OPINION Vol.1, No.1 June 2013 - National Defence University

• Blitzkrieg. This operational method of the German Army along with the use of
Luftwaffe was a revolution in warfare, which was most successfully applied by the
German military to achieve its ambitions in Europe.
• Allied Strategic Errors 19 . It's an old cliché that generals like to re-fight the last
war. The disastrous errors of 1940 can only be seen in this light. One of the
mistakes was over-reliance on the Maginot line and the other was the abandonment
of prepared fortified positions by the Allies to resist the Germans in an open and
unfamiliar territory, which set the scene for the great disaster.
• The Germans were able to strike the French Centre of Gravity (COG) - Paris and
made enemy’s system of forces imbalanced by coaxing them into Belgium while
exploiting the thinly held Ardennes and Stenay Gap, resulting into surrender of
three fifth of France’s territory to Germany 20 .
Operation Barbarossa. Earlier successes with frontal pressure and deep penetration
notwithstanding, the Germans could not hold on long enough to capitalize on their gains,
thus falling short of their strategic aim. Hitler’s decision of not getting Moscow but to go
for Ukraine’s resources diverted him from hitting the COG (Moscow), which led the
Germans system of forces to be imbalanced subsequently. Despite heavy losses to
Russians in men and material, the German forces could not take them to their culminating
point 21 and thus the Germans were forced to surrender on 8 May 1945.
Few other factors impacting the German operational art negatively during WW-II were
grossly underestimated mobilization potential of the Red Army. German logistic
weaknesses made it extremely difficult to sustain their mobility and armament industry had
limited production.
Operational Art in Russia – WW II. It was not until 1943 that the Russians emerged with a
much better version of operational art. They had quite correctly realized their weaknesses after
their initial failures and had raised tank and mechanized corps to spearhead their offensive
operations. A brief explanation of some of the major campaigns fought by the Red Army during
WW-II is:-
Soviet Counter Offensive
• Stalingrad (Operation Uranus). Russians were able to successfully maintain
balance despite suffering more casualties than the Germans. Their actions led to
the Germans losing their much desired tempo of operations 22 . The decisive victory
demonstrated the Red Army’s mastery of operational art. 23
• The Belorussian Offensive (Jun-Aug 1943). The Soviets reinforced Germans’
misperception by deliberately posturing offensively in the South, while secretly
moving large mobile formations northward into Belorussia, inflicting devastating
defeat on German Army Group Centre 24 .
• Germans being overextended, could not improve their defensive posture and were
thus not in a state of balance; the Russians were able to correctly exploit this
imbalance 25 .
Deep-Battle Theory 26 . During the 1920s and 1930s, Soviet military theorists introduced
the concept of deep battle, which was formally evolved in the Russian Field Manual in
year 1936 by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Salient contours of the theory included
Deep Operations encompassed manoeuvre by multiple corps or army sized formations
simultaneously, and it was not meant to deliver a victory in a single operation, but instead
multiple operations conducted in parallel or successively.
From Stalingrad to Berlin during 1943 to 1945, the Soviets perfected sequential and
simultaneous operations. Stalin’s marshals learned to command and control these
operations in depth and breadth, while coordinating air support with armoured thrusts.
These successes signify Russian operational art during WW-II 27 .
OPINION Vol.1 No.1 118 June 2013