The tank action near Mtensk on 6 October had a profound impact on armoured combat on the Eastern Front, even though it only involved a single tank battalion on each side. Although German tankers had been shocked by the appearance of the KV and T-34 tanks since the border battles in June, no German panzer unit had actually been defeated by these Soviet ‘wonder weapons’. A special commission from the OKH sent to inspect captured T-34s and KV-1s at Raseiniai on 27 June had recommended the 8.8cm flak gun as sufficient to defeat these Soviet heavy tanks, but at Mtensk the flak guns were quickly put out of action.[104] For the first time, the Red Army was able to employ the KV and T-34 in sufficient numbers and under optimal conditions and they demonstrated a significant tactical advantage. An entire German tank company had been shot to pieces, although only seven crewmen were killed. Guderian was shocked by the battle and referred to the 4.Panzer-Division’s losses as ‘grievous’. He later wrote, ‘the rapid advance on Tula which we had planned had therefore to be abandoned for the moment.’[105] Guderian also knew that the Battle of Mtensk signaled that at least some Red Army tank commanders were learning how to properly conduct armoured operations and that Germany’s best tank, the Pz.III, was hopelessly obsolete. Guderian requested that the OKH send another special commission to examine the results of the battle and make recommendations about improving the quality of German armour. However, the OKH had its hands full directing Operation Typhoon and the commission would not be dispatched for another six weeks.
In the meantime, Guderian still had a mission to accomplish – enemy resistance, winter weather and insufficient supplies notwithstanding. The 3.Panzer-Division had to remain in Orel due to lack of fuel, so the offensive would resume with just a single panzer division. Guderian ordered von Schweppenburg to bypass Katukov’s tank brigade and use outflanking maneuvers to force the Soviets to retreat. Eberbach, whose command vehicle had been destroyed in the battle on 6 October and whom Guderian found when he conferred with him to be suffering from exhaustion, sent his Kradschützen-Abteilung on a wide sweep that secured a crossing across the Oka River on 7 October and threatened to get behind Katukov.[106] Katukov merely retreated 5km and set up a new defensive line near Dumchino. Lelyushenko tasked Katukov with conducting a mobile delay – trading space for time – while he established a more solid defensive line behind the Zusha River at Mtensk. Lelyushenko provided Katukov with a tank battalion from Matisovich’s 11th Tank Brigade, some NKVD border guards and two battalions of BM-13 Katyusha rocket launchers, but this was clearly an insufficient force to hold any position for very long. The lack of supporting infantry was Katukov’s greatest weakness.
Von Schweppenburg spent two days restocking his fuel and ammunition for a set-piece battle. This time, German reconnaissance identified the location of Katukov’s brigade and Eberbach decided upon a change of tactics: he would send his two infantry regiments, Schützen-Regiment 12 and 33, to infiltrate on foot around both flanks of Katukov’s tanks and then only commit von Lauchert’s tanks once the Soviets began to withdraw. The German infantry began moving forward in two groups at 0630 hours on 9 October. A single company of tanks from Pz.Regt 35 and some infantry managed to get around Katukov’s left flank due to his lack of supporting infantry, but they were soon pinned by fire from T-34s in ambush positions. Eberbach called in a Stuka mission which failed to inflict significant damage, but Soviet aircraft began strafing Eberbach’s columns along the road back to Orel. Katukov claimed that his tanks destroyed forty-one German tanks and thirteen guns, but the actual results in the one-sided battle were bad enough: at least five of von Lauchert’s tanks were knocked out, plus an 8.8cm flak gun, a Pak gun and an SPW half track from the panzer pioneers.[107] Katukov’s losses were negligible and he had stopped Guderian’s best division for a full day, but he could not remain in a wooded area infested with enemy infantry at night so he pulled back to another position 3km south of Mtensk.[108]
The fighting on 9 October consumed half of Eberbach’s ammunition and his Panzer-Regiment 35 had only thirty operational tanks left. A heavy snowfall on the night of 9–10 October turned the road into a muddy mess, meaning that supply trucks would not reach him anytime soon. However, the snow came to the rescue of Eberbach. German scouts had discovered a Soviet pontoon bridge over the Zusha River just southeast of Mtensk and the heavy snowfall reduced visibility to 200 meters or less. Eberbach decided on the risky tactic of sending a single tank company – Oberleutnant Arthur Wollschlaeger’s 6./Pz.Regt 35 – with a company of infantrymen from SR 33 embarked to move cross-country to seize the pontoon bridge and then take the city from the northern side. In an amazing display of tactical stupidity, the pontoon bridge was only lightly guarded and Mtensk itself had few defenders. Wollschlaeger seized the pontoon bridge without being spotted by Katukov’s tankers and got his own tanks across although – proving once again that a tank can go just about anywhere, once – the pontoon bridge collapsed before an accompanying 8.8cm flak battery could cross. Undaunted, Wollschlaeger pressed on into the city at 1200 hours and overran a battery of seven BM-13 rocket launchers and an anti-aircraft battery. Although his handful of tanks and infantry were insufficient to control an entire city, Wollschlaeger seized the critical part that controlled the northern side of the main road bridge. At one stroke, Katukov’s tanks were cut off.
Katukov immediately tried to counterattack across the bridge with eight tanks into the city, but the tactical situation was now changed. As Eberbach later wrote, ‘Our tanks had taken up concealed and covered positions behind houses and in gardens and allowed the Soviets to approach to pointblank range. Three Russian tanks [T-34s] were knocked out; the rest pulled back…’ In fact, the other Soviet tanks simply drove through the German ambush and exited the city. Only one German tank was knocked out. Despite this success, Eberbach realized that Wollschlaeger was in a tight spot and pushed the pioneers to repair the pontoon bridge and get reinforcements into Mtensk. Lelyushenko reacted to the German seizure of Mtensk by dispatching a company of six KV-1s from the 11th Tank Brigade to retake the city but, by the time they arrived, the panzer pioneers had emplaced some anti-tank mines and a 10cm howitzer had reached Wollschlaeger; three KV-1s were knocked out and the rest withdrew. In a race against time, Eberbach rushed to get more reinforcements across the Zusha into Mtensk, while Lelyushenko and Katukov tried to assemble a coordinated force. Around 1330 hours, the infantry of I/SR 33 reached Wollschlaeger, along with an 8.8cm flak gun. When Lelyushenko finally committed the rest of the 11th Tank Brigade and some infantry around 1500 hours, the Germans were dug in solidly in Mtensk. With a clear field of fire, the 8.8cm flak gun knocked out three T-34s at about 1,000 meters, causing the attackers to retreat. Cut off south of the Zusha, Katukov waited until nightfall and then conducted a wild breakout across the railroad bridge under fire. Most of Katukov’s brigade reached Lelyushenko’s lines north of Mtensk, but many damaged vehicles were abandoned and the 4th Tank Brigade was reduced to three KV-1, 7 T-34 and twenty-odd light tanks.
Katukov’s 4th Tank Brigade had – with only limited help – limited Guderian’s advance toward Tula to a crawl for nearly a week with a brilliantly-executed mobile delay. While Katukov lost about twenty-five of his sixty tanks and 300 of his personnel in this period, he destroyed eight German tanks and damaged ten more. Moreover, the 4.Panzer-Division had seized Mtensk by coup de main, but Guderian was forced to shift onto the defensive for the next two weeks until he could replenish his supplies and losses. Recognizing a winner, Stalin personally ordered that Katukov and his brigade be transferred from the now-quiet Mtensk sector to help stem the German advance on Moscow from the west. Although Guderian did not know of it, he would have been shocked to learn that Katukov’s tanks moved north on a 360km-long road march – during a period of mud that immobilized many German vehicles – without losing a single tank to mechanical breakdown.[109]
104
Meldung der Sonderkommission des OKH, 27 June 1941, NAM (National Archives Microfilm), series T-315, Roll 744, frame 729.
107
Richard N. Armstrong,
108
Hans Schäufler (ed.),
109
Richard N. Armstrong,