Which is not suprisng given that the gers in 43 normally caused at least four times as many tot per cas to the rus as they took. What that means is that even if the ger took moderate cas the rus units opposite them would take extremly high cas. The rus usually did not have 4 times as many troops as the gers in general. As an example a 100,000 ger unit might take 25,000 tot per cas and still be combat capable. But even a a sov force of 200,000 would take 100,000 and would likly be combat ineffective.

The ger before main off had lots of time to make sure each and every replacment bat was full giving thier forces more staying power then the sov forces opposite them. Even before barbarasso started the ger assembled about 400,000 replacment troops. About 3000 troops per div used this was about or half the tot number of combat cas incurred during all of 41 in rus. Iīve never seen the number ass before kursk but they proabably had some.

Also that the ger army could not operate at the cas levels suffered in 43 in rus is proven wrong by looking at the ger numbers for 41. Almost exactly half the 43 levels but only for 6 months of combat. Very similar per month averages for 41 where the ger army was succesful and 43 where the ger army may not have been as sucessful but wasn't as unsuccessful and powerless as some would like to argue.

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Originally posted by Darrin:
Only one point of correction for AGS as far as I know. Manstiens panzer corp reserve had 3 PD not the two mentioned by Glantz.

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The 24th Panzer Corps had the Viking SS Panzer Grenadier Division, the 17th Panzer Division and the 23rd Panzer Division under its command for part of July. Only the Viking SS Panzer Grenadier Division the 23rd Panzer Division was mobilized as the reserve for Kursk.

Army Group South had to cover the front all the way down to the Sea of Azov. Other than the 17th Panzer Division, the only other large reserve unit they had was the 16th Motorized Division. It was a linear defense almost devoid of reserves.

It is clear these rus doc are not entirly correct about the ger forces. Since these documents similar to the sov gen staff studies he is using were made during the war but after the battle thier credibility and impartiality is also called into question. It would be interesting to look at one of these studies and the actual rus and ger data for a battle. To see how truely accurate they are. Of course up to now only a chosen few have had access to extremly limited amounts of data meaning no real studies could be done.

Glantz also makes a big deal that the sov stopped the rus before they got to a strategic depth in thier summer offensive. What he fails to meantion is that at no time did the ger at kursk have plans to sieze moscow or advance to any great depth. Kursk could have fulfilled all its goals wildly succesfully and still would never have never reached strateic depth as he calls it. It didnīt happen because we prevented it or it didnīt happen becasue they never planned or tired it.

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Originally posted by Darrin:
Glantz also makes a big deal that the sov stopped the rus before they got to a strategic depth in thier summer offensive. What he fails to meantion is that at no time did the ger at kursk have plans to sieze moscow or advance to any great depth. Kursk could have fulfilled all its goals wildly succesfully and still would never have never reached strateic depth as he calls it. It didnīt happen because we prevented it or it didnīt happen becasue they never planned or tired it.

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Originally posted by Foxbat:
Before critisizing Glantz for something maybe you should read what he says.. "strateic depth" doesn't have to mean Vladivostok. In fact if you assume that the germans didn't want to achieve anything they were wildly succesfull!

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Despite out numbering the ger army on the main eastern front inc reserves by about 2.5 times in men and planes by mid 43. And about 4 times in tanks and arty. The rus suffered about 4.5 times more cas then the ger during all of 43. We could only imagine what would have happened to the rus had the ger had equal numbers.

Rus pop was in no way four times as big as ger even if we count all the 41 pop. Less than 3 times as big at most. Also for every death in the army there was at least one more death in the population as well. So from a purly attriton based warfare thier was no way rus could win at this rate and in 44 it only changed a small amount on the eastern front. It was the western front post Dday that really sealed the deal.

By mid 43 though almost every ger officer realized the war could not be won and it was not due mainly to any new found soviet prowness. It was mainly due to the US entry in the war in late 41. 18 months or a year and a half latter by mid 43 the combined western allies had driven the axis from north africa and were poised to do the same in sicily. Soon italy would be invaded and it was the first country to leave the axis fold. Also in 43 the SB campaign really took off with all those US airforce units. Also the amount of LL was increasing rapidly for both rus and the CW.

Without the US in the picture more offesives or at the very least a stalmate was possible. By mid 43 there was less than a year of combat on the eastern front left. No where near enough time to outright conquer or stalmate rus. Especiallly since by the end of 43 the emphasis shifted from defending the east to preparing to defend france. Which really left 6 months.

PS. Just to let you know I am not american this is not some type of national biasis on my part.

Except we know the CW stopped a ger off around alexander in egypt well before kursk was even thought about. They did it with less men and less losses of per and distances. Hell Iīm sure even the inexperianced US units stopped at least one off in tunis before knocking the axis out of africa entirly. Which happened before kursk was launched.

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Originally posted by Darrin:
Also one slightly strange point about hitlar glantz makes was he made no visits to the front during the latter stages of the war. This is certainly not suprising for a political leader.

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In the case of both Hitler and Stalin, they had both become much more than political leaders, inserting themselves into the day-to-day command of their respective armies. Churchill and Roosevelt left the day-to-day commanding of their armies to the experts and served as primarily political experts.

In the case of both Hitler and Stalin, it is odd that the senior military command of the armed forces had such limited contact with the front, although Hitler went at least as far forward as the army group headquarters (south and central) in 1943. On the other hand, it does not appear that Stalin ever visited the front during the war.

Further down on p 274 glantz also says that ...'the circumstances of sov wartime record keeping were so chaotic that actual loss figure may never be fully known.' So anyone who thinks that the most offical reports from krivosheyev are 100% true and accurate has little to stand on. Krivosheyev's book appears to have many flaws not the least of which is no definitions of what the various catagories mean.

With direct connection to kursk why the central front dropped almost a 100,000 people during the first week. But only reported a third of this loss as cas. The only OOB change was a net reduction of 1 brigade. Or why the two southern fronts suffered similar cas despite the steepe front being committed towards the very end of the defensive phase. Krivosheyev's offical book certainly raises many questions.

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Originally posted by Darrin:
...access to actual primary unit report archive info is extremly limited.

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One can get access to the unit records.

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
One can get access to the unit records.

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The ger attacked where theier enemy was weak. But giving three months for the rus to conc huge forces, prepare large defences, and plan for att and def. Was playing into the russians hand. Instead of att where the rus were weak they att the strongest point in his line. Unlike france 40, russaia 41 and 42. No big suprise that the ger att failed and they stopped it. Esp since the rus knew were the att was coming from german spies.

In fact the 9th ger army att the 13th sov army to give an example. The 13th rus army had 12 div which was extremly rare for the rus in 43. The avg at kursk was around 7. This army was also conc much more than most other armies in a 30 km by 30 squre. The flanking armies had 7-8 divs and had to defend a bigger frontage. But even though the 9th army att stalled in a couple of days there was some effort to reinforce and reorganize the att. It was the att just north at the orel salient that actually prevented this new off or any later link up with the south. Units went over to the def and reinforcments went to defend in orel instead. Model also did something esle most other ger com did not he only attacked with 1 PD on the first day and left the inf to handle mmost of the attacks.

In the south the ger were able to att where the rus were weak. The sov had armies with 7 div speard over quite a wide frontage. And the ger forces were able to gain quite considerable initial and mid point sucess. What eventually halted the ger was the appearace of the reserve steepe front in the south. Which was over 200km away at the start of the battle and which the ger at least according to glantz did not know about.