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The T-34 remained a dangerous and much-feared weapon throughout the war. The effect which its mass employment might have had during the first few weeks of the campaign is difficult to imagine. The impression made on the Soviet infantry by the mass employment of German tanks, on the other hand, is described most impressively and frankly by Guderian’s opponent, General Yeremenko.
In his memoirs he says:

The Germans attacked with large armoured formations, often with infantrymen riding on the tanks. Our infantry were not prepared for that. At the shout "Enemy tanks!" our companies, battalions, and even entire regiments scuttled to and fro, seeking cover behind anti-tank-gun or artillery positions, causing havoc to the whole combat order, and bunching up near anti-tank-gun positions. They lost their ability to manoeuvre, their combat readiness was diminished, and all operational control, contact, and co-operation were rendered impossible.

Yeremenko understood clearly what made the German armor superior to his own. And he drew the necessary conclusions.
He issued strict orders that the German tanks must be engaged. His recipe was concentrated artillery-fire, attack by aircraft with bombs and cannon, and, above all, engagement at close range with hand-grenades and with a new close-combat weapon which has to this day kept its German Army nickname —the Molotov Cocktail. This weapon, still a great favorite in domestic revolutions, has an interesting history.

By chance Yeremenko learned that in Gomel there was a store of a highly inflammable liquid called KS—a petrol-and phosphorus mixture with which the Red Army had experimented before the war, probably with a view to setting enemy stores and important installations on fire quickly.
Yeremenko, ingenious as ever, immediately ordered 10,000 bottles of the liquid to be delivered to his sector of the front, and issued them to combat units for use against enemy tanks. The Molotov Cocktail was no wonder weapon, but a piece of improvisation, a desperate makeshift. But quite often it was highly effective.
The liquid burst into flames the moment it came into contact with air. A second bottle, filled with petrol, added to the effect. When only petrol was available an improvised fuse tied to the bottle and lit before throwing did the trick. Provided the bottles burst high up on a tank or on its side-wall, the burning mixture would run into the combat quarters or into the engine, setting the oil and fuel on fire immediately. These large boxes of steel and tin burned surprisingly readily — probably because the metal was usually covered with a film of oil, grease, and petrol.

Needless to say, however, tank armies could not be stopped with petrol bottles, especially once the German tanks—whose strength had always consisted in their close co-operation with the infantry—paid increased attention to enemy troops trying to engage them at close range. If the Russians wanted to halt the Germans, to prevent them from driving via Smolensk to Moscow, they would have to bring up large numbers of men and a lot of artillery.

The Soviet High Command therefore switched parts of its Nineteenth Army from Southern Russia to the Vitebsk area. The Russian regiments leaped out of their goods trucks and went straight into battle against Hoth's 7th and 12th Panzer Divisions. Yeremenko realized that he was slowly sacrificing a considerable force of six infantry divisions and a motorized corps. But what else could he do? He hoped that in this way he would at least delay the German spearheads. Time was what he needed.

But Yeremenko's hopes were in vain. The reconnaissance detachment of 7th Panzer Division captured a Soviet officer from an anti-aircraft unit. In his possession were found orders, dated 8th July, which revealed Yeremenko's plan to detrain divisions of the Nineteenth Army north of Vitebsk and employ them on the narrow strip of land between the rivers. Colonel-General Hoth took immediate counter-measures. He ordered Lieutenant-General Stumpff's 20th Panzer Division, which on 7th July had crossed over to the northern bank of the Western Dvina at Ulla, to advance on 9th July along that bank of the river in the direction of Vitebsk. On the neck of land south of the Western Dvina the 7th and 12th Panzer Divisions were meanwhile tying down Yeremenko's forces. Stumpff's tanks, together with the swiftly brought-up 20th Motorized Infantry Division, under Major-General Zorn, drove straight into the Russian rear and caused chaos to the enemy's detraining operations.

It was the early morning of 10th July—the nineteenth day of the campaign. It was to be a day of dramatic decisions. The German Blitzkrieg was still in full swing. Pskov, south of Lake Peipus, had fallen. General Reinhardt’s XLI Panzer Corps had pierced the Stalin Line with its 1st Panzer Division and parts of 6th Panzer Division, and on 4th July, after some fierce tank fighting, taken Ostrov. Continuing its swift advance, the northern Panzer corps of Colonel-General Hoepner’s Fourth Panzer Group, with 36th Motorized Infantry Division and parts of 1st Panzer Division, four days later reached the vital turning-point on the way to Leningrad. Hoepner ordered the troops to wheel north-east towards the city. Perhaps Leningrad would fall even before Smolensk. And if it fell Russia’s armed might in the Baltic would collapse. Moscow’s northern flank would lie exposed. Then the race could start as to who would first drive into the Kremlin—Hoepner, Hoth, or Guderian?

Things were looking hopeful. Maybe Hoepner would repeat his 1939 triumph of Warsaw, when the 1st and 4th Panzer Divisions of his XVI Motorized Corps stood west and south of the Polish capital within eight days of the start of operations.
Two hundred miles south of Pskov was Vitebsk, the ancient, neoclassical city with its large Jewish population and its huge and vital railway junction on the upper Western Dvina. It was the gateway to Smolensk.
And Vitebsk fell.
The 20th Panzer Division took it by storm on 10th July. Fanatical Komsomol members had set fire to the town. It was blazing. But Hoth’s Panzer divisions needed no quarters for the night. They simply drove past the burning town, forward, farther to the east, into the rear of Smolensk.