‘Still there are
examples of T-34’s breaking down during assaults even late in the war (17).
For instance the 5th Guards Tank army in 1943 lost as much as 15% of its tanks
during its march to Prokhorovka. In August ’43 the 1st Tank army lost 50%
of its tanks due to malfunction. As late as the second half of 1944 tank
units tried to replace engines with more than 30 hours of operation before a
major attack.’
It seems the 15% figure was not correct. The 5th Guards Tank
army actually lost 31.5% of its tanks during
its march to Prokhorovka. Superior Soviet engineering FTW!
WW2 tanks and aircraft were more or less disposable and it won't surprise me at all if even western Allies had quite a high percentage of operational losses with tanks, even with much more reliable M4 Shermans. In August 1944 the biggest problems for both Soviet and US/British tank forces were surely not exhausted Germans but technical issues after 200-300 miles of penetration. Those T-34's not destroyed by Germans in June-July were likely rather useless for further action. Red Army needed brand new ones.
ReplyDeleteThat's true but the T-34 reliability problems are not just a result of difficult combat operations. They were due to problems with design, construction and usage. Check:
Deletehttp://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.gr/2012/07/wwii-myths-t-34-best-tank-of-war.html