29,009 Total Soviet Armor Combat Losses 1944

[Steve190]

Art said

"It follows from what you say that every tank towed by them was counted as a total loss. That would be the most strange an illogical practice and it also contradicts to details I know. On the other hand tank remaining on enemy territory, or abandoned or destroyed by own crews wouldn't be counted as total losses, and it doesn't make sense either. Personally I believe that is comparison of apples to oranges.

How true Art.

And how about premise of "who is master of the battlefield?" In 1941, of course the German Army was master until the winter set in.

On the other hand in 1944 and 1945 the Soviet Army dominated in battlefield most of the time. This gave them them ability to remove equipment from the battlefield before it was completely destroyed by German sapper units.

We have all seen pictures in this forum of completely abandoned German repair depots with repair equipment- cranes, tools etc left behind completely untouched and German Armor Factories abandoned in the Eastern Greater Reich as the Soviet Army pushed into the homeland.

Are we to assume that because it is not found on a piece of paper in the Soviet Archives that the Soviet Army never used these facilitates to repair heavily damaged tanks but instead just sent then back to the Soviet Union for repair?

As you said Art "That would be the most strange an(d) illogical practice. . . "

Steve

[Miles Krogfus]

TsAMO f38 on11371 d16 l11.13 gives 83,920 Evacuated tanks/SU for 1943-1945 and 20,641 sent to Repair Depots and Tank Producers for repair, leaving 63,279 too damaged and burned out to even try to repair. Krivosheev gives a rounded off figure of 60,900 totally destroyed for these years. Posters above rely on seeming logic, allowing them such statements as "that would be the most strange and illogical practice." They speculate and dismiss primary data discovered through scholarship. Such conduct does not conform to the etiquette and ethics of serious research. As an example of following research standards, above I again give the TsAMO document identification number that one would see in a scholarly publication's footnotes.

[pintere]

TsAMO f38 on11371 d16 l11.13 gives 83,920 Evacuated tanks/SU for 1943-1945 and 20,641 sent to Repair Depots and Tank Producers for repair, leaving 63,279 too damaged and burned out to even try to repair. Krivosheev gives a rounded off figure of 60,900 totally destroyed for these years. Posters above rely on seeming logic, allowing them such statements as "that would be the most strange and illogical practice." They speculate and dismiss primary data discovered through scholarship. Such conduct does not conform to the etiquette and ethics of serious research.

Overall this is a very interesting set of data. And once you crunch the numbers, it seems that they are fairly close to Krivosheev's figures for 43-45 with the big exception that the total losses (too burned out to repair) in 1943-44 are a bit lower than stated by Krivosheev, with '45 being somewhat higher.

I don't really see what there is to argue about. But I think that when considering tank losses these figures are a bit more reliable than Krivosheev's. His data seems to have been obtained essentially by adding the tanks ready at the start of the year with the tanks produced that year, and then subtracting the number of tanks ready at the start of the next year to get the total. As it happens this method gives a reasonable estimate of how many tanks were lost during the year, but it's not as reliable as actual records of lost tanks as provided by Miles.

[Michael Kenny]

" They speculate and dismiss primary data discovered through scholarship. Such conduct does not conform to the etiquette and ethics of serious research.

Neither does quoting documents rather than posting or linking them
Perhaps if the originals (complete with Russian text describing the various classes of tanks) were posted the Russian posters here could confirm the claims.
Can you read Russian?
What exactly does sit say (in the original Russian) about how tanks were sorted?

[Art]

TsAMO f38 on11371 d16 l11.13 gives 83,920 Evacuated tanks/SU for 1943-1945 and 20,641 sent to Repair Depots and Tank Producers for repair, leaving 63,279 too damaged and burned out to even try to repair.

Well, is the last part quoted from a original document or your own conclusion? If the latter then one can wonder what it is based on. If I rephrase the things said earlier then evacuated tanks could be:
1) repaired in the front-line zone by field maintenance units
2) shipped for major repair to the rear zone
3) classified as irreparable and written off.
The calculation above complete ignores 1).
In general I believe that the number of evacuated vehicles, the total number of lost (including damaged) and the number of irrecoverable losses were three different quantities, you can't directly relate the first to the second of the third.

[pintere]

TsAMO f38 on11371 d16 l11.13 gives 83,920 Evacuated tanks/SU for 1943-1945 and 20,641 sent to Repair Depots and Tank Producers for repair, leaving 63,279 too damaged and burned out to even try to repair.

Well, is the last part quoted from a original document or your own conclusion? If the latter then one can wonder what it is based on. If I rephrase the things said earlier then evacuated tanks could be:
1) repaired in the front-line zone by field maintenance units
2) shipped for major repair to the rear zone
3) classified as irreparable and written off.
The calculation above complete ignores 1).
In general I believe that the number of evacuated vehicles, the total number of lost (including damaged) and the number of irrecoverable losses were three different quantities, you can't directly relate the first to the second of the third.

I'm inclined to see things the way Miles does. After all, given Krivosheev's well-known set of data, this number is in the area we would expect for the years 1943-45.

[Art]

I'm inclined to see things the way Miles does. After all, given Krivosheev's well-known set of data, this number is in the area we would expect for the years 1943-45.

If you receive a nearly correct answer with a wrong method it doesn't make it right. I believe some curious stats were quoted here but they are interpreted in a wrong way.

[Michael Kenny]

I believe some curious stats were quoted here but they are interpreted in a wrong way.

Which can be quickly sorted out if the original are posted or quoted in full.

[Paul_Atreides]

You can find a description of the process in Russian in this article:
http://tankfront.ru/ussr/repair_service/to_btmv.html

In third table of article same figures were used as in the start post.

[Miles Krogfus]

My post elsewhere "Re: Why did the 2 SS claim so many tank kills?" quotes from a Soviet loss report that illustrates how "evacuated" refers to tanks sent away from the unit and the combat zone to Repair Depots, and also gives a separate number of tanks sent to short repair, then a separate number sent to long repair.
Those sent to Repair Depots are included in Soviet 1944 loss figures my original post quotes, and German reports of "totalausfalle" do the equivalent thing. Soviet totally lost (destroyed) figures must not be compared to German "totalausfalle" as too many books and internet posts continue to do.

[Michael Kenny]

Has anyone got any accounts where I can read of a Panzer commander knocking out T70's? I know Wittmann never seems to have seen one during Kursk because all his kills seem to reference T34s. Perhaps he just let them go as he did not think they were worth wasting a round on?
Surely someone must have reported knocking out these 10 ton light tank/tankettes.

[Miles Krogfus]

Soviet strength and loss reports during Operation Citadel lump their unit's T60's and T70's together as the latter. The 2nd Panzer Division claimed 7 T60 July 6-9th,1943 . . .

[Art]

My post elsewhere "Re: Why did the 2 SS claim so many tank kills?" quotes from a Soviet loss report that illustrates how "evacuated" refers to tanks sent away from the unit and the combat zone to Repair Depots, and also gives a separate number of tanks sent to short repair, then a separate number sent to long repair.

Could you post an original document or a its text here?

[Michael Kenny]

Could you post an original document or a its text here?

I asked that exactly a week ago and it has been ignored.

[Reigo2]

Those sent to Repair Depots are included in Soviet 1944 loss figures my original post quotes, and German reports of "totalausfalle" do the equivalent thing. Soviet totally lost (destroyed) figures must not be compared to German "totalausfalle" as too many books and internet posts continue to do.

It seems that at least Army Group "Narwa" in 1944 had different understanding of "Total-Ausfälle" - it does not include vehicles sent to repair depots (NARA T-312/1627):