Posted on 02/16/2015 4:27:17 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Speaking of German situation maps, Marshal Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front makes an appearance as it approaches the Niesse River southeast of Berlin:
The Germans launch Operation Sonnenwende in the Stargard sector, but the initial results are less than spectacular.
Farther to the east, Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front continues it's drive to the north toward Danzig.
Those were the days...
In those days you couldn't say "seamen."
Canada Ping!
The U.S. Navy has decided to say “Hello” to Tokyo. B-29’s are one thing. But to have US carriers striking at the heart of the Empire has to tell many Japanese that their navy is effectively out of the War. They can hurt individual ships, but the IJN cannot stop the USN from going wherever it wants, whenever it wants.
Semper Fi, Eve Arden.
“Eye shado” and “Eyelash pomade.” *snicker*
Are you saying you’ve never worn eyelash pomade?
WORKMAN must be a code name for some phase of the Iwo Jima operation. West Virginia will travel to Iwo accompanied by two destroyers to participate in the bombardment.
The Russians are very effectively widening the shoulders of their giant salient. The German attempt to pinch the northern shoulder in the Stargard counteroffensive is failing.
Until now, Stalin has been letting Rokossovsky and Konev do the widening, while Zhukov was doing the deepening. And in fact, Zhukov was contemplating a quick smash across the Oder to grab Berlin on the fly before the Germans could make a cohesive defense on the Oder. Those German intercepts on the map yesterday weren’t fantasies. But the Germans are making a stand, and Zhukov is at the end of a long supply line that stretches back across a wasteland of desolation as far as Smolensk and Rzhev. And while Operation Sonnenwende will not have a lot of battlefield success, it will convince Stalin that before Zhukov lunges for Berlin, Pomerania needs to be cleared. Rokossovsky’s Front isn’t strong enough to do it alone, and his center of mass is too far to the east near Danzig.
So Berlin will get a reprieve while Zhukov has to shift forces north. If you think about it, though, in only a few more weeks of muddy, boggy conditions, Silesia and Pomerania will be cleared, and Konev, Zhukov and Rokossovsky will line up three powerful army groups on the present German-Polish border, ready for a massive strike.
This isn’t the Red Army of 1941 or early 1942.
This isn’t the Red Army of 1941 or early 1942.
It most certainly isn't. It's impressive how much armor they have deployed.
Reading between the lines of Goebbels "10 Commandments" morale among troops and the home front must be plummeting.
And it is positively evil that Goebbels won't even let women and children evacuate Berlin.
It now occurs to me that there is a gap in my knowledge of the USSR's chain of command. Was there a military man--a Marshall or JCS, between field marshals like Zhokov, Rokossovsky and Konev (which I assume to be the Russian equivalents of Ike, Monty, Bradley, etc.), and Stalin? Was it Khrushchev?
Good question. As in all things in the USSR, Stalin controlled everything and was the final arbiter on all military matters. Early in the war, he wasn’t very good at it, primarily due to being very impatient and expecting more results out of an army that wasn’t able to provide them. That was mostly due to his own hand, in both purging the officer corps and expanding the force structure too quickly.
But as the Red Army learned to fight, he learned how to lead it. And to some extent, that meant surrounding himself with competent professional military men and deferring to their expertise.
The main structure of the Soviet High Command consisted of of several military and mixed military/political organs of the Soviet state. At the highest level was the GKO, or State Defense Committee, which Stalin chaired. That committee was mostly civilian communist party, and roughly equated to the civilian control of the Soviet military. Civilian logistic and production heads shared responsibility with the Minister of Defense and Chief of the General Staff.
On the purely military side, there was the Stavka of the Supreme High Command, which was Stalin’s organ of military control. The Stavka contained the highest officers of the armed forces, of which Stalin was chair as Supreme Commander. After Stalingrad, Zhukov was named Deputy Supreme Commander and was technically the #2 man in Soviet miitary. Other members of the Stavka included the heads of the air force, navy and branches of the army such as artillery and armor. Members of the Stavka would be appointed as field “representatives” to go out and coordinate the activities of multiple fronts for various operations. Zhukov was used this way a lot, as was Chief of the General Staff Vasilevsky, who coordinated Operation Uranus and the encirclement of German 6th Army at Stalingrad.
Finally, there was the core of professional staff officers who formed the Soviet General Staff. They were responsible for the detailed planning of organizing, equipping and training Soviet formations, and also for planning operations. The Chief of the General Staff at the time of the German invasion was Boris Shaposhnikov, who may have been the one general that won the war for the USSR. Long before the German invasion, he developed the mobilization apparatus that allowed the Soviets to conjure up new armies faster than the Germans could destroy them, and kept the Red Army in the field long after the Germans thought they had destroyed it. Actually, the Germans destroyed it several times, but Shaposhnikov’s mobilization scheme kept producing new ones. Shaposhnikov was one of the few men Stalin actually liked; Stalin allowed him to sit, and to smoke, in his presence, and called him by his first name and patronymic (Boris MIkhailovich).
Shaposhnikov was already in poor health when the war began, and was unable to continue in his duties after 1942. He died in 1944 (same year as British Field Marshal Dill). He was succeeded by his protege, Alexander Vasilevsky. Vasilevsky was a relatively unknown colonel in the general staff in 1939 when he advised Voroshilov during the failed negotiations with Britain and France. By 1944, he was a Marshal of the Soviet Union. Vasilevsky was a competent but not flashy officer. During the later part of the war, his star went somewhat into eclipse, and he was succeeded by the Chief of the Operations section, Antonov. When Ivan Chernyakovsky is killed commanding 3rd Belorussian Front, Vasilevksy will be given his command and get the “honor” of capturing Konigsberg. In reality, it was sort of a backwater sector by then.
Hope that helps.
PS:
When Col. Gen. Nikolai Vatutin was killed by partisans, Zhukov was appointed his replacement as Front commander but retained the title of Deputy Supreme Commander. It was Stalin’s way of both allowing Zhukov the prize of taking Berlin, but also dropping him down a notch so that in dealing with operations, he was on the same level as other front commanders.
Stalin dealt directly with the front commanders, although he used the Stavka as his communications conduit.
Ask Goebbels kids if he was an evil man.
Once again, I benefit from your generosity, clarity, and your knowledge. Thank you greatly. At Homer’s university’s chain of command here, surely you are at least the Dean!
Can read this stuff all day.......thanks !!
March looms. It will all be over at the end of April, at least in Europe, and one can forgive them for the notion that it was so in all the world. Not the case, alas, and there will be an ocean of blood between Hitler's suicide and the final reckoning in Tokyo Bay.
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