My initial perceptions of this light tank when I started PBEM in February was that it was a worthless piece of junk. In one of my first games, "Checking the Blitzkrieg", there were swarms of BT-7s, and as the German I loved to shoot them full of holes. An easy victim, I thought. I was glad I didn't have them in my arsenal. This thought turned to frustration the first time I commanded them in battle. Roll them up blast away and wait to be destroyed the next turn. One thing about the BT-7, it has a very delicate "glass jaw". Playing through several of the 1941 scenarios as the Russians, my initial impression began to evolve into outright affection for this often misused piece of hardware.
As I gained experience it dawned on me, while Scott Cole was utilizing his BT-7s in a very effective manner to blast my panzers into disrupted units and blazing wrecks, that I had been mishandling this delicate thoroughbred. First, the BT-7 is one of the fastest things running around the East Front battlefield. This tank was built for speed. It has a 45mm gun that can take out most German tanks in 1941. It achilles heel is that it's armor is very thin. Now that I look back at it, I was using this tank in a role that it was unsuited for, i.e. a main battle tank. Thus, the disappointment I felt for this tank on the battlefield was in part due to my misuse of this weapon system. What is the proper role of the BT-7? I thought about it and decided that this was a raider's dream. Here is a tank that can out run anything big enough to deal with it and out gun anything fast enough to keep pace with it. As a scout or raider there are few things that can offer the combination of speed and firepower of this tank. A BT-7 can fire and move farther in the same turn than the German tanks big enough to deal with it can move. Only the German reconnaissance elements have the speed to keep pace with the BT-7, but they often lack the firepower to deal with it. In military parlance, a weapon system requires a doctrine to go with it. I have developed and tested the following doctrine for the use of the BT-7. As this is a raider force, I predominantly use "hit and run" tactics. First, I task organize my BT-7s. Then, I team them up with BA-20 scout cars. Because of the speed of the BA-20, it is a good scout for a BT-7 task force.
The sequence works like this, the BA-20s go in and scout any dead space that was not in view the previous turn. It also absorbs any opfire from enemy units in the area. If anything is there, then the BT-7s move up and either assault or fire one shot and move away. This is an excellent method to use when the enemy is strung out and not massed. This concept is also valid in conjunction with heavier forces. Especially on flanks. Repeat this sequence at different points on an enemy's flanks and they will usually react. However, because of the BT-7s speed you can move quickly out of the path of any serious opposition
Jim von Krieg