The gun line: Soviet artillery in the Berlin operation, 1945

01The Oder, before dawn

Not a total, a spacing: one gun every 3.45 to 3.70 metres

Between Güstebiese and Podelzig the 1st Belorussian Front deployed along 44 km of the Oder. On the breakthrough sectors inside that stretch, the Soviet operational account counts 270 to 290 guns and mortars, excluding the 45 mm and 57 mm anti-tank guns, to the kilometre. Divide a kilometre by those numbers and the guns stand 3.45–3.70 m apart, centre to centre.

That density was not held along the whole river line. It was reached where the Front meant to break through; one Russian account puts the breakthrough zone at 27 km.

A 152 mm gun-howitzer is 2.35 metres wide. At 290 to the kilometre, the gap between two of them is 1.10 m.

A long line of Soviet field guns and their crews on open, flat ground, ammunition boxes stacked beside them. — Soviet artillery before Berlin, April 1945. The East German archive caption dates the opening of the attack from the Oder and the Neisse to 16 April.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-E0406-0022-012 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

One hundred metres of front

1st Belorussian Front (Zhukov)1st Ukrainian Front (Konev)

One hundred metres of the Oder front, drawn to scale. Scroll to place the guns.One hundred metres of front, to scale

A large olive-green field gun with split trails and two rubber-tyred wheels stands on grass under trees, a lake behind. — A 152 mm ML-20 gun-howitzer, preserved at the Finnish Artillery Museum in Hämeenlinna, 2006.Balcer~commonswiki, 2006. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.5.

The ground

One hundred metres of the Oder front

The strip is a hundred metres of frontage, drawn to scale. Every gun that follows is drawn the same way: the plan of a 152 mm ML-20, 2.35 m across its wheels, set at its real interval.

A broad, slow river between low wooded banks under a pale sky. — The Oder at Güstebiese, the northern end of the deployment, 2012.Norbert Radtke (Dramburg), 2012. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

16 April · the Oder

270 to the kilometre: a gun every 3.70 m

At 270 guns and mortars per kilometre, a hundred metres holds 27. The carriage takes 2.35 m of each 3.70 m interval; 1.35 m is left between the wheels of one gun and the next.

Portrait of Marshal Zhukov in uniform, his chest covered in medals. — Georgy Zhukov, 1st Belorussian Front, 1945.Grigory Vayl, 1945. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

16 April · the Oder · Zhukov

At the upper figure, 290: 1.10 m between wheels

The account’s upper figure for Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front is 290. Then a hundred metres holds 29 guns, 3.45 m apart, and a gun crew could reach out and touch the next gun’s wheel. The count is of guns and mortars, excluding the 45 mm and 57 mm anti-tank guns.

A wide, flat green plain stretching to the horizon, seen from a height with trees in the foreground. — The Oderbruch seen east from the Seelow Heights, 2015.Tsungam, 2015. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

The whole deployment

The hundred metres, inside 44 km

Pull back to the full 44 km from Güstebiese to Podelzig and the strip above becomes a sliver. The densities were reached on the breakthrough sectors within this line, not all along it: one account gives a breakthrough zone of 27 km.

Portrait of Marshal Konev in uniform with shoulder boards and medals. — Ivan Konev, 1st Ukrainian Front, 1945.Unknown author, 1945. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

A brown river runs between green, wooded banks towards a twin-spired church on the skyline. — The Neisse north of Görlitz, 2010.Südstädter, 2010. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0.

16 April · the Neisse

Konev’s front, the same morning: 270 to the kilometre

To the south, the 1st Ukrainian Front crossed the Neisse behind 2 hours and 35 minutes of artillery and air preparation, with 270 artillery barrels to the kilometre on its breakthrough sector.

Officers in fur hats and winter greatcoats stand together in a town street. — Pavel Rybalko among tank crews, 1943.Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, 1943. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

A straight canal between autumn trees, a tall brick clock tower in the distance. — The Teltow Canal in Berlin-Tempelhof, 2012.A.Savin, 2012. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

24 April · the Teltow Canal

650 to the kilometre: the guns no longer fit in a line

On the southern edge of Berlin, Rybalko’s 3rd Guards Tank Army, 1st Ukrainian Front massed 3,000 guns, heavy mortars and Katyusha rocket launchers together at 650 to the kilometre. That is a piece every 1.54 m, less than the 2.35 m width of an ML-20 carriage, so they had to stand in ranks, one behind another.

03The guns

The heaviest gun weighed 17.7 tonnes and fired one shell every four minutes

The two drawings share one metre. The 203 mm B-4 on its tracks measured 11.15 by 2.7 m; the ML-20 that stands for every gun in the line above is 2.35 m wide.

A heavy tracked howitzer with soldiers riding on it crosses a muddy field; more guns follow behind. — Soviet 203 mm B-4 howitzers on the road to Berlin, April 1945.Photo: Aleksandr Ustinov, 1945. Mos.ru, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

203 mm howitzer M1931 (B-4)

18 km: range
100 kg: shell
15: crew
: one round every four minutes

Built to break fortifications from eighteen kilometres. In Berlin its crews ran it up to the buildings and fired over open sights, which its manuals did not cover.

152 mm gun-howitzer ML-20

17.23 km: range
43.6 kg: shell
7,270 kg: in action
3–4: rounds a minute

The heavy field gun of the Berlin operation and the shape drawn in the gun line above. Laid flat against a building it took reinforced concrete down a floor at a time.

A printed handbook page with colour drawings of three light Soviet field guns above a paragraph of text. — The 76 mm guns M1939 and M1942 and the 76 mm howitzer M1927, as the US War Department’s recognition handbook “Our Red Army Ally” drew them in April 1945.Document: "Our Red Army Ally" published by the United States War Department in 1945. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

76 mm field guns

The ordinary artillery of a rifle division. The M1927, the regimental piece among them, was light enough to be manhandled over rubble and into a courtyard, which in a city mattered more than range.

04Into the streets

In the city the biggest gun on any tank fired two or three rounds a minute

Weapons built to break a defended line in open country were driven into streets. The IS-2’s 122 mm D-25T was meant for breaking a defence open; in Berlin it fought at the range of a street.

A heavy tank stands in a rubble-strewn street; soldiers crouch and run along the ruined buildings beside it. — An IS-2 tank supports infantry in a Berlin street, 27 April 1945 (the street is unidentified).Photo: Boris Ilyich Velyashev / Yefim Davidovich Kopyt, 1945. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

A dark green heavy tank with a very long gun drives along a city street lined with trees. — A preserved IS-2 heavy tank in Sevastopol, photographed in 2019.Photo: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, 2019. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

IS-2 heavy tank

122 mm D-25T: 28 rounds carried
46 t: crew of 4
3,854: built, all models
: two or three rounds a minute

The largest gun on any tank in the Berlin assault, and only two or three rounds a minute from it. Meant for breaking a defence open, not for the close work it got.

Soldiers ride on a T-34 tank in a ruined street; smoke rises from a burnt-out building behind. — A T-34/85 of the 11th Tank Corps in central Berlin, 1945.Photo: Unknown author, 1945. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

T-34/85 medium tank

48,950: built, a total that runs past 1945

The tank the assault was made of. In the streets it was within Panzerfaust range of an upper window for most of every advance, and many were lost that way.

A submachine gun with a wooden stock, perforated barrel jacket and curved box magazine, on a pale background. — A PPSh-41 made in 1942, here with a box magazine instead of the drum. Swedish Army Museum.Photo: Swedish Army Museum, 1942. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

PPSh-41 submachine gun

71: rounds in the drum
about 900: rounds a minute; sources range up to 1,250

The one weapon on this sheet that the city suited. The drum let a man clear a stairwell or hold a window without stopping to reload, which is what street fighting asked for.

Three black silhouettes of a single-engine aircraft: plan, front and side views. — The Ilyushin Il-2 ground-attack aircraft in three views: from above, the front and the side.Drawing: Greg Goebel. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Il-2 Sturmovik

about 36,000: built

Designed to work over open country at a few hundred feet. Over Berlin the smoke was thick enough that telling Soviet troops from German ones from the air became the problem.

A long bolt-action rifle with a reddish wooden stock and a canvas sling, lying on a white sheet. — A Mosin-Nagant Model 1891/30 rifle with its sling.Photo: BigBattles. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Mosin-Nagant 91/30

2,000 m: sighted to

The rifle every infantry division carried. Its sniper variant, with a 3.5× scope, was the weapon best suited to a city of upper floors and rooftops.

A red postage stamp showing soldiers and a tank greeted by a crowd, with Cyrillic lettering and a Moscow postmark. — “Welcome to the liberators!” — a Soviet 60-kopeck stamp of 1945.Document: Почта СССР, 1945. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Soldiers stand beside a T-34 tank in front of the damaged Brandenburg Gate; metal bedsprings are fixed around the turret. — A Soviet tank near the Brandenburg Gate, May 1945, with bedsprings fixed to its sides.Photo: Unknown author, 1945. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

05The Reichstag

89 guns, one building, one o’clock

On 30 April 1945, at 13:00, 89 pieces opened fire together on the Reichstag: 152 mm and 203 mm howitzers, tank guns, self-propelled guns and Katyusha launchers. Other accounts give “some ninety”, and one puts the hour at noon.

A Soviet soldier on a high ledge of the Reichstag holds a red flag over the smoking ruins of central Berlin. — Raising a flag over the Reichstag, photographed by Yevgeny Khaldei on 2 May 1945 — staged after the fighting, and retouched before publication.Photo: Yevgeny Khaldei, 1945, restored by Adam Cuerden (public domain) · Wikimedia Commons

06What it cost

361,367 Soviet and Polish casualties, and a city in rubble

The figures below cover the whole operation, from the Oder to the end of the fighting, not the city alone.

A street of burnt-out buildings with wrecked cars and rubble in the foreground. — Ruins and wrecked cars in Mohrenstraße, Berlin, after the air raid of 3 February 1945.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J31347 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

361,367

Soviet and Polish casualties in the Berlin operation, Krivosheev: 81,116 killed, dead of wounds or missing, and 280,251 wounded or sick.

killed, dead of wounds, missingwounded or sick

125,000Contested

German civilian dead, as given by Antill (2005) and Clodfelter (2002) for the whole operation. Counts restricted to the fighting inside the city are very much lower, and nobody has reconciled them.

Rubble for every Berliner, at one metre scale

About 30 m³ of rubble for each inhabitant: a cube 3.11 m on a side, beside a person 1.70 m tall. In all, 55 to 75 million m³; the upper figure is the Landesdenkmalamt Berlin’s.

On the Oder the guns stood 3.45 to 3.70 metres apart. 16 days later, the Berlin garrison surrendered.

A gun every 3.7 metres: the Red Army's breakthrough line on the Oder