Saturday 21 March 2015

Oskin's Award Order

Few tank enthusiasts have not of read Oskin's feat at Ogledow, but equally few have actually read the official award order. Here it is.

"#18491
  1. Name: Oskin, Aleksandr Petrovich
  2. Rank: Guards Junior Lieutenant
  3. Position and unit: Tank commander in the 3rd Tank Battalion of the 53rd Guards Tank Fastov Order of the Red Banner, Order of Bogdan Khmelnitskiy Brigade
  4. Year of birth: 1920
  5. Nationality: Russian
  6. Party affiliation: VKP(b) candidate since 1944
  7. Participation in the Civil War or subsequent combat in defense of the USSR or the patriotic war: South Front from 1942 to February 1943, 1st Ukrainian Front since June 1944.
  8. Wounds or concussions: none.
  9. In RKKA since: 1940.
  10. Commissioned at: Korovinsk recruiting office, Ryazan oblast.
  11. Prior awards: none.
Brief and specific description of heroism: As a T-34 tank commander in a tank group, Guards Junior Lieutenant Oskin showed himself a quick and fearless officer. On August 12th, 1944, when deflecting an attack by superior forces composed of 15 Tiger B tanks (King Tiger), Oskin decided that he would rather die than let the enemy through to Staszow. Comrade Oskin entered into an uneven battle with German tanks. Calmly and surely, he opened fire and ignited three enemy tanks. The others routed under comrade Oskin's deadly fire and fell back. Comrade Oskin's machineguns also cut down submachinegunners riding on the tanks. The enemy did not reach Staszow.

On that same day, fulfilling his orders to knock the enemy out of Ogledow, comrade Oskin's tank burst into the village. With its tracks, it crushed up to 80 fascists, continuing to fire from its gun and machineguns to destroy fleeing Germans and their vehicles. In the battle for Ogledow, three Tiger B vehicles were captured completely undamaged.

For destroying 3 Tiger B tanks, a rushing maneuver to capture Ogledow leading to the capture of three intact Tiger B tanks, and bravery and heroism shown in battle while holding the foothold on the Western shore of the Vistula river, comrade Oskin is worth of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union."

CAMD RF 33-793756-35

1 comment:

  1. Heh. I noted:

    Calmly and surely, he opened fire and ignited three enemy tanks. The others routed under comrade Oskin's deadly fire and fell back.

    I recently watched the movie "Fury". As well as being a load of (I feel) Iraq War atrocity-justification (i.e., the movie protrays that it's "justified" to kill captured POWs and wantonly destroy German towns) it also got the usual mechanics of tank warfare wrong.

    Case in point: a group of Shermans (five?) in the film get ambushed by a Tiger under cover. The Shermans, once one brews, charges the Tiger, which then *comes out from its cover into a an open field* to engage the Shermans, where eventually one gets behind it and destroys it. Very Hollywood, and pretty unreal.

    I told friends that real tank vs tank warfare is usually a proposition of "hide, shoot and then scoot" once shells start coming your way. Also, if your tanks drive out into the open and one or two blows up, the rest (like those Tiger IIs in this story) usually get the hell away. You don't stick around to try to find what's doing the damage.

    The other thing the movie didn't show accurately is support or overwatching fire. In short, there was none. Tanks and infantry in the movie just marched out into the field towards German positions and started shooting. "Fire and manuver?" There was none. Gah.

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