Battle of Brody (1941)
The Battle of Brody was a tank battle fought between the 1st Panzer Group's III Army Corps and XLVIII Army Corps and five mechanized corps of the Soviet 5th Army and 6th Army in the triangle formed by the towns of Dubno, Lutsk and Brody between 23 and 30 June 1941. It was one of the most intense armored engagements in the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa, and some say that it may surpass the more famous Battle of Prokhorovka. It is by far the battle with the largest number of tanks participating. It is known in Soviet historiography as one of the "border defensive battles". Although the Red Army formations inflicted heavy losses on the German forces, they were outmanoeuvred and suffered enormous losses in tanks. Poor Soviet logistics, German air supremacy and a total breakdown in Red Army command and control ensured victory for the Wehrmacht despite overwhelming Red Army numerical and technological superiority.
Prelude
The 1st Panzer Group, led by Generaloberst Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist, was ordered to secure the Bug River crossings and advance to Rovno and Korosten with the strategic objective of Kiev. It deployed two corps forward and advanced between Lviv and Rovno in an attempt to cut the Lviv–Kiev railway line, thus driving a wedge along junction point between the Soviet 5th and 6th Armies.The Southwestern Front, under the command of General Mikhail Kirponos, had received incomplete intelligence on the size and direction of the German attack. They were surprised when Stavka ordered a general counter-attack under the title of "Directive No. 3" on the authority of Chief of General Staff Georgy Zhukov. Most of the headquarters staff were convinced that the strategy would be to remain in a defensive posture until the situation clarified. Later Hovhannes Baghramyan, a staff officer of the front headquarters who wrote the initial report to Moscow, said that "our first combat report to Moscow was full of generalities and unclear instructions." The general orders of Directive No. 3 read:
By the end of 22 June, Zhukov was on his way to the Southwestern Front headquarters at Ternopil along with Nikita Khrushchev, the former head of the Organizational Department of the Ukrainian Communist Party's Central Committee, to ensure these orders were carried out.
Disposition of forces
Six Soviet mechanized corps, with over 2,500 tanks, were massed to take part in a concentric counter-attack through the flanks of Panzer Group 1. The intention was to later attempt a pincer movement from the north and south that met west of Dubno in order to trap units of the 6th and 17th German Armies on the northern flank of Army Group South. To achieve this, the 8th Mechanized Corps was transferred from the command of the 26th Army, positioned to the south of the 6th Army, and placed under the command of Ivan Nikolaevich Muzychenko's 6th Army. This essentially brought all the mobile assets of the Southwestern Front to bear against the base of von Kleist's thrust toward Kiev. The primary German infantry formation operating on this sector of the front, IV Army Corps of the 17th Army were advancing south-east with the objective of cutting the Lviv-Kiev railway line.German armour
At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, German armor was composed of a mix of Czech and German tanks, as well as small numbers of captured French and British tanks. Furthermore, nearly 50% of the tanks deployed by the Wehrmacht were the Panzer I and Panzer II light tanks. Of the 4000 armored vehicles available to the Wehrmacht, only 1400 were the new Panzer III and Panzer IV. In the first few hours of the invasion, German commanders were shocked to find that some Soviet tanks were immune to all anti-tank weapons in use by the Wehrmacht.During pre-war exercises, Heinz Guderian noted that on their own, tanks were vulnerable to infantry. Furthermore, he also noted that tanks lacked the heavy caliber weapons needed to knock out reinforced concrete bunkers and heavily fortified positions, a role that could only be performed by heavy artillery or air strikes. While dispersing tanks among infantry formations solved many of the tank's weaknesses, it also negated some of their strengths. Therefore, German military theorists concluded that to reach their full potential, armored units needed to be concentrated in their own formations and integrated with mobile artillery, mobile infantry, and close air support.
Lastly, Guderian concluded that in order for tanks to be at their peak effectiveness, all armored vehicles must be equipped with radios so that each tank commander could hear instructions from the unit commander allowing each tank to work with all others in an organized fashion.
Soviet armour
At the beginning of June, the Red Army included over 19,000 tanks in their inventory, most of them light tanks such as the T-26 or BT-7. The front armor of the T-26 was just 15mm thick, and the BT-7, just 22mm, offering virtually no protection against any anti-tank weapon at any range. Furthermore, the poor design of Soviet shells meant that most rounds shattered on contact, rather than penetrating. More modern tanks, such as the KV-1 and the T-34, were only beginning to roll off production lines and were not available in anywhere near the numbers that were needed to throw back the German advance.During the interwar years, farsighted military theorists such as Mikhail Tukhachevsky came to similar conclusions as Guderian regarding tanks in modern warfare. However, during the Great Purge Tukhachevsky was executed. Red Army tanks were dispersed widely throughout infantry divisions in the 1930s. Then came the shock of the Fall of France. Surviving armored warfare theorists such as Konstantin Rokossovsky were quickly and quietly reinstated in their positions and began assembling tanks into concentrated formations with all possible speed. However, by June 1941 this process was barely half complete, so many of the 19,000 tanks in the Red Army arsenal were still dispersed among infantry divisions on the eve of the invasion. This ensured that even if the Red Army had a unified command, many of its armored units would be committed piece-meal.
German logistics
At full strength, a German panzer division was a balanced formation with between 150 and 200 tanks, motorized infantry, motorized artillery, and motorized engineers. To support its logistical needs, each panzer division included 2000 trucks. Furthermore, each panzer division had its own integral artillery and infantry support, which meant that rather than providing a supporting role for infantry, German panzers performed a leading role, with infantry providing support. Furthermore, Wehrmacht doctrine stressed the importance of training soldiers in roles performed by other men. Tank crews were trained in artillery roles, infantry trained as tank crews, etc. Most importantly, tank crews were also trained as mechanics, giving them the knowledge to fix broken equipment in the field.Soviet logistics
In the immediate pre-war period, few preparations were made, and the Red Army was at a low level of readiness. Units were not concentrated; ammunition and other supply dumps were neither concealed nor quickly available to combat units. Compounding the problem was that Stalin strictly forbade any Red Army unit from opening fire on reconnaissance patrols, allowing the Germans to easily identify all major targets in the border districts.Furthermore, Soviet tank crews were not trained on the mechanical details of their machines. That meant that simple mechanical problems resulted in hundreds of Red Army tanks being abandoned on the road side en route to the battle. Those units that did manage to show up at their jumping off points then discovered that the supplies had either been destroyed or moved to another location without updating their locations. After receiving orders to attack and lacking fuel or ammunition, the crews responded by destroying their vehicles and retreating. Hundreds of tanks were lost in this way.
Compounding these logistical difficulties was that each Red Army tank division had 300–400 tanks, but were supported by only 1500 trucks, contrasting with a Wehrmacht tank division which had only 150–200 tanks, but 2000 trucks. Experience would prove that the ratio of trucks to tanks favored by the Germans was far more effective.
Balance of the tank forces
On 22 June 1941, the balance of tanks over the entire area of the German Army Group South and the Soviet Southwestern Front, including but not limited to the main battle of Brody, was as follows.| Soviet corps | Soviet divisions | Total Soviet tanks | T-34 and KV |
| 4th Mechanized Corps | only 8th Tank Division participated | 300 | 100 |
| 8th Mechanized Corps | 7th | 899 | 171 |
| 9th Mechanized Corps | 131st | 316 | 0 |
| 15th Mechanized Corps | 10th, 37th Tank Division; 37th, 212th Rifle Division | 749 | 136 |
| 19th Mechanized Corps | 40th, 43rd, 213th | 453 | 5 |
| 22nd Mechanized Corps | 19th, 41st, 215th | 712 | 31 |
| Tanks scattered over various other units | Ordinary rifle divisions, etc. | not incl. | – |
| Total | 3429 | 443 |
The figures presented above for Soviet formations are "on hand" totals for those units and do not reflect actual operational vehicle numbers. Even these apparently impressive on-hand numbers are not close to the units' authorized strengths because those organizations were still in the process of being formed and equipped at the time of the invasion. The 15th, 19th, and 22nd Mechanized Corps were only created a few months prior to the start of the war, leaving these formations unprepared, uncoordinated, ill- or untrained, and not ready for effective combat operations. Even the 4th, 8th, and 9th Mechanized Corps had been in existence less than a year at the start of the war. Soviet ill-preparedness, lack of training, and lack of fuel, ammunition, and spare parts assured that actual, operational vehicles were dramatically less in number. Even those that were operational were often not bore-sighted and therefore could not fire accurately, whether ammunition was available or not.
German armoured formations had seen two successful campaigns and three years of war prior to the attack on Soviet Union, and, while some reduction in unit cohesion and effectiveness was caused by the doubling of the number of panzer divisions prior to Operation Barbarossa, this disruption was relatively minor. German armoured units with effective command, control, communication, and plentiful supply, coupled with considerable prior combat experience and extensive training, were more combat effective than their opponents.