Battle of Berlin (Hist.Ch. U.S.) 8 p.m. E/ 7p.m. Central. Sat

[Keke]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Well, as long as you show an alternative solution that gets the Red Army to the Reichstag before the Americans do get there, I think that will do.

Well, as long as you show a solution how Germans could have stopped the Soviets, I think were set for some interesting debate.

[Andreas]

Not stop them - that time had passed in August 1944 - but delay them for long enough to allow the Americans to collect their wits and march on Berlin.

[Spook]

Originally posted by Grisha:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />One final point of if 17.5% is bad. How many battles can you do that and still have an army? Less than six times before you have to rebuild and retrain and entire force, every man. The US stopped day-light bombing over Europe and reassessed their strategy when they reached a 10% mission lost rate. Remember that is 10% of "trigger-pullers" not 10% of the total Air force. If you include that number it is probably less than 2%.

Air combat and ground combat are somewhat like apples and oranges. I believe the 10% threshold existed because pilots (and possibly other crew) couldn’t be trained fast enough to make up for the losses (it takes a lot more than 3 months to train a combat pilot). Also, this threshold was well known among the public, and given that a bomber tour comprised of 25 sorties, the odds were against any bomber crew not losing their aircraft (and most likely their own lives). This was a very demoralizing statistic for the home front. Such a statistic wasn’t so easily calculated for the average infantryman. Besides, when a B-17 went down you could pretty much write-off the crew as either dead or captured.

</font>

[von Nev]

Wow. Looks like there are some sensitive people out there.

A couple of points. First, I never proclaimed that the Russians had a doctrine to put forces into battle less than fully prepared as best they could at the time. It is a well know fact that the desperate measures of 1941 and 1942 included marching units straight to the front with little to no training and little to no weapons and support. That said, it does not hide the fact that it still happened.

Also, regarding Soviet tactics, it was generally brute force attrition warfare even up to the end of the war although their use of manuever tactics improved dramatically during the war. Russian doctrine very much looked at force ratios before any attack. Why? Because their tactics and their training was inferior and only raw power could tip the scales. For a modern day look at Soviet tactics, look at their recent experience in Chechnya. Against a rebel force of 6,000 - 10,000 they destroyed the entire city of Grozny, a city of 350,000. Their losses have not been disclosed. When they were kicked out the first time they lost a whole armored regiment to the last man in an ambush in the city.

Regarding the lack of small arms for the Germans I did not know that they did this. You pointed something out that I admitted I did not know and I appreciate you helping me out. My point was a question not a statement. I will take your word that is correct. Thanks.

Regarding politics and Berlin, Konev had success in the south in the advance on Berlin (great tactics). This frustrated the heck out of Zhukov and he pushed his armor into the Seelow mess when, if he was truly trying to have less casualties, he could have instead reinforced this success and done a spoiling attack instead.

Finally, as a current officer in the Marine Corps, I still find it interesting that you think a unit (up to an including whole Armies) that takes nearly 20% casualties (nearly all of their combat effectiveness) is a big deal to some and not others. That's like saying Iraq's 30,000 loss to the US's 200 is no big deal for the Iraqis but huge for the US. Interesting perspective on that. Are you in politics? What level is out-of-line casualties even in "final" battles even during that time period?

Overall, not sure where we disagree. I submit 17.5% (irregardless of number wounded. Ever been wounded before?) is pretty terrible numbers final battle or not.

I still would not want 17.5% on my resume.

von Nev

[ July 21, 2003, 09:16 PM: Message edited by: von Nev ]

[von Nev]

Andreas,

Pardon if I don't cede the military resume high-ground to you. I have a funny feeling that my real military resume will pretty much make yours look a "little" sparse. Ordering countless CMBB pixel soldiers around doesn't count.

Let's be clear on the 17.5% losses. What it really means is that of the total Russian forces involved, the losses among the combat units on average reached 50% (using your numbers). Or more pointed, 50% of the combat power was destroyed. Pretty incredible losses.

von Nev

[von Lucke]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Well, as long as you show an alternative solution that gets the Red Army to the Reichstag before the Americans do get there, I think that will do. If you thought that this time pressure was not a valid argument at the time, then I would be forced to assume that you believe that the final military operations in 1945 happened in some political vacuum. Which is not something I believe.

In March '45 didn't Eisenhower send a message to Stalin telling him that he had no intention of maching on Berlin, and leaving that for the Russians? The famous "halt at the Elbe" order came out of that agreement.

When Monty complained, he was basically told that his job was now to clean up Holland and N Germany, while the Americans were going to drive into SE Germany. Berlin was to be left for the Soviets.

Not really much of a race, when the outcome is rigged before-hand.

[Grisha]

Also, regarding Soviet tactics, it was generally brute force attrition warfare even up to the end of the war although their use of manuever tactics improved dramatically during the war. Russian doctrine very much looked at force ratios before any attack. Why? Because their tactics and their training was inferior and only raw power could tip the scales. For a modern day look at Soviet tactics, look at their recent experience in Chechnya. Against a rebel force of 6,000 - 10,000 they destroyed the entire city of Grozny, a city of 350,000. Their losses have not been disclosed. When they were kicked out the first time they lost a whole armored regiment to the last man in an ambush in the city.

Soviet tactics had little to do with Soviet victory. Military art by the twentieth century was defined by three branches: tactical, operational, and strategic. The Germans showed great skill at the tactical and even the operational to a limited degree, whereas the Soviets demonstrated that their pre-war military theory, anchored at the operational and strategic levels, had matured through two years of war experience. Operational art is where the Soviets beat the Germans. The Germans were superior at the tactical level, but showed poor understanding of the range of the operational level, and were literally naïve in their understanding of the strategic.

I really don't know why Grozny is being mentioned. It was an army from 50 years after WWII, and within a regime on the verge of collapse.

Regarding politics and Berlin, Konev had success in the south in the advance on Berlin (great tactics). This frustrated the heck out of Zhukov and he pushed his armor into the Seelow mess when, if he was truly trying to have less casualties, he could have instead reinforced this success and done a spoiling attack instead.

Actually, Konev's success south of Berlin had more to do with operational art. And as it turned out Zhukov's attack did hold the attention of a great deal of German forces, which was to Konev's benefit. Not that I'm a great fan of Zhukov, but he certainly is an interesting fellow.

Finally, as a current officer in the Marine Corps, I still find it interesting that you think a unit (up to an including whole Armies) that takes nearly 20% casualties (nearly all of their combat effectiveness) is a big deal to some and not others. That's like saying Iraq's 30,000 loss to the US's 200 is no big deal for the Iraqis but huge for the US. Interesting perspective on that. Are you in politics? What level is out-of-line casualties even in "final" battles even during that time period?

From Sept. 1939 to Sept. 1942 the Wehrmacht received permanent losses (dead, missing, disabled) that amounted to 14% of their total force. This isn't total casualties, just permanent losses. The heyday of the Wehrmacht, an army known for its brilliant tactics and combined arms concept. Please explain this one to me, von Nev.

[ July 22, 2003, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by von Nev:

Andreas,

Pardon if I don't cede the military resume high-ground to you. I have a funny feeling that my real military resume will pretty much make yours look a "little" sparse. Ordering countless CMBB pixel soldiers around doesn't count.

von Nev - I really don't care very much about your military resume, it was you who brought this up. I actually think that it is completely irrelevant since it is apples and oranges. You having a military background does not by itself mean you have a better understanding of these matters than I do. You may have it, but that is not connected to you wearing a uniform and me not. If your intention is to 'pull rank' here, forget it, as far as I am concerned. Even your attempt at doing this leaves me distinctly unimpressed regarding the value of what you have to say.

Of course you would not be employed in today's Marine Corps if you thought those were acceptable casualties and mentioned as much in the interview. But if you wrote a letter to the Commandant after Iwo Jima 1944 arguing that the commanding officers should be sacked because of incurring high losses, and their job should be given to you because you would never accept such high losses, what do you think the response would be? So please keep things in the historical perspective, otherwise we will not need to continue this discussion.

While you do consider that, please take time to respond to the losses I posted for 4th Mountain in the Uman encirclement battle, and how you would rate them in comparison to the Soviet losses in the Berlin Operation. Or the losses of the US infantry divisions in operations in NWE in 44/5.

Just as a pointer - the Berlin operation ran for 17 days, from 16th April to 2nd May. 17.5% total casualties are just above a 1% loss rate per day. In a WW2 context (not Chechnya, not Iraq in the 1990s), considering this was in part one of the most intense MOUT occurences in history those are not bad numbers. Relatively speaking.

What people seem to forget here is that the Germans also lost a number of guys. One estimate I have seen is 134,000 POW on the day of surrender in Berlin alone. Add to that the butcher's bill of those who died defending or breaking out of the city, defending at Seelow, and the POWs taken in the Kessel at Halbe (over half of 9th Army), where also another 50-70,000 may have been killed (Volksbund figure - I may be able to get more accurate figures tonight).

[Andreas]

Originally posted by von Nev:

Russian doctrine very much looked at force ratios before any attack. Why? Because their tactics and their training was inferior and only raw power could tip the scales.

That is one interpretation - how about: why? Because they wanted to ensure that they win the battle, and they needed to win it big. This was after all not a rerun of Rorke's Drift, or Iraq 2003, where one side could overwhelm the other by technology. It was perfectly in keeping with the old maxim that strategy is the art of avoiding a fair fight.

[Andreas]

(need to get my post number up - but really, I put this in a different post so that nobody assumes that it is a direct referral to von Nev's opinions).

So, the following section is not in response to von Nev, and I do not attribute any of the views outlined below to him.

On a more general point here, because these discussions keep coming up (not just here): many Wehrmacht 'apologists' everywhere like to focus on the supposedly bad training (most of the time understanding very little to nothing about the training in the Red Army, and how it prepared for its attacks) and bad tactics (again, most of the time without ever having looked at a Soviet Field Manual).

What they like to overlook is that the late-war Wehrmacht was hardly a shining example of well trained and well led troops. If these people started bothering themselves with research into the state of the Wehrmacht infantry, instead of continuously drooling over its (few) shiny tanks and elite tank formations, that would become clear to them very quickly.

Officer training declined to a degree during the war that von Plato, a general staff officer in the tank forces, is quoted in Glantz saying that late war Soviet junior officers were better trained than German junior officers. Infantry replacements became very low quality from 1943 onwards (there had been complaints from 1940 onwards about the quality of replacements), and I have mentioned elsewhere a case of 12.PD GOC mentioning in the KTB that officers had to use force of arms to get their soldiers to attack, or even hold, in 1943.

But of course, you won't find much or anything of that sort of information in the gushing histories of strapping Panzerformations doing their bit to rescue Germany, always winning, but eventually drowned in a faceless sea of Soviet automatons.

[sarcasm mode on]It never ceases to amaze me how the Germans just won every fight, right up to the 8th of May, and all the way back from Moscow.[/sarcasm mode off]

[Monty's Double]

von Nev, as a civilian I've obviously failed to grasp some of the more subtle points of your arguement. Please could you explain how the fact that you have served in the military (I assume during the last couple of decades) makes you better able to make judgements about casualty rates during the second world war?

And while I wouldn't want to have any casualty rates at all on my CV (I think they send you to prison unless you are in the army), if that 17% was attached to a note that said "oh yeah, but he did win the battle that ended the most terrible conflict in human history", I might be able to sleep a little easier.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by von Lucke:

Not really much of a race, when the outcome is rigged before-hand.

Well yes - and Stalin of course trusted his Allies completely. As he did trust his officer corps in 1937. Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing in these matters.

[rum]

Interesting discussion here, and a bit "hot debate" i see

Grisha and Andreas, salute for your weighted and informative posts.

I would like to add the explanation for the Krivosheev's definition of "losses".

According to Krivosheev's book

(http://soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/preface.html)

"Unrecoverable losses" ("Bezvozvratnye potery"), permanent losses are KIA, MIA, died because of injures on the battlefield or in the hospitals, died because of deseases got on the front, died on other reasons on the front, POW.

"Medical losses" ("Sanitarnye potery") are wounded, contused, sick, freezed - all who lost their ability to fight and and were evacuated from the frontlines to the hospitals for more then a one day.

Total losses are unrecoverable losses plus medical losses.

Where were 78291 unrecoverable losses during Berlin operation. This is 4.1% of total amount of troops involved.

The medical losses are 274184, this is 14.4%

Grisha - According to Krivosheev, the total losses of Soviet troops were 18.5%, not the 17,5%.

Did you counted 17.5% together with Polish?

Edit: the UBB considered "<" "S" ">" as a "strike-through" tag. Had to change it to "Salute"

[ July 22, 2003, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: rum ]

[rum]

After surrounding Berlin, USSR had not to many choices.

1) Engage city fights. Take casualties. Stalin got "tirant" label.

2) Slowly starvate city to death, like germans tryed to do with Leningrad. Enter after the last defender die. Take heavy causalties because of huge deseases spread from the crowded city with damaged infrastructure/no water/no sanitation. Stalin would got "cruel butcherer" label.

3) Burn the city to ashes, like allied did with Tokio/Dresden/Hamburg/e.t.d. Enter the smoking wrecks. May be after that variant Stalin could got "Democratic leader" and "The Freedom Fighter" label?

So what choice you would make at that place?

[Spook]

Just to clear the air on one note.....

Originally posted by von Nev:

Andreas,

Pardon if I don't cede the military resume high-ground to you. I have a funny feeling that my real military resume will pretty much make yours look a "little" sparse. Ordering countless CMBB pixel soldiers around doesn't count.

von Nev, Andreas has opted not to mention this in his reply, but he HAS served earlier in the (German) military. Not that this is of real issue to the specific debating points, but his past military experience is certainly more than that of just "ordering around CMBB pixel soldiers."

(For that matter, CM soldiers are 3D polygons, to be fair to those cyber-grunts. )

[Warren Peace]

This is an interesting discussion. I think you guys are being harsh to Nev, even if he is in the Military .

In my opinion the 17.5% rate is very high for several reasons. Most importantly, this is the rate for an entire Front, not a platoon, company or even Division! When looking at comparable casualty rates for US Divisions in high intensitiy periods like Nornandy or the Bulge the total rates are almost never this high. For US forces at the Bulge they suffered 80,000 casulaties out of 600,000 engaged (13.5%). This is for a 36 day battle and keep in mind that about 25,000 causulties occured in the first three days with the elimination of the two infantry divisions (28th and 106th). Thus the rate for two weeks would be significantly lower.

Secondly, this number is increably high given the the overwhelming Soviet advantage in troops, tanks, artillery and air. At the Bulge there were roughly equal numbers of Americans and Germans. If I were Stalin I would have expected better.

Warren

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Warren Peace:

Secondly, this number is increably high given the the overwhelming Soviet advantage in troops, tanks, artillery and air. At the Bulge there were roughly equal numbers of Americans and Germans. If I were Stalin I would have expected better.

Warren

Not really comparable, since the Americans were defending, and (except the two regiments of 106th) not encircled or completely overwhelmed.

Spook, I was only a draftee for 15 months, so I don't think my military background counts for a lot. But I also seriously doubt most of my former officers could contribute anything meaningful to this discussion.

[Warren Peace]

Not really comparable, since the Americans were defending, and (except the two regiments of 106th) not encircled or completely overwhelmed.

Not really true. For most of the 34 day period the Americans were attacking, trying to reduce the Bulge. In fact I would argue that the numbers are quite comparible.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Warren Peace:

Not really true. For most of the 34 day period the Americans were attacking, trying to reduce the Bulge. In fact I would argue that the numbers are quite comparible.

Well, they never managed to overwhelm or encircle the withdrawing Germans, so it was really a pursuit battle, not one fought to destruction. While the Soviets had to fight units that were defending themselves literally to the last man. Also, while the terrain was certainly claustrophobic in some areas (but not all, if you have ever been to the Ardennes), it was certainly not MOUT. So I still reject your argument that the numbers can be compared.

Type of battle in both stages (defense/pursuit vs. breakthrough/destruction), type of terrain (wooded/open countryside vs. wooded/city), and type of outcome (regain old frontline/enemy escapes vs. capturing a city/total destruction of the enemy) are all fundamentally different, and make this absolutely non-comparable. Try Normandy as a comparison, you may convince me there.

[Warren Peace]

Andreas:

For the period of June 6th-September 14th US casualties in France were 29,000 killed and 106,000 wounded. Unfortunately I could not find a "denominator" number. Maybe you could dig one up.

Warren

[Andreas]

Warren,

unfortunately I do not have the number - I am also not sure if anyone has it, because you are looking at the period of build-up in this time. I.e. at best you end up with an average. Do the figures you have posted include sick/accident cases?

Originally posted by von Nev:

Also, regarding Soviet tactics, it was generally brute force attrition warfare even up to the end of the war although their use of manuever tactics improved dramatically during the war. Russian doctrine very much looked at force ratios before any attack.

Just wanted to comment on this one as well - it is of course only half the picture. Following the break-through battle in which mass was applied, the Red Army from summer 1944 became very adept at the hell-for-leather exploitation. To a degree that if Patton had gotten over his loathing for Communism, he would probably have made a decent Tank Army commander, and may have felt right at home there.

During the Vistula-Oder Operation, Soviet forces advanced something like 500 or so km in three weeks. They did no longer bother to encircle anyone, but just left pockets of resistance or fortified towns behind, knowing they could not hurt them and would sooner or later fall to them anyway (Nehring's 'Wandering Pocket' probably being the most famous of these).

Being able to undertake these extremely complex operations was the key to the Red Army's success in the big offensives of 1944/5. Just being able to mass the formations for the breakthrough was one thing. To then be able to follow this up with the tank armies, and thereby really 'destroy' the German formations, instead of just pushing them ahead, was the clincher that led to the extremely high losses of the Germans in summer 1944.

This follow-up was something that by comparison the western allies were relatively bad at - they did not manage to prevent the escape of significant numbers of Germans at Falaise, Breskens, Anzio, from southern France, and in the Ardennes. All events at the same time or just before the Red Army destroyed 23 divisions in Bagration, another 18 totally and 3 partially in Rumania, and at least part of another AK in Brody, North Ukraine.

[Warren Peace]

Warren,

unfortunately I do not have the number - I am also not sure if anyone has it, because you are looking at the period of build-up in this time. I.e. at best you end up with an average. Do the figures you have posted include sick/accident cases?

I found the numbers here

http://www.britannica.com/normandy/week5/casualties01a.html

I assume they include all casualties (combat + non-combat) but I am not certain.

A couple of additional points.

1) In looking over Glant'z table in WHen Titans Clashed it is apparent that the Berlin Operation was no more "bloody" then other Soviet Offensive Operations in the last year of the war. For example the Belorussion Offensive (June 23-August29) had a casualty rate of 31.8%. THe East Pomerania Offensive (Feb10-April4) had a rate of 24%. Thus the Soviets were not squemish about casualties.

2) Now how do they compare to the West? Were the Soviets tactically inferior? According to Glantz (When Titans Clashed) the Soviet's suffered a total of 6,082,189 casualties (battle+non-battle) out of an average force size of 6,569,095 (92.6% casualty rate) for the last half of 1944 and the first half of 1945. Using the table in Doubler's book (Closing with the enemy) the equivelent number for the USA would be 764,095. The US ground force in Europe on VE day totaled about 1.4 million. Thus the equivelent number would be about a 55% casualty rate although this must be low because the average through the entire period was undoubtaly less than 1.4 million. For the sake of arguement lets assume the average was closer ot 1.0 million. Then the equivelent number would be about 76% casualty. This modest difference probably reflected two factors. First, American commanders undoubtably placed a higher premium on thier troops lives, and (2) the Germans may indeed have fought harder against the SOviets (although I think the latter is fictional difference based on my readings).

My take is that both Nev and you are correct. The Soviets were by no means tactical idiots, but they were willing to take casualties at higher rates then the USA to achieve their objectives.

Warren

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Warren Peace:

(2) the Germans may indeed have fought harder against the SOviets (although I think the latter is fictional difference based on my readings).

Warren,

over most of the time-frame I would agree that the Germans did not make that much difference in fighting. Where I would disagree with your assessment is during the last six weeks or so - when German soldiers were surrendering en masse in the west, they were still fighting hard in the east, trying to escape into western captivity. There also was no Breslau or Berlin that the western allies had to deal with, and the Prague Operation took place mostly after the surrender - officially AG Centre surrendered only May 11th, but there seems to have been some fighting even after that. Another difference seems to have been that the Volkssturm in the east actually did fight.

If you read western unit histories (I have mostly read British ones), it is quite clear that after the Rhine crossing there were occasional very hard clashes, but they were the exception, rather than the rule. While in the east, fighting continued on high intensity beyond the surrender.

[Andreas]

BTW - anyone, (especially US Marines ) who believes the Soviets did not adapt tactically, and relied on mass/firepower alone, is advised to do a websearch for the US Marine Corps Gazette (I think, the link is in the general briefing to my Scenario "A morning commute", part of the stalingrad pack available on Boots & Tracks) article "Irrepressible in action", which explains the development of Soviet assault group tactics in Stalingrad. Tactics which the wehrmacht tried to overcome through (you guessed it) mass and firepower, and demonstrably failed at it.

[K_Tiger]

@Grisha:

Operational art is where the Soviets beat the Germans. The Germans were superior at the tactical level, but showed poor understanding of the range of the operational level, and were literally naïve in their understanding of the strategic.

Wasn`t it more a matter of equipment? How would the russian "Operational art" looks like without hundred of thousend of U.S. made Trucks and other mobile equipment? Now it`s the "germans" why not say A.H. himself was the poor understander (yeah...spelling.. ) Dont think you can blame the Army staff for A.H.`s mistakes!