Simply put a WW2 Soviet rifle corps commander can order an attack but really can’t call it off and has limited means to support it.
Actually, by 1944 a Soviet corps enjoyed a substantial fire power advantage over it's German counterparts.
Organically, a 1944 Rifle Corps consists of 3-4 divisions which each have(assuming they are at full-strength which is a given if it is in a critical attack sector) have nearly 166 heavy machine guns, 183 mortars (38 of which are heavy mortars which are as powerful as the divisional howitzer), 48 AT guns, and 44 artillery pieces organic to it's TOE.
For comparison, a German 1944 Infantry Division's TOE at full strength (which was never the case in 1944) gives it 90 heavy machine guns, 82 mortars, 30 AT guns, and 48 artillery pieces. German corps composition varied quite a bit but the average for 1944 seems to have been 3 divisions.
As you can see, in organic terms the only place the a full strength German infantry division (and thus full-strength German infantry corps) has an advantage is tube artillery. Of course, since no German infantry division on the Eastern Front in 1944 was more then 3/4ths of their TOE (and even those were extremely rare), that advantage remained theoretical.
Then you add on whatever additional fire support the corps/division has been granted by higher command. For the Soviets this could include, but were not limited too: Army Artillery Regiments, RVGK Artillery Regiments, AA regiments, mortar regiments, tank regiments, guards heavy tank regiments, guards mortar [Katyusha MLR] regiments, sapper regiments, self-propelled gun regiments, and AT regiments. In 1944 the Soviets had 1,511 such support units.
The Germans had them too, although with different names. But they only had about 1/3 of them: 643, mostly in battalion size.
The bulk of the artillery is limited to either direct fire or predicted fire on a timed basis rather than observer controlled and that’s what does the one sided killing e.g. at Iassy the prep fires destroy the german artillery and a whole ID. But doing that is decided on the map before the attack goes in.
Then why do I see all of these interviews with Soviet artillery observers in various history books?
The postwar (45/46) British assessment was that Soviet practice in 45 was at about 1915 British levels that’s based on POW interviews with German’s and observation. Certainly Germans coming to the west were repeatedly warned that US or British artillery was devastating, always, in minutes, Russian just occasionally scary.
Probably because they were never the ones who received the full weight of a Soviet barrage. In 1944-45, the general trend was that Soviet barrages shattered what they targeted so comprehensively that Red Army infantry were able to practically walk through their lines. The only time trouble arose was when the preparation fire was
not aimed at a particular key point, generally as a result of an intelligence or planning failure (this is what happened at Seelow Heights). This very rarely happened in the west.
Simply put a WW2 Soviet rifle corps commander can order an attack but really can’t call it off and has limited means to support it.
Actually, by 1944 a Soviet corps enjoyed a substantial fire power advantage over it's German counterparts.
Organically, a 1944 Rifle Corps consists of 3-4 divisions which each have(assuming they are at full-strength which is a given if it is in a critical attack sector) have nearly 166 heavy machine guns, 183 mortars (38 of which are heavy mortars which are as powerful as the divisional howitzer), 48 AT guns, and 44 artillery pieces organic to it's TOE.
For comparison, a German 1944 Infantry Division's TOE at full strength (which was never the case in 1944) gives it 30 heavy machine guns, 82 mortars, 30 AT guns, and 48 artillery pieces. German corps composition varied quite a bit but the average for 1944 seems to have been 3 divisions.
As you can see, in organic terms the only place the a full strength German infantry division (and thus full-strength German infantry corps) has an advantage is tube artillery. Of course, since no German infantry division on the Eastern Front in 1944 was more then 3/4ths of their TOE (and even those were extremely rare), that advantage remained theoretical.
Then you add on whatever additional fire support the corps/division has been granted by higher command. For the Soviets this could include, but were not limited too: Army Artillery Regiments, RVGK Artillery Regiments, AA regiments, mortar regiments, tank regiments, guards heavy tank regiments, guards mortar [Katyusha MLR] regiments, sapper regiments, self-propelled gun regiments, and AT regiments. In 1944 the Soviets had 1,511 such support units.
The Germans had them too, although with different names. But they only had about 1/3 of them: 643, mostly in battalion size.
The bulk of the artillery is limited to either direct fire or predicted fire on a timed basis rather than observer controlled and that’s what does the one sided killing e.g. at Iassy the prep fires destroy the german artillery and a whole ID. But doing that is decided on the map before the attack goes in.
Then why do I see all of these interviews with Soviet artillery observers in various history books?
The postwar (45/46) British assessment was that Soviet practice in 45 was at about 1915 British levels that’s based on POW interviews with German’s and observation. Certainly Germans coming to the west were repeatedly warned that US or British artillery was devastating, always, in minutes, Russian just occasionally scary.
Probably because they were never the ones who received the full weight of a Soviet barrage. In 1944-45, the general trend was that Soviet barrages shattered German defenses so comprehensively that Red Army infantry were able to practically walk over their lines. This very rarely happened in the west.
Do you have preferably an online source for me to look at Soviet tactical drills at the tactical, operational and strategic levels? Just something else for me to look at for a TL.
Unfortunately, no. I only know about the system via
this book and Donnelly only gives a few examples rather then anything comprehensive. It's a very late-Cold War work, but it clearly took the most advantage of perestroika as all of the people I have talked to elsewhere have stated it holds up to a post-Cold War scrutiny. Not everything within applies to the Red Army within World War 2., as again it's a Cold War piece, but probably 90-95% of it does given that a lot of Soviet Cold War stuff is directly developed from World War 2.
As a minor nitpick, the Soviets drill system was exclusively for tactical maneuvers and as such did not extend above the regimental-level. A Soviet junior officer was supposed to use his knowledge of the current military norms and the correlation of forces of the situation to know which drill to order executed. Above the regimental-level, norms and correlation of forces were something to be used in planning operations.