My overview of the Russian tactical system

[JasonC]

Sure, they had 5 4 gun firing batteries and a command vehicle.

[dima]

Jason, seriously, I think you should write a book. Or at least an e-book. Think about it.

[JasonC]

I'm flattered, but what's so special about books? I write a thousand posts a year, it is a medium I enjoy.

Besides, this topic would be maybe fourth or fifth on a list of books I need to write...

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

According to one of military snipppets provided by Albert Nofi at Strategy Page, only 3% of the men drafted into the Red Army in June of 1941 survived the war. Maybe it was better for draftees from later years!

Elsewhere on that site, we're told that the Red Army executed some 20,000 officers and men for "insufficient enthusiasm" in battle. I have previously posted a link to Stalin's edict ordering penal units into existence, an edict clearly indicating that he was modeling his own actions on the Germans. Wouldn't call the edict rosy in the least!

Nor am I relying on the novels of Sven Hassel, but of Viktor Suvorov (real name Vladimir Rezun) who spent some harrowing time of his own in a penal company (blanket punishment for entire guard detachment inflicted by peeved senior officer, who felt slighted), fortunately for him, not in wartime, and cites a range of sources on their use during WW II. His personal account is in THE "LIBERATORS" My Life in the Soviet Army, paperback ed. pp. 11-52. ISTR HSU Loza had some material on penal units in his second book, and I've also read some things, I think, at I Remember.

Here's Wiki's take, which is pretty amazing. A lot of Russian soldiers served in them, it seems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_battalion

From BBC's WW 2 site (see paragraph 4)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/hitler_russia_invasion_04.shtml

And this thread from RKKA Forum gives a very good sense for the scale of the manpower being captured

for unauthorized retreat, etc., and sent to penal units.

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-35985.html

From the same source, this one cites a stack of Russian documents, including some sheer garbage from Krivosheev (blocking detachments killed no Russian soldiers). Noteworthy, also, is that Glantz apparently addresses Russian penal units in COLOSSUS REBORN.

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-30359.html

Okay, maybe my memory above was wrong. Looks like

it might've been 20,000 officers executed. According to this (paragraph 13) ~250,000 people were sentenced to death by firing squad for violating Order No. 227

http://www.historynet.com/wwii/bl-gernany-sixth-army/

A Russian's perspective going into the 60th anniversary of the GPW (paragraph 5).

http://sergeywatch.blogspot.com/2005/05/remembering-price-of-victory.html

And here is a provocative review of the Russian serial film "Penal Battalion."

http://sergeywatch.blogspot.com/2005/05/remembering-price-of-victory.html

Would you believe a memoir from a penal company commander?

http://www.casematepublishing.com/cgi/titleinfo.pl?sku=1874622639

Regards,

John Kettler

[Andreas]

Thanks for the correction Jason.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Same reason 31 StuGs was called a "brigade" -

I always thought that was just late-war propaganda renaming of the Abteilung, nothing more. Same as calling artillery regiments Volksartilleriekorps when they were nowhere near Corps size.

All the best

Andreas

[Andreas]

John

Do you actually read the links you provide, or do you just ignore the info that is not suited to your agenda? The 250,000 number (from your fifth link) appears quite high compared to the numbers below (from your third link):

I promised to cite some figures. In attachment I gave NKVD reference for the number for shot and convicted soldiers and officers in Oct.-Jan.

In September 195 soldiers were shot.

From another reference:

OO NKVD STF v UOO NKVD SSSR "About activities of zagradotryad of the Stalingrad and don Fronts"

(not later than Oct. 15'42)

I got the next info:

Stalingrad Front had 16 and don Front 25 zagradotryad (barrage detachments)

In the period Aug. 15-Oct. 15 overall number of armed forces personnel running from frontline hold by barrage detachments: 140,755 .

From them

arrested: 3,980

Shot: 1,189

Sent in penal companies: 2,776

Sent in penal battalions: 185

returned to their units and

transit centers: 131,094

For the Don Front was hold: 36,109

From them

arrested: 736

Shot: 433

Sent in penal companies: 1,056

Sent in penal battalions: 33

returned to their units and

transit centers: 32,933

For the Stalingrad Front was hold: 15,649

From them

arrested: 244

Shot: 278

Sent in penal companies: 218

Sent in penal battalions: 42

returned to their units and

transit centers: 14,833

So, you could see the total number of convicted, shot and sent in penal units was quite low in comparison with mythical figures appeared in western literature and especially in movies

Regards,

Alex

So, during the worst period of the 1942 retreat, in the worst affected sector, they shot less than 2,000 men. I have serious issues extrapolating this to 250,000 over the whole war, especially when the historynet author is not even bothering to give us a source for that number.

From the fourth link you provide:

The penal units – battalions and companies – were born in the Red Army only in the July of 1942 after the famous order #227 “No step behindâ€. That order also regulated the system of detachment-obstacles. It was right in that order where detachment-obstacles of NKVD were ordered to guard rears so they were not able to operate right behind penal units which only had to be became to organize.

The order #227 was published not once so I’ll not repeat its words which influenced on the officers and soldiers with not only repressive actions. But it contained and repressive actions.

Each Front had to organize 1-3 penal battalions (800 men’s amount) for the officers and political officers who were guilty in the breach of discipline due to their cowardice or unsteadiness. Each Army had to organize 5-10 penal companies (150-200 men’s amount) for the sergeants and soldiers who were guilty in the same crimes. The penal units had to be used in the most difficult parts of frontline where they were able to redeem “by blood†their fault before the Motherland.

The statue of a penal battalion and penal company were stated in the order #298 of the People Commissar of Defense from September, 26th of 1942.

The penal battalions were under the command of the Military Councils of the Fronts, the penal companies - of the Military Councils of the Armies. For the concrete actions penal units would be attached to rifle units and formations.

So you had probably between ten and thirty penal officer battalions in the whole Red Army at any one time. You probably had up to the same number in battalion equivalent at army level.

From memory, the Wehrmacht had around 15,000 men shot.

All the best

Andreas

[John Kettler]

Andreas,

I read it all, but that's not the same as having time to analyze it, let alone in detail. I got

interested in the question and went into obsessive

research mode in consequence. I provided the links to what I found, not as the last word, but rather

so interested persons could investigate for themselves. I don't know what the actual numbers were, but even the limited research I've done indicates that many divisional equivalents wound up in the penal units, which according to some of what I dug up, had casualty rates some 4X higher

than Russian line units, already notorious for their high losses.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

And another promising thread goes rocketing down the pipes after someone gratutously brings up the wildest fictional crap he can find...

Thanks JK. Next time, get your own thread please.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Hi JasonC

To get us back on track can you explain about the use of exploitation units after the breakthrough is made by the Rifle Divisions.

cheers

[Andreas]

Well, one important point in this regard is that it was not always 'after'. It was in theory, but in practice there was a big incentive for the front commander to help the rifle forces during breakthrough by inserting the exploitation force (too) early. This could go well, as e.g. with the insertion of 3rd GTA at the Koltov corridor during L'vov-Sandomierz (and lead to an interesting treatise on the decision by Konev in his memoirs), or it could go spectacularly wrong as with the insertion of 2nd GTA at the Seelower Hoehen. Another instance is during Operation Maly Saturn, when two out of three tank/mech corps are used to help the rifle formations break through the Italians.

In doctrine however, this was a nono, which explains Konev's lengthy explanation on why it was a good idea at Koltov. That was of course hindsight speaking. The risk was quite simply that the exploitation force would also fail to achieve the quick breakthrough and get tangled up in the tactical zone of defense, giving the Germans a free pass at stabilising the front.

All the best

Andreas

[JasonC]

I think in practice it was much more common that the first armor was committed while the defense was still holding, but strained, than after a breakthrough had already been achieved by the rifle forces. There are exceptions that went "by the book" but they are the rarer cases, and usually depend on favorable circumstances (wooded terrain and surprise, extensive arty prep that was unusually well directed, very thin defenders, etc).

What usually happened is the rifle forces conducted the initial assault, took the forward enemy positions, and then wallowed there in increasing disorder, brawling with arriving reserves. They sometimes got the second position or through the prepared ones altogether, but they seldom broke clean through. Their forward edge could be held by relatively thin forces, because confusion and loss spread throughout the defended zone.

This came from holdouts and pocketed strongpoints and "wait a minute" MGs, from flanking fire etc. But most of all it came from defending artillery fire hitting the breeching site, which tended to pin the bulk of the attacking infantry, even if it could not stop them completely. The more active bits pressed beyond the shelled zone but were contained by local infantry reserves and fire brigades of more mobile units and if necessary alarm units drummed up from pioneers Luftwaffe services, etc. Sometimes a major defensive reinforcement would arrive and simply backstop the dissolving front line infantry one, with a new line.

So the first tank forces were usually committed with the fight still in progress. Typically is was the tank corps of the attacking army, rather than a full tank army (though there are a few exceptions to that, too). They'd pick a spot and hit the line, and usually get through easily enough. This was a matter of a full tank brigade on a narrow front, with the whole rest of the corps behind it in column.

Once they were through the immediate front line, tanks leading, they exploited straight to the rear to just get clear of the front line defensive zone. The logic was parallel pursuit - race the defenders to their own rear. If they remained in place at the front line, great. Rifle forces would follow in the wake of the whole corps, and widen the penetration by rolling up the flanks of the defenders opposite each shoulder of the breech. The tank guys did not have to worry about that part, it wasn't their job.

Their main job was to get through the inevitable arriving reserves, typically motorized divisions with tanks etc.

Doctrinally, their organic motorcycle recon were supposed to spread from the column as soon as it was clear, scattering in all directions and letting themselves get thinner and thinner on the ground. They were to report back enemy positions and just as important, open routes. The tanks instead stayed concentrated and went where they planned.

In practice the motorcycle recon were not usually that aggressive, and usually drew screening missions along the flanks behind the column, instead. They'd ride out a few clicks as flank guards but didn't race to contact in all directions, really.

The tanks did stay concentrated and they did just go where the plan pointed them. There was little "opportunity pull". The operational plan called for some distance of encirclement, and they drove for it.

If they wanted to try multiple distances (a "small solution" and a "big solution" in German staff terms), they'd send a different operational force for each - e.g. the Tank Army gets the big objective while 1-2 tank corps get the small one. Or sometimes the full tank army gets the small one and a mere cavalry corps takes its chances on the Germans not being ready for a deeper hook.

The goal was never geographic really, it was to destroy some portion of the German army by cutting it off from the rest. Geography and the arrangement of forces - especially the latter - dictated what seemed feasible on that score. It was a matter of tying together the threads created by two or more breakthroughs, to kill the stuff between them.

They perforce ran into the reserves the Germans sent to stop such things. They had SOPs they used for this, pretty formulaic rather than adaptive. The lead tank brigade stays well concentrated and hits whatever it hits, hard, line of march attack. No pushfooting or looking around for open flanks. The idea is to blow through thin screens and only be stopped by a real position.

If or when the lead brigade gets a bloody nose trying this, the following forces can try another route, typically a short hook. Sometimes this is tactical, just turning the position that stopped the leading brigade and then driving right into the same guys that stopped them, from a flank. Sometimes they will go around rather than into the blocking force.

Typically the motor rifle brigade guys are being trailed along behind, setting up screens, and aren't up with the point. But they may come up to "fix" a block from the front, to allow the lead brigade to change direction. The tank corps commander typically keeps one tank brigade as his reserve. He will throw it in wherever it looks good - right at a block to break it down, around the same flank as the second, whatever.

The idea was that the Germans could put up a strong position at one or two bottlenecks or a screen everywhere, but could not be strong everywhere. So hit first and turn second, and one or the other is expected to work. Not meant to find out which before hand, just find out by attacking.

With tank armies the same ideas were used, but the two tank corps were typically given parallel routes, and the army as a whole followed the more successful one. The mech arm definitely had the "reinforce success" idea down pat, by late 1942 at least. A full tank army could have a whole mech corps as its reserve, and so could meet even a whole arriving panzer division and smash or turn it on a time scale of days.

They generally had success or failure largely based on German readiness and reserves, and secondarily on how sensible the depth of "bites" was at the planning level. If they went for bites that proved too large, the Germans would hold the jaws apart and both sides would find themselves in pretty much straight ahead fighting. If they got them small enough their close and eat something, but if too small that might be one infantry division or corps and not change the campaign all that much. The first mistake - too large - was much more common.

It could still work out. The mech guys brawled the arriving German reserves and in the meantime the rifle forces were mopping up the German infantry and expanding the initial break ins. The mech fighting had the net effect of keeping the German reserves from doing much to help the latter. Which then typically withdrew as best it could, with losses. The panzer forces held the way open long enough for them to get out, most of the time - but often leaving lots of equipment behind etc. And in the cases where they caught the Germans with weak reserves, the Russian mech just plain won the mobile fight, closed the trap exactly as planned, and an army or more died.

It was a quite effective system and robust to operator error, so to speak. But it wasn't a masterpiece, and losses could be high. The breakthrough forces fight the German deep reserves well in the rear of the original line, without much in the way of extra artillery etc. And with rifle formations coming up only slowly.

If the tanks got overextended and the Germans sent enough, they could set them back. Even more common, the Germans sent not quite enough, the Russians bludgeoned them and bludgeoned them some more, and the Germans then gave way or backed up - but the Russians lost a lot in the process.

They did not give up their operational objectives while sizable forces were intact. Instead they committed them in sequence. Fronts launched armies at week and 100 mile intervals. The Germans had to be ready everywhere and run back and forth, then brawl unit after unit breaking through their infantry lines at an operational, not a tactical scale. (Meaning the PDs fight 20, 50 miles behind the old front, which moves in consequence).

[LongLeftFlank]

Great stuff, JasonC, and thanks also Andreas.

Speaking hypothetically, was there anything the Germans could have done militarily (suing for peace was another matter) to stop or even blunt this Soviet offensive juggernaut after mid-1943? In other words, was Bagration or some similar annihilation battle not bound to happen in 1944, if not around Minsk, then elsewhere?

Sure, I get that this is all hypothetical, that Hitler was still a loon, that many core Wehrmacht doctrines hadn't kept up with the times or the enemy, and that in macro terms Overlord was coming no matter how the Germans did in the East (and if not, then an atomic Gotterdamerung was on tap for late '45).

But what if, say, the Germans had (drawing on some themes from prior threads, for which I also thank you):

(a) Pulled DAK from Africa intact to create the cadre for a new panzer army

( Accelerated full mobilization, and speeded absorption of Luftwaffe and navy cadres (say, 20 net new infantry (VG) divisions above what they actually mobilized by early 1944).

© Pulled the exposed armies from Crimea and the Leningrad/Baltic to shorten the front and get behind water/swamps. After the fall of Kiev and the Dnieper line, conduct a general withdrawal to _______________?, a more favorable line from which to blunt and halt Red Army winter offensives.

(d) Doctrinally, rather than throwing away PDs in "overscoped" counterattacks as soon as they detrained, paired them with new model VG divisions to beef up their infantry strength/staying power and deployed them in a linebacker/ counterpunch role.

(e) Since we're talking about Nazis here, in addition to "scorched earth", forced removal of as much of the male population as possible from areas being evacuated to deny the Red Army its recruiting base. Their most likely fate: slavery and starvation, just another grim chapter in the Holocaust. But a serious military effect?

(g) ___________________

What might have been the net impact, if any? What might the Russians have done in the winter of 1943-44 faced with a more "drawn-in", reinforced and flexible German defense?

[LongLeftFlank]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The goal was never geographic really, it was to destroy some portion of the German army by cutting it off from the rest....

They generally had success or failure largely based on German readiness and reserves, and secondarily on how sensible the depth of "bites" was at the planning level. If they went for bites that proved too large, the Germans would hold the jaws apart and both sides would find themselves in pretty much straight ahead fighting. If they got them small enough their close and eat something, but if too small that might be one infantry division or corps and not change the campaign all that much. The first mistake - too large - was much more common.

It could still work out. The mech guys brawled the arriving German reserves and in the meantime the rifle forces were mopping up the German infantry and expanding the initial break ins. The mech fighting had the net effect of keeping the German reserves from doing much to help the latter. Which then typically withdrew as best it could, with losses. The panzer forces held the way open long enough for them to get out, most of the time - but often leaving lots of equipment behind etc. And in the cases where they caught the Germans with weak reserves, the Russian mech just plain won the mobile fight, closed the trap exactly as planned, and an army or more died.

So, in light of the above, I'd take it that all the postwar complaining about "Hitler forced us to stand and die in untenable positions" is just the Wehrmacht excuse factory ignoring the role of the despised Russian muzhiks in engineering all those encirclements and defeats. Or did the Germans really make things worse for themselves some/most of the time?

[JasonC]

LLF - (a) - no difference. Just not remotely enough scale to matter a darn in the east. Also, they still wind up having to defend Italy, which still takes reasonable forces. Sure it helps if you haven't lost everybody sent to Tunisia. But the drain on forces to the west is due to the forces of the west, and not to decisions.

( - would have helped certainly, the time for it is after Stalingrad. If the recruit wave that actually is used to patch the front in the summer of 1944 after both Bagration and the fall of France, were instead available a year or so earlier, it might have made an appreciable difference either in the Kursk fighting or in the aftermath. Infantry depth being the main thing it would add.

But there are two things to remember, that would limit the feasibility and impact of this. The first is that supplying the larger force well inside the Ukraine would not have been easy. ANd the second is, when they actually pulled out the manpower stops in the later summer of 1944, the German economy went into decline. The western bombing had something to do with that, sure, but it was also just the withdrawal of manpower from industry - because that late war wave comes from pulling all kinds of previous exemptions.

Similarly, you can't transfer all the Luftwaffe ground guys before you've lost the war in the air, because they are actually doing things - up to spring of 1944 or so.

But a couple of extra infantry armies, sure it would have helped. When Manstein looked at the Kursk plan, he said it could work if they had 25 extra infantry divisions, but he doubted it would without them. Eyes were rolled, who had such things, was the reaction. In the event, the panzer divisons were constantly turning this way and that to clear their flanks, and typically one division in each panzer corps was entirely defensive, at any given time. When the offensive failed, the uncommitted forces of the Russian reserve, Steppe front, came to about 25 divisions. So Manstein was right that they were needed and about the scale.

But it was the Orel counterstroke that really beat that, and it wouldn't stop for it. A few extra IDs in the Orel bulge would have helped slightly, but not enough to stop it. It took more like 10 mobile divisions diverted from the north face of Kursk and sent from theater reserve, just to contain it enough to get most of the men out, still losing the salient.

Pulling out of Crimea makes little difference, a marginal help. The northern front was longer than it needed to be. Rationalizations were possible in other places, they each save a corps or so at a time and put it in reserve. Not doing this routinely kept the reserves thinner than they needed to be at the time of any Russian attack.

A more serious problem was the high command scarfing up the mobile divisions behind the front and sending them off to some new mission. It made any section of the front this was done to, far more vulnerable. Offensive employment of available armor in concentrated form was German doctrine, because it had worked for them in the first 2 years. But it doesn't work on defense.

When they had sufficient mobile divisions in reserve, they usually did stop the given break-in. They still got an attriting brawl and their infantry got mauled trying to get away. But they weren't pocketed a la Stalingrad. In Mars they stopped it cold, because they had such things.

As for eventual Bagration, it was vulnerable because the German armor was concentrated in AG south, on the southern route around the marshes. That was where the Russians had spent the whole previous year making their main effort, and the Russians kept up the appearance it would be again. There was little armor in AG center other than StuG formations. A couple of PDs are trying to stop entire tank armies on multiple routes. Just hopeless. They perhaps thought they could just shift the armor up from the south, but it wasn't nearly fast enough - the Russian offensive smashed 25 divisions before any of it arrived, really.

A general pull back to a more rational, shorter line was advocated by generals like Henrici, and it probably would have helped. It would also have given the Russians territory and manpower sooner, though. The right recipe isn't a fixed line but a flexibly moving one, with any strong enemy blow met by giving ground and then hitting its flanks etc as it gets extended, logistically. In other words, avoid the strength of the Russian rifle formations and their artillery park, and spend most of the time fighting the Russian mech arm with most of the German army.

There was one weakness in that idea, though. It assumed rather more mobility for the German IDs than they typically possessed. They were leg infantry formations with horse drawn transport for the guns and supplies. They move by rail well enough if planned out carefully and shifted gradually. Getting them all to dance to a Russian tune would not have been trivial. The German generals advocating flexible defense were doing so well after the war to NATO planners who would be much richer in mobility terms, and was prospective, not simply historical.

Pairing PDs with VGs doesn't work because the VGs can't move around with them. No, the right mobile intervener is the panzer corps, with 2 PDs and a PzGdr or motorized infantry division. Trying to mix in a horse drawn formation was just impractical, for a reaction reserve. Instead allow whole Pz Corps in reserve for army groups.

It also helps if you actually replace their losses, instead of indulging the fantasy that new production will make new units and the old ones will still be there as well - which was largely a psychological drug for the leadership, to give them hope every time they scanned the production figures.

As for scorched earth, they weren't playing pattycake as it was. Russian civilian deaths outpace military ones by a factor of 3. They thoroughly wrecked the donbas region before withdrawing from it. But in much of western Russia, the populace just took to the woods or to the swamps. There were hundreds of thousands of partisans active. Whole corps swept for them and could only guard the rail lines and towns, in practice. There isn't any huge force that can be spared from the front to go beat the bushes looking for the last Ivan. Just hopelessly unrealistic as a military matter.

On the last point about stupid stand fast orders, they were stupid and they were issued too often, but they were also ignored or formally rescended more often than the post war excuse factory lets on. Hitler approved evacuating the Orel salient, e.g. Typically it would have been better a week earlier than it happened, and in some cases - e.g. the foremost AG center positions before Bagration - they were criminally exposed in an operational and sometimes even a tactical sense, purely to symbolically give up less ground.

But mostly the Russians knew what they were doing and inflicted the losses - the Germans did inflict them on themselves. (That was typical postwar revisionist bravado). And the Germans did pick up and move once it was clear there was a disaster brewing - which was often. They just usually still got mauled getting away, because the rescuing PDs are fighting the Russian mech, and the IDs are therefore on their own, and underheavy pressure from the Russian rifle force, as well as having the odd tank corps slicing in behind them etc.

[ August 02, 2006, 06:43 AM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[jtcm]

Two further notes

1. In Spring 2001, while browsing in the Borders bookstore in the WTC, I noticed a book re Sov Army in WW II, collection of studies on themes-- read v. good chapter on rocket arty, "Katyushas". Instead of the usual guff (rain of death, Stalin's Organ, etc), it was a hard-headed analysis of the "managerial" problems of this type of arty-- distribute or concentrate ? Each choice entailed sacrifices and advantages. There was also long, thoughtful report on all the things that were wrong with rocket arty. -- Can anyone identify the book ?

2. Reading the thread makes me wonder about post WWII Sov doctrine, with its formulaic solutions and "spreadsheet" approaches. Did Nato come up with good ways of countering the problems of defence against the Soviet Style ?

(I ask as a once enthusiast TacOps player-- who was looking forward to Panzers East !, MajorH's never completed Eastern Front game-- but then CM came along)

[Bewildered]

Hi Jason C and Andreas. Many thanks. I thought the discussion was really interesting, and your knowledge awesome. Guess I need to learn an AWFUL lot! At least I have something to work on. Best go find some books

Many thanks again

Martin