[Nafziger] Soviet Order Of Battle Vol.2 - School Of Battle - Soviet Tank Corps and Tank Brigades January 1942 to 1945.pdf - Broń pancerna - m4a3

SCHOOL OF BATTLE 55

Soviet Tank Corps and Tank Brigades

January 1942 to 1945

SOVIET ORDER OF BATTLE

Volume II

by Charles C. Sharp

WORLD WAR 11

The Soviet Order of Battle

World War II

An Organizational History of

The Major Combat Units

of the Soviet Army

by Charles C. Sharp

Published by George F. Nafziger

First Edition

(Background Illustration: the medal of the Order of Suvorov)

Contents:

Glossary

Development of Soviet Tank Corps and Tank Brigades

Organizational and Operational History of the Tank Corps

Internal Organization of the Tank Corps

Organizational History of the Tank Brigades

Formed after January 1942

Composition of the Tank Brigades from 1942 to 1945

Soviet Armored Forces: 19 November 1942

Bibliography

101

Unit Index

102

Glossary

The following abbreviations are used in the tables and text throughout this

volume:

AAMG

armd

ATR

bde

btry

cos

gds

HMG

hvy

LMG

maint

mech

mtz

pit

POL

Quad AAMG

recce

regt

SMG

STAVKA

std

trk

Antiaircraft

Antiaircraft Machine Gun

armored

Anti-tank

antitank rifle (Russian : 14.5mm PTRD or PTRS)

brigade

battalion

Battery

Company

Companies

Guards

Heavy Machine Gun (tripod or wheel mounted, rifle calibre)

heavy

Headquarters

Light Machine Gun (man-carried, rifle calibre)

light

maintenance

motorcycle

mechanized division

mechanized

motorized

platoon

Petroleum, oil, and lubricants

4-barrelled 7.92mm antiaircraft machinegun

reconnaissance

regiment

submachine gun

self-propelled

High Command of the Soviet Union

standard

self-propelled artillery (Russian)

Tank Corps

tank division

tank

truck

Chapter 1

Development of the Soviet Tank Corps

and Tank Brigades:

January 1942 to 1945

Status of the Soviet Armored Forces in Early 1942:

By January 1942, the mechanized forces with which the Soviet Union began

the war a bare six months earlier were gone. Of the mass of tank, mechanized,

and motorized rifle divisions that went into battle, a handful of survivors

were left. Of the mechanized corps, the largest tank formations in the world

in June 1941, not one remained. Of the 22,600 tanks in the army on 22 June,

20,500 had been lost. No other army in the world had such a huge investment

in mechanized forces before the war. No other army had lost such a huge amount

of armor in so short a time - nor would any army, even the Soviet Army, ever

suffer such a loss again.

If there was a bright spot in this cavalcade of disaster, it was that

throughout 1941's melancholy medley of massacres at the hands of the better

trained and better-led German panzer force, the Soviet Army had managed to

keep some tank forces in battle. At the very end of the year, in fact, the

surviving armor spearheaded counter-attacks at Tikhvin in the north, Rostov in

the south, and a counter-attack at Moscow 's suburbs that turned into a major

winter counter-offensive. This resurrection was made possible by 'de-evolving"

the tank force back to its roots in the 1930s'. The Soviets had started with

mechanized brigades , and they went back to the separate tank brigade and tank

battalion in late 1941.

There were 76 tank brigades and 100 separate tank battalions in the

Soviet Army by the end of 1941, plus 7 tank divisions - 4 in the Far East,

where almost 3000 tanks remained to keep a wary eye on the Japanese in

Manchuria. On 1 January 1942 there were 7700 tanks in the Soviet Army tank

units, but of these only 1400 (600 KV, 800 T-34) were modern heavy or medium

tanks, while 6300 were light tanks, and the majority of those either obsolete

T-26 and BT types in the Far East, or new T-60 tanks mounting only a 20mm

cannon.

While the winter battles west of Moscow were waged throughout January and

February 1942 by a steadily-dwindling armored and infantry force (the Soviets

lost 1,150,000 men and 1386 tanks between December 1941 and April 1942 in the

fighting west and northwest of Moscow), the Soviet High Command began a mas-

sive build-up of tank forces. This process would continue to the end of the

war and beyond, and its progress is very nearly the story of the progress of

the Soviet Army from Moscow to Berlin.

The Development of the Soviet Tank Corps;

Pre-war Soviet doctrine had always prescribed that the enemy was to be

attacked "throughout the entire depth of his... defenses", and from the early

1930s on the Soviet Army had developed large independent tank and mechanized

forces to accomplish these "deep operations." The disasters of 1941 revealed

the problems connected with the large armored formations: inadequate technical

support and inadequate training at all levels led to a rapid collapse of

virtually all the mechanized corps. Nevertheless, when the Soviet Army start-

ed back on the offensive in November and December 1941, they attempted once

again to implement the deep operational doctrine - only the means were differ-

ent.

[Nafziger] Soviet Order Of Battle Vol.2 - School Of Battle - Soviet Tank Corps and Tank Brigades January 1942 to 1945.pdf

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