Andreas

Step 1: Get to the river before the Germans do Step 2: Grab anything that swims, cling to it, swim across the river Step 3: establish as many bridgeheads as possible, merging them or selection of the main one(s) at a later stage. Step 4: build a bridge into the bridgehead The Red Army had a completely different approach to river crossings than the W.A. It was a lot more effective in keeping the Germans off balance, and ensured that major rivers were not massive barriers against them, but became springboards behind which the Red Army could prepare in relative safety for the next breakout operation.

Here is a bit more info on the 1st Moscow Motorised RD. I think I have a Soviet officer memoir at home by an officer who served in it. Need to dig for that.

Sorry for being unclear. The Germans used their cruisers (e.g. Prinz Eugen) in the Baltics to stop the Red Army close to the coast.

Snotball, snotball. (May I call you 'snotty'?) I had such high hopes for you. Soon I thought that, even you are probably nothing but a Kentish lout, but with a good heart, I would elevate you into the ranks of my prophets. But look what you have done. A limpwristed attempt to be either funny or insulting, it is impossible to tell even for someone with my powers of comprehension, and alas my error is exposed. You leave me no choice but to say in a mild-mannered voice 'Cry Havoc!' and let slip the hounds of war unto Kent. Yes, Kent. That haven of white trash and teenage mothers of three leeching the welfare system to the bone. That foul nest of London City workers with salary figures that are inversely related to their IQs. That abominable heap whence the Tories hail. That Ohio of the UK. Now it is to see the worst I have to offer (as soon as I have had a cup of tea and a scone). And it is on your head. I tried to be generous. I really did. Once I am finished with it, I hand it over to Dorosh and Emrys, with Berli dredging up the scrapes. Goodbye snotty.

Mr.Picklehaube would like to point out that the abbey itself was never fought over.

You must be really scared about the bang when they decide to fire it eventually. At least they have a good field of fire.

4) The Germans had and used in the Baltics 5) The Red Army had mine-roller tanks, and was very well experienced in breaching fortifications.

Kein Problem. Lexikon der Wehrmacht has all you may possibly want. In German. 18.PD from Lexikon der Wehrmacht

10 to 15 French divisions would, at German 1944 loss rates in the east, have extended the western Allied force pool by about 3-4 weeks. I am still waiting for someone of the 'the western Allies would have kicked USSR butt' persuasion to come along and tell me: a) how many forces on the ground the western Allies had how they propose the negative force ratio could have been turned around to become so overwhelming that the Allies could have won. To achieve this, I guess you need to think about how you turn the likely 2:1 or 3:1 against the western Allies in May 1945 into a 1:2 to 1:3 ratio in order to win. All this is speaking before we make any assumptions on who was more clued up on using their forces, whose logistics were better. Which sort of novel technology would have done that? If anyone here thinks that the Wehrmacht remnants could have done that (and there were disarmed but organised parts of it at least in the British sector until December), you have to consider that at a stroke you virtually ensure that the Poles, Czechs etc. take up arms on the side of the Soviets. So let's ignore that.

And before the famous German 'tracking by name' system is mentioned and how exact it was, just one comment on that. Of course it ensures that you know who exactly died or went MIA. Since the dead tend to stay that way though, and many MIAs are not turning up again either, it does not matter if you compile the report after the event, i.e. not every evening if you happen to be very busy (or dead yourself), but instead once the period of heavy action is over. Which BTW is the way it was done with battalion and regimental war diaries, division being the lowest level to have an officer assigned to writing the KTB on a permanent basis. While I am sure that strength returns quickly and (until late 44) accurately capture the total losses over a period once some peace and quiet returns (with obvious problems like MIA/KIA information when the area has been overrun by a bunch of Soviet tank armies), I am reasonably convinced that trying to look at them within a period of heavy action has some issues of source data reliability associated with it. [ October 15, 2003, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

Just as an addendum to the strength returns, I know that at the Dupuy Institute, German strength returns are held in slightly higher respect than the Ark of the Convenant. There appears to be evidence though that in periods of complete and utter chaos, these returns are not really worth the paper they are written on. After all, you have to remember how the process worked from bottom up. Company commander (oh sorry, he just got whacked along with all other officers, but there is a Sergeant who does his job, I am sure he won't mind filling in the odd form or two while he tries to figure out where his positions are and what to do with his company of 12 men) gives the info to the battalion staff(woops, BN HQ had to PUFO because US arty had them located, well, the 2 i/c can always write the stuff up while crawling over to the new hole in the ground) hands it to regimental staff (oh dear, they just had a strafing attack, and two of the battalions are close to breaking under the pressure of the US forces opposite them, so the Oberst and his 2 i/c are up at the battalion CPs and the chap who is supposed to write the report is busy checking where the signal lines broke, but they won't let that get in the way of ensuring the report is up to scratch) hands it to divisional command, where everyone is running around like mad trying to stop the US forces from doing whatever it is they intend to do. Somehow, the daily strength return suddenly moved from a should-do-properly to a ah-bugger-that-I-just-make-something-up status. In early 1945, loss figures are up to 80% out. I believe that to this day my grandfather (who is 89 now) is listed as KIA on the local village memorial, from the time he was severely wounded in 1944. [ October 15, 2003, 10:57 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

Spook - I am also quite critical of the research approach by Zetterling. In critical periods, I do not think that the strength returns are necessarily the best source. I suspect the figure Don is quoting is the 'Verpflegungsstaerke' (ration strength - all men with the division, regardless of whether they are short-term sick/wounded/in training). A more interesting figure would be the 'Grabenstaerke' (trench strength - AIUI all men in the frontline companies and heavy weapons companies) or 'Gefechtsstaerke' (fighting strength all men in the teeth units, infantry/tank/artillery). I believe these would be quite low. Because of the way attrition works, a division that is missing 3,000 men (as Panzerlehr did then) could really be gutted, if these are missing in the teeth units. For the typical German 6-battalion infantry division, losses of 2-3,000 incurred over a short term were probably catastrophic (long term they could cope easier by combing out their rear services). Massive carpet bombing probably created fairly massive problems most of the time, with solving little to nothing. Cassino town, GOODWOOD, Stalingrad, Cobra, Tractable come to mind as examples. In specialised applications though, such as Walcheren, it could work quite well.

You should have OOB info down to Coy level in Glantz. Just substract a few breakdowns and stuff and you are there. Here is some info from Lexikon der Wehrmacht for the 1941 Panzerdivision: Kdo Panzerbrigade 1 Panzerregiment Stab mit Nachrichten-Zug (2 PzBefw, 1 PzKpfw III) le.Pz.Zug (5 PzKpfw II) 2 Panzerabteilungen zu je Stabskompanie mit Nachrichten-Zug (2 PzBefw, 1 PzKpfw III) le.Pz.Zug (5 PzKpfw II) 2 le.Pz.Kp. - Kompanietrupp (2 PzKpfw III) - leichter Zug (5 PzKpfw II) - 1. Zug (5 PzKpfw III) - 2. Zug (5 PzKpfw III) - 3. Zug (5 PzKpfw III) 1 m. Pz.Kp. - Kompanietrupp (2 PzKpfw IV) - leichter Zug (5 PzKpfw II) - 1. Zug (4 PzKpfw IV) - 2. Zug (4 PzKpfw IV) - 3. Zug (4 PzKpfw IV) Ersatz- Staffel (2 PzKpfw II, 3 PzKpfw III, 1 PzKpfw IV) - nicht bei allen Abteilungen vorhanden. Leichte Kolonne Pz.Abt. (Troß) 1 Panzer-Werkstatt-Kp. Kdo Schützenbrigade mit 2 Schützenregiment (mot.) Stabskompanie mit Nachrichten-Zug (mot.), Kradmeldezug, Pionierzug 2 SchützenBataillone (mot.) mit je Stab mit Nachrichtenzug 3 SchützenKp. (mot.) (je 18 le.M.G., 2 s.M.G., 3 le.GrWf.) 1 schwere Kp.(mot.) (8 s.M.G., 6 mGrWf) 1 Geschütz-Kompanie (mot.) (2 le. I.G., 3 Pak – versch. Modelle-, Pionierzug) 1 Infanterie-Kolonne (mot.) 1 Infanterie-Geschütz-Kp (mot.) (4 le. I.G., 2 s. I.G.) Both 3. and 18.PD only had one Company mounted in SPW, not a whole battalion.

I think it is the latter. Here is an interesting site I just googled across.

The numbers are for aircraft in theatre. You are assuming: a) a prolonged war that the Japan war had ended That changes the picture somewhat. I am assuming that the Soviets would have applied the same sort of action that brought them 500km in 14 days in the Vistula Oder offensive. We are talking at least Dutch border and on/across the Rhine in most cases from the jump-off points.

Since there was no such division as you describe, I believe that the destruction of fantasy divisions would not have had any measurable impact on Red Army performance. For the impact of air-power in General, please do a search. As I explain above it was vsatly over-estimated.

Would that be von Brauchitsch? Michael </font>

My geography of Eastern Europe is notoriously bad, only surpassed by my ignorance of bomber type ranges. I somehow doubt though that with the ranges given, massive strikes could have been launched against any centres of Soviet weapons production. The other thing I am not sure about are numbers on the western allies side. In mid-1945 the Red Army fielded 6,135 million men and women. How many men did the western allies field in may 1945? 2 million between them? Add the sorry remnants of the Wehrmacht who still spoil for a fight and you get what? 3 million? Just found a site with some stats, according to that the Soviets had 15,800 planes in 1945. The US/UK between them had about 27,000. Since the Soviets (unlike the Germans) had petrol to fly them, I think achieving total command of the air would have been a different story. Looking just at the numbers, I think stalemate would have been a very good outcome for the western allies.

I am always surprised that: a) people seem to assume total command of the air would have been a given for the western allies - I wonder if I am the only one who is aware that the Red Army had planes, and knew how to use them? that this would make bugger all difference anyway - total command of the air did not enable the Allies to crush the Germans in a month or so. That needed a lot of ground action. It contributed, but even that contribution was limited despite all the hype, as we now know. Redwolf - I do explicitly say that I think the western allies could have learned the same lessons. They just did not seem to have done so by May 1945, because they did not get the opportunity. Soviet operational art was used to great effect against the Japanese in Manchuria, so I guess that proves it was not just simply of use against the Wehrmacht.

von Rundstedt either suggested or agreed the halt. Hitler supported that. Halder and somebody else important (head of OKH) was against it. There were sound reasons for the decision to stop attacking with panzer forces (infantry attacked all along) - which when looked at with 20/20 hindsight are of course all wrong. 1) The British were not going anywhere, and their bridgehead (really encirclement) had no operational depth. It is often overlooked that Dynamo was a bit of a long shot. 2) The German Panzertruppen were needed against the French troops on the left flank, which were pretty much unbroken. Any tanks lost in reducing Dunkerque would be missing afterwards during the battle for France. Giving them a chance to R&R ensured they were available. 3) The terrain was not quite that good for tank use, so infantry was better in any way. 4) There was a belief that the air over the bridgehead was controlled by the Germans. A massive effort by the RAF at least contested it so much that the evacuation could happen. Overall, while we can say very easily today that it looks like a desastrous decision, I think any suggestion that Hitler interfered to let the BEF escape (for whatever reason) is a bit far-fetched. They just got it wrong this time, but not just Hitler, also the local commander did.

If you go to the Scenario Depot (first link in my sig), I think you can look by author. That would give you most of mine, except the ones that are on the CMBB SE CD. I also recommend the stuff by Hans, and the Gebirgsjaeger operation series (CMBB).

I have returned. It has displeased me to see that my prophets are but a bunch of slackass posterboys. My thoughts have wondered to making war on Gaylord Focker, for he gets on my nerves. I shan't be bothered though. Inexorably, the emptyness that is his life will sag in on him, and crush him to a black pulp, devour his spirit, and leave not even the hollow shell of what once (maybe) was a man. Then again, looking at his posts, that has probably happened already.

I believe one of the key differences between the Soviets and the western allies was that the soviets had a soundly developed understanding of how to conduct operations. Reading about Italy and the conduct of the campaign in NWE makes me think the western allies were much less in control of things than the Soviets were in the last year of the war, and maybe a bit before. Cock-ups such as Antwerp, the attack into the Huertgen forest, the Ardennes, the switch of 8th Army by Leese to the coast, all that makes me think that the western allies had something to learn that the Soviets had learned once 1943 was up. That would be only natural, seeing that the main combat happened in the east, so it is not an indictment of western generalship - they just seem to have been further behind on the learning curve. The relentness and the single-mindedness of purpose of STAVKA, the latter a luxury Eisenhower never had, make me think that if it had come to blows, the western allies would have been very rudely shocked into realising that their opponents took a 500km advance in 2 weeks for granted in a major operation in 1945, and did not see it as something special, such as Patton's famed dash across france.

The other element is of course the gun. The way I understand it (Kip knows more about it than I do), the Zis-3 was a fabulous gun, and the Soviets were churning them out (>56,000, according to this article by Jason Long. So, once you have so many field guns that you can equip any rifle division twice over and then have some left for barter, what do you do with them? Make them self-propelled.