Chapter Nine
In late 1943 Stalin sought to liberate Ukraine west of the Dnepr, thereby undermining Hitler’s exposed flank in Byelorussia to the north. The 1st Ukrainian Front included two tank armies, and these forces were soon in Kiev driving back the 4th Panzer Army. Then in the New Year 370 tanks moved to successfully trap those German units in the Korsun–Shevchenovsky salient. This victory crushed the last of Hitler’s offensive strength in Ukraine. In late March 1944 more German troops were also caught in the Kamenets–Podolsk pocket as Soviet armour sought to crush the 1st and 4th Panzer Armies. The following month German troops were swiftly ejected from the Crimea. Also from January to March the Red Army fought to lift the siege of Leningrad.
It is almost impossible to imagine the noise of over 4,000 revving engines. This was the number of tanks that Stalin massed for Operation Bagration; his version of D-Day, it was launched in the summer of 1944 and was designed to liberate Byelorussia. Throughout the first half of the year his tank factories had worked flat out to make good his losses and then some. By the time of the offensive he had 11,600 armoured fighting vehicles on the Eastern Front.
Stalin commenced battle with 2,715 tanks and 1,355 assault guns, about six times the number deployed by Hitler’s Army Group Centre. Predictably, nothing could withstand such brute force. To make matters worse, the loss of armoured units to northern Ukraine and France meant that the army group was largely an infantry force. Critically, it only had 553 of the 4,740 tanks and assault guns on the Eastern Front and most of these were in fact assault guns. The bulk of the armour, 40 panzers (including 29 Tiger Is) and 246 StuG IIIs, was deployed with General von Tippelskirch’s 4th Army defending the city of Orsha.
On top of this Army Group Centre had no real reserves except for a weak panzer division, the remains of a panzergrenadier division and an infantry division. Overall, the balance sheet favoured Stalin, with 3:1 in manpower, 10:1 in tanks and self-propelled artillery and 8:1 in guns and mortars. The correlation of forces was such that Hitler’s forces would be overwhelmed if they did not conduct a swift fighting withdrawal.
General Reinhardt’s 3rd Panzer Army held the northern wing. Despite being nominally a panzer army, this formation had no panzer or panzergrenadier divisions. On the right of the 3rd Panzer Army lay the 4th Army south of Mogilev, running northwards between Mogilev and Orsha. It could muster just two panzergrenadier divisions. General Jordan’s 9th Army holding the Bobruisk area running roughly south to north had a single panzer division at Bobruisk.
Following a massive artillery barrage and air attacks Stalin’s steamroller, spearheaded by T-34s, struck on 23 June. The deluge of hot metal pouring onto their positions stunned the defenders and whole units were simply swept away. By mid-afternoon Army Group Centre had informed the German high command that in the face of Stalin’s pincer movement the situation around Vitebsk looked precarious and Reinhardt’s 3rd Panzer Army did not have the ability to restore the situation.
By early afternoon on the 25th the 1st Tank Corps had reached the Dvina and taken a damaged bridge. Soviet tanks overwhelmed Tippelskirch’s XXXIX Panzer Corps and the 3rd Panzer and 9th Armies fell apart. General Jordan’s 9th Army received permission to commit the 20th Panzer Division to try to stem the onslaught of T-34s. The division could muster just 71 Panzer IVs. At that moment the 65th Army broke through on the southern approaches to Bobruisk and the 1st Guards Tank Corps moved to exploit the breach. Perhaps panicking, Jordan ordered the 20th Panzer Division to retrace its tracks and head south, bumping into the Soviets near Slobodka south of Bobruisk.
Now not only was Bobruisk under threat but also those German divisions still east of the Berezina river. By the 26th the tanks of the 20th Panzer Division had been driven back to the city with the Soviet 9th Tank Corps bearing down on them from the east and the Soviet 1st Guards Tank Corps advancing from the south. The 1st Guards Tank Corps cut the roads from Bobruisk to the north and northwest on the night of 26/27 June.
Two pockets were created in the Bobruisk area, trapping nearly 40,000 men. Attempts by von Lützow’s XXXV Corps to break out to the north spearheaded by 150 panzers and self-propelled guns were smashed on the evening of the 27th. The 20th Panzer Division led the breakout northwest along the western bank of the Berezina, with the rearguard instructed to hold on until 2am on the 29th. The panzers and panzergrenadiers soon found themselves under attack by T-34s and fighter-bombers.
By 30 June the first phase of Bagration was over; according to the Soviets, they had killed some 132,000 Germans as well as capturing or destroying 940 tanks. The German 4th Army found itself being squeezed by seven tank, motorised and cavalry corps. The Byelorussian capital Minsk was liberated on the evening of 3 July and the people danced in the streets.
The near-total annihilation of Army Group Centre in the space of just under two weeks cost Hitler overall casualties of 670,000, and only about 20,000 troops escaped. In addition, he lost (according to Soviet figures) 2,000 panzers and 57,000 other vehicles. Stalin’s losses were 176,000 killed and wounded, plus about 8,000 missing, and 2,957 tanks. The work of Stalin’s Bagration steamroller was complete; his armour now looked ready to liberate the rest of Ukraine and strike into southern Poland. During 20–29 August the Red Army thrust into eastern Romania with the Jassy–Kishinev offensive. The denuded Army Group South in Ukraine had only three armoured units and was quickly overwhelmed.
The Soviets introduced new up-gunned tanks in 1944 that finally gave them parity with the best of the German heavy and medium panzers. The previous autumn a turret similar to that on the KV-85 was mounted on the T-34 chassis, creating the T-34/85. The Model 1943 turret displayed a unique style of bolted collar and was equipped with the shorter D-5T 85mm gun, capable of penetrating the frontal armour of the German Tiger at 1,000 metres, although accuracy remained a problem. This interim model also featured a rounded front-hull join, rounded front fenders and no turret fillet. Approximately 800 Model 1943 T-34/85s were produced at Gorkiy early in 1944. (AO48)
The T-34/85 was deployed in conjunction with the SU-85, an 85mm self-propelled gun mounted on the T-34 chassis. This heavily armoured assault gun appeared in the battles in Ukraine in 1944 but was subsequently replaced by the SU-100, mounting a more powerful 100mm M1944 field gun. (AO45)
The Russians introduced only one new tank in this period, the IS (also known as JS) or Iosef Stalin, although in truth this was not an entirely new design but rather a redesigned KV. Although classed as a heavy tank, it was roughly the same weight as the Panther medium tank. The IS-1 or IS-85 (after the calibre of its gun) was developed alongside the KV-85 and entered service in September 1943. (AO42)
The IS was initially equipped with an 85mm, then a 100mm and finally a 122mm gun, enabling Soviet tank crews to engage any German tank type at extremely long ranges. The IS-2 went into production in late 1943; 102 were made in that year, but the following year Soviet factories churned out some 2,250. The up-gunned IS-2 first saw action in Ukraine in early 1944, claiming 41 Tigers and Elefants for the loss of only eight tanks. (B21)
The mighty ISU-152 also appeared in late 1943 as a successor to the SU-152, which gained the nickname ‘beast killer’. Armed with a powerful 152mm howitzer, they were grouped into independent heavy assault gun regiments and brigades, which were attached to the tank corps in a support role. For Operation Bagration the Red Army had 295 ISU-152s and ISU-122s. (AO44)
This display of confidence by Soviet tankers and infantry was well founded by this stage of the war. In January 1944 the 6th Tank Army was formed with about 600 tanks and self-propelled guns, 500 guns and mortars and 30,000 men. Stalin’s six tank armies had nearly 40 armoured corps. (K22)
The Tiger did not have the desired effect on the Eastern Front. While it could knock out any Soviet tank before the latter got within range, it was slow and expensive to build. Also, once disabled, it was difficult to recover (only six Tiger recovery tanks were ever built). The fierce fighting in January 1944, in which many Tigers were lost, established the new front lines ready for Stalin’s massive summer offensive codenamed Bagration. (WH916)
Although the Panzer IV was the German workhorse on the Eastern Front, the earlier Ausf D, E and F armed with the short 75mm gun were phased out through attrition in early 1944. The panzer divisions were equipped with the newer F2, G and H variants, although they were in danger of being outclassed by some of the newer Soviet armour. (BA24)
In February 1944 the StuG III, StuH42 and StuG IV began to appear with the cast Saukopf (sow’s head) gun mantlet seen here. By the summer Army Group Centre’s panzer force consisted almost entirely of assault guns. (Author’s Collection)
The Ausf G was the third and final series of the Panther, which went into production in March 1944 and was deployed to the Eastern Front. (Author’s Collection)
The PzKpfw VI Ausf B, better known as the Tiger II, was issued to German combat units in the summer of 1944, five months after production started. Although it was capable of dealing with Soviet armour with ease, like the Tiger I it was never produced in sufficient numbers to stem the flood of enemy tanks. (AO36)
By early 1944, despite massive losses sustained at Kursk and in Ukraine, the Red Army was still able to field 5,357 tanks and self-propelled guns thanks to Soviet industry. For the Byelorussia offensive in June Stalin committed the bulk of his armoured forces, including five tank armies, plus ten separate tank and mechanised corps. (K10)
T-34/76Ds moving up for the attack with infantry tank riders; by June 1944 this was the most common tank in service with the Red Army. The previous year over 15,500 T-34/76s had been built, but production was now prioritised for the T-34/85. (K25)
The open-topped SU-76M was deployed for Bagration. It was intended to provide the infantry with direct artillery fire support, but it also had a secondary anti-tank role. While the gun was more than adequate for such duties, the crew protection was not. (B26)
After slicing through Army Group Centre’s defences, the 2nd Guards Tank Corps equipped with the new T-34/85 was the first unit into Minsk when it was liberated on 3 July 1944. (AO47)
In the summer of 1944 Stalin’s Operation Bagration overwhelmed Hitler’s Army Group Centre in Byelorussia. The loss in men and materiel was enormous. Here the Russians have gathered a selection of captured anti-tank weapons, including two types of Pak 43 88mm guns. Note also the handheld Panzerfaust lying on the ground to the right. (Author’s Collection)
A disabled PzKpfw IV in front of a Soviet M3 Stuart light tank supplied by America under Lend-lease. Throughout 1944 Hitler lost 2,643 Panzer IVs on the Eastern Front. The previous year he had suffered losses of 2,352 Panzer IVs with some divisions down to as few as 12 tanks; such losses were increasingly difficult to replace. The no-frills Panzer IV Ausf J which appeared in 1944 was the final production model and was greatly simplified to speed construction. The manual turret traverse was not greatly liked by the crews. Production ran until March 1945, by which time nearly 3,000 of this type had been produced. (Author’s Collection)
T-34/85s of the 4th Tank Corps on the streets of the Romanian capital Bucharest on 31 August 1944. Hitler’s Axis allies on the Eastern Front proved to be a house of cards; outgunned by the Red Army, there was little Hungary and Romania could do to stem the tide. (Author’s Collection)
The Panzer IV/70 tank destroyer also appeared on the Eastern Front in 1944 after it went into production that August; it was used to supplement the StuG IV and Jagdpanzer IV. (Author’s Collection)
The crews of these T-34/85s take a break in what are clearly blizzard conditions. Even during the winter of 1944 there was little respite from the fighting. Stalin and his generals were determined that the panzers should not be permitted time to recuperate. However, Hitler was still able to launch two major counter-offensives. (Author’s Collection)