Rzhev Slaughterhouse - Battles of the Rzhev Salient (1942-1943)

time to talk about the resilient or elusive slaughterhouse or shrewish of meat grinder depending on who you ask so in reshef meat grinder was a name given by the soviet soldiers to the rash of salient or the battles around there so big thank you to our patrons who voted on this topic so what is this this is basically the Red Army's Forgotten battles of 15 months campaigns from January 1942 to March 1943 now if you didn't hear about this battle of what these battles before there's a reason for this and I made a video about this why you probably never heard about this now for this video look the Chairman and it was Russian literature bit and in one point I can give you both sides a few which is quite interesting now first a little bit of orientation so reshef was a very important town and it was the center point of the reshef salient now the reshef salient was basically the post left after the Soviet counter-attack against the Germans in winter 1941 1942 basically stuck out like a sword towards Moscow if you take the more dramatic point of one english offer now as you can see this is quite important because it was still a threat to what assad capital and the swords for the most part assumed that in 1942 the chairman's would attack again and would try to strike moscow and not go for the south again Stalingrad additionally here's Cooper middle Army Group center was the strongest here as Cooper of the chairman's and it was also seen as a direct way to the right so one major aspect was the destruction encirclement of Army Group center several important railroad lines were in forest areas Wow and what is very important here is that the conventional view for 1942 is that the Chairman started case blue and were on the attack again during the summer and then rich dying ground and then count offensive haven't the Soviet counter-offensive now as you can see the convention views the Chairman's attack and the Soviets were on the defensive again like in summer 1941 yet the issue is in the reserved salient area for the most part the Soviets were attacking all of these 50 months eight months were offensive operations by the Soviet active of engine operations so thus this these battles or this campaign is sometimes called The Forgotten battles and it was not a minor issue now for the Chairman's for 1942 that the focus was clearly in the cellphone area his Blue Heaven and the offensive was going on for a center there was a lack of reinforcements there was a lack of the Luftwaffe the Germans didn't completely cease operations but the goal of all these operations was to strengthen the defensive of the reshef salient not to conduct any strategic operations now in total four major Soviet operations happen and they all had the attempt to encircle Army Group center and destroyed now let's look at this chronologically the first Soviet operation was from January to April 1942 and it was performed by cavalry and also a upon formations mainly and the camera was initially quite successful it cut the railway line between Smolensk and V asthma this was done to a certain degree but a so-called bellof group under general Beloff for the airborne units they were less successful they did some successful landings but the problems there was a lack of transport aircraft in those a coordination deliver for the most part they could create some say that some pockets inside the German lines but yeah well sooner or later destroyed now very important here later very known german general model was actually deployed around february 1942 he replaced the command of the 9th army who was not deemed fit for the purpose and in february 1942 Zhukova seg we assigned to this areas Wow so as you can see even from the from the channels deployed there this was not a sideshow Nala so let's continue the attacks in March again but this was but then morass p'tee said the toying of the snow and everything happened so everything turned into a huge sea of mud and in April the 33rd army was basically encircled and destroyed by the Germans now this was one of the highest bloodiest battle of this of this whole raft battles and the losses are around 700 to 900 thousand depending on the source so quite extensive amount of losses here now after this major assault operation the Chairman tried to stabilize the salient cleared several pockets the soffits created was still held so they were operational number one and turn over to and the swords actually broke out with the group bail off with discovery unit and in operation sidelights in July the chances to at the 39th army so they basically stabilized in large part of the sale and in clear out so the troops to penetrate during the previous that's additional should also be mentioned or perhaps even clamour which was the whole idea for the chairman's was to convince the soviets that the attack in the summer would be against Moscow on the center so there were several plans and headquarters created to to fame basically an attack we don't we know that that the Soviets and Charlie were convinced that the Germans would attack again in the center area or against Moscow yet what I found nobody knows if this operation actually was effective or not now from late July to late September 1942 the sort conducted the second major offensive operation and first the German few there are a few shallow penetrations in the area but they were already a fret because reshef was very close to the defensive lines so they had to actually really Pro ISM troops to schedule for another operation and also Hitler allows to use the reserves of Harris committee of Army Group center and initially the Germans wanted to do an organized counter-attack when they bring in the new units but then they realize okay we actually can't do this and the immediately deploy all the troops the gods once they are basically redeployed so no no concentrating them and for concentrated because the situation is that critically and they're actively fear of running out of manpower now him only comes into play he's very good at mobilizing troops to defense so what he does doesn't agree he uses construction units and everyone else and basically prefers him Chavez them to the front to hold the line and there's a very important aspect here the chair of military historians in Germany in the second one we conclude that Hitler probably drew the wrong conclusion from these battles because the Germans held out and this was his whew all along he was like the enemy world were out sooner than we do and this likely affected his decision around Stalingrad these days their assumption we can tell but it's very very interesting point on the side because usually most people talk about this map demands a lift anyway now the russian view is actually a bit different russian off the pointer of the chairman's have very strong defensive lines and everything and this quite interesting was determined for you actually notes that for the summer the German defensive line were not is wrong quite contrary to relate operations during winter and one major problem for the swords was that there was no recon in death so they saw the outer lines but not how deep they were and for the most part they only penetrate the first line of defence now the swords take heavy criticism after and they analyze the failure and they point out all the texts were mostly uncoordinated the different didn't coordinate well Vanara no exploitation of break-ins indecision lack of initiative and everything it is very important to point out that the solids on the strategic side had still the initiative they were attacking as such the Chairman's couldn't launch Dever as a text it planned my cooperation government and they could also not really ploy so they had to bring in reinforcements and has to use the reserves so as you can see although a Soviet attack was not successful from the strategic point the tremors are basically on the back foot now the third offensive was in November to December 1942 so parallel to operation Uranus and this operation is called Operation months and this is the main kind of suggest there's some similarity there and clans actively Causton twin operations because the goal of Operation Ramos was to in serving a sixth army at Stalingrad whereas the goal of operation month was to encircle the ninth army of mourning in the regiment now the Germans are better done in the summer the affair fortifications if more artillery and even white tank guns yet despite this the swords managed to me achieve break-in and cut the ribbon on between reshef and see Bianca for short amount of time the chairman's can reprove and send in reinforcements and save the situation and you must start a counter-attack and in surgery about 40,000 solids yet they also get one of their units in circle about 7,000 men the counter takes you feel and Hitler want us to hold them out and when he gives the break out order it's too late again very soon or not Stalingrad very minor aspect generally this operation month was also a failure and it's common sometimes shoe cuffs greatest defeat generally it's the determine success yet some of their formations plead out extensively now the chairman's have like these five criteria how to qualify divisions fully capable for all operations then suited for after minor refit and analyst like student for defensive operations and all this time I made a video where I talk about this in detail and in some cases they now consider some of the formations not even fit for offensive operations so battle of attrition against the chairman's is working out now the solids again do analysis and the conclusion what went wrong during the offensive the author of the Russian slaughterhouse points out a very interesting aspect she knows it's basically almost a one-on-one copy of the previous analysis to previous offence what went wrong now let's look at the situation in late 1942 early 1943 so starting what happened the Chairman's got the army in circle they are in quite a shock because they never assumed that the Soviets would be capable to encircle one of their large units and to conduct such a major operation successfully after the previous errors they have seen consequently even during case blue now the salient the rest of salient is still a threat against Moscow but their units are sometimes not capable of defending anymore they are going to plan out so there's no ability to attack and also the the the salient points out there so the threat of being encircled again while being in circuit here is also quite extensive so why hold on because there's no it doesn't make sense anymore so clear recommends in January 1943 to abandon the rash of Syria and Hitler agrees this leads to the evacuation operation buffalo this means building up defensive lines in the real two areas word troops can retreat also it's a staged withdrawal and you need to build roads and infrastructure to bring all back or the artery or they have equipment and everything around this initially the Germans take all a lot of loot out there and also bring several civilians with them which to basically kidnap and what they also do is of course squash earth policies demolition of to Exley out mines everywhere and the whole operation is from the 1st of March to the 24th of March now of course the so let's don't just sit there and wait till the Chairman's ever quit the fourth offensive is now launched and the goal is to encircle the troops in the rush of sailing it again yet the advance slowly there are several reasons for this the Chairman's basically retreat during the day but keep the artillery and several real God's unity of fighting so the the fight back they have staged about every ten to twelve kilometers they have a defensive situation set up like this artillery stored there and the file holder ammunition till it's gone and then the retreat further back usually the artillery would have rearguard units retreat during the night whereas everyone else retreats during the day also the the conductor were counter-attacks with mobile units Winston's tanks and stalks like the auto bells this is not a success for the Soviets here Lesko permitted was able to withdraw the salient although is cleared because the Germans left it and for the Germans the front is shortened as is for the Soviets and about 20 divisions for the Germans are freed up they can use now as reserves or redeployed somebody somewhere else now some general points about these barrels it's very important here these panels resemble more the fighting of over one and what is the battles of World War two so a lot of losses for very few territorial gains forests swamps trenches fortifications dug in artillery fighting and everything and for for the 15 months everything took the saw its own attack eight months so more than fifty percent of the time they conduct major offensive operations now a short look at the sword losses here the losses are comparable to the Battle of Stalingrad and we know for the active fighting that happened two swords had about 1.3 million losses so total losses wounded killed in action missing in action is but 1.3 million is more than in Stalingrad the II recover losses were about 433 for the reshef against 478 at Stalingrad but again this is only for the eight months of active fighting and there's also point that the loss numbers are quite problematic there's the off of rediff slaughterhouse discusses the various points with with the lost numbers and everything and she issue finally concludes okay we can't really know for sure you will see a quote here exactly what her words are about this now the question what some of you will probably bring up is who won well this is a rather complicated answer here because if you look at it the swords tried for 15 months to destroy Army Group sent and clear out the refs alien didn't mention managed to destroy Army Group center and in the end they got the rash of salient but because the Germans withdrew so because they oh yeah the cleared out the ceiling but you could also say yeah but they never destroyed the unit's did want to destroy the formations so the Chairman's held and then withdrew but at the same time the Chairman's were not able to hold the salient any long and it also had no value for them anymore because they couldn't go on the attack again so it was a rather lose useless endeavor on holding made no sense on a tactical level the Germans held the position but strategically basically lost in the long run additionally both sides suffered extensive losses another major issue was the Germans could not really ploy units for instance to the south to the Battle of Stalingrad of course this brings up another question would there be a difference for case blue if the rash of Salem was not present and the answer is rather simple and no because if the threat in the center is not there the Soviets have way more Mayim formations and units and manpower equipment available somewhere else so the enemy will always react to your moves or the enemy always gets a vote if the rest of salient is not there well then the Germans have no units available but still have to solve it well I hope you've got a basic overview about the patterns of reshef thank you for voting on this topic toward my patrons and big thank you here to check for centimeter ratio slaughters funding these and several TV clients books these books were used but not harmed in the making of this video thank you for watching and see you next time [Music]

Channel: Military History not Visualized

Views: 100,585

Rating: 4.9158044 out of 5

Keywords: Military History not Visualized, Military History, mhv, Rzhev Slaughterhouse, Battles of the Rzhev Salient, Rzhev Viaz'ma, Rzhev Salient, Forgotten Battles, Eastern Front, ww2, Army Group Center, Model, Who won?

Id: L-E9ZsactbM

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 22 2019