Ah, the Battle of Brody. The Germans referred to it as "Tank battle of Dubno-Luzk-Brody" or "Battle of Dubno-Luzk-Riwne".
According to Christer Bergström, in "Barbarossa – The Air Battle: July–December 1941" (2007), the German Luftwaffe destroyed 201 Russian tanks during the battle.
According to some sources, the 8th Mech Corp alone had lost 800 tanks during the battle, but D.I. Ryabyshev, commander of the 8th Mech Corps, stated that the Corps had ~932 tanks (authorized strength 1,031) , where only 169 of them were modern medium and heavy tanks, and 763 of them obsolete light and medium tanks, around the onset of the battle, and 207 tanks left on 1st of July. That would be a tank loss of around 78%.
http://english.battlefield.ru/battles/22-1941/84-8th-mechanized-corps1941.html (the original was translated around 2002 ?)
Some sources insist that the 8th and 15th Mech Corps lost 85–90 %, the 9th and the 19th Mech Corps 70 % (each), and the 4th Mech Corps 60 % of their tanks.
Looking at Ryabyshev's numbers, the 8th Mech Corps had lost 78% of its tanks, not 90%. It seems like Author Victor Kamenir stuck to Ryabshev's number in his book "
Bloody Triangle: The Defeat of Soviet Armor in the Ukraine, June 1941" from 2009, he mentioned 207 remaining tanks.
Some sources indicate that the number of remaining tanks amounted to 66 in the 9th Corps (supposedly 70% lost), 35 in the 19th Corps (supp. 70% lost) and 33 in the 22nd Corps (90%), after the battle.
These conflicting numbers (some authors - like Glantz here and there- have a tendency to deduct the number of destroyed tanks either from the required/authorized strength, or from the number of total tanks possed by a given unit, instead of trying to research accurate actual strength numbers that considers the number of non-operational tanks - means the ones under major repairs), along with the contradicting percentages (like with the Ryabyshev-example above) provided by some authors and the censorship of the
Glawit (or
Glavit, the head office for literature affairs and publishing, the supreme censorship and publications board) make it hard to dig out accurate numbers.
Except for Samisdat and Tamisdat (self-published literature, articles and documents in Warsaw Pact countries which used to be spread via various channels, but also declared to be illegal by the government institutions) sources, all Russian sources published before 1987 - the year when the censorship board in Russia had lost its jurisdiction - have to be taken with a pinch of salt, as troop and tank losses were often downplayed or manipulated.
Not sure how the Putin administration is handling military documents, some journalists indicate that there's a tendency to cover up (extremely) high losses (suffered by Russian forces during WWII) again.
Whatsoever, that's an interesting battle, where Popel's group managed to get in the rear of the 11th Panzer Division at Dubno, effectively cutting off the division's supply lines (completely). Most Russian units (especially the 8th Mech Corps) suffered of various miscommunications, failing radios and contradicting orders, even up to the point where the briefcase with written orders for Ryabyshev had burned during the crash landing of an aerial messenger, and where the pilot could then only state that the documents were orders, but that he did not know the content. With this chaotic setting, the Russians were unable to exploit the several German weak spots and their imprudence during the onslaught, except for Popel's bold move. But Popel did not get any response from higher echelons when asking for reinforcements and resupplies to bolster the bridgehead.
For a realistic setting, the bad communication (which could be emulated with additional order delays, but also with an implementation of radio failures and insufficient radio ranges - question is whether the Russians mistrusted radio coms in front of the enemy, or if their lack of long range radios appeared to be the more vital factor) should be rendered in an EF installment.
