Red Army River Tanks

Overview of "Soviet Motor Gunboats of World War II" (Osprey, 2023)

Since I have all these Osprey military history books stocked at The Victor’s Spoils and nobody ever looks at them, I'm taking one or two home at a time and reading them. I am currently reading "Soviet Motor Gunboats of World War II" by Przemyslaw Budzbon (say that one time fast!), who was a Soviet naval architect in the '80s. Despite the title’s focus on World War Two, the necessary historical prologue would also be of some interest to WWI, Russian Civil War, and Interwar gamers and historians. More generally, the author gives excellent insight into the sort of features that make a suitable riverine craft in the modern era.

Besides all of the historical photos and technical illustrations of gunboats that you’d expect, the author paints a clear and concise picture of Russian military doctrine of mobile defense and frontier control via rivers and lakes that dates back to the 19th century and the specific ways they were employed both in the defense against the Axis invasion and on the offense in the drive to conquer and occupy Eastern Europe. Within this is the interesting story of the development of the Soviet Navy itself, eclipsed and subordinated by the Red Army in the early years of Bolshevism because of its perceived political unreliability and the vicissitudes of the USSR’s strategic situation, along with the perils of trying to develop effective fighting platforms when your government makes a habit of killing or displacing most of the people who know what they are doing.

It turns out that one of the triumphs of these Soviet gunboats (usually just called Bronekater in lieu of their specific designations) was in the strategic and logistical arena, as they were fitted with tank turrets and other pre-existing army equipment that was already being manufactured rather than rely on a separate chain of naval procurement and R&D. This produced a series of fighting craft that, despite the various flaws and shortcomings injected into their design by Communism, the USSR’s military opponents were unable to match in either capability or quantity.

Because of the author’s background, some of the technical descriptions are liable to make your eyes glaze over, such as when he is verbally describing the interior layout of the vessel or presenting a litany of obscure Soviet era engines and their volume, motive power, and fuel capacity. On the other hand, you get to learn interesting things like how flat-bottomed boats are not necessarily the ideal solution for low-draught vessels because that shape can get them suctioned to the riverbed.

The book concludes with a mouth-watering appetizer about Cold War developments, particularly the ‘heavy river tanks’ designed during the Sino-Soviet split in preparation for a predicted Siberian frontier war against China. That obviously never happened, but would be interesting fodder for counterfactual wargaming. Hopefully more can be said of these in a future book.

The story of how the Russians utilized the extensive river systems of Central Asia to quickly spread across the empty vastness of Siberia from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean has some parallels to the US. Ever since I spent my college years in Pittsburgh, I have been fascinated by the idle comment of one of my midshipman friends that, if The Burgh were in Europe, it would probably mark the border of three countries and been a battleground many times over. Naval actions in inland waters in a balkanized North America, with gunboats operating in the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay and riverine combat on the Ohio and Mississippi-Missouri, has long captured my imagination. Indeed, I worked some of that into the background of the Pan-American War in my Ascension Epoch universe. Without doubt, I will be incorporating the information from this book in future alternate history stories and on the wargame table.

If you would like to purchase this book, or any other Osprey books, drop me a line or visit our store. I can order what I don’t have in stock and probably give you a discount.