Leningrad in August 1941 was in a very difficult situation, the events at the front on the outskirts of the city developed according to a very bad scenario, dramatic for the defending Soviet troops. On the night of August 7-8, German units from the 4th Panzer Group struck in the areas of the Ivanovskoye and Bolshoi Sabsk settlements, advancing towards the Kingisepp and Volosovo settlements. Just three days later, enemy troops approached the Kingisepp-Leningrad highway, and on August 13, German troops managed to cut the Kingisepp-Leningrad railway and highway and force the Luga River. Already on August 14, 38 army and 41 motorized German corps were able to break out into the operational space and advance to Leningrad. On August 16, the cities of Kingisepp and Narva fell, on the same day units from the 1st German corps occupied the western part of Novgorod, the threat of a breakthrough by German troops to Leningrad became more and more real. Before the famous tank battle, which will glorify the name of Kolobanov, there were only a few days left.
On August 18, 1941, the commander of the 3rd tank company from the 1st battalion of the 1st Red Banner Tank Division, Senior Lieutenant Zinovy Kolobanov, was summoned personally by the divisional commander, Major General V. Baranov. At that time, the headquarters of the unit was located in the basement of the cathedral, which was one of the attractions of Gatchina, which at that time was called Krasnogvardeisky. Verbally, Baranov gave Kolobanov an order to block at any cost three roads that led to Krasnogvardeysk from Kingisepp, Volosovo and Luga.
At that time, Kolobonov's company had 5 heavy KV-1 tanks. The tankers loaded into the vehicles two ammunition sets of armor-piercing shells, they took few high-explosive fragmentation shells. The main goal of Kolobanov's tankers was to prevent German tanks from entering Krasnogvardeysk. On the same day, August 18, Senior Lieutenant Zinovy Kolobanov led his company to meet the advancing German units. He sent two of his cars to the Luga road, two more sent to the road to Volosovo, and placed his own tank in an ambush organized at the intersection of the road that connected the Tallinn highway with the road to Marienburg, the northern outskirts of Gatchina.
Zinovy Kolobanov personally conducted a reconnaissance of the area with his crews, giving instructions on exactly where to equip positions for each of the tanks. At the same time, Kolobanov prudently forced the tankers to equip 2 caponiers (one main and a spare) and carefully camouflage the positions. It should be noted that Zinovy Kolobanov was already a fairly experienced tanker. He fought the Finnish war, burned three times in a tank, but always returned to service. Only he could cope with the task of blocking three roads leading to Krasnogvardeysk.
Kolobanov set up his position near the Voyskovitsy state farm, located opposite the Uchkhoza poultry farm - at the fork in the Tallinn highway and the road leading to Marienburg. He set up a position about 150 meters from the highway approaching from the Syaskelevo side. At the same time, a deep caponier was equipped, which hid the car so that only the tower protruded. The second caponier for the reserve position was equipped not far from the first. From the main position, the road to Syaskelevo was clearly visible and shot through. In addition, on the sides of this road there were swampy areas of the terrain, which greatly impeded the maneuver of armored vehicles and played their role in the upcoming battle.
The position of Kolobanov and his KV-1E was located at a low altitude with clay soil at a distance of 150 meters from the fork in the road. From this position, "Landmark No. 1" was clearly visible, two birches growing by the road, and about 300 meters from the T-junction, which was designated as "Landmark No. 2". The total area of the road under fire was about a kilometer. 22 tanks could easily be accommodated in this area while maintaining a marching distance of 40 meters between them.
The choice of the site was due to the fact that from here it was possible to fire in two directions. This was important, since the enemy could enter the road to Marienburg either along the road from Syaskelevo or from Voyskovitsy. If the Germans had appeared from Voyskovitsy, they would have had to shoot in the forehead. For this reason, the caponier was dug directly opposite the intersection with the expectation that the heading angle would be minimal. At the same time, Kolobanov had to come to terms with the fact that the distance between his tank and the fork in the road was reduced to a minimum.
After equipping camouflaged positions, it remained only to wait for the approach of the enemy forces. The Germans appeared here only on August 20. In the afternoon, the tank crews of Lieutenant Evdokimov and Junior Lieutenant Degtyar from Kolobanov's company met a convoy of armored vehicles on the Luga highway, chalked up 5 destroyed enemy tanks and 3 armored personnel carriers. Soon the enemy was seen by the crew of the Kolobanov tank. They were the first to notice the scouts-motorcyclists, whom the tankers freely passed on, waiting for the appearance of the main forces of the German troops.
At about 14:00 on August 20, after the aerial reconnaissance that had ended unsuccessfully for the Germans, German motorcyclists drove along the seaside road to the Voyskovitsy state farm. Tanks followed them on the road. For those one and a half, two minutes, while the enemy's lead tank covered the distance to the intersection, Zinovy Kolobanov managed to make sure that there were no enemy heavy tanks in the convoy. Then the plan of the upcoming battle ripened in his head. Kolobanov decided to skip the entire column to the site with two birches (Landmark No. 1). In this case, all the enemy tanks managed to make a turn at the beginning of the embankment road and found themselves under fire from the guns of his shielded KV-1. The convoy, apparently, was light Czech tanks Pz. Kpfw.35 (t) from the German 6th Panzer Division (in a number of sources, tanks are also attributed to the 1st or 8th Panzer Divisions). After the battle plan was drawn up, everything else was a matter of technique. Having knocked out tanks in the head, middle and end of the column, Senior Lieutenant Kolobanov not only blocked the road on both sides, but also deprived the enemy of the opportunity to move onto the road that led to Voiskovitsy.
After a traffic jam formed on the road, a terrible panic began in the enemy column. Some tanks, trying to get out of the fire, went down a slope and got stuck in a swampy area, where they were finished off by Kolobanov's crew. Other enemy vehicles, trying to turn around on a narrow road, bumped into each other, knocked down their tracks and rollers. Frightened German carriages jumped out of burning and wrecked cars and rushed in fear between them. At the same time, many were killed by machine-gun fire from a Soviet tank.
At first, the Nazis did not understand exactly where they were being shot from. They began to hit all the haystacks in sight, thinking that they were camouflaged by tanks or anti-tank guns. However, they soon spotted a camouflaged HF. After that, an unequal tank duel began. A whole hail of shells fell on the KV-1E, but they could not do something to the Soviet heavy tank dug in the tower, which was equipped with additional 25-mm screens. And although not a trace remained of the camouflage, and the position of the Soviet tankers was known to the Germans, this did not affect the outcome of the battle.
The battle lasted only 30 minutes, but during this time Kolobanov's crew was able to defeat a German tank column, knocking out all 22 vehicles that were in it. From the double ammunition load taken on board, Kolobanov fired 98 armor-piercing shells. In the future, the battle continued, but the Germans no longer climbed ahead. On the contrary, they began to use PzIV tanks and anti-tank guns, which fired from a long distance, for fire support. This stage of the battle did not bring any special dividends to the parties: the Germans could not destroy Kolobanov's tank, and the Soviet tanker did not announce the destroyed enemy vehicles. At the same time, at the second stage of the battle on Kolobanov's tank, all observation devices were broken and the tower was jammed. After the tank left the battle, the crew counted more than 100 hits on it.
The entire company of Kolobanov destroyed 43 enemy tanks that day. Including the crew of junior lieutenant F. Sergeev - 8, junior lieutenant V. I. Lastochkin - 4, junior lieutenant I. A. Degtyar - 4, lieutenant M. I. and up to two enemy infantry companies, one of the motorcyclists was captured.
Surprisingly, for such a fight, Kolobanov did not receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In September 1941, the commander of the 1st tank regiment of the 1st tank division, D. D. But the headquarters of the Leningrad Front, for some reason, changed this decision. This change still defies reasonable explanation and causes a lot of controversy and versions. One way or another, Kolobanov was nominated for the Order of the Red Banner, and gunner A. M. Usov was nominated for the Order of Lenin. Perhaps the Lenfront command simply considered it impossible to assign the title of Hero to Kolobanov against the general background of great strategic failures, and Krasnogvardeysk was nevertheless surrendered to the Germans soon after all. According to another version, in the Kolobanov case there was some information compromising him, something that prevented him from receiving the award. In any case, we will not know the truth.
On September 15, 1941, Zinovy Kolobanov was seriously wounded. This happened at night at the cemetery in the city of Pushkin, where the tank of the senior lieutenant was refueled with ammunition and fuel. Next to his KV, a German shell exploded, shrapnel the tanker was wounded in the head and spine, in addition, Kolobanov received a concussion of the spinal cord and brain. At first, he was treated at the Traumatology Institute of Leningrad, but then he was evacuated and until March 15, 1945 he was treated in evacuation hospitals in Sverdlovsk. On May 31, 1942, he was awarded the rank of captain.
Despite being seriously wounded and shell-shocked, after the war, Kolobanov again entered service in the tank forces. Zinovy Kolobanov was in the service until July 1958, after which he retired to the reserve with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He worked and lived in the capital of Belarus. He died on August 8, 1994 in Minsk, and was buried there.
Today, a monument has been erected on the site of the famous battle of Soviet tankers on the outskirts of Gatchina. There is a heavy tank IS-2 on the monument. Unfortunately, by the time this monument was built, the very KV-1E tanks on which Kolobanov fought were no longer found, so they had to use what was at hand. A plate appeared on a high pedestal, which said: “The tank crew under the command of Senior Lieutenant ZP Kolobanov destroyed 22 enemy tanks in the battle on August 19, 1941. The crew included: the driver-mechanic foreman Nikiforov NI, the gun commander senior sergeant AM Usov, the gunner-radio operator senior sergeant PI Kiselkov, the Red Army loader NF Rodenkov."
