Grisha

Hey, ParaBellum. Good to see you. Enthusiastic crowd here, as well they should be. It's the Russian front!

Incidently, lots of marsh with strips of good ground between. Also, lots of forests.

Also, from around Iassy-Kishinev.

Jason, I have Soviet maps from previous to WWII (1930s?) of the areas around Minsk and such. Not sure I remember but I think the scale is 1:50000. Let me know if it interests you in mail.

Don't forget, there's already a mountain of information on the CMBB forums. Check both the CM archival (2002) and the CM1x Barbarossa to Berlin forums. Searches are easy to do in either.

As stated above, the ISU-122/152 (and IS-II) were all breakthrough AFV's, tasked with supporting infantry through the first three lines of the enemy's tactical defense. Such units were assigned to tank armies too, and their use remained largely a form of mobile direct fire artillery. As an aside, a significant portion of the artillery support in a Soviet front line assault was direct fire. That is to say 76mm, 122mm and even a few 152mm pieces were used. Given the extent of pre-op reconnaissance, their use was not for an extended period as they were usually assigned a specific target (bunker or other ID'ed position). Most indirect fire artillery assets up to army level were centralized and coordinated through the extensive and specialized network of an artillery division.

Why does Denis Rodman only use one 'n' when spelling 'Denis'?

The US Army had a handbook on the armed forces of the USSR. This has a translation of those map symbols you were asking. I have it on pdf at home on a cd as well as in paper. I believe it was classified as TM 30-430 but I'll make sure once home.

Vark(and Steve): von Manstein's backhand blow in winter of 1942/1943, culminating in the lose of Kharkov, was a classic example of the Soviets losing their heads during an (operational) advance, disregarding everything their intelligence was warning them about. Lesser examples can be found in the counteroffensive of winter 1941/1942. In summer of 1944, however, there was very little of that in the Soviet offensives. What happened at Warsaw was expected since that was part of the main strategic objective of the Belorussian strategic operation (establishing a bridgehead across the Vistula river was the main objective). The Soviets were at the end of their operational tether and it was no surprise that they would be hitting strategic reserves at the Vistula river. As it turned out, elements of both the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian Fronts established bridgeheads across the Vistula which were consolidated and held (between Warsaw and Sandomierz). This bridgehead became the launch point for the Vistula-Oder strategic operation in Jan 1945. At the tactical level, a Soviet spearhead was known as a 'forward detachment.' It's job was often to advance as far as possible. What was 'possible' was defined in operational terms, since numerous operations were in effect, each one interdependent on the other for success. The benefit of an advancing forward detachment was that it introduced chaos at the operational level. The enemy couldn't lay down a fallback position because its flanks were compromised by the forward detachment(or much more likely, lots of forward detachments). This prompted the enemy to retreat steadily, facilitating the overall operational advance. The last thing a forward detachment wanted to do was get stuck in a battle along the way. If they could bypass without concern of an operational or strategic enemy reserve on the flank, they did it. What seems to be poor judgement tactically can sometimes be explained at the operational level. Tactics is only as important as the operational impact. No battle should ever be viewed as if in a vacuum. If I've misinterpreted something, I apologize. My intent was to make the distinction of the hierarchy and their perspectives and interdependence. It's all history now and makes for great reading and study.

Thanks for the heads up, Wodin. Also, check out "Red Army Tank Commanders": https://www.schifferbooks.com/red-army-tank-commanders-the-armored-guards-2270.html

Bil, I have to say your use of initiative is downright 'German.' Good on you. Very good tactical execution on your part up to this point. Thoroughly enjoying this AAR.

Interesting discussion about Patton, tactics, operations and Soviet doctrine. When talking about Patton are we discussing tactics? The General was an operator in WWII, not a tactician. When mentioning Soviet doctrine I'm assuming it refers to tactical doctrine. Tactics and operational art are two very different creatures.

I have a copy from an old Soviet publication of "Zvezda," or 'Star' in english. Think the author was Kazakevich, a razvedchik(scout) in WWII who turned to prose and poetry afterward. They made a couple movies based on the novella, one in the 1960s and a remake in the 2000s. It's a good story and offers an interesting peek into Red Army reconnaissance. If anyone cares for a copy just drop me a private.

Of the Soviet front commanders in WWII I have to tip my hat to Rokossovskii. He possessed finesse in his planning and execution and was much more conscious of casualties than someone like Konev or even worse, Zhukov. Chernovsky was also of similar mold to Rokossovkii but was younger. I do like Vatutin too though his life ended during the war from an ambush by Ukrainian nationalists.

Once you get the cyrillic it's not too hard to figure pronunciation. Aside from a few un-accented vowels, it pretty much sounds like it looks in Russian.

Interesting. People still getting that worked up about these things. Sorry, I've got better things to do than worry about the distribution of 9mm ammo in a game simulation.

What I find interesting is that the Soviets chose a celebrated Tsarist military commander from the Napoleonic wars as the namesake for the strategic operation. It may also be offset by the fact that Pyotr Bagration was a descendant of the Georgian royal dynasty of the same name(Stalin being Georgian as well). The Communist Party stepped into the background throughout late 1942 until late 1944, allowing the country to call upon their Tsarist roots in defense of the Motherland. You can argue the politics of it all, but I find it an interesting historical sidenote.

The German plan for defense is a mystery to me. I'd been tempted to view Elvis' side of the AAR, but now I'm much too intrigued to lift the veil at this point. Sporadic contacts along the right half of the Soviet advance, but always withdrawing or disengaging. Spotting rounds in succession in the more dense side of the Soviet advance, almost as if the expectation was for an advance, yet never the call for FFE. Didn't see the Soviets? Didn't see enough of them? German armor pretty much where one would expect it to be. At least indications of armor where it would be expected. I really get the feeling it's going to come down hard in KT6.

I haven't been monitoring the German side of this test, but given the progression of events, it's looking like things will heat up quite a bit in KT6. I like how you've reversed your approach in that the main thrust is exactly through the densest terrain. With armor the tendency is to go where maneuver and range is and have infantry for support. The speed of your approach is impressive too. I do wonder how the German defense will pan out on the Soviet left flank. If things go really well on the right it might even be possible to support the left afterward. Time will tell.

Bil, great site, Battle Drill. Bookmarked it! Thanks.

Nice work, Bil. So far so good for the Soviets. Keep it up!

Hi John, I used to have a site called Red Army Studies back in 2003. It listed a large number of VIZh issues from the 1980s in pdf format. Our staff was comprised of Scott Boston, Andreas Biermann, Douglas Frank and myself. The site (and url) is long gone but I still have the files on CD.

Bozhe moi? I think that question is best left to your own assessment. Russian(Soviet), German(Nazi), both, none. It all depends on your own feelings about this, that and the other thing, eh? 'Good.' It's such a subjective thing.

One russian source is issue #8, 1986 of the Soviet Military History Journal. It goes into some detail of how Soviet airpower was used in relation to front mobile groups in WWII. In 1944 one tank army had 800 combat aircraft assigned to it. An air corps commander typically was stationed with the tank army command post. Out in the field air division commanders were stationed with tank corps under a tank army. Air guidance officer were assigned to battle formations down to first echelon tank brigades and to forward detachments.

The Soviets committed to a front-wide offensive in 1943 and ended up paying more heavily in casualties than in 1941. It was a victory for sure, but one of pyrrhic proportions. STAVKA came to the conclusion in winter 43/44 that they could not hope to insure victory if they resorted to hammering the entire front in the following summer. So, they had to refine their operations even further. Up to this point the Soviets were employing deception and masking(covered movement and deployment) at the tactical and operational level with confidence and skill. STAVKA decided it was time to conduct these tools at the strategic level now. Rather than employ the front-wide strategy, the new model was to manipulate German strategic response through front-wide coordination of deception and masking. The result in summer of 1944 was a series of operations that were prepared and executed so as to draw German armor away from the Lvov area, which was the Soviets' primary direction of attack strategically. It began up north then shifted progressively southward. German forces were compelled to respond with their armor reserves as serious breakthroughs occurred up north. The Belorussian strategic offensive was the final draw in shifting German focus from the Lvov area and its massive success did much to reduce the number of panzers in position to oppose Soviet forces in the Lvov-Sandomierz operation. The Yassy-Kishinev operation in August was planned for last, and ended up with relatively light casualties overall. The interesting thing about Soviet tactics is that it was highly dependent on the operational planning prior. A lot of planning went into an operation, insuring that the battles to come were conducted under the most favorable terms possible. The tank army was their means of fighting in a dynamic environment. It was to advance through 'holes' created by Soviet assault forces (introduction usually occurred once the third line of tactical defense had been breached). From there a tank army was responsible for meeting their objectives, advancing along identified routes and only fighting when necessary. These were the Soviet troops most like the Germans in terms of tactics, their forward detachments being the recognized army elite within. The TOE of a tank army in 1944 was about as balanced as anything the Germans ever put together operationally. Add the Assault Air Regiments dedicated to tank armies during exploitation and you have the recipe for some rip-roaring battles.