"How the Soviet Army Fights".

 I am a contributor on Quora and I had posted this several years ago and it keeps getting "Uplikes", I am in the 4 digits now.  I am one of the contributors for the "Grand Review of Armies", something I do enjoy because of the history aspect of it.  That being said, there is a lot of dumbassery on it, especially on politics.  it can be fun troll stomping but I do try to avoid it, nobody enjoys it except the troll. 

       As far as this comment goes, I have mostly "attaboys" and they picked up after the invasion of the Ukraine and a few positive criticism and a few butthurt people that are fanboys of the Russians and believe that the Russians are the 2nd coming.  I surmise that they are people either college students that have an affinity for communism and any criticism of their "client" state is a de-facto criticism of who they are or people that actually live there and take umbrage to what I have said.  Truth be told , what I have said was accurate to 1991, how the Russians fight now I don't know, and it looks like they have lost a lot of tactical knowledge since the cold war.  I can't crow about that, I was speaking to my brother and who said that it is the same with us, we have spent 20 years fighting "Hajj" and have forgotten how to prepare the battlefield against a peer and a near peer force.  he had told me that this was driven home during a briefing when the squadron commander was asking questions that only the old warrants that have been around in the back of the room knew the answer to, the younger guys and gals had no clue.  We also have lost a lot of institutional knowledge.  I had commented before that we are not the lean mean green machine that destroyed the Iraqi's in 1991 and 2003.  We were trained by the people that survived Vietnam and 20 years of getting our doctrine tuned and flush with cash from the Reagan years. we did what they said couldn't be done.  

One of my specialties or discipline in the service was "The Soviet Army" and how they fight. What doctrine they use in the attack.

 Basically they would use a 3 layer approach, the initial group that would be considered class "A" divisions, would attack the FEBA(Forward edge battle area) look for any weak points, then once they find it, the second echelon which would have their latest equipment and best trained units would move up, attack the weak points and force a breakthrough then run into the rear of the opposing formation and the 3rd echelon which was comprised with "class B and some class"C or V"units would provide security for the operations. This is the doctrine developed by Georgy Zhukov and it worked well against the Germans in WWII. The Soviets still trained on the same model. Casualties were of no concern to the leadership, That was one of the big differences between " us" and " them". 

I will give an example...If one of our units ran into trouble, we would call for arty or air support. It is part of our doctrine to do this. Part of the combined arms training that we do. Well the Soviets would NOT do that...The Soviets would doctrinally refuse such a request especially in the initial assaults, they wanted to save the combat power for the break through, and not "waste" it on small actions. That is why most of the artillery and free rockets were assigned directly to the Soviet Army or Front Commander, to save the resources.

 We developed "airland battle" our doctrine in the late 70's to disrupt the echelon attacks that the Soviets would do in case of an attack. Our Apache helicopters and A-10's reflected this doctrine. That is what we used in Desert Storm. the Iraqi's were trained and equipped according to Soviet doctrine. We knew that we couldn't go toe to toe in an slugging match with the Soviets, they still outnumbered us in men and tanks. I think Stalin said "Quantity has a quality all its own". So we had to be "smarter" then they were. They had a lot of top down management, whereas we trained individual initiative in our soldiers. I don’t know How the Russians do now, Their doctrine is sound and their equipment is better than it was 10 years ago. I don’t know how they “do” it anymore, I am no longer “In the Know”

 

The Soviets Use of the Shermans During WWII

 I knew that the Soviets got the Shermans during WWII because of "Lend-Lease", and I recall that they liked the Sherman a lot.  I was surprised that they didn't use them in Korea in a false flag incident or something because the Soviets don't throw nothing away.  They still had equipment from WWII in warehouses in Siberia at the fall of the Soviet Union.  I ran across this article on "Quora" where I am a contributor and I thought it was "Pretty Neat".

 

Soviet Shermans: The USSR Was a Big Sherman User, and They Liked it

Soviet crew posing in front of their large hatch hull, M4A2 75 dry, tank.

The Soviet Union received three American Medium tank types in large numbers. They received the Lee, and M4A2 75 and 76 tanks. Only the UK would use more M4A2 tanks, though they received only five armed with the 76mm gun, they got far more of the 75mm armed M4A2s.  The Soviets also received a pair of M4A4 tanks for evaluation but rejected them because of the motor.  My impression from the things I’ve read says, they liked the all of them, well not the A4, but liked the Shermans more than the Lee.

M4A2 76w, late production, with an M1A2 gun.

Now let’s cover each tank model.

M3 Lee: The Basic Lee

Knocked out Soviet M3 Lee tanks

The Lee was not considered a very good design by the Soviet Union, you can read their evaluation here, on Archive Awareness, but it was not all negative. They liked the transmission, differential and final drives, and in particular the steering and brake mechanism.  They felt the R975 air-cooled motor was not a great fit for tanks, for all the reasons they are not fit for tanks, mainly the size limitations they put on the tank, and as gasoline AC engines, they don’t have good low-end torque, make driving harder.  They disliked the position of the 75mm gun, and lack of sites on the machine guns.

Soviet M3 Lee, If you look closely you can see grousers installed on the tracks

One thing I found very interesting, is in the summer, they could pack up to 10 SMG infantry into the Lee, along with the regular 7 man crew, making it into a makeshift APC. The thing would be packed full of people though.  The report says all weapons could be fired on the tank while those 10 men were stuffed in, so I guess the US Army or Brits didn’t try this because they liked comfort or something.

A column of Soviet M3 Lee tanks.

The Lee did not fare well against the upgraded Panzer IV with long 75, and they lost a lot of them, but they never stopped using them, they just did what the British did and sent them off to secondary theaters, where tanks were still useful, and no enemy tanks were around.  Against poorly equipped, in AT weapon, Infantry, the M3 Lee was a monster of a tank. The 75mm had a great HE round, it was packed with machine guns, and had a 37mm that could sling canister.  The Soviets received 1386 M3 Lee tanks.

M4A2 75 dry: Early Small Hatch 75mm Shermans with Drivers Hoods

Early M4A4 with DV ports in Russian Museum. One of two sent to the USSR for testing.

The Soviets received 1990 M3 75mm gun armed M4A2 Shermans. I don’t have a list of who made the early M4A2 tanks they got. They were competing with the Marine Corps and the French and Brits on priority for these tanks, and most went to the Brits.  I’ve looked through a lot of pictures of Soviet M4 tanks, or “Emcha” as they seemed to call them, the small hatch 75 tanks seem rarer than the large hatch 75 and 76 tanks.

This Post on Archive Awareness indicates, they received several hundred very early M4A2 tanks. One of the big indicators of this is the section where they talk about the suspension having the Lee style top mounted return roller, which could be jammed with mud, but then they received later models, where this return roller was moved to bracket mounted to the side of the suspension unit.

Another interesting part of that document is the problems they had with injectors and lubrication problems with the pistons.  The Army reported similar problems with early model M4A2s, with the Air cleaners, cooling system, and clutches, but nothing about the injectors.  This post on AA also indicates injector issues but was overall positive on the M4A2.  Maybe the Soviets used low-quality diesel and the injectors didn’t like it. At any rate, these issues would have been worked out by the time they started getting improved models.

M4A2 large hatch Dry: Late Model 75mm, 47-degree Large Hatch Hulls, but with Dry Ammo Racks

M4A2 75 dry large hatch tanks in action

By late 1943 a new version of the M4A2 was going into production, and it had the improved 47-degree, single piece front armor plate, with large driver and co-drivers hatches. These would be the first tanks to get this improvement.  By the time this model went into production, priority for diesel-powered Shermans was going to the Soviets, since that was the only model they wanted, and the Brits would take the M4A4.

An final production M4A2 75 dry tank

These improved large hatch hulls still used the dry ammunition rack setup of the early small hatch hulls, but they had the applique armor applied at the factory, and the 75mm turrets had an improved casting thickening the area that had required welded on additional armor on the older turrets. The Turrets had a oval loaders hatch and a pistol port as well, though the commander still got the older split hatch cupola with the 50 caliber mount built into it.

These tanks seemed to have been photographed much more than the small hatch 75 tanks, but I do not have a lot of photos of either. By the time these tanks were being produced, all the major reliability issues would have been worked out.

M4A2 76W: The Soviets were the Second Biggest User of 76mm Shermans

Soviet M4A2 76w with a split loaders hatch somewhere in Germany or Austria

Production of the 75mm armed Sherman was reduced, as Sherman production was streamlined down from the 10 factories that were producing it, to the three that would  finish it off, Fisher, Chrysler, and Pressed Steel Car.  The Soviet Union received 2073 M4A2 tanks with the 76mm M1A1 gun.  This was just about Fishers whole production run on the 76mm armed M4A2.

Shot of a factory fresh M4A2 76w tank at the General Motors Proving Ground

These tanks would have started out with wet racks, all around vision cupolas, a split loaders hatch and an M1A1 76mm gun without a barrel threaded for a muzzle brake.  A few may have even had T23 turrets without the ventilator on the rear. These would quickly be replaced with M1A1C guns with threaded barrels with a protective cap over the threads, and the split loaders hatch would be replaced with the smaller oval hatch.  These tanks would eventually be produced in the “Ultimate” configuration, with the M1A2 gun, and HVSS suspension.

M4A2 76w with Russian Infantry loaded aboard.

These thanks saw extensive combat use with the Soviet Union, use with Guards units. My understanding is the Russians liked the M4A2 76w tanks just fine, and used them in elite units, but this has no reflection on their feelings about the tank compared to their own T-34-85 tanks.  T-34s were used in Guards units as well, and some units had both, as we can see from this AA post.  By that point in the war the Sherman and T-34 were pretty close in abilities.

M4A4: They Received Two, and that was Enough to Convince them, They Wanted No More

The Soviets sent a group of officials and engineers to check out the Chrysler Defense Arsenal,  to review the world famous tank factories abilities, and the tank they were currently making, the M4A4. This visit took place between December of 42 to February of 43, for more details, see this post on AA.

After being given a chance to drive the M4A4 on the proving grounds and being given lectures and demonstrations of its A57 gas motor, the Soviets decided that the M4A4 was better than the M3 Lee, but inferior to the M4A2 with GM Diesel they were already receiving through lend lease. They decided the factory was impressive, but really not producing a very good tank.

Even though the Soviets showed little interest in the M4A4 tanks, two were sent to them for evaluation anyway. You can read their impressions here, but as before when they tested it in the US, they felt the motor was to complicated to be reliable.

. . .

Here are some quotes from the ‘I remember’ interview of Dmitriy Loza, Hero of the Soviet Union, pertaining to the Emchas.

 

Dmitriy Fedorovich, on which American tanks did you fight?

On Shermans. We called them “Emchas”, from M4 [in Russian, em chetyrye]. Initially they had the short main gun, and later they began to arrive with the long gun and muzzle brake. On the front slope armor there was a travel lock for securing the barrel during road marches. The main gun was quite long. Overall, this was a good vehicle but, as with any tank, it had its pluses and minuses. When someone says to me that this was a bad tank, I respond, “Excuse me!” One cannot say that this was a bad tank. Bad as compared to what?

 

Dmitriy Fedorovich, did you have just American tanks in your unit?

Our 6th Guards Tank Army (yes, we had six of them) fought in Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. We ended the war for us in Czechoslovakia. Then they rushed us to the Far East and we fought against Japan. I briefly remind you that the army consisted of two corps: 5th Guards Tank Stalingrad Corps on our own T-34s and 5th Mechanized Corps, in which I fought. For the first time this corps had British Matildas, Valentines, and Churchills.

 

They delivered the Churchill later.

Yes, a bit later. After 1943 we largely declined British tanks because they had significant deficiencies. In particular, they had 12-14 h.p. per ton of weight at a time when good tanks had 18-20 h.p. per ton. Of these three British tanks, the best was the Valentine produced in Canada. Its armor was streamlined but more importantly, it featured a long-barreled 57mm main gun. My unit switched over to American Shermans at the end of 1943. After the Kishinev Operation our corps became the 9th Guards Mechanized Corps. I missed to tell you that every corps consisted of four brigades. Our mechanized corps had three mechanized brigades and one tank brigade, in which I fought. A tank corps had three tank brigades and one mechanized brigade. Yes, we had Shermans in our brigade at the end of 1943.

 

But the British tanks were not withdrawn from service, so they fought until they were gone. Wasn’t there a period when your corps had a mixture of tanks, both American and British? Were there any problems associated with the presence of such a broad variety of vehicles from different countries? For example, with supply and maintenance?

Well, there were always problems. In general, the Matilda was an unbelievably worthless tank! I will tell you about one of the Matilda’s deficiencies that caused us a great deal of trouble. Some fool in the General Staff planned an operation and sent our corps to the area of Yelnya, Smolensk, and Roslavl. The terrain there was forested swamp. The Matilda had skirts along the sides. The tank was developed primarily for operations in the desert. These skirts worked well in the desert-the sand passed through the rectangular slots in them. But in the forested swamps of Russia the mud packed into the space between the tracks and these side skirts. The Matilda transmission had a servomechanism for ease of shifting. In our conditions this component was weak, constantly overheated, and then failed. This was fine for the British. By 1943 they had developed a replacement unit that could be installed simply by unscrewing four mounting bolts, pulling out the old unit, and installing the new unit. It did not always work this way for us. In my battalion we had Senior Sergeant (Starshina) Nesterov, a former kolkhoz tractor driver (Kolkhoz is sort of farm – Valeri), in the position of battalion mechanic. In general each of our tank companies had a mechanic and Nesterov was it for the battalion. At our corps level we had a representative (whose name I have forgotten) of the British firm that produced these tanks. At one time I had it written down, but when my tank was hit everything I had in it burned up -photographs, documents, and notebook. We were forbidden to keep notes at the front, but I did it on the sly. Anyway, this British representative constantly interfered with our efforts to repair separate components of the tank. He said, “This has a factory seal. You should not tinker with it!” We were supposed to take out a component and install a new one. Nesterov made a simple repair to all these transmissions. One time the British representative came up to Nesterov and asked him, “At which university did you study?” And Nesterov replied, “At the kolkhoz!”

The Sherman was light years better in this regard. Did you know that one of the designers of the Sherman was a Russian engineer named Timoshenko? He was some shirt tail relative of Marshal S. K. Timoshenko.

The Sherman had its weaknesses, the greatest of which was its high center of gravity. The tank frequently tipped over on its side, like a Matryoshka doll (a wooden stacking doll). But I am alive today thanks to this deficiency. We were fighting in Hungary in December 1944. I was leading the battalion and on a turn my driver-mechanic clipped a curb. My tank went over on its side. We were thrown around, of course, but we survived the experience. Meanwhile the other four of my tanks went ahead and drove into an ambush. They were all destroyed.

 

Dmitriy Fedorovich, the Sherman had a rubber-coated metal track. Some contemporary authors point to this as a deficiency, since in combat the rubber might be set on fire. With the track thus stripped bare, the tank is disabled. What can you say in this regard?

On the one hand this rubber-coated track was a big plus. In the first place, this track had a service life approximately twice that of steel track. I might be mistaken, but I believe that the service life of the T-34 track was 2500 kilometers. The service life of the Sherman track was in excess of 5000 kilometers. Secondly, The Sherman drove like a car on hard surfaces, and our T-34 made so much noise that only the devil knows how many kilometers away it could be heard. What was the bad side of the Sherman track? In my book, Commanding the Red Army’s Sherman Tanks, there is a chapter entitled “Barefooted”. There I wrote about an incident that occurred in August 1944 in Romania, during the Jassy-Kishinev Operation. The heat was fearsome, somewhere around 30° C. We had driven approximately 100 km along a highway in a single day. The rubber linings on our support rollers got so hot that the rubber separated and peeled off in long pieces. Our corps paused not far from Bucharest. The rubber was flying around, the rollers had begun to jam up, the noise was terrible, and in the end we had been stopped. This was immediately reported to Moscow. Was this some kind of joke, an entire corps had halted? To our surprise, they brought new support rollers to us quickly and we spent three days installing them. I still don’t know where they found so many support rollers in such a short time. There was yet another minus of rubber track. Even on a slightly icy surface the tank slid around like a fat cow. When this happened we had to tie barbed wire around the track or make grousers out of chains or bolts, anything to give us traction. But this was with the first shipment of tanks. Having seen this, the American representative reported to his company and the next shipment of tanks was accompanied by additional track blocks with grousers and spikes. If I recall, there were up to seven blocks for each track, for a total of fourteen per tank. We carried them in our parts bin. In general the American representative worked efficiently. Any deficiency that he observed and reported was quickly and effectively corrected.

One more shortcoming of the Sherman was the construction of the driver’s hatch. The hatch on the first shipment of Shermans was located in the roof of the hull and simply opened upward. Frequently the driver-mechanic opened it and raised his head in order to see better. There were several occasions when during the rotation of the turret the main gun struck this hatch and knocked it into the driver’s head. We had this happen once or twice in my own unit. Later the Americans corrected this deficiency. Now the hatch rose up and simply moved to the side, like on modern tanks.

Still one great plus of the Sherman was in the charging of its batteries. On our T-34 it was necessary to run the engine, all 500 horsepower of it, in order to charge batteries. In the crew compartment of the Sherman was an auxiliary gasoline engine, small like a motorcycle’s one. Start it up and it charged the batteries. This was a big deal to us!

For a long time after the war I sought an answer to one question. If a T-34 started burning, we tried to get as far away from it as possible, even though this was forbidden. The on-board ammunition exploded. For a brief period of time, perhaps six weeks, I fought on a T-34 around Smolensk. The commander of one of our companies was hit in his tank. The crew jumped out of the tank but were unable to run away from it because the Germans were pinning them down with machine gun fire. They lay there in the wheat field as the tank burned and blew up. By evening, when the battle had waned, we went to them. I found the company commander lying on the ground with a large piece of armor sticking out of his head. When a Sherman burned, the main gun ammunition did not explode. Why was this?

Such a case occurred once in Ukraine. Our tank was hit. We jumped out of it but the Germans were dropping mortar rounds around us. We lay under the tank as it burned. We laid there a long time with nowhere to go. The Germans were covering the empty field around the tank with machine gun and mortar fires. We lay there. The uniform on my back was beginning heating up from the burning tank. We thought we were finished! We would hear a big bang and it would all be over! A brother’s grave! We heard many loud thumps coming from the turret. This was the armor-piercing rounds being blown out of their cases. Next the fire would reach the high explosive rounds and all hell would break loose! But nothing happened. Why not? Because our high explosive rounds detonated and the American rounds did not? In the end it was because the American ammunition had more refined explosives. Ours was some kind of component that increased the force of the explosion one and one-half times, at the same time increasing the risk of detonation of the ammunition.

It is considered noteworthy that the Sherman was very well appointed on the inside. Was this true?

It was true. These are not just words! They were beautiful! For us then this was something. As they say now, “Euro-repair”! This was some kind of European picture! In the first place, it was painted beautifully. Secondly, the seats were comfortable, covered with some kind of remarkable special artificial leather. If a tank was knocked out or damaged, then if it was left unguarded literally for just several minutes the infantry would strip out all this upholstery. It made excellent boots! Simply beautiful!

 

In your book “Commanding the Red Army’s Sherman Tanks” you wrote that the 233rd Tank Brigade’s M4A2 Shermans were armed not with the short-barreled 75mm but the long-barreled 76mm main gun in January 1944. Wasn’t this a bit early? Didn’t these tanks appear later? Explain one more time which main guns were mounted on the Shermans of the 233rd Tank Brigade.

Hmm, I don’t know. We had very few Shermans with the short-barreled main gun. On the whole, ours had long-barrels. Not just our brigade fought on Shermans. Perhaps these were in other brigades. Somewhere in the corps I saw such tanks, but we had the tanks with the long barrels.

Dmitriy Fedorovich, there were personal weapons in each Sherman that arrived in the USSR, Thompson submachine guns (also known as the Tommy gun). I read that rear area personnel stole these weapons and that few tanks arrived in units still equipped with them. What kind of weapons did you have, American or Soviet?

Each Sherman came with two Thompson submachine guns, in caliber 11.43mm (.45 cal), a healthy cartridge indeed! But the submachine gun was worthless. We had several bad experiences with it. A few of our men who got into an argument were wearing padded jackets. It turned out that they fired at each other and the bullet buried itself in the padded jacket. So much for the worthless submachine gun. Take a German submachine gun with folding stock (MP-40 SMG by Erma -Valeri). We loved it for its compactness. The Thompson was big. You couldn’t turn around in the tank holding it.

The Sherman had an antiaircraft machine gun Browning M2 .50 caliber. Did you use it often?

 I don’t know why, but one shipment of tanks arrived with machine guns, and another without them. We used this machine gun against both aircraft and ground targets. We used it less frequently against air targets because the Germans were not fools. They bombed either from altitude or from a steep dive. The machine gun was good to 400-600 meters in the vertical. The Germans would drop their bombs from say, 800 meters or higher. He dropped his bomb and departed quickly. Try to shoot the bastard down! So yes, we used it, but it was not very effective. We even used our main gun against aircraft. We placed the tank on the upslope of a hill and fired. But our general impression of the machine gun was good. These machine guns were of great use to us in the war with Japan, against kamikazes. We fired them so much that they got red hot and began to cook off. To this day I have a piece of shrapnel in my head from an antiaircraft machine gun.

Did German aircraft inflict significant losses on your equipment? In particular, what can you say about the Henschel Hs-129?

Not every time, but it did happen. I don’t remember the Henschel; perhaps there was such an airplane. Sometimes we were able to avoid bombs. You could see them coming at you, you know. We opened our hatches, stuck out our heads, and instructed our drivers over the intercom: “The bomb will fall in front of us”. But in general there were cases when tanks were hit and set on fire. Losses from these attacks did not exceed 3-5 tanks in the battalion. It was more common for a single tank to be damaged or destroyed. We faced much greater danger from panzerfaust gunners in built-up areas. In Hungary I recall that I was so tired that I told my deputy to lead the battalion while I slept. I went to sleep right there in the fighting compartment of my Sherman. Around Beltsy they had dropped ammunition to us by parachute. We took one parachute for ourselves. I used this parachute for my pillow. The parachute was made from silk and didn’t let the lice in. And I was sound asleep! Suddenly I woke up. Why? I awoke from the silence. Why the silence? It turns out that attacking aircraft had set two tanks on fire. During the march many things were piled up on the tanks: crates, tarpaulin. The battalion had halted, shut off engines, and it had become silent. And I woke up.

Did you lock your hatches during combat in built-up areas?

We absolutely locked our hatches from the inside. In my own experience, when we burst into Vienna, they were throwing grenades at us from the upper floors of buildings. I ordered all the tanks to be parked under the archways of buildings and bridges. From time to time I had to pull my tank out into the open to extend a whip antenna and send and receive communications from my higher commander. On one occasion, a radio operator and driver-mechanic were doing something inside their tank and left the hatch open. Someone dropped a grenade through the hatch from above. It struck the back of the radio operator and detonated. Both were killed. Thus we most certainly locked our hatches when we were in built-up areas.

The primary defeating mechanism of HEAT (hollow-charge) ammunition, of which the panzerfaust was one type, is the high pressure in the tank, which disables the crew. If the hatches were kept slightly open, would this not provide some degree of protection? A special order was issued before our forces entered Germany.

This is true, but just the same we kept our hatches locked. It might have been different in other units. The panzerfaust gunners most often fired at the engine compartment. If they were able to set the tank on fire, like it or not the crew had to get out. And then the Germans shot at the crew with a machine gun.

What were the chances of survival if your tank was hit?

My tank was hit on 19 April 1945 in Austria. A Tiger put a round straight through us. The projectile passed through the entire fighting compartment and then the engine compartment. There were three officers in the tank: I as the battalion commander, the company commander Sasha Ionov (whose own tank had already been hit), and the tank commander. Three officers, a driver-mechanic, and a radio operator. When the Tiger hit us, the driver-mechanic was killed outright. My entire left leg was wounded; to my right, Sasha Ionov suffered a traumatic amputation of his right leg. The tank commander was wounded, and below me sat the gunner, Lesha Romashkin. Both of his legs were blown off. A short time before this battle, we were sitting around at a meal and Lesha said to me, “If I lose my legs I will shoot myself. Who will need me?” He was an orphan and had no known relatives. In a strange twist of fate, this is what happened to him. We pulled Sasha out of the tank and then Lesha, and were beginning to assist in the evacuation of the others. At this moment Lesha shot himself.

In general, one or two men were always wounded or killed. It depended where the shell struck.

How did you co-operate with the infantry during combat?

By TOE the tank brigade had three tank battalions of 21 tanks each and a battalion of submachine gunners. A submachine gun battalion had three companies, one for each tank battalion. We had this three-battalion structure only in late 1943 and early 1944. All the rest of the time we had two tank battalions in the brigade. Our submachine gunners were like brothers to us. On the march they sat on our tanks. They kept warm there, dried their things, and slept. We drove along and then stopped somewhere. The tankers could sleep and our submachine gunners protected our tanks and us. Over the course of time many submachine gunners became members of our crews, initially as loaders and later as radio operators. We divided our trophies equally: they with us and we with them. Therefore they had an easier time of it than ordinary infantrymen.

During combat they sat on the tanks until the firing started. As soon as the Germans opened fire on our tanks, they jumped off and ran behind the tanks, frequently protected by its armor from enemy light machine gun fire.

If it happened that the tanks were limited in maneuver and speed, did you maneuver your infantry or halt them?

Nothing like that. We did not pay any attention to them. We maneuvered and they maneuvered themselves behind us. There were no problems. It would have been worse for them if we had been knocked out, so let them run behind us.

Was the tank’s speed limited in the attack? By what?

Of course! We must been fire!

How did you fire, from short halts or on the move?

Both ways. If we fired on the move, the speed of the tank did not exceed 12 km/h. But we rarely fired on the move, only in order to incite panic in the enemy ranks. Primarily we fired from short halts. We rushed into a position, stopped for a second, fired, and moved ahead.

What would you like to say about the German Tiger?

It was an extremely heavy vehicle. The Sherman could never defeat a Tiger with a frontal shot. We had to force the Tiger to expose its flank. If we were defending and the Germans were attacking, we had a special tactic. Two Shermans were designated for each Tiger. The first Sherman fired at the track and broke it. For a brief space of time the heavy vehicle still moved forward on one track, which caused it to turn. At this moment the second Sherman shot it in the side, trying to hit the fuel cell. This is how we did it. One German tank was defeated by two of ours, therefore the victory was credited to both crews. There is a story about this entitled “Hunting With Borzois” in my book.

The muzzle brake has one significant shortcoming: a cloud of dust is raised during firing from a weapon thus equipped, giving away one’s position. Some artillerymen attempted to counter this, for example, by wetting down the ground in front of their cannons. What countermeasures did you employ?

You’re correct! We might have packed the ground and covered it with our tarpaulins. I don’t recall any special problems.

Were your tank sights blinded by dust, dirt, or snow?

There were no special difficulties. Snow, of course, could blind us. But not dust. The sight on the Sherman did not protrude. On the contrary, it was recessed into the turret. Therefore it was well protected against the elements.

Dmitriy Fedorovich, our tankers who fought on the British Churchills pointed out the weak heater in the crew compartment as a deficiency. The standard electric heater was inadequate for the conditions of the Russian winter. How was the Sherman equipped in this regard?

 The Sherman had two engines connected by a coupling joint. This was both good and bad. There were cases when one of these motors was disabled in battle. Then the coupling joint could be disengaged from the crew compartment and the tank could crawl away from the fight on one engine. On the other hand, there were powerful fans located above both engines. We used to say, “Open your mouth and the wind came out your ass!” How the hell could we get warm? There were such strong drafts of air! Perhaps there was heat coming from the engines, but I will not tell you that it was warm. When we halted, we immediately covered the engine compartment with our tarpaulin. Then it stayed warm in the tank for several hours; we slept in the tank. Not for nothing did the Americans give us fleece-lined coveralls.

Were there norms of ammunition consumption for the tank?

Yes there were. In the first place, we took one basic load (BK -boekomplekt -a full set of ammo. For example the IS-2’s BK = 28 shells. -Valeri) with us going into battle. We took an additional BK on the outside of our tanks during long raids. When I raced into Vienna, for example, my commander personally ordered us to take two BK: the normal load inside and the second on the armor. In addition, we carried up to two cases of trophy chocolate on each tank and found additional provisions for ourselves. We were “on our own”, so to speak. This meant that if we had to conduct a raid somewhere deep in the rear, we offloaded rations and in their place took ammunition. All of our wheeled supply vehicles were American 2 ?-ton Studebakers. They always brought the ammunition forward to the battalion.

There is one other thing I want to say. How did we preserve our (Soviet) ammunition? Several rounds covered by a thin layer of grease, in wooden crates. One had to sit for hours and clean this grease off the rounds. American ammunition was packed in cardboard tube containers, three rounds banded together. The rounds were shiny clean inside their protective tubes! We took them out and immediately stowed them in the tank.

What kind of rounds did you carry in the tank?

Armor-piercing and high explosive. There was nothing else. The ratio was approximately one-third HE and two-thirds AP.

Did the crew receive a concussion when a round hit the tank, even if it did not penetrate the armor?

Generally, no. It depended on where the round hit. Let’s say that I was sitting in the left side of the turret and a round struck near me. I heard this hit but it did not harm me. If it struck somewhere on the hull, I might not hear it at all. This happened several times. We would come out of an engagement and inspect the tank. In several places the armor would show an impact, like a hot knife that had cut through butter. But I did not hear the round impacts. Sometimes the driver would shout, “They’re shooting from the left!” But there was no overwhelming sound. Of course, if such a powerful gun as the JSU-152 hit you, you heard it! And it would take off your head along with the turret.

I want also to add that the Sherman’s armor was tough. There were cases on our T-34 when a round struck and did not penetrate. But the crew was wounded because pieces of armor flew off the inside wall and struck the crewmen in the hands and eyes. This never happened on the Sherman.

What did you consider the most dangerous opponent? A cannon? A tank? An airplane?

They were all dangerous until the first round was fired. But in general, the antitank cannons were the most dangerous. They were very difficult to distinguish and defeat. The artillerymen dug them in so that their barrels literally were laying on the ground. You could see only several centimeters of their gun shield. The cannon fired. It was a good thing if it had a muzzle brake and dust was kicked up! But if it was winter or raining, what then?

Were there cases when you did not see from your tank where the fire was coming from, but your SMG infantry did see? How did they guide you to the source of the fire?

Sometimes they pounded on the turret and shouted. Sometimes they began to fire in the direction with tracer bullets or fired a signal rocket in that direction. And then, you know, when we went into the attack, the commander often looked around from the turret. None of the periscopes, even in the commander’s cupola, gave us good visibility.

How did you maintain communications with your commander and other tanks?

By radio. The Sherman had two radio sets, HF and UHF [high frequency and ultra high frequency], of very good quality. We used the HF for communications with our higher commander, with brigade, and the UHF for communications within the company and battalion. For conversation inside the tank we used the tank intercom system. It worked great! But as soon as the tank was hit, the tankers first action was to throw off his helmet and throat microphone. If he forgot and began to jump out of the tank, he would get hung up.

 

The History of the Dragunov

 

 I am still on Vacation, I preloaded this in my blog before I left,

 When I was in the Gulf during Desert Storm, I had gone into a Bunker in Iraq and found a draganov and had every intention of taking the rifle home as a "War Prize" because it was semiauto and I figured it wouldn't be an issue, but when we were trying to clear customs in the Gulf to return back to Germany despite having documentation, damm MP's confiscated the rifle and I had no recourse, my unit wanted to return and if I stirred up a hornets nest, my unit would have been pushed back on the rotation so I ate my pride and to this day it still galls me, I think some asshole took my rifle home for himself.

     I snagged this off "SOFREP"

    Oh well.....*Mutters*

Soldier firing a standard-issue SVD Dragunov (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Thomas Stubblefield/DVIDS).

Whether you’ve encountered the Dragunov in the field, a documentary, or even in the Call of Duty videogame franchise, it’s no secret that the semi-automatic Soviet-era rifle is one of the best firearms ever to be designed and produced by the Russians. From its natural appeal and aesthetic in its wooden stock to its reliable long-range accuracy, today, we’re going to discuss a bit of the historical context that went into designing this rifle!

 

In response to the rising usage of submachine guns on the battlefield, the Red Army thought they were losing important high ground leverage in engaging enemies long-range. While these submachine guns (SMGs) were definitely effective in close-range, trench combat, SMGs do not offer the same long-range cover fire infantry soldiers needed to push forward with gaining objectives.

Some of these SMGs included the infamous World War II PPsh-41 using the 7.62x25mm known as the “papasha” (daddy) gun, which uses the same rounds as the Tokarev pistol. Machine guns like the DP-28 and DS-39 were also standard, high rate firearms that could lay sufficient covering fire, however sacrificing accuracy for the rapid-fire rate.

The armies of the West had rifles that could shoot at ranges exceeding Soviet weapons, which meant Russian troops would have to advance over several hundred yards under accurate fire before their own weapons could be employed.  In a close-in fight, like an urban environment, the AK had a distinct advantage in house-to-house fighting, but in closing in on that town or city, they faced getting shot to pieces by longer-ranged Western small arms.

So then, the Soviets faced a dilemma. How do they equip their infantry troops with both battle rifles and sufficient long-range cover fire to cover the advance of their troops across open ground? This is where the development of the Dragunov comes in.

From 1957 to 1963, a competition was held to develop a rifle that designated marksmen in the Soviet Army could use, that was cost-effective (meaning it was cheap enough to mass-produce), and could engage enemy targets faster than enemy riflers.

The answer to this problem was the first Dragunov rifle model 1963, designed by Yevgeny Dragunov, a man whose family line comprises gunsmiths. Mainly a sporting rifle designer, he was not a stranger to military service as he had served in the military in 1939. He defeated Sergey Simonov, the designer of the SKS carbine, and Aleksandr Konstantinov for the rifle competition. Mark the irony of a Communist country like the USSR holding a “competition” like free-market Capitalists.

The Dragunov rifle has a striking similarity to the AK47 cosmetically in its furniture placement and the pistol grip housing the trigger group, but, the AK-47 is a rugged, cheap to produce and operate assault rifle not meant to be a marksman’s rifle, while the Dragunov was made for precision(As the Soviets viewed it) marksmanship. You see, the average Russian soldier was not really trained as a marksman, he was expected to shower the enemy with rounds from his AK47 while pushing in as close to the enemy as possible.  In contrast, the U.S. Army and especially the Marine Corps trained on and prized marksmanship at range. So in a sense, the Dragonuv was intended to give a Soviet soldier a rifle as capable as the M-1 Garand or M-14 was in the hands of  Marine or Army GI trained to hit targets at distances of 600-800 yards

The U.S. and USSR  looked at snipers in the post-WWII era very differently.  America did not have specially trained snipers until after the Vietnam War. Believe it or not, snipers were widely disdained in both militaries because they killed at range and without warning to the other side.  There was something about it that seemed unsporting somehow in war.  In WWII, German snipers were especially hated by American GIs and were generally executed upon being captured. During the Normandy campaign, quite a few German paratroopers were executed by our troops because their camouflage smocks and unusual helmets marked them as snipers to American soldiers.  Word was passed down to stop shooting paratroopers who surrendered to them, but they were not told to stop shooting snipers they caught red-handed. General Omar Bradley himself said that he didn’t mind if snipers were treated a bit more roughly than other prisoners were.

So while the Dragonuv is often called a Sniper Rifle, it really wasn’t designed to be one and Soviet units equipped with them did not employ them as such either. In the 1970s a Soviet rifleman equipped with the Dragunov would often find himself firing tracer and armor-piercing ammunition rather than the more precise 7N1 round. If you still doubt me, consider that the Dragonuv was equipped with a fitting for a bayonet and you wouldn’t expect a sniper in a carefully prepared concealed position to break cover to participate in a bayonet charge, would you? In proxy conflicts during the Cold War, it was used by troops in third world countries as a sniper rifle, not by design but by necessity as it was the only thing offered for sale by the Soviets that could come close to fulfilling that role.

The Dragunov was built to extend the range of an infantry squad or platoon on the assault and to serve as a defensive element when static. As a matter of standardization, it used the 7.62x54mmR rounds leftover from World War II but was pretty revolutionary in its design as a purpose build precision rifle.  The Dragunov was semi-automatic rather than a bolt action and held 10 rounds with a bolt hold-open feature on the last round to make reloading faster.  It was equipped with PSO-1 optical sights with an illuminated reticle with a rangefinder and could be adjusted for windage and elevation. Perhaps most innovative was the IR filter on the sights which could detect early versions of American infrared lanterns used on its own sniper rifles. The barrel at 620mm allows the cartridge propellant to burn properly, thus increasing projectile velocity and accuracy.   It was found that the Dragonuv was actually a much better rifle than the standard ammunition it was made to shoot, so the Soviets created a special match-grade version of the 7.62.x54mm round in the 7N1 cartridge in 1967, the Dragunov could be very precise in the hands of a trained shooter who had the right ammunition for it,

The Dragunov could deliver accuracy out to 800 yards, the AK was good out to 330 yards to 350 yards.

Ever since the Warsaw Pact, the Dragunov has seen multiple wars wielded by different nationalities, mostly by former Soviet countries even till today. In fact, over the years, the Dragunov rifle has been subject to numerous upgrades as it is considered lightweight and highly effective in combat. It is also relatively cheap to make and care for in the field.  In contrast to Western rifles that have to be kept spotlessly clean to shoot well, the Dragunov seemed made to be abused. The shooter could even select how much gas was used to cycle the piston with a setting for a dirty rifle, using low-powered rounds in very cold weather.

You may have seen the rifle in recent memory when it was fielded by the Afghan National Army and more notoriously by the Taliban. Saddam’s forces and Iraqi insurgents in the early 2000s saw a clone model of the gun named “Al-Qadissiya” heavily based on the Dragunov SVD and the Romanian designed PSL-54C. In fact, Saddam owned a gold-plated version of the cloned Dragunov. From 1955 to 1975, it was used by the Vietnamese People’s Army, and more so used by various nations today, including the Philippines, Russia, Senegal, and even China.

Few changes have been made to the original Dragunov of the 1950s. However, this doesn’t mean that countries have not been trying to improve it. The 2020 Russian upgrade, The SVDM is otherwise known as Snáyperskaya Vintóvka sistém’y Dragunóva Modernizirovannaya, features new muzzles and chrome-fitted barrels. The stock, handguard, and grips are now made with polymer, making it more lightweight than its original counterpart. Lastly, it also features a Picatinny rail and an adjustable rail to improve its sights.

 

Other weapon variants include the 1990 Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova Skladnaya (SVDS), also known as the sniper rifle version despite the fact that the Dragunov is not a sniper rifle. This version has a folding stock, synthetic pistol grip, and a heavier barrel for more durability. Alongside this version is the SVDSN, or the night vision version for paratroopers.

The Russian SVU rifle is a shortened version of the Dragunov equipped especially for the Special Forces of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Another Russian variant would be the SVDK, which uses 9.3x64mm Brenneke cartridges.

Since 2016, there has been a talk of replacing the Dragunov rifle with the Chukavin SVCh or the SVK. Interestingly, the firearm is also designed by Kalashnikov Concern. How does it pose a threat to the legendary Dragunov? Well, for starters, it has a range of 1,600 yards and uses 7.62×51mm NATO, 7.62×54mmR, and .338 Lapua Magnum making it more versatile than the traditional Dragunov.

With various sight options, and multiple weight reductions, will this mark the end for the Dragunov, the weapon of choice for designated marksmen in the Red Army?

 

Why Russia's Military isn't quite as powerful as it seems.

 I have been super busy at work and unable to post on the blog, 

    I snagged this off "Sandboxx"

 With tensions between the United States and Russia once again simmering to a boil, Russia’s massing of troops and hardware along Ukraine’s borders have prompted a resurgence in concern about what a war between these former Cold Warriors might look like. Russia has made a spectacle of unveiling new and exotic weapon systems and combat platforms in recent years, from stealth fighters to nuclear doomsday torpedoes and seemingly everything in between.

But there’s a difference between developing a platform or weapon and deriving any actual tactical or strategic value from it, and while that idea is often lost in the sea of headline-grabbing buzzwords like hypersonic, nuclear, and stealth, Russia has placed much more focus on the former than the latter in recent years.

Russia’s 50 megaton “Status 6” drone torpedo

Let there be no doubt, a war between NATO and Russia would only end one of two ways: With Russia eventually suffering a defeat because it lacked the economic power it needed to sustain combat operations on such a large scale… or with a nuclear exchange that would end our world as we know it. As bad as the nuclear option may be, victory in a conventional war likely wouldn’t be much to celebrate either. Russia and its allies would all but certainly exact a punishing tole on American and NATO forces, likely quickly capturing the Suwalki Gap and severing the Baltics from the rest of Europe as the conflict ballooned away from Ukraine and into what would have a strong likelihood of becoming a new World War.

It’s clear, then, that war is an unacceptable outcome that leaders on both sides of this conflict are likely hoping to avoid (while continuing to pursue their own geopolitical interests, of course), but if a conflict were to result, it’s important to have a clear-eyed perspective on just how capable Russia’s advanced weapons, tanks, and aircraft really are.

Russia emphasizes hybrid warfare because it’s cost effective

During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union played the roles of competing super powers, with each nation investing heavily into new weapons technology they hoped would give them a decisive edge against the competition. Of course, the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s, leaving the Russian people to pick up the pieces and the United States reigning as the world’s sole remaining super power.

Less than a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin (a Russian politician and former KGB agent) rose to power, and although he’s shuffled titles periodically to avoid term limits, the nation has remained under his control in one form or another since 1999. Putin is a popular figure among large portions of the Russian people (thanks in no small part to a government-controlled media) but internationally, he’s seen as an aggressive leader with few qualms about ending lives as he pursues his vision of restoring his nation to its former Soviet glory. Over the years, Putin has been tied to a number of public assassinations and attempts, including the poisoning of a former Russian military intelligence officer turned MI6 informant (Sergei Skripal) on English soil in 2018.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (Courtesy of the Kremlin)

It’s because of Russia’s aggressive foreign policy that the nation’s economy has struggled to find new footing since the end of the Soviet glory days. Russia’s military annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 serves as one significant example of Russia’s knack for circumventing international norms through the use of irregular warfare. Russia’s attempts to influence foreign elections in Europe and the United States serve as yet another.

Russia’s aggresive foreign policy has hindered military modernization

Su-75 Checkmate

Sanctions placed on Russia by the international community following those and countless other incidents have left the Russian military with an ever-shrinking pot of money to invest in Putin’s force-wide modernization efforts. As a result, Moscow has adopted a “best bang for their buck” mentality, with less emphasis placed on actual combat operations, and far more placed on developing high profile weapons that draw global attention. That attention helps Russia posture as though they remain a potent global military threat, while also bolstering foreign weapons sales—providing the nation’s military apparatus with a much-needed injection of funds.

But not all of these “advanced” Russian weapons are quite what they seem. In fact, many of Russia’s high profile technological leaps in military prowess have since proven to be little more than publicity stunts. The Su-57, Russia’s 5th-generation stealth fighter, exists in too few numbers to matter even if it were as capable as they claim. Expert assessments place their premier stealth fighter’s radar cross-section as about comparable to that of America’s 4th generation F/A-18 Super Hornet, and their recently unveiled Checkmate fighter, if it ever flies at all, will almost certainly be even less stealthy.

 

Likewise, Russia’s T-14 Armata main battle tank may also prove to be among the best in the world, if only Russia could afford to build any. Like the Su-57, Russia has been unable to produce the T-14 in any appreciable numbers, with the most recent projections saying serial production will begin sometime this year. It’s important to note that the Su-57 may yet to prove highly capable at the sorts of missions it was designed to fly, and the T-14 would offere a marked improvement over Russia’s existing tank platforms… but a lack of funding has left these points moot.

But while capable platforms like those wait patiently for enough Rubles to kick-start production, these other headline-grabbing efforts made a splash in the media in recent years, only to quietly fail once the cameras were off.

The Uran-9 Infantry Drone

(WikiMedia Commons)

Back in 2018, Russia’s state-owned media outlets were aflutter with reports of the Russian military’s new advanced infantry support drone dubbed the Uran-9. Shortly after the platform was unveiled, Moscow announced that they were deploying the drone mini-tank to Syria, where it would participate in combat operations in support of Bashar Al Assad’s Russian-backed regime.

At first glance, the Uran-9 looked like something to behold. The tread equipped mini-tank boasts a 30mm 2A72 autocannon as it’s primary weapon, along with a 7.62-chambered PKTM machine gun, four anti-tank missiles and 6 thermobaric rocket launchers. It was designed to work via remote control and, according to Russian media, was built to withstand heavy fighting in urban environments.

It wasn’t until a few months later that reports of just how poorly the Uran-9 performed in combat started to bubble to the surface. In a Russian Security Conference held later in 2018, A.P. Anisimov, a Senior Research Officer from the 3rd Central Research Institute of the Russian Defence Ministry, discussed a laundry list of issues the Uran-9 encountered before offering his final conclusion that the platform simply couldn’t do the tasks it was built to do.

Aside from lots of structural problems with the chassis and weapons platforms, operators regularly lost control of the Uran-9 when line-of-sight was obstructed. The platform also used a non-stabilized video camera for targeting, which Anisimov described as making identifying, tracking, or engaging any targets at any distance nearly impossible.

The Nuclear-Powered ‘Skyfall’ Cruise Missile

(DoD Image)

Vladimir Putin delivered a national address in March of 2018 that, among other things, touted a number of new and highly advanced Russian missile systems. Although he discussed a number of missiles, it was the nuclear-powered cruise missile NATO has dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall (known in Russia as the 9M730 Burevestnick) that caught the most attention.

According to Putin, this new missile would have a near-unlimited range thanks to its on-board nuclear reactor. That would theoretically allow the missile to strike any target in the world, as well as allowing for evasive maneuvers to avoid being intercepted by anti-missile defense systems.  As a result, Putin called it “invincible.”

The idea of a nuclear-powered cruise missile wasn’t particularly new. The United States experimented with nuclear propulsion systems in the 1950s, but scrapped the effort out of concerns that the nuclear-system could spread radiation on anything below its flight path. Concerns about the safety of such a propulsion system were once again brought to light after a Skyfall cruise missile went missing after its nuclear engine failed to fire and the missile fell into the ocean. Another explosion at Russia’s Nenoska test range was believed to have involved the same missile. It reportedly killed five to seven scientists.

American intelligence agencies have spoken publicly about Putin’s “invincible” missile, pointing out that thus far, the nuclear propulsion system has failed to propel the missile in every test launch Russia has attempted.

The Flying AK-47 (Shotgun Drone)

RU Patent (11) 113562 (Kremlin)

In 2019, Russian media unveiled what they claimed would be a game-changing technology: a new drone that, at first glance, appeared to be equipped with an AK-47, but that later turned out to be intended for use with an AK-style Carbine Vepr-12 Hummer 12 gauge shotgun. The small drone was reminiscent of a remote-controlled airplane, with what looked like a standard issue rifle occupying the majority of the fuselage. Of course, building an aircraft around a weapons system worked for the A-10 Thunderbolt II, but a 12-gauge shotgun is no GAU-8 Avenger.

At first glance, the drone seemed pretty cool, but the more you think about it, the less effective a single flying shotgun with a 10-round magazine could really be in practically all combat situations. Unlike quad-rotor drones that can hover in place and take careful aim, this drone has to maintain forward momentum to keep from crashing–which makes it extremely difficult to level the weapon directly at a target. That became even more apparent when video was released of the drone in action.

This drone might seem like a whole lot of fun to operate, but it certainly won’t tip the scales of any conflict in Russia’s favor.