Encirclement Battles of WWII

[Carl Schwamberger]

Front: Western

Campaign:Pursuit across France/Belgium

Battle: Mons Pocket

Date: 2-5 September 1944

Attacking Forces: US 1st Army.

Defending Forces: mass of remnants from apporx 20 divisions, three corps HQ & army elements of 7th Army.

Units encircled: group described as defenders

Result: Capture of 25,000+ German soldiers & 900+ vehicles.

[Michate]

I hope you're aware that answering your question would require and entire PhD thesis. As a general note OKH reduced the claims of prisoners captured by half a million by the end of 1941:
http://ww2stats.com/pow_ger_okh_gen.html
which suggests that similar corrections must be applied to individual episodes.

Some German army documents (e.g. the Gehlen's strategic situation assessment from summer 1942) explicitly mention that the prisoner counts in 1941 were inflated.

H. Schustereit's "Vabanque" includes a tabular compilation of weekly Soviet prisoner counts in 1941. From October (or so) the running totals from the documents are increasingly lower than the cumulated figures of the previous weeks. At the end of the year, the running totals arrive at 3,350,000 or so (close to the figure in the OKW-WFSt diary), while the cumualtive weekly figures arrive at no less than 3,906,000.

[Kelvin]

Regarding encirclement battles of the Eastern Front, I would like to know battle of Smolensk was one single encirclement battles which took 310,000 Russian or a general battles which comprised a series of small encirclement like encirclement at Mogilev, Orsha, Roslavl and Gomel, anyone know that ?

[AJFFM]

Front: Western

Campaign:Pursuit across France/Belgium

Battle: Mons Pocket

Date: 2-5 September 1944

Attacking Forces: US 1st Army.

Defending Forces: mass of remnants from apporx 20 divisions, three corps HQ & army elements of 7th Army.

Units encircled: group described as defenders

Result: Capture of 25,000+ German soldiers & 900+ vehicles.

That's an awful lot of divisions for 25k men, Source please?

[AJFFM]

Regarding encirclement battles of the Eastern Front, I would like to know battle of Smolensk was one single encirclement battles which took 310,000 Russian or a general battles which comprised a series of small encirclement like encirclement at Mogilev, Orsha, Roslavl and Gomel, anyone know that ?

That is actually not true as Glantz demonstrated in his book about the battle of Smolensk.

3 field armies were engaged in Smolensk, the 16th, 19th and 20th armies. The majority of the 19th army was not encircled but in fact split. The units that fell inside the pocket, for it was actually a pocket until about 1st of August, were merged with the encircled armies. According to Glantz some 220k men were ultimately within the pocket and later encirclement and of these some 56k men were reported by the HQ of the 16th and 20th armies after their breakthrough.

The German POW number you quote is the total POW taken during July and August by AGC which also include several other encirclements you mentioned as well as normal combat POW nets.

[AJFFM]

Based on popular demand

Front: Eastern Front.

Campaign: Operation Barbarossa.

Date: July-August 1941.

Attacking Forces: AGC's 2nd Pz. Group, specifically XXIV and XXXXVI (some sources XLVI) Motorised Corps. Joined later by VII Inf. Corps.

Defending Forces: Western Front's 13th army.

Units encircled: 61st rifle and 20th Mech. Corps. Division wise, 8-10 divisions, 1st and 210th Motorised rifle, 132nd, 137th, 160th, 53rd, 110th, 172nd rifle divisions and 26th, 38th Tank divisions. Parts of 148th and 187th rifle divisions of 48th Corps were also caught.

Result: David Glantz estimate total encircled at 100k men. The German final tally was 35k PoWs. How many were killed no one knows for sure but many escaped.

[Kelvin]

Regarding encirclement battles of the Eastern Front, I would like to know battle of Smolensk was one single encirclement battles which took 310,000 Russian or a general battles which comprised a series of small encirclement like encirclement at Mogilev, Orsha, Roslavl and Gomel, anyone know that ?

That is actually not true as Glantz demonstrated in his book about the battle of Smolensk.

3 field armies were engaged in Smolensk, the 16th, 19th and 20th armies. The majority of the 19th army was not encircled but in fact split. The units that fell inside the pocket, for it was actually a pocket until about 1st of August, were merged with the encircled armies. According to Glantz some 220k men were ultimately within the pocket and later encirclement and of these some 56k men were reported by the HQ of the 16th and 20th armies after their breakthrough.

The German POW number you quote is the total POW taken during July and August by AGC which also include several other encirclements you mentioned as well as normal combat POW nets.

Hi, AJAAM, thank for your data in Mogilev.

And you mean 220k initially in Smolensk pocket and they 56k after breakthrough, is it mean after the breakthrough, only 56k men left in the hand of 16th and 20th armies or 56k left in pocket ?

And do you had Soviet 21st Army 's casualties in battle of Gomel in Aug 1941, German figure of 84000 seem too high.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Front: Western

Campaign:Pursuit across France/Belgium

Battle: Mons Pocket

Date: 2-5 September 1944

Attacking Forces: US 1st Army.

Defending Forces: mass of remnants from apporx 20 divisions, three corps HQ & army elements of 7th Army.

Units encircled: group described as defenders

Result: Capture of 25,000+ German soldiers & 900+ vehicles.

That's an awful lot of divisions for 25k men, Source please?

Specifically this was from 'Hyperwar': http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA ... ut-32.html

It is refered to in a number of other histories. Numbers vary according to the authors definition of the what the Mons pocket was. The entire US 1st Army took in 30,000+/- prisoners during the associated dates of this event, and some authors have used that number tho not all were capture inside the pocket. A lower number of 15,000 or 18,000 often is given, which appears to be the count from one of the US corps involved & excludes those collected by other corps.

On the German side the bag included three corps HQ. As with all the other formations these were not complete HQ groups as some elements had been detached and sent east before the general rout occured. Few of the units identified had all their remaining men in a single group as fragments had been detached by plan or circumstance as the German 7th Army & related groups in Normandy escaped eastwards. The typical 'division' of the German army in these weeks could muster the combat strength of one or two battalions equivalent. A division commander who could find 4,000 to 5,000 men had a comparatively robust formation and most could count fewer than 3,000. Under 1,000 was not unusual. There were also the fragments and lost individuals. It was common at this point for a division or kampfgroup commander to collect stray individuals and small groups along the road. Some of these divisions had up to half their present strength made up of these small seperated fragments.

[AJFFM]

I have little trust in "official histories" especially after the official history of the 3rd army claimed it destroyed more Tigers than was ever produced! The claim of this report is taken from an official history of the 1st Army printed in 1945.

I am not denying an encirclement happened, I am sceptical that 20 divisions were involved. Maybe troops from 20 divisions who came across each other during the confusion but not 20 full divisions with HQ and all. This never happened in the east before, except Stalingrad, so I doubt it happened in the west.

[Kingfish]

I am not denying an encirclement happened, I am sceptical that 20 divisions were involved. Maybe troops from 20 divisions who came across each other during the confusion but not 20 full divisions with HQ and all.

Date: 2-5 September 1944

Attacking Forces: US 1st Army.

Defending Forces: mass of remnants from apporx 20 divisions, three corps HQ & army elements of 7th Army.

Units encircled: group described as defenders

Result: Capture of 25,000+ German soldiers & 900+ vehicles.

Nowhere does it say 20 full divisions.

This never happened in the east before, except Stalingrad, so I doubt it happened in the west.

None of the divisions trapped inside Stalingrad were at full strength.

[AJFFM]

Yes but they their average strength was way higher than 25000, plus they had their HQs and relevant divisional organs trapped with them too.

Here it should say troops from 20 divisions were trapped rather than remnants of 20 divisions because those remnants maybe blocking ad hoc groups, a classical German tactic, formed to allow the escape the general body of those divisions.

[Kingfish]

Here it should say troops from 20 divisions were trapped rather than remnants of 20 divisions

What exactly is the difference?

[Sheldrake]

Here it should say troops from 20 divisions were trapped rather than remnants of 20 divisions

What exactly is the difference?

Former leaves open the location of the rest of these 20 divisions, which might exist somewhere else with a strength of maybe 120k soldiers. Remnants means "remainder" which implies that this was all that was left.

What constitutes a "destroyed" unit is a moot point. Was it destroyed when there was no one left of the entire formation, as happened to the units captured at Singapore? Or was it when the fighting power of the combat troops was eroded? E.g. many of the German formations "destroyed" in the Falaise pocket escaped with very few infantry or armour but their bulk of the manpower of the division continued.

For what its worth, Leudwig in Rueckzug lists the formations trapped as 3rd and 6th Parachute, 18th Luftwaffe Field,47th, 275and 348th Infantry Divisions and quotes Blumenson as the source. Another way to describe the 25k prisoners might be the remnants of six divisions and soldiers from 14 other divisions.

[AJFFM]

Thanks for taking words out of my mouth!

[Carl Schwamberger]

For what its worth, Leudwig in Rueckzug lists the formations trapped as 3rd and 6th Parachute, 18th Luftwaffe Field,47th, 275and 348th Infantry Divisions and quotes Blumenson as the source. Another way to describe the 25k prisoners might be the remnants of six divisions and soldiers from 14 other divisions.

Which if one reads the hyperwar text carefully is how it describes it the prisoners.