"19th Tank Corps at Kursk - org?" Topic

Anyone know how the above might have been organised at Kursk? I know it had 187 vehicles – 38 x T60, 25 x T70, 19 x Valentine, and 105 T34 – but some of these formations seem to have had two tank brigades and others three. Does anyone have any idea on how the above would have been organised?

This may give you enough information to make some educated guesses until you find more definitive information.

link

But the 19th Tank Corps is a strange beast with four different tank types and over twice as many T-34s as the other three types combined.

Also found this on: link

Quote from battlefield.ru site:

What concerns its reliability and durability lets refer to one example: at the beginning of Melitopol Operation (October 24, 1943) the 19th Tank Corps had 101 T-34/76 and 63 Valentine tanks. During a battles [sic] Corps lost 78 of T-34's and 17 Valentines tanks and all tanks were used with identical intensity.

link

Jim

I'd hazard a guess of three brigades, two with two medium and one light battalion, the other with onemedium and two light battalions. Insert light tanks of your choice into the light battalions (the Valentine being designated a light tank in Soviet service due to the calibre of its gun).

Thanks chaps. I made a typo actually, it's 36 x T70 and 107 x T34. Same total of 187.

The reason I am interested in this formation is that a few years ago, a Russian poster here kindly posted a breakdown of vehicle types at Kursk by formation. I turned these into a spreadsheet and found that overall, the 19th seems to come closest to being "typical". That is, it has about the same proportions of light versus medium tanks in it as the army as a whole. It also has the interesting feature of a few Valentines, so there's a bit of variety there.

Of course, since the Russian forces included SP artillery and heavy tanks often brigaded separately, it's not possible to find any formation that contains the right proportions of those as well.

The only org chart that I've found online suggests three brigades of two battalions, which is a bit baffling. That's about 30 vehicles per battalion assuming they're of equal size. But 80 light (thank for that point Martin) and 107 medium tanks do not go obviously into 30-tank battalions.

I think I like Martin's idea as this means nine battalions of 20 vehicles, of which four would be light (4 x 20 = 80 – this works, withe the Valentines as a battalion on their own) and five would be medium (5 x 20 = 100 – this also works, with seven spares; HQ tanks?).

the Valentine being designated a light tank in Soviet service due to the calibre of its gun

It was designated as a light tank due to its weight of c.16 tons not the gun.

"Operation Citadelle" by Restayn & Moller only gives a fairly simple breakdown of XIX Tank Corps. It consists of 79, 101 and 202 Tank Brigades (and 26 Motorised Rifle Brigade). Each tank brigade is given identical numbers of 32 medium/heavy tanks and 21 light tanks. Make of that what you will.

@ deephorse

Thanks for that – the implication is 159 tanks in total when the formation actually had 30 more than that. I am wondering if it had an independent unit of some description added in for Kursk purposes.

I have: 107xT34 – 36xT60 – 25xT70 – 19x Valentine & Matilda.

Hi Serge

Yes, I agree with all those numbers and I saw the Valentine plus Matilda data. But based on the fact that later in the year they only had Valentines, I have assumed maybe they only had them at Kursk as well.

Presumably Matildas would have been considered medium? I wouldn't fancy going up against a Panther in one.

It's my understanding that a battalion of T-34s consisted of 21 tanks: 1 for the commander and two companies of 10 each (with 1 for the commander and 3 platoons of 3 each).

Light tank battalions might have been different.

Also, IIRC, heavy tanks came in platoons of two tanks, so a company had 7 total.

@ don

Did any battalions have three companies i.e. 30 + 1 vehicles?

I'm struggling a bit because I can imagine a unit might have fewer tanks than its correct paper strength, but XIX seems to have too many.

Don's description for the Tank Bn is on target. The official Tank Brigade org from early 1942 was (in brief);

Bde HQ – could have 2 med and 5 lt tks
HQ Coy – including Recce Pl
Atk Bty – 4x 76-mm atk guns
AA Bty – 4x 37-mm guns
Motor Rifle Bn – 2 Rifle Coys, 1 SMG Coy, 1x 82-mm Mortar Coy
Two Tk Bns – each 2 Coys (10 T-34 each) plus Bn HQ with 1 T-34 and 3 T-60/70
1 Light Tk Coy – with 10 T-60 or T-70

On that basis the overall tank strength was 42 T-34 (+2 with a Bde HQ Tk Sec) and 16 T-60/70 (+5 with Tk Sec).

If the Bde was equipped with heavies, the Tk Bn changed to two Hvy Coys (5 KVs each) and a Lt Coy (10 T-60/70), with Bn HQ having 1 KV and 2 T-60/70. Overall tank strength was 27 light and 24 heavy, assuming a Bde HQ Tk Sec.

There was a July 1942 model which went with two Tk Bns, one of 21 T-34, the other with 21 light tanks plus a Coy of 10 T-34. Bde HQ now just had a single T-34 for 21 light and 32 medium. Bde added an AA MG Bty (9 quads) and an Atk R Coy (18 rifles).

Gary

OK, just in case anyone would like to see this, here is the data I have been using on Russian tank numbers.

It's been concatenated in Excel. To get it back into the columns I have it in, paste the below into one column, and use the text-to-columns feature to expand it out again. The field separator is the forward slash (thus: /) and the words all have an underscore, so it should all pop back into place.

I am indebted for this data to this Mserafin post from 10 years ago TMP link

Front/Army/Formation/unit_total/T60/T70/T34/T34/76C/T34/76D/KV1/KV1S/SU76/SU76i/SU122/SU152/M3_Lee_Grant/M3_Stuart/M4A2_Sherman/Matilda_Mk_II/Valentine/Churchill_MkIV
Central_Front/13th_Army/129th_Tank_Brigade/49/10/8/21/0/0/10/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/13th_Army/27th_Guards_Tank_Regiment/24/0/0/0/0/0/0/24/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/13th_Army/30th_Guards_Tank_Regiment/20/0/0/0/0/0/0/20/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/13th_Army/43rd_Tank_Regiment/46/16/0/0/0/30/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/13th_Army/58th_Tank_Regiment/33/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/33/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/13th_Army/237th_Tank_Regiment/39/0/7/0/32/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/13th_Army/1442nd_SU_Regiment/16/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/16/0/0/0/0/0/0/0

Central_Front/48th_Army/45th_Tank_Regiment/47/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/8/0/0/0/30/9/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/48th_Army/193rd_Tank_Regiment/58/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/3/0/0/0/55/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/48th_Army/229th_Tank_Regiment/38/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/38/0/0/0
Central_Front/48th_Army/1454th_SU_Regiment/17/0/0/0/0/1/0/0/0/0/16/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/48th_Army/1455th_SU_Regiment/16/0/0/0/0/1/0/0/0/0/15/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/48th_Army/1540th_SU_Regiment/13/0/0/0/0/0/0/1/0/0/0/12/0/0/0/0/0/0

Central_Front/60th_Army/150th_Tank_Brigade/66/4/22/0/0/40/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0

Central_Front/65th_Army/29th_Guards_Tank_Regiment/19/0/0/0/0/0/0/19/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/65th_Army/40th_Tank_Regiment/36/0/7/0/0/29/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/65th_Army/84th_Tank_Regiment/33/0/3/0/0/30/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/65th_Army/255th_Tank_Regiment/39/0/6/0/0/33/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0

Central_Front/70th_Army/240th_Tank_Regiment/39/0/7/0/0/32/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/70th_Army/251st_Tank_Regiment/38/0/7/0/0/31/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/70th_Army/259th_Tank_Regiment/40/0/6/0/0/34/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0

Central_Front/2nd_Tank_Army/3rd_Tank_Corps/192/0/70/0/0/122/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/2nd_Tank_Army/16th_Tank_Corps/201/17/45/0/0/139/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/2nd_Tank_Army/11th_Guards_Tank_Brigade/54/0/10/0/0/44/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0

Central_Front/Front_Reserve/9th_Tank_Corps/193/68/0/0/0/125/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Central_Front/Front_Reserve/19th_Tank_Corps/187/36/25/0/0/107/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/19/0
Central_Front/Front_Reserve/1541st_SU_Regiment/13/0/0/0/0/0/0/1/0/0/0/12/0/0/0/0/0/0

Voronezh_Front/6th_Guards_Army/96th_Tank_Brigade/51/0/5/0/0/46/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/6th_Guards_Army/230th_Tank_Regiment/39/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/7/32/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/6th_Guards_Army/245th_Tank_Regiment/39/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/27/12/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/6th_Guards_Army/1440th_SU_Regiment/21/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/9/0/12/0/0/0/0/0/0/0

Voronezh_Front/7th_Guards_Army/27th_Guards_Tank_Brigade/58/0/4/0/0/54/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/7th_Guards_Army/201st_Tank_Brigade/52/0/0/0/0/3/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/18/31/0
Voronezh_Front/7th_Guards_Army/148th_Tank_Regiment/31/0/6/0/0/25/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/7th_Guards_Army/167th_Tank_Regiment/46/2/11/0/0/33/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/7th_Guards_Army/262nd_Tank_Regiment/22/0/0/0/0/0/22/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/7th_Guards_Army/1438th_SU_Regiment/21/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/9/0/12/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/7th_Guards_Army/1529th_SU_Regiment/13/0/0/0/0/0/1/0/0/0/0/12/0/0/0/0/0/0

Voronezh_Front/38th_Army/180th_Tank_Brigade/81/15/23/0/43/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/38th_Army/192nd_Tank_Brigade/55/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/31/24/0/0/0/0

Voronezh_Front/40th_Army/86th_Tank_Brigade/72/15/11/0/46/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/40th_Army/59th_Tank_Regiment/34/0/9/0/25/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/40th_Army/60th_Tank_Regiment/35/0/9/0/26/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0

Voronezh_Front/1st_Tank_Army/3rd_Mechanised_Corps/231/2/35/0/194/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/1st_Tank_Army/6th_Tank_Corps/172/10/24/0/138/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Voronezh_Front/1st_Tank_Army/31st_Tank_Corps/184/2/30/0/152/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0

Voronezh_Front/Front_Reserves/2nd_Guards_Tank_Corps/217/0/75/0/121/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/21
Voronezh_Front/Front_Reserves/5th_Guards_Tank_Corps/193/0/66/0/106/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/21

All_Fronts/All_Armies/All_Formations_Total/3233/197/531/21/883/959/33/65/29/33/71/36/150/77/38/18/50/42

The summary by type then looks like this:

30% T34/76D
27% T34/76C
16% T70
6% T60
5% M3_Lee_Grant
2% M3_Stuart
2% SU122
2% KV1S
2% Valentine
1% Churchill_MkIV
1% M4A2_Sherman
1% SU152
1% KV1
1% SU76i
1% SU76
1% T34
1% Matilda_Mk_II

19th Tank Corps has 57% T34s and so does the Kursk force as a whole; it has 43% light tanks while the army as a whole has 26% so it could do with beefing up here.

The summary by weight (I've counted Churchills as heavy) is then as follows:

Medium 64%
Light 26%
SPG 5%
Heavy 4%

and by country of origin

Russian 88%
US 8%
UK 3%

The July 42 Org listed by Gary would fit the numbers allocated to 19th TC fairly well (I think that was the one on my mind).

Yes, Matilda were issued as medium tanks, although as with the Valentine, there was some debate due to its light armament.

…. the implication is 159 tanks in total when the formation actually had 30 more than that. I am wondering if it had an independent unit of some description added in for Kursk purposes.

At various points, the Soviet tank formation organisation charts also featured reserve (replacement) companies with spare tanks and/or crews. As casualties would occur on the fighting units, these could then be sent as replacements.

I am not sure if these would appear in the corps TOE in 1943, and even when they appear on paper they might not always be present in reality. However, the Soviets had plenty of time to prepare their units for the Kursk action.

After some looking at tank corps organisations in Zaloga's book, I found some scenarios:

1.) Corps HQ might have 2-3 tanks (T-34).
2.) Corps level motorcycle battalion was specified, but not actually present in all corps at the time of the Kursk. From summer 1943 this was supposed to contain a tank company (10 T-34 tanks).
3.) In 1943 the corps was also supposed to have a reserve/replacement detachment, nominally consisting of 33 T-34 and 7 T-70 tanks, plus full crews for them.

The reserve detachment may not have always been present in practice, but in the build-up for the Kursk action there should have been plenty of time to build up such reserves.

@ Griefbringer

That may well resolve the mystery. Thank you.

A wider question – the total tanks above per my concatenated TO&E is ~3,300 whereas most sources say the Russians had 5,000+. There were of course other fronts at the battle tham these two, not as tank heavy but still with tanks attached. Does anyone have similar data for the other fronts?

Likewise does anyone have it for the Germans?

While the possible presence of a reserve detachment would explain where the excess tanks (beyond the three tank brigades and possible motorcycle battalion) are placed, it does not tell which of the tanks would have gone where.

That said, if I had to organise a game involving all the brigades of such a corps in action, I would go for having as many tanks of each type on table as possible. This would probably result in one brigade getting two companies of T-60, another getting two companies of T-70 and the last brigade getting the Valentines/Matildas, with any excess T-60/T-70/T-34 ending up in the reserve pool where they will have no effect on game. Exception of course would be multi-day campaigns, where lulls in action between the games could be used to send reserve tanks to the brigades (not to mention bring in fuel and ammo, recover damaged tanks etc.).

Hi GB

I am with you. My thinking when considering bathtub armies has always been to try to make them as representative of the full-size force as is feasible, while providing maximum painting variety. Ideally I identify an actual unit and depict that. The 19th stands out because it has several types and one's a non-Russian type.

In case you looking for extra colour for a tank corps, keep in mind that the reconnaissance motorcycle battalion (if present) could feature much more than just motorcycles. Depending on time period, it could have a company of T-34 tanks (already mentioned), company of armoured trucks (M3 scout cars) and/or up to 20 armoured cars. And speaking of motorcycles, a couple of months ago somebody posted here pics of Soviet motorcycle sidecars that had been specifically adapted for transporting 82 mm mortars.

Also the tank brigades might or might not (depending on time) have a couple of armoured cars somewhere. Not to mention a Katuysha battalion at the corps level…

4th if you are looking for German tank strength for Barbarossa I find this an excellent source:
panzerworld.com/barbarossa-1941

If looking for all tank forces, to include units such as the 15th Panzer and 5th Leichte Division in DAK this is a decent run down:
link

Not to mention a Katuysha battalion at the corps level…

On second check, few tank corps actually had the rocket launcher battalion at the time of Kursk.

As for the armoured cars and M3 scout cars, also the reconnaissance company of the motor rifle brigade seems to have fielded a bunch of these.