Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis
Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis
One can find a copy of Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War on Amazon.com for $877.95. It used to sell for $890.
Attrition for $900 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)
On the other hand, we are still selling new copies for the list price of $19.95. See here: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/booksfs.htm
Ordering information is here: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/order.htm
There is a post-war account (published in 1990) by the LSSAH Division chief of staff Major Rudolf Lehmann where he states that the II Panzer Battalion had 33 panzers. That is sometimes interpreted as meaning that the afternoon or evening of 11 July 1943 there remained near height 252.2 around 33 panzers. This would be II Panzer Battalion, the Battalion HQ and possibly the Panzer Regiment HQ. He specifically states: “Sturmbannfuehrer Gross [commander of II Panzer Battalion] managed to bring this battle to a successful conclusion despite the crushing numerical superiority of the enemy; he had at this point only thirty-three Panzers.” (page 236). I doubt this is a number he remembered of the top of his head 47 years after the fact, so I assume he got it from a diary or notes or a document from the time. I have not seen this figure documented anywhere else.
Now, this could mean that they had 33 tanks on the evening of the 11th or before the fighting on the 12th or after the fighting on the morning of the 12th. If they had 33 tanks after the fighting on the morning of the 12th, then this may imply that they started the battle with 37 tanks. Now, this quote is placed in the narrative for 12 July right after discussing the 6th panzer company having seven tanks and having lost 4 in their retreat. Regardless it appears the II Panzer Battalion had either 33 or 37 tanks. The problem is that the Panzer Regiment is reported to have 69 tanks on the evening of 11 July.
Height 252.2 is just to the southwest of Prokhorovka. The panzer were then pulled back to behind the tank ditch except for Captain Rudolf von Ribbentrop’s 6th Panzer Company. Captain Ribbentrop was the son of the Nazi foreign minister. So the 6th Panzer Company remained near 252.2 while the 5th and 7th Panzer Companies moved further back to the rear. According to Lehmann, these two panzer companies were located around 800 meters to the rear.
According to Ribbentrop, the 6th panzer company had 7 tanks on the morning of 12 July. Lehmann also states that. One could infer from this that the 5th and 7th panzer companies each had around 12 to 16 tanks, less 2 or 3 tanks for the battalion command (7 + 12 + 12 + 2 = 33 or 7 – 4 + 15 + 16 + 3 = 37)
Now, according to the Kursk Data Base, as of the evening of 11 July the LSSAH Division had 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 (see footnote 34, page 165, of The Battle of Prokhorovka).
So, 69 tanks in the panzer regiment and the II Panzer Battalion appears to have had 33 or 37 tanks. There are 4 Tigers for 13th Panzer Company, which was not with them. That would leave 28 to 32 or so tanks for an ersatz I Panzer Battalion and the panzer regiment headquarters (2 or 3 command tanks and probably the 2 Panzer Is and 4 Panzer IIs). This leaves two Panzer III Command, four Panzer III longs and 13 to 18 Panzer IVs for an ersatz I Panzer Battalion.
Now, I have been arguing for a while that the LSSAH may well have had two operational panzer battalions at Kursk. This debate first started as a series of emails between Niklas Zetterling and I, and continued as a series of posts and debated between Dr. Wheatley and I. If Lehmann’s account is correct, and if Ribbentrop’s account on 12 July is correct, then this would strongly argue that there was indeed an ersatz I Panzer Battalion at Prokhorovka.
My previous post on the subject is:
Did the LSSAH have 3 panzer panzer companies, 4 panzer companies or two panzer battalions in July 1943? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)
P.S. Lehmann’s book is references in July an 8th Panzer Company. It is identified on page 450 as under command of “Ost. Amberger” with the note “The 8. Kompanie did not take part on Operation Zitadelle because of an insufficient number of panzers.” With the LSSAH Division starting the battle with 90 Panzer IIIs and IVs, this statement does not make sense unless there was an ersatz first panzer battalion.
This subject has been discussed here before, but I am now preparing a little write-up for Advancing Fire for their game Prokhorovka! (PROKHOROVKA! (advancingfire.com) So, as this is a controversial argument, I wanted to present it here again.
———-the write-up———————-
I am of the opinion that the LSSAH Division had more than three medium panzer (tank) companies in action that day. The location of the 5th and 7th panzer companies is known through Ribbentrop’s post-battle account where he states that the other two panzer companies in his battalion were behind the tank ditch. He later reports in his account that the other two panzer companies fired upon the advancing Soviet tanks from behind that ditch.
The LSSAH Panzer Regiment sent its I Panzer Battalion back to German before July 1943 to refit with Panther tanks. This, and other evidence, has led many to conclude the LSSAH Division on 12 July 1943 had only one operational panzer battalion consisted of three medium companies and one heavy (Tiger) company. The issue is that the LSSAH Division on 4 July had 90 Panzer III and IV tanks and 9 Panzer III Command tanks. One cannot fit all these tanks into three companies of 22 tanks each. Twenty-two tanks is the authorized strength of the panzer company and Ribbentrop states that is what his company had on 5 July 1943.
Therefore, as a minimum the LSSAH Division had an 8th company. This company is reported as being in existence on the 20th of July. It may have been in existence before 20 July 1943. It is stated in a book written in 1990 by Rudolf Lehmann, the former chief of staff of the division, that ““The 8 Kompanie did not take part in Operation Zitadelle because of an insufficient number of Panzers.” With operational 90 Panzer III and IV tanks, this statement makes no sense. The statement also indicates that the company was in existence before 20 July. If they used the 8th company, then with a panzer battalion of four medium tank companies, then this comes out to exactly 22 tanks a company, if one assigns 6 tanks to the battalion and regiment commands, ignore five spare Panzer IIIs (the Tiger companies no longer had five Panzer IIIs with them), and places the four Panzer IIs and the three Panzer Is under regimental command. There is no mention made of an 8th company on 12 July 1943.
On the other hand, there is a report (twice) in the division and corps records on the 8th of July 1943 of a I Panzer Battalion of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment. This could be a typo, except, the Das Reich SS Division also sent its I Panzer Battalion back to Germany for refit. They substituted an antitank battalion to serve in its place, so that the Das Reich SS Panzer Regiment has two battalions of seven medium panzer companies and one heavy panzer company for its 111 light and medium tanks and 12 Tigers. The Totenkopf SS Panzer Regiment has two battalions of six medium panzer companies and one heavy panzer company for its 114 light and medium tanks and 12 Tigers. The LSSAH Panzer Division records does not state how its armor was organized for June and July of 1943. It would be logical, as they were all under the same command (General Paul Hausser), that the LSSAH was also organized with two battalions of 6 to 8 medium panzer companies for its 106 light and medium tanks. This organization seems more logical than one battalion of three or four panzer companies. This would give the average tank strength of each panzer companies between 12 and 16. For the Das Reich it was an average of around 16 tanks per medium tank company and for the Totenkopf it was an average of around 19 tanks per medium tank company. Did the LSSAH do something radically different (around 30 tanks in a medium tank company) or did they match their two neighboring sister divisions?
There is the added confusion that Ribbentrop reported only 7 tanks on the 12th of July. If he started with 22, then he is looking at 68% losses over the previous week of fighting. Yet the division had 65 operational light and medium tanks (6 light and 7 Panzer III command) on the evening of 11 July. The panzer regiment’s light and medium tanks had been attrited 39%. If the 6th Panzer Company had 7 tanks, then the average of the 5th and 7th Panzer Companies would be at least 22 tanks or the average of a 5th, 7th and 8th Panzer Companies would be at least 15 tanks. Did one tank company take horrendous losses and the rest of the companies were left relatively unscathed? And if so, then why would that much weaker company be the panzer company that was left forward the night before the attack on the 12th? This argues for there being two battalions in the LSSAH Panzer Regiment and that the starting the strength of the 6th Panzer Company and all the other medium panzer companies, were really more like 16 tanks (assuming six medium panzer companies).
It is reported by the division chief of staff, Rudolf Lehmann, in his book that II Battalion commander has only 33 panzers. Other sources claim that they had around 33 panzers at hill 252.2 on the afternoon or evening of the 11th. Losses during the 12th are reported by Lehmann to be four panzers from the 6th company and one from the 7th. So, depending on whether that figure is a count of 33 panzers from before the start of the engagement or after, it would appear that II Panzer Battalion had 33 to 37 tanks. Yet on the evening of the 11th July the division had 65 operational light and medium tanks.
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 with three Panzer III Command tanks. This leaves 32 tanks unaccounted (including regimental command tanks and six light tanks). That could well be the complement of a temporary I Panzer Battalion.
So, it is not known of the LSSAH Panzer Regiment consisted of 1) one panzer battalion of three overstrength medium panzer companies and a heavy tank company, 2) one panzer battalion of four full-strength medium panzer companies and a heavy tank company, or 3) two panzer battalions of six to eight medium panzer companies and a heavy tank company. It is known that the heavy tank company, renamed recently as the 13th panzer company consisted of only four operational Tiger tanks on 12 July 1943 and started the battle in a reserve position.
——end of write-up—————————–
Just for reference:
PROKHOROVKA! (advancingfire.com)
Panzer Battalions in LSSAH in July 1943 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)
Panzer Battalions in LSSAH in July 1943 – II | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)
Summation of Open Questions on Prokhorovka | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)
The last two posts I made on force ratios was drawn from my book War by Numbers. There are additional posts I did early last year on the subject based upon my in-process follow-on book More War by Numbers. They are summarized here:
Summation of Human Factors and Force Ratio posts | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)
I have been fairly diligent about making sure the “categories” that are listed on the right hand column of the blog are maintained. Therefore, clicking on Force Ratio will lead you to all 29 Force Ratio related posts on this blog. There are 1,129 posts on this blog (as of this post).
Now, the purpose of War by Numbers was not to create Combat Results Tables (CRT) for wargames. Its real purpose was to test the theoretical ideas of Clausewitz, and more particularly, Trevor N. Dupuy to actual real-world data. Not as case studies, but as statistical compilations that would show what the norms are. Unfortunately, military history is often the study of exceptions, or exceptional events, and what is often lost to the casual reader it what the norms are. Properly developed statistical database will clearly show what the norms are and how frequent or infrequent these exceptions are. People tend to remember the exceptional cases, they tend to forget the norms, if they even knew what they were to start with.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 of War by Numbers is primarily focused on measuring human factors (which some people in the U.S. DOD analytical community seem to think are unmeasurable, even though we are measuring them). As part of that effort I ended up assemble a set of force ratios tables based upon theater and nationality. The first of these, on page 10, was in my previous blog post. Here are a few others, from page 11 of War by Numbers.
Page 10 for War by Numbers includes the following table:
Many commercial wargames have something called a CRT or Combat Results Table. It is based upon force ratios. For example, this was one of the earliest CRTs used on Avalon Hill Games in the 1960s.
As can been seen from this Combat Results Table, at 1-to-1 the chances of an attack winning is one-in-three. At 2-to-1 odds the chances of the attacker winning is either the same as the defender winning or is a two-thirds chance of winning. At 3-to-1 odds, the attacker will always win.
Now the variable factor is the exchange result, which is defined that the defender removed everyone and the attacker removes as much as the defender. This usually results in an attacker win, if the attack has the right “spare change.” If the attacker was attacking with a single 7 strength unit against a 3 strength defender and they roll and exchange, then both units are eliminated.
Compare that to the table from my book based upon 116 division-level engagements from the European Theater of Operations (1944-145).
Needless to say, some elements of my book War by Numbers are of interest to the commercial wargaming community.
The U.S. Army Staff Reference Guide, Volume I: Unclassified Resources, December 2020, ATP 5-0.2-1 has been released.
Link to it is here: https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN31193-ATP_5-0.2-1-000-WEB-1.pdf
There are ten references to “Dupuy” in the guide, which I believe is a first. I do not recall any previous Army manual referencing Trevor Dupuy’s work, even though I have seen his work in a manual or two without reference. It is nice that they have properly acknowledged his work.
The references are on:
The two Trevor N. Dupuy books referenced in the Staff Reference Guide are the still out of print Numbers, Predictions & War (1979) and Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War (1995). We still have 40 or so copies of Attrition for sale. See http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/booksfs.htm
I was on the phone with someone earlier today and he told me that Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War was on sale on Amazon.com for only $900. I took a look, and sure enough, they have used one for $121.00 and a new one $890. That is it.
On the other hand, we still have new copies for sale for the list place of $19.95. See here: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/booksfs.htm
I have not taken inventory in a while, but we still have 40 or so available.
Ordering information is here: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/order.htm
Maybe I should start selling on Amazon.com and undercut them with an offer of $889.99.
A miniature wargaming website in the UK came to my attention because he quoted from my Kursk book (actually probably from my blog). The link is here:
https://notquitemechanised.wordpress.com/
Now, this was one of the many asides that I developed during the writing of the book and I felt one of the more significant discussions in the book. I am always concerned that a number of major points in that book were drowned in the 1,662 pages. I am glad he was able to identify and pull that one out.
The quote is in his blog post, but for the battle we estimated that the Germans fired 51,083 tons of ammunition while the Soviets fired 21,867 tons. I don’t think anyone else have made such a calculation.
For the Soviet rocket launchers (Katyushas) they fired an estimated 2,422 tons of ammo, while for the German rocket launchers (Nebelwerfers) they fired 5,916 tons of ammo.
This is subject that probably could be the basis of a complete stand-alone study or book. I suspect if this was the case at Kursk, where the Soviet army had three months to prepare and stockpile, then it is very much an issue for other, especially more mobile, operations.
P.S. The complete quote is also in this earlier blog post: