Here Krivosheev is not on solid ground. The figure he provides for the Kiev operation is just the forces present at the beginning of the operation, in mid-July. For example, the strength of 21st Army is not inlcuded in the strength figure. Thus, there is nothing particularly impossible in the notion that the POW count may have exceeded the strength figure he provides. Indeed, he himself quotes several operations where total losses exceed the strength figure given. It is of course also a possibility that the German POW figures are wrong, or that they reflect a wider inclusiveness than the Soviet MIA figures.As counter example you might recall German figure for the number of POW captured at Kiev in 1941 – it handsomely surpassed the number of personal that SWF had at the pick of its power
IgorN:
Undoubtedly. But Krivosheev's casualty figures explicitly include only soldiers evacuated to military hospitals (as opposed to units' medical services), and these, as far as combat injuries are concerned, spent an average of 76 days in hospital before returning to duty. Lightly wounded cases who were not evacuated, whether they were sick or combat wounded, simply are not included in the casualty figures. They were treated with local means, returned to their units and in the mean time were carried on strength. Both armies employed the criterion of evacuation for inclusion in casualty figures."Medical Services: The Soviets applied to shattered human beings the same basic principle which they applied to broken vehicles, that is, they gave their first priority to the units which could be put together with little delay and returned to the front line. In the case of the solders the category of such 'lightly wounded' covered about 40 per cent of all casualties. Medium cases made up 37 per cent, and the severely wounded about 23 per cent. Army by army, the casualties in the tank formations did not differ greatly from one campaign to another:
Yes of course, but again, lightly damaged vehicles that were repaired with local means do not turn up in the statistics as losses. Both sides carried out such repairs, and for both sides the number of vehicles thus repaired were much higher than the loss figures. As far as I understand, Soviet loss figures reflect vehicles written off or suffficiently heavily damaged to require long term repair. The German figures generally reflect just written off vehicles which introduces a certain problem of comparability in the figures, though evidently the number of tanks evacuated and repaired outside the operational zone was pretty limited. Just have a look at Table 95 in Krivosheev and see how losses, deliveries and total stock interact on a year-to-year basis, and you will get the picture."... On 11 November 1944 STAVKA put all the facilities for mechanical repair under unified command, a measure which increased their productivity by 50 per cent. A significant role was played by the recovery tractors and workshops of the damaged vehicle assembly points(SPAMS), which attended to running repairs. The more difficult cases were left for repair at the army, corps or Front level. The results were quite remarkable. In the first six days of the Vistula-Order Operation, The Eight Guards Army had a total of 159 tanks and assault guns disabled, but only 71 of them permanently inoperable. In January 1945 as a whole the 1-st Belorussian Front carried out 3,786 successful repairs of tanks and assault guns, and the 1st Ukrainian Front 4,267. This means that many of the vehicles were patched up more than once..."
cheers
