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I'm looking for some books that give very detailed descriptions of the operations conducted both by Germany and the Soviet Union throughout WWII on the eastern front. I don't mind if its really dry reading, I just want something which gives a very detailed account of operational planning and moves. I know there are probably a lot of titles to consider, but which are suggested?

To a lesser extent, I am also interested in finding books that describe operational actions that happened in North Africa and post D-day.

Thanks.

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google (or search amazon) for George Nipe, Jr. I have many of his books and they are all EXCELLENT. especially his more recent ones, where he scoured official captured records on microfiche, etc.

Some of the titles are Last Victory in Russia, Decision in the Ukraine, and Platz Der Liebstandarte (solid phot-oriented book with his running commentary).

(I'd post links but I think there's some rule about links to commercial sites, or the like. no?)

Enjoy!!

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On Russia specifically.

You must read Manstein Lost Victories, Alan Clarke Barbarossa, Erickson Road to Stalingrad and Road to Berlin, as much Glantz as you can get your hands on. Other useful authors include Zaloga, Zetterling, Ziemke, Dunn, and Duffy. Beevor is OK, others like him more than I do.

You will generally find the strategic level better covered than lower echelons. Also, older sources (before the mid 1980s or so) are not really trustworthy on the tactical level - too many of them repeat propaganda myths at third hand, not recognized as such. The same is true of virtually the entire "first hand account" literature that tries to be synoptic or to convey emotional atmosphere - it's pretty much all schlock.

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Eh. Raus is a notorious teller of "fish stories" - made up stuff and recycled Signal magazine articles he had no direct knowledge of, presented as fact. He studiously avoids every defeat and pretends the Russians were idiots at every turn. Marginally more convincing than "the heroic shock workers overcame every obstacle to smash the evil fascist invaders" in Soviet side memoirs, but not by much.

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Thanks for the replies everyone.

I have picked up "Lost Victories" and have almost completed it.

I second the comment about Raus' memoires. In another thread I commented on how I could not finish them, because of how ridculously one-sided and false they were.

Anyway though, I'm on sort of a limited budget, so if I'm going to pick up some books, I'm thinking of getting mid-late war Eastern front. I'm more interested on seeing the situation from a Soviet POV. So should I go for Erickson or Glantz?

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If you have to choose between them, pick Glantz. There are still some inaccuracies in Erickson, primarily due to relying too heavily on Russian accounts of German losses, uncorrected by German side sources. Glantz is late enough and has reviewed the existing literature enough that this does not come up with him.

If you can only get a single volume and want a view of the full war, make it When Titans Clashed.

I heartily recommend the practice of supplementing the books you can afford to buy, with library borrowing of the ones you can't. Have cake and eat it too.

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Blood Red *Sky* I've never heard of. Blood Red *Snow* I have. It is a bad first person account of dubious origin, written long after the event but claiming to be based on contemporary notes. It fails to give the sort of details that establish authenticity (e.g. units), and is long on the substitute of gore and related hardship. Overall it reads like an attempt to support propaganda lines about the war, with the moral of indomitable ordinary Landsers nobly doing their bit without believing in the greater cause.

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I also have Lost Victories but havnt got around to reading it yet.

As for Panzer Operations, i know all memoirs can be very suspect and i take that into account when reading this one (i had to take that alot into account when reading Grenadiers by Meyer last year :eek: ).

So far he has only got up to the aftermath of the battle of Moscow, but he hasnt so far presented all the Soviets as idiots.

The book iirc opens with how he respects Ivan and there fighting ability etc

Although i have seen quite a bit of the one sided comments, it does appear that all Soviet attacks are always ****e while his are near perfect smile.gif

I dunno, its still an intresting read i think. Its provided me with several ideas which ive so far plonked down into scenarios.

Vergeltung: It would appear its only a few historians who believe he made it all up.

[ May 07, 2007, 12:13 PM: Message edited by: the_enigma ]

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well, it's been awhile since I read it, but there are so many demonstrable (sp?) inacurracies and problems with it, I think it's more than a "few historians" that have problems with it.

I mean, IIRC, he goes from the transport corps (truck driver) to the elite Gross Deutschland Division. :eek: . then, he places the GD Division in combat in an area they were not even close to at that time period.

things like that. smile.gif

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Well the "few historians" comment was based off a series of articles which were published in magazines in the 90s which if I remember rightly is when the big hoo hah about the book gained popular attention.

(I sat reading the back and forth arguments one day in work while I had nothing to do lol)

One dude (who started off this back and froth row) slanted the entire book and the author based off things like calibre inaccuracies, the location of the cuff –titles? (I cant remember if that’s what there called) etc

I am aware that there are lot of inaccuracies with the book in this regard but in the end as the people who backed the book, its not a history of the GD Division but the dudes experiences.

Although the Historians did go on a bit more then that in defence of the book.

But after saying that, am intrigued by what you have said, do you have some examples of where he places the division when it wasn’t actually there?

I haven’t seen that one get mentioned before when its came down to people discussing if the book is a novel or the guy did serve and right down his experiences.

I guess am dragging this one now, but why would do you think its unbelievable that a dude who is driving supply trucks could one day actually join the rank and file on the frontlines?

I stumbled across a documentary last Saturday about people who are deaf and mute who had tried to sign up but were turned down due to there disability, but ended up actually being conscripted during the later parts of 1944 to fight for the fatherland.

A few of the dudes went on to talk about there combat experience.

I raise this example as I would have never thought people who could not hear (I was deaf as child, other members of the family are deaf so I know how hard it can be sometimes to communicate) would have been in the thick of the fighting … so I guess anything can happen really, no?

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I'm thinking I will get "When Titans Clashed" and Glantz's study on Kursk. Just wondering, does Glantz's book on Citadel only cover the German offensive, or does it also cover the Soviet counter-offensives (eg Kutuzov)?

And since "Lost Victories" has been brought up, I think this is an appropriate place to ask some questions about it. These questions are just off the top of my head from the major points I remember, without specific reference to the text.

In the memoirs, Manstein suggests that his 11th army, after having successfully reduced Sevastopol and taken control of the Crimea, should have been allowed to push across the Kerch straits to help pocket the retreating Soviet forces falling back on the Caucasus mountains, in coordination with Operation Blue. To me this would have been a good plan, as it followed traditional German doctrine of annihilating the enemy, instead of driving for economic objectives. However, was this a feasible option, or is Manstein leaving out potential difficulties and problems?

Manstein also suggested, if 11th army wasn't to be used for the above purpose, then it should have been put in reserve behind the Stalingrad front. If this would have been done, would 11th army have been able to prevent the encirclement of 6th army and the inevitable retreat, or would it have just provided some additional forces to allow for a less strenuous and dangerous retreat, but retreat nonetheless? I'm thinking to actually stop the Soviet "Uranus" and "Little Saturn" operations, a whole Panzer Army would have had been necessary in reserve. 11th army, at least when it was in the Crimea, was almost completely composed of infantry formations. Would these have been enough to stop the Soviet armored thrusts, or would 11th army actually have required 2-3 Panzer Corps at its disposal?

Also, one of the prime weaknesses of the German army and its doctrine was its fixation with the offensive, particularly when involving armor. This often lead to piecemeal committment and squandering of reserves. In the Kharkov counterattack however, Manstein gathered armored reserves after the retreat and struck a concentrated blow against the Soviets, instead of squandering those forces in premature counter-attacks as other commanders may have done.

After Kursk however, in the battles along the Dneipr, small formations of Panzer divisions and Panzergrenadier divisions are sent back and forth to deliver counter-attacks in what almost seems like piecemeal commitment of reserves. Now, are these mistakes being made by the Germans, or just inevitable fire-brigade actions that have to be done to deal with Soviet breakthroughs?

Manstein also gives some Soviet strength and casualty figures for some attacks. Are these accurate? He conspicuously leaves out German casualty figures (other than for Stalingrad), describing beaten formations only as "exhausted" or "weary." I would ask what German casualties were, but his memoirs cover numerous battles, so I'd obviously have to be more specific. Nevertheless, I'm assuming Soviet casualties were consistently higher than German ones in the battles described by Manstein.

Just some things that came to mind as I was reading.

Some further questions I forgot to include first time around:

Manstein makes numerous references to the muddy conditions that plagued operations. He credits the mud or generally poor weather with delaying the assembly of units, causing poor advance rates, and just making some attacks impossible or less successful than hoped for. So, was the 'mud' such a huge limiting factor on operations, or is it being used as an excuse similar to how Soviet commanders earlier credited swamps to their defeats?

Also, in the short chapter covering Citadel, Manstein believed that the southern attack should have continued depsite the failure in the north, to at least attrit Soviet armored reserves. With just a couple of understrength Panzer Corps, was this viable? Particulary with he threat of Soviet breakthrough in the north at the Orel salient?

[ May 08, 2007, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: Cuirassier ]

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Ill be intrested to see responces to those questions prior to reading the book. Ive also seen other peoples comments regarding how he plays all innocdent and didnt know anything fishy was going on in the rear areas...

In regards to the Stalingrad question, probably best for another thread this. I remember reading an authors opinion that if the Panzer Divisions with 6th Army had been kept in reserve and not commited to the battle they could have crushed the Soviet counterattacks by themselves or at least halted them.

That seems very unlikely to me though.

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in brief, I believe that post-Kursk, the germans had to use the armor the way the poster above indicated, due to numerical shortages.

I link this with the nick-name for the Waffen SS motorized & armored units, which was, at that time and after, "Hitler's Firemen." smile.gif

[ May 08, 2007, 09:15 AM: Message edited by: Vergeltung ]

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To a lesser extent, I am also interested in finding books that describe operational actions that happened in North Africa
I missed this portion.

I read Pendlum of War last year, i found that to be a very intresting read on the battles of El Alamien.

The book kicks off with the battle of Gazala, moves onto the 1st Al, am sure it covers (well it must do but i cant remember lol) Alam el Halfa before going onto the 2nd Al.

Theres maps and statistics along with details of the operations which made up each battle.

For example ive became a bit obssessed with Operation Supercharge of recent and so far of all the books ive looked at so far on the operation (which has been a few, but am hoping to increase that number tomorrow) it has got the most information on the 9th Armour Brigade and there efforts that morning.

Other books seem to quickly mention it before moving on.

Anyhoo ... ive got a very bias opinion since i loved the book lol! smile.gif

Other suggestions could be, The Rommel Papers.

Its editored by Liddel Hart so when Rommel says they wiped out X ammount of tanks, Mr Hart is there to give British figures etc

The majoirty of the book is made up of his dairy and letters, so whats wrote is on each days actions that evening etc

Which does present some errors in events (as stated when possible the editor steps in to back up or dismiss what Rommel hs wrote) but it also shows why he did what he did.

There are sections where he writes about how the war should be fought and tanks used etc

Ive recently started reading the British Official Histories of the war in Africa. First 2 volumes i own which ive read the first and the last 2 are en route via the post.

They may provide information for you.

The first volume at least went on regarding the poltical strategy, convoys, sea battles, more poltics, troop movements.

But it also covered the fighting in East and North Africa.

However i did end up buying and reading through Operation Compass to back up the offical history.

Whereas the Official history did go in deapth on what happened and had maps and OOBs it did seem to lack a little but, so i purchased the above to supplement my reading.

That book has alot of maps, photos, OOBs and does cover the fighting but not in as much detail.

Well hope that helped you a bit?

You may want to have a look through these prehaps?

New Zealand Official History of the Second World war

Australia’s Official History of the Second World War

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Interesting article from last month's Atlantic Monthly. I'd be interested in some poster's opinions of the mentioned books, some of which have been mentioned in this topic already.

Edit: Sorry, didn't realize you needed to have a subscription to get to that. Here's another link that discusses the article, and then includes the article at the end;

http://www.russiablog.org/2007/04/did_uncle_joe_win_the_war.php

[ May 12, 2007, 07:54 AM: Message edited by: civdiv ]

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My comments on Cuirassier's questions, about Manstein and the rest. They took a while because they are long. For what they are worth...

"does Glantz's book on Citadel only cover the German offensive, or does it also cover the Soviet counter-offensives (eg Kutuzov)?"

It covers the counteroffensives - one of the best points of the book. There is both an implicit "compare and contrast" with the German effort and the Russian, each against "their" salient (Kursk and Orel respectively) and an awareness of context, and the "bigger chess" the Russians are playing. However, the coverage of Zitadel is still more detailed in it than that of any of the reply offensives. The Mius fighting is barely covered, as being outside the fronts discusses, and there are other quirks in the coverage.

"Manstein suggests that his 11th army should have been allowed to push across the Kerch straits to help pocket the retreating Soviet forces falling back on the Caucasus"

Not very practical. Really this is just Manstein registering resentment at the reduction in his role after the Crimea, and unable to take off his army commander's hat to look at the bigger picture.

Yes it is better to aim at destroying the enemy forces rather than trying to grab very distant economic objectives. But the Russians retreat pell-mell in 1942, they don't stand to be pocketed like in 1941. This isn't due to the Germans doing anything worse, and it isn't smarter direction by Stalin and the high command either (Stalin is still issuing nonsensical "no retreat orders"). The local commanders just don't listen any more when told to stand still far to the west. They sensibly run when they have to.

You wouldn't have pocketed anything to speak of, and besides, it is the breakthough on the main front - itself effortless, not hard - that dislodges the Russians opposite the Kuban. That is the cheap way to get across the straits anyway - take them in rear. Compared to that, attacking frontally with a mostly Romanian force (11th was the German stiffener to most of the Romanian army in Russia in the Crimea campaign) in a shoe string amphibious operation would have been very risky, for practically no shot at a serious reward.

Once Rostov has fallen and the Russians are in full retreat to the Caucasus, sure, cross and pursue, and try to keep them from getting away if you can. But who has a better chance of doing that, Romanian infantry pushing straight ahead across major water barriers, or German armor hooking around the Russian right through open steppe? Clearly the latter.

So no, this one wasn't a mistake, and Manstein is just complaining about not being in the big show.

"it should have been put in reserve behind the Stalingrad front. If this would have been done, would 11th army have been able to prevent the encirclement of 6th army?"

Well the Romanians are already given the flank support job. Not all the Germans, some went south. Stalingrad consumed whatever reserves were available, it is not like nobody saw a reason to have any. But nobody took the threat of major Russian counterattack seriously. (OK a few staffers warned about it, but the big wigs all thought the Russians were throwing everything into the Stalingrad fight and couldn't be accumulating serious reserves as a result).

The mistake of the later 1942 campaign is based on underestimating the Russians systematically. The Germans think they are on their last legs, that the winter was an aberration, that it is 1941 all over again and there is no way the Russians can withstand 2 such poundings. The interpret the wide open areas thinly screened that the bulge of the lines out to the south inevitably cause, as the Russians running out of forces to hold a continuous line. They think they are reduced to pockets of resistence in an empty sea (except up north around Moscow etc). As far as they are concerned, the entire Russian left wing has evaporated, and a few blocking positions are holding out at Stalingrad, the Caucasus passes, and a thin straggle of guys on the road to Baku just relying on the length of the German logistical "tether".

The Germans are themselves screening their left all along the Don with thin infantry forces and assume the Russians are doing the same opposite. The only other place there is serious fighting going on in in front of Voronezh, where the Germans exploit the Russian collapse farther south to extend a bit farther east, straight ahead pushing with an infantry army. They think the Don is quiet because they aren't choosing to attack there and the Russians cannot remotely afford to pick additional fights.

In reality Stavka is accumulating counterattack forces as early as September. It does feed the Stalingrad battle, but with less than a third of what it sends to the theater. The situation in the far south is critical but gets next to nothing - it is just logistically impossible to accumulate or use much that far from the force sources in center Russia.

The Germans for their part have to decide whether the south or Stalingrad is more promising. You might think that it is clearly the south, where the Russians are weaker and where the oil is. But the distances are double or triple what they are to Stalingrad, and practically none of it can come by rail (the lines haven't been repaired, not enough rolling stock of Russian gauge, etc). Truck conveys out of Rostov aren't a very promising way of supporting all of Army Group South clear to Baku.

You just physically do not have the option of sending 3/4 of the force right. It'd stall, unsupply-able. Your options are send almost everything to the shorter northern part, or send a serious force south too. If you pick the former, you are letting the Russians off the hook in the most open sector.

What they actually decide is to send about half the armor south, but in practice they call a fair portion of it back as Stalingrad heats up, because it can't be supplied farther southeast anyway. They fight to clear the mountains because they think they can restore logistical superiority if they take the last black sea bases and turn the black into a German lake. If they had done that - which looked at the outset like it would just be a matter of time - they could have supply any force you like in the south - but those mountains are pretty impossible terrain, and the Russians do a solid job of holding them.

Now, should they still have seen the danger and left a serious reserve of Germans, especially armor, right behind the Don bend? Sure. Hindsight is 20-20 and all that. If they had an extra full panzer army there, they might have stopped Uranus like they stopped Mars, or the Mius in 1943. Or maybe not.

But they didn't have the option of trying to actually win the battle of Stalingrad and keeping such a reserve. It means not pressing Stalingrad. It means going over to the defensive in the fall of 1942, waiting for stuff in the south to shake out and logistical infrastructure to improve. With their temporary upper hand burning a hole in their pocket, the Russians having all the time to breath you like, and building up as fast as you please.

A pause and defend stance like that only makes sense if you also pull out all the mobilization stops at home and otherwise transition to a bet that you can get time on your side and win in the long run, that you've now grabbed enough for that. Well, you still don't have the oil and the US is in - is time really on your side? Clearly if you still don't mobilize for total war, not a chance.

You either think the Russians are about done, in which case you push as hard as you can where you can actually get the logistical leverage to push, or you think they aren't and it is going to take a long time yet, in which case you have to pull out a lot of stops etc to make up for the time to breath and recover and rebuild, that you will give the Russians by standing on the defensive along the Don (instead of extending to the Volga and fighting Stalingrad in earnest).

The only other interesting option in the fall 1942 decisions is the northern option. Meaning up around Voronezh, not Stalingrad. You'd send some stuff south to grab what can be grabbed, hold at the Don not the Volga and pass on Stalingrad, and then strike astride the Don and east of it, from Voronezh and a bit south. You'd drive straight east toward Saratov with the idea of cutting the last rail linkages to the south.

You still would face the Stalingrad style dilemma, however. The long northern flank would just be south of Moscow instead of along the Don. You still have to hold that lengthening flank, getting longer the farther you go, with forces secondary to whatever you have amassed to spearhead the cutting attack east. They don't have the Don to hold along, either. The main benefit is the hard fighting part would not be a city seige at the Volga, but open fighting. You'd have the cleared portion of the Don as a supply route, too, at least until winter.

As for what it would have taken to stop Uranus, a few more German IDs would have helped but are unlikely to have prevented it, on their own. A full additional panzer corps with more modern tanks is more like it. Understand they did have 2 panzer divisions in reserve to stop Uranus in the north - but one was the 1st Romanian panzer with mostly Czech tanks, and the other was a German one also mostly equipped with Pz 38s. Some short 75 Pz IVs added, it is true. But the Germans did not have armor tech dominance at this time. Those 2 PDs slowed the Russians less than 48 hours, with about half of the Axis forces living through that period intact. (The armor I mean - only about 25% of the Romanian infantry formations hit made it to the rally points clear of the breakthrough).

And the Russians still had Saturn waiting after Uranus. No, it would have taken a lot to stop them, panzer army scale.

"In the Kharkov counterattack however, Manstein gathered armored reserves after the retreat and struck a concentrated blow"

Did he, or did the factories in Germany, and the railroads? What I mean is, he did not really scrape together a concentrated force from the four winds. Instead what happens is the SS panzer corps arrives in the theater at full strength, meaning 200 tanks per division, all fresh and straight off the trains. The typical Russian tank corps has by this time been reduced to around 50 runners. A single fresher Russian tank army thrown in to try to stop Manstein's counterattack had more like 300 tanks and didn't fight the whole corps, giving something more like equality. But that was as good as it got.

The Germans have a concentrated fist because it is a strategic reserve arriving in theater, not gathered. Manstein had to fight many delaying actions prior to this with single corps sized bodies of armor, to parry threat after threat throughout the long retreat from Stalingrad. Those formations are as reduced as the Russian tank corps they are fighting. Compared to all of them, the not-yet-step-reduced SS panzer corps are monsters. They are monsters in tech specs, too - a very high portion of new long Panzer IVs and the first Tiger Is.

The main reason they succeed is Russian operational overextension and vulnerability because of it. Manstein used that well. The basic logic working, however, is the defender's better "time to front" for fresh formations. The Russians can't keep its tank corps, operating 400 miles from their jump off lines and the rail changeover points and having fought for months, "topped off" with fresh equipment, as easily as the Germans can, retreating into an intact rail net, "wired" to the factories in Germany.

The Russians push until they can't push anymore, rather longer really, and then the Germans have all the high cards. It is logistics and time to front, the major source of defense dominance throughout the period of rail based warfare. Yes Manstein plays it well. The SS panzer corps also plays it well. Several of the Russian armor commanders, still green at all this, do not play it particularly well. Neither does Stalin, overly aggressive and thinking he won the war with the late 1942 offensives. (Russian deep battle doctrine would have told him you don't win modern wars in one go...)

"After Kursk however, in the battles along the Dneipr, small formations of Panzer divisions and Panzergrenadier divisions are sent back and forth to deliver counter-attacks in what almost seems like piecemeal commitment of reserves."

OK, first it seems to me this conflates two different periods. After Kursk the Russians win the decisive battles of the war - by inches in my opinion, but they win them - but these occur well east of the Dnepr and have nothing to do with the Dnepr bend battles. These decisive battles occur in July and August of 1943, perhaps extending slightly into September. The result of them is to dislodge the entire German front line in the Ukraine and send the Germans back *to* Dnepr. That doesn't make them Dnepr bend battles, which refers to a later period.

That later period is the fall of 1943 and into the early winter month of 1944. October 1943 to February 1944. The issue there is will the Dnepr line hold or will the Germans die trying. But they are already in pretty sorry shape because this comes after the previous.

So first the immediate post Kursk period. There are three major parts of this, Orel, Mius, and Kharkov. Kursk is the opening act for these 3, and the Russians consider the whole period part of the same larger battle, from 5 July to 31 August 1943.

Orel is the immediate riposte to Kursk and is meant to end Kursk definitively. It does so, though with a brief delay as to the southern wing (because Manstein gets his way and does continue his attacks there, hoping to deplete Russian armor reserves just as he wanted).

The Germans have a fire brigade reaction to Orel. First understand that the northern prong of the Kursk attack had not all been committed by the time Orel hits. The leading groups were based on assault gun formations supporting reinforced infantry divisions. The second wave was based on one panzer corps and went in after those and slightly to their right. A second panzer corps was the third formation in this "deep column of attack" and was still waiting for its orders when Orel hits. (Actually, the first of them had such orders but had not yet hit the line - they were turned around).

So there is a full panzer corps waiting behind the northern face of the Kursk bulge, when the Russians hit the Orel bulge simultaneously from its north and east faces. This corps is sent to stop the eastern face part and arrives in less than 48 hours and does a bang up job doing so. (With a powerful assist by the infantry corps on the spot, which handled the first 48 hours very well etc). The north face breaks through, though, with only a single Panzer division to slow it down, and unable to stop it.

The Germans then pull out essentially all the mobile divisions from the northern Kursk attack, and use them one after another to stop different portions of the spreading Orel collapse. They have to shore up the west-facing wall of the part of the pocket that has held out against the east face drive, for example, when the Russians try to reach through them to said east face, via a left turn of the northern exploitation force. In retrospect, that was a dumb use of those exploiters on the Russian's part - they should have gone south and southwest to form a deep containment wall - but they thought they were replaying Uranus and the key thing was to link up rapidly behind the foremost German forces.

I will add a comment here about the skill and speed shown in this use of AG Center's armor to stop Kutuzov. When Patton boasted that he could turn one corps of his army 90 degrees and pull out of one attack and then launch another in 72 hours to react laterally to a German break-in, he was met with disbelief. When it did it, it was rightly hailed as a great accomplishment, a sign of what alert and professional staffs could do with a mobile army. Well, the Germans were doing the like almost routinely in mid 1943 in Russia. If they hadn't, Kutuzov would have been a Bagration a year earlier.

Kutuzov still works but is very costly for the Russians, and it is useful to understand why. Basically they misuse their biggest armor pieces, the tank armies, and the Germans react well enough with their own armor in corps sized chunks, that the Russians wind up fighting the major parts (in terms of most powerful forces engaged, length of time, etc) as bloody frontal brawls hitting alert and properly equipped German defenders. That is why the Russians are losing several times what the Germans are, in both tanks and manpower.

But there is always a secondary axis where the Germans don't have a full corps of armor helping out.

The Russians send a tank army at the east face long after the Germans have stopped that drive cold with a panzer corps of their own. Result bloody brawl and not much to show for that location. But unnoticed other result, that German panzer corps is not elsewhere, it is "pinned" to the east face. The Russians send another tank army at the west wall of the nearly formed pocket north of Orel, same result. Same side effect, unnoticed. Meanwhile, 11 Guards army (the initial northern breakthrough force but not "heavy wood" armor) and a single cavalry corps is spreading through wooded terrain south and southwest, until they reach the railway line west from Orel. And that is what eventually forces the Germans to evacuate Orel. Indeed, they have to draw yet more armor from AG South (PD GD among them) to hold those guys off long enough for everyone to get out of the salient.

What's next? The Mius. There the Russians attack with 3 rifle armies (one of them Guards, in second echelon) and 2 tank corps. A large force but with a modest amount of armor by the standards of the fighting elsewhere. The Germans react with the same flexibility shown in Orel, but this time it is the southern Kursk force that gets the call. They had continued attacking for another week at Manstein's insistence. They are maybe half strength when they go southeast to the Mius.

There are still 4 PDs and a PzGdr division sent, so the overall force is at least a panzer corps in strength. And they manhandle the Russian attackers along the Mius. Just clobber them. The Russians spent their infantry reserves a bit too fast and did not have depth left behind the attack. The Germans smash the tank corps in head on blocking fighting and counterattack into the infantry where it is most extend, and the Russians have to call it all off with a bloody nose. If this is piecemeal failure, what does success look like?

But all of that means the AG South armor is off at the Mius when Zhukov starts the main drive for Kharkov. In fact they are still sending more there, even though the crisis there has past. Manstein thought the Russians were so mauled by Kursk offensive - including his extra week to devour armor reserves - that that sector would not be able to attack again. But they scrounged the battlefield for repairable tanks and the field hospitals for crews, and use all the previously uncommitted rifle forces of Steppe front. It is also Zhukov, so the arty prep work is stellar and the timing of armor commitment superb. In a few days the Germans face a 40 mile gap in their line.

So, guess what? They have to react again and call back all the armor from the Mius and all the AG South armor sent north to help hold open the door out of Orel, and have to do it all over again behind Kharkov. And they pull it off, even. In the meantime, the closer in pincers have closed on Kharkov and take it for the last time, but in pretty bloody, pretty straight ahead fighting. And once again, it is an outer secondary drive - this time by 40th Army hitting due west, when the heavy armor is pushing south - that goes upstopped, and forces a wider German retreat.

What all of it involves, time after time, is multiple threats on a broad front, fired off in "ripple fire" fashion. The Russians constantly hope their big push sectors where they through in the heaviest armor formations will break clean through to the operational rear. Instead they always break *in*, and then meet arriving German armor reserves, with whom they brawl. But there are always enough threats, holes, and secondary offensives going off like firecrackers, that the Germans can't stop them everywhere, only in the most important areas. So the tank armies are stopped and step reduced in a week, pretty much every time. But the rifle armies have holes and ooze through them. The Germans run themselves ragged and fail to patch all the holes.

Why are the Russians able to fire off ripple fire salvo after salvo? Why weren't they able to in the case of Manstein's backhand blow the previous year? Was it Manstein doing something smarter in the latter case, or Germans something studier or otherwise locally less successful in the previous? No.

The Russians can fire off ripple after ripple because they are logistically prepared to do so. The line is nearly static, with each offensive launched from positions held by the Russians for most of early 1943. Only small additions, and those salients surrounded by other areas so held. The Russians have supplies coming out of their ears all along this line. They fire 45 million artillery rounds at the Germans in these 2 months, for starters.

What is missing in the summer of 1943 compared to February, in other words, is a *prior withdrawal*. The Germans are trying to *hold the front line*. They are standing, taking the full weight of each Russian punch, instead of "rolling" and backing away from the logistic source of the strength of those punches.

By the end of August it is clear that will not work and the unfilled holes are multiplying. The Russians make a new one up in the central front area while 40th army's is still unplugged in the south, for example, and then they renew the Mius area on top of it, and attack the Kuban too.

So the Germans withdraw to the Dnepr. They should have evacuated the Orel salient as soon they gave the eastern face drive its bloody nose, but they didn't. They treated every successful fire brigade action from then on, inclusive, as a reason to stand and keep territory, instead of an opportunity to get away clean, having already "stung like a bee".

When the Russians first reach the Dnepr they are somewhat overextended logistically, again. But in September the Russians took the smart long term step of pulling tank armies out of the line for a complete refitting, despite the continued push west. They weren't going to try to win in one go anymore. Aggressive handling once brought back into action gets them bridgeheads over the Dnepr, noteably north of Kiev. They still get into brawls with reacting German armor in upwards of corps strength.

Manstein's relief comes because he sees the same process replaying in the Dnepr bend fighting and does not want to stand and try to hold the river line, but instead wants to use fire brigade successes to pull infantry back alive. Soon instead they need fire brigade successes to get a few remnants out of full pockets.

And then the biggest ripple fire of them all comes. With all their armor in the Ukraine precisely to stay concentrated to do such things, Bagration hits AG Center instead.

You can't be concentrated everywhere. The Russians just "hit 'em where they ain't" by hitting nearly everywhere, in succession.

"Manstein also gives some Soviet strength and casualty figures for some attacks. Are these accurate?"

No, they are German side claims and are untrustworthy for Russian losses. (Fine for their own, with a few provisos about surreal TWO accouting for armor stuff). But Russian losses as explained in their own figures were extremely high throughout this period, and far higher than German losses.

The Russian armor strength in being drawn down, despite a high rate of replacement. Their manpower strength is being replenished continually despite them. There are three sources of that new manpower - continued mobilization at far higher rates than in the German army (which has much lower "teeth to tail" and a huge training and replacement establishment back in Germany), plus returns from the hospitals (Russian infantrymen lived through the war by being occasionally out for their several wounds, not by going untouched throughout), and by conscription from the newly liberated areas as the front moved west (plus partisans "professionalized" from the same).

The Germans replace their losses in the whole manpower pool but fail to get them all to front line formations, which instead operate halved or step reduced. The balance of the new manpower appears as occasional top offs of formations sent to Germany or France for refit, or goes to new formations (some of them earmarked for the west). So front line German strength in the areas attacked (southern half or so of the front) is declining.

"was the 'mud' such a huge limiting factor on operations, or is it being used as an excuse?"

The latter. Some of these claims are hysterical. Russian armor breakthroughs cannot be stopped because the roads are impassable. lol. The reality is the German mobile formations consistently show better operational mobility than the Russian ones, primarily because of better staff work rather than anything weather, terrain, or automotive related. To shift a full panzer corps from Kursk north face to Orel east face in less than 48 hours, in time to take part in the breakin sectors by the afternoon of the second day of the offensive, is not a sign of bad roads, but it is a sign of excellent staff planning and POL supply flexibility.

What is really going on, though, is a German commander has come to rely on such miracles so much, that every time a hole appears on the map he thinks "I'd faced that a dozen times before and a lightning repositioning of a few PDs has always saved the day", and if on some occasion or other that fails to occur, he blames the weather or the roads or a dumb order from a politico. If you prayed for a miracle 40 times and got 38 miracles, would you rail against the gods?

"Manstein believed that the southern attack should have continued depsite the failure in the north, to at least attrit Soviet armored reserves."

Yeah. And he pretends he won and was cheated by the politicos telling him "no". But he got his extra week of attacks by AG South, and he cut the tank army in front of him in half in that week. And it didn't make any difference. The dirty little secret here is simply that Manstein did not halt the attacks after Kutuzov or after Prok., but continued them on his own initiative for another week. When they didn't win the war, he conveniently forgot to mention that in his memoires.

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