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Development
and Employment of Soviet Armor Tactics Prior to and During the Great Patriotic
War
Page 2
As the Russian resistance to the Germans crumbled, so did the resistance
to the central role of the army being switched from infantry to armor.
The high command realized that their current emphasis on infantry
could not, and would not, stop the German advance. With this knowledge,
they began to modify the composition and tactics of the army accordingly.
New tank brigades and corps were formed, using the superb T34, with
command positions going to tank commanders who had survived battle
against German tanks. Initially, the tank forces were used only defensively,
and not offensively, due to the fact that the Red Army was in no condition
to mount, nor was Russia economically or industrially prepared to
supply, a counter-offensive.
The first order of business for the Red Army had to be stopping
the Germans, and the tactics of the reinvented Soviet army clearly
reflect this. The Soviets went to great lengths in their effort to
build and man a modern mechanized army. The Red Army enlisted thousands
of soldiers to man the new tanks, and in a very short training period,
"emphasized driver’s skills, basic gunnery, limited but controlled
movements and defensive tactics."9 The training given in
the early stages of the war dealt only with the defensive, with scant
attention given even to counter-attack. This bare-bones defensive
training reflected the dire situation that the Soviet Union faced.
Giving only the minimum essentials for combat, and nothing else, Soviet
armor training was an effort to man tanks, not to fully prepare men
for war. By following the doctrine of quantity over quality, the Red
Army desperately gambled to quell the German onslaught.
The success and survival of the Soviet Union depended entirely upon
the integration and effective use of armor by the Red Army. The Soviets
hoped to accomplish this with the help of the newly formed tank brigades,
and the new defensive tactics. The extremely conservative defensive-minded
doctrine had little emphasis or tolerance for counter attack, and
no place whatsoever for the offensive. Tactics of sheer survival,
the Red Army embraced the following principles:
1. "As a rule, tanks are used in the defense"10
2. "Destroy attacking enemy by fire from stationary positions"11
3. "Selecting terrain favorable for committing tanks and improvement
of field fortifications."12
Soviet high command implicitly stated that armor was a defensive
weapon, to be used only in a defensive manner unless the situation
prevented such usage. Going beyond that, they dictated that tanks
should be used primarily while stationary, preferably sheltered
in fixed fortifications. Though not the most effective manner of
employing armor, the Red Army was in such a position that offensive,
even counter-offensive, operations were infeasible. The severe shortage
of materiel and the advancing German army dictated a policy of pure
defense. By following the course of defense, the Soviets traveled
the only viable avenue open to them. Though the only option, it
was not an inferior or incorrect option; it was actually the best
alternative available for Russia.
The future for the Soviets, however, still looked grim. The German
Army was so close to Moscow that the spires of the Kremlin were in
sight. Moscow, the base of political, economic, and military command,
as well as the center of the Russian rail network in Europe, had to
be held at all costs. The Red Army, however, was in a state of disarray
and general defeat. Much of the army still "did not know how to maneuver
defensively,"13 and fought the Nazis in a manner that barely
slowed the machinelike German advance. However, the influx of men,
machines, and strategy began to have a visible effect in the last
months of 1941.
In late November, the Germans threatened the Russian capital from
both the north and the south. By this time, however, the Soviets had
amassed a semblance of a tank force, as well as many battle-hardened
soldiers to man them. The Russian tank force was still considerably
inferior to that of the Germans, but the Panzer army under General
Guderian was nonetheless unable to defeat the Russian 4th
Tank Brigade, with the Russians forcing a stalemate by early December.
The thrust from the north fared no better, being stalemated by December
as well. Facing defeat at the hands of the Russians for the first
time, Guderian reported that the "‘new tactical handling of the Russian
tanks was very worrying.’"14 Indeed, the successful defense
of Moscow foreshadowed that the shift to an emphasis on armor could
shift the tide of the war as well. Once the safety of the capital
had been secured, the Red Army made the decision to counter-attack
On November 29, 1941, the Russian army, through the use of massed
armor formations, liberated Rostov, the "Gateway to the Caucasus".
Rostov had been captured by the Germans six days earlier, with heavy
casualties on both sides. The counter-attack against German forces
in Rostov, though very costly, was highly significant. The very fact
that a counter-attack, though only a local counter-attack, was possible,
spoke well for the Soviets, since just days earlier they had been
limited to desperate defense. The counter-attack was especially meaningful
for the soldiers, since they had been taught that the offensive was
the "‘fundamental aspect of combat for the Red Army.’"15
In the waning months of 1941 and the early months of 1942, the tide
began to turn along most of the front as it had in Rostov. The Soviets,
aided by rapidly increasing industrial production, as well as the
harshest winter in over a century, returned to the "fundamental aspect"
of combat—the offensive.
In December of 1941, after Moscow had been spared and Rostov liberated,
the Red Army launched its first general counter-offensive of the war.
In this counter-offensive, the new emphasis on the role of armor was
highly visible. In contrast to the early months of the war, when tanks
were allocated to infantry battalions, the Moscow counter-offensive
featured eighteen autonomous tank brigades and nineteen independent
tank battalions, in addition to the nearly one million infantrymen.
The Red Army, drawing tactics from the extremely successful German
army, shifted away from the policy of pure defense and adopted a counter–attacking
policy of envelopment. Much emphasis was still placed on defense,
for the Russians were still in an extremely tight situation. However,
for the first time, the Red Army embraced offensive, albeit counter-offensive,
actions against the Germans. Their policy of envelopment involved
a frontal assault on the opposing forces, while a larger force attempted
to swing around the enemy.
After a German attack had been slowed or halted, a frontal counter-attack
would be launched. This frontal attack would draw artillery support
and reserve forces to the front, opening the way for a second, larger
wing of Russian forces to envelop the weakened rear of the Germans.
After the larger force enveloped the enemy from his rear, the two
wings would work towards each other, in effect smashing enemy forces
between them. This method, while greatly successful for the Germans,
was less successful for the Soviets, for a variety of reasons.
The Red armor crews, because of their rudimentary training, were
not accustomed to offensive maneuvers and were in fact rather disconcerted
with offensive action. In addition, though industrial production was
on the upswing in the fall of 1941, output was still much too low
to adequately support the counter-offensive operations. The low "tank
production made it impossible to provide the requisite number of tanks
necessary to equip [the] brigades"16of the counter-offensive.
Russian tank battalions still contained far fewer tanks than their
German counterparts. Though the forces looked mighty on paper, they
seemed hollow and weak in comparison to the powerful Panzer battalion,
and this disparity showed in battle.
Because of this hollowness, the Red armor battalions, though beginning
to become capable fighters, were unable to envelop German forces and
press attacks to the point of complete operational success. The degree
of success, however, constantly improved with time. Industrial output,
at the end on 1941, and especially during 1942, began to increase.
The expansion was to such a great degree that the Soviets were finally
able to fill out the ranks of armor battalions with badly needed tanks.
The Red Army, with battalions no longer undermanned, ground the Nazi
advance to a halt, and even began to repulse the Germans.
After the German advance had been stopped, and the Wermacht assumed
a general defensive stance, the Red Army’s policy of enveloping counter-attacks
was no longer applicable to the situation. A viable offensive policy
was needed to continue the struggle against the fascist invaders.
Accordingly, the high command began searching for a solid offensive
strategy. The more they looked, the more they came back to the "deep
operations" plan of the 1920s and 1930s. "As the war progressed, the
ideas of Soviet military strategists and tacticians of the 1920s and
1930s came into wide use."17 The idea of deep operations,
slightly modified, became the tactic of choice for the Soviets through
the war’s end.
Deep operations is the idea of creating a hole in the front line,
and exploiting it deep into enemy territory. The 1920s and 1930s version
of the plan emphasized infantry over armor, but the lessons of 1941
led the Soviets to give the dominant role to tanks. Clearly, infantry
plays a large role in any land war, but placing infantry with armor,
instead of armor with infantry, greatly increases the versatility
and power of military forces. The change in emphasis from infantry
to armor, however, was not the only change that the World War II era
strategists made. Instead of creating only one hole in the enemy line,
the Soviets of the 1940s proposed that two breakthroughs be created.
The two breakthroughs in the front line were to be created through
direct frontal attacks. Through these holes, great masses of armor
and mechanized infantry would be poured. The creation of two holes
would split enemy forces into two, or even three sections, thereby
greatly reducing the operational might of the opposing forces.
The revised deep operations plan was essentially a combination of
the 1930s deep operations plan and the envelopment doctrine. By splitting
and surrounding the enemy, the Red Army was in effect enveloping the
opposition. The major difference between the new deep operations plan
and the envelopment plan was the manner in which the envelopment was
achieved. The envelopment doctrine called for the creation of the
envelopment through the use of diversionary attack and maneuver, whereas
the modified deep operations plan dictated that brute force was the
method to achieve envelopment.
As the war progressed, and Soviet industry produced more and more
armor (by war’s end, the Soviet Union had produced over 40,000 T34s)18,
this method of warfare became increasingly effective. Any army, no
matter how experienced or zealous, will break in the face of repeated
human wave attacks. The German army, increasingly demoralized and
under-supplied, simply could not fend off the massive frontal attacks
presented through the revised deep operations plan. The deep operations
plan succeeded not because of tactical wizardry, but because it utilized
the tremendous manpower advantage of the Soviet Union. Full frontal
assaults, effective when pressed until the enemy breaks, consume mass
quantities of men and machines before a breakthrough is created. This
grisly facet of the plan, however, did not concern the planners. While
the Germans won their battles through speed, maneuver, and intelligence,
the Red Army resorted to brute force because it was simple, it worked,
and they could absorb the horrific losses.
For the remainder of the war, Soviet armor tactics remained relatively
unchanged. Slight modifications to the new deep operations plan were
made locally for variations in terrain, weather, and enemy opposition.
The basic tenets of the plan, however, remained the same. Victory
was achieved by overwhelming defenders with masses of men and machines,
and mercilessly crushing all resistance. Through 1942, 1943, 1944,
and 1945, the Red Army refused to adopt more efficient tactics, instead
opting for the simplest option available. This may have been due to
the extreme political nature of the Soviet military, which had little
tolerance for initiative, and stressed compliance and ultimate victory
over efficiency. Fortunately, as the army became more proficient,
and the Germans became weak and demoralized, the brutish tactics of
the Soviets did become more efficient, as well as less costly. The
constantly shifting tactical policy of the Red Army, both prior to
and during World War II, clearly affected the performance of the Soviets
against the Nazi invaders. The incorrect pre-war assumptions of the
high command led to the severe weakening of the Red Army mechanized
armor branch. This weakening was so great that it nearly destroyed
the role of armor in the Soviet army. In an era of warfare so dependent
upon mobility and firepower, the tank, the perfect mixture of the
two, was clearly the decisive weapon. Therefore, the decisions that
led to the weakening of the Soviet armor branch greatly weakened the
whole of the red Army, almost to the point of debilitation.
This near total incapacitation of the Soviet military became readily
apparent in the opening stages of the war between Russia and Germany.
In June of 1941, the Germans strolled across Russia, crushing Soviet
opposition seemingly at whim. The German army, with the strongest
tank force in the world, was so vastly superior to the depleted ranks
of the Red Army that German victory seemed inevitable. However, the
tide of the war was turned when the Soviets began shifting their military
emphasis from infantry to armor.
By at first emphasizing defensive basics, and slowing the German
advance, the Red Army gave itself time to reconstruct a respectable
armored force. The T34, the greatest tank of the World War II era,
gave the Soviets an edge once their tank forces began to materialize.
Once the forces were created, and the Russians had the resources to
launch counter-offensives, which they promptly did. With the counter-attacks,
the Red Army ground the German advance to a halt, and for the first
time on the eastern front, put Germany on the defensive. This further
aided Russia by allowing the Soviets to build, man, and train one
of the largest armored forces in the world. This awesome armored force,
aided by the second largest infantry army on the planet, and an increasingly
competent air force, simply could not fail.
Though the Germans made some small gains after their initial advance
halted, they could not match or defend against the sheer size of the
now technologically equal Red Army. Even before the battle of Kursk,
the largest battle on any front in World War II, in which the Germans
made fairly substantial gains, or their last offensive in 1944, the
fate of Nazi Germany was sealed. Once the drive to the east had been
halted, and the Red Army began throwing millions of men and machines
at the Germans, it was merely a matter of time.
Had the Soviets chosen more effective tactics, instead
those of brute force, the war may have ended sooner, which would have
saved millions of dollars and lives. However, the Red Army realized
that it could afford the costs of such tactics, and it went ahead with
them. Though hardly brilliant, the human wave tactics employed by the
Soviets against Germany in World War II had the desired effects. The
quality of the Russian armored forces, namely the T34 tank, combined
with the vastness of the Red Army, precluded any possibility of a German
victory. As German Panzer general F.W. von Mellenthin put it, "the Russian
form of fighting—particularly in the attack—is characterized by the
employment of masses of men and material, often thrown in unintelligently
and without variations, but . . . [it is] effective."19
Endnotes
1 Scott, Harriet and William eds., The
Soviet Art of War: Doctrine, Strategy,
and Tactics, Boulder Colorado: Westview Press, 1982, 19
2 Armstrong, Richard N. ed. Welsh, Joseph G. trans., Red
Armor Combat Orders: Combat Regulations
for Tank and Mechanized Forces 1944,
London, England: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1991, x
3 Ibid., p. x
4 Ibid., p. xi
5 Scott, Harriet and William eds., The Soviet
Art of War, 288
6 Ibid., p. 21
7 Mellenthin, Major General F.W. von, Panzer Battles:
A Study of the Employment of
Armor in the Second World War,
London, England: Cassell & Co., 1955, 159
8 Armstrong, Richard N. ed. Welsh, Joseph G. trans., Red
Armor Combat Orders, xii
9 Ibid., p. xii
10 Ibid., p. 116
11 Ibid., p. 116
12 Ibid., p. 117
13 Paret, Peter ed., Makers of Modern
Strategy: From Machiavelli to the
Nuclear Age Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1986, 672
14 Armstrong, Richard N. ed. Welsh, Joseph G. trans., Red
Armor Combat Orders, xiii
15 Paret, Peter ed., Makers of Modern
Strategy Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986,
672
16 Armstrong, Richard N. ed. Welsh, Joseph G. trans., Red
Armor Combat Orders, xiii
17 Paret, Peter ed., Makers of Modern
Strategy Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986,
672
18 Goralski, Robert, World War II Almanac:
1931-1945: A Political and Military
Record New York, New York: Bonanza Books, 1981, 438
19 Mellenthin, Major General F.W. von, Panzer Battles
London, England: Cassell & Co., 1955, 296
Bibliography
Armstrong, Richard N. ed. Welsh, Joseph G. trans., Red
Armor Combat Orders: Combat Regulations
for Tank and Mechanized Forces 1944
London, England: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1991
•Translated original orders and regulations for Soviet tank and
mechanized forces. Excellent for viewing transforming Red Army tactics
and strategy. Also useful for verifying other information, since it
is genuine Red Army material. My primary source.
Carver, Field Marshal Lord, The Apostles of
Mobility: The Theory and Practice
of Armoured Warfare New York, New York: Homes
and Meier Publishers, 1979
•Traces strategy and tactics of tank warfare from World War I through
the early seventies. Used mainly in my research of pre-World War II
armor.
Goralski, Robert, World War II Almanac:
1931-1945: A Political and Military
Record New York, New York: Bonanza Books, 1981
•Background source, used for logistical information, dates, etc.
Best World War II almanac/timeline I have seen.
Macksey, Kenneth, Tank Warfare: A History
of Tanks in Battle New York, New York:
Stein and Day Publishers, 1972
•Mainly a background source, used for studies of German World War
II panzer tactics, and to some extent the Soviet response to them.
Some useful specific and unique information.
Mellenthin, Major General F.W. von, Panzer Battles:
A Study of the Employment of
Armor in the Second World War
London, England: Cassell & Co., 1955
•Panzer General’s account and interpretation of World War II tank
warfare. Primary source for German tank strategy against Russia. Overall
good, but in some places biased and subjective (he seems to be a fairly
devout Nazi). ex. "The Russians were strong, but we had Adolf Hitler!"
(or something similar)
Murray, Williamson, The Making of Strategy
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994
•Outlines the creation of overall Soviet strategy from World War
I through World War II, with some attention paid to tanks. Only a
few chapters relevant to time period of topic.
Paret, Peter ed., Makers of Modern Strategy:
From Machiavelli to the Nuclear
Age Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986
•Discusses role of Stalin in Red Army strategy, as well as development
of Soviet strategy World War I through World War II. Again, only a
few chapters relevant to time period of topic.
Scott, Harriet and William eds., The Soviet Art
of War: Doctrine, Strategy, and
Tactics Boulder Colorado: Westview Press, 1982
•My second chief source, an overview of Soviet strategy and tactics
from World War I to the late seventies. Not a great portion of material
deals with World War II, but relevant material is excellent.
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Copyright
© 1994-2005 Stephen Payne
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