When it comes to light tanks during World War II, I believe most people have no impression. After all, the performance of light tanks in World War II is actually very limited, except for the early stage of the war, they can only be used as reconnaissance units for the rest of the time, at most they can cover light infantry to attack areas where the enemy has no anti-tank firepower, which can almost be said to be common sense in armored warfare. However, during the Soviet-German war, the Soviet Union once used light tanks as the main offensive force, and even achieved very good results.
Contrary to the stereotype of most people today, the Soviet Union was far less powerful than later generations thought it would be. It is better to say that the Soviet Union did not have a torrent of steel at that time, but only a torrent of rusty iron. In 1940, the Soviet Union was busy building armored forces, and the plan was to form 29 mechanized corps and 45 independent mechanized brigades in one go, which would have 1,031 tanks and 254 vehicles under their jurisdiction, respectively. That is, in order to meet the needs of the construction of armored forces, the Soviet Union needs 41,329 tanks of various types.
To tell the truth, this requirement was too difficult for the USSR, and the USSR in a peaceful state could not meet the needs of the army in any way in a short time. And that's not even counting the need for new tanks, each mechanized corps requires 546 tanks to be cutting-edge T-34 medium tanks and KV series heavy tanks, that is, 15,834 new tanks. If we take into account the Soviet Union's plan to produce T-50 light tanks to replace the old T-26 light tanks and BT series fast tanks in the army, then the Soviet Union's tank gap is even larger, equivalent to the need for more than 40,000 new tanks.
And what about the number of tanks in the USSR before the war?The total number of tanks is about 25,000, but the models of these tanks are very varied, in addition to the cutting-edge T-34 medium tank and KV series heavy tank, including T-26 light tank, T-37 amphibious tank, T-40 amphibious tank, BT series fast tank, T-28 medium tank, T-35 heavy tank and so on. In addition to the excellent performance of the T-34 and KV, there is only such an unbearable waste as multi-turret tanks, which are full of breakdowns and old goods that break down when they go out.
To put it bluntly, the pre-war Soviet Red Army was a busy army of expansion and reorganization, and it may have been very large, but its quality is really not flattering. Therefore, when the decision was made to form a mechanized corps and an independent mechanized brigade, the Soviet Union had to keep the old tanks in service and become active equipment that could be used on paper. For example, the 17th Mechanized Corps and the 20th Mechanized Corps only have double-digit tanks, and many tank divisions and tank brigades are either short of tanks or have no tanks at all.
The six mechanized corps of the Western Special Military District were wiped out in just one week after the war, and the 6th mechanized corps, which was rarely a full force in the Soviet Union, died particularly tragically, relying on the last oil base to launch a decisive assault, and then unexpectedly killed by the Germans without leaving a piece of armor, and the commander of the 6th Mechanized Corps, Mikhail Georgievich Khatskirevich, was also killed by the Germans on the way to break through, and his body was not found by the Soviets until 1946.
If the mighty 6th Mechanized Army had died so miserably, the other Mechanized Corps would not have fared much better. It can be said that in the first month of the Soviet-German war, all Soviet mechanized corps engaged with the Germans were effectively destroyed, and the Soviet Union also lost thousands of tanks, which were either destroyed by the Germans or had to be abandoned due to mechanical problems and lack of fuel. From July to the end of October, the Soviet Red Army continued to lose battles, and most of the remaining tanks were destroyed and captured by the Germans, and the valuable armored forces of the Soviet Red Army were almost lost.
There is no doubt that such heavy losses were almost beyond the capacity of the Soviet Red Army, but without mobile forces the Red Army could not hold back the black torrent of German armored forces. This is an objective fact, and in the face of the reality of heavy losses in its own forces and a riad of holes in its defensive line, the Soviet Union needed more than ever a mobile force of tanks, without which the Soviet Red Army was doomed to be defeated by Germany. Therefore, how to quickly supply the Red Army with tanks became the first priority of the Soviet military-industrial department.
This was by no means an easy task for the USSR in 1941, since the USSR by this time did not have enough industrial capacity. Although the Soviet Union was already moving its industry to the eastern part of the country before the war, a large number of industrial facilities fell into enemy hands after the outbreak of the war, and the emergency industrial relocation during the war meant that the Soviet Union's industrial capacity was reduced to a minimum. Even if other factories were urgently mobilized to produce tanks, most of them would not have the capacity to produce medium and heavy tanks. Then the Soviet Union had only one way left - to step up the production of light tanks to replenish the Soviet Union's nominal armored forces.
In August 1941, Plant No. 37 in Moscow produced the first Soviet wartime light tank, the T-60 light tank. It was a very clumsy and crude light tank, with weak armor that could not even stop 37mm armor-piercing shells, and a firepower configuration of only a 20mm cannon and a 762 mm DT machine gun. The performance of this tank was so inferior that it could only be compared to the German tank No. 2, and it had to hit the street when it encountered a 38t light tank. But even such a clumsy light tank was so precious to the Soviet Union at that time, because the Soviet Red Army in the Battle of Moscow had only 245 T-60 light tanks.
During the Battle of Moscow, the Soviet Union was simply unable to concentrate its tanks, because once it was concentrated, it would be attacked by German tanks several times its size. Zhukov made it clear in his memoirs that at one time the German army sent more than 400 tanks to besiege 150 light tanks of the Soviet Union. At that time, the tanks of the Soviet Red Army were one less than one, and the replenishment was almost far away, Zhukov had hoped to get two army groups and 200 tanks as reserves, but Stalin could not conjure up tanks at this time, so he could only transfer the 1st Shock Army and the 10th Army to Zhukov, and the tanks could not be given for the time being.
Therefore, in the Battle of Moscow, the Soviet Red Army could only disassemble the tanks and use them, sometimes sending one or two light tanks to a certain position to strengthen the defensive line, and sometimes using several light tanks as mobile detachments to plug the gap. If the Germans were too strong in the area where they were about to be breached, they would need to be reinforced by a T-34 medium tank to stop the German breakthrough attempts. But in any case, we can find that the Soviet Red Army used light tanks to the extreme in the Battle of Moscow, as if light tanks became the main force of the Soviet Red Army.
In the counterattack phase of the Battle of Moscow and the subsequent winter offensive, the Soviet Red Army used the T-60 light tank as the main force together with the remaining T-26 light tank and BT fast tank, and became the most important mobile unit of the Soviet Red Army at that time. The reason for this situation is that the Soviet Red Army had too few tanks at that time, and the cavalry and ski units were mobile forces, which shows how overstretched their mobile forces were, and the light tanks were tanks anyway, which was better than the cavalry and ski troops, right?And this led to the formation of a perception in the future of the Soviet Red Army that light tanks could be used as the main force.
As for the question of whether light tanks can be used as the main force, we should look at this dialectically. First of all, we cannot deny that it is anachronistic to have light tanks as the main force of the assault. Although the Soviet Union used light tanks as the main force from late 1941 to 1942, this practice did cause the Soviet Red Army to suffer a lot of losses. Light tanks have weak firepower and poor armor protection, and the result of using light tanks to attack enemy positions is mostly a dead end. In fact, even using light tanks to cover an infantry attack is a very losing option, as little reinforcement and a little anti-tank** on the enemy position will be enough to thwart an infantry offensive led by light tanks.
But we must note that under the special historical conditions of the initial period of the Soviet-German war, it was the right choice for the USSR to let light tanks act as the main force. Taking the counter-attack phase of the Battle of Moscow and the subsequent winter offensive as an example, the situation in the Soviet Union was as mentioned above, with a shortage of mobile forces to the limit, and it was difficult to form an effective breakthrough and pursuit force without the use of light tanks. No matter how fragile a light tank may be, it is a great threat to infantry, and it is still very valuable when pursuing an enemy who is in a state of rout and attacking only rudimentary defenses.
On the other hand, the road conditions of the Soviet Union were not ideal, and although the T-34 medium tank was always praised for its ability to pass through the terrain, the fact was that even if the Soviet Union let the T-34 medium tank come during the muddy period, it would be difficult to maneuver quickly. Even in winter conditions, the T-34 medium tank struggled with several meters of snow on the ground. Conversely, smaller light tanks, such as the T-60 light tank and the T-70 medium tank that followed, were able to walk on the ground, so the Soviets tended to invest more in light tanks during mud and winter, especially when covering infantry and cavalry attacks.
Of course, the most critical factor in the use of light tanks is the insufficient number of medium and heavy tanks. From 1941 to the end of 1942, the Soviet Union's military production capacity was relatively low, the relocated industries had not fully resumed production, and many tractor factories could not afford to produce the T-34 and KV. If you want them to participate in the production of tanks, you can only let them produce more light tanks. This also led to the inevitable and helpless actions of a considerable number of newly produced tanks in the Soviet Union in 1941 and 1942 as light tanks in specific war periods and historical circumstances.
From a military point of view, especially from the actual combat experience of armored warfare, light tanks as the main force are undesirable. But for the Soviet Union during the Soviet-German war, there was no way to use light tanks as the main force. Later generations simply thought in terms of military experience and military dogma, and could not truly understand the predicament of the Soviet Union at that time. It was correct for the Soviet Union to use light tanks as the main force at one time in the early stage of the war, and this was a correct decision made out of objective conditions and the actual situation on the battlefield.