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New Vanguard 318
Operation Bagration was one of the most significant Soviet victories on the Eastern Front during the Second World War, and saw the middle ripped out of the German front line in the east, as Army Group Centre was almost destroyed and the Germans forced out of Byelorussia and back into Poland. This book focuses on the armour available to the two sides during this massive battle.
The section on the organisation of the two side’s armoured forces gives us the biggest impression of the different condition they were in. On the German side we see a number of emergency measures, impromptue units, and other desperate measures, carried out in an attempt to fill holes in the German lines and make up for the heavy losses of earlier fighting. On the Soviet side we see an increasing number of armoured units, each following a clear table of organisation, as the Red Army gained in size and confidence. The biggest problem for the Germans was that they went into the summer of 1944 knowing that the Western Allies were about to attack somewhere in France, and as a result by May 1944 the Germans had more panzers in the west than in the east. To make things worse the Germans decided that the Soviet summer offensive would start in the Ukraine, and gave half of the tanks on the Eastern Front to Army Group North Ukraine. Instead the main Soviet target would be Army Group Centre.
Technically 1944 was a bit of a mixed bag. On the German side the Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II were all heavily armed and armoured, but also suffered from technical and reliability issues, and were only available in relatively small numbers. On the Soviet side the basic T-34 was not longer as effective as in 1942-43, as thicker German armour was resistant to its 76mm gun. However the apperanance of the T-34-85 changed the balance back to the Soviets, and it could even threaten the frontal armour of the Tiger I. The vast array of light tanks in use in 1943 almost disappeated from the front, while the new IS-2 heavy tank began to enter service.
The focus here is on the armour itself rather than on the battles, but we do get four pages on Bagration, two on the Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive and one on the Iasi-Chisinau Offensive. These concentrate on an overview of the offensive rather than individual tank clashes, and show how the Soviets inflicted a series of crushing defeats on the Germans.
The battle analysis section attempts to look at the relative losses on both sides. We don’t have reliable figures for the entire year for either side – on the Soviet side we have the losses for the major offensives, but not the rest of the front. On the German side there are clear gaps, such as the failure to record any lost Tiger IIs. Even so it is possible to draw some conclusions, most importantly that this was the year in which the Soviets finally caught up with their opponents – in 1943 they had lost four tanks for every German loss, in 1944 the figures are closer to one-to-one.
The author finishes with a comparison of the Soviet records for the reasons for tank losses compared to German records for victory claims. Here there is some agreement – both sides recorded more tanks lost in ground combat with no more than 10% lost to aircraft. We also get a rare example of realism in combat claims – the German Foreign Armies East intelligence agency estimated that the Soviets had lost 6,790 AFVs in period June-September 1944, while the Soviets acknowledged 4,495 losses in the main offensives of June-August.
Chapters
Introduction
Doctrine and Organization
Technical Factors
The Campaign
Battle Analysis
Author: Steven J. Zaloga
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 48
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2023