![]() ![]() It looks puny compared to, say, a bazooka or a Panzerfaust or Piat, yet the velocity and mass of its bullets enabled it to penetrate the armor of the Panzers. One of the more effective anti-tank weapons of the Russians was a very large rifle. The shattered building and the mounds of concrete and stone that filled the streets almost precluded the use of tanks and, if anything, provided better cover for the defenders. At the gates of Stalingrad, the Germans, reckoning that the city was an industrial center, bombed it thoroughly and reduced it to rubble, making the same mistake that the Allies made at Cassino. The outnumbered and clumsy Russian tanks were wiped out. In the village, both sides ran into the disadvantages of urban warfare - straight, narrow streets in which maneuver was impossible, buildings from which weapons could be fired, and crossroads that seemed designed for ambushes. Ka-Boom - a headlong rapid plunge of everything they had, like a sledgehammer blow. In their first engagement, in a village on the Don River, the Soviets used their usual tactics. These are heavy tanks, the Russian KV with adequate fire power and armor that was impenetrable to any tank-mounted German cannon. And the first Russian tanks we see are not the usual T-34s, which were probably the best medium tank of the war. But this episode illustrates that tanks from both the Russian and German sides were deployed during the German advance on the city. The image brought to mind is one of suffering infantry, freezing, starving, lice ridden. We don't often associated the use of tanks with the battle for Stalingrad (now Volgograd). ![]()
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