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Corps/Army size withdrawls


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Recently I was flipping through my copy of Manstein's Lost Victories and reread the portions where Manstein discusses his various defensive battles. Although Manstein shows the operational moves he made with his armies, he doesn't go into much tactical detail.

So I was wondering, how do corps and army sized units conduct strategic withdrawls successfully? I am mostly interested in how the Germans did it, since they were relatively successful in escaping large scale encirclement by Soviet units, at least prior to 1944.

For example, what tactics did the 1st and 4th Pz. Armies use to withdraw from below the Don to a more stable line on the Donetz? Or how did German units manage to reach the Dnepr and set up stable defences on most stretches of the river without being destroyed via pursiut and encirclement?

I'm sure previous attrition and weakness of pursuing Soviet forces must have been a factor that enabled the Germans to withdraw in alright order. Nonetheless, I am interested in how German corps and armies withdrew when pressured by pursuing Soviet forces.

[ October 31, 2007, 09:35 PM: Message edited by: Cuirassier ]

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before 1943 Soviets were still learning how to wage war effectively. they didn't concentrate their forces properly and combined arms coordination was weak. this allowed Germans to repel Soviet attemps.

there were two crucial things that made Manstein's succesful withdrawals possible, where as similar attempts often failed later in the war. 1st: Manstein managed to blackmail some operational freedom from Hitler. he had the freedom to withdraw in controlled manner and give ground to enemy (in contrast to Hitler's obsession of not giving any ground to enemy). 2nd: unlike for example with the destruction of Army Group Center in 1944, Manstein had a meaningful number of panzer formations.

withdrawal was conducted basicly by withdrawing one division at a time from the front, while mobile units (panzers, SP guns, mechanized infantry) were covering their withdrawal as a rear guard. because of Manstein's privilegions, withdrawal could be planned well before conducting it (in contrast Hitler preferred that units would have only very rough plans for withdrawal before receiving the actual command to withdraw) and Manstein could allow lower commanders greater freedom of action. infantry divisions would concentrate their scarce transportation assets to form special motorized battle groups that would form the rear guard (forward covering force) while the rest of the division legged themselves to the new defensive line. the rear guard could then quickly disengage and join the main body, because of its (relatively) good mobility.

on higher level, panzer units, besides offering rear guard service to infantry divisions, would make counterattacks against Soviet penetrations (the standard fire brigade role), fight delaying actions while infantry units were organizing their new defences and make bold spoiling attacks against Soviet concentrations.

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Cuirassier and URC -

The best account I know of, of what such operations entailed at the corps level appears in a book called "Kursk, the German View", which consists mostly of senior German officers giving their accounts of the battle of Kursk to US historians after the war. Chapter 9, though, covers the operations of the XX corps in defensive fighting from August to November 1943, as it withdrew in the aftermath of the Orel - Kutuzov fighting, first to an intermediary position on the Desna, then to the Dnepr, and then across it to the edge of the marshes. The German commander was Freiherr von Roman - a former artillery commander.

It is still short on tactical detail, but vivid enough about the chaos involved and the shoestring nature of the fighting. IDs are being transfered off to corps on the flanks and new ones appear, different PDs appear at 3 different times to save critical situations, 2 different StuG brigades help out, as do flak battalions and corps or army level assets like Sturm battalions, lots of alarm units, "schnell" battalions formed from Pz Jgr formations, etc.

One still has to read into a narrative at this high a level what the tactical realities were on the ground. He is involved directly in things like ordering recon of new positions before a main withdrawal, using rear area service troops and Organization Todt support to dig fresh field fortifications, and the commitment of such reserves as they have. But much of the rest is relayed reports - division such and such held against repeated attacks, a counterattack by this tiny unit retook some village, etc.

There are revealing comments that show some of the critical factors, however, if applied to the other side. At one point he mentions how impossible it is to supply a corps over a distance of even 45 km from its railheads by horse columns. At others he reports lulls of 3 days to a week as the Russians bring up their artillery and prepare the next hit. Some of the retreat periods, they are closely followed but not attacked, and he describes the exhaustion of his own forces, while that of the Russians can only be imagined. He has traffic jams at his bridges, but he has bridges - the Russians find them blown, etc.

There is a basic differential involved - the mobility of the withdrawing defender through a controlled zone - even one occasionally beset by partisan difficulties - is always going to be easier than the movement of the attacker over a no man's land against unknown rear guard positions. The defender is withdrawing over an intact rail net to intact supply positions. Advanced parties are scouting the new positions to be occupied, and work details are preparing them. Movements over limited roads and bridge bottlenecks are planned ahead.

Rear guards, meanwhile, and holding at the old front - typically at natural obstacles like river lines - while the rest withdraw. The bridges are being blown, routes mined or obstructed with abatis from blown trees, shelter burned where it is scarce. Last hold outs are forming semi-circles around the bridges and collapsing back through them. When the Russians do come up to a new prepared position, they trickle forward as the routes allow, can only probe at first, and the foremost units are so small their first penetrations can be counterattacked.

It simply takes time for the following attacker to bring up all his guns, to shift his supplies, to find shelter for his infantry each night, to keep them all supplied with food and ammunition. It takes time to rebuild bridges, to ferry major equipment, to repair destroyed rail lines. A major formation that pursues as rapidly as it can without doing these things sees its hitting power rapidly collapse, like a breaking wave. It can only cross completely undefended areas in that state, and the farther it pushes like that, the longer it takes to rebuild up to on-line coordinated hitting power, with all arms.

Tactically, the defenders are employing artillery concentration techniques to mass division sized firepower on single points. The few available armor formations - attached Pz Jgrs with StuGs, attached StuG brigades, the PD sent whenever the situation is far too critical for the infantry alone to handle - these also provide local concentration to follow up artillery hitting power. The following attackers can succeed somewhere, because the defenders are too weak and too thin. But they can't pick where, because the defenders can allocate enough (arty and armor especially) to any given point to make hitting it far too expensive.

So the best way for the attackers to proceed is to close up, not overpunching, keeping their strength together, and then ooze into the weakest parts of the defense. Building artillery hitting power and supply depth whenever the defense solidifies. Sometimes waiting for formations on the flanks to turn the stouter positions, as simply cheaper than trying to drive across yet another river barrier into yet another artillery cauldron at the break-in point. A night infiltration of a few infantry battalions through a weakly held forest can do more than a set-piece frontal attack, etc.

Some of the tactical issues change with the terrain and season. In the forested north or western Europe, blowing abatis works and the few road routes can be systematically mined along their long axis, e.g. That won't work in steppe. River lines work in steppe, backed by artillery observation networks and a few armor counterattack reserves - but much better in summer than the depths of winter, when the rivers freeze over. In deep winter, burning all available shelter, outside of the major towns, restricts infantry army pursuit more than degrading the routes - though tearing up the rail lines pays off then, too.

Consider a southern Russian retreat like AD Hollidt in the post Stalingrad period. The pursuing Russian infantry has to march several hundred miles in open steppe in winter. You can't do that for 3 straight nights without man made shelter and regular fires, without half the men dying of exposure, or being lost temporarily to frostbite. Near a large town, no problem. Away from them, the retreating defenders can literally fire every house - there just aren't many and there are a lot of pursuers.

Living in tents in the snow isn't fun to begin with, and is only possible with regular fires, which need fuel and take time. You can supply all that up a rail line if the trains can run over it. But if the line is destroyed at every crossing, frozen rivers or not, you can only bring up supplies at the rate you can repair the line. Horse columns can run from freight car at the siding to the men, for 10 or 20 miles. But not further - if you overwork horses and leave them exposed night after night they will all be meat not muscle in under a week.

So in practice what happens is the motorized forces of the pursuer manage to clear some areas, and the rifle-leg forces can follow them into those relatively cleared areas at a slower pace. But cannot press widely, absent such prep, with any strength. The motorized forces are not numerically stronger than the whole defending force, and they weaken themselves (combat, mechanical, supply, etc).

The trick for the pursuer is to use the relative independence of routes of his motorized hitting power to clear the routes needed for the rest of the force, without losing all the strength of the former, doing it. The trick for the defender is to keep the pursuing infantry in slow move mode but to stay ahead of their main hitting power, by not letting the front go static too long, for them to accumulate in front of you and build up their arty and supplies etc. Done right, you fight only the forward crust of the attack with your entire strength.

At the cost, of course, of abandoning each position reached a week or so after you occupy it...

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