Eastern Front

Hey guys, I have to visit this certain website and read three of these sources for my Russian History class. They're all personal memoirs from the Great Patriotic War. I'm sure someone would appreciate the read:
http://iremember.ru/

The first one I read is here, about a Russian tanker: http://iremember.ru/en/memoirs/tankers/otroschenkov-sergei-andreyevich/

He crewed T-26s in 1941, then the BT-7, then the T34/76, then a British Matilda, a T34/85, and almost operated in a captured Panther!
One funny anecdote: they captured a German engineer and he helped the men fix up captured German vehicles; they even gave him a uniform and everything. He even was put on armed guard

Anyway, enjoy!

Interesting Tale about History.

From Marat Alexandrovich Kalienok quite interesting and looks quite similar to other veteran stories about armour combat. They are interesting in the totally different picture they give of combat from what you see in movies and in videogames.
There are plenty of videos online nowadays of combat from all different corners of the world, think of how they look and how the veterans stories are is a much better (IMHO) is much better way to get a picture of combat than any movie or game ever can.





- Do you remember your baptism by fire?

I do not remember the first battle as such, but I can tell you about the most memorable assignment of that period. The platoon commander Ivan Dubovik was advancing first, followed by Vladimir Sergievsky, and I was advancing third. We received a signal: "There are Germans ahead in the village of Ozeravtsy." We bristled out our guns right away: one forward, the other two to the left and to the right. We went on along a country road and the dust that rose was just terrible. Suddenly we lost our platoon commander. We could not see his tank.

It turned out that the platoon commander’s tank had fallen on its side in the water from a 10 meter long bridge over the rivulet, and Vladimir trying to catch up with him, picked up speed and slipped over his tank as if it were a bridge and at only the end of the village triggered three anti-tank mines at a time, got damaged though not very heavily. It turned out that in a small trench were the Germans who dragged the mines with ropes under the tank.

Popov of the 2nd platoon caught up with me and communicated the order: "We need to go ahead and perform the task." I crossed the rivulet near the bridge and rushed forward. After covering about one kilometer we fired at an anti-tank gun, and crushed a second one with tracks, but there was a marshy terrain and Popov’s tank got badly bogged down in the swamp. I proceeded with pulling him out under gunfire but got bogged down myself...

There it began in earnest. They fired at us from three directions. But while Popov’s tank was intact, the rear side of my tank received five shells right away and the tank caught fire. As it turned out later, a German assault gun "Ferdinand" had fired at us.

We pulled out machine guns and took all round defenses. And when by evening they began surrounding us, we decided to retreat through a rye field. Before I knew it my crew disappeared in the tall rye, and I was behind them with a revolver in my hand. You know that the TT pistols were not issued for tankers, but the revolvers were, because through the plugged slit in the turret only the barrel of a revolver pistol could be pushed. I came to the village and found my crew lounging around by the fire, drinking teak. "Well done guys!” – I said to them – “You retreated and left your commander behind." The next day, the Germans withdrew, and we pulled our armored vehicles out and sent them away for repair. That was my first major clash with the Germans. In general, in those days, we were in reconnaissance all the time."

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Things to note: Getting stuck and trying to get loose is quite a common occurence, plenty of veteran stories include them.

Getting struck and set ablaze isn't necessarily a 100% catastrophic explosion, even if hit with high-powered shells. (Though how he knows its a Ferdinand can be called into question.)

Waiting for nightfall and sneaking out is quite a common thing too. I remember reading about some US soldiers being pinned by a machine-gun in africa. They simply lied down for a couple of hours and scurried off when it was to dark to shoot.

Tanks that have been shot up and abandoned would end up restored, not just becoming rusting wrecks all over the place.

"Ferdinand" in Russian accounts is usually simply generic for Assault Gun/SPG of whatever kind - and in practical terms, StuGs/Marders/Hetzers were of course far more prevalent than the Ferdinand proper. Not to mention we cannot conclude from anecdotal evidence of such nature whether any German vehicles were actually present.
Of course, not even every major calibre hit will result in a catastrophic kill, however, T-34s had quite poor crew survivability compared to other medium tanks, ie. more than 2 crew deaths for every combat loss - whereas PIVs, dryrack Shermans etc. averaged about 1.
Just as an addendum.

"Ferdinand" in Russian accounts is usually simply generic for Assault Gun/SPG of whatever kind - and in practical terms, StuGs/Marders/Hetzers were of course far more prevalent than the Ferdinand proper. Not to mention we cannot conclude from anecdotal evidence of such nature whether any German vehicles were actually present.
Of course, not even every major calibre hit will result in a catastrophic kill, however, T-34s had quite poor crew survivability compared to other medium tanks, ie. more than 2 crew deaths for every combat loss - whereas PIVs, dryrack Shermans etc. averaged about 1.
Just as an addendum.

+1

I suspect that the high crew deaths on T-34s have to do with soviet tank tactics rather than the vehicle themselves.

I suspect that the high crew deaths on T-34s have to do with soviet tank tactics rather than the vehicle themselves.

Don't think so. Why would that be the case? AFAIK the Soviet Shermans did not suffer any worse average casualties than their Western counterparts.
In any case, ever been in a T34? Crew ergonomics are a friggin catastrophy, opening both the commanders hatch (on the early T34s) and the drivers hatch is quite difficult, and exiting the latter position requires quite a bit of time and practice. Obviously these difficulties will be exarcerbated when you are in panic and have to get out post-haste. The PIV is quite cramped as well, but obviously much better thought out in terms of crew escape.
Then there are the metallurgical issues experienced by the Soviets...while the pre-war T-34s had good steel quality, the wartime tranches had serious spalling problems which lead to a whole lot of otherwise unnecessary crew casualties.

Are there statistics about soviet shermans? I've never seen them. The soviet tankers had an unusually high death toll.

I believe this was due to their practice of attacking directly into positions (over trenches, close quarters, urban/town) rather than engaging in stand-off positions like US tankers (with their less confrontational style).

This leads to crews getting cut down after they are knocked out in say, a town.

In this one you can find a story from Russian Sherman driver in WW II. http://iremember.ru/en/memoirs/tankers/dmitriy-loza/