Operations
![Unternehmen Sonnenwende[Operation Solstice]and its Impact on the Soviet Command](https://weaponsandwarfare.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Unternehmen-SonnenwendeOperation-Solsticeand-its-Impact-on-the-Soviet-Command-584x410.jpg "Unternehmen Sonnenwende[Operation Solstice]and its Impact on the Soviet Command 2")
Unternehmen Sonnenwende[Operation Solstice]and its Impact on the Soviet Command
Numbers of Soviet tanks and antitank guns were destroyed by German Tiger II heavy tanks of 503rd SS Heavy Tank Battalion, but the German heavy tanks also took losses. Soviet IS-2 in Stargard, 19 March 1945 The Vistula-Oder campaign had ended almost as suddenly as it had begun. As Zhukov’s 1st Byelorussian Front and Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front hurtled toward…
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What If: The Kamikaze and the Invasion of Kyushu? I
The lecture on logistic considerations for the recent invasion of Kyushu was going well. Nearly 160 students, faculty, and guests filled Pringle Auditorium at the Naval War College on this blustery Tuesday evening in November 1946 to hear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner. A 1908 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy,…
What If: The Kamikaze and the Invasion of Kyushu? II
The officer students were more willing to respectfully interject themselves into Commodore Bates’s comments than they were to interrupt Turner, and a former destroyer captain immediately spoke up. “That’s theoretically true, sir, but anyone who experienced the Philippines and Okinawa, or the raids on Japan, knows that in most instances…
What If: The Kamikaze and the Invasion of Kyushu? III
Typhoon Louise Strikes “Was it Louise,” asked one, “was it the October typhoon that killed the plan?” “Ultimately, yes. It had been a hard sell to begin with. The shipping crisis that had come to a head at Leyte had never been completely solved and there was a legitimate concern…
What If: Halsey and Kurita at Leyte Gulf? I
By the autumn of 1944 even the most dedicated Japanese naval officer could recognize that things were not going well in his country’s war with the United States and its allies. Beginning with their seizure of the Marshall Islands in February, the third year of the war had been marked…
What If: Halsey and Kurita at Leyte Gulf? II
Sailing towards Leyte Gulf from left to right CA Chikuma, BB Nagato, BC Haruna, BC Kongo and CA Tone. Remember Pearl Harbor But Nishimura had been spotted, and although no further attacks were launched against him for the remainder of the day, the Americans were not idle. Given ample warning…
SOVIET OPERATIONAL-LEVEL LOGISTICS IN 1944 Part I
It quickly became apparent in the first period of the war that logistics was the least thought-through element of Soviet military theory. Rear services (i.e., logistic) units were cumbersome, immobile, and unable to adapt to fluid conditions. Planning was fragmented, ineffective, and often disconnected from the operational concept it was…