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At the height of the battle of Stalingrad when German and Soviet soldiers were at times literally fighting over parts of the Dzerzhinsky Tractor Factory complex this was certainly an occurrence.What is less mentioned is that Soviet tank crews were often sent to factories as the Soviet Union tried to remedy deficiencies in tank crew training and labor shortages in heavy industry. Tank crews still received training on basic maintenance procedures in tank schools before being detailed to factories where they received detailed type-specific instruction on the assembly lines under the instruction of factory workers and foremen assisting in the final assembly of the very tanks they would be using at the front. Rather than just showing up to drive a tank away from the factory, the crew that drove a tank from a Soviet factory floor had ideally already been melded into a unit with the specific tank, intimately familiar with its operation as they had participated in the assembly of the vehicle itself.While this was inefficient from a production perspective as the Soviets were technically dealing with high turnover on the assembly floor, it remedied far more pressing deficiencies caused by shortages of modern materiel and personnel that had hampered proper maintenance instruction early in the war. Rather than detailing new tanks and spare parts to basic tank schools, the Soviet Army taught basic universal maintenance procedures to its crews in basic schools and if possible trained its crews hands on under the supervision of skilled foremen intimately familiar with the vehicles they were assembling right on the assembly lines. The result was a fully functional combat unit that was ready to take receipt of a vehicle by the time the inspector hammered in the military acceptance marks after factory trials and drive it off to the railhead.Samuelson L. (2011) Production Conditions for Heavy Tanks in the Urals. In: Tankograd. Palgrave Macmillan, London. Production Conditions for Heavy Tanks in the UralThat being said this was wartime and training and issuance conditions varied wildly from period to period of the war on the Eastern Front:Vasiliy Krysov in describing his experience as a tanker recruited in 1941 provides a instructive picture of the changing experiences of crew training as he served for the entirety of the war. First being thrown into the battles around Stalingrad:We arrived at the Chelyabinsk Tank School in the middle of July 1941. The cadet ranks turned out to be very diverse, both in terms of education and age. More than a half of the cadets of our class were people with a higher education: engineers, teachers, school directors, actors and agronomists, as well as sergeants who had already seen action and second-year cadets of the Kazan Tank-Technical School. The daily routine was quite intense. The three-year training programme was compressed into one year, because the Kirov Works in Chelyabinsk had already begun line production of the KV-1S heavy tank, and there was a shortage of tankers capable of manning them. We studied the equipment and armament of the tank, signalling, topography, tactics, gunnery rules and much else besides. We, yesterday’s schoolboys, and the cadets with higher education studied on equal terms, so during classroom studies and field exercises we had to exert ourselves fully in order to compete with our better-educated peers. Through persistence and our young, reliable memories, we succeeded. However, we all had to study, as the saying goes, by the sweat of our brows. There were front-line veterans among the teachers. However, they never talked much about their combat experiences, and we were too shy and reluctant to question them about it. At the beginning our platoon commander was Lieutenant Ivan Gurievich Maksimov, our company commander – Gorshkov, who was also a lieutenant. The battalion commander was called Boiko. He was a sensible, fine and exacting man. He had a saying for moments when he saw that we were tired or becoming jaded: ‘A soldier might eat straw, but keeps his spirits high!’However, the company’s Sergeant Major Tolkachev didn’t make our life easier. He was a very unjust, coarse, dishonourable man. Short, below average height, and freckled, his malicious eyes seemed to burn with hatred. His rudeness bordered on bullying. People like him, using military discipline as a cover, know no limits in humiliating subordinates, but at the least trifle, get all weak at the knees. Indeed, Tolkachev proved this when he refused to come to our graduation celebration, apparently fearing that the ex-cadets would thrash him, and then leave for the front on the next day and search for a scapegoat. Amazingly, this useless character rose in rank with lightning speed: in 1946 I found myself in Chelyabinsk and, of course, I dropped by the school. There, I met this cock sparrow again, who was now a major! We learned to master the KV heavy tank. At the same time, however, we became lightly acquainted with the T-34. We also had an opportunity to climb into captured Panzer III and early-model Panzer IV tanks. We had only two KV and two T-34 tanks for the whole school and for this reason we mainly used tractors to learn how to drive. There was little actual opportunity to hop into a tank and drive; over a whole year of training, in total, I had no more than a couple of hours of actual driving experience in a tank. We also never had a chance to fire live 76mm shells, but used a Degtyarev machine gun that was inserted into the barrel of the main gun, and practised using the gunnery scale 1 and optical sights that way. Tactical training was also not very realistic. For example, the platoon would go out for a field exercise. The platoon commander would send signals by flags: ‘On foot – as if in tanks!’ And off we would go across the field. Why on foot? Each platoon was supposed to have three tanks – but we had no tanks! Therefore, the platoon would split into three crews, the platoon commander would issue orders with flags, and we would deploy into combat formations on foot: ‘line’, ‘right echelon’, ‘left echelon’, ‘forward wedge’ and ‘reverse wedge’. We were also taught the tactics of combat against the German tanks. The most important thing was to calculate the range accurately and to fire at the side of the hull or at the turret rear. In order to disable an enemy tank more quickly, if we had only highexplosive shells, we were to fire at the tracks, while with armour-piercing shells – at the turret. I must say that I got excellent marks for gunnery and graduated from the school with top scores in every subject. The more the situation at the front deteriorated, the more diligently we cadets trained. We studied for fourteen to sixteen hours a day, slept little, but in return after six months of drilling we were capable of driving tanks on our own and had learned how to fire from guns and machine guns. It was incredibly difficult to master the technique of shooting while in motion! Your tank is racing at a high speed over rugged terrain, being jolted by humps and bumps: through your sights you now see earth, then see sky, but you need to locate your target quickly, line it up with the vertical hair of the gunsight, catch the moment when the cross hair centres on the target, and then press the trigger at just that moment!On 20 June the final examinations on all the subjects began, including the one on formation drill and even bayonet combat. At last the long-awaited graduation day arrived. On the morning of 1 July 1942, immediately after breakfast, the company quartermaster Gefreitor [Private First Class] Ryabkov issued us our new officer’s uniform: belts, field caps and canvas-topped boots. At 12.00 we lined up on the parade ground in our brand-new uniforms. The battalion commanders and the entire school leadership, headed by the school commandant Colonel Naumov (he had assumed the post after a disabling wound – he’d lost his right arm at the front) presided over the ceremony. The chief of gunnery Major Kazievsky read out the Order of the People’s Commissar of Defence on the conferring of a specific officer’s rank to each cadet and his assignment to one of the different fronts. As a result of the intense military training, half of the cadets received the rank of lieutenant, 45 per cent became junior lieutenants, and the remainder – senior sergeants. I was conferred the rank of lieutenant and assigned to the Southeastern Front, which later would be renamed as the Stalingrad Front, as a KV-1S heavy tank commander. Before our departure for the front, we were given a day of leave and issued with 600 roubles each – the first pay packet in advance! Joyful and proud, we headed into town to get photographed and, if there was a chance, to buy something for the graduation party. A loaf of bread cost 200 roubles at the local market, so there was little chance to overindulge. Then we wrote letters home, to friends and girlfriends …… At the personnel department of the Southeastern Front, we quickly received our assignments to our formations and units. Nikolay Davydov, Misha [Russian diminutive for the name Mikhail] Marder and I – we had been in the same training company back in the Chelyabinsk School – wound up in the 158th Separate Heavy Tank Brigade. At the time of our arrival the brigade was stationed at Krivomuzginskaya Station near Kalach-on-theDon. The brigade had already seen action during the retreat from the Volchansk area, losing forty-one tanks and half its personnel in heavy combat against a panzer corps [the XXXX Panzer Corps].Misha Marder and I were assigned to the same platoon. The crews received us well. The seasoned veteran Junior Lieutenant Matvey Serov commanded the platoon. At that time there were two officers in a heavy tank crew, and the second officer in my tank was the driver-mechanic, Junior Lieutenant Talash Safin, a Bashkir national. We called him simply Tolya [Russian diminutive for the name Anatoliy]. Tolya had passed through the accelerated one-year training course in the Chelyabinsk Tank School just like I had (they had been commissioned a bit earlier), and thus I could allow myself not to worry about the driver. The gunlayer in my tank was Sergeant Viktor Belov; the loader –Junior Sergeant Mikhail Tvorogov, who could also fill in for the driver. Junior Sergeant Nikolay Orlov was the radio operator and machine-gunner. All the crew members were young and strong guys, but all of them were from the latest batch of replacements and had not seen action yet. The younger sergeants on the crew had only received a three-month course in a training tank regiment back in Chelyabinsk, and manifestly had insufficient experience in driving a tank, as well as in gunnery. We were issued KV-1S tanks that had undergone major repairs at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory. During the time remaining before entering combat, the crew worked out a system of interchanging roles, thoroughly studied the regulations and maintenance techniques, rehearsed combat tactics while under fire, and practised firing on the move and from a stopped position.Then, being wounded and his tank having been destroyed at the end of 1942 he was sent to the reserve and converted to SPG crew in SU-122 self propelled guns:During the heavy fighting near Stalingrad my tank had received many dents and had destroyed a lot of enemy equipment and troops, but then, in December 1942 it had been burned out by a German shell. I refused to go to a hospital and together with other commanders who had been left without tanks I was sent into the reserve and wound up in Sverdlovsk, in the personnel department of the Urals Military District. Here I received a new assignment – to lead a platoon of SU-122 self-propelled howitzers in the 1454th Selfpropelled Artillery Regiment. The regiment consisted of four batteries with five self-propelled guns each, plus the regiment commander’s T-34 tank. The regiment also had a company of submachinegunners, a reconnaissance platoon and a number of auxiliary units, such as supply, repair services, signals, medical services, etc. Being compact in numbers, the self-propelled artillery regiments were very mobile; they could be deployed to areas of an enemy tank penetration within a matter of hours or even minutes, and were capable of destroying the enemy by fire from standing positions. On the offensive, they supported tank attacks. Getting a bit ahead of myself, I can testify that it was difficult or almost impossible for enemy tanks to force their way through our battle lines, where medium or heavy selfpropelled guns were standing on the defence.Personnel from the 5th Reserve Tank Regiment, which was stationed in Sverdlovsk, were used to form the four batteries of self-propelled guns – the mobile unit of the 1454th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment. The head-quarters unit was supposed to join the regiment later. I was the last to arrive in my 3rd Battery, which was commanded by Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Shevchenko. Everyone in it had already undergone re-training from a tanker into a samokhodchik [self-propelled gunner], and I had to master the equipment and armament of the vehicle in just one week. This was an intricate artillery science: to study the panoramic sight, the rules of firing from covered positions; to be able to prepare all settings for firing using limited data; to plot a parallel fire plane and to adjust the fire given the deviation of explosions from the line of sight. On the last night before the departure from Sverdlovsk I just couldn’t fall asleep. Not because I was anxious or because it was hard to sleep on the tightly-stuffed straw mattresses that butted up against each other on the upper level of the plank bunks. It was simply that the memories of the Chelyabinsk Tank School and the fighting near Stalingrad were sweeping over me, and my wounded arm was troubling me a bit … ‘Reveille!’ The command rang out, interrupting my uneasy thoughts.It took us an hour to have a shave, wash, wolf down a quick breakfast, and to set off on foot by battery towards the Uralmash [Ural Machine Building] Factory still before dawn. The snow produced little squeaks beneath our jackboots. We passed a field, a small copse of trees, and soon found ourselves in the factory yard, where we saw in the predawn twilight our train with the self-propelled guns under tarpaulin covers. Sentries of the special guard dressed in sheepskin coats and valenki stood along both sides of the flat cars. It took no more than half an hour to load the batteries equipment and gear and to board the personnel onto the teplushki [boxcars fitted with plank bunk beds for passengers and a small iron stove for heating], whereupon our train, pulled by two steam engines, rolled out onto the main line and headed westward. We rode at a high speed down the ‘green street’ [a term for a rail under one-way traffic rules during wartime]. I remember only two stopovers at stations where the engine crews were replaced.Once aboard the teplushka, we stoked the iron stove right away. Through the white shroud of falling snow, we could see station platforms flashing past through a gap in the secured doors; the eyes had no time to make out the names of the stations and we noticed only rare travellers on the platforms. All along the way we sang the then-popular songs – ‘The Dark Night’, ‘In the Dugout’, ‘For the Holy War’, and ‘The Spark’. The gunlayer from the battery commander’s self-propelled gun, Senior Sergeant Sasha Chekmenov, commonly led the singing in our battery, but when we sang Ukrainian songs, our battery commander himself, Senior Lieutenant Shevchenko, was the song leader. The train arrived at Pushkino Station near Moscow on the second day of our journey. Here we were met by the regiment s command and the headquarters staff officers. We unloaded the self-propelled guns by the dim light of the station lanterns and drove them into some woods about 25 kilometres from the railroad. Once billeted in some village dachas, we undertook combat training and breaking-in the crews and units under conditions that approximated actual combat as closely as possible.The main emphasis in the process of breaking-in the crews was placed on driving the vehicles across difficult obstacles; firing from short halts, especially at moving targets; and on ensuring that each crew member was able to carry out the role of other crew members. Even Private Emelyan Ivanovich Besschetnov (we called him ‘old fellow’ for he was already over 40), who was the breech operator, could capably drive the selfpropelled gun and was a good shot as well, even though he had never served in the tank units before. To tell the truth, however, he was a tractor driver for a collective farm before the war. Our training finished with tactical exercises and gunnery.On the night before 15 June 1943, the regiment was roused by an alarm and hastily transferred by rail to Kursk. We arrived on the right, northern flank of the Central Front where the 48th Army was defending. The regiment was allocated a sector of the defence in front of Zmievka.He was then converted to the SU-85 in late 1943 as part of a Tank Destroyer regiment:On the late night of 24 September 1943, the regiment arrived at the already familiar Pushkino Station, instead of the originally designated Mytishi Station. We disembarked under full lights, and couldn’t even believe that we need not fear air-raids. We were lodged in the same pine-tree forest in the same People’s Commissariat dachas where we had been billeted before moving to Kursk. On the very first day after a long interval in time, we bathed in a real banya and fell soundly asleep in the dachas.The next morning, right after breakfast we were already receiving our new SU-85 self-propelled guns, which like the SU-122, were built on the chassis of the T-34 tank. We were first interested in the performance characteristics of the new machine compared to the SU-122. It wasn’t much different in size, weight, manoeuvrability, ground pressure per square inch, speed or armour protection, but there was a lot of difference in the main armament. Its high velocity D-5T 85mm anti-tank gun as opposed to the SU-122’s M-30S 122mm howitzer had an initial muzzle velocity equal to 792 m/sec versus 515 m/sec. The gun had an effective direct fire range of 800–900 metres at a tank, and 600 metres at guns, i.e., at a lower target. The rate of fire of the new gun, which used rapid-firing fixed rounds, was three times faster than that of the howitzer, which used separate loading, and the ammunition allowance increased from forty to forty-eight shells. The outward appearance of the self-propelled gun had changed too: the new machine looked more imposing due to its longer gun barrel.The crews received replacements. Losing no time, the regiment headquarters expeditiously redistributed the crew members to ensure that each crew had seasoned frontline veterans. Our battery had to replace almost half its personnel, and three new officers arrived. Senior Lieutenant Pogorel’chenko took over command of the 3rd Battery to replace the fallen Shevchenko.Familiarization with the newcomers occurred quickly, in the front-line manner. The new battery commander Pogorel’chenko was a year older than me. He was a brown-haired man with dark hazel eyes, a penetrating gaze, and a determined face with regular features. He was rangy, above average in height and slightly stooping. Platoon commander Rusakov – a fair-haired man with blue eyes and an aquiline nose, made a good first impression: he was tall, with a still slightly gangly physique and perhaps the youngest officer in the regiment – he had just turned 18. Makarov – the commander of the second self-propelled gun in my platoon – was ten years older than me. Before the war he’d been a horticulturist. He had no military bearing, but he was solidly-built and a bit below average height, which with his classical nose, red hair and mirthful, hazel eyes, combined with his simple-natured character, impressed all the men of the battery.The crew of the new tank destroyers consisted of four men. Due to this and the reshuffling of crews, our ‘old fellow’ Emelyan Ivanovich Besschetnov was taken from my crew and transferred to Khludov’s crew as the gunloader. Junior Sergeant Schetnikov, a 19-year-old soldier from Saratov Oblast, replaced Oleinik in my crew as the drivermechanic. He had undergone three months of study in a training tank regiment. The breaking-in of the newly-formed crews took three weeks and concluded with tactical manoeuvres and gunnery practice in both difficult terrain conditions and complex combat situations. After this the 1454th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment embarked on two trains and again sped westward along a green street’ to the front. Each train was being pulled by two engines.Along the way there were no special incidents, with the exception of what happened at the L’gov-2 Station, when a very young and very cute medic named Valya, who had wandered away from her medical train, joined our first train, which was carrying our vehicles, together with their crews and our commanders. Apparently she was being motivated by feelings of patriotism and romanticism, and a desire to participate in combat directly. So, she stayed with our regiment.His SU-85 was eventually destroyed at the end of 1943, whereupon being wounded, he was sent to hospital, avoided discharge and was sent to another reconstituted SPG unit:So, I turned 21 on 31 December 1943: my self-propelled gun had been set ablaze and was irrevocably destroyed, and I had been wounded. When I regained consciousness, I found I was in a hospital in Kiev near the Bessarabian Market. … My health began to improve quickly and at the end of February 1944 I requested to be sent to a medical review committee, though I could still feel rather tangible pain in my shoulder and leg.The doctor in charge of my case, Alexandra Vasilyevna, was a very decent and clever woman. In reply to my request, she said, What sort of discharge, if you’re still limping? You’ll remain here as the commander of a convalescent company.’ I disagreed with her proposal: Alexandra Vasilyevna, I’d rather go to the front. After all, I’m only slightly limping, aren’t I?’ ‘Discharge him!’ the head of the hospital Medical Captain Kopylova supported me. ‘We’ll write lightly wounded’’ on his record and let him go to the front! With this kind of persistence, he’ll only harm himself and if we don’t send him, he’ll never leave us in peace.’ The bone in my left shoulder had been chipped, but they recorded ‘light wound’ on my record. I didn’t care too much.Having bid warm farewells to the surgeons and nurses and to my comrades in the hospital, I arrived in Sverdlovsk on the same day. There I experienced everything that I had gone through the year before: the Urals Military District’s Personnel Department of Armoured Forces, the 5th Reserve Tank Regiment, and then the receipt of our SU-85 self-propelled guns. Then once again two steam engines in tandem carried us and our vehicles along a green street’ to Pushkino Station near Moscow, where we disembarked at the end of the second day. After a short march, we assembled in a forest near the Pravda Station. Here, the regrouping of the 225th Separate Tank/Self-propelled Artillery Regiment into the 1295th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment of the Stavka Reserve was under way. The tankers and self-propelled gun crews arriving from Sverdlovsk were assigned to this new regiment.The 225th Separate Tank Regiment had a heroic history. It had been raised near Moscow in the summer of 1942. Once the main direction of the German offensive in the south had been determined, the new tank regiment had been transferred through Central Asia and over the Caspian Sea to the North Caucasus, to the Mozdok area. The regiment received its combat baptism in heavy defensive fighting there. At the end of October 1943 the regiment was withdrawn from the Kursk area to an area near Moscow for rest and refitting, where it was replenished with two batteries of SU-85 self-propelled guns. It acquired the title of a Tank/Self-propelled Artillery Regiment’, while retaining its numeric designation, and it took part in the liberation of Kiev. Thus, the regiment had taken part in three major battles by the time of the regrouping: the battle of the Caucasus, of Kursk and for the Dnieper.Major Libman was appointed to command the newly-formed 1295th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment. Lieutenant Rudakov was appointed as the deputy of political affairs, Major Bazilevich – as the deputy of technical services, and Major Chernyak – its chief of rear services. The staff officers and the heads of services came mostly from the old 225th Separate Tank Regiment. I was appointed as the 3rd Battery’s 1st Platoon commander, although I had been a battery commander before I was wounded. The explanation for this was simple, and it wasn’t the first time this had happened to me.After my first wounding, I had arrived at a new regiment and I didn’t know what the staff clerks had written into my file. It turned out that they had stated I was a platoon commander, so I became a platoon commander again. Now I had found myself freshly discharged from a hospital for the second time and the same story repeated itself. It was even funny. When I had been with the 1454th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment, I had never found the right time to drop by the headquarters to have it noted on my identity card that I was a battery commander. Back then I hadn’t been bothered too much by it, and even now it wasn’t a big concern for me. My main focus was on fighting the Germans! By the way, the same thing happened with my rank – I fought for more than two years as a lieutenant. To be honest, I didn’t pursue ranks – I just wasn’t much interested in it. This kind of situation was not uncommon for field officers.A 35-year-old Siberian, Senior Lieutenant Mikhail Andreevich Voroshilov was our battery commander. He’d been called back out of the reserves, but already had combat experience, including time in the 225th Separate Tank Regiment. He was a little taller than average, broad-shouldered, and had an expressive face with blue eyes. Three deep wrinkles across his forehead made the battery commander look older. By nature he was a resolute, quiet man, and he always treated his subordinates in a direct manner and with respect. The barracks near the Pravda Station, where we were billeted, had been built with summer in mind and were poorly insulated with additional boarding, so we slept on the plank beds side by side, and were able to get warm beneath the threadbare soldiers’ blankets only by morning.We rose at 06.00, managed to shave, wash and have breakfast within an hour and then would spend the whole day with combat training and developing the tactical cohesion of the units. A lot of attention was paid to cross-training the crew members to fill other positions. The command distributed the personnel among the selfpropelled guns so that there were combat veterans in each crew and at least one man with previous experience in a self-propelled gun. I was luckier than the rest in this regard as all my crewmen turned out to be experienced front-liners.The driver – Yakov Petrovich Mikhailov – was born in 1910, and before the war he had worked as a steam-engine machinist in Petropavlovsk. By the beginning of 1944 he had already experienced action in the Kalinin, Bryansk and the 1st Ukrainian Fronts, had been wounded and awarded with two Orders, and also had had 2,000 hours of practical driving experience in tanks and assault guns -this experience was priceless! Sergeant Major Sergey Bykov from Sverdlovsk Oblast’s Shalya Station became our gunlayer. He was a brown-haired guy with hazel eyes, taller than average, and sturdily built. He had seen previous action in airborne and tank units and was very familiar with self-propelled guns. He could drive them in difficult terrain conditions and also had a lot of gunnery experience.The gun-loader Sergeant Major Sergey Mozalevsky from Voronezh Oblast’s village of Stupino was of the same kind – a physically strong man who had significant combat experience starting from the Winter War with Finland. He could easily replace the gunlayer, the driver, or even the self-propelled gun commander. Lieutenant Pavel Revutsky was the commander of the second vehicle of my platoon. He was a splendid man and commander! A little bit taller than average, with regular features, burning hazel eyes and a rich head of fine curls, he was extremely charismatic. However, his most important personal characteristics were his sense of humanity and bravery, which were highly valued in the platoon and in the battery. He had received excellent military training, and knew both the combat vehicle and its weapons perfectly. At the age of 20, he already had significant combat experience.His crews were also good men with combat skills. All of them were from Gorkiy Oblast. Admittedly, they quickly had to replace the gunloader Khukharev: he was so frail and weak that he was unable to hoist the heavy shells, which weighed over 16 kilograms [36 pounds] each. Senior Sergeant Aleksey Bessonov from Bogorodskiy District replaced him as the gunloader. Aleksey could take over any position in the crew: he had plenty of previous combat experience in the 225th Separate Tank Regiment, and had been awarded with a promotion and the Order of the Red Star for combat distinction.Sergeant Ivan Pyataev was Revutsky’s driver, and Senior Sergeant Fedor Belyashkin from the village of Koverino was his gunlayer. A guy from Rostov, Lieutenant Sergey Bakurov, was in charge of the 2nd Platoon of our battery. The second self-propelled gun of his platoon was commanded by Lieutenant Yuriy Vetoshkin from Kirov. Sergeant Major Ivan Sidorin was appointed as the battery commander’s self-propelled gun commander. We became acquainted with each other very quickly. We also became familiar with almost all the officers from the units, headquarters and regimental services over the five days during which the regiment commander was drilling us in combat formations.We also got to know a bit about the regiment commander himself, when he reported to a representative of the People’s Commissariat of Defence on the occasion of receiving the regiment’s combat banner. We kept busy with combat training for two more weeks after receiving the combat banner. Day after day the self-propelled guns would move out for driving across difficult obstacles, gunnery and tactical drills. The period of training passed quickly. At the end of 1944 the regiment embarked on two trains at Pushkino Station and headed westward. It was cosy in a soldier’s way in the heated railcars and a bit hot from the iron stoves. We sang a lot and swapped combat stories. The regiment propaganda officer Major Kuzyutkin and the Party organizer frequented our battery during stopovers, and informed us about the latest events at the front and in the country, and discussed the international situation.Both trains made a long stop at Klintsy Station. The dexterous chief of rear services Chernyak used this time effectively – he organized a wash for the entire regiment in a fine banya with a sweating room. We managed to launder our uniforms, foot wraps and handkerchiefs, and to iron our pants and combat blouses. By the end of the day we all were looking our best – fresh, neatly shaven and with cropped hair! Our polished boots, shining buttons and snow-white undercollars gleamed! It was a pleasure to see such neat, dashing guys. Our girls in the regiment looked even better, having managed to fit their figures into brand-new uniforms. Probably most of us felt like we were in seventh heaven for the first time during the war. Dancing began spontaneously – here, on the ground near the banya. A sudden air-raid dispersed the dancers. Fortunately it was brief and no one was injured. The well-camouflaged trains in the forest were undamaged as well.On Defence near KovelWe arrived at the assigned place on the night of 30 March 1944, disembarked at some small rail station, and having made a short night-time march, assembled in a forest several kilometres north-east of Kovel – a district centre and rail hub in the north-western Ukraine, which was occupied by the Germans. Under cover of the forest we immediately built solid shelters for the armoured vehicles and wheeled machines, and slit trenches and bunkers for the personnel. Everything was so well camouflaged that the enemy aviation failed to detect the presence of our regiment for quite some time. For the first two weeks of our stay, we were busy with combat training and political education, then – up until 4 July inclusive – we held defensive positions near Kovel.We worked to identify targets in the enemy defence lines and to neutralize any detected forces moving into the German front line or into reserve positions. If a new German battery appeared, we’d react immediately and there would be no battery any more! Once we even fired salvoes at a German command and observation post located in the cupola of a Catholic church: we tried to fire only at the windows and apertures so as not to destroy this architectural monument. We learned from partisans that the Germans soon abandoned the post, which meant that we’d been successful. An experienced gunner – Lieutenant Colonel Petr Savelievich Prigozhin, the deputy regiment commander of artillery – directed this shelling. His method was to zero in on the target very quickly with one self-propelled gun, and only then to include the entire regiment in the destructive fire. Once having suppressed or destroyed a target, the regiment would withdraw to its stationing area, where the crews would do maintenance on their vehicles, excited and pleased with the results.Wounded in 1944, avoiding medical discharge and reporting for combat with a reconstituted unit:Sergey Bykov’s shot thundered. Immediately after it came three more loud reports from the other three guns. Four enemy tanks started to smoke or burn! The rest halted because of the surprise, but then came back to their senses and fired a reciprocal salvo. I managed to see Vetoshkin’s self-propelled gun set ablaze one more tank, but then our vehicle was strongly jolted and enveloped in flames. I sensed a strong blow to my head and lost consciousness … I regained consciousness for the first time on the outskirts of Wyglanduwka. They were shifting me from a horse-drawn cart into an ambulance. I remember seeing Shuliko, the surgeon Grigorov, the medic Nadya Naumova, and then I passed out again. I only fully regained consciousness the following morning. Someone touched me, and I opened my eyes: I was lying on thatch in some shack, surrounded by wounded men, and Pavlik [another Russian diminutive of Pavel] Revutsky was sitting next to me and smiling. It was he who had touched me. We shook hands, but I couldn’t say anything, because I couldn’t open my mouth. ‘ I’m in this hospital too, but couldn’t find you,’ Pasha began to say.’ I located you on the lists only with the help of a nurse, who knew your number. Thank God, the crew managed to pull you out in time. I’m very happy you’re alive!’ I pulled a mirror out of my pocket and took a look. A splinter had penetrated my lower jaw and smashed some of my teeth, and I was badly bruised. Because of this, my face was badly swollen; the whites of my eyes were red from haemorrhage. It became clear why Pavlik couldn’t find me – indeed it would have been hard to recognize such a man! Pavlik, who had received several wounds from shell fragments himself, continued angrily: That battalion commander is either a petty tyrant or he was simply drunk when he committed his battalion to that ruinous attack! A brand new major! Two of our self propelled guns were burned out because of him. If it hadn’t been the first time with him, they would have sent him in front of a tribunal…There was a large orchard around the place and those who could do it happily ate apples, pears and cherries; all I could do was watch them and goodnaturedly envy them. Here, in this provisional hospital they made another, more successful attempt to feed me and I began to recover from the shellshock. Things were worse with the wound caused by the splinter. Then I found myself in Gomel, where they began to feed me broth from a feeding bottle and my strength began to return to me gradually. After Gomel was Moscow, Evacuation Hospital No. 4641 on Usachev Street My wound was serious, but the consequences of the shellshock were even worse, as I became temperamental for a time. My surgeon was Maria Semenovna. One day she made some sort of remark to me that my temperature was jumping around, implying that I was tampering with the thermometer in order to stay away from the front a little longer. I was indignant and said: Maria Semenovna, excuse me, but I’m no coward! Maybe you’re judging me by your own subjective standards?!’ ‘ You’re insulting me! We’ll discharge you tomorrow!’ ‘ Fine! Have my dentures ready tomorrow and discharge me tomorrow!’ The very next day, indeed my dentures were ready and they discharged me. Everyone was supposed to receive a one-month leave after a severe wound, but I wasn’t given one. If only I had kept my mouth shut! I wanted so much to see my family – of course I would have gone home. So off to the front I went again.In the beginning of October 1944 after my discharge from the hospital I was sent to the 3rd Belorussian Front and assigned to the 1435th Selfpropelled Artillery Regiment of the Stavka Reserve. I had to reach my destination little by little: first by train, riding for quite some time on running-boards clinging to handrails – there were no seats available, in the boxcars or on the platform cars either. I reached the front headquarters from Kaunas, and then hitched rides to the regiment aboard passing vehicles.The regiment was stationed in a forest near Wilkowiszki, resting and refitting after heavy fighting. The personnel lived in dugouts and those replacements who hadn’t managed yet to get their gear or assignments lived in tents, which sheltered them from the cold autumn rains. The whole area was well-camouflaged from aerial and ground observation.I reported for duty on my arrival to the regiment commander. Colonel Khatchev was about 40 years of age, a slender man, taller than average, with hair just beginning to turn grey. He looked quite intelligent. He was a native of Moscow, but army service had moved him around the country for quite a few years. The colonel told me about the regiment in detail and appointed me to command of the 3rd Battery of SU-85 self-propelled guns. There were only three SU-85s in the battery, and in the entire regiment only a total of thirteen instead of the authorized twenty.In the command dugout, I introduced myself to the chief of staff Major Krasnogir’, to his deputy Major Lebedev and to the assistant chief of staff Captain Taras Romanovich Raksha. From the headquarters, I went to get acquainted with the men in my new battery. A Muscovite Tolya Novikov and a guy from Saratov Fedor Klimov were the platoon commanders. After the recent fighting they had only one vehicle in each of the platoons. My driver was Sergeant Major Mamaev, gunlayer – Senior Sergeant Zakiy Gityatullin, gun-loader – Pavel Seregin of the same rank. I quickly introduced myself to the officers of the regiment. Captain Mariev was in charge of the 1st Battery, Captain Nikolaev commanded the 2nd Battery, and Senior Lieutenant Misha Grin’ – the 4th Battery. The 1st and 2nd Battery commanders were closer to 30 years of age.The repair teams and self-propelled gun crews were working feverishly. The repair teams were welding up cracks and holes received during the most recent action; the crews were putting weapons, devices, and the radio back into working order, and tuning the transmission system. As I was told, they had managed to find some time for gunnery training. I immediately joined them in their efforts. We remained in the forest near Wilkowiszki for about three weeks, until 20 October 1944.https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1430/52/1430525381496.pdfWhile Dmitri Loza details the experience of his brigade in late 1943 when it was re-equipped while in the Strategic Reserve with U.S. M4 tanks. In this case familiarization was accomplished through practical exercises on issued equipment i.e. disassembling and reassembling one tank in each battalion.Units of the 5th Mechanized Corps were in their second month of reconstitution in the forests north and west of Naro-fominsk [sixty-five kilometers southwest of Moscow]. Seven hours were set aside each day for rest, and the remaining time was spent in study of the equipment, gunnery at a range complex, and tactical field exercises. The following method was employed in our 233d Brigade to accelerate the mastery of the equipment. Permission was given to one crew in each battalion to disassemble almost completely one Sherman tank. The design and function of each instrument, component, system, and the armaments were studied. We had the full opportunity, as they say, to put our hands on a piece of "live" equipment. Ten days were spent in this exercise, after which the tank was reassembled by its crew. The deputy battalion commander for maintenance, together with the chief mechanic, monitored the assembly process, and the battalion armorer inspected the main gun and machine guns. A new group of "students" arrived and studied the "American" by the same method. Detailed posters on the design and function of all the Sherman's systems and armaments had been issued in early October, and a good study guide had been published. Previous training methods were quickly abandoned. Our training was interrupted on 15 November. An order was issued: during the night, the 233d Brigade's units were to rail-load at Narofominsk station and depart. To where? Only certain members high up in the chain of command knew the destination. By morning's first light, two of the brigade's first echelons [an echelon was one train] were on their way.http://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1366/70/1366701417638.pdfAs we can see the experiences of Soviet tankers varied greatly based on the time when they were going through the tank schools, whether they were arriving from these tank schools as part of a fully constituted unit or as replacements for a reconstituting or rehabilitating unit sent to the reserve. These experiences also varied depending on the period of the war as for example by 1943 units were becoming increasingly combat experienced enough to adeptly train replacements. As a result some drove right off the assembly lines in tanks while others received tanks and SPG’s delivered to them.