The more I think about it, the more I realize they must’ve been sabotaging their fascist masters on purpose so the Soviet Union could win.
Fun fact, field mice are celebrated as the “smallest heroes of the Soviet Union”, as during the Stalingrad campaign, German forces were utterly unable to respond to the Soviet pincer as the 22nd panzer division, and Romanian 2nd armoured division that were deployed to secure the rear and flanks of Army Group South had all the electrical wiring, insulation, and leather ammunition belts in all of the tanks eaten through as they stood in reserve. Rendering the entire panzer division useless and ultimately destroyed as the tanks had to be abandoned.
It didn’t had this much of an impact because this was not a panzer army, but division with around 100 tanks of which 70 was disabled, and those tanks were mostly obsolete Pz38(t) which at the point of war did not had much chance against Soviet tanks. Also, against it was the Soviet 1st Tank Corps which had few hudred tanks with many T-34’s. Finally, mice also apparently eaten the german command brains since the tanks recieved contradictory orders. As result 22nd panzer division was completely routed in just 3 days and never recovered, it was finally disbanded in 1943.
But still tank is a tank and it did saved soviet lives.
You are pretty much correct with everything you said, however even the obsolete Pz38’s would have wrecked havoc upon the mechanized infantry, trucks, halftracks, and logistical units accompanying the Soviet tanks. Plus the tanks were heavily dug in and concealed which would have made fighting them harder.
The real risk the 22nd posed was holding up the Soviet advance just long enough for the modern and more dangerous panzer units in Stalingrad, and rear line reserve, to mobilize and prevent an encirclement. A problem that thankfully was not encountered due to the help of some cold field mice.
I’m going to start adorning all my clothes with comrade mice.
That’s what you get when you’re trying to run a total war economy with capitalist mode of production. Shitload of contractors, all competing for them sweet sweet government money, with no regards to efficiency of the end product or compatibility between parts
Not to mention in the dash to cut costs, almost all the companies turned to using slave labor from concentration and POW camps. Which unsurprisingly led to catastrophic rates of sabotage and purposely shoddy work, which then led to mechanical failures and tanks that had to be abandoned after not even getting to fire a shot.
