What was his actual quote?

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
Did he really use the verb "preferred"?

What was his actual quote?

[This message has been edited by Chris Lawrence (edited 12-24-2002).]

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"Soviet rifle divisions were generally smaller than their german counterparts, averaging 2500-4000 troops. At the time of Operation Bagration a concerted efort was made to bring these units up to an average of 6000 troops. No serious effort was made to bring them up to their nominal TOE strength of 9600 troops: the Soviets PREFERRED to fight with a rifle corps made up of 2 or 3 weak divisions rather than a fully equipped rifle division. The advantage of the corps organisation was that it gave the infantry increased combat support, usually adding a howitzer regiment, an assault gun Bn or regiment, a signal battalion and a combat engineer battalion"

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Originally posted by Greg LG:
...but manpower was in short supply to rifle forces due to the increasing demand for the growing tank, SU, and artillery services.

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I have not seen a statistical analysis of the subject, but one is left with the impression that the Soviet army was starting to have manpower shortages in 1944/45. This was played out by a continual shortage in the infantry. If you have to make a trade-off, you are going to have a bias towards manning the tanks and big guns.

1. By this stage of the war, a Red Army rifle division was considered to be at full strength if it reached about 6-7,000 men (Koniev refers to his divisions at Lvov being filled up to "full strength" with about this level of men).

2. Assault divisions going in as part of the first wave would be filled up to this level. Rifle divisions not in this wave would presumably be of lower strength, because the destruction of the enemy was to be achieved by rapid maneuver of mechanised forces.

I think where "preferred" comes in is when you look at the attachments of independent artillery, guards mortar, SP gun, breakthrough tank and whatnot units, which seem to have been made on Corps level.

Hmm, for those interested I repost some info here from a thread on a wargaming forum a while back (http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=025686 for those wanting to read the whole discussion we had). I thought it was quite a good discussion, and I would be interested in comments by members of this forum on the undoubtedly numerous mistakes in my assessment of the operation.

Maybe familiar to some (Greg, Tero):

Funnily enough, this is actually CM size, at least when you look at the map size.

Iasi-Kischinjow Operation, August 1944 (Kischinjow would probably be called Kischinew in German unit histories)

Operations of 3rd Ukrainian Front (GOC General Tolbuchin)

Main effort of the front is in the sector of the 37th Army (GOC Lieutenant General Scharochin). Main effort of 37th Army is 66th Rifle Corps and 6th Guards Rifle Corps. The 37th Army has a 4km wide breakthrough frontage assigned to it. It is divided in two groupings, two corps up, one corps reserve. According to plan, it is supposed to break through the depth of the German/Romanian defense in 7 days, to a distance of 110-120km, with the distance to be covered in the first four days 15km each.

66th Rifle Corps (GOC Major General Kuprijanow) consisting of two groupings (61st Guards RD, 333rd RD up, 244th RD reserve). Attached are 46th Gun Artillery Brigade, 152nd Howitzer Artillery Regiment, 184th and 1245th Tank Destroyer Regiment, 10th Mortar Regiment, 26th Light Artillery Brigade, 87th Recoilless Mortar Regiment, 92nd and 52nd Tank Regiment, 398th Assault Gun Regiment, two Pioneer Assault Battalions, and two Light Flamethrower Companies.

Corps frontage 4km
Corps breakthrough frontage 3.5km (61st RD 1.5km, 333rd RD 2km)

Densities per kilometer of frontage:
Rifle battalions 7.7
Guns/mortars 248
Tanks and assault guns 18

Superiority
Infantry 1:3
Artillery 1:7
Tanks and assault guns 1:11.2

There is no man-power information for the divisions, but expect them to have between 7,000 - 7,500 men each, 61st GRD maybe 8,000-9,000. The soldiers were prepared over the course of August by exercising in areas similar to those they had to attack, and being brought up to speed on special tactics needed to overcome the enemy in their sector.

Density in 61st GRD sector per kilometer of frontage:
Rifle battalions 6.0
Guns/mortars 234
Tanks and assault guns 18

Density in 333rd RD sector per kilometer of frontage:
Rifle battalions 4.5
Guns/mortars 231
Tanks and assault guns 18

The initial attack
333rd RD did not bother with niceties like reserves and put three regiments up. 61st GRD attacked in classic two regiment up, one reserve formation. This proved to be lucky, since its right wing of 188th Guards(?) Rifle Regiment got stuck in front of the strongpoint Ploptuschbej. 189th Rifle Regiment on the left wing made good progress though, as did 333rd RD on its left. The GOC 61st GRD therefore inserted his reserve (187th GRR) behind 189th RR and off they went. When darkness came, 244th RD was inserted to break through the second line of defense. It lost its way though, and only arrived at 2300, by which time elements of 13th Panzer were counterattacking.

The German/Romanian opposition was XXX. and XXIX. AK, with 15th, 306th German ID, 4th Romanian Mountain Division, and 21st Romanian ID. 13th PD was in reserve. At the end of day one, 4th Romanian Mountain, and 21st Romanian Divisions were almost completely destroyed, while 15th and 306th ID were heavily damaged (according to a German source: 306th lost 50% in the barrage, and was destroyed apart from local strongpoints by evening). Almost no artillery survived the fire preparation.

13th Panzer counter-attacked 66th Rifle Corps on day one, and tried to stop it on day two but to no avail. A study on the divisions history says 'The Russian dictated the course of events.' 13th Panzer at the time was a materially understrength, but high manpower unit, with a high proportion of recent reinforcements. It only had Panzer IV, Stugs and SP AT guns. The division was at the end of the second day in a condition that it was incapable to attack or of meaningful resistance.

At the end of day two, the Red Army stood deep in the rear of German 6th Army. No more organised re-supply of forces would be forthcoming, and 6th Army was doomed to be encircled and chopped up. Franz-Josef Strauss, who was to become a very important German politician after the war, served with the Panzerregiment of 13th Panzer. He comments that the division had ceased to exist as a tactical unit on day three of the Soviet offensive: 'The enemy was everywhere.'

The comment on the result of 66th Rifle Corps operations in Mazulenko is: 'Because of the reinforcement of the Corps and the deep battle arrangements of troops and units the enemy defenses were broken through at high speed.'

This post is based on two German language sources, one being Mazulenko, 'The destruction of AG South Ukraine', and the other Hoffmann, 'Die Magdeburger Division', a history of 13th Panzer.

This is what the Red Army saw as a late war set-piece attack. It is a relentless meat-grinder, that was protected by Maskirovka, full control of the air, and prepared with almost scientific rigour. This kind of stuff made Blitzkrieg look like Kindergarten.

Almost exactly after a month the Red Army had destroyed AG South Ukraine completely. On the 6th September it had reached the Jugoslavian border at Turnu-Severin, on the 16th September it stood in Sofia, on the 19th it had reached the Hungarian border at Arad. Before that, on the 17th the old lands of the Danube Swabians at Temeschwar (Timisoara) were occupied.

I posted this because I thought some people maybe interested in this rather 'secondary' theatre, and also because it is one of the few accounts I have come across that details almost down to battalion level for some aspects the organisation and preparation for a Soviet offensive of this scale.

A German battalion commander (Hauptmann Hans Diebisch, CO II.IR579, 306.ID) commented: 'The fire assets of the German defense were literally destroyed by the Soviet fighter bombers attacking the MLR and the rear positions. When the Russian infantry appeared (auftauchte - indicating they did not see them coming) inside the positions ofthe battalion and it tried to retreat, the Russian air force made this impossible. The battalion was dispersed und partly destroyed through the fire of the air force, mortars and machine guns.' (quoted from Mazulenko)

The divisions were (as I said) at far below strength, it is therefore logical to assume that their consituent parts were below strength too. The authorised strength was ~9,200 men based on the 1943 shtat. These divisions are at about 80% of that.

One way to deal with that was to lose specialist personnel. Interestingly, according to Zaloga in order to reach 8,000 men division in October 1944, 3rd Ukrainian Front (the front undertaking this operation) ordered a specialist TO&E under which each rifle platoon would lose a squad. So the rifle battalions here would have about 2/3 TO&E strength. Assume a bit more for 61st GRD, since Guards divisions seem to have received more reinforcements.

Still, at 4.5 rifle battalions to a km, and 2/3 strength, you are effectively putting 3 full-strength rifle battalions in there per km. Open a CMBO map and have a look at what that looks like.

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"By this time, however, it was becoming apparent that the Soviet force structure of 500-plus Divisions simply exceeded their capacity to support it. [..] in mid-1944 more drastic action was neccesary. Either some of the rifle divisions would have to be demobilized and their personell used to fill out other units, or divisional strengths for below envisioned norms would have to be accepted. The Stavka opted for the latter alternative." (Red Army Handbook, pp 32)

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So it would seem that when faced with manpower shortages the preferred solution was to fight with several understrength division rather than fewer full-strength divisions.

An extremly rough est if each of those 500 div avg 8000 troops we would have 4mil combat troops being supported by an army of 12.5 mil at the end of the war. The rus never used pows/slaves to support thier troops the way the ger did. This is an extremly low % of support personal for any army in WWII. I wonder how many of thier own civs they used near the front to help out. Not all of these 4 mil combat troops would be in the west of rus. Some might be elsewhere in rus but the better troops, leaders, weapons, supplies and reinforcment would be used in the west.

Even if the 8000 man rus div avg was the norm in 1944 the ger divs barly had more than this either maybe around 10,000. And they had a lot less divs to help out maybe only 150 ger divs in the east. That would make 1.5 mil ger combat troops in the east. With the total removal of rum comming very quickly in the fall of 44 meaning even more area to cover. Not to mention rum and other axis minors joining the rus forces.

In January 1945, the strategic density of the front was still around 3:1, Soviets' favor. During the Vistula-Oder operation, operational density in main attack sectors was on the order of 5-7:1, and tactical densities in these sectors from 8-16:1, Soviet's favor.

It was no small task to create these numerical advantages in main attack sectors, and much of it was the result of maskirovka, or deception. That these force redeployments were largely undetected in terms of scope and tactical/operational location added the element of surprise to the Soviet operation.

Finally, as the war moved westward, the front actually constricted while the terrain became more defensible. Also, partisan support was largely gone once the war was taken out of the USSR, and this was no small thing, since it was the partisans (or the NKVD operatives/spetsnaz who operated with the partisans) who supplied much useful razvedka, or intelligence, on an operational or strategic scale.

One of the evidence of sov deception is bagtration. How most of the reserves were in the south. But you have to rember that the forces in the south were much less ger and would have been expected to fail and need help. Indeed indiv non ger divs occasionally clapposed with little resistance. And the ger might have evn expect something like the defection of Italy happening in the south meaning more ger res. In fact Iīve actually read one report that the ger divs in AGC were actually at full str at least exactly were did the ger expect the attack is unclear from a mere look at the map.

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Originally posted by Jyri Kettunen:
About Bagration, have you noticed how ridicilous were AGC frontline positions before the offensive? AGC was defending ahead of the main lines of the Dvinsk and Dnepr rivers, basically handing the Soviets its head on a platter for square miles of terrain of no strategic value, rather than forcing the Red Army to undertake a major river crossing against intact fortifications. Those divisions in AGC beyond the great rivers were doomed by virtue of their initial placement, given the immense forces the Soviets were wielding.

[This message has been edited by Jyri Kettunen (edited 01-12-2003).]

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Originally posted by Darrin:

I also donīt think the rus had the lock on deception and intel that people like glantz do. The rus korson study claims 12 ger div were present but only 8 'complete' divs were present. Remember this study was done after the battle and should have been able to access captured docs interviewed POWs and should not have been subject to any pre battle intel flops... It seems like the rus even after the battle still got it wrong.

One of the evidence of sov deception is bagtration. How most of the reserves were in the south. But you have to rember that the forces in the south were much less ger and would have been expected to fail and need help. Indeed indiv non ger divs occasionally clapposed with little resistance. And the ger might have evn expect something like the defection of Italy happening in the south meaning more ger res. In fact Iīve actually read one report that the ger divs in AGC were actually at full str at least exactly were did the ger expect the attack is unclear from a mere look at the map.

In fact one of the biggest victories rus got in the south was when rum changed sides a few days after the fall off in 44 began. Rus managed to capture quite a bit of def territory with little cost. The ger army though managed to escape mainly unhurt even though they were fighting the rus in the front and the rum to the sides and back.

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There are a number of inaccuracies in this post that need highlighting.

1. Defection of Italy - this had happened in 1943, and was history by 1944. How that would affect German defensive positions in 1944 in the east is a bit of a mystery to me.

2. Reserves and Bagration. German armour was concentrated behind AG North Ukraine (where it would have done little to keep Italy from defecting, by the way) because of a successful Maskirovka operation. You can read it up here quite easily: http://call.army.mil/products/newsltrs/3-88/histp.htm

3. The German army escaping largely unhurt from Romania. That does not gel with my understanding of what happened; e.g. 13.PD needed complete rebuilding as PD 'Feldherrnhalle'. AG South Ukraine was taken to the cleaners in the attack, including the German units. Here is a Romanian website that has some easy info on the attack. http://www.wwii.home.ro/last.htm

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Originally posted by Jyri Kettunen:
Every time I read how perfect the Soviet war machine was in 1944, I think of Soviet Kotka-Kouvola operation (started 22nd of June) against Finnish IV Corps which failed miserabely. 3 Soviet Corps (109th RC, 97th RC, and 30th Guards RC; 9 divisions) of 21st Army, supported by 2 tank brigades and 5 tank/sp regiments, one arty division (5th Guards Breakthrough), one Guards Mortar division (1st), one rocket laucher (aka guards mortar) brigade, plus air support from 13th Air Army, 2nd Guards Fighter Division, 114th Bomber division, and parts of the navy air forces, assaulted on 10km wide front and managed to advance only 10kms in two weeks...

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Originally posted by Andreas:
Well, I did not actually say they were perfect. They were pretty good at what they did, as anyone survivor on the receiving end in AG South Ukraine, North Ukraine, or Centre could probably tell you. A fascinating matter to me is however why they were not as good in the north, both against AG North and the Finnish Army, although the Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation seems to have been alright.

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Originally posted by Andreas:
There are a number of inaccuracies in this post that need highlighting.

1. Defection of Italy - this had happened in 1943, and was history by 1944. How that would affect German defensive positions in 1944 in the east is a bit of a mystery to me.

2. Reserves and Bagration. German armour was concentrated behind AG North Ukraine (where it would have done little to keep Italy from defecting, by the way) because of a successful Maskirovka operation. You can read it up here quite easily: http://call.army.mil/products/newsltrs/3-88/histp.htm

3. The German army escaping largely unhurt from Romania. That does not gel with my understanding of what happened; e.g. 13.PD needed complete rebuilding as PD 'Feldherrnhalle'. AG South Ukraine was taken to the cleaners in the attack, including the German units. Here is a Romanian website that has some easy info on the attack. http://www.wwii.home.ro/last.htm

I hope that helps to make things a bit clearer.

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1. As far as I could see I NEVER mentioned italy at all in the post. However I did mention it before to ilustrate the ger knew there grip on thier allies was only teneous at best. And needed to be prepared for many possible bad effects from this.

2. I also never said maskarivka from the rus could never hapen just that it was rarer then some imagine. And the ger even in the later stages of war were also capable of deciving the bear a few times as well.

The ger according to your article conc many PD including transfers from AGC in AGNUkr. Iīm going to accept all the articles staments without checking the data. But it was this front just south of AGC into which the rus attacked later on in july spelling the doom for the AGC. It was also more comprised of non ger forces then AGC was. It was the most vulnerable part of the front and the rus did att it eventually. Maskirovka or reality.

I mean if only pos of units on maps is important then the ger conc large numbers of troops in northern italy in early 43. Does this means they expected the allies to invade in northern Italy at this time. I certainly donīt think so.

This paragraph by you clearly puts Italy in the context of the 1944 battles:

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One of the evidence of sov deception is bagtration. How most of the reserves were in the south. But you have to rember that the forces in the south were much less ger and would have been expected to fail and need help. Indeed indiv non ger divs occasionally clapposed with little resistance. And the ger might have evn expect something like the defection of Italy happening in the south meaning more ger res. In fact Iīve actually read one report that the ger divs in AGC were actually at full str at least exactly were did the ger expect the attack is unclear from a mere look at the map.

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The notion that AG North Ukraine was the most vulnerable part of the front in summer 1944 is interesting, and this is certainly the first time I hear it.

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2. I also never said maskarivka from the rus could never hapen just that it was rarer then some imagine. And the ger even in the later stages of war were also capable of deciving the bear a few times as well.

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Darrin, this and a previous statement you made on the subject are interesting. What is your basis for such a belief? Have you looked over Glantz' book, Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War?" That book contains some very comprehensive research on Glantz' part, regarding maskirovka. At 600 pages and over 40 operations it does a convincing job.

I should not think so, because whether or not they were is fairly irrelevant. What is relevant are two questions:

1. What was their frontage?
2. What was their tactical/operational mobility?

The answer to 1. is 'too much'. Over-extended frontage meant that a Soviet Corps attacking on a 3km frontage would be opposed by maybe one regiment (on a good day) with two battalions (German divisions having to cover large frontages with maybe 10 battalions, because of the earlier reduction in strength of many regiments to two battalions). In terms of tanks the defenders would have next to none (some Stugs and lightly armoured SP AT guns), and in terms of artillery they would also not be able to keep up, either in terms of numbers of guns/mortars, in terms of ammunition supply, or in terms of gun quality (a lot of German artillery was apparently quite worn out by this stage of the war).

The answer to 2. is 'by far not enough'. So once the breakthrough was achieved, the lack of mobility of the German infantry division meant that it was a reverse repeat of Barbarossa, Poland, or France. A mostly mechanised Army attacks a mostly horse-drawn army with superior odds at the point of breakthrough.

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Jyri,
I still think about that Finnish retreat during, I believe, the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation. That was a smooth move on the Finns' part

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Greg,

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Originally posted by Andreas:
Regarding the point on whether or not German divisions were full strength in AG Centre in June 1944 - does it matter?

I should not think so, because whether or not they were is fairly irrelevant. What is relevant are two questions:

1. What was their frontage?
2. What was their tactical/operational mobility?

The answer to 1. is 'too much'. Over-extended frontage meant that a Soviet Corps attacking on a 3km frontage would be opposed by maybe one regiment (on a good day) with two battalions (German divisions having to cover large frontages with maybe 10 battalions, because of the earlier reduction in strength of many regiments to two battalions). In terms of tanks the defenders would have next to none (some Stugs and lightly armoured SP AT guns), and in terms of artillery they would also not be able to keep up, either in terms of numbers of guns/mortars, in terms of ammunition supply, or in terms of gun quality (a lot of German artillery was apparently quite worn out by this stage of the war).

The answer to 2. is 'by far not enough'. So once the breakthrough was achieved, the lack of mobility of the German infantry division meant that it was a reverse repeat of Barbarossa, Poland, or France. A mostly mechanised Army attacks a mostly horse-drawn army with superior odds at the point of breakthrough.

Individual divisional strength of the defender's infantry divisions is almost meaningless in this kind of battle. Even if you can resist locally for a time, you will be out-maneuvred eventually. If you have just filled your divisions up, it just means you are going to lose more men.

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The ger inf divs had 6 bats of inf not the ten you suggest in your post. Even if you include the recce and eng bats which might be weak in 44 you end up 2 div short of your 10.

The ger army had fewer panzer type divs then the soviets tank/mech corps. But the sov had way more divs in total. As a % wise the gers had the higher % of mechanized formations even in 44.

Plus the ger inf div had fewer trucks etc in 44 then in 41 but a big part of that short fall was that the div were one third smaller each one needing less transport. Now the ger inf div in 41 and 44 both walked on thier feet and used horse drawn carts ' predominantly as did the sov inf div of 41 and 44.

Your quote 'A mostly horse drawn army attacked by a mostly mech army' bears little resemblence to reality.

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Originally posted by Darrin:

The ger inf divs had 6 bats of inf not the ten you suggest in your post. Even if you include the recce and eng bats which might be weak in 44 you end up 2 div short of your 10.

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I was being generous, but in the end it does not matter regarding my point.

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Originally posted by Darrin:
Plus the ger inf div had fewer trucks etc in 44 then in 41 but a big part of that short fall was that the div were one third smaller each one needing less transport. Now the ger inf div in 41 and 44 both walked on thier feet and used horse drawn carts ' predominantly as did the sov inf div of 41 and 44.

Your quote 'A mostly horse drawn army attacked by a mostly mech army' bears little resemblence to reality.

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We obviously seem to have very much differing opinions on this.

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Originally posted by Jyri Kettunen:
Greg,

There were no Finnish troops involved in Petsamo-Kirkenes operation. Maybe you are thinking about Karelian Front at Svir, where Finns withdrawed from frontline positions just before the Petroskoi (Petrozavodsk)-operation was launched?

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