Jagdpanther vs. SU-100 by David Higgins

Author:David Higgins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jagdpanther vs SU-100: Eastern Front 1945
ISBN: 9781782005872
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Both sides used propaganda that stressed that the present fight was akin to those of their ancestors or historic heroes, in this case stating: ‘We are fighting very well, grandsons of [Alexander] Suvorov, children of [Vasily] Chapaev’. These men were, respectively, an 18th-century Imperial Russian Army generalissimo who purportedly never lost a battle, and a World War I veteran and Bolshevik martyr of the Russian Civil War. (Public domain)

Although the SU-100 was a roughly finished, unergonomic vehicle, its powerful main gun and good armour protection and manoeuvrability made it well liked by its crews, especially those moving from the SU-85. The vehicle commander tended to be a lieutenant, with the remaining crewmen being sergeants. NCOs received roughly three months of training that comprised specialized class work and training on the SU-100; this focused on loading, aiming and firing the main gun, ammunition care, radio operation, and technical and mechanical skills. Additional training involved tactical procedures, negotiating a variety of natural and constructed terrain types and obstructions, and – about a third of the time – night manoeuvres, as well as driver training. Most of the cadets possessed little, if any, armoured combat experience. The new units were then transported to reserve-status training brigades and regiments behind the front lines, before finally being sent into combat. As with their late-war German counterparts, morale was supported by nationalist and political rhetoric, although many Soviet commanders retained a mindset that assumed tactical deficiencies could be compensated for by employment en masse, strong discipline and the acceptance of high casualty levels.

Soviet medical care was rudimentary, with each higher echelon being responsible for evacuating its subordinate units’ casualties. To help ensure wounds were quickly addressed, casualties were treated at nearby mobile battalion aid stations, where a pair of doctors were posted. Mobile therapeutic field hospitals tended to those with less serious injuries. The medical system was based on several stages of increasing distance from the front, which depended on the wound’s type and severity, and the immediate military situation. Medical supplies and procedures were generally insufficient and outdated; antibiotics were scarce, and morphine more so. Individuals in platoons were supplementarily trained as medics in addition to their combat duties. As few Soviet soldiers had received preventative typhus, tetanus, malaria, cholera and other inoculations – unlike the personnel of Western armies – illnesses in the Red Army were common, and the Red Army’s medical corps’ efforts to isolate and evacuate contagion cases were not always successful in containing outbreaks.

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