WI: Manstein in Operation Obol? (Summer 1944)
Excerpts from the AH.com thread “WI: Manstein in Operation Obol?”
Ritterstahl said:I just picked up Glantz’s book “Paying the Ferryman: The Liberation of Right-Bank Ukraine” and have been making my way through it slowly.
My initial thought is 1) Reading history in my second language was harder than I expected (the only official German translations are, understandably, verboten in Free Germany due to their origin) 2) Marxist verbiage is tedious.
But I will give the devil what he is due, Glantz is a fantastic researcher. Most of my knowledge on Second Kiev and the Dneiper Crossing came from reading Karl Wolff’s personal memoirs back in Gymnasium. I knew it smelled of excuseology then, but I had no idea just how much.
I hate to say this, but maybe you Yanks and Sovs are right; if he’d been gibbeted we would have been spared this tainting of the historical record by lost-causers. So basically, Wolff excuses his failure in commanding Heeresgruppe Süd by playing the oh-so wonderful “Blame Hitler” card, pretending that the battle was lost because he was denied needed resources by the OKW, that his non-German allied units were useless, and ignores the fact that Zhukov and Haywood were always at least one move ahead of him.
Hitler being so methed out that he was barely competent to stand trial certainly lent credence to this defense, but at a certain point it’s all about cozying up to the new regime, like all the other “Not too Nazi” Nazis.
Anyway, back to the fine point of it: Volksmarschall Manstein was transferred to Heeresgruppe Mitt in December 1943 to whip it back into shape, since Hitler and the OKW generally assumed that the Reds would drive for the jugular and take the quickest path to Berlin. What would happen if Germany’s most able commander had been overseeing the defense of the Dneiper Line? Might the disasters been avoided, slowing the advance of the Reds and bloodying them more? Would we see knock-on effects on the final outcome of the war such as a larger West Germany?
The Red Dragon said:There is only so much better generalship can do to alter the course of a war of industries and demographics like the world revolutionary/anti-fascist war. After four years of total war Germany was desperately short on manpower, further worsened by the great harrowing the first world war did to it's population of would be fathers. The few months old Panzer-75 Tigers were often driven by boys dragged out of the Hitler youth and the fancy new jets flying around since late 1943 were little better in that regard.
German allies were faring little better. Despite the Arrow and Iron Guard’s best efforts only so much could be scrounged out of Hungary and Romania or allies like Bulgaria and Croatia and Italy and France had closer to home problems to concern itself with after their navies were left to sleep at the bottom of the Mediterranean. All hopes of link up with the Nordics was lost and Turanist Turkey and Falangist Spain were just about out of the war.
Delegation of other fronts to German allies alleviated this somewhat but German divisions were shells of what they used to be. “Throwing meat into the grinder in the hopes of sausage”, as Jaeger put it. Even if Manstein got another major win the Comintern could recover much faster than he could, especially with Latin Divisions starting their transfer to other theaters to pick up added slack once Salgado was lying dead on his table.
DoubleDownUnder said:We can’t discount generalship either though. Military leadership is very skill intensive. It takes a long time to turn a wet behind the ears lieutenant into a general, and most of those lieutenants don’t have what it takes.
Rising in the ranks requires a fair amount of force of will too, so you’re going to get a lot of big ego prima donnas. They are, after all, used to commanding the life and death of thousands of people.
Say what you will about Manstein, the man knew better than most about how to deal with the strategic and operational levels, something that Wolff was just plain inept at. And while Glantz correctly emphasizes the major intelligence failure that led to Reds cracking the huge defensive line the Germans had built on the Dneiper, magnifying its natural properties (it’s very broad, and the west side tends to be flanked by cliffs), this intelligence failure was a product of German generalship.
Though let’s not forget that Manstein himself argued that the next blow would come near Belarus. He wanted to be there, and would have felt dejected if he’d been assigned to what everyone assumed was a lower priority theater. Or are you including in your POD the Germans correctly seeing through Comintern maskirovka, and detecting offensive preparations in the Ukraine faster?
Ziburinis Squared said:I think it’s worth noting that the Luftwaffe had by this point been largely worn down to an interception focused force with once a blue moon CAS operations that essentially left the International’s ground forces free to operate with pretty minimalistic aerial interference. The kind of benefits Manstein used to get from aerial reconnaissance or CAS and tactical bombing runs in previous years just weren’t there to the same degree anymore, and the Luftwaffe couldn’t keep planes off his back anywhere near as well as before.
Meanwhile the skies were now swarming with Shturmoviks and Shillelaghs and enough twin-engined light bombers to make some clouds out of. Sure their actual number of “kills” was fairly low, but they made life on the ground for an Axis grunt pretty thoroughly miserable. Meanwhile the Stukas and 190s had mostly stopped flying sorties where interception or AAA was likely to be heavy.
Artillery and tank concentrations were also pretty heavily in the Comintern’s favour even with the new heavy tanks rolling out and the Germans cranking out as many STuGs, Jadgpanzers, Panzerfausts/schrecks, and Paks as they possibly could to try and thin the herd. Despite the efforts of Ford and co, the Comintern had a very definite advantage in self propelled artillery too; maybe not as glamorous as assault guns or tanks, but having mobile indirect fire support’s pretty huge I’d say.
Cheburashka said:All good points so far.
Important, I think, to remember that there’s a lot of one-sided narratives on the internet, particular in the historical-themed games communities that intersect with uchronia. If one got their history from my local wargames club, one would think that the entire post-Stalingrad history of the World Revolutionary War was a total walkover by the Internationale.
Ritterstahl is pulling at the edges of a more interesting question, IMHO. Since the WRW, the Comintern has utilized a more fully developed doctrine of deception, which we call маскировка, loaned to English as ‘maskirovka’, and it largely left German staff officers frustrated and mystified.
Manstein was in command of AG Center, and the OKW transferred something like twelve division equivalents of reinforcements original earmarked for AG South because a comprehensive campaign of simulation and disinformation created a false image for German intelligence, one they were inclined to believe because by now the GRU had a good read on the biases of the German military.
It should be remembered that the maskirovka for Operation Obol was not perfect. The forces in the Ukrainian theater achieved strategic surprise, but Wolff managed a certain level of operational level readiness. It’s hard to completely hide four fronts moving into an offensive posture, and attempts to masquerade this as diversionary operations proved ultimately unsuccessful.
Though I do think that the OP is selling Wolff’s talent as a general short. Compared to most others attaining the rank of Oberst-Gruppenführer/Generaloberst, he was quite young, and it was not merely political. By all accounts, he transitioned well from being a staff officer and police-oppressor to conventional military command. He was simply outmatched by the acumen of his opponents. There are very few contemporary generals on the same level as Zhukov and Haywood, so I wouldn’t fault Wolff for not being part of that exclusive club.
As has been noted, German intelligence had been fooled on the strategic scale, and it left Wolff very little time to plan for the defense once Comintern aims became apparent. He was able to halt the transfer order for the I SS Panzer Corps, and procure precious fuel and ammunition, without which the operation might have truly been a walkover. But he was misled about operational details, assuming the 3rd Ukrainian Front under Patton would spearhead operations towards Odessa, a critical error that allowed the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts to catch the German Second Army in a cauldron west of Kiev. And while he blamed the Rumanian First Army for failing to break the cauldron, just as much blame could fall on the SS and Heer troops that joined the counterattack.
Gorynych’s Revenge said:Unless you’re dealing with smaller armies operating in relatively small amounts of space, even a largely victorious army will need time chasing out an enemy from its positions. Distances must be crossed, divisions must be broken, all these things take time that can only be sped up so much. And while the Germans were definitely caught with their pants down, they weren’t as completely unready for a war of this scale as the Soviet Army of 1940 and 1941. Fritz may have had his kick in the balls but he remembered to bring his cup this time.
As for what Manstein could have done had he been there, hrmph. Given that the defensive lines fortifications had already been built I think that would already work to define where he’d deploy his defenses. A mobile defense is workable, but has to contend with OKW being extremely wary of losing ground that would put us reds closer to Romanian oil or the Wolf’s den proper in Germany. He’d have to sell his peers on the idea he can retake any ground he cedes decently swiftly to get their full support on the idea.
He’d probably also have to shout down people who were mostly interested in using the war as a way to press vanity projects and enrich their careers/line their pockets like everyone involved with the rocket project. What kind of fucking imbecile looks at the Vengeance weapons with their massive dispersion radiuses and says “yeah we can use this for artillery”? . I’m sure he’d be able to tell them to piss off, but men spent guarding V1 or V2 launch sites to randomly bomb sections of the map are men wasted, which I’m sure didn’t help Wolff’s defense. Not a lot of men in the grand scheme of things, but a confusing waste of some brigades.
Ma’at said:I think numerical and quality imbalance in troops and equipment gets overplayed a lot in discussions, though I’m glad to see we’ve mostly moved past that here.
Generalship is an interesting question that I admit I’ve probably been too dismissive of in the past. While there really isn’t any such thing as the “best” general, particularly in a modern combined arms war, there are certainly right and wrong tools for the job. We have a bit of a problem with that here in the United Republics, where a lot of people with a skin-deep understanding of history see the legend that built up around Patton, and make the bad conclusion that Patton was being slighted during the war by jealous Soviets or conniving ultras like Haywood, and that’s why he topped out as Front commander while the more prestigious theater and the Supreme Command went to others.
Patton was, IIRC, finally becoming aware of his limitations around Operation Obol. Previously, he’d been adequate as a Front commander, and on the scale of the war with Germany he might have been better off remaining as an Army level commander. But in this case they used his somewhat overblown legend as part of the maskirovka toolbox. The Abwehr made the reasonable assumption that the pugnacious and offensively oriented Patton would be the one pressing breakthroughs, and not the one relegated to follow up exploitation operations.
Another interesting wrinkle is how by Obol Comintern doctrine mostly reached a mature state. There weren’t any more radical reorganizations of ToO&E. The Soviets and Americans had a proven core cadre to their military, and given manpower constraints they largely halted the activation of new divisions after fall 1943, instead focusing on rotating out and rebuilding existing divisions. This would have some huge knock-on effects for the rest of the war.
Babe-A Yeah-Huh said:So lil old me got myself some texts and docus this month. One of em, the series “The what ifs of the World War” asked this question. I know that generally visual historical works are considered inferior to historical texts, but the conclusion the boys, gals and others there made was that Manstein could extend the war by about three to maybe six months; with that last one being the miracle perfect storm case.
They did totally say that “contrary to popular belief, OKW did take the threat of a southern thrust quite seriously due to the importance of not just Romanian Oil, but the manpower and extra industry offered by the Axis’ allies and conquests in southern europe such as Yugoslavian aluminium.” It’s just that they were more worried about a rapid knockout blow aimed towards Berlin proper.
Their analysis said that he’d probably try to drag the Comintern into an energy and momentum draining battle at places like Kiev and other cities that could not be ignored in an advance to leech as much of the Comintern’s fighting ability as possible. Then they proposed two scenarios, one for holding the line and the other for an attempted counter attack back over the Dnieper.
Not too sure about their estimate that Manstein could push the line back to the “cursed city of Kharkiv”, but I do agree that by 44 the chances of the Axis stepping foot into the RFSR again were uh...pretty grimly minimal on their part.
Ritterstahl said:Upon reflection, it does seem a little late in the game to think that reshuffling pieces could prevent a checkmate.
Obol tends to get overshadowed by the subsequent White Russian campaign in Fall/Winter, because the number of troops at play on both sides was considerably smaller, and at least here in Germany the fact that by May 44 the southern part of the Eastern Front was increasingly being left to our allies puts the focus away.
That, and you have historians writing books with catchy titles like “The Death of Army Group Center,” which I suppose puts more attention on the events of Fall 1944.
Cheburashka said:With regards to that documentary, Babe-a-Yeah-Huh, how do they figure this?
This is not 1940, where the RKKA is reeling from ill-thought out purges, and an insufficient cadre to sustain both rapid numerical expansion as well as doctrinal/equipment modernization. It’s not 1941, where the RKKA hastily organizing whatever divisions it can. It’s not 1942, where the Comintern Army is getting better organized, but the average Soviet army is the equivalent of a German corps.
By 1944, the German qualitative drop combined with Soviet qualitative increase means that not only do the Comintern Army outnumber the Germans pretty strongly (though not anywhere near as much as memes imply), the average division’s quality is at least as good. Probably better; Comintern forces are far more heavily mechanized, and too much of the Axis military is dependent on horse-drawn logistics in the field.
It’s one thing to inflict higher losses in these conditions with the skillful disposition of troops, defensive measures, and the use of counterattacks to break operational tempo. It’s quite another to be able to actively take territory when outnumbered 2:1 in the local theater.
Babe-A Yeah-Huh said:It proposed that after getting those meatgrinder battles to sap the vitality of Comintern military formations that the Axis could concentrate its attacks on sectors held by IVA troops and Mongolian and Sinkiangese formations much as how the Americans and Soviets often went around German, Italian, and French troops to maul the less well equipped Axis minors. Once breakthrough is achieved the Soviet and American forces would pull back to avoid encirclement and try to engage in a mobile defense against the counteroffensive.
I personally don’t buy it as I think it sells the non American and Soviet troops contributed to Europe way too short. Which I think shows up again in their estimates of Latin American troops moved up to Europe after the close of the South American theater. And how many Sinkiangese and Mongolian troops were even there to begin with? The former were mostly there as a show of China’s solidarity with the USSR in declaring war against the Axis even while fighting with the Co-Prosperity Sphere.
It’s also not like Jerry had an amazing idea of the number of divisions around either. The Axis and Co-Prosperity sphere always had an intelligence disadvantage against the Allies and Comintern; especially after the intelligence leaks opened up by the Swedes breaking into the American embassy and stealing all the encryption equipment and the Italians doing the same for the British when they respectively declared war were closed. There’s not an awful lot that Manstein could do about that.
Ma’at said:Oh yeah, by 1944 the war was over, and the Axis just didn’t know it yet. If I might slip back into my wheelhouse, the real threat to the Soviet-American cooperation had been decisively defeated by April 1944. Not only were shipping tonnages lost to u-boats steadily dropping since June 1943, but containerization coupled with mass-production techniques had made Comintern and Allied shipping far more efficient than it had been at the start of the war. And the dreams of Franco-Italian breakout of the Mediterranean to raid Atlantic shipping like it’s the Second Coming of the Golden Age of Piracy were now at the bottom of the sea.
Millions of American troops were there to stay, and both they and their Soviet allies would be well equipped to fight the war to the finish. The only remaining question was how long it would take, and how many people would have to die to make it happen.
