Category Kursk

Battles versus Campaigns (for Validation)

So we created three campaign databases. One of the strangest arguments I have heard against doing validations or testing combat models to historical data, is that this is only one outcome from history. So you don’t know if model is in error or if this was a unusual outcome to the historical event. Someone described it as the N=1 argument. There are lots of reasons why I am not too impressed with this argument that I may enumerate in a later blog post. It certainly might apply to testing the model to just one battle (like the Battle of 73 Easting in 1991), but these are weeks-long campaign databases with hundreds of battles. One can test the model to these hundreds of points in particular in addition to testing it to the overall result.

In the case of the Kursk Data Base (KDB), we have actually gone through the data base and created from it 192 division-level engagements. This covers every single combat action by every single division during the two week offensive around Belgorod. Furthermore, I have listed each and every one of these as an “engagement sheet’ in my book on Kursk. The 192 engagement sheets are a half-page or page-long tabulation of the strengths and losses for each engagement for all units involved. Most sheets cover one day of battle. It took considerable work to assemble these. First one had to figure out who was opposing whom (especially as unit boundaries never match) and then work from there. So, if someone wants to test a model or model combat or do historical analysis, one could simply assemble a database from these 192 engagements. If one wanted more details on the engagements, there are detailed breakdowns of the equipment in the Kursk Data Base and detailed descriptions of the engagements in my Kursk book. My new Prokhorovka book (release date 1 June), which only covers the part of the southern offensive around Prokhorovka from the 9th of July, has 76 of those engagements sheets. Needless to say, these Kursk engagements also make up 192 of the 752 engagements in our DLEDB (Division Level Engagement Data Base).  A picture of that database is shown at the top of this post.

So, if you are conducting a validation to the campaign, take a moment and check the results to each division to each day. In the KDB there were 17 divisions on the German side, and 37 rifle divisions and 10 tank and mechanized corps (a division-sized unit) on the Soviet side. The data base covers 15 days of fighting. So….there are around 900 points of daily division level results to check the results to. I drawn your attention to this graph:

There are a number of these charts in Chapter 19 of my book War by Numbers. Also see:

Validating Attrition

The Ardennes database is even bigger. There was one validation done by CAA (Center for Army Analysis) of its CEM model (Concepts Evaluation Model) using the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Bases (ACSDB). They did this as an overall comparison to the campaign. So they tracked the front line trace at the end of the battle, and the total tank losses during the battle, ammunition consumption and other events like that. They got a fairly good result. What they did not do was go into the weeds and compare the results of the engagements. CEM relies on inputs from ATCAL (Attrition Calculator) which are created from COSAGE model runs. So while they tested the overall top-level model, they really did not test ATCAL or COSAGE, the models that feed into it. ATCAL and COSAGE I gather are still in use. In the case of Ardennes you have 36 U.S. and UK divisions and 32 German divisions and brigades over 32 days, so over 2,000 division days of combat. That is a lot of data points to test to.

Now we have not systematically gone through the ACSDB and assembled a record for every single engagement there. There would probably be more than 400 such engagements. We have assembled 57 engagements from the Battle of the Bulge for our division-level database (DLEDB). More could be done.

Finally, during our Battle of Britain Data Base effort, we recommended developing an air combat engagement database of 120 air-to-air engagements from the Battle of Britain. We did examine some additional mission specific data for the British side derived from the “Form F” Combat Reports for the period 8-12 August 1940. This was to demonstrate the viability of developing an engagement database from the dataset. So we wanted to do something similar for the air combat that we had done with division-level combat. An air-to-air engagement database would be very useful if you are developing any air campaign wargame. This unfortunately was never done by us as the project (read: funding) ended.

As it is we actually have three air campaign databases to work from, the Battle of Britain data base, the air component of the Kursk Data Base, and the air component of the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base. There is a lot of material to work from. All it takes it a little time and effort.

I will discuss the division-level data base in more depth in my next post.

The Use of the Two Campaign Data Bases

The two large campaign data bases, the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base (ACSDB) and the Kursk Data Base (KDB) were designed to use for validation. Some of the data requirements, like mix of personnel in each division and the types of ammunition used, were set up to match exactly the categories used in the Center for Army Analysis’s (CAA) FORCEM campaign combat model. Dr. Ralph E. Johnson, the program manager for FORCEM was also the initial contract manager for the ACSDB.

FORCEM was never completed. It was intended to be an improvement to CAA’s Concepts Evaluation Model (CEM) which dated back to the early 1970s. So far back that my father had worked with it. CAA ended up reverting back to CEM in the 1990s.

They did validate the CEM using the ACSDB. Some of their reports are here (I do not have the link to the initial report by the industrious Walt Bauman):

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a320463.pdf

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a489349.pdf

It is one of the few actual validations ever done, outside of TDI’s (The Dupuy Institute) work. CEM is no longer used by CAA. The Kursk Data Base has never used for validation. Instead they tested Lanchester equations to the ACSDB and KDB. They failed.

Lanchester equations have been weighed….

But the KDB became the darling for people working on their master’s thesis for the Naval Post-Graduate School. Much of this was under the direction of Dr. Tom Lucas. Some of their reports are listed here:

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/links.htm

Both the ACSDB and KDB had a significant air component. The air battle over the just the German offensive around Belgorod to the south of Kursk was larger than the Battle of Britain. The Ardennes data base had 1,705 air files. The Kursk data base had 753. One record, from the old Dbase IV version of the Kursk data base, is the picture that starts this blog post. These files basically track every mission for every day, to whatever level of detail the unit records allowed (which were lacking). The air campaign part of these data bases have never been used for any analytical purpose except our preliminary work on creating the Dupuy Air Campaign Model (DACM).

The Dupuy Air Campaign Model (DACM)

This, of course, leads into our next blog post on the Battle of Britain data base.

Hausser Wielding Chalk

The Battle of Prokhorovka took place on 12 July 1943 (and for several days after, depending on definition). The most famous part of the fighting was the attack from the Soviet XVIII Tank Corps and XXIX Tank Corps against the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Division.

Several stories posted on the web and I gather a few books mention something like: “Several German accounts mention that SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser, commander of the SS Panzer Corps, had to use chalk to mark and count the huge jumble of 93 knocked-out Soviet tanks in the Leibstandarte sector alone.”

Now, this makes for an interesting scene: General Hausser, the 62-year old founder of the Waffen SS, is crawling around the battlefield marking up 93 tanks with chalk. With the Totenkopf SS Division having to continue the offensive on the 13th, and Das Reich SS Division in the days after that, I would think that the SS Panzer Corps commander would have a few more important things to do at this moment. Also suspect that significant parts of the battlefield were still under enemy observation. Its gets a little hard to imagine that Hausser was out there with chalk counting tanks.

Does anyone know the original source of this story?

T-34s on 5 July 1943

The biggest problem with the kill claims related to the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) Division’s Tiger company on 5 July 1943 is that they claim dozens of T-34s killed on the 5th of July, when there were few in the area.

These specific claims are discussed here:

Panzer Aces Wittmann and Staudegger at Kursk – part 1

There were no units armed with T-34s that were attached to the Sixth Guards Army, and the armored units in the area with T-34s were not in action for most of the 5th (this would include the III Mechanized Corps and the II Guards Tank Corps).  So either the LSSAH Tigers shot up a lot of M-3 Lees and Stuarts and they have become T-34s in the retelling, or the claims are just grossly inflated or flat out wrong.

But….there may have been a few T-34s in the area. According to the March-April 1944 Soviet General Staff Study done on Kursk, 10 or 15 tanks were deployed in the fortified areas as part of the defense. See page 284 of my Kursk book. But, in the unit records we had, we never had a report on them (including in the Sixth Guards Army records). We have not seen any record of them other than the single report in the General Staff Study.

So there were 10 or 15 tanks deployed in the fortified areas. They do not say where and what types of tanks. It could have been T-34s in the Sixth Guards Army area….or it could not be. They could have been deployed together or scattered.

There are a few reports of dug-in T-34s on 4 and 5 July 1943.

Guenther Baer, II Battalion of the LSSAH Tank Regiment, reports for the 4th of July, the pre-battle evening clearing attack on the Soviet outpost line that:

We also came upon scattered dug-in T-34s, who were then quickly disabled by our own tanks. (page 282…interview was done in 1999 by MG Dieter Brand).

Lt. Franz-Joachim von Rodde, an adjutant with the 6th Panzer Regiment, 3rd Panzer Division reports that:

That evening [5 July]…penetrated all the way to a small village [Krasnyii Pochinok] along a narrow front line and staggered towards the rear. The village itself could not be taken in time, though. Here we encountered T-34s dug-in up to their turrets for the first time. (page 367…interview was done in 1999 by MG Dieter Brand).

As I note on page 368:

Lt. Rodde’s memory of T-34s dug-in around Krasnyii Pochinok cannot be confirmed. The Soviet 245th Tank Regiment did not have T-34s. The nearest forces with T-34s would be the 59th and 60th Tank Regiment attached to the Fortieth Army. While these forces may well have been in the area (as this is not the only report of tanks we have on the front line of the 71st Guard Rifle Division, 67th Guards Rifle Division, or the Fortieth Army units), we have not accounts of them being there in the Soviet records.

Just to continue Rodde’s quote:

This was another measure hitherto unknown. These dug-in tanks were very dangerous. They were camouflaged extremely well–as usual with the Russians–and could only be reconnoitered once they opened fire. They usually fired at short range so as to have a maximum chance of hitting something.

Then there also the reports of dug-in tanks from Alfred Rubbel, 503rd Heavy Panzer (Tiger) Battalion, in the area where the 6th Panzer Division was attacking on the 5th, but this is out of the area of our concern (see page 403). Still just to quote:

Our Tiger company suffered the first losses as well. For the first time we saw dug-in enemy tanks in this sector. In a way this was a surprise as that was a use of tanks not at all typical. There dug-in tanks were firing with great precision from their position and were thus very dangerous for us. On that day alone, we have four losses due to enemy fire, which could all be recovered but nevertheless represented the highest number of losses in one day of battle we had to absorb during the entire operation.

Those tanks were most likely from the Soviet 262nd Tank Regiment, which started the battle with 22 KV-1s.

So we have reports of dug-in T-34s in front of the LSSAH Division and in front of 3rd Panzer Division. These are two widely separated locations. So it is distinctly possible that the SS Panzer Corps could have encountered 6-9 dug-in T-34s. This is still considerably less than what they claim, but probably there is some basis to their claims. Still, it would appear that they, or subsequent authors, either over-claimed or credited every tanks as destroyed as being a T-34, even though most were not.

Hard to sort it out 75 years after the fact…..but it is clear that many of the published claims for 5 July 1943 are not correct.

Panzer Battalions in LSSAH in July 1943 – II

This is a follow-up to this posting:

Panzer Battalions in LSSAH in July 1943

The LSSAH Panzer Grenadier Division usually had two panzer battalions. Before July the I Panzer Battalion had been sent back to Germany to arm up with Panther tanks. This had lead some authors to conclude that in July 1943, the LSSAH had only the II Panzer Battalion. Yet the unit’s tank strength is so high that this is hard to justify. Either the LSSAH Division in July 1943 had:

  1. Over-strength tank companies
  2. A 4th company in the II Panzer Battalion
  3. A temporary I Panzer Battalion

I have found nothing in the last four months to establish with certainly what was the case, but additional evidence does indicate that they had a temporary I Panzer Battalion.

The first piece of evidence is drawn from a division history book, called Liebstandarte III, by Rudolf Lehmann, who was the chief of staff of the Panzer Regiment. It states that they had around 33 tanks at hill 252.2 on the afternoon or evening of the 11th. It has been reported that the entire II Panzer Battalion moved up there on the 11th, and then pulled back their 5th and 7th companies, leaving the 6th company in the area of hill 252.2. The 6th Panzer Company was reported to have only 7 tanks operational on the morning of the 12th. So, II Panzer Battalion may have had three companies of 7-12 tanks each, and the battalion staff, and maybe some or all of the regimental staff there. The LSSAH Division according to the Kursk Data Base had as of the end of the day on 11 July 1943: 2 Panzer Is, 4 Panzer IIs, 1 Panzer III short, 4 Panzer III longs, 7 Panzer III Command tanks, 47 Panzer IV longs and 4 Panzer VIs for a total of 69 tanks in the panzer regiment. Ignoring the 4 Tiger tanks, this leaves 32 tanks unaccounted for. This could well be the complement of a temporary I Panzer Battalion.

The second unresolved issue is that the Soviet XVIIII Tank Corps is reported to have encountered dug-in tanks as they tried to push beyond Vasilyevka along the Psel River. They reported that their advance was halted by tank fire from the western outskirts of Vasilyevka. They also report at 1400 (Moscow time) repulsing a German counterattack by 50 tanks from the Bogoroditskoye area (just west of Vasilyevka, south of the Psel).

With the II Panzer Battalion being opposite the XXIX Tank Corps, then one wonders who and where those “dug-in tanks” were from. It is reported in some sources that the Tiger company, which was in the rear when the fighting started, moved to the left flank, but most likely there was another tank formation there. If the II Panzer Battalion was covering the right half of the LSSAH’s front, then it would appear that the rest of the front would have been covered by a temporary I Panzer Battalion of at least three companies.

This leads to me lean even more so to the conclusion that the LSSAH had a temporary I Panzer Battalion of at least three companies, the II Panzer Battalion of three companies, and the Tiger company, which was assigned to the II Panzer Battalion.

Comparative Tank Exchange Ratios at Kursk

Now, I don’t know what percent of German or Soviet tanks at Kursk were killed by other tanks, as opposed to antitank guns, mines, air attacks, infantry attacks, broken down, etc. The only real data we have on this is a report from the Soviet First Tank Army which states that 73% of their tanks were lost to AP shot.

Artillery Effectiveness vs. Armor (Part 2-Kursk)

Do not know what percent of the AP shots was fired from tanks vice towed AT guns. I would be tempted to guess half. So maybe 36% of the Soviet tanks destroyed was done by other tanks? This is a very rough guess. Suspect it may have been a lower percent with the Germans.

Still, it is natural to want to compare tank losses with tank losses. The Germans during the southern offensive at Kursk had 226 tanks destroyed and 1,310 damaged. This includes their self-propelled AT guns (their Marders).

German Damaged versus Destroyed Tanks at Kursk

The Soviet units during the southern offensive at Kursk had 1,379 tanks destroyed and 1,092 damaged. This includes their self-propelled AT guns, the SU-152s, SU-122s and the more common SU-76s. If I count SU-76s in the Soviet tank losses, then I probably should count the Marders in the German losses.

Soviet Damaged versus Destroyed Tanks at Kursk

So….comparing total losses to total losses results in 1,536 German tanks damaged or destroyed versus 2,471 Soviet tanks damaged or destroyed. This is a 1-to-1.61 exchange ratio.

On the other hand, some people like to only compare total destroyed. This comes out to a rather lop-sided 1-to-6.10 exchange ratio.

A lot of sources out there compare only lost tanks to lost tanks. This provides, in my opinion, a very distorted figure of combat effectiveness or what is actually occurring out on the battlefield.

Added to this some sources have been known to remove German command tanks from their counts of strengths and losses, even though at this stage the majority of command tanks were armed. The Germans sometime don’t list them in their own daily reports. Of course, Soviet command tanks are always counted (which are armed). Some have been know to remove German Panzer IIs and other lighter tanks from their counts, even though at Kursk on 4 July, 23% of Soviet tanks were the lighter T-60s, T-70s and M-3 Stuarts (see page 1350 of my book). Many counts remove the German self-propelled AT guns from their counts, but not sure if they have also removed the Soviet SU-152, SU-122s and SU-76s from their counts. Finally, a number of counts remove German assault guns from their comparisons, even though at Kursk they were often used the same as their tank battalions and sometimes working with their tank battalions. They were also better armed and armored than some of their medium tanks. In the later part of 1943 and after, some German tank battalions were manned with assault guns, showing that the German army sometimes used them interchangeably. So there are a lot of counts out there on Kursk, but many of them concern me as they do not give the complete picture.

Soviet Damaged versus Destroyed Tanks at Kursk

This is the other half of the comparison discussed here:

German Damaged versus Destroyed Tanks at Kursk

Here is the data I have for Kursk in July 1943 (from pages 1365, 1366, and 1367 of my Kursk book):

Unit…………….Tanks Destroyed……..Tanks Damaged……..Percent Destroyed

II TC                   91                               103                          47%

II GTC                82                               141                           37

X TC                   69                                39                           64

XVIII TC             37                               130                           22

XXIX TC           109                                 97                          53

III MC                132                                99                           54

V GMC              109                                50                           69

V GTC               131                                85                           61

VI TC                 118                                33                           78

XXXI TC            110                                70                           61

Truf Det.              23                                  6                           79

Tank Bdes         157                              164                           46

Tank Rgt            153                                64                           65

SP Art Rgts          58                                11                           84

Total                1,379                           1,092                           55%

 

There figures include assault guns and self-propelled artillery (SU-76s, SU-122s and SU-152s).

German Damaged versus Destroyed Tanks at Kursk

In his last post Niklas Zetterling notes that around 20% of German tanks lost in battle were destroyed. Here is the data I have for Kursk in July 1943 (pages 1336, 1337, and 1339 of my Kursk book):

Unit……………….Tanks Destroyed……..Tanks Damaged……..Percent Destroyed

3rd PzD                  12                                  70                            15%

GD PzGrD              26                                144                            15

Panthers                 42                                188                            18

11th PzD                 13                                124                              9

LSSAH PzGrD        20                                138                            13

DR SS PzGrD         18                                129                            12

T SS PzGrD            18                                121                            13

6th PzD                   18                                  87                            17

7th PzD                   26                                103                            20

19th PzD                 23                                  89                            21

503rd “T” Bn             5                                  70                              7

StuG units                 5                                  47                           10

Total                      226                              1310                           15%

 

Note that my count of tanks damaged/destroyed include those that broke down in combat. This is not an insignificant portion. It does not include tanks that were damaged or broken down during the day but were back in the action before they reported towards the end of the day a count of tanks ready-for-action. Rarely do we have reports of tanks damaged, mostly just reports of the number ready-for-action each day.

These figures include assault guns. Also, these figures include Marders (self-propelled anti-tank guns), which is why they differ slightly from the figures in my previous posts.

The units are listed from left to right (west to east) as they were deployed on 5 July 1943. They were organized into three panzer corps.

Also see:

III Panzer Corps Tank Loss Reports 9-21 July 1943

 

III Panzer Corps Tank Loss Reports 9-21 July 1943

German World War II records are often not stereotypical “German-like” in their depth and detail. Often it is hard to tell on any given day how many tanks are damaged versus destroyed versus broken down. For much of my work on Kursk, I have had to rely on changes in daily tank strength reports, and work from there. Many authors seem to have hung their hat on German reports of total tank losses, or tanks destroyed, which is systematically reported. One the more detailed tank status reports we have came from the III Panzer Corps from 9 to 21 July 1943.

Let me show you want they have (this was the most complete report):

Tank Report as of 9 July 1943 early (morning):

And then there is a key at the bottom that said “+ (green) into repair” and “+ (red) total.” Of course my copy is in black and white, taken from microfilm at the U.S. archives (T312, R68, pg 4374). Perhaps someone has a color copy of this file from Germany.

Anyhow, 26 tanks lost this day. Note that they count Sturmgeshuetz (Assault Guns) as tanks (many authors don’t).

The total tank losses reported are:

8 July 1943: 26
9 July 1943: 60 + 48 for the 6th Panzer Division = 108 !!!

1. (they do not give losses for the 6th PzD but it only had 22 tanks ready-for action early on 10 July).

2. See: https://dupuyinstitute.org/2018/10/10/6th-panzer-division-tank-losses-on-9-july-1943/

3. This is a significant action that is not clear from the records and certainly not from the 10-day “totally destroyed” list.

10 July 1943: No figures given
11 July 1943: 29 (but they only report for the 7th and 19th PzD.
12 July 1943: 21 (no reports from three battalions)
13 July 1943: 24 (no reports from 7th PzD and two of the Bns)
14 July 1943: 1

They don’t report any losses from the 15th through the 21st.

The 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion (Tigers) reports 19 tanks lost on the 9th. Only two Tigers were reported destroyed from the 5th – 10th.

This is one of the few German reports I have seen that report damaged tanks, and it is clearly incomplete. Usually they just report ready for action and total destroyed. The problem is that the unit can be in significant action one day (like 9 July when III Panzer Corps lost over 100 tanks), and they end up only recording a couple of tanks destroyed.

Just to show the differences (data from pages 1336, 1337 and 1339 of my Kursk book):

These counts to not include Marders (self-propelled antitank guns).

I think, if you are really looking at analyzing and understanding German armor operations in World War II, then you need to look at the daily changes in ready-for-action, not just their “total destroyed claims.”

6th Panzer Division Tank Losses on 9 July 1943

Soviet Tank Repairs at Kursk (part 2 of 2)

This first blog post on this subject strongly made the point that the Russian armor repair effort was not at the same level as the German efforts, which is what I observed when assembling the Kursk Data Base (KDB). But, Zamulin, Demolishing the Myth, continued on pages 448-449, touting what a great job the repair people did. I figured for completeness, I needed to post this.

To continue P. A. Rotmistrov’s (Fifth Guards Tank Army commander) quote from the previous posting:

The mechanics’ profile was diverse. The 83rd Army-level Repair-Recovery Battalion and the corps’ mobile repair depots were staffed with qualified workers from the tank industry (the Stalingrad and Khar’kov factories), but who lacked work experience in field conditions. The tank brigade equipment companies, on the other hand, were staffed primarily with specialists on the repair of armored vehicles under combat conditions. Such a combination of cadres on the whole produced satisfactory results.

Major overhauls, like engine, gun, and turret replacements, were performed at the mobile repair depots of the tank corps. Each tank corps had two of these repair depots, each staffed with 70 to 80 men. For urgent repairs just 8-10 kilometers from the front lines, two army-level, three corps-level and nine brigade collection points for disabled vehicles were set up, which shared all the repair-recovery resources.

On the night of 12 July, as the 5th Guard Tank Army commander later remembered:

The repair workers faced the task of restoring and repairing parts and components, stripped from irreparably damaged tanks from those tanks that needed major overhauls. We had to get hold of 45 engines, 20 gear boxes and several engine and steering clutches. All of the recover and repair units and teams of the separate regiments, brigades, and corps and the army were mobilized to accomplish this task.

To what Rotmistrov said I will add that in order to hasten the repair of the 5th Guard Tank Army’s damaged armored vehicles, the Front’s Armored and Mechanized Forces commander transferred 167 field repair depots from the 38th Army to the 5th Guards Tank Army on 14 July. The truly heroic effort produced results. Of the 420 damaged tanks in its brigades and regiments after the fighting of 12 July, 112 requiring minor or moderate repairs were restored to operation in the very first days after the battle. In addition, the Front command took other steps to assist the army. Already by 15 July, just three days after the engagement, the 5th Guards Tank Army began to receive new tanks. The 29th Tank Corps was the first to begin to received the new vehicles. The 31st Tank Brigade’s war diary notes, “15 July….An order arrived to pick up 16 T-34 tanks at Solntesevo Station. A procurement team had been sent.”