T-34 impact

[johnny_bi]

When the Romanians encountered for the first time the T-34? What about KV1?

[Geto-Dacul]

I read that the Romanian Army first encountered heavy tanks during the Battle of Kharkov, in May 1942... The reaction was of panic, when they realized that their AT guns were unable to stop the Soviet armour (which it is said to have been an heteroclit mix of T-34s, BTs, T-26s and some KVs)... But German aviaton and panzers saved the day by destroying the Soviet supply centers and leaving the Soviet tanks abandonned without fuel.

[dragos]

Geto-Dacu is probably reffering to operations of the 1st Infantry Division at Lozovaia, during 19-21 February 1942. The battle took place under dramatic circumstances, Romanian troops being kept on alert during the entire night of 19-20 February, in open terrain, in a bitter cold weather. In the morning, when the Soviet attack occured, troops were allready exhausted. The Soviet attack was supported by tanks in the sector of 93rd Dorobanti Regiment. After two hours of struggle, troops' morale failed and 93rd Regiment started a disorganized retreat. Further counterattacks to stop the Soviet advance also failed, and the entire position of 1st Division collapsed. After penetrating 10 km deep in the sector of 1st Division, Soviet forces shifted direction to Rasdolnaia. On 14 March 1942, 85th and 93rd Regiments were sanctioned by Marshal Antonescu by temporary rescinding their standards.

[Geto-Dacul]

Aha... But the front was restabilized by German intervention, no? And the Russians attacked with heavy tanks?

Getu'

[johnny_bi]

dragos said:

QUOTE

Geto-Dacu is probably reffering to operations of the 1st Infantry Division at Lozovaia, during 19-21 February 1942.

Could we find some more details about it ?

[DevanG]

the t-34 was ans awesome machine but the KV-1 .. that is up for discussion , because in all variants it had a tremendous loss in mobility and there was really no need for a heavy tank with the same cannon as the already available t-34 ..
if it had a much bigger gun , like let's say the kv-85 .. than it would ofbeen much more of a succes ..
they tried to make it fast in a perios where heavy german tanks already appeared ( tiger ) and in a time where every panzerkampfwagen 4 had a long-barrellled 75 mm cannon ...
during the war it's armour was steadily increased with no improvement in either suspension or engine .. so in it's most armored variants it was like a slow moving fortress but it was easily destroyed through the engine / tracks and then with field artillery or aircraft ...
it had no escape hatch for the driver ..

there is one moment when a kv-2 destroyed the supply lines of a panzerdivision and it could not be destroyed before it inflicted horrible losses on the german division ... ( but it did took 24-36 hours .. )



from my point of view kv-1 was a failure , kv-85 was a failure too because when it appeared , t-34 already had 85 mm cannons ..
kv-2 .. it's under discussion because it was indeed a very powerfull beast , it was very good as a field artillery and even more there are cases in which that tank really scared the germans .. but :
it was very unstable because it had a high centre of gravity ..
easy to shoot at turret
slow moving ..
little ammo ( around 30 rounds )
the platform's armour remained the same altough the turret's armour increased ... a lot ...