Glantz and Kursk

[RCHarmon]

Since Glantz is discussed a lot around here I was wondering what he has written on the Battle of Kursk?

For a long time it was considered a complete Soviet victory. From my understanding it is now looked at not so clear cut. Model in the north of the salient was stopped cold, but in the south Manstein had some success. The great tanks battle around Perestroika was actually a partial German victory. The support given was that the Soviet suffered a lot of tank losses while the German suffered few. Manstein wanted to commit his reserves, but Hitler baulked and ended the whole advance. The units that had supposedly lost so many tanks remained combat effective for a long time after the battle of Kursk indicating that they hadn't suffered the losses that the Soviets said they had.

In the end the Battle of Kursk caused losses that the Reich couldn't afford speeding up the end of the war.


http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-kur ... war-ii.htm


Prochorovka (also spelled Prokhorovka) is the proper name. I stand corrected. I had not properly checked the spelling before posting.

[janh]

ORIGINAL: RCH
Since Glantz is discussed a lot around here I was wondering what he has written on the Battle of Kursk?

For a long time it was considered a complete Soviet victory. From my understanding it is now looked at not so clear cut. Model in the north of the salient was stopped cold, but in the south Manstein had some success. The great tanks battle around Perestroika was actually a partial German victory. The support given was that the Soviet suffered a lot of tank losses while the German suffered few. Manstein wanted to commit his reserves, but Hitler baulked and ended the whole advance. The units that had supposedly lost so many tanks remained combat effective for a long time after the battle of Kursk indicating that they hadn't suffered the losses that the Soviets said they had.

In the end the Battle of Kursk caused losses that the Reich couldn't afford speeding up the end of the war.

http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-kur ... war-ii.htm

Good question. Although Glantz needs to be considered with a grain of salt just as all the other historical studies, I consider him one of the most actual on the topics and his studies seem to be well researched as far I can tell. Doesn't mean he is necessary right, or the state of understanding wouldn't change in the future, but he certainly cannot be ignored.

As to the question of Kursk, my opinion is that had it been launched earlier as desired by Mannstein, it may have produced some fruits. But even then, would a few divisions more captured have made any difference at the strategic scale? Not so much, perhaps at best it may have caused the Soviets to be more cautions and delay their late summer offensives, offering a longer pause for the Wehrmacht to refit, entrench and prepare. Perhaps even offering the chance for a gambit, moving some Panzers to Italy in the nick of time.

Kursk as it happened does seem more like a draw at the operational level, and a German defeat at the strategic level. It depleted many of the remaining high-quality formations, and the losses in experienced personnel appear to have turned out afterwards particularly detrimental. In the bigger picture, the Germans might have done better to go on the strategic defense after Kharkov II, and should perhaps have used these formations as firebrigades in the coming months and year. Perhaps if detached to Italy for the summer they might have at least made a difference there. But as it stands, Kursk seems to me a big waste of resources.

[Flaviusx]

The Germans inflicted AFV losses on a 3:2 ratio in Prokorovkha or so, yes. But it was they who quit the field, not the Sovs, and the Sovs still had uncommitted reserves.

It wasn't a cheap win, but it was a win, bottom line.

Within a month all these units, beaten up as they were, launched their own offensive and cracked the Belgorod-Karkhov position for good (while Manstein was distracted by Tolbukhin down south, thinking that the Sovs couldn't recover that quickly.)

This was a rare case of Manstein being wrong, and Hitler being right. Had Manstein continued to press the offensive he would've gotten chewed up even further. He never realized that the Sovs still had half of an entire Front as yet not committed (the rump of Steppe front.) Glantz doesn't dispute any of this, he just fills in the details.

All that being said, Manstein's instincts prior to Kursk were the right ones; he was dubious about the whole operation by that point. But once it got going, his blood was up and he never went in for half measures, which is mostly a good thing, but not in this particular case.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: RCH

The great tanks battle around Perestroika was actually a partial German victory.

Hehe, you mean Prokhorovka? [:D]

Kursk was more of a perestrelka than perestroika [;)] (perestrioka = restructuring = what Gorbachev was trying to do, perestrelka = exchange of fire).

[TulliusDetritus]

To some the glass is half full [:D] Too bad it's almost empty!!

1941: huge German offensive along the whole front
1942: er, they only can afford an offensive in the south
1943: er, they can only attack a really small portion of the front (Kursk) [:D]

Can't you see a difference going on here? Not to mention that the Soviets knew (2 months before the attack) that the Germans would be attacking. They had in fact their own plans but decided to let the the Germans attack first, smash them and then carry on with their own offensive. Which was done.

So what victory are we talking about? "We smashed more tanks, we smashed more tanks!" Big deal! Too bad this did not stop the Red Army a iota...

[marcpennington]

For Prokhorovka, I can't recommend more highly Valeriy Zamulin's Demolishing the Myth. It's the best researched, cogently analyzed and balanced military history of any portion of the East Front that I've read. If only other authors could get the same kind of access he had to Red Army archives, including highly sensitive matters such as friendly fire incidents and confidential personal records. But even there I doubt many scholars would have the analytical skill and technical expertise to cut through these records like Zamulin does.

But from his research, it's hard not to to view the Soviet counter-attack at Prokhorovka as a cluster-f*#K on just about every level, if one that was much smaller in terms of engaged tanks then the historical legends built around it. (And there was never really a meeting engagement in the sense of tanks dueling it out in open fields--- it was Soviet tanks vs. entrenched German anti-tank assets.) That said, though, if Prokhorovka was a German tactical success, Kursk was already an operational failure by that date--- I just see no way the southern pincer could have advanced much further from the Psel line, and the northern pincer had already been halted. The Steppe Front was still there, after all. And such talk as if only Hitler had released the XXIV Panzer Corps is absurd--- as Zamulin points out, that Corps was vastly understrength and had barely over a 100 operational tanks at the time of the battle.

[RCHarmon]

No one is disputing that by the Battle of Kursk the war was lost to the Axis.

When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941 the historians didn't say, "Well this war is over. There is no point in recording anything." They recorded the war in books and articles. Were they wrong to do so?

Making absolute statements are foolishness. Here is one as an example, "We need only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down,"---Hitler.

As a rule, nothing is certain until it is done. History teaches us this, if anyone is willing to listen.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: RCH

No one is disputing that by the Battle of Kursk the war was lost to the Axis.

When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941 the historians didn't say, "Well this war is over. There is no point in recording anything." They recorded the war in books and articles. Were they wrong to do so?

Making absolute statements are foolishness. Here is one as an example, "We need only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down,"---Hitler.

Operations have ultimate goals. I mean, this is not a videogame in which the side which destroys more tanks wins. The German goal (at least that's what Hitler himself said) was preventing a Red Army offensive in 1943. Ergo, it is a Soviet victory no matter the local, tactical victories.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: RCH

When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941 the historians didn't say, "Well this war is over. There is no point in recording anything." They recorded the war in books and articles. Were they wrong to do so?

As a rule, nothing is certain until it is done. History teaches us this, if anyone is willing to listen.

Historians (note I make the difference between them and the military historians) are supposed to explain why and how the war was lost [;)] They never ever waste their time with "ifs". Once you more or less know what happened (and why and how) you obviously can make some pertinent deductions...

"Nothing is certain until it is done" aka Hitler's gamble... We all know how it worked...

[76mm]

Surprised no one has linked to the book yet, here it is on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Battle-Kursk- ... 380&sr=8-7

I have only read a couple of his books and cannot say that they are a thrilling read...

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

Surprised no one has linked to the book yet, here it is on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Battle-Kursk- ... 380&sr=8-7

I have only read a couple of his books and cannot say that they are a thrilling read...

They are a chore to read through. It's safe to say they will never be made into a movie.

But they are worth the effort.

[hfarrish]

I don't know - I was give the book as a gift (my friends know me...) years ago and thought it such an intense leaden slog that I didn't last long. Especially difficult we're all the Company X moved here, while Company Y moved there...


I guess there is an audience somewhere for that stuff, but I'm not a part of it.

[hjc]

ORIGINAL: hfarrish

Especially difficult we're all the Company X moved here, while Company Y moved there...


I guess there is an audience somewhere for that stuff, but I'm not a part of it.

Having read quite a few of his books I know what you mean. They are intended mostly as a reference work, and certainly don't romp along. But there is a genuine audience, small as it might be. For example many wargame scenario designers like his books because they can design authentic scenarios of battles that actually occurred, and include specific units that took part while knowing exactly where they were headed and what their goals were.

[hfarrish]

Are other Glantz titles better (at least in a readability sense) or do they all tend to be in the same vein? Given how much he is thrown around here I was thinking about giving him another shot with something else. Opinions would be helpful.

[hjc]

I've not read all of Glantz's works so my opinion might change later on, but for readability I can't really recommend him. I'm not putting him down, I value his books but not for readability, but rather the sometimes overwhelmingly dense amount of information they contain.

The most readable of his I have, in the sense that it isn't a blow by blow operational study of each company and regiment's movements every day, is "operation barbarossa".

As an example of more readable operational account, I just finished 'The Korsun Pocket - the encirclement and breakout of a German Army in the East, 1944' by Niklas Zetterling & Anders Frankson.

It's a great mix of operational and first hand accounts, and very readable. In fact I stayed up later than I should a couple nights running because I couldn't put it down.

I hope Zetterling writes more like this.

http://www.amazon.com/KORSUN-POCKET-Enc ... 935149849/

[Flaviusx]

He's gotten somewhat better over time, his earliest books from the 90's are very tough sledding.

His best books are the ones coauthored with Jonathan House, who actually writes fairly well. That's a large part of the reason When Titans Clashed worked out so well and has become the standard single volume book on the war from the Soviet viewpoint. If you want to read a single work by Glantz and not torture yourself overly, that's the one to pick up.

[hfarrish]

Thanks - I'll grab that one and try it out.

[marcpennington]

If you're looking for something specifically on Kursk, the Zamulin book I mentioned above is a very good read despite it mass of technical data:

http://www.amazon.com/Demolishing-Myth- ... 856&sr=8-1

It's not whiz bang Paul Carrel/Stephen Ambrose kind of stuff, but it is a rock solid piece of scholarship that raises the bar (and then rips the bar out and throws it away) on what tactical scholarship on the East Front can accomplish with virtually unlimited access to the Red Army archives. (The author is director of the national battlefield at Prokhorovka, which must have helped.)

But as far as Glantz goes, although I am a tremendous fan of his work, and feel his judgments are mostly spot on, I am also usually just as maddened by the sloppiness of his writing. If he feels the need to quote one more Red Army General Staff daily summary making mention of place names and mile markers that are no where in the maps in the book... Let alone that the General Staff daily summaries are hardly the most revelatory and direct source of information on local conditions. And the typos: I swear, someone needs to stand over him as he writes and slap the back of his head every time he confuses "left" and "right." Albeit, trying to catch as many of these mistakes as possible can make for a good drinking game--- I think I caught 10 or 11 of them in just the first section of one chapter in To the Gates of Stalingrad...

That said, anyone read Barbarossa Derailed Volume 2 yet? I haven't tried ordering it yet after so many false release dates, but it appears like it it actually published.

[usersatch]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

All that being said, Manstein's instincts prior to Kursk were the right ones; he was dubious about the whole operation by that point.

The giant Soviet artillery barrage minutes before the German offensive kicked off might have been a good sign not to attack, too.

[hjc]

ORIGINAL: map66

That said, anyone read Barbarossa Derailed Volume 2 yet? I haven't tried ordering it yet after so many false release dates, but it appears like it it actually published.

I saw today that it's actually in stock. What did you think of Volume 1?