Russian Infantry Fragility

[MikeyD]

To c3k about the historian Hans Delbruck.

There's a reason why CM is a superior tactical wargame. Brain-in-a-jar 'Charles' is actually just a pseudonym.

(Photo from 'Young Frankenstein')

[c3k]

^^^

Too good!

The book I have of his is "Warfare in Antiquity". One example: He analyzed the march routes available to Xerxes, coupled with texts of "the Persians marched past for 3 days straight" and came to a conclusion about the bounds of the numbers of men in the Persian army. Then again, I also enjoyed how he got a battalion or two of soldiers to recreate Greek phalanxes and experimented with the best way to use 14 foot spears in massed formations. That's not something the average academic gets to do.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Crikey... Steve brings up so many interesting points with just the odd line, each of which I am tempted to shoot off pages and pages in response to that I could very quickly send all too sleep and spend all day typing.. I will struggle to keep things as short as possible .

Central to my point is that by ’44 all the major players will have been within the thickness of a cigarette paper in any real quality, competence is probably better... measure. And for very understandable reasons. However... I do agree with all Steve says that we are really talking “combat power...” per unit.

If you take a typical infantry platoon from Commonwealth, US, German or Soviet forces by ’44, at typical combat strength, say eighteen men, attacking a small portion of village Normandy, village Ukraine, Belarus... it makes no difference.. how they assaulted will have been dependent on the exact mix of individuals thrown together by chance.

By then all sides had enough men with the experience, both in training and in straight time at the front, to understand the most sensible risk adverse but still effective way to get the job done. How good or bad they were will again have often been down to chance. More guys “of the right stuff...” finding themselves in some platoons than in others. All had their mix of veterans, green troops, guys with high morale and low morale. . With all nations having more elite and sometimes very ordinary units.

Another quick point.

Reading some of the threads on the forum it would be easy to get the impression that by ’44 the Soviets were somehow running out of men close to the extent that the Germans were. All the talk of reduced infantry divisions, companies at 80 at the start of operations and such. All quite correct.. but there is reason.

In fact ’43 was the tipping year when things roughly stabilised for the Soviets. Starting in summer ’43 and quickly picking up speed through to the turn of ’43/’44 the Soviets greatly expanded their mobile forces in number and size pre-unit. If we go for very rough ball park figures, no time to look them up, Front Armies, 6,000,000 and forces within the homeland 4,000,000. Within the Front Armies the number of mobile forces ballooned, 24 gun mobile AT regiments by hundreds... and SMG units and infantry units for anything with AFVs. To give two examples. The Front Armies stayed at 6,000,000 but within that, infantry units instead of being disbanded were held at 4,500 – 6,500 even if rebuilt. Probably because they wished to keep the same cadre of men, institutional memory, intact. BTW... they did value keeping the cadre of units going... they understood its importance.

Ok.. after this ranting what were the most likely casualty figures for ’44 Soviet and German .

In a 2001 article by David Glantz, Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay... just do a search and you will find you can legally download a copy.. he uses a figure for German losses on the Eastern Front of 1,200,000... 20th November ‘43 to June ’44 and 903,00 for June ’44 to November ’44. Total 2,103,000. Interestingly these are for dead, missing or disabled. Checking these figures I found he uses the same in this book When Titans Clashed in ’97 and in turn the figures were used by Earl F Ziemke in his great book From Stalingrad to Berlin.

If the two foremost Eastern Front historians to emerge from the US military think the figures are the ones to use...then who am I to argue. German casualty figures are in fact unreliable in that they differ from different sources. Counted differently. If the two above think they are sound figures, so do I . BTW.. as I amusing ballpark figures anyway will take late November ’43 to November ‘44 represent the twelve months of ’44. It is rough relative figures I am after.

Now to find like for like Soviet numbers.

The Soviet official losses for killed and missing in ’44 are 1,412,335. As given by G F Krivosheev and used by Glantz himself as the official figures.

Of course the thing Glantz is most famous for, apart from his interest in the Eastern Front to start with, is his “forgotten battles..” and the losses associated therewith. That is losses that did not make it into the official figures. So you have round up the official figures to take account of these forgotten battles.

To do this you have to increase the official figures by around 47%. Giving a figure of 2,074,383 for ’44.

However... this figure is just for killed, missing or captured. Now it needs to be rounded up in turn for disabled to match the German figures.

For the disabled number I turned to G F Krivosheev again. His book is massively detailed and don’t be put off by the “forgotten battles.”. It is packed with details for the operations it does cover. If you use his figure for “invalided out” due to wound or sickens, greater than his disabled figure.. you have to round up the figures by 33%. i.e. the Krivosheev figure for invalided out is 33% of his killed, missing and captured.

So... Soviet killed, missing, captured and disabled is 2,758,929 for’44. Counting as in the 2,103,000 for the Germans. For both there would be a wide margin of error but if any attempt to match casualties is to be made we must work with what we have.

We are not quite there yet though... the German figure is... 99% anyway... for casualties suffered fighting the Soviets. The Soviet losses include those suffered against German’s allies. On May 1st there were 2,460,000 German forces on the Eastern Front representing 73% of Axis forces. But to be on the safe side let’s assume 85% of the fighting was done between Soviet and German forces during ’44.

So the Soviet figure for killed, captured, missing and disabled fighting the Germans in ’44 is 85% of the 2,758,929... 2,345,089.

This gives a casualty ratio Soviet to German for ’44 of just over 1.1 : 1.

For the force ratio Soviet to German, making the same assumption as above that 85% of the Soviet forces were up against the Germans, that gives us 85% of 6,425, 000 .... 5,461,250 for the Soviets.

So force ratio Soviet to German 2.2 : 1. Remember casualty ratio Soviet to German.. 1.1 : 1.

I think there is no avoiding that by ’44 it was all a very different world from the early years. If you take as an example a great book by Stephen Barratt about the Zhitomir operation in early ’44 an average strength German battalion of 250 fighting with an average Soviet regiment of 1,000 over a village in the Ukraine, on a particularly bloody morning, would often have suffered 40 casualties while the Soviets suffered say 75 casualties. Far less in percentage terms than the German losses.

Germans were being knocked down at a higher rate per 100 frontline men, shorter average frontline life, than the Soviets. Thus often Soviet platoon commanders and NC0s will have been the more experienced. Also.. have done the same trick for the first six months of ’44... when there were no big pockets... at Korsun survivors walked out without and vehicles or heavy kit, but were not rounded up as prisoners. The figures hold as above.

All of the above is subject to margins of error, but remember, in both directions.

When it comes to force multipliers.. of course... and I think it’s often under estimated particularly how big the difference in the artillery support was between the different forces.

Gap in deliverable, real combat power due to artillery support was huge between the average say Commonwealth infantry division and German opposite number. Equally it was huge between the average German infantry division and average Soviet infantry division. This does, in my view, explain the greater part of the difference in combat power between all three. With West Allies having massively more, Germans in the middle and Soviets far less per infantry unit like for like.

All interesting stuff..

Lucky to have CM to argue about and even more to play.. ,

All the best,

Kip.

[Vanir Ausf B]

This gives a casualty ratio Soviet to German for ’44 of just over 1.1 : 1.

I haven't done much research on this, but that looks to me like a highly improbable ratio. Karl-Heinz Frieser puts German total losses for Bagration at 400,000. Glantz puts total Soviet casualties for that operation at 770,000. That is 1.9 to 1. Was the ratio nearly twice as favorable to the Soviets during the rest of 1944?

[kipanderson]

Vanir Ausf B, hi,

Indeed... I would not really argue in that it surprised me too that the figures worked out to be so close.

The figures I would have given and have been familiar with for some years now are.. casualty ratios Soviet to German.. ’41 6 : 1, ’42 4.5 : 1, ’43 3.5 : 1, and last fifteen months to end March ’45 1.6 : 1 i.e. before the frontline totally disintegrated into pockets and the German chain of command went down. (For ’44 alone I would also have used 1.6 : 1 ) Mind you... the above figures are indeed total Soviet losses including against Axis allies. So Soviet v German would have to be decreased some.

Glantz gives German losses during Bagration at 450,000 and Army Group Centre losses at 50%, attacking Soviets at 33%.

Also note that even given such losses Glantz explains that the Soviet Front armies continued to grow in number even if only a little from spring through to fall.

In the brutally grim language of the Eastern Front from ’43 onwards the Germans were just not inflicting enough casualties on the Soviets. Until then the Soviet army was increasing in size but by using up its reserves. Not in ’43. It just about broke even. My hunch being that from August ’43 Soviet losses in percentage terms started to fall below German losses.

It is fantastically difficult to compare figures because finding like for like is so difficult. Units fighting each other had different boundaries, were present for different periods of a battle and so forth.

Also do remember that if the Germans had been fighting “clones of themselves...” all quality ratings identical but using all the Soviet, actual historical numbers for men, tanks, artillery and forces in every detail.. the casualty ratio Attack German clones v Defending Germans would have been about 1.4 : 1. So if the casualty ratio really was 1.1 : 1 it’s likely the Soviets were significantly better at what they did than the Germans by ’44. If the casualty ratio was in fact 1.6 : 1 there was still not much difference.

The figures of 1.1 : 1 may be correct, may not. They certainly come from very high quality sources as explained.

But am confident that from ’43 onwards the Soviets were pretty much braking even in terms of the butcher’s bill. Their casualties were not greater than their ability to replace their losses. Also.... that from around August ’43 the casualty ratio Soviet to German fell below the force ratio and Soviet to German and in terms of percentage losses Soviet losses began to fall below German losses.

All interesting stuff...

All the best,

Kip.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Have been doing a quick additional digging around.

Glantz’s figure of 2,130,000 German casualties on the Eastern Front from Nov.’43 to Nov ’44 includes disabled, as stated above. Happily I have now found a table that gives some German casualty figures in the same categories as Glantz. Killed, missing and disabled. Disabled are 41% mark up on the killed and missing.

So for the Soviets I will increase the percentage for disabled to match the way the Germans counted.

You start with the figures Glantz uses for Soviet killed and missing, 1,412,335, increase by a full 47% to take account of the Glantz forgotten battles giving 2,074,383 then increase this figure again by 41% giving you a final 2,924,880 for Soviet casualties in ’44. But we are assuming 85% of Soviet troops were engaged in combat v Germans in ’44 so the final figure is 2,486,148.

This gives you slightly higher casualty ratio of Soviet to German 2,486,148 : 2,130,00 or 1.2 : 1.

If you take the ‘44 German figure for killed and missing on the Eastern Front, from German records via the US Army military history department publications you have figure of 1,066,000. And take higher figure for Soviet killed and missing from G F Krivosheev of 1,763,891 in ’44 you end with a ratio of 1.65 : 1. But... you have to decrease the Soviet figure to take account of the fact that 85% of Soviet fighting was against the Germans and you get a casualty ratio of 1.4 : 1.

So taking figures from Glantz for killed, missing and disabled you get a casualty ratio of 1.2 : 1 and using traditional killed and missing 1.4 : 1.

Consider that German strength on the Eastern Front was 2,460,000 in June ‘44 and losses including disabled 2,130,000 for ’44. The Soviets figures, assuming 85% of their strength was committed to fighting the Germans, strength 5,461,250 with losses for ’44 including disabled of 2,486,148. it’s unavoidable that the Germans were both suffering a shorter average shelf life at all levels and suffering higher casualties in percentage terms.

If you turn to the Western Allies, taking your figures from The Green Books.. official US Army histories of WWII, 6th June to the end of March ’45 Western Allies losses were 741,128 killed and missing. German for killed and missing 570,200 from their official sources used in the Eastern Front calculations above. From the US Army sources.

Casualty ratio of 1.3 : 1. Not nearly as favourable to the Allies as I had expected.

All of the above must be seen in the light of remembering that if the Germans had been fighting clones of themselves, but in the force ratios that actually existed attacking German clones would be expected to suffer higher casualties than the defending German clones. If you follow me . Scarily, in a huge number crunching exercise I once did the expected casualty ratio Attacker German clones to Defending German clones was 1.4 : 1. But whatever the figures, the attackers would suffer higher aggregate casualties but lower in percentage terms.

Those who believe that the Soviet casualty figures were even higher than Glantz believes have significant hurdles to overcome. They have explain why the Soviet Front Armies did not drop to say 4,500,000 by the end of war. Where they were getting their replacements from.

In all my ranting and raving I have given the benefit of the doubt to increasing the Soviet figurers. I increased the Soviet casualties to take account of the Forgotten Battles by 47%. When in fact Glantz makes clear that by ’44 there were few such battles. If my figure for the Soviets is wrong, it’s likely to be overstated.

It can confidently be concluded that by ’44..

When Soviet and German forces clashed the Soviets normally suffered the lower casualties in percentage terms. The ratios of casualties in ’44 to force strength make this clear.

That the average, frontline Soviet soldier of ’44 had more experience than his German opposite number. In straight ”time survived at the front..” terms. Again, ratios of casualties in ’44 to force strength make this clear.

That both the Western Allies and Soviets were suffering similar casualty ratios fighting the Germans, from mid ’44. And that the casualty ratios suffered were close to what one would expect if all players were of similar quality.

Unbelievably lucky to have CM to argue about in the first place...

All the best,

Kip.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Using Glantz's higher German loss numbers for Bagration, you still get 1.7 to 1. So if the overall ratio was 1.2 to 1 or even 1.4 to 1 then the Soviets came off relatively worse during Bagration than most of the rest of 1944. That seems odd.

I compared AFV losses in 1944 once it came out to about 2 to 1.

[db_zero]

I might disagree a bit with the contention that by 44 all nations were about the same in quality and combat effectiveness.

Some of the American units at the Bulge were very green and ineffective. Germans fielded all sorts of units of varying effectiveness.

The Americans replacement system is a matter of debate over effectiveness and I think the Germans had a different philosophy in regards to replacing losses. Don't know much about the Russians practice.

[kipanderson]

Vanir Ausf B, hi,

I compared AFV losses in 1944 once it came out to about 2 to 1.

Or more... a lot more.

But that is in big part because if you have say 600 AFVs spread over section of front and your opponent say 50 AFVs the great majority of your losses will be fighting the other guy’s infantry. It does not mean if you lost 200 and the weaker opponent all his 50 AFVs they all clashed and the loss ratio was 200 : 50.

But... I agree Soviet tanks crews were less well trained. I have read the detail so am happy to believe it.

A lot of the figures I used are incredibly robust in terms of the sources. With more to come should I have time.

I think by ’44 it turns out the Soviets improved just a bit more than most believe. All would agree that they had improved... but just a bit more than most probably think.

All fun stuff,

All the best,

Kip.

[Cogust]

Kip,

I have a small quibble with your reasoning, regarding the 85% number you use for adjusting the Soviet losses.

You state that the Germans represented 73% of all Axis forces on the Eastern front on May 1st and the 85% number is used so that we are 'on the safe side'. My view is that the minor Axis forces (outside of Finland) were used less extensively in the front lines than the German forces (especially in vulnerable sectors, not at all like November '42) and that they were much worse supported than the German forces. These two factors will both reduce the casualties that they inflict on the Soviets, though it is very hard to determine by how much.

I also think that the Soviet loss percentage in Finland in 1944 were lower than the rest of the Eastern front (I am mostly pulling this from thin air and general 'feeling', so will have hard to come up with proper sources on this one), so I think it would be better if one could somehow take away all the combat in Finland from the comparison, though I imagine it is probably quite difficult to do this without access to good primary sources.

Then we have the thing that the German/Axis ratio varies during 1944, it is definitely not 73% for the whole year, for example we have Romania switching sides in August and who, according to wikipedia, took over 50k German POWs only in August. The Finns switched sides in September, they gave the Germans time to get away so not many German losses were inflicted by the Finns, clear however is that the German percentage of the Eastern front was likely very much higher than 73% after September.

My felling is that 85% may not be on the safe side, perhaps one should use 90% instead to be 'safe'.

We can also not assume that 99%+ of the German losses on the Eastern front were inflicted by Soviets as the Romanians took 50k German POWs in a single month and that is 2% of all German losses on the Eastern front in 1944 without counting any other German casualties inflicted by the Rumanians, Finns, partisans etc. Perhaps the German losses should be reduced in a similar way to the Soviets?

[kipanderson]

Cogust, hi,

Would not risk arguing with you... I see you from Sweden... that is almost Finland.. you guys know the deals about some of the smaller players in this area.

However... quick two thoughts.. Hungarians did do some fighting on the German side during the last half of ’44.. plus... remember I have increased the Soviet losses by a full 47% to account for Forgotten Battles. By ’44 this is certainly way too high. Maybe as low as a ten or fifteen percent uplift needed.

I am sure you are correct about Axis but if we were to dig really deep on all figures I don’t think the outcome would overall increase the Soviet figures. Yours would increase them... but the correct figure for Forgotten Battles would for example lower them again.

But interesting stuff...

All the best,

Kip.

[Cogust]

Kip,

I just wanted to highlight that there are quite a few 'fudge-factors' in the mix as you are comparing figures from different sources, counted in different ways and with a lot of different nationalities on both sides.

The Hungarians did indeed fight during the second half of the year, but it is my impression that they were mostly used in the rear areas until just after Bagration. They fought the Romanians quite a bit after August too, but that is neither here nor there regarding this analysis.

Btw are Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian units fighting with the Germans in the Baltic states counted as Germans or Axis allies? What about the Latvian 6th SS-Corps that fought with AG Nord?

I think the topic is interesting, but the numbers used are all fraught with uncertainties. To get a clearer picture I would try to eliminate some uncertainties, try to get losses for January-July to avoid effect of Romania switching sides and try to ignore the whole Finnish front as it is not representative of the majority of the fighting (troop density, terrain, intensity of fighting and above all, the Finns). I understand that it is easier to use figures dug up by someone else, but combining figures from different authors run the risk of comparing apples to oranges as they might have different definitions of 'disabled' for example.

The German casualties are also counted for 377 days (November 20th 1943 to November 30th 1944) while the Soviet losses are for 366 days (whole year of 1944) and the combat intensity might not be comparable between December 1943 and December 1944.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Scarily, in a huge number crunching exercise I once did the expected casualty ratio Attacker German clones to Defending German clones was 1.4 : 1. But whatever the figures, the attackers would suffer higher aggregate casualties but lower in percentage terms.

Hi, kip.

Something I forgot to mention. You are referencing Dupey here, and his numbers refer to the tactical level specifically (basically division and lower), so applying the 1.4 defense modifier across the entire theater over a whole year of combat would be a mistake, IMO. While the Soviets were consistently on the attack at the strategic level, that was not always the case operationally and certainly not tactically. The Germans never did abandon their doctrinal belief that it is always better to attack than defend, and at the tactical level would counterattack a lost position with regularity.