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Zhukov's principle as stavka representative was this: “In fierce combat, it
is far better to suffer losses and achieve your mission than not to achieve any sort
of aims and suffer losses every day by marking time in place from day to day under
enemy fire.”
The Soviets were very aggressive- their doctrine was essentially attacking as a form of defense. If you actually count their number of attacks even in 41' and 42' they outnumber the Germans. However, their results were inferior as their individual attack 'quality' was less. Basically, lots of weaker, short-ranged attacks that lead to large cumulative losses. This evident if you study a battle from a day to day basis. The Germans prepare more carefully between each attack op. and thus have fewer numbers of stronger attacks. German doctrine was obsessed with maneuver and encirclement and tried to get these from every battle level.
With the Ardennes & Normandy example- the German army's quality, logistics,& training had declined a great deal in both absolute and relative terms so the performance was not good in both battle grounds. This lead to many local defeats. Logistics, besides organization dictates the tactics available as well. |
These retreats were evident from before Case Blue even started. During Case Blue preliminaries (trying to win a good assembly area), AGS executed 'Wilhelm' and 'Fredicus II'. Instead of capturing entire armies he only got 20,000, and then 30,000 prisoners. von Bock notes in his war diary that the 'Red Army had learned'.
Compared to June 1941, besides weaker logistics AGS had only 75% of the manpower. However, their airpower was better than in 1941 (Luftflotte II with 1,600 aircraft, and capable of 1400 sorties a day a peak strength).
Order 227 was indeed as a result of these retreats and rearguard actions- they succeeded from escaping annihilation but there was nowhere left to escape to, from now on.
Actually, there was serious combat for 4.PzA and 6.AOK as they approached Stalingrad. The Great Bend of the Don had several armies and they had to eliminate them or push them back before they reached the Stalingrad defense ring.
These battles, including some heavy armor combat attritioned both armies significantly enough. German panzer operable strengths were around 50-35% per division by the time they reached the city. Infantry was down to around 50-70%.
Well remember Order 227 is a direct result of these retreats. The retreats where not authorized and I believe the lack of encirclements lie more in the reduced capabilities of the Germans, you guys have already explained that very well, than operational considerations of the Soviets.
The complete abandonment of Rostov-na-Don and the fact that Stalingrad had little to no defences when the Germans approached I think goes well to show that again in 1942, as in 1941, the Germans managed to route the Soviet defences and advance into the operational depth.
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The RKKA armor was not as well supported because they didn't want to fight like the Panzertruppen did. The Panzer divisions were very expensive and time consuming to raise or truly rebuild and train with tactical airpower. Also, a steep investment in training infrastructure like the panzer schools. It took between 6 months to 1 year to raise them properly after assembling all the components including trained manpower & specialists. In contrast the soviets made concessions, by designing cheap and quickly built/rejuvenated formations like the tank corps and tank brigades. Naturally, they could not be as tactically sophisticated as they avoided so many development costs and equipment purchases.
I believe it can be said that Red Army armor was used to strike in circumstances where the panzertruppen, operating under a more decentralized doctrine would not. The top-down nature of RKKA orders and their rigid attack orders reflected this.
The breakthough set-piece techniques resulted in RKKA armor being used as a 'battering ram' so to speak, and losses were high as a result.
Soviet attack patterns emphasize quantity of attacks, rather than 'quality'- as well. |
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I keep on thinking that the new faction (probably Brits) is going to be like the old Brits...in the tank area they will probably be like the USA so it is still the Soviets/Germans with the strong kit. |
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what are the stats for the M10's gun? (pen/damage?) how does this compare to the M36? |
Interesting post. Explain RKKA tank losses is like trying to explain economic crises...there are at least a dozen or two big reasons, and it's hard to do a valuation of each.
I think:
#1. Command culture and tactics employed- More frequently attacking, very aggressive use of tanks, insensitive to losses, lack of combined arms coordination, and tendency to use tanks to boast attacking infantry in penny packets.
#2. Formation organization and logistics- RKKA armored units were very bare bones and with little service and combat support for most of the war. The 43'-45' mech. corps was closer to western models, but there were few of them.
#3. Accounting- RKKA wrote-off tanks quickly, the Germans on the other hand loathe to write off tanks unless it was a total loss.
#4. Encirclements of 1941 and 1942- lots of tanks captured- probably over 20,000.
These four probably explain most of it.
4: Lack of training for the crews.
5: Lack of infantry support in the early tank brigades.
6: Poor composition in tank brigades 1941-42. (When T-70, T-26s, T-34 and KVs all belonged to the same unit.)
7. Complete breakdown in command and control 1941.
8. Lack of reconnaissance, didn't become better until 1943.
9. Tanks lacking proper vision for commanders, fixed in T-34 with late model 1943 turrets.
10. Commanders acting as gunners on the most common tank.
11. Not having any hope of air superiority until summer of '43.
12. Poor operational art and poor tactics.
13. Mistakes, ooh all the mistakes. Mitigated quite a lot when they learnt how to fight. (3rd phase of the war in Soviet historiography.)
14. Difference in what counts as a lost tank. - (Cannot stress this enough. A German tank sent to factory for complete overhaul is repaired. A soviet tank sent to the factory for overhaul is lost and then produced again.)
15.All of the above. (ok maybe not #2.  ) =
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The planning for Case Blue resembled a mixture of damaged egos (Halder and von Bock) and 11th hour revisions that greatly expanded the agenda to a very unrealistic degree.
The Panzer units in Case Blue were generally pretty good although reduced a bit. There were also fresh ones like 23.Pz and 24.Pz. The infantry divisions were brought back up to 80% mobility. The replacements were undertrained, but there were still substantial veterans among the divisions so it was not that big of a deal. Among other issues is the logistics infrastructure was simply not as good as in the prior year, and many shortages occurred & more so than in Barbarossa. The phased assault patterns (Blau I, II, III) was designed partially to build up the confidence of the troops with a string of easy victories.
A crucial weakness was the dispersion of effort, which became extreme by changes in plans. The panzer korps were not organized into a panzergruppe HQ and were deployed into different axis' of advance. This made their progress much slower and much more problematic once they ran into opposition that they wanted to envelope. Anyway, the Blau plan did not live up to expectations.
The Blitzkrieg, war of maneuver, whatever one wants to call it requires a specific approach to organization and combat practices. Essentially it requires lots of light infantry along with mobile forces and all need to have an extremely aggressive/fearless leadership style. Short-term losses have the possibility of being quite significant, and if the gambit fails, it will be for naught.
With Overlord (alternate history mode here) literally the infantry battalions would need to be doubled but riding on the same asset base. |
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With encirclements, the key requirements are:
1. air supremacy
2. tactical mobility (the units conducting the encirclement must have enough supplies and be of sufficient fighting quality)
3. enough infantry divisions. Encirclements, as you can imagine, require a great many infantry. The units conducting the encirclement cannot be that different in size compared to the ones that are trapped inside.
4. Armored or mot. infantry divisions to close the pocket, and then used to police the inner and outer encirclement ring. Those inside will attempt to mass their remaining strength into one fist, and try to break out somewhere. The enemy will attempt to attack the outer encirclement ring to save those that are trapped inside.
5. A great deal of command skill and guts by all soldiers involved.
What is notable is that mini-encirclements of enemy regimental/brigade sized units can be done routinely at the corps and divisional level, as well. |
Yes, GFM von Bock was fired due to disputes and the lack of massive victories. The march of AGA/AGB was mostly of them taking a succession of 10,000 there, 30,000 here, etc. On the Soviet side, it reflected what they learned in Barbarossa: to combat the blitzkrieg, they had to leave behind defensive rearguards/use massed Tank armies/tank corps to lead suicidal attacks to slow down the Germans so the effected armies could escape the cauldron. It also helped a great deal that the Germans were only able to outfit one Army group (AGS into AGA/AGB), and not three...for the offensive. So there were fewer units leaping forward, and no dangerous Panzergruppe commands.
Even in Case Blue the Soviets, while they had losses, their losses weren't what they had been. They were becoming more adept and losses, while still losses, were progressively less costly. I think that their biggest "take" was 75,000 was seen as a disappointment rather than an accomplishments.
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I may be reading your post wrong as you may be referring to 'operations' when you write 'strategic'.
The Soviet union was briefly at risk in Oct. 1941- but even this was uncertain & speculative. AGC broke down logistically after the Vyzama/Bryansk pockets. There was little punch left. The problem was that it was not in the means of the German economy to rebuild the Wehrmacht (a strategic asset) to anywhere near the same offensive ability ever again. 1942 was only a partial rebuild. The secondary fronts started to siphon a great deal.
The Soviet situation was basically continuous improvement with vast force generation, which was spent quite lavishly as well.
Russia -> Russia is a bit harder. Strategically Both sides were in the equal. The difference was that Russia had much more resources at thier dispolesl coupled with the fact that they had intel. Intel wins more wars than "Plans". Furthermore, German had good strategies through out the war but were hampered by military structure (Hitler in command etc.)
Compare that to the US where all auto production was ceased the day after Pearl Harbor, not just to rearm but to conserve resources for the war effort. Democracies are quite capable of handling losses so long as the purpose is clear they have confidence in the leadership.
The design of US combat systems, besides material availability, reflects a great deal of risk aversion. The training of US officers also reflects this- pretty much a logistics/accountant/engineering sort of approach. At the operational level, there is a sensitivity to short term casualties that you don't see in the totalitarians. In the area of field mobilization, far too few infantry divisions were mobilized and sent into the ETO. There were, on the other hand, too many armored divisions. The infantry divisions were very densely equipped/supplied compared to the infantry of the Germans in Barbarossa or the Soviets in Bagration 44'.
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No offense, but I these assumptions of yours are completely not those that I hold (about the comparative ability of 41' RKKA , 42' RKKA and the Germans in 44'). The ability of the RKKA was not as low as you portray and the ability of the Germans in 44' was not as high as you portray. The ability of the Germans in 41' and 42' are higher than you portray.
There is a difference. The Germans running on "a razors edge" were doing it against the '41 Soviet Army and the US and Brits were moving against the Germans. It is one thing to go up against an opponent that has already proven to be operationally, tactically and strategically deficient and quite another to attack an opponent that has already proven operational and tactical competence and assume or presume they are no longer that incapable
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