The phrase "to win by filling up with corpses" was invented by idiots. You cannot win a war by throwing poorly armed soldiers to the slaughter. So you can only lose.
There are no examples in military history when “cheap and mass”, that is, weak and flawed, weapons could successfully withstand ultimatum military equipment. We do not take into account the cases of rare luck and desperate heroism. On a strategic scale, more advanced technology has always "grind" a technically backward enemy.
The trigger for writing this article was endless disputes about how simple and massive Soviet military products defeated the complex and expensive "Tigers". All this fairy tale got enough, and its real plot is much simpler. On both sides of the front there were both "rare and expensive" and "simple and mass" vehicles. Everything has its own tactical niche. Its time and place.
The story of the confrontation between "Tigers" and "Thirty-fours" is a distorted tale of war. On the real fronts of the Second World War, the Soviet Army and the Wehrmacht met for life and death. Where 112 thousand Soviet armored vehicles (pre-war fleet, production during WWII, Lend-Lease) were opposed by about 90 thousand German BTT models.
The figure of 90 thousand can be shocking at first. Readers will be puzzled to count "triplets", "fours", "panthers" … 90 thousand there is clearly not typed.
It would be better if they counted the BTT models according to the end-to-end nomenclature of the Armaments Directorate of the German Ground Forces. Where, for example, there was an armored vehicle under the index Sd. Kfz 251, that is, the 251st model of Panzerwaffe armored vehicles!
Gloomy Sd. Kfz 251 (produced 15 thousand units). It turned out to be so powerful and cool that it was produced in Czechoslovakia until 1962.
Critics will say that an armored personnel carrier is not a rival to a tank. It was only later, in the midst of the dispute, that the Sonderkraftzoig-251 was three tons heavier than the Soviet light tank T-60. Not inferior in security to light tanks and self-propelled guns, the German armored personnel carrier in terms of equipment, the quality of radio communications and observation devices could give odds to any tank of the allies. Cranes, winches, attachment armor kits, assault bridges, radio stations … With the help of these vehicles, the German motorized infantry received a unique opportunity to act on a par with tanks: armored personnel carriers continuously accompanied heavy armored vehicles on the march and in battle.
On the basis of the Sd. Kfz 251, special-purpose armored vehicles were created - an infrared searchlight, a sound direction finder for counter-battery warfare, an artillery fire spotter, a Fernsprechpanzerwagen cable layer. Anyone who claims that the armored cable-laying machine is a parody of a tank, let him first roll the coil of the telephone cable along the areas of the terrain that can be shot through. Where is one stray splinter - and now there is no one to establish communication between the units …
The front didn’t look like a Hollywood firing squad. The soldiers of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht were forced to solve a huge number of different tasks. The success of the entire defense and offensive depended on the successful implementation of which, on a strategic scale, depended. Reconnaissance, communications and battle control, delivery of ammunition and equipment to the front line, evacuation of the wounded, air defense, laying minefields and, conversely, making safe passages in minefields (mines are a terrible enemy, a quarter of all armored vehicles were blown up on them during the Second World War) …
It was for this that the Germans created so many specialized BTT models. Such armored vehicles, when they appeared in the right place and at the right time, could be of much greater importance than ordinary "linear" tanks.
What was more important on the front line - a light tank or a SPAAG based on the Sd. Kfz 251? Which, when stormtroopers appear, can protect the entire column with its fire?
Tank or armored ammunition carrier? Which, in the midst of battle, will deliver the shells to the battery? At that moment EVERYTHING depends on him!
Tank or armored medevac? Who will help to save the experienced crew of the damaged tank? Returning from the hospital to the front, these "fired wolves" will still set the enemy on fire.
Tank or sound finder? Which will help to detect the coordinates of the enemy battery and point dive bombers at it?
What is more important in a night tank attack: another tank or an infrared searchlight that will illuminate targets for an entire Panther battalion in the pitch darkness?
For those who still do not heed the voice of reason, preferring to count only armed samples of BTT, it is worth admitting that yes, some of the German Sd. Kfz.251 carried very non-acidic artillery and missile weapons.
For example, the 22nd modification (Sd. Kfz. 251/22) is an armored tank destroyer with a 75 mm cannon.
16th modification - flamethrower armored vehicle; 10th mod. - an armored personnel carrier with a 37-mm anti-tank gun; nine - with a short-barreled 75-mm gun. There was also a popular variant with an 80mm mortar and a 280mm Wurflamen multiple launch rocket system!
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The Sd. Kfz 251/21 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun had a combat module of three automatic cannons. Firepower is the same as that of three Soviet light tanks.
Apart from dozens of the most amazing modifications, the Sd. Kfz.251 had a "little brother" - the Sd. Kfz.250 (4250 units were produced). And also a lot of "senior" ones, for example, combat vehicles in the form of a "heavy military tractor" of the sWS model. These peaceful German tractors weighing 13 tons with all-aspect reservations usually served as the base for the placement of the "Nebelwerfer" MLRS.
And there were also the beautiful and formidable Sd. Kfz 234 - the harbingers of modern "Strikers" and "Boomerangs". Eight-wheeled armored vehicles with anti-cannon armor, 50 and 75 mm cannons and highway speeds of up to 80 km / h.
ACS on the chassis of captured French armored personnel carriers (Sd. Kfz 135 or "Marder-1").
Tank destroyers "Marder-2" and "Marder-3" on Pz chassis. Kpfw II with Soviet 76 mm divisional guns - the Fritz did not hesitate to use any captured equipment.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg.
If you dig deeper, you will suddenly find more five thousand ARVs, medevac trucks and ammunition carriers on the chassis of the Pz. Kpfw II tank. Someone will gloat that the Germans did not have enough guns to arm these chassis. However, taking into account all of the above, the Fritzes really did not see the need for arming each armored vehicle. Instead, preferring to grind a lot of specialized samples of BTT, "in number, maybe, at a cheaper price."
As time has shown, this had its own rationale. It is no coincidence that today more than half of the BTT fleet of armies of all countries is lightly armed or unarmed armored vehicles for special purposes (armored personnel carriers, commanders, aircraft aircraft controllers, etc., etc.).
As for tank battles, even a simple knowledge of history will show that tanks do not fight tanks. According to statistics, half of all destroyed BTT units are on the account of anti-tank batteries. Another quarter was blown up by mines. Someone got hit by aircraft. The rest will be divided up by infantry and tankmen.
That is why the dispute between T-34 and Troika / Four / Panther does not make much sense. It would be more correct to talk about the presence of thousands of medium tanks and self-propelled guns on their chassis in the troops, which were used in direct fire contact with the enemy. They crushed the infantry with caterpillars, fired at vehicles, houses and fortifications.
Against 50 thousand Soviet T-34s, the Germans rolled out about the same number of "Troeks", "Fours", "Panthers", all kinds of "Shtugpanzer", "Hetzer" and "Jagdpanzer", "Brumber", "Grille", "Hummels" and "Naskhornov".
Sd. Kfz 162 or "Jagdpanzer IV", a total of 1977 tank destroyers of this type were produced
Against tens of thousands of light BT and self-propelled guns SU-76 - tens of thousands of armed armored personnel carriers and special-purpose armored vehicles.
As for the handful of Tigers and Ferdinands, they were elite breakthrough machines. They occupied their important tactical niche. We went where an ordinary tank would not have crawled even a meter. "Pearly in the forehead" on batteries "forty-five". They were used in the most important sectors of the front.
Naturally, they were taken care of. For the evacuation of the destroyed supertanks, the Germans created another three hundred 44-ton "Bergepanters".
What are the claims to them?
Of course, we had our own "elite tanks". With its own characteristics, which were dictated by the tactics of using BTT and the capabilities of the domestic industry. In the initial period - KV, after - guards ISs and mighty "hunters" for the assault on enemy positions.
Why did such "smart" Germans end up losing? The first reason is that they lost in numbers. The second is the resilience of the Soviet soldier.
And now, please, your criticism and comments on the presented material.
