As the subject states it has to do with Soviet night operations. I've read some old articles from military digests in the '40's, and more recently have read Leavenworth Paper No.6 by Major Claude R. Sasso (title of the post matches title of the paper), all of which discusses the use of nighttime operations by Soviet forces in WWII. My gist of it was that the Soviets made use of the night due to a number of factors, most notably: historical precedence, cover from German airpower, and reduction of German tactical advantage. Another characteristic that crops up is the psychological aspect. Namely, that German forces had an adverse 'tendency' for night combat. Now, I know the statements made above have a very generalized quality to them. They are not intended to be literally read 'as is', but to lay down a basis for discussion. Frankly, I'm not sure how I feel about the psychological aspect of it, but there seems to be something to this, nontheless.

I am not an "Eastern Front expert", but am knowledgable about the German attack north of Belgorod from 4 - 18 July, 1943. There is little serious night actions during these operations. As the Germans could usually achieve local air superiority and were interested in maintaining the offensive day-after-day....they usually attacked during the day, and ended most operations for the night so the troops could rest.
Likewise, the Soviet operations tended to mostly occur during the day. The night was usually reserved for both sides for withdrawels (including a number of enveloped Soviet units, and the German withdrawel the night of 17/18, 18/19 and 19/20 July). There was also the usual reconnaisance and small attacks conducted at night. The only major night attack I can recall (without looking through my notes)is Das Reich's attack on the 14/15th towards Pravorot (which failed).
Night air missions are of course not very useful. While both sides had night bombers that regularly harassed the enemy, the number of sorties at night were a fraction of those during the day, and far less effective.
As such, based upon the limited sample I looked at in depth, it does appear that the bias of both sides was to fight during the day.

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Originally posted by Greg LG:
My gist of it was that the Soviets made use of the night due to a number of factors, most notably: historical precedence, cover from German airpower, and reduction of German tactical advantage. Another characteristic that crops up is the psychological aspect. Namely, that German forces had an adverse 'tendency' for night combat.

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I have not looked at the sources you are referencing....but many of these have a tendency to draw from Soviet-era secondary sources. I have grown extremely suspicious of these sources. The "psychological aspect" sounds like a little Soviet propoganda (our enemy is scared of the night). Exactly what is the source they use for these statements?

Obviously, if one side has air superiority, then this can be negated by attacking or moving at night. Any side with air superiority would naturally tend to attack during the day. If one side is attacking during the day....then this sort of sets the pattern, as both sides need to rest. As such, even with the Germans usually having local air superiority over the Kursk battlefield in the south, the Soviet counterattacks mostly occur in the day.

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I have not looked at the sources you are referencing....but many of these have a tendency to draw from Soviet-era secondary sources. I have grown extremely suspicious of these sources. The "psychological aspect" sounds like a little Soviet propoganda (our enemy is scared of the night). Exactly what is the source they use for these statements?

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Originally posted by Greg LG:
A notable source is from General Guenther Blumentritt's "Operations in Darkness and Smoke."

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The Blumentritt source is from:
"Operations in Darkness and Smoke." Draft translation by A.Schroeder. Mimeographed. U.S.Army, Europe, Historical Division, 1952. MS B-683. CARL N17785.

I haven't seen this document, and yes, the author quotes from it.

The paper's bibliography is quite extensive given its length of only 43 pages. Sasso's paper also contains an Appendix with a table of some 19 Soviet night operations/battles, including two against the Japanese in 1945.

I've taken the liberty of adding a link to the pdf file for this paper at the Combat Studies Institute.

ftp://160.149.109.31/CARL/sasso.pdf