(This takes 3½ minutes to read.)
Quoting Robert A. Slayton’s Arms of Destruction: Ranking The World’s Best Land Weapons of World War II, page 30:
Half-a-dozen soldiers or so would be put on the back of a T-34 tank (the later version, T-34/85, actually had handholds welded on), armed with only PPSh-41s and grenades. An endless line of these machines and men would then launch a frontal attack on [Axis] lines, with devastating results to both sides.
[…]
The [Third Reich], too, recognized how effective these weapons were, and every report concedes that Wehrmacht soldiers picked up PPSh-41s whenever they could, prizing their opponent’s submachine gun over their own because of its huge magazine capacity and above all, its “unstoppable reliability” as one writer put it; neither abuse, nor neglect, nor the harshest of Russian winters daunted this tiger of the battlefield.¹⁹
Finland’s soldiers agreed. Quoting Leroy Thompson’s The Suomi Submachine Gun, page 72:
A large number of PPSh-41s were captured during the Continuation War. In many cases, these were used by Finnish troops who found sufficient ammunition available from killed Soviet troops or captured ammunition depots. When they could no longer find 7.62×25mm ammunition, which was not available within the Finnish supply system, they normally discarded the ‘Pepesha guns’, as the Finns termed them.
Similarly, some Axis officers suggested copying the T-34. Returning to Arms of Destruction, pages 123–4:
A tank officer reported, “Time and again our tanks have been split right open by direct frontal hits. The commander’s cupolas on the PzKpfw III and PzKpfw IV have been completely blown off […] proof of the great accuracy and penetration of the Russian T-34’s 76.2mm gun.” He complained, “The former pace and offensive spirit will evaporate and be replaced by a feeling of inferiority, since the crews know they can be knocked out by enemy tanks while they are still a great distance away.”
One panzer sergeant remarked, “Numbers—they don’t mean much, we were used to it. But better machines, that’s terrible. You race the engine, but she responds too slowly. The Russian tanks are so agile, at close range they will climb a slope or cross a piece of swamp faster than you can traverse the turret. And through the noise and the vibration you keep hearing the clang of shot against armor. When they got one of ours there is so often a deep, long explosion, a roar as the fuel burns, a roar too loud, thank G-d, to let us hear the cries of the crew.”²⁴
The [Axis powers] managed to achieve their tremendous victories in part because relatively few of the [Soviet] tanks were the newer models, but mostly because [Soviet] tactics were [allegedly] inept, while the panzer divisions performed superbly in direct combat. T-34s could deal serious blows in individual combat, but given these deficiencies, the overall effect was minor.
But the [Wehrmacht] generals knew what was happening, and took heed; the fact was, all their tanks, with the exception of the potential for the Mk IV, had been rendered obsolete in every category: armor, firepower, and speed. Guderian himself wrote, “Up to this time we had enjoyed tank superiority, but from now on the situation was reversed. The prospect of rapid, decisive victories was fading in consequence. I made a report on this situation, which for us was a new one, and sent it to the Army Group; in this […] I described in detail the marked superiority of the T-34 to our Panzer IV and drew the relevant conclusions.”
He ended that document by insisting that “a commission be sent immediately to my sector of the front and that it consist of representatives of the Army Ordnance Office, the Armaments Ministry, the tank designers and the firms which build the tanks.” Finally, he added, “The officers at the front were of the opinion that the T-34 should simply be copied, since this would be the quickest way of putting to rights the most unhappy situation of the German Panzer troops.”²⁵
Guderian had enough clout that notwithstanding the Führer’s optimism over the legitimately fabulous victories in the first months of the Russian Front, the commission was formed straight away. Officials came, looked over the enemy’s weapons, and despite the urging of many Panzer officers, rejected post haste the idea of copying the T-34.
Though there is mixed opinion on this, there is no doubt in my mind that the idea of duplicating a Soviet tank was never really considered. The reason: racism, to use a word unfortunately appropriate to what went on in the East between 1941 and 1945.
(Emphasis added.)
These facts clearly do not mesh well with the Germanic Fascists’ principle that ‘Aryan’ men created (almost) everything that is good and worthwhile in the world. How could an ‘inferior race’ create something valuable? Presumably, an Axis propagandist would have harmonized this contradiction by claiming that both Georgy Shpagin and Mikhail Koshkin must have had a substantial amount of Germanic heritage: a rhetorical trick that is nearly identical to how contemporary White supremacists snatch all of the kudos for people of color’s accomplishments.
Interesting. The “pop history” I am familiar with on this topic claims the Soviets only won tank battles through sheer numbers, and that the German tanks were far superior. But that’s likely simple anti-communist storytelling.
yeah and “soviets only won the war bc of the lend-lease”. anti-communism is almost everywhere
Most of what Western historical narrative teaches about the Eastern Front is a myth. Western military history on the Eastern Front was written by and in collaboration with "ex-"Nazi generals. The reality is that not only did the Soviet forces not outnumber the Nazis until the final years of the war, but their technology was often more fit for purpose and they frequently won victories by employing operational tactics that out-witted the Nazis. They made better use of deception, logistics, concentration of forces, mass fires doctrine, etc.
do you have any recommendations for a more accurate telling of the history of the eastern front from a communist source or otherwise? I’d be curious to read such a work
Fun fact, the Panther copied so much from the T-34 that the designers accidentally included a completely pointless design detail that made no sense for the Panther.
The T-34s track system didn’t have secured pins, so a small metal plate was added to the back of the tank to knock the tracks back into place while the tank drove. This simplified production and lowered costs at the expense of some reliability issues and additional wear on the treads.
The panther meanwhile had a modernized locked track system, while still including a pin knocker despite the part being utterly useless since the engineers copied the T-34s track return wheel design entirely.
One of two concepts for Panther tank, VK 3002 (D) was a near copy of T-34, but Hitler chosen the bigger and “more modern” concept of VK 3002 (MAN) which ultimately became Panther.
Turns out giving soviet infantry a gun that has near the same capacity as an LMG but you can sprint across a field with it due to it being as light as a small sub machine gun is fucking OP
Granted, the 71 round drum magazines weren’t used very often and were doctrinally phased out beginning in 1942 due to reliability issues.
The smaller stick magazine was far more reliable and ergonomic.
Not to forget it can fire almost forever. You’d run out of ammo before the gun went too hot to fire.
as i recall the soviets and the nazis both thought the other’s sub machinegun was better
The mp40 had its own merits, mainly a more controllable fire rate leading to accuracy. The PPSH was just cheaper to produce, had a higher potential capacity and an absurdly high fire rate (even by today’s standards, thing was a blaster), its fair to say the PPSH was the better gun. The thing is for the situations that the guns found themselves both in, accuracy doesn’t really matter when you can dump 15 rounds into whatever you want in 1 seconds - when you’re storming an apartment complex this is the one you want.
Also another big part of it was doctrine, who actually got the guns. The soviets would give entire squads the PPSH, like every man in a 12 person squad would be holding one. The Germans would have like 2 mp40s on officers then the infantry get bolt action rifles and they might have 1 lmg.
If you can imagine holding the ruins of a city and you get 1 shot before needing to reload while the soviet charging you gets up to 70, its no contest.
