Military Thought, July, 2003 by Nikolai Viktorovich Staskov

 

On routing, in summer 1943, 60 years ago, a German battle group near Kursk, the Soviet forces pressed home an attack in the South-Western strategic sector in a bid to reach the midstream Dnepr area and, without a halt, to seize a beachhead on the river’s western bank. They did cross the Dnepr without a pause in operations and seize a number of beachheads, something that made it possible to deploy there several major battle groups of the Voronezh Front (commander Army General N.F. Vatutin) that had scored the most spectacular advances. The objective was to perform a subsequent swoop in order to capture the Left-Bank Ukraine. The enemy resistance flagged in early September: no longer hoping to withhold the Soviet advance in the Kiev sector, the German command started pulling back its forces to the right bank of the Dnepr, where it organized defenses.

 

The rapid advance of the friendly forward units prepared the ground for a major airborne assault landing with a view to capturing a beachhead on the western bank of the Dnepr and aiding a crossing by the forward combined units of the friendly forces. The command of the Voronezh Front had conceived a plan to use an airborne assault force on the Dnepr as far back as summer. It was intended to land troops in the Kiev area in order to prepare the ground for a rapid taking of the Ukrainian capital. The Supreme High Command had approved the idea, but the operational situation shaped differently, calling for an urgent airborne landing in the environs of the Dnepr’s Bukrin bend, where there was a promise of bigger successes.

 

Three airborne brigades were assigned to conduct the operation. Since all three were intended for a joint action in one area, the plan was to merge them in an airborne corps under Deputy Commander of the Airborne Troops Maj. Gen. I.I. Zatevakhin, with a number of Airborne Troops Staff officers selected to form the staff of the corps. To assist the landing, Long-Range Aviation (LRA) set aside 180 Li-2 planes and 35 gliders. Air support was due to come from 150 I1-4 and B-25 (U.S.-made) planes. The forming-up place included the Bogodukhov and the Lebedin airfield complexes (five airfields all in all). It was planned to complete concentration of forces and assets assigned to the airborne assault two days before the landing that was due to take place in the night of September 24.

 

Planning the operation was the Front’s operations directorate, mostly an Airborne Troops Staff command group, which joined the Voronezh Front Staff in early September. Informed about the decision to use an airborne assault force on the Dnepr, the AT Commander, Maj. Gen. A.G. Kapitokhin, ordered the brigades to the forming-up place. Before September 17, the brigades were preparing, in their permanent deployment locations (1st AB, Teikovo; 3rd AB, Shchyolkovo; 5th AB, Kirzhach), for the forthcoming airdrop in the enemy rear area. Preparations finished, they moved in by rail to the forming-up place.

 

A delay in material delivery and an extremely intense military rail traffic in the Front’s rear area were the reasons why the brigades massed at the airfields three days later than the planned date. Thus, in the forming-up place they had less than one day to prepare for the airdrop. In addition, at first only eight transport planes had arrived. For that reason the landing was postponed by one day. But even then all detailed airborne transport aircraft failed to appear. LRA Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. N.S. Skripko, who was in charge of the air action, was doing his best, if with little effect, to get the planes and prepare them for the mission. The result was inadequate and that subsequently led to grave pilot errors.

 

Forward units of the 40th Army and the 3rd Guards Tank Army, using means at hand, crossed with some guns, in the evening of September 22, to the western bank of the Dnepr and were fighting in the environs of Rzhishchev, Traktomirov and Zarubentsy, holding a beachhead that was later called the Bukrin beachhead. The main forces were not expected to come to the Dnepr before September 29.

 

Back in early September air reconnaissance had established that the enemy had failed to create defenses in and bring considerable reserves to the territory inside the bend on the river’s western bank, where the friendly forward units were operating. But the Germans, using their combat engineer units and the local population had built a defensive zone two to three kilometers deep, consisting mostly of trenches and separate earth-and-timber emplacements, which were yet to be occupied by troops.

 

These were the circumstances behind the final decision to drop airborne troops in the area. The plan of the airborne operation had been mostly drawn up by that time, with the Supreme High Command representative, Army General G.K. Zhukov, who was based at the staff of the Voronezh Front, approving it on September 19. The plan assigned these responsibilities for the air and airborne action: the long-range aviation command was supposed to suppress the enemy before the operation and to perform the airdrop; the Front’s air army commander, Lt. Gen. S.A. Krasovsky, was due to provide cover for and support the force after the drop; the Airborne Troops Commander was to prepare the force for its mission in the forming-up place and to arrange all organizational matters.

 

On the whole the plan was a rather detailed affair, embracing almost everything that had a relation to the preparation and execution of the airdrop operation and subsequent combat actions. But it also had substantial flaws, failing to take into account the real situation that had taken shape on the Voronezh front. Specifically, the front aviation was unable to cope with its airdrop support missions, because it did not have time enough to redeploy to new airfields and lacked sufficient fuel and ammunition. In addition, the plan did not indicate the procedure for cooperation between the airborne force and troops on the ground; moreover, for secrecy considerations the forward units were to be informed about the airdrop only after the force took defensive positions in the enemy rear.

 

Many points in the plan were out of touch with the real situation and sooner good wishes than strict obligations. For example, it was decided to mark out the objective area by setting fire to four villages at its corners. But the plan failed to specify who was to perform the task. Like in the Vyazma operation, it was envisaged that each plane would perform two to three flights per night. As is evident from experience, the type of organization of preparations for and execution of an airborne operation, where planning the use of a large airborne force was mostly left to the paratroops themselves, failed to work very well. But the impact of these faults on the operation might have been minimized had there been some thorough reconnaissance effort and analysis of possible changes in the operational situation. Yet no one had done anything specifically for the purpose. The AT command showed passivity, leaving this crucial issue to the Front’s staff.

 

The final phase of preparations for the airdrop was all haste. In the morning of September 23, Army General N.F. Vatutin came to the command post of the 40th Army to be told that no major enemy forces had been spotted in the Bukrin bend area. In the meantime, the German command had divined the main axis of the impending Soviet push and taken countermeasures by rushing three divisions to the same area. Another two infantry divisions moved in later after crossing the Dnepr. The front reconnaissance had failed to notice this dramatic change in the situation in time.

 

While at the command post of the 40th Army (commander Gen. K.S. Moskalenko) the Front commander specified, through AT commander Maj. Gen. A.G. Kapitokhin, the combat tasks to be performed by the airborne force. The aim of the operation remained the same: it was supposed to interdict the arrival of enemy reserves at the Bukrin beachhead. For this purpose, the Front commander ordered to land two airborne brigades: 3rd abn brig (Col. P.A. Goncharov) had the assignment to land south-east of Rzhishchev, to capture the position between Lipovyi Rog, Makedony and Kozarovka and to hold it pending the arrival of 40th Army units; 5th abn brig (Lt. Col. P.M. Sidorchuk) was ordered to land west of Kanev so as to capture the position between Gorkavshchina, Stepantsy and Kostyanets and to hold it in cooperation with 3rd abn brig. 1st abn brig, which had failed to concentrate in full in the forming-up area, was left in reserve and ready to be dropped on a second or third night.

 

The line to be captured by the airborne force totaled almost 40 kilometers in length, which was certainly in excess of the combat capabilities of two abn brigs armed with small arms and mortars. Hence the conclusion that the Airborne Troops command should have been more resolute in going into the plans for combat employment of the brigades and at least obtained the assignments they could have coped with.

 

On coming back to the forming-up area, the Airborne Troops commander handed down the combat assignment to the brigade commanders. Battalion and company commanders, however, had too little time either for decision-making or for giving instructions to the personnel, because the same night they had to leave for the drop area. While handing down combat missions, commanders confined themselves to indicating the drop area, assembly areas (points), and the positions to be captured and held.

 

As is common knowledge, communications with an airborne force, as well as combat command and control of paratroops subunits due to perform combat missions in the enemy rear are matters of immense importance. In the Dnepr airborne operation these were handled in a hurry and without any firm direction. Formed during preparations for the operation, the airborne corps staff took almost no part in its planning, for that was the business of the Airborne Troops Staff’s command group. The corps staff, therefore, worked on no combat documents. It was planned to provide it with signals equipment by taking from the brigade staffs some of theirs.

 

The airborne assault force took off from four airfields: two airfields of the Lebedin and two of the Bogodukhov airfield complexes; the weather conditions were relatively favorable. First planes carrying 3rd brigade paratroops took off from the Lebedin airfield at 18:30 on September 24. 5th brigade personnel took off from the Bogodukhov airfield two hours later.

 

Fuel scarcity was the reason why the first-flight planes were cleared at 10-minute intervals and in the order other than that designated by the air unit commanders. Waiting to be refueled, 10 first-flight planes had to leave only with the second flight. The delay and the extension of the takeoff rates of transport planes carrying paratroops and airborne force equipment disrupted the flight schedule and airdrop procedure. First-flight planes came back in a sequence differing from the original one, a sign that some aircraft had failed to sustain the flight configuration and the route. Back to base after the first flight, the planes waited long to be refueled, so much so that paratroops had to scurry around the airfield in search of planes that were ready to fly and to hop from one plane to another.

 

In the night of September 25, 1943, the total number of sorties from all airfields involved added up to 298 (not 500 as planned), with 4,575 paratroops and 660 NRSDC (non-rigid supply dropping container) dropped. Not a single plane was ready to take off on that night from Smorodino airfield, whence 45-mm guns were due to follow after the landing force. There was no aircraft fuel, for which reason the 5th brig had to discontinue its departure from Bogodukhov airfield complex before one hour in the morning on September 25. The 3rd brigade was flown in full (without 45-mm guns) from Lebedin airfield complex by dawn on September 25. As a result, 30% of paratroops and 590 non-rigid containers, which had been assigned to be dropped on the first night, remained stranded on airfields.

 

Airdrop is a crucial stage in any airborne operation and its success depends solely on how organized and well-trained aircrews are. Not accidentally, the main reasons for the low level of September 1943 airdrop organization were inadequate navigation support, which failed to use ground-based flight aids and aiming assets, and poor pilot training.

 

In the Dnepr operation, navigation support envisaged positioning of compass locators and radio beacons both on the airfields and at the start of combat run (SCR) and in the drop zone. Though present on the airfields, these never made it to the latter two locations. The SCR compass locator, Pchela (Bee), which was in a railcar, reached its destination (village of Kapustintsy) late at night on September 25, when the airdrop was over. For that reason the majority of aircrews could not spot guidance illumination in the drop zone.

 

Where it concerns the marking of the landing sites, the negative experience of a previous assault landing operation that had occurred in January and February 1942 was practically left unheeded either. The marking, with the help of series of illumination flares, was the business of a forward element of paratroopers, which had landed on the designated sites. But it failed to do anything. In addition, the enemy, on sighting the assault force, started firing numerous flares from different directions to illuminate the landing paratroopers, whereby it totally confused both the aircrews and the assault force members.

 

The lack of a compass locator was compounded by difficult orientation conditions in the night of September 25: 10/10ths clouds at 600-800 meters and a drizzle reduced visibility to 1-3 kilometers. The drizzle stopped after 21:00, but it left a haze, with visibility not exceeding 2-4 kilometers. Only separate crews saw guidance illumination. A compass locator could save the situation, but it was elsewhere. The Dnepr was the sole reliable landmark throughout the night. So it was the river all without exception crews used as the main landmark. As it transpires from crew reports, none of them aimed at ground marks or any other landmark. On the whole, with the drop zone located within 15-20 kilometers of the Dnepr and given its reliable identification on the basis of flight direction and time in the air, the assault force could have been dropped with an error not exceeding 5-7 kilometers.

 

But the crews had not been trained to use flight time as calculated from a reference landmark in capacity of an aiming method. Each crew calculated the time from the point on the right bank of the Dnepr, which it had reached. In so doing, many identified their location wrongly. Yet, as is evident from analysis, even if crews made a correct estimation of the Dnepr passage point, they chose the course and time to the drop point totally at random. For example, while choosing as their aiming point one and the same locality (Potaptsy) and having the same flight speeds, the crews kept a drop zone approach course ranging from 175 to 250 degrees and the time from the Dnepr, from 1.5 to 7 minutes. This kind of random choosing of aiming parameters could have been avoided had the navigation service prepared the crews to use a reserve orientation mode. The error in identifying Dnepr passage point could reach 40 kilometers (!), whereas satisfactorily trained crews had a duty to hit a 20-kilometer zone.

 

But, pinning their hopes on Pchela and guidance illumination, many pilots were so careless about location control that they failed to hit even a 40-kilometer zone and approached the Dnepr in an unknown locality. Without taking their bearings, they dropped the assault force within 3-5 minutes of the river. On top of that, avoiding AA fire, they did so at high altitudes and at increased speeds. The paratroopers failed to keep the right jump intervals. Asked to clarify this point, the crews claimed these could have reached 4 minutes, something that led to paratroopers landing 8 to 15 kilometers from each other, a circumstance that made their reassembling, even in daylight drop conditions, let alone at night, practically impossible. There were many young soldiers lacking any combat experience in airborne subunits, because experienced paratroopers had formed several airborne divisions sent, in early summer 1943, to the Kursk area, where they fought as rifle units.

 

The poor navigation support and inadequate crew training were behind the scattering of the assault force over an area of 25 X 70 kilometers. Only 5% of the crews hit the designated area; 23% dropped the force within 10 kilometers of its borders; 58%, 15 kilometers; and the remaining 14% even farther afield. About 400 paratroopers landed in the Cherkassy woods (70 kilometers from the designated area), and 230 in the friendly territory.