carl luxford
Joined 03/03/06
Last Visit 22/07/15
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Posted on 25 March 2011 at 17:16:56 GMT ‘Panzer Destroyer – Memoirs of a Red Army Tank Commander’ by Valiliy Krysov, published in UK by Pen and Sword books, in 2010, in hardback (isbn 978-1-84415-595-12); but previously published in Russia, in 2008, under title (when translated as) “Self Propelled Guns in Battle: Battery, Fire!” Full price in UK is £19-99p but this publisher has been having various sales so may get it there or elsewhere at lower price.
This memoir, of Valiliy Krysov’s wartime experiences, from 1941 to 1945, was written many years after the events, often with the help of discussions with other veterans, at their reunions, and sometimes by examining war-time reports. His work offers an exceptional insight in to life as a ‘tanker’ on the Eastern Front from his leaving tank training school, at Chelyabinsk, in July 1942, (after a years training), to his last action in May 1945. The book includes many personal photos, and some simply to illustrate the types of vehicles he worked in. There are 22 black and white photos in all, across 8 pages. The book also includes 6 pictorial maps, ie those using drawings of buildings, roads, forest and hill to give an idea of the terrain – which lend themselves to ‘wargames’ use, but often lack scale, or distort distances, by many places being pictorially shown but the actual distance between them being unclear. The book also lacks one4 or more strategic or operational maps to help identify where Krysov served. There is a five page index included. This memoir, and its brief editorial notes, at the end, are 209 pages long. The many actions, and comrades he served with, have obviously made for vivid memories and a lasting impression on this man.
When war breaks out between Germany and Soviet Union Krysov is graduating from school and quickly moves to a truncated tank training program in July 1941 from where he graduates as a lieutenant in July 1942. He becomes a tank commander of a KV1-S near Kalachon on the Don on what later becomes the Stralingrad front. His first command – the KV1-S – is knocked out when it takes a rear hit while retreating across a pontoon bridge, as part of a rearguard action in December 1942. The enemy shell hits his tank transmission and sets alight the engine.
His transferred to an SU122 assault gun which he also commands, and is posted to the Kursk Front on 14th June 1943, in the area of Soviet 48th Army near Zmievka. He fights at Ponyri in July, where he encounters Ferdinands, Tiger Is, and Panthers as well as less powerful German AFVs. Following Kursk he participates in Operation Kutusov, and describes the deliberate ramming of a Hornisse (Nashorn). He describes a night assault at Golenki – one of many he participates in! At the battle of Glukhov his SU122 has both its tracks blown off. They are stuck over a German trench while the battle is waged around them. They defend their vehicle from assault by enemy infantry. They have their tracks repaired during a lull in fighting and continue in the battle but this SU122 is again temporarily KO’d (we are not told how) near the end of the battle for Glukhov, and is again repaired and they resume. The descriptions of damage to the AFVs he commands and how they are repaired in field is quite amazing, from tracks to holes in armour, frontal and side armour, and how them ramming trucks causes them to rupture an oil feed line and the engine to stop, and they repair this in the field and so avoid approaching enemy.
In September 1943, his unit is re-equipped with SU85 assault guns. They join the fighting to encircle German troops holding Kiev. He describes various actions in detail: at Svgatoshino, Khotovo, Kilovka and Brusilov. His SU85 is set ablaze in action on 31st December 1943 and he is rescued and recovers in hospital in Kiev. He describes a number of rescues of this type and how tankers would try to help each other avoid death through being burnt alive in their burning tanks. He also describes how the burning of fuel or engine would give off one colour flame but ammunition burning would give off another colour.
By the end of March 1944 he is back in the front line in command of another SU85 (he variously holds different field commands mainly platoon commander) at Kovel and describes the action to take hill 197.2. At the end of July 1944 a splinter fragment strikes his lower jaw, after a hit on his SU85 engulfs the assault gun in flames. He is again rescued by a comrade (sometimes these rescue bids end in the would-be rescuer being killed as well as those they set out to rescue). He finds himself recuperating in an evacuation hospital near Moscow.
By October 1944 he is back at the front in Lithuania, again in an SU85 battery and joins the January 1945 offensive in East Prussia. After the capture of Tarau (rail) station there are only 8 SU85s operational in their regiment! So they are taken out of the frontline to await replacements (AFVs and crew). A month later the regiment receives T34 / 85 tanks as replacements. Krysov now sees action as a tank commander once more in a T34 / 85 for the last actions of his part in the war. They participate in the assault on Konigsberg then on Rauschen, where they duel with offshore boats taking away Germans. This is his last military action of the war on 8th May 1945.
He describes how later he is appointed to investigate the ape of a German young woman, daughter of German farmers, who can trace their ancestry and ownership of the farm back across many years, and have decided to stay in East Prussia whereas most city dwellers and townsfolk have left due to fear of the arriving Russian soldiers. He notes how little action is taken, after the guilty Russian soldiers are identified, and this is justified to him by the fact that German soldiers had raped Soviet women and not been apprehended. He remains on garrison duties till September 1945 when he sent back to Moscow for further training.
This book is a fascinating and vivid description of life and death (of the enemy and of his comrades, few of whom survive the war) in tank and combined arms warfare on the Eastern Front. He experiences the defence at Kursk and the subsequent advances often at the front end as part of the advance guard, and is often cut off and has to fight his way back to his own lines. The use of night actions is common as is the use of night time movements to avoid enemy detection. There are many observations on comparative capability of German and Russian equipment. He describes his encounters with many then novel weapons: from first encounters with Ferdinands and Tiger Is, to use of Sd Kfz 302 / 303 “Goliath” remote controlled tankettes at Kursk, and to later encounters with “faustricki” – panzerfaust carrying tank hunter / killer teams (especially from 1944 onwards). He also describes his first sight of Soviet dogs carrying mines and one proceeding to lie under a Tiger I tank which then is destroyed along with the poor dog.
He has many lucky escapes. His most lucky escape? Well I will let you decide. My favourite of the many lucky escapes he describes is as follows in the book: he is engaged in a duel with an enemy AFV, and he decides to pull back to seek a safer shooting space, he is standing in his open hatch of his SU85, suddenly he feels a hard blow to the head and falls back into the assault gun ‘cabin’, a comrade quickly pulls down this hatch and hears an explosion outside the SU85. Krysov is dazed and not sure what is going on. Later accompanying infantry tell Krysov that he was ‘knocked out’ by a German grenade that hit him on the head before bouncing off his head and to the side of the tracks of his SU85, while the German Greanadier who threw it intended to miss his head and put the grenade inside their SU85 fighting compartment (‘cabin’). The accompanying Russian infantry deal with the Germans who have been throwing grenades from an upstairs window of a nearby house.
This book covers lots of aspects of life on campaign: from the problems of body lice and the relative merits of Russian and German underwear in combating the lice; to a clear sense of how a tank crew operates in action against many different enemies, in many different situations; far too many for me to illustrate them all here.
His insights offer clear challenges to wargamers and rules writers: like crews baling out when their AFV catches fire (or has taken many hits – later German crews appear keen to bale out when their AFV has taken hits); use of smoke (from smoke grenades) by individual tanks or whole batteries to create smoke screens, or suggest they are ht to enemy tanks while they skedaddle, or evade, or while trying to rescue another crew or make their own repairs; large smoke screens, laid down by artillery, to prevent pillboxes gaining line of sight on their targets; use of HE to break up wire defences or to clear minefields; and failure of tank guns to damage concrete pillboxes (like when his SU85 engages concrete pillboxes in East Prussia) so they have to rely on outflanking them and sending in assault engineers with demolition charges; like AFVs traversing forests on small tracks and sometimes when there are no clear tracks to follow, or when the forest provides safety from overheard aircraft or from enemy gunners who lose their line of sight; others include night actions and repairing AFVs on the field of action. One of his challenges to wargames rules is the use of deliberate targeting of the tracks of Ferdinands by Russian gunners / tanks to disable the Ferdinands when their armour is impervious to enemy shot! Another is the use of concentrated fire by a whole battery on one target in an enemy formation which appears to get results when one for one targeting seems ineffective: the use of this concentrated fire is described against Tiger I tanks where shots rebound off body and turret armour but several shots at once can lift off the turret from its turret ring and toss the turret and its heavy gun to the ground! Another one for rules writers is the instances of AFVs, well certainly Krysov’s SU122 and SU85, ramming enemy trucks and crushing enemy ATGs, causing whole batteries to be demolished or whole columns of transport to be knocked off the road.
Amid this slaughter and hatred there are instances of humour, one being in April 1945 when the German radios call out to the Russians awaiting to assault them: “Russians – you’ve gone crazy, You’re hurling shacks at us!” This message was received after a preliminary artillery barrage using Katyusha and Andryusha rocket launchers, and one Andryusha missile pulled its launching frame with it into the air! These were the later M-31 heavy rockets, weighing 91.5kg and 300mm in diameter (or 310mm in some sources).
This book is to be highly recommended to anyone with an interest in either the Eastern Front during WW2 or to tank warfare in WW2. If you buy only one book in 2011 this could be it!
Carl Luxford |