On the morning of June 24, the 2nd Panzer Division of the 3rd Mechanized Corps of the Red Army launched an attack on the positions occupied by the group of Lieutenant Colonel Seckendorf. The aim of the Soviet counterattack was the return of Raseiniai. Here the Germans first got acquainted with the KV-1 tanks, whose armor was not penetrated by practically any German shells. Even the 150mm howitzers did not take them. Moreover, the KV, which weighed almost 50 tons, crushed not only the guns and cars of the Germans, but also the Czechoslovak tanks (they weighed less than 10 tons). Only in the evening, Seckendorf's group received from the division command several batteries of 88-mm Flak18 anti-aircraft guns. Almost until the end of the war, it was these guns that remained the only effective means of fighting Soviet tanks for the Germans. With their help, the Germans, having suffered significant losses and surrendering part of the positions captured the day before, fought back, holding Raseiniai. The Soviet attack was very poorly prepared, there was no question of air support, but it created huge problems for the Germans.
Routh's group could not come to the aid of Seckendorf's group. She fought with one tank. This combat episode is one of the most striking not only for the first days of the Great Patriotic War, but, possibly, for the entire war as a whole. True, how many of these episodes remained generally unknown?
How the only KV-1 ended up in the rear of Routh's group on the morning of June 24 is not clear. It is possible that he just got lost. However, in the end, the tank blocked the only road leading from the rear to the group's positions. The Baltic wooded and swampy terrain was distinguished by the fact that without roads, only tracked vehicles could move along it, and even then with difficulty. And the rear supply was provided by ordinary vehicles that did not have caterpillars.
KV shot and crushed a convoy of 12 supply trucks, which was heading towards the Germans from Raseiniai. Now Routh's group could not receive fuel and lubricants, food and ammunition. She could not evacuate the wounded who were beginning to die. Attempts to bypass the tank over rough terrain were unsuccessful, the trucks got stuck in a swamp. Colonel Routh gave the order to destroy the tank to the commander of the Pak38 50mm anti-tank gun battery.
For several hours the artillerymen dragged the guns through the forest on their hands, getting as close to the KV as possible. The tank stood motionless in the middle of the road, some Germans even thought that the crew had abandoned it. They were wrong.
The battery was finally deployed just 600 meters from the tank and fired the first salvo. The distance was "pistol", a miss is impossible. All four shells hit the tank, however, without having any visible effect. The battery fired a second volley. Four more hits, again no result.
After that, the KV tower turned towards the battery. Four rounds from the 76mm KV cannon destroyed the German cannons and most of their crews.
I had to remember the 88-mm anti-aircraft gun. On the evening of June 24, Routh took one such cannon from Zeckendorf, exhausted from Soviet attacks. The Germans began to carefully drag the anti-aircraft gun to the tank, disguising themselves behind their trucks that they had previously burned. This fascinating process took several more hours. Finally, the crew got out to the edge of the forest just 500 meters from the tank, the tower of which was deployed in opposite side... The Germans, confident that the tankers did not see them, began to prepare the anti-aircraft gun for firing.
The tankers, it turns out, saw everything. And with amazing composure they let the enemy as close as possible. When the gunners began to aim the gun at the tank, the KV turret turned around and the tank fired. The wreckage of the anti-aircraft gun fell into the ditch, most of the crew died. The Germans fell into a trance. The problem turned out to be much more serious than one might have expected at first.
At night, 12 German sappers went to the battle with the tank with the task of sneaking up to the KV and placing charges under it. They managed to do this, as the tank crew apparently fell asleep. The charges were installed on the track and aboard the tank and successfully detonated. It was possible to partially kill the caterpillar, but the tank was not going to go anywhere anyway. The Germans once again failed to penetrate the armor of the tank. After detonating the charges, the KV opened machine-gun fire. Having lost one person, the group of sappers returned back. However, the lost sapper was soon found. Having shown undoubted heroism, he sat out the explosions next to the tank, made sure that the tank was practically not injured, hung one more charge from the KV cannon and managed to blow it up and leave. However, that didn't help either.
The epic lasted for a day. Having suppressed his tank pride, Colonel Routh turned to the Luftwaffe with a request to send a squadron of Ju-87 dive bombers. Having learned that it was necessary to destroy a single stationary tank in the German rear, while aviation was urgently needed on the front line, the pilots responded to Routh with not quite censorship.
The situation was becoming outrageous. Because of one Russian tank, the entire division could not fulfill the assigned task. It was now required to destroy the KV at any cost. In addition to 88-mm anti-aircraft guns, there was no means to solve the problem, but it was necessary to ensure that they were able to fire. The entire PzKw-35t battalion had to be put under KV fire.
The tanks built by the Slav brothers had no chance of penetrating the KV armor with their 37-mm cannons, but their maneuverability and speed were excellent. They attacked a Soviet tank from three sides, maneuvering through the trees. Our tankers were gripped by excitement. Whether they knocked out German tanks and, if so, how many, history is silent. But the Germans achieved the main thing: they managed to quietly drag Flak18 to the battlefield. The crew of the anti-aircraft gun set fire to the KV with the first two shots, and then fired five more shots - so I wanted to destroy the monster that created such huge problems.
German soldiers surrounded the tank, wanting to make sure the enemy was finally defeated. They found that only two 88mm rounds pierced the armor, the rest left only dents. Suddenly, the KV tower began to move again (as it turned out, the tankers were wounded, but still alive). The Germans began to scatter in horror, but one, jumping on the armor, threw a grenade into the hole. This grenade put an end to the two-day battle. The shocked Germans buried the crew with the proper military honors.
This episode is described not by regular communist propagandists, but by Erhard Routh himself. Routh then fought the entire war on the Eastern Front, passing through Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk, and finished it as commander of the 3rd tank army and with the rank of colonel-general. Of the 427 pages of his memoirs, directly describing the hostilities, 12 are devoted to a two-day battle with the only Russian tank at Raseiniai. Routh was clearly shaken by this tank. Therefore, there is no reason for mistrust. Soviet historiography ignored this episode. Moreover, since for the first time in the domestic press he was mentioned by Suvorov-Rezun, some "patriots" began to "expose" the feat. In the sense - not a feat, but so-so.
The KV, whose crew is 4 people, "exchanged" itself for 12 trucks, 4 anti-tank guns, 1 anti-aircraft gun, possibly for several tanks, as well as for several dozen Germans killed and died from wounds. This in itself is an outstanding result, given the fact that before 1945, in the overwhelming majority of even victorious battles, our losses were higher than the German ones. But these are only direct losses of the Germans. Indirect - losses of the Seckendorff group, which, reflecting the Soviet blow, could not get help from the Routh group. Accordingly, for the same reason, the losses of our 2nd Panzer Division were less than if Routh had supported Seckendorf.
However, perhaps more important than the direct and indirect losses of people and equipment was the loss of time by the Germans. On June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht had only 17 tank divisions on the entire Eastern Front, including 4 tank divisions in the 4th tank group. One of them was kept by KV alone. Moreover, on June 25, the 6th division could not advance solely due to the presence of a single tank in its rear. One day of delay for one division is a lot in conditions when German tank groups were advancing at a high pace, tearing apart the Red Army's defenses and creating many "cauldrons" for it. After all, the Wehrmacht actually fulfilled the task set by "Barbarossa", almost completely destroying the Red Army that opposed it in the summer of 1941. But because of such "incidents" as an unforeseen tank on the road, he did it much more slowly and with much greater losses than planned. And in the end he ran into the impenetrable mud of the Russian autumn, the deadly frosts of the Russian winter and the Siberian divisions near Moscow. After that, the war passed into a protracted stage, hopeless for the Germans.
And yet the most amazing thing in this battle is the behavior of four tankers, whose names we do not know and will never know. They created more problems for the Germans than the entire 2nd Panzer Division, to which, apparently, the KV belonged. If the division delayed the German offensive by one day, then the only tank by two. No wonder Routh had to take the anti-aircraft guns from Seckendorf, although, it would seem, it should have been the other way around.
It is almost impossible to assume that the tankers had a special mission to block the only supply route for the Routh group. At that moment, our intelligence service was simply absent. This means that the tank happened to be on the road by accident. The tank commander himself realized what the most important position he took. And he deliberately began to hold her back. It is unlikely that the standing of the tank in one place can be interpreted as a lack of initiative, the crew acted too skillfully. On the contrary, standing was an initiative.
Sitting in a cramped iron box for two days without getting out, and in the June heat, is torture in itself. If this box is, moreover, surrounded by an enemy whose goal is to destroy the tank along with the crew (in addition, the tank is not one of the enemy's targets, as in a "normal" battle, but the only goal), for the crew this is already absolutely incredible physical and psychological stress. Moreover, almost all this time, the tankers spent not in battle, but in anticipation of a battle, which is incomparably harder from the moral point of view.
All five combat episodes - the defeat of a convoy of trucks, the destruction of an anti-tank battery, the destruction of anti-aircraft guns, firing at sappers, the last battle with tanks - in total hardly took even an hour. The rest of the time, the KV crew wondered from which side and in what form they would be destroyed next time. The fight with the antiaircraft gun is especially indicative. The tankers deliberately hesitated until the Germans installed a cannon and began to prepare for firing - in order to fire for sure themselves and finish the job with one shell. Try to at least roughly imagine such an expectation.
Moreover, if on the first day the crew of the KV could still hope for the arrival of their own, then on the second, when their own did not come and even the noise of the battle at Raseiniai had quieted down, it became clearer: the iron box in which they roast the second day would soon enough turn into their common coffin. They took it for granted and continued to fight.
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The KV tank, or, as the Germans called it, "Gespenst" (ghost) is a real metal fortress, but even such a reliable block could not have accomplished the feat near Raseiniai without cold calculation and hatred of the invaders. About seven centimeters of steel and one crew, which became for the Germans the personification of the Russian character and unbending will - in this material.
By the evening of June 23, 1941, the 6th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht captured the Lithuanian city of Raseiniai and crossed the Dubissa River. The tasks assigned to the division were completed, but the Germans, who already had experience in campaigns in the west, were unpleasantly struck by the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops. One of the divisions of Colonel Erhard Routh's group came under fire from snipers occupying positions on fruit trees growing in a meadow.
Snipers killed several German officers, delayed the advance of German units for almost an hour, preventing them from quickly encircling the Soviet units. The snipers were deliberately doomed, as they found themselves inside the location of the German troops. But they carried out the task to the end. In the west, the Germans did not see anything like it.
How the only KV-1 ended up in the rear of Routh's group on the morning of June 24 is not clear. It is possible that he just got lost. However, in the end, the tank blocked the only road leading from the rear to the group's positions.
The fact remains: one tank held back the advance of the battle group "Raus" ... Moreover, it detained for a whole day with one KB, blocking the road to the bridge over the Dubissa River, and thus deprived half of the division's supplies. The battle group is almost half of the division, and in this case, the most powerful.
Check out the composition of Battle Group Raus:
- II tank regiment
- I / 4th motorized regiment
- II / 76th Artillery Regiment
- Company of the 57th tank sapper battalion
- Company of the 41st Tank Destroyer Battalion
- Battery II / 411th Anti-Aircraft Regiment
- 6th Motorcycle Battalion
And this is all against 4 people !!! The KV-1, which has a crew of 4, "traded" itself for 12 trucks, 4 anti-tank guns, 1 anti-aircraft gun, possibly for several tanks, as well as for several dozen Germans killed and died from wounds.
All five combat episodes - the defeat of a convoy of trucks, the destruction of an anti-tank battery, the destruction of anti-aircraft guns, firing at sappers, the last battle with tanks - in total hardly took even an hour. The rest of the time, the KV crew wondered from which side and in what form they would be destroyed next time. The fight with the antiaircraft gun is especially indicative. The tankers deliberately hesitated until the Germans installed a cannon and began to prepare for firing - in order to fire for sure themselves and finish the job with one shell. Try to at least roughly imagine such an expectation.
Moreover, if on the first day the crew of the KV could still hope for the arrival of their own, then on the second, when their own did not come and even the noise of the battle at Raseiniai had quieted down, it became clearer: the iron box in which they roast the second day would soon enough turn into their common coffin. They took it for granted and continued to fight.
So, while escorting several of our prisoners in a car to the rear of the Germans, a super-heavy tank KV-1 was found right on the road, which blocked the only supply route for the Routh group. Seeing the tank, our soldiers pounced on the guards, a fight ensued, a firefight - as a result, several Red Army men jumped from the car and disappeared into the forest, while the rest were killed.
The German car quickly turned around and rushed back to the bridgehead to deliver this unpleasant news to the Germans. At the same time, it was discovered that the tank's crew damaged the telephone connection with the headquarters of the Nazi division and destroyed 12 supply trucks that were coming from Raseinia.
All attempts to bypass our tank were unsuccessful. The cars either got stuck in the mud or collided with scattered Red Army units still wandering through the forest.
Then the Nazis decided to destroy the tank. An anti-tank battery, consisting of four 50 mm guns, stealthily moved towards the tank at a direct shot distance and opened fire. Eight hits were recorded. One should have seen the exultation and joy of the Germans at the same time. But at least henna for the tank ... And then, to the surprise of the enemies, the KV-1 turret slowly turns around and fires four shots. As a result, two guns were blown to shreds, and two were damaged so that it is impossible to fix in the field! The personnel of the Germans lost several people killed and wounded.
The Russian tank was still tightly blocking the road, so the Germans were literally paralyzed. Deeply shaken, the German soldiers returned to the bridgehead. The recently received weapon, which they unconditionally trusted, turned out to be completely helpless against the monstrous Russian tank.
It became clear that of all the weapons that Routh's group possessed, only 88-mm anti-aircraft guns with their heavy armor-piercing shells could cope with the destruction of the steel giant. In the afternoon, one such gun was withdrawn from the battle at Raseiniai and began to creep cautiously towards the tank from the south. The KV-1 was still deployed north, as it was from this direction that the previous attack had been launched.
Although the tank had not moved since the battle with the anti-tank battery, it turned out that its crew and commander had iron nerves. They calmly watched the approach of the anti-aircraft gun, without interfering with it, since while the gun was moving, it did not pose any threat to the tank. In addition, the closer the anti-aircraft gun is, the easier it will be to destroy it. Came a critical moment in the duel of nerves, when the calculation began to prepare the anti-aircraft gun for a shot. Now is the time for the tank's crew to act. While the gunners, terribly nervous, were aiming and loading the gun, the tank turned its turret around and fired first! Each shell hit the target. The heavily damaged antiaircraft gun fell into a ditch, several crewmen were killed, and the rest were forced to flee. Machine-gun fire from the tank prevented the removal of the gun and the pick up of the dead.
The optimism of the German soldiers died along with the 88-mm gun. They had a bad day chewing on canned food, as it was impossible to bring hot food.
With the onset of night, the Germans decided to blow up the tank with explosives. For this, the best sappers of the group were selected. When they approached the tank at a fairly close distance, an amazing thing became clear - several civilians (apparently from the local population or partisans) approached the tank, knocked on the tower, the hatch opened and food was handed over to them. The crew ate their supper safely and went to sleep inside the tank. At this time, the Germans approached the tank, laid several powerful charges and blew it up. The next jubilation of the Germans did not last long - a tank machine gun immediately came to life and began to pour lead on everything around. The Nazis barely carried off their feet!
The next attempt to attack the brave tank was made on the morning of 25 June. Now the Germans went for a trick - a false attack was carried out with PzKw-35t tanks (they themselves could not do anything about the KV-1 with their 37 mm cannons), and under their cover they brought another 88 mm anti-aircraft gun closer. The crew was carried away by the battle with nimble and light enemy tanks and did not notice the danger. And the locality contributed to this. The crew of the KV-1 tank was confident in the durability of their armor, which resembled an elephant's skin and reflected all shells while continuing to block the road.
The anti-aircraft gun took up a position near the place where one of the same had already been destroyed the day before. Its barrel aimed at the tank and the first shot thundered. The wounded KV-1 tried to turn the turret back, but the German anti-aircraft gunners managed to fire 2 more shots during this time. The turret stopped rotating, but the tank did not catch fire. 4 more rounds were fired with armor-piercing shells from an 88-mm anti-aircraft gun.
The witnesses to this deadly duel wanted to get closer to check the results of their shooting. To their great amazement, they found that only 2 shells penetrated the armor, while the remaining 5 88mm shells only made deep potholes in it. They also found 8 blue circles marking the impact of the 50mm shells. The sappers' sortie resulted in serious damage to the track and a shallow chipping on the gun barrel. On the other hand, they did not find any traces of shells from the 37-mm guns of the PzKW-35t tanks.
Suddenly the barrel of the gun began to move and the German soldiers rushed away in terror. Only one of the sappers kept his composure and quickly thrust a hand grenade into the hole made by a shell in the lower part of the tower. A dull explosion thundered and the hatch cover flew to the side. Inside the tank lay the bodies of the brave crew, who had only been wounded before. Deeply shocked by this heroism, the Germans decided to bury them with all military honors. They fought to their last breath, but this was only one small drama of the great war.
Today it is difficult to imagine how much courage they showed, how hot hatred burned in their hearts. After all, a stationary tank - good aim, this is a steel coffin for the entire crew. We will never know what the tankmen were saying then, what they were thinking ... But their act testifies that these were people of extraordinary will. The tank commander realized what an important position he had taken. And he deliberately began to hold her back. It is unlikely that the standing of the tank in one place can be interpreted as a lack of initiative, the crew acted too skillfully. On the contrary, standing was an initiative. The crew could blow up the tank so that the enemy would not get it and calmly go to their own, to the partisans. But they made the only right decision and stayed to take their last fight.
The combat episode of the beginning of the war near Raseiniai is just one of the highlights that characterize the mass heroism of Soviet soldiers during the Great Patriotic War. Eternal memory to the fallen heroes!
P.S. A description of this feat of tankers is given from the memoirs of that very Erhard Routh. Of the 427 pages of his memoirs, directly describing the hostilities, 12 are devoted to a two-day battle with the only Russian tank at Raseiniai. Routh was clearly shaken by this tank. Therefore, there is no reason for mistrust.
P.P.S. Unfortunately, not all the names of these brave tankers are known, but most likely they were from the 2nd Panzer Division of the 3rd Mechanized Corps. It was the 2nd Panzer Division that opposed the 6th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht in the battles on Raseiniai. In 1965, the grave was opened. On the basis of the found receipt for the delivery of the passport, it was possible to restore the name of one of the crew members - Ershov Pavel Yegorovich. The surname and initials of another tanker are also known - Smirnov V.A.
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Thanks to the creation of the KV ("Kliment Voroshilov") tanks, the Soviet Union became the only state that had, in 1941, heavy tanks with anti-cannon armor in large quantities. The Germans called the KV a monster.
Searches and experiments
The main disadvantage of most tanks of the second half of the 30s was weak armor, penetrated by the fire of anti-tank guns and large-caliber machine guns.
The KV-1 was different from them. It was created in 1939 under the leadership of J. Ya. Kotin. The tank had a 76 mm cannon and three 7.62 mm. machine gun. The crew of the tank is 5 people.
The first KVs passed military tests during the Soviet-Finnish war, which was the first conflict where heavy tanks with anti-cannon armor were used. Then at the front, Soviet heavy tanks KV and multi-turret SMK and T-100, which operated as part of the 20th tank brigade, were tested. enemy fortifications. The KV-1 could withstand hits from almost any anti-tank gun shells. At the same time, the 76-mm gun was not powerful enough to fight enemy pillboxes. Therefore, already during the war, on the basis of the KV-1, the development of a tank with an enlarged turret and installed 152 mm began. howitzer (future KV-2). At the same time, based on the experience of the Soviet-Finnish war, it was decided to abandon the creation of heavy multi-turret tanks, which turned out to be expensive and difficult to manage. The choice was finally made in favor of KV.
Unmatched
In June 1941, the KV could be considered one of the strongest heavy tanks in the world. In total, at the beginning of June 1941, there were 412 KV-1s in the Red Army units, very unevenly distributed among the troops.
There is a known case in June 1941 in the Rassenyay area, when one KV-1 fettered the actions of the German division for almost two days. This KV was part of the 2nd Panzer Division, which brought a lot of troubles to the German troops in the early days of the war. Apparently using up its fuel supply, the tank took up a position on the road near a swampy meadow. One of the German documents noted: “There were practically no means to cope with the monster. The tank cannot be bypassed, there is swampy terrain around. Ammunition could not be brought up, the seriously wounded were dying, they could not be taken out. An attempt to liquidate the tank with the fire of a 50-mm anti-tank battery from a distance of 500 meters led to heavy losses in crews and guns. The tank was not damaged, despite the fact that, as it turned out, received 14 direct hits. All that was left of them were dents on the armor. When the 88-mm gun was brought up to a distance of 700 meters, the tank calmly waited until it was put into position and destroyed it. Attempts by sappers to blow up the tank were unsuccessful. The charges were insufficient for the huge tracks. Finally, he fell prey to cunning. 50 German tanks simulated an attack from all sides to divert attention. Under cover, it was possible to push and disguise an 88-mm gun from the rear of the tank. Of the 12 direct hits, 3 pierced the armor and destroyed the tank. "Unfortunately, most of the KV was lost not for combat reasons, but for breakdowns and lack of fuel.
In 1942, the production of a modernized version, the KV-1s (high-speed), was launched, which was put into service on August 20, 1942. The mass of the tank decreased from 47 to 42.5 tons by reducing the thickness of the armor plates of the hull and the size of the turret. Tower - cast, acquired a slightly different appearance and was equipped with a commander's cupola. The armament remained similar to the KV-1. As a result, the speed and maneuverability increased, but the armor protection of the tank decreased. It was planned to install a more powerful 85 mm cannon on the KV-1s (a similar prototype was preserved in Kubinka), but this tank did not go into production. Subsequently, on the basis of the Kv-1s with an 85 mm cannon, the KV-85 was created, which, however, did not become widespread due to the switch of production to IS tanks. The soldiers nicknamed the tank "kvassok".
End of the road
In tank battles, at least until mid-1942, German troops could do little to oppose the KV-1. Nevertheless, in the course of hostilities, the tank's shortcomings were revealed - relatively low speed and maneuverability in comparison with the T-34. Both tanks were armed with 76 mm guns. True, the KV had more massive armor in comparison with the "thirty-four". HF suffered from frequent breakdowns. When moving, the tank broke almost any road, and not every bridge could withstand a 47-ton tank. The heavy tank "Tiger" appeared in the Germans at the end of 1942, surpassing any heavy tank at that time of the war. And the KV-1 turned out to be practically powerless against the "Tiger" armed with a long-barreled 88-mm cannon. "Tiger" could hit KB at great distances, and a direct hit from an 88-mm projectile put out of action any tank of that time. So, on February 12, 1943, near Leningrad, three Tigers knocked out 10 KB without damage from their side.
Since the middle of 1943, the KV-1 has been encountered less and less on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War - mainly near Leningrad. Nevertheless, the KV-1 served as a base for the creation of a number of Soviet tanks and self-propelled guns. So, on the basis of the KV, the SU-152 was created, armed with a 152 howitzer-gun. To this day, only a few KV-1 units have survived in Russia, which have become museum exhibits.
It's hard to believe, but the 6th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht fought for 48 hours with one and only Soviet tank KV-1 ("Klim Voroshilov").
This episode is detailed in the memoirs of Colonel Erhard Routh, whose group tried to destroy a Soviet tank. The 50-ton KV-1 shot and crushed with its tracks a convoy of 12 supply trucks, which was heading towards the Germans from the captured town of Raiseniai. Then he destroyed the artillery battery with aimed shots. The Germans, of course, fired back, but to no avail. The shells of the anti-tank guns did not even leave dents on his armor - the Germans struck by this later gave the KV-1 tanks the nickname "Ghost". Why, the guns - the armor of the KV-1 could not penetrate even 150-millimeter howitzers. True, Routh's soldiers managed to immobilize the tank by detonating a shell under its track.
But "Klim Voroshilov" was not going to leave anywhere. He took a strategic position on the only road leading to Raiseniai and delayed the division's advance for two days (the Germans could not get around it, because the road passed through swamps where army trucks and light tanks were stuck).
Finally, by the end of the second day of the battle, Routh managed to shoot the tank with anti-aircraft guns. But, when his soldiers cautiously approached the steel monster, the tank turret suddenly turned in their direction - apparently, the crew was still alive. Only a grenade thrown into the hatch of the tank put an end to this incredible battle.
Here is what Erhard Routh himself writes about this:
“The only road leading to our bridgehead is blocked by the super-heavy KV-1 tank. At noon on June 24, the scouts returned, whom I sent to clarify the situation. They reported that apart from this tank, they did not find any troops or equipment that could attack us. With his fire, he had already set fire to 12 supply trucks that were coming to us from Raseinaya. We could not evacuate the wounded in the battles for the bridgehead, and as a result, several people died. All attempts to bypass this tank were unsuccessful. The cars either got stuck in the mud or collided with scattered Russian units still wandering through the forest. "
Erhard Routh fought on the Eastern Front, passing through Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk, and ended the war as commander of the 3rd Panzer Army and with the rank of colonel general. Of the 427 pages of his memoirs, directly describing the hostilities, 12 are devoted to a two-day battle with the only Russian tank at Raseiniai. Routh was clearly shaken by this tank. Therefore, there is no reason for mistrust.
Erhard Routh: “Although the tank did not move since the battle with the anti-tank battery, it turned out that its crew and commander had iron nerves. They calmly watched the approach of the anti-aircraft gun, without interfering with it, since while the gun was moving, it did not pose any threat to the tank. In addition, the closer the anti-aircraft gun is, the easier it will be to destroy it. Came a critical moment in the duel of nerves, when the calculation began to prepare the anti-aircraft gun for a shot. Now is the time for the tank's crew to act. While the gunners, terribly nervous, were aiming and loading the gun, the tank turned its turret around and fired first! Each shell hit the target. The heavily damaged antiaircraft gun fell into a ditch, several crewmen were killed, and the rest were forced to flee. Machine-gun fire from the tank prevented the removal of the gun and the pick up of the dead. The failure of this attempt, on which great hopes were pinned, was very unpleasant news for us. The optimism of the soldier died along with the 88-mm gun. Our soldiers did not have the best day chewing canned food, as it was impossible to bring hot food. "
The most amazing thing about this battle is the behavior of four tankers, whose names we do not know and will never know. They created more problems for the Germans than the entire 2nd Panzer Division, to which, apparently, the KV belonged. If the division delayed the German offensive by one day, then the only tank by two. And all this time the crew was waiting. All five combat episodes - the defeat of a convoy of trucks, the destruction of an anti-tank battery, the destruction of anti-aircraft guns, firing at sappers, the last battle with tanks - in total hardly took even an hour. The rest of the time (48 hours!) The KV crew wondered from which side and in what form they would be destroyed next time. Try to at least roughly imagine such an expectation.
Moreover, if on the first day the crew of the KV could still hope for the arrival of their own, then on the second, when their own did not come and even the noise of the battle at Raseiniai had quieted down, it became clearer: the iron box in which they roast the second day would soon enough turn into their common coffin. They took it for granted and continued to fight!
Erhard Routh: “The witnesses of this deadly duel wanted to get closer to check the results of their shooting. To their great amazement, they found that only 2 shells penetrated the armor, while the remaining 5 88mm shells only made deep potholes in it. We also found 8 blue circles marking the impact of 50mm shells. The sappers' sortie resulted in serious damage to the track and a shallow chipping on the gun barrel. But we did not find any traces of hits from shells from 37-mm cannons and PzKW-35t tanks. Driven by curiosity, our "davids" climbed onto the defeated "goliath" in a vain attempt to open the turret hatch. Despite his best efforts, the lid did not budge.
Suddenly the barrel of the gun began to move, and our soldiers rushed away in terror. Only one of the sappers kept his composure and quickly thrust a hand grenade into the hole made by a shell in the lower part of the tower. A dull explosion thundered, and the hatch cover flew to the side. Inside the tank lay the bodies of the brave crew, who had only been wounded before. Deeply shocked by this heroism, we buried them with all military honors. They fought to their last breath, but it was just one little drama of the great war! "
Soviet heavy tank KV-1 became a symbol of victory Soviet Union in World War II on a par with the T-34. Appearing on the battlefield for the first time, he puzzled the Germans, being completely invulnerable to their weapons.
The steel monster's Achilles heel was its unreliability, caused by rushed production without proper quality control. Nevertheless, this tank in an instant made German equipment almost helpless, forced in a hurry to develop a new one and gave impetus to Soviet tank building.
History of creation
At the end of 1938, the development of a heavy tank protected by anti-cannon armor began at the design bureau of the Kirov plant in Leningrad. Initially, it was planned to create a multi-turret vehicle with three towers, as was customary at that time in world practice.
As a result, a multi-turret QMS appeared, named after Sergei Mironovich Kirov. On its basis, A.S. Ermolaev and N.L. Dukhov created an experimental tank with one turret, lighter weight and dimensions. It turned out to be cheaper and easier to manufacture than the QMS, while more secure and faster.
In August 1939, the first tank, named KV in honor of Klim Voroshilov, left the gates of the Leningrad Kirov plant. The name remained that way until the creation of the KV-2, after which the KV was renamed KV-1.
Construction and layout
The classic layout with one turret made the novelty lighter and smaller compared to multi-turret heavy tanks from other countries. At the same time, only the anti-aircraft 8.8 German guns, used as anti-tank guns, were in the teeth.
The KV became an innovative tank, combining in its design a classic layout, individual torsion bar suspension, a diesel engine and anti-cannon armor. Separately, the above solutions were used on domestic and foreign tanks, but they were never combined all together.
Hull and tower
Frame Soviet tank consisted of rolled armor plates connected by welding. Used armor sheets with a thickness of 75, 40, 30, 20 millimeters. All vertical plates were 75 millimeters thick, the front plates were tilted to increase the reduced armor thickness.
The tower was also made using welded technology. From the inside, her shoulder strap was marked in thousandths, which made it possible to aim the gun in a horizontal plane for firing from a closed position.
After its appearance, the KV-1 turned out to be invulnerable to all German guns with the exception of anti-aircraft guns of 8.8 cm. ... The modernization brought the mass to 50 tons, which is why it was abandoned in August 1941.
In front of the hull there were a driver and a radio operator gunner. Above the latter was a round hatch.
Additionally, an emergency hatch for the crew and small hatches for access to ammunition, fuel tanks and some components were located in the bottom of the hull.
The commander, gunner and loader were located inside the tower; a round hatch was located above the commander.
Armament
Moving away from the concept of a two-turret tank, the developers combined anti-tank and anti-personnel weapons in one turret.
To combat enemy equipment, a 76.2 mm L-11 cannon was installed. Later it was replaced by the F-32, then by the ZIS-5.
To combat the enemy's manpower, the KV received a 7.62 mm DT-29 machine gun. One of them is paired with a cannon and is located in the gun mask, the other is in a ball mount. An anti-aircraft machine gun was also foreseen, but most of the tanks did not receive them.
Engine, transmission, chassis
The tank was driven by a V-2K diesel engine, developing a power of 500 hp. Later, the power was increased by 100 hp.
The mechanical transmission has become one of the main drawbacks. Very low reliability, moreover, there are frequent cases when new equipment, which had just left the factory, already turned out to be defective.
6 road wheels on each side received an individual torsion bar suspension, the travel of which was limited by special limiters acting on the balancers.
From above, each track rested on three carrier rollers. Initially, they were rubberized, later, due to a lack of rubber, they became all-metal.
The mobility of the KV turned out to be clearly insufficient, the car developed 34 km / h on the highway, on the off-road it was noticeably less due to the specific power of 11.6 hp / t.
Later, a lightweight KV-1S appeared, designed to correct the shortcomings of the KV-1 in the form of low reliability and poor mobility.
Modifications
After the KV, tanks began to appear, created on the basis of solutions worked out on it. In addition, the designers tried to reduce the number of critical flaws.
- The KV-2 is a 1940 heavy tank with a huge turret, memorable for only one of its appearance. Armed with a 152 mm M-10 howitzer, designed to destroy enemy engineering structures like bunkers. The howitzer easily broke through the armor of all German tanks.
- T-150 is a 1940 prototype with armor increased to 90 mm.
- The KV-220 is a 1940 prototype with armor increased to 100 mm.
- KV-8 - a flamethrower tank of 1941, equipped with an ATO-41 or ATO-42 flamethrower, located in the place of a ball mount for a course machine gun. Instead of the usual 76 mm cannon, I received a 45 mm cannon.
- KV-1S - tank of 1942 weighing 42.5 tons with reduced armor thickness and better mobility.
- KV-1K - tank of 1942 with missile weapons in the form of the KARST-1 system.
Combat use
In 1941, Soviet troops suffered defeat after defeat, suffered huge losses and retreated. Nevertheless, the Klim Voroshilov tanks came as an unpleasant surprise for the German troops, who were practically unable to hit them.
The invulnerability of the Soviet heavy tanks allowed experienced and courageous crews to work wonders. The most famous battle can be called that which took place on August 19, 1941. Then 5 KVs were able to destroy 40 enemy tanks with their fire, and another 3 with a ram. The company was commanded by ZG Kolobanov, together with his crew, he destroyed 22 tanks, while his tank received 156 hits from enemy cannons.
At the same time, extreme unreliability, poor mobility and crew blindness caused by poor visibility were noted, which forced the Soviet designers to create new tanks. With the appearance of the German Tiger heavy tanks, the KV armor suddenly lost its indestructibility and the slow, clumsy, half-blind tank turned into an easy target, often unable to even snap back.
Epilogue
Not only the Russians, but also the Germans highly appreciated the characteristics of the KV at the time of its appearance. The tank became the ancestor of single-turret heavy tanks with a classic layout, well-protected and armed at the same time.
Obviously, the domination could not continue throughout the war as more advanced technology appeared, but the KV-1 made a significant contribution to the victory in the Great Patriotic War and deservedly stands next to the T-34 in the list of legendary vehicles.