This was the fourth English colony consisting of around 150 people and established in 1634, in what became the United States of America. It was a Catholic colony (which is not mentioned in the article). I have referenced the Battle of Severn (1655) before in recent posts: Baltimore was the seat of the first Catholic bishop in the U.S. in 1789. Georgetown University was the first Catholic University in the United States, founded in 1789 in what was then Maryland (now Washington, D.C.). Today (2014 survey) Maryland is 15% Catholic.
There are some daily medical reports in the files that I have (T354, R605, the II SS Pz Corps). Sometimes they provide a list of names and the units they are with. Sometimes this list is readable. Let me list the ones that are clearly reported with an SS panzer regiment up through 28 July 1943. An examination of the originals (which are in Freiburg) might add some more names.
Because of the poor quality of my copies, please do not take the list as definitive or correct. It is illustrative of the data that is available. An examination of the personnel files in Berlin, as Nikals Zetterling has suggested, may be far more productive.
Translations:
SS-Ustuf: is Untersturmfuehrer or a “junior assault leader” or the equivalent to a second lieutenant.
SS-Ostuf is Obersturmfuehrer or a “senior assault leader” or the equivalent to a first lieutenant.
I have not blogged much recently about Afghanistan, although we seem to be reaching a decision point as to what to do with the peace deal negotiated with the Taliban by the previous president that called for the removal of all U.S. troops from there by 1 May.
The country has been in open warfare much of the time since 1979. The latest quarterly report on Afghanistan from the United Nations Secretary General is now available. These are always worth looking at as they appear to have less “spin” then many other reports:
The report was posted 18 March. It is dated 12 March.
“The United States reduced it forces in Afghanistan to2,500 as of the mid-January 2021.” That said, there are also these reports that say we actually have 3,500 there:
Our troop strength there was around 13,000 a year ago.
There are also around 7,000 NATO and other allied troops in Afghanistan.
“The security situation worsened in 2020, during with the United Nations recorded 25,180 security-related incidents, a 10 percent increase from the 22,832 incidents recorded in 2019.”
See chart below.
“…the number of armed clashes increased…from 13,155 in 2019 to 15,581 in 2020.”
“…the number of detonations caused by improved explosive devices [IEDs] rose…from 1,949 in 2019 to 2,572 in 2020.”
“…assassinations…from 782 in 2019 to 993 in 2020″.
“The United Nations recorded 7,138 security-related incidents between 13 November and 11 February, a 46.7 per cent increase compared wit the same period in 2020 and contrasting with traditionally lower numbers during the winter season.
“…armed classes accounted for 63.6 per cent of all incidents.
“Anti-government elements initiated 85.7 per cent of all security-related incidents, including 92.1 per cent of armed clashes.”
“…the number of airstrikes declined…in 2020…from 1,663 in 2019 to 938 in 2020.
“UNAMA documented 8,820 civilian casualties (3,035 killed, including 390 women and 760 children; and 5,785 injured, including 756 women and 1,859 children) in 2020.”
This represents a 15 percent decrease compared with 2019, mainly because of fewer civilian casualties from suicide [bombings], from complex attacks carried out by anti-government elements and from air strikes by international military forces.”
“However, UNAMA documented increases in civilian casualties from targeted killings by anti-government elements, Taliban pressure-plate improvised explosive devices, and Afghan Air Force air strikes.”
“In the last quarter of 2020, UNAMA documented a 45 perc ent increase in civilian casualties compared with the same period in 2019.”
“In 2020, the majority of civilian casualties were caused by anti-government elements (62 percent), mainly by the Taliban (45 per cent), ISIL-K (8 per cent) and undetermined anti-government elements (9 percent).”
“A quarter of all civilian casualties were attributed to pro-government forces, mostly caused by Afghan national security forces (22 per cent), followed by international military forces, pro-government armed groups, and undetermined or multiple pro-government forces.”
“Ground engagements were the leading incident type causing the most civilian casualties (36 percent), followed by suicide and non-suicide improvised explosive devices (34 per cent), targeted killings (14 per cent) and air strikes (8 per cent).
Security Incidences Civilian
Year Incidences Per Month Deaths
2008 8,893 741
2009 11,524 960
2010 19,403 1,617
2011 22,903 1,909
2012 18,441? 1,537? *
2013 20,093 1,674 2,959
2014 22,051 1,838 3,699
2015 22,634 1,886 3,545
2016 23,712 1,976 3,498
2017 23,744 1,979 3,438
2018 22,478 1,873 3,804
2019 22,832 1,903 3,403
2020 25,180 2,098 3,035
Now, on 29 February 2020 in Doha the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement to reduce the number of U.S. forces from 13,000 to 8,600 troops in 135 days with a proportional reduction in the number of coalition forces. It is to be followed by the drawdown of all international forces within another nine and half months. The U.S. is now down to 2,500-3,500 troops. This is subject to the Taliban fulfilling their commitments under the agreement. There is still no agreement between the current government of Afghanistan and the Taliban.
As I have mentioned before, I am preparing a little write-up for the Italian wargame company Advancing Fire for their game Prokhorovka! (PROKHOROVKA! (advancingfire.com). They are designing a set of scenarios for use in the game Advanced Squad Leader (ASL). They have been providing me with some of their advance material, although I am not involved in the design of the game.
They are drawing their ASL maps from German aerial photographs of the battlefield. This is is one of the aerial photographs they are using. It is of the area Storozhevoye, some 3 1/2 kilometers south of height 252.2.
The link to their game board is below. Just click on it and the game board should appear.
It helps to spin the image 90 degrees to the right to match it up with the aerial photograph. Also worth looking at is the 1:50000 scale map M 37-38A in my Kursk and Prokhorovka books. The area is mostly in between the grid lines 35 and 36 and 51 to 53 (two square kilometers).
Now, I have looked their work, but I am hardly the right person to conduct photo analysis. Still, it looked pretty good to me. If anyone has any comments, criticisms, recommendations, corrections, edits, and so forth for this map, please let me know. I will forward the comments to them.
Colorized picture from California, 1918. Source: reddit
In general the number of cases from coronavirus remains the same as it was last week. It is still high and needs to come down further. This is weekly update number 50 on the coronavirus in the DC area.
This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 5,549 new cases. There were 5,774 new cases last week. Eight weeks ago it was 18,934 new cases. Nineteen weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases.
Almost all of Europe is still struggling with controlling the spread of the disease. Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is still struggling with 20K new cases reported for yesterday, the same as last week. The UK is actually bringing it under control for a change (5K yesterday). Its high was 68K new cases on 8 January. Yesterday they reported for France (36K), Spain (5K), Germany (18K) and Russia (9K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 54K new cases yesterday. This is about the same as last two weeks (55K and 57K) but an improvement from the high of 300K new cases on 2 January. This is in contrast to places like China (22 cases), Japan (1,142), South Korea (469), Taiwan (5 on 3/15), Vietnam (3), Singapore (11), Australia (17) and New Zealand (2).
The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 cases thirty-seven weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 12:25 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE
……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….41,910.….42,730…….1,044 Arlington, VA……………..237,521..….13,481……13,729……….243 Alexandria VA……………160,530……10,468……10,643…..….129 Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795.…..67,945……69,041…….1,040 Falls Church, VA…………..14,772.………360….…….370…………10 Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574..………501………..507…………16 Loudoun County, VA….…406,850……23,589……24,197…..….267
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011…….40,055……40,625………471 Manassas…………………..41,641..……..4,054……..4,089.………44 Manassas Park………….…17,307….…..1,129…..…1,145…….…12
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……..9,715…..…9,858…….…69 Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144…….1,798……..1,825…….…22 Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……64,273……65,053……1,446 Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……74,704……75,719…….1,356 Total……….…….….……..5,365,425…..353,982….359,531…….6,169
This is a 2% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.72%. This last week there were 69 new fatalities reported out of 5,549 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 1.24%. The population known to have been infected is 6.70% or one confirmed case for every 15 people. The actual rate of infection may be higher, perhaps as much as four times higher.
Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This includes James Madison (JMU) at Harrisonburg, University of Virginia (UVA) at Charlottesville. Liberty University (LU) at Lynchburg and Virginia Tech (VT) at Blacksburg. Most of them were emptied out due to Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. Most of these universities went back in session in mid-January, except for UVA, which started its sessions at the beginning of February. I do not report on places like William and Mary (W&M) and VCU as they are located in or near major population centers.
Harrisonburg, VA (pop. 54K) is reporting 5,961 cases (5,822 last week) and 95 deaths (up 24 in the last three weeks), while Rockingham County (pop. 81K), where the town resides, is reporting 6,187 cases (6,135 last week) and 104 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.
Charlottesville, VA (pop. 47K) has reported 3,738 cases (3,679 last week) and 49 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA (pop. 109K), where the town resides, has reported 5,081 cases (4,979 last week) and 77 deaths (up 29 in the last three weeks). This is where UVA is located.
For UVA (https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker), after peaking at 229 new cases on 2/16, they had imposed new restrictions. The number of cases dropped precipitously and they partially eased up the restrictions. This Monday (3/15) there were only 3 new cases. It does show what can be done with quick reaction and actual lock-down procedures.
Lynchburg (pop. 82K), the home of Liberty University, has reported 6,986 cases (6,948 last week) cases and 141 deaths (81 deaths these in the last eight weeks).
Further south, Montgomery County, VA (pop. 99K) has reported 8,460 cases (8,133 last week) and 91 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.
Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 1,276 new cases yesterday. Last week it as 1,537 cases. Seven weeks ago it was 4,707. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.
Dare County, North Carolina (pop. 37K), a beach area in the outer banks, has 1,906 cases (1,878 last week) and 8 deaths.
I was asked recently about wargaming in the U.S. Army, and I kind of punted on the question. I then got a friend of mine to answer it. The wargaming efforts we have been involved in have been primarily for analysis and casualty estimation efforts. We have not been involved in wargaming for training, officer development, or development of planning. Other people have been doing that, I gather with mixed results. Here is two recent articles on the subject that were forwarded to me:
One other statement in the Lehmann account is that “These three [surviving tanks of the 6th panzer company] could fire at the Russians from a distance of ten to thirty meters and make every shell a direct hit because the Russians could not see through the dust and smoke that there were German tanks rolling along with them in the same direction. There were already nineteen Russian tanks standing burning on the battlefield when the Abteilung opened fire for the first time (footnote: “report from von Ribbentrop”).”
So, that account states that 19 Russian tanks were destroyed before the 5th and 7th company opened fire on them. Ribbentrop himself was credited with 14 tanks this day. Now, this could well be an exaggerated tally (and there are many examples of this), but let us take it seriously for a moment.
The attacking force was most of the 32nd Tank Brigade and the 25th Tank Brigade. The 25th Tank Brigade on 1600 11 July reported having 31 T-34s and 36 T-70s ready for action (they report 4 tanks in repair). The 32nd Tank Brigade on 1600 11 July reported having 60 T-34s and 4 T-70s. It is reported that at least 15 T-34s penetrated to the Komsomolets Sovkhoz in the original attack, where they were all destroyed. The 31st Tank Brigade (29 T-34s and 38 T-70s) was in the second echelon of the attack. So the total number of tanks in this initial attack force would have been 131 minus 15 detached = 116.
The 25th Tank Brigade on 2400 12 July reported that 13 T-34s and 10 T-70s were irretrievably lost, 11 T-34s and 10 T-70s were knocked out or hit mines and 7 T-34s and 4 T-70s were out of action due to technical breakdowns. So out of 67 tanks, 44 combat losses, 11 breakdowns and 12 or so remaining ready-for-action. The brigade was operating on the “other side” of the railroad track, and also probably also encountered the German self-propelled AT guns (Marders).
The 32nd Tank Brigade on 2400 12 July reported that 54 T-34s were either burned, knocked out, or are in need of repair. So at best 6 T-34s and 4 T-70s ready for action. Of those 54 combat losses, we gather at least 15 were lost at Komsomolets Sovkhoz, which is out of the area under discussion here.
If 11 of the 55 losses (20%) of the 25th Tank Brigade were mechanical, then it appears that there were also mechanical breakdowns among the remaining 54 – 15 lost T-34s. A straight line estimate would say 8. So total combat losses in these two tank brigades in an around the tank fields appear to be around 44 + 54 -15 – 8 = 75. Now, if Ribbentrop and company got 19 of them then we are looking at 56 other tanks put out action in combat by either 5th and 7th panzer company, artillery, antitank guns, aircraft, mines (they do specifically mention mines in the Soviet reports), German infantry on height 252.2 (which was also attacked by tanks), German Marders, Soviet aircraft (the 32nd Tank Brigade reports that it was attacked at 1300 by Soviet assault aircraft), or by operations later in the day, etc. So how many of these 56 other lost tanks actually drove into the tank ditch? I am guessing not a lot.
Added to that, the battle continued throughout the day, and clearly while many of these tanks were lost in the morning attack, some were lost later in the day.
Now, there are some accounts that seem to want to want to have lots of tanks rolling into tank ditches. But between the 6th Panzer Company, the rest of the II Panzer Battalion, the German artillery, German antitank guns, German air, Soviet air, mines, Marders and German infantry… then, who was left to roll into the tank ditch? Certainly not a lot.
Again, the tank ditch story is sometimes overstated. There is probably a reason why Captain Rudolf von Ribbentrop never mentions any Soviet tanks driving into the tank ditch in his account of the action.
Colorized picture from California, 1918. Source: reddit
In general the number of cases from coronavirus remains the same as it was last week. It is still high and needs to come down further. This is weekly update number 49 on the coronavirus in the DC area.
This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 5,774 new cases. There were 5,255 new cases last week. Seven weeks ago it was 18,934 new cases. Eighteen weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases.
Almost all of Europe is still struggling with controlling the spread of the disease. Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is still struggling with 20K new cases reported for yesterday. The UK is actually bringing it under control for a change (6K yesterday). Its high was 68K new cases on 8 January. Yesterday they reported for France (23K), Spain (4K), Germany (7K) and Russia (9K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 57K new cases yesterday. This is about the same as last week (55K) but an improvement from the high of 300K new cases on 2 January. This is in contrast to places like China (26 cases), Japan (1,175), South Korea (470), Taiwan (1), Vietnam (2), Singapore (6), Australia (13) and New Zealand (1).
The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 cases thirty-six weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 10:26 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE
……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….40,767……41,910…….1,037 Arlington, VA……………..237,521..…..13,215…..13,481…..…..240 Alexandria VA……………160,530…….10,352…..10,468………..127 Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795.……66,825…..67,945…….1,027 Falls Church, VA…………..14,772.………..353………360….………9 Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574..………..492………501……..…16 Loudoun County, VA….…406,850…….23,183…..23,589……….260
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011……..39,472….40,055……….459 Manassas…………………..41,641..………4,010……4,054…………42 Manassas Park………….…17,307….……1,126……1,129…………12
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960………9,620……9,715…………68 Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144……..1,785……1,798…………22 Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……63,499…..64,273…….1,435 Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……73,509…..74,704…….1,346 Total……….…….….……..5,365,425…..348,208…353,982…….6,100
This is a 2% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.72%. This last week there were 193 new fatalities reported out of 5,774 new cases. This is the highest we have seen. This is a mortality rate of 3.34%, but this high figure is clearly a result of the declining infection rate while the mortality figures are lagged. The population known to have been infected is 6.60% or one confirmed case for every 15 people. The actual rate of infection may be higher, perhaps as much as four times higher.
Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This includes James Madison (JMU) at Harrisonburg, University of Virginia (UVA) at Charlottesville and Virginia Tech (VT) at Blacksburg. Most of them were emptied out due to Thanksgiving and the upcoming Christmas holidays. Most of these universities went back in session in mid-January, except for UVA, which started its sessions a the beginning of February.
Harrisonburg, VA (pop. 54K) is reporting 5,822 cases (5,733 last week) and 94 deaths (up 23 in the last two weeks), while Rockingham County (pop. 81K), where the town resides, is reporting 6,135 cases (6,061 last week) and 101 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.
Charlottesville, VA (pop. 47K) has reported 3,679 cases (3,636 last week) and 46 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA (pop. 109K), where the town resides, has reported 4,979 cases (4,867 last week) and 74 deaths (up 26 in the last two weeks). This is where UVA is located.
UVA had good covid tracker website: https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker. Five weeks ago they recorded 82 new cases from Monday through Friday. Four weeks ago they recorded 238 new cases from Monday through Friday. Three weeks ago it was 737 new cases from Monday through Friday. Needless to say, they put in more stringent lock-down procedures, and the number of cases have been in decline since a peak of 229 new cases on 2/16. Two weeks ago there were 186 new cases from Monday through Friday and this last week there were 34 new cases from Monday through Friday. They have now relaxed some of the lock down procedures. What is surprising about this is how rapidly it rose and how rapidly it declined. This Monday (3/8) there were only 6 new cases from a peak of 229 less than three weeks ago. It sort of shows what can be done with quick reaction and actual lock-down procedures.
Lynchburg (pop. 82K), the home of Liberty University, has reported 6,948 cases (6,922 last week) cases and 141 deaths (81 deaths these in the last seven weeks).
Further south, Montgomery County, VA (pop. 99K) has reported 8,133 cases (7,751 last week) and 89 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.
Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 1,537 cases yesterday. Last week it as 1,385 cases. Six weeks ago it was 4,707. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.
Dare County, North Carolina (pop. 37K), a beach area in the outer banks, has 1,878 cases (1,862 last week) and 8 deaths.
Trevor Dupuy is mentioned four times in the eleventh paragraph of the article:
“One notable practitioner of this was military historian and World War II artillery officer Trevor Dupuy.”
“For example, Trevor Dupuy undertook a closer examination of combat records and found, and documented, that German troops generally outfought their opponents.”
“If it hadn’t been for the research of American historian Trevor Dupuy in the 1970s and 80s, these critical differences might still sit unnoticed in musty archives.”
“Dupuy’s calculations brought forth the reasons why some allied, German, Russian and Japanese divisions were better than others:”
Anyhow, don’t know who the author is, but appreciate the mention. The Strategy Page is run by Jim Dunnigan, Austin Bay, Al Nofi, Dan Masterson and Stephen V. Cole and others.
In the case of how the LSSAH Panzer Regiment was organized in July 1943 (as there is no clear documentation of this), there are three options:
1) The regiment consisted of only the II Panzer Battalion with 5th, 6th, and 7th panzer companies, and the 13th panzer company for the Tigers.
2) The II Panzer Battalion had the 8th panzer company active.
3) The regiment consisted of the II Panzer Battalion with the 5th, 6th, and 7th panzer companies, and the 143h panzer company for the Tigers, and an ersatz I Panzer Battalion of maybe three companies.
Let me briefly outline the strengths and weaknesses of these three arguments:
The three medium panzer company argument:
Strengths
This is the traditional position.
This is what all the post-war narratives say.
There is nothing that solidly disproves this.
Weaknesses
This makes little sense with 90 Pz III and IVs and 9 Panzer III Command tanks (in addition to the Pz I command tank).
The companies would have had 31 tanks to start the battle with.
But Ribbentrop says they started with 22.
On 12 July, if Ribbentrop had 7 tanks, then the other two companies had at least 22 tanks each.
The four medium panzer company argument
Strengths
You can almost fit the 90 tanks into four companies at 22 tanks a company.
Compromise answer that avoids creating an ersatz Panzer battalion.
Weaknesses
Not documented in any unit records I have seen.
The one source mentioning the 8th company specifically states that it was not used for Citadel due to “lack of tanks”.
The two battalion argument
Strengths:
Accounts for all the tanks on 4 July.
Accounts for all the tanks on 11 July (based upon Lehmann’s claim that II Panzer Battalion had 33 tanks).
This is what Das Reich did.
The “I Panzer Battalion” is actually referenced twice on 8 July 1943 in German records.
Weaknesses
Was never mentioned in any of the post-war accounts.
So readers…did the LSSAH Panzer Regiment in July 1943 have 1) only II Battalion of three medium companies, 2) only II Battalion of four medium companies, 3) or an ersatz I Battalion in addition to the II Battalion of three medium panzer companies?
