War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (66 page)

Artillery Leutnant Hubert Becker graphically illustrated this gap between front and rear, describing a return journey from leave.

‘On the rare leaves, departing Berlin the train was absolutely full of soldiers with field packs, in clean uniforms, deloused, going back to the front. All were sad at parting and fully packed. The compartments were so full you could hardly move. But in spite of that we were in good spirits and cracking jokes.

‘And the trip took three days, four days, five days … to the East.

‘The further the train travelled eastward the more space there was inside. By the time we got to our former eastern territories the train would be half empty. When we got to the end of the line, 40km behind the front, the compartment would be empty. You’d get off completely alone and you’d ask: “Well – who’s fighting this war?”’
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The offensive fighting power of the infantry and Panzer divisions in the attack was, in reality, reduced to the level of heavy raiding battle groups. The combat ‘teeth’ ratio to logistic and specialist ‘tail’ structures of both infantry and Panzer divisions was breaking down. The development could not necessarily be remedied by drafting ‘specialists’ forward to join the fighting troops. Results when this was attempted were generally catastrophic. General von Mellenthin, a Russian front veteran, remarked after the war that there ‘is a difference between “infantry minded” officers on the one hand and “armour minded” officers on the other’. This applied also to soldiers. ‘Either capability acting alone,’ he said, ‘has a value significantly less than 50% of their combined effectiveness.’
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General Balck, referring to combat attrition in front of Moscow, said, ‘we wound up with valuable tank crews fighting in black uniforms in the snow as infantrymen – and being totally wasted.’
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A tank soldier with the 20th Panzer Division admitted:

‘The shortage of tanks was a worrying thing for the Panzer crews. The division formed a so-called “tank-crew” battalion from the men in the regiment who no longer had tanks or wheeled vehicles, or were unable to be transported in any other way. It had four companies with no heavy weapons. Many of the 21st [
Panzer Regiment
] crews hanging on hopes of a long rest and recuperation on an exercise area [in Germany] and being re-equipped with a bigger tank than the Panzer III soon had them buried.’

Tank crews performed as best they could fighting as infantry, but, as their division history commented, ‘they lacked the training basis required to fulfil their task’. By the beginning of January 1942 only 18 soldiers from one company had survived from the 160 men that had formed up in the middle of November. They quickly realised that ‘employment as infantry required totally different needs from those of Panzer combat’. Living and digging foxholes in ice and snow was not comparable to crewing a Panzer. 70% of the losses were from frostbite.
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General Balck conceded:

‘Casualties in the tanks themselves were almost always quite light. However, once the tank crew had to abandon their tank, we often had to employ them immediately as infantry. And at this point we took unheard-of losses among the tank crews because they had no infantry skills.’

Combing the rear area was not a solution because, Balck explained, ‘the division organisation must be maintained, because it is the basis for the training and the feeding and the command and control of the unit.’
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Luftwaffe personnel from Flak, signals and other grand units were employed as infantry as the crisis worsened. Even pilots whose aircraft were out of action and highly trained specialists were put into the line on the orders of Generalleutnant Baron von Richthofen, the commander of VIIIth Fliegerkorps. A diary entry revealed his total ignorance of the implications of his directive. ‘People will enjoy the opportunity to have a go again at the enemy,’ he said, ‘from 150m with a rifle.’
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Many infantry veterans would not have relished the prospect, never mind totally untrained Luftwaffe ground crews.

These draconian measures, employing unprepared specialists, began to break up the infrastructure of some divisions, further reducing their effectiveness in the line. General Balck explained the penalty of committing artillerymen, tank crews and resupply troops forward as infantry. ‘Where you simply have to insert these people,’ he said, ‘the losses among them are terrible if they are not trained.’ Because, he explained, ‘the “hero” of the communications zone is rarely a front-line hero.’ It was an impractical measure. ‘People who could do their maintenance or supply tasks perfectly in the midst of the heaviest bombing or artillery attacks failed miserably.’ In short, Balck pointed out, ‘the results were quite shocking.’
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Problems already apparent in September were getting worse. As the
Ostheer
‘victored itself to death’, the very fabric of its Blitzkrieg structure, the synergy and coherence of the specialist organisations that had previously given it a battlefield edge, were coming apart.

As the final advance gathered momentum in the middle of November, units became increasingly aware of an intangible yet icily apparent foe, the Russian winter. ‘We hadn’t been deployed as regiments or companies for quite a while,’ revealed Panzer commander Karl Rupp with Hoepner’s Panzergruppe 4:

‘My battle group consisted of two PzKpfwIII medium tanks, three PzKpfwII light tanks, about 40 or 50 riflemen and one 88mm. We were all dog-tired. The young men slept in any position whenever they got a chance. For weeks, we only got out of the tank for minutes at a time. Our breath condensed on the metal, so that everything you touched inside the tank was covered with ice. It was −40° to −50°C outside. Most of the time even the rations were frozen. At night we had to start up the tanks every two hours to keep the engines from freezing up.’
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Snow and ice conditions changed the nature of the fighting on the Eastern Front. Both sides were subjected to the same conditions but the
Ostheer was
disadvantaged by the unfamiliar environment. Paradoxically the intensity of fighting, and as a consequence casualties, diminished, due to the physical difficulties of manoeuvring and fighting in adverse weather. Formations on both sides had, in any case, been much reduced by attrition. Flexible and mobile operations were no longer achievable, further blunting the
Auftragstaktik-based
leadership edge the
Ostheer
enjoyed relative to its more inflexibly led foe in the summer months. The
Ostheer was
neither trained, equipped nor psychologically prepared for winter operations. These, by physical necessity, were degraded to man-against-man frontal attacks, as conditions denied flanking options, favouring the Russian defender more conditioned to the climate in which he lived. German tactical expertise could no longer compensate for the technological superiority of heavy Russian tank types. German casualties, likewise, meant fewer experienced officers and NCOs available to exploit rapid-moving situations, leading to an imperative to control and centralise assets in the hands of the few who could.

By the end of October von Bock was complaining about serious officer shortfalls in the army group. ‘More than 20 battalions are under command of lieutenants,’ he lamented. Battalions, traditionally led by majors and lieutenant-colonels, were being led by lieutenant platoon commanders. Despite their combat experience, these men were trained to lead a few score men, not hundreds, and operate in close co-operation with tanks, artillery and aircraft – a demanding task. On 16 November von Bock informed his commanders he was down to a single division reserve and as a consequence ‘they would have to get by with their own forces’. Freedom of action, in particular taking operational ‘risks’, was reduced. Units would have to fight their own way out of difficulties individually. ‘I further reminded them,’ von Bock emphasised, ‘that the forces were to be held together and not jumbled up – as is the case with Fourth Army, which admittedly is fighting under very tough conditions.’
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These were not fertile conditions to practice
Auftragstaktik,
which depended upon personal initiative in order to flourish.

In summary, these German raiding formations had limited physical options as they sought to grasp Moscow in a double envelopment. The former tactical and technological superiority conferred by Blitzkrieg was constrained, having to deal with superior and heavier Soviet tanks, often frontally without the benefit of Luftwaffe air support, much degraded by the weather. By contrast, the Soviet air force, served by permanent air bases in and around Moscow, was increasing its activity.

Karl Rupp, commanding a light PzKpfwII with the 5th Panzer Division with the northern envelopment moving toward Moscow, recalled the most important addition to these small battle groups of five to six tanks was the inclusion of one or two 88mm anti-aircraft guns. ‘These alone could measure up to the Russian T-34 tanks, which were shooting up our tanks like rabbits,’ he said. ‘We were powerless to do anything about it with our light guns.’
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One PzKpfwIII crew reported striking a T-34 four times at 50m and again at 20m with special upgraded 50mm
Panzergranate 40
projectiles which ‘did not penetrate but sprayed off the side’. By contrast, a strike from the 76mm T-34 gun could be devastating. ‘Time and time again our tanks have been split right open by frontal hits,’ complained a Panzer commander. Commanders’ cupolas on both PzKpfwIIIs and PzKpfwIVs ‘have been completely blown off’, read a report, ‘proof that the armour is inadequate and the attachments of the cupolas faulty’.

German tank crews felt increasingly vulnerable. The Panzer officer reflected that the former elan of the Panzer force ‘will evaporate and be replaced with a feeling of inferiority, since the crews know they can be knocked out by enemy tanks while they are still a great distance away’.
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They were reduced to firing carefully aimed shots against the rear drive sprocket, along with chance strikes on the turret ring, rather than a rapid shot into the centre of mass. German tank crews had to light fires beneath their hulls in order to cold-start engines. A T-34 driver had a pair of compressed air bottles at his feet to help turn the diesel engine in particularly cold weather. Continuing German success against these superior tanks, despite the need to confront them head-on, was maintained primarily because of the fifth additional crew man, the radio operator. Every German tank in the division had a radio. ‘As a result,’ concluded one senior Panzer officer, ‘our tanks were able to defeat tanks that were quite superior in firepower and armour.’ A communications system was provided which enabled a German division commander to direct operations from any point on the battlefield within the division – an option not available to their Soviet opponents.

German infantry anti-tank vulnerability was officially recognised at the end of the French campaign, but not resolved. Shortfalls became apparent again in front of Moscow. The previous effective combined arms support, which had compensated for weaknesses during the summer, was annulled by the onset of winter weather. Infantry felt naked when faced with tanks, as one graphic veteran assessment testified:

‘Use your rifle? You might as well turn round and fart at it [the tank]. Besides it never comes into your head to shoot; you just have to stay still as a mouse, or you’ll yell with terror. You won’t stir your little finger, for fear of annoying it. Then you tell yourself you may be lucky, perhaps it hasn’t spotted you, perhaps its attention has turned to something else. But on the other hand perhaps your luck’s right out and the thing is coming straight for you, till you lose sight and hearing in your hole. That’s when you need nerves like steel wire, I can tell you. I saw Hansmann of the Ninth get under the tracks of a T-34, and he hadn’t dug his hole deep enough; he had been too bloody tired to shovel. The tank just turned a bit off its course, that skidded just enough of the ground away. It had him. The next minute there he was flattened out like a bit of dog-shit you accidentally put your foot in.’
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Leutnant Adolf Stamm, serving with Flak artillery, recalled, ‘the cry from heavily pressured infantrymen, “Bring up the Flak!” happened ever more frequently these days, because we, with our 88mm guns, were practically the only weapon which could still halt the Russians.’ But the 88mm was cumbersome to bring into action. Despite excellent penetration, it was, in the opinion of another Panzer veteran, ‘really large, quite immobile and hard to handle’. It was designed to be set up in the anti-aircraft role from a fixed static position, not engage in the mêlée of mobile meeting engagements. Getting the gun into action at vulnerable points with flexibility restricted by ice and snow, or dragging it into hasty positions among the wooded areas pronounced at this stage in the advance on Moscow, was labour-intensive and cost time. It was not a tank. Yet there were few alternatives. Adolf Stamm pointed out, ‘the other weapons and even the hard-pressed infantry had scant capability to halt the attacks’. As a result, ‘from morning until evening the infantry would repeatedly call
“Flak Vorn!
Flak Forward! Bring up the Flak!”’
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Luftwaffe support began to fall away with the onset of bad weather and the effects of the resupply crisis. Generalleutnant Baron von Richthofen assumed command of Army Group Centre’s air support with Luftflotte 7 when Generalfeldmarschall Kesselring was withdrawn, along with all his Luftflotte 2 units, to Italy, to shore up the Axis effort in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Von Richthofen’s command post moved from Smolensk and was eventually established at Jemelyanovo, 125km west of Moscow. Resupply became so critical that long-distance communications cable was flown forward by air transport. Aircraft fuel, bombs and ammunition requirements were not being met. Roads were constantly churned up by trucks, and delays ensued. ‘The entire stretch between Rzhev and Kalinin was precarious,’ von Richthofen explained, ‘because Soviet infantry and even tanks and artillery were always crossing the roads.’ Additional Junkers Ju52 air transports were brought in from Norway to fly air supply sorties in support of the army group.