Panzer Killers

Anti-Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front

Artem Drabkin, Stuart Britton

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781473822405
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

Red Army anti-tank gunners offer vivid accounts of their World War II combat experiences. From the cold and hunger of the Leningrad front to the clinging mud of the Korsun operation, from the gates of Moscow in 1941 to Vienna and Berlin in 1945, the recollections of these anti-tank gunners cover the vast expanses of the Eastern Front. The vivid personal narratives selected for this book give a fascinating insight into the firsthand experience of anti-tank warfare seventy-five years ago. Their testimony reveals how lethal, rapid, small-scale actions, gun against tank, were fought, and it shows how such isolated actions determined the outcome of the massive offensives and counter-offensives that characterized the struggle on the Eastern Front. They recall the hazards, confusion, and speed of combat, but they also provide details of the day-to-day routines of campaign life as part of a small, tightly knit team of men whose task was to take on the most feared tank armies of the day. Panzer Killers is a valuable addition to this series of graphic eyewitness accounts of every aspect of the Red Army's war on the Eastern Front published by Pen & Sword. It records the contribution of one of the neglected branches of the Soviet armed forces—the anti-tank men who played a vital role in the complex military machine that stemmed the Germans' advance, then forced them back to Berlin.

Chapter 1

The Burning Snow of the ‘Pakfront’

Aleksei Isaev

Anti-tank artillery appeared soon after tanks arrived on the modern battlefield. At first these were field artillery pieces, allocated for firing at tanks. Grapeshot, through its shock effect, served as the first armour-piercing shell. The time for specially-developed anti-tank guns came after the First World War. The fledgling Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army didn’t remain on the sidelines during this process. The ‘System of Artillery and Infantry Arming of the Red Army’ was adopted as a protocol at a session of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR Soviet on 22 May 1929. According to this document, each artillery battalion would be equipped with 37-mm infantry anti-tank cannon ‘for the struggle with enemy armoured vehicles’. Since no suitable gun for this purpose was then in domestic production, it was purchased abroad from the Rheinmetall AG firm. The gun was put into service under the designation ‘37-mm anti-tank gun model 1930 [M1930]’. The evolution of this weapon in the 1930s led to the appearance of the 45-mm anti-tank gun with the factory designation 53-K, which became known as the ‘45-mm anti-tank gun M1937’. Thus appeared the gun that became so well known to many as the ‘sorokopiatka’ [literally, the ‘forty-five-er’]. Production of this gun was assigned to Kalinin Factory No. 8 in the Moscow suburb of Podlipky.

One characteristic of the anti-tank gun is the necessity of a high rate of fire. Small-calibre anti-tank guns were effective only out to a range of several hundred metres, so the anti-tank gunners had very little time to knock-out the tanks before they reached their own positions. Therefore the 45-mm anti-tank gun had a semi-automatic, sliding block breech mechanism. After firing a shot, the gun would roll backwards, and the recoil mechanism would return it to its former position. At the end of the counter-recoil cycle, the automatic mechanism would open the breech and eject the empty shell casing. The breech would remain open and the loader could, without wasting time to open it, reload the gun. The quick-firing round forced home by the loader would knock the breech from the toes of the shell-casing ejector, it would close, and the gunner could then send another shell toward the target. Extendable split trails were vital for the anti-tank gun. Such a design in place of the block trail gun mount permitted wide angles of traverse for shifting fire toward various targets. Since tanks could use folds in the ground in order to bypass the antitank gunners’ positions or break through in the sector of a neighbouring unit, the guns had to be ready to change the direction of fire. Light, small-calibre guns didn’t present any difficulties in laying the gun on a new target. For heavy anti-tank guns (57-mm, 76-mm and greater), a gun-crew member stood by each trail, ready to turn the gun.

The sorokopiatki were highly respected by the Japanese that encountered them at Khalkin-Gol – the only conflict in which the Red Army participated prior to the start of the Great Patriotic War involving the use of large numbers of tanks on both sides. Japanese prisoners testified to the 45-mm anti-tank gun’s great accuracy and effectiveness.

The sorokopiatka was simple and inexpensive (approximately 10,000 rubles for each gun) to produce. This led to the rapid equipping of units and formations of the Red Army with 45-mm guns. By 1941 the troops were fully equipped with 45-mm guns according to the requirements of the MP-41 mobilization plan, and production of them even temporarily ceased. The resumption of production was contemplated only with the start of the war in order to replace the losses in the quantities foreseen by MP-41. It should be noted that antitank guns were not the only means of combating tanks. Armour-piercing shells were part of the standard ammunition loads of the divisional 76-mm guns, antiaircraft guns, and the regimental artillery.

The organization of the Red Army’s anti-artillery units before the war was not marked by diversity. Prior to the autumn of 1940, anti-tank guns were on the tables of organization and equipment of rifle, mountain rifle, motorized rifle, motorized, and cavalry battalions, regiments and divisions. Anti-tank batteries, platoons and battalions were in this manner imbedded in the organizational structure of units and formations and became inseparably part of them. The rifle battalion of a rifle regiment of the pre-war table of organization No. 04/41 had a platoon (two guns) of 45-mm anti-tank artillery. The rifle regiment of the No. 04/41 table of organization and the motorized rifle regiment of the No. 05/86 table had a battery of 45-mm anti-tank guns (6 guns). The former used horses to tow the guns, whereas the motorized rifle regiment had specialized tracked, armoured Komsomolets prime movers. The rifle division of the No. 04/400 table of organization and the motorized division of the No. 05/70 table each had a separate anti-tank battalion of eighteen 45-mm guns. Interestingly, the anti-tank unit subordinate to the division had a mechanized tow for both the rifle division and the motorized division. Again, the Komsomolets prime mover was the workhorse to tow the guns. The motorized anti-tank unit was to give the division commander the possibility to deploy anti-tank weapons quickly to a threatened axis. The anti-tank battalion was added to the Soviet rifle division’s TO&E (table of organization and equipment) for the first time in 1938.

However, at that time the manoeuvring of anti-tank guns was possible only within the division, and not on the scale of the corps or the army. The command thus had very limited possibilities to strengthen the anti-tank defences on directions vulnerable to tanks. A division defending a sector in terrain inaccessible to tanks had just as many anti-tank guns as a division occupying a sector where an enemy tank attack was likely. In both cases, the division commander had only fifty-four authorized 45-mm guns. In inaccessible terrain, this number was excessive, but in a threated sector, it was inadequate. The strengthening of the anti-tank defence could be achieved at the expense of artillery that was not formally anti-tank artillery – anti-aircraft and corps guns. Another characteristic of the Red Army’s pre-war anti-tank artillery was the absence of anti-tank guns in the tank division.

The first attempt to place the means for a qualitative strengthening of anti-tank defence in the hands of the command followed in 1940. Studying the experience of Germany’s combat use of its panzer forces in 1939 and 1940, Soviet military theoreticians came to the conclusion that it was necessary to strengthen antitank defences both qualitatively and quantitatively. The decision was made to create the ‘cannon artillery regiment’ of the Reserve of the Supreme Command as a test organizational form, armed with the 76-mm F-22 divisional guns and 85-mm anti-aircraft guns. On 14 October 1940, the USSR People’s Commissariat of Defence proposed new organizational measures to the USSR Council of People’s Commissars and the Party Central Committee, to be implemented within the Red Army in the first half of 1941. Among other items, it proposed:

The formation of 20 machine-gun artillery motorized brigades, powerfully armed with cannons and machine guns, intended for countering and fighting the enemy’s tank and mechanized forces. The brigades will be allocated as follows:

(a) Leningrad Military District – 5 brigades;

(b) Baltic Special Military District – 4 brigades;

(c) Western Special Military District – 3 brigades;

(d) Kiev Special Military District – 5 brigades;

(e) Trans-Baikal Special Military District – 1 brigade;

(f) Far Eastern Front – 2 brigades . . .

The proposal regarding the formation of these brigades was received on 4 November 1940. It was planned to complete their formation by 1 January 1941. The ‘machine-gun artillery’ designation was dropped as the units were being organized and the brigades became motorized brigades. Altogether, each brigade was to have 6,199 men, 17 T-26 tanks, 19 armoured cars, 30 45-mm anti-tank guns, 42 76-mm F-22 guns, 12 37-mm automatic anti-aircraft guns, and 36 76-mm or 85-mm anti-aircraft guns. The idea of inserting the seventeen T-26s in the brigade’s TO&E was in a certain sense ahead of its time: the growing role of tanks as a means of combatting other tanks took its place by the end of the Second World War.

However, the initial experiment of creating anti-tank formations of the Reserve of the Supreme Command [RGK] was acknowledged to be unsuccessful. In February–March 1941, the twenty brigades were disbanded. The final measure before the war to form anti-tank brigades was the joint Party Central Committee and Council of People’s Commissar’s Decree No. 1112-459ss of 23 April 1941, ‘On New Formations within the Red Army’. According to this decree, by1June 1941 it was proposed to form ten anti-tank artillery brigades of the RGK. By its TO&E, each brigade was to have forty-eight 76-mm guns, forty-eight 85-mm anti-aircraft guns, twenty-four 107-mm guns, and sixteen 37-mm anti-aircraft guns. The authorized strength of the brigade was 5,322 officers and troops. The formation of these brigades was not completed by the start of the war. The majority of them did not have the authorized number of vehicles, artillery tractors and other equipment. Most of the brigades never received the 107-mm divisional gun M-60 and replaced them with 85-mm antiaircraft guns. In May 1941, the mechanized corps lacking their authorized tank component acquired the de facto status of the anti-tank formation. Instead of tanks they received 76-mm divisional guns and were supposed to become the mobile means of combating enemy armour.

With the start of the Great Patriotic War, the anti-tank potential of the Soviet forces was tested through rigorous trials. In the first place, most often the rifle divisions had to defend wide sectors that exceeded established military doctrine. Secondly, the Soviet forces had to contend with the German tactic of the ‘panzer wedge’. The panzer regiment of a Wehrmacht panzer division would attack a very narrow sector of the defence, overwhelming it with a density of up to fifty to sixty tanks per kilometre of front. The task of overwhelming the Soviet anti-tank defences was made significantly easier because of the evenly-spaced deployment of anti-tank guns across the rifle division’s entire sector of defence. Technical problems also played a role: a number of lots of 45-mm armour-piercing shells were overheated during production. The flaws in the heat-treating process produced shells that could not penetrate German tank armour even at those ranges where the shells were supposed to be capable of doing so. Salvation in these crisis conditions lay in the 76-mm divisional and regimental guns. The short-barrelled 76-mm M1927 regimental guns were closest of all in weight and dimensions to the 45-mm anti-tank guns. At the same time, their armour-piercing and even their shrapnel rounds were sufficiently effective against the German tanks in 1941.

The organizational problems and the general, dissatisfactory course of combat operations prevented the first anti-tank brigades from realizing their potential. However, already in the first battles the brigades demonstrated their sweeping possibilities as an independent anti-tank formation. As early as the end of June, the decision was taken to form separate anti-tank artillery regiments within the RGK. These regiments were equipped with twenty 85-mm anti-aircraft guns. In July and August 1941, thirty-five such regiments were organized. In the period August to October 1941, there followed a second wave of forming antitank regiments of the RGK. These regiments were equipped with eight 37-mm and eight 85-mm anti-aircraft guns. The 37-mm anti-aircraft gun M1939 even before the war had been created as both an anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapon and fired a proven armour-piercing shell. An important advantage of the antiaircraft guns was their 360° gun mounts. In order to safeguard the crews that had been retrained for the anti-tank role, the anti-aircraft guns were equipped with a shield to protect them from small-arms fire and shell fragments.

The heavy losses of anti-tank guns in the first weeks of the war led to a reduction in the number of anti-tank guns in the rifle division. According to the TO&E No. 4/600 from 29 July 1941, the rifle division had only eighteen 45-mm anti-tank guns in place of the fifty-four they’d been given under the prewar TO&E. According to the July table, the rifle battalion’s platoon of 45-mm guns and the separate anti-tank battalion were both fully eliminated. The latter was re-established in the rifle division’s TO&E in December 1941. The cavalry division of the 1941 table had only six 45-mm guns instead of the sixteen they’d been given under the pre-war table. The shortage of anti-tank guns was to a certain extent offset by anti-tank rifles, which had recently been approved as a replacement. A platoon of anti-tank rifles was introduced at the regimental level in the rifle division’s TO&E No. 04/750 in December 1941. Altogether, the rifle division had an authorized number of eighty-nine anti-tank rifles.

The armoured, tracked Komsomolets artillery tractors were for the most part lost in the summer of 1941, and their production was ceased in favour of tanks. Horses and vehicles became the means for towing the 45-mm anti-tank guns. The situation regarding the movement of anti-tank artillery significantly improved with the arrival through Lend-Lease of vehicles with better off-road capabilities. The famous Willys jeeps not only served as command vehicles; they were also used to tow the 45-mm anti-tank gun.

The overall tendency at the end of 1941 in the area of organizing the artillery was to increase the number of independent anti-tank units. On 1 January 1942 the acting army and the Supreme Command reserve had one artillery brigade (on the Leningrad front), fifty-seven anti-tank artillery regiments and two separate anti-tank artillery battalions. In the autumn battles of 1941, five anti-tank artillery regiments were awarded the Guards title. Two of them earned it in the fighting at Volokolamsk, where they supported I.V. Panfilov’s 316th Rifle Division. The anti-aircraft guns were gradually withdrawn from the antitank regiments and returned to the system of anti-aircraft defences. The ZIS-3 76-mm divisional gun began to play an ever greater role in the Soviet anti-tank artillery. The Germans called the 76-mm guns ‘ratsch-boom’: a shell would strike the target (ratsch!) before the sound of the gun’s firing (boom!).

The year 1942 marked the period of the growth in the number and strength of independent anti-tank units. On 3 April 1942, the State Defence Committee issued a decree on forming the anti-tank destroyer brigade. According to its table strength, the anti-tank brigade would have 1,795 officers and men, 12 45-mm guns, 16 76-mm guns, 4 37-mm anti-aircraft guns and 144 anti-tank rifles. Following a decree from 8 June 1942, the twelve anti-tank destroyer brigades that had been formed thus far were merged into anti-tank destroyer divisions, with three brigades in each. It was proposed to deploy the destroyer divisions in the following manner: the 1st to the Southwestern Front, the 2nd to the Briansk Front, the 3rd to the Western Front, and the 4th to the Kalinin Front. Soon the 1st Anti-tank Destroyer Artillery Division received its combat baptism, defending against the attacks of Operation Blau.

Even the anti-tank rifle elements were strengthened. In April 1942, four separate anti-tank rifle battalions were formed. Each consisted of three to four companies, with twenty-seven anti-tank rifles in each company. On the whole, 1942 became the heyday of the anti-tank rifle in the Red Army as a means to combat enemy armour. According to the March 1942 TO&E No. 04/200 for the rifle division, each regiment was assigned an anti-tank rifle company. Each battalion of the rifle regiment was also given an anti-tank rifle company (in place of the pre-war 45-mm anti-tank guns). One more anti-tank rifle company was assigned to the anti-tank battalion. Thus, according to the table, each rifle division would have 279 anti-tank rifles. The effectiveness of these weapons, of course, left something to be desired; however, their massed application did yield certain results. Moreover, the torrent of heavy-calibre bullets forced the German tank commanders to keep their hatches closed and forced them to view the battlefield only through the shatterproof glass of the vision slits. The restricting of the tank crews’ field of vision eased the task of the anti-tank gunners, who used the more effective 45-mm and 76-mm anti-tank guns.

Order No. 0528 of the USSR People’s Council of Defence became the next step for the Red Army’s anti-tank artillery. Signed by Stalin, it stated:

With the aim of improving the quality of combating enemy tanks, of creating and increasing the cadres of artillery-destroyers of tanks, of raising their qualifications and distinguishing anti-tank artillery units from other types of artillery, I hereby order:

1. The light and anti-tank artillery regiments of the RGK, the anti-tank battalions of the rifle divisions, and the rifle regiments’ 45-mm gun batteries to be relabelled as destroyer anti-tank artillery regiments, battalions and batteries [respectively].
2. To raise the pay rate for the command staff of these units and elements by one and a half times, and to double that for the junior command staff and the rank and file.
3. To take all the command staff of the destroyer anti-tank artillery units and elements, up to the battalion commander inclusively, under special tracking and that they be used only in the indicated units.
4. For the gun commanders and the deputy gun commanders (the gun layers) of these units to acquire the military rank ‘senior sergeant’ and ‘sergeant’ (respectively), and to introduce the position of deputy gun layer with the military rank ‘junior sergeant’.
5. To return the command and deputy command staff and the rank and file of the destroyer anti-tank artillery units receiving medical treatment at hospitals to their assigned units upon their recovery.
6. To create a special sleeve insignia of the proposed description for all the personnel of the destroyer anti-tank artillery units and elements, to be worn on the left sleeve of the uniform jacket and shirt.
7. To establish an award for each knocked-out tank in the sum of 500 rubles each for the gun commander and gun layer, and 200 rubles each for the rest of the gun crew.
8. The number of tanks destroyed by the gun to be noted on the figure of a tank, painted on the upper right corner of the inside of the gun shield. The tank figure is to be drawn in black, while the number indicating the quantity of knocked-out tanks is to be in white.
9. With the aim of using dest...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Translator’s Note
• 1. The Burning Snow of the ‘Pakfront’
• 2. The First Battle is the Hardest
• 3. There were No Long-term Survivors
• 4. A Legendary Hero of Prokhorovka
• 5. A Fight to the Finish
• 6. Enough Endurance Trials for a Lifetime
• 7. ‘We’ve Always Fought with Our Fists . . .’
• 8. ‘The Beast-Killer’
• 9. Ordered to Knock-out a Ferdinand
• 10. ‘Our Fate was not Envied at the Front . . .’
• 11. One of the Very Few