THE HISTORIC BATTLE
As the Germans crested the ridge between Voin and the river, they came under long-range tank fire from Voin proper. This long-range fire proved to be highly effective, and there were no covered approaches available to the village. As a result, the Germans fell back on a tried and true tactical formula: They pulled their tanks back behind a screen of antitank guns and 88mm heavy AA guns deployed along the ridgeline, hoping to draw the Soviets out into a suicidal counterattack. Instead, Katukov's tankers displayed some excellent long-range gunnery and quickly put all of the guns on the ridge, including the 88s, out of action with 76.2mm HE fire. Only then did the the tanks in Voin begin to advance, and at this point the rest of the brigade's armor, hidden until now in the Privoi Voin Woods to the northwest, emerged and hit the German armor in flank.
The Germans quickly withdrew to the bridge, losing tanks and soft vehicles as they went. A battery of K-18 10cm guns made a brief stand at the bridge to cover the evacuation. Katukov did not pursue beyond the river, and by noon the fighting died away. By nightfall Katukov's brigade had disengaged to the next delaying position on the outskirts of Mtsensk.
Due to the confused nature of the fighting and the fact that neither combatant stayed on the battlefield, both sides overestimated their opponent's losses. The Germans claimed 18 Soviet tanks destroyed (most or all of them, of course, T34s and KV s). The actual total was two destroyed and four disabled but towed away and later repaired. The Soviets claimed 43 German tanks knocked out; the actual score was eight completely destroyed and an uncertain number disabled and later repaired. (From the language Guderian used concerning the losses, the total number of damaged and disabled tanks may not be far short of the Soviet claims.) The Germans also lost a half dozen trucks and 16 towed guns, including two 88s, one big 10cm K-18 and a number of smaller AT guns. Guderian described these as "grievous losses," and 4th Panzer's morale and material capacity for further offensive action were certainly reduced as a result of this action, while 4th Tank Brigade had escaped relatively unscathed.
Part of the differences in reported losses may stem from confusion over the actual date of the fighting for the Lisiza River crossing. German losses and claims quoted here are taken from Macksey's account of the action in Tank versus Tank, but he lists the date of the action as October 6. That was actually the date the 4th Panzer Division forced the minor river line halfway between Orel and the Lisiza, and the day on which it fought off a tank counterattack on its left flank from the 1st Battalion of the 11th Tank Brigade. If, as I suspect, Macksey or the sources he has drawn on have confused these two engagements, the Soviet tank losses claimed by him at Mtsensk may actually have been the tanks lost by 11th Tank Brigade several days earlier (on the 6th), in an engagement which went decidedly better for the Germans.
Eberbach's brigade did manage to take Mtsensk in confused and costly fighting over the next several days, but the good weather was gone and "General Mud" soon ended any chance of taking Tula on the run. Eberbach's brigade was reconstituted as the ground froze, now containing all the remaining tanks from the 24th Panzer Corps' 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions, and as an infantry component the elite Gross Deutschlarul Infantry Regiment. Still the brigade was unable to take Tula, and suffered crippling casualties trying to fight through the outer defense works of the city.
The German 1941 offensive was finished, but Eberbach soldiered on, and by the summer of 1944 commanded Panzer Group West facing the allies in Normandy.
For the fighting at Mtsensk, Katukov's brigade became the first Soviet armored unit to receive the designation "Guards," being redesignated 1st Guards Tank Brigade shortly thereafter. Katukov himself was promoted to Major General. (Katukov's staff did not have the correct badges of rank, so Katukov, never particularly vain nor prone to lavish display, simply scrawled five-pointed stars in permanent marker on the straps of his army greatcoat.) Katukov's brigade was soon pulled out of the line at Tula and sent north to the critical Volokolansk sector, where it joined Konstantine Rokossovski's l6th Army for perhaps the most important and dramatic chapter of the Battle for Moscow. In the spring of '42 Katukov had the honor of forming the first of the new tank corps (1st Tank Corps), using his brigade as a cadre, and then later the 3rd Mechanized Corps (again taking key cadres from his lst Tank Corps and 1st Guards Tank Brigade with him). By Kursk he commanded the 1st Guards Tank Army, and fought that command all the way to Berlin.
SOURCES
Armstrong, Col. Richard N., Red Army Tank Commanders, 1994.
Erickson, John, The Road to Stalingrad, 1975.
Guderian, Heinz, Panzer Leader, 1957.
Macksey, Kenneth, Tank Versus Tank. 1988.
Seaton, Albert, The Battle For Moscow, 1971.
Zaloga, Steven J. and James Grandsen, The T-34 Tank 1980.
Zhukov, Yuri, "The Birth of the Tank Guards" Moscow-Stalingrad: Recollections, Stories, Reports, Vladunir Secruk, ed., 1970.
Battle of Mtensk CDII Scenario: October 9, 1941
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© Copyright 1995 by Greg Novak.
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