An additional seventeen T-40s were in the 131st Tank Regiment of the 212th Motorized Rifle Division. Also, there were additional tanks assigned to command elements of the divisions that were not reflected among the above totals. Five more armored cars were in the motorcycle regiment.
According to Yermolayev:
The 212th Motorized Rifle Division was not fully organized, staffed, or trained… and did not have transportation means. This division, while being almost fully manned by lower enlisted personnel, did not have any vehicles to transport them and could not even provide itself with enough trucks to deliver ammunition, food, and POL (petroleum-oil-lubricants)…. The artillery regiment had eight 76mm cannon, 16 122mm howitzers (12 of them without sights) and four 152mm [cannon], but only five tractors. The lower enlisted personnel of the motorcycle regiment, while at full strength, were not trained and have not conducted even one rifle practice…. Communications and combat engineer battalions were staffed by brand new recruits, still conducting Phase I of their basic training, and were experiencing severe shortage of command personnel, with companies being commanded by junior officers. [Both battalions] just started receiving equipment, were not fully organized, and could not carry out combat missions.[10]
Yermolayev is seconded by Lieutenant Colonel Sukhoruchkin, who in similar manner to Yermolayev ascended to command the 10th Tank Division: “At the start of the war, division was short 583 junior leaders, 37 medical personnel, 813 privates, and 25 technical personnel. Out of 1,092 men which division was supposed to receive at mobilization, only 333 privates arrived.”[11]
Sukhoruchkin, however, was more optimistic about the overall condition of his division’s materiel, reporting that out of assigned fighting vehicles the following numbers actually left the garrisons and deployed forward: sixty-three KV-1s, forty-four T-28s, 147 BT-7s, eight OT-26s, nineteen T-26, fifty-three BA-10, nineteen BA-20, and eight hundred wheeled vehicles. He summarized their overall status:
BT-7 tanks were a mixture of machines with various engine usages of 40 to 100 hours, and only 30 of them had brand new engines. However, there were practically no spare parts. T-26s were in overall good shape, averaging 75 hours of usage. Armored cars were in good shape overall, with ten BA-20s being brand new machines. Therefore, KV, T-34, and T-26 were in good overall shape and were mission-capable. T-28s and BT-7s needed engine replacements and could not be used in prolonged operations.[12]
The following table illustrates the actual numbers of armored combat vehicles of the XV Mechanized Corps that were able to leave their garrisons and lumber towards the border:
Additionally, 152 out of 160 armored cars were combat capable.
The 37th Tank Division under Colonel Anikushkin wasn’t in as good shape as the 10th:
In accordance with [Timoshenko’s] directive #ORG/1/521114, the 37th Tank Division of the 15th Mechanized Corps was supposed to be completely formed by July 1st, 1941. As of June 22nd, 1941, division had 41.2 percent of senior command personnel, 48.3 percent of junior command personnel, and 111 percent of lower enlisted.
As far as tanks were concerned, there was 1 KV-1 (1.6 percent of TO&E [table of organization and equipment]), 34 T-34 (11.4 percent), 258 BT-7s (on hand, but not on TO&E), 22 T-26 and one flame-throwing OT-26. Artillery: 37mm air-defense artillery guns 33 percent, 122mm howitzers—56 percent, 152mm howitzers—33.3 percent. While, counting extra-allotted 258 BT-7, the division was at almost 90 percent strength, having 315 tanks, it was lacking in sticking power…. Sixty percent of privates were recruits called up in May 1941, who have not yet completed their basic training. Six hundred of them in the motorcycle regiment did not even have personal weapons issued to them.[13]
He continued:
The motorized rifle regiment, far from being completely equipped with wheeled vehicles, and initially located ninety-five miles away from the [rest of] division, at first could not operate in concert with the division.
The artillery regiment was also not completely equipped with materiel and left its deployment area (Kremenets) having only one 122mm and one 152mm howitzer [battery]. Separate air defense battalion out of [allocated] twelve guns (three batteries) only numbered four guns (one battery).[14]
As part of the conclusion section of his report, Anikushkin wrote:
1. Division left its [peacetime] deployment area of Kremenets with approximately 70 percent of its assigned personnel. The rest [of personnel] were left in Kremenets, where it later conducted, along with units of 14th Cavalry Division, defensive battles in Kremenets vicinity.
2. There were 315 tanks (approximately 90 percent of assigned numbers), and out of them, 258 BT-7 tanks were not part of TO&E, which negatively reflected on division’s striking power and firepower.
3. The maneuverability of the motorized rifle regiment, which set off on foot due to lack of wheeled vehicles, was extremely low, which did not allow [this] motorized rifle regiment to operate as part of the division until June 25th, 1941. This situation forced the tank regiments to allocate large number of tanks for support missions instead of utilizing them as striking power.
4. Lack of fully equipped artillery regiment… negatively reflected on division’s combat operations.
Ironically, contradicting himself and obviously putting on a brave face to present it to higher echelon commanders, Anikushkin stated: “Despite everything mentioned above, the 37th Tank Division represented a solid combat formation and… successfully carried out all assigned missions.”[15]
VIII MECHANIZED CORPS
The VIII Mechanized Corps, belonging to the Twenty-Sixth Army and headed by Lt. Gen. Dmitriy I. Ryabyshev, was one of the strongest Soviet mechanized formations. Various sources place the number of tanks in this corps between 850 and 932 machines of at least six different models, plus 172 armored cars. The main punch was provided by one hundred T-34 tanks and approximately eighty KV-1 heavies. However, this corps included a staggering variety of older models as well, including obsolete BT-2 tanks. Corps’ 34th Tank Division also included a battalion of flame-thrower OT-26 tanks and forty-eight giant T-35 tanks.
The VIII Mechanized Corps began its conversion in July of 1940 from the IV Cavalry Corps. Its 12th and 34th Tank Divisions were formed around cores of two light tank brigades, plus smaller tank units withdrawn from other formations.
The 7th Motorized Rifle Division was a distinguished unit, tracing its history from the Russian Civil War. This well-trained unit with high esprit de corps was handicapped by a lack of wheeled transport.
Sources on the breakdown of armored vehicles in this corps are too varied to present a cohesive table. However, the majority of new T-34s and KV-1s were concentrated in the 12th Tank Division, while the 34th Tank had all forty-eight of slow T-35s.
The chart below illustrates the difference between the number of tanks on rosters of VIII Mechanized Corps and the number of tanks that were actually able to leave their garrisons and move towards the border.[16]