I’ve seen captured artillery often turned and used against their former owners. Even the Americans did it in France. Most likely the Soviets would have just repositioned the track, fired off all available rockets and left the track or had it sent to the rear. Soviets weren’t as keen on using captured equipment on the front-lines for long periods of time, like the Germans did. Usually, the gun or rocket launcher was useful only as long as the supply of captured shells/rockets lasted…
Using captured equipment was common on both sides, as Manny pointed out… It was especially true in North Africa with the Brits up against the DAK… I’ve seen dozens of photos of stuff like German anti-tank guns on the back of Brit trucks & vice-versa…
As for rockets though, there wouldn’t likely be a large number of reloads available due to the way German units resupplied… Their ammo sections would be constantly running up and down the gun-line replenishing ammo during the attack, running back & forth to the battalion ASP, and were the first ones that would bug out of the AO if they were about to be over-run… So Manny called it again there too… Ivan would likely get one or two volleys out of a launcher and then abandon it… However, if they DID keep it for real length of time, the first thing would be to guard against air attack, so an air recognition flag would be tied down to the upper surface somewhere… The crew would likely just paint over the German markings, and then (sloppily likely) apply a red star in its place…
More great info! THanks. What would a air recognition flag (Russian version) probably look like? What is an AO?
Most Russian air recognition marks were pretty simple. On Green equipment it was a white stripe, cross or encircling stripes on the upper surface/turret, and on whitewashed vehicles, probably red. Hard to tell from B&W photos. And of course a Soviet flag tied down on the engine deck or other upper surface may help. But to a fast moving ground attack aircraft, a red Soviet flag and red Nazi flag could be mistaken for one another.
AO = area of operations
Would they destroy it before abandoning it?
Most likely, unless they had plans to send it to the rear for evaluation, etc…In any event, the most likely scenerio is that the piece would have been destroyed by the Germans before they left.
There’s a couple choices, one being, as Stik pointed out, a large Soviet flag, but units also had panel markers that were simply large pieces of bright orange, red, or yellow fabric about 3 feet squared and the “color of the day” was coordinated (sometimes incorrectly) between ground units and there their dedicated air support… Truth be told, air recognition markers aren’t all that good anyway, as many pilots would engage before they got close enough to even see one… He’d likely catch a glimpse of color AFTER his firing pass… That’s why combat air controllers have to be on top of the game and clear the aircraft in hot… Ivan wasn’t all that good at it then, as many aircraft didn’t have radios, and even fewer AFVs had them… The platoon commander would have a radio to talk to the company commader and then wig-wag to his platoon… Soviet tank and artillery commanders used mostly flag signals to communicate between elements well into the 1980’s…
Frankly, I’d “KISS” it and add a Soviet flag tied down across the hood…
Oh, and AO was pointed out, but just so you know also, ASP is Ammuntion Supply Point (not an ammo dump though)… The unit’s ASP would only have the ammo for the weapons organic to it…