Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

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Kelvin
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Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#1

Post by Kelvin » 10 Nov 2008, 13:10

Hi, anyone have detail on two encirclement battles in Nikolayev and Vinnitsa in the summer of 1941, Like how many both sides involved and Russian casulaties like killed and capture and booty.

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#2

Post by Art » 11 Nov 2008, 14:03

The situation at Nikolaev was a partial encirclement, if one can put it in this way. In essence one german tank division (16th) reashed Nikolaev from the north-east following along the eastern bank of Igul river while a large part of the Soviet South Front forces (9th Army and 55 Rifle corps of the 18th Army) were either near the ciry or north of it on the western side of Ingul. What happened after that confirms the following assertion by count Tolstoy:
Thirdly it was impossible, because the military term "to cut off" has no meaning. One can cut off a slice of bread, but not an army. To cut off an army- to bar its road- is quite impossible, for there is always plenty of room to avoid capture and there is the night when nothing can be seen
In this particular case it was true. On 15-16th August Soviet divisions broke out through German rear to the east. By 17-18 August they retreated behind Ingulets river and by 20-21 August behind Dnieper. I don't think that losses during the breakout are established precisely, but there are the following strength figures for the divisions of the 9th Army (22 August 1941):
74 Rifle Division - 704 officers, 819 NCOs, 3944 privates, 4001 rifles, 24 heavy machnineguns, 74 light machineguns, 90 machine-pistols, 55 artillery pieces, 7 mortars
176 Rifle Division - 818 officers, 811 NCOs, 4 304 privates, 4 674 rifles, 27 heavy MGs, 49 light MGs, 190 machine-pistols, 58 artillery pieces, 24 mortars
150 Rifle Division - 656 officers, 681 NCOs, 4 165 privates, 4 114 rifles, 26 heavy and 97 light MGs. 64 artillery pieces, 30 mortars
30 Rifle Division - 667 officers, 792 NCOs, 3 152 privates, 3 694 rifles, 22 heavy and 72 light MGs, 59 machine-pistols, 25 artillery pieces, 31 mortars
51 Rifle Division - 697 officers, 753 NCOs, 3 715 privates, 3 453 rifles, 29 heavy and 73 light MGs, 128 machine-pistols, 55 artillery pieces, 25 mortars.
That is from "Brief review of 9th Army's combat operations from 15 to 30 August 1941"/Collection of combat documents, Vol. 40
In addition the encircled group included 130 and 164 Rifle and 96 Mountain Rifle Divisions from the 18th Army plus some smaller units I don't have any info on their losses or strength after the breakout. A relevant map:
http://hwar1941.narod.ru/nikolaev.gif


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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#3

Post by Kelvin » 11 Nov 2008, 16:58

Hi, Art, encirclement at Nikolayev seemed not so successful as the encirclement at Uman.

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#4

Post by Art » 14 Nov 2008, 17:14

German forces were unsufficient for "normal' encirclement, that means that they were too small to create a dense enough inner front. As a result it's not suprising that the bulk of encircled units managed to retreat in an orderly fashion. But I think that German command could repeat the succes of the Uman pocket, should they use more forces to encircle the Nikolaev group, namely the most part of the 1 PzGr instead of one tank division. In fact their mobile units turned out to be scattered on the vast territory from Dniepropetrovsk to Nikolaev - a disposition not favourable for encirclement operation. Halder has several relevant remark in his diary, from which it follows that the command of the Army Group South was rather sceptical about the poissibility to encircle Soviet forces at Nikolaev, and Halder generally agreed with them. Then he noted that the turn of 16 PzD to Nikoleav was a somewhat "political' decision rather then was caused by operational coniderations.

Just for comparison, that is the numerical strength of the divisions mentioned in my previous message as of 12 July 1941. It was reported by the Staff of the South Front on 15 July:
176 Rifle Division - 14 149
74 Rifle Division - 7 973
150 Rifle Division - 9 019
30 (Mountain) Rifle Division - 7 447
51 Rifle Division - 14 711
It's obvious from comparison with abovequoted figures that 40 days of fighting took a heavy toll on these units.

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#5

Post by Kelvin » 14 Nov 2008, 22:57

Hi, Art, what was the political decision on the turn of 16th Pz division ?

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#6

Post by Art » 18 Nov 2008, 18:07

Halder wrote in his diary (entry of 11 August):
Keitel (OKW) complains to the Commander in Chief that we don't move to Nikolaev, to sezure of which fuhrer attaches much importance.
And the entry of 12 August:
Now forward units of the 11 Army stopped in front of Nikolaev having come to it from the west and completely blocking acces to the city. At the same time from the north, upsetting all our plans and cutting combat formations of other units, mobile group including 16 Panzer Division rush forward according to the order given, having the task to sever retreat routes of enemy troops at Nikolaev. In general it's better to do without such an offensive. The same story again!

Here the comment in the original German edition gives a reference to the record of 11 August quoted above.
Quoted text translated from the Russian edition of the diary.

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#7

Post by arsand » 27 Nov 2008, 19:28

I am from Nikolaev (Ukraine). We cant find the place of dead Soviet 155 Mountain Rifle Regiment of the 96 Mountain Rifle Divisions , who protected a deviationhe of 18th Army. Battle was near Novo-Michaylovka north-west from Peresadovka. We need any information about battles of 16th infanterie division (mot) and Hungary Mobile Corpuse on the 16th-20th August 1941. 400 soldiers-herose were dead, but we dont know where and haw!!!
MAP:http://www.amedia.mykolayiv.com/0001.gif

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#8

Post by Kelvin » 08 Jul 2014, 08:17

Hi, Art, a recent book about Barbarossa describes Southern Front skilfuly practised a rearguard action to avoid German attack in Nikolayev area. It seems Soviet success in that battle.

and some correction : there was no battle in Vinnitsa in 1941, I mean is battle of Zhitomir which German claimed it was encirclement battle, exactly what is this battle ? tank battle or infantry fighting ?

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#9

Post by GregSingh » 14 Jul 2014, 11:03

is battle of Zhitomir which German claimed it was encirclement battle,
Attack of German III.PzK (mostly 13.PzD) on Zhitomir and XXXXVIII.PzK (mostly 11.PzD) on Berdichev resulted in encirclement of parts of 147RD and 206RD from 7RC and 199RD from 49RC.

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#10

Post by Jeff Leach » 14 Jul 2014, 21:59

The records of the 16.Inf.Div.(mot) for Aug 1941 are posted in the Archive Section under Free Nara Rolls (look through the 72.I.D. records there too). If that doesn't help I should have the relavant records for A.O.K.11, XXX.A.K. and LIV.A.K. and most of the German Divisions invovled. The German records don't have much material on the Hungarian forces. Lots of Rumanian documents but few Hungarian.

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#11

Post by Kelvin » 16 Jul 2014, 17:01

Hi, GregSingh and Jeff, thank for both data on that battle. :)

I find German sources claimed that they captured 18,000 Russian soldiers in Zhitomir and 60,000 Russian at Nikolaev. I think Zhitomir is reliable but Nikolaev is too much.

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#12

Post by Kelvin » 26 Jul 2014, 18:16

I got some new data on the battle of Nikolaev : apart from 16.Panzer division, LAH motorized Brigade and Hungarian Fast Corps (2 x motorized Brig and 1 Cavlary Brig) also took part in battle.

From Soviet side, It claimed that it was the first successful breakout from German Kassel in Soviet-German war. And Halder also admitted that, albeit with capture of a number of Russian soldiers and capture of vital naval base and shipyard, Nikolaev, the two Soviet Armies, 9th and 18th Armies escaped intact organizationally. And Soviet also succeeded in either destroying or moving the ships in the South Marti shipyard and Komunar 61 North Yard.

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#13

Post by Kelvin » 16 Oct 2018, 06:16

Hi, Art, I see a book about Hungarian army and have a narrative of Fast corps ' operation in Nikolayev and they fought against Soviet 96th Mountain Rifle division and 164th Rifle division. They also said this battle resulted in 60000 POW. But if Soviet escaped the trap, still had that much POW ? Do you have detailed casualties on this battle for both sides ?

You have posted July 15 status for 9th Army, but still too far away for actual status on Aug 16. Thank

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#14

Post by Art » 03 Aug 2021, 16:02

Returning to the battle of Nikolayev in 1941. Below is a summary of POWs and equipment captured by the 1 Panzer Group in 2 weeks (9-24 August 1941). According to this page XXXXVIII Corps captured about 14,500 prisoners (mostly at Nikolayev and Kherson). A much larger number (more than 50,000) were captured by III and XIV Corps in the Dnieper bend at Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhie.
1111.jpg
1111.jpg (89.81 KiB) Viewed 5439 times
According to the record in the 1 PzGr's war diary made on 17 August in the battle for Nikolayev 6 655 POWs were captured which belonged to 16 various divisions. That included one general (who was he?).
From daily records of the 1st PzGr the numbers of POWs reported by the XXXXVIII Corps were as follows:
13.8 - 1000
14.8 -
15.8 - 1652
16.8 - 1060
17.8 - 2300
18.8 - 6087
19.8 - 478
20.8 - 1000

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Re: Battle of Nikolayev & Vinnitsa 1941

#15

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 03 Aug 2021, 18:36

Art wrote:
03 Aug 2021, 16:02
Below is a summary of POWs and equipment captured by the 1 Panzer Group in 2 weeks (9-24 August 1941).
AGS war diary of the same day, 25.8.41 (T311 R256), gives a higher PoW figure for PG1 over the same period (8-25.9.41): 83,596.
1241.jpg
Could it be that AGS is giving credit for more infantry corps attached to PG1 over the period, whereas PG1 is counting only by corps at the end of the period (I don't know whether PG1 had more AK attached during the period)? Or maybe just a representative admin snafu, such as likely caused the over-counting of Barbarossa PoW by ~half a million?
Art wrote:According to this page XXXXVIII Corps captured about 14,500 prisoners (mostly at Nikolayev and Kherson). A much larger number (more than 50,000) were captured by III and XIV Corps in the Dnieper bend at Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhie.
This really clarifies that PG1's PoW haul during August was mostly from pursuit operations in the Dniepr bend rather than from its attempted encirclement of Nikolayev.
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