Page 71 - The Chief Culprit

48 y e Chief Culprit

As for the KV, the same trick was used. It was described as a great tank, but there were
“only” 508 of them. Once again, I will repeat that the rest of the world had none! Besides,
508 KVs were just in the first strategic echelon of the Red Army on May 31, 1941. On the
same date, the second strategic echelon had an additional 128 KVs. By June 21, factories un-
loaded another 41 KVs. Yet another 34 KVs were produced, but not yet shipped. us, on
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June 21, 1941, the Soviet Union had 711 KV tanks, and continued their production through
all of 1942, while German designers drafted sketches, made prototypes, and assembled test
models.
It is impossible even in theory to compare the KV-1 and KV-2 with the very best
German tanks, the Pz-III and Pz-IV: the KV was a heavy tank, while the German army had
no tank of this weight class in 1941. e leading German theoretician and practitioner of
tank warfare Colonel General Heinz Guderian maintained that “warfare of tank against tank
is similar to naval warfare. ere, battle is also conducted only by the strongest.” When the
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war began, Stalin put into use the KV-1 (47 tons) and the KV-2 (52 tons), as well as the “ob-
solete” T-35 (50 tons), while Hitler had nothing similar and was forced to use the best that
he had—the obsolete medium Pz-III and Pz-IV tanks, which weighed 20 to 21 tons. I would
not compare them at all if the German army had anything more noteworthy, but it did not.
During the war, the KV fought against the best that was available in the German army—and
the war drew its comparisons.
General of the Army K. N. Galitsky described the battle between one heavy KV and
three medium German Pz-IIIs: e KV fired two shots and two of the German tanks were
destroyed, while the third German tank decided to leave, but its engine stalled while trying
to drive across a ditch. e KV caught up with it and “smashed it with its weight, crushed it
like a nut.” General Galitsky described another incident: A damaged Soviet KV was found,
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surrounded by ten destroyed German tanks. e KV was hit by forty-three shells, out of
which forty made dents, and only three went through the armor. While the German tanks
were destroying one KV, it destroyed ten German tanks.
Colonel General A. I. Rodimtsev remembered: “During the course of eleven months of
war, we did not know a single instance in which a German gun pierced the armor of this tank.
It had happened that a KV tank had ninety to one hundred dents from enemy shells, but
still continued to go into battle.” Other Soviet generals had many similar examples. Perhaps
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Soviet generals were embellishing the situation? No. In German sources of that time there was
a subdued panic: German tankers were used to their tanks being the best in the world, and
suddenly they came against the KV. ey were unprepared. German documents of the time
are sufficiently known. I will not repeat them. e general conclusion for the year 1941 was:
“ e KV is the most frightening weapon that a soldier has ever had to encounter in battle.
Anti-tank guns are powerless against it.”
e works of contemporary Western historians also confirm the invincibility of the KV.
e British military historian R. Goralski described a battle between one KV and a group
of German tanks and anti-tank guns: during just this one battle, the KV took seventy direct
hits; all the shells left dents in the armor, but not one went through it. American historian
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Steven Zaloga also provides similar examples. (I recommend his books to everyone for there
is no better foreign expert on Soviet tanks.) He wrote of an incident when one KV destroyed
eight German tanks, took thirty direct hits from a very close range, and not one shell pierced
its armor.
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