soc.history.war.world-war-ii

On Feb 14, 9:49 am, Louis C wrote:
(snip)
> Other stuff that I read since - Ziemcke, Clark, various accounts in
> Russian - basically followed the same narrative with small variations.

IIRC Earl Ziemke was one of the first to call into question elements
of the Soviet story, because of his readings in the German records.

(snip)
> Maybe we're not talking about the same works - Glantz certainly
> published a lot of them - but I'm referring here to "The Battle of
> Kursk" and not to the Soviet general staff report, or articles from
> the 1980's. (snip)

We may very well be, and it has been some time since I read Glantz and
our association with him in the 90s while working on the KDB was
transitory (he's a very nice guy btw). But the main elements of his
"revision" is the formerly classified staff study completed in 1946
IIRC, based upon the reports by Vatutin and the various army
commanders, which does differ considerably from the "official"
published version. OTOH it too is "second generation" and somewhat
carefully written. It's when you get into the original reports that
things get interesting, you start noticing that it is very obvious
that the Soviets didn't quite get **how** the Germans were defeating
them, even when they actually describe the near impecable tactics and
coordination they are being confronted with. It begins to oddly read
as if they think the Germans are "cheating" or emplying black magic,
sort of the opposite - but in the same vein - as the German complaints
about "Materielschlacht". :)

> I'm still looking for where I discussed this in greater length, so in
> what follows, the "IIRC" is no mere rhetorics but a very important
> caveat. IIRC, his argument was more or less the following:
>
> 1. SS Panzer Corps tank strength didn't degrade around the time of
> Prokhorovka.
> Operational strength returns, counting all tanks and AG from Appendix
> C of the Glantz & House book are
> 1 July 494
> 4 July 461
> 8 July 283
> 9 July 249
> 10 July 272
> 11 July 293
> 12 July [that stupid German clerk had to take a break that day!]

Oddly enough, I'm dissecting the 21st Army Group Tank States for
Normandy, and have found that stupid British clerk took a break on 18
July 1944. :)

> 13 July 251
>
> 2. Losses must therefore have been 293 - 251 = 42 over two days, of
> which most were recoverable and not total losses whereas a lot of the
> Soviet losses were not immediately repairable (as the Germans remained
> in control of the battlefield).

Some of the data from the KTB used to be on the web, I'm not sure if
it still is? But the German data at division level is more interesting
in that it gives you more fidelity than the raw totals. But that's
substantially correct.

> This underestimates German losses by at least the amount supplied by
> their repair organization.

It appears that DR returned to action five tanks by the morning of 13
July, had no write-offs 12 or 13 July, and four damaged on 13 July.
LSSAH had no returns on 13 July, 4 destroyed and 13 damaged on 12
July, with no losses on 13 July. T had 2 destroyed on 12 July and 1 on
13 July, but 22 damaged on 12 July and 23 on 13 July, and no returns.
So you could say that the SS Panzer Korps had 7 write-offs and 62
damaged at Prokhorovka....except that Totenkopf wasn't at Prokhorovka,
it was across the Psel facing 5th Guards Army.

> Note that Glantz & House estimate the SS Panzer Corps tank losses on
> 12 July to have been in the
> 60 - 70 range, which is still a smashing tactical success for the
> Germans given much higher Soviet losses.

Possibly 17 destroyed and damaged?

(snip)
> So this all sounded to me like some reasonable assessment, and one I
> saw thrashed in forums (not particularly Nazi ones, mind you!) quoting
> Zetterling as gospel, with the support of at least someone close to
> him (if not himself, I really don't remember that well as I didn't
> expect at the time that I'd be discussing it several years later). I
> didn't find Zetterling's analysis of that particular point better than
> that of Glantz & House, though the "raw figures" made for a more pro-
> German slant as far as I remember. Hence my more recent comment.

The nice thing about Niklas (and Anders Frankson who worked with him)
is the divisional breakdowns, simply more fidelity and so easier to
analyze.

(snip)
> Then one of us is wrong, and there's a distinct possibility that it
> might be me.

Not neccessrily. :)

> Again, from their "The Battle of Kursk" book, it is quite clear that
> the Germans were very good at the tactical level so for all the Soviet
> operational planning there's simply no going around the fact that when
> you're wielding blunt tools you should expect even the most perfect of
> plans to go awry from time to time. For Kursk-specific features that I
> remember from the book, there is Vatutin making the wrong call about
> the direction of the German attack and therefore deploying his forces
> along the axis that the Germans weren't attacking, so rather than hit
> dug-in defenders as happened in the north the Germans caught Soviet
> troops on the move. Same with 1st Tank Army.

What is most striking about the Soviet command is the almost complete
lack of common sense they exhibited. 6th Guards Army was deployed in
an untenable position, in an overly rigid and extended line, evidently
because *that* was simply the way things were done and Vatutin had
decreed that the Germans were to attack 7th Guards Army. On 12 July it
was decreed that the entire front would counterattack, all along the
line, with little thought as to how or why, again, it was decreed, so
it was done.

> Still in that book, you have the Soviets rather cleverly attacking
> German flanks as a way to gain time and force the German spearheads to
> turn back and mop up these threats, which is also evidence that the
> same Soviet forces would have been mashed if thrown directly into the
> path of the advancing spearheads (at least it's evidence that the
> Soviets eschewed the simpler solution, which they tended not to do
> unless they had a compelling reason).

The only "clever" Soviet flank attacks that I am aware of were by 2nd
GTC, whose commander, Gettman IIRC, appears to have been very skilled.
They infilitrated into difficult ground between the SS Panzer Korps
and III Panzer Korps creating huge problems and suffering only minor
losses until they too were forced into the 12 July attack, suffering
there only significant losses and thus finally being forced to
withdraw. Otherwise Soviet attacks were clumsy, to say the least and
culminated in the clumsiest of them all on 12 July.

> Also the situation in the air seems to have been a factor, with
> initial German air superiority being a big help against Soviet AT
> screens and helping blunt Soviet counter-attacks (even though Rudel's
> account needs, to put it charitably, to be qualified).

One of the biggest factors, aside from a lot of idiotic Soviet
deployment, was a lack of artillery for the Soviets in the south,
compounded by Vatutin's idiotic idea of reinforcing his antitank
defenses by places his few heavy artillery assets, his 152mm gun
regiments, into his antitank front. In addition to the predictable
losses they suffered, the repeated displacements they were forced into
then meant they could do little firing and also complicated their
resupply, also limiting their firing.

> At the tactical level, it certainly is.

Yep.

> At the operational and Manstein / Carrell level i.e. "after
> Prokhorovka, the road to Kursk was wide open for the Soviets" that is
> more doubtful, though I don't remember Zetterling making that point so
> I'm not adding his name to the list of the perpetrators here.

Yep. The battles for Kharkov and Belgorod in August were anything but
through a wide open road in the German defenses.

> According to Glantz & House it had 216 on-hand as of 11 July and over
> the next 3 days it lost 154 "irrecoverable" ones plus an unknown
> number evacuated, so odds are you remember reasonably well.

They began the day with 123 operational T-34, 81 T-70, and 12 SU-122,
they had 60 T-34 destroyed and 45 damaged, 28 T-70 destroyed and 14
damaged, and 8 SU-122 destroyed and 1 damaged and at end of day had 62
operational. I remember the report of six being left, but will have to
check the context again, it may have been T-34 operational, since 2
were repaired during the day?

(snip)
> BTW, 18th tank corps "only" lost 51 AFVs (of which 30 irrecoverable)
> out of 187 on-hand so it looks like it got off likely. On second hand,
> all the 30 irrecoverable losses were Churchills and T-34's (of which
> only 124 on hand) plus 10 evacuated T-34's so a third of the tank
> strength was lost in 3 days, with the mostly intact categories
> including world beaters like the light tanks (T-60 / 70) and armored
> cars.

18 T-34, 8 T-70, and 6 Churchill were destroyed, 27 T-34, 17 T-70, and
5 Churchill were damaged, but 4 T-34, 2 T-70, and 1 Churchill were
repaired on 12 July.

(snip)
> until I've read the good secondary sources on the subject. After all,
> it's much better-researched...

And as much misunderstood. :)

> I distinctly - though perhaps wrongly, I can't tell now - remember
> someone using Zetterling's book to show Glantz & House had made a
> flawed comparison, and not finding a similar flaw after comparing both
> books on that point.

That could be, since much of the data is similar, but in differing
levels of detail and context. Zetterling for example puts the losses
in context to the entire Ostfront, along with the strengths, which is
valuable. IIRC Glantz missed that?

(snip, sorry, lack of time)