Looking in the history of the 8th german panzer division, I found some photographs of T-34's and KV-1's in the service of this Panzerdivision.
Just though it might be of interest to this topic
regards
eric
What happened with all the russian tanks?
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Carl Schwamberger
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I have seen a "panzer company" of T34 tanks listed amoung the Wehrmacht units fighting with the 48th Pz Corps in the Chir River battles in January/Febuary 1943. It is susposed to have been formed as a instruction unit the previous spring of 1942, to train Wehrmacht AT gunners, tank gunners, and infantry in attacking Soviet tanks. Refrences to similar units are often made .
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phylo_roadking
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I see some reasons of small quantity captured russian AFV used Wermacht.
1. Germans always paid the big attention to preparation tankmen/tankers. At them it could be simple not such plenty of the trained crews. Besides tankmen/tankers it was necessary to retrain on Russian AFV. For this purpose months were required.
2. Necessity repair AFV. Tanks and armored cars have been damaged for technical reasons. Spare parts, repairmen were necessary. Whether Germany so much capacities for repair, transport for transportation AFV on repair had factories to Germany?
3. Complexities identify Russian AFV. White crosses were badly visible in darkness, tanks were exposed to friendly fire. Such cases were in July, 1941.
4. Bad optics of Russian tanks. It conceded German. Towers of Russian tanks were close. In T-34 from works held 3 tankmen/tankers. In the German tank - 4. The first T-34 and KV were very whimsical in operation. They often left operation because of mechanical breakages. Only by 1943 Russian have started to do reliable tanks. Even at Russian T-34 became main battles tank only in 1943.
5. All the same Germans used more than Russian tanks, than the official statistics shows. Look how many a photo of Russian tanks in German service exists! Whether the official statistics shows tanks BT in 1943? On a photo of this time these tanks are!
6. Who has any data about number of Russian tanks in German service for December, 1941 let will show them!
1. Germans always paid the big attention to preparation tankmen/tankers. At them it could be simple not such plenty of the trained crews. Besides tankmen/tankers it was necessary to retrain on Russian AFV. For this purpose months were required.
2. Necessity repair AFV. Tanks and armored cars have been damaged for technical reasons. Spare parts, repairmen were necessary. Whether Germany so much capacities for repair, transport for transportation AFV on repair had factories to Germany?
3. Complexities identify Russian AFV. White crosses were badly visible in darkness, tanks were exposed to friendly fire. Such cases were in July, 1941.
4. Bad optics of Russian tanks. It conceded German. Towers of Russian tanks were close. In T-34 from works held 3 tankmen/tankers. In the German tank - 4. The first T-34 and KV were very whimsical in operation. They often left operation because of mechanical breakages. Only by 1943 Russian have started to do reliable tanks. Even at Russian T-34 became main battles tank only in 1943.
5. All the same Germans used more than Russian tanks, than the official statistics shows. Look how many a photo of Russian tanks in German service exists! Whether the official statistics shows tanks BT in 1943? On a photo of this time these tanks are!
6. Who has any data about number of Russian tanks in German service for December, 1941 let will show them!
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phylo_roadking
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Strelok, you'll find the Whermacht had a VERY long history of 1/ taking captured vehicles and reusing them, 2/ canabilizing them one by one for parts to keep the rest in the field and 3/recovering and repairing their own vehicles this way. Look for example at the huge number of captured vehicles put into German service after the Battle of France - large numbers of french tanks were put into garrison or reserve service - that famous pic of the "German" armoured forces on Jersey, French Char B's, comes to mind here - also a large number of French and British softskin transports of all sorts....the humble 15cwt trucks and bren gun carriers being especially popular. In the Western Desert, German repair crews put a lot of italian trucks, but also very importantly Italian tanks back in the combat line time after time. This was VERY common practice for the Wehrmacht.
The simple answer would have been the most obvious - after the first few defensive battles, and subsequently counter-offensive battles of late 1941 and 1942, the Germans would simply not have been in the position of being able to scavenge victorious battlefields after armoured combat!
The simple answer would have been the most obvious - after the first few defensive battles, and subsequently counter-offensive battles of late 1941 and 1942, the Germans would simply not have been in the position of being able to scavenge victorious battlefields after armoured combat!
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Interesting question,
The Germans used ithe BT-7 under the designation Panzerkampfwagen BT 742(r), theres even a heap of photos in this AHF thread :
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=42954
But considering :
- the German use of captured T-34s was fairly widespread,
- the Finns made use of everything they captured (including crap like the T-26),
- the extensive German use of very outdated French armor,
the question remains, what happened to the thousands of BT- and T-26 littering the field in 1941??? Some they used, what happened to the rest?
The Germans used ithe BT-7 under the designation Panzerkampfwagen BT 742(r), theres even a heap of photos in this AHF thread :
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=42954
But considering :
- the German use of captured T-34s was fairly widespread,
- the Finns made use of everything they captured (including crap like the T-26),
- the extensive German use of very outdated French armor,
the question remains, what happened to the thousands of BT- and T-26 littering the field in 1941??? Some they used, what happened to the rest?
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phylo_roadking
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Well, the Bessemer steel process requires a quantity of good processed steel added to the mix to catalyse out the impurities and remaining slag, and also, scrap steel goes the way of all steel....into the smelter for reuse, or.....just like all that GERMAN steel laying around France after the war - into steel concrete reinforcing rods for new buildings. In the Germans' case - The Atlantic Wall? :-)
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
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phylo_roadking
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Classic Military Vehicle six months ago had a wonderful picture of a rusting T34.....in a back garden in a semi-detached house in Surbiton! These were SO cheap a lot of years ago at all the post-Cold war "Garage sales" LMAO that some guy bought one, painted it matt black and flourescent pink....and gave it to his TEN-YEAR OLD SON as a birthday present! The ultimate-offroader LMAO
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Heh. There's a private collector near Daugavpils who has working T-34/85 and IS-2 which were pulled out of swamps on the old Kurland kessel front line about 5 years ago.
Apparently they rent a different post war T-34/85 out for driving (300 euro the hour). This tank also has a history - it was used in the making of the famous Polish series "Four Tankists and a Dog".
Apparently they rent a different post war T-34/85 out for driving (300 euro the hour). This tank also has a history - it was used in the making of the famous Polish series "Four Tankists and a Dog".
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phylo_roadking
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Russian Tanks
I am sorry for the late post but have been putting the 34 "Latviesu Strelnieki" books on my website and just finnished # 22 and am catching up on other things. The above pictured tank is in a museum in Svente with 2 other recovered tank, a personel carrier, and a Russian version of the jeep. For those who have not caught my post before, I wrote about them on my web page http://www.lacplesis.com/Latvian_Military_Visit.htm
If not already known, in Estonia they dug up the following
http://www.mil.hiiumaa.ee/2000_09_14_kurtna_T-34-36/
If not already known, in Estonia they dug up the following
http://www.mil.hiiumaa.ee/2000_09_14_kurtna_T-34-36/
History is what we repeat if we don't study it.