“We can't, we just don't want to believe it: even the best-placed hits bounce off the armor! Undeterred by our angry fireworks, the Russian tanks roll on, right under our noses, at ideal firing distance, towards our poor comrades on the runway. (...) And we can't even reach these beasts at the shortest distance with our cannons, while they can shoot us down calmly and comfortably at 1000 meters. It's enough to make you cry!”
This is how tank commander Hermann Bix describes in his war diary how he and his soldiers experienced October 6 near Mtsensk in 1941. For the first time, the Wehrmacht was faced with a massive deployment of T-34s.
The T-34 (from the Russian танк for tank) was a medium tank from Soviet production. It is considered the best-known Soviet tank of the war and, with a total of over 80,000 examples, the most built tank of all.
In contrast to the German tanks, the T-34 had the disadvantage of lacking a gunner (the commander had to shoot), which made it difficult to maintain an overview in battle. Added to this were immature telescopic sights and the initial lack of radio equipment. Nevertheless, the superior capabilities of the tank quickly became clear, especially in terms of mobility and armor protection.
The commander of the XXIV Army Corps, Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, wrote after the war:
“The constructive superiority of the Soviet tank had such an effect at the time that the well-known German designer Professor Porsche had to be called to the battlefield outside Tula in a hurry and brought together there with the most experienced German tank officers on the fighting front.”
It was not until 1943 that the Germans were able to field a more than equivalent medium tank, the Panzerkampfwagen V Panther.
Source: Wikipedia
