Soviet Lend Lease: Brigaded together?

[Extra Crispy]

Were US and British lend lease tanks likely to be in the same units or were they parceled out? Would a battalion with Valentine lights have Matilda tanks? Or was it much more "catch as catch can?" Same for Stuarts and Shermans. Would they have mixed US and Soviet kit?

[Guroburov]

In late 1944 the !st Guards Mechanized Corps was fully switched from T-34s to the M4 Sherman. I haven't seen anything about how other units were organized, though.

Steve

edit: Late 1941 saw the first 145 Matildas in Soviet service. 170th and 171st Tank Battalions received them, with the 170th getting 13 tanks. So it looks like early in the war they may have been integrated piecemeal and only later with more significant numbers seeing conversion to whole units.

[Extra Crispy]

Thanks.

I was guessing they would use all US kit or all British kit at lower levels to ease supply - so battalions would be Shermans and Stuarts. But early on I'm sure they put them wherever they were needed. Given their life expectancy I doubt resupply was a major issue!

I think I'll make one battalion of all British tanks just for the looks of the thing!

[Extra Crispy]

Thanks.

I was guessing they would use all US kit or all British kit at lower levels to ease supply - so battalions would be Shermans and Stuarts. But early on I'm sure they put them wherever they were needed. Given their life expectancy I doubt resupply was a major issue!

I think I'll make one battalion of all British tanks just for the looks of the thing!

[pmskaar]

Hi Mark

As a general rule, the lend lease vehicles that the Russians received from the Americans and British would have operated in separate units.

Matildas and Churchills were considered "heavy" tanks and generally operated together in independent heavy regiments. The Russians had a few Churchill regiments at Kursk comprised of MK III and IV types.

For the M3 Stuart and M3 Lee tanks, these would usually operate in separate battalions or at least companies.

With the large number of Sherman tanks that arrived, many of these were use to form entire mechanized or tank corps.

It seems that Valentine tanks were liked for their reliability and relative quietness and used in recon units quite a bit. As a matter of fact, Britain kept up production of the Valentine to meet Russian demands even after they stopped producing them for their own use.

i would love to see GHQ do a Valentine IX for late war Russian units. The Valentine XI with the 75mm gun that GHQ currently has was pretty rare and the Valentine IX with 6Lbr was much more common.

I hope this is helpful.

Pete

[Extra Crispy]

Thanks.

So, just to clarify. In Flames of War a Soviet tank battalion has two Medium tank companies and one light. If the mediums are British/American the lights should be too?

[pmskaar]

Hi Mark

Let me digress just a bit to help clarify your question.

The Russians changed their organizations several times during the war. For example during 1941 most tanks were grouped into divisions.

Later in 41' due to the destruction of most of the starting tank divisions the tank brigade was created. This was sort of an ad-hoc formation consisting of 2 battalions with each battalion comprising 1 light company of 8, T-60 or other type light tanks., 1 medium company typically of 10 T-34 tanks, and 1 heavy company of 5 KV-1 tanks.

In the summer of '42, the Russians began building tank corps. These were about the equivalent size of a German panzer division. These tank corps had 3 with each brigade consisting of 1 light battalion of 21 T-60 or T-70 tanks and 1 medium battalion of 31 T-34 tanks. The heavy KV-1 tanks were withdrawn from the tank corps and put into separate independent regiments.

Later in November '43. the light tanks were mostly gone and the official organization was 3 brigades of 3 battalions of 2 companies of T-34s each. A brigade would have a total of 65 tanks with 3 battalions of 21 tanks each and 2 in the brigade HQ.

The mechanized corps had a slightly different organization and was bigger than the tank corps with more infantry and actually more tanks.

Now for the heart of your question. The Russians would probably try as much as possible to keep like vehicles grouped at least at the company level and then battalion and brigade. This would simplify logistics and maintenance.
As the war went on there was more standardization so that a whole mechanized corps might have either Sherman or T-34 tanks rather than both.

Early on however, things are more nebulous. I'm think there may have possibly been M-3 Lee tanks that may have been combined in a brigade with T-60s but I can't say for sure.
I remember reading about 1 engagement in the summer of '42 where the Russians had a unit of M-3 Lees and M-3 Stuarts in the same brigade.

Now, could a few Matildas be grouped with T-34s? In the brigade structure of 1941/42 the answer is maybe. I don't have any definitive evidence but that particular time frame was one of transition as well as desperation as the Russians were in a hurry to get units put together and into combat. Unless someone comes along and says otherwise, I don't see a problem having a mix of Lend Lease and Russian built tanks together but most likely not below the company level at least but who knows.

I hope this helps to clarify rather than muddle things up.

Pete

[sultanbev]

I have been following the evolution of the Soviet 16th Tank Brigade in my MicroMark lists, and can definitely say even late war they had mixed battalions, eg Matildas with Valentines, and mixed within brigades. One battalion might have Shermans and T-34s, another Matildas with T-34/76 HQs, another with Matildas and Valentines, and so on. This was however on a secondary front and grossly understrength, for example 12 tanks to a battalion. The minority tanks within a company/battalion often appeared as CHQ and BHQ tanks.

Mark

[BurtWolf]

Would there be any outwardly obvious modifications to these lend lease tanks? Anything worth modeling or modifying on the GHQ models?

[Extra Crispy]

My research says no - they were uncrated, painted in Soviet green usually - and sent off to the front. In some games I have just used US/British models until I can add dedicated models to my Soviet army.

[pmskaar]

Hi Mark

Often the Lend Lease vehicles were left in there original colors and not repainted. Many U.S. vehicles served in their original OD paint scheme.

As you can see for organization purposes, it looks like they were all over the map. Whatever you do will probably be close to some sort of reality at least. If someone has more information on a particular unit that had a mix of lend lease and Russian built vehicles, I would welcome that as well.

Pete

[Extra Crispy]

Thanks all. Keeping them together makes buying and basing much easier, so I'm going with that!

[RedLeif]

@PMSKAAR - very nice summary of Sov. tank orgs in WWII.


@Extra Crispy - I understand there were M3 Lee's at Kusrk: 31st tank corps:242nd and 237th brigades. My notes indicate both had some t-34/s and M3 Lees. The 3rd brigade of the corps (the 100th) came from the 6th Tank Corps and had all t-34s.

[Zippy]

There is gonna be a new Osprey book by Steven Zaloga on lend lease to Russia in June.
Mike