Talk:Battle of Brody (1941)

ORBAT Q: with 5 mech corps engaged, why the number of tanks is only 1000? NVO 11:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Not Sure. My information comes from the Battlefield Documentary Series. Battlefield - The Battle of Russia. Mercenary2k 22:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Substantial editing required

This article is in bad need of a substantial re-editing. This is another 'battle' that was actually a substantial early Soviet strategic-operational counter-offensive attempt which took place on a 50km frontage over several days. Role of Luftwaffe before the contact between the armoured forces is not even mentioned. Although the Soviet formations were thrown in piecemeal, their effect was not insignificant. I changed the number of engaged tanks to 200 and 400 respectively because this reflects the area of Brody only. The actual operation is known as the Lutsk - Brody - Rovno - Dubno offensive oepration in Soviet historiography, which seems to me to be a far better way of describing it.--mrg3105mrg3105 If you're not taking any flack, you're not over the target. 22:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Basically I got my info about this battle from a documentary series called, Battlefield, the Battle of Russia. I read some articles and I wrote up this article. If you feel you need to change or expand it. Be my guest. Mercenary2k (talk) 12:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I will add some sources and forum discussions, currently gathering material regarding this battle

Łukasz Rzepiński (talk) 14:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I can help with the aerial battles. Dapi89 (talk) 00:44, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Have done a pretty big fix. Mostly added information from the Soviet side using Ryjabshev and Kraminer as source. Will do more later if there is time. For now, I think it give a much better picture of the whole event. Need to work in more information about the activities of the 9th, 19th and 15th Mechanized, since most of the focus is on the 8th at this time.

Also not really enough on the German response, which probably deserves some addition.

More re-organization and clarification is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.134.185 (talk) 07:26, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Composition of Soviet Tank Forces

Changes were made to the article regarding the quality of Soviet tanks involved, suggesting that all tanks involved on the Soviet side were early model BT's and no KV or T34. While it is true that the 9th, 19th, 22nd Mechanized Corps attached to the 5th Army were generally outfitted with older models, the 4th, 8th and 15th attached to the 6th army comprised some of the best equipped divisions in the Soviet OOB with a fair number of more modern tanks. This is confirmed in Solonin, Glanz and even by Rybayshev himself who states that in the 8th Mechanized "...169 of the Corps’ tanks were modern medium and heavy models such as the T-34."

Please in future don't change sourced material, without providing a source that contradicts, or improves upon the earlier source. Livedawg (talk) 09:09, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

References

Numerical error?

The info box claims that of 600 tanks on the German side, ~600 were lost, and on the Soviet side, only 400 out of 1000 were lost; surely that would amount to a victory for the Soviets?

Numerical error?

The info box claims that of 600 tanks on the German side, ~600 were lost, and on the Soviet side, only 400 out of 1000 were lost; surely that would amount to a victory for the Soviets? dawhipsta (talk) 21:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

You can win even if you lose more tanks, the error is not numerical but your assumption that all military victories can only be achieved if you lose less equipment, you can still advance and force the other side to retreat even if you lose more equipment Shortmagic11 (talk) 01:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Both of these numbers were wrong. The source only deals with the 8th mech. Corps which makes about roughly 4/10 of the Sovet tank strenght of the battle. So it only gives German losses against the 8th Corp and the losses of the 8th Corps itself which was nearly completly destroyed in the course of the battle. Lots of people messsed around even with those numbers and i corrected them according to the source. StoneProphet (talk) 06:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

This table includes all kinds of formations that were not in the Lutsk-Dubno-Brody Triangle.

Soviet corps	Soviet divisions	Total Soviet tanks	T-34 and KV
22nd Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	19th, 41st, 215th	712	31
15th Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	10th, 37th, 212th	749	136
4th Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	8th, 32nd, 81st	979	414
8th Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	12th, 34th, 7th	899	171
9th Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	20th, 35th, 131st	316	0
19th Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	40th, 43rd, 213th	453	5
16th Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	15th, 39th, 240th	478	76
24th Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	45th, 49th, 216th	222	0
(from the Soviet Western Front)	109th Tank Division	209	0
2nd Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	11th, 16th, 15th	527	60
18th Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union)	44th, 47th, 218th	282	0
Tanks scattered over various other units	Ordinary rifle divisions, etc.	not incl.	–
Total		5826	893

This is an article about "Brody" which is arguably separate from the battles fought by 22nd Mech at Volodymyr Volinski on the frontier. But its fair to say that all the units engaged in the Lutsk-Dubno-Brody-Rovno sector that were in the main line of the 1st Panzer Group attack between the 22nd of June and July 2nd 1941 when Popel's group finally broke out after being surrounded at Dubno, should be included and are of interest to this article.

But even 4th Mech only contributed 1 tank division, ant the rest of its force were at L'vov.

So, basically we are looking at 8th, 9th, 15th, 19th, and 22nd Mech Corps as the order of Soviet Battle.

I am taking the rest out.Livedawg (talk) 12:04, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Vlasov

As far as I can tell Vlasov had nothing to do with commanding this operation by the Soviet forces. He was in charge of the 4th Mechanized Corps at the time as part of the 6th Army under Lieutenant General N. I. Muzychenko, according to Rybashev. Properly the Soviet forces were under the command of the 6th Army and the 5th Army, and under the overall co-ordination of Kirponos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.135.133 (talk) 07:41, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

"Bloody triangle" not a reliable source

I'd like to remove "Bloody triangle" from references as it is hardly a reliable or scientific source. Among many omissions and tendentious interpretations, one is especially striking: the book almost completely ignores the sole existence of 4th Mech Corps. Whatever is the reason for it, be it author's ignorance, be it dependency of biased sources, be it attempt to falsify history, be it just an "accident", the reason does not really matter. What matters is that it makes the book unreliable, despite it *is* very detailed and generally meticulously sourced. --Kubanczyk (talk) 20:39, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your note.

This may be so. However, I don't think not talking about Vlassov's 4th Mechanized Corps is a critical error when talking about the Brody Battle, since in reality it did not intervene except, I believe with a single echelon of troops, and it mostly delayed or tied up elsewhere. It certainly did not play a main part in the battle. I think our main object here is not to establish absolute specific technical accuracy but to capture the essence of the flow the battle overall.

I think it would be nearly impossible to find a source that is not tainted by some kind of bias, errors of fact, and tendentious assertions. If we get too detailed we will lose sight of the forest, talking about the trees and in the end we will end up in endless disputes.

I have meant to add more including an updated military map but have not had time.

For example, his general description of the condition of the 8th Mechanized Corps is generally confirmed by other sources, for the sake of providing a linkable internet source, I used the Bloody Triangle as a reference.

Rather than say that the whole book is wrong because of some omissions, and the "perspective" of the writer, perhaps you could make clear what specific errors of fact you are talking about, and produce counter sources with the correct information. How does that sound? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.118.10.147 (talk) 04:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. I understand your point about capturing "the flow of battle", as much as it is not my point. I try to describe the events in such a way that the obvious-yet-important information is explicitly stated. I don't feel that the battle can be usefully described by only enumerating the violent behaviors (like "those tanks shot at that other tanks in that place on that time"). I have no interest in such "history of violence" approach personally. --Kubanczyk (talk) 09:49, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Disposition of forces section removal/rewrite/merge

The entire disposition of forces section uses two documentaries on youtube as citations. Most of it has no direct relevance to the battle itself and instead is about more the general state of logistics, tactics and equipment in the two forces. The only part that I feel is directly relevant is the first paragraph, though it mostly repeats the preceding section. If no one has any objections, I will merge this with the following section into one on the disposition of forces/order of battle without the general discussion of tactics and logistics (which are well explained throughout the rest of the article). Sharrken (talk) 17:12, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Youtube?

I reverted the following content: Furthermore, Soviet tank crews were not trained on the mechanical details of their machines. That meant that simple mechanical problems resulted in hundreds of Red Army tanks being abandoned on the road side en route to the battle.(ref name="youtube.com"/><ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0WKPrgf9sY</ref) Compounding these logistical difficulties was that each Red Army tank division had 300–400 tanks, but were supported by only 1500 trucks, contrasting with a Wehrmacht tank division which had only 150–200 tanks, but 2000 trucks. Experience would prove that the Germans got it right.(ref name="youtube.com"/)

Reasoning:

1. Youtube a RS?

2. It is utter nonsense that Red Army tank crewmen were untrained in basic maintenance. Every tank crew in the world spends most of their time doing maintenance. In the Red Army, drivers were referred to as "driver-mechanics".

3. It is also jumping to conclusions to say that lack of maintenance training (which I do not concede anyway) is what led to hundreds of AFVs being abandoned in 1941. It was the documented fact that many of the tanks were old and overdue for major depot-level maintenance such as engine rebuilds that cannot be carried out at the unit level; there was also a lack of planning for fuelling and ammunitioning, etc. All of these issues are very well documented in COL David Glantz's 'Stumbling Colossus'. Entire units went into combat with one (or less than one) ammo load or with NO plan to ever refuel. But I would also point out that every army in retreat tends to abandon lots of tanks for mechanical failures. In a large scale retreat, orderly refueling and simple maintenance procedures fall apart. The Germans abandoned a lot of tanks in Normandy in August 1944; it wasn't because their crews didn't know how to fix them, nor were more getting knocked out that month.....

4. The Division was a key echelon in the Wehrmacht, but not in the Red Army. The major tactical unit was the Corps. Comparing division to division makes no sense.

5. The number of trucks in a Division means nothing without comparing it to other echelons that may routinely support that Division. It may surprise people to learn that WW2 US divisions had fewer trucks than many of their counterparts in other armies, yet the US Army was obviously very highly motorized. The trucks were simply not present in divisional-level organizations, they were in truck companies pooled (centralized) at the field army level, but available for use by divisions. Experience in 1941-45 clearly and unambiguously proved the Germans got it WRONG. Regards, DMorpheus2 (talk) 15:49, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

CopyPaste

Hi! I am only at the first section: PRELUDE....and noticed that the entire text is copied from here. I also ran the Copyright Vio detector and we've got a 94% violation for This Site.

Here is the link to the Copyright Vio detector analysis page.

I admit, there seems to be very little in the way of scholarly papers published on the subject, but nonetheless, the whole article needs a complete re-wording. All the best Wikirictor 15:55, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Both seem copied from Wiki. --Denniss (talk) 22:57, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Fierce battle

If the soviets attacked with better coordination, would they be able to win? Misel982001 (talk) 18:42, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Destroyed 19th tank division near Vojnitsa-Lutsk highway.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 06:32, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Is this really the laget tank battle?

The intro section states that this is the battle with the most tanks involved, but the battle of Kursk involved well over 10,000 tanks, over twice as much as Brody had? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ReidMoffat (talk • contribs) 19:19, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

largest battle through most tanks on spot in direct combat. --Denniss (talk) 21:50, 22 February 2022 (UTC)