The Pakfront was a defensive military

tactic Tactic(s) or Tactical may refer to: * Tactic (method), a conceptual action implemented as one or more specific tasks ** Military tactics, the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield ** Chess tactics ** Political tacti ...

developed by the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

forces on the Eastern Front during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. It was named after the phonetic pronunciation of the acronym nomenclature for German towed anti-tank guns, PaK (''PanzerabwehrKanone'', "tank defense cannon"). The

Soviets Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Nationality policy in ...

soon copied the tactic, and used it to great effect at the

Battle of Kursk The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history ...

in July 1943.

German tactic

During the large Soviet armoured attacks on the Eastern front in late 1941–1942, the Germans quickly realised that their

anti-tank Anti-tank warfare originated from the need to develop technology and tactics to destroy tanks during World War I. Since the Triple Entente deployed the first tanks in 1916, the German Empire developed the first anti-tank weapons. The first dev ...

guns, operating individually or in small groups, and with no central commander, were quickly overwhelmed. The ''pakfront'' was developed to counter this. A group of up to ten guns were placed under the command of one officer. He was responsible for designating targets and directing the fire of his guns. This allowed the Germans to spring particularly effective anti-tank ambushes, with all guns being assigned separate targets and then firing at once, maximizing surprise and minimizing the chance for return fire.

Soviet tactic

The tactic was found to be extremely effective, and soon the Soviets had copied it, often using multiple ''pakfront''s in co-operation with

minefield A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...

s, anti-tank ditches, and other obstacles to channel the enemy armour into their fields of fire. The size and efficiency of such defenses was directly proportional to the amount of time granted to prepare them, with one report commenting it was not uncommon for the Red Army to lay 30,000 mines in a sector within two or three days. Since the 1930s, Soviet doctrine had been to employ large numbers of anti-tank guns in areas, but the German tactic enabled them to better exploit their numbers as well as Russian expertise in camouflage. A German tank commander commented that minefields and pakfronts could not be detected until the trap was sprung. Mines protecting pakfronts were particularly effective due to the Germans' lack of specialized mine clearing vehicles. The Soviets also developed an extension of the ambush tactic in which all the guns would target one particularly valuable or heavily armored target and fire on command, the combined impacts essentially guaranteeing an instant kill. This technique was especially effective against German command tanks because it generally caused a catastrophic kill ("K-kill") that minimized any chance for the command team to escape, and heavy tanks like the

Tiger I The Tiger I () was a German heavy tank of World War II that operated beginning in 1942 in Africa and in the Soviet Union, usually in independent heavy tank battalions. It gave the German Army its first armoured fighting vehicle that mounted ...

that might have otherwise needed dozens of separate hits to disable. To counter the effectiveness of the Soviet pakfront, the Germans developed the '' panzerkeil'' ("armoured wedge"), but this offensive tactic had limited effectiveness. The Soviet method of employing pakfronts included establishing "anti-tank zones" (Russian: противотанковые районы ''protivotankovyje rajony'') in staggered patterns with multiple pak-groups' ("anti-tank base-of-fire points", Russian: противотанковые опорные пункты ''protivotankovyje opornyje punkty'') firing sectors intertwined, to amplify the effect of the tactic.I Fought The Panzerwaffen - The Hot Snow Of The Pakfront - ed. A. Drabki

/ref> By 1943, Soviet doctrine was to protect any new gains with pakfronts to defeat the inevitable German counterattack as the Germans attempted to regain lost territory and initiative. At the

in July 1943, Soviet ''pakfront''s slowed the German attack in the south and completely halted the northern German force. The '' panzerkeil'' was shown to be an inadequate countermeasure. The long preparation period afforded to the Red Army allowed for the salient to achieve unprecedented size and sophistication.

References

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External links

Soviet defensive positions, organised as anti-tank zones and strongpoints
during the

, 5 July 1943 Defensive tactics Tactical formations German words and phrases Anti-tank artillery units and formations