This was probably the only type of military equipment under Lend-Lease, the usefulness of which was never denied even in Soviet time. Although there were both pluses and minuses.
Thanks to the exploits of Alexander Pokryshkin, the American fighter R-39 "Cobra" ("Aerocobra") became famous. Until 1943, when he transferred to this aircraft, Pokryshkin personally recorded three downed enemy aircraft, and already in 1943, fighting on the Airacobra, he shot down 38 enemy aircraft. Sometimes other figures are called, but in any case, the proportion is approximately the same. Another Soviet ace - Grigory Rechkalov - from the end of 1942 also fought on the Aerocobra and destroyed 53 or 59 German aircraft on it personally and 6 or 4 as part of a group. Prior to that, he had three downed German fighters on his account. So the merit of American technology was also great in the victories of the famous Soviet pilots.
The Cobra had its drawbacks, like any weapon. For example, the plane easily fell into a tailspin after all the ammunition was used up - the centering was disturbed. These shortcomings were not without its continuation - R-63 "King Cobra" ("Kingcobra"). Lieutenant Colonel Ibragim Dzusov, according to Pokryshkin, told him, introducing the Cobra: “The plane is good. In terms of speed, it is not inferior to the Messerschmites and has strong weapons. It really was so, and it is very important for the Soviet pilots. During the war, 4423 Aircobras and 2397 Kingcobras were delivered to the USSR.
The situation was different with the British Hurricane fighter. Already during the battle over England in 1940, he was inferior to the German Messerschmitt-109. However, in 1941-44. the allies delivered 3082 units of these fighters to the USSR.
In his memoirs, aircraft designer Alexander Yakovlev cited Stalin's remark: "Their Hurricanes are rubbish, our pilots do not like these planes." Pilot Alexander Kutakov noted the slow speed of this model, in comparison with German fighters, although he named among its advantages best review from the cockpit than on domestic I-16s, and radio. By the way, the equipment of radio communications was an advantage of almost any model of aircraft and tanks supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease over the Soviet ones. Other famous pilots - Georgy Zimin and Nikolai Golodnikov - noted the unimportant aerodynamic qualities of the Hurricane.
Nevertheless, the annals of the Great Patriotic War are full of successful battles fought on the Hurricanes. These fighters became especially famous in the Arctic, where, next to the Soviet pilots, the pilots of the 151st British aviation wing fought on them. The Hurricanes were armed with air defense rear areas, where it was discovered that these aircraft were insufficiently armed to attack the German He-111 and Ju-88. The Hurricane was clearly inferior to the new types of Soviet aircraft, but it surpassed the pre-war I-16s, which by the beginning of the war formed the basis of the Soviet fighter fleet. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War even the Hurricanes were progress for the Soviet Air Force.
The British had more advanced Spitfire fighters, but their delivery did not begin until 1943 and was produced in very limited quantities. They were mainly armed with air units of the Moscow air defense zone, although there is evidence of the use of these aircraft in battles at the front.
Lend-Lease: figures and facts
The idea of a system of assistance to countries opposing Nazi Germany, primarily England, by lending them weapons and military materials in exchange for certain political and economic concessions originated in the US Treasury Department in the fall of 1940. Then legal advisers E. Foley and O. Cox found the law of 1892, adopted under President B. Harrison. According to him, the US Secretary of War, "when at his discretion it is in the interests of the state, may lease for a period not exceeding 5 years the property of the army, if the country does not need it." This formed the basis of the Lend-Lease bill, which was submitted to Congress in January 1941. After approval in the House of Representatives and the Senate, it was signed by President F. Roosevelt on March 11, and the bill became law. It authorized the president to lend or lease defense items, if necessary, to any country whose defense he recognizes as vital to the security of the United States. On the same day, the law was extended to England and Greece.
The Lend-Lease Act put an end to the long struggle with the so-called isolationists - supporters of US non-intervention in the world conflict. At first, their positions were quite strong. So, for example, already on September 5, 1939, a law on neutrality was enacted, one of the provisions of which provided for an embargo on the export of weapons to warring countries. Speaking at an extraordinary session of Congress on September 21, President Roosevelt spoke about the disastrous consequences of this law for the United States and the need to lift the embargo. After a bitter debate, Congress rescinded it on November 3. The next day, the president signed a modified neutrality law. Countries that opposed Nazi Germany were able to purchase weapons and military materials from the United States on the terms of "cash and carry" ("pay and carry"), that is, advance payment in cash and export on their own ships.
Arms deliveries from the USA to Great Britain increased sharply after Dunkirk and the capitulation of France. These events coincided with another US election campaign, during which Roosevelt was nominated for the presidency for the third time in a row. The victory in the 1940 elections gave him the opportunity to act more freely. Anglo-American ties continued to expand, but already in 1940 England faced an acute shortage of foreign exchange and gold reserves for further purchases of weapons, military materials and food. During the year of the war, the debt of the British Empire to the United States increased by 1,740 million dollars, that is, almost tripled. Leasing military bases in exchange for arms supplies did not solve the problem. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the American Johnson Act of 1934 blocked the provision of loans to Great Britain until it repaid its previous debts. In December 1940, the British were forced to abandon new contracts with the United States. In the midst of the Battle of Britain, a critical situation developed for the British. This is where the Lend-Lease Bill came into being.
For the first time, Roosevelt publicly outlined his plan for helping England at a press conference on December 17, 1940. At the same time, the president dressed his explanations of the principles of Lend-Lease in a curious, but at the same time very accessible form. “Imagine,” he said, “my neighbor's house is on fire and I have a garden hose 400 to 500 feet away. If he can take my hose and attach it to his pump, then I can help him put out the fire. What am I doing? I don't tell him before this operation: "Neighbour, this hose cost me $15, you need to pay $15 for it." Not! What kind of deal is being made? I don't need $15, I need him to return my hose after the fire is over."
The hearing of the lend-lease bill lasted almost two months. At the request of the president, the debate was opened on January 15, 1941 by Secretary of State K. Hull, who was supposed to oversee the passage of the bill through Congress. The debates were held almost all over the country, thousands of letters, appeals, resolutions and telegrams were sent to Congress from various organizations and individuals. According to the New York Times, over 27 million adult Americans supported the Lend-Lease bill, and no more than 11 million opposed it. According to the Gallup Institute, 70% of members of the US Democratic Party and 61% of Republicans were in favor of Lend-Lease . Despite the fact that the bill was supported by the administration, the majority of Congress and public opinion country, its discussion was accompanied by a fierce political struggle. During the discussion, four significant amendments were made to the bill, limiting the president's powers. First of all, they concerned congressional control over lend-lease appropriations, presidential reporting on the implementation of the law, limiting the term of presidential powers under lend-lease, and prohibiting the escort of merchant ships by ships of the US Navy. These limitations largely explain the problems that have arisen from time to time in the supply chain. These problems of democracy, which were not entirely clear to the Soviet leadership, subsequently led more than once to very difficult situations in relations between the USSR and the allies.
Lend-lease recipient countries had to submit requests for the required supplies, and then coordinate them with representatives of the State Department and a specially created Lend-Lease Office, which, ultimately, determined the amount and direction of assistance. After that, a bilateral agreement (protocol) was drawn up, called the “Settlement for Mutual Assistance”. It provided for the following system of Lend-Lease settlements:
Materials destroyed during the war or not suitable for further use are not subject to any payment;
Materials left after the war and suitable for civilian needs are paid in whole or in part in the form of a long-term loan;
Military materials remain in the recipient countries, the US government reserves the right to reclaim them;
Equipment not completed by the end of the war, and already finished materials in warehouses in the United States, can be purchased by customer states, and the American government provides a loan to pay for it.
The leadership of the Lend-Lease program was entrusted to a committee under the Cabinet of Ministers, consisting of the Secretary of State, the Ministers of Finance, Defense and the Navy. In reality, the entire responsibility for the implementation of this program was assigned to Harry Hopkins, an adviser and closest friend of President Roosevelt. On May 2, 1941, a special agency for the coordination of foreign aid, the Division of Defense Aid Reports (DDAR), was created, the responsible executor of which was Major General J. Burns, who had proven himself in the Ministry of Defense back in the First World War. Finally, in October 1941, by a special decree, the president transformed the agency into the Office of Lend-Lease Administration (OLLA), headed by the former chairman of the board of directors, Yu.S. Steel Corporation” and Vice President of General Motors Edward R. Stettinius, and his assistant and executive officer is the same J. Burns. With the entry of the United States into the war, in accordance with new concept lend-lease, OLIA acquired a completely finished structure. Joint allied directorates for the distribution of ammunition, raw materials, food were created, headed by headquarters composed of high-ranking officers of various branches of the American and British armies.
The created structure turned out to be so cumbersome that it took more than two months for the application to pass through its corridors. The bureaucratic difficulties that representatives of the procurement commissions of the recipient countries inevitably faced were largely related to the need to agree on technical specifications, develop draft orders and contracts. At the same time, all documents passed through numerous instances. At first, the British faced these problems in full measure. Thus, the British application for 23 thousand aircraft by the end of 1941, having passed through all instances, was in reality only 15% satisfied.
However, not only bureaucratic obstacles stood in the way of deliveries. Sometimes the Americans simply did not have the weapons they requested. So, for example, in March 1941, only 16 tanks, 283 bombers and 223 fighters were manufactured at US factories. The flywheel of military production overseas was only gaining momentum.
Nevertheless, lend-lease earned. From March to December 1941, the British Air Force received 2,400 American aircraft, 100 of them under Lend-Lease. Of the 3,300 tanks produced in the United States during the same period, a quarter was sent to Britain under Lend-Lease, another 200 for cash. In addition, already during the first year of Lend-Lease, Great Britain received over 13 thousand trucks, thousands of tons of food, equipment and materials. Following the United Kingdom, other countries followed. As already mentioned, the next state, the defense of which was recognized as vital for the United States, was Greece. Then there were Yugoslavia, China, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Holland…
June 22, 1941 Soviet Union entered World War II. The reaction of the leaders of Great Britain and the United States followed immediately. British Prime Minister W. Churchill, speaking on the radio on the evening of June 22 with an appeal to the British people, said: “No one has been a more stubborn opponent of communism than I have been for the past 25 years. I will not take back any of the words I said, but now all this is receding into the background in the face of unfolding events. The danger that threatens Russia is the danger that threatens us and the United States, just as the cause of every Russian who fights for his hearth and home is the cause of free people and free peoples in all parts of the globe.
On June 23, S. Welles, acting US Secretary of State, made a statement on behalf of the American government. He emphasized that the main danger to the United States and the whole world comes from the Nazi bloc: "Today Hitler's armies are the main danger to the American continent." The next day, President Roosevelt said at a press conference that the United States intended to provide assistance to the Soviet Union, but made the reservation that it was not yet known what form it would take.
US Secretary of War G. Stimson informed F. Roosevelt: he and the US Chiefs of Staff are convinced that "Germany will be involved in Russia for at least one month, maximum - three months."
It must be said that the course of hostilities on the Eastern Front in June-July 1941, on the whole, only confirmed the assessments of British and American politicians and the military, which to a large extent predetermined their military-economic policy towards the USSR. At this stage, London and Washington agreed only to the sale of weapons and other military materials. On August 16, 1941, an agreement was signed between Great Britain and the USSR on providing the USSR with a loan of 10 million pounds sterling (3% per annum) for a period of 5 years. Around the same time, the US State Department announced the extension of the trade agreement that had been in force between the USSR and the US since 1937 for a period of one year. At the same time, the Soviet ambassador in Washington was handed a note on economic assistance to the USSR by the United States, in which it was reported that the United States government was considering in the most friendly way proposals coming from the government, institutions and agents of the USSR on placing orders for goods and materials in the United States, urgently necessary for the needs of the state defense of the Soviet Union, with the aim of facilitating the rapid production and shipment of these goods and materials.
However, in the first months of the war, American deliveries to the Soviet Union were small and were made for cash. In total, by the end of October 1941, weapons and materials worth 41 million dollars were sold to the Soviet Union. These were, according to Roosevelt, "symbolic deliveries" on a "pay and carry" basis.
Meanwhile, events on the Eastern Front took an unexpected turn for London and Washington. “A miracle happened,” writes R. Parkinson. - The Soviet-German campaign lasted for more than six weeks, that is, more than the maximum time that the imperial general staff allotted to it. The Red Army moved from a hasty retreat to a fighting withdrawal. The German hordes suffered huge losses. The Russians will be able to survive even the winter. And this was of great importance: England received a longer respite. Even if Germany finally wins, it will still be so weakened that it will no longer be able to carry out an invasion of the British Isles.
The ruling circles of Great Britain and the USA have become convinced that in the present situation the best and cheapest way to help themselves is to help the Soviet Union. Beginning on September 6, 1941, British supplies to the USSR went on a lend-lease basis, and on November 7, Roosevelt, recognizing the defense of the USSR as vital to the United States, extended the lend-lease law to the Soviet Union.
On September 28, 1941, American and British delegations headed by A. Harriman and Lord W. Beaverbrook, respectively, arrived in Arkhangelsk aboard the British cruiser London. From Arkhangelsk they flew to Moscow, where the tripartite conference on supply issues began its work the next day. On October 1, 1941, the First (Moscow) protocol on military supplies was signed for the period from October 1, 1941 to June 30, 1942. Subsequent deliveries had to comply with the quotas established by the Washington (October 6, 1942), London (October 19, 1943) and Ottawa (April 17, 1945) protocols. Moreover, if the first two protocols were tripartite, then Canada also participated in the third and Thursday agreements. Until July 1, 1943, Canadian military supplies were carried out against the obligations of Great Britain, and in some cases the United States.
Regrettably, the supply quotas stipulated by the protocols were not always fulfilled. In addition, there were sometimes significant delays in deliveries, which caused reproaches from the Soviet side. How things stood can be judged by the example of the “Information of the People's Commissar for Foreign Trade of the USSR A.I. Mikoyan on the fulfillment by England and the United States of the obligations assumed at the Moscow Conference of the Three Powers on the supply of weapons, equipment and raw materials to the USSR for October - December 1941". The certificate was compiled on January 9, 1942 and addressed to I. V. Stalin and V. M. Molotov. Excerpts from it give an idea of both the volume and range of deliveries, and the assessment by the Soviet side of their implementation.
“At the same time, I am sending you information about the fulfillment of the obligations assumed at the Moscow Conference of the 3 powers, Great Britain and the USA on the supply of weapons, equipment, raw materials and materials to the USSR for October, November and December 1941 as a whole.
The obligations of the USA at the Moscow Conference on the monthly supply of aircraft for 3 months are 600. In fact, only 204 aircraft have been delivered. Including: fighters - 131 pieces, bombers - 43 pieces, scouts - 30 pieces.
Of the 204 aircraft delivered, 95 were delivered to the Union, 106 are on the way, including 8 arriving on 12.1.1942.
Loaded on ships, but not yet sent - 3 pcs. Thus, the underdelivery of aircraft against the commitments made at the Moscow Conference is 396 aircraft.
Such a large underdelivery of aircraft is due to the fact that between December 13 and 17 the US government withdrew back almost all of the delivered aircraft from among those in US ports at that time. 447 aircraft were recalled out of 457 in ports. The presence of a large number of unshipped aircraft in US ports on December 15, 1941 was due to the fact that 152 Airacobra fighters were delivered to ports without propellers, without weapons and a set of spare parts. In addition, the American authorities did not provide a sufficient number of ships for a long time and, finally, they recalled the delivered aircraft altogether. At the same time, part of the aircraft was unloaded from ships on which they had already been loaded, but the ships did not have time to leave.
Also, the supply of tanks was sharply underfulfilled, the United States, according to the decisions of the Moscow Conference, undertook to deliver 750 tanks in three months.
On October 31, the US government announced a new figure for monthly deliveries of tanks, namely: 166 tanks in October, 207 in November and 300 in December, for a total of 673 tanks.
In fact, only 182 pieces were delivered. Including: medium - 72 pcs., light - 110 pcs. Of these, 27 pieces were brought to the Union, 139 pieces are on the way, 16 pieces are in ports.
Anti-aircraft guns (90mm) were to be delivered before January 1, 1942 - 10 pcs. In fact, only 4 pieces have been delivered, and all of them are on the way. In addition to the commitments made at the Moscow Conference, the United States delivered: Tommigans submachine guns - 5000 pieces, 81 mm mortars - 30 pieces, 60-inch searchlights. on cars complete with sound pickups - 22 pcs. Ammunition from the United States was supplied in the same way as from England, as a kit for the supplied weapons.
Aerial bombs, in which we are less interested, have been delivered in significant quantities (10,490 pieces). We have given instructions to stop all purchases of aerial bombs. Until now, the United States has not given an answer about the size of the supply of nitroglycerin gunpowder. Of the naval weapons from the United States, only 150 Spur-ri searchlights, complete with sound pickups, arrived. The Americans were required to supply 12,000 telephone sets monthly, and in October - December - 36,000 pieces. Only 5506 units have been delivered, 4416 units are on the way.
Field telephone wire plan for 3 months - 300,000 km. Delivered - 36,000 km. Of these, 8400 km were brought to the USSR. It is on the way - 16,600 km, in the port and in loading - 11,000 km.
The plan for the supply of barbed wire was adopted by the Americans in the amount of 4,000 tons per month, and in three months the supply was to be 12,000 tons. Delivered - 16 844 tons. Of these: brought to the Union - 1997 tons were on January 1, 1942, in transit - 10,042 tons, in the port and in loading - 4805 tons.
According to the plan for October - December, the United States was to supply trucks - 25,600 units. Actually delivered on January 1, 1942 - 9238 units. Of these: brought to the Union - 1565 units, are on the way - 4974 units, including 12.1 arriving in Arkhangelsk - 626, are in ports and in loading - 2699.
In addition, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade purchased before the Conference, that is, before October 1, 1941, and brought into the country 500 Ford trucks. The plan for the supply of reconnaissance vehicles was adopted in the amount of 5,000 units within 9 months, and in three months the delivery was to be 1,665 units. Actually delivered on January 1, 1942 - 1000 pieces. Of these: brought to the Union - 72 pieces, are on the way - 800 pieces, including 12.1.1942 - 80 pieces, in ports and in loading - 128 pieces.
Until now, the exact size of the supply of machine tools from the United States has not been established. At the Moscow conference of the 3 powers, it was considered “desirable to satisfy the Soviet requests (1200 units per month), but certain types or classifications cannot be guaranteed. All machines that can be delivered will be supplied from the UK and the USA.” Since the obligation to supply England has been determined (290 pieces per month), the balance of 910 machines per month should be attributed to the USA, although the American Government has not yet given a specific answer on the delivery of this number of machines before 1. VII. 42 g. Based on this calculation, the size of deliveries for 9 months, falling on the USA, should be 8190 machine tools, and for three months - 2730 pieces.
During October - November, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade placed orders in the USA for various types of machine tools in the amount of 3404 pieces. Placing orders in the USA for machine tools is extremely slow, since their execution is associated with the passage of a number of government agencies, where all sorts of delays occur (slow review of our applications in the Lend-Lease Administration and in other departments, direct sabotage by some officials of ministries, etc.). P.). Delivered by firms in October - December on orders issued both before and after October 1, 1941 - 731 pcs. Of these: brought to the Union - 35 pieces, shipped and on the way to the USSR - 285 pieces, located in ports, in loading and at factories - 411 pieces.
Of the non-ferrous metals, the United States supplied only molybdenum in an amount of 1,000 tons, with a plan of 900 tons. The supply of molybdenum was made according to an order issued before the Moscow conference. There were no deliveries of aluminum, nickel and zinc from the US at all, although there are specific US commitments for these metals. Duralumin, rolled brass, pipes and other copper products (radiator pipes) were supplied. Armor plates for tanks were not supplied at all during October.
The United States has not yet given an answer on the size of supplies of bimetal and magnesium alloys under our application at the Conference. Only 56 tons of ferrosilicon were delivered from the USA, while the delivery plan for 3 months was 900 tons. Nichrome wire was delivered in the amount of 14 tons instead of 60 tons supposed to be delivered during October - December. Significantly less commitments were made for the supply of grinding wheels and electrodes.
Oil products were supposed to be delivered in three months - 60,000 tons. Delivered for the period July - December 1941 - 200,601 tons. However, these deliveries did not take place on account of obligations under the Conference protocol, but in accordance with an earlier agreement with the United States on the supply of 200,000 tons of petroleum products by them. Ethylene glycol was supposed to be supplied 120 tons per month, and in total - 360 tons. In fact, 242 tons have been delivered. The supply of toluene was also underfulfilled. 901 tons were delivered against the plan of 2500 tons. Despite the firm promise written in the decisions of the Conference on the supply of 10,000 tons of finished trinitrotoluene, not a single ton of this product has been delivered so far.
The Maritime Commission obviously disrupts the shipment of goods to the Soviet Union, referring to the lack of steamships, the impossibility of sending steamships to Arkhangelsk in winter, since, in their opinion, the Arkhangelsk port is not able to receive large numbers of steamships. In those cases when certain ships are put under loading, the worst of them are selected.
Some cases should be considered as acts of sabotage. So, for example, on the Fire Rock steamer, which left the New York port on 21/X with military cargo (tanks, vehicles, etc.), there was a leak in the holds for no apparent reason. The ship had to return, unload and stand up for repairs. As a result, the shipment of goods was delayed by 1/2 month.
In the port of New York on the steamer "Ballot", which was under loading on December 25, 1941, a fire broke out, noticed by our duty officer and promptly liquidated. During the investigation, it was established that there was arson; jars of kerosene were found in a number of holds. The steamer Malomak, which left Boston for Arkhangelsk on December 18, 1941 with a load of fighter planes, tanks, motor vehicles, etc., returned to Boston on January 3 due to sabotage by the crew. The steamship Meridian, which left New York for Arkhangelsk on 29/X41, according to the British Admiralty, perished under circumstances that have not yet been clarified.
It should be noted that this kind of "incident" does not occur with British and Soviet ships proceeding from the ports of England. The foregoing allows us to conclude that the aforementioned acts are not separate actions of certain hostile elements, but are the actions of a specific organization. In general, US deliveries are clearly unsatisfactory. Representatives of the American government generously make promises and unceremoniously violate their obligations. Moreover, the disruption of supplies by the Americans is not explained only by the sabotage of individual elements hostile to us. Nor can it be explained by objective difficulties. Our deliveries are interrupted by the Military and Naval Ministries, of course, not without the knowledge of the government. Our repeated reports of all the facts of the disruption to representatives of the American government have not led so far to an improvement in the situation.
Here is a reference. Let us leave the mythical underground organization on the conscience of the Soviet leaders, who everywhere imagined a class enemy. At the same time, it should be noted that the facts of sabotage among the crews of American ships did take place. As for everything else, some comments are needed here.
It follows from the certificate that the bulk of the cargo that arrived in the USSR in October - December 1941 was ordered even before the signing of the Moscow Protocol, which is not surprising. Even if we assume that all agreed figures were transmitted to the United States on the evening of October 1, then minus the transportation time - 11-12 days from the US East Coast to Murmansk (even longer to Arkhangelsk) - the Americans had 18 days left in October to place orders , manufacturing, delivery to ports and loading! It is quite obvious that the document, signed on October 1, originally included a delay in deliveries for October, and partly for November. The Americans could not carry them out simply physically. But after all, the protocol was agreed upon and signed by the Soviet side, which means that the USSR deliberately agreed to these delays. In this regard, Mikoyan's indignation looks simply hypocritical!
As for the recall of aircraft intended for shipment to the USSR, let us pay attention to the dates: December 13 and 17. On December 7, Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States entered World War II. The recall of aircraft and, by the way, some other Lend-Lease cargo was a reaction to this event. And the reaction is quite understandable. In the end, Lend-Lease was based on the wording "if the country does not need them." In connection with the Japanese aggression, the Americans had to figure out what they needed and what they didn't? By the way, most of the recalled cargoes were then sent to the addressees.
Impressive is the information about the "aircobras" that arrived at the ports of loading "without propellers, without weapons and a set of spare parts." Here it is - the sloppiness of the Americans, and perhaps even worse - the actions of an anti-Soviet organization! Yes, indeed, most likely, the actions of the organization, but only the Soviet one.
The fact is that it was the Soviet representatives abroad who were supposed to play an important role in organizing deliveries: employees of embassies, employees of military acceptance. The speed of fulfillment of applications, the completeness and quality of the supplied weapons and materials largely depended on them. Let's try to figure out how things were with this issue.
Already in October, for example, a group of 14 military specialists was sent to London. Before the rest, aviation specialists arrived: first of all, the Red Army needed airplanes. The rest began to arrive only in November (note - in November!). All of them became part of the Engineering Department at the Soviet trade mission in London. Only in London it turned out that almost none of the arrivals knew English!
Acquaintance with the British military system and technology, learning the language took about two months. As a result, Soviet specialists were able, more or less fully, to begin their duties only starting from 1942! Throughout 1941, deliveries to the Soviet Union from Great Britain arrived mainly according to British-American bundling standards, with British-American markings and instructions, without transfers, and sometimes to various ports.
An almost similar picture has developed in the United States. Before the war, the Soviet Union acted as an intermediary between Soviet foreign trade organizations and American firms. joint-stock company Amtorg (Amtorg Trading Corporation). The issues of trade in engineering products, including weapons, were dealt with by the engineering department of the society. Since the volume of such trade was small, it was handled by 3-4 employees. After the outbreak of the war, the situation changed.
The arrival in the United States in July 1941 of a mission led by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Lieutenant General F. I. Golikov, marked the beginning of large-scale Soviet-American cooperation. At the expense of the members of the mission, the staff of Amtorg was significantly strengthened. In October 1941, after the signing of the First Protocol, specialists in armored vehicles, aviation, artillery and navy were sent to the United States. However, they arrived in the United States only in January 1942! Therefore, in 1941, Amtorg, like the Soviet trade mission in Great Britain, was simply not able to control the shipment of weapons and military equipment for the USSR.
And such control was extremely necessary, since the production of weapons in the United States had its own characteristics. Thus, American enterprises produced equipment without special equipment and apparatus according to the so-called "government list". In this form, it came to the customer, who equipped it in their own modification centers. It goes without saying that there were no such centers in the USSR. It is not surprising, therefore, that American weapons often arrived in the Soviet Union incomplete. Moreover, there were cases when military equipment made on the US East Coast was sent to Soviet northern ports, while components and spare parts for it, produced somewhere in California, sailed safely to the Far East. So, before blaming the Americans for all the sins, A. I. Mikoyan should have found out if the propellers are being unloaded for the “air cobras” delivered to Arkhangelsk, somewhere in Vladivostok.
However, even after the arrival of specialists in the USA, the situation did not improve much, since all of them, as in the case of Great Britain, were selected in a hurry, and almost none of them knew English. I must say that the fact of sending specialists who did not know English to the two largest English-speaking countries of the world is worthy of a humorist's pen. But, alas, all this would be very funny if it were not so sad ...
Not funny either. Of the seven employees of the artillery department created under Amtorg, four were generally poorly versed in artillery! In addition, Moscow did not bother to send an anti-aircraft specialist overseas, and this at a time when almost exclusively anti-aircraft artillery was ordered in the USA!
All these "inconsistencies" over time, of course, were eliminated, and work improved. But this happened a little later - towards the end of 1942. In general, it can be stated that the disruption of deliveries in 1941 - early 1942 in terms of volume, nomenclature and configuration occurred almost exclusively due to the fault of the Soviet side.
However, there was another significant reason that seriously influenced the implementation of the supply plan - transportation.
Cargo in the USSR went along three main routes - the northern, Pacific and trans-Iranian ("Persian Corridor"). In total, 47.1% of them passed through the Far Eastern route, 23.8% through Iran, 22.7% to Arkhangelsk-Murmansk and 2.5% to the ports of the Arctic. In 1945, the Black Sea straits opened, and another 3.9% was delivered to Odessa and other southern coastal cities.
The shortest, but also the most dangerous, was the northern route from British (mostly Scottish) and Icelandic ports to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. For the entire journey of 2 thousand miles along a route up to 200 miles wide, caravans of ships spent 10-12 days. The convenience of using the ice-free port of Murmansk was indisputable. The problem of increasing its throughput by equipping it with additional port equipment with the help of the Americans could be solved fairly quickly. However, this was not the main obstacle. At 10 min. flight from Murmansk based German aircraft, subjecting the city to constant bombardment. At the beginning of the war, the air defense of Murmansk could not cope with the reflection of these raids. In addition, the front line ran 40 km from the city, and the railway connecting it with the country was cut by the enemy.
Therefore, the first convoys were unloaded in Arkhangelsk and Molotovsk (now Severodvinsk). Like Murmansk, both of these ports were connected to the central regions of the country by rail, but at the same time they were freezing, which forced navigation to be interrupted in winter. In addition, their throughput was even less than that of Murmansk. So, the Arkhangelsk port could simultaneously accept for unloading no more than five ships with a draft of up to 5.5 m. The port was not adapted for unloading heavy and bulky cargo, such as tanks and steam locomotives. It had only two floating cranes with a lifting capacity of 25 and 50 tons and six (!) Cars. The processing of Lend-Lease cargo required a radical modernization of the Arkhangelsk port.
The order for its reconstruction was given by Stalin on September 7, 1941. By November 1941, cranes from Leningrad, Mariupol, Murmansk and even Vladivostok were delivered to the port, up to a hundred cars, 15 barges, 6 tugboats were transferred. At his disposal, the head of the port received three paramilitary work columns - three thousand loaders, which was almost four times the port's need for labor in the most intense pre-war navigation. The loading area in Molotovsk was also completely reconstructed. In the shortest possible time, the “outpost section” of Savings turned into a new port with a large number of berths, warehouses and corresponding depths at the berths. Unfortunately, it was not possible to fully test it in 1941 - the cold came very early, and the White Sea stood up, navigation stopped. In 1942, after the Belomorsk-Obozerskaya railway line was put into operation, Murmansk again became the main place of unloading until the end of the war.
There were no less problems with the provision of transportation by transport ships, or, as sailors say, by tonnage. It was assumed that the USSR would receive about 500 thousand tons of cargo every month, the delivery of which required at least 100 modern ships at a speed of at least 9 knots. Referring to the law on neutrality, the United States, until December 1941, actually refused to participate in the transportation. The Soviet Union, based on the tonnage capabilities, could carry no more than 20% of the cargo. As a result, the main burden of transportation in 1941-1942 fell on Great Britain. The British Navy was also entrusted with the security of convoys.
Until the end of 1942, convoys going east were designated PQ, and west - QP, then until the end of the war they were called JW and RA with serial numbers starting with the 51st. In 1941, 7 convoys passed this route, from the trial "Dervish" to PQ-6, and neither the transports nor the escort ships had any losses. But after the defeat of the Wehrmacht near Moscow, the German command, realizing the importance of the Arctic convoys, threw aviation, surface and submarine forces against them, and the number of dead transports began to grow. Sometimes to catastrophic proportions, as was the case with the infamous PQ-17 ... This was the reason for the repeated cessation of the movement of convoys.
Information about their number, the number of ships in Soviet and British studies is almost identical. According to the latter, in 1941-1945, 40 convoys left for the Arctic ports of the USSR - 811 transports, of which 720 arrived, 58 died, and 33 returned to the ports of departure. The Soviet Military Encyclopedia counted 42 caravans with 813 vessels.
In 1943, when the Allies almost curtailed traffic along the northern route, the importance of the Trans-Iranian increased, the share of deliveries via the Persian Corridor reached a maximum of 33.5%. But this situation was not created immediately.
By the summer of 1941, a very tense situation had developed in Iran. The Nazi leadership planned to turn this country into a springboard for an attack on the USSR. Numerous German agents on the territory of Iran created warehouses of weapons and ammunition. In Tehran, the threat of a pro-German coup d'état was acutely felt. The situation required the development of a unified political line of the allies in relation to Iran. On August 17, 1941, a joint Anglo-Soviet note was handed to the government of Iran, containing a demand for the departure of German specialists from this country. The response of the Iranian side was deemed unacceptable, and on August 25, Soviet and British troops entered Iranian territory. As a result of the introduction of allied troops into Iran, the creation of a channel for the supply of weapons and military materials to the USSR was ensured.
Until the autumn of 1942, the work of ports, railways and roads in Iran and Iraq was organized by the British. But with the increase in the volume of traffic, communications in Iran became a brake on the entire southern route. Dissatisfied with this, the Americans in October 1942 took all communications under their control. The number of American troops in Iran by 1944 increased to 30 thousand people. However, the British were still responsible for the southern regions of Iran (up to Tehran), and the control of the northern part of the country was exercised by the Soviet Union. All this created conditions for a sharp increase in the flow of goods from the ports of the Persian Gulf to the USSR.
The main enterprise for organizing all transport operations was the Iransovtrans association, which existed on the territory of Iran since 1935. By 1943, this organization had changed structurally due to the formation of new departments, services, peripheral offices and agencies and received the name of the Soviet Transport Administration (STU). It consisted of 1,500 people, including 775 Soviet citizens. Many services were headed by officers of the rear of the Red Army, who were specialists in the operation of aircraft and cars, railways and highways, the supply and storage of ammunition, fuels and lubricants, etc. The activities of the STU in Iran were led by the command of the rear of the Red Army. On the territory of the USSR, the rear of the Transcaucasian, North Caucasian and Turkestan military districts, the Caspian military flotilla, the Caspian shipping company, the ports of Baku, Krasnovodsk, Makhachkala, the Transcaucasian and Ashgabat railways, and many highways were included in the transportation of goods.
Along with the reconstruction of ports, the Allies built large aircraft and automobile assembly plants on the shores of the Persian Gulf, organized field warehouses for picking and handling cargo. They also reconstructed the highways and railways they needed, and built airfields.
At four American and two British car assembly plants and several car assembly stations, 191,075 cars were assembled in less than three years, including 184,112 for the Soviet Union. At least three thousand cars were collected and sent to the USSR every month, which were organized into convoys of 40-50 cars and, under armed guard, were driven to the USSR. The columns were commanded by Soviet officers and sergeants. There were not enough drivers, and therefore it was decided to hire drivers from the local population, as well as recruit those who wanted to and teach them how to drive cars. The route south of Tehran was guarded mainly by Indian military units.
Veteran driver P. Demchenko recalled these days in the following way:
“For the rest of my life, I remember those 2,500 kilometers along narrow mountain roads, through steep passes with countless blind turns, through a hot desert shrouded in thick dust that no headlights can penetrate, And everything is at a pace: faster, faster - the front does not waiting, it's even harder there. As soon as we handed over the cars and cargo in Julfa, we immediately went back ...
There were accidents, sabotage, bandit raids. Many of our graves were left on that path. Iranians and Arabs who helped us also died. Not without casualties and the Western allies.
In Andimeshk, Khorramshahr, Bushehr and Shuaiba (Iraq), they organized the loading of imported vehicles with military goods, formed convoys. Thus, 434 thousand tons were transported to the USSR on American trucks, 36 thousand tons on English trucks, 221 thousand tons on Iranian and 1615 thousand tons on Soviet ones. At first, aircraft were assembled in Margil and Shuaiba, and after the creation of an air base in Abadan, two Soviet air regiments were formed for the transfer, staffed by experienced front-line pilots. Some of the cars were sent disassembled and assembled already in the USSR
After the Allies opened a second front in France, deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor began to wane. In August 1944, only six transport ships arrived in Basra, and one in September. In October, the British car assembly plant in Rafadaye and the aviation assembly center in Shuaiba were closed. In November 1944, the last vehicles were assembled at the largest assembly plant in Andimeshk. The last two ships with cargo for the Soviet Union arrived in December 1944, after which the Soviet Transport Administration was liquidated.
Throughout the war, the Far East route was the largest and calmest. Here, the greatest load fell on our ships - Japan did not fight with the USSR, and they followed almost unhindered to Soviet and American ports, although several were torpedoed by the Japanese. The main port here was Vladivostok, where 15 ocean-going ships could be unloaded at the same time. The main disadvantage of the Far Eastern route was its remoteness from the front. Goods delivered relatively quickly to the USSR were delayed for two or three weeks on the Trans-Siberian Railway, the capacity of which was limited.
The most profitable was the Far Eastern ferry aviation route, along which the aircraft went from Alaska to the front, bypassing the stages of intermediate assembly and disassembly.
The change in the situation on the fronts of Europe and the preparations for the deployment of military operations by the Soviet Union against Japan also led to a redistribution of cargo traffic along the routes. The Far East route came to the fore. From June 1943 to September 1945, over 940 ships passed through it, which transported 7087 thousand tons of cargo. 60% of them were delivered to the USSR at the final stage of the war.
The total amount of allied deliveries to the Soviet Union during the war years amounted to $13.3 billion ($11.36 billion from the United States, $1.693 billion from Great Britain and $200 million from Canada). As for the detailed list of deliveries, here the information given in various sources differs significantly. This is explained quite simply: firstly, they either include or do not include cargo that arrived in 1941 for cash and formally did not belong to Lend-Lease, and secondly, the data are given for different dates, then for July, then for September or even December 1945, and in some sources - even at the end of 1944! The author of this book does not have absolutely accurate and complete data either. One can only give a relatively detailed list of Lend-Lease cargo, compiled on the basis of an analysis of various sources.
So, from the UK it was delivered:
7411 aircraft (according to other sources - 7663);
548 anti-tank guns;
385 anti-aircraft guns;
253 mortars;
3376 anti-tank rifles;
4005 rifles and machine guns;
7041 radio stations;
1648 radars;
55 thousand km of telephone cable;
137,668 magnetic mines;
12 minesweepers;
9 torpedo boats;
£120 million in food, medicine and factory equipment.
Received from the USA:
14,795 aircraft (according to other sources - 14,126);
375,883 trucks;
51,503 jeeps;
8701 tractor;
35,170 motorcycles;
8218 anti-aircraft guns;
131,633 small arms automatic weapons;
12,997 pistols;
345,735 tons of explosives;
1981 locomotive;
11,155 railway wagons and platforms;
38,051 radio stations;
400,711 field telephones;
2 million km of telephone cable;
445 radars;
15,417,000 pairs of soldier's shoes;
1,541,590 blankets;
3.8 million car tires;
2.7 million tons of gasoline;
842 thousand tons of chemical raw materials;
106,893 thousand tons of cotton;
for 1.668 billion dollars of food;
96 merchant ships;
202 torpedo boats;
140 submarine hunters;
77 minesweepers;
28 frigates (patrol ships - according to Soviet terminology);
105 landing craft;
3 icebreakers.
Once again, it must be emphasized that these data are far from complete. The range of deliveries was much wider. It included, for example, leather coats (2520 pieces were delivered under the Second Protocol) and Diplomat horn frames. In the section "Ferrous metals" in 1944-1945, half a million tons of railway fasteners, rails, bandages, locomotive axles and wheels were imported into the USSR. These enumerations can be continued almost indefinitely. Part of the deliveries in the documents is not divided by supplier countries. Thus, for example, it is indicated that during the war years 44,600 metal-cutting machine tools and 103,000 tons of natural rubber were imported to the USSR from Great Britain and the USA.
In turn, the USSR provided the United States with raw material assistance on the basis of "reverse lend-lease" for 2.2 million dollars, which is 2.5 times less than the assistance that the Soviet Union received through the Red Cross.
Negotiations on the Soviet debt for lend-lease have been going on since 1947, and the Americans insisted only on paying for non-military goods (steam locomotives, power plants, machine tools, etc.). Since the Soviet side refused to report the results of the inventory of these cargoes, the Americans considered that there should be $2.6 billion worth of them. At the 1948 negotiations, the Soviet representatives agreed to pay only a small amount and were met with a predictable refusal from the American side. Negotiations in 1949 also came to nothing. In 1951, the Americans twice reduced the amount of the payment, which became equal to 800 million dollars, but the Soviet side agreed to pay only 300 million. According to the Soviet government, the calculation should have been carried out not in accordance with the real debt, but on the basis of a precedent. This precedent was to be the proportions in determining the debt between the United States and Great Britain, which were fixed as early as March 1946.
The negotiations were once again resumed after Stalin's death, so their tone softened somewhat. Along with the previously transferred icebreakers, frigates and several transports, the Soviet Union agreed to return 127 more ships to the US and destroy 90 warships under the supervision of American inspectors. The rest were declared lost, as well as a number of aircraft, tanks and other types of military equipment and weapons. Back in the 1980s, military censorship forbade any mention in publications of any use of lend-lease equipment in the Soviet army after 1946.
An agreement with the USSR on the procedure for repaying lend-lease debts was concluded only in 1972. Under this agreement, the USSR undertook to pay 722 million dollars by 2001, including interest. By July 1973, three payments were made totaling $48 million, after which the payments were stopped due to the introduction by the American side of discriminatory measures in trade with the USSR (the Jackson-Vanik amendment). In June 1990, during the talks between the presidents of the United States and the USSR, the parties returned to discussing this issue. Was installed new term the final repayment of the debt - 2030 - and the amount - 674 million dollars. After the collapse of the USSR, the debt for assistance was re-registered to Russia; as of 2003, Russia owed about 100 million US dollars.
Thus, out of the total volume of American Lend-Lease deliveries of 11.36 billion dollars, the USSR and then Russia paid 722 million, or about 7%. It should be noted, however, that in determining what part of Lend-Lease supplies was eventually paid for by the USSR, it is necessary to take into account the significant inflationary depreciation of the dollar that has occurred since 1945. So, by 1972, when the amount of debt for lend-lease in the amount of 722 million dollars was agreed with the United States, the latter had depreciated by 2.3 times since 1945. However, at that time the Soviet Union paid only 48 million dollars, and an agreement on the payment of the remaining 674 million was reached already in June 1990, when the purchasing power of the dollar was already 7.7 times lower than at the end of 1945. Thus, the actually paid share of Lend-Lease deliveries is many times less than 7%.
The signs and awards of Germany depicted on the covers are DENACIATED, that is, they do not contain images of Nazi symbols.
During the Second World War battleships lost their leading role at sea to aircraft carriers, and in the post-war years their combat use became completely problematic. However, the US Navy now has 4 ships of this class - they were built back in the early 40s. Moreover, over the past seven to eight years, the battleships have undergone modernization and their service life has been extended for another 20 years.
The Iowa-class battleships are considered among the best heavy artillery ships in the world. They are characterized by strong artillery and powerful armor protection, high speed and reliability, which, apparently, and extended their life span after the end of the war, when all the leading maritime powers were in a hurry to get rid of battleships. Apparently, the Americans did not have a clear idea about the prospects for the combat use of ships of this class. Battleships were involved in the war against North Korea, were periodically withdrawn from the fleet to the reserve and, finally, in the middle of 1958, they decided to convert them into attack missile ships, and a little later upgrade again in order to increase the volume of fuel tanks to 16.5 thousand tons. Which indicated the intention of the command of the US Navy to continue to use battleships in crisis regions far from the coast of the country.
The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force 1933-1945
Their aces were rightfully considered the best in the world.
Their fighters dominated the battlefield.
Their bombers wiped entire cities off the face of the earth.
And the legendary "things" terrified the enemy troops.
The Air Force of the Third Reich - the famed Luftwaffe - was as important a part of the blitzkrieg as the tank forces. The resounding victories of the Wehrmacht would have been impossible in principle without air support and air cover.
Until now, military experts are trying to understand how the country, which was forbidden to have combat aircraft after the First World War, managed not only to build a modern and efficient air force in the shortest possible time, but also to maintain air supremacy for many years, despite the overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy. .
This book, published by the British Air Office in 1948, literally "hot on the heels" of the war that had just ended, was the first attempt to comprehend her combat experience. This is a detailed and highly competent analysis of the history, organization and combat operations of the Luftwaffe on all fronts - Eastern, Western, Mediterranean and African. This is a fascinating tale of rapid rise and catastrophic fall. air force Third Reich.
Draw a conclusion about what it is, Dutch lung variant cruisers, I leave it to the reader. Perhaps the name “colonial cruiser” is associated with something exotic, like a pleasure yacht armed with harpoons or, at most, with a guard with small-caliber artillery. In fact, the colonial cruisers of the Netherlands were not much inferior to their class counterparts from the fleets of the leading maritime powers. However, in the process of work, more than once I heard that the Dutch, they say, had “non-combat ships”, which did not show themselves in any way. I would like to object to these indisputable "authorities", who with a languid breath recall the battleship Bismarck sunk in the first military campaign and the scarecrow that stuck out the whole war in the Norwegian skerries Tirpitz, that this can be agreed until the recognition of the "non-combat" of the entire Soviet surface fleet, which did not have a single combat contact at a level above the enemy destroyers and performed almost exclusively the tasks of fire support for troops and transport and supply functions. By the way, I'm tired of the abundance of published literature on German technology (not only marine), again and again giving repeatedly chewed, overcooked and "discarded" information. For mercy, gentlemen, Germanophiles, the Germans have already been "sucked" to the buttons on their uniforms, but they were not the only ones who had tanks, ships and planes!
The role in defeating the enemy, the quality and capabilities of the military equipment supplied by the Lend-Lease allies remain at the center of heated discussions, which are conducted by both professional historians and amateurs. Often in disputes on the topic “which is better - Sherman or T-34?” dominated by emotions and politics. However, a sober look at the figures and facts will not give an unambiguous answer to such questions.
English women are preparing the Matilda tank for shipment to the USSR under Lend-Lease. In Great Britain then everything Soviet was very fashionable and popular, so the workers with sincere pleasure display Russian words on the armor of the tank.
Deliveries of armored vehicles to the USSR began in the autumn of 1941. On September 3, Stalin sent a letter to Churchill, the content of which the prime minister brought to President Roosevelt. Stalin's message spoke of a deadly threat hanging over the Soviet Union, which could only be removed by opening a second front and urgently sending 30,000 tons of aluminum to the USSR, as well as at least 400 aircraft and 500 tanks every month. In accordance with the First (Moscow) Protocol, the United States and Great Britain pledged to deliver 4,500 tanks and 1,800 tankettes within nine months.
Armor is strong
The first to arrive in the USSR in October 1941 with the PQ-1 convoy were the English Matildas. The heavy infantry tank Mk II Matilda was adopted by the British on the eve of World War II, it was used most massively in North Africa and on the Soviet-German front. This 27-ton vehicle was protected by 78 mm frontal armor and armed with a 42 mm gun. Depending on the modification, two AES or Leyland 6-cylinder diesel engines with a total power of 174 or 190 hp were installed on the tanks, the maximum speed reached 24 km / h - more was not required for a direct infantry support vehicle.
The crew of the British medium tank Mk II Matilda II, delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease. Bryansk front, summer 1942.
For 1941-1942, the Matilda was the least vulnerable vehicle, surpassing our KB in this respect: only German 88-mm anti-aircraft guns, but not tank and anti-tank guns, could “take” it. The Matilda's gun was not inferior to our "forty-five" and, like it, hit German tanks of all types until the summer of 1942.
The power plant and planetary gearbox of the Matilda proved to be very reliable, but the well-protected undercarriage was difficult. On flat hard ground, it worked perfectly, but on Russian off-road it quickly failed. The small volume of the triple turret and the small diameter of the turret ring did not allow the placement of a larger-caliber artillery system in it, which predetermined the fate of the Matilda: by 1943, it was no longer used in combat units of the British army. In total, until August 1943, 2987 Matildas were produced, of which 1084 were delivered by the British to the USSR.
Favorite tankers
Mk.I Valentine was also an infantry tank. In terms of mass (16 tons), it was rather light, although in terms of armor thickness (65 mm) it surpassed other heavy vehicles. Its maximum speed was the same as that of the Matilda, which was explained by a less powerful engine. The Valentine I was equipped with a 135 hp carburetor engine, while the rest of the modifications were powered by AEC and GMC diesels with 131, 138 and 165 hp. Despite the increase in power, the dynamic characteristics of the vehicle did not change, as its weight increased: starting with the Valentine VIII, a 57-mm cannon was installed instead of a 40-mm cannon, and a 75-mm cannon was installed on the Valentine XI.
Loading tanks "Matilda" in one of the British ports for shipment to the USSR.
A feature of this tank was the absence of frames for assembling the hull and turret; armor plates were processed according to patterns and sizes so that they were mutually closed. When assembling the body, individual nodes were connected with bolts and rivets. In contrast to the Matilda, the Valentine's undercarriage was not armored: moreover, the brake drums were located outside the hull, which adversely affected their survivability. The tight layout of the fighting compartment was also a disadvantage, especially for vehicles with a three-man turret of models III and V. 2394 British and 1388 Canadian Valentines were sent to the Soviet Union; in the latter, instead of the English coaxial 7.92-mm BESA machine gun, the American 7.62-mm Browning М1914А1 was installed. Vehicles were supplied with 40- and 57-mm guns. For Soviet tankers, the Valentine was the most popular of the British tanks. Suffice it to say that in 1944-1945 its production was maintained solely to satisfy Soviet requests.
namesake prime minister
The heavy infantry tank Mk IV Churchill is best known for the phrase allegedly said by the legendary British prime minister: "The tank that bears my name has more flaws than I myself." Yes, its structure was very archaic: in order to increase the volume of the hull, the designers of Vauxhall motors placed the elements of the undercarriage under the hull, the caterpillar went around it, like tanks of the First World War period. But they achieved their goal: in the power department they installed a 12-cylinder horizontal Bedford engine with a power of 350 hp, and thanks to the wide turret sheet, they used a turret with 57 mm (starting with Churchill III "), and then with 75 mm guns The Churchill I and Churchill II were equipped with a 40 mm cannon, which was not enough for a heavy tank, so a 76 mm howitzer was also mounted in the front plate.
Reliable, in general, the undercarriage had significant drawbacks: the high frontal branch of the caterpillar was vulnerable to artillery fire, and the caterpillar itself often jammed the tower. Nevertheless, 5460 Churchills were produced before the end of the war. In 1942-1943, 301 tanks of modifications III and IV were delivered to the USSR, differing only in the way the turret was made. Perhaps they sent several Churchill-Crocodile flamethrower tanks (just such a machine is on display at the Museum of Armored Vehicles in Kubinka).
A typical drawback of British infantry tanks, which was also characteristic of Soviet tanks of the first period of the war (excluding KB), was the small volume of the fighting compartment and the unsuitability of the undercarriage for Russian conditions. In general, these were reliable vehicles, superior in armor protection to the German ones, and in terms of armament capable of effectively fighting them - before the Tigers and Panthers appeared on the battlefield.
Cromwell MK VII. A story about Lend-Lease armored vehicles would be incomplete if not to mention several vehicles sent specifically for testing. These are five American M5 tanks, two M24 Chaffee and one M26 General Pershing, as well as six British Cromwells. Let's add 115 M31 armored recovery vehicles, created on the basis of the M3 medium tank, and 25 Valentine-bridgelayer bridgelayers.
Full speed ahead on good gasoline!
The first American tanks that arrived in the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program were the light M3 General Stuart and the medium M3 General Lee, better known as the M3s and M3l. M3l is deservedly considered the best light tank World War II. The British tankers who fought in North Africa forgave him both weak weapons and the fire hazard of an aircraft engine, but the Stuart allowed them to constantly hang on the tail of the pursued German-Italian troops. The dynamic characteristics of the tank were excellent: a 7-cylinder Continental engine with an HP 250 power. accelerated a 12-ton car to 58 km / h; the mobility of the tank and the performance of its undercarriage were found to be amazing. But the 37-mm cannon, which was not inferior to the Soviet 45-mm in terms of armor penetration, turned out to be rather weak by 1942. To place a more powerful artillery system did not allow the size of the tower. Nevertheless, the M3l was produced until 1943, until it was replaced by the more advanced M5, which had both the advantages and disadvantages of its predecessor.
In 1942-1943, the Red Army received 1665 M3 and M3A1 tanks, which, if not superior, were not inferior to the Soviet T-60 and T-70. With the general simplicity and reliability, the M3l revealed a significant drawback: if the T-60 and T-70 automobile engines willingly consumed low-grade gasoline, the Stuart engine preferred exclusively high-octane aviation fuel, it quickly failed on our fuel.
Among the first British tanks to arrive on the Eastern Front was the light Mk. VII Tetrarch The production of these airborne vehicles with the original undercarriage began in 1940; until 1942, 171 pieces were produced, of which 20 arrived in the USSR. The seven-ton "Tetrarch" with a 165-horsepower Meadows engine reached speeds of up to 64 km / h and was armed with a 40-mm cannon.
Vulnerable three-story building
Another "general" - M3s - our tankers dubbed "a mass grave for seven." Having met the war with practically no tanks, the Americans often made decisions that lay on the surface, because there was no time for a deep study of projects. Therefore, the 75-mm gun was placed in the side sponson (protrusion), which was much easier and faster than developing the original turret. The limited angle of fire of the 75 mm cannon was compensated by installing a turret with a 37 mm cannon, and above that a machine gun. Thus, a 27-ton three-story mastodon 3 m high was formed; The 340-horsepower nine-cylinder radial Continental aircraft engine accelerated this multi-gun magnificence to 42 km / h, so that the M3s was not inferior to German tanks in terms of mobility. As for the armament, despite all the shortcomings of its layout, it remained quite powerful until 1942. According to the British, "General Lee" was the most powerful tank they had in North Africa: its 75-mm gun cracked like a nut the armor of any German cars, and 37-mm armor confidently held the blows of enemy shells. It was worse with the survivability of the chassis. In 1941-1942, 6258 "Li" of six modifications were produced, differing only in manufacturing technology. 1386 M3 tanks also arrived to us. Despite their impressive appearance, the Red Army soldiers and commanders did not treat them well, as evidenced by such a gloomy nickname given to them.
M4 Sherman and T-34: not twins, but brothers
Realizing the inherent flaws of the General Lee, the Americans set about creating a medium tank with a 75-mm cannon in a circular turret. All models of this tank, which received the army name M4 General Sherman, were similar in appearance. Only the type of power plant differed, while the guns, turrets, and layout were the same. Outwardly, only the M4A1 with a cast body stood out. The Shermans received their baptism of fire in November 1942 in North Africa near El Alaimen and proved to be the strongest in this theater of operations. In early 1943, they also appeared on the Soviet-German front. Since the carburetor engine was considered standard in the US Army, the M4A2 model with two 6-cylinder GMC 6046 diesel engines with an HP 375 power. it did not find application and was mainly exported to England and the USSR.
If a soviet tanks were subdivided during the Second World War into light, heavy and medium, then the British were divided into two main classes: infantry and cruising. The infantry were designed to support infantry actions and could be either light (Valentine) or heavy (Churchill). Lightly armored cruising tanks were intended for independent operations, for example, for quick penetration behind enemy lines. British cruiser tanks were practically not supplied to the USSR.
In terms of armament and armor, the Shermans were not inferior to the T-34. The smaller angle of inclination of the armor plates was compensated by their greater thickness, and the 75-mm cannon, before the advent of the Tigers and Panthers, hit German tanks of all types. However, the new 76 mm cannon with an initial armor-piercing projectile speed of 810 m/s allowed the Sherman to hit heavy enemy tanks at a distance of up to 1 km. Soviet tankers liked the Shermans with their viscous armor 50-75 mm thick; on machines produced in 1944-1945, its thickness reached 75-100 mm.
The patency of the M4A2 of the first series, equipped with rubberized tracks, was limited, and soon they were replaced with new ones - with a rubber-metal hinge (silent block), which increased the survivability of the fingers connecting the tracks. In addition, lugs were attached to the tracks. With rubber-metal tracks, the Sherman developed speeds of up to 50 km / h.
The suspension of this tank had significant drawbacks - the same as that of the M3. At the end of March 1945, its device was changed: instead of two rollers in the cart, two paired ones were used, buffer springs were made horizontal, and not vertical, as before; shock absorbers were installed on the carts. At the same time solved the problem of lubrication.
An important advantage of the Shermans - like other American and British tanks - was the presence of an anti-aircraft machine gun of a conventional or large caliber; on the Soviet IS-2 and heavy self-propelled guns, they appeared only in 1944. A total of 10,960 M4A2 tanks were manufactured, 4,063 vehicles arrived in the USSR, including 1,990 with a 75-mm gun and 2,073 with a 76-mm gun. In May-June 1945, several vehicles with a horizontal suspension were received, which, as part of the 9th mechanized corps, participated in the defeat of the Kwantung Army.
In general, the Sherman turned out to be reliable and easy to operate, which was confirmed by its tests in the winter and summer of 1943. By the end of the tests, the M4A2 had covered 3050 km without serious damage. Losing to the T-34 in driving dynamics (due to a less powerful power plant) and in lateral stability (the taller and narrower Sherman often fell on its side), the American tank had a number of important advantages. In particular, one additional crew member (5 people in the Sherman versus 4 people in the T-34) made it possible to separate the functions of the gunner and the tank commander. The combination of these functions in a Soviet tank often led to a slow reaction to enemy fire and, as a result, to defeat in tank duels.
Lend-Lease Tanks in the Red Army Part 1 Overview of armored vehicles and vehicles supplied to the USSR Formation of tank units equipped with vehicles manufactured in the USA and Great Britain.
Formation of tank units equipped with vehicles manufactured in the USA and Great Britain.
Due to the difficult situation at the front, foreign weapons were used for their intended purpose immediately. Initially, tank crews were trained at the Kazan Technical Tank School. Already on October 15, 1941, 420 crews were sent to Kazan in order to familiarize themselves with machines of the Matilda and Valentine type. The training lasted 15 days. In March 1942, tankers were trained on British and American tanks in the 23rd and 38th training regiments. The training of armored personnel carriers was carried out on the basis of the 20th tank regiment in Uryupinsk, which was reorganized into a training tank regiment on March 1, 1942.
"Valentine VII" of the Canadian production of the 5th Guards Tank Brigade, destroyed by artillery fire, November 3, 1942.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tanks "Valentine IV" from an unidentified unit Western front, spring 1943.
In May 1942, in connection with the increase in the size of the supply of foreign armored vehicles by order People's Commissar Defense No. 510 dated June 23, 1942 were formed:
Training tank brigade, equipped with American tanks (190th tank training brigade).
Training tank brigade, equipped with British tanks (191st training brigade).
Two training regiments equipped with T-60 light tanks were reorganized into training regiments equipped with American and British tanks (17th and 21st tank training regiments).
The mentioned parts allowed to prepare monthly:
245 crews of medium tanks MZ "Lee".
645 crews of light tanks MZ "Stuart".
300 Mk infantry tank crews
370 Mk infantry tank crews
III Valentine.
Total: 1560 crews per month.
Infantry tank "Valentine VII" of Canadian assembly, destroyed by artillery fire, Vitebsk region, January 1944.
In connection with the start of deliveries of armored vehicles in the southern direction, another brigade of 800 people was formed on the basis of the 191st tank brigade. The crews of this brigade were trained on the basis of the 21st training regiment in Yerevan.
On January 3, 1943, the 190th training tank brigade became known as the 5th brigade, and the 191st training tank brigade became the 6th brigade. The 6th brigade, together with the 16th tank training regiment, became part of the tank troops training center in Gorky.
In February 1943, the personnel training system was reorganized. Since from the beginning of 1943 the receiving detachment in Baku received tanks intended to be sent directly to the front, it became necessary to train crews right at the place where the tanks were received.
By order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense No. 24777 dated February 18, 1943, the 191st training tank brigade was reorganized into the 27th training regiment, which was supposed to be in Baku. The 21st training regiment was re-equipped with Soviet T-34 tanks.
Tanks "Valentine" and T-34 from the 5th Guards Tank Army of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, May 1944.
The crew of the "Valentine IV" of the 511th flamethrower regiment of the 3rd Baltic Front, summer 1944.
|
|
Tank "Valentine IV" hit by artillery fire, Southern Front, summer 1942.
Since November 1943, the percentage of tanks received under lend-lease to domestically produced tanks has decreased, the 6th training tank brigade was reorganized into a personnel training brigade on June 18, 1943, and the 5th training tank brigade was disbanded. The training of crews for foreign tanks continued only in the 16th Tank Training Regiment. At the end of the war, the Red Army operated three separate training tank regiments that trained crews for American and British-made vehicles: the 16th training regiment in Gorky, the 27th training regiment in Baku (both trained tankers for the M4A2 Sherman), and also the 20th training regiment in Ryazan (training of crews of armored personnel carriers M2, MZ, M5, "Universal Carrier" and MZ A1 "Scout Car"). For the training of motorcyclists of units equipped with motorcycles of the brands "NaNeu-Davidson", "Indian", "BSA", two training motorcycle regiments were formed: the 14th in Berdichev and the 15th in Tashino.
|
|
Tanks "Valentine" of the group of General I.A. Pliev (4th Guards Mechanized Corps and 4th Guards Cavalry Corps), Bobruisk area, June 1944.
The crews of the American self-propelled guns SU-57 (T48) and Ml0 were trained at the self-propelled artillery training center in Klyazma, formed on October 25, 1942. On December 10, 1943, a temporary training regiment of self-propelled artillery (1st regiment of self-propelled artillery) was formed in the center, designed to train crews of self-propelled guns M15 and Ml7. Having completed the training cycle, the regiment was disbanded, and the remaining M15 and M17 vehicles were received by one of the battalions of the 256th tank brigade. Officers were trained in tank schools specializing in one or another type of armored vehicles. In 1942, personnel for foreign tanks were trained in Chkalovsk (tanks "Matilda") and Kazan ("Valentine") in the tank schools operating there.
Until the end of the war, the Kazan Tank School trained platoon commanders for Sherman and Valentine tanks, and the 3rd Tank School in Saratov trained tank and armored personnel carrier commanders, as well as technicians for the MZA1 Scout Car and Universal Carrier. The Kiev Technical Tank School trained technicians for Sherman tanks.
Motorcycle platoon commanders were trained by a motorcycle school in Vyuki, and artillery officers were trained by tank schools that trained crews of SU-76 self-propelled guns.
Tanks "Valentine IX" 3rd Belorussian Front, Vilnius, July 1944.
"Valentine IX" of the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps, Romania, summer 1944.
In total, during the war years in the Soviet Union, 16,322 crews were trained for foreign tanks. 1243 marching companies were sent to the front. From these figures it follows that the Soviet military leadership was able to quickly organize the training of crews and commanders for tanks, cars, and motorcycles of foreign production. This made it possible to begin operation and combat use of foreign equipment as soon as possible. Units equipped with British and American tanks actively participated in the fighting.
Tanks were directly transferred to units of the active army from field carts and training units.
At a time when foreign tanks began to enter combat units, the main type of tank unit in the Red Army was the brigade. The transition from mechanized corps to tank brigades took place in the autumn of 1941 in connection with the heaviest losses and the transition to a defensive war.
There were several staffing tables for mixed tank brigades. But for units equipped with foreign tanks, special battalion staffs were created.
As a result, foreign armored vehicles could be used both as part of a battalion and an entire brigade. The battalion of British tanks (staff No. 010/395) included 24 Mk II "Matilda" tanks and 21 T-60s. The battalion consisted of 150 soldiers, sergeants and officers.
The tank battalion of American tanks (staff No. 010/396) consisted of 23 MZs ("Lee") and 12 MZl ("Stuart") tanks, as well as 190 soldiers and officers.
Tank battalions could form a brigade (state number 010/345 of February 15, 1942) with 1107 people and 46-48 tanks (in two battalions). In practice, battalions could be combined in various combinations. For individual tank brigades in 1941-1942. there were at least 7 staffings. In November 1942, the staffing table No. 010/267 appeared for a separate guards regiment of heavy breakthrough tanks. Such a regiment consisted of 214 men and 21 KB-1 or British Mk IV "Churchill" tanks. The status of the guards regiment received already during the formation. The task of the regiment of heavy tanks was to break through the enemy defenses in close cooperation with their infantry and artillery.
Tank "Valentine IX", 9th Guards Mechanized Corps of the 6th Tank Army, Bucharest, August 1944.
"Vylentayn IX" of the 4th motorcycle regiment of the 6th tank army, Bucharest, August 1944.
In 1942-1943. formed several regiments of heavy breakthrough tanks equipped with British Churehill vehicles. The regiments were used in different sectors of the Eastern Front. In addition to the guards regiments of heavy breakthrough tanks, since 1944 separate regiments of heavy tanks (staff No. 010/463) were formed, reporting directly to the command of the army or the front. These regiments included various tanks, most often foreign-made. There were several options for staffing, the most common option was 11 KB-lc and ten Mk IV "Churchill" (82nd tank regiment) or 11 M4A2 and ten "Valentine" IX (212th tank regiment). In 1942, they began to form larger tank formations. Tank corps began to be formed on March 31, 1942 in accordance with the directive of the People's Commissariat of Defense No. 72421 Sec. The corps consisted of a headquarters (staff No. 010/369), two tank brigades (staff No. 010/345 and 010/352) and one motorized rifle brigade. In total, the corps included 5603 people and 100 tanks. In 1942, the 9th, 10th and 11th tank corps were equipped with foreign guns. British and American tanks were used in conjunction with Soviet T-60 and T-70 light tanks. From September 8, 1942, mechanized corps were formed (order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 1104308ss). The mechanized corps consisted of a headquarters, three motorized rifle and one tank brigade, as well as the necessary units. The only corps equipped with foreign tanks was the 5th Mechanized Corps, which operated as part of the Southwestern Front (1943-1944). Later, many tank and mechanized regiments received M4A2 tanks.
In 1942-1944, six tank armies were formed. The composition of each army was determined individually based on the formation order. The approximate structure of the tank army was determined by GKO order No. 2791.
"Valentine IV", unidentified unit, Germany, April 1945.
The tank army consisted of a headquarters, two tank and one mechanized corps, a motorcycle regiment, an anti-aircraft artillery division, a self-propelled artillery regiment, a regiment of howitzers and a regiment of guards mortars. The tank army consisted of 46000-48000 people, 620-654 tanks and 189 self-propelled units.
Tank armies (especially at the end of the war) were equipped with Soviet-made tanks. Other units and subunits in the tank armies received foreign equipment.
For example, in the 1st Guards Tank Army in 1944, the 6th Motorcycle Regiment operated, which had ten Valentine IX tanks, eight SU-57s, 13 Scout Cars, 12 Willis and 204 BSA, Indian motorcycles. and
Harley-Davidson. The 19th self-propelled artillery brigade had 65 SU-57s. The 67th evacuation company had two Diamond T-980 tractors.
Reconnaissance battalions were equipped with armored vehicles. As part of the tank corps, the following staffing tables were used: No. 010/389 (20 armored personnel carriers, 12 armored vehicles, 208 people) and staff No. 010/289 (22 armored vehicles, seven tanks, 112 people).
For the formation of reconnaissance units, wheeled Scout Cars or half-tracked M2 / MZ were used.
Motorcycle battalions and regiments had different states, the most common were the following:
"Valentine IV" of an unidentified part of the Western Front, shma 1942.
"Churchill Mk III" "Alexander Nevsky" from the 50th Separate Guards Tank Regiment of the breakthrough.
1) Motorcycle battalion (staff No. 010/432) consisting of 10 T-34 tanks (or "Valentino) IX), five armored vehicles, ten armored personnel carriers, 111 motorcycles and 451 people.
2) A separate motorcycle regiment (staff No. 010/433) consisting of ten tanks (T-34 or Valentine "). 13 "Scout Car", five armored personnel carriers M2 / MZ or "Universal Carrier", three armored vehicles (BA-64), 214 motorcycles and 1188 people.
Motorcycle battalions were corps reconnaissance units, and motorcycle regiments were army reconnaissance units.
On May 1, 1945, 4 separate, 37 corps motorcycle battalions, as well as 11 separate motorcycle regiments, to one degree or another equipped with foreign-made equipment, operated as part of the Red Army,
In June 1944, they began to form light self-propelled artillery brigades equipped with American-made SU-57 (T48) self-propelled guns. There were three divisions in such brigades total strength 60 guns.
Each division (20 guns) consisted of 4 batteries of 5 SU-57s each.
"Churchill IV" of the 36th Separate Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment, August 1943.
Two Churchill IIIs (204 and G-01) of the 48th Heavy Tank Regiment, Kyiv, November 1943.
|
|
"Churchill IV" of the 36th Separate Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment, Vyborg, Finland, July 1944.
The 16th and 22nd self-propelled artillery brigades were organized in accordance with the staffing table No. 010 / 408. In addition to the SU-57, British Valentine tanks (five pieces) were often used in the divisions, which played the role of command vehicles. In the 19th self-propelled artillery brigade, staffing No. 010/508 was in effect. In addition to 60 self-propelled guns, the brigade had 5 command SU-57s equipped with a radio station. Additionally, in 1944, several separate companies were formed with 6 Scout Cars and batteries of four SU-57s.
Separate divisions of self-propelled guns SU-57 consisting of two batteries (eight vehicles) were often attached to separate motorcycle regiments and motorcycle battalions, as well as to other units. In accordance with the directive of the General Staff of the Red Army No. 3 / 306747 of March 22, 1944, the 1223rd and 1239th separate tank battalions were reorganized into self-propelled artillery regiments with the same numbers. The regiments were equipped with Ml0 self-propelled guns, 21 guns in each regiment (staff No. 010/484).
Since only 52 M10 self-propelled guns were received, the mentioned regiments remained the only units equipped with vehicles of this type. Almost from the very beginning of the operation of British and American armored vehicles in the Soviet Union, serious problems arose with its repair. Already in December 1941, repair base No. 82 was formed in Moscow, and in 1942-1943. the repair of allied armored vehicles was carried out by the repair base No. 12 (Baku, later Saratov), No. 66 (Kuibyshev, later Tbilisi), and also No. 97 (Gorky).
Since 1943, repair base No. 2 in Moscow was engaged in the repair of armored personnel carriers, and motorcycles of foreign production were repaired at base No. 135, formed in Kyiv in 1944. The largest was the repair base No. 97, organized in Gorky in July 1942. The base serviced not only the linear units, but also training, and also repaired equipment damaged during transportation.
Only from January to March 1943, the repair base completed the current, medium and overhaul 415 tanks, including 61 Matilda, 23 Valentine, 161 MZ Lee, 126 MZ Stuarts, 39 Shermans, 5 Churchills and 14 Universal Carrier armored personnel carriers. During the war years, the base repaired 2407 allied tanks (overhaul).
During the Second World War in the Soviet Union, there were six schools that trained crews for allied tanks, special staffing tables were developed for units equipped with allied tanks, and tactics of use adapted to technical specifications and design features of Western-made tanks. was established efficient system repair of allied armored vehicles.
Armored vehicles of British and Canadian production in the fighting on the Eastern Front and in the war with Japan
During the four years of the war, tanks, armored vehicles and trucks supplied under Lend-Lease were used in various parts of the Red Army. Therefore, we have a sufficient amount of evidence of the combat value of allied weapons. The opinion of mid-level commanders often differs sharply from the opinion of the crews. But this is quite understandable. If the commanders paid attention to the tactical and technical data of the equipment and its capabilities, then for the crew members, ease of operation was in the first place. And if the ease of operation was at its best, then the same cannot be said about the combat value of Western technology.
"Jupiversal Yurier" from the reconnaissance unit in battle. Southwestern Front, 1943.
Western technology was designed for the conditions of a completely different technical culture, which was reflected in the method of operation. At first, tankers tried to operate Western tanks in the way they were used to doing with Soviet-made tanks, which led to constant accidents. But the difficulties of the period of familiarization with the new technology were overcome, so the first failures quickly became a thing of the past. Experienced crews successfully used the equipment in combat operations.
For the first time, Lend-Lease equipment hit the combat units shortly before the start of the counteroffensive near Moscow. Only a small part of the 145 Matildas, 216 Valentines and 330 Universal Carriers delivered to the Soviet Union managed to participate in the battle.
As part of the troops of the Western Front, British tanks were in the 146th tank brigade (two T-34s, ten T-60s and four Valentines), the 23rd tank brigade (one T-34 and five Valentines), 20- th tank brigade (T-34, T-60, two Valentines and a BA-20 armored car) from the 16th, 49th and 3rd armies. The 112th Panzer Division of the 50th Army had one KB tank, eight T-26s and six Valentines.
The 170th and 171st separate tank battalions fought on the Northwestern and Kalinin fronts. The 170th battalion, attached to the 3rd shock army, had 10 T-60 tanks and 13 Matildas, while the 171st battalion had 10 T-60s, 12 Matildas and nine Valentines. The 171st Battalion was part of the 4th Shock Army of the Kalinin Front.
"Universal Carriers" were used in different parts of the fronts mentioned, we do not have specific data. Usually two or three transporters were attached to reconnaissance companies of tank brigades.
In the battle near Moscow, about 2% of the total number of cargo delivered from the west was used, so there can be no talk of any mass use.
Infantry tanks A12 Mk II "Matilda" II appeared on the Eastern Front at the end of 1941. The tanks were equipped with the so-called summer tracks, which turned out to be completely unsuitable for use in the autumn-winter thaw.
|
|
Armored personnel carriers "Universal Carrier" from an unidentified reconnaissance unit, Belarus, February 1944.
Numerous cases of tanks running into roadside ditches are known, there are photographs in which the tanks are shown turned over and standing on the tower. To avoid slippage on the road, the tracks began to be equipped with steel pads. In severe cold, the engine cooling system often froze, and this sometimes happened even when the engine was running. Snow and mud packed under the screens of the tracks, freezing, immobilizing the tank. But compared to the old T-26s, BTs and light T-60s, the allied tanks did not look so bad. They had powerful armor, good weapons, they were equipped with diesel engines. In terms of cross-country ability, they were second only to the new T-34s and KVs.
In addition to vehicles with a 40 mm cannon, Matilda II CS (Close Support) tanks armed with a 76.2 mm howitzer were supplied from the spring of 1942. With the help of high-explosive shells, close support tanks could successfully destroy enemy fortifications.
Analyzing the use of Matilda II tanks on the Eastern Front, it can be argued that the Red Army suffered the main losses in tanks due to insufficiently established interaction between tanks and infantry. Oncoming tank battles were rare and did not play a significant role in the balance of losses.
In January 1942, the 170th separate tank battalion, which had four KB, 13 Matildas and 18 T-60s, was introduced into the 3rd shock army on the North-Western Front.
The battalion supported the actions of the 23rd Infantry Division. On January 29, the Matild company entered the battle, supporting the attack of the 225th Infantry Regiment. January 23 at 14:00 "Matilda" advanced in the direction of Georgievka. When the Germans realized that they were being attacked by tanks, they retreated to Maltovice. Here the infantry dug in on the outskirts of the village of Myshkino. The Matildas, having used up their ammunition, withdrew to the rear. After the battle, it turned out that the tanks were advancing without infantry support, since the infantry was all out, but no one notified the tankers about this.
In February 1942, there were bloody battles in the Kholm area. The Matild company, attached to the 128th Infantry Regiment of the 391st Rifle Division, participated in them, whose task was to attack the German positions south of Kholm. The operation was carefully planned. The thickness of the snow cover reached one meter, which made it difficult for infantry and tanks to operate. At night, the Matild company took up its original positions. The tankers conducted reconnaissance of the nearest area and carefully coordinated their actions with the infantry. Sappers must clear a section of the highway and streets along which tanks will move. Passages in minefields are indicated by landmarks and flags. Tanks go into battle, carrying infantry troops on their armor. Having reached the target, the infantry dismounts and begins to advance independently, attacking enemy strongholds. It should be added that on one "Matilda" instead of a standard two-pound gun there was a Soviet forty-five. On February 13, at about noon, tanks with infantry landing formed into a column and moved to the attack. But the sappers did not have time to make full passages through the minefields. On the forefield, the leading tank was blown up by a mine. Other tanks tried to tow the vehicle that had lost its course, but this led to the loss of three more tanks. The infantry came under heavy fire, retreated and dug in in the cemetery. Tanks continued to fire at the enemy.
Despite the preparations, the offensive ended in failure due to insufficiently coordinated actions of the infantry and tanks.
During the battle for the Hill, the 82nd Rifle Battalion received support in the form of two Matilda tanks. Crews of tanks were able to conduct street battles. They fired at the enemy firing points discovered by the infantry.
The tanks of lieutenants Danilov and Zhuravlev constantly interacted with the infantry, and the radio operator Private Khalipov climbed onto the roof of the house and from there corrected the fire of his tank.
|
|
Armored personnel carriers "Universal Carrier" from the reconnaissance unit of Captain Bogdasarov, 1st Guards Tank Corps, January 4, 1944.
On February 17, Lieutenant Zhuravlev, who commanded a unit from the 84th Infantry Regiment, captured three houses during hand-to-hand combat. From February 15 to February 20, the 170th separate tank battalion destroyed 5 anti-tank guns, 12 anti-tank rifles, 4 machine guns, 12 mortars, 20 vehicles and up to two companies of infantry. The crews of each tank fired an average of 200 40 mm rounds and about 5,000 machine gun rounds per day. In accordance with the reports of the commanders, in the battles for the Hill, the Matilda tanks fully showed their capabilities. The armor of the tank proved to be especially good. Some tanks received 17-19 hits from armor-piercing 50-mm shells, but none of the shells could penetrate the armor.
The 170th separate tank battalion lost 8 Matilda tanks (including 4 on mines) and four T-60s. Quiet running and powerful armor made the Matilda a positional warfare tank.
Tanks "Matilda" fought as part of the Western, Bryansk and North Caucasian fronts until the beginning of 1944. On December 13, 1943, the 5th Mechanized Corps of the 68th Army of the Western Front had 79 tanks
Matilda, 138 Valentine, as well as 94 BA-64 armored vehicles and Universal Carrier armored personnel carriers.
As part of the 9th, 10th and 11th tank corps, British tanks were used along with Soviet T-70 light tanks.
British infantry tanks Mk III "Valentine" also got to the Eastern Front. The 16-ton Valentine was only slightly inferior in terms of armor, but was faster than the Matilda, so it received wider and longer use. The first Valentine tanks appeared on the Eastern Front as early as November 1941. Documents of the German 4th Panzer Group testify to the appearance of Valentine tanks in battle with the German 2nd Panzer Division on November 25, 1941. This is quite likely, since it is known that Valentine began to be used on the Eastern Front earlier than in North Africa (Operation Crusader).
In the German document we read: “German soldiers for the first time faced with the fact of the help of the British to the Red Army, which Soviet propaganda had long shouted about. British ganks are much worse than Soviet ones. The tank crews who were taken prisoner cursed the British equipment and praised the Soviet tanks. In addition, the interrogation of the prisoners showed that the crews had undergone a reduced training course, and the crews did not have sufficient qualifications to fully control the tank.
As part of the 5th Army, which covered the Mozhaisk direction, the 136th separate tank battalion became the first unit equipped with lend-lease equipment. It was formed on December 1, 1941. The battalion had 10 T-34 tanks, 10 T-60 tanks, 9 Valentines and three Matildas. British tanks arrived from a warehouse in Gorky on November 10, 1941. Part of the training took place already at the front. During training, many tanks were damaged: two Matildas, five Valentines, two T-60s and T-34s. After repairing the tanks, the 136th battalion was assigned to the 329th rifle division, and later to the 20th tank brigade, in which the battalion participated in the counteroffensive near Moscow. On January 15, 1942, the battalion command compiled a "Brief Report on the Actions of the Mk III Tanks". Apparently, this is the first document evaluating the effectiveness of British tanks in frontal conditions.
“The experience of using Valentines showed:
1. Tanks passability in winter conditions is good, movement is ensured on soft snow 50-60 cm thick. Grip with the ground is good, but spurs are needed when icy conditions.
|
|
Armored personnel carriers "Universal Kzrier" from the reconnaissance unit of Captain Surzhnikov, battle on Kursk Bulge, July 1943.
2. The weapon operated flawlessly, but there were cases of undershot guns (the first five or six shots), apparently due to the thickening of the lubricant. The weapon is very demanding on lubrication and maintenance.
3. Observation in devices and slots is good.
4. The motor group and transmission worked well up to 150-200 hours, then a decrease in engine power is observed.
5. Good quality armor. The personnel of the crews underwent special training and owned tanks satisfactorily. The command and technical staff of the tanks knew little. A great inconvenience was created by the crews' ignorance of the elements of preparing tanks for winter. As a result of the lack of necessary insulation. cars hardly started in the cold and therefore kept hot all the time, which led to a large consumption of motor resources. In a battle with German tanks (12/20/1941), three Valentines received the following damage: one had a turret jammed with a 37-mm projectile, the other had a cannon, the third received five hits on the side from a distance of 200-250 meters. In this battle, the Valentines knocked out two medium German T-3 tanks.
In general, the Mk.Sh is a good combat vehicle with powerful weapons, good maneuverability, capable of operating against enemy manpower, fortifications and tanks.
Negative sides:
1. Poor grip of the tracks with the ground.
2. Great vulnerability of suspension bogies - if one roller fails, the tank cannot move.
3. There are no high-explosive fragmentation shells for the gun.”
The latter circumstance forced the State Defense Committee to decide on the re-equipment of the Valentine tanks with Soviet-made weapons: a 45 mm caliber cannon and a DT machine gun. This task was assigned to plant No. 92, where Grabin's design bureau worked. In December 1941, one tank was rearmed and given the designation ZIS-95. But no further work has been done in this direction.
Many tanks "Valentine" participated in the battle for the Caucasus. On the North Caucasian front in 1942-1943. the share of lend-lease tanks reached 70% of the total fleet of vehicles. This was due to the fact that tanks delivered through Iran, as well as vehicles that arrived in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, and then transported down the Volga, arrived here.
One of the most experienced units of the North Caucasian Front was the 5th Guards Tank Brigade. She began her actions on September 26, 1942, defending Grozny in the Balgobek area. The brigade consisted of 40 Valentine tanks, three T-34s and a BT-7. On September 29, the brigade attacked the German units near Alkhan-Yurt. The crew of Captain Shemelkov (tank "Valentine") knocked out five tanks, a self-propelled gun, an enemy truck, and also destroyed 25 enemy soldiers. The fighting continued for several more days. In total, during the battles for Malgobek, the brigade knocked out 38 tanks (including burned 20), a self-propelled gun, 24 cannons, 6 mortars and one six-barreled Nebelwerfer.
The combat losses of the brigade amounted to two T-34s and 33 Valentine tanks (including 8 burned down). 268 soldiers of the brigade died or were injured.
The archive preserved the protest of the commander of the brigade, Colonel P.K. Shurenkov, dated early January 1943, sent to the command of the armored car troops.
“Among the tank formations of the front, the 5th tank brigade, like the guards, is the only one. During the fighting from September 26, 1942 to January 1, 1943, she honorably justified the title of the Guards. Now the brigade has been withdrawn for reorganization, having handed over the remnants of the combat materiel to another tank brigade. For three months, the brigade fought on tanks of foreign brands "Valentine" and MZ light, while non-guards tank brigades 2 and 63 are equipped with T-34 and T-70 tanks.
|
|
Armored personnel carriers "Universal Carrier" of an unidentified reconnaissance unit, Belarus, February 1944.
As for the combat qualities of MZ light tanks, I must say that this tank did not justify itself in battles: its thin armor and weak gun do not give the desired effect, not only against heavy German tanks, but also against the average. Enemy tanks with more powerful guns hit from long distances, which are inaccessible for the MZ light gun. As a result, the MZ light tank is defeated without causing damage to the enemy. Wonderful people are dying along with the tanks.
In connection with the foregoing, I consider it expedient to equip guard units with domestic tanks, where the cadres of tankers are selected most carefully and are of particular value. On tanks of domestic production, they could bring much more benefit and better results in defeating the enemy. On foreign vehicles, these wonderful tankers often died aimlessly.
Now parts of the brigade are in formation and again receive tanks of foreign brands.
I ask you to raise a question with the relevant authorities about at least partial staffing of the brigade with domestically produced T-34 and T-70 tanks.
Returning to the combat use of Valentine tanks, it should be noted that most often they were used simultaneously with Soviet-made tanks. In the first line, they used KB and Matilda II CS, armed with 3-inch howitzers of 76.2 mm caliber, in the second, Soviet medium tanks T-34, and in the third, T-70 and Valentine. Such a formation has proven itself in combat. An example of this use of Valentine tanks can serve as a breakthrough of the so-called "blue line". For a breakthrough, a strike group was created, consisting of parts of the 56th Army, including the 5th Guards Tank Brigade, which received 13 M4A2 tanks on August 1, 1943 " Sherman, 24 Valentines, 12 T-34 tanks, as well as the 4th Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment, which consisted of 16 KB-1s tanks. The actions of the tanks were supported by a battalion of the 417th Infantry Division.
August 6, 1943 at 6:00 in the morning after a volley of rocket artillery on the Gorno-Vesely farm and artillery preparation, three KB and three "Valentine", led by the guards senior lieutenant G.P. Polosin, who describes this battle in this way: “Tacking among the shell explosions (thirty-minute artillery preparation, of course, did not fully suppress the enemy fire system), my “Valentine” suddenly found himself literally in front of the houses of the farm. That's luck! But how are the other tanks? ..
|
|
Armored personnel carriers "Universal Carrier" of an unidentified reconnaissance unit of the 6th Panzer Army, Bucharest, August 1944.
I looked around through the peepholes. I saw that two more "Englishmen" of my platoon - the cars of Poloznikov and Voronkov - were walking a little behind. But heavy KB is not visible. Maybe they fell behind or took aside ... The infantry, of course, was cut off from the tanks even earlier ...
Destroying enemy machine-gun emplacements and dunes along the way, our platoon tanks entered the hollow. Stopped here. I gave the order by raii:
Do not shoot without my order! Save your projectiles. It is not yet known how much it will take like this ... And then to get through to your own ...
The tank commanders answered briefly: they understood.
Then he tried to contact the commander of the guard company, Senior Lieutenant Maksimov. And I couldn't. The ether was filled to the limit with hysterical commands on German. Apparently, the Nazis were seriously worried about the unexpected breakthrough of Russian tanks in this sector of their defense.
But our position was unenviable. It just so happened that the main group, conducting reconnaissance in force, broke away, ammunition and fuel were running out, alone behind enemy lines, which, however, had not yet fully understood the situation, but this was a matter of time.
Having crushed a German anti-tank gun along the way, our tank jumped out of the hollow into the open space and saw a strange picture. On Voronkov's car, which was 30-40 meters to the right, there were Germans. They mistook the Valentines for their equipment, pounded their butts on the armor and did not understand why the tankers did not get out. After waiting until the Germans had accumulated up to a dozen people, I ordered to hit them with a machine gun. Then, firing from smoke grenade launchers (that's where this weapon, which was only on British tanks) came in handy and setting up a smoke screen, the vehicles returned through the same hollow to the location of their troops. Near Gorno-Vesely, the battle was still going on. The KB tanks were knocked out. One of them stood without a tower. Another a little farther from him buried his cannon in the ground. At his right flattened caterpillar, two tankers fired back from pistols from the Germans who were pressing. Having dispersed the enemy infantry with fire from cannons and machine guns, we dragged both wounded into our Valentine. It immediately became clear that, having failed to penetrate the armor of the KB with anti-tank artillery, the Germans used guided mines against them. During this short raid behind enemy lines, a platoon of guards of senior lieutenant G.P. Polosina destroyed five anti-tank guns, crushed five bunkers, 12 machine guns, shot up to a hundred Nazis. But most importantly, with his unexpected blow from the rear, he forced the enemy to fully open his fire system. Which is exactly what was needed.
It remains to add that all the crew members of Polosin's platoon were awarded government awards for this. Personally, Georgy Pavlovich Polosin received the Order of the Red Star.
The 196th Tank Brigade of the 30th Kalinin Front liberated Rzhev in August 1942. Tanks "Valentin" during the battles for Rzhev were equipped with additional pads on the tracks, which reduced the specific pressure on the pound. A similar technical solution (Ost-Kette) was also used by the Germans. Thanks to the larger bearing area of the tracks, the tank felt more confident in the swamp and in the snow
|
|
Armored personnel carriers "Universal Carrier" from an unidentified reconnaissance unit of the 2nd Panzer Army, Lublin, July 1944.
Tanks "Valentine" were used in positional battles on the Western and Kalinin fronts until the beginning of 1944.
Mobile "Valentines" were often attached to parts of the tank and cavalry corps. Until the end of the war, Valentine IV tanks, and later IX and X, were the main equipment of tank and cavalry units.
The disadvantage of the tank was the absence of high-explosive fragmentation shells in its ammunition load. On the tank it was impossible to turn around on the spot, as this threatened to lose teeth on the drive wheel, damage the tensioning mechanism and the loss of the caterpillar. Despite these shortcomings, by the end of the war, the Valentine (and Sherman) remained the only types of tanks ordered by the Soviet Union in the west. An example is the 5th Guards Tank Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front. On July 22, 1944, she had 39 Valentine tanks. The combat path of the Valentines ended in Japan. The 1st Far Eastern Front had 20 Valentine Bridgelayer tanks. As part of the 2nd Far Eastern Front, 40 "Valentines" III from the 267th tank regiment operated, and another 40 "Valentines" were in the ranks of the cavalry-mechanized grouping of the Trans-Baikal Front.
The minelayers attached to the tank brigades of the 1st Far Eastern Front did not find any use, since tanks and self-propelled artillery crossed small rivers and streams without preparation, and the 8-meter bridge was useless for large obstacles.
Canadian tanks "Valentine" VII in the Red Army were also designated as Mk III. Therefore, it is difficult to say with certainty which unit was armed with British or Canadian-made vehicles. Canada supplied more than half of all Valentines received by the Soviet Union.
In the 19th Perekop tank corps, as part of the 91st separate motorcycle battalion, there were two Valentines, ten BA-64 armored vehicles and ten Universal Carrier armored personnel carriers.
An example of the successful use of the Valentine VIII tanks can be the battles fought by the 139th Tank Regiment of the 68th Mechanized Brigade of the 5th Mechanized Corps during the siege of Maiden's Field in November 1943. The 139th regiment had 20 T-34 tanks and 18 Valentine tanks.
On November 20, the regiment, interacting with the 5th Guards Tank Regiment of the breakthrough, equipped with T-34 and KB tanks, as well as infantry from the 110th Guards Division, launched an attack. Initially, tanks with armored infantry troops and anti-tank guns in tow moved quickly. The enemy did not expect a massive tank attack, so they did not put up organized resistance. Having taken the first line of fortifications, the infantry unhooked their guns and took up defensive positions, waiting for the Germans to counterattack. Units of the 110th Guards Infantry Division entered the breakthrough. But there was no enemy counterattack. During the day, the attackers penetrated 20 km deep into the enemy defenses and occupied the Maiden's Field. The losses of the Soviet side amounted to only four tanks: KB, T-34 and two "Valentine" VII.
|
|
Tetrarch I tanks of the 151st Tank Brigade North Caucasian Front, March 1943. On the frontal armor, English designations have been preserved.
Light tank Mk VII "Tetrarch" I: only 20 vehicles of this type hit the Eastern Front. The first "Tetrarchs" (cars of the 9th Lancers) in November 1942 arrived in the 151st Tank Brigade of the 45th Army of the Transcaucasian Front, stationed in the Armenian Leninakan. The task of the unit was to defend the state border of the USSR and ensure Lend-Lease supplies through Iran. The brigade had 24 T-26 tanks of the 1937 model and 19 Tetrarchs. On January 5, 1943, the brigade was transferred by sea to Tuapse, where it became part of the 47th Army of the Black Sea Group of the Transcaucasian Front. On March 19, 1943, 14 tanks (4 tanks were under repair) of the 151st Tank Brigade were included in the 563rd Separate Tank Battalion. The battalion had several types of tanks: two BT-7s. two T-34s, two T-26s, two T-60s, one Valentine and one Stuart. It is this composition that is described in the combat order No. 06 of the 18th landing army of March 25, 1943. In March and April 1943, tanks fought in the area of the Shantsune bridge, and at the end of May, seven serviceable Tetrarchs were transferred to the 131st separate tank brigade. In July, the battalion commander reported a complete lack of spare parts for Vickers Mk VII tanks. On September 14, the 563rd battalion was included in the 5th Guards Tank Brigade. One Mk VII was lost in action on September 29, 1943, and the second battalion was missing on October 1, 1943.
The last Mk VII ("20") was sent to the training ground in Kubinka, where the vehicle remains to this day in the collection of the tank museum.
At the request of the Red Army command for the supply of tanks heavier than the Matilda and Valentine, Great Britain responded with the supply of infantry tanks A22 Mk IV "Churchill" III / IV. Often the Churchill tank is classified as heavy, although neither armament nor armor give grounds for such a classification.
The first ten Churchill Mk III tanks arrived in the USSR in July 1942. From August 30 to September 5, 1942, one tank passed a full cycle of tests at the Kubinka training ground. The final report stated that “The English heavy tank MK.IV Churchill, in terms of its armament, armor protection and maneuverability, can effectively fight the tanks of the German army. In this form, the MK.IV tank is an unfinished machine, both in terms of design and production. The undercarriage for a 40-ton vehicle is not strong enough ... During operation in the army, the Churchill tank will require frequent repairs with the replacement of individual parts and entire assemblies. The MK.IV is inferior to the KB and KB-1c tanks in terms of cannon armament, but surpasses them in armor protection. In terms of power reserve and average speeds, KB and Churchill are equivalent. All 253 delivered tanks went to the formation of separate breakthrough guard regiments (21 tanks per regiment). From the beginning of 1943, regiments began to be sent to the front.
On January 16, the 48th Separate Guards Tank Regiment, which had 21 Churchill tanks, arrived from Gorky on the Don Front to the attack area of the German army, which was trying to break through to the group surrounded by Stalingrad. On January 19, 1943, the regiment arrived at Pitomnik, where it was included in the 21st Army. The Churchills supported the offensive of the 51st Guards Rifle Division on the Gonchar farm. On January 24, the division stormed the village of Gumrak. On January 30, 4 tanks were allocated from the regiment, which participated in street battles in Stalingrad. Among other tanks, they fought on Kharkovskaya and Kommunisticheskaya streets. Later, the regiment was taken to the rear and subordinated to the 38th Army, in which the regiment took part in the battles for Kyiv on November 6, 1943.
On January 9, 1943, General Chuikov's famous 65th Army included the 47th Separate Breakthrough Guards Tank Regiment, also numbering 21 Churchill tanks. The regiment, along with the 91st Tank Brigade, supported the actions of the 67th Guards and 33rd Rifle Divisions. On January 20, 1943, three tanks of the 47th regiment fought in the area of the Barrikady plant in the area where the headquarters of the German 6th Army was located.
Since April 1943, the 49th Separate Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment fought on the Leningrad Front, armed with 21 Churchill tanks and three Universal Carrier armored personnel carriers. Until the beginning of 1944, the regiment did not conduct active combat operations. In February 1944, the 36th Separate Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment, formed in January 1944, arrived at the Leningrad Front. Both regiments in the 42nd Army fought to lift the blockade. On January 17, the 4th Separate Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment fought near the village of Gorelovo, and later participated in the liberation of Tsarskoe Selo. During the operation, the tankers became convinced that the Churchill was not very suitable for the conditions of the Russian winter. During the first days of the fighting, regular heaters had to be replaced with Soviet-designed heaters.
Tanks "Churchill" were also part of the Volkhov Front. Since March 17, the 50th Separate Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment, armed with 21 Churchill tanks, has been operating there.
On March 19, the 50th regiment launched an attack on Cannon Hill, supporting the actions of the 374th rifle division. Of the 21 tanks of the regiment, 12 got stuck in the mud, lost their course on mines or were hit by German fire. anti-tank artillery. The remaining 7 tanks reached the German positions, but the infantry did not support the tank attack. Having used up their ammunition, the tanks returned to the rear.
On March 22, 1943, 5 tanks of the 50th Regiment under the command of Captain Belogub attacked the enemy again, this time from the direction of Lake Beloe. Again, the Churchills operated without infantry support. The tanks reached the German positions and came under fire from a camouflaged anti-tank gun. As a result, the regiment lost 4 vehicles.
Over the next three days, the crews of tanks that had lost their course fired at German positions. The ammunition was delivered to the tanks under the cover of darkness. The infantry of the 374th Rifle Division did nothing to protect the tanks, but the Germans undertook an operation to destroy immobile vehicles. Tankers desperately resisted. Having used up cartridges and shells, the tankers fought back from the enemy, throwing hand grenades through the side hatches (the hatches on the roof were jammed). Fortunately, two more Churchills and evacuation tractors arrived in time. The tractors towed Captain Belogubov's tank to the rear, the crews of the remaining vehicles retreated along with the infantry. During several days of fighting, the tankers did not lose a single person. None of them were even injured.
Tanks "Churchill" also participated in the Battle of Kursk. As part of the 5th Guards Tank Army, the 15th Separate Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment, which had 10 Churchill tanks, fought in the Prokhorovka area, as well as the 36th Separate Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment, which had a regular strength of 21 Churchills. After the battle, the 15th regiment received KB-1s tanks, and the 36th regiment was transferred to the Leningrad front.
In mid-July 1943, the 10th Separate Breakthrough Guards Tank Regiment, which consisted of 21 Churchills, became part of the 1st Guards Tank Army. On July 21, 1943, the regiment supported the actions of the 174th and 57th rifle divisions, and also interacted with the 91st Tank Brigade during the attack on German positions in the Andreevka-Petropol-Kopanki area. During the attack, the infantry did not support the tanks, so the 10th regiment immediately lost 16 Churchills. Shortly thereafter, the regiment was withdrawn and reorganized.
On July 13, 1943, the 34th Separate Breakthrough Guards Tank Regiment, formed in Gorky on March 21, 1943, arrived at the Bryansk Front. The regiment had 21 Churchill tanks. The regiment fought in the Orel region, supporting the actions of the 1st Motorized Brigade of the 1st Don Tank Corps. On August 5, tanks of the 34th OGvCCI entered Oryol. On September 1, the regiment was taken to the rear and equipped with T-34 tanks.
In the 21st Army of the Leningrad Front during the Vyborg operation - from June 10, 1944 - the 36th Separate Guards Breakthrough Tank Regiment fought, which had a regular number of Churchill tanks. On June 18-20, the regiment fought in Finland for Vyborg (Viipuri). By the end of the fighting, only 6 British tanks and 32 KV tanks remained in the regiment.
Tanks "Churchill" entered service with other parts. For example, the 39th separate Kyiv regiment fought with (as of March 2, 1944, three KB, two Matildas, two T-70s and two T-60s, as well as 38 T-34 tanks. This surviving The regiment handed over the equipment to the 48th Guards Tank Regiment of the breakthrough.
The 8th Army, which was part of the Leningrad Front, included the 82nd Tank Regiment, equipped with KB-lc tanks (11 pieces) and Churchill tanks (10 pieces). In September, the regiment fought in Estonia, including for Tallinn and the islands of the Moonsund archipelago. This was the last time the Churchills were used on the Eastern Front.
Armored personnel carriers "Universal Carrier" in the Soviet army received the designation Mk I "Universal". During the war, the Red Army received 2008 armored personnel carriers of this type. Lendliz armored personnel carriers made up for the absence of their own armored personnel carriers in the Red Army. In addition to the Universals, the Soviet side used the American MZA1 wheeled armored personnel carrier, the M2-MZ half-tracked armored personnel carrier, as well as captured German Sdkfz 250 and 251. In combat units, domestic DT, DShK machine guns and anti-tank guns were installed on armored personnel carriers.
"Universal" (it should be noted that in the service of the Red Army there were cars of both British and Canadian production) fell into reconnaissance battalions of tank corps, motorcycle and motorized infantry units
At the end of 1943, the troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front defeated the German units over the Molochnaya River and approached Perekop. Parts of the 19th Panzer Corps of the 51st Army defeated the German mountain rifle division. Went to explore reconnaissance group Lieutenant Galamov, who tracked the movement of German units. The reconnaissance unit was equipped with Universal Carrier armored personnel carriers and Harley-Davidson WC 45 motorcycles with a sidecar. Armored personnel carriers disturbed the retreating Germans with fire. Such a hunt once made it possible to capture a car with the deputy division commander, the chief of staff and several other senior officers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tank Lend-Lease
Deliveries of armored vehicles to the Soviet Union began in the autumn of 1941. On September 3, Stalin sent a letter to Churchill, the contents of which the latter brought to President Roosevelt. Stalin's message spoke of a deadly threat looming over the Soviet Union, which could only be removed by opening a second front and urgently sending 30 thousand tons of aluminum to the USSR, as well as at least 400 aircraft and 500 tanks monthly. In accordance with the First (Moscow) Protocol, the United States and Great Britain pledged to deliver 4,500 tanks and 1,800 tankettes within nine months. Under the latter in Soviet documents of those years, the British Bren and Universal armored personnel carriers often appeared.
Loading tanks "Matilda", intended for the USSR, in one of the British ports. 1941
The first 20 British tanks were delivered to Arkhangelsk by convoy PQ-1 on October 11, 1941. Already on October 28, these machines were delivered to Kazan. In total, by the end of the year, 466 tanks and 330 armored personnel carriers arrived in the Soviet Union from Great Britain. As for the United States, in 1941 they were able to send only 182 tanks to the USSR, which arrived at their destination already in 1942. The arrival of a significant amount of imported equipment required the creation of a military acceptance service and a personnel training system.
Initially, the acceptance and development of foreign tanks took place at the training center in the city of Gorky, where combat vehicles were sent immediately after unloading. However, already on January 20, 1942, the department for the military acceptance of foreign equipment was organized directly in Arkhangelsk, and on April 4 - in Iran. At the same time, the department in Iran was engaged only in cars, while the tanks were distilled to Gorky, where they were accepted.
By the middle of 1942, the Arkhangelsk department for the acceptance of armored vehicles included groups in Bakaritsa, Molotovsk and Economy. In addition to it, there was a department for the acceptance of tanks in Murmansk, and the acceptance of cars and motorcycles in Gorky and Iran. In connection with the growth of deliveries along the Persian Corridor and through the ports of the Far East, departments for the military acceptance of armored vehicles were organized in Baku (March 1943) and Vladivostok (September 1943). Finally, in February 1945, due to the curtailment of the Baku division, a military acceptance department was opened in Odessa.
MZl and Valentine tanks (background) from the 5th Guards Tank Brigade. North Caucasian Front, August 1942.
As for the training of crews for foreign tanks, it was originally held at the Kazan Tank Technical School. Already on October 15, 1941, 420 crews were sent from training tank regiments to Kazan for retraining on British tanks. However, the facilities of the school base appeared to be limited. Therefore, already in November, crews for Matildas began to be trained at the 132nd and 136th separate tank battalions. At the 10th reserve tank regiment, training was organized for another 100 crews (50 each for Matildas and Valentines). At the 2nd reserve regiment, 200 drivers of armored personnel carriers were trained. They also took care of the repair of imported vehicles: the repair and restoration company of the 146th tank brigade arrived at factory No. 112 at the same time in November 1941 to undergo training for the repair of Valentine tanks and armored personnel carriers.
This situation continued until the spring of 1942, that is, until the resumption of mass deliveries of armored vehicles under Lend-Lease. Already in March 1942, the 23rd and 38th training tank regiments were transferred to train crews for foreign tanks, and the 20th tank regiment was transferred to train armored personnel carriers. Soon, however, this was not enough. In June 1942, by order of the People's Commissar of Defense, the 190th and 194th training tank brigades were formed to train crews of American and British tanks, respectively, and the 16th and 21st training tank regiments were transferred from training crews for the T-60 to training crews of British and American tanks. The regular number of training regiments and brigades made it possible to train 645 crews for MZl light tanks, 245 for medium MZs, 300 Matilda crews and 370 Valentine crews per month.
The 191st tank brigade was formed to ferry the tanks coming along the Iranian route. This formation received trained crews from the 21 training tank regiment stationed in Yerevan. In February 1943, to train crews directly in Baku, the 27th training tank regiment was formed on the basis of the 191st tank brigade, and the 21st regiment was transferred to the T-34.
In the winter of 1943, the 190th training tank brigade was transformed into the 5th, and the 194th training tank brigade into the 6th training tank brigades, which, together with the 16th training tank regiment, became part of the Training Armored Center in Gorky. However, the new brigades in their teaching quality did not last long. Deliveries of armored vehicles under lend-lease began to decline, and already in October 1943, the 5th training tank brigade was disbanded, and the 6th training tank brigade in June of the same year was reorganized into an officer training brigade.
By the end of the war, the Red Army had three separate training tank regiments for training crews for Lend-Lease equipment: the 16th in Gorky and the 27th in Baku trained crews of M4A2 tanks, and the 20th in Ryazan trained crews of armored personnel carriers of all types.
Personnel for units and subunits armed with various types of self-propelled artillery mounts were trained at the Self-Propelled Artillery Training Center in the city of Klyazma near Moscow.
The command and technical staff in 1942 was trained by the Chkalovsky (for the Matilda tanks) and Kazan (for the Valentine tanks) tank schools. At the end of the war, the Kazan Tank School trained commanders of platoons of Sherman and Valentine tanks, the 3rd Saratov School of Armored Vehicles and Armored Personnel Carriers produced command and technical staff for units that were armed with M2, Scout and Universal armored personnel carriers, and the Kiev the tank technical school trained technicians to service the Sherman tanks.
In total, during the years of World War II, various training units trained 16,322 crews for imported armored vehicles.
Tanks MZl and MZs from the 241st tank brigade during exercises before the battles. Stalingrad area, October 1942.
In connection with the arrival of a large number of foreign tanks in the Red Army, a special staff of a separate tank battalion was developed, which made it possible to use Lend-Lease vehicles both as part of a battalion and as part of a brigade. At the same time, foreign materiel could be united in subdivisions and units in various combinations, since only the states of individual tank brigades in 1941-1942 had at least seven. In 1943, separate tank regiments of army and front subordination began to form, which also had Lend-Lease equipment in service. In addition, the M4A2 and Valentine tanks, starting from 1943, were often equipped with tank regiments of mechanized brigades in mechanized corps. At the same time, a tank brigade as part of a mechanized corps could be equipped with both imported and domestic tanks. As a result, the Red Army had separate tank and mechanized corps of three types of equipment: completely domestic tanks, completely foreign and having a mixed composition. As for the units of army subordination, in addition to individual tank regiments, they could include self-propelled artillery brigades SU-57, reconnaissance and motorcycle battalions and regiments. The latter were often armed with imported tanks and armored personnel carriers. So, the armored reconnaissance battalion was armed with up to 20 Scout armored personnel carriers and 12 BA-64 armored vehicles, and the motorcycle battalion was armed with up to 10 T-34 or Valentine tanks and 10 armored personnel carriers. The motorcycle regiment had the same number of tanks, but it had more armored personnel carriers.
Almost immediately after the start of operation of foreign armored vehicles in the Red Army, the question arose of organizing its repair. Already in December 1941, repair base No. 82 was formed in Moscow for this purpose. In 1942–1943, repair bases No. 12 in Baku (then in Saratov), No. Gorky. The last one was the largest. During January - March 1943, 415 tanks of various types and 14 Universal armored personnel carriers underwent overhaul, medium and current repairs. Basically, the repair of armored personnel carriers was carried out by repair base No. 2 in Moscow.
During the war, 2,407 foreign-made tanks were overhauled by the efforts of repair bases.
It should be noted that since the end of 1943, repair shops of American and Canadian production on automobile chassis began to arrive in the Soviet Union. The full fleet of American workshops consisted of up to 10 units and was actually a field tank repair plant. The American fleet included the M16A and M16B mechanical workshops, the M8A locksmith workshop, the Ml2 forge and welding workshop, the M18 electrical repair workshop, the M7 weapons repair workshop, the M14 tool workshop and warehouse machines. All of them were based on the chassis of the Studebaker US6 three-axle off-road truck. The fleet of tank repair shops also included 10-ton truck cranes M1 Ward LaFrance 1000 or (less often) Kenworth 570, as well as armored repair and recovery vehicles M31 (T2).
The Canadian workshop fleet was smaller than the American one and consisted of the A3 and D3 mechanical workshops, the electromechanical workshop (all on the chassis of the American GMC 353 truck), the OFP-3 mobile charging station and the KL-3 electric welding workshop (on the Canadian Ford F60L and Ford F15A chassis, respectively) . The forging and welding workshop on the chassis of the American Chevrolet G7107 or the Canadian-made Chevrolet (most likely 8441 / SZO) went directly to the repair units of the tank units. In total, in 1944-1945, 1590 automobile repair shops of all types were delivered to the USSR from Canada.
Mobile tank repair plants, separate repair and restoration battalions, etc. of army and front subordination were completed with American and Canadian parks. This made it possible to carry out not only medium, but also major repairs of armored vehicles, both imported and domestically produced. At the same time, mobile workshops of domestic production could only provide current repairs.
Finally, it was the turn of the quantitative aspect of tank Lend-Lease. In this regard, it should be noted that, as in the case of the supply of other types of equipment and weapons, the data on the supply of tanks to the USSR, cited in various sources, differ from each other. In the late 1980s, Russian researchers were the first to have access to data from Western sources. Thus, in the book Soviet Armor of the Great Patriotic War 1941–45, the American researcher Steven Zaloga provides fairly complete data on Lend-Lease deliveries. According to Zaloga, 7,164 tanks of all types came from the USA to the Soviet Union, and 5,187 from Great Britain. Information is also provided about equipment lost during transportation: 860 American and 615 British tanks. Thus, in total, 12,351 tanks were delivered to the USSR and 1,475 tanks were lost. True, it is not entirely clear what is at stake, about sent or arrived tanks. If we are talking about those sent, then taking into account the losses, the number of tanks that arrived looks a little different - 6304 American and 4572 British and Canadian. And in total - 10 876.
Let's try to find out how true the Western data is. To do this, we use the figures given in the book by M. Suprun "Lend-Lease and Northern Convoys".
Deliveries of tanks to the USSR
| Commitments | Sent to the USSR | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| From USA | From Britain and Canada | Total | ||
| 1st protocol | 4500 | 2254 | 2443 | 4697* |
| 2nd Protocol | 10 000 | 954 | 2072 | 3026** |
| 3rd Protocol | 1000 | 1901 | 1181 | 3082 |
| 4th protocol | 2229*** | 2076 | 80 | 2156 |
| Total | 17 729 | 7185 | 5776 | 12 961 |
* 470 tanks were lost along the way:
** The USSR refused 928 tanks from the UK and almost 6 thousand tanks from the USA, asking them to be compensated with other deliveries under the 3rd Protocol;
*** corrected application.
So, we made sure that both domestic and foreign books contain almost identical data on tanks sent to the Soviet Union. As for losses, this number is also quite correlated: according to M. Suprun, before November 1, 1942, 1346 tanks were lost during convoys. Considering that this was the period of greatest opposition to the allied caravans from German submarines and aircraft, which entailed the greatest losses in ships and in the cargo carried on them, then the “missing” 129 tanks could well have been lost later. If we subtract the lost vehicles from the number of sent vehicles, we get 11,615 tanks, which is even somewhat more than according to American data.
However, in order to understand how many tanks actually arrived in the USSR, additional sources must be attracted. One of these sources, and the most reliable, is the information of the selection committees of the Main Armored Directorate of the Red Army (GBTU). According to them, in 1941-1945, 5872 American and 4523 British and Canadian tanks arrived from the USA to the Soviet Union (it arrived!) In total - 10 395 tanks.
This number, which should be taken as the most correct one, correlates well with the data of S. Pledges. However, the difference is 481 cars, which, in general, is natural. In most foreign sources, the data exceed the Soviet ones by 300–400 units. This can be explained either by incomplete accounting of losses during transportation, or by confusion with applications, data on dispatch and acceptance. Very often, the data of Soviet applications are given out as shipping data.
All of the above is also true in relation to the supply of other types of armored vehicles. It no longer makes sense to conduct research here, we will operate with the military acceptance data of the GBTU as the most reliable in terms of counting the arrived combat vehicles. From 1941 to 1945, the USSR received 5160 armored personnel carriers of all types. But this is only through GBTU. In addition, another 1082 armored personnel carriers were transferred to the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army for use as artillery tractors. In addition, 1802 self-propelled artillery installations of various types and 127 armored recovery vehicles (BREM) arrived in the USSR.
To summarize, it turns out that 10,395 tanks, 6242 armored personnel carriers, 1802 self-propelled guns and 127 armored vehicles arrived in the USSR. And in total - 18,566 units of armored vehicles.
Let's try to compare these data with the data of S. Pledges. According to them, 10,876 tanks, 6,666 armored personnel carriers, 1,802 self-propelled guns, 115 ARVs and 25 tank bridge layers were delivered to the Soviet Union. In total - 19,484 units of armored vehicles. In general, these data correlate with the information of the Soviet military acceptance. At the same time, it is curious that they partially exceed, partially coincide, and partially even less than the Soviet data.
British cruiser tank "Cromwell" at the training ground in Kubinka. 1945
Many domestic publications state that the tanks supplied by the allies accounted for only 10% of the 103,000 tanks produced in the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. Such a comparison looks not only incorrect, but also illiterate. In the USSR, starting from the 2nd half of 1941 (from July 1) and until June 1, 1945, 97,678 tanks and self-propelled guns were produced (according to other sources - 95,252), but it was accepted by military acceptance from industrial plants from July 1, 1941 by September 1, 1945, there were really 103,170 tanks and self-propelled guns. As you can see, in both cases we are talking about tanks and self-propelled guns, and from the Lend-Lease side, only tanks are taken into account. If we take into account that Lend-Lease equipment arrived in the USSR in the summer of 1945, then the number 78,356 should be taken into account. That is how many tanks were accepted by military acceptance from Soviet factories over the specified period of time. The number of self-propelled guns received was 24,814 vehicles. As a result, it can be argued that lend-lease tanks accounted for 13% of Soviet production, self-propelled guns - 7%. As for armored personnel carriers, they were not produced at all in the USSR, which means that Lend-Lease deliveries amounted to 100%. If we compare according to the criterion "light armored vehicles" and compare with the production of armored vehicles in the USSR (8944 units), then we get 70%. It should also be noted that out of 1800 lend-lease self-propelled guns, 1100 were anti-aircraft guns, which we also practically did not produce (75 ZSU-37s, produced in 1945-1946, did not take part in hostilities). If we talk about armored vehicles in general, then Lend-Lease deliveries amounted to about 16% of Soviet production.
However, this fact, as well as the fact that foreign deliveries of armored vehicles were constantly declining, does not at all indicate any malicious intent on the part of the Western allies, as was often noted in Soviet literature. Deliveries were adjusted by the Soviet side, as evidenced by the following document of the GBTU of the Red Army:
"About tanks for armored forces Red Army for the summer campaign of 1943:
For tanks made in Britain and Canada:
1. The order for the light infantry tank Mk-3 "Valentine" with enhanced armament should be extended by an additional 2000 units.
2. Refuse the Mk-6 Tetrarch cruiser tank.
3. Medium infantry tank Mk-2 "Matilda" to receive up to a total of 1000 units. according to the current protocol. The remaining tanks will be armed with 76 mm guns. In the future, the order of a tank of this type should be stopped.
4. Receipt of heavy infantry tank Mk-4 "Churchill" for heavy tank regiments to be carried out in accordance with the current protocol.
5. Armored infantry and weapons transporter "Universal" to receive at least 500 pieces. with a 13.5 mm Boyce anti-tank rifle.
For tanks made in the USA:
1. American light tanks M-ZL "Stuart" to receive up to a total of 1200 units. current protocol. In the future, the order of tanks of this type will be stopped.
2. American light tank M-5L. Refuse the order due to the lack of advantages over M-ZL.
3. Obtain medium tanks M-ZS "Grant" at the rate of 1000 pcs. current protocol. In 1943, consider replacing them with the supply of new M-4S medium tanks with diesel engine and improved armor protection in the amount of at least 1000 pieces.
4. Include in the list of deliveries light anti-tank self-propelled unit SU-57 in the amount of at least 500 pieces.
Until now, we have been talking about the supply of large batches of armored vehicles. However, there were also minor, so-called fact-finding deliveries, when the Soviet side requested certain samples from the allies and the allies provided them. And sometimes it was about the most modern, latest combat vehicles. As part of the trial deliveries from the UK to the USSR, six English cruiser Cromwell tanks, three Sherman-Crab minesweepers, five Churchill-Crocodile flamethrower tanks, one each of the AES and Daimler armored vehicles, the Wosp flamethrower armored personnel carrier arrived "("Wasp"), as well as six Canadian snowmobiles "Bombardier". In 1943-1945, five M5 Stuart light tanks, two M24 Chaffee light tanks, the latest T26 General Pershing heavy tank, and five T70 Witch self-propelled guns were delivered from the USA to the USSR for review and testing. All these war machines have passed wide range tests and were carefully studied by Soviet specialists.
American self-propelled gun - tank destroyer T70 "Witch", known in the US Army under the name M18 "Hellkzt". Polygon in Kubinka, 1945.
In this regard, it must be emphasized that such tests were not carried out out of simple curiosity to find out how imported tanks are arranged there. Based on their results, a list of recommendations was compiled on the adoption of certain components and assemblies, certain design solutions. At Valentine, for example, specialists from the NIIBT Polygon recognized the American GMC engine, hydraulic shock absorbers and synchronized gearbox as very valuable. Of particular interest to Soviet specialists was the connection of the gearbox with the “differential-planetary rotation mechanism” installed on the Churchill and Cromwell, and the hydraulic drive for turning the tower on the Matilda. On all British tanks, without exception, they liked the periscope observation devices Mk IV. They liked it so much that they were copied and under a slightly modified designation MK-4, starting from the second half of 1943, were installed on all Soviet tanks.
By the way, if we are talking about the MK-4 device, then we need to make a small "lyrical" digression. The fact is that this device is not an English invention. It was designed in the mid-1930s by the Polish engineer Gundlach. Soviet specialists were able to get acquainted with the design of this device back in 1939, after studying captured Polish 7TP tanks and TKS tankettes. Even then, recommendations were given on its borrowing, but this was not done, for which they had to pay with blood.
However, for various reasons, not all successful solutions migrated from Lend-Lease vehicles to Soviet ones. So, for example, according to the results of field tests of prototypes of heavy domestic tanks in the summer of 1943, proposals were made to improve the combat qualities of the IS tank. In terms of armament, among other things, it was recommended to develop and install by November 15, 1943 a hydraulic mechanism for turning the turret similar to the American M4A2 tank and an anti-aircraft machine gun turret on the hatch of the commander's cupola (also not without the influence of the M4A2, which had a large-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun). In the image and likeness of the Sherman, it was planned to provide for the placement of the loader on the left, and the gunner and commander on the right of the gun, to work out the installation of a hydraulic gun stabilizer and a 50-mm breech-loading mortar for self-defense and setting smoke screens.
Echelon with M4A2 tanks in Romania. September 1944.
As you can see, the list of recommendations is quite impressive. However, as far as is known, in addition to the anti-aircraft machine gun installation on the IS tank, none of the above was introduced. Technological difficulties played an important role in this.
The nomenclature of mass deliveries of armored vehicles to the USSR under Lend-Lease and the list of vehicles received for review does not leave a stone unturned from the widespread opinion that the Allies allegedly supplied us with bad military equipment on purpose. The British and Americans supplied us with the same vehicles that they themselves fought on. Another question is that they did not really correspond to our climatic conditions and principles of operation. Well, the characteristics and reliability of these machines are best judged not by idle speculation, but by concrete facts. The first to arrive in the USSR were the English Matildas and Valentines. Let's start with them.
This text is an introductory piece. From the author's bookA little about lend-lease Well, in this chapter, the talent of the whistleblower unfolds in full glory. Just a real fireworks of petty juggling, overexposure and outright lies. To engage in a detailed analysis of all this foul-smelling vinaigrette is a thankless task, therefore
From the author's bookLend-Lease: opinions and assessments Before starting a substantive discussion about Lend-Lease in general and tank Lend-Lease in particular, I would like to dwell on the attitude towards this topic in our country. We must immediately make a reservation that even during the Second World War, the assessment of Lend-Lease was
From the author's bookLend-Lease: Figures and Facts The idea of a system of assistance to countries opposing Nazi Germany, primarily England, by lending them weapons and military materials in exchange for certain political and economic concessions (from the English "lend" - lend, lend
From the author's book7th TANK CORPS 7th tank corps was formed in the city of Kalinin in May 1942 on the basis of the 3rd Guards Tank Brigade. It included the 3rd Guards Heavy Tank Brigade (commander Colonel Vovchenko), the 62nd Tank Brigade (commander Colonel Gumenyuk),
From the author's bookStalin's tank plan I.V. Stalin, for all his shortcomings, was distinguished by sound judgment and the ability to quickly assess the situation. We remember that on September 3, 1942, he declared that "nothing happened with the tank armies." The 3rd, 4th and 5th tank armies still continued to operate,
From the author's book10th Panzer Corps Commander - brigade commander Vershinin. By the beginning of the war, it included the 1st, 13th light tank and 15th rifle and machine gun brigades, staffed with well-trained personnel. The tanks were heavily worn out by long marches - more than 800 km -
From the author's bookStalin's tank plan I.V. Stalin, for all his shortcomings, was distinguished by sound judgment and the ability to quickly assess the situation. We remember that on September 3, 1942, he declared that "nothing happened with the tank armies." The 3rd, 4th and 5th tank armies still continued to operate, but
From the author's bookSoviet "lend-lease" In 1941, the Red Army Air Force received 150 additional I-16 fighters from China, the aircraft were assembled at a factory in Urumqi. The plant in Urumqi was built with the help of Soviet specialists specifically for the assembly of the I-16. By 1941, deliveries of I-16s to the Chinese Air Force by air
From the author's bookIn battles with Lend-Lease aircraft In August 1941, deliveries of Hurricane fighters from Great Britain began under Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union. Aircraft arrived by sea in the ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. After assembly and flight, the first Hurricanes were used, mainly
From the author's bookChapter 7. Lend-Lease Information In March 1941, the US Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act. It was officially called the US Defense Assistance Act. The effect of this law extended to England and other states against which Germany unleashed a war.
From the author's bookCHAPTER 2 The Vicissitudes of Russia and Lend-Lease At first, Berliners were shocked and frightened by Hitler's Napoleonic enterprise; nevertheless, they convinced themselves that victory in the east was certain after a while. And behind the rippling waves of the narrow English Channel, ready
From the author's bookTank biathlon From August 1 to August 15, 2015, another tank biathlon competition took place at the Alabino training ground near Moscow, which became part of the large-scale international competitions International Army Games-2015. This year, the "Tank Biathlon" hosted
From the author's bookMuseum "Allies and Lend-Lease" Moscow, st. Zhitnaya, 6 Allies: an English pilot, a Soviet officer, an American infantryman in full uniform and with weapons. 1942–1945 Motor from the power plant "Hercules". Manufactured by Ford and supplied by
From the author's bookTank Biathlon in Alabino Based on the materials of the Press Service and Information Department of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation On August 14, 2013, the first All-Army tank biathlon competition started in Alabino near Moscow. Over the next three days, the best
From the author's bookXXXIX Panzer Corps “From the beginning of May, the feeling of an upcoming major enemy offensive became more and more distinct. Information was received about the movements of tank and artillery formations, the equipment of firing positions and the concentration of infantry in front of everything.
