Martin, gald to see you're keeping up with this one...
And yes, I'm not entirely suprised. Somewhat suprised would be more appropriate. Glantz(1999, btw) uses Healy as one of his sources, and Healy clearly states 90 Ferdinands. I'd be curious- if you could- what does Piekalkiewicz (sp?) say about the Ferdinands- does he give a number? But Glantz uses a large amount of new russian materials that have been made available in the last 10 years or so. But the AMOUNT of difference in his numbers does suprise me- his number differs at the least by about 10%. A discrepancy of 9-15 vehicles is pretty sizable in a vehicle with such a small production run. And of course, that immediately makes me wonder...
So how do we regard the rest of Glantz's numbers? I'm reading over some of them as I go, so I'll post something soon on some of his more specifics...

BUT... I did come across some inetersting stuff in his Conclusions section. (It's a history book- it's OK to skip to the end!) Some paraphrasing here...

Glantz has an interesting take on the idea of the russian victory at Kursk being "inevitable"... Looking back from a postwar perspective, some easily claim the russain victory being inevitable, forgetting to acknowledge the hindsight of the fact that the germans did in fact lose the engagement. Said theories then go on to simply find a scapegoat (Hitler) and a reason for the failure. Most often go on the assumptions that one of the alternatives suggested at the time would have been preferable- launching the attack in early spring, going to an elastic defense... presuming that those alternatives would have even been possible, which Glantz claims is not true (not sure if I agree with this part especially). Glantz then goes on to point out some reasons why Hitler was not actually responsible- his generals and advisors were expressing concerns as well, and some of Hitler's information on delaying decisions was actually valid (Martin, the intle issue returns...). He also points out some reasons why, looking at the Kursk offensive from something of a time-period perspective, the russian victory was certainly not inevitable. A concentrated german offensive had never before been stopped at the initial lines... The german halt before moscow was after an 800km offensive, and the german defeat at stalingrad was also at the end of a large german offensive. And France, Poland, etc... Thus, until Kursk, while the germans had been defeated, they had never really been stopped. Furthermore, the russians had far more reserves than earlier sources and estimates had revealed, which gave them immense material superiorit, but there was a huge drawback (and this one I definetely agree with). The russian armaments program, observing the success of the early T-34, geared nearly their entire industry towards mass producing the T-34. Design innovations were actually refused unless they eased manufacture. Thus, at the time of the Kursk offensive, russian armor was at it's LOWEST quality of the war. Glantz claims that it was in fact the armored engagements at Kursk, and the extremely high losses the russians suffered, that pushed the russians towards design innovations in the T-34 and KV series, along with the inception of the IS-2. Thus, Glantz is claiming that despite the vast russian numerical superiority, the german qualitative advanatge was greater than generally acknowledged. Glantz also claims that german recovery and repair forces were at a very good level at this point, allowing percentage of damaged tanks to be kept lower than at time earlier or later in the war.

A quote...(p. 269)
"In the context of the German-Soviet struggle, the Germans, flush with frequent successes from June 1941 to March 1943, naturally clung to outmoded assumptions about their own superiority over their opponents. By contrast, the Red Army systematically reviewed its performance after each failure. By 1943, Soviet doctrine, organization, and expectations were much closer to battlefield reality than were those of the senior German leadership."

Not sure wether I agree with all of his points, but I found it interesting... though it worth posting. More to come from Glantz.
I did find a couple interesting ideas there though, and one thing did stand out a bit- Glantz emphasized the idea of "expectations" more than many. Hmmm....

More to come from myself as well!

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