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That is what I have been seeing in regarding the SS PzK deployment in Feb-March 1943 and the Battle of the Bulge. However, at Kursk the operational reserve all received pretty similar pre-citadel training (3-month breakthrough).

The book, which is not yet named, will have combat models for many soviet and german formations involved, which should prove to be at least food for thought (if one is not convinced about this or that)

BTW coh2player, the conclusion that the 48.PzK outperformed the SSPzK is a correct assumption/opinion (IMHO) because Waffen-SS/SS units often fought on impulse and took objectives without any regard to future movements and often were willing to die for almost no strategic gain. Its sad that fanaticism on the battlefield often blinded those in command and those fighting.

From the book Munro, Manstein (biography):

My personal opinion was that the STUG was definitely a no-no for blitzkrieg and concentration of almost all armor in PzGruppe I-IV was correct to optimize long range attack power in Barbarossa. The rise of the STUG imo went overboard. The problem with stug units was the formation/equipment was too weak logistically/inflexible for long range offensive operations & combined arms and it was better to fill the panzer divisions as much as possible.

Well, after the 'smash and grab' failed, the STUGs took off in the German Army.

In relation to the above discussion on commanders, doctrine and modernisation, I've seen it claimed that Manstein invented, or at least conceptualised, the StuG. Can anyone confirm if this is true, because if so, it must be one of the few instances of a general actually inventing a weapon.

Returning to German developments before the Second World War, Manstein’s role as
head of the operations division and then First Quartermaster in the General Staff required
him to explore the operational level employment of self-contained armoured corps and
armies, which at that time did not exist..............

Meanwhile, where Guderian and Manstein did differ in approach was in the role of
armour in supporting infantry formations. Based on his experience of the First World War,
Manstein (and the General Staff more widely) recognized the urgent requirement to
restore the offensive potential of the infantry in the face of the defensive power of the
machine gun. Whilst supporting the need for the strongest affordable contribution by
armoured forces, restrictions on matériel dictated that the mass of the German Army must
remain one based primarily on infantry divisions. Further, when Beck hesitated to risk all
on the new armoured formations it was at a time when the tactical value of tanks was
evident, but the shock effect of their operational level employment in deep operations had
yet to be demonstrated.

Manstein understood that if that potential were to be realized fully, then it made sense to
improve the fighting power of the infantry in order to conduct mobile operations as well.
He agreed with Guderian that it was not worthwhile (and here he diverged from Beck)
forming heavy armoured brigades to accompany the infantry in attack. If they were to be
established alongside the panzer corps, then Germany could only afford a very small
number of them. In this regard, the German Army did not follow the British route of
developing independent armoured or tank brigades to provide direct tactical support to
infantry divisions.59 For most of the Second World War, German armour remained
concentrated in its panzer (and, later, the motorized panzer grenadier) divisions. Rather,
the infantry divisions should contain new armoured fighting vehicles - the ‘storm artillery’
composed of assault guns.

If Guderian is regarded as the creator of the German armoured force, then Manstein
deserves greater recognition for his role in developing the storm artillery.60............Manstein produced a paper on storm artillery in the autumn of 1935. In so doing he
faced a wall of opposition from artillery, armour and antitank experts alike. It did not help
either that the senior leadership of the German Army at the time was composed of selfassured
artillerymen. Beck, for one, declared: ‘Well, my dear Manstein, this time you have
shot wide of the mark.’61 With Fritsch he was to have more luck, drawing the commanderin-
chief’s attention to the fact that the artillery could now resume its historical role in
taking a direct part in the battle rather than just providing indirect fire. Apparently this
appeal to the sense of honour of a former horse gunner convinced Fritsch, as did

Manstein’s suggestion that the new weapon should be manned by the artillery rather than
by the infantry. So ‘cap-badge’ competition, often the crippling bugbear of the British
Army of the time and long after, also played an important role in the German Army.
Despite its pride in the professional objectivity of its General Staff, which endures today,
the history of the storm artillery demonstrates that sometimes inter-arm pride and rivalry
can have a paradoxically beneficial outcome.
With the support of Fritsch, the German Army pressed ahead with the research and
development of the storm artillery with remarkable speed, bearing in mind the parallel
demands of the new armoured troops. Manstein was well supported by the Chief of Army
Procurement, General Karl Becker, who developed the first prototype based on the chassis
of a Mark II armoured fighting vehicle mounted with a short 75-mm gun, the lack of a
rotating turret distinguishing the ‘assault gun’ from a tank. Field trials of the first
equipments were undertaken in the winter of 1937/38 and combined arms exercises in
1938/39.62 By the autumn of 1937, Fritsch had signed the order for the production of
sufficient assault guns based on the chassis of the Mark III tank to equip all active infantry
divisions with a storm artillery detachment of three batteries of four guns initially (which
was raised subsequently to six), by the autumn of 1939.63 In addition, each of the new
panzer divisions were meant to receive a detachment, and the reconnaissance detachments
of the infantry, panzer, light and motorized infantry divisions a platoon of assault guns
each.

These ambitious plans were never realized. As Manstein recorded bitterly after the war,
after Fritsch and he had left office in early 1938, the new commander-in-chief, Colonel
General von Brauchitsch, cancelled the order. It would appear that this was a ‘realism’
economy measure rather than reflecting any change in doctrine. The fact was that the
German Army was expanding at a rate faster than the rate of procurement for heavy
weaponry would allow. Thus only six assault-gun batteries were raised and trained in the
first half of 1940, and only four of these independent sub-units were employed in the
French campaign.

Yea, I agree. All these battles were interrelated, and then finally the great retreat to the Dnepr. A "summer campaign" sounds reasonable although the Soviets did not name one.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Kursk Operation should cover more than just Operation Zitadelle, certainly operation Kutuzov at the very least...
Would this idea be correct or would Kutuzov be its own "battle" (though where campaign ends and battle begins becomes a bit more blurry these days) go elsewhere do you think?

"Personal experience?" How do you know about the middlemen?

I know an American who is part of the 'Glantz' club (glantz wrote the forward to his book, and they help each other)- who published a tactical history using extremely specific soviet unit information. He never mentioned this-in fact in our discussion he was more of the view that there was just so much that he wished more historians would work in the area. But in the US there is extreme disinterest in the subject matter.

In fact, Russian archival access is still highly restricted to Westerners, not only in theory but especially in practice. Even for citizens of the Russian Federation there are still serious hurdles and I am speaking from personal experience here. AFAIK everything above Front level is still restricted, as is most of the doctrinal stuff. Dave Glantz for example exclusively works through middlemen for his Russian archival research. I might add that his grasp of German stuff is pretty shaky. Don't get me wrong here though, he of course has made pioneering contributions.

You would have to have read most of Glantz' books, which takes a hell of a long time- to make that opinion. I have read most of his books. His books are either soviet focused or 'balanced'. I would agree that his German numbers info is incomplete in the soviet focused ones. However, German troop movements I have not noticed anything problematic. The 'balanced' ones (like Stalingrad Trilogy with John House) are heavily researched from the German POV and have no easily apparent evidence of being 'shaky'. If you have read it, please disclose what I am missing.

Overall, I would like to see more material that consists of all the troop movements and logistics tracking. I like that sort of thing- most op. histories are lacking in detail to me so I consider Glantz' technique #1. The Stalingrad Trilogy is a good model of how it should be. An even stronger focus on logistics intertwined with the narrative would make it even better.

Nipe is also very talented at composing Op history even if he is a W-SS mania and has no original soviet research...

IMO, the Soviet claims of enemy force strength & destruction in operations are usually worthless and not even close to the actual numbers. The Wehr reporting system in operations usually closer to the mark, but still with discrepancies.

However, in terms of Operational history, the German perspective that has dominated west of the iron curtain has been pretty disappointing overall and has lend to much more serious distortions than statistics- an obvious one is the myth of Moscow 1941 being a close-run affair being prevalent for decades and Manstein's backhand blow in 1943 being a major set-back for the soviets. Lots of battles have been swept under the rug or given only minor coverage.

'Kursk', for instance, gets lots of coverage but is still considered isolated from the related, massive, and ultimately more decisive Izyum/Mius River and Belgorod-Kharkov battles. In older texts like Rolf Hinze, the Soviet units are often not even identified and are depicted in maps as merely arrows.

I think the archives have been open for a long time. It's just that historians that master both russian and german research and want to be productive are quite few. Colonel Glantz is probably the best eastern front historian alive and working in the US. Also apparently the German universities don't take military history seriously and are more interested in researching WW2 social aspects and war crimes- which is too bad.

My intention was to clarify the problem of the wide field of various numbers with an russian scientist, before the western phobia and propaganda punshes.