parsifal
Colonel
Well we had our last thread closed because of two reasons; we wandered off topic far too much, and people were just not treating each other with enough respect in their dialogues. However, I was encouraged at the very end of that thread to see people attempting to dicuss the issues a little better. We were still wandering off topic a litle, but i felt we were at least drifting a little closer to the topic
This thread is about Kursk the air battle. I believe it relevant to discuss the leadup, the consequences and the possible alternatives, to the battle, but the concentration has to be the battle itself, tactics, course of the battles, results, effects.
Because I have started the thread, again, I will lead into the discussion with my last post
"....in essence the points i wanted to make were
1) VVS emerged from Stalingrad with some additional skills and better survivability. For the first time they had conducted operations that had a strategic effect
2) However, though they now possessed many of the ingredients needed for an effective offensive posture, they still lacked sufficient experience and an effective doctrine to be effective in offensive operations.
3) LW continued to demostrate marked superiority in its fighter operations over the Kuban. However the campaign as a whole has to be seen as a Soviet maturing of strategy and application of airpower. No longer was the priority for theVVS to shoot down German Fighters and gain air superiority in the traditional sense. VVS fighters were there to keep losses amongst friendly bombers tolerable, and to harass German bomber operations to the point of writing them down to insignificance. losses continued to heavily favour the LW, but the LW was being reduced to no more than nuisance value....VVS completed its mission, which was now firmly wedded to the ground support mission. Germans despite inflicting very heavy losses on the VVS were unable to have any appreciable effect on the ground operations (particularly near Myshakko) and their bomber formations no longer could operate with impunity over the battlefield
4) Many LW bomber operations had to be conducted at night because of the effects of VVS fighters. Also, VVS losses were inflated by the significant effects of the newly re-constituted 9 flak division, operating at the front and with many hundreeds of heavy and light guns attached. Just the same rounds per kill for the flak arm were rising. Over Stalingrad, LW flak had expended around 5000 rounds per kill, now it was over 9000 rpk.
5) Thiings were getting harder for the LW. VVS now had a workable offensive strategy, an expanding experience base, lessons that it could absorb, and equipment that rivalled LW quality. It could always count on a numerical superiority because of the simplicity of its equipment
6) In the coming three months to Kursk, Soviet frontal Aviation in the TO was to grow by over 75% in frontline strengths which was not done at the expense of other sections of the front. Overall quality was improving in a numbe of areas....Higher echelon leadership, servicieability rates, mechanization, ground organizations, arguably even, aircrew experience. LW expansion between the end of April and the start of the battle in July was extremely modest....question then begs, with such a rapid rise in size, experience and effectiveness by the VVS in that 3 month period, was it a mistake for the germans to wait until July....should they not have continued their offensive-defensive operations as had been demonstrated by Manstein. To successfully implment this stratgy, Germans needed to at least maintain mobility for thei Infantry, but by the latter part of '43 this had gone, and with it, the last hope of salvaging anything in the east. "
I am referring here to the Kuban battles, the last great crucible before Kursk itself. I was alluding to whether the delay in joining battle so late (July) was a better idea than continuing the limited offensive/defensive postures advocated by Manstein....would the Germans have been better off with an earlier start?
The rough statistics of the Kursk battle are that the Germans entered the battle with 2100 aircraft in the front line formations. The Soviets entered the battle with about 2900 aircraft (will post a more accurate OB in my next posts). The Russians lost approximately 4 times as many aircraft as the germans (there is a lot of dispute about the figures however, which I hope to explain in the thread). The effects of the bombers for both sides are vastly overstated.....perhaps 90 tanks destroyed by the Soviets from air strikes, whilst the germans may have destroyed as many as 150 Soviet medium or heavy tanks with their stukas, if they were lucky. Like the other great myth about this battle, that it was the greatest tank battle in history (in reality it was mostly an infantry battle, fought along traditional lines, with the German flair for manouvre and breakthrough removed from the equation) Yet, air power played a crucial part in the outcome of the battle, not because of its material effects on losses, but for other, more subtle reasons. The same can be said about the effects of tanks on the battle....they were not central to the profit/loss sheet, but they were still pivotal to the execution of the battle.
Kursk is a complex battle, one of the most misunderstood battles that ever occurred. For that reason we have to work hard to keep our comments relevant. We can explore the peripheries of the battle, things like preprations, alternatives etc, but really this needs to relate to the historical context, not pure hypotheticals. And we need to do this as a cop-operative exercise...pool our resources, accept differences work together, because the subject is a complex one that can defeat us as we have already seen
Good luck guys....this is your second chance at this...use it wisely
This thread is about Kursk the air battle. I believe it relevant to discuss the leadup, the consequences and the possible alternatives, to the battle, but the concentration has to be the battle itself, tactics, course of the battles, results, effects.
Because I have started the thread, again, I will lead into the discussion with my last post
"....in essence the points i wanted to make were
1) VVS emerged from Stalingrad with some additional skills and better survivability. For the first time they had conducted operations that had a strategic effect
2) However, though they now possessed many of the ingredients needed for an effective offensive posture, they still lacked sufficient experience and an effective doctrine to be effective in offensive operations.
3) LW continued to demostrate marked superiority in its fighter operations over the Kuban. However the campaign as a whole has to be seen as a Soviet maturing of strategy and application of airpower. No longer was the priority for theVVS to shoot down German Fighters and gain air superiority in the traditional sense. VVS fighters were there to keep losses amongst friendly bombers tolerable, and to harass German bomber operations to the point of writing them down to insignificance. losses continued to heavily favour the LW, but the LW was being reduced to no more than nuisance value....VVS completed its mission, which was now firmly wedded to the ground support mission. Germans despite inflicting very heavy losses on the VVS were unable to have any appreciable effect on the ground operations (particularly near Myshakko) and their bomber formations no longer could operate with impunity over the battlefield
4) Many LW bomber operations had to be conducted at night because of the effects of VVS fighters. Also, VVS losses were inflated by the significant effects of the newly re-constituted 9 flak division, operating at the front and with many hundreeds of heavy and light guns attached. Just the same rounds per kill for the flak arm were rising. Over Stalingrad, LW flak had expended around 5000 rounds per kill, now it was over 9000 rpk.
5) Thiings were getting harder for the LW. VVS now had a workable offensive strategy, an expanding experience base, lessons that it could absorb, and equipment that rivalled LW quality. It could always count on a numerical superiority because of the simplicity of its equipment
6) In the coming three months to Kursk, Soviet frontal Aviation in the TO was to grow by over 75% in frontline strengths which was not done at the expense of other sections of the front. Overall quality was improving in a numbe of areas....Higher echelon leadership, servicieability rates, mechanization, ground organizations, arguably even, aircrew experience. LW expansion between the end of April and the start of the battle in July was extremely modest....question then begs, with such a rapid rise in size, experience and effectiveness by the VVS in that 3 month period, was it a mistake for the germans to wait until July....should they not have continued their offensive-defensive operations as had been demonstrated by Manstein. To successfully implment this stratgy, Germans needed to at least maintain mobility for thei Infantry, but by the latter part of '43 this had gone, and with it, the last hope of salvaging anything in the east. "
I am referring here to the Kuban battles, the last great crucible before Kursk itself. I was alluding to whether the delay in joining battle so late (July) was a better idea than continuing the limited offensive/defensive postures advocated by Manstein....would the Germans have been better off with an earlier start?
The rough statistics of the Kursk battle are that the Germans entered the battle with 2100 aircraft in the front line formations. The Soviets entered the battle with about 2900 aircraft (will post a more accurate OB in my next posts). The Russians lost approximately 4 times as many aircraft as the germans (there is a lot of dispute about the figures however, which I hope to explain in the thread). The effects of the bombers for both sides are vastly overstated.....perhaps 90 tanks destroyed by the Soviets from air strikes, whilst the germans may have destroyed as many as 150 Soviet medium or heavy tanks with their stukas, if they were lucky. Like the other great myth about this battle, that it was the greatest tank battle in history (in reality it was mostly an infantry battle, fought along traditional lines, with the German flair for manouvre and breakthrough removed from the equation) Yet, air power played a crucial part in the outcome of the battle, not because of its material effects on losses, but for other, more subtle reasons. The same can be said about the effects of tanks on the battle....they were not central to the profit/loss sheet, but they were still pivotal to the execution of the battle.
Kursk is a complex battle, one of the most misunderstood battles that ever occurred. For that reason we have to work hard to keep our comments relevant. We can explore the peripheries of the battle, things like preprations, alternatives etc, but really this needs to relate to the historical context, not pure hypotheticals. And we need to do this as a cop-operative exercise...pool our resources, accept differences work together, because the subject is a complex one that can defeat us as we have already seen
Good luck guys....this is your second chance at this...use it wisely
