Byelorussian terrain

[John Kettler]

Der Alte Fritz,

While I very much appreciate your kind deeds in providing me the maps, artillery material and such, I regret to say that not a single one of the maps is displaying as other than an empty white square in the center of which is a tiny blue square with a question mark inside it. I don't know what the problem is, but presently, all I have is your post, in which your artillery table is also missing and shows the dread blue square.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Michael Emrys]

John,

Often I can view what the blue question mark is intended to convey. It is usually signifying a website that does not allow hot links, but here's what you have to do. "Quote" the post in which it appears. You should see a URL there. Copy that and paste it in your browser and that should take you to the page where the item can be viewed.

Michael

[dsf]

Der Alte Fritz,

While I very much appreciate your kind deeds in providing me the maps, artillery material and such, I regret to say that not a single one of the maps is displaying as other than an empty white square in the center of which is a tiny blue square with a question mark inside it. I don't know what the problem is, but presently, all I have is your post, in which your artillery table is also missing and shows the dread blue square.

Regards,

John Kettler

I found I had to log in to Google to see the images.

Regards

Scott Fraser

[JonS]

There is a good comparison of Soviet, British and German artillery methods complete with fire plans, overlays, etc at this site: http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135327

DAF,

this might interest you:

http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=59&uin=uk.bl.ethos.512760

Despite the title, it has considerable comparative coverage of the period up till 1945.

[John Kettler]

JonS,

Thanks to you, I've now unearthed a truly remarkable insight into how artillery really performed. It appears to have had a previously unknown magical bombardment mode. I quote from the Abstract.

"During the Cold War in Europe,the importance of field artillery wanded relative to other arms."

Presumably, before the Cold War artillery relied on Orbs of Power to carry out its fire missions!

Der Alte Fritz,

That Armchair General thread you gave has so much good stuff in it It's now bookmarked.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Der Alte Fritz]

John

Yes there are some real insights there and a fair comparison between the German - Soviet and British/US artillery capability. I think that most of the items you cannot see are in that post. If in any doubt PM me.

[John Kettler]

Der Alte Fritz,

Got your PM but hadn't yet tried what you suggested. The site British Artillery is nothing short of phenomenal. I occurs to me also that this article at All World Wars is a must read. It covers the development of Russian artillery tactics and combat employment from 1941-1944. I found the description of how the Germans took advantage of a lull to systematically locate, plan fire on, and deliver such a shattering blow, on men and weapons alike, on Russian gun positions, OPs, HQ and other key locations that the sector was quiet for weeks. Also of interest was the most unpleasant Russian practice of slipping an FO into the German rear via Spetsnaz, after which the Germans were placed under observed fire aimed from behind their front lines! Needless to say, the Germans worked very hard to prevent recurrences.

TACTICS & FIRE CONTROL OF RUSSIAN ARTILLERY IN ATTACK AND DEFENSE DURING 1941, 1942, and 1944 AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT IN RECENT TIMES BY OBERST (I.G) HANS-GEORG RICHERT

(Blaring capitals in original)

Back to geography. This is an excerpt from Professor Paul Lydolph's seminal Geography of the U.S.S.R. We used to have this book in the early 80s?, but Dad emptied a wall of books when a Samoan library was wiped off the island by a typhoon. This piece is from the 1990 Fifth Edition. The forestation map seems particularly apposite.

http://http-server.carleton.ca/~gozornoy/geog3600fall06/readings/week_04_lydolph_ch05.pdf

Lydolph penned another book called Climatology of the U.S.S.R. That book would also appear to be highly pertinent to CMRT and its successor games.

http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/tributes_memorials/gl/lydolph_paul_e

The bibliography of Russian atlas sources from this formerly CONFIDENTIAL CIA doc should prove useful.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol10no2/pdf/v10i2a04p.pdf

University of Indiana annotated bibliographic resource Cyrillic: Russian Cartography and Geography Bibliography

http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=1002251

Regards,

John Kettler

[Nidan1]

http://www.amazon.com/Anvil-War-Generalship-Defense-Eastern/dp/1853671819/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396283252&sr=1-1&keywords=the+anvil+of+war

This is an excellent book that presents a lot of detail on what the Germans encountered late in the war in the East, and how they went about trying to counter it.

[JasonC]

Nidan - unfortunately, Raus is a know fish-story teller, who recycles things he read in Signal magazine as fact. He was a reasonably capable general, but in his post war debriefings he was definitely pushing a line of "we are now all allies vs the beastly Russians" and was not above making things up. Doesn't mean don't read it, does mean liberal quantities of salt are required wherever his testimony has been used.

[Broadsword56]

Since this thread has gone off in an artillery direction now and Jason has returned, thought I'd ask:

It seems to me, after reading several books and reports about ops on/around the Bagration timeframe, that the Red Army did a great job shooting preplanned bombardments and put a lot of artillery tubes (75mm, 120mm mortars) up front with the regiments and divisions. But, when there were breakthroughs and rapid advances, as in Bagration, the Soviets had greater trouble than the Germans in keeping indirect artillery fire available as needed to the units at the tip of the spear.

Is this accurate? Was it due to communication inferiority (fewer radios? reliance on wire field telephones?) Or did the front simply move too fast for the guns and ammo dumps to keep pace? How far down the organization table did Soviet FOs operate, and how many teams would have typically moved with a division, regiment, battalion? Or were they totally independent and operated out of a larger (Corps? Army?) HQ?

In the companion op layer boardgame I've made to accompany RT, the standard rules let any unit with LOS to an enemy call for indirect fire on it, provided they make a successful radio contact dieroll with the battery. That's fine for the Germans, but I'm wondering if it might be more realistic on the Soviet side to restrict on-the-fly artillery missions by saying, for example, that only recon units or units stacked with a leader counter can make indirect fire calls. That's not literally how it worked, but a way to represent limited flexibility in the game mechanics and force the Soviet player to rely more on organic direct fire and preplanned indirect fire for artillery support. Thoughts?

[JasonC]

Broadsword56 - first, no it isn't fine for the Germans, who didn't do such things. It is fine for the Americans or late war Brits, that is about it. Everyone else, emphatically including the Germans, allocated fire much higher in the command chain and did not let anyone with a radio break in and call for fire.

The Germans had only one FO for each battery. He was a member of that battery organization, and he was attached to whatever unit that battery was tasked to support. Artillery officers at battalion, regiment, and "ARKO"s could order fire from more guns, and the regiment and ARKO commanders also made battery to maneuver unit assignments. But that was it. Flexible tasking consisted in a commander of a regiment or more of artillery ordering either a large joint fire mission or even more common, ordering that the guns support maneuver formation X rather than Y, without asking either maneuver unit what they thought of the matter. (Those artillery officers were in turn listening to divisional and corps command staffs, to be sure). Artillery battalions and regiments might have their own observation details, farther to the rear but with longer sight than front line FOs - about the only direct supplement.

In other words, the only place the Germans used "eyes front pull" to direct artillery fire, rather than "rear command push", was at the single battery level (very occasionally one battalion, firing together) after already putting a set of guns in dedicated support. The normal level deciding on artillery allocations, on the other hand, was division - a single artillery regimental commander - or special "ARKOs" to coordinate higher than that.

The Russians used a very different principle, which was to give all levels of maneuver units some organic form of fire support, but quite a limited one, and then to push tons of the overall firepower pool quite high, to army level. The combined arms army then directed grand fire plans, centrally planned.

What do I mean by organic firepower forms? The battalion had 82mm mortars. The regiment had a few 76mm guns. The division had a few more longer range 76mm tubes and maybe a few 122mm howitzers. At any of those levels, the commander of the overall formation at that level could decide how to fire those guns to his own plan, or to put them in dedicated support one level lower in his local unit. That is all those maneuver units could actually call for - their permanent organic fire support elements, and whatever the local "boss" gave them beyond that, one level up.

That system left a huge portion of the overall gun pool, including all the big stuff, to the army commander. The 122mm guns with the range for counterbattery, the 120mm mortars with so much of the medium range heavy firepower, the 152mm gun howitzers, all the specialist rocket formations, anything super heavy available - all were in the army commander's tool box to shape his overall operational plan.

Sometimes that might include support to a maneuver element, but what passed for a maneuver element to an army commander was a rifle division or a full tank corps. He might give a battalion of 120mm mortars to a rifle division commander for the duration of an operation, for example, or order a Guards Mortar Regiment of rockets to support a given tank corps - until it fired off its very limited supply of rockets and went back into his pool for reloads.

But even more often, the army commander or his staff would allocate the fire of those heavies directly, to a plan. Smash sector Z from H hour to H plus 4, using one unit of fire. It took a general to order the expenditure of that much ammunition from guns that big - no captain let alone lieutenant would ever be trusted with such riches and responsibility.

Why did the firepower drop off so rapidly after an offensive got going? Logistics most of all. A major offensive involved millions of shells, that had to be shipped to the front by rail, then elaborately "lightered" from rail unloading points to the firing gun positions by horse and wagon (in the rifle formations) and a very limited fleet of trucks. There were scarcely enough trucks to lift some of the guns to keep up with the mobile formations, and certainly not enough to lift the million shell supply dumps on a time scale of a day or three.

Once the front is moving 10 miles a day, it will get out of range of the heavies, and then the commanders have logistic limits on what to send ahead to keep up with the maneuver elements. The mechanized maneuver elements themselves have organic lift and are the highest movement priority. They have a few dedicated firepower support elements and those too are fully motorized - but are limited to 76mm guns in their "AT" regiments, to some 120mm mortars, trucks, and to the odd rocket formation that wasn't already "out" after the big offensive-starting todo. Maybe a few heavier gun formations would be assigned to keep up, but nothing approaching most of them.

The next movement priority is simply fuel and ammo for that mechanized force. Then ammo for the rifle forces striving to keep up. Now, all the remaining trucks have to choose - lift a few guns and some ammo for them, or lift a lot of guns but no ammo for them. Easy call - only a few guns move out.

200 miles later the line goes stable again, in maybe a month. Now the horse and wagon stuff can catch up. Rail repair crews can laboriously switch the gauges and fix dismantled sections of captured track. Rolling stock can lift the old dumps, if and when they can get loaded, and over track sections long enough to be worth the loading and unloading work, compared to just moving by road. The guns trickle forward, the ammo dumps start to rebuild. And the whole shebang gathers its "wind" for the next big push.

Stand still for long in front of that, and the Russians pound you with sledgehammers. Give way, though, and they have to fight with the mechanized fifth of their army and with shoestring artillery support. Pull back too slowly and the rifle force will catch up and "eat" you, first just enveloping you with infantry (with limited mortar fire support, organic stuff), and taking its time after you are surrounded, to bring up whatever is needed to bludgeon you into surrender.

I hope that helps...

[Broadsword56]

Great detail Jason, thanks. I hope others were enlightened by it, too.

Given what you said, for my purposes I'm going to apply that restrictive boardgame mechanism I described earlier to both German and Soviet sides as a bit of "design for effect" to prevent units all over the map spotting for indirect fire willy-nilly.

The Soviets will get to do some big preplanned shoots with the larger assets maybe a couple of times a day, and I'll let the player secretly pick which turns.

[John Kettler]

JasonC et al.,

Division Level Matters

Russian DIVARTY typically was 1 x Battalion 122mm M38 howitzers and 2 x Battalion 76.2mm ZIS-3 guns. In the Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation (contemporary with Op Bagration, therefore highly pertinent), though, the lead division came equipped with the altogether more hurtful 24-gun 122mm howitzer regiment.

RAGs (Regimental Artillery Groups) and DAGs (Divisional Artillery Groups) varied considerably in composition because they were mission tailored. RAGs had 120mm mortars as well as 76.2mm regimental guns. At Corps level, Katyushas are available, as well as 122mm guns.

The regimental guns you mentioned were almost exclusively used in Direct Fire. Indeed, Polyanskiy, who wrote From Stalingrad to Pillau chronicling his service as a regimental 2-gun section commander and a sudden deep end of the pool appointment to battery commander for four guns, so states and further informs readers of his book that the original Russian version was titled Direct Fire Against the Enemy.

Kirkenes-Petsamo Operation Artillery Issues

Here is a seminal Leavenworth Study of the Kirkenes-Petsamo Operation (October 1944) done by then-Army Major James Gebhardt, a noted expert on Russian military matters (save Spetsnaz, which he pretty much poo poos; I own the book, and it's not good). This study relies on a plethora of not only primary sources but also Russian and German memoirs. Fire support specific material begins on page 17 and goes into who had what, from where; who was shooting at what and for how long. Here's but one example of the riches in the study (p.19).

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/Petsamo-KirkenesOperation.pdf

"The Front order specified the details of the artillery preparation as follows (see appendix A):

5 minutes—Barrage by all indirect-fire weapons, except MRLs, on strongpoints and centers of communi- cation and command and control.

30 minutes—Registration.

60 minutes—Destruction of known targets; creation of passage lanes in barbed-wire obstacles.

30 minutes—Aerial bombing while artillery continues to suppress important targets.

20 minutes—Artillery plus two brigades of MRLs suppress newly acquired targets.

10 minutes—Maximum density of fire by all systems directed at initial defensive positions, immediate depth,

and enemy artillery and mortar batteries."

Just for the preparation, the Soviets allocated a total of 140,000 rounds— 84,000 mortar and 56,000 artillery. They also planned to fire 8,200 to 8,500 rounds of MRL projectiles per square kilometer on selected strongpoints, a total of 97 tons of MRL ordnance.

When the infantry attacked following the artillery preparation, the artillery was to use the standard "successive concentration of fire" to a depth of 2.5 kilometers.50 Under this system, the direct support indirect-fire assets were to concentrate their fires on successive lines immediately in front of the attacking troops, shifting their fires forward as the attack advanced. The 82-mm and 120-mm mortars were to fire successive volleys, each 150 meters beyond the previous volley. This method of employment, by exploiting the high angle-of-fire capability of mortars, aided in reaching targets on reverse slopes, which artillery fires often missed, and also reflected the relatively greater amount of mortar tubes and ammunition on hand."

The monograph gives total ammunition stockpiled, amount allocated on average to the guns (2.2 BK/Units of fire), total ammo expenditure the first day, guns allocated to Direct Fire and more. It also provides some information potentially directly applicable to CMRT.

In the Kirkenes-Petsamo Op, the terrain was so forbidding that even the mighty, war-winning Studebaker 6x6 was roadbound. Since it was the chassis for the Katyusha, this had a direct impact on where the Katyusha could be used during the op. The operational overlay for CMRT may need to do something similar in swampy or other areas where trucks can't go. Jeeps are much more capable in this task. Counterbattery was conducted using technical means, which must be primarily sound and flash ranging, with help from air recce and various human sources.

The GPW practice of having organic fire support for units as small as a company (50mm mortars for a time) and up continued into the Cold War and beyond. Prized GRU defector, former intelligence officer in intel HQ for a wartime Front and before that CO of both Motorized Rifle and tank companies Suvorov/Rezun flat out states this and goes on to give scathing replies to western military types asking about units requesting fire support. The way he bluntly describes it, the unit commander was expected to fight the war with his own resources and was neither entitled nor allowed to request fire support from higher echelons. Where you do see requests for fire support being reported are at corps and higher. There may've been lower level arrangements, but I've seen nothing indicating formal procedures to do so. Mind, my knowledge base here is sorely lacking.

Military History Online has an excellent 2-part study of the Kirkenes-Petsamo Op. It's called The Soviet Offensive in the Arctic: The Pechenga (Petsamo)-Kirkenes Operation 1944 - Part 1 of 2

by Kai & Iryna Isaksen

Type soviet arctic offensive into your search engine and you're there! This was my first look at anything resembling a Russian fire plan.

L'vov Peremyshl' Operation

What follows is the full OOB for 1st Ukrainian Front L'vov-Peremyshl' Operation (almost simultaneous with Op Bagration) detailing who, at which echelon, has what and how many, to include the High-power artillery units (203mm howitzer).

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/CGSC/CARL/nafziger/944RGAE.pdf

The Front commander may, if STAVKA harkens to his pleas, receive such goodies as railroad guns, but STAVKA can also hand out Katyusha brigades and artillery divisions--of several types. In the Kirkenes-Petsame Op, the Russians pulled most of the artillery out of two other Armies and gave it to the spearheading 14th Army.

The above should considerably advance the artillery discussion, but also introduce a gradual rudder correction to bring us back to Byelorussian terrain. It's quite clear from what I dug up that the level of support fires for the spearhead units are simply gigantic, but it's equally clear there's very little flexibility in the fire plan at lower tactical levels, where we fight.

What's not said is that once the coverage of the divisional guns (source of most support fires for the frontoviki) runs out, the go to is the SU-76M, which is the SP of the Rifle formations and used there as we would use tanks attached to infantry units. Obviously, SU-76M is nowhere nearly as tough as a tank, but it's cheap and provides the advancing Rifle troops considerable firepower, now, while allowing the tanks to conduct high speed exploitation following a breakthrough. More potent SPs are available, but the average frontovik will not see one.

Russian FOs in CMRT

A Russian CMRT player has about as much chance of having an actual FO as a snowball does when dropped smack into the Sun. Should that miracle occur, then said worthy will be found with the CP for at least a division. I simply see no basis for going lower than that. Thus, the presence of an FO (in an AFV in Tank units) means that the supported unit is the spearhead, and scenario design should reflect this.

That's all I have for now.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

Operative word "front". The artillery prep fire was centrally directed from very high up. Not called from the lower echelons. But all the units from battalion up have fire support assets, and can direct their use once combat is actually joined.

Where the US or Brits treated artillery as a service to line units, and the Germans treated it as a specialty of artillery professionals, the Russians treated it as one tool in each commander's kit bag - with the big stuff a tool in the bag of generals, not lieutenants.

[Der Alte Fritz]

JasonC is absolutely correct in his description of Soviet artillery usage.

You can find more descriptions here: http://militera.lib.ru/science/peredelsky_ge/index.html with a table that gives dozens of fire plans.

I would just make one point about the Front level artillery units, they did plan to fire off ALL the shells in the dumps before an offensive as this amounted to 1-3 'combat loads' (60 shells for a 122mm combat load) and planned for this. In some cases, when the infantry was using their 'battalion sized recce attacks' before the offensive, they did so well that the offensive set off early before the fire plan was finished leaving about a third of the dumps still full. This happened to Antipenko (Commander of Logistics for the 1st Belorussian Front) on 23rd June 1944 and he was then ordered to send his men and limited number of trucks off into the marshes and swamps to look for all these heavily camouflaged and return them to the railhead for transportation forward. STAVKA insisted that he do this rather than abandon them. He did this a bit later on as the first few days of the offensive (which had by far the greatest ammunition expenditure for all units) the logistics units and their lorries made huge efforts to catch up with forward units and re-supply them before they advanced out of range. This took place over the first 1-200 km so that at least the units started the pursuit phase with replenished stocks.

The Front level artillery units having completed their fire mission would then re-locate to set up for another fire mission in support of another offensive (1st Belorssian Front attacked with its right wing and the artillery moved to set up for the attack by the left wing) with the move made by railway or in some cases road if time was an issue. Often the next mission would be the reduction of a Festung Platz some distance along the line of advance. This would have been isolated during the advance and screened by a number of units, the railway would be restored and then the Front artillery would arrive with reserves and accomplish the reduction of the fortress.

The main thing to take away from the Soviet artillery method is that it applied maximum force against a static defence to breach it, after which the Soviet method of Deep Battle unhinged the entire defence and the pursuit phase began in which ammunition usage was very low. Typically a unit might have 2-3 combat loads for the breach operation but only 0.25 for the pursuit operation. So the reason that they were 'topped off' before setting out on the pursuit was to ensure that when the pursuit ended 300-600km further on, the units had sufficient reserves to fight a battle to consolidate their gains until the railway and the logistics forces could catch up. This is a key element of Soviet thinking in that the end of an offensive should set up the jumping off position for the next offensive, which meant fighting to retain it against stiffening German reserves. In the Vistula-Oder Operation, this meant fighting a bridgehead battle at 650 km from their start line - and winning it.

To put this is a Western perspective it is as if the British had broken out of Caen and then pursued the Germans all the way to Arnhem with an Armoured Division sitting on the far side of the river defending the bridge while the rest of the army trudged through Belgium and captured the near bank of the Rhine. The next offensive would have been a breakout of the Arnhem bridgehead onwards. Or the US Army under Patton when it runs out of fuel in Lorraine, sending an armoured force forward with the last of the fuel to capture the Rhine bridges while the rest waited for re-supply. That is the difference with the Soviet method.

[Nelson 1812]

BletchleyGeek, just looked at the maps.... thanks for the link.

Some appear to be peppered with small circles, are these just where the ground has sunken due to the terrain... ie marshes and old woodland.

Anybody know?

[Erik Springelkamp]

BletchleyGeek, just looked at the maps.... thanks for the link.

Some appear to be peppered with small circles, are these just where the ground has sunken due to the terrain... ie marshes and old woodland.

Anybody know?

I am just guessing about this case, but around where I live, in Groningen, which is continuously connected through the North German Plane to Byelorussia, we have in the sand and bog soil many round depressions that are filled with water or swamp and they are called 'Pingo ruins'.

They were formed in the ice age when a growing body of ground water froze and created a hill over an underground ice 'lens'. This is the 'Pingo'. Then the hill is eroded away, making it a 'Pingo ruin', and when the ice age ended, the ice lens melted leaving a circular hole in the ground, which became a lake, which could fill with bog peat.

[Nelson 1812]

Thanks for that Erik.

[schwerpunktgrenadier]

I am shocked at just how good the new maps look. Just started the scenario Tankovyi and it has a heat haze in the background which really makes the foreground jump out. The map at ground level has some lovely detail and subtlety. I am impressed and definitely feels like a step-up in quality. Well done Battlefront!

[Battlefront.com]

Thanks! You guys may think that we are all jaded here on the development end of things. I can assure you that when we saw the first couple of maps made with the new art and terrain types we were taken aback. The map makers we have cranking out stuff are nothing short of stunning artists. Talk about setting the mood!

Steve

[JasonC]

Broadsword56 - some follow up on Russian logistics, just because I was reading about it today and found it interesting...

The main logistical build up for Bagration involved moving 3 million metric tons supplies, using 5000 trains averaging 50 freight cars each, over the course of about 2 months. The rate of trains to the sector was 90-100 per day during the build up. 40% of the trains carried men and the major equipment of the units to the front, 60% carried the supply total above. The largest single item was POL at 1.2 million tons; artillery ammunition was 900,000 tons and was the second biggest item. (Food was 150,000 metric tons and provided 14 days rations for the assembled forces, by kick off day).

The ammunition supply amounted to 5 units of fire with the units, and the POL supply provided between 10 and 20 refills for first line transport, depending on the unit.

That was the stockpile - the ongoing supply requirement was 45,000 metric tons per day, averaging 275 per attacking division per day.

The haul from railheads to units and front, there was a truck fleet of 12000 trucks. Those were divided between groups for each of the 4 attacking fronts (Baltic and 3 Byelorussian), each with around 1275 trucks, and smaller 385 truck lift forces for each attacking army. Understand, that isn't with the units, that is the rear area lift to get supplies up to the units. But the 45000 ton per day sustainment has to be moved by those 12000 trucks, or by horse power. And would generally involve multiple "lifts", from railhead through front to army to unit.

The basic fact is that the train lift to prepare involved 70 times the sustainment amount, and the truck fleet available could not move even the sustainment amount without multiple trips per truck per day (about 1.5 with perfect operating rate and 2.5 ton average loads each, more like 2 per truck per day with realistic readiness). That sets the logistical "reach" - move to a distance at which one rear area truck can only make one round trip per day from the railheads, and even the sustainment rate is out of reach - to say nothing of moving the original stockpile forward.

There is a reason the most ambitious initial objective for the whole operation was Minsk. They doubled the reach after seeing how well it was all succeeding, but that put them on a shoestring by the Polish border, required a lot more time than the original fast advance to Minsk, needed rail repair to move the rail lift "reach" forward, etc.

I hope this is interesting.

[Battlefront.com]

Let's not forget that the Soviets faced an almost identical problem as the Germans faced in 1941 over the same terrain, just in reverse order. And they faired no better than the Soviets did. The Allies had the same problem when they rushed up to the German border. Then there was the fun Rommel had in the desert.

Fact is you can only go as fast as your logistics can follow. When the transportation infrastructure and terrain sucks, it's only a matter of time before a fast moving advance breaks down.

As JasonC pointed out, the Belarus offensive was far more successful than they thought it would be. If the Germans had been able to put up a more cohesive front around Minsk the Soviets would have had time to bring up more supplies for the second phase.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Forgot to post a small response here, but doing a scenario this week reminded me of this...

The Russians used a very different principle, which was to give all levels of maneuver units some organic form of fire support, but quite a limited one, and then to push tons of the overall firepower pool quite high, to army level. The combined arms army then directed grand fire plans, centrally planned.

Everything you said appears to be spot on, but you forgot to bring in another element.

The Soviets invested a huge amount of resources into Assault Guns. Massive. The purpose of these guns was to make up for the shortcomings of their indirect fire capabilities. In an offensive the rifle units could only drum up minimal indirect fire support on short notice after the attack went into the exploitation phase. The heavier stuff was used for the breakthrough phase almost exclusively, though around Bagration time they got pretty good at hitting rear lines of defense in at least a harassing role.

However, once the exploitation phase began the ability to rely upon artillery was dramatically reduced. Instead large numbers of Assault Guns were allocated to rifle units to take out German strong points by direct fire. They could move quickly and did not need complex communication networks to secure fire. Some definite shortcomings, such as higher cost per gun and probably higher casualties, but it seems the doctrine worked pretty well. Especially as the Germans lost their ability to counter attack with AFVs. A Pak 40 isn't a good tool to take on an ISU from the front, especially if the ISU sees where the Pak 40 is

Steve

[Der Alte Fritz]

Broadsword56 - some follow up on Russian logistics, just because I was reading about it today and found it interesting...

The main logistical build up for Bagration involved moving 3 million metric tons supplies, using 5000 trains averaging 50 freight cars each, over the course of about 2 months. The rate of trains to the sector was 90-100 per day during the build up. 40% of the trains carried men and the major equipment of the units to the front, 60% carried the supply total above. The largest single item was POL at 1.2 million tons; artillery ammunition was 900,000 tons and was the second biggest item. (Food was 150,000 metric tons and provided 14 days rations for the assembled forces, by kick off day).

The ammunition supply amounted to 5 units of fire with the units, and the POL supply provided between 10 and 20 refills for first line transport, depending on the unit.

That was the stockpile - the ongoing supply requirement was 45,000 metric tons per day, averaging 275 per attacking division per day.

Although you are correct in principle, the actual numbers used are not very sound. They look like Walter Scott Dunn's figures from "Soviet Blitzkrieg The Battle for White Russia 1944" and he based them on a) FHO reports Gerd Niepolds book "Battle for White Russia". However a quick check of Niepolds book (and as a staff officer with 12.PzD he had practical experience) shows that he quotes a Soviet military train having a gross weight of 825t where as Dunn calculates 2,000t. Neipold agrees with Russian sources such as Antipenko and Holland Hunter where Soviet trains weigh 1,000-1,200t gross (weight of cargo plus the wagons but excluding the locomotive) and a net weight of 750t (weight of cargo alone). Given the average gross weight carried by a railway wagon was only 18t (NKPS figures for 1944) and the typical train was 45-60 cars long, all of these sources agree.

The effect of this is to make Dunn's figures about double what they should be for the weigh of a train and since he used trains as his measure, of everything else. However this is balanced by the 275t per day Division figure which is too high and should be nearer 120t average per Soviet Division. These two things cancel each other out and make his figures add up.

There is a discussion here of supply for 1st Belorussian Front http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133563&page=5

You are quite right of course about the limited extent of the original Soviet plans, Antipenko only planned for an advance of 12-14 days and 140 miles which is just enough for capturing their first objective Bobruisk not Minsk. No doubt STAVKA expected AGr.Mitte to put up more of a fight but had in reserve an advance to Minsk of 300km if things went better. (You see the same pattern in the Vistula-Oder offensive only this time it was 300km and then 650km).

The fuel reserves of 10 units of POL was a failure since it was rapidly left behind and there were not enough special trucks to move it forward at the speed of advance, so future Soviet offensives replied on 3 units of POL in the depots and then immediate delivery by railway trains to as far up the line as possible.

[JasonC]

I didn't get my figures from Dunn. Of course, the US army officer study I did get them from might itself have gotten them from Dunn - I can try to check later.

Western divisions calculated attack supply at 600 tons per day. They are larger and more motorized, to be sure. But the figure isn't implausible on the face of it...