Cult Icon wrote: ↑08 Jun 2021, 15:28
Your argument does not disprove if there could be "6 more Pz divisions in the theater".
Of course it does not. You cannot prove or disprove an event which never happened. However, it does rather raise the question of what condition those divisions would be in and what condition the southern front in the east would be like if such an action was undertaken.
By 1 June 1944, there were 20 Panzer divisions on the Ostfront, including 9. and 10. SS (in addition, 25. Panzer was fragmented with parts in Hungary, Germany, and Denmark). When the two SS divisions returned, they left the 18 divisions still there with 1,192 operational Panzer, 66.2 each on average, leaving them at one-third strength. Under the usual circumstance as followed by the Heer, the additional four divisions would leave most of its Panzer behind distributed to other divisions. So now we have 1,192 operational Panzer shared between 14 divisions, 85.1 each. You've increased the strength of those divisions to almost half, but reduced the number of maneuver units and it can only come from the south - HG-N had a single division and HG-M three, so there could only be 10 divisions in HG-NU and HG-SU, rather than the historical 9 in NU (not including 9. and 10. SS) and 5 in SU.
Positing a better outcome to the battles January-April 1944 by reducing the primary maneuver elements in the critical southern sector by 37.5 percent is a novel notion to say the least.
The next question of course is where the 732-odd Panzer required to fill up the shells of the four additional divisions sent west come from? Notably, the 11 Panzer divisions (including 9. and 10. SS) had only 1,244 tanks by 15 June, giving them an average of 113.1 each, stronger than in the east, but now you want 15 divisions there, drawing from the same Panzer pool, so 82.9 each, making them now weaker than those in the east. Of course complicating that is that the Panzer strength actually includes 250 Panthers, operational and non-operational, held by the units training at – Mailly-le-Camp, many of which were intended for units in the east.
Essentially you are doing what the Germans did, juggling a finite resource and robbing Peter to pay Paul.