Operations
The Saipan Mission – Plan for a “Special Attack of IJN Battleships”
The disastrous Philippine Sea battle left the Imperial Navy in the position of having important forces in a combat zone completely dominated by the Allies. Not only were more than 15,000 sailors caught in the trap, but also those endangered included skilled ship artificers and aircraft mechanics, Japanese communications intelligence experts, naval infantry, and the staffs and commanders of the…
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The “Surge”? Part II
Petraeus was aware of the shortfall and addressed it much as the equally energetic and willful Templer had done in Malaya—albeit with some modern technological flourishes. Petraeus drove his ideas home in his morning PowerPoint conference with staff and subordinates known as the Battle Update and Assessment, in the nonstop…
Hunting the Haguro
The ‘Star Attack’ carried out to perfection by 26th Destroyer Flotilla. Haguro was hit by torpedoes from all points of the compass. She was doomed long before the 61-minute action began by her inexplicable failure to sight her foes until within 6 miles. Her Type 22 radar had a 212-mile…
Operation Bagration – Nazi Germany’s Greatest Defeat!
Operation Bagration began on June 22, 1944—three years to the day after the German invasion. The Red Army struck in the initial phase alone with 1.25 million men, more than 4,000 tanks and assault guns, more than 23,000 guns, mortars, and Katyushas, and almost 6,500 aircraft. Army Group Center simply…
WAR OF 1971 Part II
Illustration showing military units and troop movements during operations in the Eastern sector of the war. Shakargarh 1 Corps was responsible for offensive defence in the area around the Shakargarh Bulge. For this the Corps had 36, 39 and 54 Infantry Divisions, 2 (I) and 16 (I) Armoured Brigades with…
Volkssturm Casualties
For a variety of reasons, German personnel losses are hard to determine with any precision. Few of these cobbled-together units kept any records of losses, German graves registration had largely ceased to exist, and sympathetic civilians buried some of those killed. To gain a sense of the intensity of the…
THE KÖNIGSBERG POCKET
On 25 January 1945, in a tacit acknowledgement that German forces in East Prussia and the Courland Pocket were far behind the new front line, Hitler renamed three army groups. Army Group North became Army Group Courland; Army Group Centre (the army group surrounded in the Königsberg pocket) became Army…