Soviet late-war attacks and casualties

[Cuirassier]

I was browsing some old threads recently that touched on the reasons as to why the Soviets consistently took more casualties than the Germans, particularly when attacking late war, with superior odds and a sound doctrine to guide them.

I still find the answer(s?) somewhat of an enigma, as I currently don't have enough resources at my disposal to find out on my own. So maybe some of the grogs can help me out.

So I'll start out with what I do know. On another thread (don't remember which one), JasonC said one reason the Soviets suffered heavier casualties was the fetish of some commanders (Corps, Army level) to over-concentrate infantry forces in breakthrough operations. Being a little through Glantz's "In Pursuit of Deep Battle," I can see this happening, as it was Soviet doctrine to employ only Rifle forces for the breakthrough fighting while keeping the tank corps and armies in the rear for exploitation. From just looking at some of the schematics in the book, it becomes apparent that Soviet doctrine was obsessed with achieving mass in the primary attack sector. Though mass is the means to create shock action, against a corps level artillery barrage, it only results in outsized infantry casualties.

Now JasonC said that this was completely unnecessary, as the independent tank corps could have been used to achieve initial breakthroughs, while rifle could broaden penetrations and the operational tank armies could exploit into the gap 'clean.' Again, from what I know, this makes sense to me.

So why wasn't this done? Was doctrine too rigid? Were most of the higher up commanders just stupid? Were there organizational issues (tank corps too tank heavy/infantry light for breakthrough fighting)?

Another thing I find confusing is that the Soviet's stressed combined armes combat, but didn't seem to achieve it. For example, Rifle Armies conducted breakthrough fighting, and possessed significant combined arms forces to achieve this. They had losts of heavy artillery, plus independent tank brigrades and heavy tank/SP gun regiments to support the first echelon rifleman. This seems like a balanced way to fight, yet they took heavy losses. Was it that the smaller independent armored formations didn't achieve the local concentrations necessary to deal with PAK's and local German armor reserves? Did the inflexibility of heavy artillery, and thus subsequent reliance on direct fire assests to provide support cause other issues?

As well, I'm guessing these aren't the only reasons for outsized Soviet losses, even when attacking with superior odds late-war with clearly better operational direction than the Germans.

We all know the Germans were masters of the tactical art since the days of Moltke the Elder. So then, was it primarly German proficiency, or Soviet ineptitude, that resulted in these outsized losses?

Also, what about Soviet tactics and troops at much lower levels. Were junior officers generally too poorly trained or inexperienced to conduct proper attacks? Did organizational problems or tactical incompetence prevent the use of combined arms principles consistently? How did logistics affect attacks (I seem to remember that Soviet artillery was relatively immobile and less flexible than other nation's systems, preventing it from providing adequate support as Soviet forces deepened the penetration and exploited the attack)?

Finally, were the deficiencies of Soviet tactical system worked out after the war? Did they develop a more flexible method of tactical maneuver after studying the failures that were occuring even in 1944 and 1945? For example, if they had fought an equally strong Germany in 1950's-70's, would they again have outsized losses (Of course this is ignoring political realities)? I'm just curious if they seriously tried to resolve the issue of high-casualties after the war, since they didn't address it during the war.

Sorry if my thoughts and questions seem somewhat 'scattered' or all over the place. I just find this whole topic somewhat confusing, and am trying to find answers. Thanks.

[ March 29, 2007, 05:27 PM: Message edited by: Cuirassier ]

[JasonC]

"So why wasn't this done?"

There were a few early cases of armor committed without any infantry support whatever, that ran onto PAK fronts and lost a lot of tanks without any appreciable gain. They thought the lesson was that no, tanks could not independently break through, and it was a waste to hit ATGs with them, and they should be saved for the exploitation instead. They then burned this into their doctrine and attack planning system and did not revisit it after their overall arms coordination had improved.

In practice, when the rifle armies failed to break through rapidly enough, the army released its supporting tank corps to hit the hoped-for breach. And they generally did get through as a result (a few exceptions against particularly strong defenses, not many). But at the earliest, after several hours of Somme redux attacking that spent the forward rifle regiments.

They weren't the only ones somewhat confused on the issue. In the Bulge, the Germans tried to get the infantry to break through for the tanks to exploit, with similar results in many places. In others, though, the infantry infiltrated rather than attacking head on - made possible by terrain, thin defenders, approaching the previous night or exploiting fog, etc. Also exploited the German doctrine of reinforcing success and starving weakness, which goes back to WW I infiltration tactics.

The Russians were much more likely to reinforce failure. The Germans thought it piggishly stupid and put it down to contempt for human life. It wasn't that, really. But higher ups wanted definite lines reached, command push style. If they weren't, the failing echelon would be pushed to use its reserves. The lower commanders were not responsible for success, but they were responsible for fighting - a reputation for cowardice could get you sacked or worse. But no one could call you a coward or accuse you or shirking if you presented a long enough casualty roll.

The same mentality was seen on the western front in WW I. MacArthur relates once receiving an order to take a certain hill by noon tomorrow "or present me a list of 1000 casualties". He replied in the spirit involved, "you can consider it taken, or you can post a casualty list of the entire brigade with me at the top of the list".

The command structure is working very hard to push naturally reluctant men up against a buzz saw. It is trying to maximize fight and minimize cautious downtime and the tactic of waiting for the neighbors to do it. This is not an attitude conducive to maximizing loss efficiency. It has a political component - the party types and higher ups think they have to drive the men to the work. And they do it by setting a standard that failure with loss and wounds is acceptable and honorable, but failing in the attack without serious loss is contemptable.

And yes this is specific to the Russians and not a matter of the Germans being particularly good. They Germans were tactical tigers throughout the war on all fronts, certainly. But the western allies did not lose men at the rates the Russians did, not by a long shot. Because they used far more cautious and gradual tactics - probe endlessly behind very heavy HE, to fully exploit logistic power, wait for the right weapon or mix, etc.

The Russians felt in much more of a hurry than that. When the western allies took their time, it was Russians bleeding for much of that time, and took on something of the character of waiting for the neighbors to do it (and pay for it, in blood).

There was also simple tactical incompetence, certainly. Not primarily a result of lack of training at lower echelons - they were frankly rarely trusted with enough authority to make much of a difference in this stuff. The battle was seriously being directed by an army commander. It was somewhat better in the mech arms, definitely - an elite within the force, more inclined to reinforce success, with authority pushed forward and lower. Corps and brigade commanders could direct things.

Some captain deciding to throw out the mission and do it his own way, or call it off because it didn't look good - that is what wasn't going to happen in the Russian command structure.

As for weapon mix, they layered the formations with armor at all levels, which made some available. But it meant the concentration achieved followed the size of unit committed, pretty much.

E.g. east face of Kutuzov, opening day, they know they should support the infantry with heavy tanks for the breakthrough fighting. So they assign several KV regiments. But those are 21 tanks each and the attack is being made by 2 armies side by side, each with 3 divisions up. The result is the tanks per kilometer run 5 or 10. Well, as it happens the Germans were ready for them on that occasion and the PAK opposite were comparable in numbers. 60 KVs were knocked out by the end of the first day, and the attack was very expensive and managed to get only a few km into the German defenses.

Compare a German armor lead breakthrough attack. The main effort is generally a panzer corps. It hits selected points with full tank regiments on 1-2 km. That readily outweighs the PAK opposite. Then they also typically manage better arty armor cooperation - never a Russian strong suit. The typical result is that they are in the house in a couple of hours with minimal human loss. They still have to brawl the Russian reserves, and that can be as attriting as you please. But they aren't paying a regiment or more for a 10 or 20 percent chance of a few km of penetration, on each attack km.

Were tank corps too tank-heavy for this? No, not really. In the early mid war, they had tank brigade that were nearly pure tank, for lack of adequate trucks, technical personnel, etc. Sometimes then they had a choice between slow rifle attack and all tank with little support. Neither works terribly well. But by 1943 at the latest they have all the combined arms they really need for this sort of thing.

"the Soviets stressed combined armes combat, but didn't seem to achieve it."

They stressed a lot of things they failed to achieve. An army is among other things a teaching organization. A school. Someone in the building knowing something is not the same as the young skulls full of mush all knowing it. I remember the revelation it was when I read the Stavka study on the battle of Moscow and came across a passage in the discussion of artillery. (Understand, the tactical specifics refer to a definite time, early on, late 1941. But the underlying issue remains, as you will see).

The staff officer was criticizing the common practice of using the guns direct fire most of the time. He explains it leads to higher rates of loss of the guns and soon to arty poor formations that lack hitting power. He knows better, lots of men in the arty know better. So why are the men using them direct? He looks into it, not willing to settle for just a lecture telling the men how to do it. He finds out why they aren't firing indirect - none of them know how to calculate the right deflection to point the things. Why not? None of them know trigonometry. As in, haven't heard of the concept of a tangent function.

Skilled personnel were the scarce commodity. Young men in their early 20s who already knew trig were off designing airplanes or planning factory production schedules for the central planning committee, not manning a piddly unit of 4 76mm horse drawn guns in the snow 40 miles northwest of Moscow.

Now, clearly that particular problem was relatively easy to clear up, once the staff realized what the problem was. They could hand down a better doctrine, they could assign some bright enough types to make firing tables and range cards, print them up and distribute them, hold classes on how to use them to fire indirect to a plan, etc. But in doing so they are patching an underlying failing that remains - well educated and skilled personnel are simply going to be at a premium throughout, and are going to be used at the higher reaches where they give the most bang, and it is going to act as a brain-drain on the rank and file.

Thus command push. The things the captains and majors are being trusted to perform, are things a bright German sergeant might be trusted to perform. In western terms of education training prep sophistication independence and class etc, the "officer material" starts at about Lt. Colonel.

This is a function of having a huge army, a huge loss rate, pre war purges, but also simply having a half agricultural society more like the US 1880 or so. Maybe 25% of the population has finished the equivalent of high school - the rest went to work as teenagers, factory or farm.

"Did the inflexibility of heavy artillery, and thus subsequent reliance on direct fire assests to provide support cause other issues?"

Sure. Arty was centralized and used command push. That still lets it have an attrition impact, but it doesn't get used in highly responsive ways. That has to lead to poorer average targets. Logistically, they do a lot of prep for an offensive to get all the guns and ammo in position. Then they have to fire them all right then, because when the front moves as the attack succeeds, they are going to be out of range again. Remember 90% of the artillery is horse drawn and so is most of the ammo from rail siding to gunline.

So they can get an epic barrage, then not much for a long stretch once the front is moving. Well, the epic barrage certainly helps, but it probably hits while a lot of guys are deep in their holes - they heard you the first 60000 times. You'll always get more KOs per shell if instead you fire when it is the best possible target, instead of when logistics allow.

This shouldn't be overstated, though. They understood the issue and provided organic forms of fire support to do reactive fires. Just not as heavily as the big stuff for the big pushes. So battalions have 82s and regiments have 120s and division has 76s and a few 122s, etc. Mech units have some 120s and some rockets for a few salvos when they need them. But the bulk of the heavy tube park, the 122s and 152s in huge numbers, are there for the set piece but not for most of the rest. A few motorized units up with a tank army, maybe.

"what about Soviet tactics and troops at much lower levels."

They weren't great material to start with, but they learned by doing. Bringing me back to the point about an army as a school. Some of them figured out most of the lessons you'd expect by quite early on - early 42, or the winter 42-43 counterattack period at the latest. But that doesn't mean everyone has, that no one will ever do anything boneheaded again.

They are promoting anybody doing anything sentient, and anyone with high loyalty and the right connections who hasn't been a complete disaster yet. Peter principle, some of them will be promoted until they reach the level they cannot handle and screw up. They have to promote anyway, because the prewar army is dead in six months and the army size is quadrupling. Somebody has to fill every slot. They are not all going to be higher graduates of the central staff academy.

"were the deficiencies of Soviet tactical system worked out after the war?"

Not really, no. The education level and professionalism definitely improved. The army of 1945 was vastly more experienced. Its equipment was superb. All its major doctrines and systems were solid (not brilliant, but not broken). But it was still a command push system driven from the army level, with a culture not of efficiency let alone perfection or art, but of aggressiveness, bravery, willpower, ruthlessness, a willingness and capacity to inflict and sustain appalling suffering, stoically.

Russians would fight, hard. But graceful or efficient or perfect were not even what they were looking for. The overall motto is "no one can go far wrong who lays his ship alongside the enemy". Not "can't touch this"...

[Guest Guest]

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[The_Enigma]

Now they were some long posts!! Very importative though, i love these threads!!

Originally posted by Cuirassier:

I still find the answer(s?) somewhat of an enigma,

You rang?

Was there any kind of major or conceptual improvement in the Russian army after WW2?

Soviet Officer sitting at his desk, he glances at the casulity list, he glances at the latets cencus.

"I guess we cant take that many casulties no more"

thus the new doctrine is born

Compare a German armour lead brake through attack. The main effort is generally a panzer corp. It hits selected points with full tank regiments on 1-2 km. That readily outweighs the PAK opposite. Then they also typically manage better arty armour cooperation – never a Russian strong suit. The typical result is that they are in the house in a couple of hours with minimal human loss. They still have to brawl with the Russian reserves, and that can be as attriting as you please. But they aren’t paying a regiment or more for a 10 or 20 percent chance of a few km of penetration, on each attack

In regards to Kursk, I have read that the Soviets calculated that an AT gun could take out 1 or 2 tanks before being destroyed itself. Thus such an attrition rate would be devastating to the Panzer Divisions.

Is this then a major response to the German attacks you refer to in the above quote?

Remember 90% of the artillery is horse drawn and so is most of the ammo from tail siding to gunline

Good to know! I had came under the impression I must admit that during the later years that it must have been towed by one of the many halftracks or trucks you seem to read so much about.

Although talking of the Soviets not being able to put up a massive barrage unless they have had time to set up a hell load of pieces and bring up the ammo from the railheads.

What happened in regards to the rocket batteries? They appear to be mostly truck mounted so where they able to keep up with the roaming tank armies to provide adequate support, or is this another misconception in regards to the Soviet armies capabilities?

In regards to the tactical skill of there infantry. From the little I have read it seems that the Soviets had a bit of an easy time crushing Army Group Centre in ’44, pushing AG North into a pocket and then roaming through the Balkans but then in front of Berlin they get tied up on is it called the Sealow? Heights.

One wonders, is there a reason for this. How does it seem, to a bit of a laymen of the Eastern Front like me, that they can crush such units but then get tied but a small force?

[Bigduke6]

Well, that's kind of a sterile question, as the Soviet army never got in any major wars after WW2.

From a theoretical point of view, certainly they improved. Troop education levels went up, firepower available to field commanders increased, communications went from pretty primitive to fairly workable, called fires from heavy artillery became possible at levels below army (at least theoretically regiment), mechanization and automatic small arms became near-total, etc.

Of course, some things stayed pretty much the same. Attack helicopters for practical purposes received missions the same as Sturmoviks. The idea a company-level officer might call in an air strike, remained alien.

The way they organized post-war, continued the trend of having a large number of "throw-away" units, capable doing something in a single operation. But after that operation was over the unit will necessarily stop due to losses and weak supply. Even with years to prepare for WW3, the Soviets never really gave much thought to sustaining a unit in more than maybe a month of continuous combat. After that point, the unit was expected to be wasted, reduced to nothing. If the war continued, then new units were needed.

But most importantly, human life continued to be frankly treated as a distinctly less valuable resource, than the key elements of combat equipment: the tanks, the apcs, the strike aircraft, and the guns.

The Soviets when accused of lack of humanity for continuing this set of priorities, typically would respond: "Well, we beat the Germans that way. Now as then, our society produces military-age men a good deal more easily, than combat equipment suitable for defeating a technically-superior foe. Therefore, we must be willing to sacrifice more human life than our opponents. And we are"

JasonC and I have been around the block more than once on whether this attitude constitutes military incompetence or not - essentially he arguess "yes" and I say "no".

But I think he would agree with me that, at minimum, this attitude responsible or no in any case underpinned pretty much every aspect of how the Red Army "did business."

If you want to understand the Soviets, you have to understand casualties bothered them (the leadership I mean) less than their opponents'. Therefore, defeating Soviets required, in most cases, more than just inflicting the casualties sufficient to defeat a comparable non-Soviet formation.

In any case, the post-WW2 Red Army was never put to the test. Okay, they did all right against the Chinese in 1969, but a single battle against a weak opponent does not a validated military doctrine make. The Soviet Cold War generals to this day are adamant that had the balloon gone up, they would have been at the Channel in a month. The NATO ones say that's a bunch of baloney. Good thing we have the arguement, rather than the knowledge of who was right in RL.

[The_Enigma]

If you want to understand the Soviets, you have to understand casualties bothered them (the leadership I mean) less than their opponents'.

Didnt Stalin suposidly ask his Front Commanders as they closed in on Berlin tobe careful with his infantry, not to waste them...... although he then suposidly added, because we have no more left.

[George MC]

For what it is worth. I've had the pleasure of climbing with Russian climbers (as in Ethnic Russians) in the Tien Shan in the early nineties.

These guys were tough as nails, and what is more to boot, had a vastly differant attitude to climbing than us Westerners. Where we went for small fast teams, they tended to have larger. slower teams (albeit less experienced overall).

BUT, they climbed mountains as a team effort. Casualties due to cold, exhaustion etc were par for the course, and expected, but if one guy made it to the summit the whole team celebrated. Sometimes some of their team died.

What struck me was the team oriented approach which contrasted with our more 'individualistic' approach. A friend (a lecturer in history) at the time (who died the next year in a serac fall) described it as 'Stalingrad Climbing'.

Draw your own conclusions

Cheers fur noo

George

[The_Enigma]

Originally posted by George Mc:

For what it is worth. I've had the pleasure of climbing with Russian climbers (as in Ethnic Russians) in the Tien Shan in the early nineties.

These guys were tough as nails, and what is more to boot, had a vastly differant attitude to climbing than us Westerners. Where we went for small fast teams, they tended to have larger. slower teams (albeit less experienced overall).

BUT, they climbed mountains as a team effort. Casualties due to cold, exhaustion etc were par for the course, and expected, but if one guy made it to the summit the whole team celebrated. Sometimes some of their team died.

What struck me was the team oriented approach which contrasted with our more 'individualistic' approach. A friend (a lecturer in history) at the time (who died the next year in a serac fall) described it as 'Stalingrad Climbing'.

Draw your own conclusions

Cheers fur noo

George

There messed up in the head?

No i kid, intresting story

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[RCHRD]

If the tank and mech corps created the breach, then who would exploit? Soviet Doctrine had good amounts of tanks, midwar this role was assigned the KV's, plenty of engineers, and lots and lots of artillery. The Russians were known to locate German defenses all the way back to the mortars. Huge volumes of area fire, pinpoint fires on preselected targets, known to exist, direct fires by heavy tanks and SPG's and heavy sapper support. What more could you want?

[Bigduke6]

No, according the doctrine the infantry and artillery (predominantly) creates the breach, the air force and spetsnaz help; and then once the gap is made the tank and mech armies pour through and exploit. The Soviets were adamant on that, and they were obscessive about "the right time" to commit the exploitation force. Commanders guessing wrong wound up commanding infantry armies - if they were lucky.

This is not to say the units creating the breach wouldn't have some armor attached, but most often it was Su-76 SP guns, and then independent tank regiments, usually mediums. But in general if there were tanks reserved to the break-in elements, their mission was to deal with the (almost inevitable) commitment of German panzers to shore up the break.

But for a full-dress assault it really didn't matter too much to the Soviets what form of firepower smashed the German defense. In general, in the breakthrough sectors the idea seems to have been to abandon economy of force entirely, and just pack as much firepower as possible into a small sector, and just blast every hill, bush, and hole where there might be Germans - and then do it again several times.

This approach usually did what it was supposed to when the German defense was static and relatively thin; but it had some trouble when the German defense was in depth. The classic German counter to the full-dress Soviet deliberate attack was abandonment of the first line of defense once it was clear the offensive was coming. The Soviet counter was to infiltrate infantry sometimes in battalion strength through the first line, to screw with the German rear and catch German fighting units coming off of the first line. The German counter-counter was a strengthened anti-recon screen, etc. etc.

The net result was that post-Kursk, most of the time the Soviets were able to find a fixed German defense and get their ducks in a row before attacking it, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that they would break in. The open questions were the price they would pay, and how far they would get once the break-in occurred. It is difficult to overstate how much attention Soviet doctrine pays to the exploitation phase.

This is why the issue of figuring out how to do support fires beyond the breakthrough, was such a headache for the Soviets. You destabilize the line and the battle goes fluid, you are set to rip through the German rear area, but suddenly have all sorts of coordination problems. Not only do you have to shift all that heavy artillery and its ammunition forward with an army not exactly wealthy in trucks and prime movers, but you have to coordinate the fires with an army not exactly swamped with modern communications, or staffed with the most educated soldiers. Supply of the combat units is easy: Just give them enough to travel on, until the front stabilizes again, and if it works out they don't have enough, well foraging is ok.

Fire support post break-in was much harder; you can't forage an artillery fire control net or thousands of FOs capable of reading maps and calling in fires on targets of opportunity. So it was a problem: how do we deal with the Germans once we drive out from under where the RGFK artillery reserve is set up to fire on?

The solution the Soviets arrived at was two-fold. Mobile formations like tank and mech Corps were given large numbers of heavy mortars and oodles of SP guns in lieu of proper artillery support. The Soviet theory was that if you are operating beyond the realm of prepared and pre-registered artillery support, the simplest and usually most effective approach to a resistance point was to drive up SP guns and just blast it. Don't even screw around with figuring out whether you're in range of the heavy guns. Come to think of it, it was sort of an axiom that if a Tank or Mech Corps requires support from the Stavka central artillery reserve, some one screwed up.

The other aspect of the solution was, of course, an acceptance of greater casualties in SP guns and people, because of the choice to forgoe full-scale artillery support for the exploitation forces.

I would be remiss if I did not point out, that the WW2 Red Army covered ground faster and inflicted more losses on a tougher German force, than the British and Americans, despite the unquestionable superiority of British-American fire support.

This should not, of course, give the idea that Soviets had no FOs or that they could not call and adjust fires. Rather, the Soviets made a conscious division between artillery fires they tried to make flexible, and those that they just assumed would not be too useful in a fluid battle. Roughly speaking, heavy mortars and rocket launchers were considered useful for flexible "called" fires.

The Soviets considered mortars artillery and pretty much at every level of the Soviet organization where a commander could need fast called fires, you will find a mortar formation with no other job than dropping fires where that comander seems fit.

Of course the idea of doing anything precision with a Katiusha is silly. But, a Studebaker truck with rocket rails on the back is fast enough to keep up with the mech forces, (as are heavy mortars) and if they bump into something needing plastering, they can do it with very little time needed for preparation. Just pick a grid square.

All in all, the Soviet approach was wasteful by most Western military standards. But overall, it was the attack the Germans themselves feared the most - by which I mean not "they'll kill us if they capture us", but rather "there are few tools in the Wehrmacht tool box, that can stop the Soviets."

[JasonC]

On rockets keeping up, yes they were fully motorized and brought their ammo with them, and could support a mech formation with serious artillery fire on short notice, deep in the penetration phase. Unfortunately, they could do this pretty much once. They typically fired a salvo or three and then they were "dry", and it might be a week before they were resupplied with rockets to do it again.

What makes for powerful ongoing artillery support is the logistic links that feed shells to guns at will in a steady stream. The tubes are merely the hoses through which the ammo "water pressure" is sprayed at the enemy. The water pressure itself is logistic thruput. And the Russians were lucky to get gas to their tanks forward, and 500 tons a day for sustained artillery work was hopelessly out of the question.

Similarly with the heavy mortars. They are limited in range (half or a third of tubes) and they fire off their available ammo quite rapidly. All the "surge" needed to plaster a few strongpoints, but not able to wear down an enemy through sustained daily losses on a month time scale.

As for the ease with which the Russians beat AG center in Bagration and cleared the north, they still managed to take higher losses than the Germans even in their most outsized operational victories. In Bagration their AFV losses ran twice the German's and they managed to lose something like 3 to 2 in manpower. Despite destroying something like 25 infantry divisions through pocketing, generally the most efficient kill ratio generator there is in modern war.

This, obviously, is not a sign of tactical virtuousity or efficiency. It was not seen for example in the largest western victories, to say nothing of German ones over the Russians.

As for the Russian hope that every deployed ATG would account for 1-2 attacking tanks, it was never more than a pious wish and a basis for planning necessary ATG concentrations. The Russians fielded well over twice as many ATGs as the Germans produced AFVs (more like 3 times with dual use divisional guns included), and they did not remotely account for 1 or 2 each. More like one tenth that, at best.

As for the question of who exploits if the rifle army's tank corps makes the initial penetration, the answer is of course the tank armies. Those get deep operational objectives same as always, and can be inserted a day or three into the offensive. Attacking armies regularly had their own tank corps in addition, but doctrine was to commit them after the rifle divisions made a hole, and then use them for shallow penetration arcs, expanding the hole by flanking neighboring formations on line, and the like.

As for what the Russians of the cold war era would have been able to do better than those of WW II, the answer is lots. The main error I have been explaining, overreliance on unarmored forces to attack intact defensives without regard to cost or loss efficiency, simply would not arise when the entire force is under armor. Russian levels of equipment simply improve enourmously. By the time they have fleets of BMPs with ATGMs, even the "motor rifle" portions of the force would hit as hard as you please in armor combat terms.

They might have managed to misuse the BTR mounted formations I suppose. But they sensibly relegated those to second line divisions meant to deepen an attack, once they had enough BMPs to equip all the forward echelons with IFVs rather than mere APCs.

It is also possible they might have continued to suffer from limited combined arms coordination between armor and artillery. Their artillery doctrine ran toward planned saturation fires preceeding attacks, not reactive ones called during them from eyes well forward.

That might have left NATO ATGMs more effective than they would otherwise be, much as the Israelis experienced in 1973. Initially their armor arty cooperation was lacking and Egyptian ATGMs extremely effective as a result. The Israelis corrected this rapidly, within the confines of the 1973 war. It is doubtful the Russians would have been so flexible.

The real wild card in central front Warsaw Pact vs. NATO match ups was the air war. The west believed that its numerically smaller air force would be so much more effective due to pilot training and an edge in electronics and missile technology, that they would rapidly get control of the air and keep it. This hope was reinforced by regular experiences of air forces trained to western standards and using good western equipment, scoring up to 60 to 1 against Russian equipped air forces.

If so, smart conventional weapons air delivered, and low level armor killers like A-10s with Maverick and helos with TOW or Hellfire, would probably have been able to attrite massed attacking armor so rapidly the Russians would not be able to keep it up.

But it is possible the Russians would have been so much more effective than undertrained third worlders flying their planes, and also that their ground based SAM and radar directed AAA would have been so much more dense and effective, that this crucial NATO assumption might have failed in the event. If so, it would have been drastically harder for NATO ground to cope with the masses of Russian armor.

They still might have, at least late - NATO had edges in armor technology (starting with British Chobham and extending to the M-1 and Leopard 2) and especially in sensor technology (better night vision and ability to see through smoke and dust etc) that were quite significant. Not in 1965 or so, but certainly by 1985.

[Cuirassier]

Thanks for the replies so far. This is good stuff.

JasonC said,

"In Bagration their AFV losses ran twice the German's and they managed to lose something like 3 to 2 in manpower. Despite destroying something like 25 infantry divisions through pocketing, generally the most efficient kill ratio generator there is in modern war."

Why are Soviet AFV losses so high as well? By sacrificing infantry heavy formations for the breakthrough fight, and subsequently being quite cautious about the employment of armor, why did the Soviets suffer just as heavily in the armor war? Were these AFV's lost primarly in the breakthrough tank brigrades/regiments penny-packeted out to the rifle formations, or in the exploitation Tank armies?

[Bigduke6]

Soviet caution with the armor was operational caution, not tactical. Once committed the Soviet aproach with the armor was roughly similar to the infantry: get in close and slug it out. The logic was that preponderance of force wins tactical battles, not a careful tactical doctrine.

Protecting the armor force was seen as a counter-productive, provided casualties were being inflicted on Germans. The Soviets had a very good idea they were outbuilding the Germans in armor by an order of magnitude, and unwillingness to expend armor to get a result was treated much the same as an artillery commander husbanding shells: Who are you to short change resources to the operation?

The pressure on the armor commanders when in battle was to blast through whatever they found, until either their formation was gutted or the opposition smashed. If not in battle, the rule especially late war was drive like hell until you bump into something. Commanders did not particularly get in trouble if they got their command shot to bits, unless it was because of truly gross incompetence, like misreading a map while intoxicated.

This is highly agressive mechanized doctrine, and it got results: the Soviets covered ground and inflicted losses against the Germans better than any other German opponent. But nothing is free, and the price for that was higher casualties, both in vehicles and men. One of the ironies of the WW2 is that by inclination, George S. Patton would have probably felt more at home in the Red Army, than under the command of guys like Bradley and Eisenhower.

As to penny-packeting, this was generally not an issue by the simple mechanism that it was illegal. A commander with armor under his control was allowed to decide where and when to commit that unit, but for practical purposes splitting that unit out was forbidden. Same logic as before: Who are you the field comander to decide how much armor is necessary for a mission? You have a tank regiment, (or brigade or Corps) use it!

It is also arguable that another reason for relatively high Soviet armor losses, is that the Germans put their first team up against the Soviets. I personally think this really was not a factor, as German tactical skill and professionalism was pretty much standard throughout the Wehrmacht and the SS.

A slightly more viable POV would suggest another reason the Soviets suffered higher AFV losses mid war to late, was that the Germans were generally in a defensive stance, and further that German defenders were willing to fight hard because they see their foe as barbarians - an assumption common in the German army - translated to more vicious German defenses, and so greater Soviet casualties.

My opinion, that was probably a factor. But overwhelmingly, the reason the Soviets took the casualties that they did, was that they planned it that way. Their doctrine assumed the operational goals they set out, especially in terms of distance and time, were worth the price of men and machines needed to achieve them.

[Joachim]

On AFV loss ratios vs ATGs:

An ATG won't reach a ratio of one ATG vs 1-2 TWOs - but it could damage 1-2 tanks so they can't push further. If you have 30 ATGs vs 45 tanks, there might be a solid chance of stopping the attack.

On overall AFV losses:

AFVs are not the only tank killer - especially defenders have other means.

There are several effects when considering tank losses

- The defender has the advantage of first shot

- a successful defense might be able to finish off immobile tanks

- the attacker has the advantage of overrunning repair depots

- exploit forces have to abandon tanks when pushing forward or they might get trapped

- with the advent of potent hand-held AT weaponry exploiting tanks suffer higher losses.

- Superior German tanks (V, VI). The Soviets catch up (a bit?) late '44, but that is not enough to even the score for the period.

Gruß

Joachim

[JasonC]

Cuirassier - they did lose tanks in the smaller support formations, probably more than they needed to through insufficient numbers of them at the points of attack, early. But that isn't the bulk of the armor losses, late war. The spearheads are. They push them to the point of logistical breakdown and they become vulnerable as they extend, lose supporting arms, thin out into the road net, etc.

In Bagration in particular they also just lost more tanks because they had more to lose. The Germans ones (mostly StuGs actually) fought armor, the Russian ones fought both armor and PAK etc.

But no, this isn't an inevitable result of an offensive stance. The Germans did not lose more tanks than Russian defenders when attacking themselves.

As for the notion that every ATG could at least damage 1-2 tanks, sorry, it is still just hopelessly optimistic and did not happen. Look at Kursk, where the Germans had quite large numbers knocked out of the runner column (far more than TWOs). But hundreds over a week of attacks, along each front. While eating a defending division a day per panzer corps, or more. The Russians lost (TWO) about twice as many tanks, on top of all the ATG formations that were smashed. There was no 1 to 1 exchange being achieved by any of their weapon systems, even with the German side of it being "damaged, out of action".

In practice the Germans simply overloaded the ATGs on a modest portion of the front with a vastly larger number of tanks. The Russians lost those ATGs without taking out their own number, because local odds provided protection by fire to the other tanks. They also lost ATGs elsewhere to artillery and all the other usual causes - the things are not armored.

Having a good ATG net had the operational effect of forcing the Germans to stay concentrated, or only being able to push along in places where the main spearheads were, rather than being able to fan out everywhere and advance with e.g. light armor and recce. (Concentrated also helped mines, a typical combined arms advantage, but not a huge one after the first belts). It also attrited the spearheads - modestly though - at each successive position. But typically with the loss of all or half of that position, for a few percent to the concentrated attacking armor.

In the end, what actually held full armor formations any place they were actually held, was massed armor of their own. When the attackers simply do not have any odds left, the special protection provided by local concentration disappears. This was achieved by sliding large tank formations in front of the points of main effort, not by ATGs each taking a tank or two with them.

There is no getting around the fact that highly concentrated armor (of course, with all arms support) will break through a combined arms defense more cheaply than a mostly rifle force with penny packet armor support.

As for the comment that a Russian commander could not penny packet armor, of course they did so. They had many independent regiments, heavy and lend lease and SU, many independent brigades directly under a rifle army told off to support an attacking RD, etc. Yes the tank armies were concentrated. They just weren't all the armor. In practice, this did result in not a few cases of initial armor support for a mostly rifle attack that was thin on the ground.

The concentration per km would rise when a tank corps was being used instead, yes. That is the point - if they had done so at zero hour instead of hour 4 to 12, they would have made cheaper break ins.

[Joachim]

Jason -

I don't meant that any given ATG can damage 1-2 tanks. Should have written more explicitly that this could happen with local odds between 1-2 tanks per ATG as in the mentioned 30 vs 45 case. Even in this case the 30 ATGs won't damage all of the 45 tanks - but some ATGs might survive and thus there would be an overall loss ratio of 1-2 damaged tanks per destroyed ATG.

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by JasonC:

In Bagration their AFV losses ran twice the German's

Which is not too far away from the Allied AFV loss rates in the Normandy/Northern France/ Braakout/Pursuit fighting.

[JasonC]

Joachim - qualify it however you like, it still simply did not happen. The Russian number was pulled out of the air as a staffer's pious wish about what number of ATGs would be sufficient to stop German armor attacks, and there is zero evidence it was ever actually achieved in any way shape or form.

[Joachim]

Jason, of course it (almost?) never happened with Soviets in defence because vs a concentrated armor attack you will never achieve this ratio. Imagine 20 Soviet ATGs per km of frontage in the same echelon with somewhat overlapping fields of fire (or 12 per km with "neighbors" having LOS). They open up and minutes later they receive lots of incoming from any battery on call guaranteed to hit something - if the prep barrage did not already take care of the problem. Immobile troops can't concentrate like mobile units can... and avoid excessive losses.

It would be more interesting what happened to the Soviet tank regiments attacking 5-10 tanks per km hitting 3-6 Pak (of course PaK being able to penetrate the attacking tanks) to examine that staff officers number.

Gruß

Joachim