the total number of tanks in the USSR in 1941, a "terrible military secret." It was hard for Soviet historians to admit that the Red Army, surpassing Germany and its allies in the number of armored vehicles, by about three and a half times, and in the border districts - twice, was never able to realize such a solid advantage, having lost practically all available armored vehicles.
As a rule, the official point of view of Soviet historical science sounded something like this: “Soviet designers, even before the start of the Great Patriotic War, developed a new model of the T-34 medium tank and the KV heavy tank … However, the production of these tanks began only at the end of 1940, and therefore, by the beginning of the war with Nazi Germany, our tank troops had them in limited numbers.”[1] Or like this: “Soviet designers have created samples of first-class tanks (T-34 and KV), but their mass production has not yet been deployed.” [2] Or even this: “Since the summer of 1940, new T-34 tanks began to enter the corps, of which 115 were produced in 1940, and from the beginning of 1941 - and KV tanks. But by the beginning of the war there were still few new tanks.”[3]
Even in the specialized literature at that time, neither the number of tanks in the army was reported, nor, even more so, their distribution by mechanized corps. For example, in the secret textbook of the Military Academy of Armored Forces "The History of the Armored and Mechanized Troops of the Soviet Army," only about the tank fleet of the USSR on the eve of the war is said: "By the summer of 1941, i.e. By the time of the treacherous attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union, our tank and motorized divisions and mechanized corps as a whole were not fully equipped with new military equipment, which undoubtedly had a negative impact on the course of hostilities in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War … our troops did not have enough tanks, especially medium and heavy ones, which at that time were just entering service.”[4]
In the 60s, the number of new types of tanks (meaning, of course, KV and T-34) became "well-known", probably from the six-volume encyclopedia of the history of the Second World War, the number "1861 new tank" began to wander from book to book. For example, the book "50 years of the armed forces of the USSR" reports: "However, on the eve of the war, the factories managed to produce only 636 heavy KV tanks and 1,225 medium T-34 tanks." Those. in total, allegedly, before the start of the war, 1861 new T-34 and KV tanks were produced. Marshal Zhukov's book "Memories and Reflections" also gives this number: “As for the KV and T-34, by the beginning of the war the factories had produced 1,861 tanks. This, of course, was not enough.”[6]
Actually this is not true. Back in 1960, in the first volume of the history of the Great Patriotic War, the entire production of new heavy and medium tanks was scheduled: “New types of vehicles - KB and T-34, significantly superior in quality to German ones, were not produced in 1939, and in 1940 they were released a little: 243 KB and 115 T-34. Only in the first half of 1941 did the production of new tanks noticeably increase. During these six months, the industry produced 393 KB tanks and 1110 T-34 tanks.”[7] That is, 1861 new types of tank were produced on July 1, 1941.
In the 70-80s. XX-th century "whistle" with the number of T-34 and KV continued: some authors pointed to the almost canonized "1861 new tank", others continued to confuse the first half of the year and the entire period before the start of the Great Patriotic War, i.e. dates July 1 and June 22, 1941, and sometimes June 1: "By June 1941, the Soviet Armed Forces numbered 5373 thousand people, over 67 thousand guns and mortars, 1861 tanks, over 2700 combat aircraft of new types." eight] Moreover, they were confused even when the source said in black and white “in the first half of the year” (as you know, the first half of the year ends on June 31st, and not at all on the 22nd).
The official publicly available (and erroneous!) Version was presented by the "Soviet Military Encyclopedia", it indicated that on the eve of the Great Patriotic War there were 1,861 KV and T-34 tanks in the army, of which 1,475 were in the western border districts. [9]
But if with tanks of new types it was more or less clear, then with the number of the rest of the armored vehicles there was a complete mess. Soviet historians, indicating the number of new KV and T-34 tanks, "modestly" did not explain how many tanks of all types were in the army. As a result, all other tanks (except for the KV and T-34) began to be called impersonally "tanks of outdated designs" and "light weapons" or simply "light and outdated". This definition, in general, was very cunning, the number of these "outdated" tanks was still not given, which later allowed writers like V. Rezun or V. Beshanov to play a complete carte blanche and mock Soviet historians and memoirists.
There were many reasons for such classification (and deliberate omission), and some were quite objective, but the main among them, I think, were the fears of the political leadership. Indeed, for the average reader, who had no idea about the size of the Soviet tank fleet and was brought up on a different version of the beginning of the war, such revelations could cause sharply anti-Soviet sentiments, which would ultimately affect not only the position of party historians, but also the state itself. What actually happened later, during perestroika. One of the tools for the destruction of the Soviet Union was the change in the mass consciousness of the population, an important role in which was played then by all kinds of revelations of the secrets of party and state power, hidden from the people until the end of the 80s. For a Soviet person unprepared for such revelations, such publications first caused a shock, and then a reaction, which is most accurately characterized by the slogan "We were all lied to!" and as a consequence - a total denigration of any Soviet source and, at the same time, blind trust in any work and her and the author, who polemicized with Soviet sources (especially if this polemic was "revealing" in nature).
It is quite understandable that Soviet historians acted incorrectly, hushing up information about the actual state of the army by June 22, 1941, including its tank forces. But the complexity of the situation in which the leadership found itself was that, having widely announced such statistics, they would have to face new problems. After all, having received information about the number of tanks, the average reader is asked "how many tanks were there in the USSR?" automatically moved on to the question "how, having so many tanks, did we manage to suffer such a crushing defeat at the beginning of the war?" What would the party ideologists have to do, given that the answer to the question was given long ago, and on the false statement that the enemy was superior to us (including in the number of tank troops)? And that was only part of the general problem of misinterpreting the causes of the 1941 disaster. Fearing a revision of the "approved" official version of the reasons for our defeat in 1941, the Soviet leadership preferred to pretend that the problem did not exist, maniacally keeping silent and classifying everything that could become the basis for doubts, including statistics on the state of the army and its armored forces …
However, the mechanism for keeping silent about the present state of the Red Army in 1941 fell apart. So, in 1964, in the multivolume History of Russian Artillery - a book that was in public libraries - the number of Soviet tanks in the spring of 1941 was indicated! On the number of tanks in the Red Army, information was given by years, starting from 1933 (4906 tanks and 244 armored vehicles) and ending with two dates - on 15.09.40 (23364 units, including 27 KV, 3 T -34, and 4034 BA) and on 1.04.41 (23815 tanks, including 364 KV and 537 T-34, and 4819 BA) [10]
Unfortunately, the figures given in this book have hardly been noticed by both professional historians and amateurs of military history.
However, the situation was somewhat different in the works marked "secret" or chipboard. Regarding the number of armored troops of the Red Army in the pre-war period, no special secrets were made in such works. So, back in 1960, Lieutenant Colonel M. P. Dorofeev, in a brochure published by the Military Academy of Armored Forces, cited data on the number of personnel, tanks, armored vehicles, guns and mortars, cars, tractors and motorcycles in the mechanized corps of the western border districts, although from his calculations somehow "dropped out" 16- th MK. But even without the 16th MK, according to M. P. Dorofeev in 19 mechanized corps of the border western districts, there were 11,000 combat vehicles [11]:
<table 1.
On the other hand, the real number of armored vehicles in the Red Army before the war was a kind of “Opening's secret”, and was quite calculated by the attentive reader even from open sources. For example, according to the memoirs of G. K. Zhukova:
The production of tanks grew rapidly. During the first five-year plan, 5 thousand were produced, by the end of the second army already had 15 thousand tanks and tankettes …
The annual production of tanks from 740 in 1930-1931 reached 2271 in 1938 …
From January 1939 to June 22, 1941, the Red Army received more than seven thousand tanks, in 1941 the industry could provide about 5, 5 thousand tanks of all types … "[6]
Taking a calculator in hand, according to the above quotes from the book by Georgy Konstantinovich, the total number of tanks in the USSR by June 1941 can be approximately estimated at 24,000 units.
But with the beginning of "glasnost" and "perestroika", the situation changed dramatically. In 1988, an article by V. V. Shlykov "And our tanks are fast", where the author, without hesitation, multiplied the standard number of armored vehicles in the Red Army tank divisions by the number of divisions themselves, having received the upper limit of the number of 22,875 combat vehicles, while the lower limit of his calculations gave the number of 20,700 tanks and tankettes. However, despite the approximately correct result (± 1,500 pieces), the Shlykov's calculation method was incorrect, because none of the tank and motorized divisions of the Red Army had a full-time tank fleet. Despite this, the article caused a huge resonance, forcing the official historical science to come out of hibernation.
Soon, VIZH published an article by the editor on the history of strategy and operational art of the Military Historical Journal, Colonel V. P. Krikunova “Simple arithmetic by V. V. Shlykov ", where, in addition to criticizing Shlykov's method, Colonel Krikunov provides archival data on the presence and distribution of tanks among the mechanized corps of the pre-war Red Army [12]:
<table 2.
The number of tanks was given by V. P. Krikunov, taking into account those available in combat formations, military schools, courses, training centers, and civilian higher educational institutions.
At about the same time, pseudo-historical studies of dilettantes from history and falsifiers like V. Rezun (pseudonym - V. Suvorov) fell from the cornucopia. It is with Shlykov's article that the chapter "What tanks are considered light?" his book The Last Republic. V. Rezun was not alone in his revelations, one way or another, almost all modern pseudo-historians - V. Beshanov, B. Sokolov, I. Bunich and others - touched upon the issue of the number of tanks in the Soviet Union before the Great Patriotic War, but the author of "Icebreaker" was among them, of course, the most famous and read. However, they all used either the data of Krikunov or Dorofeev, and did not bring anything new to the study of the issue of the number of Soviet armored vehicles by the beginning of the Second World War.
The next big step in researching the state of the Red Army tank forces at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War was the analytical work "1941 - Lessons and Conclusions" published in 1992 under the DSP stamp. The number of new tanks by the beginning of the war is given approximately - "only about 1800 units", but there is a total number of combat vehicles: "over 23 thousand units." The book also describes the distribution of tanks among the mechanized corps of the western border districts "by the beginning of the war", including the 16th mechanized corps "forgotten" by Lieutenant Colonel Dorofeev [13]:
<table 3.
The tables show that the number of tanks in the mechanized corps of the Red Army for different authors does not coincide with each other.
An article by N. P. Zolotov and S. I. Isaev put a peculiar feature in the debate about the number of Soviet armored vehicles for June 1941. They gave not only the distribution of tanks by districts on June 1, but also for the first time showed the qualitative state of the fleet of combat vehicles using the standard classification scheme for reporting that time [14]:
<table 4.
Finally, in 1994, a truly "bible" of historians dealing with the problems of the initial period of the Second World War, the publication of the Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation "Combat and numerical strength of the armed forces of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Statistical collection No. 1" (June 22, 1941 G.)". True, the circulation of this edition is mesmerizing - as many as 25 copies! The collection turned out to be a unique work, nothing of the kind was published either before or after its publication. Specifically for the tank fleet, information was given on the distribution of tanks by type (including a breakdown into radium and linear, chemical and artillery, etc.) and by districts, as well as by category as of June 1, 1941 and the supply of equipment in June 1941.. [15]:
<table 5.
* - including T-27 chemical and sapper.
The statistical collection became, without a doubt, the most complete and reliable source for the number of armored vehicles in the Red Army on the eve of the Second World War for a long time.
In 2000 M. Meltyukhov published his book "Stalin's Lost Chance". In several chapters, the author, on a documentary basis, describes in detail the process of the pre-war development of the Red Army and, naturally, cannot ignore the issue of the state of its tank forces. The author pays the main attention to the organizational measures carried out in 1939-41. in ABTV, however, statistics are not forgotten either. So, in the appendices based on the materials of the RGASPI, tables of the availability of tanks in the Red Army by type and district for 09/15/40, 1.01.41, 1.04.41 and 1.06.41 are compiled, the production of armored vehicles in the USSR in 1930-44 is highlighted. In addition, information is given on the types of tanks available in the Red Army for different dates, starting from January 1, 1934. But the manning of the mechanized corps at M. Meltyukhov by the beginning of the war, unfortunately, is secondary and repeats the data of Colonel V. P. Krikunov 1989 G.
A serious approach to the study of the problem of the number of armored forces of the Red Army in 1941 is demonstrated by such authors as Maxim Kolomiets and Yevgeny Drig, who in their works consider in great detail the quantitative and qualitative composition of almost every mechanized corps of the pre-war Red Army. Maxim Kolomiets gives the following figures for the presence of armored vehicles in two mechanized corps of PribOVO [16]:
<table 6.
* - from the former armies of the Baltic states
A unique collection of documents on tank forces was published in 2004, it is called the Main Armored Directorate. Several interesting documents were published in it, incl. the report of the head of the GABTU, Lieutenant General Fedorenko, who gave the total number of tanks in mechanized corps and individual divisions on June 1, 1941.
At the moment, the most complete data is contained in E. Drieg in his book "Mechanized corps of the Red Army in battle" published in the series "Unknown Wars" by the publishing house AST in 2005. Evgeny Drig used all available sources, including the appendix to the report of the head of the GABTU, Lieutenant General Fedorenko. Naturally, we are primarily interested in the mechanized corps of the border districts. So let's start from north to south.
LenVO
1st mechanized corps, district subordination. Office of the Pskov corps, personnel of 31348, or 87% of the state. Fully equipped with armored vehicles. As of June 22, there are no new types of tanks in the corps. On 06/22/41 the following tanks were available:
<table 7.
10th Mechanized Corps, 23rd Army. Office of the corps in New Peterhof, personnel 26065, or 72% of the state. On 06/22/41 the following tanks were available:
<table 8.
1st MK was one of the strongest mobile units of the Red Army. In addition, it was an "exemplary" mechanized corps, to which the management's close attention was always paid. In two mechanized corps of the Leningrad Military District, there were about 1540 tanks.
PribOVO
3rd Mechanized Corps, 11th Army. Office of the corps in Vilnius, 31975 personnel, or 87% of the staff. On 20.06.41 in the presence of tanks:
<table 9.
12th Mechanized Corps, 8th Army. Directorate of the Shauliai corps (from 06/18/41), personnel of 29998, or 83% of the staff. On 06/22/41 there are tanks:
<table 10.
Thus, in the two mechanized corps of the PribOVO there were 1475 tanks (without tankettes and BA).
ZAPOVO
6th Mechanized Corps, 10th Army. Office of the Corps in Bialystok, personnel 24005, or 67% of the state. On 06/22/41 the following tanks were available:
<table 11.
*- there is no data
According to some reports, the corps also had T-28 tanks (included in the number of T-34) and KV-2 (included in the number of KV).
11th Mechanized Corps, 3rd Army. Directorate of the Volkovysk corps, personnel of 21605, or 60% of the state. On 06/22/41 the following tanks were available:
<table 12.
13th Mechanized Corps, 10th Army. Office of the Corps of Biala Podlaska, personnel 17809, or 49% of the state. On 06/22/41 the following tanks were available:
<table 13.
14th Mechanized Corps, 4th Army. Office of the Corps of Mr. Kobrin, personnel 15550, or 43% of the state.
<table 14.
17th Mechanized Corps, District Subordination. Office of the Baranovichi corps, personnel of 16578, or 46% of the state. On 06/22/41 the following tanks were available:
<table 15.
20th Mechanized Corps, District Subordination. Office of the Borisov corps, personnel 20389, or 57% of the staff. On 06/22/41 the following tanks were available:
<table 16.
Thus, there were 2,220 tanks in six mechanized corps of the ZAPOVO. Moreover, only one of the six mechanized corps had a full-time tank fleet, namely the 6th MK of the 10th Army. The 17th and 20th mechanized corps are generally difficult to consider as formations of tank forces. Rather, they are educational units. Things were not much better in the 13th and 11th MKs. And he and the other represented themselves, at most a tank division. Tanks of new types in significant numbers also arrived only in the 6th MK, the material part of the rest of the corps consisted mainly of T-26 and BT tanks of various modifications.
KOVO
4th Mechanized Corps, 6th Army. Office of the corps in Lviv, personnel 28097, or 78% of the state. The corps attracts attention primarily because of its commander, the infamous General Vlasov. However, in fact, the 4th MK is interesting to others: the corps QUALITATIVELY was the strongest mobile unit of the Red Army in June 1941. Although the quantitative estimates of the tank fleet of the corps do not coincide in various sources. On 06/22/41 the following tanks were available:
<table 17.
* The total number of tanks in the hull: 892 according to A. Isaev, 950 according to the Kiev Museum of the Great Patriotic War, 979 according to the book "1941 - Lessons and Conclusions." - M.: Military Publishing, 1992.
8th Mechanized Corps, 26th Army. Office of the Corps of Drohobych, personnel 31927, or 89% of the state. A very powerful unit - the hero of the counterstrike on Dubno. Tanks available for June 22:
<table 18.
* The total number of tanks in the corps: 858 according to A. Isaev, 899 according to the book "1941 - Lessons and Conclusions."- Moscow: Military Publishing, 1992, 932 according to the memoirs of G. L. DI. Ryabyshev.
9th Mechanized Corps of District Subordination. Office of the corps in Novograd-Volynsk, personnel 26833, or 74% of the staff. Tanks available for June 22:
<table 19.
15th Mechanized Corps, 6th Army. Office of the Brody corps, personnel 33935, or 94% of the state. Tanks available for June 22:
<table 20.
16th Mechanized Corps, 12th Army. Office of the Corps of Kamenets-Podolsk, personnel 26380, or 73% of the staff. Tanks available for June 22:
<table 21.
19th Mechanized Corps of District Subordination. Office of the corps of Berdichev, personnel 22654, or 63% of the state. Tanks available for June 22:
<table 22.
22nd Mechanized Corps, 5th Army. Office of the Corps of Rivne, personnel of 24087, or 67% of the staff. Tanks available for June 22:
<table 23.
24th District Mechanized Corps. Office of the Corps of the city of Proskurov, personnel of 21556, or 60% of the state. Tanks available for June 22:
<table 24.
* As of 06/30/41 in stock: BT-7 is glad. - 10, T-26 glad. - 52, T-26 lin. - 70, T-26 dvuhbash. - 43, HT - 3, T-27 - 7. A total of 185 tanks and tankettes.
Thus, in the eight KOVO mechanized corps on June 22, from 4672 tanks to 4950 tanks, according to various sources. Moreover, two of the five most powerful mechanized corps are deployed in KOVO.
ODVO
2nd Mechanized Corps, 9th Army. Office of the Corps of Tiraspol, personnel 32396, or 90% of the state. Tanks available for June 22:
<table 25.
18th Mechanized Corps, 9th Army. Office of the Ackerman corps, personnel of 26879, or 75% of the state. Tanks available for June 22:
<table 26.
Consequently, there are only 732 tanks in the two mechanized corps of the OdVO. That, given the secondary importance of the district, it is not surprising.
In all mechanized corps of border districts from 10,639 to 10,917 combat vehicles (although 2,232 tanks belonged to the 3rd and 4th categories). And this is only in mechanized corps, excluding other units and formations that were armed with tanks.
