Suvorov argues–convincingly–that all of the tanks Germany had in June of 1941 were obsolete by Soviet standards. As of June '41, the only German tank with a prayer of standing up to Soviet medium tanks was the Panzer IV. Germany produced fewer than 500 Panzer IVs during 1941, and had produced less than 400 Panzer IVs in 1940. By the end of '41, total production for the Panzer IV (including those produced during the prewar period) was less than 1,200 examples. (A number of which had been destroyed in France or other theaters.) As of June '41, the Soviet tank force consisted of over 25,000 tanks. German initial frontline strength in Barbarossa consisted of 3,350 tanks. Of those 3,350, the vast majority were inferior to the Panzer IV.
The main armament on the BT-7 was a 45 mm gun. The main armament on the Panzer III was typically either 37 mm or 50 mm. The maximum armor thickness of the Panzer III was 50 mm; the maximum armor thickness of the BT-7 was 40 mm. The BT-7’s armor was sloping, much like the T-34’s. At least on paper, the BT-7 should have been able to hold its own against Germany’s second-best tank, the Panzer III. The Soviets had many thousands of other tanks which were more than a match for Germany’s best tank of 1941 (the Panzer IV).
According to the Wikipedia article on the T-26, “The T-26 (mod. 1938/39, especially) could withstand most German tanks in 1941 but were inferior to the Panzer III and Panzer IV.”
As of June '41, Stalin had a better than 8:1 advantage in total tanks. Stalin’s best tanks of '41 were the KV-1 and KV-2. A KV was worth about ten of Germany’s best tank of '41 (the Panzer IV.) The U.S.S.R. produced over 1,300 heavy tanks in '41, as compared to a total tank production for Germany of 3,600 for that year. Germany did not produce any heavy tanks prior to 1942. Given these data, it would have been reasonable for Stalin to have concluded that the Soviet Union would begin its war against Germany with a crushing superiority in tank warfare.
The obvious question arises: if the Soviets started the war with more and better tanks than the Germans, how on earth did the Germans achieve so much initial success in Barbarossa? The Wikipedia article on the T-26 provides the answer: “all of the Red Army’s tank models suffered severe losses due to the air supremacy of the German Luftwaffe. The majority of the Red Army’s T-26s were lost in the first months of the German-Soviet War, mainly to enemy artillery and air attacks.”
The Soviet Union started off with a 3:1 advantage in available military aircraft. The fact the Germans were able to achieve air supremacy under those circumstances was something of a surprise. Much of that air supremacy was due to the fact that Soviet aircraft were deployed as far forward as possible, and were quickly destroyed on the ground by German aircraft, or by advancing German land forces. The Germans produced 7,000 artillery pieces in 1940, and 11,000 artillery pieces in 1941. The Soviets produced 15,000 artillery pieces in 1940, and 42,000 in 1941. Stalin had every reason to be confident of an overwhelming numerical advantage in available men, planes, tanks, and artillery.
When Operation Barbarossa began, the Soviet Union had more amphibious tanks than Germany had total tanks. Suvorov (pp. 54-57) provides the following explanation for the utility of amphibious tanks.
What are they needed for? What use comes from amphibious tanks? If we are defending our own territory, if we are conducting strictly defensive warfare, amphibious tanks are not really needed. We can get by without them. In order to stop the enemy, one wants to have tanks with heavy armor and powerful weapons–the heavier and more powerful, the better.
If we cannot stop the enemy in defensive warfare, we are forced to retreat. We retreat using our own bridges. Wen threatened with a takeover, we can detonate our bridges and send them up into the sky. There is little use for tanks with light armor and machine guns in a defensive war. Their ability to float also remains completely unused: there is nowhere to sail to in a defensive war.
But if we are conducting a crusade for world domination, then in order to herd the population of the planet into concentration camps, labor armies, and barracks, we have different needs. In order to break through the enemy’s front, we need heavy tanks, more armor, and more powerful cannon. If a battle occurs, if two waves of tanks collide, once again, we need the most powerful tanks. Once the front line is broken and the enemy’s tank waves are defeated and crushed, our task becomes to take advantage of the moment and complete a thrust deep into the enemy’s rear, in order to split up his defenses, to have access to his communications and supply lines, to reach the aortas in order to cut them, to cut the enemy off from his supply bases, to reach his capital, his industrial regions, his sources of oil, and his ports. A heavy tank is not very good for such a thrust. Due to its weight, it breaks roads and bridges and gets in the way of all those who are following. A heavy tank consumes a lot of fuel–try to provide fuel to several thousand tanks and artillery tow trucks and tens of thousands of automobiles, which are pushing forward deep into enemy territory. Aside from all this, a heavy tank is also slow and not very agile. It slows down the movement of your columns. Moreover, it quickly wears out and chokes, like a heavyweight in a marathon. For a forward thrust, medium and light tanks are ideal. They have less armor, weaker weapons, but they have much higher speed, maneuverability, and cross-country ability, and they are more economical with their fuel.
Now our armored armada is standing before a water obstacle. Here all heavy and medium tanks, and those light ones that have not been taught how to float, lose all their aggressive options. Their value is zero. They need a bridge. But the enemy protects the bridges, and blows them up when threatened with a takeover. Bridges have to be fought for. And it is better to fight for them not on our side, but from the side of the enemy, where they are not anticipating it. In this situation, the value of light amphibious tanks grows tremendously. If two, three, five, ten such tanks sail across the river during the night in the direction of the bridge, and with a sudden attack from the rear seize the bridge, this can decide the fate of an entire operation, or even an entire war. Now you can send to the enemy shores, across the newly seized bridge, your heavy and medium tanks, along with artillery, infantry, staff, hospitals, thousands of tons of ammunition, fuel, and spare parts. You can use the seized bridge to send in reserves, and to send the wounded, prisoners, and trophies to the rear, to send damaged machinery back for repair.
If it is impossible to seize the bridge, the amphibious tanks become truly priceless. If there are no enemy bridges, we need to establish our own temporary bridges and means of sending goods across the river. For this we need to establish a bridgehead on the other side. The infantry is sent into battle. On logs, wooden planks, and inflatable rafts, they swim to the other shore. Meanwhile they are being fired upon by machine guns, mortars, and automatic rifles. Here, among the swimming men, imagine having ten or twenty light tanks. Their armor is not harmed by bullets and shell fragments, while their machine guns are capable of firing when none of the swimming men can.
Now we have reached the other shore. The most important thing is to catch hold of something, to dig our forces into the ground into the next twenty minutes or so, so that no counterattacks can hinder us. . . . Our wet, wounded, and exhausted infantry does not carry heavy weapons or ammunition. So, in these very first, most frightening minutes on enemy shores, the presence, help, and support of even one of the lightest tanks with just one machine gun is far more valuable and important than ten more powerful heavy tanks that would be forced to remain on our side of the river. . . .
By June 22, 1941, Hitler had on the eastern front 180 tanks in the under-six-ton category. Not one of them was amphibious and not one could compete with the Soviet light tanks. Stalin, on the other hand, had more than 4,000 tanks in this weight category. All of them were amphibious. . . . The T-40 [light] tanks were still in production, the paint not yet dried on many of them. . . . The vast majority of T-40s were less than a year old. . . . When did they have time to become obsolete? When did they have time to become worn out? On June 22, 1941, on the eastern front, Hitler had 3,350 tanks in total of all types, all of them obsolete and among all of them not a single amphibious one, while Stalin’s amphibious tanks alone numbered over 4,000.
By overcoming stormy Lake Ilmen, even the oldest of Soviet amphibious tanks proved the possibility of crossing the English Channel. But these tanks were designed for lakes and rivers. For crossing the English Channel, Stalin had other designs in the works for the future–the amphibious PT-1 and its variants. It weighed 14 tons, had a 500-horsepower engine, a speed of 6 km/hr in the water and could reach 62 km/hr on land, and 90 km/hr when it shed its caterpillar tracks. This was a hybrid of a highway and an amphibious tank. . . . It was armed with a 45 mm cannon and four machine guns. . . .
The fate of Soviet amphibious tanks is a sad one: they were of no use in a defensive war. Where would they sail? . . . Commanders easily parted with them: they ordered what was left of the fuel to be pumped into the medium and heavy tanks. The light ones were blown up, burned, broken, sunk, or just abandoned. . . . Why did Stalin need four thousand amphibious tanks, which he could not use in a defensive war? Where was comrade Stalin planning to sail?
