Category Kursk

The war is really not stalemated. The Russians continue to advance in Ukraine. This is causing some concern.

In the Pokrovsk area, the Russians are advancing at a rate of up to a kilometer a day. They have advanced 8 kilometers over the last two weeks (according to @J_Jhelin). They are threatening the village of Prohres (which is 26 kilometers northwest of Donets and 22 kilometers east of Prokrovsk).

Prokrovsk is a town of 60, 127 (2022 estimate). The Prokrovsk raion is one of the eight raions of Donetsk Oblast (province). This raion was not part of the Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR). According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, it was 86.8% Ukrainian and 11.3% Russian. 

Now, this is not an earthshaking offensive, but, repeated advances does put stress on the defenders. The real danger is if they could turn this advance into a breakthrough. Once units breakthrough, defender casualties go up significantly and the attacker’s rate of advance goes up. Let us look at some history (i.e. real combat examples) of casualties and advance rates.

In our various data bases, we ended up coding a number of our engagements by outcome. Outcome III is failed advance, outcome IV is attack advances, and outcome V is defender penetrated. So for example (from Table 8.6 in War by Numbers, page 65):  

Summation (195 engagements):

Outcome              Failed       Advances   Penetrated
                               III             IV                  V

Number of Engagements:

                              54                71                33

Attacker percent casualties per day:

                             2.98            1.20             0.83

Defender percent casualties per day:

                            2.62             2.96            6.40

Now, this is mostly division-level engagements but the pattern is clear. When the attack fails the attacker losses are more than the defender, especially as the attacker usually outnumbers the defender. When the attack advances, losses are roughly equal (1.20 vs 2.96%, except the attacker usually outnumbers the defender). When a penetration is achieved, the defender clearly losses more than the attacker, and a significant percent of those losses are captured in action (47.20%). The 195 engagements come from the Italian Campaign (75 engagements 1943-44), Ardennes Campaign (71 engagements 1944-45) and Kursk (49 engagements).

The same pattern exists for post-war engagements (see Table 8.7, War by Numbers, page 67).

Post-World War II (61 engagements):

Outcome              Failed      Advances    Penetrated
                               III            IV                  V

Number of Engagements:

                              14               8                 33

Attacker percent casualties per day:

                             3.20            1.60             1.36

Defender percent casualties per day:

                            2.80             4.83           15.10

Now, we recently put together a similar table using our Campaign Database (CaDB). These are army-level operations up to 60 days in length. This was presented at the 2nd HAAC, in Norway and at the latest HADSS conference. I have not written them up in a book yet (i.e. More War by Numbers). There are 94 cases coded:

Outcome            III      IV        V

  Cases                 10       29         21

  Force Ratios    1.80    2.69     2.75

  Loss Ratios      1.66    1.51      0.64

Note the same loss pattern exists here.

Now, I do have a chapter on Advance Rates in War by Numbers. Below is a repeat of part of Table 14.1, page 177. It is broken out by campaign. The numbers given are kilometers opposed advance per day for division-level engagements.

Outcome                    III        IV       V

Italian Campaign     0.74     1.76     2.53

Ardennes                   0.45     3.71     5.00

Kursk                         0.58      5.18   11.43 

So……

1. The advance rates in Ukraine are pretty much in line with outcome III and IV engagements. 
2. The advance rates are fairly low compared to the other cases we have.
3. Will discuss casualties later.

This does not look like the next Brusilov Offensive (June – September 1916).