Soviet tank losses terminlogy

[Virginian]

What is the difference between подбит and сгорел when describing Soviet tank losses?

[Peasant]

First translates as "disabled", it can mean anything from mobility kill to unrepairable damage, the second means "burned".

[Reigo2]

I suspect that if a vehicle was considered as "burned" then it was also considered as likely not repairable. Something similar to German Totalausfall. But I may be mistaken -- would be glad if somebody corrects.

[Virginian]

Interesting. So подбит and сгорел could both be irrecoverable losses, but some documents put irrecoverable losses and подбит in different categories.
One document I found phrases it the following way:

Подбито и сгорело - безвозвратные потери - Т-34 - 27, Т-70 - 16, подбито Т-34 - 33, Т-70 - 21, из них оставлены на поле боя и не эвакуированы Т-34 - 3, Т-70 - 5. Всего потерь по корпусу Т-34 - 30, Т -70 21

So a category of подбито might could be considered the same as сгорело, if they weren't evacuated, but if they were then подбито means disabled (mobility kill). Unfortunately not every document provides context for the definition of подбито that the unit had in mind.

Comparing the Russian and English versions of Zamulin's Prokhorovka book and Isaev's Stalingrad book, professional translators seem to translate подбито as knocked out and сгорело as burned out.

[Peasant]

I think that irrecoverable losses do not nessecarily imply only burned out tanks, some might simply be too damaged to repair and were left to be later scrapped.

[AriX]

What is the difference between подбит and сгорел when describing Soviet tank losses?

подбит = knocked-out
сгорел = burned-out