Category World War II

What About Totenkopf’s Losses?

If one looks at the losses in the above graphics, one sees the Totenkopf SS Panzer Grenadier Division loosing 28 tanks on the 12th and 29 tanks on the 13th. This is merely a straight line estimate of the losses over two days, as we do not know what they lost on the 12th. We know what they report ready for action on the 11th and we know what they report ready for action on the 13th.

Totenkopf had as of the evening of 11July the following tanks (source: TDI’s Kursk Data Base):

Pz III Long: 54

Pz III Observation: 5

Pz III Command: 7

Pz IV short: 4

Pz IV long: 26

Pz VI: 10 *

Pz VI Command: 1

StuG III: 21

Marder II: 11

On the 13th we have them with:

Pz III long: 32

Pz III Observation: 5

Pz Command: 5

Pz IV short: 3

Pz IV long: 14

Pz VI: 0

Pz VI Command: 1

StuG III: 20

Marder II: 2

This is decline of 57 tanks.

There was a status report for Totenkopf on the 12th but it indicates no losses for the 12th of July (and includes one additional Tiger). Considering its operations that day (read pages 924-927 of my Kursk book or 307-312 of my Prokhorovka book), that is hard to believe. For in addition to being engaged with the gutted 52nd Guards Rifle Division and the fresh 95th Guards Rifle Division of the Fifth Guards Army, they were also engaged with the 11th Motorized Rifle Brigade (X Guards Tank Corps), the 99th Tank Brigade (II Tank Corps) and to some extent with the 181st Tank Brigade (XVIII Tank Corps). Furthermore, they conducted offensive operations: at 0715 (Berlin time) taking the barracks (at Kluchi?) with their panzer battalion, and then their armored group at 0930 (Berlin time) jumped off from hill 226.6 to the northeast. The Fifth Guards Army confirms that the Germans launched this attack claiming at 1215 (Moscow time) the Germans attacked with 100 tanks in the direction of height 226.6. This attack was successful and pushed on to the eastern outskirts of Veselyii and height 236.7.

The Soviets throughout the day launched multiple attacks against the division also. Totenkopf reports attacks on the barracks northwest of Klyuchi at 0330 and 0730. The second attack had tank support (we think from the 99th Tank Brigade, II Tank Corps). There were also many other Soviet attacks during the day.

And then, at 1115 (Berlin time) Totenkopf diverted its drive to the northeast to turn its armor south to cross the Psel at Mikhailovka and move in behind the Soviets south of the Psel. Part of Totenkopf’s armor did cross to the south of the Psel this day and got into a heavy exchange with the XVIII Tank Corps.

It is hard to say what was where at this time, but Totenkopf continued to also advance north of the Psel to the northeast. At 1500 (Berlin time) the Totenkopf armored group was two kilometers northwest of Polezhayev. At 1630 (Moscow time), the Soviets reported that the German offensive had been halted, but fighting clearly continued, for at 1835 (Berlin time), the SS Panzer Corps reported that the armored group from Totenkopf were engaged in heavy tank battles around one kilometer northwest of Polezhayev. Worth looking at a map for this, but Polozhayev is north of Prokhorovka.

There is also the claim in Soviet records that at 1600 (Moscow time) 36 German tanks from hill 226.6 descended into the depression north of that hill and moved through the ravine west of Polezhayev, and headed towards hill 236.7 (some four kilometers away). Reaching the hill, the tanks spent an hour driving back and forth on it, and then departed into the depression west of hill 236.7 (see Prokhorovka, page 309).

Hard to believe that the Totenkopf SS Division suffered no armor losses on the 12th, not even a tank or two broken down. Hard to move armor around without a few breakdowns. Yet, Totenkopf has a tank status report for the 12th that shows no losses. We do not believe that this report reflects the actual situation as of the end of the day on the 12th.

So, we were left with assuming that there were no armor losses on the 12th and 57 tanks lost on the 13th…..or we could split them evenly between the two days. We did the latter, as that appeared more rational. Considering the offensive operations conducted by the Totenkopf SS Division on the 13th and that they were then driven back (!), one could certainly make the argument that more losses should have been assigned on the 13th than the 12th (see pages 965-969 of my Kursk book or 359-363 of my Prokhorovka book). Still, hard to believe there were no losses on the 12th.

It also opens up the question of how many of the XVIII Tank Corps losses were due to the actions of the Totenkopf SS Division and how many tanks did Totenkopf loose engaging the XVIII Tank Corps. The record is not clear here.

 

* They had either 9 Pz VIs this day or 10, depending on which report you choose to accept (see page 926-927 or 311-312)

Tank Losses on 12/13 July 1943

I do have a nice simple graphic in my books that compares the tank losses on the 12th (and 13th) of July 1943 for both sides. It is on page 953 of my Kursk book and page 344 of my Prokhorovka book. It is shown above.

As can be seen by my count based upon the unit records, the LSSAH Panzer Grenadier Division lost 19 tanks on the 12th. The XVIII Tank Corps lost 81 tanks while the XXIX Tank Corps lost 159 tanks. This is 19 compared to 240. Now, Ben Wheatley from his photo analysis concludes it was 5 Panzer IVs lost versus over 200 Soviet tanks.

But…..this is not the whole story. To start with, the Soviet XVIII Tank Corps was partly engaged with the Totenkopf SS Panzer Grenadier Division. As I note on page 931 of my Kursk book (page 318 of my Prokhorovka book): Rotmistrov reported that at 1330 (Moscow time), the first echelon brigades were fired on by 13 Tigers tanks from the area of height 226.6, which were moving in the direction of the northwestern outskirts of Mikhailovka. The Totenkopf Division had around 11 Tigers operational on the evening of the 11th (and had 10 damaged/broken down on the 12th and 13th). Also, the XXIX Tank Corps was partly engaged with the Das Reich SS Panzer Grenadier Division. So….

(more to come)

Kursk Aerial Photos

Tank Fields of Prokhorovka, 16 July 1943 (page 599)

I did include in my Kursk book 32 aerial photos taken by the Germans in June and July 1943 (pages 569-600), in what was called the “Photo Reconnaissance Section.” I considered them useful for examining the terrain and a nice supplement to the 1:5000 scale maps I included in the book. I also included 12 such photos in my Prokhorovka book, pages 189-202. It is a nice, large and untapped collection at the National Archives. You can tell when archives files have been heavily used. These looked untouched. I was directed to these files by John Sloan about 10 years ago.

Apparently a British historian by the name of Ben Wheatley tapped into the pictures of the battlefield taken on 14-16 July. He was able to see in some of them the destroyed tanks on the battlefield. It resulted in this article in BBC (it is nice that they pay attention to history): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48963295

That article was posted in a message to this blog by David Carr. Ben Wheatley paper is here:                                                                          .  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16161262.2019.1606545

The real story at Prokhorovka has been known for a while, so surprised that this has been getting such attention. The BBC article states that the Germans lost 5 Pz IVs at Prokhorovka while the Soviets lost more than 200.

This is probably a little more certainty about the figures than I have in my books. So over the next couple of posts, I will be exploring what those figures may be. The first problem is the definition of the battlefield and who is on it. The next problem is what tanks were lost on what days. There is also an issue with defining what a loss is.

Aces at Kursk – Summation

Yak-9 at war memorial, northwest of Yakovlevo, Belrorod-Oboyan road (1995)

I do have a completed manuscript that I am marketing. I have done a number of posts recently related to my work on this. Let me list them below:

145 or 10?

So did Kozhedub shoot down 62, 64 or 66 planes?

5th Guards Fighter Regiment, 7 July 1943

The 728th Fighter Regiment on 16 July 1943

Soviet versus German kill claims at Kursk

So What Was Driving the Soviet Kill Claims?

Aces at Kursk – Chapters

Aces at Kursk – Chapters

Yak-9 at war memorial, northwest of Yakovlevo, Belrorod-Oboyan road (1995)

The following is the list of chapters and estimated page count for the book I am finishing: Aces at Kursk: The Belgorod Offensive Air War

Front Matter: 12 pages

Acknowledgements: 4 pages

Prologue: 16 pages

.

Chapter One: The Strategic Air Campaign: 12 pages

Chapter Two: Both Sides Prepare: 23 pages

Chapter Three: The Strike at Dawn: 5 July 1943 (Monday): 18 pages

Chapter Four: The Fight for Air Superiority: 6-7 July 1943: 34 pages

Chapter Five: The Air War Continues: 8-9 July 1943: 18 pages

Chapter Six: A Less Intense Air War Continues: 10-18 July 1943: 34 pages

Chapter Seven: The Last Air Offensive: 15 pages

.

Appendix I: German and Soviet Terminology: 8 pages

Appendix II: Air Campaign Statistics: 77 pages

Appendix III: Commander Biographies: 9 pages

.

Photo Section 1: The Weapons of War: 28 pages

Photo Section 2: The Photo Reconnaissance 35 pages

Photo Section 3: Commanders and Pilots: 8 pages

.

Map Section 4 or 29 pages (depending on whether I include the 1:50000 1942 topo maps).

Bibliography: 12 pages

Index: 10 pages

Biography: 1

.

It comes in at around 378-403 pages, including 94 pages of new text. I am effectively done with the book and am now trying to line up a publisher for it. I usually finish my books before I go looking for a publisher.

 

So What Was Driving the Soviet Kill Claims?

As pointed out in my last two posts, it appears that the Soviet air force at Kursk (in the south) from 4 to 18 July 1943 claimed more eight times as many planes shot down as the Germans actually lost. This was in an air battle that was larger than the Battle of Britain. The graph above is from page 839 of my original Kursk book and is repeated on page 285 of my new Prokhorovka book. To quote (from page 840/286):

…the Soviet claims do not appear to have been related to the German casualties. Instead, if one compares Soviet losses to Soviet claims of German losses one does find a fit. The pattern is fairly clear, the Soviets always claimed more casualties than they lost. With the Soviets losing 658 planes, and claiming 928 German kills, we are looking at the Soviets claiming about 40 percent more kills than they lost. This over-claiming is fairly consistent from day to day, and as shown elsewhere [in the book], is not a problem unique to the Soviet air force [it was also the case for the Soviet Army]. 

A briefing based upon this data was presented to Col. Fyodor Sverdlov in October 1994, who was a staff officer for the Eleventh Guards Army at Kursk and later a professor at the Frunze Military Academy. After presenting the chart showing Soviet claims to German losses, Sverdlov stated that “the enemy always suffers 30% more losses than you.” 

Colonel Sverdlov knew from his experiences in the war (and he was there from the Battle of Moscow to the end), that they regularly reported more German losses than they suffered. This was just standard procedure. I also did the same comparison in my books for Soviet claims of tanks killed compared to German losses, and found the same pattern (I may post about that at some point). Yet I regularly encounter passages in various books on the Eastern Front that quote Soviet claims of German losses without cross-checking these claims to the German records.

Soviet versus German kill claims at Kursk

As discussed on my post on the Soviet 728th Fighter Regiment, the Soviet air force at Kursk (in the south) appears to claim more than eight times as many planes shot down as the Germans actually lost. The graph above is from page 839 of my original books and is repeated on page 285 of my new Prokhorovka book.

So how did the Germans do?

To quote from my books (pages 839, 840 and 844 in my Kursk book or pages 285, 286 and 290 in my Prokhorovka book):

The reverse tendency is not displayed by the Germans….This comes out to a total of 658 claimed kills by the VIII Air Corps compared to 658 actual losses by the Second and Seventeenth Air Armies. It would appear that at least for this two-week period, German reporting of air claims was reasonably accurate while the Soviet claims were outrageously high….This does bring into question the validity of all Soviet ace totals. On the other hand, the fact that German claims for 4 to 18 July were almost equal to Soviet losses during that time does provide some level of confidence in the accuracy of German claims. Still, one notes that the Luftwaffe claimed 220 planes shot down by air and 40 by antiaircraft on the 5th of July, when the Soviets reported losing 187, so one should not place too much reliance on the accuracy of these claims. Yet, based upon this limited sample, it does appear that the German ace claims are usually valid while the Soviet claims are clearly inflated, and possibly inflated by several times.

The 728th Fighter Regiment on 16 July 1943

Well after the original Kursk Data Base project was done, I contracted a researcher to pull up some Soviet air regiment records from the battle. We had originally built our database on the Second, Fifth and Seventeenth Air Army records, but always wondered what the individual air records held. So as an experiment, I pulled up the records for the 5th Guards, 27th, 240th, 270th and 728th Fighter Regiments for 4-18 July 1943. They were a sampling from all three air armies and all rather famous air regiments. At the time, I was busy with other projects (our urban warfare studies) so set them aside. I finally got around to going through them and translating them over a decade later.

The regiment records mostly just record how many sorties they flew that day and too where, what their strength was, how many planes they claimed to have shot down and how many planes they lost. It is their claims of planes shot down that got my attention.

As I pointed out in page 839 of my original Kursk book (and page 285 of my Prokhorovka book), the Soviet air force at Kursk (in the south) appeared to claim more than eight times as many planes shot down as the Germans actually lost. The graph above is from those pages. Was not sure whether this was optimism or deliberate overstatement at the highest levels of command or something that trickled up from the lower levels. It appears to be something that trickled up from the lower levels. An air regiment reports to an air division which often reports to an air corps which then reports to the air army. So, looking through the regiment air records, what stood out was that some of these regiments had wildly optimistic kill claims.

Let me just give you one example, this is from the 728th Fighter Regiment on 16 July 1943. They claimed on that day to have shot down 13 planes, 7 Me-109s, 5 Ju-87s (Stukas) and one He-123. Their listing by name of who killed what and where is provided below. The actual reported German losses for their VIII Air Corps this day by the Luftwaffe air liaison officer was three planes: 1 Fw-189 and 2 Me-109s. The quartermaster reports for 16 July indicate only one plane lost, an Hs-129. So, it appears that not only is the Soviet regiment claims optimistic, but in fact, they may not have made a single kill that day!

This is just one of around 26 fighter regiments in the Second Air Army in July 1943. Also other air units and anti-aircraft artillery were involved in the fighting. There were a total of 64 Soviet claimed air combat kills on 16 July (see chart). Now this is the worse case for the five fighter regiments I looked at, but there are many other similar cases. Quite simply, the habit of over-claiming was common among Soviet air units at all levels.

The actual claims by the 728th Fighter Regiment for 16 July 1943:

Date        Pilot                                    Plane                   Notes

16 July    Captain Vorozheikin           1 Me-109

16 July    Lt. Sachkov                         1 Me-109

16 July    Jr. Lt. Vyibornov                 1 Me-109

16 July    Jr. Lt. Morye                       1 Me-109

16 July    Major Petrushin                  2 Ju-87s                Fell in the area of Shakhovo

16 July    Jr. Lt. Shiryayev                 1 Ju-87                  Fell in the area of Shakhovo

16 July    Lt. Kozlovskii                      1 Ju-87                  Fell in the area of Shakhovo

16 July    Jr. Lt. Pakhomov                1 Ju-87                  Fell in the area of Shakhovo

16 July    by the group                       1 He-123               Fell in the area of Dalnii Dolzhik

16 July    Jr. Lt. Milashenko               1 Me-109              Fell in the area of Pravorot

16 July    Jr. Lt. Karnaukhov              1 Me-109              Fell in the area of Pravorot

16 July    Lt Khudyakov                     1 Me-109              Fell in the area of Pravorot

 

Captain Vorozheikin is Arsenii Vasilyevich Vorozheikin, the sixth highest scoring allied ace of the war with 52 claimed kills and 13 shared kills.

5th Guards Fighter Regiment, 7 July 1943

La-7, Kursk Battle Museum, Belgorod (photo by Christopher A. Lawrence)

The Fifth Guards Fighter Regiment was the highest scoring Soviet air regiment of the war with 739 victories claimed. It was lead by twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Major Vasilii Zaitsev (1911-1961) who was credited with 34 kills during the war (and 15 or 19 shared kills). The unit’s deputy command was ace Lt. Vatalii Popkov (1922-2010), also twice Hero of the Soviet Union who was credited with 41 kills during the war.

On 7 July the regiment’s records report the following kills:

Date    Pilot                            Plane               Time                           Notes

7 July   Lt. Shumilin                Me-109G          0710-0817

7 July   Jr. Lt. Belyakov          Me-109             0855-0945

7 July   Jr. Lt. Glinkin              Fw-190             0855-0945

7 July   Lt. Bayevskii               Me-109            1440-1610

7 July   Lt. Yaremenko            Ju-88               1730-1835

7 July   Jr. Lt. Glinkin              He-111             1730-1835

7 July   Captain Dmitriyev      Ju-52                1730-1835

7 July   Major Pindyur             Me-109             2000-2110

7 July   Lt. Stokolov                Me-109             2000-2110

7 July   Jr. Lt. Bugreyev          Me-109             2000-2110

7 July   Jr. Lt. Kalsin               Me-109             2000-2110

7 July   Jr. Lt. Sverlov             Me-109             2000-2100                   ***

 

It also reports the following losses:

Date    Pilot                            Plane               Time                           Notes

7 July   Lt. Shumilin                                         1730-1835                   *

7 July   Jr. Lt. Belyakov                                   1730-1835                   **

7 July   Jr. Lt. Sidorets                                    1730-1835                   Did not return

7 July   Jr. Lt. Sverlov                                      2000-2100                   ***

 

* Lt. Shumilin after an air battle made a forced landing on wheels in the area of Mikhailovka. The pilot was seriously wounded.

** Hit by fire from antiaircraft artillery and an Fw-190, pilot cross the front line and made a landing. Pilot was wounded in the legs. Plane was burned on the ground by German artillery and mortar fire.

*** but he himself was caught in fire by two Me-109s, as a result, the La-5 burned and the pilot died.

            So for 7 July, they claimed 8 Me-109s and four other planes at a loss of four planes, two pilots lost and two pilots wounded. On 7 July, the German VIII Air Corps lost 4 or 5 Me-109s (see Tables IV.27 and IV.28 of my Kursk book, page 1416). This was but one fighter regiment of the 26 fighter regiments in the Second and Seventeenth Air Armies on 7 July 1943.