Hey everyone,

A friend of mine had a grandfather drafted as a loader in the Hungarian 3rd Army in 1952. The issue is he doesn't remember which type of tank it was. He said it had small wheels, was fairly large and had a 4 man crew. I'm thinking maybe IS? What was available in Hungary during that time?

Thanks for any input!



cheers

Hi

The Hungarian army doesn`t had Is tanks at all. I guess they were equiped with su-76 , and t-34/85 at that time.

Cheers
Karoly

Rick, the most common tank for Hungary was the T-34/85. The IS 2/3 were mainly used by russia. here is a t-34 from the 1956 uprising.



Hungary did have a few T-44, main thing is I'm not sure if these tanks were crewed by soviets or Hungarians since the tank was kept very secret.

Thanks fellas!

He was Hungarian so that may narrow it down some. I will try to find out if he remembers an MG in the glasis, it's absence or presence could narrow down our choices as well.



cheers

Hi,

just registered to answer this question:)

The main tank force of the 1950's Hungarian army was made of T-34/85-s. They arrived into the country in 1948 (after the communist takeover, when the army had been rebuilt after ww2 and the preparation for ww3 begun). In the middle 60's they were replaced with the T-54/55 family (but still spent decades in service as reserve/training tanks).
In the early 50s Hungary got some IS-2s (50-60-70 tanks, I do not remember the correct number), which served a half decade, they were bought back by the Soviets in 1957 (many think this was a political decision because of the 1956 revolution).
In addition to this the Hungarian army of the 50's had SU-76, SU-122 and ISU-122 too.
So if it was a tank in the 1950's in the Hungarian Army, then it was either T-34/85 or IS-2.



Hungary did not have any T-44's ever, as previously mentioned, this step of armour evolution was passed, after the T-34 the T-54 came.
There was a large Soviet occupational force in Hungary, I do not know if they had T-44, but the intervention force arrived in 1956 to fight against the revolution surely had: there are some well-known photos of a T-44 in the ruined Moszkva square of Budapest from 1956 (which are often referred as ww2 photos).
The existence of occupational force was an officially recognized fact for the world ('the Soviet troops temporarily stationed in our country' according to propaganda of these years, 'temporarily' took a bit long, from 1945 to 1991 ), so there was no need for tricks used in the 3rd world countries to hide soviet army crew behind foreign uniform/insignia. And they did not trust Hungarians because of the revolution. So no Hungarian vehicles had Soviet crew (and vice versa )

Yes, the T-44 tanks were not exported in any country.

Hi Alfred.
Can you show me even if one image of IS's or ISU's in Hungarian service before December of 1956?

Hi Luty,

yes. There are very few in the public (government of the early 50s was very secretive and the era is not the most popular one among historians), I have 5 or 6 of the IS-2 and only one of the ISU-122.
According to the book of Imre Okváth: Bástya a béke frontján Hungarian People's Army had 68 IS-2 and 32 ISU-122

IS-2 with a young soldier named Ernő Tunyogi (full article here, for those do not speak Hungarian: it is about his life and the tank unit from the city Kalocsa in the 1956 revolution, the document shown is his soldiers book for being a 3rd class IS-2 tank driver)


The only one of the ISU-122 from the book A Haza szolgálatában (editors Magda Fábri and major János Halápi, 1969)


My model (1/35 Zvezda with Tamiya figure, insignia from an 1/72 Li-2, a bit too big)

Thanks a lot Alfred!

Nice model!

Google translator wrote to me that the unit of that man is not fight with the Soviets. But it was not the only unit equipped with IS tanks. Do you have any information about the battles of the Hungarian rebels IS-2 and ISU against the Soviets?

All the best!

Thanks!
Generally, Hungarian People's Army tank units did not took part of the battles, only some T-34-s in Budapest. The situation was much-much more confusing:

The revisionists quickly took over few days after Oct 23, the revolutionary government was formed (with Imre Nagy as prime minister). The army declared to join the revolution (the pics of T-34's with the festive crowd come from this days) and the Hungarian communists and their hated state security ÁVH had no chance. In this phase SU was shocked by how quickly a communist state fell to a revolution of students and workers its thought to be founded on, some Soviet soldiers refused to shoot the protesters, etc. The negotiations begun with the Soviets from the withdrawal of the occupation force and re-organize Hungary's role in the Eastern Block. There were no full scale-battles like in ww2 but street fights and protesting crowd capturing key positions. The Soviet units began to withdraw from Budapest more or less peacefully. So the government ordered the army a cease-fire to help the negotiations.

The turning point came in Oct 29, when the US declared that they let the SU do whatever they want. The Suez war started too, shadowing Hungarian revolution in the news (many Soviet soldiers arrived in Budapest as part of the intervention force thought river Danube to be the Suez canal , they haven't been told where they have been sent to)

Meanwhile in Hungary , everyone was happy and optimist, at Nov 2 the fight was over all over the country. The Empire strikes back at early dawn of Nov 4, the Hungarian delegation is arrested, new Soviet troops arrive and their standing forces break the cease-fire and launch attacks, capture Hungarian Army garrisons. The fight was continued by irregular forces mostly in Budapest, a few of them fought to early 1957.

As for the revolution in 1848, the defeat was still worth a compromise with the oppressors, after a period of vengeance unleashed they declared a new, liberal communist approach (not even Khrushchevs tank battalions could save the state security butchers KIA or executed, so better play it cool), to balance this laxaty and the lack of trust caused by the revolution let Hungarian government send troops to Czechoslovakia in 1968, but that's another interesting story.

Sorry for the long history lesson, but that is the easiest way to show why there was not much opportunity for the army heavy equipment to act, the revolution took over quickly, then they were held back by politicians (stupidly naive or cleverly wanting to avoid unnecessary bloodshed- there is a lot of discussion about this nowadays), then they did not see (and actually did not have) any chance of success against the well-equipped preponderance already in the key positions (which they were negotiated to leave, but never actually left). They helped the revolutionists with arms (rifles, guns, mortars, even cannons), and many soldiers joined them.
Of course there were units that remained loyal to the communists, resisted the revolution and some even committed war crimes against unarmed people, the army re-organized in the early 50's was a stalinist-model army with communist indoctrination and political loyalty before aptitude among the officers.

OK I understood, I think.

Maybe you post here other Hungarian IS-2 photos which you have.

All the best!

Other two, these are from an early 50s news movie taken on an April 4 parade (the pics themselves were published on makettinfo.hu). Later, after the revolution, the national ensign was used only on parade, propaganda photos and maneuvers (it had been also changed for a red star with white-green circle in it already in use by the air force from early 50s). The photo of Ernő Tunyogi convinced me that in this period it was used more often, so that is why I built the model with it. The first one is circulating on the internet in many variants, they are basically the same but cut differently.



The other two photos I know come from more recent publications, not just that I want to avoid copyright issues but they are less informative.
The one shown in the book Tamás Baczoni - Sándor Molnár: Magyar katonai egyenruhák 1957-1990 is about a light coloured vehicle with turret number 300, but it is shown with Hungarian and Soviet soldiers together, so might easily be a Soviet vehicle (the book is about uniforms, so no more information, and Hungary always used darker green)
The other one in the photos appendix of the already mentioned Imre Okváth: Bástya a béke frontján shows a tank ferried over a river. It has white stripe on the fender side and dark colour, but that is all you can see, the side of the vehicle or the turret is not shown to decide whether it has ensign, turret number, or anything else.

Thanks again.
It is very interesting for me.
As I see Hungarians had two types of IS-2. Early nouse and late.

As far as I know many of the T-34s were second hand tanks which even served in ww2 and came from various sources in various subtypes. Maybe the same applies for the IS-2s.
I found the appendix of the 1950 Hungarian-Soviet pact (in the Imre Okváth-book) about the army equipment supplied this year, it does not go into details but mentions that the IS-2s came with general repair, so they were surely used before. Interesting data: tne IS-2 costs with the repair 307k rubels, an ISU-122 (no repair mentioned) 288600 rubels, a T-34/85 175200 rubels, a SU-76 only 60750 rubels, a PPS smg 241 rubels, a Mosin-Nagant rifle 145 rubels while the sniper version 263 rubels etc etc


Meanwhile I looked for the answer of the original question. I found something like the 3rd Army in the 1952 roster: 3rd lövész hadtest. Lövész is rifle/infantry, I do not know how to translate the Hungarian term hadtest to English, the dictionary says legion, but it sounds a little bit odd.
So 3rd lövész hadtest consisted 5th, 12th and 27th infantry divisions and some smaller sub-units, an armoured battalion among them in the city Örkény. Which types of tanks they were equipped with, that is the question.

"Hadtest" should be translated as Army Corps.

It is not surprise for me. The Soviet Union armed many socialist countries of their used AFVs.
For example to the Polish People's Army was also sent many renovated or just old ex Soviet tanks.

About your general question I think you can ask Hungarians.
...by the way my translator told me that 3 lövész hadtest is 3rd motorized (infantry) corps.

All the best!