Why did the T-34 lose to the PzKpfw III, but beat the Tigers and Panthers?
So, we settled on the fact that by the beginning of 1943:
1. The Soviet industry mastered the mass production of the T-34 - it began to be produced at all 5 factories, which carried out its production during the war years. This, of course, not counting the Stalingrad Tank Plant, where the production of "thirty-fours" was discontinued in September 1942 and was no longer resumed.
2. The design of the T-34 tank was significantly improved and got rid of many "childhood diseases". In general, the army now received a completely combat-ready tank with a slightly increased motor resource.
3. The Red Army was able to form in large numbers and learned to use tank corps, which can be considered as a domestic analogue (not a copy!) Of the German tank division. Tentatively, the first corps of the corresponding state appeared in the 4th quarter of 1942.
Thus, it should be said that towards the end of 1942 - the beginning of 1943 the Red Army received its own "Panzerwaffe" capable of effectively waging a modern tank war even against such a formidable enemy as the troops of Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, of course, our tank forces still had room to grow. We will consider the shortcomings of our tank formations a little later, but for now let's pay attention to how the “gloomy Aryan genius” responded to the growth of Soviet tank power.
As we have repeatedly said before, the huge advantage of the T-34 over the German tanks was the anti-cannon armor, with which the T-34 was protected evenly from all sides. At the same time, on the German T-III and T-IV, even after strengthening their armor protection, projectile, and even then - with certain reservations, only the frontal projection of the vehicle could be considered.
Nevertheless, of course, the term "anti-cannon" was fully applicable to the armor of all Soviet and German tanks, except for the KV-1 - its 75 mm armor plates really "did not want" to break through the Wehrmacht anti-tank artillery of the first year of the war. As for the 45 mm armor plates of the T-34, they, despite the rational angles of inclination, were projectile only against a limited number of artillery systems. As a matter of fact, the T-34's armor was well protected against short-barreled 50 and 75-mm cannons, as well as any smaller caliber artillery. But against the armor-piercing shells of long-barreled 50-mm artillery systems, the protection of the T-34 did not work so well, although it was very difficult to inflict decisive damage from this cannon to the thirty-four, and the Germans themselves considered it only limitedly effective. At the same time, armor-piercing shells from 75 mm guns with a normal barrel length protected the T-34 rather conditionally. So, according to research by Research Institute No. 48, carried out in 1942, only 31% of the total number of hits with 75-mm shells were safe for the tank - and there are no guarantees that some of the shells fired from short-barreled guns. By the way, for 50-mm shells, the number of safe hits reached 57%.
So, the Germans, faced in 1941 with the T-34 and KV, of course, did not sit idly by and since 1942 seriously took up the saturation of the Wehrmacht and SS units with adequate anti-tank weapons. How did it look like?
Towed guns
Before the invasion of the USSR, the main anti-tank weapon of the Wehrmacht was the 37-mm Pak 35/36 "beater".
Let's pay a little attention to the designations of the Germanic guns. The first numbers for the Germans meant the caliber, and in centimeters, not millimeters, but the author preferred to keep the definition familiar to the domestic reader. This was followed by the name of the artillery system class: Pak is "Panzerabwehrkanone" or "Panzerjägerkanone", that is, an anti-tank gun or a tank hunter's gun, as they came to be called later. And finally, the last figures are the year the prototype was built.
This gun had a lot of advantages. It was very lightweight, which made it easy to transport by cars and allowed the crew to roll it over in battle. The small size of the gun made it possible to effectively mask it, and the low weight of the shells and the successful design made it possible to develop a high rate of fire. But, with all its undoubted merits, the "mallet" had two fundamentally unavoidable drawbacks - the small armor-piercing effect of the projectile and the ability to confidently hit only tanks with bulletproof armor.
Accordingly, the German armed forces needed a new artillery system, and it became the 50-mm Pak 38.
As you can see from the last figure, the prototype of this gun appeared in 1938, but the Germans were clearly in no hurry with the massive saturation of the army with this gun: in 1939, only 2 copies were produced, in 1940 - 338 units, and some mass production unfolded in 1941, when 2,072 of these guns were produced. I must say that the Pak 38 turned out to be a very successful artillery system. It was still quite light and mobile, but at the same time its barrel extended to 60 calibers made it possible to increase the initial velocity of the armor-piercing projectile to values that made it possible to more or less successfully fight against the T-34 at medium distances.
So, in 1942, the production of Pak 38 reached its peak - 4,480 of these guns were produced. Yet, despite the "long" barrel, the armor penetration parameters of this gun were no longer considered satisfactory. So in 1943, after the production of another 2,826 units. their release has been discontinued.
In fact, of course, to fight medium and heavy Soviet tanks, the Wehrmacht needed a 75-mm anti-tank gun, and the Germans had this gun: we are talking about the famous 75-mm PaK-40.
This 75-mm anti-tank gun began to be created back in 1938, but work on it was not considered a priority, and here's why. For many of our fans of military history, it has long become a good form to admire this artillery system. In terms of armor penetration, it is undoubtedly worthy of these delights. Suffice it to say that PaK-40 fired an armor-piercing caliber projectile weighing 6, 8 kg with an initial speed of 792 m / s, while our famous 76.2 mm ZiS-3 - 6.5 kg with an initial speed of 655 m / sec. At the same time, the German gun was distinguished by excellent shooting accuracy (however, the ZiS-3 also had an excellent accuracy). It must be said that the PaK-40 remained an extremely effective anti-tank weapon until the very end of the war: it confidently struck any Soviet armored vehicles, with the exception, perhaps, of the IS-2.
But then a natural question arises - if the Germans created such a perfect anti-tank device already in 1940, then what prevented them from immediately putting their 75-mm miracle cannon on stream? The answer is very simple - for all its merits, the PaK-40 categorically did not fit into the blitzkrieg concept.
The fact is that with all its indisputable merits, the PaK-40 could only be transported on a mechtyag. Moreover, as far as the author could figure out, the car could only be enough for driving on the highway, but when towing on dirt roads or off-road, a specialized tractor was required for the PaK-40. Mobility on the battlefield was also considered limited, it was assumed that if the calculation could roll the gun from one place to another, then no further than a dozen or two meters.
It is interesting, by the way, that the ZiS-3, which had a comparable mass, could be transported by any type of vehicle, including relatively low-power vehicles like the GAZ-AA, and could be "rolled" by the crew in battle over sufficiently long distances, which made it possible to use them for direct support of the advancing rifle units. However, a too detailed comparison of the ZiS-3 and PaK-40 is beyond the scope of this series of articles, so we will not continue it here.
Well, returning to the 75-mm PaK-40, we note that it was an excellent anti-tank weapon, but it was difficult for the Germans to "drag" it along with them into tank breakthroughs. We can say that this artillery system was no longer so much a means of offensive as defense. Accordingly, it did not fit into the "blitzkrieg" strategy at all, and until the Wehrmacht collided with tanks with anti-cannon armor, its power was considered excessive. Thus, for a long time, the Wehrmacht did not feel the need for such an artillery system and did not rush the industry with its production.
But when it became clear that the blitzkrieg somehow went wrong in the USSR and even 50-mm artillery is only of limited use in the fight against the T-34 and KV, then in November 1941 it was decided to urgently put the PaK-40 into production … Serial production was established starting in February 1942, and by the end of the year 2 114 of these guns were produced, and in 1943 their production was already 8 740 units, and later increased even more.
I must say that another significant drawback of the PaK-40 was the complexity of its production. Oddly enough, but the PaK-40 turned out to be too difficult product even for the German industry. In February 1942, the first 15 guns of this type were produced, but the planned production of 150 guns per month was only achieved in August of the same year. But even this, a small, in general, number of guns suffered from a lack of ammunition - on average, the guns in the troops constantly had no more than one ammunition load. The Germans even had to create a special team "Ulrich" and endow them with the broadest powers to resolve the "shell" issue. Nevertheless, an acceptable supply of PaK-40 ammunition was achieved only in 1943.
In addition to all of the above, the Germans also had one more 75 mm PaK-41 cannon.
It was a very original artillery system designed for firing subcaliber projectiles. Its barrel had a "variable" caliber - 75 mm at the bolt and 55 mm at the muzzle, and was attached directly to the gun shield. Due to the high cost of the gun and the excessive ammunition for it (in the manufacture of the latter, the scarcest tungsten was used), the gun did not go into a large series. But still, a certain amount (at least 150 units) was produced and sent to the troops.
This is where the story about German towed anti-tank guns could have ended … if not for one important "but!" The fact is that, sadly enough, the Wehrmacht supplied anti-tank guns not only to German factories, but also to the French and Soviet armies.
Already in 1941, during the Great Patriotic War, the Germans managed to capture a number of Russian 76, 2-mm F-22 guns. The gun, in general, they liked, therefore, after certain modifications, which included boring the chamber for using a larger charge and some other innovations, it entered service with the German army.
The exact number of guns converted and transferred to the Wehrmacht in a towed version is unknown, but, according to some sources, 358 guns were converted in 1942, 169 in 1943 and 33 in 1944.
But the greatest contribution to the provision of the German armed forces with anti-tank 75-mm guns in 1942 was still made by the French army. After the surrender of France, the Germans, among other trophies, got several thousand 75-mm divisional guns mod. 1897 by Schneider. At first, the Germans did nothing with them, but then, when the need for 75-mm anti-tank guns became highly recognized, they modernized these guns by installing them on 50-mm Pak 38 carriages.
In 1942, the Wehrmacht received 2 854 such guns, in 1943 - another 858 units. modifications Pak 97/38 and 160 more guns of modification Pak 97/40. Thus, in 1942, the French 75-mm cannon became the most massive towed gun of this caliber in the Wehrmacht anti-tank gunnery. The share of French guns in the total number of 75-mm anti-tank guns received by the German Armed Forces in 1942 was more than 52%.
In fairness, it should be pointed out that the capabilities of the French "alterations" were still not enough to confront the T-34 and KV. The initial velocity of the Pak 97/38 armor-piercing projectiles was insufficient for this, and when meeting tanks with anti-cannon armor, one had to rely mainly on cumulative ammunition.
On the other hand, the "French women" in the Wehrmacht very well show the real attitude of the German soldiers to our T-34 and KV. No matter what today's would-be historians say, savoring the shortcomings of the "thirty-fours", but in 1942 the Germans found themselves in such an unpleasant situation that they were forced to urgently put a 75-mm Pak 40 into the series - and could not do it. So we had to plug the holes with masses of French captured artillery of the late 19th century!
Nevertheless, the Germans succeeded in the main thing - according to some sources, the specific weight of Pak 40 and 88-mm anti-aircraft guns in the total volume of the Wehrmacht PTS reached 30% by November 1942, and it is obvious that the lion's share of the remaining towed anti-aircraft guns were French 75- mm Pak 97/38 and 50 mm long Pak 38.
Self-propelled artillery installations
Let's start, perhaps, with the good old StuG III, which we call "Sturmgeshütz", "Shtug", and most often - "Art-assault". The history of this self-propelled gun is as follows. According to German military theory, the tanks were intended almost exclusively for special formations, which in the Wehrmacht became tank divisions, neither motorized nor German infantry divisions were entitled to them according to the state. Nevertheless, it was clear that in modern combat the infantry needed the support of armored vehicles - and this was the task the Germans entrusted to their "shtugs".
If the most "popular" German pre-war tanks were in service in the bulk of the 37-mm cannon and only gradually switched to 50 mm, then the ACS initially received, albeit short-barreled, but 75-mm cannons.
Their high-explosive fragmentation projectile was much more powerful than that of tank guns, and the small barrel length, low muzzle velocity made it possible to fit it into an ACS based on the T-III without any problems. Nevertheless, of course, the 75-mm artillery system with a barrel length of 24 caliber was not enough to fight the T-34 and KV, here the situation could be saved only by cumulative shells.
And the number of such clashes kept growing and growing, and it was obvious that the German infantry divisions had nothing special to oppose to the new Soviet tanks. We talked about the efforts on the part of towed artillery above, but this was not enough. And since March 1942, the German "shtugs" receive a new 75-mm artillery system, an analogue of the Pak 40, which at first had a barrel length of 43, and then - 48 calibers.
In total, more than 600 units were produced in 1942, and 3,011 units were produced in 1943.
Tank destroyers
At the beginning of World War II, German troops concentrated in the east had at their disposal approximately 153 Panzerjäger I (Panzerjäger I) anti-tank self-propelled guns, armed with a 47-mm Czech gun.
These were already obsolete, in general, machines that could pose some kind of threat to the T-34 and KV only when using sub-caliber shells. During 1941, the Germans converted 174 more anti-tank self-propelled guns with the same gun from French tanks, some of which also ended up on the Eastern Front.
But all this, by and large, was an unimportant armed trifle, incapable of any serious influence on the balance of forces.
However, in 1942, the Germans returned to the creation of specialized anti-tank self-propelled guns already at a qualitatively new level: taking the T-II chassis as a basis, they installed on it either a 75-mm Pak 40, or a converted captured F-22. This SPG was named Marder II, and in 1942 its production was 521 units. - some of them were converted directly from the previously produced T-II tanks.
In parallel with the Marder II, the Germans organized production of the Marder III, which differed from the Marder II only in that instead of the chassis from the T-II, the chassis was taken from the Czech Pz Kpfw 38 (t) tank. Such self-propelled guns were produced in 1942 454 units.
In order to organize training for the crews of anti-tank self-propelled guns, a certain number of them should have been left in the rear, but this was recognized as excessive waste, and it was proposed to create a similar self-propelled guns, based on some captured equipment. As a result, the choice settled on a French tracked tractor - this is how the Marder I appeared, of which 170 units were produced.
Interestingly, despite the "training" orientation of this type of machine, they were eventually sent to the Eastern Front. Thus, we see that in 1942 the Germans created 1,145 anti-tank self-propelled guns armed with either Pak 40 or captured F-22s - all of them, of course, were dangerous for the T-34. Interestingly, Müller-Hillebrand gives a slightly higher figure - 1,243 anti-tank SPGs.
In 1943, the production of anti-tank self-propelled guns increased somewhat: the Marder II produced and converted approximately 330 units. Marder III - 1,003 units
Tanks
In 1942, the German armed forces finally abandoned the mass production of light tanks. In 1941, the mass production of the T-II and the Czech Pz Kpfw 38 (t) was still going on, a total of 846 such vehicles were produced, which amounted to almost 28% of the total number of line tanks (not counting the command tanks). In 1942, light tanks of these types were produced only 450 vehicles, which amounted to about 11% of the annual production of tanks in Germany. At the same time, the production of the Pz Kpfw 38 (t) was discontinued in May, and the T-II in July 1942.
As for medium tanks, their production continued to grow: the T-III was produced about 1.5 times, and the T-IV - 2 times more than in 1941. On the one hand, it may seem that the Germans in 1942 was still focused on the T-III, since they were produced 2 605 units. against 994 units. T-IV, but in fact this year has become the "swan song" of the "treshki". The fact is that in 1942 the Germans were solving the issue of expanding the production of the T-IV: if 59 vehicles were produced in January, then in December their production almost tripled and reached 155 vehicles. Thanks to this, in 1943 it was possible to replace the production of the T-III with heavier and more sophisticated machines - although in December 1942 the production of the T-III amounted to 211 machines, but in January 1943 - only 46 machines, and in just the first 6 months 1943, only 215 tanks of this type were produced, that is, even less than 36 vehicles per month. And then the "treshki" finally rolled off the assembly line. And, of course, it is superfluous to remind that in 1942 the Germans started production of the heavy tank "Tiger", although they had not yet managed to establish their production in marketable quantities - in total, by the end of 1942, 77 "Tigers" were produced.
Of course, in addition to quantitative changes, there were also qualitative changes. Beginning in 1940, the T-III was armed with a 42-caliber 50 mm cannon, the ability of which to hit the T-34 was frankly low. But since December 1941, in the T-IIIJ1 modification, it received a more powerful 50-mm artillery system with a barrel length of 60 calibers (analogue of the Pak 38), which already gave certain chances to hit the T-34 not only at short, but also at medium distances.
Of course, the installation of this gun increased the anti-tank potential of the "treshka", although, as we said above, the Pak 38's capabilities were still considered insufficient to combat the T-34.
Interestingly, despite the threat posed by Soviet tanks, the Germans were still forced on the T-III to return to the short-barreled 75-mm KwK 37 cannons with a barrel length of only 24 caliber, such as were used in the early T-IV and Stug models. … Moreover, this was done in July-October 1942, when 447 T-IIIN tanks with KwK 37 were produced.
On the one hand, such a return to almost useless cannons in a tank battle seems completely unjustified. But on the other hand, we must remember that according to the views of those years, tanks still should not have fought with tanks, and in any case, this was not their main task in battle. German tanks were supposed to break through enemy defenses, enter a breakthrough, destroy enemy units on the march, help motorized infantry close the encirclement ring, repel counterattacks of troops trying to break out of the encirclement. In other words, targets such as light field fortifications, infantry, machine-gun nests, field artillery, cars and other unarmored vehicles were not only important and legal, but priority targets of German tanks. But in theory, anti-tank weapons, that is, towed and self-propelled anti-tank artillery, should have dealt with enemy tanks. Tank duels were supposed to be the exception to the rule.
However, hostilities on the eastern front quickly showed that it was impossible to shift the task of combating Soviet tanks solely to anti-tank equipment. Thus, the Wehrmacht needed a tank, the weapon of which would have sufficient power both to fight unarmored targets and against enemy tanks. Ideally for this at that time, a 75-mm artillery system like the Pak 40 was suitable, which was powerful enough so that its armor-piercing shells hit enemy armored vehicles, and high-explosive fragmentation - unarmored targets.
But Pak 40 categorically "did not want" to get into the T-III, although there were attempts to install it on the "three-ruble note". As a result, the Germans had to go for a well-known dualism. The bulk of the T-III tanks were equipped with 50-mm long-barreled cannons, capable (albeit once again) of fighting the T-34, but whose high-explosive fragmentation projectiles had insufficient effect to defeat other targets. Other "treshki" received "short-barreled" KwK 37, which were not very suitable for anti-tank warfare, but much better "worked" for the rest of the targets of the tank gun.
T-IV is a different matter. This combat vehicle was heavier and more spacious than the T-III, making it possible to mount a 75 mm Pak 40 on it. For the first time, the more powerful 75-mm KwK 40 L / 43 gun (analogue of the Pak 40 with a barrel shortened to 43 calibers) was used on the T-IVF2 modification (or Pz Kpfw IV Ausf F2, if you like), the production of which began in March 1942.
Initially, the T-IV was armed with the short-barreled 75-mm KwK 37 cannon, and up to February 1942 inclusive, the "Quartet" was produced only with such a cannon. In March-April, modifications with the "short" KwK 37 and "long" KwK 40 L / 43 were produced in parallel, and from May of the same year, German factories finally switched to the production of "long-barreled" modifications of the T-IV. In total, out of 994 tanks of this type, produced in 1942, 124 received 37 KwK and 870 units. - long-barreled KwK 40 L / 43.
We will not talk about the Tiger tanks for now - in fact, this heavy tank initially had a pronounced anti-tank orientation, in this its capabilities were extremely high, and surpassed any tank in the world.
In general, we can say that in 1942 the anti-tank capabilities of the Wehrmacht and the SS underwent a qualitative change. By the end of 1942 - the beginning of 1943, due to the efforts of industrialists and the widest use of war booty, the Germans managed to re-equip their towed and self-propelled anti-tank artillery and conventional self-propelled guns for guns capable of fighting the T-34 and KV. The same was true for the Panzerwaffe. At the beginning of 1942, the main tank guns were the 50-mm KwK 38 L / 42 with a 42-caliber barrel and the 75-mm KwK 37 with a 24-caliber barrel, the capabilities of which were deliberately small for dealing with anti-cannon-armored tanks. However, by the end of 1942, the basis of the German tank forces was already made up of combat vehicles with a long-barreled 50-mm KwK 39 L / 60 cannon and an excellent 75-mm KwK 40 L / 43 artillery system.
Thus, we have to state a fact - by the time the Soviet tank forces, both in experience and in organizational structure, came close to the German "Panzerwaffe", the Germans managed to deprive the T-34 of one of the most important advantages. From the end of 1942 to the beginning of 1943. "Thirty-four" could no longer be considered a tank with anti-cannon armor.
