From what I've read, right after his successful counterattack of March 1943 Manstein proposed withdrawing to the Dneiper in the southern part of the front, with the bulk of the armor in the Kharkov area, ready to cut off the advancing Soviets from the north. This plan was finally rejected in early April.
Manstein proposed no such thing, even according to himself. His foremost proposal in March of 1943 was essentially Citadel except launched immediately instead of later, a proposal that was in gross ignorance of the Soviet dispositions in front of him. He would stick to that proposal all the way until July 15th 1943, even if his support was more cautious at certain times then at others.
After Soviet bridgeheads were already established, but not with all or even most of their horse drawn equipment.
Only some of Soviet bridgeheads. Quite a number of Soviet forces were able to force their way across in spite of the Germans being able to set up on the other bank.
That involved hundreds of thousands of men. Plus there was plenty of heavy fighting around Kharkov and East Ukraine in 1942 and again in winter 1943, then again in summer 1943. The Mius River is in East Ukraine too and that whole region saw heavy fighting that summer into autumn. Plus then of course along the Dniepr, which ripped up Ukraine as well, then as fighting continued on into west Ukraine into 1944 that ripped up that whole region as well, plus Soviet suppression efforts that really hurt that region, as did the forced population transfers of Poles. Ukraine was a war zone for most of the war and consequently suffered damage that would take over a decade to repair.
With the exception of Kharkov and to a lesser extent the Central D'niepr, none of these regions were quite as heavily industrialized.
Source? Plus is that 30 million actually who was there in 1943-44 or the pre-war population.
The pre-war population was 40 million, a figure it didn't recover too until 1956, so obviously it's who was actually there during the war. Solid demographic data during the war is impossible to determine so I work backwards based on Wikipedia's 1950 data and the intervening and then rounded to the nearest 10 millionth. Not the most precise figure but should be inside the ballpark. It is the post-1939 borders though...
http://ukrainianweek.com/History/74746
This claims somewhere between 2.7-4 million people were conscripted in the 2nd draft after liberation.
This gives some interesting numbers too:
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewt...1559&hilit=ukraine+conscription+1943#p1761559
Just
1(!) front conscripted alone almost 530k men in Ukraine. There were
4 Ukrainian Fronts in 1943-44.
Those numbers sound like their counting troops which were formally conscripted long after the region was liberated in 1944 and 1945, which is arguably stretching the definition of "booty troops" to the breaking point. The territory liberated in 1943-44 ultimately added a million men to the number of boys coming of age to the Soviet Union's recruitment pool, on top of the 2 million men within the territories the USSR controlled at the start of the 1942 and 1943 summer campaign seasons.
Not to mention, you haven't demonstrated that the Germans would be any more effective in depopulating the region then OTL. The Soviets in 1945 found that only a few percent of eligible recruits within the territories were removed by the Germans.
Where do you think the farming was? If the countryside is depopulated that would wreck farming.
Well, there's a non-sequitur. We're discussing damage to the regions industry and transport infrastructure, not agriculture. Of course, even looking at agriculture, regional productivity dropped even further during 1943 as it had in 1942 and 1941, and didn't start to recover until 1944... so the Germans can still claim (and did claim) plenty of success in their scorched earth.
Cities were heavily fought over during the war; Kharkov 4 times, Kiev twice for extended periods, plus numerous other cities and towns.
The main industrial region of the Ukraine is the Donbass, which never saw such serious fighting. In 1941, the Soviets quickly blew up or moved whatever they could and left. In 1942, it never saw any serious fighting (the front never actually reached it). In 1943, the Germans quickly blew up or moved whatever they could and left. In neither case did they see much serious fighting as the prospective defenders, lacking serious forces, didn't even make the attempt. The areas further north (Kharkov), east (the Mius), and west (the D'niepr) of the Donbass did indeed see much more serious fighting, but these areas while important from an absolute standpoint, were not remotely as industrially significant as the Donbass.
The Soviets also scorched earthed Ukraine in 1941-42 as they retreated. It is complete BS to say it was only on the Germans.
Well, leaving aside the strawman that I never said it was only the Germans, that only suggests the region was even more effectively devastated... not less.
It is lying with stats to claim that the relatively limited forces that attacked during Citadel had as much equipment as the entirety of AG-South,
Well then it is a good thing that wasn't what I was claiming. I was only counting the entirety of AGS at the time of the Citadel, and not the forces that attacked at Citadel, and then comparing it to the entirety of AGS at the time of the D'niepr river battles, not counting a single force under the command of AGC in the process. You know, like what I explicitly said?
If I had been just counting the forces of AGS that were at Kursk, then my numbers would have been much smaller.
also encompassing a wide period that was technically considered the Battle of the Dnieper ranging from September-December when reinforcements, new divisions, and replacement equipment filtered in to replace the losses that happened during the fighting and retreats in July-September.
Mainly because appealing to that is a red-herring. If the reinforcements, new divisions, and replacement that filtered in to replace losses up until September 24th 1943 means AGS was quantitatively just as strong at the start of the Battle of the D'niepr as it was at the start of the Battle of Kursk, then guess what:
that's my point. You can't claim the Soviet success was the result of quantitative losses if the Germans had managed to make good on their losses.
There was no way that AG-South had 1500 AFVs on had at the Dniepr in late September during the bridgehead fight.
Because it isn't like AGS was able to receive replacements and reinforcements during the course of August and September.
What source is claiming that AG-South had 12,000 guns (mortars, AT guns, artillery) as of September 24th on the Dnieper, not left behind in retreats??? Does that also include late arriving reinforcements too?
It's everything AGS had on September 24th, 1943, so if any reinforcements are counted they were the ones which arrived prior to that date.
The Soviets achieved their multiple bridgeheads IOTL after a mad dash to the river, arriving in many places before the Germans and grabbing ground that they had a hard time reinforcing, but did not lose.
The Soviets didn't have a hard time reinforcing the bridgeheads at all. Soviet forces were freely able to move into and out of the bridgeheads from the eastern side of the river, with the only limitation being the size of the bridgehead itself. This was actually pretty important when it came to the breakout at Lyutezh as in order to do that the Soviets had to withdraw forces from one bridgehead and send them to another.
Most German retreating units arrived after the Soviet armored spearheads and already grabbed their bridgeheads.
In some cases, in some cases not.
The forces holding the natural obstacle of the Dnieper were also heavily worn down in the fighting and retreats of July-September,
Losses which were largely made good.
while 17th army was locked down in Kuban until September-October and didn't participate in the fighting for the Dnieper until they were already cut off in Crimea.
Which also tied down a half-million Soviet troops that could otherwise be crossing the D'niepr and the equipment and supplies to aid that. So that's basically a wash.
Also that quote:
refers to Hitler thinking it would hold AFTER giving retreat orders too late in September after AG-South forces were already retreating behind the advanced Soviet elements, which grabbed bridgeheads before they arrived to help. You're claiming that that OTL situation is just like an ATL situation in which the Germans pulled back and properly set up defenses, rather than the OTL situation of retreat only being ordered belatedly after the Soviets were breaking through and ahead in the race to the Dnieper.
No, it pretty transparently refers to the belief that a simple natural terrain obstacle will be able to alter the fundamental dynamics of the Germans not having adequate forces to be strong all along the line and the Soviets being able to strike anywhere without warning all along the line. The Battle of the D'niepr IATL, like IOTL, will follow the same dynamics as the other defensive attempts by the Germans in late-1943: the Germans, with too few forces to cover the length of their front, would race their formations one way or another to shore up the line against a Soviet attack only to be hit unexpectedly by the main blow in a location where they were too weak to stop it, forcing them to scramble, improvise, and ultimately withdraw.
Because the Soviets had already grabbed multiple bridgeheads and the Germans were containing something like more than 20 of them. The Lyutezh one was a minor one in comparison. In other sources they specifically state there wasn't enough strength to go around for all of the hotspots after the losses of the retreat, so they had to economize.
And given that the strength of AGS after the retreat was little different, the Germans were
always going to have to economize. Hell, the Germans having to economize was nothing new: they had to do it for Kursk (both the offensive and defensive phases), for 3rd Kharkov, and even for Blau. It's just from Kursk on it no longer was enough to hold the line. That there wasn't enough strength to go around was not a new phenomenon by late-'43 and it won't be IATL either.
The entire reason they didn't bother putting sufficient forces to guard it was because they were facing much more threatening ones.
And that is liable to be the case IATL.
In this ATL the river defense line would have been reached and set up before the Soviets could race out to establish bridgeheads all over, tying down German forces like IOTL.
And it does that by basically pretending the Soviets would sit around and twiddle their thumbs until the Germans have completely finished their withdrawal and only then do they advance. It's the Eastern Front equivalent of Sealion proposals which have the Royal Navy just sit around and do nothing while the Germans conduct the entire invasion.
How do the Soviets establish bridgheads all over the place and overload the Germans like IOTL, if in this ATL the defenses are set up and reached in a phased withdrawal before the Soviets break through on the Mius and at Kharkov, outracing the Germans to the Dnieper?
Likely the same way they did OTL: by attacking before the defenses are set up.
The phased withdrawal would be ordered in July per OP, not ordered belatedly in September per OTL.
Yes, and so? The historical scramble of a withdrawal took most of September. A phased withdrawal would take much longer and leave the frontline forces much more exposed in the interim, vulnerable to the imminent Soviet counter-offensive. Hell, at Orel the Soviet counter-offensive is already underway so those forces can carry on pursuing the retreating Germans. Not to mention that it would still have to deal with the problem of having to converge onto just six crossing sights on the eastern bank and then spread back across the western before Soviet forces arrive... and the Soviets will still be right on their heels. There's also the question of if the Germans attempt to hold the bend of the D'niepr river or their historical line which is east of the southern D'niepr. If they try to go the former, then they'll be even more spread out then OTL as the bend creates a giant salient the Germans have to defend which wastes or possibly even outweights the extra strength. If they try to go the latter, then they don't have the supposed benefit of withdrawing behind the D'niepr.
Infantry divisions weren't the ones that seized those bridgeheads, it was the infantry of mobile divisions that did. Infantry divisions would be left behind, meaning it would only be tank armies alone against an establish defensive line initially, so no bridgeheads seized on the march as per OTL.
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Actually, quite a number of rifle divisions did manage to keep pace with the Soviet armor and conduct their own crossings that established bridgeheads on the other side. The crossing at Lyutezh was one such case, as it took place inside of a 70 kilometer stretch of river where no fewer then 4 rifle corps had arrived at roughly the same time as Soviet mechanized forces, but there were others.
Additionally, even where there were just the tank armies, the Soviets have an additional two tank armies to do it with and there were a number of instances where the Soviet tank armies were able to seize a bridgehead on the other side in spite of Germans already being there. Additionally, even with a phased withdrawal the Soviets are liable to attack and breakthrough the German lines before said withdrawal is completed, so you still have the situation where the Soviets arrive at the river before all German forces are established on the western side.
Later of course the Soviets would extend their logistics and be able to to brute force the river line
Which they started doing OTL by the start of October of 1943. Those twenty bridgeheads you keep going on about? By the time the Soviets managed to effect a breakout at the start of November that figure had doubled. Moving the figure backwards, and even going along with the inane idea that the Soviets will sit around and let it happen, if the Germans withdraw back across the river by the start of August, then the Soviets would be in position to start brute forcing it by mid-August. They'll have 20 bridgeheads by mid-September.