1st Cavalry wrote:
No I presume the minute they even try ,those 2 tank groupings on the flanks would slice the salient up .
When the germans launched Barbarossa, several things happened:
1. The Luftwaffe subjected the soviet airfields to a massive surprise attack, destroying at least 1,500 aircraft in the first day alone. The Western Front alone lost 700 out of 1,800 aircraft. As a result, the strength of the soviet air force was greatly diminished due to losses of aircraft, pilots and damage to the infrastructure. This put the Soviet Air Force on the defensive and by 1 July the air strength of the Western Front alone had diminished to around 400 aircraft.
The success of the German "slicing" maneuver depended heavily on adequate air support, both in France in 1940 and in Russia in 1941.
According to soviet regulations, the minute "they even try" a surprise attack, this should have been accompanied by a similar raid on enemy airfields. In such a case, not only that the Germans would not have had the benefit of the first strike, but the situations would have been reversed.
Even assuming that a soviet first strike would have caused less damage than the german one did, it would have put the Luftwaffe on the defensive against an enemy which had numerical superiority. Increasing the German problems would have been the fact that the number of aircraft and the quality of the crews were less than in May 1940 due to the losses they had suffered in the last year of war.
As such, there can be serious doubts as to how much support could have Luftwaffe provided in such circumstances to their ground troops, as it is to be expected for them to have their hands full trying to repel the soviet air attacks. On the Eastern Front, Luftwaffe had around 1,500 bombers and 1,000 fighters. The number was so insufficient for all its tasks, that, even the first strike, with a crippled soviet air force, there were many instances when the german planes had to ignore targets of opportunity, simply because it didn't have enough assets to cope.
2. When we discussed about the Sedan breakthrough, there were mentioned those other five infantry armies. It has to be considered though that the Allied forces in the West did not make even a single attempt to hinder to german build up and deployment. Thus, the Wehrmacht could pick the most convenient moment.
When Barbarossa occured, the full deployment was not over. The Western front had 3 armies in the first line and one in reserves, but several others from the reserve were moving westward and not to admire the scenery.
In order to slice the salient in retaliation to a soviet attack, the german forces would have had to pierce through the defense of the 3d and 4th Soviet Armies AND several others reserve armies, which would have been in place, and do that with less air support than they had during the opening of Barbarossa.
And in order to prevent the pincing of the salient, the soviet forces from the bases of the bulge were not even required to fight a mobile battle, which was so often claimed they were incapable to do. Static defence would have been enough.
And, btw, the Soviet build up and deployment was not finished on 22 june, but it went on at a frantic pace.
3. In case of a soviet attack, the soviet command would have not been thrown into such confusion as it did. The troops and the commanders would not have been told "not to answer provocation" under penalty of death, nor would they have received the flurry of contradictory orders which they did in the first days of war.
Here is an example. Fortunately, I managed to find some data on that 32 Tank Division, whose commander, col. Pushkin, was complaining afterwards about the poor state of his division.
On 23 June, the Division was ordered that, together with 8 Tank Division and 81 Motorized Division, to encircle and destroy the enemy from its area. During the march, at 10 AM, the division received a second mission - to destroy the enemy tanks from the area of the town Mosty Velke. The division had to make an 180 degrees turn, but it found no enemy tanks at Mosty Velke. At 5 PM, there was a new order, to destroy 300 enemy tanks and airborne units at Kamenka Strumilova. The division started to carry out the order, but it found no enemy at Kamenka Strumilova.
And that was not the end of it. In 3 days, the 32 Tank Division had to march around 350 km without any stops for rest or maintenance.
Pushkin complained later on that "tanks drivers were untrained, and it had only 22 percent of its required transport, 13 percent of its repair facilities, 2 percent of its required reserve supplies, 30 percent of its radios and 50 percent of its engineer support" and thus lost 307 tanks out of 361.
Even if he had 100% of everything, how on earth could the division have been anything else than worn out after all this?
We know enough about what occurred in the Soviet higher echelons to realize that the German invasion utterly shocked and bamboozled the Soviet high command, from Stalin down. This were the effects in the field.