If This Is All...

A writer of Moscow communiques last week snatched bread & words from the mouths of a host of military experts. In a single, barking document this anonymous Muscovite stated the objective and strategy of the latest German offensive in Russia:

"The blow is aimed in two directions--at Kursk from the area south of Orel, and from the Belgorod direction northward, also in the direction of Kursk. . . . It is sufficient to glance at the map to understand the operative plan of the German command. It envisaged the encirclement and annihilation of our troops along the arc of the Kursk salient."

In a refreshing change from the normal officialese of war, Moscow added: "Having received a punch in the jaw, the crooks from Hitler's headquarters now put their tail between their legs and begin to yell that "allegedly it is not they, the Germans, who conduct the offensive, but the Soviet troops, and that consequently it was not their attempt to capture Kursk that failed in the first three days of heavy battles, but the attempt of our troops to break through the German defenses. ... It is too early to formulate a final conclusion."

At week's end it was still too early for final conclusions. To Moscow's analysis (the Germans substantially agreed with its less insulting aspects) there was little except a few supplementary points for the experts to add.* Some of the valid points:

>This attack need not be the only one--or the main one--planned by the Germans this summer. If it is, the world will know that the Wehrmacht, resigned to the defensive in Russia, is merely trying to improve its own positions and weaken the Red Army before winter or before Russia strikes with the U.S. and Britain.

>The Russian forces "along the arc of the Kursk salient" constitute a goodly portion of the Red Army's best troops and armor. Kursk itself is a valuable railway and military center. But, as the Russians indicated, Nazi Field Marshal Guenther von Kluge may well be more interested in the "encirclement and annihilation" of those forces than in geographical gains.

>Even if the current offensive is only the first stage of a bigger one, the limited scope of the initial attack reflects the plight of the Wehrmacht. In 1941 its objective, along a 1,500-mile front, was to destroy the Red Army and seize the U.S.S.R. In 1942 the objective, along an 800-mile front, was to seize southern Russia and isolate Moscow from the rear and the south. In 1943 the Wehrmacht attacked on a 200-mile front, aiming at a town and at a portion of the Red Army.

Forces & Losses. According to Berlin, the Russians had over 400,000 troops in the sectors immediately engaged.

Moscow said that the Germans used six panzer divisions (200 tanks each), a motorized division, and seven infantry divisions in the opening attacks from Orel; five regular tank divisions, four smaller armored divisions (150 tanks each), and seven infantry divisions in the attacks from Belgorod--where the Russians made their only admissions of sustained German gains. In an aside to the U.S. and Britain, Moscow also said that the Germans had transferred, two bomber fleets and one night-fighter fleet from Western Europe.

The Germans stuck to their assault tactics of last year: front-line bombing and heavy artillery preparation, followed by tank assaults and infantry. In defense, the Red Army also used familiar tactics, often letting the tanks through, then surrounding them and their suporting infantry. As at Stalingrad, the Russians had studded their front lines and rear with anti-tank strong points, ringed with mines, which caught the Nazi tanks in cross fire.

The Russians said that in eight days they destroyed 2,622 German tanks and 1,126 planes, killed 43,900 men. Berlin claimed the destruction, in the same period, of 1,640 Russian tanks, 1,197 planes. These figures showed that great forces were concentrated on narrow and fiercely contested fronts. To the men along those fronts, the battle for Kursk was no "limited engagement."

*Not that the experts were deterred. They added thousands of words.

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