Text taken from an article posted by TASS website.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Article by military history of Alexey Isaev on the 80th anniversary of Operation Bagration
by Alexey Isaev
80 years ago, on June 23, 1944, Operation Bagration began. Many superlative epithets can be applied to it: the largest defeat of the German army in its entire history, one of the biggest intelligence errors in the entire history of wars, the most successful actions of the Soviet Air Force against the enemy in the entire war.
However, there are two more things that make Operation Bagration unique in its kind. Firstly, this is the transition from a series of failures to brilliant success in the same strategic direction. Throughout the winter of 1943–1944, the front in Belarus practically did not move. There was a series of positional battles that did not bring success. The headquarters of the Supreme High Command demanded to reach Minsk, but it was not possible to move even to Orsha and Bobruisk. Secondly, "Bagration" had a huge influence on the movement of the entire front from the Gulf of Finland to the Black Sea. Pulling reserves from other army groups, bypassing powerful defensive lines - all this predetermined the entire summer-autumn campaign of 1944 and the movement of the entire front. German defenses crumbled from the Baltic states to Romania.
THE READINESS OF THE GERMANS AND THE PLANS OF THE USSR
By the summer of 1944, Army Group Center numbered about 861,000 people and occupied a front of 970 km (34% of the entire length of the Soviet-German front). At the same time, firstly, the Civil Aviation Center "Center" had only one tank division and there was not a single new Panther tank. Secondly, the 6th Air Fleet in Belarus had only 66 single-engine fighters (or 6% of the 1,051 combat-ready vehicles of this type that the Luftwaffe had). In total, the 6th Air Fleet at that time had about 700 combat-ready aircraft, including 300 bombers.
The neighboring Army Group Northern Ukraine was much stronger. There were tank divisions, Tigers, Panthers, and a more complete aviation group. The reason for this imbalance was an incorrect assessment of Soviet plans for the summer of 1944. Not only Adolf Hitler personally, but also many of his generals believed that the main blow of the Red Army would follow in Western Ukraine and Moldova.
In the winter, Soviet troops achieved success in the southern sector of the Soviet-German front; it was logical to assume that this success would be developed further.
Paradoxical as it may sound, the original plan for the Soviet offensive envisaged just such a move: a strike in Western Ukraine. This solution was proposed by Joseph Stalin with reference to the winter successes. It took a lot of effort for Alexei Antonov (then head of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff of Aviation) and Georgy Zhukov (representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters) to convince the Supreme Commander-in-Chief that the summer operations of 1944 should begin on the “Belarusian balcony.”
To carry out the operation, troops from four fronts were assembled: the 1st Baltic Front, the 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Fronts and the right wing of the 1st Belorussian Front. In total, 1,211,000 people, 24,000 guns with a caliber of 76mm and higher, 4,070 tanks and self-propelled guns were involved in the offensive. The most powerful strike groups were assembled in the 3rd Belorussian Front (372,000 people, 7,000 guns and 1,810 tanks and self-propelled guns) and on the right flank of the 1st Belorussian Front (419,000 people, 8,300 guns and 1,297 tanks and self-propelled guns).
The fronts opposing Army Group Center, on the one hand, were strengthened - armies and tank corps were transferred to Belarus from other directions. On the other hand, the German command, withdrawing regiments and divisions from the Military Aviation Center "Center" to patch up defenses in other sectors, crossed the line of reason and quantity turned into quality. The latter was expressed, for example, in the appointments of commanders. The GA "Center" was headed by Field Marshal Ernst Busch, who had experience of predominantly positional battles, the so-called infantry military commander.
There was a numerical superiority of the Soviet troops, but it was not so significant. The secret of success was meticulous preparation, and the most important component of success was long-range aviation. Soviet heavy bombers were given the task of hitting an atypical target for them - enemy artillery positions. Artillery was the mainstay of the defense of the GA "Center" in winter battles, and it was precisely this artillery that prevented success during the first months of 1944.
The idea of such a massive use of the Air Force was proposed by Zhukov, who was sent as a representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters to coordinate the actions of the 1st and 2nd Belarusian Fronts (previously it was he who was the creator of successes in Right-Bank Ukraine). The plan was supported by Alexander Vasilevsky, who was responsible for the offensive of the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Baltic fronts.
The second factor in the success of the USSR forces was the training of soldiers and junior commanders of the Red Army formations, their training on exact copies of German defensive lines built in the rear. This made it possible to hone the attack of the enemy defense down to the smallest detail. Reconnaissance was also carried out carefully, including enemy artillery positions.
However, at the last moment, it seemed that everything might fall through. Bad weather was not conducive to aviation operations. However, well-trained pilots managed to cope and, on the night before the start of the operation, carried out precise strikes on enemy artillery positions.
Particularly noteworthy was the use of superior air forces, which operated on a previously unknown scale and suppressed our artillery for hours, which was practically defenseless against non-stop bombing and assault attacks. Thus, the main weapon of defense at the decisive moment was put out of action.
FROM THE REPORT ON THE ACTIONS OF THE GERMAN 9TH ARMY, THE WEHRMACHT NEVER RECOVERED
Having knocked his main argument out of the hands of the enemy, Soviet troops successfully broke through the defenses, which had held out for many months. Tank corps rushed into the breaches (there were more of them than the Germans). The only German 20th Panzer Division then rushed about Bobruisk between two strike groups and was expectedly defeated. As a result, the cities of Vitebsk and Bobruisk were surrounded, and two gaps gaped in the formation of the Wehrmacht in Belarus.
The main forces of the Military Aviation Center "Center" were forced to retreat to Minsk. The retreating columns were destroyed from the air in bottlenecks and at crossings. In summer and good weather, air raids became most effective. The breakthrough of two Soviet tank corps to Minsk completed the matter. On July 3, 1944, Minsk was liberated, and an encirclement ring was formed east of the capital of Belarus. The "boilers" collapse quickly.
The German command was forced to withdraw reserves from other directions. The new commander of Army Group Center, Walter Model, tried to build a new front by blocking a kind of “corridors” in the Belarusian forests, Nalibokskaya Pushcha and the Pripyat region. However, his plan failed. In mid-July, the armies of the left wing of the 1st Belorussian Front near Kovel went on the offensive. The result was a breakthrough to Warsaw and another “cauldron”, the encirclement of German troops near Brest.
At the cost of colossal efforts and losses, the Wehrmacht managed to contain the Soviet offensives along the borders of East Prussia, on the Narew and Vistula. But bridgeheads had already been captured on the Vistula, which in the winter of 1944–1945 became a springboard for the attack on Berlin.
During Operation Bagration, 17 German divisions were completely destroyed, 50 lost more than half of their strength. The human losses of the German army in Belarus are estimated at 350,000 people, of which about 150,000 were captured. The restoration of the front after the disaster in Belarus required the German command to transfer 46 divisions from other directions with their weakening. This led to the fact that soon the entire German group from Narva to Chisinau collapsed under the blows of other fronts.
The Wehrmacht never recovered from the crushing blow of Bagration. There was less than a year left before the end of the war