I always despise the “30 burning T-34” propaganda line. Never was it documented that such suicidal attacks would ever be authorized, because no sane Soviet commander would ever throw an entire extremely expensive, extremely valuable, and extremely vital tank column into a fray just to be killed. Even if they were ambushed, after the first two tanks were hit, they would just retreat and regroup, because an immobilized enemy tank is pretty much a sitting duck and dead.
Also you know who did actually throw 30 tanks into the fray to get wiped out? The Germans…. Battle of Krasnogvardeysk for example where the vanguard of the 8th, 6th, and 1st panzer divisions was wiped out by 5 dug in KV-1’s totaling a kill count of 43 tanks destroyed and 2 damaged with no Soviet losses. Or the Battle of Küstrin where Germans threw 7 panzer divisions (1200 tanks) at the Soviets and lost all but 25 tanks the Nazis had remaining that were supposed to be for the defense of Berlin.
During the Battle of Berlin the Nazi government forced teenagers to strap rocket launchers ONTO BICYCLES with the hopes that some of them might manage to blow up Russian tanks. If this isn’t human waves, I don’t know what is.
I always despise the “30 burning T-34” propaganda line. Never was it documented that such suicidal attacks would ever be authorized, because no sane Soviet commander would ever throw an entire extremely expensive, extremely valuable, and extremely vital tank column into a fray just to be killed. Even if they were ambushed, after the first two tanks were hit, they would just retreat and regroup, because an immobilized enemy tank is pretty much a sitting duck and dead.
Also you know who did actually throw 30 tanks into the fray to get wiped out? The Germans…. Battle of Krasnogvardeysk for example where the vanguard of the 8th, 6th, and 1st panzer divisions was wiped out by 5 dug in KV-1’s totaling a kill count of 43 tanks destroyed and 2 damaged with no Soviet losses. Or the Battle of Küstrin where Germans threw 7 panzer divisions (1200 tanks) at the Soviets and lost all but 25 tanks the Nazis had remaining that were supposed to be for the defense of Berlin.
Projection, it’s always projection
Nice bite sized history lesson, thanks.
During the Battle of Berlin the Nazi government forced teenagers to strap rocket launchers ONTO BICYCLES with the hopes that some of them might manage to blow up Russian tanks. If this isn’t human waves, I don’t know what is.