Korsun Shevchenkovsky Operation 1944

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YO STALINGRAD ON THE DNIEPER:THE KORSUN-SHEVCHENKOVSKY OPERATIONJANUARY TO FEBRUARY 1944

A thesis presented to the Faculty of the U.S. ArmyCommand and General Staff College in partialfulfillment of the requirements for thedegreeMASTER OF MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE

DOUGLAS E. NASH, MAJ, USAB.S., U. S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, 1980M.S., Troy State University, Troy, Alabama, 1993

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas1995

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.


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REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE I Form ApprovedO M 8 No.0704-01881 2 June 1 9 9 5. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

No Stalingrad on the Dnieper -The Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation

.AUTHOR(S)Major Douglas E. Nash, U.S. Army

. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME($) AND ADORESS(ES)U.S. m y ommand and General Staff CollegeATTN: ATZL-SWD-ODFort Leavenworth, Kansas 6 6 0 2 7 - 6 9 0 0

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I3. ABSTRACT (Maximum 200words)This study investigates the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation of World War 11,an attempt by the Red Army to conduct another encirclement on the scale of Stalingrad. Itsoutcome, axd the lessons learned from it, mark this a significant development in the Sovietart of war. Conducted 24 January to 18 February 1944, Korsun bore witness to increasingSoviet operational proficiency alongside the beginnings of German disintegration. BeforeKorsun, the Germans had been able, with greatest effort, to maintain a coherent front line;after their desperate breakout from the pocket, their entire defensive effort in the Eastbegan to crumble. The Soviets assembled two army groups to carry out the operation, whichrelied on an unusual degree of operational deception, diversionary attacks, and deepoperations by two tank armies. The Germans, wanting to avoid a repetition of the Stalingraddisaster, desperately tried to thwart.the Soviets, hastily assembling a relief force ofeight armored divisions to extricate the encircled forces. Despite Soviet numericalsuperiority, most of the Germans managed to break out, though losing all of their equipmentin the process. It was to be the last successful large-scale relief operation mounted bythe Ge m ns ori the Eastern Front. present throughout this operation were elements of Sovietoperational design which would become standard elements of nearly every subsequentoperation. Although Korsun Operation was far from being perfectly executed, it served asa siqnpost of the increasinq operational capabilities of the Red Army.

8. SUWECT TERMS 115. NUMBER OF PAGESWWII Russian Front Encirclement Operations

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Unclassified I Unclassified I Unclassified 1 UnlimitedN 7540-01-280-5500 Standard Form 298 (Rev. 2-89)

II:.SECURITY CLASSIFICATION 18. SECURITY CLASSIFICATIONOF REPORT OF THIS PAGE 19. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION 20. LIM ITAT ION OFABSTRACOF ABSTRACT


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MASTER OF !AILITARY .WIS AND SCIENCESTHESIS APPROVAL PAGE

Name of Candidate: MAJ Douglas E. NashThesis Title: No Stalingrad on the Dnieper: The Korsun-ShevchenkovskyOperation, January - February 1944Approved by:

. Thesis Committee Chairman~rhce . Meming. Ph.D. 'Member. Graduate Faculty

. Member, Graduate FacultyP C reg%. ~dpto n,.A., Member. Consulting FacultyLTC

Accepted this 2d day of June 1995 by:

, Director, Graduate DegreePhilip J. Brookes, Ph.D. Programs

The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the studentauthor and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. ArmyCommand and General Staff College or any other governmental agency.(References to this study should include the foregoing statement.)


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ABSTRACT

NO STALINGRAD ON THE DNIEPER: THE KORSUN-SHEVCHENKOVSKY OPERATION byMA3 Douglas E. Nash, USA, 159 pages.This study investigates the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation of World War11, an attempt by the Red Army to conduct another encirclement on thescale of Stalingrad. Its outcome, and the lessons learned from it, markthis as a significant development in the Soviet art of war. Conducted24 January to 18 February 1944,Korsun bore witness to increasing Sovietoperational proficiency alongside the beginnings of Germandisintegration. Before Korsun, the Germans had been able, with greateffort, to maintain a coherent front line; after their desperatebreakout from the pocket. the entire German defensive effort in the Eastbegan to crumble.The Soviets assembled two powerful army groups to carry out theoperation. The plan's success relied to an unusual degree onoperational deception, diversionary attacks, and deep operations by twotank armies operating in concert. The Germans, wanting to avoid arepetition of the Stalingrad disaster, desperately tried to thwart theSoviets, hastily assembling a relief force of eight armored divisions toextricate the encircled forces.Despite Soviet numerical superiority, operational skill, and tacticalflexibility, most of the encircled Germans managed to break out, thoughlosing all of their equipment in the process. It was to be the lastsuccessful large-scale relief operation mounted by the Germans on theEastern Front. Present throughout this operation were elements ofSoviet operational design which would become standard elements of nearlyevery subsequent operation. Although the Korsun-ShevchenkovskyOperation was far from being perfectly executed, it serves as a signpostof the increasing operational capabilities of the Red Army which arestill relevant today.

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I would like to acknowledge the guidance and assistance ofseveral individuals without whom this thesis would not have beenpossible. First and foremost, Dr. Bruce Menning, vhile serving as thehead of my thesis committee, provided me the advice and encouragement Ineeded to see this work through to its conclusion. His knowledge of theSoviet Army of World War 11, as well as his patience, contributedsubstantially to this thesis' success. Additionally, LTC ScottStephenson, LTC Ted Settle, and LTC Greg Hampton, who served as readersand faculty advisors throughout this project, provided a wealth ofadvice and guidance which enabled me to refine many of the conceptsdealt with in the body of the thesis. I would also like to thank thestaff of the Foreign Military Studies Office, who patiently providedassistance and made a multitude of sources available. Lastly, I wouldlike to thank the staff of the Combined Arms Reference Library, whohelped me to obtain a wealth of material through inter-library loan aswell as from other sources. My thanks to all of you.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

rHESISrITLEPAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .IHESIS APPROVAL PAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . .ABSTXACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ACKNOWLEDGEMEEr'TS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2. BACKGROUND.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

War Aims and Operational Priorities of the BelligerentsEvaluation of Forces InvolvedSoviet LeadershipGerman LeadershipForce Structure of OpponentsWeapons Systems of the BelligerentsSoviet Encirclement DoctrineGerman Encirclement DoctrineSummary

3. STAVKA'SPLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Origin of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky OperationThe Fundamentals of the OperationPhases of the OperationIndividual Missions of the FrontsThe German Situation

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Terrain and WearherThe Deception PlanEffectiveness of the Deception PlanPreparations for the OperationSummary and Conclusions

4. THE CONDUCT OF THE OPERATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The Breakthrough PhaseThe Encirclement PhaseThe German Relief OperationConditions in theKmSoviet ReactionThe BreakoutAftermath

5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .INITIAL DISTRIBUTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSFigure

1. Soviet Counteroffensive August-December 1944 . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .Frontline as of 24 January 1944

3 . Correlation of Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. Possible Soviet Operational Deep Attack

5 Initial Soviet Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .. Situation as of 25 January 1944. . . . . . . . . . .Situation as of 31 January 1944

8 . Situation as of 1 February 1944 . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. Von Manstein's Concept to Destroy Soviets. . . . . . . . . . .0. Situation as of 10 February 1944. . . . . . . . . . .1. Situation as of 16 February 1944. . . . . . . . . . .2. The Breakout. 17 February 1944

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CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION

I had never seen, and never again saw, such avast number of corpses in such a small area.The Germans had made a hopeless attempt toextricate themselves . . . we had not planned abloodbath.Zhukov, Battles Hitler ~ost'

The Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation, though touted by the Sovietsas a great victory of major proportions, was no Stalingrad on the~nieper.~hough little known in the West (where it is known as theBattle of Cherkassy,) this operation, carried out by two army groups (orfronts) of Stalin's Red Army from 24 January to 18 February 1944,provides a snapshot of the Soviet Union's evolving ability to carry outcomplex operations. Designed to eliminate a large German salient alongthe west bank of the Dnieper river, which posed a threat to the flanksof the two Soviet fronts as well as to the city of Kiev, the operationwas only partially successful. Although the Red Army did achieve someof the operation's goals, it failed to totally annihilate the encircledGerman forces as Stalin's commanders promised.

The Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation was quite significant becauseit serves as a milestone in the evolution of Soviet operational art.The methods used to carry out the operation by the Red Army were tobecome standard for the remainder of the war in the East. Thesemethods, which include multi-- operations, the use of tank armies to


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conduct deep attacks. arld the encirclement of large groupings of Germantroops, were commonly used during other large scale operations. such asOperation BagratLon in June 1944, the Lvov-Sandomir Operation In July1944. and the Jassy-Kishinev Operation in August 1944.

The Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation embodied many other doctrinalelements which remain standard in the contemporary Russian Army. Forexample, this operation relied to an unusual degree on operationaldeception, diversionary attacks, armor used in the deep attack,overwhelming force ratios at selected narrow breakthrough points, andsynchronized operations between fronts which capitalized on the strengthof all the combat branches-armor, artillery, infantry, signalintelligence, cavalry, and tactical aviation. By the summer of 1944,lessons learned from the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation faci tated theRed Army's attainment of strategic and operational mastery over theGerman forces in hssia. Prior to January 1944, such operations asKorsun-Shevchenkovsky had occurred rarely and had produced only varyingdegrees of success (one example, of course, was the StalingradOperation). After Korsun-Shevchenkovsky, successful execution of theseoperations became commonplace.

Launched in the middle of winter, the Korsun-ShevchenkovskyOperation initially enjoyed overwhelming material and numericalsuperiority as well as tactical surprise. An intricate deception planwas used in an attempt to tie down the bulk of German armor so that itcould not influence the operation. The Red Army quickly encircled thebulk of two German corps of 58,000men and tore a hole 100 kilometerswide in Army Group South's main defensive line. Swift German reaction

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inflicted considerable punishment upon the encircling forces, a signthat the Red .Army had seriously underestimated enemy capabilities, stillpotent at this stage of the war. especially in the hands of mastertacticians. Despite Soviet anticipation of an operational victory ofmajor proportions, a "Stalingrad on the hieper" according to Red Armyhistorian John Erickson. the effort fell short of expectations. Most ofthe encircled Germans escaped. Corresponding force ratios, especiallyas the Germans fed more panzer divisions into the attempt to relieve theencircled forces, caused the operation to evolve into a brutal sluggingmatch which left both s~des xhausted. Despite these obstacles, the RedArmy eventually triumphed, though the scale of the victory wasconsiderably less than Stalin announced to the world.

This thesis seeks to demonstrate that the outcome of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation rested on a combination of circumstances,including the Red Army's underestimation of German capabilities,imperfect execution, and failure of the elaborate deception plan, a keyelement for overall success. That the Red Army still had lessons tolearn was especially evident. Lessons learned and experience gainedwhile fighting Nazi Germany's greatest master of the operational art,Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, would serve the Red Army and itscommanders well during the successive operations launched during thespring and fall of 1944, when the German Army in the East (the Ostheer)was effectively destroyed as a cohesive fighting force.

The execution of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation wasimperfect. Not only did the Red Army fail to annihilate the encircledGerman forces (in fact, over 40,000 Germans escaped), but it lost an


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opportunity to destroy the entire southern wlng of Army Group South.which would have brought about a catastrophic collapse of the German wareffort in the East and the possible liberation of Eastern Europe by thesummer of 1944. Instead. the Red Army and its commanders had to becontent with the temporary removal of two army corps from the Germanorder of battle, while exposing the Red Army to punishing counterattackswhich sapped Red Army strength far out of proportion to the gains made.Nevertheless, the Red Army had learned important lessons.

Encirclement operations, especially when conducted on such a vastscale as they were in the Soviet Union, are extremely difficult andcomplex. The Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation is a case in point,especially since it involved large mechanized organizations operatingalong multiple axes. Despite the level of complexity, the Red Armyduring World War I1 became a master of this sort of operation and itsleading practitioner. Following this operation, the Red Army conductedeven larger operations, including Operation Bagration in June-July 1944,the Jassy-Kishinev Operation in August 1944, the Vistula-Oder Operationin January 1945, and the Berlin Operation in April 1945. All of theseoperations involved multiple fronts (army groups) and resulted in thesuccessful encirclement of hundreds of thousands of Germans. Entirearmies or army groups disappeared from the German order of battle. Oncethese encirclements were launched, there was very little the Germanscould do to stop them.

The study of encirclement operations remains important fortoday's military professional. Since the modern Russian Army is theorganizational and doctrinal heir of the Red Army, and perhaps one of


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the few armies of the world that can still challenge those of theWestern alliance. the United States Army needs to understand how Sovietencirclement doctrine developed and how i t was executed under actualwartime conditions. Using the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation as a casein point, the reader can profit from an understanding of the planningand execution variables which make up modern encirclement operations.

Within this larger perspective, the intent of this thesis is toshed new light on Korsun-Shevchenkovsky. Most past accounts suffer froma lack of objectivity. With the exception of the brief account of theoperation presented in the U.S. Army official history of World War 11,which presented war on the Eastern Front from a predominantly Germanperspective, existing treatment of the operation for the most part hasbeen either pro-German or pro-Soviet. During the post-1945 period, theCold War also poisoned the historical record with anti-communistfeelings and attitudes. This caused many authors to be unusuallycritical of the Red Army. Many German accounts lay the blame for defeateither on Hitler or on a combination of Soviet numerical and materialsuperiority, or on weather. German commentators seldom give the RedArmy credit for becoming as skilled and professional as they themselveswere. Even Field Marshal Erich von Manstein felt that the Battle ofCherkassy, as he called the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation, was a moralvictory.

Many Germans held the belief that they lost the war because theywere simply outnumbered, never outfought. Standard German accounts ofthe Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation/Battle of Cherkassy ascribe defeatto the irresistible numerical superiority of the Red Army, the so-called

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"Russian Steam Roller." %any German military writers. including PaulCarell and Alex Buchner. cite statistics which show that the Soviets wonbecause they outnumbered the Wehrmacht in certain operations bythree-to-one (or greater) ratios. It is difficult to escape theconviction that the Germans were overwhelmed by the sheer mass of theiropponents, who consistently pressed the attack despite sufferingtremendous casualties which would give any normal ( i . . "Western") armypause.4 Never mind the fact that at the beginning of the German waragainst the Soviet Union, the Germans and their allies actuallyoutnumbered the Red Army in many areas of the front. Meanwhile, overthe first three years of the war, attrition exacted its toll on Germanforces. When the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation reached its climax,overall force ratios in armor had become roughly equal. At one point inthe operation, one Soviet commander thought that was outnumbered, sopowerful was the German relief force.

The official Soviet versions of the Great Patriotic War, as thewar on the Eastern Front is known as in the former USSR, are alsouniformly biased. All depict a glorious victory, which confirmed theinfallibility of Stalin, the Marxist-Leninist system, and the Red Army.Such history stemmed in part to the Soviet Union's use of a gloriouspast to justify the Communist Party's sdcial/economic/political system.This approach to history frequently turns the intellectual pursuit oftruth into a mind-numbing exercise in frustration. Nearly all Sovietaccounts of these stories suffer from the tendency to inflate theresults of battles and operations aswell as the numbers of enemy dead,while purposefully avoiding mention of their own losses. These

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"official" accounts often clash with the actual reports written afterthe battle.

The Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation is a case in point. Theofficial accounts. ranging from the The Historv of the Great Patriotic

to those appearing in the Soviet Militarv Review, uniformly statethat the operation was a complete success in every respect-the Fascistswere crushed and the encircled grouping was "liquidated." According toone source, the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation:

was a model example of the encirclement and destruction of a largeenemy grouping . . . the high level of the Soviet military art, thetalent of Soviet military leaders and the moral superiority ofSoviet fight'ng men were brilliantly displayed in theseengagements.

At the time, however, the outcome was not so certain, nor wasSoviet performance so stellar. In fact, at certain points in theoperation it appeared that the Germans would seize the initiative anddestroy the encircling Soviet forces. Although the official Sovietsources are useful in determining Stalin's intentions, Red Armydispositions, and the overall course of the operation, they offer little .in the way of illumination for day-to-day decisions, mistakes, lessonslearned, and actual conditions on the battlefield. Only a detailedsurvey of material contained in the Soviet Army's archives will correctthis deficiency.

Despite a limited amount of material found in Soviet militaryprofessional journals, the researcher must search patiently anddiligently to find evidence of fault or analysis in official Sovietaccounts. Likewise, the investigator must be wary of post-war Germanaccounts which tend to gloss over defeats or blame everything on Hitler.


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If one consults German accounts exclusively, the idea would emerge thatthe Germans could have won every battle had it not been for Hitler'smeddling. This view is overly simplistic and does not adequatelyexplain how the Red Army got to the gates of Berlin in April 1945. Italso gives the Red Army little credit for its great achievements as wellas its operational and strategic mastery over the Wehrmacht. Many timesthe Red Army bested the Germans at the tactical level as well. Theresult of this bias has been to obscure the significance of whatactually occurred along the snow-blasted steppes on the west bank of theUkraine in January and February 1944.

One of the pitfalls inherent is conducting analysis of eventswhich occurred over 50 years ago is a tendency to be carried away bycontemporary doctrinal concept. This is difficult to avoid, especiallysince the author of this thesis has recently been exposed to intensiveinstruction on operational art and concepts of operational design at theU.S. Army Command and General Staff Officer Course. From time to time,contemporary concepts creep into the analysis, and, when guardingagainst anachronistic usage they serve as intellectual touchstonesduring assessment and writing. Current concepts of operational art canprovide fresh insight into the issues discussed in this thesis. In thisspirit, the writer seeks to introduce or allude to these issues as theyappear throughout. While the Red Army of the 1930s and 1940s did notuse today's terms or concepts, its leaders would probably haveunderstood their meaning and would have agreed with the methodology usedto conduct the analysis.


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The primary method used to carry out this project is to analyzeavailable primary and secondary sources which focus on actions at theoperational and tactical levels. as well as other factors whichinfluenced the outcome of the operation. Drawing on these sources, theresearcher will combine older, more accepted material with newly-discovered or translated materials which offer different perspectives onthe operation. Secondary sources are used to provide background and theoverall context in which the operation occurred. But the emphasis is ona balanced account and analysis of the operation; therefore, primarysources which have not been available in the past or have beenoverlooked are referred to extensively.

This thesis also examines the role that encirclement doctrineplayed in the outcome of the operation. While the Germans led the worldin application of blitzkrieg-style warfare, they were slow to developdoctrine to deal with encirclement of their own forces. Though theylearned certain tactical lessons and developed standard operatingprocedures as a result of previous encirclements, they were increasinglyunable to profit from them due to Adolf Hitler's stand-fast decree.Doctrinal development on conducting encirclements or escaping from thembegan to wither by late 1942 and had ceased altogether by the spring of1944. In contrast, the Red Army approached encirclement operations froma firm doctrinal base. As the Red Army gained operational experience incarrying out this type of operation, it got increasingly better at them,so much so that most of its major operations carried out from mid-1944to the war's end had the encirclement as their centerpiece.


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In addition to evaluating operational and doctrinal flexibility,this thesis considers other crlteria for evaluat~on. Any suchanalytical study should also concentrate on factors related to theconduct of large-scale mechanized operations on the Eastern Front duringthe late Fall of 1943 and Winter of 1944, including weapons systems,organizations, and leadership. A key instrument is the technique ofcampaign analysis, which highlights the importance of these factors andhow they relate to one another. Campaign analysis methodologyestablishes an intellectual context for assessment of the operation.The method includes establishing the operational goals for eachbelligerent. an appraisal of doctrines in use, the forces structures ofopponents, and a comparison of weapons systems. Campaign analysisestablishes the chronology of the operational/tactical action. It alsoattempts to identify and evaluate in detail decisive operational andtactical actions, to show how decisive events combined to shape theoutcome of the operation, and to deduce the implications of theoperation for the war aims of the belligerents.6

Examples of this method include analysis of the relative level ofexperience of both German and Soviet forces in the conduct of large-scale encirclement operations, German and Soviet encirclement doctrine,organization of opposing forces, comparison of personnel and equipment,command and control, military intelligence, operational and tacticaldeception, conduct of joint operations, and the role played bylogistics. The study of these and related factors explains why theKorsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation was so significant.


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This thesis relies on materials found in major research librarieswhich are not always readily accessible. For example. microfilmedcopies of the German dally operational logbooks (known asKrienstagebuche), from army group to regimental level. provide anaccount of the actions as they unfold throughout the operation. Thesemicrofilms, available from the U.S. National Archives, provide a catalogof unit status reports, reports from higher headquarters, analysis ofmilitary intelligence studies, and occasionally the private thoughts ofunit commanders. They are excellent tools for tracking the operationfrom a German perspective as the action unfolds.

In addition, many unit after-action reports are available inthese microfilm groupings. Remarkable for their frank and graphicnature, the reports filed by the units which broke out of the pocketprovide the researcher with a rare view into the human element of thisbattle and highlight the importance of moral factors in the Germans'escape from the Soviet trap. These records, though available for studysince the early 1950s. have rarely been used in subsequent accounts andshed new light on the events of over fifty years ago. They constituteperhaps the best available primary source on German actions and arerelatively free of the post-war rationalization of many of the availableGerman secondary sources.

Similarly, the detailed wartime Soviet afteraction report of theoperation, printed in the September4ctober 1944 edition of Collectionof Materials on the Studv of War Experience (Sbornik materialov POizucheniiu optva voinv) is a critical, unvarnished account which isoften at odds with the official story presented by the former Soviet

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Union. Interestingly, the tactical action depicted in this reportparallels the German records quite closely. As one compares theSborniki side by side with the German accounts. dates. places, and unitmovements correspond almost exactly. Of course, the perceived outcomesof particular engagements may vary, but this phenomenon is common intactical reports. This report, only recently retrieved and declassifiedby a dedicated group of Sovietologists, is but a fraction of the amountof material stored within Russian archives and gives a tantalizingglimpse of how alasnost may yet illuminate the "Great Patriotic War".

Another particularly useful source is a series of art of warsymposia held at the U.S. Army War College from 1984-1986. Thesesymposia were conducted for the express purpose of teaching futurebrigade and division commanders the complexities of the operational artas practiced by the Soviet Union during World War 11. The symposiumproceedings volume most useful for this thesis is "From the Don to theDnieper: Soviet Offensive Operations November 1943 to August 1944" 8Chaired by then-Lieutenant Colonel David M. Glantz, this particularsymposium analyzed the relevant phases of the war in the East in greatdetail. Most notable was the symposium's use of actual participants inthe operations to conduct presentations. Their testimony, coupled withthe use of actual German and Soviet records, offered an extraordinaryopportunity to analyze the various operations as they unfolded from theperspective of the belligerents. This effort still stands as amilestone in the study of the Russo-German War.

There are numerous postwar accounts of the operation by Germanparticipants. In addition to Manstein's account, the most noteworthy

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are Tscherkassv by the commander of the ill-fated XXXXVII Yanzer Korps.Nikolaus von Vormann. and Leon Degrelle's epic Campainn in Russia. whichrelates the experiences of the Belgian Waffen-SS legion in theoperation. Sumerous other German unit histories chronicle events fromthe fox-hole perspective. including materials from the 1st PanzerDivision, the 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler", the5th SS Panzer Division "Viking", and the 72nd Infantry Division.Although these sources suffer from weaknesses common to this genree . , ne-sidedness), they graphically depict the nature of thefighting from the German standpoint.

Referencehas also been made to the accounts of the operationgiven by several of the key Soviet participants, such as those byMarshals G. K. Zhukov, I. S. Konev, and P. M. Rotmistrov. These arenoteworthy in that they often contradict each other's version of events,an illustration of the role played by competing personalities. Anotheruseful source is recently declassified documents concerning theoperation, which provide translated versions of the actual frontoperations orders for Korsun-Shevchenkovsky as well as the order issuedby the STAVKA (the Soviet Supreme High Command). These sources, coupledwith a different perspective which seeks to objectively investigate allaspects of Korsun-Shevchenkovsky, allow the researcher to conduct ananalysis of the operation to determine its overall significance.

Numerous secondary sources were used to provide additionalbackground and context for the operation. Most important in this regardare the official U.S. Army history of the war in Russia alreadymentioned and Paul Carell's sweeping and dramatic work, Scorched Earth.

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Touted as Germany's Cornelius Ryan. Carell blends veterans' interviewswith official accounts. with emphasis on the human aspect of conflict.Another recent'addition to this body of material is Alex Buchner'sOstfront 1944. which deals with the destruction of the Ostheer in 1944.Buchner devotes an entire chapter to the Battle of Cherkassy, providinga wealth of narrative accounts by German survivors of the encirclement.

Former Soviet secondary sources, while numerous, do not givedetailed information on the actual day-to-day conduct of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation. Xearly every official account providesidentical descriptions and analyses of the operation, even down to thenumber of supposed German casualties, but do not report on movements ofcorps and divisions. Examples of this type of coverage are provided inthe Official Historv of the Great Patriotic War, as already mentioned.In a sense, to read one is to read them all. Far more detailed and lessbiased are the various Soviet military publications, including theSoviet Military Review and Vovenno-Istoricheskiv Zhurnal.

This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter I, theintroduction, lays out the scope, framework, methodology, and researchmaterials which support the analysis. Chapter I1 explains thebackground of the operation. It describes the events leading up to theencirclement, the factors used for conducting the battle analysis, andthe encirclement doctrine then in use by the opposing forces. It alsodescribes how Hitler's stand-fast directive of September 1942effectively stymied the initiative of his field commanders by requiringthat they gain his express permission prior to conducting a withdrawal.This diktat greatly hindered German field commanders' ability to conduct


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a mobile defense. the only type of operation that had any hope ofsuccess against the growing strength of the Red Army.

Chapter I11 deals with the Soviet plan for conducting theencirclement and the deception operation. It covers the plan as it wasenvisioned by STAVKA, how it was to be carried out by the frontcommanders concerned, and the order of battle for both sides. Chapter111 will also describe the ambitious deception plan, whose purpose wasto deceive Army Group South as to the time and location of theanticipated operation. This plan, combined with the planneddiversionary attacks. was to have allowed the seven armies initiallytaking part in the operation to rapidly carry out the encirclement anddestruction of the German forces in the salient, which the Sovietleadership believed was a powerful force of great operationalsignificance. The destruction of this force, or so the Sovietsbelieved, would cripple any German plans for a counteroffensive andcreate conditions for further Soviet offensive operations. AlthoughSoviet commanders did not discuss operational plans in terms used today,they probably would have agreed that the assembled German forces in theKanev salient constituted what is now known as the German "center ofgravity." Its destruction would be decisive. The Red Army would alsobe in the position to repel or destroy the expected German reliefattack. For this to work, the deception plan and diversionary attackshad to delay the formation and movement of the relief force. Thefailure of these plans was to have great consequence for the attackingSoviets.


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Chapter IV recounts and analyzes the actual conduct of theoperation itself. It describes each phase of the operation as itunfolds, beginning with the initial breakthrough, followed by theencirclement, the relief operation. and the final desperate breakout ofthe German troops trapped in the pocket. As battles raged back andforth, it seemed at times that the German forces might succeed inencircling a large portion of the Soviet forces. Chapter IV alsodescribes how the last-minute commitment of forces from STAVKA reserveillustrated the growing operational skill and tactical flexibility ofthe Red Army against the still-formidable Wehrmacht.

Chapter V, the conclusion, reveals why the Korsun-ShevchenkovskyOperation was significant. It summarizes the methodology and criteriafor analysis, sums up the results of the operation for both Germany andthe Soviet Union, surveys lessons learned, and argues whether there isprofit to be gained by encouraging military professionals to study thisoperation.

A delimitation of this thesis is that its chronological scope isrestricted to the period of 12 January 1944 to 3 March 1944, that is,the period of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation. Although theoperation occurred during the course of the 1943-44 Soviet winteroffensive, which saw both the liberation of Kiev and the German retreatfrom the Ukraine, Korsun-Shevchenkovsky occupies a distinct place in theSoviet strategic plan for this phase of the war and can be evaluatedseparately.

It is significant that both the former Soviet Army and the GermanBundeswehr consider the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation still worth

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studying. As late as 1984. the operation was cited numerous times inthe Soviet military publication EncircLement O~eratipns nd Combat as anexample of an encirclement operation worthy of em~lation.~he topicreceived similar treatment in a the 1987 edition of the m e s w e h r ' sprofessional publication Deutsche Soldateniahrb~ch.~~n contrast, theUnited States Army has historically paid little attention to the topic,since there seems little likelihood that its soldiers will be engaged inlarge-scale encirclement operations anytime in the near future.However. despite the current emphasis on operations other than war(OOTW), the experiences of both belligerents during the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation are still relevant to today's Army. As inWorld War 11, an encirclement is still one of the most destructive anddifficult operations for an army to carry out.


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Endnotes'~ohn rickson. The Road to Berlin (Boulder: Westview PressInc.. 1983). 179.'~ergei Sokolov. Battles HEler Lost (New York: Jove Books.1988), 91.3~rich on Manstein, Lost Victories (Novato, CA: Presidio Press,l982), 517.'.James Lucas, krx-n the Eastern Front (New York: Stein and Day,1979) , 3 1-33.'combat Studies Institute, Soviet Mili ta m History: The Red Army1918-1945, Vol. I (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 1984),333.'u.s. Command and General Staff College Text A501, OperationalWarfighting (Fort Leavenworth: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994),3-4.7The Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation, January - February 1944"in Sbornik materialov PO izhucheniiu opyta voiny, No. 14 (Moscow:Voemoe Izdatel'stovo Narodnogo Komissariata Oborony, 1943, 3-16.avid M. Glantz, "From the Enieper to the Vistula - SovietOffensive Operations November 1943 to August 1944," 1985 Art of WarSvm~osium Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1985).

9~iktor . Matsulenko, Encirclement Operat ions and Combat(Moscow: Progress Publishing, 1984), 93-95.

'O~ansK. Menedetter, "Tscherkassy - ein Ring um zwei Korps,"Deutsches Soldatenjahrbuch 1987 (Munich: Schild Verlag, 1987), 164-169.


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CHAPTER 2BACKGROUND

The time for grand-style operations in the Eastis now past.Adolf IIitler in ~arbarossa'

War Aims and operational Priorities of the BelligerentsThe road to Korsun-Shevchenkovsky began at Kursk six months

before with the failure of Hitler's Operation Zitadelle. It was hereduring the first two weeks of July 1943 that Nazi Germany's last attemptto regain the strategic initiative with carefully hoarded armoredreserves stalled in the face of successive defensive belts and massiveSoviet counterattacks during the first two weeks of July 1943. WhenHitler called off the attack due to the Allied attack on Sicily combinedwith the offensive's lack of success, Stalin used this opportunity tolaunch his own counteroffensive. By 20 July, 1943, six Red Army fronts(a front was the equivalent of a German army group) had joined theattack, forcing the Germans to fall back. The middle of August saw vonManstein's Army Group South in full retreat towards the relative safetyof defensive positions along the Dnieper river.

The Germans won the race, though only barely. Skillfulhandling of the remaining German reserves by van Manstein and hissubordinate commanders avoided catastrophe repeatedly; by 30 September,

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nearly all German troops had been successfully evacuated across the~nieper.~espite overwhelming superiority in tanks. men, guns, andaircraft. the fronts of hlarshals Popov, Rokossovsky, Vatutin, Konev, andMalinovsky could not bring the Germans to bay.

The safety of the defensive positions in the so-called "WotanLine" and "Panther" positions along the Dnieper proved illusory. By thefirst week of October 1943, the Red Army had established bridgeheads atseveral points along the river. Despite desperate Germancounterattacks, these bridgeheads could not be eliminated; they becamespringboards for future offensives to liberate the entire Ukraine.

Massive offensives from the Lyutezh bridgehead northwest of Kievin the north, from Zaporozhye in the center, and from Melitopol in thesouth exploded in mid-0ctober 1943. By the end of November, the Germandefensive positions along the Dnieper were in shambles and the futuresurvival of Army Group South was in jeopardy (fig. 1). A m y GroupSouth's desperate counteroffensive from mid-November to early December1943 succeeded only in slowing the Red Army's rate of advan~e.~

Following further Soviet gains in early January 1944 during theZhitomir-Berdichev and Kirovograd operations, the only portion of theDnieper positions still held by the Germans was a stretch that ran fromKanev in the north to a few kilometers northwest of Cherkassy, a totalof roughly 80 kilometers. The frontline trace in the Ukraine for theGermans and Soviets in mid-January 1944 ran southeast from Rovno in thenorth, to Zhitomir, Kanev, Korsun, Shpola, Kirovograd, and to Nikopol,where the front line angled southwest towards Kherson on the Black Sea(fig. 2).


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Figure 1. Source: Jukes, G, Kursk: The Clash of Armor, (Ne wYork, Ballantine Books, 1968) p. 140.


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Figure 2. Adapted from: DA Pamphlet 20-234, O~erations fEncircled Forces: German Exweriances in Russia, (Washington,D.C.:US Government, 1952) p. vi.


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The German Panev salient which jutted out to the Dnieper was aby-product of constant battles along the length of the Dnieper fromOctober 1943 to January 1944. The salient existed because the Germanssimply had not been attacked yet in that particulax: part of their front.They could not withdraw from this vulnerable salient because of a stand-fast decree, which could only be countermanded by Hitler himself 4

However, Hi tler, in his role as head of the OKH (Oberkommando derHeeresleitung, or German Army High Command), soon saw that this salientas an opportunity, rather than a risk. Poised as it was along theDnieper, Hitler believed that the salient would serve as an idealspringboard for a renewed offensive aimed at retaking Kiev and throwingthe Red Army back across the river. However, Army Group South did notpossess the combat power to accomplish so grand a task. Even vanManstein's strenuous objections to such a plan had no effect. Hitlerbelieved that superior willpower alone was sufficient to achieve hisends. The Kanev salient therefore remained.

Inside the salient were two corps of Army Group South, XI andXXXXII Infantry Corps, with a total effective strength of six divisions.These formations had no standing forces in reserve, since all units werespread rather thinly in order to cover the huge frontage. Complicatingmatters was the fact that each corps belonged to a different army-XXXXII Corps in the west to the 1st Panzer Army, and XI Corps in theeast to the 8th Army.

Moreover, by 12 January 1944 the salient, 125 kilometers wide and90 kilometers deep, had also attracted the notice of Stalin and MarshalZhukov as well, who saw it as both a threat between the inner flanks of

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the two fronts concerned (the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts) and anopportunity to encircle and destroy the German forces occupying thesalient.6 Both Hitler's and Stalin's ecisions would soon significantlyaffect the conduct of operations of the entire southern front of the warin the East and the fate of thousands of men.

Evaluation of Forces InvolvedBy January 1944, the war in Russia had been going on for two and

a half years. The Red Army had recovered from its initial defeats andenormous losses and no longer bore much resemblance to the poorly led,unmotivated, disorganized and untrained force it had been in June 1941.It had learned from many of its mistakes, filled the gaps in its ranks,and had begun to match the Germans in quality as well, especially withrespect to leadership at the division level and higher.

The 18 November 1942 encirclement and subsequent annihilation ofthe German 6th Army at Stalingrad in February 1943, as well as thedefeat of the long-awaited German counteroffensive at Kursk in July1943, should have instructed Hitler that the German Wehrmacht was nolonger facing the "clay-footed colossus" it had smashed during thesummer of 1941. In fact, the Red Army faced by German soldiers in theDnieper bend was a modern, well-equipped and lethal force that wascapable of matching the Germans tank for tank, division for division,and most importantly, commander for commander, especially at theoperational level involving armies and fronts.


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Soviet LeadershipThe Sovlet forces designated to conduct the Korsun-Shenchenkovsky

Operation were the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts. commanded by MarshalsNikolai Vatutin and Ivan Konev. respectively. Both were extremelycapable commanders who had gained significant experience in carrying outlarge-scale mobile operations against the Germans during the previousyear, as both held command positions at Kursk and in the pursuit to theDnieper River line. Vatutin was known as a rash, excitable officer, yetwas bold and daring as well. These qualities Marshal Zhukov, STAVKA'srepresentative for the operation. felt were ideally suited for thecommander of mobile forces.

Marshal Konev, on the other hand, was known among Soviet circlesas a ambitious, brutal leader who ruthlessly pushed his subordinates totheir utmost. Nevertheless, he got results which, in Stalin's eyes,made any personal shortcomings forgivable. Konev was also extremelybrave and would often visit front-line fighting positions to see thesituation for himself. Another characteristic of Konev was that hepreferred meticulous preparation for operations and methodicalexecution, with particular emphasis on using deception and overwhelmingamounts of artillery.

Once Konev set his eyes on an objective, rarely would he bediverted until he had carried his mission through to the utmost. Astaunch communist, he had risen from the ranks since serving as acommissar in the Xussian Civil War and embodied many of the ideologicaltraits common to Soviet general officers of that time. To the Germans,he was both a feared and respected opponent, though Vatutin was viewed


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as being the more unpredictable of the two men. Konev's tenac~ty ndVatutin's rlsk-taking would greatly affect the course of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky operation.

Overall coordination for the operation was provided by MarshalGrigoriy Zhukov, the STAVKA representative for the USSR's southern wareffort. Direct command was exercised by Stalin himself, though inpractice each of the two front commanders were granted wide latitude indecision-making. In this peculiar command relationship, Zhukov couldadvise Marshals Vatutin and Konev, as well as pass on orders fromSTAVKA, but had no direct command authority over either of them. Thissituation would complicate the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation as itreached its most critical stage.

German LeadershipThe soldiers of the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts faced troops of

Army Group South, led by one of Germany's most capable commanders, FieldMarshall Eric von Manstein. Credited with saving the entire Germansouthern flank by his brilliant campaign in the wake of the disaster atStalingrad, he had masterfully conducted a fighting withdrawal to theDnieper after Kursk. Von Manstein had repeatedly frustrated Sovietplans to exploit bridgeheads along the Dnieper River since October 1943.

Von Manstein's launched audacious counterattacks in late Novemberand December with his 4th Panzer Army, which nearly succeeded ineliminating the Red Army's bridgehead near Kiev before his tanks werehalted by massive counterattacks by Vatutin's 2nd and 3rd Tank Armies.A bold, innovative commander, he would willingly trade space for time in


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order to develop opportunities to deal the Red Army crippling blows.10Von Manstein was also one of Germany's few remaining practitioners ofoperational maneuver. Despite Hitler's admiration for him, vonManstein's 0~tSp0ke~eSSnd frequent disregard of Hitler's stand-fastdecree had begun to wear Hitler's patience thin by January 1944.11However, von Manstein was still in command during the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation (he would finally be relieved 31 March 1944).and his steadfastness in the face of Hitler's obstinacy as well as hiswillingness to take risks would become a significant factor contributingto the outcome of the operation.

Force Structure of OpponentsFor the execution of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation,

STAVKA directed 12 January 1944 that the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Frontsimmediately conclude operations in their respective sectors and beginplanning for a double envelopment to trap the German forces in thesalient.12 Each Front therefore did not begin the operation at fullstrength, since both had been continuously engaged against German forcesin the Ukraine since mid-November 1943.

Vatutin's 1st Ukrainian Front would commit its 27th and 40thArmies, as well as the newly established 6th Tank Army. His front wasestablished along an east-west axis running from the Dnieper river inthe east to the town of Shepetovka in the west. The 6th Tank Army,commanded by General Kravchenko, consisted of two corps-the 5th Tankand 5th Mechanized-which had seen heavy fighting around Kiev duringDecember. In the 6th Tank Army, Vatutin had an organization that hoped


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to make up for its lack of numbers by experience and daring. In all.Vatutin's would commit nearly 90.000 men and 210 tanks or assault gunsat the beginning of the operation.13 It would be assigned the missionof attacking the German salient from the west.

Konev's 2nd Ukrainian Front was by far the larger and morepowerful of the two. In addition to the 52nd and 53rd Armies, the 2ndUkrainian would commit the 4th Guards Army and the 5th Guards TankArmy. As a rule, Guards armies were allocated more manpower, moreartillery and tanks, and possessed better morale, having proventhemselves as fighting organizations durlng previous campaigns. The 5thGuards Tank Army in particular, commanded by General Pave1 Rotmistrov,was an extremely well-led, capable organization, having proven at Kurskduring the great tank battle at Prokhorovka, when it had stopped the I1SS-Panzer Corps in its tracks.

The 2nd Ukrainian Front occupied positions from Cherkassy in thenorthwest to Kirovograd in the southeast, where it had attempted duringthe first two weeks of January, without success, to trap XXXXVII PanzerCorps of the 8th Army. Konev's Front would commit initially over140,000 men and 323 tanks and assault guns for this operation. 4 Itsmission was to attack the German salient from the east.

The various elements of the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts,although flush with victory, had suffered considerably during the pastseveral months. They had thrown the Germans across the Dnieper, carriedout many river crossing operations and had liberated Kiev. Because ofthis, most of Vatutin's and Konev's armies, corps, and divisions wereless than full strength. For example, when it was committed to the

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Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation. one tank corps of the 1st Tank .4rmy,which entered the battle after operations had already commenced. hadonly 30 tanks remaining out of 189 authorized.I5

However. shortage of equipment was a minor problem when comparedto a far more serious situation which had begun to arise during thepursuit to the Dnieper. By January 1944, the Red Army was extremelyshort of good quality manpower, a legacy of the tremendous lossessuffered during the summer and fall of 1941, when it had lost over threemillion men killed. captured, or wounded.16 The shortage of manpowerwas particularly felt in the infantry, where many divisions wereoperating at less than half of their authorized strength.17

By this point of the war. the manpower shortage had grown soacute than advancing Red Army units would encircle entire villages,round up the able-bodied men (ranging in age from thirteen to sixty) andimmediately impress them into their ranks.18 These so-called "booty"Ukrainians swelled depleted Soviet ranks and restored them to some levelof their authorized strength. A disadvantage to this ploy, of course,was that these individuals were untrained and untested in battle. Manyunits of the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts were filled with these menwhose lack of experience and training contributed to the desperatebreakout of the Germans from the pocket, when their hastily preparedfighting positions were overrun.

On the German side, von Manstein's Army Group South consisted ofthree field armies-the 4th Panzer Army in the north, 1st Panzer Army inthe center, and 8th Army in the south, adjoining Army Group A's 6th Armyin the hieper Bend. The two armies involved in the encirclement were

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the 1st Panzer and 8th Army. commanded by Colonel-General Hans Hube andGeneral of the Infantry Otto Woehler. respectively. Both wereexperienced commanders and had led their troops well during the gruelingwithdrawals to the Dnieper the previous autumn.19

The 1st Panzer Army was the more powerful of the two, having twopanzer corps and two infantry corps. The 8th Army was composed of onepanzer corps, two infantry'corps. and the panzer grenadier division"Grossdeutchland" occupying a corps-sized sector. A panzer corpsdiffered from an infantry corps primarily due to the greater number ofarmored divisions assigned. amount of artillery, and other combatsupport troops, as well as the fact that most corps troops weremotorized. This provided a panzer corps significantly more mobilitythan an infantry corps, which relied on horsedrawn transport to agreater degree.

After nearly seven months of continuous combat, both 1st Panzerand 8th Armies were on the verge of exhaustion. The individual corpsand divisions of the two armies had suffered severe losses during theretreat and in the counterattacks which van Manstein had attempted tothrow the Red Army back across the hieper. In the areas which wouldbear the brunt of the upcoming Soviet attack, the 1st Panzer Army and8th Army had a total of 130,000 men deployed and approximately 100combat-ready tanks.20 Thus at the outset, the Red Army enjoyed atwo-to-one superiority in men and a five-to-one superiority in tanks inthe area of the Kanev salient. The odds for the encircled Germandivisions would worsen as the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation developed(figure 1).

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Many of these divisions were operating at less than 50 percentstrength. By the winter of 19434 . 3 . the German Wehrmacht was no longerable to make good its losses. One symptom of this situation was thenecessity of resorting to the creation of "corps detachments"(Korpsabteilungen). These organizations, created by the combination oftwo or three burnt-out divisions of regimental strength, was an attemptto provide corps commanders a unit that at least could carry outdivision level operations.21 One such organization, Korpsabteilung B,was assigned to 1st Panzer Army's XXXXII Corps. Its existenceconfounded the Red Army's enemy order of battle calculations. as will beseen.

Other divisions found themselves charged with defending widefrontages. For example, the 5th SS-Panzer Division "Wiking" (or Viking)had to defend a frontage along the Dnieper that was over 80 kilometerslong.22 Hitler's decision to defend every inch of ground in effectdispersed combat power at a time when it was most badly needed. Worse,units were forced to occupy ground poorly suited for defense when ashort witMrawa1 would have allowed them to make the best use of keyterrain. The situation was further complicated by Hitler's refusal toallow von Manstein to evacuate the Kanev salient, despite numerousrequests by von Manstein, Hube, and Woehler to OKH in early January todo so. Thus, by mid-January 1944, the 1st Panzer and 8th Armies wereoverextended, exhausted, and decimated.

Von Manstein had no reserves available to counter any Sovietthrust, unless he decided to denude other areas of the front to freeunits up for such a purpose. He had been forced to resort repeatedly to

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FIGURE 3CORRELATION OF FORCES

KORSUN-SHEVCHENKOVSKY OPERATION - 24 JANUARY 1944SOVIET

1st Ukrainian Front Watutin)27 th Army (28, 350)40 th Army (33, 720)6 t h Tank Army (24,420)

2nd Ukrainian Front (Konev)Wh,

GERMAN1st Panzer Army (Hube)

VII Corps (25,000)XXXXII Corps* (30,000)

190 Tks/SP gu ns 8 t h Army (Woehler)X I Corps* (35,000) 40 ~ k s

.- 52nd Army (15,900)4 th Gds Army (46,000)53 rd Army (54,000)5t h Gds Tk Army (22,300)

XLVII Pz Corps (50,000) 60 Tks135.000 enaaaed). < < .126 Tks/SP g unsTOTAL: 130,000 men, 100 Tks

197 Tks/SP guns *enci rcled cor psOther (20,300)

TOTAL: 245,000 m n , 513 tank sFORCE RATIOS: Manpower 2:1, ta nk s 5:1, a r t i l l e r y 7:1, t a c t i c a l av ia ti o n 4:l

Source: Glantz, D. 1985 Art of War Symposium, "From th e Dnieper t o th e Vis tul a: so vi etOffensive Operat ions frcun November 1943 t o August 1944" ( C a r l i s l e Bar ra cks, PA: U.S. Army WarCollege, 1985), p. 128.


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this tactic tor the past four months. but his army group could notconduct a statlc defense indefinitely. Thus. Army Group South wasextremely vulneraole to the type of operation whlch Stalin and hisgenerals were contemplating.

German morale was not as high as it had been. Reverses of theprevious Summer and Fall had led to a sense of fatalism in the ranks.Belief in final vlctory was no longer certain. The so-calledUntermenschen (subhumans) ot the Soviet Union had turned out to beformidable opponents after all. The individual German soldier had cometo fear the Red Army and had developed a great deal of respect for m ,their term for the mdivldual Soviet soldier. What German soldiersfeared most was becoming encircled and abandoned to their fate, as the6th Army had been at Stalingrad. This crisis in confidence manifesteditself during the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operat ion. 3

That the Red Army was becoming increasingly proficient atmechanized warfare and, in fact, was becoming nearly equal in ability tothe Germans was recognized by 1942-43, but seldom mentioned publicly.Even a hard-bitten SS General, Max Simon, wrote admiringly of the RedArmy's skill and tenacity, stressing that German toughness and self-sacrifice were not enough to guarantee eventual German victory. 4

The quality of the soldiers in the Ostheer was also no longerwhat it had been on 22 June 1941, when the Wehrmacht had been theworld's finest army. The reality was that the German Army, after thefirst year of the war in Russia, where it suffered 800,000casualtiesalone, could no longer make good its enormous losses in manpower. Eventhe Waffen-SS, Hitler's elite guard, was forced to accept ethnic Germans

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from Eastern Europe as well as non-Germans to solve the manpowercrisis. 5

HeVpons Svstems of the BelligerentsBy 1944. both sides had developed combined arms formations which

used some of the most modern weapons systems available. Both hadlethal, effect~ve a m battle tanks such as the Russian T-34 mounting an85mm gun and the German Panzer Nark V "Panther." mounting a highvelocity 75mm gun. Both were widely recognized at the time as being thebest fighting vehicles in the world. The only advantages the Germanshad in tank battles against the Red Army was the superlor tralning oftheir crews, quality of small unit leadership, and the fact that everytank had a radio, facilitating command and control at the platoon andcompany level.

However, the Germans had to rely on an equal number of older,less modern tanks such as the Panzer Mark IV, which had less armor andpoorer maneuverability in comparison to the T-34 and Panther. The RedArmy also fielded a variety of tanks, ranging from the newly-introducedJoseph Stalin I1 with a 122mm cannon to the lend-lease U.S.-madeSherman. The only truly decisive factor when considering armor in theKorsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation was that the Red Army employed nearlyfive times as many tanks as the Germans did. Even the mighty GermanPanzer Mark VI Tiger I tank, with its deadly 88mm high-velocity gun andthick armor. could not redress the imbalance.

The story was the same with artillery. Although the Germans self-propelled artillery systems were far superior in quality and


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responsiveness to anything the Red Army had. the Soviets had seven totwelve times as many guns. This is due in part to the Red Army'stendency to use artillery in mass as a substitute for the infantry whichit had employed previously in the assault role and which it no longerhad in abundance. The preferred Red Army tactic by this phase of thewar was to fire at preplanned targets and use rolling barrages verysimilar to methods introduced in World War

Although this method was inefficient, it proved devastatingagainst hasty field fortifications. It was also a simple system to use,requiring no detailed training. During the Korsun-ShevchenkovskyOperation, artillery support was more than adequate, but the high ratesof fire required to sustain the offensive could not be supported oncethe attacking echelons had advanced into the German's operational depthdue to the condition of main supply routes. Consequently, theaccustomed level of fire support was not as high as it had been inprevious operations, which affected the tactical outcome of Korsun-Shevchenkovsky 7

Air power, though employed heavily by the Soviets, was notdecisive in the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation. Soviet air support,provided by the 2nd and 5th Air Armies, was poorly integrated into theoverall concept of operations and did not support the scheme of maneuverfor the two fronts, a sign that the Red Air Force had yet to developproficiency in air-to-ground cooperation. German air support came fromGeneral Seidemam's VIII Air Fleet, which included both tacticalaviation and airlift assets. Due to a number a factors, primarilyweather and shortage of improved airfields, effective use of close air


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support was limited for both antagonists. The Germans did makeextensive use of airlift assets in support of the encircled corps. TheRed Air Force conducted ground attacks whenever the weather allowed andcarried out numerous night attacks with individual aircraft. The effectof these attacks were chiefly psychological, though the threat to theGerman aerial resupply operation was a constant danger, forcing theGermans at times to cancel air drops.28

The German armored divisions did possess certain numbers of half-tracked armored vehicles for mechanized infantry, but these wererelatively scarce. By January 1944, most panzer grenadiers (mechanizedinfantry) rode in trucks, many of which were of foreign design andlacked all-wheel drive capability. To make up for their near-total lackof half tracks, the Red Army relied on the expedient of placing theirmechanized infantry on the back decks of their tanks. Although theseunits suffered grievous losses during combat owing to theirvulnerability to small arms and artillery fire, it did allow theinfantry to ride with the tanks into battle. For the most part,however, the infantrymen of both armies went into battle the old-fashioned way-on foot. The Red Army even used mounted cavalry unitsextensively and one unit, the 5th Guards Cavalry Corps, played aprominent role in the operation.

In regards to overall mobility, the Red Army had an advantageover the Wehrmacht. In 1944, there were few paved roads in EuropeanRussia. Most were dirt roads improved with a layer of gravel or logcorduroy. During the summer, they were veritable dust bowls; inwinter, they often became an endless morass. Both sides used thousands

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of impressed civilian iaborers. prisoners of war. and penal battalionsto improve and maintain these roads.19 Lines of communication were asignificant planning factor whenever either side was preparing for anoperation.

Not only did the Red Army's wide-tracked tanks have bettertrafficability in the mud, the Red Army had the additional advantage ofpossessing thousands of four-wheeled drive Studebaker and Ford 2 1/2-tontrucks, courtesy of the U.S. lend-lease program. These trucks, incomparison to the German two-wheel drive commercial vehicles. were farmore rugged and durable, allowing Soviet combat service support units tokeep up with mechanized forces even when terrain was unfavorable. 0

The Germans also overburdened their already strained logisticssystem. Another disadvantage suffered by the Germans was their relianceon what the Red Army would call "creature comforts." As did mostWestern armies of the day, the Germans devoted a great deal of theirlogistical infrastructure to mail, depots, field kitchens, repair shops,clothing, etc.-what we would call supply classes I , 11, IV, VI, and VIItoday. Hauling this around placed an additional demand on theavailable transport and tended to clog the roads, with potentiallydisastrous consequences while conducting a retreat or shifting mobileforces from one threatened sector of the front to another.31

The Red Army, which was accustomed to doing without a lot offrills, focused their effort on providing fuel and ammunition. Theirsoldiers could and did live on the land for extended periods and wereexhorted to use captured German food supplies as frequently as possible.Their ability to subsist on a bare minimum of rations amazed the

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Germans. ~vho often tied the degree of combat worthiness to the amount ofbread the~r oldlers rece~ved n their daily ration.32

Another expedient used by both sides to overcome transportationdifficulties was the utilization of native horse and wagon (or sled)combinations. The so-called panie was used extensively to haul food,fuel. ammunition, wounded and nearly everything else, through roads thatwould hopelessly mire a truck or even a half-track. By the winter of1943-44, both sides were using thousands of these small carts pulled bythe shaggy little ponies. 3

Both sides used rail as much as possible to carry supplies aswell as a means to shift forces from one part of the front to another.The advantages of rail transport, however, were limited. As in WorldWar One, once a train arrived at the front, it had to be unloaded byhand. Mechanized units would have to conduct the remainder of theirmovement on muddy roads. Supplies proceeded to the units in the fieldfrom the railhead in trucks or& agons.

One notable characteristic of the Russian campaign was the use byboth sides of armored trains as a tactical expedient. Such a train wasused during the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation by the 8th Army to makeup for the shortage of field artillery. It was not unusual for it toapproach to within eight-to-ten kilometers of the front lines to providebadly needed fire support to the beleaguered German XXXXVII PanzerCorps, fighting to the southeast of the encircled forces. 4


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Cr~jrclement octrineBy the winter of 1943-44. both belligerents had gained

considerable experience in the conduct of large-scale encirclementoperations. The Germans had been the leading practitioners of this formof warfare, demonstrating it repeatedly in Poland. France, and theBalkans from 1939 to 1941. Their armor-led spearheads conductednumerous deep attacks into the operational depths of their opponents,dislocating command and control networks and lines of communications.Once the plncers of the encircling armored forces had met, they wouldthen hand off the mission of reducing the encirclement to the hard-marching infantry corps in their wake.

The Germans used this recipe for success repeatedly against theRed Army during the opening stages of Operation Barbarrossa. BySeptember 1941, the Red Army in western European Russia had effectivelybeen destroyed. The Red Army, which had pioneered its own deep battledoctrine in the 1930s which centered on the "expanding torrent" conceptwhich anticipated numerous encirclement operations taking place, nowfound itself the victim of German encirclements, though it did notabandon its own encirclement concepts. It simply traded space for timeuntil circumstances would be more favorable to launch counteroffensives.Trained and experienced leaders would soon be able to execute thesetypes of operations.

That opportunity came on a grand scale in November 1942, when theRed Army encircled the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. The 6th Army,bogged down in futile street fighting in that city, had entrusted itsflank security to Italian, Rumanian, and Hungarian armies. The

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overextended Axis flanks collapsed readily in the face of massive RedArmy tank attacks. The poorly equipped allied armies were destroyed inrapid succession, exposing the entire German effort in the south to anenormous envelopment operation.

The Red Army encircling force then turned about and began thereduction of the German pocket, while the follow-on second echeloncontinued to drive the German flanks back. Striking deep into theGerman operational depths, this echelon of forces nearly reached Rostov-on-Don, almost severing the German Army Group A in the Caucasus andthwarting von Manstein's desperate relief of Stalingrad and hisdesperate attempt to cobble a front line together in the path of theSoviet onslaught.

The Red Army doctrine then in use and continuously refined sinceStalingrad dictated that armored forces were to make the initialencirclement. Once the pincers were closed, these forces were to formthe inner ring of encirclement and carry out the task of splitting upand reducing the encirclement. The task of pushing back the enemyflanks and defending against relief attempts fell to the outer ring,which was to be conducted by infantry formations supported by mountedcavalry and tanks. This doctrine relied on a great deal of preparationtime, deception, massed fires, flexibility and initiative at all levelsof command. 5

The doctrine in use during the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operationwas embodied in the 1944 Field Service Regulations, which had beenrefined during the Fall and Winter of 1943. It incorporated the lessonslearned not only from Stalingrad but from the Battle of Kursk and the


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pursuit to the ilnieper. It devoted an entire chapter (Chapter 11--Battle of Encirclement) to the conduct of encirclement operations eitheras a separate operation or as a component of an operational deepattack.36

The 1944 regulation outlined the reasons for conductingencirclements and how commanders were to carry them out. It describedthe steps necessary to execute each stage of the operation andemphasized the need for speed. decisiveness, daring, and resolution.The regulation also emphasized the moral aspect as well. Article 292 ofthe Red Army Field Regulations stated that:

Encirclement and subsequent capture or destruction of enemytroops, with equal or inferior forces, is a matter of honor, valor,and heroism of troops and a display of high skill by the commandersand should be considered as the highest military exploit.During the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation, Red Army commanders at alllevels appeared to have taken this particular adage to heart. Perhapsthey placed far too great an emphasis on it, at the expense of greateroperational gains, as this thesis will show.

According to the regulation, an encirclement operation consistedof three phases or stages. The first phase was the penetration of theenemy's flanks on either side of the salient. This task was to beconducted primarily by infantry formations, with tanks and artillerysupport, which would overcome the enemy's tactical defense network.

The second phase was the encirclement itself and would be carriedout by mechanized units, preferably corps-sized or larger. Once free ofthe enemy tactical defenses, they would drive into the enemy'soperational depth up to a distance of 100 kilometers. They would then


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iin ~ p with mobile units coming from the opposite direction, severingthe enemy's iines of communication in the process. 7

The third phase was the destruction of the encircled enemyforces. Once the encirclement had been erfected. the mobile unit wouldthen form an inner ring of encirclement. They would then attack intothe flank and rear of the encircled enemy. splitting up his defensiveformations and destroying him piecemeal. The cavalry and infantryformations, which had conducted the initial penetration. would taketheir place on the outer ring of the encirclement. Their mission wouldbe to defend against enemy relief attempts or. if conditionspermitted.to continue to push deeper into the enemy's rear. This formula had beentried and tested at Stalingrad.

Article 298 of the regulation emphasized the point that anyencirclement operation should be thoroughly planned, with particularemphasis being placed on the need for the coordination of all combatarms, including air power, to the destruction of the encircled groupingand the defeat of relief forces. The need for thorough command andcontrol measures was repeatedly stressed, since the general staffrecognized that such operations were characterized by rapid movement anda fluid enemy situation.

However, Red Army doctrine was not as restrictive andunimaginative as many in the West think. It did allow for variation bycommanders according to the circumstances. Initiative was encouragedwhenever possible (Article 300). There are many examples, in theKorsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation and elsewhere. where commanders variedfrom doctrine to suit the situation. Inadequate training at lower

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levels of command (regiment and lower). due in part to the need toquickly rebuild the Red Army officer corps after the disasters of 1941,was perhaps more to blame for missed opportunities or defeats than thedoctrine in use at that time.

Red Army doctrine traced its roots to the development of thetheory of deep operations by Marshal Tukhachevsky and various theoristsin the early 1930s. These visionaries foresaw the role mechahzedforces would play in future operational level deep attacks and evenanticipated developments then occurring in Nazi Germany. Distilled inthe seminal work Field Regulations of 1936. these concepts were to guidethe evolution of the stylk of operations which still inspires theRussian Army of today. 8

One of the first concepts described in the regulations was thatthe "enemy should be pinned down through the entire depth of hisdeployment, encircled, and destroyed. "39 Follow-on echelons wouldexpand the breach in the enemy's defenses and continue the push intogreater operational depth, the so-called "expanding torrent," or conductan operation jointly with an adjacent corps or army. Subsequentoperations would press on into greater depth, disrupting the enemy'sentire command and control network, logistics system, and reserves.Thus, encirclement operations have played a prominent role in thedevelopment of Soviet operational art since the mid-1930s.

Defensive thinking briefly held prominence. Following theappearance of the 1936 regulations, the 1939 edition placed greateremphasis on conducting mobile defense operations, in view of the threatposed by the growing strength and aggressiveness of Hitler's Germany,

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when many Sovlet military thinkers realized that their deep battledoctrine did not make sufficient allowances for other types ofoperations which could be expected to take place on a modern, fluidbattlef ield.jO

The Soviet General Staff Academy was the primary vehicle for theinculcation of this doctrine into the minds of future general staffofficers. This made up somewhat for the lack of operationalinstructions or official handbooks on operational art, which were notpublished until the German invasion of the Soviet Union had already beenunderway. Most commanders of armies and fronts were graduates of theGeneral Staff Academy and were given the opportunity to put intopractice what they had learned.41 A notable exception was MarshalZhukov, who perfected his operational style on the basis of combatexperience.

The purge of the Red Army by Stalin in 1937 temporarily slowedthe development of deep battle doctrine, as well as varying perceptionsabout the utility of deep attacks during the Spanish Civil War. Thesedevelopments contributed substantially to the disasters suffered in 1941and early 1942. However, by the summer of 1942, deep battle was onceagain in favor, as Stalin began to realize that the only way to defeatthe Germans and liberate the conquered regions was to fight them usingthe blitzkrieg methods they had used. The Stalingrad counteroffensiveand ensuing encirclement of the 6th Army was but one sign of the RedArmy's return to Tukhachevsky's concepts.

The doctrine of encirclement was further influenced by aspects ofBolshevik thought, which placed great emphasis on the total destruction


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of the Communist Party's ideological foes. This concept. understood asa principle of war. ,#as called unichtozhenie, or annihilation. Thisconcept did not necessarily mean physical destruction. but did meantotal eradication of any form of opposition.42 However, the 1936 F i e l dRemlation formalized this principle into military doctrine with specialrelevance to conducting encirclement operations. 1t stated that

Combat actions of the Red Army will be carried out to annihilation.Attainment of decisive victory and complete destruction of the foeis the basic aim in war. Annihilation is the undamental, basic,and decisive aim of Soviet combat operations. sThe importance of annihilation was continually stressed not only

in the military schools system, but was often repeated by unit politicalofficers. Although it is not mentioned in any memoirs by Red Armyparticipants as being uppermost in their minds, the doctrine ofannihilation no doubt influenced Red Army officers in their thinking.For soldiers such as Marshal Konev, who began his career in the Red Armyas a kommissar during the bitterly fought Russian Civil War, the conceptof unichtozhenie probably had great military as well as politicalsignificance. This, coupled with the Bolshevik concept of do kontsa, or"to the very end", meaning total and absolute destruction of the enemy,could have influenced Red Army commanders to place undue emphasis on thephysical annihilation of encircled foes.44 The revenge factor was alsoan intangible that undoubtedly contributed to the Red Army's desire tocompletely annihilate its mortal enemy.

Thus, by the time of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation, the RedArmy had a well-developed, practical doctrine for conductingencirclements. Commanders and staffs at division level and higher


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trained according to their doctrine and followed it consistently. Theircombined arms fronts, armies and corps were experienced, equipped withmodern weapons. organized according to their doctrine. and hadrepeatedly scored successes against a weakened, though still dangerous.opponent.

German DoctrineAs has been mentioned, the German Army led the world in the

implementation of the concept of operational deep attack or blitzkrieg.While the Red Army may have developed the major components first, it wasHitler's Wehrmacht that put these ideas into practice. During OperationBarbarossa, the German Army's mechanized forces had encircled anddestroyed numerous large Soviet formations. By 1942, however, the tideof the war began to shift, and it was Germany's turn to experienceencirclement firsthand.

Setbacks before Moscow during the Red Army's December 1941counteroffensive had inflicted heavy losses on both the Wehrmacht'stroops and equipment. This Red Army operation led to the encirclementof a large grouping of German forces at Demyansk, where 100,000 en ofthe 16th Army were encircled for nearly six months and in the smallerpocket at Kholm, both of which held out successfully until relie~ed.~'Defensive doctrine for encircled troops had to be improvised, usingthese two encirclements as examples, since the German's concept ofmobile warfare had not foreseen such a situation. After considerableexperimentation, methods were developed at Demyansk and elsewhere which


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effectively countered the Red Army's first clumsy attempts to trap anddestroy German forces.

Central to this developing doctrine was the realization thatcontact had to be restored immediately from outside the pocket. Failingthis, the encircled forces would form an all-round defense and await theanticipated relief attack. Once the encircled units were relieved, thearea concerned would be reinforced or evacuated, depending on thesituation. It was understood that encircled units could not hold outindefinitely, since aerial resupply could not be expected to provideenough material to allow the units to maintain combat power. Speed wastherefore essential. This improvised doctrine was put to usesuccessfully in several operations. Although no formal doctrinal workemerged during the war, the school of experience led many Germancommanders to follow the same methods or techniques to avoid or escapefrom encirclements.

The evolution of this ad hoc doctrine is best described in a U.S.Army pamphlet published after World War 11. This document, DA Pam 20-234, Operations of Encircled Forces. was written in the late 1940s by ateam of captured German officers in a effort to distill theirexperiences against the Red Army for U.S. Army consumption, in case theneed ever arose for the Americans to fight their former ally.

The pamphlet describes the German operations in the Klin,Velikiye Luki, Cherkassy (Korsun-Shevchenkovsky), and Kamenets-Podolskiypockets. These operations involve some form of encirclement, reliefoperations, breakouts, or a combination of all three. Evidently, thelessons learned from the operations were widely disseminated among units


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of the Ostheer. The pattern of German techniques and procedures,developed during the winter of 1942-43, were followed with littlevariation to the end of the war.46

Essentially, the German experiences stressed the use of specialoperating procedures (SOPS) to cope with encirclements. The mostimportant listed were the need for discipline, unity of command, propercommunications, and command and control of tactical units. The Germansstressed the necessity for an early breakout decision, speciallogistical preparations (including the need to arrange aerial resupply) ,aggressive tactical operations both within and without the pocket,organization of the relief force, and, if necessary, the conduct of abreakout by the encircled forces.47 The evidence suggests that theGerman commanders in the pocket were familiar with these SOPS. Onequote, by the commander of XXXXI I Corps, General Theo Lieb, mentionsthat two of his three division commanders leading the breakout had beenin similar situations and would know what to expect.48

The German Fuehrer, or supreme leader, Adolf Hitler,singlehandedly brought the development of encirclement doctrine to anend. The magnitude of the Red Army's Stalingrad Operation which began19 November 1942 stunned and caught the Germans completely by surprise.The situation demanded immediate action, or the entire 6th Army would belost. Nearly every German field commander believed that the army shouldimmediately break out and reestablish contact with other armies on itsflanks.

However, Hitler denied von Paulus' request to break out for threereasons. First, he had ordered Army Group Center to hold fast before

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Noscow in the face of the December 1941 Soviet counteroffensive. Inthis rare instance. he was proven correct. since it probably saved thearmy from disintegrating. Second, he did not believe in giving upground, especially if it had psychological significance. such asStalingrad, which bore the Soviet leader's name. Lastly, he believedHermann Goering's (the head of the German Air Force) assertion that theLuftwaffe could keep the entire 6th Army supplied by air.49 This provedto be mere wishful thinking that had disastrous consequences, though thesuccessful resupply of less than half that many men at Demjansk hadraised false expectations of what airlift could do. By 2 February 1943,the 6th Army had ceased to exist, having frozen and starved to death,with the remainder shuffling into oblivion in Siberia as prisoners ofwar. Von Manstein's desperate relief attempt miscarried in December dueto von Paulus' reluctance to break out and disobey a Fuehrerbefehl.

From Stalingrad onward, German doctrinal thought and developmentbegan to stagnate. Everything was subordinated to Hitler's leadershipand superior will, including tactical reality. His contempt for theGerman general staff, never far below the surface, began to affect hisrelationship with his field commanders, whom he began to relieve oftheir commands with increasing frequency.

The situation began to become more pronounced after he dismissedField Marshal Halder as Chief of the German Army High Command's GeneralStaff in October 1942.~' He had already assumed the title as head ofthe OKH himself since December 1941, when he dismissed Field Marshal vonBrauchitsch for his failure at the gates of Moscow. Now Hitler

Korsun Shevchenkovsky Operation 1944

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