Krivosheev places the sum total at 63,229 machines.

Zaloga in Red Army Handbook puts total Soviet tank losses at: 83,500.

Krivosheev indicates his numbers represent irrecoverable tanks losses.

Zaloga does not indicate whether losses represent irrecoverable losses or not. My inclination is that Zaloga’s numbers represent irrecoverable and recoverable losses combined.

This would seemingly put Red Army recovery efforts at about 25% of all tanks KO’d for the war as a whole. If one deletes the 1941 tank losses from the initial phases of Barbarossa (say Jun 41 to Aug 41) we are looking at total losses in the realm of 71000 tanks and a recovery rate in the realm of 30% during the majority of the war. Presumably localized successful Soviet Offensive Operations would result in higher recovery rates of say 40% to 50%…he who posses the field of battle at the end of the day can recover his tanks. And failed operations ala Izyum would result in considerably lower localized recovery rates.

An interesting excerpt from “Unteroffizier Baum” contained in “Combat History of Schwere PanzerJager Abteilung 653” By Karlheinz Munch.

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“A large error on our part is letting enemy guns and tanks remain on the battlefield instead of employing special units to either recover or destroy them. If, for example, 45 enemy tanks remain in no-man's-land overnight, then 20 of them are missing the next morning. The Russians have recovered them with half-tracks during the night. The tanks we destroyed last summer and left on the battlefield fell into Russian hands again this winter. In several weeks, perhaps 50 of them will be operational again and we wonder where all those Russian tanks come from. This costs us work and blood. During our first operation, for example, all knocked out Russian tanks remained in place, as did the cannon and anti-tank guns, some of them intact and with ammunition. The dug-up mines remained out in the open. When the front had to be withdrawn, everything fell back into Russian hands.

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
Irrecoverable Tank Losses for the Red Army during WWII.

Krivosheev places the sum total at 63,229 machines.

Zaloga in Red Army Handbook puts total Soviet tank losses at: 83,500.

Krivosheev indicates his numbers represent irrecoverable tanks losses.

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In "Grif Sekretnosti Sniat", page 357-8, Krivosheev gives the following losses:

1941: 20500 tanks
1942: 15000 tanks and 100 assault guns
1943: 22400 tanks and 1100 assault guns
1944: 16900 tanks and 6800 assault guns
1945 (up to 10 may): 8700 tanks and 5000 assault guns

This gives 83500 tanks (identical to Zaloga) and 13000 assault guns. The data presented on pages 357-8 in Grif makes it quite clear that losses must refer to complete write offs. For example, he gives the strength at the end of each year, the losses during each year and also the new tanks added during each year. Invariably, the strength at the end of a year is equal to the strength at the end of the previous year, plus additions of new tanks minus losses. Admittedly, the methodology used for researching the book is virtually unknown, so it is impossible to be absolutely sure what he means, but as the table is written, the logical conclusion is that the losses refer to complete write-offs.

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

An interesting excerpt from “Unteroffizier Baum” contained in “Combat History of Schwere PanzerJager Abteilung 653” By Karlheinz Munch.

[QUOTE]“A large error on our part is letting enemy guns and tanks remain on the battlefield instead of employing special units to either recover or destroy them. If, for example, 45 enemy tanks remain in no-man's-land overnight, then 20 of them are missing the next morning. The Russians have recovered them with half-tracks during the night. The tanks we destroyed last summer and left on the battlefield fell into Russian hands again this winter. In several weeks, perhaps 50 of them will be operational again and we wonder where all those Russian tanks come from. This costs us work and blood. During our first operation, for example, all knocked out Russian tanks remained in place, as did the cannon and anti-tank guns, some of them intact and with ammunition. The dug-up mines remained out in the open. When the front had to be withdrawn, everything fell back into Russian hands.

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This can be compared to the following example:

A German NCO, commanding a Tiger tank, described his first action during operation Zitadelle 1943. They disabled three T-34 tanks, resulting in the enemy withdrawing. However, since none of the T-34:s were burning, they continued firing until all of them had caught fire. During his next action nine T-34 were disabled, and burning, which was necessary for reporting them as destroyed. [Horst Hasse: Bericht des Kdt “131“ über ein Gefecht bei Zitadelle in A. Rubbel (ed): Erinnerungen an die Tiger-Abteilung 503 1942-1945 (Selbstverlag Bassum 1990) pp 186-187.

and a quote from the Soviet study "Tank forces in the Defense of the Kursk Bridgehead and Operational Maskirovka According to Voronezh Front Experience July-August 1943" (Journal of Slavic Military Studies, vol 7, no 1, January 1994) p. 144.

“German artillery, tanks and self-propelled guns did not stop firing against tanks until they caught fire, even when the tank had stopped as a result of being hit by a shell. Such a method of fighting against attacking tanks leads to enormous irrepairable losses in their ranks“.

[This message has been edited by Niklas Zetterling (edited 10-17-2001).]

I have read enough books on tank combat to know the German were fond of shooting till it burns. I suspect there are two motivations, one is that if a tank is burning you can be 99% sure its not going to come to life when your back is turned (a notable exception is Audie Murphy continuing to fight an M10’s 50 cal after the TD was set on fire…Murphy’s reasoning apparently being that he was counting on the Germans believing the tank destroyer was out of the fight as it was burning), but also it ensures that the tank will probably not be recovered and repaired to fight another day.

However the 656th tale is certainly an interesting bit of information which seem to imply that German crews were not always shooting till it burns. Digging through Belton Coppers “Death Traps” it is apparent that a large number of KO’d Shermans were passing through his ordnance unit for repair.

83,000 is a huge number of irrecoverable losses. More so considering Soviet production figures for the war. Zaloga puts production at 99,150 for 41 – 45 (only the last six months of production for 1945 are included). Throw in the initial 1941 strength approx 24,000? and we are looking at approx 123,000 tanks. Surely there is a chunk of the 123,000 that was KO’d and subsequently repaired? Even a mark of knocked-out and subsequently recovered of only 25% of irrecoverable losses your looking at 104,000 tanks\SP’s were at some point knocked out.

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Niklas Said: Most likely the percentage repaired is at least 25 %, at least if mechanical breakdowns are included.

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Based upon my own experience as a tank crewmen (ok ok it was actually only 6yrs in a National Guard Tank Company), mechanical breakdowns represent a much larger fraction of work conducted by maintenance folks as well as the crews themselves. I would guess the percentage is more on the order of 100% of a units tanks strength will eventually pass through the clutches of mechanics at some point. Breakdowns, thrown tracks, blown engines, damaged road wheels or torsion bars, represent a never-ending battle for any tank unit. Perhaps Regular Army units were a little better at keeping there tracks running...but not by a huge difference, at least not from what I saw of these folks during various wargames our unit participated in.

Come to halt during a road march, the first thing you do is walk around your tank to check the tracks. Something always needs tightening. Don't follow this rule and the next thing you know you have a thrown a track to fix.

My 25% figure (obviously drawn from my hind end) was more a guess at tanks subjected to battle damage which were subsequently recovered and eventually make there way back into service. I suspect German and Anglo-American recovery rates were higher, but this is perhaps my own westernized prejudice coming to the surface. It is interesting to note that many German recovery and repair units on the Eastern Front were apparently utilizing a large number of captured Soviet Soldiers\Mechanics.

At some point I think I came across a figure of 80% of German tanks KO'd in combat were eventually recovered and repaired. I have no idea if this is a real statistic or not. I wonder if 80% of Panzers KO'd in combat were recovered and could have been repaired if German spare parts situation had been better.

I have always been struck by the number of Panzers recovered by the Allies in Normandy that were seemingly just abandoned by German Units. Perhaps a chunk of these vehicles represent vehicles that were recovered with minor battle damage and were being subjected to repair…contingent upon the availability of spare parts. Review of some of our favorite WO's for tactical air effects during Normandy suggest we are seeing a much larger percentage of abandoned vehicles being recovered by the Allies during the German retreat phase of the campaign relative to the days of Jun and July when front lines were somewhat more static.

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
Come to halt during a road march, the first thing you do is walk around your tank to check the tracks. Something always needs tightening. Don't follow this rule and the next thing you know you have a thrown a track to fix.

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Certainly repairs were also made by the crews themselves on many occassions, but I doubt that particularly many of them were included in the statistics. Rather, the statistcs mostlikely included those vehicles sent to a workshop.

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
My 25% figure (obviously drawn from my hind end) was more a guess at tanks subjected to battle damage which were subsequently recovered and eventually make there way back into service.

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An example is the 2nd Tank Army during Zitadelle, which had 213 tanks put out of action, of which 138 were irrevocable losses, or 65 %. Thus, in this example when the Red Army lost terrain, 35 % of the tanks put out of action were recoverable. This suggests that, as a rule of thumb, 25 % recoverable is to be regarded as a minimum.

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
I suspect German and Anglo-American recovery rates were higher, but this is perhaps my own westernized prejudice coming to the surface.

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During operation Zitadelle, the Germans seems to have recovered and repaired a much larger percentage than the Russians, so I don't think it is only prejudice.

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
At some point I think I came across a figure of 80% of German tanks KO'd in combat were eventually recovered and repaired. I have no idea if this is a real statistic or not.

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The figures I have found for the German army 1 October 1943 - 31 January 1944 shows that 9155 tanks were repaired and 2945 irrevocably lost. This would indicate that 76 % were repaired. However, these figures include vehicles hit by the enemy, lost by abandonment, mechanical breakdowns. Since mechanical break downs are included in the figures, it seems most likeley that the percentage recovered of those actually hit by the enemy was lower. In fact, it could be that the high German recovery rate is, at least partly, an effect of poor mechanical reliability or too infrequent regular maintenance.

Don't forget the russians also had about 10% over this number due to lend lease tanks. So 120,000 produced should be around 130,000 used.

Ideas on High Repair Rates
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During 43 the vast majority of german tanks were PIVs and IIIs. I would expect them to be much more reliable than the russian tanks. The german maintance and repair teams would also be much more efficent than the soviets. There weren't high numbers of problem german tanks during 43.

A few tigers that have had a year to improve a few kinks. A few elephants that I don't know of any problems with and a larger number of panthers. With many more problems during its first year of production. Maybe the high number of repaierd tanks could be panthers going back and forth during their first year. Multiple repairs or changes to one vehicle.

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

I have always been struck by the number of Panzers recovered by the Allies in Normandy that were seemingly just abandoned by German Units. Perhaps a chunk of these vehicles represent vehicles that were recovered with minor battle damage and were being subjected to repair…contingent upon the availability of spare parts. Review of some of our favorite WO's for tactical air effects during Normandy suggest we are seeing a much larger percentage of abandoned vehicles being recovered by the Allies during the German retreat phase of the campaign relative to the days of Jun and July when front lines were somewhat more static.

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It can of course not be ruled out that there were tanks with battle damage left behind by the Germans, however, I would rather use the expression “tiny slice” than “chunk”.

The ORS teams can not have missed many cases of tanks with battle damage (meaning damage by enemy fire), except when it was of such minor character that it could not have impaired the mobility or fire power of the tank. It seems much more likely that tanks were abandoned due to loose tracks (such cases were found by the ORS teams), lack of fuel, mechanical break down, blocked roads, impassable terrain that blocked retreat, traffic jams at choke points, rivers that could not be crossed (particularly the Seine), crews that were in such hurry that they preferred the use of a motor cycle or car (both of which were faster and consumed less fuel) or who thought they would be less conspicuous on foot rather than in a tank, etc etc.

When it comes to recovery, there is a comment in the ORS report on Mortain:

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The efficiency of the German recovery system has been put forward as an explanation of the large discrepancy between the number of vehicles claimed to be destroyed and the actual numbers found. Tanks and lorries that are destroyed as a result of air attack are almost always burnt out and would not be worth salvaging unless time and labour were both very plentiful. Many prisoners have been questioned on the subject of the recovery of tanks and it has been established that burnt-out tanks are never salvaged. In addition it has been ascertained that, contrary to certain statements made about the Mortain battle, very little recovery was done in this part of Normandy at the time, in fact the repair and recovery teams were already pulling out of Normandy when the Battle of Mortain was at its height.

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Mechanical breakdowns was a major source of work for the German recovery and repair teams. When the 2. Pz.Div. moved to Normandy, the tanks and SP guns were unloaded west of Paris and had to make the rest of the journey on tracks, a distance of approximately 100 miles. This caused around 25 % of its heavy tracked vehicles to go through repairs.

It is worth recalling that the I. SS-Pz.Korps repaired 137 Tigers and Panthers with its own means during the four weeks preceding 14 July. This would imply that 137 Tigers and Panther were repaired 15 June – 13 July. The following units subordinated to the corps possessed Panthers: Pz-Lehr, 1. SS-Pz.Div., 12. SS-Pz.Div. and the I./Pz.Rgt. 3 (which was temporarily subordinated during Epsom). Also the 101. s.Pz.Abt. had Tigers. The latter battalion lost 15 Tigers irrevocably until 5 July. The Pz-Lehr lost 23 Panthers irrevocably until it departed the corps and moved to the US sector. The 12. SS-Pz.Div. lost 32 Panthers irrevocably until 9 July. The losses for 1. SS-Pz.Div. are not known, but must, due to its slight combat activity during this period, have been small. Finally, the I./Pz.Rgt. 3 lost 20 Panthers irrevocably during its tenure with the I. SS-Pz.Korps. This gives a total of 75 Panthers and 15 Tigers. Comparing this with 137 repaired suggests that we a ratio of 60 % repaired. Since the repaired must have included mechanical breakdowns (if the 25 % example from 2. Pz.Div. above is representative, we would expect about 50 Tigers and Panthers broken down on the march to Normandy from Pz-Lehr, 12. SS-Pz.Div and s. SS-Pz.Abt. 101).
In the end, I do not think that four out of five German tanks knocked out by enemy fire in Normandy were recovered. It is more likely that around half were, perhaps even less.
One reason for the apparently low number repaired can be that once in Normandy, the tanks moved relatively little and thus mechanical breakdowns were reduced. Once the retreat began, they did have to move much more though.

Good point regarding the lend lease vehicles.

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Darin Said: During 43 the vast majority of german tanks were PIVs and IIIs. I would expect them to be much more reliable than the russian tanks. The german maintance and repair teams would also be much more efficent than the soviets. There weren't high numbers of problem german tanks during 43.

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May also be caused by having many parts and tools to work with. The russians may not have had training, exp, parts and tools to repair all thier tanks. With a large number of tanks being produced repairing every one was not as crucial. So the germans have a higher repair recovery rate.

T34 Reliability
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If you go to the russian battleifled site below there is are at least two articles under archives and one more eslewhere that tell a differnt story. The russian tanks just at the begining of barboraso were in horrible shape even though they were at peace. 20% of the tanks couldn't move and only 15% were free of defect the remaing 65% required some repair but could move.

There is also a report on a 41 model T34 tank (proably made in spring 42) by the US.

Elsewhere on this site there is an article that shows how rus started with less than 1200 T34s. Within 3 weeks of the invasion they had less than 300 left. The article implies but does not say that many of the T-34s (and other russian tanks) broke down more then got destroyed.

The russian production methods during the main part of the war were primative. The tanks did not survive long and didn't have to be built well just in quanity. If one did get damaged in some way it might have been easier and quicker for the sovs to get a new one vs trying to repair the older one.

I'm sure at the end of the war the reliability improved a bit. I think the reliability of the T-34 has been oversated. I would assume proven german equipment like the PZ III and IV would be better but so may the tiger I and panther (after the first year of experiance operating them).

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
Niklas:

Unrelated question stimulated by your comments on ISS Panzer Corps. The Schwere Panzer Kompanies attached to LSAH, DR and Totenkopf during late 42 through at least the end of Kursk…what happened to these Tiger companies by Normandy. Were they still organic to these SS Divisions?

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
Darin:

Good point regarding the lend lease vehicles.

Its my understanding that the MkIII and MkIV were considerably more reliable machines relative to the Panther and Tiger.

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My impression is that the Panther and Tiger did present a rather complex picture compared to the Pz IV, regrading reliability. As long as the Tiger and Panther suffered from teething problems, they were definitely more prone to break down. However, by the time of the battle in Normandy, these problems seems to have been ironed out. In the example of the 2. Pz.Div. moving to Normandy, both the Panthers and Pz IV suffered around 25 % break down rate.
However, the considerably greater weight of teh Pantehrs and Tigers must have placed a more serious strain on the recovery services, even after the initial troubles had been rectified.