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I'll throw in a humble offering to the Group Build here. No WIP projects
because I built the Trumpeter KV-2 2,000 miles away from my camera: nothing
much I could show you anyway. Anyone interested in my view of the kits can
refer to separate entries in the Armor section. (Should note that I tried to
model each tank at it's finest hour. The 38(t) was a vital part of the German
Panzer arm that crushed much of the Red Army in the first two weeks of the
campaign. The KV-2 appears as I imagine during the rasputitsa - the quagmire of
mud and rain that did much to derail the Wehrmacht in October.) So let's
instead do some history tripping take a look at armor in the Moscow campaign
when both the Pkzw38(t) and the KV-2 fought each other in history’s largest and
most important battle - Barbarossa.
The Dragon Pkzw 38(t) pictured below was a state of the art buggy in 1940.
For a tank it's an elegant creature with very nice proportions. It was showing
it's age a bit by Barbarossa but in June 1941 it had plenty of company in the
Wehrmacht's Panzer arm - Hitler and his generals just didn't know it at the
time. In terms of punch the 38(t) would have been right in the middle of the German
force: less powerful than the PzIV and some of the PzIIIs. (Despite Hitler's
orders some PzIIIs were carrying 37mm guns into Russia. The 50mm PZIII was the
most powerful tank in the Wehrmacht when invasion began. Let's remember the
Germans still operated large numbers of PzIIs with a 20mm main gun. Ditto on
armor. The KV-2 had 110mm on its mantlet (the KV1 had 90). The best protected
German tanks had 50mm. (An off the shelf Pz38(t) had 25mm front and 10mm side
armor. Field modifications increased it. At 14 tons total there was a limit to
what could be done.) More impressively, the KVs had 70 or 75 on the sides and
rear: the weakest points had 40mm. There was a reason the KVs weighed almost
twice as much as the heaviest German tank fielded in June 1941. The famous
“slopping armor” of the T-34 gave comparable protection at less weight and
cost.
One can imagine the Wehrmacht's collective alarm when they began running
into small numbers of KV-1s, KV-2s and T-34s in the first weeks of the
invasion. Alarm but no panic. Indeed the Wehrmacht handled these opponents
initially with no great difficulty although losses were higher than expected.
Central to the equation was simple numbers. There were maybe 500 KVs of all
kinds operational in June. The T-34, after some ugly politics, was only given
the green light after the Winter War and early tanks had serious “teething
troubles.” Hence the “blue chip” Soviet tanks were employed (wisely for once)
in small numbers at key points on the line. This was often done badly because
the Red Army was rocked in early 1941 and was doing a lot of “on the job
training.” (The Germans later did the same thing with Tigers. But being Germans
they did it with frightening skill.)
The Wehrmacht did to the Soviet big boys what they did to the Char-Bs in
France - they prepared the battlefield before engagement whenever possible.
It's often forgotten how great a role was played by anti-tank guns in Blitzkrieg.
Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions had towed guns. Most were the very weak
37mm, but even that could knock out a large tank if it was undetected and shot
from rear at close range. (Anything could take out the blizzard of light tanks
thrown into battle by the Soviets and thousands were annihilated in the
fighting around Smolensk. The 20mm flak batteries proved very good anti-tank
and anti-infantry weapons. The Wehrmacht was resourceful.) Better yet was the
88mm flak gun and field artillery firing over open sights.
The drill looked something like this. An armored engagement very likely took
several hours. With weather good, far ranging Wehrmacht recon units would get a
look at advancing Soviet tanks and relay the information. Luftwaffe recon was
likewise busy. The call would then go out to get towed guns to the expected
area of encounter ASAP: ditto with any PzIIIs and IVs if nearby. Artillery
units were also frequently brought up front. The Wehrmacht’s priceless
communication skills allowed for each cog in the machine to get ready to fight or maneuver depending upon
what was needed at the moment: “combined arms” to the Germans was not jargon.
(The Stuka at this stage of the war was not intended or trained to attack tanks
directly, although they bagged more than a few. Later this changed.) The result
was usually bad for Soviet tanks. In addition, because the Wehrmacht was going
forward, a Soviet tank that suffered breakdown was a total loss - it might end
up in the German armory. Soviet tank recovery methods were rudimentary, yet
another field where the Germans had a huge edge. One must conclude that the
Wehrmacht of in early July 1941
possessed forgettable tanks, mediocre anti-tank guns but was splendidly led and
remarkably flexible. The Luftwaffe, although in retrospect considerably too
small, was likewise a fearsome weapon.
The Germans and Russians had been fighting wars for a very long time.
Frederick the Great, who had some bad afternoons with the Russian army, once
commented that first you had to kill a Russian soldier and then kick him over.
Napoleon found out the same thing. The British and French very nearly did in
the Crimea. Even in WWI, with Russia badly behind the industrial curve required
for modern war, fighting Russians was like going to the dentist. And so it
proved in 1941. Even in the first two weeks of the war when the Wehrmacht
slaughtered Russian divisions wholesale, German losses passed 100,000. And the
number kept going up. The Germans, had, of course, made the worst error in the
history of military intelligence. Estimates put Soviet land forces at perhaps
3.5-4million men at hand with most deployed on the frontiers, supported by
10,000 tanks at most. The real numbers were double that and 60% of Red forces
were inside pre-1939 USSR. In addition there had been a colossal “baby boom”
after World War I. (The Soviets were quick to reverse the abortion laws passed
early in the Revolution after the Civil War. Indeed abortionists went straight
to the Gulag. Family values Stalin style. This was still a largely rural
society and farmers make babies.) This meant that each Soviet “year class”
dwarfed its German equivalent. And to boot, the NKVD would shoot anyone
considered a deserter. So the Soviets never went quietly.
This
was bad news for German forces and German armor. Before Barbarossa there was an
odd agreement at the top that the Russian campaign would result in quick and
decisive victory. One dissenter was General Georg Thomas, the head of Army
Economic and Armament Planning. Thomas warned that Barbarossa was a fantastic
risk because the German war economy was not ready for anything beyond one big
but necessarily fast campaign. So the missing cold weather gear, the missing
lubricants, the missing replacement parts, the missing replacement aircraft,
the missing replacement tanks, the missing railroad construction materials - all
of this stuff was missing because it didn't exist. To make matters worse, every
mile forward meant that the rail system had to be rebuilt - no easy job. The
first sign that things weren’t going well was during the ugly and fierce
fighting near Smolensk which lasted nearly a month through July to early
August. By this time Thomas’ warnings were beginning to sound prophetic. Basic
supplies were fast running out and the Luftwaffe began the death ride of its
transport wing rushing everything to the Front. (This period also saw the
beginning of the most massive and
violent organized campaign of looting in the history of war as German units of
all types picked clean anything of value not already destroyed by retreating Soviets.)
Thomas
had also argued that tanks needed wholesale overhaul after 500 miles. Smolensk
was past that point. Thomas was right. During the bulk of August Army Group
Center was forced to resupply and rebuild. The best campaign weather of the
year was thus squandered on the major front. As it was, German tank strength by
August was down at least 30% from June despite resupply and the August resupply
almost emptied the cookie jar.
In
retrospect we can see that Hitler’s only real chance to win World War II was to
destroy the Soviet Union and that could only be achieved by causing a collapse
of will. In this context, the German generals (almost all of them) that urged a
pause across the front to allow for an all-out drive for Moscow in September
were most certainly right. This would have meant that German offensive
operations in the Ukraine and in the North would have to cease. It also meant a
major drive along a single axis with both flanks “in the air.” On paper this
was a very risky prospect. It is one of military history’s greatest ironies
that Adolph Hitler, a man who had created the most unlikely biography of the
century through amazing audacity and nerve lost World War II because he wanted
to play the game by the book. So instead of the Moscow drive Army Group Center
sent forces south to Kiev where they destroyed several Soviet armies and north
to Leningrad where they almost took the city. But they had also expended
irreplaceable supplies and manpower. And with it’s Panzers north and south, AG
Center received some nasty slaps from Soviet armor. This got Hitler’s
attention. As soon as the Kiev victory was secure, AG Center’s tanks were hurriedly
deployed back to Smolensk. Leningrad operations were ceased and the Panzers
there ordered to AG Center. Both groups were much weaker than when they started.
The Panzerwaffe at the start of Operation Typhoon were about a third what it
had been in June and no reserves existed.
Typhoon
jumped off on October 2, catching the Soviets flat-footed. Within ten days the
Germans were completing their last great victory of the campaign, the
encirclement of 500,000 Soviet troops at Bryansk and Vyasma. It was at this
time that the “rasputitsa” arrived.
The
rasputitsa (quagmire) in Russia and the Ukraine takes place in the spring and
fall. It is caused when the first snows come and melt. All the while cold rain
and sleet pelts one and all. (It is because of the rasputitsa as much as the
snow that led the Russians to favor the sled as a means of transport. Wheels
dig into the mud whereas a sled can move, although slowly.) It had actually
begun with Typhoon and the Germans had to put all ready reserves into the
Bryansk and Vyasma areas to gain the encirclement. As it was, both pocket were
porous, the Germans were losing the ability to move enough units simultaneously
to close the bag tightly. Tanks moving in the early snows and soft ground used
twice the fuel as they did on dry ground. They also broke down more frequently.
After mid-October forward movement ceased as the quagmire arrived in full
splendor. The Panzer Waffe was dying on the vine. The last gasp German attack
in November was made with under 600 operational tanks.
It
was at this time when the much battered Soviet armor found itself holding trump
cards¸ something that Zhukov, new appointed to defend Moscow, realized
immediately. Russian tanks were built in Russia. Russian designers knew about
the rasputitsa. Consequently Soviet AFVs, relative to German counterparts, had
a lower center of gravity and considerably wider tracks. As it was, there were
days when nobody went anywhere. However, there were many days when Soviet tanks
could move more quickly than the Germans, or they could move when the Germans
could not move at all without doing serious damage to their vehicles within
hours. Horse drawn guns were emplaced and rarely moved. Wheeled and tracked
towing vehicles were worse off than German tanks. What this all meant in a
nutshell was that the German anti-tank guns, especially the lethal 88s and 75s
were temporarily out of the battle. The vastly weakened Luftwaffe (down to
about 400 ready aircraft) faced bad flying weather. With maneuver crippled, the
Wehrmacht’s qualitative edge meant little. In a series of counter-attacks
during this period the Soviets dealt nasty blows to a reeling enemy. Both sides
recalled incidents of small numbers of Soviet KVs or T34s simply annihilating
German positions despite being multiple hits from the ubiquitous 37mm anti-tank
gun.
Not
surprisingly many German officers began to plead with Hitler to stop the
offensive and prepare defensive positions. For reasons that are hard to fathom,
the rasputitsa seems to have shaken the Germans. (This is very odd considering
the large number of German officers that had served in the East during World
War I. Perhaps a hangover from what the Japanese later called “victory
disease.”) However, they did know the winter was coming. And now they knew
Thomas was right. Moscow was not going to fall and every step farther forward
only increased the dire situation facing the Germans. Hitler, of course, would
have none of it. Ironically it was Hitler that was wishing for snow and cold -
anything to restore hard ground and thus mobility. German spearheads were back
in action on November 5 and even gained some ground. (They also suffered some
very bad defeats from Zhukov’s T-34s coming in from Siberia: Guderian’s men in
particular were beaten badly in mid-November.) Within a week of the last gasp
the temperature plummeted to below zero, the real winter arrived and the
Germans faced a new nightmare. Zhukov’s counter-offensive sealed the bargain.
Only the Wehrmacht’s great skill and Hitler’s tenacity saved the German Army
from complete debacle. As it was, Hitler had lost his only chance for a
decisive victory in World War II.
The impact of these events rocked the German war economy. More guns and
bigger guns were given top priority. The Tiger project was revived and the
Panther program started. The inadequacies in basic equipment did not reappear
until 1945. Despite all of this, however, the Germans had lost the ability to
attack in more than one sector as illustrated in 1942. More to the point the
relatively small number of large Russian tanks faced in 1941 turned into a
flood. The KV-2 was a dog and allowed to slip into hands of Trumpeter. Nearly
5,000 KV-1s were produced, however and when redesigned became the powerful
Stalin tank. T-34s settled in for a massive production surge and in one form or
another became a military fixture around the world for twenty years. As for the
Pz38(t) it soldiered on through 1942 although everyone knew it was inadequate.
It remained in the war fighting partisans until 1945. More to the point, the chassis
and engine served the base for several excellent anti-tank vehicles. Fine
weapons for the defense. However, when one country fights three major and
several minor powers, the defense leads to one destination only - utter defeat.
Pics below
Eric
