Operation Bagration

 

Everyone who knows any history, you know, the subject which isn't taught anymore in US schools, knows about Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia. Fewer still have heard of Operation Bagration, launched on June 22, 1940 by the Soviet Army against German Army Group Center, Heeresgruppe Mitte, which held a significant salient stretching East and North from Belarussia.

The German force consisted of some 849,000 troops including support personnel, 3,236 artillery pieces, 495 operational tanks and assault guns and 602 operational aircraft. Against them, the Russians assembled a force of over 1.5 million men (2.5?), 32,718 artillery pieces and mortars, 5,818 tanks and assault guns and 7,799 aircraft. 

The Soviet assault on entrenched German positions began at 5 am on the morning of June 22 with a massive rolling artillery barrage, the most intense of the war to that point. Within weeks the German front line had collapsed, leaving the way open for the Red Army to advance on Poland and Prussia.

Bagration was a catastrophic defeat for the Germans, who suffered an estimated 400,000 casualties, including over 2000 tanks and 800 aircraft. 31 of 47 German divisional or corps commanders were killed or captured. 57,000 captured Germans were paraded through Moscow on July 15, 1944. The column took a full 90 minutes to pass.

Here's an infographic, giving an idea of the sheer scale of the Russian offensive:

The Germans, most certainly from Bagration on, would pay dearly for Barbarossa. That in mind, you'd think the demented clowns who nominally run what used to be the Free World, to say nothing of their handlers, would look closely to history. Russia might want to do the same.

Cheers,

LSP