Strategy 253

The Battle of

Number 253

Kursk, 1943

Lang Vei, Vietnam 1968 The Prochorovka Myth Battle of Manzikert, Bzyantium 1071 The Armies of Operation Cobra US & CAN - $24.99 With Complete Historical Game

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contents

Editor: Joseph Miranda Assistant Editor: Ty Bomba Design • Graphics • Layout: Callie Cummins Copy Editors: Ty Bomba, Jason Burnett, Jon Cecil and Dav Vandenbroucke. Map Graphics: Meridian Mapping Publisher: Christopher Cummins Advertising: Rates and specifications available on request. Write P.O. Box 21598, Bakersfield CA 93390. SUBSCRIPTION RATES are: Six issues per year— the United States is $109.97. Non-U.S. addresses are shipped via Airmail: Canada add $20 per year. Overseas add $30 per year. International rates are subject to change as postal rates change. Six issues per year-Newsstand (magazine only)United States is $19.97/1 year. Non-U.S. addresses are shipped via Airmail: Canada add $10 per year. Overseas add $15 per year. All payments must be in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank and made payable to Strategy & Tactics (Please no Canadian checks). Checks and money orders or VISA/MasterCard accepted (with a minimum charge of $40). All orders should be sent to Decision Games, P.O. Box 21598, Bakersfield CA 93390 or call 661/587-9633 (best hours to call are 9am-12pm PST, M-F) or use our 24-hour fax 661/587-5031 or e-mail us from our website www.strategyandtacticspress.com. NON-US SUBSCRIBERS PLEASE NOTE: Air mail to foreign addresses may take six to ten weeks for delivery. Inquiries should be sent to Decision Games after this time, to P.O. Box 21598, Bakersfield CA 93390. STRATEGY & TACTICS® is a registered trademark for Decision Games’ military history magazine. Strategy & Tactics (©2008) reserves all rights on the contents of this publication. Nothing may be reproduced from it in whole or in part without prior permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. All correspondence should be sent to Decision Games, P.O. Box 21598, Bakersfield CA 93390.

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FEATURES 6 KURSK: Tactical Victory, Operational Defeat

A new look at the turning point of Hitler’s War in the East.

by Joseph Miranda

20 The Prochorovka Myth

Was the Battle of Kursk the death ride of the German panzers—or a startling victory?

by Ulrich Blennemann

35 Empire’s End: The Battle of Manzikert The Seljuks defeat a Byzantine army and begin the chain of events which would lead to the Crusades.

4

by Kelly Bell

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contents Number 253 Nov/Dec 2008

FEATURES 43 Tanks in the Wire: Lang Vei, February 1968 NorthVietnamese armor overrun a special forces camp and open the way for the siege of Khe Sanh.

by Kelly Bell

departments 25 on design

Kursk

by Joseph Miranda

27 for your information Jane Fonda in North Vietnam: What did she actually say?

by Blaine Taylor

Pike’s Pikes

by Robert Malcomson

The 298 Spartans

54 DATA FILE: The Armies of Cobra Background data for the divisions which fought in the D-Day campaign.

by Paul Koenig Rules

R1 Drive on KURSK, July 1943 by Ty Bomba

by James Yates

Air-Independent Propulsion Systems for Submarines

by Carl Otis Schuster

American Counterinsurgency efforts in Thailand

by John Walsh

33 The long tradition 34 Work in Progress strategy & tactics

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KURSK: Tactical Victory, Operational Defeat By Joseph Miranda

The German 1943 summer offensive in the USSR represents an intriguing situation. The battle was fought at a time and in a locale of the Germans’ choosing. They were operating well within their lines of supply, and they had effective air cover from the Luftwaffe. Further, it was the only time during the war in the east the Germans deployed an operational reserve consisting of tanks of a quality superior to that of their opponent. Yet the ensuing campaign fought around Kursk in July would become a turning point in World War II. After that campaign the Soviet armed forces would never again surrender the strategic initiative. For the rest of the war the Germans would be on the defensive in the east. The weeks following the German debacle at Stalingrad in early 1943 saw the Soviets try to continue their offensive. They pushed back the central and southern sectors of the German line from south of Orel to north of Stalino. However, Manstein’s “Backhand Blow” counteroffensive then recouped the situation, leaving a west-jutting Soviet bulge centered around the town of Kursk. That salient would become the focal point for the German 1943 offensive in the USSR. The Germans went through extensive planning for the Kursk offensive, which they codenamed Operation 6

Zitadelle (Citadel). Their most important decision was in simply committing to the overall concept. Unlike 1941 and 1942, the Germans’ objective in 1943 was not to knock the Soviet Union out of the war. Instead, they only sought to achieve an operational victory via the destruction of the salient itself. By keeping the offensive limited geographically, the Germans felt sure they wouldn’t overextend themselves as they had in the previous two years. By destroying the Kursk salient, the Germans expected to attain several goals. First, they would straighten their lines. The salient gave the Soviets a position from which they could launch thrusts deep into the German rear areas both north and south, thereby possibly splitting in two the entire front. Further, a front without the Kursk bulge would also require fewer German troops to hold. Also, the Germans wanted to draw in and destroy the Soviet armored reserves, making it impossible for the Red Army to launch any large offensive later that year. The Germans believed their new heavy tanks and assault guns would give them a tactical edge. They would also concentrate the Luftwaffe to ensure air superiority over the attack sector. The geometry of the salient itself also appeared to give them an advantage;

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its exposed position made it vulnerable to a classic double-envelopment launched against its northern and southern shoulders. Finally, Hitler also hoped to gain a victory in battle he could then exploit for political and psychological purposes. That was a critical factor, given that Hitler’s shaky allies needed encouragement, especially with fascist Italy already wavering. A victory at Kursk would restore the aura of German invincibility after the blows suffered at Stalingrad and in Tunisia. In fact, the experience of 1941-42 in Russia indicated Citadel would be a German success. In each of those earlier efforts the Germans had won victories in the early part of the campaign. It was only as those operations dragged on that reversals occurred, in front of Moscow in 1941 and at Stalingrad in 1942. The Soviets seemed to require a considerable amount of time to react to any new situation, build up reserves, and then launch their counteroffensive. The Germans planned to not give them that needed time in 1943. Kursk was limited enough in scope so the Germans could win their victory during the summer and then go over to the defensive, afterward allowing the Soviets to, in turn, smash themselves to pieces against their defensive positions. The objectives were also well within range of the German supply system. There would be no rainy autumn or freezing winter weather to slow things. Spearheads wouldn’t be plunging deep beyond the existing front to overextended positions where they could be cut off. More, the offensive wasn’t directed toward any economic objectives, which meant forces wouldn’t be sidetracked into chasing after far off industrial and resource areas as they had during the 1942 Caucasus operation. The Germans waited until July to begin the operation in order to more fully rebuild their panzer units, reequipping them with an assortment of new and more powerful armored fighting vehicles. Some of their generals had, however, wanted to attack earlier in or-

Air force on the decline: Luftwaffe He-111 bomber preparing for take-off. 8

der to take advantage of the weaker Soviet position. That decision to delay has since come under criticism from many historians. That is, while the Germans reequipped, the Soviets spent the spring moving additional reserves to the salient and building defensive lines, ending up with eight fortified belts 100 miles deep in some areas. An early attack would therefore have meant less resistance. On the other hand, Hitler believed the new Tiger and Panther tanks, as well as assault guns such as the Ferdinand, would be decisive, but only if deployed in sufficient numbers. An interesting fact, though, is that despite the lengthy preparations, German heavy armored fighting vehicle (AFV) strength at Kursk finally included only some 120 Panther and 90 Tiger tanks on the south side of the salient, and 90 Ferdinand assault guns on the north. Those aren’t really impressive numbers when compared to the total German AFV strength of 2,700. The vast majority of German AFV were therefore still Panzer IIIs and IVs, along with some Marder and StuG III tank destroyers and assault guns.

Into the Fire

The Germans launched the Kursk offensive on 4 July 1943. The northern pincer was under Gen. Model’s Ninth Army. The southern pincer was under Gen. Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army, backed up by Army Detachment Kempf. Both wings made slow progress. The Soviets used a semi-elastic defense, holding a line long enough to cause maximum losses to the attackers, then falling back to the next line of prepared defenses. On the other hand, the German Tiger tanks did show their worth, proving able to knock out Soviet anti-tank positions at long range without much danger from return fire. Fourth Panzer Army was seemingly poised to break through in the south, but was then fought to exhaustion in massive battles near the town of Prochorovka, with the II SS Panzer Corps making the deepest penetration before being stopped. On 13 July, Hitler ordered the offensive halted and the units to withdraw. Why Hitler chose to call a halt is still a matter of debate. Manstein and other German commanders opposed the decision, claiming if they were allowed time to push a little farther they could complete the destruction of the Soviet armor reserve. Manstein was, no doubt, being over-optimistic, since the Germans had taken losses in the course of Zitadelle. Moreover, he wasn’t aware of the still uncommitted Soviet reserves farther east, but that were in position to be thrown into the fighting. Even had the offensive continued, the Germans most likely would not have been able to cut off the salient. Soviet historians claim the real reason for the withdrawal was their army’s defense and counterattack had in fact stopped Zitadelle cold. As will be seen, there’s merit to that position, though it was true more on the operational than tactical level. Some writers also claim

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Hitler needed to shift strength to the Italian theater to meet the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily — though that explanation does not really wash, given that the forces sent to Italy came from reserves in the west, notably the German airborne divisions. Possibly, Hitler simply realized the offensive wasn’t achieving its objectives. The planned for gains weren’t being made, and a point of diminishing returns had been reached in terms of friendly to enemy losses, especially in the vital armored units. For once, then, Hitler decided to call a halt before an operation got out of control. Compare the stop order at Kursk with Hitler’s decision in late 1941 to make the final plunge for Moscow, which racked up huge German losses while still failing to take the Soviet capital, as well as his decision to continue the meat grinder struggle at Stalingrad. Far from being a “death ride” for the panzers, then, the Kursk battle can be considered to have been a measured operation, ended when the offensive proved no longer cost effective. By stopping the offensive, the panzers could be maintained as a mobile reserve to counterattack against the coming Soviet offensive. Inescapably, though, the Germans had lost men and equipment without gaining Citadel’s objectives. Within a little more than a week casualties ran as high as 50,000 to 70,000 men, about 200 aircraft, and 300 or so tanks. There were also losses in assault guns and other AFV. Then again, many of the vehicles counted as “lost” were only damaged, and were quickly put back into action by recovery and repair teams. The Red Army lost many more men and much more materiel at Kursk than did the Germans, possibly up to 250,000 men, 1,000 aircraft, and roughly 1,500 AFV. The Soviets, though, could more quickly replace their losses owing to their larger industrial capacity, as well as US Lend-Lease support. Also, like the Germans, many of the Soviet losses were in obsolescent models and lighter tanks such as the T-70. In any event, what finally made the difference wasn’t the tally sheet of losses on each side. Rather, it was the fact the Germans had proved unable to destroy the Kursk salient. Having failed to do so, they then had to face the inevitable Soviet counteroffensive.

The Soviets

Citadel failed because the Germans underestimated their enemy. They believed the Soviets wouldn’t be ready to launch a major offensive until the winter. In actuality, the Soviets were ready to attack at about the same time as the Germans, but they decided to wait as a matter of strategy. More broadly, Kursk represented a change in the way Germany was conducting the war. It was a battle of attrition, and attritional warfare was the antithesis of blitzkrieg operations. The losses in armored fighting vehicles at Kursk worked to decrease German mobility during the follow-on Soviet counteroffensive.

Kursk also signaled the Soviets were capable of fighting the Germans head-to-head. Much of that was due to the experience they’d gained in the previous two years of war. The Germans had also surrendered strategic surprise by attacking at the place the Soviets expected. Among other things, Western Allied intelligence, forewarned by ULTRA, tipped off the Soviet high command. That lack of surprise gave the Soviets the maximum amount of time to prepare their defenses and position reserves. The simply obviousness of the Kursk operation is in fact what doomed it. Germany’s previous campaigns had been breathtaking in scope. No one had expected them to attempt what they did in 1939-42. For example, driving several panzer corps through the Ardennes in 1940 had been beyond the Allies’ concept of how wars could be conducted. Again, in their 1942 offensive in southern Russia, they initially had good going because Stalin expected them to attack on the Moscow front. In 1943, however, it continued on page 12 strategy & tactics

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1943: Year of Decision

Viewed from the perspective of the spring of 1943, the Germans appeared to still have had a good position in Europe. They controlled most of the continent, including western Russia. They had survived the second major Soviet winter counteroffensive. They had rebuilt their strength to the point they were in a position to conduct another major offensive in the east. More importantly, they had finally recognized the war was going to be a long one and had begun gearing their industry accordingly. On the battlefield, new and improved tanks, such as the Panther (Panzer V) and Tiger (Panzer VI) were making their way to the front. In the west, the Anglo-Americans, while having captured North Africa, still lacked the will and means to challenge the Axis on the continent itself. By the end of 1943, though, the Germans were in full retreat on the Russian front; Italy had been knocked out of the war, the strategic bombing campaign was getting into full swing, and the Allies were preparing to launch their invasion of France. What had happened? Essentially, the Germans lost the war in 1943, due primarily to strategic decisions made by their own high command. Those decisions weren’t based on insanity on the part of Hitler, but rather were made due to a failure to understand the evolving strategic situation. Kursk proved to be a turning point insofar as the Germans were now faced with inescapably fighting a prolonged multi-front war. In early 1943, that didn’t seem to be the 10

inevitable outcome. The Germans had, in fact, built up two powerful reserve formations. One was in the panzer divisions that would be committed at Kursk. The other was in the new wave of airborne divisions. Those latter units weren’t necessarily for parachute assaults. Rather, they were intended as mobile reserves, capable of being air-transported to any threatened sector of the Reich’s frontiers. In fact, they were used in precisely that way in 1943, with one division sent to Sicily in response to the Allied invasion there, and others moved into the Italian mainland to secure that peninsula in the wake of fascist collapse. The German problem was that by the end of 1943 their reserves had largely been exhausted. The panzers had been shot up in the east. The airborne divisions had become bogged down in holding the line in places such as Monte Cassino. The other source of German reserves had been in the divisions holding France and the west. In 1940-43 they could be pulled out during emergencies and used to shore up other threatened fronts, then returned once the crisis had passed. With the Allied invasion of northwest Europe impending, however, those formations henceforth had to stay where they were. There was also the Germans’ loss of air superiority. The problem wasn’t simply that they couldn’t produce sufficient numbers of aircraft; it was that the Luftwaffe was also overcommitted. It had to fight one war on the eastern front, an-

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Waiting for the attack: German machinegun nest.

other in the Mediterranean and, increasingly, a third war in the sky above Germany. The attrition in aircraft was sufficient for the Luftwaffe to lose its entire operational strength each six months. At that rate, even if aircraft could be replaced, trained aircrew could not. And there were never sufficient numbers of either to create a reserve. One of the often overlooked effects of the Allied strategic bombing of the Reich was that it forced the Germans to pull fighters from the front lines to defend the homeland. By late 1943, German air strength in the east was cut back to the point that, the Soviet air force would gain and maintain air superiority against the Luftwaffe. What made Kursk significant was that, by failing to win there, the Germans would lose any chance of reforming their operational and strategic reserves for over a year. And because they failed to do that, they had to deal with crises by shifting forces from one front to another. Even if a local victory could be gained, it was at the expense of loss elsewhere. It would not be until late 1944, with the formation of Sixth Panzer Army, that they would create new force capable of intervening on any front. By that time it was way too late. The Germans needed a victory at Kursk to maintain themselves in the east. They didn’t get it.

On the other side of Europe, Kursk’s effect on the strategy of the Western Allies was important in that it brought about their high command’s full and final determination to open a major new front in northwestern Europe at the first opportunity in 1944. That is, in the months between Manstein’s successful “backhand blow” counteroffensive in February and the German reversal at Kursk in mid-July, the strategic consensus in the west was the Russian front had settled into a pattern of strategically indecisive stalemate. The course of events seemed similar to the one that had occurred on World War I’s western front from 1915 through 1917. That perception was ultimately why those advocating a continued Mediterranean strategy for 1943 won the argument. It still didn’t seem if there need be any undue rush to get into western (and then central) Europe ahead of the Soviets. Kursk changed that perception. It proved the Soviets could meet and defeat the Germans in the summer, as well as in the winter, and demonstrated the front would not remain locked up inside the Soviet Union.

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The heavies prowl: German Tiger I tanks on the move. was obvious to the Soviet high command—even before getting confirmation from the Western Allies—Kursk was going to be the German target and, accordingly, the Kremlin concentrated on that sector. By committing their reserves at Kursk, the Soviets created a local force superiority there for their side starting with the first day of the German attack. The Soviets had actually figured out an overall counter to the blitzkrieg. At that Kursk they built successive lines of fortifications, each containing anti-tank artillery and mines, backed up by armored reserves. Further, they had an organizational advantage from their independent anti-tank brigades, in that those units allowed them to concentrate strength at threatened sectors. The greatest advantage held by the Soviets, then, wasn’t so much from their superiority in numbers, but in their having a superiority in the types of units needed to fight particular battles. Their many artillery divisions allowed them to concentrate their offensive firepower when the time came to go over to the attack. Most critically, they formed powerful tank armies, each roughly equal in size and strength to reinforced Western armored corps, which they used as operational shock forces and reserves. Those tank armies were initially kept out of the line to avoid attrition, and were then unleashed where they could generate decisive attacks and counterattacks. Compare that to what had become the Germans’ general practice of keeping their panzer divisions on the front at 12

all times, often even subordinating them to the infantry armies. Kursk therefore started and ended as nothing more than a battle of attrition, the kind of battle the Soviets could win. Unlike previous German offensives, losses were taken in the panzer units from the start of the campaign. That was unprecedented and disastrous: the Germans needed the panzers not just for the breakthrough but also for exploitation. By suffering the losses they did, the Germans could not make any exploitation. While the Germans inflicted more losses on the Soviets at Kursk than they suffered themselves, the battle proved to be another important psychological and military turning point in that it marked the end of their operational ascendancy. The Kursk operation also played into Soviet command and control capabilities. Once the Germans had committed themselves to attacking the flanks of the salient, it was obvious where the panzers would head. Accordingly, the Soviets could respond to German moves in a timely way. As the Germans advanced, reinforcements could be fed into threatened sectors. Compare that with the 1941 campaign, when the Germans had options all along the front. Even the 1942 campaign was comparatively more open, with the Germans having a choice of everything from rolling up the southern end of the Moscow line, to seizing Stalingrad, to advancing to the Caucasus oil fields.

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The Germans hadn’t intended Kursk to be decisive by itself. Instead, their objective had been simply to gain the operational advantage. By planning their conduct of the war at the operational level, rather than at the strategic level, they had given up their earlier and more important advantage. Previously they had conceived and executed campaigns that went beyond the ability of their foes to react. At Kursk they employed a plan ready made to be thwarted by a Soviet defense. The Germans had initially viewed the Kursk offensive as a reasonable choice. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t win the war with reasonable measures: at best they might gain a stalemate. The Germans hoped to gain what essentially would’ve been a tactical victory and then convert it to their operational advantage. They thereby reversed the order of their previous warfighting strategy. While German armor might still inflict tactical kill ratios of five-to-one against Soviet tanks, it really meant little, since they still weren’t gaining any operational or strategic advantage in doing so. Kursk therefore represented a reversal of the German strategy of the “indirect approach,” which had previously been winning the war for them. In the war’s first phase, their panzers won campaigns by striking deep into en-

Red spearhead: Soviet tank column on the move. 14

emy rear areas, avoiding centers of enemy strength. At Kursk the Germans made a head on assault into their enemy’s strength. The result was attrition of the panzers, stalemate and a massive Soviet counteroffensive.

Possibilities

There are still numerous questions posed by the Germans’ Kursk offensive. Suppose the Germans had won at Kursk. That might have been possible, if the critics were right, by attacking earlier. Or what if Hitler had continued the offensive regardless of the cost? In the latter case, the Germans might have been able to collapse the salient and bag a considerable number of prisoners. Then what? A German victory at Kursk would only have delayed the inevitable. Germany would still have been in the same situation in which it had found itself in 1915-17, facing powerful foes on multiple fronts. By mid-1943 the initiative had passed to the Soviets, as indicated by their post-Kursk summer offensive. But was it Kursk that had proved decisive insofar as the Germans failed to win it, or was the battle itself irrelevant to the broader outcome of the war? Had there been no Kursk offensive, would the course of the subsequent fighting been much different? By that time in the war, the Red Army had gained ascendancy at the operational level. While the Germans still had a tactical edge, owing to superior training and their new tanks, they could not use that edge to win large battles or campaigns. Suppose the Germans had cancelled Citadel and instead gone over to the strategic defensive in the east. Would that have made a difference? Would the armor lost at Kursk have been able to stop the string of Soviet offensives, which did not end until reaching Berlin almost two years later? That’s unlikely since most of the tanks the Germans used there were Panzer IIIs (already obsolescent in 1943), and Panzer IVs (a moderately useful tank until the end of the war). The new and much superior Panzer V Panthers and Panzer

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VI Tigers were just coming into service at the time, replacing the older tanks that made up most of the losses at Kursk. Another often overlooked factor was that the Germans’ worst attrition wasn’t so much in AFV, but in infantry and motor transport. Shortfalls in both men and transport were apparent since early 1942. The Germans never made good their losses from the 1941 campaign. Even before Kursk, their infantry divisions were generally under-strength. That reality was institutionalized by the 1944 reorganization (which actually began in 1943) of the infantry divisions from nine to six infantry battalions. There simply weren’t enough riflemen to hold the front, much less create a defense in depth. Similarly, the loss of motor vehicles reduced German mobility, as well as making logistics that much more difficult. And while German mobility was on the decline, Red Army motorization was increasing thanks to American Lend-Lease. The shortfalls in infantry and motorization imply the Germans had lost ascendancy in the east before Kursk began. It wasn’t the losses incurred during Kursk that made the difference, but those suffered over the previous two years. Kursk gave the Germans one minor advantage in that it kept the Soviets on the defensive for several extra months as they fortified their salient. The larger German problem at Kursk came from their overarching strategy. They had to win, and win decisively, all the time. Anything less simply meant a protracted war of attrition that, even if a peace could be negotiated, wouldn’t bring Nazi Germany the territories and resources it needed to survive. Kursk was a major turning point in that it signaled the complete and final transition of the war in the east from a struggle for German supremacy over Eurasia into a struggle for German survival in Europe. If the Kursk offensive was ultimately doomed, then, what might have been a viable alternative? The most obvious alternative was to simply do nothing. Rommel and Guderian recommended building up anti-tank forces, concentrating on producing and deploying assault guns and tank destroyers, which were cheaper than turreted tanks by a third, and could mount more powerful guns. They believed large numbers of those vehicles could shoot to pieces the next Soviet offensive, which would have allowed the Germans to fully stabilize the front. There may also have been better places for the Germans to target their offensive that year. Leningrad was still within reach throughout the summer of 1943, though the Soviets had been able to open a tenuous overland supply route along the southern shore of Lake Ladoga. The capture of Leningrad would have allowed the Germans to link up with the Finns, and

continued on page 18

Waiting for the signal: Waffen SS infantry resting before an assault. strategy & tactics


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Panzer Warfare & Tank Armies The Germans had won their great victories in 1939-42, when the bulk of their armored force was made up of mainly light Panzer IIs and IIIs. By the time of Kursk, the German main battle tanks were up-gunned 75mm Panzer IVs. There were also large numbers of Panzer V (75mm gun) and Panzer VI (88mm) tanks, as well as assorted heavy tank destroyers and assault guns. Yet they failed to produce victory. That might seem contradictory, but the reasons aren’t really hard to see. What had made the German offensives work in 1939-42 was their mobility. The primary German operational goal had been to penetrate deep into the enemy rear areas. Essentially, German mobile warfare involved gaining victory on the operational or strategic level; tactical victory was then sure to follow. In that first phase of the war, German tanks weren’t really required to destroy enemy tanks; that was the job of the tank destroyers and anti-tank guns, especially the 88mm FLAK pieces adapted for that mission. It was, in fact, the lightness of German tanks in the early war that made them effective, as they could operate better crosscountry.

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Of course, at Kursk, the Germans were not trying to conduct mobile operations. They were attempting to smash their way through Soviet prepared defenses. Given that, the employment of the heavy armored fighting vehicles was necessary. The Soviet 1943 summer offensive followed Kursk. It then continued into the autumn and winter, giving the Soviets the initiative in the east. They would never again surrender it. The Soviets had learned much by that stage in the war, demonstrating they could conduct large-scale mobile operations. The Germans were now fighting an enemy who was coming close to their own operational capabilities. Kursk marked the beginning of the tactical and operational ascendancy of the Soviet military system on the eastern front. What had come to matter most was effective deployment of combat strength. The Soviets had learned to concentrate sufficient force at the critical sectors of the front. Red Army organization facilitated that concentration. They kept large numbers of tank armies as independent reserves specifically held back for employment at decisive times and places.

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Each tank army usually consisted of two tank corps and one mechanized corps. Actually, the term “corps” is a misnomer, as those units were the size of Western divisions. Soviet practice was to designate critical units an echelon above the normal in order to emphasize their importance, and to prevent line commanders from misusing them. This was unlike the Germans, who ended up employing their mobile units simply to try to hold the line. Regardless of overall numbers, that deployment edge gave the Soviets local superiority. Local superiority could in turn be translated into operational advantage because, if the Germans could be continually or sequentially attacked where they were weakest, their line would eventually be unhinged. Any operational breakthrough would force the Germans to pull back their units or be destroyed in envelopments. That’s what happened when the Soviets counterattacked against the Orel salient in the latter part of the Kursk battle.

The Germans, then, needed the ability to counter enemy mobile offensives on the operational level, and that they never accomplished. German operations had been based on the offensive. Tactically, they had good doctrine for flexible defense, and that’s how small numbers of Germans could outfight larger numbers of Soviets in individual actions. Once the action reached up to the operational scale, however, there was a glaring lack in German doctrine. The Germans, in fact, reverted to what amounted to a World War I mentality. Instead of lightning campaigns, the war was to be fought as series of battles of annihilation. That adaptation was forced on the Germans by the change in the nature of their foes. By 1943, the Soviets could no longer realistically be knocked out in one campaign. The Germans readjusted their strategy accordingly, but that meant fighting on the same level as their opponents. When that happened, the Germans had given up their advantage. In the end, Kursk was nothing more than the type of frontal assault that had bled Germany white in the First World War.

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possibly to cut the Murmansk Lend-Lease supply line. Leningrad, once taken, would also have served as a linchpin to the German defenses across the northern portion of the whole front. Further, the Germans could have capitalized on whatever propaganda advantage accrued from taking that city, the birthplace of Bolshevism. Even more daring was the idea the Germans should have tried for an even larger offensive in 1943 to once and for all knock out the Soviets. What if the Germans had not launched a major offensive east, but to the north and south of the salient (that is, directly east of Tula and Kharkhov) in the hope of cutting off the center of the entire front at the strategic level? That would have avoided the Soviet defenses around Kursk. At a minimum, it would have forced the Soviets to redeploy their armor reserves out of the salient itself, unhinging their plans for a summer counteroffensive.

Soviet Riposte

Even as the Germans were desperately fighting their way into the defenses around Kursk, the Soviets launched their own summer offensive, starting with an attack on the Orel salient, north of Kursk, on 11 July. The Germans then pulled their Ninth Army out of the Kursk offensive in order to assist Second Panzer Army’s defense of that newly active sector. To the south, Soviet pressure caused Manstein, in command of Army Group South, to request permission to fall back to the Dnepr River. Hitler refused. He had just recently allowed a withdrawal from the Orel salient, but the eastern Ukraine was too valuable to the war economy and couldn’t simply be abandoned. The Soviets kept up pressure throughout August. Finally, Hitler allowed Army Group South to withdraw to the Dnepr position. The Red Army followed close behind, and hard fighting continued as both sides attempted to maintain bridgeheads on opposite banks of the river. The Soviets wanted bridgeheads to gain access farther west; the Germans wanted them as bases for future counterattacks to the east. Army Group Center also fell back, reestablishing a front at the Panther Line, a hastily constructed fortified position west of Smolensk. By mid-October the Soviet southern offensive was in full swing. The Crimea was isolated, and Kiev fell in early November. Throughout all of it the Germans made desperate counterattacks, but the Soviets were not to be stopped. As autumn turned into winter, the Soviets kept attacking. Though German forces in the Crimea were cut off from overland supply, Hitler ordered the port city of Sevastopol turned into a fortress and held to the end, but the Soviets would take it the following May. As the ground froze in December, the Soviets again 18

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increased the pressure. As 1944 opened, they finally broke through on the Leningrad front, forcing back Army Group North. The Germans hoped the spring thaw would bring relief, but the Soviets kept rolling. Their tanks and trucks were better suited to the ground conditions than were the German. The First Panzer Army was cut off in the Ukraine, but managed to fight its way back to friendly lines. By April 1944 the Soviets had cleared the Ukraine and the front finally settled down. Hitler then relieved Manstein, blaming him for the reverses in southern Russia. Manstein in turn blamed Hitler for the lack of reinforcements. The Germans were now entirely on the defensive in the east, and that defense was failing. They lacked operational reserves to reinforce threatened sectors of the front. The reinforcements available usually consisted of a few units rushed in from other fronts, or battlegroups reconstituted locally from recently destroyed divisions. Experience had demonstrated the best way to stop a blitzkrieg was defense in depth. By defending in depth, the momentum of enemy mobile breakthroughs could be dissipated and then stopped. The attacker’s defeat occurred not on the main line of resistance, but somewhere deep within the defender’s own rear area. Territory would be surrendered in exchange for time and enemy casualties. Then, when the moment was right, a counterattack would be launched against a vulnerable enemy flank, forcing the enemy to fall back or be cut off. Manstein had used those tactics to stop the Soviets in the previous year’s Kharkhov battles. Given the nature of mobile warfare, the Germans could no longer win by defeating the Soviets up front; however, they also lacked the reserves to fight a battle in depth. Once the Soviets broke through, the entire German line became unhinged. The Germans were no longer capable of defending against the type of mechanized warfare they had pioneered a few years earlier.

The war was effectively lost by the Germans in the summer of 1943, when they proved unable to change their own doctrine to deal with the new situation on the front. Kursk must be seen, then, as having been largely irrelevant to the larger outcome of the war, as the operational ascendancy had already passed to the Red Army prior to the first shot of the battle being fired.

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The Prochorovka Myth By Ulrich Blennemann

[Ed’s Note: in the article below, German units are in italics while Soviet units are in plaintext.] Military history buffs have heard it many times: Operation Citadel was history’s largest tank battle, taking place at Prochorovka near Kursk on 12 July 1943. For example, 52 years after the end of the battle, the eminent historian David Glantz wrote: Over twelve hundred tanks on both sides were engaged in this struggle…Fifth Guards Tank Army’s 18th and 29th Tank Corps conducted an almost suicidal charge across open, rolling terrain in order to close to a range where all tank guns were equally effective. In the process, Rotmistrov [commander of Fifth Guards Tank Army] lost over 400 of his 800 tanks, but the Germans lost 320 tanks and self-propelled guns as well. With slightly varying loss numbers, that same story has been repeated by generations of military historians—but is it true? Let’s look more closely at the events of that dusty summer day in the Soviet Union in 1943. In early July, two German armies and one “army detachment” were to attack three Soviet fronts (army groups), which together contained 18 armies (corps equivalents) under the directive Operation Citadel. After destroying the Kursk salient, Hitler intended to redeploy strong formations from the eastern front to Sicily, mainland Italy and France to counter the expected invasions of his “Fortress Europe” by the Western Allies. That redeployment would have been extremely dangerous, however, in the face of the massive Soviet concentration in the Orel-Kursk-Kharkhov sector of the eastern front. Citadel was a therefore a kind of pre-emptive strike, with the aim of weakening Soviet offensive capabilities over the coming months in order to allow the German transfers to the west desired by Hitler. German Ninth Army, under Gen. Walter Model, faced the Soviet Central Front under Marshal Konstantin Rokossovskiy in the north. In the south, Fourth Panzer Army, under the command of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, and Army Detachment Kempf, under Lt. Gen. Werner Kempf, faced the Voronezh Front under Maj. Gen. N.F. Vatutin. Directly behind Central and Voronezh Fronts was Steppe Front, under the command of Marshal Ivan Konev. Its task was to prevent any German breakthrough into the Soviet rear area, and then once the battle had reached its culmination point, to launch a counterattack. Altogether, then, about 518,000 German troops attacked about 1.4 million Soviets. The Wehrmacht was able to mus20

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ter 2,365 tanks, assault guns and self-propelled anti-tank guns (Jagdpanzer or “tank destroyers”) for the operation. The Red Army had 4,938 armored fighting vehicles (AFV). Some 7,417 German artillery pieces had to battle against 31,415 Soviet guns. In the air the Luftwaffe had 1,372 planes versus 3,648 Red Air Force machines. Hitler had postponed the attack date for various reasons several times. That meant the Soviets were able to convert the Kursk salient into a giant fortress. Within it they built eight defense lines with a total depth of 186 miles (including the defensive works set up within the Steppe Front area). About half a million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines were laid in. When the offensive kicked off on 4 July, Model used his infantry as spearheads in order to try to minimize losses in the panzer divisions and preserve them intact for the breakthrough. He also needed the panzers as a reserve against a potential Soviet attack from the Bryansk Front to the north. In the event, his units advanced five miles into the Soviet defense lines while suffering heavy losses. On the next day Rokossovskiy began counterattacking. That was too early, though, as the Germans weren’t yet sufficiently worn down; so the forces committed by Central Front suffered badly, especially among their tanks. German Ninth Army continued to advance slowly but steadily during the next few days until, on 12 July, Bryansk Front and the left flank of the West Front attacked into its rear area. It was impossible for the neighboring Second Panzer Army alone to move to stop the Soviet offensive; Model was therefore ordered to send several panzer and infantry divisions to that neighboring army. With the dispersion of his armor, all hopes to continue the offensive on the north of the bulge ended. The southern thrusts by Fourth Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf were stronger than Model’s effort. Moreover, Manstein used his panzer and panzergrenadier divisions up front right from the start. The II SS Panzer Corps fought its way through fierce resistance, broke through two Soviet defense lines, and advanced 15.5 miles on the first day of its attack. Vatutin therefore threw almost all his operational reserve (1st Tank Army, 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Corps, plus several other independent tank and assault gun formations) into the battle on the second day. Parts of the Soviet strategic reserve (2nd and 20th Tank Corps and Fifth Guards Tank Army) were also moved to the front. Despite those measures, though, the German advance continued. Eleven July became the most successful day of the offensive for the Germans: they made several breakthroughs and it seemed the resistance of the Soviet defenders on the south

of the salient was about to break. The 6th Panzer Division created a bridgehead across the Donets River. Soviet SixtyNinth Army was almost pocketed between III Panzer Corps and II SS Panzer Corps. Spearheads of Army Detachment Kempf were only 10.5 miles from Prochorovka and were driving into the flank of Fifth Guards Tank Army, which was itself trying to maneuver to attack the flank of Fourth Panzer Army. The Germans took Hill 252.2, only 1.5 miles southeast of Prochorovka. According to the Soviet high command (STAVKA), 12 July was supposed to be the decisive day of the campaign. As noted above, north of the Kursk bulge, Bryansk Front and parts of Western Front started an offensive against the Second Panzer Army. STAVKA, however, also planned to strike an annihilating blow against the German forces in the south of the bulge. The strongest force there was Fifth Guards Tank Army, which was ordered to attack II SS Panzer Corps. Fifth Guards fielded 909 tanks and 42 assault guns. Even considering that at 5:00 p.m. on 11 July, 101 of those vehicles were still in transit, and 24 were undergoing repair, the operational numbers of Soviet AFVs remain impressive. According to what has become the traditional historical account, then, on 12 July German and Soviet tanks collided at Prochorovka within 2.8-mile-wide gap between the Psel River and the rail-line to Belgorod. In that battle, the story goes, II SS Panzer Corps was in effect destroyed, losing about 400 tanks, including many of the new Panthers and Ferdinands. Marshal Konev called the battle the “swan song of the German tank arm.” In fact, though, that sequence of events is a myth. The origin of it was Rotmistrov, commander of Fifth Guards Tank Army. On the 12th his newly assembled army suffered tank losses greater than that of any other single day during the entire war. Those losses had to be explained to Stalin, therefore Rotmistrov, in self-defense, began the legend of “armored armadas” colliding at Prochorovka. Western historians later simply accepted his numbers as accurate. In addition, hyperbole, such as the oftused phrase “the largest tank battle in history,” began to be commonly appended to Rotmistrov´s story. In reality, II SS Panzer Corps didn’t lose 400 tanks on 12 July. German records show that during all of Operation Citadel that corps lost a total of only 33 tanks and assault guns. Further, the corps had neither Panthers nor Ferdinands and therefore could not lose any of them. Rotmistrov also claimed 70 destroyed Tiger tanks. The II SS Panzer Corps, however, had only 15 Tigers available for combat on 12 July, and only five of them fought at Prochorovka. strategy & tactics


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On that day, II SS Panzer Corps was able to bring to battle only 211 tanks, 58 assault guns and 43 tank destroyers. The corps’s 3rd SS “Deaths Head” Panzer Grenadier Division didn’t even take part in the Prochorovka fight; it attacked across the Psel River to the north. Therefore only 1st SS “Life Guards” Panzer Grenadier Division and 2nd SS “The Empire” Panzer Grenadier Division faced Fifth Guards Tank Army. Those two divisions that day deployed a total of only 117 tanks, 37 assault guns and 32 tank destroyers. Rotmistrov had 838 tanks available for combat that morning; 96 others were in transit. Of his five mobile corps (division-sized units), he initially held back 5th Guards Mechanized in reserve. Another 100 tanks secured his left flank against III Panzer Corps, which was advancing from the south. So about 672 Soviet tanks fought 186 tanks and assault guns of two German divisions. Rotmistrov planned two directions of attack for his counterattack. The main thrust came from the northeast and went in frontally against 1st SS. It was to push through the gap between the railway embankment and the Psel River. Parts of that area were boggy and there were also several small villages within it. Altogether, only 1.86 miles of maneuver room were available. There, then, more than 400 Soviet tanks of 18th and 29th Tank Corps would hit the 56 tanks, 10 assault guns and 20 tank destroyers of 1st SS. 22

Another thrust came from the east toward the German flank and 2nd SS. There, about 200 Soviet tanks of 2nd Guards Tank Corps and 2nd Tank Corps faced 61 German tanks, 27 assault guns and 12 tank destroyers. One additional factor also has to be taken into account: whereas the Germans had been in combat since 5 July, Fifth Guards Tank Army was newly committed. So the Soviets were in better shape at the start of the fight. In one regard, Rotmistrov was completely successful: he managed to move his whole army speedily and almost entirely undetected to the front. The Germans had expected some manner of Soviet counterattack on the south of the Kursk salient. They didn’t imagine an attack of such magnitude was even possible. For the 1st SS Division, 11 July had been successful enough. It had crossed a deep Soviet anti-tank ditch and taken an important local terrain feature, Hill 252.2. That same advance had meant, however, there was only loose contact to the neighboring division to the right, 2nd SS. To the left there was almost no contact at all because 3rd SS was attacking off to the north. The recon battalion of 1st SS tried to “over watch” the gap between the two divisions. For the next day, II SS Panzer Corps planned to support the attack to the north of 3rd SS toward Hill 226.6 with all available artillery. Only after that hill had been taken were 1st SS and 2nd SS Divisions supposed to resume their own advances.

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Southwest of the railway embankment, SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 1 was deployed on the right. SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 2 was on the left, farther ahead at Hill 252.2. That unit was actually resting in a depression behind the hill, and it only consisted of one battalion with three companies along with an additional heavy tank company with four Tigers. The other battalion was in Germany, switching to Panzer V Panthers. To recapitulate, then: in the Prochorovka gap there was no German tank armada with 800 tanks, only a single tank battalion. When Rotmistrov started his attack at 7:30 a.m. (8:30 Moscow time), most men in 1st SS were still sleeping (being exhausted after seven days of fighting). The 3rd Battalion of SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 2, under the command of the infamous Jochen Peiper, had advanced the farthest and taken Hill 252.2. Suddenly Soviet tanks and infantry were in their position. When 1st Lt. Rudolf von Ribbentrop, son of Hitler’s foreign minister, saw violet-colored flares above the hill (meaning “enemy tanks!”), he drove toward it with his seven Panzer IVs. The other two German tank companies remained behind the anti-tank ditch in the rear. Suddenly he saw 29th Tank Corps 100 to 200 yards away: 212 vehicles charging at full speed. Three of Ribbentrop’s panzers were able to escape, four were destroyed. When the Soviet tanks had reached the far side of the hill, the other two German tank companies opened fire. The Soviets simply continued to press their advance at full speed. It seemed that within minutes they would surely rip open the German front and break through. The Soviets, however, had forgotten about their own anti-tank ditch. It was some 15 feet deep and ran parallel to the front line. At first a few, then more and more Soviet tanks crashed into that obstacle. As the Soviet tank commanders became aware of the ditch, they tried to maneuver to the left to cross it via a bridge. That was another mistake. The fire of two German tank companies, later aided by four approaching Tigers, knocked out their AFV. The Germans termed that action: “Scheibenschießen auf bewegliche Ziele” (target practice against moving targets). While it was still morning, SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 2 resecured Hill 252.2 and the surrounding area. They counted 190 Soviet tanks destroyed. That number was so unbelievably high the commander of II SS Panzer Corps, Gen. Paul Hausser, drove to the front to personally inspect the scene. On the left flank of 1st SS Division, 18th Tank Corps also attacked at that same time. In a whirling tank action the Soviets were again defeated, losing 55 tanks. All other Soviet attacks that day were beaten off as well, and all three SS divisions were advancing again that afternoon. Rotmistrov therefore entirely invented a monumental battle with 400 destroyed German tanks. Since then many writers and historians have unquestioningly accepted his account. At the same time, though, the official German documents from that day don’t contain any catastrophic reports. On the contrary, the Germans at the time believed they’d won a big victory that day. Further, if you look into those documents you will see II SS Panzer Corps suffered only three unrecovered armored vehicle losses on 12 July. The Germans stayed in possession of the battlefield and therefore were able to repair their damaged tanks. In addition, their tank repair shops also did a great job. On 12 July, the 1st SS and 2nd SS Divisions had 186 tanks available for combat. One

Counterattack or ambush? Soviet tanks cross a field. day later, after their supposed destruction, they fielded 190 tanks. At the same time, Fifth Guards Tank Army suffered at least 235 total losses that day. (Newer, post-Soviet Russian sources have raised that total to 334 losses.) From all this three new truths becomes clear concerning the Battle of Prochorovka. First, in the tactical sense the engagement was not only a Soviet loss, but a fiasco. Second, operationally the Red Army stopped the German advance for several hours. Their goal, however, had been to destroy the II SS Panzer Corps in a new “Cannae.” Strategically, Rotmistrov’s attack day was also a mistake, since his army was supposed to play the decisive role in the forthcoming Soviet summer offensive. As for the bigger picture, Kursk did mark the last time the Wehrmacht would be on the offensive in the east.

Sources Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 8: Die Ostfront 1943/44, ed. By Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Munchen: DVA 2007. Glantz, David M. & Jonathan House. When Titans Clashed : How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press 1995. Healy, Mark. Kursk 1943. The Tide Turns in the East (Osprey Campaign Series 16), London: Osprey 1993.

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Race your tanks across Russia! Drive on Kursk: July 1943

This is the third edition of the Kursk game originally published by old-SPI back in the early 1970s, which was later redesigned into a second edition, retitled as: Eric Goldberg’s Kursk: History’s Greatest Tank Battle, July 1943. This new edition is by Ty Bomba, and shares an evolution of the system used in our other Road to Ruin series titles: Drive on Stalingrad and Drive on Moscow. There’s been a lot of new information published on Kursk since the last edition. In particular, we made good use of The Battle for Kursk, 1943: The Soviet General Staff Study. The insights it provided were many, but the one that will cause the most eyebrow raising will be the lack of separate Soviet artillery units. We took that approach because the Red Army command did, too. Concerned they’d be unable to shift their cannon as and where needed, they initially spread them throughout their defensive belts. Only later, once they’d switched to the strategic offensive in August, were the guns again brought together to reform artillery divisions and corps. 

“Manstein’s Gambit” is a scenario for the alternative scheme put forward for this German offensive by Field Marshal Manstein. He believed “Operation Citadelle,” as put forward by Hitler, had no chance of success. He therefore argued the attack should be made with all available forces. The additional units added to the German order of battle represent the scouring of all the other fronts and rear areas of the Reich, to bring in all the divisions capable of conducting major offensive operations. That option is available to the German player, but with the trade-off of then having to fulfill far more ambitious victory conditions.

To purchase the game that covers the battles featured in

this issue send your name and address along with: $26 US Customers All prices include postage for first class or airmail shipping. $31 Canadian Customers CA residents add $1.45 sales tax. Send to: $33 Overseas Customers Decision Games ATTN: S&T Game Offer PO Box 21598 Bakersfield CA 93390 24

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On Design The Battle of Kursk has gone from

relative obscurity (being overshadowed by Stalingrad), to being called “history’s greatest tank battle,” then, more recently to being seen as a kind of grandbut-abortive German armored raid against the Soviet salient in the front line in the summer of 1943. One of the advantages of wargaming is you can explore all those different possibilities. And Kursk does have much going for it as a battle: lots of armor on both sides, and the mystique of this battle being the turning point in Hitler’s war with the Soviet Union. The battle – actually, given the geographic extent of its operations, Kursk was really a mini-campaign – was fought in summer within range of the lines of communication of both sides. That minimizes the need for weather and supply rules that often bog down designs. And, as a result, players can more easily explore the big decisions that determined the course of the campaign. You win Drive on Kursk by accumulating victory points for destroying enemy units and taking strategic objectives. There’s not only the issue of defeating the enemy, there’s the ability to compare your performance with that of the historic commanders. Score more points and you get personal satisfaction. That also gives you more of the historic dilemmas. One is there’s a tradeoff between geographic objectives and unit losses. Do you really want to hold that victory point city if it means potentially losing more points in eliminated units? Conversely, sometimes it makes sense to fight for an objective that has little geographic utility because of its victory point value. Suddenly, many otherwise strange decisions made by the original high commands fall into place. Unit combat factors represent the quantitative factors of firepower and armament, as well as some nonquantitative factors such as training and leadership. The game also accounts for qualitative differences between the armies. The ability of German mechanized units to infiltrate enemy zones of control is one example. That represents the panzers’ still-superior capabilities in mobile warfare at that time in the war. A lot of other things went into Kursk. Designer Ty Bomba chose not to include separate Red Army artillery units. Instead, their strength is subsumed into Soviet maneuver-unit combat strengths. That may be surprising to some, but it reflects the actual practice in the field at that time. At the start of this campaign, Soviet artillery divisions were directly attached to tank and infantry commands, not kept as separate formations, which would’ve been impractical given

the nature of the fighting. That’s also a common thing in wargames: non-divisional unit capabilities being factored into unit combat strengths or other game actions. For example, the ability of units to cross rivers often reflects non-divisional engineer units that aren’t otherwise shown in a game’s order of battle. Trying to put every last unit that fought into a campaign into a game often causes the design to sink of its own weight. One unique game mechanic in Kursk is players choose their sequence of play at the start of each turn, which can be one of several different combinations of moving and fighting. That brings something into its play that’s rarely seen in wargaming: the element of staff planning and limited operational intelligence. You don’t quite know what the other fellow is going to do in his turn. Effectively, you have to anticipate enemy intentions. At the same time, it requires you to think ahead in terms of what you plan to do for your turn. You may be planning for a set-piece battle while the enemy is about to launch a war of movement. Then there’s the bigger picture. The articles in this issue indicate the Germans actually came out ahead in the tank battle at Prochorovka, the action that’s usually considered to have signaled the start of a great German armored debacle. What we can now see more clearly is that the German shortfall was really in their infantry. The bulk of their infantry divisions had never really been rebuilt after the losses of the previous two years of fighting. So when the Red Army launched its historic 1943 summer counteroffensive, the Germans couldn’t hold the line. You can explore all those elements in Drive on Kursk. strategy & tactics


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F o r Yo u r I n fo r m a t i o n Did You Know? •

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The US Department of Defense has announced the creation of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM). It will seek to find ways to use stem cell technology to grow new skin, muscles, tendons, ears, noses and fingers, and eventually (it’s hoped) whole limbs. The Pentagon has budgeted $250 million for the project’s first year. The famous “parquet floor” on the basketball court of the Boston Garden came about because in 1946, when it was originally constructed, there was still a war-induced lumber shortage across the US. The long flooring pieces traditionally used in such projects were available only at premium prices, so the contractor came up with the idea of the parquets, using shorter pieces of wood laid out in squares. On 24 January 1961, a fuel leak on a B-52 flying near Goldsboro, North Carolina, caused an explosion that, in turn, sent two atomic bombs hurtling out of the plane and into the ground. Neither detonated, but later investigation revealed the fuel leak explosion had caused five of the six safeties on both devices to turn off. Thus, both were one electric switch away from detonating when they plowed into the earth. Each of the two bombs was 250 times more powerful than the one used against Hiroshima in 1945. “Action figure,” a term common in today’s toy market, was coined by staffers at the Hasbro Corporation in 1964. They were trying to come up with a descriptor to use in place of “doll,” in order to smooth the way for their soon-to-be released “G.I. Joe” product line. They believed no red-blooded American boy would want to play with a doll. On 14 July 1969, the “Soccer War” broke out between El

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Salvador and Honduras. Though named after a series of disputed sports matches between the national teams of the two countries which preceded the outbreak of the fighting by a few weeks, the deeper cause was a border dispute that went back a century. The fighting lasted only four days, but it was fierce. The total casualties suffered by both sides came to more than 5,000 dead and another 10,000 wounded. The war was largely crowded out of the news at the time because it erupted during the week Apollo 11, the first lunar-landing mission, was on its way into outer space. During 1969, Mike Novosel, Jr., and Mike Novosel, Sr., father and son, flew together as helicopter pilots in the same medical evacuation unit in Vietnam, the 82nd Medical Detachment. That was, and remains, the only time in US military aviation history a father and son flew together in combat in the same unit. During their shared tour of duty, each rescued the other from a combat crash under fire. The proximate cause of the 1982 Falklands War, fought between Great Britain and Argentina over possession of those islands, occurred when some civilian scrap metal dealers from the latter nation spontaneously raised their flag on an out-island as they worked. Though they had the required permits from the British embassy to be there, the report of their flag raising, when it reached London, led to the dispatch of a warship to watch over all such further projects. The Argentine government then sent a ship to watch that British vessel, which led London to reinforce the island garrison with some Royal Marines. The Argentines then invaded. Early on 16 January 1991, the world press got the first tip

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Operation Desert Storm was about to begin from a pizza man. Frank Meeks, who owned 60 Dominoes pizza franchises in the D.C. area, had noticed the night before that pizza orders from the Pentagon were skyrocketing. He’d seen similar surges during the nights just prior to the invasions of Grenada and Panama. So he called the media and put out the first word. The US government recently initiated a nine-year, $30 billion “cyber initiative.” The main contractor is computer security firm Symantec, and the aim of the project is to better protect all government and military computer networks from hacking and cyberwar attack. One of the most notable ‘cultural’ developments within the upper echelons of the US military in the past half-decade has been video-teleconferencing, that on about half the bandwidth used by the Army is for that purpose.

Attention S&T readers: We’re always looking for authors for FYI for Strategy & Tactics and the new World at War magazine. If you’d like to try your hand at writing short (under 2,000 words), pithy articles for this column, on virtually any aspect of military history, contact Ty Bomba, FYI editor, at: [email protected]. strategy & tactics


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F o r Yo u r I n fo r m a t i o n Jane Fonda in North Vietnam: What Did She Actually Say?

Most—indeed, if not all—Vietnam veterans still oppose actress Jane Fonda’s going to North Vietnam in 1972, where she posed for a still infamous photograph wearing an NVA helmet next to an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot at attacking US Air Force planes. But few know what she actually did say there. Here, then, is a transcript of her radio broadcast from Hanoi of 22 August 1972. This is Jane Fonda. During my two week visit in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, I’ve had the opportunity to visit a great many places and speak to a large number of people from all walks of life—workers, peasants, students, artists and dancers, historians, journalists, film actresses, soldiers, militia girls, members of the women’s union, writers. I visited the Dam Xuac agricultural coop, where the silk worms are also raised and thread is made. I visited a textile factory, a kindergarten in Hanoi. The beautiful Temple of Lit-

“The Ancients had a great advantage over us in that their armies were not trailed by a second army of pen-pushers.” —Napoleon Bonaparte 28

erature was where I saw traditional dances and heard songs of resistance. I also saw an unforgettable ballet and guerillas training bees in the south to attack enemy soldiers. The bees were danced by women, and they did their jobs well. In the shadow of the Temple of Literature, I saw Vietnamese actors and actresses perform the second act of Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons, and this was very moving to me—the fact that artists here are translating and performing American plays, while US imperialists are bombing their country. I cherish the memory of the blushing militia girls on the roofs of their factory, encouraging one of their sisters as she sang a song praising the blue sky of Vietnam—these women, who are so gentle and poetic; whose voices are so beautiful, but who, when American planes are bombing their city become such good fighters. I cherish the way a farmer, evacuated from Hanoi, without hesitation, offered me—an American—their best individual bomb shelter, while US bombs fell nearby. The daughter and I, in fact, shared the shelter wrapped in each other’s arms, cheek against cheek. It was on the road back from Nam Dinh, where I had witnessed the systematic destruction of civilian targets—schools, hospitals, pagodas, the factories, houses, and the dike system. As I left the United States two weeks ago, Nixon was again telling the American people that he was winding down the war, but in the rubble strewn streets of Nam Dinh, his words echoed with sinister [several words indistinct] of a true killer, and like the young Vietnamese woman I held in my arms clinging to me tightly—and I pressed my cheek against hers—I thought, this is a war against Vietnam perhaps, but the tragedy is America’s. One thing that I have learned beyond a shadow of a doubt since I’ve been in this country is that Nixon will never be able to break the spirit of these people; he’ll never be able to turn Vietnam, North and South, into a neo-colony of the United States by

bombing, by invading, by attacking in any way. One has only to go into the countryside and listen to the peasants describe the lives they led before the revolution to understand why every bomb that is dropped only strengthens their determination to resist. I’ve spoken to many peasants who talked about the days when their parents had to sell themselves to landlords as virtual slaves, when there were very few schools and much illiteracy, inadequate medical care, when they were not masters of their own lives. But now, despite the bombs, despite the crimes being created—being committed against them by Richard Nixon, these people own their own land, build their own schools—the children learning, literacy—illiteracy is being wiped out, there is no more prostitution as there was during the time when this was a French colony. In other words, the people have taken power into their own hands, and they are controlling their own lives. And after 4,000 years of struggling against nature and foreign invaders—and the last 25 years, prior to the revolution, of struggle against French colonialism—I don’t think that the people of Vietnam are about to compromise in any way, shape, or form about the freedom and independence of their country, and I think Richard Nixon would do well to read Vietnamese history, particularly their poetry, written by Ho Chi Minh. ~Blaine Taylor

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F o r Yo u r I n fo r m a t i o n Pike’s Pikes

The US Army emerged from the War of 1812 in much better condition than it had been when those hostilities began. On the northern battlefields, and at New Orleans, a new crop of officers learned their lessons and went on to help create a new army as well as provide national leadership. One of the up and coming generals who would have been at the forefront of change was Zebulon Montgomery Pike, if the ideas he developed as a regimental commander were any indication. Pike turned 34 in January 1813 and was promoted to brigadier two months later. He’d begun his service in his father’s regiment in the 1790s and, because of his well-known explorations on the Mississippi River and the southwest, he eventually gained patronage and promotion, rising to colonel of the newly created 13th US Regiment of Infantry in July 1812. After raising the unit in his home state of New Jersey, Pike led it north to Greenbush, New York, and then on to Plattsburgh where it wintered. Pike was zealous and outspoken. “You will hear of my fame or of my death,” he wrote to Maj. Gen. James Wilkinson in July 1812, “for I am determined to seek the ‘Bubble’ even in the cannon’s mouth.” “The generals we have are all generals of the cabinet,” he complained on another occasion, adding prophetically, “and it is only after several of us who have some knowledge of military business are sacrificed, that men will be placed to lead who are now in the ranks, or in obscurity. You shall then see our cabinet generals retire and fighting generals brought forward.” Pike wasn’t afraid to try new things, and went to the expense to outfit most of his 800-man regiment with snowshoes and then put them through their manual of arms exercises so they would be prepared for service in snowy Canada. He also acquired a supply of rifles and, though little more was said about them in his correspondence, one of his companies might have been trained as a rifle corps, which was uncommon among the infantry regiments.

Even more unusual than snowshoes was Pike’s decision to outfit a portion of his regiment with pikes. The best description of the weapons issued to the 15th Infantry, and their intended use, is found in a letter written by Capt. John Scott, one of Pike’s New Jersey men. Oh, I forgot to tell you, one third of our Regt. is armed with pikes 11 or 12 feet long. We form in ranks of three deep and the pikemen form the rear rank. The shape of the pike is, as near as I can describe it, like this [here he inserted a sketch of the pike’s head] drove in the end of a handle 10 or 11 feet long, made of ash timber. The men who carry the pikes have had their muskets cut off about 18 inches, which they sling on their back and are very handy. Those pikes, when we charge bayonet, will reach 1 foot in front of the [front two ranks’] bayonets. The pikemen also carried swords for use if their pikes were lost during hand-to-hand fighting. Historically recognized as the key weapon of the classical Greek and Macedonian phalanx, the pike had long since been abandoned in infantry warfare. With the exception of a volunteer unit of rifles in Maine, some locally raised marine forces at Boston, and temporary use by a few units in Russia and Portugal, no other infantry commander in the 19th century appears to have thought of reintroducing pikes into his tactical options. Many armies equipped their color-parties with pikes and halberds of various kinds, but that was more for esprit de corps than utility. Pike was all about utility, however, and he must have envisioned his pikemen spearing the ranks of redcoats as they charged down on his steadfast infantry. Perhaps he got his idea from the Navy’s use of pikes during boarding operations. Pike’s naval colleague, Commodore Isaac Chauncey, for instance, ordered “300 muskets, 200 pistols, 300 cutlasses, 400 pikes (without handles), [and] 200 boarding caps” for his squadron. Even on land some sailors rushed into battle with pikes, as mentioned

in Secretary of War John Armstrong’s description of an aborted attempt to gain a beachhead on the upper Niagara River in November 1812. “The 70 seamen [in the raid],” he wrote, “... unaccustomed to the order of military movements, and requiring only to be told where the enemy was, rushed forward with their habitual gallantry and appropriate weapons, pikes and cutlasses, and after a short but sanguinary contest, carried the position.” There were different types of heads for the pikes; some were straight penetrating blades while others had a crosspiece at the base to prevent over-penetration. Whatever kind he issued, Pike had his men use them to train for battle, and Capt. Scott was confident about their chances. “I should like to meet, with our regiment... the 49th British Regiment on some plain. I think we should have a pretty hard fight [and] I think the Jersey troops... would prove themselves worthy.” Pike’s regiment tested its weapons on 27 April 1813, when they launched an amphibious assault on the town of York (modern Toronto), capital of Upper Canada. There were about 450 of the 15th Infantry in the assault force and, therefore, 150 long and cumbersome pikes had to be carried on the crowded vessels and then transfered into the boats for going ashore. The records of that day contain only one reference to those weapons, prompted by the account of what happened when otherwise ineffective British cannon shots arched over Pike’s column. “Excepting for some pikes broken and some bayonets bent, those guns gave us no annoyance,” wrote one of Pike’s aides. It was about an hour later Pike was mortally wounded by debris from the explosion of the British grand magazine and, along with his dreams of a glorious military career, went his aspirations for the pike as a reborn tactical innovation. One of his peers, Col. Cromwell Pearce, 16th Infantry, remarked tersely: “These experiments [with pikes] were tried, and found not to answer the purposes anticipated.” Thereafter, Pike’s pikes disappeared completely from the historical record.

~Robert Malcomson strategy & tactics


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F o r Yo u r I n fo r m a t i o n The 298 Spartans

While it’s common belief all 300 of King Leonidas’s bodyguard died with him at Thermopylae in 480 BC, it isn’t true. Two of those Spartans actually survived the battle, namely Aristodamus and Pantites. Their continued existence cost them dearly, and both would also be dead within a year. Pantites had been dispatched by Leonidas with a message to a city in Thessaly, and therefore missed the final day at Thermopylae through no fault of his own. He afterward returned to Sparta, where no dishonor was attached to him. Still, the shame of being a live man instead of a dead hero weighed on him. Whether it was the whispers of his fellow Spartans or his own misplaced guilt isn’t known, but Pantites could soon no longer bear the stigma of having lived – and hanged himself.

The other survivor was of stronger character, a man who fought and died on his own terms, Aristodamus. Aristodamus and Eurytus were two of the 300, but they’d been sent back from Thermopylae to the village of Alpeni because both were suffering from eye infections that made them temporarily blind. When word came the Persian Immortals had defeated the Phocian troops guarding the secret path protecting the pass, and were about to encircle the defenders, Eurytus put on his armor and had his slave lead him back to die alongside his king. Aristodamus refused to throw his life away in such a useless gesture and instead returned to Sparta. When the Spartans learned of Eurytus’s sacrifice, they branded Aristodamus a coward. No Spartan would speak to him, and all refused to even grant him a light for his fire. Some even spread the story Aristodamus hadn’t been ill but had also been

sent to deliver a message to Thessaly, where he then deliberately delayed his return to Thermopylae until after the battle. Aristodamus endured the taunts and disdain of his fellow Spartans until the Battle of Plataea in 479. As the Spartans advanced toward the Persian battleline at Plataea, he broke ranks to charge ahead. All present admitted he fought like a lion and slew many a Persian before he finally succumbed to the wounds they inflicted on him. Even so, the stiff-necked and unforgiving Spartans refused to honor him by naming him the bravest man who fought that day. That honor was awarded to another. The reason given was that Aristodamus had shown a lack of discipline by breaking ranks and rushing to his death. Aristodamus, his critics said, had gone to Plataea only for the selfish purpose of regaining his honor by dying in battle.

~James A. Yates

Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP) Systems for Submarines The need for air to support propulsion has been one of the limitations on submarines for most of the last century. The introduction of nuclear power solved the problem for those countries with the money and technological industry to build and support such vessels. Few countries, however, can afford the construction and infrastructure costs involved in building and maintaining a nuclear submarine force. As a result, most of the world’s navies still use conventionally powered submarines that employ diesel-electric and batterypowered propulsion systems. Those conventional submarines are much quieter than their nuclear counterparts underwater but, unlike the nuclear subs, they must either snorkel or surface to re-charge their batteries by running their diesel engines. That requirement increases the probability 30

of detection, the avoidance of which is their primary advantage in naval operations, and limits the duration and range of their submerged operations. As a result, most Western naval officers consider conventional submarines to be of only limited utility in long-range or broad-ocean operations. They see them essentially as “mobile minefields” suited primarily for “choke point operations” where constricted waters force surface units to transit through their operating areas. The advent of air-independentpropulsion (AIP) systems promises to change that assessment, however, expanding conventional submarine operating areas and flexibility by enabling them to remain submerged for up to three weeks. Germany was the first country to attack the problem, developing two

AIP systems during World War II: the Walter system and the closed-cycle diesel electric system. They achieved more success with the former, and abandoned the latter, during the war’s closing days. The Walter system relied on pumping highly concentrated but chemically unstable hydrogen peroxide over a catalyst that triggered combustion in a burning chamber. The resulting exhaust and steam then passed over a turbine, driving the submarine at speeds of 20 knots or more. Hydrogen peroxide’s instability necessitated its storage in exceptionally clean fuel tanks, since any contact with dirt, dust or metal could trigger a disastrous chemical reaction. The Walter system propelled the Type XXVI coastal submarines, but they didn’t enter service in time to see combat. Those taken over by the Allies proved all but impossible to

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F o r Yo u r I n fo r m a t i o n detect and destroy with the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapons and platforms of that era, but safety problems and the introduction of nuclear power led to most countries abandoning further development. The Soviets pursued the closedcycle diesel-electric propulsion system in the 1950s, installing it in their Zulu-class boats. Closed-cycle diesel propulsion is theoretically simple. Compressed air or oxygen is fed from storage tanks directly into the diesel engines, and those engines’ exhaust is vented into the sea. It has three disadvantages; 1) it’s noisy; 2) it can’t be used at depths below 100 feet, because the pressure inhibits the exhaust venting, all but blocking it below that depth; and 3) exhaust bubbles are visible on the surface when the submarine is using the system at depths above 70 feet. The Germans abandoned the system because they could never store enough compressed air to give it significant endurance, a problem the Soviets solved by storing compressed oxygen in tanks aft of the submarine’s torpedo tubes, away from the diesel engines’ heat. Unfortunately for the Soviets, their maintenance and safety procedures were poor, resulting in constant oxygen leaks that, combined with the crews’ smoking habits and the presence of flammable materials, caused a long series of fires and underwater explosions. In fact, fires struck so often, and to such deadly effect, the crews called them “cigarette lighters.” Today only the Netherlands considers close-cycle diesel propulsion a viable AIP system. Its disappearance from the Soviet inventory marked the demise of AIP systems from naval operations, but it didn’t end the further pursuit of the technology itself. Germany, France, Russia and Sweden have continued to pursue such development. Their efforts accelerated in the 1990s in response to a growing demand for submarines by the world’s lesser naval powers. Those countries wanted a means of protecting their maritime economic and environmental interests within and just beyond their economic exclusion zones. The subma-

rine exporting countries saw AIP as a means of achieving operational advantage over nuclear submarines in those waters, both as a marketing advantage and for their own navies in the Barents, Bering and Mediterranean seas. Sweden’s submarine designers were the first to achieve operational success, introducing the Sterling engine prototype in 1983, installing it on the submarine Näcken in 1989. The Sterling system consists of a heat chamber in which a small quantity of diesel fuel and oxygen is burned to heat helium, which then expands to drive a two-cycle, four-cylinder piston engine that powers a generator. The exhaust gas is vented into an absorption chamber where it’s dissolved in seawater and cooled before being discharged into the ocean. The entire system fits into a 3x5 meter “plug,” which can be added to any existing conventional submarine or integrated into new construction. It equips Sweden’s three Gotland-class units, and is offered for export in their A17-class submarines. Japan has also installed it in one of their submarines and has funded plans for more. It provides 70 kilowatts of power, enabling a Sterling-equipped boat to remain submerged, while traveling at a speed of four to five knots for up to 15 days, without snorkeling, or longer depending on battery capacity. French, German and Russian research has taken a different path.

The French system relies on burning an oxygen/fuel mixture in a chamber that drives two turbo-generators. The first draws its power from hot exhaust gases passing through its blades, while the second is driven by the steam generated by those gases. The resulting system has 80 to 95 percent efficiency and, at a power output of 150 to 600 kilowatts, is the most powerful AIP system on the market. It is also the noisiest, though at its lowest power setting it’s still quieter than a nuclear power plant. Its higher power density can be used for high underwater bursts of speed, or to add up to 20 days to a submarine’s underwater endurance at speeds of four to five knots. Entering service in 2002, the French offer their MESMA system (Module d’Énergie Sous-Marin Autonome or Autonomic Energy Module for Submarines) on their new Scorpion-class export submarines and as a retrofit installation for Agostaclass units already in service. German and Russian designers have pursued fuel cell technology, the same energy system used to power the space shuttle and the Apollo moon missions. In its simplest form, a fuel cell simply brings oxygen and hydrogen together in a chemical reaction that produces electricity, water and heat. Submarine designers, however, prefer to use polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells, because they’re more efficient and produce less heat.

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F o r Yo u r I n fo r m a t i o n PEM fuel cells pass hydrogen over one side of a membrane and oxygen over the other. A platinum catalyst separates the hydrogen into positive ions and four electrons, which then pass through an external circuit as electricity to ultimately join the oxygen atoms on the other side. The hydrogen ions migrate to combine with the oxygen to form water. In fact, fuel cells constitute the only truly closed-cycle AIP system. Their only byproduct is water. The absence of combustion and moving parts also makes fuel cells the quietest AIP system. Unfortunately, they also suffer from having the lowest power density, requiring a much larger power plant to produce a useable level of power. Additionally, there are safety and maintenance concerns due to having to store the highly flammable liquid or gaseous hydrogen. The safest method is to join the hydrogen chemically with a metal alloy to form a metal hydride. The hydrogen can then be released by chemical manipulation, but the submarine thereby exchanges 10 days of endurance for greater safety. The German and Italian navies already have units in service, and in the Greek and South Korean navies are being retrofitted to Type-209s and installed on new Type-214s. The Russians didn’t complete their program before the USSR collapsed, but their research has continued. Russia reportedly installed the Kristal-27E fuel cell based AIP on their new conventional boat, the St. Petersburg, about six months after it was commissioned. They’re also offering it as one of the options with the export version of that vessel, the Amur-class. A Kristal-27E equipped unit may be able to operate submerged for up to 30 days. Most observers think China is working on a fuel cell based AIP for its new Yuan-class conventional submarines. Since the Yuan-class propulsion system is derived from German propulsion equipment, most believe it’s based on German technology, but it’s just as likely to turn out to be a Chinese development of the Kristal27E. 32

AIP systems add a new dimension to conventional submarine operations by extending their reach and operational flexibility. Smaller and quieter than nuclear submarines under most circumstances, conventional boats are becoming a more difficult threat to counter then heretofore, when they were largely a concern only in constricted waters. All but freed from their previously much shorter battery recharging cycles, they can now also range across larger patrol areas, pursue targets at longer ranges more quickly, and employ their superior stealth characteristics as required. The US Navy recently leased a Swedish AIP Gotland-class unit for a year, so it could study the acoustic and handling characteristics with a view toward perfecting tactics and technologies to counter them. At present, 10 navies have at least one AIP submarine in service and two others will acquire at least one before the decade ends. The next 20 years will no doubt see a proliferation of AIP units because smaller navies view them as the solution to projecting their power and surveillance farther from their coasts. That will probably generate political pressure for the US Navy to consider building a conventional submarine force, but nuclear submarines, with their greater sensor, communication, weapons load and superior strategic mobility, will remain the undersea platform of choice for a nation with global maritime interests.

~Carl Otis Schuster

American Counterinsurgency Efforts in Thailand

American efforts to strengthen the capacity of South Vietnam to resist insurgency by Vietnamese Communists failed in the 1960s, since a broader war eventually resulted. Yet a similar campaign in Thailand was much more successful and offers a useful model for current and future counterinsurgency programs. From approximately 1950 through 1983, the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) was successful in attracting members of the middle class in the capital city Bangkok to sympathize with its goals. Members weren’t just limited to ethnic Chinese, though many did have such a background. A series of military coups ensured CPT members were regularly forced to flee from the cities and hide out in the jungles. In particular, CPT members went to the northeastern region known as Isan, which has always been home to the poorest people of the country. Isan natives are ethnic Lao, with many strong ties with the Lao across the River Mekong, which divides Thailand from that country. Large numbers of the Isan were alienated from the Thai government, which customarily placed their interests far below those of the Bangkok masses who facilitated military rule. CPT members from the professional classes were able to spread their technical knowledge to the poorly educated villagers and received shelter in return. At the same time, hundreds of Vietnamese had been crossing and recrossing the Mekong River since the time of the war against the French. The river is long, and there are many safe places to cross. On the other hand, Vietnamese in Thailand who now remember that time recall occasions when the “Mekong ran red with blood.” American advisors faced the problem of dealing with insurgents who received shelter and support from villagers in a remote countryside with little infrastructure. The CPT had embraced Maoist concepts of the

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“People’s War,” and its members used Chinese-inspired methods and uniforms. Shadow governments were established in villages whenever the CPT could make its presence accepted. CIA sources estimated around 4,000 active CPT agents were present throughout the country, though many more were sympathizers. Mobile, and supported by supplies from other Southeast Asian countries, the CPT represented a serious threat to the integrity of the Thai state. The Thai military, in response, attempted to crush the insurgency through force of arms. The Communist Suppression Operations Command (CSOC) was established in 1965 with a view to creating a military solution. Attempts to kill or capture CPT members met with only limited success, however, and did nothing to persuade villagers that state was in any way their friend. Artillery bombardment and air strikes destroyed villages and created streams of desperate refugees. Even so, that policy persisted, despite its lack of success, until the 1970s. Eventually, a combination of better intelligence and the prompting of US advisors led to a change in emphasis. Development projects throughout the region were stepped up, as well as determined attempts (which continue to the present day) to convince villagers they were fortunate to be part of a unified and compassionately governed kingdom. Roads built with American assistance not only assisted in the movement of military materiel, but also enabled villagers to obtain jobs in cities offering much better salaries than before. Incoming investment, especially from Japan, provided new factories ready to reward diligent, non-Communist workers with steady and attractive income. The US government committed in excess of $49 million to its “Accelerated Rural Development” program, and that was more than matched by Thai funds. Village and provincial notables were provided with incentives not to upset the sources of those funds. Above all, the Thai “Boy Scout” movement was promoted to flood the region with anti-Communist activists who were supported by state funds and enthused with zeal to convince the villagers to recognize their good fortune. The Scouts, actually a paramilitary organization, were heavily armed and perfectly willing to use gunfire to support their arguments. The Scouts also proved an invaluable supplement to the armed forces, many of who were at times involved in limited actions against the North Vietnamese. The number of US personnel stationed in Thailand peaked at 48,000, and they were supported by more than 500 aircraft. A Thai division of 11,000 men was for a time stationed in South Vietnam, and a further 20,000 were engaged in Laos on covert operations. That represented half of Thailand’s total armed forces.

~John Walsh

The Long Tradition:

50 issues ago, S&T 203: Xenophon. March along with 10,000 Greek

mercenaries as they take on the Persian Empire. Joseph Miranda designed the wargame on one of history’s great epics, while James Yates looked at the big picture of warfare in the ancient Middle East. Gary Valenza delved into the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict, one of the bigger exercises in futility of the last several decades. And at the Little Bighorn, wargame veteran Alan Zimm provided a new analysis of the events of that fateful day of 25 June 1876, Custer’s Last Stand.

100 Issues Ago, S&T 153: Operation Felix & Zama. This issue had

two wargames, Operation Felix, Dr. Christopher Cummins’ design of a hypothetical German assault on Gibraltar in World War II; and Larry Baggett’s Battle of Zama, the apocalyptical showdown between Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, with an accompanying article by Anthony Howarth. The redoubtable Donald Mack marched along with several centuries of British infantry while Richard Filippi looked at intelligence operations during the Napoleonic Wars. And Stefan Patejak profiled Hector Bywater, prophet of the Great Pacific War.

150 Issues Ago, S&T 103: Road to Vicksburg. The Battle of Cham-

pion Hill, part of the Vicksburg campaign by Robert Land. Plenty of features including Civil War articles by Albert Castel and Edwin Bears, Breakout and Pursuit with James Meldrum, and War in the Falklands by Brenda Ralph Lewis. Plus S&T regulars: Al Nofi, Richard Berg, Ian Chadwick and Kevin Zucker.

200 Issues Ago, S&T 53: Punic War. Lead game and article by Ira

Hardy, Steve Patrick and Red Simonsen covering the mayhem between Rome and Carthage, a topic to which we will be returning in the next issue of S&T. Steve Patrick updated the history of wargaming, while Steve List did an after action on SPI’s Tank! Plus Outgoing Mail, FYI and Briefings. Among other things, the editors announced S&T’s first real profit!

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Work In Progress First Battle of Britain (1BoB), designed by Joseph Miranda, is a wargame covering the German bomber offensive against England in 191718. The objective is to score more morale points than your opponent. Historically the bombing campaign inflicted little real damage on British cities or industry. The attacks’ psychological impact, however, was enormous: they demonstrated Britain was vulnerable to outside invaders for the first time in a millennium. Victory is therefore based on the German player’s ability to panic the British populace. Both sides can spend their morale points to reinforce their air forces and increase their air defenses. Each air unit represents a flight or squadron. Each hexagon represents five miles from side to opposite side. Each “Operational Turn” represents one month. Each “Flying Turn” represents 20 minutes of flying time. The 34x22” map has large hexes, and there are 176 large-size, fully iconic units. There are three scenarios. Scenario 1 covers the situation in 1917, with both sides building up their airpower. Scenario 2 covers 1918, with both sides at full strength. Scenario 3 covers the entire campaign from 1917 through 1918. There are about 10,000 words in the rules, which works out to mean two experienced players can finish either of the two shorter scenarios in about four hours. Solitaire play is doable, but requires a little more ‘fudging’ than the typical land-wargame when played that way. The overall game system is of intermediate complexity.

Next Issue

Articles in 254: Hannibal takes on the Roman Republic; the panzers attack in the Ukraine, 1941; the Argentineans repulse a British invasion, Napoleonic style; and cybernetic warriors battle over the Internet.

S&T Upcoming Features

#254 Hannibal’s War. Multi-player game of the Second Punic War, using a derivative of the 1066 system. #255 First Battle of Britain. German air forces in English skies, 1917-18.

#256 Ramillies & Malplaquet: Two of Malborough’s great battles. #257 Cold War Battles II: The US Army meets the Warsaw Pact in Wurzburg Pentomic, while the Soviet Army drops in on Afghanistan in Kabul 1979. #258 Santiago Campaign: Join the Rough Riders for the Spanish-American War’s campaign in Cuba.

#259 Battle for China: Imperial Japan launches one of the greatest land campaigns in history as the Chinese resist invasion.

Visit www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com for previews of these issues. 34

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Empire’s End: The Battle of Manzikert by Kelly Bell

One of the most decisive battles in history was fought near an obscure fortress in Armenia in AD 1071. It would bring down one empire and lay the groundwork for the Western counterattack into the Middle East, the Crusades. The name of the battle—Manzikert. Eleventh century Armenia lay in a geographically unenviable situation in an equally unfortunate time period. Sandwiched between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Sultanate, this principality was eyed greedily by both powers because of its wealth and strategic position. The central Asian trade route known as the Silk Road wound through Armenia, making it a rich mercantile center. Its own resources of fruit, cattle, iron, copper, borax, salt, jewels, arsenic, silver, and gold ensured the wealth of the country. Its artisans were renowned for their skill in producing fine weapons, carpets, leather, and fur garments. And its mountainous terrain made it a natural fortress athwart the caravan highways. Whoever controlled Armenia controlled transcontinental commerce. Determined to maintain their independence and culture, the Armenians had resolutely resisted all foreign influences. Their success, wealth, and pugnacious temperament aroused jealous hatred among their lowland neighbors.

Late in the 11th century the Byzantines and Seljuks were preoccupied with numerous political and military matters, such as their uneasy relations with each other. That was fortunate for the Armenians because they had little unity themselves. Living mainly in clans, they feuded incessantly among themselves, raiding each other both for revenge and booty.

A New Emperor

In 1068 a new Byzantine emperor, Romanos IV Diogenes, assumed the purple in Constantinople and found himself instantly beset by enemies on every side. The Normans in Italy, Magyars in Hungary, Uze and Patzinak Turks in the Balkans, and the delicate situation in Armenia presented Diogenes with a host of political and military challenges that would tax his abilities to the utmost. As a general he had distinguished himself on battlefields versus the Patzinaks, and his military outlook was a signal for a new direction in foreign policy in the Byzantine world. strategy & tactics


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Alp Arslan and his Seljuks overran Armenia in 1064 and began raiding deep into Anatolia. Realizing diplomacy was no longer going to work, Diogenes set out to rebuild the Byzantine armed forces. Ending the Muslim raids on Armenia was a high priority, since it was a buffer state protecting the empire from the east. Byzantium’s military shortfalls compelled Diogenes to recruit a large number of foreign mercenaries. It was an eclectic conglomeration of soldiery—among others, there were Normans and Saxons who’d fought against each other at the recent Battle of Hastings. There were also Patzinak and Uze Turks who might be inclined to defect to the Seljuks. The west European soldiery were knights, warriors or mercenaries who, while individually proficient, weren’t integrated into the methods of eastern warfare. They were in general contemptuous of the fighting ability of light cavalry, whom they saw as little more than mounted snipers. Of course, the eastern horsemen had millennia of experience using their mobility to lure heavier forces into ambushes, cutting off their line of retreat, and then finishing them at range with their powerful bows. Despite the polyglot nature of his army, Diogenes’s first two campaigns, in 1068 and 1069, were successful. He forced Alp Arslan out of Anatolia and raided into Syria and Media. He then undercut his military achievements, however, via his poor treatment of 36

the very Christians he’d sought to rescue from Turkish rule. Suspicious of the Armenians’ allegiance, he treated them as conquered enemies rather than valued subjects, alienating potential allies among them.

Year of Decision

In 1071 Diogenes launched an offensive directly through Armenia, capturing the fortress-city of Manzikert after a month-long siege. He then weakened his forces by dividing them, sending part to capture the nearby city of Akhlat. The obvious next move was to eliminate the menacing Seljuk garrison in the adjacent city of Arkhash. Alp Arslan, who was besieging the Fatimid city of Aleppo, had made no significant preparations for a major war with Byzantium, and Diogenes’s attack took him by surprise. The incursion led him to believe the Byzantines had allied themselves with the Fatimids. He realized that if he indulged his ambition of invading Syria, his realm would be vulnerable to pincer attack. The Fatimids might invade from the south, and the Byzantines from the north out of Armenia. The possibility of Byzantine forces penetrating as far as Manzikert created the dire prospect of the Fatimids pinning his army in Syria while the Byzantines rampaged unchecked through his home territory of Iran and Mesopotamia. He couldn’t afford to wait for that to happen.

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Alp Arslan left his main army to carry on the siege of Aleppo without him while he rushed to assemble a cavalry force outside the city of Khoi. Detailing a smaller force to pin down the Byzantines at Akhlat, he and his troopers advanced on Manzikert. When Byzantine foraging parties spotted the advancing Seljuk forces, they reported the intruders to Diogenes. He assumed it was just a raiding party and sent only a small force of his mercenaries to deal with them. When the mercenaries saw the host of horsemen bearing down on them, they pounded back to tell their emperor something major was developing. Alp Arslan had no desire for a war with Byzantium at that moment. He preferred peace with his western neighbor so he could pursue unhindered his campaign against the Fatimids. So at first he tried negotiations with Diogenes’s emissaries. Still, he couldn’t allow the Byzantines to occupy Armenia because that would threaten his own inner empire and lay open his line of communication to Syria. Diogenes, however, had strong motives to fight rather than talk. For one thing, his predecessors had failed to secure their borders through negotiations. There was also the possibility Alp Arslan would use any parlay to buy time to bring up reinforcements. Further, the Byzantine citizenry and aristocracy were weary of waiting for endless peace talks to provide them with safety and stability. He had to win a military victory in order to ensure his credibility as emperor. The alternative might be another coup or even civil war. Lastly there was the financial burden of maintaining his army in the field during lengthy negotiations, as well as the concern disgruntled mercenaries might start new troubles. With all that in mind, Diogenes prpeared to fight. He’s sometimes regarded by historians as foolhardy to have attacked an enemy about which he knew so little, but he had little alternative. The diplomacy favored by his predecessors as unsuitable because Alp Arslan had little control over (and hence could not make agreements on behalf of) the lawless bands of freebooters who operated along the Turkish/Armenian frontier. The old foreign policy required Byzantium to use vast sums of money for bribes at a time when the increasing economic power of the ascendant Italian city-states was steadily drawing trade away from Constantinople, undercutting Byzantine financial clout. Assembling his army on the plains north of Manzikert, Diogenes advanced south against the Seljuks, who were conveniently bivouacked at the foothills of mountainous country. Diogenes resolutely continued forward as Alp Arslan fell back. While the Turks were mobile, the Byzantines had the advantage of a combined-arms army with heavy and light cavalry and infantry, as well as an engineer contingent and logistics train. Centuries of experience had showed light cavalry could be pinned against natural obstacles by

skirmishers and then defeated at close-quarters via disciplined charges. The mountains reduced the Turks’ ability to maneuver, and traditional Byzantine tactics were likely to have worked if Diogenes’s army had been better disciplined or more cohesive. That discipline shortfall soon made itself felt. A Byzantine forward unit, commanded by an impatient Norman mercenary by the name of Russel of Baileul, advanced without bothering to reconnoiter. Predictably, he was ambushed and his men wiped out. Meanwhile another Byzantine advanced contingent, under command of the general Basilacius, which was supposed to be covering the main army, withdrew, leaving the emperor bereft of reconnaissance. Treachery on the part of Basilacius was suspected ever since, because court intrigues so often trumped military necessity in Byzantine affairs. Diogenes realized he was overextended, so he made a limited withdrawal as Alp Arslan’s army shadowed him. Seeing the retreat as a sign of weakness, the Byzantines’ mercenary Kipchak and Pecheneg cavalry deserted. Diogenes then decided the time had come to stand and fight before the situation got further out of control. He would do it between Akhlat and Manzikert.

Day of Battle

Though the precise location of the battle has been lost, there’s no doubt it was on the high plateau of Armenia, probably on 19 August 1071. The Byzantines had about 35,000 troops on the field, the Seljuks probably a few thousand less. Diogenes formed his army into two lines according to standard Byzantine practice. He commanded the front line while the second was under Andronicus Ducas. The battle opened with opposing horse-archers skirmishing. Charges by heavy Byzantine cavalry pushed back the Turks but couldn’t pin them. The emperor carefully pursued the Turks, who retreated in good order as daylight faded. Centuries of experience had demonstrated the need for caution in that kind of situation, as horse-archer armies often tried to draw in enemy forces and then ambush them. Diogenes believed himself to be in a good position, though, because of his second line. But those men began to lag strategy & tactics


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behind, thereby further exposing the first line to showers of arrows from the smaller Seljuk army. After a full day of trudging futilely after a foe who refused to stand and fight, the Byzantines were becoming demoralized. Moreover, Diogenes had taken all his men into the field rather than leave a reserve to guard the bivouac, and he didn’t want to leave his own camp undefended and liable to plunder by the enemy. Seeing the danger of continuing the pursuit in darkness, Diogenes gave the signal to turn back. The signal was made by reversing the imperial standards, and that’s when things began to unravel. The units following in the wake of the first line misconstrued the reversing of the standards to mean the army’s vanguard had been defeated and was in retreat. Making things worse, the outer wings of the Byzantine army had become detached from the center during the pursuit. As the Byzantines milled in confusion in the gathering darkness, the Seljuks, poised on the heights in front of Diogenes’s troops, stopped retreating, turned and charged. Slicing into the disorganized Byzantines, the Turks annihilated the right wing of their first line, and then surrounded the rest of the formation, forcing it to surrender. Diogenes himself was captured. Andronicus, who commanded the still intact second line, turned around and led his men off the battlefield. 38

Andronicus’s actions are generally attributed to treachery rather than cowardice or incompetence. He was probably bribed into not fighting either by the Seljuks or Diogenes’s enemies in Constantinople. That may also be why he provided less than satisfactory support to the emperor in the first phase of the battle. The nature of the army itself also contributed to the act of mass desertion. The European mercenaries were resentful of the emperor’s unabashed favoritism toward his native troops. The Armenians within the army nurtured a hatred of the Byzantines, who’d invaded their country and treated them as conquered subjects. Many of the Byzantine nobles fighting alongside Andronicus also had issues with Diogenes because of his militaristic inclinations, and they may well have hoped the Seljuks would rid them of him. Regardless, as the sun rose the next morning over the battlefield, Alp Arslan and his Turks were triumphant. The once mighty Byzantine army was no more. Diogenes was brought before Alp Arslan and the following conversation is alleged to have occurred. Alp Arslan: “What would you do if I was brought before you as a prisoner?” Romanos: “Perhaps I’d kill you, or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople.” Alp Arslan: “My punishment is far heavier. I forgive you, and set you free.”

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Byz antin es & S eljuks

The Seljuks were among the many Turkish tribes who had traditionally roamed the steppes. Unlike their predecessors and contemporaries, however, the Seljuks (Sunni Muslims) didn’t loot, burn and kill and then move on in search of new locales to pillage. Instead they settled on the lands they subdued, creating a more permanent polity. By 1040 they controlled all of Persia and simply walked into Baghdad and set up their rule there. The Abbasid caliph there was wise enough not to resist the powerful invaders and accepted being reduced to a figurehead under Seljuk control. Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan (1029-72, the name means “Valiant Lion”) turned his covetous gaze on Syria and Egypt, which were then ruled by the Shia Fatimids. Unlike Baghdad, the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt wouldn’t be a walkover, and its leaders quickly showed their defiance by supporting anti-Seljuk insurgents. Apart from the political rivalry between the Fatimids and Seljuks, there were the traditional economic tensions between these regions. Since antiquity, trade between central Asia and the Mediterranean littoral had been a source of wealth. Merchants ranging across the region favored two routes. One followed the Euphrates River north, then crossed Syria to the markets of Lebanon. The other went up the Red Sea, caravanned across Sinai or sailed down the Nile. A variety of 11th century Syrian rulers strove to dominate opulent Lebanon. Egyptian and Mesopotamian states periodically clashed over control of the entire Near East. Because of its enmity with Fatimid Egypt, the Seljuk Sultanate needed to keep the peace with its other powerful neighbor, the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines, heirs to the classical Roman Empire in the east, controlled lands

Ruin of an Empire

Following Manzikert, the Byzantine Empire sank into a decade-long self-destructive civil war. Realizing he was no longer a threat, Alp Arslan released Diogenes, who returned home and tried futilely to regain his throne. In the end, he was blinded by Andronicus Ducas. Ironically enough, Diogenes died as he was trying to raise the money to pay the ransom Alp Arslan had demanded. Fatally weakened by fighting against itself, Byzantium was helpless to resist the Turkish warrior bands that swept into Anatolia. While Alp Arslan himself probably had no desire to destroy the Byzantine Empire, numerous tribal raiders poured into the military vacuum. The countryside was ravaged and the popula40

from southern Italy to the Armenian foothills, as well as in the Balkans. The Byzantine heartland was in Anatolia, where sturdy warrior-peasants formed the solid core of their armies. At the center was the great capital city of Constantinople, where the emperor sat. Actually, the emperor was by this time called basileus, which means “sovereign lord”—a far cry from Roman and Greek republican ways. The Byzantines had a long record of military efficiency. In the early 11th century, the empire was on the march, pushing back the Muslims and expanding its frontiers. Byzantine armies campaigned in Syria and threatened to retake Jerusalem, lost to the Arabs in the seventh century. In 1018 the Byzantines conquered Bulgaria. They also defeated the Normans in Italy at the second Battle of Cannae (where Hannibal had defeated the Romans 13 centuries prior). After the death of the soldier-emperor Basil II in 1025, Byzantine leaders pursued a policy of retrenchment. A series of emperors deliberately neglected arsenals, weakened frontier garrisons, cut military salaries, and mustered out reservists. Part of the reason was financial, to reduce the drain on the economy of supporting a large military. But it was also a matter of survival. Increasingly, the empire was wracked by civil wars and coup attempts, as power-hungry generals marched on Constantinople to claim themselves emperor. The empire’s own armies were becoming a greater threat than its foes. Constantinople increasingly preferred to pay its enemies not to attack. The Byzantines were masters of treachery and subversion, which is where one of the modern meanings of “byzantine” originated. The Byzantines would bribe other powers to attack the empire’s enemies, thereby diverting hostile forces to faraway theaters of operation. A fragile security was maintained for a time, but damage was also done. By encouraging their people to think they could avoid military confrontation, a generation of Byzantine rulers weakened their will to bear arms. The empire became vulnerable to invasion by resolute enemies who refused to be bribed. One such enemy appeared in the form of Alp Arslan, who had his own dreams of imperial glory. Thus began the chain of events that led to the Battle of Manzikert.

tion was either killed, starved or fled. Constantinople, while remaining a powerful city and still ruling territories in the west, had lost the heartland that had been the core of its military might.

Begin the Millennium

With the Byzantine bulwark against Islam gone, the balance of power across the Near East changed forever. The Muslims had the upper hand. In 1081 Alexius Commenus assumed the throne and began to attempt another restoration of Byzantine power. The empire, however, was literally a hollow shell of its former self: it controlled only the coastlines of Anatolia, though its hold was still secure at Constantinople and

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Ways of War

The Seljuks were lightly armed horse archers who used harassing fire and feigned retreats to lure their foes into exhausting chases. They would then use their superior mobility to turn and ambush their foes. When executed by a sufficiently large number of cavalrymen, that stratagem could result in entire armies being surrounded and destroyed. There was nothing new about those tactics; Western writers had recorded them as being used by the ancient Scythians and Parthians. Seljuk armies were recruited from two sources. The sultans and amirs maintained askaris, professional soldiers, often including heavier-armed Mamluk horsemen. The majority of horse troopers were tribal auxiliaries, armed and equipped as light horse-archers. Some locales also supplied light infantry of various types. While large numbers of such auxiliaries could be raised, the problem was keeping them in the field for extensive periods of campaigning. Indiscipline, treachery and looting often signaled that tribal hosts would soon thereafter vanish. That made good leadership and opening new regions to pillage essential for the Seljuks. The Byzantine army, while tracing its origins back to the late Roman military, was based essentially on a system implemented in the 7th century. The empire was divided into military themes. Each theme had a contingent of farmers who were responsible for providing military service. The farmersoldiers were paid during peacetime and could be called to serve fulltime during war. Each theme was commanded by a strategos (general) who had a retinue of fulltime soldiers. There was also a regular army consisting of units called tagmata, about 4,000 men each. At the center of the military establishment were assorted imperial guard units. One famous unit was the axe-armed Varangian Guard, originally consisting of Russian mercenaries, but later recruited from all over Europe—including Harald Hardrada who would later go on to become King of Norway and then perish fighting the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. Byzantine infantry units consisted of a mix of heavy spearmen and light archers, providing for an integrated “combined arms” approach on the battlefield. Byzantine infantry was generally more heavily armed and armored

Clash of arms: Byzantines versus Turks. than their eastern counterparts. Cavalry consisted of a mix of armored horsemen and lighter archers. The Byzantines also made extensive use of mercenaries and auxiliaries who could be bribed into serving on their side. The overall system, while effective in raising large numbers of troops quickly (and preventing them from being recruited by the other side), got out of hand as the army came to rely too much on foreign troops. The Byzantines also had regular engineer, medical and supply services. That gave their armies more resiliency in the field, and reduced the logistical burden placed on the countryside through which it marched. Byzantine generals had devised tactics to counter mounted archers, and those methods were generally successful. The most common ploy was to maneuver hostile horse bowmen onto terrain unsuitable for cavalry, while the Byzantines then moved to a position where the enemy was backed against a natural obstacle such as a river, cliff or canyon. Byzantine armies deployed in two lines, with a reserve behind that. The front line included heavy cavalry and horsearchers who would attempt to pin down a foe with fire and well-controlled charges. The second line consisted of a combination of heavy and bow-armed infantry who would provide covering fire and a solid base of maneuver. The second line would also ensure the front wasn’t enveloped by a more mobile foe. Light cavalry protected the flanks; scouts reconned for ambushes, and a reserve force remained in the bivouac, ready to turn it into a defensive position in case the battle lines were forced to retreat. With a well trained and disciplined army, those tactics generally proved successful. Such was not the case at Manzikert.

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in the Balkans. Alexius appealed to the Christian West for reinforcements to fight the Turks. He was probably looking for some mercenaries, but in 1095 Pope Urban II called for united Western action against the Muslims. The response was the launching of the First Crusade in 1096, the purpose of which was to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Land. That was certainly not what Alexius had wanted or expected, but it set into motion a chain of events that would see European armies fighting in the Middle East over the following two centuries. The irony is the Crusades didn’t save Byzantium. In 1204 the armies of the Fourth Crusade, embroiled in the politics of that day, seized Constantinople and destroyed the city’s power. While the Byzantines would eventually regain the city, the empire would never recover from that blow. In 1453 the once mighty capital would fall to the Ottoman Turks, who would become the regional superpower for centuries following. Looking back, one can only ask what would have happened had the Byzantines won at Manzikert. Had Alp Arslan been defeated, might Islam have been pushed farther back to the east and south, while the divided Christian church reconciled with itself and reunified? The power of the medieval Vatican was immense. If it had been combined with the host of adherents of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Near East 42

might have been completely dominated by the forces of a united Christianity. The Crusades would not have been necessary, and the damage caused by them to Byzantium might never have occurred. The Byzantines themselves might have retaken Jerusalem from their bases in northern Syria. Successive waves of Islamic invaders would have been repulsed on Anatolia’s eastern frontiers instead of at the gates of Vienna. Islam, a crucial force in today’s Middle East, might have been relegated to subsidiary status. Perhaps, but all that was decided on that fateful day at Manzikert.

Sources

Canard, M. Byzantium and the Moslem World to the Middle East of the 11th Century/Cambridge Medieval History, volume IV, edited by J. Hussey, Cambridge Press, 1966. Charanis, P. Byzantium, the West and the Origin of the First Crusade, Byzantion Press, 1949. Friendly, Alfred. The Dreadful Day: The Battle of Manzikert, 1071, Hutchinson & Co., 1981. Nersessian. S. Armenia and the Byzantine Empire, Cambridge Press, 1947

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Tanks in the Wire: Lang Vei, February 1968 by Kelly Bell

US Special Forces troops and Montagnards. On the morning of 24 January 1968, Lt. Paul Longgrear noticed what seemed to be a column of refugees trekking along South Vietnam’s Highway 9 from the direction of Laos. Longgrear was with a US Special Forces unit, Operational Detachment A-101, which had built its combat base just a mile east of the Laotian border near a village called Lang Vei. The Lang Vei base was there to maintain surveillance of the South Vietnamese frontier, since the North Vietnamese Army used supposedly neutral Laos as a staging ground and sanctuary. Longgrear’s assumption that the party was made up of refugees was correct, and the American would have a great deal more to learn from that peculiar procession. They had information about a new Communist offensive called “Tet”—and a new enemy weapon.

At the Gates

Longgrear was greeted by an English-speaking Lao officer wearing a US Army paratrooper uniform and carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. He identified his motley command as the 33rd Royal Laotian Elephant Battalion. Aside from the soldiers, over 2,200 noncombatants were also with the unit (which included no elephants). Though the newcomers seemed nonthreatening, their sudden appearance made the Americans wary. Longgrear ordered his base Mobile Strike (MIKE) Force to disarm the Laotians. The MIKEs were mercenaries from the warlike Hre and Bru mountain tribes (often called “Montagnards”), who were fierce fighters against both the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC). Lang Vei commander Capt. Frank Willoughby interrogated the Lao officer, who claimed to be a colonel who’d trained in the United States. The colonel told strategy & tactics


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Outpost: Special Forces troop looking out from a base camp. Willoughby his outfit had been attacked by North Vietnamese regulars two days earlier in the Laotian border village of Ban Houei San. He claimed those Communists had been elements of the NVA 304th and 325th Infantry Divisions. Most significantly, he said tanks spearheaded the attack. Since the Communists had never before used tanks against US forces in Vietnam, the report was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. Lang Vei was in a forward position, and the Special Forces’ duties had shifted from border surveillance and area pacification into almost daily fire fights with Communist forces probing from Laos. The enemy build-up had to mean something, and the abrupt appearance of tanks could mean that something was about to start. Willoughby’s concerns were validated when, later that day, US Air Force ground attack jets spotted and attacked five NVA tanks just inside the Laotian border. The jets knocked out one tank but lost the others in the jungle. Back at Lang Vei, the Laotian colonel’s report was suddenly accorded new respect when, on 30 January, a North Vietnamese deserter told the Americans a major assault on Lang Vei was planned, but for reasons unknown to him had been repeatedly postponed. He also claimed to have heard the unmistakable clanking of tank tracks in the jungle adjacent to his bivouac. 44

That same day, a Special Forces patrol discovered a clandestine hard-surface road built into the bed of the shallow Sepone River marking the Vietnam-Laos border. That would make it possible for armor to approach Lang Vei while leaving only minimal tracks. On 3 January the Marines at Khe Sanh engaged and killed a group of NVA soldiers outside that base. Marine intelligence ascertained the dead were NVA regimental staff officers who’d been on a personal reconnaissance of Khe Sanh. There was then little doubt in the US military command that a major enemy attack was in the offing in the I Corps Zone that covered northern South Vietnam. American intelligence shifted into overdrive, quickly identifying two regiments of the NVA 325C Division camped 15 miles northeast of Khe Sanh, two regiments of the 320th Division about 15 miles to the northwest, and the 304th Division stationed just across the border in Laos. Those units had to be there for a reason, and Khe Sanh and Lang Vei were the obvious targets. Responding to the information about enemy armor, Willoughby had more than 100 M-72 light anti-tank weapons (LAW) rush-delivered to Lang Vei. The M-72 LAW was a one-shot, disposable version of the World War II bazooka. He immediately set his men to training with the weapon. He also reinforced the already

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thick belts of concertina and tanglefoot wire along the perimeter, emplaced claymore and anti-tank mines, and strengthened his bunkers with 8x8 timbers. The captain also brought four 4.2-inch mortars, two 81mm mortars and 19 60mm mortars into the already bristling camp. He positioned his two 106mm recoilless anti-tank rifles to face the likeliest approaches for enemy armored vehicles. (Recoilless rifles were tripod-mounted tubes that fired an artillery shell. The barrel was designed to vent exhaust gases out the rear and counterbalance the recoil normally imparted by the shell propellant’s ignition, hence the term, “recoilless rifle.”) One recoilless rifle had its field of fire down Highway 9, and the other south on the road leading to the nearby village of Lang Troi. He also had his four 57mm recoilless rifles loaded with flechette antipersonnel rounds. Last, he made certain his two .50caliber and two 7.62mm M-60 machineguns, and 39 Browning Automatic Rifles (BAR), were ready. While the BAR was designed during World War I, it was still an effective weapon for jungle warfare. By nightfall on 5 February, Lang Vei was ready.

Tanks in the Wire

At 12:42 a.m., 6 February 1968, eleven Sovietbuilt PT-76 amphibious tanks hit the installation from several directions. The first approached from the south via an abandoned road. Turning their hull-mounted searchlights onto the wire barricades, the tank commanders stood in their turrets and sent two soldiers on foot to cut through the outer fence. The garrison had been alerted when one of the tanks had run over and set off a trip flare. Lang Vei’s startled defenders were able to see the NVA soldiers through the eerie green flare-tinged fog, and immediately shot the pair at the wire. The tank commanders ducked back inside their machines, buttoned up, and charged their vehicles straight through the camp’s fence. Watching from the roof of the command bunker, Sgt. Nick Fragos screamed into his radio microphone: “We have tanks in the wire!” The battle of Lang Vei was underway. Longgrear shouldered his LAW and pressed the trigger, but it misfired. He picked Meanwhile at Khe Sanh: USMC machinegunners prepare to repel a North Vietnamese attack. 46

up another but it also misfired. In desperation he rearmed the firing mechanism and again pressed the trigger. That time it worked, and the rocket sped forward and hit an incoming tank’s hull. Instead of penetrating the armor and exploding, however, the rocket ricocheted straight up, doing no damage to the target. Longgrear and his men fell back to the command bunker and reported to Willoughby. Willoughby shoved LAWs at his tank-killer teams and led them outside while Spec. Frank Dooms radioed Da Nang (the main US base in I Corps) and nearby Khe Sanh to report the attack. At Khe Sanh the Marines at first refused to believe the report, attributing it either to the Army perpetrating a practical joke or having lost its nerve in the nighttime jungle. Dooms reset his frequency and called directly to Khe Sanh’s fire direction center. When he shouted into his radio’s microphone that he could hear tank engines backfiring, the bored-sounding reply was: “Negative. That must be the sound of your generators backfiring.” At Lang Vei, Special Forces troopers and mercenaries were engaged in fierce firefights with NVA sappers who’d penetrated the wire. They radioed to an Air Force forward air controller (FAC) circling overhead to send in an air strike. It couldn’t come too soon. Six more tanks were clanking down Highway 9 to assault Lang Vei from the east. Dooms finally prevailed and convinced the Marines Lang Vei was under attack by enemy armor. NVA gunners at Co Roc were dropping 152mm howitzer shells on Khe Sanh; so it was apparent something big was afoot. Marine artillery, in range of Lang Vei, began firing in support of the beleaguered outpost. At 1:00 a.m. a FAC informed Willoughby a C-47 “Spooky” gunship had arrived. Willoughby told the FAC to have the airplane fire flares and illuminate the south perimeter so targets could be identified. He then snatched Dooms’s microphone and ordered the Marine gunners to bombard Highway 9. As Spooky showered parachute flares, heavy shells began crashing along the road, halting the incoming tank column. SFC James Holt fired his 106mm recoilless rifle against the tanks advancing from the south. His first shot destroyed the lead tank as it rumbled up the Lang Troi road. Moments later he knocked out the second tank. As crewmen scrambled from the burning machines, Holt reloaded his 106mm with a flechette round and fired. The swarm of tiny steel darts hummed like hornets as they cut down the fleeing tankers. By that time Lang Vei’s defenders were engaged in hand-to-hand combat with NVA infantry pouring through the gaps the tanks had ripped in the wire. Holt was last seen pumping round after round of flechettes at an oncoming tank. He tried to move back just as his position was overrun, never to be seen again. He’s still listed as missing in action.

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At that moment fire slackened as the NVA infantry facing Lang Vei’s Companies 102 and 103 broke off. The mercenaries cheered because they believed they’d beaten back the Communists. But the reason the Communists had backed off was to allow four more tanks to pass through to the camp’s eastern defenses. Those machines scattered Companies 102 and 103. Surviving Montagnards scrambled onto Highway 9 and fled north, only to be slaughtered as they ran into North Vietnamese ambush positions surrounding the base. One of the circling FAC, USAF Capt. Gerald L. Harrington, used his Starlight scope to pinpoint the location of the tanks’ muzzle flashes. He marked their positions with white phosphorus flares, then radioed an approaching B-57 bomber to target the markers. The three tanks the bomber attacked were stationary, firing their main guns into the command bunker. The pilot dropped four general-purpose bombs. Harrington was delighted to see all three tanks go up in oily flames. At 2:30 a.m. Lang Vei’s forward observation post was overwhelmed, and more PT-76s began attacking the crumbling command bunker. A tank shell hit the door, spraying the men inside with high-velocity debris and collapsing the entrance. Outside, Lt. Col. Daniel Schungel, who’d been in camp only a few hours, ran through the confusion to momentary safety in the base teamhouse. At 3:00 a.m. he spotted five NVA approaching with AK-47s and satchel charges. He shouldered his M-16 and shot them down, but also set off one of their charges, which wounded him in the leg.

Passing the Buck

At this moment Willoughby decided it was time to call for the Marines to mount a relief expedition to extract his dwindling command. Raising Khe Sanh; he reported: “Americans are dying up here! For God’s sake help us!” Khe Sanh’s junior officers were eager to comply, but when they asked their superiors in Da Nang for permission to proceed the brass said “No.” Higher command feared sending ground troops on the five-mile trek from Khe Sanh to Lang Vei in the rain forest at night would be both too risky and too time-consuming. At the same time, the FAC reported some of the tanks had withdrawn from the fighting, and had taken up overwatch positions on the helicopter landing zones outside the camp, precluding aerial rescue. So the senior Marines contacted Gen. William Westmoreland, the US commander in Vietnam, and asked for guidance. At first light, Westmoreland boarded a C-130 in Saigon and headed for Da Nang to take a closer look. By then, of course, the Communist Tet Offensive was a week old.

NVA Armor

The first battle-tank used by the North Vietnamese against American forces in Vietnam was the Soviet-built PT-76 amphibious tank. The USSR began shipping those snorkel-equipped machines to North Vietnam in 1967, and they were first used to overrun the US Army Special Forces at Lang Vei on 6-7 February 1968. Prior to that engagement there had been no significant use of Communist armor against Free World forces in Southeast Asia. Unprepared US and Montagnard troops were unable to hold their positions despite inflicting grievous casualties on their attackers. Over the next several years the Soviet Union supplied the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) with the T-55 main battle tank. Though NVA crews initially handled the machine ineptly, they quickly learned from their mistakes and made effective use of the tanks in their 1972 offensive. The main problem the NVA had was in coordinating their infantry with the armor. The tanks often outran their own supporting infantry, leading to the vehicles’ destruction by tankkiller teams. Even so, armored warfare was a big step forward for the NVA from its origins as a guerrilla army. Main battle tanks used by Communist forces in Vietnam. PT-76 amphibious tank Weight—13.78 tons Armament—one 76mm D-56T rifled cannon, one 7.62mm SGMT machine gun. Range—155 miles on land, 62.5 miles on water. Speed—27mph on land, 6.25mph on water. Crew—3 Used later in the Vietnam War by the NVA. T-55 main battle tank Weight—39.7 tons Armament—one 100mm D-10T rifled cannon, two 7.62mm PKT machine guns. Range—310 miles Speed—30mph Crew—4 Main battle tank used by US and South Vietnamese forces in Vietnam. M48 Patton main battle tank Weight—50 tons Armament—One 105mm M68 rifled cannon, three 7.62mm NATO M73 machine guns, one .50-caliber M2 HB machine gun Range—309 miles Speed—30mph Crew—4

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The Green Berets in Vietnam

As far back as 1962, US Special Forces—more popularly known as the “Green Berets” from their headgear—had worked tirelessly to recruit, equip and train highland Vietnamese (known generically as “Montagnards,” a term used by the French for all the tribes living in the mountains) to fight the Communists. That effort was vital because lowland Vietnamese, north and south, had traditionally regarded the hill tribes with contempt. The Montagnards therefore felt little affinity to outsiders, but they lived in strategic locations that could be used to control South Vietnam’s porous borders. Careful not to appear ethnocentric, Special Forces soldiers learned the hill peoples’ dialects, wore the local dress, and practiced area customs to win their loyalty and affection. Some observers thought the Special Forces were “going native,” and their new found love of the exotic native culture would distract them from their primary mission in Southeast Asia—to prevent a Communist takeover. But Special Forces’ techniques proved effective in forging the Montagnards into an efficient fighting force. After opening a military training school in Soa Cam, adjacent to Hue, the Special Forces first began training a Montagnard cadre. Introducing them to modern weapons, and paying them with such new temptations as money, cigarettes and Pepsi-Cola, the Green Berets accomplished two aims: molding those men into an efficient fighting machine and ensuring their loyalty. Montagnard and Special Forces cadres then moved out to the highlands and recruited units from the tribesmen there. They built camps and used them as bases from which to conduct patrols, ambushes and black operations across the border. The chain of Special Forces camps also screened South Vietnam’s major population centers against NVA infiltration. Special Forces personnel also conducted civic action missions among the Montagnard civilian populace, helping them build hospitals and schools, and improving their agriculture. It was a hearts and minds operation that worked. strategy & tactics


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NVA Sappers

North Vietnamese army sappers were considered the elite of that army. They were specially trained for infiltration, assault and sabotage. Sappers were sent in ahead of a main force to neutralized defenses and seize critical positions. Throughout the course of the Vietnam War, the sapper branch expanded, fielding full regiments by 1972. A typical sapper training course included the following. Hours of training 40

120 48 72

120 144 72

168 216 24 24 72 48

Topics

Explosives, black powder, TNT, safety, explosives in mines.

Wiring and electric power, electricity measurement and its sources, types of wiring, protecting wire. Reconnaissance: principles, organization of a scout team, scouting airfields, bases, routes, ports, docks and bivouacs. Camouflage: methods, individual movement, lighting.

Overcoming obstacles with explosives: barbed wire, trenches, mine fields, bangalore torpedoes, assault planning. Penetration of enemy positions, night training.

Coordination among sapper cells; formations, weapons and explosive preparation; assault operations. Overcoming natural and artificial obstacles: mud, deep water, ditches, dry leaves, lime, sand, grass. Using ladders and planks to negotiate barbed wire obstacles. Ambushing. Raiding.

Close Assault.

General Review. Final Test.

Source: http://www.gruntonline.com/NVAandVC/nva_sappers1.htm

Model terrain: Viet Cong planning an attack on a Special Forces camp.

Order of Battle, Lang Vei

Free World Twenty-six Special Forces (Green Berets) troops comprising Operational Detachment A-101, C Company, 5th Special Forces Group. Approximately 500 Montagnard troops comprising the 101st, 102nd, 103rd and 104th Mobile Strike (MIKE) Companies, and three combat reconnaissance platoons. Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces Team North Vietnamese Army Approximately 400 troops (one battalion) of the NVA 304th Infantry Division 50

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Part of the problem lay in the difference between the Special Forces and Marine approaches to war. The Marines felt Special Forces went too far in their efforts to establish close rapport with the locals, making them vulnerable to enemy agents and Communist sympathizers within the ranks of the tribesmen. Marine communications units monitored Army radio transmissions for anything that might compromise security. For their part, the Special Forces believed Marine tactics were too heavy handed for a guerrilla war. The Leathernecks patrolled in units so large they were easily detected by the enemy and were therefore easily ambushed. In any event, the unconventional warfare the Special Forces practiced made them seem like prima donnas to the Marines. But while inter-service cooperation may have been strained at times, the men of both services in the combat zone were burning to help one another, if only the senior commanders could agree on a plan.

Inner Perimeter

By 3:00 a.m. jubilant Communists were clustered around Lang Vei’s shattered command bunker. An NVA tank lurched onto its earthen roof and rocked back and forth in an unsuccessful attempt to collapse it atop the men inside. The machine did succeed in breaking off the radio antennas, leaving Willoughby with only short-range communications. He was just able to pick up an incoming transmission from nearby old Lang Vei camp, which was being used as a field hospital. A Special Forces medic, Sgt. First Class Gene Ashley, told Willoughby he’d assembled a force of Laotian irregulars to come to the new camp’s relief. After calling down an air strike on Lang Vei’s enemy controlled eastern boundary, Ashley led his men in a charge, only to be bracketed by machinegun fire. The Laotians melted away. Furious, Ashley caught up with them amid a cascade of mortar bombs, rallied his ragtag command and charged again. By then it was 7:00 a.m., full daylight, and the NVA intensified their efforts to wipe out the survivors inside the command bunker. They set off satchel charges against its crumbling walls, then threw thermite grenades and tear gas canisters down its airshafts. But the bunker’s defenders held. The attackers finally dug out the entrance and shouted down the stairs that if those inside gave up they would be well-treated. At this moment the tribal contingent lost heart and surrendered. Their ranking officer led his men up the stairs where the Communists immediately gunned them down. Only eight shaken Americans were left inside. The besiegers then blew up the bunker door and tossed a bundle of Chinese hand grenades down the stairs. There was still no capitulation, so they set off a series of high explosives that obliterated the south wall and knocked the Americans unconscious. Just

then Ashley and his Laotians launched their second charge on the eastern perimeter. Ashley’s group had been reinforced by mercenaries who’d escaped the camp during the night, but again they were pinned by NVA fire. When the enemy counterattacked, Ashley radioed Willoughby: “It’s no good. I’m getting a lot of fire and we’re taking a lot of casualties. I’m gonna try again.” When a lull came in the enemy fire, Ashley renewed his attack, only to be thrown back yet again. Exhausted, his men staggered back to Highway 9. The NVA were having their own problems. US air support was keeping many of the Communist troops pinned down. As evening began to fall, the trapped Americans decided they’d waited long enough, and prepared to try and fight their way out. Willoughby managed to raise a FAC on the radio and requested air cover for the impending dash for safety. Inside the bunker, medic Spec. 4 James Moreland had lapsed into a coma and his comrades had to leave him behind. After three strafing runs by F-4 Phantoms, the seven walking wounded steeled themselves, climbed over the pile of slaughtered South Vietnamese, and staggered east across the smoldering compound. When an NVA machinegunner opened up on Willoughby’s procession, Longgrear replied with his CAR-15 and silenced him. The column hobbled a few more yards until a jeep driven by a South Vietnam-

Relief force, air cavalry style: Helicopter landing zone somewhere in Vietnam. strategy & tactics


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ese lieutenant named Quy suddenly roared up, seemingly out of nowhere, and gave the Americans a much-needed lift. It was, Longgrear said later, “the bravest thing I’ve ever seen a man do in combat.” Bouncing back down the road past astonished Communists, Lt. Quy trundled his passengers into a small clearing. A CH-46 helicopter that had been sent by Westmoreland picked up the survivors and flew them to the dispensary at Khe Sanh. At Lang Vei a strange quiet descended. It was 7 February 1968, and the North Vietnamese had successfully concluded their operation.

Aftermath

Of the 11 PT-76 amphibious tanks the NVA deployed that night, seven were confirmed destroyed, with two more listed as probable kills. Approximately 250 of the 400 men the 304th NVA Infantry Division sent against Lang Vei were estimated to have become casualties. Twenty-three of the camp’s 24 US Special Forces troops were dead, wounded or missing, including those who’d made it back to Khe Sanh. The Montagnards suffered worst, with 269 dead, wounded or missing. A major problem was defective and inadequate anti-tank weaponry. It had been the first encounter Free World forces had with Communist armor in Vietnam. Recoilless rifles had been used previously as “bunker busters” against enemy strongpoints or to fire anti-personnel rounds. More meticulous anti-tank training would be needed. Of course, Lang Vei was just part of the countrywide Tet offensive, during which the NVA and VC attacked targets throughout South Vietnam. Bigger battles were fought at Hue, Saigon and Khe Sanh.

The other side of the wire: North Vietnamese gunners. Lang Vei soon slipped into obscurity as the broader Tet offensive captured media attention worldwide. Nevertheless, Lang Vei was a novel and significant clash that heralded a new chapter in the war because of the Communists’ commitment of tanks to battle. The 1972 and 1975 NVA offensives would be led by tank regiments, and that long drive to Saigon can be said to have begun at Lang Vei.

Sources

Lightbody, Andy. and Poyer, Joe. The Illustrated History of Tanks, Publications International, LTD., 1989. Nalty, Bernard C. The Vietnam War, Crown Publishers, 1979. Stockwell, David B. Tanks in the Wire, Daring Books, 1989. Weir, William. Fatal Victories, Archon Books, 1993. Welsh, Douglas. The Complete Military History of the Vietnam War, Dorset Press, 1990.

After the wire: Allied troops inspect a knocked-out PT-76 tank 52

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A Fast & Easy Playing Series of Card Games Poland

This game depicts the German campaign against Poland in September, 1939. Historically, it was a stunning victory but the blitzkrieg strategy was untested and Poland expected to hold on long enough for other countries to intervene. In the game, the Germans strive to force the Polish surrender quickly by capturing Polish cities including the Polish capital, Warsaw. The Polish fight to defend their cities and stop the German advance. Cards depict the combat forces, objectives, and events of the campaign. $23.00

D-Day

June 6, 1944, the day that decided the fate of World War II in Europe. Now you command the Allied and Axis armies as each struggles to control the five key beaches along the Normandy coastline. If the Allied troops seize the beaches, Germany is doomed. But if the assault fails, Germany will have the time it needs to build its ultimate weapons. You get to make vital command decisions that send troops into battle, assault enemy positions, and create heroic sacrifices so others can advance to victory! $20.00

Midway

From June 4th to June 6th of 1942, a massive battle raged around the tiny Pacific island of Midway that changed the course of World War II. The victorious Imperial Japanese Navy was poised to capture the airfield on the island of Midway and thus threaten Hawaii and the United States. The only obstacle in their path was an outnumbered US fleet itching for payback for Pearl Harbor. You get to command the US and Japanese fleets and their squadrons of fighter planes, torpedo bombers and dive bombers in this epic battle! $20.00

North Africa

Covering the great battles of Erwin Rommel from 1941 to 1943, as he fought his way back and forth across the deserts of North Africa. LNA uses cards to represent the military units, supply convoys and objectives of the historic campaign. To win, you must consider your units’ combat power and maneuver options as well as their supply situation. The game features: the Afrika Korps, Tobruk, the Desert Rats, Malta, anti-tank guns, resupply from Europe, minefields and more. LNA is based around a new combat system that makes maneuver and planning as important as brute force. That approach is faithful to the historic MOTORIZED ADVANCE Starts Game in events, in which smaller forces were often able to defeat and rout larger ones by using better tactics and WESTERN DESERT planning. In LNA, battles can be won not only by overwhelming the enemy with firepower, but also by out-thinking and bluffing him. The dynamic game system puts you in charge of one of the most famous MOTORIZED theaters of WWII. $20.00

FORCE

4TH INDIAN DIV.

009

037

Play if your Attack Plan was successful. Inflict one extra loss for each motorized force you had committed to the battle.

War on Terror

Fight the war on terror with America’s cutting edge weapon systems! You have been charged with hunting down terrorists aiding regions SIEGE around the world and toppling their corrupt governments. To accomplish this, you have been given command of the latest weapons and best personnel America has to offer. You get to command elements of the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Special Forces and Propaganda Warfare. War on Terror is an ultra-low complexity card game for all ages. The focus is on fast card play, strategy, and fun interactive game play for 2-4 players. $20.00

All games include 110 full color playing cards and one sheet of rules.

PO Box 21598, Bakersfield CA 93390-1598 • (661) 587-9633 •fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com strategy & tactics


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DATA FILE: The Armies of Cobra By Paul Koenig

Tank landing ships unloading supplies on Omaha Beach, building up for the breakout from Normandy.

Germans 1944 Panzer Division

This unit was a simplification and standardization of the 1941 panzer division. The battalions of its armored, armored infantry and motorized infantry regiments could be combined in different ways to form battlegroups for combat. The divisional armored recon battalion was frequently used as a spearhead unit. Shortages of equipment dictated many of the reforms adopted. Only one infantry battalion in the division had half-tracks, though those vehicles were often also found in divisional recon and pioneer units. The division had plenty of self-propelled guns and half-track mounted heavy weapons. The tank regiment had two battalions, one with Pz IV and one with Pz V (Panther) tanks. While the total number of tanks was lower than in the early war panzer divisions, the Pz IVs and Vs were heavier 54

and much more effective. And even heavier Pz VI Tiger tank battalions could also be attached.

1944 Panzer-Grenadier Division

This was essentially a motorized infantry division, reinforced with armor. It had two motorized infantry regiments, plus an assault gun battalion, though the latter, on paper, was supposed to be a light tank regiment. Incidentally, the Germans treated assault guns as part of the artillery, using them for direct fire support of the infantry. They were also useful for antitank work. While the division might seem short of maneuver units on paper, Germans found from experience that six or seven motorized/armored battalions was about the maximum that could be used efficiently in mobile situations. Divisional units were similar to that of the panzer division.

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SS Panzer Division

This unit was a reinforced version of the 1944 panzer division. The infantry regiments had three battalions, one in each regiment having half-tracks. Each tank battalion had five tanks in each platoon instead of four (assuming the unit was at full strength, a rarity in combat). Additional battalions in the division were: a 170mm gun battalion (12 guns), a rocket launcher battalion (18 launchers), and an assault gun battalion (22 assault guns). While that gave the SS panzer division more organic firepower, it must be realized that many of those extra units would normally be assigned by corps and higher echelons to a regular army division going into the attack. Still, with only 10 percent more manpower, the SS panzer divisions had 42 percent more firepower than the army’s 1944 panzer division. They also got the pick of the recruit pool.

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1944 Infantry Divisions

During 1943 the manpower squeeze began to hit the Wehrmacht. The Germans were unable to find enough men qualified to serve as infantry, and the troops in the field needed more firepower. The solution was found in the reorganization of the infantry division. Total divisional manpower was reduced 27 percent, with infantry strength down by 31 percent. But weapons were upgraded. Heavier antitank guns, 120mm mortars, and organic assault guns were introduced to the infantry. The 1944 division was officially introduced in late 1943, though many of the changes had already been unofficially adopted on the Russian front. The major changes were the deletion of one infantry battalion per regiment, and the conversion of the divisional recon battalion into a fusilier battalion (which was to act as both a recon unit and a divisional mobile reserve). The reduction in infantry strength made it difficult for the division to hold extended fronts, but the lower manpower levels made it easier to provide replacements for depleted units. By late 1944, the infantry division would be reorganized again, this time to the Volksgrenadier format, with further reductions in manpower and equipment.

Static Infantry Divisions

These divisions lacked transportation and reconnaissance units, since they were envisioned for use, as the name implies, in static defensive positions such as holding coastlines or fortifications. The divisional battalions did not possess heavy weapons were, instead, left under the control of regimental headquarters. The “700” series static divisions were initially formed with two regiments, each with three battalions. Many of the static divisions in France underwent a conversion prior to the invasion so they contained three regiments of two battalions each. The three-regiment units were capable of generating more firepower because each HQ was only responsible for two battalions but had a full complement of heavy weapons.

Luftwaffe Field Divisions

The first attempt to solve the manpower crisis actually came in late 1942. Hermann Goering ordered the creation of Air Force field divisions staffed and controlled by the Luftwaffe. Goering got into the act because he did not want to transfer Air Force personnel to Army control as replacements for depleted divisions. Actually, there was some precedent for this move, as the Luftwaffe frequently fielded ground units to protect airfields on the Russian front. The new units were two-regiment divisions (three battalions per regiment), with all other components similarly scaled down. The only addition was a Luftwaffe flak battalion per division. The technical units (signal, artillery, engineers, etc.) were also from Luftwaffe personnel. But while the technical services were efficient, without good infantry up front the divisions as a whole could not withstand the shock of combat. Lacking sufficient infantry training and leadership, the Luftwaffe field divisions fell apart.

Some of these divisions included Ost battalions, formed from former Soviet prisoners of war. These units were of variable quality, with some disintegrating under fire. Considering the Germans knew what they were getting when they formed these divisions (they were intended to man fixed fortifications), many of them performed well.

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Flak Divisions

The Luftwaffe controlled most of the anti-aircraft outside of the army divisional and non-divisional flak units. Throughout 1941-42 that meant about 60 percent of the heavy flak guns (88mm or larger) under Luftwaffe control. But from 1943 on, as the Allied bombing of Germany went into high gear, some 90 percent of the heavy flak was under Luftwaffe control. Some heavy guns served with the Heer (army) under Luftwaffe control. They were organized into flak divisions, brigades, and regiments as well as flak corps. The flak battalion was the largest unit with a standard organization. There were light battalions with 70-80 20mm and 37mm pieces and heavy battalions with twenty-four 88mm guns and eight 20mm. Three of those battalions (usually a mixture of two of one and one of the other) made a flak regiment. The flak brigade contained a variable number of battalions or separate batteries. It was often as large or larger than a flak division. The major difference was that a flak brigade was usually a static (non-mobile) unit, while the flak division was a field formation containing a number of regiments or battalions. One flak corps was present in Normandy during the campaign. The flak units were often used on the front line either as artillery or, more frequently, as anti-tank guns. That exposed them to high losses, though they were effective in destroying Allied tanks.

Fallschirmjager (FJ) Division

The FJ (parachute infantry) were by 1944 another elite German formation, alongside the SS. They actually had little in the way of parachute training, but the German high command considered these units to be “fire brigades,” to be used as mobile reserves on the Reich’s crumbling frontiers. These divisions contained a high proportion of heavy weapons and were supposed to be motorized. At least until late 1944, personnel were well trained and highly motivated. By the end of the war, several of the FJ divisions had been formed from Luftwaffe ground personnel and suffered accordingly.

United States 1943 Armored Division

This was an attempt to make the paper organization for mobile units match the practice in the field—and it worked. The division included three combat command headquarter companies, which would be used by the divisional commander to task organize his units. Typically, a combat command would include a tank battalion, an armored infantry battalion, and an armored field artillery battalion, plus recon, engineer and other units. Each combat command, in turn, would task-organize its battalions into combined arms groupings by crossattaching units. The concept proved successful enough to be become the basis for the Cold War era US Army ROAD divisions.

1943-45 Infantry Division

This was intended to be a flexible combined arms formation. The infantry division was “lean,” with a minimum of support units. Recon, armor, engineer and additional artillery formations could be attached from corps and army levels as needed. Doctrine called for the division to form regimental-sized task forces organized for specific missions. While not as efficient as the German kampfgruppe system, the task forces worked in the field. The American infantry division was motorized, though transport was not necessarily organic but rather coming from attached truck companies.

Airborne Division

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This formation included a variable number of parachute and glider infantry regiments, plus divisional assets. The artillery was light, since it had to be brought in via parachute or glider, consisting of 75mm pack howitzers. American airborne personnel were both highly trained and highly motivated. Their ability to fight when cut off would later prove critical when the 101st Airborne Division was surrounded at Bastogne during the Bulge.

Great Britain

1944 Armored Division

British armored divisions went through several evolutions during the war until this organization was settled on. The main change was a shift away from the original “masses of tanks” concept to a more balanced formation with infantry and artillery support. Divisional units could be organized into several task groups, each consisting of armor, infantry, reconnaissance and artillery support.

1944 Infantry Division

This unit remained fairly standard throughout the war, with minor reorganizations here and there. Divisional level units were frequently broken up and assigned down to the brigades. The primary organizational dilemma was at higher levels. By 1944 the manpower crunch was hitting the British, and infantry replacements were becoming increasingly more difficult to obtain.

1944 Airborne Division

This was a light unit, but that made sense given the necessity to deploy all assets via parachute or glider. Once landed, the division was expected to hold on long enough for conventional ground forces to reach and relieve it.

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jump into history! Highway to the Reich Highway to the Reich is a tactical simulation of the largest airborne operation in history. Over 35,000 men belonging to 1st Allied Airborne Army dropped from the skies of Holland. Their objective: capture and hold a highway. The result: a salient into German territory that lacked only the last objective, and was thus a tragic defeat. The 2,000-plus counters detail Gen. Brereton’s airborne corps of three divisions, the units of 30th Corps, and Model’s scattered and disheveled forces at company level for infantry; battery level for artillery, anti-tank and anti-air, and troop-level for tanks and armored cars. The four maps cover from the front along the Meuse-Escaut Canal to the area, nearly 200 hexes away, surrounding Arnhem Highway Bridge. Each map is positioned to cover the operational area of one airborne division in order to allow one-division scenarios. All the activities of each formation are completed before those of another are begun. Attacks start with a preliminary barrage, followed by fire attack by maneuver companies, and then close action with tanks and assault troops. All activities involve comparisons of involved units’ capabilities. Optional rules focus on hidden movement and multi-player variations, as well as giving the Allied player the opportunity to execute his own operational plan. The revisions have made this classic game easier and faster to play than ever before.

Contents: Four 22” x 34” maps 2,520 die-cut counters Rule & scenario books 6 Organization Charts Player Aid Cards Campaign Analysis Six-sided Dice

PO Box 21598 Bakersfield CA 93390

661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com

Order form on page 63. strategy & tactics


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Decision Games… Games

publisher of military history magazines & games

China: The Middle Kingdom

China: The Middle Kingdom covers the full scope of Chinese history, from its beginnings as a collection of warring feudal states, to the current cold war between China and Taiwan. In this epic game based on the classic Avalon Hill Britannia system, four players each control several factions simultaneously, with each faction having their own objectives and situations, such as conquering certain provinces. The winner is the player who scores the most points by the end of the game. This breathtaking game unfolds on an illustrated map of China with 432 counters, covering 50 separate countries and peoples, including all of the major dynasties of Chinese history, the arrival of the European powers, both World Wars and the Japanese invasion, right up to the end of the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists. The game occurs over 24 turns, starting from 403 BC, during the “Warring States” period as China begins to rise from its feudal age. The game has two shorter campaign scenarios covering the first half and second half of the full campaign game. Battles between armies can be dramatically affected by the presence of mountains, emperors, heroes, new inventions, and even the Great Wall. Rebellions, barbarian invasions, and uprisings may spring up from anywhere, and signal the end of one dynasty and the birth of a new dynasty. Diplomacy is as important as military strength. Each player continually must defend against multiple enemies on multiple fronts.

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Available Now! Flying Circus: Aerial Combat in WWI Flying Circus: Aerial Combat in WWI depicts the fun and flavor of World War I aerial dogfighting. You fly the colorful and agile aircraft of WWI as you make history in the world’s first use of aircraft in a military role. This is the basic game. You have everything you need to play single aircraft duels to multi-aircraft dogfights. Each aircraft has its own unique charateristics reflected in its ratings and special abilities. The basic game rules cover all the maneuvers that made WWI aerial combat: barrel rolls, stall turns, Immelmanns, vertical rolls and Chandelles. Outmaneuver your opponent to line up your guns and watch his planes go down in flames! Gamers who have played the Down in Flames game series will find many similarities in game play, however, previous experience is not necessary. The basic game rules can be read in less than 20 minutes and you can play your first game immediately.

110 full color playing cards & rules sheet

Flying Circus Deluxe: Bombers & Campaigns This is the deluxe game. You will need the basic game card deck to play this expanded version. Then you will have everything you need to play single aircraft duels and team play with multiple flights in swirling dogfights. This deluxe game adds rules for altitude, pilot abilities— including a deck of 25 pilot cards for historical campaigns—bombers, rear gunners, scouts and other optional rules. This deluxe game also includes cards and rules for playing multi-mission games of famous WWI campaigns such as Cambrai and Meuse-Argonne, along with a “Campaign Analysis” article detailing the development of the aircraft, their tactics and strategy. Contents: 110 Deluxe deck cards (bombers, scouts, plus more fighters & action cards) Deluxe Game rules booklet 6 Campaign Cards Pilot Log 36 Pilot & altitude cards Dice marker

Shipping Charges 1st unit

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20

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26

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28

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Highway to the Reich

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World at War magazine provides a sharp focus on WWII with the same in-depth format as Strategy & Tactics. Use the special subscription card inside to order now or order online. Don’t miss a single issue! US 1st Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge

Each issue is1 packed full of: • In-depth analysis Attachments XX

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• Detailed maps Counter II

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Intelligence

• Orders of Battle

II

(ñ)

US 4th Armored Division during the Battle of the Bulge XX

4 Attachments

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Counter Intelligence

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Diagram from next issue feature article on the Bulge, #3.

Map from upcoming article on Wake Island, issue #6.

P.O. Box 21598 Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598 ph: (661) 587-9633 • Fax: (661) 587-5031 www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com 64

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