Boby wrote:
Where Zeitzler expected the BIG offensive? Yeah, against Army Group North Ukraine, not in the Center.
This is often misleading. The fact that the Russians outwitted the Germans. Friezer, having studied the documents, came to the conclusion that the German command was well aware of Soviet preparations and the weakness of the German defense.
https://www.welt.de/geschichte/zweiter- ... nfig=print
Frieser: When evaluating German booty files in Russian archives, I discovered that the front-line units had explained the Soviet offensive intentions surprisingly well. But the results were not adequately relayed by Army Group Center. Blame was their commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Ernst Busch. When he wanted to point out the threat, Hitler reacted with a tantrum. Busch broke in and banned "defeatist" messages. So the evil took its course.
When?
The first time in April, the last June 14. Hitler insisted the main blow would be in Ukraine against the facts.
https://kartaslov.ru/книги/Иринархов_Р_ ... кий_удар/1
The command of Army Group Center on the intelligence received it became clear that there is a large concentration of Russian forces for strikes in the directions of Bobruisk, Mogilev, Orsha, Vitebsk. His command intended to withdraw his troops to the border of Polotsk, Bobruisk, greatly reducing the front line and strengthening the density of defense. This point of view was also reported at a meeting at the General Staff of the Army, held on June 14, 1944, but she never found support at the top.
They continued to believe that the Russian offensive should be expected between the Carpathians and Kovel, which was reflected in the "Bulletin of the enemy's assessments on the Eastern Front", published on June 13, 1944. It stated that the offensive preparations of the Russian troops against the Army Group Center were intended to mislead the German command concerning the direction of the main attack and to draw back reserves from the region between the Carpathians and Kovel.
Therefore, Hitler categorically forbade the withdrawal of troops of Army Group Center, demanding from them "in any circumstances to defend and hold occupied lines," and refusing to replenish reserves. [18]
The army group commander, Field Marshal E. Bush, was asked to settle for the defense of his strip with still quite considerable forces at his disposal. However, on June 20 the command of the army group, having received news of the large-scale sabotage of Belarusian guerrillas on the railway communications, had realized that they could no longer see a quiet summer.
AG Center was one of four armies in the East. Why would Hitler be hypnotized solely by him?
For this purpose there is an investigation, it is timely to establish plans of the opponent.
This is wishful thinking. There is no proof (for obvious reasons) that a different strategy in June would make any difference than in the OTL.
Just opinion apropos. The attack on all front was the Soviet plan, forces dispersed.
http://pawet.net/library/history/bel_hi ... он%27.html
The main "novelty" of this operation was the colossal number of troops. That's why "Bagration-2" was not limited to 2-3 separate blows. A figurative comparison is worthy: if we imagine the German front in Belarus as a wooden fence, then the Soviet troops lined up from one corner to the other and broke all the boards in the fence, not two or three. Only in one place a board was broken off by one person, and in others (in Vitebsk-Orsha and the Bobruisk section), three or four people broke it at once.
By that time, the Soviet command had abandoned the method of "deep operation" (after a failed strategic offensive "from sea to sea" in the first half of 1942) in favor of another, which can be christened "wide hacking". One of the first to use it was the commander of the Western Front, Ivan Konev during Operation Mars. Subsequently, it began to be used everywhere - the welfare of the Wehrmacht contributed to it.
The use of the "wide hacking" method was a logical decision, applied to the realities of the Eastern Front. The Germans, who were far behind their enemy in strength, could not ensure the reliability of defense throughout the front. As early as the Soviet troops of the Luban offensive operation (January-April 1942), German observers in the Volkhov Front band noted that only one platoon with one machine gun provided 1 km of German defense - this is the density.
That is, the breakthrough of the first line of the German defense was a relatively simple matter, the difficulties started later.
The question arises: why with such a low saturation of the enemy front by the troops, the Soviet armies did not break this front always and everywhere? Because Soviet troops were an extremely slow mechanism - they struck their blows mainly along the most important lines of communication and these attacks, as a rule, rested on large settlements. But it is the Katyusha that are firing
these directions the Germans covered much more densely than the other sectors of the front.
Conscious of the lack of strength, German generals during the Soviet offensive in Ukraine began to apply the method of "elastic defense": in the first defensive zone held relatively few troops, having the bulk in the depth, primarily tank and mechanized units. At the same time, the main thing was to act flexibly, not trying to keep certain lines "at any cost", timely (with a deep penetration of the enemy into the defense), leading the infantry out of the flank attacks and simultaneously inflicting strong tank counterblows from the depths.
Tank units in the depths of the defense could not get any Soviet artillery, or "Stalin Falcons," who were afraid to fly to an enemy location beyond 30 km. And so, with a relatively easy break through the first line of the German defense, Soviet troops immediately received blows from armored hammers of the Wehrmacht's tank units attacking from the depths. Such a defense of the Red Army could stretch, but could not break through.
Successfully testing this tactic in the winter of 1943-44. (Korosten, Zhitomir, Melen), the command of the Army Group "South" led by Erich von Manstein decided to build on it a strategy to combat the numerically superior enemy in Ukraine, betting on the exhaustion of Soviet troops and causing them maximum losses in manpower. Manstein and the company made the correct conclusion that at the end of 1943 the Red Army began to feel a lack of reserves. But the line under the strategic calculations of their generals was led personally by the Fuhrer. In response to Manstein's proposals, he:
a) banned any future withdrawal without his own personal permission (what was substituted for the enemy by the German units, considerably inferior to the enemy number of people and the amount of equipment);
b) ordered to keep the defensive lines to the last possible, even in conditions of circumvention of the enemy flanks (what drove the German troops into Soviet "boilers" and substituted for a massive artillery fire). It can be said that it was at a meeting at its headquarters on December 27, 1943, that Hitler for six months before the main events predetermined the fate of Army Group Center.
Such a long preamble was required to explain that the breakthrough of the first German defense line in Belarus was relatively simple, thanks to the tremendous numerical superiority of the Soviet troops, the matter remained for the development of success. But here, as the subsequent events showed, the plan for the operation was not sufficiently developed.
The main problem of the "wide hacking" method was precisely this: spraying the troops along the entire front, it is difficult to create sufficient reserves of the day for the development of success in depth.
In addition, the tactical preparation of the troops for the purpose of "building up" units and fighting interaction was insufficient, and such training was extremely necessary for the parts crowded with new recruits.
German Answer
The operation "Bagration" was planned exclusively on the map. And if the command of the German group "Center" had adequate reserves, it would have ended at best in Berezina, and at worst 50-100 km from the turn of the offensive.
"Operation Bagration" is a triumph of the Soviet theory of military art due to the well-coordinated offensive movement of all fronts and the conducted operation to disinform the enemy about the place of the general offensive that began in the summer of 1944. "
Contrary to this popular fable in Russia, the Soviet offensive in Belarus was not a surprise for the Germans - a surprise was its successful development.
Like all other major Soviet offensive operations, "Bagration" was opened by the Germans - the forces of the army, aviation and radio reconnaissance - by June 10, two weeks before it began. The information was immediately sent to Hitler's bet. On June 14, a meeting was held to discuss this issue, for which the commander of the Army Group Center, Field Marshal Ernst Bush, was summoned.
How did the German propaganda show the German defense plan? Like that:
"At the headquarters of the ground forces, Hitler believed that the Soviet offensive would take place on the territory of Western Ukraine, in the band of the army group" Northern Ukraine ". That's why the main forces of the German tank armies were concentrated there (the German command planned to inflict a powerful counterattack on the expected Soviet offensive). At the request of the command of the Army Group Center to allocate at least more large reserves to it, it was stated that the general situation on the Eastern Front does not permit another grouping of forces. "
That is, the thesis "we outwitted them" is propagated. But this is nonsense. Unexpectedness for the German military ranks and Hitler's top "Bagration" was not. It's quite another matter.
E. Bush demanded from Hitler permission to withdraw troops to the boundary of the Berezina River, in order to nullify the entire plan of the Soviet command. The solution was simple, logical and effective.
First, thereby the Germans avoided the strongest first attack by the Red Army.
Secondly, the front was leveled and dangerous projections toward the "reds" were eliminated.
Thirdly, the defense zone was reduced, the military order of the troops was consolidated.
Fourthly, almost all partisan zones in Eastern Belarus faced the German front, and not behind it.
The first blow of the "councils" would have occurred in an empty place, and without hindrance having advanced beyond the Dnieper and the Druze, the Soviet troops would have rested on a new line of German defense passing along the natural river boundary. As a result, the entire Bagration would confine itself to several more or less deep wedges with very significant losses.
But the fate of Army Group Center was decided not in Moscow, but in Furer's Wolf's Den:
"Hitler, as usual, forbade withdrawal, and the unfortunate connections of the Army Group Center," defending themselves on an extremely extended front, were in fact isolated from each other even before the Russian offensive "(Mellenthin F. The armored fist of the Wehrmacht, Smolensk, 1999, p. 412) .
Then E. Bush asked to give him additional reinforcements to ensure a greater density of defense on the previous frontiers. Again, the refusal was followed - the general situation on the fronts did not allow such a measure. Here the Fuhrer was right - on June 6, 1944, the Western allies landed in Normandy (Operation "Lord"). All the reserves of Germany were now sent to France. So it was not the notorious "tank armies" in Ukraine, and it did not take many tanks in the forests and swamps of Belarus - the infantry would be enough. But the Fuhrer was "sure" that a new Soviet offensive could be successfully repelled by cash forces.
With his "brilliant" decision, he substituted for his many times superior forces of the Red Army his not very crowded troops, also stretched into a thin thread along the arc, and even with protrusions in the districts of Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev and Bobruisk.
