Most of the Soviet Armour in the Battle of berlin looks so beaten up that they seem to have driven all the way. What about replacement Armour? Did the Soviets ship tanks forward by rail or on tank transporters or were the tanks driven forward to be handed over to front line units?

The Soviet Army must of had to transport new vehicles via rail as most of the factories had been relocated near Chelyabinsk, East of the Urals.... The Urals are a very long way from the German and Polish borders for the vehicles to have been driven so supply by rail is a given.

Hey Bill,
Along with aircraft, tanks, trucks and many other items, locomotives and rolling stock were supplied via Lend Lease to the U.S.S.R.

The Soviets had military construction engineers so laying new track shouldn't have been difficult.

Here is an article I found on the difficulties the Soviets faced in using their railroads in the drive west. It sounds like railroads were still heavily used to transport troops and material even during the offensives.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/railroad-3.htm

It wouldn't make much sense for the Americans and British to supply the Soviets with rail cars and locomotives that were of a different rail gauge from the Russian standard.

I assume that it's possible that the Red Army had their tanks driven to the front but the great distances from the manufacturing centers and the amount of fuel and manpower required would have been prohibitive.

Having construction engineers and repairing large stretches of destroyed track are different matters entirely. I would submit that, until someone can offer evidence to the contrary, it would be unwise to suggest the Russians simply repaired the rail net and transported their vehicles to Berlin. More likely resources would have been used repairing the internal rail net within the Soviet Union and not fixing up Poland or Hungary. Not to mention the Soviets would not have had rolling stock and locos in the narrower gauges of the European lines.

John B, thanks for that reference. But if you note,

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It wouldn't make much sense for the Americans and British to supply the Soviets with rail cars and locomotives that were of a different rail gauge from the Russian standard.

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John J, you misunderstand: the Americans and Russians share a rail gauge (overall, since some Russian lines had different gauges, see the table I reference). My point is that the ....

Of course the Red Army shipped their tanks and other stuff to the front on trains. There is no practical way of driving tanks that distance. Rail construction is pretty fast work, and its not the only way to proceed anyway. Tanks could be carried by rail on Soviet gauge track up to the old border areas, offloaded, and transferred to European gauge stock if need be.

Trains are the only feasible way that Red Army could have moved tanks long distances, since they didn't go in for tank transporters.

The IS-2s in this photo are supposed to be replacement tanks since they lack both insignia and tac numbers, though spaces have been left in the air recognition bands.



David

2.) their tanks would've broken down: I find it far more believable (since we're talking theory now and no evidence) that the Russians had repair crews along to fix their tanks en route.

The problem with this discussion is that those who are advocating train shipment to Berlin have presented virtually no evidence, only their hypothesis, or how "logical" their arguments are.

1.) no tank transporters: Who said the Soviets were transporting them? The T-34 was a remarkably simple vehicle that went for long periods without breaking down (unlike German Tigers - Tigers in Combat argues that far more Wehrmacht tanks were lost to breakdown or ran out of fuel than in combat).

2.) their tanks would've broken down: I find it far more believable (since we're talking theory now and no evidence) that the Russians had repair crews along to fix their tanks en route.

3.) Multigauge American locos: I'd like to see more references on that, but it still doesn't account for the destruction of the rail net. Given the speed of the Russian offensive, there is simply no way they could've repaired the rail lines to Berlin. Look at this:

Starting on 16 January 1945, the Red Army breached through the German front as a result of the Vistula–Oder Offensive and rapidly advanced westward as fast as 30–40 kilometres a day, through East Prussia, Lower Silesia, East Pomerania, and Upper Silesia, temporarily halting on a line 60 kilometres east of Berlin along the Oder River.

Gents, it's over 300 miles from Warsaw alone to Berlin. Those babies drove, I'm sorry, let me see some evidence and stop telling me your beliefs.

Obviously the tanks in the front line advanced on its own with the front line.

But I think we have been talking of replacement tanks in Berlin. I still can´t see the logic of driving a tank to Berlin from the factory behind the Urals.

I was not saying they weren´t driven across Poland and Germany -these are relatively short distances- if there was no rail lines available, although these can be quicky repaired behind the line.

Wearing out the tanks driving them for transportation is a huge waste of resources and time compared to repair damaged rail lines and adapting gauges. Respecting this I think all major powers had changing train gauges by this time, I think tis was already standard for WWI -train transportation was the single most important military consideration since the American civil war-.

This is relatively simple to figure out: were Poland's train tracks replaced with Russian-width ones, or repaired with the narrower, European width tracks?

Come on, guys, stop flapping your gums and do some digging. Of COURSE it's more sensible to transport the tanks to the front lines, but in war, you do what's required by circumstances, not what's logical. The North Vietnamese proved this in spite of all the "logic" the US Pentagon used when claiming the air war would "bomb North Viet Nam into the Stone Age."

I have no evidence, but my educated guess woud be this...what is the CURRENT guage, or what was the current guage, of the rail network in the USSR/Poland/E. Germany?

Not sure, but when did Kharkov start producing tanks again in the Ukraine...post war?

Rail may not have extended to Berlin itself, but I will bet you dollars to donuts there was a rail head within 50-100KM of Berlin that the Russians were shipping stuff in on...if not SEVERAL.