SU-76 Misuse

 "#850469
June 19th, 1945

The GBTU Tank Usage Directorate received reports of incorrect use of SU-76 SPGs issued to rifle corps.

For instance, the 37th and 39th Rifle Corps of the 9th Guards Army used the SU-76 SPGs from the 1513th and 1524th Light SPG Regiments as tractors to tow captured vehicles over the course of 4-6 days, expending 25-30 engine hours and 250-450 km of travel for each SPG.

I order that:

1. The use of tanks and SPGs to tow vehicles is forbidden. Tractors and prime movers are to be used for this purpose.
2. Commanders of Armoured and Mechanized Forces of Fronts are to check the correctness of usage of all tank and SPG regiments attached to rifle corps.
3. The commander of Armoured and Mechanized Forces of the 2nd Ukrainian Front must investigate the instance of incorrect usage of SU-76 SPGs of the 1513th and 1524th Light SPG Regiments attached to the 37th and 39th Rifle Corps and hold the guilty parties responsible.

Deliver this directive to commanders of armoured and mechanized units and formations of the Red Army and rifle corps commanders that have tank or SPG regiments attached.

Report on the execution of this order by July 10th of this year.

Deputy Chief of Armoured and Mechanized Forces, Colonel General of the Tank Forces, Korobkov".

CAMD RF F.38 Op.11362 D.16 L.23

Printed in Glavnoye Bronetankovoye Upravleniye Lyudi, Sobytiya, Fakty v dokumentakh, 1944-1945 p.549

T-34's Heart on Trial

The engine is the most complicated and most important component of any tracked fighting vehicle. It might even take more time to develop the engine than the rest of the tank put together. Even today, not all tank building nations have the ability to produce their own engines, and a successful design can define the development of tanks for years to come. The V-2 diesel engine put into production in 1939 was one such design. This article will tell the story of the trials that paved its way to life.

American Experience

 "Report by the 92nd Tank Brigade on use of American M3 medium and M3 light tanks in August of 1942

Positive qualities from a tactical point of view:

1. Good density of fire.
2. Good visibility from the medium tank (has a commander's cupola).
3. The light tank is very mobile.
4. The engine noise is insignificant in motion.
5. The 75 and 37 mm guns of the M3 S and M3 L are precise and have good ballistics.
6. The crew positions of the M3 S and M3 L are comfortable.

T-34 Improvements

 "Order of the People's Commissar of Tank Production of the USSR #230-M
Moscow
June 12th, 1942

With the intention of further improvement of the quality of T-34 tanks and realization of decisions made at the technical meeting of factories #183, #112, and STZ, I order that:

1. RE: air cleaners: factory #183 director comrade Maksarev must perform bench trials of a simplified Cyclone filter developed by the factory by July 15th and test it in a vehicle in road conditions by July 25th. Send a report to the NKTP by August 1st.

Limping Jagdtiger

The German Jagdtiger tank destroyer was built in two variants: one with a Porsche suspension and one with a Henschel one. The former was deemed poor and removed from production. This fact is stated in every publication dedicated to the Jagdtiger, but is not discussed in detail. In this article we won't stop at brief descriptions, questionable overviews, and conclusions, but instead will discuss how German late war tank suspensions were developed, cover the Porsche suspension, then present the history of the Jagdtiger's suspension in the appropriate context. Our tale will be based on an analysis of the design rather than compilations of opinions of other authors.

Panther Weak Spots

Soviet diagrams showing areas where to shoot enemy tanks are pretty common. There were both elaborate ones showing various weapons printed at the Publisher of the People's Commissariat of Defense and simpler ones, produced in the field, showing whatever weapons were relevant for the unit that printed them. Here are two such flyers for the Panther.

The first one is relatively well known. Each drawing of a shell shows the range and caliber with which you can destroy a Panther tank. The small bullets are 14.5 mm bullets fired from the PTRD or PTRS. The large tube symbol under that is HE, a projectile partially filled with red is an AP shell, a fully red projectile is solid AP shot. The red arrowhead projectile is 45 mm APCR. 

Comparing Shells

 "Report of the GBTU Self Propelled Artillery Directorate on results of comparative penetration trials of American, German, and domestic AP shells
May 13th, 1945

Firing according to the attached velocities was done at the Main Artillery Proving Grounds of the GAU at NKB proving grounds at Sofrino

Results of firing the shells at armour plates at prescribed velocities (see table)

#1: 76 mm AP shells against 50 and 75 mm thick plates.

The experimental shell from 60Kh30 steel shows undoubtedly superior results compared to the stock shell or the American shell.

Nine Years of Tank Archives

The Tank Archives blog turns 9 this year! At this point, I've published 2594 posts for a total of 6,931,512 views. The numbers don't lie, this has been my most successful year yet with over 1.18 million views! This translates into some very successful individual months as well. Over the past year I beat my monthly page view record three times, with the most successful month so far being September 2021 at 112,478 page views. Five months out of the last 12 saw over 100,000 views. Thank you, dear readers, and let's keep up this success into the tenth year!

As always, the US takes the first place in readership by a long shot, followed surprisingly by Indonesia. Germany and the UK fell to third and fourth respectively. 

My other work is also doing well. Sherman Tanks of the Red Army was finally published and Designing the T-34 is on its second printing. I already have a third book in the works and I hope I can officially announce it soon!

Tank Archives is doing well on social media as well. Twitter is at the forefront with over 21,000 followers, more than double compared to last year. Facebook is also growing, having recently hit 5000 followers. Youtube is growing the slowest of all at 1,740 subscribers, which is not unexpected considering that I post relatively infrequently.

Larger articles on Warspot.net also remain popular, with 11 new ones over the course of the past year. I continue to hold the top viewed tank article spot on the site with a total of five article placing in the top ten.

I haven't been up to anything radically new, but it's good to see that all the old directions are going well. Let's see what the next year will bring!

Playing Catch-up

When talking about the status of tank building in various nations at the start of WW2, many tend to point to the Americans as the worst ones off. This is entirely incorrect. First of all, the American infantry and cavalry had a decent number of tanks, although not many medium ones. Second, these tanks were adapted for the American theatre of war and had exceptional mobility. Third, the Americans started the war with a well formed concept of what a tank should look like, which allowed them to quickly begin production of next generation tanks. In comparison, the British were doing very poorly, to the point where only their status as an island nation saved them from a catastrophe. This was the result of a crisis that began in the 1920s.

Far East Reliability

 "September 29th, 1945

The following technical defects were discovered in tanks and SPGs of the Transbaikal Front after crossing the Manchurian and Mongolian steppe, mountains of the Greater Khingan, and the heavily swamped region until Changchung and Mukden.

1. Widespread cases of melting battery seals on T-34 tanks and SU-100 SPGs.
   Due to the low quality of seals (low melting temperature) and lack of asbestos packing cords, the seals melted, seeped into battery cells, and covered the upper parts of the plates. Refurbishment of batteries was successfully carried out by brigade and regiment level repair units.
2. Widespread cases of destruction of M4A2 road wheel tires.
   Destruction happened chiefly due to poor vulcanization of the rubber and especially difficult road conditions (high ambient temperature and sand-stone terrain).