Did Operation Citadel fail through lack of ambition?

It is interesting but I am not sure what it proves, the numbers used by Zetterling are accurate and I tend to support his conclusions however others don't but that is the nature of statistics.

This just seems to boil down to what two different historians interpret as "significant" however without reading Newtons work I cant say who I support but I certainly have no issues with Zetterling's research.
 
Some thoughts

The link simply shows there’s controversy over numbers that's all. I was under the impression the combat losses at Kurst were very high for the short duration of the battle from what I’ve read and watched. Germany sends 100.000’s of thousands of combat troops storming into a much larger well entrenched Soviet force with lots of armor and fighter-bombers on both sides. It seems to have the making for a bloodbath, however perhaps it’s been over stated?

As mentioned in my earlier posting the Soviets were known for poor record keeping that only started to come to light in the Mikhail Gorbachev era. 45 - 50 years after the fact. Perhaps we’ve gotten a western slat to some of our WW2 material as well. I do tend to think that modern research is bringing to light grey areas with less bias.

On the Forum some downplay the important of Citadel in the defeat of Germany on the Eastern front. However if we take an honest look at what followed i.e. the Germans were in a constant retreat after July 43. There is little dought that the casualties in the fight to get to and to cross the Dnieper were appalling for both sides, perhaps the largest losses for any campaign of the war.

It possible “perhaps far reaching” that if the Germany had played their cards differently in 43, “remember they were coming off a win prior to Kursk” and just performed a few spoiling actions in the summer of 43, avoided the attack on Kursk. The catastrophe in the 2nd ½ of 43 could have been mitigated at least to a degree.

This goes into the same category as that of the ME-262. They delayed the use of the ME-262 for a year by making a bomber out of it. Then around ~ mid 44 they went back to the original plan to use it as fighter which was too late to significantly affect the war. Had they used the jet in 43 when they had enough fuel and sufficient runways, it’s possible they would have taken control of the skies over all the fronts?

Wikipedia is accurate for electrical engineering. Which by its nature is well defined, since its physics based?
However it is open to editing should gross errors be found? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_policy
 
Now the spy ring called Lucy may have been a myth but the British code breakers at Bletchley Park were reading the German coded messages as fast as the Germans where. There was no chance that the British were not going to get this information to Russians in case they were caught off guard and pulled out of the war.

Also by this time the Russians had learnt a lot about camouflage and Aerial reconnaissance carried out by the Germans and had adjusted to it.
 
I am not so knowledgeable about the Second World War as many other members here, but I know about using statistic. Something you all can do is checking the data presented by the historians. If they are saying X amount of this or that, where did they get the numbers from and do your own homework. Historians are using primary sources for their investigations, so can you. Read their list of references and you may find the primary source
 
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I3BrigPvSk said:
I am not so knowledgeable about the Second World War as many other members here, but I know about using statistic. Something you all can do is checking the data presented by the historians. If they are saying X amount of this or that, where did they get the numbers from and do your own homework. Historians are using primary sources for their investigations, so can you. Read their list of references and you may find the primary source
Click to expand...

I have just ordered Newtons book on Kursk but from the small amount I have read of it, it appears that he has issues with both Glantz and Zetterling's contention that Kursk was not as devastating to German forces as we are lead to believe and he believes it was a turning point battle.

I tend to stick by both Glantz and Zetterling's interpretation as I believe the war was lost long before Kursk therefore it could not have been a turning point.

Both writers use similar sources and in many areas both of their sources cross reference each other so I really think the argument between Newton and pretty much everyone else is is one of interpretation and little else.

LeEnfield said:
Now the spy ring called Lucy may have been a myth but the British code breakers at Bletchley Park were reading the German coded messages as fast as the Germans where. There was no chance that the British were not going to get this information to Russians in case they were caught off guard and pulled out of the war.

Also by this time the Russians had learnt a lot about camouflage and Aerial reconnaissance carried out by the Germans and had adjusted to it.
Click to expand...

No matter how good Russian camouflage was there is little chance they could have hidden the magnitude of the fortifications they were building.

JOC said:
The link simply shows there’s controversy over numbers that's all. I was under the impression the combat losses at Kurst were very high for the short duration of the battle from what I’ve read and watched. Germany sends 100.000’s of thousands of combat troops storming into a much larger well entrenched Soviet force with lots of armor and fighter-bombers on both sides. It seems to have the making for a bloodbath, however perhaps it’s been over stated?

As mentioned in my earlier posting the Soviets were known for poor record keeping that only started to come to light in the Mikhail Gorbachev era. 45 - 50 years after the fact. Perhaps we’ve gotten a western slat to some of our WW2 material as well. I do tend to think that modern research is bringing to light grey areas with less bias.

On the Forum some downplay the important of Citadel in the defeat of Germany on the Eastern front. However if we take an honest look at what followed i.e. the Germans were in a constant retreat after July 43. There is little dought that the casualties in the fight to get to and to cross the Dnieper were appalling for both sides, perhaps the largest losses for any campaign of the war.

It possible “perhaps far reaching” that if the Germany had played their cards differently in 43, “remember they were coming off a win prior to Kursk” and just performed a few spoiling actions in the summer of 43, avoided the attack on Kursk. The catastrophe in the 2nd ½ of 43 could have been mitigated at least to a degree.

This goes into the same category as that of the ME-262. They delayed the use of the ME-262 for a year by making a bomber out of it. Then around ~ mid 44 they went back to the original plan to use it as fighter which was too late to significantly affect the war. Had they used the jet in 43 when they had enough fuel and sufficient runways, it’s possible they would have taken control of the skies over all the fronts?

Wikipedia is accurate for electrical engineering. Which by its nature is well defined, since its physics based?
However it is open to editing should gross errors be found? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_policy
Click to expand...

To be fair the Germans were in constant retreat from late 1942 and despite Manstein's recovery at Kharkov which was just an example of the elastic defense pattern the Germans should have implemented they never really showed any signs of regaining momentum after Stalingrad.
 
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It's a common misunderstanding that most casualties happened during big offensives:the German losses in the east for the second half of 1943 were 894750 men,while the Citadelle losses were 54.182 : 9063 dead,43159 wounded and 1960 missing .
For AFV,the total losses(write-of) were 202 Panzer,31 StuG,19 Jagdpanzer .

As such,human and AFV losses during Citadelle were marginal .

Other point is that the losses (for the second half of 1943) of AGC and AGS were almost as great,which is debunking the myth of the importance of Manstein .

AGC :348.207

AGS:397.720

Source : WWII.Stats.com
 
About BP : the fact is that most messages never were decoded/read;because of lack of staff and time.

Besides:most messages for Citadelle were on a low-grade base (division or lower) and were transmitted in the SU.

There is also the fact that the Soviet decoding services were not inferior to those of the West :the Soviets were not primitive illiterated peasants.
 
losses

lljadw said:
About BP : the fact is that most messages never were decoded/read;because of lack of staff and time.

Besides:most messages for Citadelle were on a low-grade base (division or lower) and were transmitted in the SU.

There is also the fact that the Soviet decoding services were not inferior to those of the West :the Soviets were not primitive illiterated peasants.
Click to expand...

Losses were high for in the battles to get to and to cross the Dnieper River including the taking of Kiev. These losses were greatly accelerated in order to meet Stalin's deadline to take Kiev by November 6th "the Revolutions Anniversary". Yes compared to Kursk these losses were much higher.

Who said anything about peasants?
 
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