Kursk (by popular demand!)

The Mother Of All Threads! Go ahead, bring the pics on!

 

Pics will be awhile. I still have to get them out to E to post for me. I forgot to mention-these pics will be of militaria only. However, I do own a pic or two that were taken at or near Kursk.

 

Ok lets bring that zombie back... I have one Question that cannot escape my mind

• Given that this was THE OFFENSIVE in the year 1943, that should be decisive and all...

• And given the fact that german army was at high 9,5 milion man in year 1943.

I still cannot understand how they only manage to assemble 780.000 man for this operation. They postponed it and got over 2000 tanks and 200.000 man... But all facts now show that the lack of infantry was the real problem.

1. Was that 9,5 milion just propaganda blown number and maybe in that number there are 25% fighting units, otherwise all trying to pull ties to get out of hot spot in eastern front and other dangerous areas? Or what was it?

Another 200.000 man could make a big difference probably...

 

1) this offensive would nor could be decisive :it only was something local
2)the Germans had (on 1 july ) some 3.2 million men on the Eastfront,the SU (without the strategic reserves ) 6 million
3) the 9+ million is irrelevant,it includes a lot
for october 1943:
fieldarmy :4.09 million (2.565 mllion in the east)
LW feld divisions :200.000
reserve army :2.3 million
LW:1.8 million
Kriegsmarine :0.67 million
WSS :0.3 million
4) the SU also had some 6 million behind the front
5)the Germans engaged some 078 million men (25 % of the Ostheer),the SU some 1.9 million(30 of the frontstrength)

 

bump.

 

This time Hitler allowed some troops to retreat in order to create reserves:

During World War II the name Büffel Bewegung (Buffalo Movement in German) was given to a series of local retreats conducted by the German Army on the Army group Center area during the period 1-22 March 1943. This movement eliminated the Rzhev Salient and shortened the front by 230 kilometers, saving twenty-one divisions for use in the operation Zitadelle.

 

" On 2 July 1943 Ninth Army filed a partial report of the field replacements actually available to six divisions and the general pool of replacements for the panzergrenadier regiments in its panzer divisions.The Feldersatz battalions for these divisions contained the following:

137th Infantry Division 450 men
251st Infantry Divisions 450 men
6th Infantry Division 600 men
10th panzergrendier Division 300 men
258th Infantry Division 300 men
292nd Infantry Division 300 men

These figures suggest, by extension, a divisional average among Ninth Army´s eighteen divisions of 355 men, or a total of 4,970 replacements for an army with a total strength of 355,000 men. To this should be added one and one-half march battalions at the Army Weapons School, one XX Corps training battalion at Lokot,one panzergrenadier march battalion at the Bryansk Weapons School, and two panzergrenadier march battalions from the training staff near Kromy-about 1,950 more men, bringing the grand total available to Ninth Army to about 6,920. Against combat losses that quickly mounted above 20,000 this was clearly inadequate.

From " Kursk the German view" by Steven H. Newton

 

There is a very good study paper on Kursk, including a large focus area on Mines, at WWII Battle of Kursk: Mine/Countermine operations
- It appears to be a university dissertation paper, with occasional gaps in text from pasting in such a large document into html.
Good, general, compilation of statistics.

Note that the text does not wrap, so if you do not have 20" monitor, you will need to copy and paste into Word or some such.

 

The best time to attack would have been during the Manstein counter offence. This was not possible because Mansteins troops were also worn out. The Soviets also early on knew that Kursk was a good place for a German offence and immediatly started reinforcing the bulge after Manstein's offence stopped. I dont know that there was another time after that would have been advantageous for the Germans to attack.

 

Still must not forget that Stalin wanted to attack first but Zhukov wanted to start with defending against the Germans and exhaust their men and armor, and succeeded in making Stalin agree to this plan. For Germans there would be no other time because the Red Army reserves were so huge the Germans simply could not find any optimal position to consider a major operation a success after that.

 

Kursk failed because of the timing. Hitler insisted on waiting until the new generation of tanks were available in sufficient quantities. This pushed back the planned offensive by two or three months, allowing the Russians to dig in and create a HUGE and effective line of defence (actually, many lines of defence). The Russians, by all German first-hand accounts, were the masters of entrenching themselves. Instead of a last chance, Kursk ended being the beginning of the end for Germany. By the way, why did the allies declare war on Germany for invading Poland, whe the USSR invaded Poland too and had no reprocussions? Because double-standards exists in politics, and England and France were afraid of making Russia an enemy. Interesting to think about.

 

Btw:why was Poland not declaring war on the SU when it was invading Poland ?
:Britain and France never promised to declare war on the SU if it would attack Poland.You know why ? Of course not:because no one was thinking that the SU would attack Poland ,not even the Poles .

 

By the way, why did the allies declare war on Germany for invading Poland, whe the USSR invaded Poland too and had no reprocussions?

Real life is just not as clear-cut as it appears to us in hindsight. The British and French governments and people took several years and a long series of provocations to make up their minds to stand up to Hitler, and even then opinion was far from unanimous. Most recently Hitler had gone back on his specific commitments at Munich; this was what led to the guarantee to Poland and compelled the allies to act when Poland was attacked. The Polish crisis had also festered for several months, giving the allies time to reluctantly accept that they would have to act the next time Hitler did.

Although Bolshevism had long been considered the enemy of western capitalism, there had been no specific issues with the USSR. There were substantial socialist and communist parties in the western democracies, and they had not had as much opportunity to become disillusioned as those who had admired Hitler a few years earlier.

Lastly, they had declared war on Germany and found themselves able to do precisely nothing to help Poland. They had even less idea how to fight the USSR; it was not even potentially vulnerable to blockade or air attack. Anyone could foresee that Poland would be finished long before anything could be done. Another empty declaration had little appeal to people or leaders.

 

Well said, that make sense. I supposed the allies, particularly churchill, decided the the enemy of his enemy was his friend, and that nazi germany was the immediate threat that had to be dealt with. Still, whatever the reasns, it seems hypocritical. The west probably regretted sending so much material to the SU once the cold war began!

 

Well,IMHO, this does not seem hypocritical,although OTOH,in politics ,hypocrisy is not something that is considered as something wrong .

 

The Soviets had already started reinforcing the bulge within weeks of the end of Mansteins offence. The Germans were not exactly in great shape either. The SS units had suffered heavy infantry losses taking Kharkov and the tanks units did need time to refit and repair. Besides the new tanks Hitler was being given conflicting advice from his generals. Manstein and Guderian were against it, while Zeitzler helped convince Hitler it was possible. Germany would still have suffered irreplacable losses and there is no guarantee of success.

 

By the time operation "Citadel" was launched the war in the Eastern Front was slipping towards the Russians. Many Generals advised Hitler to dig in during the winter,since the German army wasn't prepared for winter operations. The biggest mistake that Hitler made on Ostfront is when Hitler revoke the panzer from capturing Moscow, and ordered General Heinz Guderian to capture Ukraine. Which gave a time for Stalin to rally support behind him.
Field Marshal Erich Von Manstein the architect of the German victory in France, Crimea and operation ``Citadel`` had to create an operation with limited means and limited objective.His previous operation brought strategic victories, but Manstein where victories were brought with overwhelming tank superiority was based on the traditional German army doctrine of advancing with mass resources.Operation ``Citadel``, was a mini Barbarossa. This time the objective was that through bleeding the RUssians,they would be forced to surrender and for the Germans to retake the lost initiative.Similar tactic was used by General Lunderdof in WWI when the war on the eastern front was brought to end with Shock tactics.

 

This time it was Zhukov who wanted the Germans to bleed their forces trying to capture the bulge in the front, and massive numbers of Red Army forces were waiting to attack the German flanks once the German Kursk operation would be over or almost over with. Surprise for Hitler and perhaps for Manstein as well. Doomed from the beginning for Germans.

 

Guderian protested long and loud concerning 'Zitadelle'. He argued, directly to Hitler, "How many people actually know where Kursk is?", to which Adolf replied, "Yes, you're right. Every time I think about this attack, my stomach turns over."

The real mystery of Kursk is "Why?" Adolf was a man who listened to his intuition on so many other occasions. Why did he ignore his own council and body reactions this time around?

The other thing that stands out is the piss-poor performance of none other than Field Marshal Model. Model's operations in this attack have a torpidity that stands out. His incredulous mis-use of the brand new 'Elefant' shows a remarkably weak understanding of modern armoured warfare, and just what role these vehicles were supposed to be for. These monsters should have been deployed deep to the rear, nowhere near Soviet infantry of any description, harvesting vast numbers of Soviet vehicles from far way, as they were to do post 'Zitadelle'. Model threw them in willy-nilly, then blamed the losses on the lack of a bow machine-gun, an excuse that seems to have satisfied Hitler, but did it really? Model was a Fuhrer favourite, and mistakes from him of this magnitude would have cost most other generals their job.

Hitler had sacked enough people before, but, Adolf was actually using these sackings to get rid of the Army "Old Guard", and replacing them with 'good National-Socialists'. He was more than prepared to look the other way when true incompetance reared it's head, IF the officer in question was of 'correct' political standing.

The more you examine Kursk, the more wonderous it seems that this operation was put into motion at all.

This battle also calls into question the much touted 'abilities' of Erich von Manstein. Further, Manstein uses the opportunity to blame everyone and everything but himself, a common practice of Manstein, and the upper echelons of the General Staff in toto.

So easy to blame Adolf, and wash your hands of the matter. I'm sure Manstein's Staffers were ecstatic that 'their' general had kept his own ego intact. The German soldiers that had to fight this waste of time and scarce resources must have been pleased as well, (not). There is a picture I have of LSSAH Panzergrenadiers riding a tank, fully in retreat fom Prokhorovkha. One of them has a bandage wrapped about his head, and is staring straight at the camera. The look in his eyes is telling. Those boys, despite having thrown back one massive Soviet assault after another, were in retreat, and they were PISSED.

One can only imagine what the rest of the Army was thinking. This photo just about spoke for them all. "Now we KNOW what Total War means."

 

Manstein was not doing better than Model