The Bulge and Kursk: A Comparison

Peloni: Fascinating analysis by Bryen.  The Nazi and the Ukrainian motivation behind launching these two battles are quite distinct even as they were both associated with significant risks.

Stephen Bryen | Weapons & Strategy | August 11, 2024

American engineers emerge from the woods and move out of defensive positions after fighting in the vicinity of Bastogne, Belgium

Some Weapons and Strategy readers say that there is a strong resemblance between the current Kursk battle and the Battle of Bulge that raged in December, 1944 to January, 1945.  It is a topic worth exploring.

The Battle of the Bulge was an attempt by the Nazi forces to break the Allied advance into Germany.  Hitler was facing two main allied forces, namely the British and Canadians in the north and the Americans in the south.  The Nazi war plan was to split the Allied armies and drive westward, hoping to capture Antwerp.  Antwerp port was the main supply line for the Allied armies.  Had the gamble been successful, the Allies would have been in a serious predicament and probably would have been open to making a deal with Hitler.

If the US and UK negotiated with Hitler, the Russians would have been left on their own.  The Germans could have shifted their forces on the western front to defend Berlin.

Hitler was counting on splitting the US and UK from Russia not only on the battlefield, but ideologically.  Hitler actually was right.  After Yalta in February, 1945 and Potsdam, July 1945, it was clear that the US (Roosevelt at Yalta, Truman at Potsdam) and the UK (Churchill at Yalta and Churchill and Clement Atlee at Potsdam) had to yield to Stalin, agreeing to Russia’s territorial ambitions in eastern Europe.

Churchill Speaking in Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946

A year after, at Fulton Missouri, US President Harry Truman hosted Winston Churchill, then out of power, at Westminster College. In that speech, popularly known as the Iron Curtain speech, Churchill said “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone — Greece with its immortal glories — is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation.”

Had the Nazis been successful, Churchill would never have given his speech and the Cold War, as we understand it today, may have happened anyway, but the dynamics and territories involved could well have been different.  The US was already an atomic power, and the Russians, despite their huge losses and the devastation to Russian territory, might have been compelled to rethink the territorial strategy Stalin pursued at Yalta and Potsdam.

The Bulge involved very large forces.  At the start of the battle, Nazi forces outnumbered the Allies (500,000 versus 229,000) and in hardware (557 tanks versus 488). By the end of the battle the ratios shifted as the Allies brought up more forces and equipment, so that allies forces numbered 700,000 and the Wehrmacht was down to 383,000.  The Allies had 2,428 tanks in the field (not counting tank destroyers); the Nazis only 216 (and were short on fuel).

Bernard Silver (bottom left) and his tank destroyer crew in France before the Bulge. He was my wife’s father.

At the start of the Battle of the Bulge, Allied forces in the field were mainly second-echelon troops that were not as experienced as the well-trained troops that the US would throw into the battle as it progressed. (And an Allied “secret weapon” was the audacious George Patton.) German forces, on the other hand, were well trained, highly disciplined, and resolute and tough fighters.

There is a similarity here between the current Kursk battle and the Bulge.  Russia did not have its regular army at Kursk.  The area was defended by inexperienced territorial forces.  The Ukrainian brigades, on the other hand, were among the best troops in Ukraine.  The rapid advance into Russia around Kursk and the capture of hamlets and villages is clear evidence of the lack of preparedness on the Russian side and its exploitation by the Ukrainian armed forces.

In the case of the Bulge, the Germans were aided by bad weather that made aerial reconnaissance impossible for some time.  It also aided the Nazis because the Allies could not use their airpower against clustered enemy forces.  That, of course, changed when the weather cleared and it made a difference, especially in the relief of Bastogne and the destruction of German supply lines.

The senior officers of the 101st Airborne Division in Bastogne, January 18, 1945.

The weather in Kursk appears to be fine.  The Ukrainians have used it to launch countless drones and to pursue missile and long range artillery attacks.  The Russians were late in using their drones and artillery, mainly because regular Russian forces were not at the front.  It is also noteworthy that Russian surveillance of Ukraine missed Ukrainian preparations for the assault (as did the Allies before the Bulge attack started).  How this happened is not yet clear in the case of Kursk.  It is, however, perfectly clear that the Allies did not grasp German preparations for the Bulge.  In both cases, whatever they may or may not have seen, clashed with their preconceptions of enemy capabilities and intentions.  The Allies never expected the Germans to do much more than to try and defend their homeland which meant the Allies never expected an offensive, and certainly not one as bold as the Germans launched.  Nor did the Allies think that the Germans would ever drive toward Antwerp.

The Russians, likewise, were well along on their systematic program to reduce the size and fighting ability of Ukraine’s army.  Steady advances in Donetsk, albeit slow, were starting to break the back of Ukraine’s resistance, or so the Russians believed.  They were half right and half wrong.

The Russians were correct that they were extracting huge costs on Ukraine’s army.  In parallel the Russians were wrecking Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, including electrical power, sending a political message to Ukraine’s leadership and populace.  But the Russians missed that Ukraine still had some of its toughest brigades it could use in special operations, and the Ukrainians chose to use them in Kursk rather than watch them get slaughtered in Chasov Yar or Niu York. (In fact a key Russian mistake was not to focus on destroying Ukraine’s elite brigades. Instead the Russians fixated on territorial gains and let the Ukrainians decide on what units would fight where.)

A power substation burning in Ukraine.

The Kursk offensive is quite tiny when compared to the massed armies in the Battle of the Bulge.  At the start of Kursk the Ukrainians committed perhaps 1,000 troops and a modest complement of armor and artillery.  Ukraine also used air defenses, including mobile patriot batteries, electronic warfare assets, and a large number of drones.  Likewise on the Russian side there were only territorial units that did not have armor and lacked modern anti-tank weapons.  At this is written the Russians have brought up Chechens and Wagnerites (now part of the regular Russian army).  There are reports larger forces are also on their way to Kursk, drawn from reserves and not from units fighting elsewhere in Ukraine.  As of August 11, most of the incursion has been “stabilized” meaning that, for the most part, Ukrainian assaults are being countered successfully.

The current battle scene in Kursk does not resemble the Bulge.  The Nazi aim was to break the US and British armies, to split them, and drive to the sea.  The Ukrainian aim is to hold Russian territory for as long as possible.  In both cases the aim was negotiations, but the Nazis hoped to defeat the Allies while the Ukrainians have no such hope.

We do not yet know if Ukraine will be able to sustain the Kursk attack.  If they throw in more forces they will not have the advantage they enjoyed in the first phase of the battle. So the Ukrainian gamble is just that and carries strategic and political risk.  In that sense, the Battle of the Bulge and Kursk share a common theme.