The Road to Berlin (118 page)

Facing the river Neisse and the Spree further ahead of him, Marshal Koniev adopted a very different solution for his artillery. He planned an artillery preparation lasting 145 minutes, divided into three phases, the first a forty-minute artillery strike before the launching of the assault crossing of the Neisse, the second following the laying down of the smokescreens (in which the artillery would also fire smoke) and lasting an hour, and a final 45-minute barrage beyond the Neisse river line. No artillery preparation would precede committing the tank armies for Koniev argued that most of the enemy opposition would have been suppressed; artillery would support the tank armies to a depth of ten miles, using converging fire along nine lines and assigning artillery officers to the tank armies to spot for the guns. To provide artillery support for mobile formations and units, Koniev organized powerful regimental and divisional artillery groups (including 203mm howitzers) in all armies, with divisional artillery groups also operating special counter-mortar sections. To facilitate the army commander’s direct control of his artillery resources no corps artillery groups were formed, and army artillery groups varied quite widely in strength and composition depending on the operational tasks to be carried out, but it was assumed that for most of the time artillery would be firing over open sights.

Four Soviet air armies—4th, 16th and 2nd, with the 13th (Long-Range Aviation)—and elements of the Polish air force were already deployed for the Berlin operation, a huge array of 7,500 combat aircraft. One air army operated with each front (4th with 2nd Belorussian, 16th with 1st Belorussian—plus the
18th—and 2nd with 1st Ukrainian Front), committed to attaining air superiority, covering the movement to assault positions, co-operating with the ground troops in breaking through the Oder–Neisse defensive positions and securing the commitment of the mobile formations once the German defensive lines had been broken.

In Rokossovskii’s planning on 2nd Belorussian Front Vershinin’s 4th Army with 1,360 aircraft occupied a vitally important place in supporting the assault crossing of the Oder, for it would be impossible to transfer any quantity of artillery with any speed; Vershinin’s aircraft must supply the necessary fire support and cover. During the night preceding the actual assault, air attacks would be aimed at destroying defensive positions and disrupting the work of German staffs, all with five ground-attack air divisions flying 272 sorties. The effective co-operation of air units and ground troops was of singular importance, so that each assault army—65th, 70th and 49th—acquired one ground-attack aviation division, though ultimate control of the use of air resources was left to the discretion of 4th Air Army commander himself. Vershinin planned a total of 4,079 sorties on the first day of the offensive, 1,408 fighter sorties, 1,305 ground-attack and 1,366 bomber sorties.

On the 1st Belorussian Front S.I. Rudenko in command of 16th Air Army calculated that he faced 1,700 German aircraft: his own air army consisted of 3,188 combat aircraft deployed on 165 airfields, a force supplemented with the 800 bombers from Golovanov’s 18th Air Army (Long-Range Aviation). To facilitate ground–air co-operation, air divisional and corps commanders received orders to join the staffs of infantry and tank armies, with forward air controllers attached to the mobile units. Zhukov demanded three ground-attack aviation corps and one ground-attack air division to support the main blow, with operational control assigned to the infantry commanders during the breakthrough and to the armoured forces once the breakthrough was achieved. Once the opening artillery barrage lifted, night bombers (Po-2s from 16th Air Army and Il-4s from 18th Air) would continue the bombardment until dawn, taking the attack to the second line of the German defences. From dawn on 16 April until 1950 hours, bombers and ground-attack aircraft would maintain their assault on German troops and positions. To facilitate tight control of air operations 1st Belorussian Front established an ‘army radar net’, enabling the Front command to monitor Soviet flights, German incursions and Anglo–American air operations.

Further south S.A. Krasovskii’s 2nd Air Army with 2,150 aircraft operating from eighty-two airfields deployed to support Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front. Koniev planned to use six aviation corps and one night-bomber air division to support his main attack, leaving two aviation corps for other sectors. During the first day of operations four massed air strikes would be directed against the German defences, using 800 aircraft in the first wave, 570 in the second, 420 in the third, and 370 in the fourth and final attack, with strong forces committed to further attacks in the intervals between the massed strikes—in all, a planned
total of 3,400 sorties on the first day. Soviet aircraft also received assignments to help laying those smokescreens which figured so prominently in Koniev’s plans to force the Neisse.

The final stockpiling of the vast quantities of ammunition, fuel and that all-important bridging equipment went forward with a rush. To carry out his plan to ‘stun and shake’ the German defenders from the very beginning of the operation and to carry through the full assault, Zhukov needed 7,147,000 artillery rounds. Ammunition poured in from Front depots to the gun positions themselves, bypassing both army and division dumps, using almost 4,000 lorries from army motor-transport units and falling back where necessary on the five motor-transport regiments and two battalions—a further 3,772 lorries—with the Front reserve. Zhukov proceeded to organize his engineer support into four echelons, sappers up with the assault infantry in the first echelon, Front and army engineer units as a second echelon operating with the first-echelon divisions, a third echelon of combat engineers and construction troops and a fourth for specialist tasks such as setting up Front and Army command posts. The engineer troops also built their own model of Berlin to study the street-fighting problems.

Unlike Zhukov with his bridgehead on the western bank of the Oder, Koniev lacked any foothold on the western bank on the Neisse and everything depended on a successful assault crossing. From the 120 engineer battalions and thirteen bridging battalions assigned to his Front, Koniev detached twenty-five engineer battalions to support his left-flank armies committed to defensive operations and proceeded to plan a two-stage assault crossing of the Neisse. The first stage involved the capture of a bridgehead on the western bank and the transfer of first-echelon infantry with supporting artillery; the second involved bringing over infantry-support tanks, the bulk of the artillery and second-echelon rifle divisions. But this was only one half of the problem. Koniev’s armour must get over the Neisse in strength and with all speed in order to foil any German attempt to fall back on the line of the river Spree (20–25 miles to the west) and block the Soviet advance. The first draft of the Front operational plan called for Lelyushenko’s 4th Guards Tank Army to move only when Zhadov’s 5th Guards riflemen had taken a bridgehead on the western bank of the Neisse, but Zhadov’s army possessed only a limited number of infantry-support tanks and could not develop a high-speed attack. This became a subject for much heated debate.

On the 2nd Belorussian Front—scheduled to join the attack on Berlin on 20 April, four days after the opening of the general offensive—Rokossovskii faced not only the complicated labour of redeploying his entire Front but also the daunting task of forcing the lower reaches of the Oder, where the river forked into two channels, the East and West Oder. Two armies, 49th and 70th, moved off on 4–5 April to cover the 170–215 miles to the area of Altdamm–Schwedt, followed by Batov’s 65th Army, tanks and heavy artillery trundling by rail along damaged and dangerous track, the infantry moving in columns of lorries. But before this redeployment was complete Rokossovskii together with the three army
commanders and their chiefs of staff on 10 April looked over the ground earmarked for their operations. To their dismay it was largely water and marsh rather than solid ground which met their eyes, for where the Oder split into the West and East Oder, the land between them was heavily flooded and presented an expanse of water at least 3,000 yards wide. Nor could the Soviet officers make out much of the detail of the steep western bank. A single assault crossing would not work here, because ferries and pontoons would ground in the shallow water of the flooded interval between the two rivers.

Rokossovskii decided to attack on a wide front using all three armies; in the event of success on any one sector, all available resources would be flung in there. The main attack would be mounted across a thirty-mile front with 65th, 70th and 49th Armies supported by three tank corps, one mechanized and one cavalry corps. Once through the German defences on the West Oder, the offensive would develop in the direction of Neustrelitz and reach the Elbe between the twelfth and fifteenth day of the offensive; in this phase of the offensive each rifle army would be reinforced with a tank corps, while 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps acted as Front reserve, taking station on the left flank of 49th Army. In view of the terrain the provision of artillery support presented special problems. During the assault crossing of the Oder, the guns would be firing at long range and would be forced to wait for crossings to be opened before getting to the west bank, hence the need for Vershinin’s 4th Air Army to fill this fire gap.

Front intelligence also supplied the disconcerting news that the German defences were strongest in those very sectors where Rokossovskii planned to launch his attack. Col.-Gen. Manteuffel’s Third
Panzer
Army was holding a sector running up to the western bank of the West Oder, with three infantry divisions deployed forward, reinforced with two fortress regiments, two independent infantry regiments, one battalion and one combat group, supported by a second echelon consisting of three infantry and two motorized divisions, four brigades, independent regiments, battle groups and an officers’ school. Vershinin’s aerial reconnaissance disclosed that the German defences on the west bank of the West Oder stretched to a depth of 6–7 miles and consisted of strong-points surrounded by continuous lines of trenches, while on the riverbank itself slit trenches and machine-gun pits had their own communication trenches linking them with the main trench system. A second German defence line had been established on the Randow, about twelve miles from the Oder, and further aerial reconnaissance uncovered a third defence line.

As the first of Rokossovskii’s assault armies drew up to its new positions—Batov’s 65th Army began deploying along the Altdamm–Ferdinandstein line on 13 April—the operational planning on 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Front had entered its final stage, giving way to the distribution of attack orders. None of the Army commanders who attended Marshal Zhukov’s first briefing on 5 April could forget the scene when the Front commander unveiled the huge model of Berlin and pointed out the several objectives, each carefully flagged—‘I ask
you to turn your attention to Objective 105. That is the
Reichstag
. Who is going to get there first? Katukov? Chuikov? Maybe Bogdanov or Berzarin?’ No one replied, and Marshal Zhukov passed to Objective 106. The Marshal stifled any doubts or misgivings on the spot—when General Bogdanov, commanding 2nd Guards Tank Army, pointed to the need for more room for manoeuvre to complete the outflanking move to the north, Zhukov asked sarcastically whether he intended to take part in the assault on Berlin or go off on his own northwards for most of the time. Nor would he entertain the idea, advanced by several senior commanders, that the main German defences lay on the second line and that the Soviet artillery strike should be directed against this rather than the immediate front-line positions.

Staff studies and war-games conducted in the wake of this initial briefing evidently gave Zhukov much food for thought, particularly the question of using his two tank armies. The original
Stavka
directive stipulated that both tank armies—1st and 2nd Guards—should be used in an outflanking drive to the north of Berlin as well as striking into the city itself from the north-east, but Zhukov now decided to alter the operational assignment of Katukov’s 1st Guards Tank Army, deploying it directly behind Chuikov’s 8th Guards and directing that on the
second
day of the offensive the tank army should seize the eastern suburbs of Berlin, then outflank the city from the south and also capture the southern and south-western suburbs. On being informed by Zhukov of this major revision, Stalin merely told him to do what he thought best, since he was on the spot. Katukov received his final operational directive on 12 April, committing 1st Guards to this easterly thrust on Berlin followed by a move south-westwards; these orders prescribed a thirty-mile advance on the first day of operations, up to eighteen miles on the second—an assumption based on encountering fierce resistance at the approaches to the city. On 14 April Katukov issued his own orders to his corps commanders, 11th Guards and 11th Tank Corps with 8th Guards Mechanized Corps. Topped up with its reinforcement of 290 tanks and
SP
guns, all with crews, by the evening of 15 April 1st Guards Tank Army had swelled to 45,000 officers and men, 709 tanks and
SP
guns, 700 guns and 44 multiple-rocket launchers. Bogdanov’s 2nd Guards Tank Army with three corps (9th and 12th Guards Tank Corps, 1st Mechanized Corps) remained committed to its original task, exploiting the breach opened by 5th Shock Army, driving to the north-west and seizing the north-western suburbs of Berlin.

Few doubts lingered in the mind of Marshal Koniev about where and how he wanted his two tank armies to operate. Rybalko with 3rd Guards and Lelyushenko with 4th Guards Army from the outset received the firmest instructions to cut loose from the infantry with all speed, to move by day and by night and to bypass German strong-points. It was a ‘large-scale manoeuvre’ Koniev sought and he was confident that they could manage this, given a successful and speedy breakthrough. Koniev had his gaze fixed on Lübben, fifty miles south-east of Berlin, for here the formal demarcation between 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian
Front ended; after that, it would be ‘initiative’ all the way. Already in his Front directive of 8 April Koniev had mentioned ‘the possibility’ of using ‘some forces’ from the right flank to assist in the capture of Berlin: Rybalko received a specific instruction to ‘bear in mind’ a strongly recommended ‘possibility’ of attacking Berlin with a reinforced tank corps and a rifle division from Gordov’s 3rd Guards Army. Moscow made no demur.