Traditionally, the largest tank battle is considered to be the battle near Prokhorovka in the summer of 1943. But, in fact, the world's largest tank battle took place two years earlier: in June 1941 in the Brody-Dubno-Lutsk area. If we compare the numbers, Prokhorovka is clearly inferior to the Western Ukrainian Tank Battle.

The Battle of Prokhorovka took place on July 12, 1943. According to official Soviet data, 1.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns converged on both sides: 800 Soviet against 700 Nazi Germans. The Germans lost 350 armored vehicles, ours - 300. Allegedly, after this, the turning point in the Battle of Kursk came.

However, this officialdom was questioned even by many Soviet researchers. After all, such a calculation contains obvious distortion. Indeed, in the 5th Guards Tank Army of General Pavel Rotmistrov, which counterattacked the advancing German troops that day, there were about 950 tanks. But as for the Germans, there were approximately 700 tanks and self-propelled guns in the entire German group on the southern flank of the Kursk Bulge. And near Prokhorovka there was only the 2nd SS Panzer Corps of Waffen-SS General Paul Hausser - about 310 combat vehicles.

Therefore, according to updated Soviet data, 1,200 tanks and self-propelled guns converged near Prokhorovka: just under 800 Soviet versus just over 400 German (losses were not specified). At the same time, neither side achieved its goal, but the German offensive was objectively losing momentum.

According to very precise data, in the tank battle on July 12 near Prokhorovka, 311 German tanks and self-propelled guns took part against 597 Soviet ones (some of the vehicles of the 5th GvTA failed after a 300-kilometer march). The SS men lost about 70 (22%), and guardsmen - 343 (57%) armored vehicles. At the same time, their irretrievable losses in 2 SS TK were estimated at only 5 vehicles! The Germans, which even Soviet military leaders admitted, had better evacuation and repair of equipment. Of the Soviet vehicles damaged near Prokhorovka, 146 were subject to restoration.

According to Russian historian Valery Zamulin ( Deputy for Science Director of the State Military Historical Museum-Reserve “Prokhorovskoe Field”), by decision Supreme Commander-in-Chief A commission was created to investigate the causes of the large losses suffered by the 5th GvTA near Prokhorovka. The commission's report called the military actions of Soviet troops on July 12 near Prokhorovka "an example of an unsuccessful operation." General Rotmistrov was going to be court-martialed, but by that time the general situation at the front had changed - and everything turned out okay. By the way, the landing of Anglo-American troops in Sicily had a great influence on the outcome of the Battle of Kursk, after which the headquarters of the 2nd SS Tank Corps and the Leibshatnadrt division were sent to Italy.

Now let’s go back two years to Western Ukraine and compare

If the battle of Prokhorovka lasted only one day, then the Western Ukrainian tank battle (it is difficult to determine it by any one region - Volyn or Galicia - not to mention one settlement) lasted a week: from June 23 to 30, 1941. It was attended by five mechanized corps of the Red Army (2803 tanks) of the Southwestern Front against four German tank divisions (585 tanks) of the Wehrmacht Army Group South, united in the First Tank Group. Subsequently, another tank division of the Red Army (325) and one tank division of the Wehrmacht (143) entered the battle. Thus, 3,128 Soviet and 728 German tanks (+ 71 German assault guns) fought in a gigantic oncoming tank battle. Thus, the total number of tanks and self-propelled guns that took part in the Western Ukrainian battle is almost four thousand!

On the evening of June 22, the troops of the Southwestern Front (the most powerful grouping of Soviet troops on the western border of the USSR) received the order “to encircle and destroy the enemy group advancing in the direction of Vladimir-Volynsky, Dubno. By the end of June 24, take possession of the Lublin region.”

Considering the balance of forces (primarily in tanks, but also in artillery and aviation), the counteroffensive had a very high chance of success. The Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Army General Georgy Zhukov, personally arrived to coordinate the actions of the Southwestern Front.

To implement the task, the command of the Southwestern Front decided to create two strike groups: each with three mechanized and one rifle corps. However, the breakthrough of the German tank group forced the front commander, General Mikhail Kirponos, to abandon this plan and give the order to launch a counteroffensive without waiting for the concentration of all forces. Tank formations entered the battle separately and without mutual coordination. Subsequently, orders changed several times, which is why some units made multi-kilometer marches under enemy air attacks.

Some units did not take part in the counterattack. Part of the forces was sent to cover Kovel from the Brest direction, from where German tanks were allegedly also advancing. But, as it later became clear, the intelligence report was completely inaccurate.

On June 27, the strike group of the 8th mechanized corps under the command of brigade commissar Nikolai Popel successfully counterattacked the Germans in the Dubno area, inflicting serious losses on the enemy. However, here the Soviet tankers stopped and, waiting for reinforcements, stood for two days! During this time, the group did not receive support and, as a result, was surrounded.

It is interesting that the German tank and motorized divisions, despite the Soviet tank counterattacks, continued the offensive, as if “running forward.” In many ways, the burden of the fight against Red Army tanks fell on the Wehrmacht infantry. However, there were also plenty of oncoming tank battles.

On July 29, the withdrawal of the mechanized corps was authorized, and on June 30, a general retreat. The front headquarters left Ternopil and moved to Proskurov. By this time, the mechanized corps of the Southwestern Front were practically destroyed. About 10% of the tanks remained in the 22nd, about 15% in the 8th and 15th, about 30% in the 9th and 19th.

Member of the military council of the Southwestern Front, corps commissar Nikolai Vashugin, who at first actively organized counterattacks, shot himself on June 28. The remaining members of the Military Council proposed to retreat beyond the line of the old Soviet-Polish border (which existed until September 1939). However, German tanks broke through the line of fortified areas on the old border and reached the rear of the Soviet troops. Already on July 10, German troops took Zhitomir...

It cannot be said that the Soviet troops showed complete failure in those battles. It was then that the Germans first started talking about the superiority of the T-34 and KV, against which German anti-tank guns were powerless (only 88-mm anti-aircraft guns could take them)...

However, in the end, the defeat was complete. By June 30, the Southwestern Front troops participating in the counteroffensive had lost 2,648 tanks—about 85%. As for the Germans, the First Panzer Group lost about 260 vehicles during this period (for the most part these were not irretrievable losses).

In total, the Southwestern and Southern Fronts lost 4,381 tanks in the first 15 days of the war (according to the collection “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century: Losses of the Armed Forces”) out of 5,826 available.

The losses of the First Tank Group by September 4 amounted to 408 vehicles (of which 186 were irrecoverable). A little more than half. However, with the remaining 391 tanks and assault guns, Kleist managed to link up with Guderian by September 15 and close the encirclement ring around the Southwestern Front.

One of the main reasons for the defeat lies in the unprecedentedly large non-combat losses of the Red Army. For example, non-combat losses in tanks (abandoned due to a lack of fuel and lubricants, breakdowns, falling from a bridge, getting stuck in a swamp, etc.) in different divisions amounted to about 40-80%. Moreover, this cannot be attributed solely to the poor condition of supposedly outdated Soviet tanks. After all, the newest KV and T-34 failed in the same way as the relatively old BT and T-26. Neither before nor after the summer of 1941 did Soviet tank forces experience such non-combat losses.

Considering that the number of missing soldiers and those lagging behind on the march also noticeably exceeded the number of killed and wounded, we can say that the Red Army soldiers sometimes simply ran away, abandoning their equipment.

It is worth looking at the reasons for the defeat from the angle of Stalin’s postulate “personnel decide everything.” In particular, compare the biographies of the commander of Army Group South, Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt, and the commander of the Southwestern Front, Colonel General Mikhail Kirponos.

66-year-old Runstedt graduated from the Military Academy back in 1907 and became an officer of the General Staff. During World War I he was chief of staff of the corps, in 1939 he commanded an army group during the war against Poland, and in 1940 - an army group in the war against France. For successful actions in 1940 (it was his troops who broke through the front and surrounded the allies at Dunkirk) he received the rank of field marshal.

49-year-old Mikhail Kirponos started out as a forester. During the First World War he was a paramedic, during the Civil War he commanded a regiment for some time, then held various positions (from commissar to head of the economic command) at the Kyiv School of Red Petty Officers. In the 1920s he graduated from the Military Academy. Frunze, then was chief of staff of the division for three years and head of the Kazan Infantry School for four years. During the Finnish War he was a division commander and distinguished himself in the battles for Vyborg. As a result, after jumping over several steps career ladder, in February 1941 he headed the Kiev Special Military District (the largest in the USSR), which was transformed into the Southwestern Front.

Soviet tank forces were inferior to the Panzerwaffe in training. Soviet tank crews had 2-5 hours of driving practice, while German tank crews had about 50 hours.

As for the training of commanders, the Germans noted the extremely inept conduct of Soviet tank attacks. This is how he wrote about the battles of 1941-1942. German General Friedrich von Mellenthin, author of the study “Tank Battles 1939-1945: The Combat Use of Tanks in the Second World War”:

“Tanks were concentrated in dense masses in front of the German defense front; uncertainty and the absence of any plan were felt in their movement. They interfered with each other, collided with our anti-tank guns, and if our positions were broken through, they stopped moving and stopped, instead of building on their success. During these days, individual German anti-tank guns and 88-mm guns were most effective: sometimes one gun disabled over 30 tanks in an hour. It seemed to us that the Russians had created an instrument that they would never learn to use.”

In general, the very structure of the mechanized corps of the Red Army turned out to be unsuccessful, which already in mid-July 1941 were disbanded into less cumbersome formations.

It is also worth noting factors that cannot be attributed to defeat. First of all, it cannot be explained by the superiority of German tanks over Soviet ones. Quite a lot has already been written about the fact that at the beginning of the war, Soviet supposedly outdated tanks, in general, were not inferior to German ones, and the new KV and T-34 were superior to enemy tanks. There is no way to explain the Soviet defeat by the fact that the Red Army was led by “backward” cavalry commanders. After all, the German First Panzer Group was commanded by Cavalry General Ewald von Kleist.

Finally, a few words about why Brody-Dubno-Lutsk lost the championship to Prokhorovka.

In fact, they talked about the Western Ukrainian tank battle in the Soviet period. Some of its participants even wrote memoirs (especially the memoirs of Nikolai Popel - “In a difficult time”). However, in general, they mentioned it in passing, in a few lines: they say there were counterattacks that were not successful. Nothing was said about the number of Soviet ones, but it was emphasized that they were outdated.

This interpretation can be explained by two main reasons. First of all, according to Soviet myth about the reasons for the defeat in the initial period of the war, the Germans had superiority in technology. To be convincing, in Soviet history about the initial period of the Second World War, the number of all German tanks (and their allies) was compared with the number of only medium and heavy Soviet tanks. It was generally accepted that the Red Army soldiers stopped the German tank hordes only with bunches of grenades, or even bottles with a combustible mixture. Therefore, there was simply no place for the largest tank battle in 1941 in the official Soviet history of the Second World War.

Another reason for keeping silent about the greatest tank battle is that it was organized by the future Marshal of Victory, and at that time the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Georgy Zhukov. After all, the marshal of victory had no defeats! In this same regard, the Soviet history of the Second World War hid Operation Mars, the failed large-scale offensive at the end of 1942 against the German-held Rzhev salient. The actions of two fronts here were led by Zhukov. So that his authority would not suffer, this battle was reduced to a local Rzhev-Sychev operation, and they knew about the large losses from Alexander Tvardovsky’s poem “I was killed near Rzhev.”

Apologists for the Marshal of Victory even made candy out of the catastrophe of the Southwestern Front. Allegedly, already in the first days of the enemy invasion, Zhukov organized a counterattack on the Southwestern Front with the forces of several mechanized corps. As a result of the operation, the plan of the Nazi command to immediately break through to Kyiv and reach the left bank of the Dnieper was thwarted. Then the enemy suffered considerable losses in military equipment, which noticeably reduced its offensive and maneuver capabilities.

At the same time, about the initial goal of the offensive (to capture the Lublin region), they said that the order given was unrealistic, based on an overestimation of one’s troops and an underestimation of the enemy. And they preferred not to talk about the ruined tank armada, only casually mentioning that the tanks were outdated.

In general, it is not surprising that the tank championship was given to Prokhorovka.

Dmitro Shurkhalo, for ORD

V. Goncharov Tank battle of Dubno (June 1941)

Heavy tank, staggering, rides

On the skulls of other people's fighters.

They don't see anything in the world

Eyes plugged with lead.

But he goes to the tunnels of guns,

But he destroys the tank by touch,

The number of tons clenched into a fist -

Iron skeleton through concrete...

M. Kulchitsky, 1939

I. Theory and practice

The tragedy experienced by the Red Army in the summer of 1941 has long been repeatedly reflected in novels, memoirs and dry historical works. But it can be fully understood only by realizing how much the leadership of the Soviet Union and the Red Army believed in the power of their tank forces.

Soviet Russia became the sixth country in the world to organize the production of tanks of its own design. However, mass production of tracked armored vehicles in the USSR began only in 1931–1932, when the country's heavy industry reached a level that allowed for uninterrupted mass production of complex military equipment. The cruel magic of industrialization has produced yet another miracle. Within literally three or four years Soviet Union became the owner of the most powerful tank forces in the world. At the Kyiv maneuvers of 1935, the fighting qualities of these troops were shown to stunned foreign representatives in all their glory. Tanks jumped over ditches, parachuted from transport aircraft, immediately crossed rivers - in a word, they demonstrated many ways to quickly penetrate deep into enemy defenses.

However, having tanks is only half the battle. The main thing is to know how to use them. While other countries were debating whether tanks should support infantry or operate separately from it, Soviet military thought had been creating the theory of deep operations since the late 20s. True, contrary to popular belief, tanks did not immediately enter the deep operation system.

Even in the Field Manual of 1929 (PU-29), it was planned to create groups of long-range tanks (LD) to operate without infantry support directly in the depths of enemy positions. And already in 1930, the prominent theorist of tank forces K. B. Kalinovsky, in the article “Problems of maneuver warfare from the point of view of mechanization and motorization,” published in the newspaper “Red Star”, wrote:

“The deployment stage of an operational maneuver is depicted as follows. Mechanized formations, strategic cavalry (1st echelon of operational maneuver), rushing into the breakthrough together with powerful attack and bomber aircraft, and in oncoming collisions eliminate enemy operational reserves approaching on foot or in vehicles.

Disorganization of the enemy's rear - control centers, supply bases ... is carried out by raiding mechanized formations and strategic cavalry, accompanied by airborne assault forces.

At the same time, military formations (the second echelon of operational maneuver) are deploying a maneuver in vehicles (vehicle maneuver) supplied from the main command’s vehicle reserve...”

In the same year, the first experimental mechanized brigade appeared within the Red Army, which soon received the name Kalinovsky (after the tragic death of Konstantin Bronislavovich in 1931). Already in 1932, the first two mechanized corps were formed - the 11th and 45th (respectively, from the 11th Infantry Division of the Leningrad Military District and the 45th Infantry Division of the Kiev Military District). Each corps consisted of two brigades of three battalions.

In the same year, the first “Combat Manual of Mechanized and Motorized Troops” appeared. It already took into account the possibility of using independent mechanized formations in the depths of the enemy’s defense in operational cooperation with higher combined arms formations (army and front). However, the main role tanks were supposed to play was precisely in suppressing and overcoming enemy defenses to their entire tactical depth. But in the draft of the temporary manual for motorized mechanized troops of the Red Army (1932), we were already talking about the actions of a mechanized formation in the operational rear and on enemy communications, as well as about raid operations. It was also pointed out that it was inappropriate to use mechanized formations to directly break through the enemy’s prepared defenses - direct infantry support tanks were assigned to this purpose. It was assumed that a mechanized corps could also carry out defensive operations, but in this case attention was focused on mobile active defense. The military theory of that time denied the possibility and necessity of using tanks in defense - in the same 1932, military theorist S. N. Ammosov wrote that “Mechanized units are not capable of holding terrain for a long time; using them for this task is impractical and does not correspond to their main property - the ability to deliver strong deep blows.”

In 1934, the People's Commissar of Defense approved the “Temporary Instructions for Deep Combat” - the theory of deep operations finally received its practical design. “Deep battle” meant simultaneous massive impact on the entire depth of enemy defenses with the help of tanks, aircraft and artillery, thereby encircling and destroying the main enemy forces. All tanks were divided into those operating directly with the infantry (NPP), interacting with it in the tactical depths of enemy defense (long-range infantry support - DPP) and long-range tanks (LD), operating against the enemy’s operational reserves to a depth of 18–20 kilometers. Deeper operations against the enemy rear were to be carried out by army means - mechanized formations and strategic cavalry.

By the beginning of 1934, the Red Army had about 7,800 tanks - more than any other country. This year, two more mechanized corps were formed - the 7th in the Leningrad and 5th in the Moscow military districts. In addition, by 1936 the Red Army consisted of 6 separate mechanized brigades and 15 regiments as part of cavalry divisions. By the end of 1937, about 19.5 thousand tanks were produced in the Soviet Union, of which approximately 500 were sold abroad. Taking into account the inevitable decommissioning of some vehicles, the size of the tank fleet of the Red Army by 1938 can be estimated at approximately 17 thousand units - more than there were tanks in the rest of the world at that time.

Abandoned T-34 on the street of Lvov

However, by the end of the 30s, it became obvious that very soon a significant part of the Soviet tank armada would lose its combat effectiveness due to physical or moral obsolescence. And anti-tank defense has not stood still over the past years. Appearing during the First World War, and now widespread in all armies of the world, light and maneuverable anti-tank guns with a caliber of 35–47 mm at a direct fire distance could successfully fight vehicles protected by bulletproof (15–20 mm) armor. The cheapness of light anti-tank guns, even compared to field artillery, made it possible to widely saturate the troops with them - now there was no need to use divisional and corps guns to fight tanks. As a result, light tanks were practically defenseless in open battle.

The experience of the Spanish War, in which tanks and anti-tank artillery were massively used on both sides, turned out to be very contradictory. On the one hand, under concentrated fire from anti-tank guns, tanks failed en masse (not always, however, irrevocably), on the other hand, a well-organized tank attack very often achieved success if the necessary interaction with the infantry was established. The high speed of the tank, considered the best protection against anti-tank fire, could not always manifest itself.

As a result, it was concluded that it was necessary to reform the tank forces and a new approach to the characteristics of promising tanks. Immediately upon returning from Spain, D. G. Pavlov, appointed head of the Main Armored Directorate, formulated his requirements for new tanks as follows:

– For light vehicles – protection from fire from heavy machine guns, anti-tank rifles and 37 mm cannons at a distance of 600 meters or more, that is, 20–25 mm thick;

– For medium tanks – protection from fire from 37 mm guns at all distances, from fire from 47 mm guns – at distances of 800 meters or more, that is, a thickness of 40–42 mm;

– For heavy tanks – protection from fire from 47 mm anti-tank guns at all distances, that is, a thickness of at least 60 mm. At the same time, the possibility of further modernization with increasing the reservation by one level was specifically discussed.

However, judging by the documents, the speed of tanks still worried the military much more than their armor protection: until the end of 1938, the military and production workers were discussing what kind of cruising tank should be, wheeled or tracked. Although a tank with anti-ballistic armor had already been designed in the USSR - it was the T-46-5 (aka T-111), equipped with 45-mm armor, which was proactively developed at the Kirov Plant (No. 185) in Leningrad on the basis of the new experimental T-46 tank . The new machine attracted the interest of the new head of the State Academic Technical University, but did not go into production due to the complexity and low-tech design. But based on the experience of its testing in 1939, an official decision was made to begin developing tanks with anti-ballistic armor.

As a result, all existing trends converged in the summer of 1939, when the tracked A-32 with 30 mm armor and a 76 mm gun showed almost identical performance characteristics in comparison with its “sibling” - the wheeled-tracked A-20 with 25 mm armor and a 45 mm cannon. After increasing the armor to 45 mm, the A-34 tank appeared, “advance” adopted for service in December 1939, and in May of the following year its mass production began under the designation T-34.

Almost simultaneously - by the autumn of 1939 - heavy tanks of new designs - T-100, SMK and KV - were completed and put into testing. The first two had two turrets with 76-mm and 45-mm cannons and 60 mm of armor; on the last, both guns were installed in one turret, which made it possible to increase the armor to 75 mm.

At the same time, serious changes occurred in the structure of tank forces. In 1938, in anticipation of the transition to new models, tank production was reduced by 25–30%; in August of the same year, mechanized corps were renamed tank corps. As a result of the “Liberation Campaign” in Poland, it was decided to disband the existing tank corps as cumbersome and difficult to control, and instead switch to a brigade system. In the future, it was planned to begin the formation of tank divisions with a regular strength of 275 tanks and 49 armored vehicles. However, this reorganization was not completed before the start of the Finnish War.

The results of the Finnish War were again ambiguous. On the one hand, the first combat test of the experimental still heavy tanks T-100, SMK and KV was considered very successful - the new vehicles were able to withstand dozens of hits from 37-mm anti-tank shells without any damage and freely maneuver on the battlefield several times crossing the line of enemy trenches. On the other hand, it turned out that heavy vehicles could not be used as “leaders” of armadas of light tanks, and there were too few of them for an independent breakthrough. Light tanks were shot en masse by well-camouflaged Finnish anti-tank artillery; in addition, interaction with the infantry was extremely poorly established - the soldiers lay under machine-gun fire and did not follow the tanks.

The conclusion was obvious: a real tank must have anti-ballistic armor and independently lead infantry into battle.

Then came the spring of 1940 and the Wehrmacht's lightning campaign in France, during which tank strike weapons demonstrated their enormous power. Even before the end of the French campaign, at the very beginning of June 1940, the People's Commissariat of Defense ordered the creation of mechanized corps again. Now each corps was to include two tank and one motorized division - 36,080 people, 1,031 tanks, 268 armored vehicles and 358 guns and mortars.

By the end of 1940, nine mechanized corps were created. In June 1941, the Red Army already had 20 mechanized corps, armed with 10,394 tanks - including 1,325 KV and T-34 vehicles. In total, by this time, about 2050 medium and heavy tanks of the new brands - KV and T-34 - had been produced, of which 1475 vehicles were located in the five western border districts.

Mechanized corps were supposed to be a weapon of an independent operation. It was assumed that they could break through the enemy’s defenses themselves, fight his artillery, destroy nearby rear areas and enter the operational space. However, the main way to use armored formations was to enter an already completed breakthrough for the further development of the operation. As he spoke at a meeting of the senior leadership of the Red Army at the end of December 1940 former boss ABTU (who by that time had become the commander of the troops of the Western Special Military District) D. G. Pavlov:

“The tank corps, destroying everything in its path, will lead the motorized infantry and cavalry, and they will be followed by ordinary rifle units with full effort in order to speed up the speed of movement, quickly enter the operational space, capture and firmly hold the territory.”

Here's what it looked like in practice:

“Heavy tanks hit field and anti-tank artillery, medium tanks finish off anti-tank guns and machine guns. All this is done along the way. All units rush to an intermediate assembly area, usually designated after overcoming a tactical depth of 20–25 km. Here the battle formation is quickly adopted, data from all types of reconnaissance is received, and a short order is given in accordance with the situation. If it becomes known that the approaching enemy reserves have occupied the rear defensive zone, then the tank corps will attack it from the flanks and rear with the entire mass of tanks, artillery, and its motorized infantry. The bulk of aviation is rushing against this enemy. In any case, resistance must be broken, because the further course of events, the further development of actions against suitable reserves depends entirely on the speed of breaking the second defensive line. And this speed can always be created only through massive and rapid action by tanks. After breaking through the second defensive line, the third stage begins, which is characterized by the fact that it requires the most decisive and quick actions to defeat suitable reserves and destroy the main enemy group, on the way of whose retreat the mechanized corps will firmly stand and, together with units operating from the front, will destroy the enemy. The main enemy of the mechanized corps is the enemy’s motorized and tank units, which must be destroyed first.”

It is easy to see that tanks in this view are a universal combat weapon - they are the ones who destroy enemy infantry and artillery, as well as enemy tank and motorized units. “A tank is the same artillery, only more accurate, protected from fire and firing direct fire.” Pavlov had spoken before about the fact that tanks themselves are mobile artillery - at a meeting of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to summarize the experience of the Finnish campaign in April 1940. He believed that at least part of the artillery support functions could be taken over by heavy tanks. And Stalin then supported him, declaring that “tanks are moving artillery.”

It is characteristic that in his report Pavlov does not take into account the enemy’s opposition at all and does not mention the possibility of his counterattacks - even when it comes to the task of the mechanized corps “to stand on the escape route and, together with the troops operating from the front, encircle and destroy [the enemy].” Moreover, the report also paid minimal attention to the actions of its motorized units (of which exactly half were in the mechanized corps - four motorized rifle and one motorcycle regiment for five tank regiments). Motorized infantry is only mentioned here as something that goes in close proximity to tanks and sometimes accompanies them in an attack, but has no independent significance. Even the actions of the motorized division of the corps are said to be “can be successfully thrown forward or to the flank to pin down an enemy twice as superior in order to subsequently enable tank divisions to deliver the final blow to completely defeat the enemy.” Motorcycle regiment of the corps should “intercept the enemy’s escape routes, blow up bridges, capture the defile and act to pin down the enemy until the main attack of the corps is prepared”- that is, to conduct reconnaissance and maneuver actions to ensure the main strike.

Thus, in their views on the use of mechanized corps of the 1940 model, the Soviet command considered them to be the main striking force of tanks, and considered motorized infantry as something auxiliary, incapable of independent action without tank support. The tanks themselves were endowed with the features of a superweapon, capable of solving all the problems of defeating the enemy at once. D. G. Pavlov himself in his report spoke about the need to take with you into an offensive operation only the minimum required amount of transport with fuel, ammunition, food, stipulating that “All other traffic must be brought down and left in the original area. It must be loaded with fuel and fire supplies and at the first opportunity ready to move to join the mechanized corps.” Other theorists went even further. Thus, I. Sukhov wrote in 1940:

“Technical means, even artillery, in order not to deprive the troops introduced into the breakthrough of their main property - mobility, are assigned to the extent of extreme necessity. Artillery support is being replaced by aviation support. For the same purpose, one should not clutter up mobile troops with the rear. If possible, it is necessary to make extensive use of local resources (except for ammunition), and in some cases organize, at least partially, the supply of mobile troops with the help of aviation.”

On the contrary, the German command had a completely different view of the combat use of mobile mechanized formations and formations. Back in 1937, in the book “Attention, Tanks!” G. Guderian said: “Interaction with other branches of the military is absolutely necessary for the armored forces, since they, like all other troops, are not able to independently solve all the tasks assigned to them without exception. Interoperability requirements impose certain obligations on armored units, just as they do on other branches of the military, especially if they are intended for constant interaction.”

Later, in his work “Tanks - Forward,” summarizing the experience of German armored forces in World War II, Guderian wrote about the interaction of military branches in a tank formation as follows: “This interaction can be compared to an orchestra in which various instruments can perform a concerto in its entirety only under the general guidance of a conductor. Depending on the nature of the work, first one or other instruments come to the fore... In open areas, especially in the desert, tanks not only set the tone, but also perform an important solo part. On rough terrain with various obstacles, they fade into the background or temporarily do not play any role at all. In these conditions, motorized infantry and sappers come to the fore. Only the bass of the artillery is heard everywhere, sometimes reaching a crescendo.”

However, back in 1937, he characterized the importance of motorized infantry in armored units with the following aphoristic phrase:

“The task of the infantry or, even better, motorized riflemen is to immediately use the influence of the tank attack to move forward as quickly as possible and with their own actions complete the capture of the area captured by tanks and clear it of the enemy[emphasis added– V.G. ].»

From here it is clearly seen that the German armored forces were initially, even during the process of their construction, created as a finely balanced instrument, having as its main task the same as the infantry: occupying territory, or more precisely, key objects on it, control of which puts the enemy at a disadvantage and leads to his destruction. All other tank tasks were subordinated to achieving this goal.

At the same time, Soviet military leaders, fascinated by tank power, viewed mechanized troops as a means of directly defeating the enemy, destroying his manpower and equipment. Motorized infantry and even artillery attached to the mechanized corps played a subordinate role in this view; tanks were seen as the main means of achieving success.

But the need for special elaboration of motorized infantry tactics was emphasized by K. B. Kalinovsky. In 1931, shortly before his death, he noted:

“In general, it turns out, strange as it may seem, that a motorized formation... equipped with appropriate reconnaissance means, has greater independence than a similar mechanized formation... [But] from the point of view of offensive capabilities, the offensive ability of a mechanized formation is higher than that of a motorized one... The ability to hold terrain with a motorized one the connection is complete, but for a mechanized formation this ability will be almost zero, the strength of a mechanized formation will be in movement and in fire.”

“Thus, this [mechanized] formation will be characterized by high mobility to the battlefield, limited maneuverability, and sufficient ability to hold terrain.”

Alas, ten years later these words were forgotten. The Soviet military leadership viewed mechanized corps solely as an offensive weapon - forgetting that to achieve success it was not enough to capture a position, it was also necessary to hold it. This can be seen from a simple comparison of the states of Soviet and German armored formations. The German tank divisions of 1941 had a large number of motorized infantry - about 7,000 men in five battalions out of a total division strength of 13,700 men. It is characteristic that before the Polish campaign of 1939 there were more tanks in the division (about 300 versus 150–200), but there were only 2,850 motorized infantry. The experience of two maneuver campaigns brought considerable experience to the Wehrmacht, but the Red Army did not have such experience. Therefore, the Soviet tank division in 1940 had 10,940 people, but for 375 tanks in eight tank battalions there were only three motorized infantry battalions totaling about 3,000 people, as well as only 2,000 small arms. Against 2,100 cars and 1,300 motorcycles (half of them with sidecars) in the German tank division, we had only 1,360 vehicles in the tank division and 1,540 in the motorized division. At the same time, only the divisions in the mechanized corps of the formation approached full-time strength, and most of them did not even have the specified number of vehicles. The mechanized corps were also not equipped with anti-tank artillery; only on May 14, 1941, the leadership of the ABTU of the Red Army decided to equip the incomplete tank regiments of the late formation mechanized corps with 45-mm and 76-mm mechanized guns for use as anti-tank guns.

* * *

Total number of tanks, available in the Red Army by June 22, 1941, still serves as a reason for much speculation. This is especially true when comparing the number of Soviet tanks with the number of German ones. However, the matter was not as simple as it seems at first glance.

It is known that from 1928 to June 21, 1941, Soviet industry produced about 30 thousand tanks, wedges and vehicles based on them, of which approximately 500 vehicles were delivered abroad (Spain, China and Turkey). There were a little less than a thousand cars irrevocably lost during various military operations (including about 600 during the Finnish War). A small number of tanks and wedges were captured during the Polish campaign, as well as when the Baltic republics joined the USSR; some of these tanks were subsequently put into service with the Red Army.

According to data published by historians N. Zolotov and I. Isaev in 1993, as of June 1941 there were 23,106 tanks in the Red Army. That is, of all the tanks produced over 12 years (including 959 MS-1, 1627 double-turret T-26 and 7330 T-27, T-37A and T-38 tankettes), only about five thousand were written off due to wear and tear.

There are other numbers too. Thus, the well-known reference book “Classified as Classified” speaks of 22.6 thousand Red Army tanks in June 1941. On the contrary, M. Meltyukhov in his book “Stalin’s Missed Chance” gives a table of the number of tanks by military district, compiled according to RGASPI data, from which it follows that on June 1, 1941, the Red Army had as many as 25,479 tanks, of which 881 were in warehouses and repair bases tank.

In the second volume of the fundamental research “Domestic armored vehicles. XX Century" contains a more detailed version of the table given by Meltyukhov, which differs in a number of numbers - it follows from it that taking into account warehouses, repair bases and all other storage places, on June 1, 1941, the Red Army had 25,850 tanks, of which 42 were in warehouses, and 629 is generally unclear where (column “impersonal”). However, from the same table it is clear that not only combat vehicles were taken into account, but all equipment manufactured at the tank base - including tractors, ARVs, engineer tanks, transporters, teletanks and various experimental vehicles. In addition, the total figure included 1,132 T-38 tanks, 2,318 T-37 tanks and 2,493 T-27 tankettes, an analogue of the French Renault UE. When comparing the tank fleet of the USSR with the tank fleet of Germany, these vehicles, naturally, should not be taken into account - the Germans simply did not have them, and their combat value was very low. Moreover, according to the order of the NKO of the USSR No. 0349 of December 10, 1940, all T-27 tanks were withdrawn from rifle formations and transferred to battalions of medium and heavy tanks for tactical exercises (in order to preserve the materiel of the new vehicles) - that is, they were no longer used as combat tanks cars. Thus, it can be assumed that the discrepancy in numbers is caused mainly by the incorrect registration of T-27 tankettes as combat vehicles - whereas by the summer of 1941 they were just training equipment.

Apparently, the most reliable and definitive source of information on the number of Soviet tanks should be considered the document given in the appendices to this publication - the report of the head of the Main Armored Directorate to the Main Military Council of the Red Army on the state of provision of armored vehicles and transport equipment to the Red Army on June 1, 1941. According to him, at that time the Red Army had a total of 23,268 tanks and wedges in service, of which 4,721 T-37, T-38 and double-turret T-26 vehicles were armed only with rifle-caliber machine guns.

Number of combat-ready tanks in the Red Army as of June 1941 also remains the subject of fierce debate. In the Red Army, tanks were divided into four categories according to their condition. According to data first published back in 1961, of the number of vehicles of old brands, only 27% were combat-ready (1st and 2nd categories), another 44% of tanks required medium repairs in district workshops (3rd category), and 29 % – overhaul at tank industry factories (4th category). However, in the already mentioned work of N. Zolotov and I. Isaev, completely different figures are given - 80.9% of serviceable tanks of all brands and 19.1% of vehicles requiring medium and major repairs (including those in NPO warehouses and repair bases). In the border districts, the number of faulty vehicles was 17.5% of the total number of tanks, and in the internal districts - 21.8%.

It is possible that over time these figures will also be refuted by someone, and on the basis of equally rigorous archival sources. Note that even in aviation (where aircraft become obsolete and are written off much more often), the percentage of fully serviceable aircraft has always been much lower than 80.9% of the staff. One of the possible explanations for such a striking discrepancy between documents and reality is the traditional love for exaggerated reporting in our Fatherland. For example, reports from the troops in June 1941 indicate that many tanks that passed average and even major renovation, in reality they still turned out to be ineffective. Another example: according to the report of the commander of the 8th Mechanized Corps, Lieutenant General D. Ryabyshev, of the 932 tanks of the corps, 197 vehicles required factory (that is, major) repairs - and this is already 21.1% of the corps’ regular composition. Finally, we have already seen that the data given by Zolotov and Isaev did not take into account some of the cars available in the districts; it is possible that they were initially classified as 5th category - as scrap metal...

It should be noted that in order to recognize a vehicle as “in need of repair” (that is, belonging to the 3rd or 4th categories), according to NKO order No. 0283 of October 24, 1940, a decision of a special technical commission was necessary, the act of which was approved by the unit commander. This commission did not operate constantly, and something could generally fall outside its attention.

One way or another, by June 1941, there were 12,780 tanks and wedges in the five western military districts, of which no more than 10.5 thousand were operational. Among them were 469 KV and 850 T-34 tanks, 51 five-turret T-35 and 424 three-turret T-28. From May 31 to June 21, the factories shipped and sent to the troops another 41 KV and 238 T-34, but we do not know how many of them reached the border.

How many tanks did the enemy have at that moment? In total, up to June 1941, about 7,500 tanks were produced in Germany. In addition, a significant amount of armored vehicles were captured in France in 1940. The exact number of trophies is unknown, since there was no centralized recording of them.

How many tanks the Wehrmacht had in total by June 1941 is also not entirely clear. Müller-Hillebrant calls the figure 5640 tanks, M. Meltyukhov (with reference to the work of F. Khan) - 6292 tanks. Thus, the percentage of decommissioned and lost tanks in the Wehrmacht turned out to be almost the same as in the Red Army - 16 versus 14. But Soviet tanks were mass produced since 1930, while German ones - since 1936, that is, for the most part they were significantly newer…

The situation is a little simpler with tanks concentrated against the Soviet Union. The classic work of B. Müller-Hillebrand “German Land Army. 1933–1945” states that there were 17 tank divisions on the Soviet border, which included approximately 3,330 tanks, and about 250 more vehicles in the assault gun divisions. In addition, there were about 350 tanks in two OKH reserve tank divisions (2nd and 5th) assigned to the Eastern Front.

Since then, the figure 3580 + 350 has been repeated many times on the pages of various studies seeking to emphasize the multiple superiority of Soviet tank forces over German ones. To complete the picture, some “researchers” compared (and continue to compare) it not with the number of Soviet tanks on the western border, but with the total number of tanks in the USSR - 23-25 ​​thousand vehicles.

However, the second volume of Müller-Hillebrandt's work, from which the above data is taken, was first published in Frankfurt am Main back in 1956. And since then, many new studies have appeared that seriously correct the above figures.

So, for example, it turned out that Müller-Hillebrandt somewhere lost 160 tanks 35 (t) from the 6th Panzer Division of the 4th Panzer Group of Gepner - he has these vehicles listed in the Wehrmacht, but they are not listed on the Eastern Front at all.

In addition, the German troops in Northern Finland included two tank battalions silently mentioned by Müller-Hillebrant - the 40th and 211th, the latter was equipped with captured French tanks R-39 and H-39, and used French tanks as command vehicles. aka Somua S-35. In total, these battalions consisted of about 120 tanks. In addition, three battalions of flamethrower tanks were allocated for the Eastern Front - the 100th, 101st and 102nd, in total they had 173 tanks, with the last battalion consisting of heavy French B-1bis vehicles (24 flamethrowers and 6 conventional linear ) - so, contrary to popular belief, the Germans had heavy tanks on the Eastern Front. Müller-Hillebrandt also mentions flamethrower tanks, but in the column of their number on the Eastern Front there is a modest question mark...

Müller-Hillebrand also names the number of tanks in 17 German tank divisions on the Eastern Front (excluding two RGK divisions) - 3266 vehicles. But this is not true - only vehicles of tank regiments are taken into account here, without the “pioneer” battalions, which also had tanks. In total, 17 divisions had 3,470 vehicles, but if we add here the five separate tank battalions mentioned above, we already get 3,763 tanks.

Another view armored vehicles The Wehrmacht were assault and self-propelled guns. Assault guns in the Wehrmacht were reduced to separate divisions and batteries, and sometimes were assigned to elite motorized formations. In total, by June 1, 1941, there were 357 StuG.III in the East in thirteen divisions (184th, 185th, 190th, 191st, 192nd, 197th, 203rd, 201st, 21st 0th, 226th, 243rd, 244th and 245th) and five separate batteries, as well as in three batteries of assault guns of the motorized SS divisions “Reich” and “Totenkopf”, Leibstandarte (motorized brigade) SS " Adolf Hitler", motorized regiment "Greater Germany" and the 900th motorized training brigade. As we see, the indicated number is one and a half times greater than what follows from Muller-Hillebrandt.

As for self-propelled guns, they were represented by a heavy 150-mm infantry gun on the chassis of the Pz.I tank and a 47-mm Panzer-jager.I anti-tank self-propelled gun on the same carriage. By the beginning of the war in the East, there were 36 of these first vehicles (in six tank divisions) and 175 “Panzerjagers” in five anti-tank divisions of the RGK (521st, 529th, 616th, 643rd and 670th) and two companies - in the 900th training brigade and in the Life Standard.

From captured vehicles, in addition to the 102nd battalion of flamethrower tanks and the 211th tank battalion in Finland, it is known about the presence in the East of three anti-tank divisions (559th, 561st and 611th), equipped with 47-mm guns mounted on database of captured French vehicles. In total, there were 91 vehicles - that is, only 302 self-propelled guns of three types instead of the “about 250” indicated by Muller-Hillebrandt. What is characteristic is that he correctly indicates the number of anti-tank divisions with “panzerjagers” – eight. Here you can also add 15 Somua S-35 tanks, which were part of the landing brigades of armored trains Nos. 26–31.

In addition, very little is known about the 37-mm anti-tank self-propelled guns converted from captured French Renault UE tankette tractors (analogous to our T-27). In December 1940, a decision was made to convert 700 of these self-propelled guns (out of 1,200 available in the Wehrmacht); they were to be supplied to anti-tank units of infantry divisions. There are photographs of these vehicles on the territory of the Soviet Union dating back to the summer of 1941 - but there are no further details.

Thus, in total we have reliable information about 4436 tanks and self-propelled guns available in the German invasion army. Taking into account the two tank divisions of the RGK, we get about 4800 tanks.

To this number it is worth adding tanks of the German allies. Romania had the most serious tank forces. The 1st Tank Regiment, which was part of the 1st Tank Division, was armed with 126 Czech LT-35s (aka German 35(t), in Romanian army designated as R-2). The 2nd Tank Regiment, operating as part of the 3rd Army Corps of the 4th Romanian Army, consisted of 76 French R-35s - partly purchased, partly inherited from the Poles in 1939. In addition, from the same Poles, the Romanians received several dozen TKS wedges. In four cavalry brigades there were 35 Czech R-1 light machine-gun tanks (purchased from the Czechs AH-IVR), and in other units (mostly training) - 76 Renault FT, including 48 cannon and 28 machine gun.

Since the late 1930s, Renault UE wedges (Romanian name for Malaxa) were produced in Bucharest under a French license; some of these vehicles were given to the Romanians by the Germans after the surrender of France. In total, as of June 1941, there were about 180 of them, all of them were used as tractors for 37 mm anti-tank guns. In total, Romania had about 500 armored vehicles, of which 237 tanks and up to 200 wedges were used at the front.

At the beginning of the new war with the USSR, Finland had about 140 tanks and tankettes, of which the troops (tank battalion of the 1st Jaeger Brigade of Colonel Lagus) had 118 vehicles - 2 medium, 74 light and 42 machine-gun tankettes.

Hungary, having declared war on the Soviet Union on June 26, sent limited forces to the front - the so-called “Mobile Corps”, which included 60 Toldi light tanks and 95 37M tankettes - Italian CV 3/35. Slovakia also sent a small motorized group (“Piflusek’s group”) - at the end of June it had 62 light tanks (45 LT-35, 10 LT-38, 7 LT-40). You can also remember Italy, which sent one tank battalion with L6 light vehicles to the Eastern Front - 61 pieces.

In total, all of Germany's allies fielded about 500 tanks and over 300 tankettes against the USSR. In total, the Axis forces concentrated against the Soviet Union had about 5.5 thousand tanks by the end of June 1941. Thus, the “multiple” superiority of the Soviet tank armadas in fact turns into only twofold!

To understand what this meant in practice, it is necessary to compare other figures - the total number of opposing factions, the number of artillery, aircraft, automobiles and horse-drawn vehicles.

In principle, most of this data is not secret. In order not to go into a lengthy comparison of figures and sources, we present data from the official publication:

Notes:

* Including Finnish, Romanian and Hungarian troops - 900 thousand people, 5,200 guns and mortars, 260 tanks, 980 combat aircraft, 15 warships of the main classes.

** Including 12,135 50-mm mortars, 5,975 anti-aircraft guns.

*** Of these, 469 are KB tanks and 832 are T-34.

The given figures require some comments. In the work of B. Müller-Hillebrandt, already mentioned above, “German Land Army”, the number of German troops allocated for the Eastern campaign is estimated at 3,300,000 people (out of a total armed forces of 7,234,000 people). The 4th volume of the official German publication “The Third Reich in the Second World War” clarifies: in addition to the ground forces, 650,000 people were allocated from the Air Force and 100,000 from the Navy - therefore, the German army sent a total of 4,050,000 people. For some reason, the SS troops are not taken into account here (according to Müller-Hillebrandt they numbered 150,000 people), most of which were on the Eastern Front.

Romania, which entered the war at the same time as Germany, fielded about 360,000 people, Finland - 340,000, Hungary and Slovakia - 45 thousand people each. The total is about 800 thousand. Finnish aviation had 307 combat aircraft, almost all of them were thrown against the USSR. Romania had 620 combat aircraft, of which about 300 were sent to the front. Hungary had 363 combat aircraft, of which 145 aircraft took part in hostilities in the first two weeks of the war . The Slovak Air Force consisted of 120 aircraft, of which about 50 were sent to the front. As we can see, the official directory of the Russian Ministry of Defense noticeably (by 10%) overestimated the number of enemy troops - but underestimated the number of tanks it had by about the same amount.

However, many modern historians do not agree with the given number of Soviet troops. M. Meltyukhov, based on data from the statistical reference book “Combat and numerical strength of the Armed Forces of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War” Patriotic War", States that "grouping of Soviet troops on the western borders" was much larger - it amounted to 3289 thousand people.

In this case, we are dealing with direct forgery. The italicized phrase implies that the troops stationed on the border and who took part in the Border Battle are taken into account. Meanwhile, M. Meltyukhov includes in his calculations not only 153,608 people in the NKVD troops and 215,878 in the Navy, but also 201,619 people, 1,763 tanks and 2,746 guns and mortars in those formations that, at the beginning of the war, were transferred to the West from central and eastern districts. Moreover, here the author of “Stalin’s Lost Chance”, by force of will, reduced the German group by 488 thousand people and 359 tanks, which were allocated for the campaign, but did not go in the first echelon, being in the operational reserve or as part of the RGK. The result is amazing figures: belligerent Germany, preparing the attack in advance, involved 49% of its armed forces in it, while the USSR managed to pull 57% of its armed forces to the border - at the end of July, together with the fleet and NKVD troops, numbering 5,774,211 Human.

The reason for this aberration is simple - the border districts (Leningrad, Baltic, Western, Kiev and Odessa) extended far into the interior of the country, and not all the troops in them were combat troops. Here were located rear and transport structures, warehouses and administrative institutions, training and reserve units - in a word, everything that in the Third Reich was under the department of the Reserve Army, the Todt Organization, internal structures of the ground forces, navy and air force, and at the first stage " Barbarossa" was not involved in any way. The analogue of the NKVD troops in Germany was the Felgendarmerie and security service (SD) units - but they, like the border troops, were naturally not reflected in the “invasion army”. German formations of the RGK, even those listed in the second echelon, were part of strike groups and, after them, advanced into the territory of the Soviet Union in full readiness for battle - while the units of the Red Army transferred to the West from the internal districts were still far from the border and even in Given the extremely difficult situation, the bulk of them were able to enter into battle only by mid-July - when the Border Battle had long ended.

BT-7 stuck in a swamp and abandoned. Southwestern Front, June 1941

An even more interesting picture emerges if we try to figure out the degree of mobility of the opposing armies - that is, the level of their equipment with vehicles. In this regard, Müller-Hillebrant is very stingy - he only briefly mentions that the army in the East had about half a million cars. The number of vehicles in the Red Army as of June 22, 1941 is well known - 272,600 cars and motorcycles of all types (see Appendix to this collection). Based on the distribution of troops by district, it is unlikely that more than half of them were in the West.

In general, it can be stated that during the Border Battle, which unfolded in the first two weeks of the war and largely determined the further course of hostilities, the balance of forces was as follows. The Red Army outnumbered the enemy twice in tanks, but was at least one and a half, or even two times inferior to him in terms of manpower. The number of artillery on both sides was approximately equal, but the greater level of motorization of the German artillery should be taken into account.

Let's conduct a thought experiment: reduce the opposing armies to two proportionally equipped units. With approximately the same amount of artillery (8-10 guns of different calibers), a Soviet detachment of 500 people will have two tanks and one car, and will even be scattered over a large area. The German detachment, already concentrated for the attack, will have 800 people, only one tank, but three or four cars. It is clear that the outcome of the collision will not be decided by the tank, even if it turns out to be a mighty KV...

* * *

However, the characteristics of tanks are also important, so we’ll try to understand them too. Again, we often hear that the Germans could not put up anything against the Soviet T-34 and KV, and their Pz.III and Pz.VI in terms of combat qualities can only be compared with the T-26 and BT.

Alas, this is far from the case. The T-26 tank was descended from the British Vickers six-ton ​​tank, which appeared in 1926. It was adopted by the Red Army in 1931, and in 1933 it received a turret with a 45-mm cannon mod. 1932/34 (20-K), which traced its origins to the 19-K anti-tank gun. This same gun, in turn, came from the German 37-mm anti-tank gun from Rheinmetall - so Soviet and German tank and anti-tank guns of 37 and 45 mm caliber can be considered “cousins”; they had similar weight, rate of fire and armor penetration, differing only in the higher high-explosive effect of the 45-mm projectile.

The BT-5 and BT-7 tanks, based on the designs of the American engineer Christie, were armed with the same 45-mm cannon. Both tanks had 15 mm armor, only on the BT-7 its frontal part was increased to 20 mm. However, if the “infantry” T-26 with its 90-horsepower engine developed a speed of 35 km/h on the highway and 15 km/h on the country road and had a range of 170 km, then the wheeled-tracked BT was a cruising vehicle - with an engine from 365 to 450 hp Even on tracks, it could easily reach 50 km/h on the highway, and up to 35 km/h on a country road. Alas, during tests in 1940, the German Pz.III, having a formally weaker engine (320 hp), overtook both the T-34 and BT-7. It is worth mentioning that in the order of the NKO of the USSR dated December 11, 1938 on combat and political training of troops for 1939, it was recommended to increase the average marching speed of BT battalions to 20 km/h, and for other vehicles (that is, T-26 and T-28) – up to 14 km/h.

In September 1939, during the “Liberation Campaign” in Eastern Poland, Soviet troops, among other trophies, received two German tanks - a “deuce” and a “troika”. When firing at a Pz.III from a Soviet 45-mm tank gun, it turned out that even from a distance of 400 meters and at an angle of 30° to the normal, the 32-mm frontal armor of a German tank was penetrated by only 40% of armor-piercing shells, and at a greater distance or sharper angle hits they bounce off or ricochet. Specialists from the NIIBT test site came to the conclusion that “German cemented armor with a thickness of 32 mm is equal to 42–44 mm of homogeneous armor of the IZ type.”

Thus, the 45-mm cannons of Soviet tanks could only be dangerous for the 15-mm armor of the German Pz.I and Pz.II. Even the “Czech” 38 (t), starting with modification E, already had 50 mm frontal armor, so it was invulnerable to “forty-fives” at distances of half a kilometer or more. But the armor of the T-26 and BT penetrated everyone German guns, starting with the 20-mm KwK 30 assault rifle, whose armor-piercing projectile “took” 25 mm from a distance of 300 meters. Therefore, for BT vehicles, the main protection remained speed and maneuverability, but for the T-26 there was no protection at all - by 1941 these vehicles were hopelessly outdated. They could only be saved by shielding, which increased the weight to 13 tons and finally “eaten up” the already not brilliant performance characteristics.

Moreover, even the newest T-34 could not feel reliably protected. The sub-caliber projectile of the new German 50-mm anti-tank gun Pak 38 (in the tank version - KwK 38) at a distance of 500 meters pierced 78 millimeters of homogeneous armor, a conventional armor-piercing projectile - up to 50-60 mm. True, the enemy regiment did not have very many such guns - six in each infantry division and 9 in the tank division. However, by the end of June, the Germans managed to rearm most of their Pz.IIIs with these guns. At least about half of the KVs knocked out in battle were caused by 50-mm guns. And besides them, there were also 105-mm cannons (not to be confused with howitzers of the same caliber), and finally, the famous 88-mm anti-aircraft guns. The latter were in service exclusively with the Luftwaffe and were assigned to field troops only under operational subordination. Oddly enough, in terms of anti-tank warfare, this whim of Goering turned out to be extremely useful - the “flaks” were not dispersed among the units, but were subordinate to the divisional authorities and could be thrown into a tank-hazardous direction at any moment. Do not forget that all of the German artillery described above was motorized and therefore distinguished by high mobility - something that Soviet artillery could not boast of.

* * *

Let's summarize what has been said. The German tank divisions of 1941 were a well-functioning instrument of maneuver warfare, capable of seizing territory and holding it until motorized and then infantry units arrived. At the same time, German tank formations were able to effectively fight most Soviet tanks, using both tank and anti-tank weapons. In principle, German tank crews sought to avoid collisions with enemy combat vehicles: until 1943, anti-tank defense in the Wehrmacht was assigned to infantry units and anti-tank fighter divisions. However, this was not caused by the Germans realizing the vulnerability of their armored vehicles, as is commonly believed, but simply by the desire to use tanks more effectively for their inherent tasks elsewhere.

On the contrary, Soviet tank divisions could deliver powerful attacks - but even in the event of a successful offensive, they were not able to establish control over the captured territory and organize reliable defense on occupied lines without the support of rifle formations. Tank divisions equipped with old armored vehicles (and these were still the majority) were unable to fight the German Pz.III, Pz.IV and StuG.III vehicles, which made up about half of the enemy’s armored vehicles. At the same time, even the newest Soviet T-34s remained quite vulnerable to German tank and anti-tank artillery. The only machine that was qualitatively superior to all German analogues was the KV. Alas, it was a purely breakthrough machine, not a maneuver warfare machine; in terms of the technique of its use, the KV did not fit well into the concept of operations of the mechanized units of the Red Army that existed by 1941.

Thus, having spent enormous effort and money on creating tank armadas, the Soviet leadership received bulky, unbalanced formations that were of little use for carrying out real combat missions. Modern historians often repeat the mistake of the leaders of the Red Army of the late 1930s - forgetting that the queen of the fields is, after all, the infantry, and no one else. Given the appropriate means, infantry can more or less successfully fight tanks - but tanks are not at all designed to destroy infantry! Tanks can and should make a successful maneuver and disorganize the enemy’s defenses, but the task of destroying the defeated enemy will still fall on the rifle units.

And there was no longer enough time or money to train the rifle units of the Red Army and give them proper mobility. There could not be enough of them - after all, the Soviet Union began mobilization later, and in industrial terms it was significantly inferior to Germany. But even in the Wehrmacht, the number of mobile units was determined not by the desire of the ABTU and NPOs, but by the availability of the required number of vehicles. Forgetting the theoretical developments of the late 20s and lacking proper practical experience, the leadership of the Red Army chased a chimera and spent the efforts of the not very powerful Soviet industry on building a huge number of tanks, ignoring other combat vehicles. When the tank fleet of the 30s became outdated, everything started anew...

And the situation was very bad with the means of communication and control of mobile units and with the trained command staff for them.

If we gather around a round table Military historians from different countries and ask them a question about which tank battle was the greatest in the world, then the answers will be different... A historian of the Soviet school, of course, will name KURSK ARC , there the number of tanks and self-propelled guns, according to average data, was from the Red Army - 3444 , from the Wehrmacht - 2733 combat vehicles. ( Although the figures given by different researchers are given with such a spread that it is not easy to even average, we can only mention that even in our sources, our losses in tanks vary by 100% ).

The Israeli will say that it was Yom Kippur War in October 1973. Then on the Northern Front 1200 Syrian tanks attacked 180 Israeli, and lost at the same time 800 . And on the Southern Front 500 The Egyptians fought against 240 IDF tanks. (The Egyptians were luckier than the Syrians, they lost only 200 tanks). Then hundreds of Iraqi vehicles arrived (according to some sources - up to 1500 ) and everything started to spin to the fullest. In total, during this conflict, the Israelis lost 810 armored vehicles, and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Algeria and Cuba - 1775 cars But, as I said above, the data in different sources varies greatly.

Well, in real life such a battle took place on June 23-27, 1941 - the largest tank battle in the history of the War took place in the area of ​​Dubno, Lutsk and Rivne. In this battle, six Soviet mechanized corps faced a German tank group.

It really was largest tank battle in world history , which lasted a week. More than four thousand tanks mixed in a fiery whirlwind... On the Brody-Rovno-Lutsk section, the Soviet 8th, 9th, 15th, 19th, 22nd and 4th mechanized corps and the German 11th mechanized corps collided. 13th, 14th, 16th and 9th tank divisions.

According to averaged data from various sources, the balance of forces was as follows...

Red Army:

The 8th, 9th, 15th, 19th, 22nd corps consisted of 33 KV-2, 136 KV-1, 48 T-35, 171 T-34, 2,415 T-26, OT -26, T-27, T-36, T-37, BT-5, BT-7. In total - 2,803 combat vehicles. [Military Historical Journal, N11, 1993]. West of Brody, their flank was covered by the 4th Mechanized Corps, which was the most powerful of the then mechanized corps of the Red Army and the whole World. It contained 892 tanks, of which 89 KV-1 and 327 T-34. On June 24, the 8th Tank Division (325 tanks, including 50 KV and 140 T-34s as of June 22) from its composition was reassigned to the 15th Mechanized Corps.

TOTAL: 3,695 tanks

VERMACHT:

In the 4 German tank divisions that formed the backbone of the Wehrmacht tank group, there were 80 Pz-IV, 195 Pz-III (50mm), 89 Pz-III (37mm), 179 Pz-II, 42 BefPz. (commander), and on June 28 in The 9th German Tank Division entered the battle, this also includes 20 Pz-IV, 60 Pz-III (50mm), 11 Pz-III (37mm), 32 Pz-II, 8 Pz-I, 12 Bef-Pz).

TOTAL: 628 tanks

By the way, Soviet tanks were mostly either no worse than German ones, or superior to them in armor and caliber. Otherwise, look at the comparison table below. The numbers are given by gun caliber and frontal armor.

This battle was preceded by an appointment June 23, 1941 ., Georgy Zhukov , member of the Headquarters Supreme High Command. It was as a representative of the Headquarters on the Southwestern Front that Army General G.K. Zhukov organized this counterattack. Moreover, his position was very comfortable. On the one hand, he was a representative of Headquarters and could give any order, and on the other, M.P. Kirponos, I.N. Muzychenko and M.I. Potapov were responsible for everything.

Experienced wolves of war confronted our generals Gerd von Rundstedt And Ewald von Kleist . The first to attack the flanks of the enemy group were the 22nd, 4th and 15th mechanized corps. Then the 9th, 19th and 8th mechanized corps, advanced from the 2nd echelon of the front, were introduced into the battle. By the way, the 9th Mechanized Corps was commanded by the future Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky, released from prison a year ago. He immediately showed himself to be a knowledgeable and proactive commander. When he realized that the motorized division under his command could only follow... on foot, Rokossovsky, at his own peril and risk, took all the vehicles from the district reserve in Shepetovka, and there were almost two hundred of them, put infantry on them and moved them like motorized infantry them in front of the body. The approach of his units to the Lutsk region saved the aggravated situation there. They stopped the enemy tanks that broke through there.

The tankers fought like heroes, sparing neither their strength nor their lives, but the poor organization of the High Command brought everything to naught. Units and formations entered the battle after a 300-400 km march in parts, without being able to wait for the complete concentration of forces and the arrival of combined arms support formations. The equipment on the march broke down, and there was no normal communication. And orders from front headquarters drove them forward. And all the time German aircraft were hovering over them. Here, the consequences of stupidity or betrayal of those responsible for aviation in this theater of operations were felt. Just before the war, most of the front-line airfields began to be modernized, and numerous aircraft were assembled at the few remaining suitable sites, and there was an order to place the planes wing to wing, supposedly for better protection from saboteurs. At dawn on June 22, 1941, this oil painting "Junkersam" I really liked it, but our aviation has greatly decreased in number.

And the saboteurs from the regiment "Brandenburg" these measures, by the way, did not interfere at all. Well, front-line air defense was then generally in its infancy in the Red Army. So, even before entering the battle with German ground units, our tanks suffered heavy losses from air raids. How many of our 7,500 aircraft died without taking off is still a mystery, shrouded in darkness. And German air defense was used very competently, although not quite standardly. Von Rundstedt and Von Kleist remembered how Guderian came up with the idea of ​​bringing the FlaK 88 into battle formations. Although the armor of the Russian KV monsters was much thicker than the French boxes, the anti-aircraft guns (albeit not from a kilometer away like Renault) were quite able to stop the Russian tanks, although they could knock out the KV with Almost no one succeeded in the first projectile.

On June 26, the 9th and 19th mechanized corps from the Lutsk region, Rivne, and the 8th and 15th from the Brody region attacked the flanks of the German group that broke through to Lutsk and Dubno. Units of the 19th Mechanized Corps pushed back the 11th Nazi Panzer Division 25 km. However, as a result of weak interaction between the 9th and 19th mechanized corps and the slow reaction to the rapidly changing combat situation of the front headquarters, our advancing tanks were forced to stop by the end of June 27 and retreat to Rivne, where tank battles continued until June 29. The actions of the 8th Mechanized Corps were more successful: on June 26, it, having defeated enemy troops north of Brody, advanced 20 km. But then the Headquarters woke up, and due to the aggravated situation near Dubno, on June 27, the 8th Mechanized Corps was given a new task - to strike from Berestechko in the direction of Dubno. And then the Soviet tank crews behaved like heroes, completely defeating units of the 16th Panzer Division, the corps fought 40 km, liberated Dubno and went to the rear of the 3rd German Motorized Corps. But the command was unable to provide the corps with fuel and ammunition, and their offensive capabilities were exhausted. By this time, the German command introduced an additional 7 divisions into the battle in the Rivne direction.

And near Ostrog, parts of the 5th Mechanized Corps and the 37th Rifle Corps received orders to stop the advance of the 11th German Tank Division. But the Germans also sent the 9th Panzer Division to the left flank of the Soviet defense (in the Lvov area). Given the complete superiority of the Luftwaffe in the air, this maneuver fatally destroyed the left flank of the Soviet defense. And the most tragic thing is that by this time the Soviet tanks had almost no ammunition and fuel left.

27th of June combined squad of 34th Panzer Division Under the command of brigade commissar N.K. Popel, in the evening he struck Dubno, captured the rear reserves of the 11th Panzer Division and several dozen intact German tanks, but the 8th Mechanized Corps was unable to come to the rescue and consolidate the success. Popel's detachment remained cut off deep behind enemy lines; at first the tankers took up a perimeter defense in the Dubno area and held out until July 2, and when the shells ran out, destroying the remaining equipment, the detachment began to break out of the encirclement. Having walked along the rear for more than 200 km, Popel’s group reached their own. Nikolai Poppel, by the way, went through the entire war and retired with the rank of lieutenant general of tank forces.

The difficulties of the entire Soviet group developed into a disaster. On the morning of June 29 The 13th Panzerdivision advanced east of Rovno, while Soviet troops withdrew north and south of the city, paralleling the German movement. Soviet tanks were increasingly left without fuel, and German infantry destroyed the remnants of the 12th and 34th Panzer Divisions. On June 30, the 9th Panzer Division attacked the remnants of the 3rd Cavalry Division. She then cut off the 8th and 10th Panzer Divisions, completing their encirclement. By this time, the commander of the 6th Soviet Army ordered all his units to withdraw to positions east of Lvov. And at that time the Germans were gathering parts of the 13th and 14th Panzerdivisions south of Lutsk in order to create a fist for a strike in the direction of Zhitomir and Berdichev.

By July 1, the Soviet mechanized corps of the Southwestern Front were practically destroyed. About 10% of the tanks remained in the 22nd, 15% in the 8th and 15th, and about 30% in the 9th and 19th. The 4th Mechanized Corps under the command of General A.A. Vlasov (the same one) found himself in a slightly better position - he managed to withdraw with about 40% of the tanks.

Bertolt Brecht was right when he said that only bad generals need good soldiers to correct their mistakes with their blood. The total losses in tanks during these days amounted to about 2500 cars This includes both combat and non-combat losses. Moreover, all the tanks - knocked out, stalled, and burned - went to the Germans. And just for Great Patriotic War from 131700 tanks and self-propelled guns, BTV of the Red Army lost 96500 combat units. The Germans, accordingly, lost out of 49,500 BT units 45000 combat units, 75% of them on the Eastern Front. The figures, of course, are taken from various sources and are accurate, taking into account the delta of up to 15%.

The main thing is that our tank crews did not burn in tanks and shed their blood in vain. They delayed the German advance for at least a week; it was precisely this week that the Germans constantly missed.

The headquarters of the Southwestern Front was unable to properly organize the management and supply of the most powerful tank group in the World at that time, and this is precisely the reason for the failure of this operation. And the inspirer and leader of the counteroffensive, Army General G.K. Zhukov, after the tank corps got bogged down and it became clear that the counteroffensive was failing, left for Moscow.

Corps Commissar N.N. Vashugin, a member of the Military Council of the Southwestern Front, shot himself at the end of the battle. He did not prepare, plan or carry out this battle, he did not bear direct blame for the failure, but his conscience did not allow him to do otherwise. After the Crimean shame, Comrade Mehlis did not shoot himself, but blamed everything on Kozlov and Tolbukhin. After the bloody and unsuccessful assault on Grozny, where thousands of boys died, Pasha Mercedes did not reach for his service pistol. Yes... Conscience is a piece of goods.

And to our Heroes Eternal Glory and Eternal Memory. Soldiers win wars.

And now I apologize for the scary photos, my heart hurt when I looked at them, but this is the Truth of History. And let the critics not tell me that I am smoothing over the sharp and unfortunate moments of Military History. True, I am sure that now they will accuse me of praising the Wehrmacht.

APPLICATION

Popel, Nikolai Kirillovich

Military commissar of the 11th mechanized (tank) brigade since 1938. Participated in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939. Until June 3, 1940, military commissar of the 1st Leningrad Artillery School. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, brigade commissar, political commander of the 8th mechanized corps. He led the mobile group of the 8th MK in the battles for Dubno. He fought in the encirclement near Dubno and emerged from the encirclement with part of his troops.

From August 25, 1941 to December 8, 1941, member of the military council of the 38th Army. Since September 1942, military commissar of the 3rd mechanized corps. From January 30, 1943 until the end of the war, member of the military council of the 1st Tank Army (transformed into the 1st Guards Tank Army). After the war he wrote memoirs. The literary critic E.V. Cardin was involved in recording and processing the memoirs of Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces Nikolai Popel. These memories eventually grew into two books: "In difficult times" And "The tanks turned west", which were released in 1959 and 1960, respectively.

88 mm anti-aircraft gun FlaK-18/36/37/41

Of all the artillery systems of the Second World War, perhaps the most famous was the German Flak 36/37 anti-aircraft gun of 88 mm caliber. However, this gun became most famous as an anti-tank weapon. Project of a semi-automatic anti-aircraft gun of 88 mm caliber with high initial speed The projectile was developed at the Krupp factories in 1928. In order to overcome the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty, all work on the production of samples was carried out at the Swedish Bofors factories, with which Krupp had bilateral agreements. The gun was put into production at the Krupp factories in 1933; after Hitler came to power, Germany openly spat on the Treaty of Versailles.

The prototype of the Flak 36 was the Flak 18 anti-aircraft gun of the same caliber, developed back in the First World War and mounted on a four-wheeled towed platform. It was originally designed exclusively as an anti-aircraft gun. However, circumstances were such that several Flak 18 guns sent to Spain as part of the legion "Condor", the Germans had to use to protect their own positions from the advancing Republican tanks. This experience was subsequently taken into account when modernizing the new gun, which was produced in two versions, Flak 36 and Flak 37. An important advantage of the guns was the presence of a mechanism for automatically ejecting spent cartridges, which allowed trained personnel to ensure a rate of fire of up to 20 rounds per minute. But in order to load a gun with a 15-kilogram shell every three seconds, each gun needed 11 people, four or five of whom were exclusively engaged in feeding shells. Putting together such a large team in the field was far from easy, and getting the position and gloves of a loader - the one who put the projectile in the gun lock - was a high honor and proof of qualifications.

Basic tactical and technical data:

Gun weight - 7 tons, Caliber - 88 mm, Projectile weight - 9.5 kg,

Ground range - 14500 m,/air range. - 10700 m

Beginning projectile flight speed - 820 m/s, rate of fire - 15-20 rounds per minute.

This battle in the West is called tank Tsushima. In our country it is known as the tank battle of Dubno, Lutsk, Brody.
The largest tank battle at that time. The battle involved 3,300 tanks. 2,500 from our side and 800 from the German side.
The battle took place from June 23 to June 29, 1941. Progress of the battle.
As a result of the offensive of the German Army Group South, by June 23, in the Rovno direction, a gap fifty kilometers wide had formed between the Soviet 5th and 6th armies. Formations of the first tank group under the command of Colonel General Kleist immediately rushed into the gap. There was a threat of a deep breakthrough by German troops and envelopment by them from the north of the main forces of the Southwestern Front.
In order to eliminate this threat and eliminate the enemy strike force, the command of the Southwestern Front organized a counterattack. Combined-arms formations and 6 mechanized corps were brought in to carry out the counterattack.
The first to strike the flanks of the enemy group were the 22.4 and 15th mechanized corps. Then the 9th, 19th and 8th mechanized corps, advanced from the second echelon, were introduced into the battle.
The corps entered the battle after a 200,400-kilometer march in parts, without waiting for the concentration of forces and the approach of combined arms formations. Even on the march, the corps suffered heavy losses from the actions of enemy aircraft. The rear fell behind and the tanks were not properly supplied with ammunition and fuels. Due to the complete superiority of enemy aviation There was no aerial reconnaissance. The mechanized corps fought virtually blindly, which had a detrimental effect in the oncoming battle.
On June 26, 9 and 19 mechanized corps from the Lutsk region, Rivne, and 8 and 15 mechanized corps. corps from the Brody area struck the flanks of the enemy tank group, which had by that time broken through to Lutsk and Dubno. The 19th corps managed to push back the enemy’s 11th tank division 25 kilometers to the South-West. However, due to the enemy’s great superiority in forces and poor interaction with each other The 9th and 19th mechanized corps were forced to retreat to Rivne by the end of June 27. Tank battles continued here until June 29.
The actions of the southern attack group of our troops were more successful. The 8th Mechanized Corps especially distinguished itself. On June 26, it moved 10-20 km, defeating German formations in the area north of Brody. Due to the aggravated situation in the Dubno area, on June 27, the 8th Mechanized Corps was assigned new task: Strike from the Berestechko area in the direction of Dubno.
Having defeated units of the enemy's 16th Panzer Division, the corps moved 30-35 km and entered Dubno. Thus, it found itself in the rear of the enemy's 3rd Motorized Corps. This ended the offensive capabilities of the corps. The Germans introduced 7 fresh divisions into the battle in the Rivne direction.
The counterattack of the Soviet mechanized corps inflicted significant losses on the German troops. It thwarted the plan for the rapid capture of Kiev. It removed the threat of encirclement of the main forces of the Southwestern Front.

Battle of Dubno-Lutsk-Brody- one of the largest tank battles in history, which took place during the Great Patriotic War in June 1941 in the triangle of cities of Dubno-Lutsk-Brody. Also known as the Battle of Brody, the tank battle of Dubno, Lutsk, Rivne, the counterattack of the mechanized corps of the Southwestern Front, etc. Time interval from June 23, 1941 to June 30, 1941. The battle pitted the Soviet 8th, 9th, 15th, 19th, 22nd mechanized corps and the German 11th, 13th, 14th, 16th tank divisions.

22nd of June in these 5 Soviet corps there were 33 KV-2, 136 KV-1, 48 T-35, 171 T-34, 2.415 T-26, OT-26, T-27, T-36, T-37, BT -5, BT-7. A total of 2,803 Soviet tanks. That is, more than a quarter of the tank forces concentrated in the 5 western military districts of the USSR. [Military Historical Journal, N11, 1993] It is also worth noting that the Soviet 4th Mechanized Corps fought west of Brody - the most powerful of the Soviet ones - 892 tanks, of which 89 KV-1 and 327 T-34. On June 24, the 8th Tank Division (325 tanks, including 50 KV and 140 T-34s as of June 22) from its composition was reassigned to the 15th Mechanized Corps.

22nd of June in the opposing 4 German tank divisions there were 80 Pz-IV, 195 Pz-III (50mm), 89 Pz-III (37mm), 179 Pz-II, 42 BefPz. This is about a sixth of all German tanks allocated to the entire Eastern Front. In addition, from June 28, the 9th German Tank Division entered this battle (as of June 22 - 20 Pz-IV, 60 Pz-III (50mm), 11 Pz-III (37mm), 32 Pz-II, 8 Pz- I, 12 Bef-Pz)

(below, for the sake of distinction, Soviet units are called tank, German - panzer. Accordingly, Soviet - rifle and motorized rifle (formally - motorized), German - infantry and motorized)

June 23 The 10th and 37th tank divisions of the 15th mechanized corps of Major General I.I. Karpezo attacked the right flank of the German group with the goal of breaking the ring around the 124th Infantry Division in the Milyatin area. At the same time, the 212th Motorized Rifle Division of the corps had to be left in the rear due to a lack of trucks. Swampy terrain and Luftwaffe airstrikes slowed the advance of the armored divisions (the 19th Panzer Regiment was completely stuck in the swamp and did not take part in the fighting that day), and the German 197th Infantry Division managed to organize a strong anti-tank defense on its flank. An attack by a small number of T-34s threw the Germans into fear, but by the evening the 11th Panzer Division arrived in time.

June 24 The 11th Panzer Division advanced towards Dubno, overcoming the resistance of the 37th Panzer Division and inflicting heavy losses on it. The 10th Panzer Division, defending and counterattacking, was stopped near Lopatin by German infantry defenses. On the same day, the 8th Mechanized Corps was sent to the Brody area. According to the recollections of the corps commander, Lieutenant General. D.I. Ryabyshev, up to half of the light tanks were lost along the way (i.e., about 300 BT).

June 25 The 13th and 14th Panzer Divisions took Lutsk and began advancing towards Rivne. They encountered units of the 9th Mechanized Corps. At the same time, units of the badly damaged 22nd Mechanized Corps took up defensive positions near Lutsk along with the 27th Rifle Corps. The 20th, 35th, 40th, 43rd tank divisions of the 9th and 19th mechanized corps arrived in the Rivne area. They were supposed to attack the 11th Panzer Division. From another direction, the same division was to be attacked by the 12th and 34th tank divisions of the 8th mechanized corps.

June 26 The Soviet counter-offensive began. The actions of the mechanized corps were not coordinated, and not all units of the 9th and 19th mechanized corps managed to arrive at the site of the fighting. Only tank units took part in the battle with little support from motorized rifles. They managed to cut the Lutsk-Rovno road, and units of the 43rd Panzer Division took Dubno, but only after the main part of the 11th Panzer Division left it, heading east.

The Germans, sensing a threat, deployed the 13th Panzer Division south of Lutsk, contrary to the original plan to move east. In addition, the Germans sent the 75th, 111th, 299th Infantry Divisions to clear the communications of the 11th Panzer Division.

The 15th mechanized corps went to join the 8th mechanized corps. Meanwhile, the commander of the 8th Mechanized Corps ordered the 34th Panzer Division and the advance detachment of the 12th Panzer Division to cut the highway along which the 11th and 16th Panzer Divisions were supplied. And from the direction of Lvov, the 8th Tank Division of the 4th Mechanized Corps went east to join in the counterattack.

27th of June the offensive of the 9th mechanized corps of Rokossovsky and the 19th mechanized corps of Feklenko began to slow down. Their advanced units were almost destroyed and the remaining units were forced to retreat. The remnants of the forward detachments of the mechanized corps were cut off at a distance of about 10 kilometers. The 13th Panzer Division was sent to their final destruction, which flanked them and then turned east towards Rivne. It turned out that the 13th Panzer Division went to the rear of the remnants of four tank divisions, and in the next two days, Soviet units moved east after the German division. The 11th Panzer captured the main crossing in the Ostrog area and the Soviet command was forced to gather all possible (but small) reserves to block the 13th and 11th Panzer divisions.

On the southern flank of the German group, the Soviet offensive developed somewhat more successfully. There the 12th and 34th tank, 7th motorized rifle divisions of the 8th mechanized corps and the 14th cavalry division were assembled for the attack. The 8th Tank Division from the 4th Mechanized Corps finally arrived to replenish the 10th Tank Division of the 15th Mechanized Corps. However, only about half of the original number of tanks remained in these units (about 800 tanks). The 12th and 34th Panzer Divisions advanced approximately 5 kilometers, but were unable to penetrate the 111th Infantry Division's defenses. Then the Germans moved forward the 13th Panzer Division and after it the 111th Infantry Division. They were able to create a corridor between the 9th and 19th mechanized corps, which operated north of Dubno, and the 8th mechanized corps, which attacked south of Dubno. The 7th Motorized Rifle Division was attacked from the rear by the 16th Panzer, and the 75th Infantry struck the 12th Panzer, cutting off its main units from the forward detachments.

June 28 The 13th Panzer Division reached the Rovno area, but had no infantry support as the Germans threw infantry into the Dubno area. The 9th and 22nd mechanized corps were able to move away from Dubno and take up defensive positions north and southeast of Lutsk. This created a “balcony” that delayed Army Group South on its way to Kyiv. It is believed that as a result of this, Hitler decided to change the strategic decision and send additional forces to the south, removing them from the Moscow direction.

June 28 units of the 12th and 34th tank divisions fought west of Dubno, but the main tank units tried to retreat.

Meanwhile, the 5th mechanized corps arrived in the Ostrog area (as of June 22 - 1070 tanks, without KVs and T-34s. According to other sources, only the 109th motorized rifle division and the tank regiment of the 5th mechanized corps fought near Ostrog) which managed to stop the advance 11th Panzer Division. On the same day, the defense south of Brody was strengthened by units of the 37th Rifle Corps. But the Germans also sent the 9th Panzer Division to the left flank of the Soviet defense (in the Lvov area). This maneuver completely destroyed the left flank of the Soviet defense.

By this time, Soviet tanks had almost no ammunition and fuel left.

Difficulties turned into disasters June 29. In the morning, the 13th Panzer Division advanced east from Rivne, while Soviet troops were withdrawing north and south of the city, paralleling the German movement. Soviet tanks were increasingly left without fuel, and German infantry destroyed the remnants of the 12th and 34th Panzer Divisions.

June 30th The 9th Panzer Division attacked the remnants of the 3rd Cavalry Division. She then cut off the 8th and 10th Panzer Divisions, completing their encirclement. By this time, the commander of the 6th Soviet Army ordered all his units to withdraw to positions east of Lvov. And at that time the Germans were gathering units of the 13th and 14th Panzer Divisions south of Lutsk in order to create a fist for a strike in the direction of Zhitomir and Berdichev.

TO July 1 The Soviet mechanized corps of the Southwestern Front were practically destroyed. About 10% of the tanks remained in the 22nd, 10-15% in the 8th and 15th, and about 30% in the 9th and 19th. The 4th Mechanized Corps under the command of General A.A. Vlasov (the same one) found himself in a slightly better position - he managed to withdraw with about 40% of the tanks.

However, compared to other Soviet fronts, the South-Western was able to inflict significant damage on the Germans with its mechanized units.

In conclusion, a quote from the memoirs of those events by an officer of the 11th Panzer Division - at that time Senior Lieutenant Heinz Guderian.

« Personally, the Russian soldier was well trained and was a tough fighter. Shooting training was excellent - many of our soldiers were killed by shots to the head. His equipment was simple but effective. Russian soldiers wore earth-brown uniforms, which camouflaged them well. Their food was spartan, unlike ours. They had to face our professional tactics of the German armored divisions. That is, with maneuverability, surprise attacks, night attacks and the interaction of tanks and infantry.

As for Russian tactics in border battles. In our impression, Russian companies and platoons were left to their own devices. They did not have cooperation with artillery and tanks. No reconnaissance was used at all. There was no radio communication between headquarters and units. Therefore, our attacks were often unexpected for them«.

According to Colonel Glanz, fierce, although unsuccessful, Soviet counterattacks delayed the German Army Group South for at least a week. Thus, this helped force Hitler to redirect part of the forces of Army Group Center from the Moscow direction to strengthening the Ukrainian one. Colonel Glanz also points out that the border battles in Western Ukraine also showed that German tank crews are not invincible. This gave many Soviet commanders, such as Rokossovsky, expensive but useful experience in tank warfare.