Beware the locusts! How Soviet light tanks swarmed the WWII battlefields (2024)

Despite being incapable of matching German tanks in open battle, the T-60 and T-70 tanks fought to the end of the Second World War, usually in large clusters, earning them a reputation among German forces as "ineradicable locusts.”

Mass production of Soviet light tanks in the early years of WWIIwas mainly a forced response to the Red Army’s crippling initial battle losses,and although tanks such as the T-60 sustained terrible losses in the earlymonths of the war, they played a vital role in stemming the German advance in1941 until evacuated and reassembled factories could mass produce more powerfulfighting machines.

The T-60 was developed in the chaotic summer of 1941, afterHitler’s armies launched Operation Barbarossa to conquer the Soviet Union. Weighingjust 6.4 tons, the scout tank was created by designer Nikolai Astrov using existingautomobile production capacities. The vehicle could be built inthe same plants as the T-34mediumbattle tank, but far more cheaply. Itsdownsides were significant, though: With just 3-cm-thick frontal armor and carryingonly a 20mm canon and 7.62mm machine-gun, the tank was mainly effective againstinfantry.

Importantly, theT-60 could measure up to the German PzKpfw IIAusf Flight tank that was built in the same year and carried the same caliberarmament. (The German designers had been unable to fit a 20mm cannon to the predecessorlight tank PzKpfw I Ausf, which weighed around the same as the T-60.)

But the T-60’s unequal struggle against the superior enemytank types that appeared took its toll on the tank’s reputation as well as itsnumbers. Later, however, military historians gave due credit to the contribution to the war effort made by the 6,000 units produced.

‘This one’s nothing buttrouble, Comrade Stalin’

Since it wasclear to the Soviet engineers and themilitarycommandthat the T-60 was suffering unacceptable losses on the battlefield, it was decided to upgrade the tank. Astrov led the work until the introduction of the T-70 inearly 1942.

T-70. Source: TASS

Engine power was increased to 140 hp and the thickness of thefrontal armor to 45mm. The tank had a 45mm canon, more than doubling itsfirepower, but at the cost of decreased accuracy and rate of fire. On the plus side, the heavier gun couldinflict more short-range damage to the rear and front of enemy armored vehicles.

Work on the new tank took only three months, largely due to thestreamlined unification of the country’s military production base. Altogether,some 6,300 T-70s had rolled off the line by the war’s close, a number exceededonly by the T-34 (35,000).

Light and nippy, theT-70was quieter than larger tanks, and its suddenappearance inclusters often hurtthe enemy hard.

But when the T-70 first saw battle in the summer of 1942, thecrews quickly recognized its low individual combat efficiency. It could notdeal with the most commonly encountered German tanks, the PzKpfw III and PzKpfw IV, in head-on engagements, and was under-armoredto serve as direct infantry support.

The German 7.5cm Pak 40 anti-tank gun could take out a T-70 withone round from a great distance and at almost any angle. “The T-70 light tank hasonly recently entered service and has so far made no distinction of itself,”the famous Soviet tank commander General Mikhail Katukov wrote in a 1942 reportto the high command in Moscow:“This one’s nothing but trouble, ComradeStalin," he added of progress in fixing the tank’s shortcomings.

The T-70 finds its role

However, time showed that by using well-trained crews, theT-70s could not only serve as “extras” but also perform a lead role in battles.The tank formed the basis of the armies that encircled the 300,000-strongGerman army group at Stalingrad in the winter of 1943, being well suited to launchingrapid pincer movements on the enemy.

Although they were no direct matchfor the German heavy tanks, the low profile and maneuverabilityof the T-70 meantthey could appear as if out of nowhere. In the BattleofKursk,a commander named Onufriyeva deptly outflankeda 54-ton German Tiger tank and set it ablaze with two rapid hits to the side. TheT-70 made up around 22 percent of the Soviet tanks in the key battle, and thelight tanks gave good account of themselves. In one incident on July 6, 1943 nearthe village of Pokhrovka, a lone T-70 commanded by Lt.B.V. Pavlovich knocked out three mediumGerman tanks and one Panther.

Video: Restored tank revives the history of World War II

In the fall of 1943, plants that had produced the tank movedto mass production of the SU-76M self-propelled gun that was based on the T-70M. The remaining T-70tanks were used in self-propelled artillerybattalions, regiments and brigades as command vehicles, and took part in combatoperations until the war’s end.

And while they became known as “locusts” to theenemy, Soviet crews knew the tank far more affectionately as “Baby.”

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