Don't worry. As you can see, I am also late responding.
Of course, they alone wouldn't have made a decisive difference, only together with the other forces freed.I doubt seriously that the three German divisions sent to reinforce the Crimea would have made a decisive difference to the fortunes of HG-S or HG-A in the winter of 1943/1944 and spring of 1944.
I'm not saying Army Group South could have achieved a victory comparable to that of Kharkov, my point was that simply a small numbers of operational tanks does not necessarily preclude success.Indeed, because the Soviets were at the far end of an unconstrained pursuit following the breakthrough battles of late November 1942. Hausser's SS-Korps was fresh, newly re-equipped, and ready to go. What comparable force was there ready to stop the Soviets in December 1943?
Moreover, at the end of the Zhitomir-Berdichev offensive, the Soviets were in a similar state to that before the Third Battle of Kharkov (although probably not so bad). In Robert M. Citino's The Wehrmacht last stand It is said:
[The Soviets] were in full-on pursuit mode, with three armies abreast (38th, 1st Tank, and 40th) driving hard on their objectives. All three armies had been fighting sustained combat for nearly three weeks, however, their edge was dulled, and stocks of field supplies, ammunition, and perhaps human energy were beginning to run low. All offensives eventually peter out, of course, a point made by Clausewitz when he coined the term “culmination point,” that moment when the offensive has achieved all it can and begins, at first imperceptibly, to ebb. But moving beyond the great philosopher, it is clear that ending an offensive had become a systemic problem for the Soviet military. Soviet commanders steeped in the doctrine of deep battle tended to drive on until they imploded from their own overstretch and exhaustion (or until the Germans caught them in a vise).
Which of them had 347 and which had 35 operational tanks?Yes, my bad.By the way, you first say 1. Panzer Army had only 35 operational tanks, and then you say it had 347. Perhaps in one of those you meant 4. Panzer Army?
I didn't mean the divisions sent in October 1943-January 1944, but those sent from January to May 11944. And if the High Command could send to Army Group South divisions from Army Groups Center and North when Army Group South needed them, why couldn't send them West, where the invasion was expected?
The reinforcement from the West was sent at the end of March 1944 and had little real effect in changing the events in the East. As already mentioned that likely would result in a single division ready for the Normandy front.
The notion that divisions sent to HG-S and HG-A to stabilize the situation in October-December 1943 and January 1944 would be sent West if the situation "stabilized" through a massive withdrawal of the two HG is a curious one. Why? Those divisions from "other fronts" included 16. Panzer-Division sent East in December 1943 from Italy, but otherwise were drawn from HG-N and HG-M. I seriously doubt that any of them would have been sent West, but more likely would have been returned to their own unstable fronts in spring 1944. In late December 1943, HG-M had just 206 operational Panzers, while HG-N had all of 58.
