Talk:Battle of Kiev (1943)

Old talk
The sources for this article is a computer game! Andries 18:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * That's not necessarily bad. :-) But I guess something needs to be done. Andreas 20:17, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The source computer games is "Fire Brigade, Battle for Kiev" by Panther Games. The whole article has been copied word for word from the back of the manual. Is this plagarism?194.75.129.200 23:05, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * God yes, not only is in a unacceptable source but if the above is true it is a copyright violation, can you confirm this? SGGH speak! 19:37, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to bulk it out with a bit of info from other sources, and some external references - hope this helps a bit. At least it appears to be a real battle ! Mariya Oktyabrskaya 03:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Please read ;)
The manual retrieved at the Home of the Underdogs mentions the following bibliography:


 * A.N. Grylev Dnepr, Karpaty, Krym - Nauka, Moscow 1970 (Russian)
 * Maj Gen F W von Mellenthin: Panzer Battles - Ballantines, NY 1971
 * Lt Gen David Dragunsky: A Soldier's Memoirs - Progress, Moscow 1963
 * R G Poirier & A Z Conner: The Red Army Order of Battle - Presidio, Novalto 1985
 * Ed. Ray Wagner: The Soviet Air Force in Wold War Two - Doubleday, Garden City 1973
 * P N Pospelov et al: Great patriotic War of the Soviet Union - Progress, Moscow 1970
 * Gen S M Shtemenko: The Soviet General Staff at War - Progress, Moscow 1970
 * Marshal G K Zhukov: The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov - Delacorte, NY 1970
 * Prof. J Erickson: The Road to Berlin - Westview, Boulder 1983
 * Ed. I Vitukhin: Soviet Generals Recall World War Two - Sphynx Press, NY 1981
 * E F Zeimke: Stalingrad to Berlin - Dorset, Washington DC 1968
 * Field Marshal E von Manstein: Lost Victories - Presidio 1982
 * Lt Col M C Helfers: Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia - Dept. of the Army 1953
 * A Seaton: Stalin as Military Commander - Praeger, NY 1975
 * German Order of Battle - Hippocrene, NY 1975
 * Gen Rauss: German Defence Tactics Against Russian Breakthroughs - Dept. of the Army 1951
 * Microfilm Records, 4th Panzer Army, series T-313, rolls 373-381
 * S W Mitcham: Hitler's Legions - Leo Cooper, London 1985
 * W J K Davies: German Army Handbook - ARCO, NY 1977
 * Brig H B C Watkins & Duncan Crow: Panzer Divisions of World War Two - Profile, Windsor

I believe that copying this page of the manual here is fair use.

The victory
I see no reason to consider this battle as decisive. Please, I do not wish revert war. We can sort this out with civilized discussion. Kurt.
 * I have outlined the result in more detail instead of "soviet victory" which shoudl suffice until concensus is built up (if it needs to be). SGGH speak! 19:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems fairly decisive to me. The Red Army achieved their main objective of taking Kiev, and were never driven out again. The only thing that might argue against this is if the Germans inflicted crippling casualties while taking few themselves, but this didn't happen either. In fact, the article itself mentions that casualties were heavy on both sides, albeit slightly heavier for the Soviets. But you would expect that for the attacking side. -- Hongooi 15:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, the Soviets were able to resume their offensive just a few days afterwards. That would suggest their casualties, although heavy, weren't enough to delay their plans substantially. Maybe the Germans did manage to avert a truly catastrophic defeat by retaking Zhitomir, but that hardly makes up for losing Kiev. -- Hongooi 15:46, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Alan Clark, in Barbarossa (1968) barely gives it a mention - "but it proved impossible to hold Kiev" on p.373, and a footnote about Hoth being relieved of duty after the fall of Kiev, on p.377.

So, Clark doesn't see it as decisive, rather one of a number of small losses contributing to a larger deterioration in the Ukraine after Kursk. Mariya Oktyabrskaya 02:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

casualties
Any ideas on the casualties on both side? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Counterstrike69 (talk • contribs) 19:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC).
 * http://www.czechpatriots.com/csmu/bri-combats.php has casualties for czech only. Not sure about how accurate the facts are though. Uberlieder (talk) 23:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I looked into the casualties question, and found two errors, one important and one minor, in our infobox. The important one is that the Soviet losses are severely deflated, as only the losses for the Soviet offensive part are given (6491 killed AND missing, 24 078 wounded - as Kiev offensive operation, p.312). But upon closer examination of Krivosheev's book (I've the 2010 version), on page 359 he gives losses for the Kiev defensive operation, dated from 13.11 to 22.12 - 26 443 killed and missing, 61 030 wounded. So overall, the Soviet losses for the same period that the 20 000+ German losses are from are not more or less on par, but significantly larger, 32 934 killed/missing, 85 108 wounded (118 042 total). As for the German losses, even though the site hosting the ten-day reports is unfortunately down, I manage to find a cache from it dealing with 1943. Adding up all losses for the 4th Panzer Army in November and December produces a slightly smaller number for than is in the infobox - 3598 killed, 1813 missing, 16 379 wounded - 21 790 overall; the ratio between Soviet and German losses is 5.4:1 - better than at 2nd Smolensk (6.4:1), but worse than at Kursk (4.4:1), but not the fantastic near-parity, which was seldom if ever achieved by the Soviets. If there is no objection, I will alter the infobox accordingly. Barmaglyak (talk) 15:06, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The above-mentioned Soviet losses are for the period from 3.11 to 22.12 only. Krivosheev doesn't have numbers for all operations in October, but he has Lutezh offensive operation (1.10-2.11), with 24 422 irrecoverable and 60 642 sanitary losses, as well as Bukrin offensive operation (12-24.10), with 6498 irrecoverable and 21 440 sanitary. Adding all those numbers together produces Soviet losses at over 231 044 (because the Chernobyl operations are not included). Barmaglyak (talk) 21:54, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008
Ensured that the article is within project scope, tagged for task forces, and assessed for class. --Rosiestep (talk) 02:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Map
I was looking at the map (Reference 2), having read the article and soon realised something was not right. The map seems to show the German positions to the EAST of the Russians. So, I then looked for a north arrow - couldn't find one; maybe the Germans were surrounded - if so there was no mention in the article. There is something not pukka here, what's going on? RASAM (talk) 19:13, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Infobox
The numbers of participants in the infobox are way too low. Krivosheev, our source for Soviet casualties, claims that at the beginning of the Kiev offensive, at Nov 3, the Soviet forces numbered 671 000, while at the beginning of the Kiev defensive operation, at Nov 13, the Soviet forces numbered 730 000. Barmaglyak (talk) 18:24, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

"Both sides were exhausted"
I've seen this phrase a few times in articles about the Eastern Front. In this case: "Both sides were exhausted by late December and the battle for Kiev was over." Really? Two days after the listed end of the battle, the Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive was launched. That doesn't sound like the Soviets were exhausted at all. -- Hongooi (talk) 18:50, 27 August 2017 (UTC)