KURSK; banned from OKW's plans...

Erich, I've read too that the SS Panzerkorps was not involved in that famous caothic battle in which you had Tigers and T-34s ramming each other. The Soviet tanks losses of the Guards Tank Army fighting the SS Panzerkorps were more than terrible and the advance was going quite OK. And lets remember that marshal Von Manstein still had general Kempf's Panzergruppe as a reserve!

The only problem was that a victory at Kusrk involved a pincers movement and we know that marshal Von Kluge had no reserves. All of them were engaged and suffering heavy losses. And, in the north the III Panzerarmee was being attacked. Von Kluge's northern flank was at about to be surrounded. He had to take away Model's tanks to repell the attack.

 

By the time Kursk rolled around, nothing short of secret weapons would save Germany from defeat. Germany had to rely on relatively quick victories to topple bigger foes. After two years of total warfare, there was nothing quick about teh eastern front. The Soviets were finally pulling their heads out of their asses and were seriously capitalizing on the win at Stalingrad. They had already surpassed the Germans in industry, and their quality in arms and training was increasing. Had Germany followed Manstein's plan, then they could have staved off defeat for several months, but as its been mentioned before, American involvement was already to the point where they were committed to victory in Europe.

Their only chance was using this time to create atomic weapons and perhaps use the time to better develop jet aircraft and other weapons that could potentially turn the tide. But these were longshots.

The real change would have been the post-war situation. With the Soviets being occupied for a much longer time, the Americans and British would have little choice but to occupy all of Germany and (just maybe) make their way into eastern Europe before the Russians got their. No Kursk or a Kursk under more favorable conditions for the Germans would mean the Allies controlling more of Europe, and the Soviets taking more casualties and being in a more precarious post-war situation. And who knows how the cold war would have turned out...assuming it didnt get hot quickly after Stalin realizing the Allies had the upper hand post-war Europe.

 

Yep, but during the last year I have somewhat changed my mind....

That is due to the fact that Operation Zitadelle or Kursk as we know it was only the part one for Russians in the fighting. The second part was their attack on both sides of the salient with fresh troops and kicking the Germans out of Kursk. The defensive battles in Kursk around 5th-15 th July to russians were not that "important" ( as we like to think it ) except for causing the losses and wearing down the German army and tanks. So if the Germans had gotten through what next? the Russians had forces to attack both flanks! It is true the Russians were worried and they started the flank operations earlier to make the Germans move troops to the flanks but otherwise I think the Russians played their cards truly well.

For Germans the only way for satisfactory result would be not to attack Kursk salient ( to beat the Russians in defensive operations with panthers and Ferdinands, maybe ) or perhaps to attack further behind the salient to trap all the Red Army forces and not attack against the heavy defence system. Still it leaves the huge Red Army forces left for the northern and southern parts to attack....

 

You're completely right, Kai! Kursk was not that important for the Soviets. It was going to be another Stalingrad. The Wehrmacht got obsessed with a useless military target, pushed on it and bled to death trying, while the Soviet focused their efforts in the flanks...

The battle of Kursk was not yet over when Von Kluge's northern flank was been heavily attacked by the Red Army. And some weeks passed after Kursk when Von Manstein started having problems in the Don, Mius, Dónets and Dniéper. By the end of the year, the Soviets had reached the Dniéster and Army Group South had suffered more than 3/4 of a million casualties...

 

Fried, and the Soviets suffered how many loses in men and materials trying to retake these areas ?

 

2.312.429 killed in the whole Eastern front during the entire year of 1943. Not sure about the specific casualties in the Ukraine.

But we can compare that to 700.653 Germans killed that year in the Eastern Front. Of course prissoners, missing and wounded are not included! This clearly shows the scale of the war in the East.

And we know that the Soviets could replace those men relatively easy.

 

Russian losses ( KIA, MIA, prisoners )during the second half of 1943:

3rd quarter 803.856
4th quarter 589.955

Wounded:

3rd quarter 2.060.805
4th quarter 1.567.940


The site is mentioned on the Russian front interesting info thread.

 

*deleted*

[ 07. November 2003, 02:51 AM: Message edited by: BratwurstDimSum ]

 

I remember reading a totally obscene statistic somewhere that in the east there were 900 divisions in action at one point whilst there were 92 fighting in the west (that isnt exactly it but I would have to go down to dig out the book), that is something that always staggered me, proof that Hitler saw the war in the west as a bit of a side show if ever there was some.

 

900 divisions, Stefan?! You mean, Soviet divisions? Because the Germans never had even so many regiments!

And be careful when you hear or read about Soviet divisions because in reality, they were 60% of a German one. So, you could count a Soviet division as two and a half German regiments - to convert the cipher to Western standars.