[Includes 36 maps and 10 tables] Deep battle, a major element in both U.S. and Soviet doctrine, is a tenet that emphasizes destroying, suppressing, or disorganizing enemy forces not only at the line of contact, but throughout the depth of the battlefield. Airborne forces are a primary instrument to accomplish this type of operation. While the exploits of German, British, and American paratroops since 1940 are well known to most professional soldiers, the equivalent experience of the Soviet Union has been largely ignored—except in the Soviet Union. There, the Red Army’s airborne operations have become the focus of many recent studies by military theorists. Lieutenant Colonel David M. Glantz has done much to remedy this gap in our historical literature. The Soviet Airborne Experience examines the experiences of the Red Army in World War II and traces Soviet airborne theory and practice both before and since the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. Airborne warfare emerges as an essential part of the high-speed offensive operations planned by Soviet commanders. Because Lieutenant Colonel Glantz examines airborne operations within the larger context of Soviet unconventional warfare, the implications of this study reach beyond one specialized form of maneuver. This study, in demonstrating the ability of Russian airborne and partisan forces to survive and fight behind German lines for months at a time, provides us with an instructive example of how Soviet special operations troops probably plan to operate in future wars. The Soviet Airborne Experience is an important reference for anyone concerned with planning and conducting operations.
This text is the second of three volumes written by Colonel Glantz on the contribution of intelligence and deception operations to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. It examines the area where intelligence and operations overlap; the nature of co-ordination between the two; and the support provided by intelligence to operational planning and execution (or the absence of such support). This is not a study of intelligence work as such, but of how intelligence can improve the chances of success on the battlefield by facilitating the more effective and economical use of troops.
[Includes 19 tables, 7 figures, 41 maps] To be successful, a strategic military operation requires careful planning and meticulous execution. History applauds the commander who orchestrates the operation, and major subordinate commanders share in the glory. In reality, however, commanders and soldiers at the operational and tactical levels play an even more critical role in achieving battlefield success. History often accords them little attention. Practitioners of war must study war at all levels. An understanding of the strategic aspects of military operations is essential in order to provide a context for a more detailed and equally critical understanding of precise operational and tactical techniques. Few officers practice war at the strategic level. The majority wrestle with the myriad of problems associated with implementing those strategic plans. Leavenworth Paper no. 8. through the medium of detailed case studies, examines the operational and tactical aspects of a major strategic operation—the Soviet offensive m Manchuria in 1945. The case studies, which involve army, corps, division, regimental, and battalion operations, focus on the many problems commanders and soldiers at that level face. Constrained by time, a desperate enemy, rugged terrain, and severe climatic conditions—the realities of war— Soviet commanders devised find implemented techniques that produced victory. This paper highlights those techniques in the knowledge that Soviet theorists have likewise studied them in detail, both historically and in a contemporary context.
Intelligence, simply defined as knowledge of the enemy and his intentions, is seldom a decisive factor in war. It does not alter the strength of contending armies and the overall war aims of contending states, and it may have little effect on the planning and conduct of operations. A force which lacks good intelligence may still succeed because of its strength, sound planning, and military efficiency. The converse is also true. Sound intelligence, however, can affect a nation's decision to go to war in the first place; and, once that nation is at war, it can reveal enemy intentions and dispositions. While providing a foundation for sound planning, it also forms a basis for conducting and verifying the effects of deception. Consequently, intelligence provides leverage with which to accentuate the positive effects of military actions, be they offensive or defensive.- Intelligence collection, analysis, and exploitation is a difficult process, made more so by the fog of war and by chance, which makes its effects even less predictable... Few nations have developed a healthier respect for the relationship between intelligence and warfare than has the Soviet Union. The four years of warfare on the Eastern Front during the Second World War, known by the Soviets as the Great Patriotic War, were unprecedented In scale and intensity. From the commencement of Barbarossa on 22 June 1941 to the end of the European war in May 1945, intelligence played a significant role in the course and outcome of operations. Most Westerners have only a sketchy awareness of that role. The Soviet intelligence failure of June 1941 and the apparent intelligence success at Kursk in 1943 have received attention in numerous works. Yet the appreciation of both has been, at best, superficial, replete with generalizations which have characterized most descriptions of war on the Eastern Front.
David Glantz examines the Soviet study of war, the re-emergence of the operation level and its connection with deep battle, the evolution of the Soviet theory of operations in depth before 1941, and its refinement and application in the European theatre and the Far East between 1941 and 1945.
This report examines the development of the Soviet Army’s operational art against the Germans during World War 2. It examines the reconstruction and reorganization of the Soviet military forces after Hitler’s invasion, the development and coordination of military tactics on the various fronts and the deployment of forces for defense or attack in several battles.
[Includes 36 maps and 10 tables] Deep battle, a major element in both U.S. and Soviet doctrine, is a tenet that emphasizes destroying, suppressing, or disorganizing enemy forces not only at the line of contact, but throughout the depth of the battlefield. Airborne forces are a primary instrument to accomplish this type of operation. While the exploits of German, British, and American paratroops since 1940 are well known to most professional soldiers, the equivalent experience of the Soviet Union has been largely ignored—except in the Soviet Union. There, the Red Army’s airborne operations have become the focus of many recent studies by military theorists. Lieutenant Colonel David M. Glantz has done much to remedy this gap in our historical literature. The Soviet Airborne Experience examines the experiences of the Red Army in World War II and traces Soviet airborne theory and practice both before and since the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. Airborne warfare emerges as an essential part of the high-speed offensive operations planned by Soviet commanders. Because Lieutenant Colonel Glantz examines airborne operations within the larger context of Soviet unconventional warfare, the implications of this study reach beyond one specialized form of maneuver. This study, in demonstrating the ability of Russian airborne and partisan forces to survive and fight behind German lines for months at a time, provides us with an instructive example of how Soviet special operations troops probably plan to operate in future wars. The Soviet Airborne Experience is an important reference for anyone concerned with planning and conducting operations.
[Includes 15 tables, 1 tables, 26 maps] In August 1945, only three months after the rumble of gunfire had subsided in Europe, Soviet armies launched massive attacks on Japanese forces in Manchuria. In a lightning campaign that lasted but ten days, Soviet forces ruptured Japanese defenses on a 4,000-kilometer front, paralyzed Japanese command and control, and plunged through 450 kilometers of forbidding terrain into the heartland of Manchuria. Effective Soviet cover and deception masked the scale of offensive preparations and produced strategic surprise. Imaginative tailoring of units to terrain, flexible combat formations, and bold maneuvers by armor-heavy, task-organized forward detachments and mobile groups produced operational and tactical surprise and, ultimately, rapid and total Soviet victory. For the Soviet Army, the Manchurian offensive was a true postgraduate combat exercise. The Soviets had to display all the operational and tactical techniques they had learned in four years of bitter fighting in the west. Though the offensive culminated an education, it also emerged as a clear case study of how a nation successfully begins a war in a race against the clock arid not only against an enemy, but also against hindering terrain. Soviet military historians and theorists have recently focused on the Manchurian offensive, a theater case study characterized by deep mobile operations on a broad front designed to pre-empt and overcome defenses. Because these characteristics appear relevant to current theater operations, the Soviets study the more prominent operational and tactical techniques used in Manchuria in 1945. What is of obvious interest to the Soviet military professional should be of interest to the U.S. officer as well.
In his classic work, On War, Carl von Clausewitz wrote, “As we shall show, defense is a stronger form of fighting than attack.” A generation of nineteenth century officers, nurtured on the study of the experiences of Napoleon and conditioned by the wars of German unification, had little reason to accept that view. The offensive spirit swept through European armies and manifested itself in the regulations, plans, and mentality of those armiehe events of 1939, 1940, and 1941 in Poland, France, and Russia respectively again challenged Clausewitz’ claim of the superiority of the defense and prompted armies worldwide to frantically field large armored forces and develop doctrines for their use. While blitzkrieg concepts ruled supreme, it fell to that nation victimized most by those concepts to develop techniques to counter the German juggernaut. The Soviets had to temper a generation of offensive tradition in order to marshal forces and develop techniques to counter blitzkrieg. In essence, the Soviet struggle for survival against blitzkrieg proved also to be a partial test of Clausewitz’ dictum. In July 1943, after arduous months of developing defensive techniques, often at a high cost in terms of men and material, the Soviets met blitzkrieg head-on and proved that defense against it was feasible. The titanic, grinding Kursk operation validated, in part, Clausewitz’ views. But it also demonstrated that careful study of force organization and employment and application of the fruits of that study can produce either offensive or defensive victory. While on the surface the events of Kursk seemed to validate Clausewitz’ view, it is often forgotten that, at Kursk, the Soviets integrated the concept of counteroffensive into their grand defensive designs. Thus the defense itself was meaningless unless viewed against the backdrop of the renewed offensive efforts and vice versa. What Kursk did prove was that strategic, operational, and tactical defenses could counter blitzkrieg.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.