It's an original caption from a propaganda magazine. What would one expect? accuracy? And anything would sink in that mud/marsh, T34's were not designed to float... I mean they were less prone to sink that some german tanks. They had wider tracks, in order to decreese ground pressure. I remember reading a hungarian article about the combats in Hungary (surprise!), saying that where KT's, Tigers, narrow track Mark 4's sank, "oskettened" Mk. 4's and T-34's were still able to move. The terrain in Hungary was as bad, or in some cases even worse than in Russia when it came to mud (so Germans tried to stick to hardball).
Yet another caption for the same photo, this time from Ian Hogg's 'Allied Armour of World War Two': The first T34 Tanks to be found and captured by the German Army were these, stuck in a bog at Tolochino, East of Minsk, on the 10th of July 1941. This picture comes from 10.Pz Corps, and may well have been taken by Guderian.
You know I think that this could be the same three tanks in another photo taken by a German soldier. There was a link posted today to a site with plenty of pictures taken during the war by German soldiers and this is one of them. If you look at the turrets, hatches, position of the bushes positions of the turrets, I think that they match up. even the shadow cast on the rear of the closest tank in the colour image could be that of the BT-7 in the B&W image.
It does look similar but the colour picture and the one in Zaloga's book do not show the deep tracks made by the central T-34 but rather a large rectangular "pond" at it's back, maybe this one is earlier and the others were taken after some rain cancelled the tracks and created the "pond" ? BTW the 42 tonn misquote most likely refers to the KV tank that was in the 40-45 tonn range and reffered as "soviet 42 tonn tank" in some axis docs. As I've seen both the T-34 and KV-1 referred to as as "heavvies" in contemporary axis reports it's quite possible the captionner saw a soviet "heavy" and published the KV-1 data.
I pasted the two pictures side by side for a better comparison. I think that the ruts left from the tracks are there in the colour photo but more difficult to see because of the lighting. You can also see hot the tank furthest away doesn't appear to be bogged at the front in both photos. There is also a pile of whitish rocky material to the left of the closest T-34 and a similar patch of white appears in the B&W picture. Again I'm convinced that the shadow on the closest T-34 in the colour picture is from the light tank on the embankment.
Tricky stuff, but I think you're on the money Stig. In the colour shot - the top tank appears to have some smashed up logs behind it, maybe implying a recovery effort... so perhaps we can disregard the immediate state of the ground behind the vehicles as affected by visitors, image definition, and the fact that bogs are pretty mobile environments. What clinches it for me, is if you look at the black and white shot, and then imagine yourself climbing onto the BT's glacis, and looking along the bottom T34, the middle tank and bush then fall into line as in the colour shot. A marginally longer focal length lens would easily compress the image to explain the seemingly closer bush.
I'm now more intrigued by the Hogg Caption: The first T34 Tanks to be found and captured by the German Army were these, stuck in a bog at Tolochino, East of Minsk, on the 10th of July 1941. This picture comes from 10.Pz Corps, and may well have been taken by Guderian. I'm guessing he means 'Division' rather than 'Corps' (? I'm rubbish at organisation tables, and who was where when) : Axis History Factbook: 10. Panzer-Division Anyone got this? : The Combat History of the 10th Panzer Division - German WW2 Unit Histories - World War Two Books – Military History Books online - Ceredigion - Wales UK Combat History of the 10. Panzer-Division by J. Restayn and N. Moller And Guderian? Is there a notable group of colour shots he took in the East? Maybe some help in placing/dating of the photo: Hughes & Mann's T34 book has the tank first taking on the Germans at Brody-Dubno in June '41. but that involved Army Group South, rather than centre, and no 10th Panzer. I'd assume the very first T34's inspected by the Germans would be there, but could these in the photo be the first intact runners?
Also notice that the middle T34 is a Model 1941 [in both photos] the other two are Model 1940. Well the left hand one in the colour pic is for sure.
