When and where did the largest tank battle of the Great Patriotic War actually take place?
History both as a science and as a social instrument, alas, is subject to too much political influence. And it often happens that for some reason - most often ideological - some events are exalted, while others are forgotten or remain underestimated. So, the overwhelming majority of our compatriots, both those who grew up during the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia, sincerely consider the Battle of Prokhorovka, the largest tank battle in history, to be an integral part of the Battle of the Kursk Bulge. But in fairness it should be noted that the largest tank battle of the Great Patriotic War actually took place two years earlier and half a thousand kilometers to the west. Within a week, in the triangle between the cities of Dubno, Lutsk and Brody, two tank armadas with a total of about 4500 armored vehicles converged.
Counteroffensive on the second day of the war
The actual beginning of the Battle of Dubno, which is also called the Battle of Brody or the Battle of Dubno-Lutsk-Brody, was June 23, 1941. It was on this day that the tank corps - at that time they were still called mechanized out of habit - of the Red Army corps stationed in the Kiev military district, inflicted the first serious counterattacks on the advancing German troops. Georgy Zhukov, a representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters, insisted on counterattacking the Germans. First, the 4th, 15th, and 22nd mechanized corps in the first echelon struck the flanks of Army Group South. And after them, the 8, 9 and 19 mechanized corps, which had moved out of the second echelon, joined the operation.
Strategically, the plan of the Soviet command was correct: to strike at the flanks of the 1st Panzer Group of the Wehrmacht, which was part of the Army Group "South" and was rushing to Kiev to encircle and destroy it. In addition, the battles of the first day, when some Soviet divisions - like, for example, the 87th division of Major General Philip Alyabushev - managed to stop the superior forces of the Germans, gave hope that this plan would be implemented.
In addition, the Soviet troops in this sector had a significant superiority in tanks. On the eve of the war, the Kiev special military district was considered the strongest of the Soviet districts and it was he who, in the event of an attack, was assigned the role of the executor of the main retaliatory strike. Accordingly, the equipment came here in the first place and in large quantities, and the training of the personnel was the highest. So, on the eve of the counterattack in the troops of the district, which had already become by this time the South-Western Front, there were no less than 3695 tanks. And from the German side, only about 800 tanks and self-propelled guns went on the offensive - that is, more than four times less.
In practice, an unprepared, hasty decision on an offensive operation resulted in the largest tank battle in which the Soviet troops were defeated.
Tanks fight tanks for the first time
When the tank subdivisions of the 8th, 9th and 19th mechanized corps reached the front line and entered the battle from the march, this resulted in an oncoming tank battle - the first in the history of the Great Patriotic War. Although the concept of wars in the mid-twentieth century did not allow such battles. It was believed that tanks are a tool for breaking through enemy defenses or creating chaos on his communications."Tanks do not fight tanks" - this is how this principle was formulated, which was common to all armies of that time. Anti-tank artillery was supposed to fight the tanks - well, and the infantry, which had carefully entrenched themselves. And the battle of Dubno completely broke all the theoretical constructions of the military. Here, Soviet tank companies and battalions went literally head-on against German tanks. And they lost.
There were two reasons for this. Firstly, the German troops were much more active and wiser than the Soviet ones, they used all types of communications, and the coordination of efforts of various types and branches of troops in the Wehrmacht at that moment was, unfortunately, a cut and a half higher than in the Red Army. In the battle of Dubno-Lutsk-Brody, these factors led to the fact that Soviet tanks often acted without any support and at random. The infantry simply did not have time to support the tanks, to help them in the fight against anti-tank artillery: rifle units moved on foot and simply did not catch up with the tanks that had gone ahead. And the tank units themselves at a level above the battalion acted without general coordination, on their own. It often turned out that one mechanized corps was already rushing to the west, deep into the German defense, and another, which could support it, began regrouping or retreating from its occupied positions …
Burning T-34 in a field near Dubno. Source: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F016221-0015 / CC-BY-SA
Contrary to concepts and guidelines
The second reason for the mass death of Soviet tanks in the battle of Dubno, which must be mentioned separately, was their unpreparedness for a tank battle - a consequence of those very pre-war concepts “tanks do not fight tanks”. Among the tanks of the Soviet mechanized corps that entered the battle of Dubno, light tanks for infantry escort and raid war, created in the early to mid-1930s, were the majority.
More precisely - almost everything. As of June 22, five Soviet mechanized corps - 8th, 9th, 15th, 19th and 22nd - had 2,803 tanks. Of these, medium tanks - 171 pieces (all - T-34), heavy tanks - 217 pieces (of which 33 KV-2 and 136 KV-1 and 48 T-35), and 2,415 light tanks of the T-26, T- 27, T-37, T-38, BT-5 and BT-7, which can be considered the most modern. And the 4th mechanized corps, which fought just to the west of Brody, had 892 more tanks, but there were exactly half of them today - 89 KV-1 and 327 T-34.
Soviet light tanks, due to the specifics of the tasks assigned to them, had bulletproof or splinterproof armor. Light tanks are an excellent tool for deep raids behind enemy lines and actions on their communications, but light tanks are completely unsuitable for breaking through defenses. The German command took into account the strengths and weaknesses of armored vehicles and used their tanks, which were inferior to ours both in quality and weapons, in defense, nullifying all the advantages of Soviet technology.
The German field artillery also had its say in this battle. And if for the T-34 and KV it, as a rule, was not dangerous, then light tanks had a hard time. And even the armor of the new "thirty-fours" was powerless against the 88-mm anti-aircraft guns of the Wehrmacht pumped out for direct fire. Only the heavy KVs and T-35s resisted them adequately. The light T-26 and BT, as stated in the reports, "were partially destroyed as a result of being hit by anti-aircraft shells," and not just stopped. But the Germans in this direction in anti-tank defense used not only anti-aircraft guns.
Defeat that brought victory closer
And yet, Soviet tankers, even in such "unsuitable" vehicles, went into battle - and often won it. Yes, without air cover, which is why German aviation knocked out almost half of the columns on the march. Yes, with weak armor, which even large-caliber machine guns sometimes pierced. Yes, without radio communication and at your own peril and risk. But they went.
They walked and got their way. In the first two days of the counter-offensive, the scales fluctuated: success was achieved by one side, then the other. On the fourth day, the Soviet tankmen, despite all the complicating factors, managed to achieve success, in some areas, throwing the enemy back 25-35 kilometers. On the evening of June 26, Soviet tankers even took the city of Dubno with a fight, from which the Germans were forced to withdraw … to the east!
Destroyed German tank PzKpfw II. Photo: waralbum.ru
And yet, the advantage of the Wehrmacht in infantry units, without which tankers could fully operate in that war only in rear raids, soon began to affect. By the end of the fifth day of the battle, almost all the vanguard units of the Soviet mechanized corps were simply destroyed. Many units were surrounded and were forced to go over to the defensive on all fronts. And with each passing hour, tankers were more and more short of serviceable vehicles, shells, spare parts and fuel. It got to the point that they had to retreat, leaving the enemy almost undamaged tanks: there was no time and opportunity to put them on the move and take them away.
Today one can come across the opinion that if then the leadership of the front, contrary to the order of Georgy Zhukov, did not give up the command to switch from offensive to defense, the Red Army, they say, would turn the Germans back under Dubno. Wouldn't turn. Alas, that summer the German army fought much better, and its tank units had much more experience in active interaction with other types of troops. But the battle of Dubno played its role in thwarting the "Barbarossa" plan fostered by Hitler. The Soviet tank counterattack forced the Wehrmacht command to bring into battle reserves, which were intended for an offensive in the direction of Moscow as part of Army Group Center. And the very direction to Kiev after this battle began to be considered as a priority.
And this did not fit into the long-agreed German plans, broke them - and broke them so much that the pace of the offensive was catastrophically lost. And although there was a difficult autumn and winter of 1941 ahead, the largest tank battle had already said its word in the history of the Great Patriotic War. It was him, the battles of Dubno, an echo two years later thundered in the fields near Kursk and Orel - and echoed in the first salvos of victorious salutes …
