Russian losses at Kursk

[Igorn]

Eric, Marco, Graaf. Niebelung and others,

When you joifully count Russian losses, please don't forget to count also millions of civil Russians, Ukranians, Jewish, Belorussian including women and children, murdered and brutally tortured by German's SS to death in German's concentration camps. Remember hundreds of devastated and burnt Russian, Ukranian towns and villages. And if you are the human beings pay tribute to millions of killed innocent people.

Remember German's general Manstein and others who practiced the tactic of "Burnt soil" burning and devastating all live when retreating.

Russians did not start this war. It was Germany. And don't throw mud at the Russian army and Russian solders who crushed and defeated invaders.

Best Regards from Russia,
Igor

[Nibelung]

i'm not throwing mud at anyone.

[Hardigan]

First of all : Stalin had the plan to invade the West already !! His Generals worked out a stategy of a war of aggression against Germany and this is proven by archive-materials from Russia found in the nineties !!
Germany was the agressor ? No way , they only wanted to stop this Barbarian Stalin with his evil regime , but some people wil never understand this ! This doesn't mean that I support the NS-regime !

I think it's amazing that nobody know's on these Forums that operation Citadel was betrayed by two Germann Staff-officers and that the Soviets were informed of all their moves at Kursk ! Logical that they didn't won this battle ! In Russia this kind of betrayal was not possible because there everyone who was a little suspicious was executed , this is not how it worked in the West
(The info of those Staff-Off. came from the Discovery-Channel)

BTW Germany had the bad luck to attack in the coldest winters of that century , that's even to much for the strongest army in the world , a lot of men were frozen to death !

[Igorn]

Germany was the agressor ? No way , they only wanted to stop this Barbarian Stalin with his evil regime , but some people wil never understand this !

Hardigan,

Nuernberg Tribunal in 1946 gave assessment of the Hitler's Germany policy and declared Germany as an agressor. Invasion to Poland in 1939, invasion to France, Netherlands, Belgium, Dannmark and Norway in 1940, invasion to Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania and Russia in 1941... . And don't portray Hitler as an innocent victim who wanted to stop Barbarian Stalin.
I advise you to read Hitler's Mein Kampf book and find their evidence that Hitler was planning to capture the 'living space' for Germans in the East.

And I agree with you that Russian intelligence was much on the better level that Hitler's ones.

Best Regards from Russia,
Igor

[Nibelung]

Igor, i advise you to read some books on gestapo and SD...those were good CounterInteligence agencies (my opinion is based on the succesfullness on capturing SOE, OSS, french agents)

[Hardigan]

Igorn

I don't portray Hitler as an innocent victim ! He was the agressor in the eyes of the allies, but the troops who attacked Irak those days are also ! Who gave them the right to attack Irak ? The allies are just the same !
And then there was the invasion of Finland by Russia ! So who attacked first ?


BTW I'm not saying that Russian intelligence was better , the russians had this information of Citadel from England's intelligence !

Best

Hardigan

[Nibelung]

...and england had the upper hand in intelligence since they decoded the enigma device.

[Igorn]

Eric, Marco, Graaf,

I recommend you to read what German Generals Mellentin and Guderian wrote about "German wins" in the Kursk battle. Enjoy it !

German General Mellentin about Kursk Battle:
... General Guderian warned that offensive is useless. New tanks would suffer heavy losses and that would fail his plans to reorganize tank forces. He also cautioned not to overestimate the Panther tank, on which German Supreme Staff commander bet on, due to the many weaknesses found. ... by the end of July 14 1943 it became clear that German's offensive at Kursk failed. The attack on Russian positions covered by strong mine fields was more difficult that we expected. Another unpleasant surprise came from Russian terrible counter-attacks with massive number of tanks and solders. From German side the losses in men were relatively not big but losses of tanks were staggering/tremendous. Panther tanks did not prove worthwhile. Out of all Panthers participated in the Kursk battle by 14th July just a few tanks left. The 9-th army advancing from the north managed to wedged into Russian positions by 11 km.

Heinz Guderian about Kursk Battle:
...from 10th July to 15th July I visited both advancing shocking groups. First "South" and then "North" and on site got a clear idea from out tank commanders what was going on including weaknesses of our tactical techniques and methods. My fears about insufficient readiness of the P-V Panther tanks for the battlefields got confirmed. 90 Porshe Tigers used in the Model army showed that they did not meet the requirements of the close combat. These tanks did not have machine guns and were not able to press down Russian infantry positions and had to shoot with gun to sparrows. ...As a result of the failure of Zitadel operation we suffered overwhelming defeat. German tank troops, recovered with great difficulties were drained and worn out. It goes without saying that Russians took advantage of their success. Since that we did not have quite days. Initiative passed to the enemy...


Best Regards from Russia,
Igor

[MD650]

Igorn!

Read my replies concering losses during Kursk
http://www.feldgrau.net/phpBB2/viewtopi ... 3&start=90

[Deiter Hollenstein]

If it doesn't agree with his views, he won't read it. Or he'll toss out some quote or another to 'prove' you're wrong.

[nickolay]

...it's amazing how fast a discussion degenerates when it gets down to us-vs-them basis.
Being Russian myself I'm far from the idea that Russian command, tanks and troops were absolutely the best and were free from stupidities, mistakes and war crimes but who was? But seriously, the degree of antirussian attitude is sometimes absolutely striking, and I perfectly understand why Igorn is so painfully taking certain replies .
The Red - and later the Soviet Army did have its share of losing and scored tremendous victories under conditions unknown to their western allies. The victory at Kursk certainly costed a lot more than any victory of the allies in Normandy and afterwards, but quoting Napoleon the difference between the victorious army and the defeated one is primarily with the morale, or the esprit of the troops, and from that point of view Kursk was a major and decisive victory of the Russian army irrespective of the (high) price it had to pay.
This thread started with a simple question, it somehow turned into an argument which IMHO does not help anyone to understand the scope, place and significance of the Kursk battle in WWII which was probably the whole point of the discussion (and I appologize if I'm getting it all wrong).
Best regards from Moscow,
Nick

[Deiter Hollenstein]

What you're seeing here in my opinion is the result of Igorn popping up in many threads and forums here stating that the Russians were the best at everything and ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

No one who can read and evaluate history is denying that the Russians had great generals, or that their enlisted men were some of the best. What is being objected to is one person's stubborn insistance that everything they did is great/perfect/the best.

[nickolay]

I understand; the point is that as long as there are people who claim that "a good commie is a dead commie" (in the context of the Red Army losses during Kursk), or that they regret Russians have not lost more lives than they actually did (27 mln, by the way, is the officially acknoledged number in this country) there will be posts stating that "Russians were the best at everything", don't you think?
And I can not see how anyone can benefit or learn something new when a discussion on losses during Kursk turns into a debate on personal traits of a forum participant...
All the best,
Nick [/quote]

[Nibelung]

igorn, maybe i'm little late, but weren't
- 6th Guards Tank Army
- 1st Tank Army
- detachments from 5th Guards Army destroyed by the SS Korps? those divisions were elite and the SS were elite, so don't go into who is better stuff...russian losses in the south were over 300 tanks in 3 days, so it's really hard to say, who had the best tanks and commanders.

[matthall]

Hi everyone!
As Dieter wrote, Igor has made his mark on three treads, most effective modern tank under the weapons and equipment forum, best panzerleaders under the waffenSS forum and this one.

The posts he writes are very similar, containing the very same arguments;
everything russian is best,
use only those sources that veryfy Igors opinion,
if someone asks a direct question that you can't answer, ignore it.

It sometimes feels, as some of you have already written, as if he doesn't read posts that he doesn't like, he just goes on and on with his mantra, much like the energizer bunny.

regards
matt